Into Temptation

Some nights it just happens. I fall into the depths of YouTube and I flutter between this and that .. and end up with a bonafide Finn-vaganza. I started off with Wherever You Are, a solo offering from a 2000-2001 webcast series. Things went a bit hardcore with my favourite Finn song: Suffer Never with Johnny Marr (The Smiths), Sebastian Steinberg (Soul Coughing) and Ed O'Brien & Phil Selway (Radiohead) as backing band. It was followed by Fall At Your Feet (studio version) - the song that made me buy my first Finn album. Then.. oh, obscurity: Don McGlashan of Mutton Birds performing Anchor Me with Neil Finn as backing vocalist. Less obscure, but certainly obscure enough, Finn Brothers performing Only Talking Sense on BBC's Later (I have an ace version of this song with Grant Lee Phillips doing harmonies, guh). And..

You get the picture.

And finally, "Distant Sun". The perfect pop song. The song that launched a thousand friendships based upon a shared love of the line I don't pretend to know what you want / But I offer love. The song that can still stop me in my tracks. This version was filmed at Crowded House's farewell concert in Sydney, 1996: around 2.11 the song just begins to hit me hard and I'm lost by the 2.35 mark. By the time the ad-libbing begins, I'm either snivelling into my tea, bobbing my head or dancing about (usually all three). It's not a perfect version but it's such a charged rendition.

Is it my favourite Finn song? No, as I said above, that honour goes to the deliciously dark "Suffer Never". Is it my favourite Crowded House song? Maybe, although I could say the same of In The Lowlands, Nails In My Feet (one of the rare studio recordings that's better than any live version) or Whispers and Moans. And then there are Four Seasons In One Day and Don't Dream It's Over, both classics in their own right. Don't get me started on pre-CH Finn songs or Tim Finn's solo stuff (Persuasion, omg! Twinkle! Why isn't there a YouTube version of the amazing Roadtrip?!).

But Distant Sun is my lodestone. It's my song. *reloads*

Drinking Tea Will Muddle Your Brain

Sometimes I worry that Domestic Bliss has ruined my ice-cold demeanour and unsentimental outlook on life. To wit, I am sitting here with a lump in my throat after stumbling across this:

For me the most moving moment came when the family in front of me, comprising probably 4 generations of voters (including an 18 year old girl voting for her first time and a 90-something hunched-over grandmother), got their turn to vote. When the old woman left the voting booth she made it about halfway to the door before collapsing in a nearby chair, where she began weeping uncontrollably. When we rushed over to help we realized that she wasn't in trouble at all but she had not truly believed, until she left the booth, that she would ever live long enough to cast a vote for an African-American for president.

Then again I also found Make Art From Starbucks Junk with a really, really cool TIE Fighter and I was instantaneously reassured that despite lapses into sentimentality my inner self will remain a 12-year-old geek (with an ice-cold demeanour).

This morning I read Nancy Mitford's Love In A Cold Climate which reads like a funnier and far more grown-up version of Dodie Smith's I Capture The Castle (which left me completely cold, I'm afraid). I'm now off to find more of Mitford's novels as I think the brisk winds of October are best kept away by tea, knitting and books set in interwar England (Waugh as well, I think, in addition to Mitford). Hello, favourite bookshop, here I come.

Distant Sun

My love affair with Glasgow continues. Glasgow Botanic Gardens (a ten minute walk away from Casa Bookish).

And you get squirrels in the Botanics! They'll throw stuff after you if they feel you're trespassing into their territory. Violent little beasties. You also get a host of birds. This little guy sat on top of one of the greenhouses and was so busy screeching that he didn't notice me thrusting a camera in his face. Or perhaps I'm just not very threatening.

And, yes, it really is autumn. All those gorgeous hues and light rain and brisk wind.. Mmmm.

Tonight we'll have our second helping of David's homemade chilli-tomato soup and I have a pumpkin on the kitchen counter just waiting to be made into delicious pumpkin soup and a hearty pumpkin pie. Man, I just love this season and Glasgow's one of the best places to be during autumn.

PS. I'm also eyeing some pumpkin coloured alpaca yarn but I think I've talked myself out of buying it. After all, why would I want to look like a giant, fuzzy orange blob?

Needle & the Damage Done

Honestly? I have never been interested in cross-stitching and my very few attempts at stitching ended badly. These cross-stitch versions of Banksy's street art might just tempt me into picking up a needle and the thread, though. The site is in Swedish, but all you need to know is that "ladda hem" means download and "gratis" means free. Yes, they offer free downloads of Banksy cross-stitch patterns. You can also grab skulls, feminist symbols and '80s Michael Jackson patterns.

Biting Tails

I recently discussed Alasdair Gray's fiction with someone who had contemplated doing a parody of Lanark for NaNoWriMo. I countered that Gray does such a fine job of parodying and plagiarising himself that it would be a moot exercise. 1982, Janine and Something Leather can be read as the latter parodying the former. Within Lanark itself you get the A-Z Of Plagiarisms which in itself is a parody. Would it be possible to write (fan)fiction about a body of work which is already plagiarising and fictionalising itself? So, to my mind, the solution would be to write an article called "The Resistance of Parody - Alasdair Gray, Bakhtin and the impossibility of Fanfiction" and what a very amusing writing exercise that would be. Not quite a novel, of course, but I might get cracking on that during November.

PS. There's a reason why this blog entry will be filled under "humour"

As You Wish

The third and final US presidential debate has been and gone whilst I was soundly asleep. I have looked at various reactions - ranging from Republican blogges to left-wing UK newspapers - but this remains the funniest take I've read:

::30 minutes into the debate, tension has increased as each candidate has perfectly parried each others attacks::

McCain: You are wonderful. Obama: Thank you; I've worked hard to become so. McCain: I admit it, you are better than I am. Obama: Then why are you smiling? McCain: Because I know something you don't know. Obama: And what is that? McCain: I... am not left-handed. [McCain moves his pen to his right hand and gains an advantage] Obama: You are amazing. McCain: I ought to be, after 20 years. Obama: Oh, there's something I ought to tell you. McCain: Tell me. Obama: I'm not left-handed either. [Obama moves his pen to his right hand and regains his advantage]

And if you are less geeky than me (which is very, very likely - yes, I'm embracing my inner geek nowadays), they are referencing this film.