birdw0rds

The Redheads sounded decent at Terminal 5 this weekend gone, albeit suffering from a muddy, heavy-bass mix at times. Not very communicative beyond their music, as per, and the crowd hardly seemed engaged overall, also as per norm, but always good to see Kazu and the Twins live.

With re-reading Boogiebooks, have revisted the SWCP images and audio recordings. Also looked back at the underworked chunk of wordage, A Birds’ Eye View of the Coast, based on the hiker scribblings of the time. Needs major rewriting and fleshing, but am hoping to finally return to it to complete by the end of ’08. Also have a new birdw0rks album very much on the way – is taking a while, but tunage is brewing nicely in the cheekymunky studio.

A trio of Asian flicks passed before the eyes recently. The Woman is the Future of Man from South Korea was pretty dire overall: zero empathy for the characters really, and little in the way of lasting imagery or narrative engagement. The premise had promise, but the two central male characters were such adult children with pathetic motivation (and horredous attitudes towards women e.g. “I no longer think of her as just a wife and woman, I’ve started thinking of her as a human being too…” wow, revelation!) that irritation was the main response. No real slight of hand in direction either.

The Taste of Tea from Japan and Sydromes and a Century from Thailand were much more interesting. The former is a trippy sketch of a somewhat disturbed family, focusing mainly on the little girl followed around by a giant doppelganger, and her love-sick older brother pining for girls he doesn’t have the skills to actually talk to. Comedic and dark throughout, and photographed creatively for the most part.
Syndromes is pretty abstract and takes some sitting through while it sets its own pace. Is a “story” told in two parts from different perspectives and in different settings: one rural and one urban. Not sure exactly what some of the symbolism is in places, but there’s an intriguing and pleasing rhythm to the flick overall. Chunks of the dialog etc. are repeated in both half, but slightly differently the second time around – a bit like repetion through bad memory or the warpage of dreaming. Interesting idea.

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In an attempt to force the birdpaws and birdlamps to engage in more recreational reading this winter, several tomes have been lined up on the birdshelf, a few of which are depicted above. Some lighter and more flippant than others. First up has been the return of the hound, Boogie (or a new Boogie, Boogie II) in Pennine Walkies by Mark Wallington of 500 Mile Walkies fame (an inspiration for our own southwesterlie jaunt a few years back).

Entertaining stuff along the same lines as the other Walkies meanderings and since their six legs cover some very familiar territory along the Pennine Way (Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire Dales, Malham, Hadrian’s Wall, and so on), feels like a slice of home hiking. The one fave quote from 500 Mile Walkies that sticks in the birdbrain is “Boogie looked at me as if to say ‘Don’t you anthropomorphise me, mate!’”

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A Lynchian phone rant.

Demented corpse-scheme in Hell’s Kitchen.

An old Buxton and Cornish shampooing fave.

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With Prokofiev‘s Romeo & Juliet on again at the Lincoln Center, we trolled that way last night to witness the prancing. Main reason to go is the superb full score jammed, as it be, with Prokofiev’s dischord, melody, and thrust.  Said prancing gets a bit tedius towards the tail end, but certainly worth the trip to the cheap seats at least once.

Having seen him speel a bit from it not too long ago, picked up Bill Bryson‘s “The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid” during a recent plane lag – a decent light reading procrast.  Has the nice touch of small town newspaper clippings from the time at the front end of each chapter e.g. “A search….for a reported drowning victim was called off here Tuesday when it was realised that one of the volunteers helping the search….was the person being sought.”

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