The Farmstead

gingerwall posted this interview with Mila Kunis on her journal, but I had to bring it over here so that anyone who hasn't seen it can. Basically, Chris Stark is really nervous about the interview, so Mila helps him out by letting him go off-piste in the subject matter, and then... They end up talking about going down the pub in Watford. Watford!!! He envisions this day of fun where they go to Nando's and then to the football and then get trashed down the pub. It's worth it for the Watford Nando's shout-out alone (♥), but in general is just brilliant.



ETA: Heeee, more reaction. As far as I'm watching, this basically breaks down the video, but it explains the set up more too.

Confessions of a Shopaholic's on iPlayer at the moment, so I watched it, for dubious reasons known to no one. I can't say it was very good, but it got surprisingly close to actually dealing with addiction (actually) at a few points. There were a few beats when it really could have broken into some sort of Trainspotting-esque reality and you realised that the shopping had been a metaphor all along and the frivolous world of New York magazine journalism was in fact the imaginings of someone in a hovel somehow managing to catch repeats of Ugly Betty...

But, anyway, it made me miss the early days of Being Human, when it was all just a heroin addict, a domestic abuse escapee and an HIV-positive randomer trying to make a go of it in Bristol. I don't know why they never realised that the world they'd created wasn't epic fantasy so much as something very, very small. :(

I had a weird mind-wander as I was getting ready today where I thought about what I would do if I won the lottery, as in actually what I would do from the first moment of getting the cheque onwards. It was odd. I ended up deciding that I would find a massive influx of money very stressful and confusing, because at heart I rely too much on being part of an (academic) institution to want that much financial independence. But at the same time I am and will always be a magpie, so I really wouldn't mind some posher clothes and posher food in my life, as well as a new computer and a decent electric whisk (my Asda Basics eight quid one has just broken). And I still really want to do the whole Trans-Siberian Railway one day. But maybe when I'm retired. And have learned Russian and Chinese.

All in all, I think I want to learn more languages. And have decided that thinking about the future is strange.

Has there been a better thing on television in a long time? I really don't know because this is just so clever. I can't even sum it up, just...

OK, so we start with the industrial revolution, with all its dark satanic mills and dreams for the future - are we Blake dreaming of a world without industry (just cricket), or Caliban!Brunel dreaming of a world of noise and riches? No matter the answer we go through to the 50s (ish) anyway, getting noise and darkness and yet achievement, the Olympic rings wrought out of steel.

We then get to 'Second to the Right and Straight on till Morning': the NHS, children, fantasy literature and the moment between sleep and waking - still caught up in dreams and nightmares. Through jazz and the outfits this is also definitely pitched as a historical transition between the Industrial Revolution and the digital age pageant later. It's like an investigation of what the Industrial Revolution produced - the end of infant mortality as a fact of life (labour, if we imagine child labour, transforms into children being looked after in bed and at GOSH) plus the rise of literacy. Put these two together and the main threat to childhood shifts from actual death to fantasy figures, Voldemort like a pantomime grim reaper and Mary Poppins the image of childcare and education. Everything ends happily like a fairy tale; 'childhood' as a safe bubble away from work and threat is banishable even as a nightmare. But this is even undercut by the nurses doing folk dances, as if they're pretending to still live in the idyll. Which we know has gone.

This establishment of childhood and safety then inevitably spreads to produce Youth Culture as a whole in the digital age, which gets it's own celebration in 'Frankie and June Say Thanks, Tim'. (The whole ceremony is about handing over to the next generation; the narrative of the show is about how that happened with cultural authority.) But even that's shadowed by this tension between illusion and reality (all the dancing backdropped by fictional representations of life that is constructed media culture, embellishing on children's literature), and this sense of darkness. I can't catch all the lyrics in the chronological montage, but it's so heavy once you get past the romance:

( My sketched transcription... )

So even with this massive upheaval, from rural idyll through industrial pain through childhood's invention and welfare and Teh Yoof taking control; the shift in power from Top Hat Man to Multicultural Dancing Everyone, we're still caught up in this dark, fearful, shifting space between reality and illusion, dreams and hope and dissatisfaction. (The defiance in this section - And we don't care / I just think I'm free / We will be victorious - only comes to segue into uncertainty - Change and decay in all around I see; O Thou who changest not, abide with me.)

... So, that's just how I read it (expressed very badly). But I can't help but think it's one of the most interesting national portraits I've seen in a long time. I like this bloke Boyle... :D

(God, I have do something today... Why haven't I done anything?)

So, I've signed up for a Pinterest invite... I saw the button on the Topshop website and thought to myself, 'you know, I would actually have a use for a service where I could store a mood board of aaaaaaall the clothes I'm lusting after - it might even help some buying decisions'. I'm going to sign up under my fandom name, because I can only ever imagine linking to it here for some reason - but, erm, I doubt anyone will be that interested in my obsession with dark red, jewel tones, leather, silk and wool and gold and BRIGHT THINGS (you see why I can never afford anything and have to lust)...

But! Does anyone have a Pinterest account? Do you use it? Is it fun? Browsing, there seems to be lots of tasty pictures of cake and cocktails, but considering I am always in the mood for a margarita anyway I'm not sure this is sensible to have in easy access. Oooooh, mood board of sweets!!

This is brought you by Gold Jacquard Mini Skirt, which makes me miss an old skirt I used to have in gold brocade. :( Also, I own two pairs of this style of jeans in dark grey and marine blue... But I cannot buy a pair in dark red, because otherwise most of my jumpers would make me look like I don't even know what. But it would be nice to have a reminder they exist. Also, eighteen pound jumper? Bargainous. Plus they do the same in a lovely heathered black...

I LOVE AUTUMN/WINTER AND AM SO GLAD TO SEE THE BACK OF SPRING/SUMMER AND ITS PASTELS.

ETA: Lavender mojito!!

Caroline Quentin!!! (How did I not realise I missed you?)

"OK... Let's get this Glee Club started."

"Ooh! What's a Glee Club?"

"It's like a choir..."

"Why don't you just call it a choir, then?"

"... Why don't you just stop shoplifting from Dixon's?"

+

Best cliffhanger ever. Aaaaaaaaah!

I never did that meme that was going around last week or so(?) about various random personality bits and bobs, mostly because I didn't think my answers would be that interesting. (Although, for the record, when we did Pottermore at a friend's house I came out as Gryffindor - and I was quite happy about that. I don't think the others fit!) One thing that really struck me, though, was the number of people who said music wasn't especially important to them, because for me music is absolutely crucially crucial and has been for a long time.

This then got me thinking about various teenage obsessions I had, which brought me back, after a long absence, to AFI - and Black Sails in the Sunset on Grooveshark. There was a time when I was fourteen/fifteen or so that I was convinced that this was the best record in existence, completely and utterly. (And I thought the album cover was a thing of beauty too.) The fact it's not on my iPod and therefore inaccessible to me not via Grooveshark is evidence of how much I dropped it and AFI after I realised I couldn't take any of the horrifically emo lyrics seriously anymore, but it's so weird listening to it now. For a start, it's pretty damn impenetrable - on the first listen through I had absolutely no idea what had attracted me to it at all - but now, as I readjust to the ever-present cymbals, I can hear all the musical turns that I loved... Which is such a bizarre feeling.

The album came out in 1999, and you can really hear that in retrospect. Clove Smoke Catharsis, for example, has some turns that I recognise from things like the Lostprophets' first (and only good :P) album (oh, Shinobi vs Dragon Ninja... Thefakesoundofprogress still defines when I started being a person, in my mind), but I think had entirely vanished in rock music by the late 2000s, which, actually, was all pretty retro by comparison. Now that I can divorce myself from the embarrassment of thinking Black Sails' lyrics were any good, I find the whole thing a really fascinating snapshot of how my tastes expressed themselves back in the day. Because I definitely still like my speed and my harmonies and my syncopation and my cadences, and this is so dense with them.

Anyway, I don't really know where this is going, but it's definitely strange being able to look at this stuff with distance. I used to go to and from school with my CD Walkman, not bothering to change which album I was listening to for days/weeks at a time and I can remember these songs going round and round and round as I trudged back home up the hill with my bag and my viola and my PE kit and my tech folder. No Poetic Device is really not that great a song, but it still puts a smile on my face (even with the emooooo lyrics), because I remember how it used to make me perk up every time it came round on shuffle. And then I get to the massively emo God Called in Sick Today and remember that, oh yeah, 'filigree' is still one of my favourite words...

I'm not sure I'd recommend the album anymore - unless you too feel really emo and want something that will make you feel like random Californian musicians understand. At the same time, it does make me think that guitar music these days is very dull indeed. I mean, what would the equivalent be? Who's looking after the emo!teens now? Where are the Bullet for My Valentine-type bands, which I scorned so hard by 2005, but who were still providing a service (I link to the only song of theirs I ever confessed to finding catchy)? Am I completely missing all the alternative bands out there, or is it true that all the teens are listening to Deadmau5 and Skrillex? I like my electro, but it all seems a bit sad. Where's all the death and pain and blooood gone?

In other news, I'm bored of my music collection and want moooaaaaar, but am generally dissatisfied by what's out there. If you're not that into music, be glad this is a restlessness you never have to experience! :D

But this tickles me immensely!



"Who the hell wrote this script? Ah - !"

(This is an ITN video because it was the best quality on YouTube, but there's a little bit of intro you can hear over here.)

Can we please talk about The Mummy Returns? I'm not sure there's anything else I've ever seen on screen that exemplifies my taste in entertainment so well. It of course wouldn't be the same without The Mummy backing it up, but it just takes all the great things that film had going for it and runs, runs, runs - especially towards running gags (which I adore). I love how camp it is, I love its magic books and its silly flashbacks and its daft prophecies, I love its adventures in dirigibles, I love the costumes and the music and the shots of the sun, I love Ardeth Bay's love for tommy guns and that Rick's taught Evie how to beat people up, I love every single word and expression Jonathan produces, I love that half the film's in (probably terrible) ancient Egyptian, I love that Alex speaks American slang with his little Just William voice, I love Horus the falcon, and I love that there's a whole chase/fight scene on a Number 12 bus.

There.

This is, erm, probably the reason why I never get into stuff like The Wire, isn't it?

Love the music, but tend to forget it's mostly about sexual people trying to get off with each other. Still, it's amusing to learn the language of 'no, fuck off' in taking people's hands for a twirl rather than a snog. Also, interpreting friends' signals and abetting them in an exclusionary hug. Hugs are nice.

All the same, it leaves me deaf as fuck all. Which is fun, cycling home...

On the feedbackathon, which I've seen around: it sounds really fun! But there's nothing I much care about feedback for under ten thousand words, and since you can only have one fic over that in your three, I'm stuck thinking everything would be very artificial and empty. (I fear it may well be that these days anything under ten thousand words tends to be something I came up with for larks. What does that say about me?)

My housemate is awesome; she left the light on by the door.

God, I am trashed. And apparently I didn't turn off the computer when I left, so I've just run down a load of battery on my bluetooth mouse that I just replaced. Sigh. Learn to exist, Quin.

Byes.