Monday, January 15, 2007

"rollercoasting" - helen love

"i got the mc5, suicide, nancy sinatra and neil young live, i got heavenly, peggy lee, captain beefheart and the vaselines"


some sage advice, dear reader - if you move to a city because someone you would like to meet lives there and there is the incredibly remote chance of you bumping into them you are only fooling yourself. it just wont happen. the odds are stacked against you in an overpowering way. even in a small city.

unless you take up stalking, of course, in which case you may be able to see the person every day by camping outside their home and following them up to the limits of your restraining order. thats if you can find out where they live - many people you would like to meet are known by a different name or are ex-directory.

ive never tried stalking - except a little bit on the interweb - but im pretty certain i would be rubbish at it. it takes far too much application.

"young crazed peeling" - the distillers

"are you ready to be liberated?"


theres something about the way brody screams those words that really moves me to want to care (theres also something about brody's arse in those stripey trousers in the drain the blood video that moves me in an entirely other way - but thats another story).

the best thing about the question is its use of the passive voice. too often revolutionaries ask if you are ready to liberate yourself, or be part of a movement to liberate each other, or even to liberate someone else, but brody is offering to liberate me without any effort on my part. sure i need to prepare myself to be liberated, though the implication is only that the liberation process will be easier and go much more smoothly if i am properly prepared. theres enough passion in that question to make me believe that brody is quite prepared to liberate me, whatever my state of preparation. it is the "coming ready or not" that marks the end of the seekers countdown in hide and seek. it is the "brace, brace" over the aeroplane tannoy. its that glance that butch and sundance exchange just before that final futile shootout.

to be honest, brody, im not really very ready to be liberated, but im sure ill cope when you decide the time is right to liberate me.