say what you say
1. The best music really does come from overseas. Continuing my magical mystery weekend video tour, I just finished Live Forever, an excellent documentary on the Britpop phenomenon in the U.K. during the mid-to-late ’90s. Great interviews (the Gallagher boys are especially good–and funny) and just fantastic music. The fact alone that often the most progressive, the most musically creative stuff is also the most popular in Britain cements the country’s status as having the best musical talent. I mean, what sells the most over here during any given week? The rap group du jour? More butt-rock? The latest quasi-indie “it” band? What has topped the charts in Britain? Portishead, Massive Attack, Underworld, Tricky, Blur, the list goes on–all on the cutting edge in their time. The country as a whole just has far better musical taste than our own. Mary, have you seen this documentary?
2. Fixed the car today. With a plastic bag taped over my left hand. Ever since I replaced the front main seal a week and a half ago, the car would start and run fine, but seemed a little down on power and would ping under moderate load when warm. I had a sneaking suspicion that the cam sprocket was out of phase with the crankshaft, since I’ve had to pull off the timing belt several times in the past couple of months and there’s a good chance things had gotten out of sync. Sure enough, the cam was almost 30 degrees (!) off. I can’t for the life of me guess how the car still drove…my only conjecture is the fact that the distributor is driven off the cam, uses a Hall sensor and controls all advance electronically… The ECU must have been retarding the timing as much as it possibly could the whole time the car was running. In any case, it’s fixed; no more pinging, and the car feels like it’s picked up at least 10-15 hp. It pulls very smartly above 3.5K in second and third now. Runs very well indeed.
3. I’m feeling much better today. Still have a bit of a cough, but almost all the congestion is gone and my energy levels are nominal again. Thanks for your prayers and concern, everyone.
4. I discovered the anime shelf at the video store and was overjoyed to find an episode of City Hunter, a Japanese cartoon I used to watch in France during the late ’80s, dubbed into French under the title Nicky Larson (the protagonist’s name in the French version). It has a kind of pseudo-James Bond-ish secret agent detective-for-hire premise, with an alternately lecherous/heroic lead character. The animation is quite fluid and good, and some parts are hilarious. It was fun to watch again after a dozen years or so.
I have wondered that too, why does the UK continually make some of the best music in the world, again and again? I think there’s a lot of reasons why and maybe the biggest two are that it’s a culture in which young people feel more open to explore music themselves, not just listen to it, and compared to the US, it’s much easier for an up and coming artist to get national exposure. Sure, there’s crap there but by and large a lot of stuff that charts there is pretty decent by critical standards. And yea, I think the populace has better taste because they expect more and think more, but that’s all subjective, innit.
You don’t want to know my opinion on that doc, but I’m going to share anyway! :) It had some great parts, Jarvis Cocker and the Gallaghers’, but I don’t think it did a great job exploring the territory it seemed like it was aiming for, Britpop in the 90’s. I don’t know if I buy into the whole political awakening part of it, I think the director was pushing that agenda. It was way too focused on Oasis (and that terrible tribute band!), there were so many other bands and influences they should have talked about. The inclusion of trip hop was weird… it was a big part of the British music scene then but it didn’t really have all that much to do with Britpop really. And the assertion that Britain was dead musically before and after Britpop is crap. It was just all over the place, I wish it had been better because I really wanted to like it.
I agree. I think the populace over there has a higher average level of education too, and the sense that I always got was that the prevailing culture is more progressive and “academic” (witness British humor) and more apt to embrace trends and notice subtlties that would pass by the average Yank. Sure, there are exceptions, but when you’ve got a country that small and that densely packed, it’s hard not to have a certain level of homogeneity.
Of course I want to know your opinion. Why would I have asked? :) I agree with your insights. I was a little puzzled by the inclusion of random Massive Attack bits (I had a feeling 3D was the only trip hop luminary they could get to do an interview). And I heard myself say, about fifteen minutes in, “I didn’t think the movement was so tied to politics,” before realizing the director was probably, as you say, pushing that agenda. For all intents and purposes, for him, the ’80s were another Dark Age, and while I know for a fact that on average Britain turned out crap music and crap cars during that era, so did everybody else, and surely there must have been some good to come of Thatcherism?
It was fun to see snatches of the “Parklife” video, though, and to listen to Jarvis Cocker philosophize sitting on the bed wearing those huge black-framed glasses.
destiny
you *need* to own this car:
I can just imagine the conversation now…
“Um… I’ll be gone for a week or so.”
“Okay. Where are you going?”
“To visit Elyse in China.”
“Oh, wow, great. How are you getting there?”
“I’m driving.”
That is the coolest thing I have ever seen. I seriously want one.
:)
that would be so beyond awesome, hahaha!
I can just imagine the confusion at customs. These people can *not* think out of the box, and this would just send them into a severely catatonic state, hahaha.