Category: Uncategorized

Posted on

“That Stubborn Thing Inside Us That Insists, Despite All The Evidence to the Contrary”

I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting.

America, I believe we can build on the progress we’ve made and continue to fight for new jobs and new opportunity and new security for the middle class. I believe we can keep the promise of our founders, the idea that if you’re willing to work hard, it doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from or what you look like or where you love. It doesn’t matter whether you’re black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or young or old or rich or poor, able, disabled, gay or straight, you can make it here in America if you’re willing to try.

Seriously. That man can make rhetoric sing.

I didn’t realize how nervous I was about the election last night until Obama won, and I felt a wave of relief wash over me, I have to admit. That line about “the triumph of intellect and romance over brute force and cynicism” (Craig Ferguson’s summation of the appeal of Doctor Who, in case you were curious) has never felt more true to me than watching Obama triumph last night.

Posted on

Vote For Me And I’ll Set You Free (Slight Return)

This is the first time I’ll have voted in a US Presidential Election; I only became a citizen in 2009, after all, and so I missed the chance to vote in the historic election of America’s First Black President by a matter of months, somewhat frustratingly for White Liberal Bragging Rights purposes. Nonetheless, it’s nice to feel as if I have a voice in this whole thing after living here for a decade, you know? I am a big fan of democracy and voting and that big ball o’ wax, despite the fact that – as a 38 year old man – I have only ever voted in three general elections.

That’s not my fault, I promise; the 1997 election in the UK was the first one I was able to vote in, and I did – I can still remember a good friend telling me that he’d voted Conservative because, really, they were all the same anyway, and my feeling of I don’t know if I can stop myself wanting to argue with you until you finally admit that you’re wrong as I listened – but then I started doing the Transatlantic thing before the next British election. I remember voting in the 2001 election, but by the time the 2005 one came around, I was firmly in the US and en route to becoming a US citizen.

The 2004 US election, I missed entirely. Obviously, I couldn’t vote, but I wasn’t even in the US for the majority of it; I was flying back to Scotland to be with my family following my mother’s death. I have unhappy, unformed memories of catching a connecting flight in Amsterdam, trying to find a television showing international news to find out whether or not George Bush had won a second term, as silly as that sounds. The 2008 election, we watched avidly from our couch; I remember clearly the sense of Everything will be different now when Obama’s win was announced, as well as mild disbelief that he had actually won.

I admit to having some sense of anticlimax about voting, this time; the way Oregon does voting is by mail ballot, so there isn’t the “entering the booth and punching the ballot” experience at all. I actually filled in the ballot more than a week ago, sent it off the next day, but it’s only really today that I feel as if I actually participated, if that makes sense. Viva Democracy, and may your guy win – as long as he’s the same as my guy, of course.

Posted on

“Shut Up and Deal”

Re-watched The Apartment last night, remembered (a) how loopy the morality in old comedies can be, (b) how great Jack Lemmon was in his prime (Who today can do the nebbish, well-meaning thing as well?), and (c) how ridiculously cute Shirley MacLaine is in that movie with her short hair and heart on her sleeve.

Posted on

Boo! Hiss

I don’t get Hallowe’en.

I try, I promise, but I’ve never really been into it; I’ve never been the one who gets excited about dressing in outrageous costumes or drawing attention to myself and how I look, and I’ve never really enjoyed Trick’r’Treating, either (When I was a kid, lo those many years ago, it was still called “galoshing” in Scotland. Although, looking at that word there, I wonder how badly I’ve misspelled it. “Galoshin’,” maybe? “Galloshing”?), so the whole holiday feels like a strange waste of energy and attention to me. I feel like the Grinch saying that, especially now that I live in America, a country that seems to consider Hallowe’en a national holiday on par with Christmas and Thanksgiving, but it’s true; when people talk about going to parties or getting dressed up, I find myself shying away mentally and thinking “Eh, you’re all crazy.”

I’d call it a sign of getting old, but I was always like this.

Posted on

No Sleep ‘Til

Ah, insomnia.

As I type this, it’s 6:30am, and I’ve been awake since 4. I didn’t wake up of my own accord; Ernie is sick and requires eye drops every 4 hours, so at 4am, it was time… but then I couldn’t get back to sleep. You know that feeling, when you’re lying in bed and your brain just tells you that you’re definitely awake no matter how tired you feel? That was me. When I was younger, falling asleep was no problem; I could be up until 4am at a club or working on something or in some deep, awkward romantic tryst and as soon as I’d get to bed, I’d be asleep. Now, though, I lie there all too often, all too awake.

I remember, when I was a kid, the tricks I’d try to play on myself to induce sleep. I’d try to remember the opening scroll from Star Wars – I used to be able to do that in its entirety, worryingly – or count from 100 backwards, imagining each number was a lower rung on a ladder towards sleeping. Neither work anymore, sadly; the noise in my brain overpowers it all. And so, I lie here hours before the sunrise, cuddling a sick dog and reading Marvel Comics: The Untold Story on my Kindle, wishing that I could close my eyes and open them hours later.

Posted on

“I Didn’t Destroy The Picture”

“I believe that if someone restores the [Rothko] piece and removes my signature the value of the piece would be lower but after a few years the value will go higher because of what I did,” he said, comparing himself to Marcel Duchamp, the French artist who shocked the art establishment when he signed a urinal and put it on display in 1917.

“I was expecting that the security at Tate Modern would take me straight away, because I was there and I signed the picture in front of a lot of people. There is video and cameras and everything, so I was shocked.”

“I didn’t destroy the picture. I did not steal anything. There was a lot of stuff like this before. Marcel Duchamp signed things that were not made by him, or even Damien Hirst.”

He said that he admired Rothko, describing him as one of the great figures in art of the last century, but added: “I don’t believe that what I have done is criminal. If the police are going to arrest me, then they are going to arrest me. I am OK with that.”

From here, and apparently a quote from the man who signed a Mark Rothko paining in the middle of the Tate Modern. As much as I love Rothko – and I genuinely love Rothko – I have to admit, I kind of love this.

Related: This Is Yellowism.

Posted on

“Who Wins? Who Loses? You Decide!”

Another toy that drove the nine/ten-year-old me insane with excitement, the 1984 Super Powers line. Only the first “wave” of releases came out in the UK – the twelve figures above – but they were more than enough to please me. Even at that age, there was something iconic about the big-name DC Comics characters, and I remember being ecstatic when I found Super Powers characters in a toy store in nearby Gourock. I still remember that the first ones I owned were the Flash and Green Lantern, but I remember that I also ended up with an Aquaman, Lex Luthor and Superman, too.

In America, there were a further twenty-one figures released, with lots of characters that I hadn’t even heard of at the time. I wish that I’d seen them, though; the idea of these toys being an early introduction to the likes of characters to whom I’d later become massive fans of – Jack Kirby’s Darkseid and Mister Miracle, or the stoic Martian Manhunter – appeals to me, even if I’m not sure what I would have made of such characters back then.

Posted on

366 Songs 284: Richard III

1997 was, in many ways, the hangover of Britpop; the bloom was off the rose, as they say, and the more interesting bands were looking elsewhere for inspiration already. Blur, of course, had “Beetlebum” and “Song 2” coming out, and Supergrass had “Richard III.” Like “Song 2” – the singles were contemporaneous – this is a song that throws away the cheeky-chappy persona for something heavier and purposefully less melodic, but what it lacks in tune it makes up for in force: This is a claustrophobic song that deserves to be played loud, so that the whole “I know you want to try to get away” overwhelms you the way it should, and you find yourself able to pick out the bouncy, McCartney-esque bassline, organ stabs and theramin amongst the aural soup. This is a song to get lost in, and find yourself exhausted by, by the time the fade-out finally arrives…

Posted on

“All Memory Lies”

All memory lies. It paints nice colors over the ugly or disturbing things. Or it cleverly distorts them; bends and twists them, so that they fit better into the convenient history we’re all continuously writing and amending of our lives. No matter who you are, your memory is always and for everything an unreliable witness. Never trust it to tell the truth about who you are or how you got here.

From here; it’s from Jonathan Carroll’s new book, apparently.