Saturday, 28 June 2008

Jay-Z at Glastonbury LIVE


Live and direct.



Jay-Z comes on stage with a guitar playing Wonderwall, by Oasis.


Plays a few badass chords and then lets the crowd sing the rest.


OK, Jay-Z is a genius. The controversy is over.


He's got the crowd on "hello".


Glastonbury is more than just a music festival here. It's a rite of passage, as well as a tradition. When Jay-Z was billed as headliner it was seen as controversial (especially with Noel "hip-hop has no place at Glastonbury" Gallagher from Oasis) but he won the 150,000-plus strong crowd over (whether they needed winning over) with a nod to the locals: Prodigy, Smack My Bitch Up; Amy Winehouse, Rehab.... straight up in the first few minutes.


"If you didn't catch my name, it's Jay-Z."


Thanks Jay-Z, I think we got it. And it will take a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back.


"I've got one thing to say", said Jay-Z and then came 99 problems, punched out with AC/DC's Back in Black for the last two verses.


BTW: Talking about genius...and Back in Black: Amy Winehouse.


How cool was it when she walked off the high Pyramid stage into the crowd. Havoc! For starters, getting into the field in 7" Louboutin heels is a feat in itself. Then she ended up punching the shit out of some guy in the front row.


Amy still looks fucked, or real, or sick, or whatever. God love her - she's animal electrifying, and I couldn't stop watching her, although I don't know whether it was for the right reasons.


She didn't do a bad rap herself between songs dot com.


My verdict: the best genius is difficult. Whether it's Jay-Z, Amy Winehouse or Noel Gallagher.


As Jay-Z admonished the crowd: "Where is the Love?"


And love is the law here at Wine Woman & Song.


That's the anthem get your damn hands up.

H To The Izzo - Jay Z

Link: Jay-Z Myspace interview backstage before Glastonbury gig

Wednesday, 25 June 2008

woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown


Rossy de Palma!


One of the stars from my all-time favourite film, Pedro Almodóvar's Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios), now has her own fragrance:


Rossy de Palma Eau de Protection
by Etat Libre d'Orange.


Rossy de Palma wanted her fragrance to be based on red roses.


Sure, Eau de Protection has roses.


Red roses an angry lover might throw back in your face.


Don't try to get yourself out of this one – thorns, blood and scattered rose petals on the bitumen – you arsehole.


It's not your usual pretty rose-based perfume. And it's all the better for it.


Angular, sharp and edgy - hey, it is Rossy de Palma's signature scent after all.


So it's also ironic, cool and has plenty of sly wit.


A rich hippy patchouli note is toughened up by a good hit of black pepper, astringent ginger and tannic bergamot (Earl Grey tea).


*Breathe*


Can you handle it?


Are you sure?


It's a Spanish rose, darkly.


Mz Darkly sez, mmmmm me likey.


Actually, compared to Etat Libre d'Orange's other perfume, Secretions Magnifique, it's a real sweet heart.


"Scratch a cynic, find a romantic"...??


Link: WWS Secretions Magnifique: blood, sex - magic?
Link: Rossy de Palma Eau de Protection
Link: Pedro Almodóvar y las Mujeres (Spanish)

Tuesday, 24 June 2008

the taste of others

SG & Jane Birkin

Not everyone has the same taste.


I like slightly dirty wines.


So what has happened to French white wines recently?


Things seem lighter, fruitier, cleaner.


I champion the screw cap, but it's not so much because I want more fruit taste, but because I don't like spending money on a corked wine.


But corked wine is not what I mean when I say dirty.


What I mean is, in a Chardonnay, when the secondary malo-lactic characters taste closer to an aged Roquefort cheese, rather than Kraft slices.


Good old-fashioned French white burgundy smells like tangy sex, often has a dismissive gesture of fruit, and can be difficult and demanding.


How refreshing: wine that is not f**king refreshing.


French wines, even Italian wines, are becoming fresher and fruitier to compete in the crowded UK market.


Pause…sip ice water…continue.



This afternoon I had a Chardonnay tasting, and even the most opulent French wine could only be described as "Opulent Lite" - especially compared to burgundies I tasted 5 years ago.


Is it the case, as in fragrance, all the dangerous smells are disappearing?


Here are my notes for my favourite out of the eight, "clean" yet complex and a true joy to taste over time:

Vincent Girardin Meursault Les Narvaux 2006 £39.99 a bottle, 13.5%

Slight butter and smoke flavours on the nose with voluptuous but ultimately clean citrus flavours. This is not as plush as I'd expect from Meursault, but a smooth and elegant wine that would make excellent company and conversation over a few hours at dinner.


Link: Australian and French wines: vive la difference

Sex Shop - Serge Gainsbourg & Jane Birkin

Marlene Dietrich and David Bowie



"Dancing, music, champagne.

The best way to forget...

until you find something you want to remember."



– Marlene Dietrich, in Just A Gigolo, Schöner Gigolo, armer Gigolo (1978).


Link: Schöner Gigolo, armer Gigolo (1978)

Monday, 23 June 2008

happy birthday

Wine, Woman & Song is one-year old today.

Not your cup of tea?


How about a triumphant 80s theme tune, then...
Eye Of The Tiger - Survivor

meeting Lydia Vance

"I read 30 minutes then called a break. I was still sober and I could feel the eyes staring at me from out of the dark. A few people came up and talked to me. Then during a lull Lydia Vance walked up. I was sitting at a table drinking beer. She put both hands on the edge of the table, bent over and looked at me. She had long brown hair, quite long, a prominent nose, and one eye didn't quite match the other- but she projected vitality- you knew that she was there. I could feel vibrations running between us. Some of the vibrations were confused and were not good but they were there.

She looked at me and I looked back. Lydia Vance had on a suede cowgirl jacket with a fringe around the neck. Her breasts were good. I told her, "I'd like to rip that fringe off your jacket-we could begin there!" Lydia walked off. It hadn't worked. I never knew what to say to the ladies. But she had a behind. I watched that beautiful behind as she walked away..."


Link: Women by Charles Bukowski (1978)

Sunday, 22 June 2008

Bon Iver: For Emma, forever ago


"Justin Vernon moved to a remote cabin in the woods of Northwestern Wisconsin at the onset of winter. Tailing from the swirling breakup of his long time band (DeYarmond Edison), he escaped to the property and surrounded himself with simple work, quiet, and space. He lived there alone for three months, filling his days with wood splitting and other chores around the land. This special time slowly began feeding a bold, uninhibited new musical focus." – Last.fm

At Rough Trade Records, where I first listened to this album, they had written beside the CD:

Is this the best album of 2008, already?

Big statement.


All I know is the gentle folk sound really comes into its own on a Sunday morning.


For Emma brings back memories of John Lennon's dreamy, syrupy acoustic sound in Double Fantasy.


And it makes me hungry!


Listening to this album makes me want pancakes for breakfast drowned in maple syrup... yum.


This is a beautiful folk album, especially on a lazy Sunday morning, and definitely one of the best folk albums of the year, so far.


Link: Bon Iver
Re: Stacks - Bon Iver

Saturday, 21 June 2008

heaven


"Because half of the world's vanilla crop is grown in Madagascar, the whole island smells like vanilla ice cream."


Link: Rob Brezsny

misanthrope seeks misanthrope


A message from Mz C.C. Zirconia:


"It's not hard to see why I liked In Search of a Midnight Kiss, I'll break the plot down for you:

Twenty-nine-year old depressed comedy writer, Wilson, moves to Los Angeles after he brokers a deal for his screenplay.


Check.


Wilson leaves his girlfriend (she was leaving him anyway), sells all his stuff and drives across the country to L.A – but the deal falls through. He sits around at home constructing long emails he only ends up deleting. His mother calls from parties where she is having a lot cooler time with all her friends.


Check, check and check.


Broke and very lonely on New Year’s Eve, his flatmate forces Wilson to put an ad on craigslist.com after the flatmate walks in on him jerking off to a picture of his flatmate's girlfriend.


Hey, it happens.


Writes ad for craigslist.com: “Misanthrope seeks misanthrope.”


Meets Vivian, an actress recently moved to LA, a bitter and damaged blonde. She only finishes with her hick boyfriend 5 days before responding to Wilson's ad.


Check.


And lives in a motel chain-smoking and drinking vodka chasers (the painful reasons become clear at the end but I won't spoil it for you.)


Unfortunately... check.


"You'll recognise me", she tells him before they meet, "I'm 300 pounds, into bondage and I love Hello Kitty."


She meets all the men from craigslist.com in caustic five minute interviews (brilliant). She settles with Wilson.


She doesn’t pretend to like him, they accept they don't have to like each other, or even really care, and just to make it clear, she threatens to leave anytime before midnight; but Wilson and her end up randomly walking the streets of L.A. (great to see L.A. from this perspective) to pass the time until New Year's Eve is finally over at midnight.


I hate New Years Eve."


Check
.

Link: In Search of a Midnight Kiss

Friday, 20 June 2008

Let's Get Lost: Chet Baker by Bruce Weber


"Some people don't have enough ears to tell the difference"


- Chet Baker in Bruce Weber's documentary, Let's Get Lost, when asked if people confused him with Miles Davis, and every other trumpet player from the era.



An immaculate woman in her 70s sat in front of me in the cinema, by herself, dressed in a summer suit with her ash-blonde coiffure blow dried to candy floss perfection.


It is 2.30 in the afternoon.


With perfect red manicured nails, she kept checking the mirror in her gold compact.


And then I realized, she was wiping away tears - only fifteen minutes into the film.


Almost blue.
Almost doing the things we used to do,
there's a girl here
and she's almost you.



Oh! Why the tears?

Perhaps she was once one of the girls in the film? Maybe she knew Chet, and there was a time when she happily flirted with disaster?


Or, perhaps like Chet said in the film about himself, all her friends and lovers are no longer here?


Maybe it's just the way he sings break her heart all over again, and again.

I Fall In Love Too Easily - Chet Baker



Link: Let's Get Lost by Bruce Weber

Ogio Puglia Primitivo 2007


There's sauce and there's sauce and then there's sauce.


The first is the sauce you add to pasta, the second is slang for alcohol ("on the sauce") and the third is the uniquely english approach to sex; a bit naughty and saucy: ooh-er, missus!


Ogio Puglia Primitivo 2007 is all three.


Alone, it's ok, nothing really to write home about - good price from Tesco, etc.


But wait. The clove and chocolate character, with the typical italian chewy bitterness (slight chinotto) picks up the flavours in the meal (beef parmesan ravioli).


The whole wine and food thing has created a new dimension:


1 + 2 = 3.


Exactly like a sauce does with food.


The wine itself is a mellow 13%. And the label design is typically Italian and definitely sexy.


Although, is it naughty?


With the right person, and food, it could well be.


Something Pirelli, even.



Link: Ogio Puglia Primitivo 2007

Thursday, 19 June 2008

Žižek on applause

"... after a Nazi leader delivers a speech and the crowd applauds, he just stands and silently accepts the applause, positing himself as its addressee, while in Stalinism, when the obligatory applause explodes at the end of the leader's speech, the leader stands up and joins others in applauding." - Slavoj Žižek

So what is the right way to accept applause?


I know Žižek is not meaning this to be prescriptive. But who wants to be a fascist? Or even in the same ballpark.


The only thing I could imagine is this gesture by Marcello Mastroianni at the end of La Dolce Vita.



Link: Slavoj Žižek, Leninism today

bruised Madonna

"kinda sad that in the thirty years since, no other band has appeared possessing an equivalent revolutionary spirit - perhaps it’s just my generation (and nationality) and younger americans will be proclaiming marilyn manson and crystal fucking castles?!….." Trevor Brown


The artist Trevor Brown doesn't like Toronto-band Crystal Castles much.


And not just because they took his Madonna image for their band t-shirt without permission.


Love to know what Madonna thinks.


That's the problem when you are named after a religious icon. You become a signifier yourself.


I am not much of a celeb fash-mag slag, but even I know Mads has been seen with a bruised eye, apparently erasing her life from her face with plastic surgery.


That's another reason why I love Keith Richards.


It doesn't look like his face has been molded by a lifetime sitting in strategy meetings...


& why would you want to?


*sigh*


Link: Baby Art - official Trevor Brown blog (in Japan)

Wednesday, 18 June 2008

homesickness



Germaine Greer, Clive James, Nick Cave and Kylie's gold bum.


This is a typical conversation I have in London:


"Do you think you are typical of most people who live in Australia?"


"You mean, all 20,434,176 of them?"


After a while I stop explaining and just sip my wine, darkly.


With the brightest light comes the darkest shade. That's what all four have in common, even Kylie has her moments.


By coincidence, all four people live within a hundred mile radius of where I live now.


I'm home sick. I'm sick of home. I'm sick. My home is myself.


There.



Link: my favourite place in australia ;-)

Who Made Who - ACDC

Australians in London Ex-pat expat australians

Tuesday, 17 June 2008

in love



A happy photo from where I live in London. He looks like he is in love!


Wine Woman & Song HEART photography by Yvan Rodic.


Link: Face Hunter: on the street, soho + fitzrovia + brick lane, 14 June 2008

Monday, 16 June 2008

new Angelina Jolie perfume (and tiger tattoo)


Apparently Angelina Jolie is in talks with Coty, the French fragrance house, to create her own signature perfume.


Just what the world needs, another celebrity fragrance.


The last thing I want to smell like is some Hollywood actress' handbag.


But – surprise – here's an actress known not just for her taste in handbags.


And, to be fair, Coty has done the signature fragrance thing very well.


Even Luca Turin lovingly admired Lovely by Sarah Jessica Parker: "about as edgy as a marshmallow and all the better for it".


Here's her getting a kick-arse snarling tiger tattoo on her back in southern Thailand.


A traditional Buddhist tattoo by Thai artist Sompong Kanphai that represents luck, power and good fortune.


Which got me dreaming (dream tiger).


Wouldn't it be cool if the Buddhist tiger inspired her perfume, which embraced all the wonderful tropical fruit and spice smells of Thailand?


The closest perfume I know that really captures the tropics is Estee Lauder's Beyond Paradise. But unlike Thailand, it has no incense or woody smells.


Question: Will she develop a perfume redolent of her own complexity or will Angelina Jolie chase the bland big-bucks action perfume?


And, yes, I did say bland and Angelina Jolie in the same sentence. Remember, this is the same person who also chose to play the banal Lara Croft.


Stay tuned.


Link: Marie Claire - Angelina Jolie fragrance?

Sunday, 15 June 2008

Valentine by John Fuller

The things about you I appreciate
may seem indelicate:
I'd like to find you in the shower
and chase the soap for half an hour.
I'd like to have you in my power
and see your eyes dilate.
I'd like to have your back to scour
and other parts to lubricate.
Sometimes I feel it is my fate
to chase you screaming up a tower
or make you cower
by asking you to differentiate
Nietzsche from Schopenhauer.
I'd like successfully to guess your weight
and win you at a fete.
I'd like to offer you a flower.

I like the hair upon your shoulders
falling like water over boulders.
I like the shoulders, too: they are essential.
Your collar-bones have great potential
(I'd like all your particulars in folders
marked Confidential).

I like your cheeks, I like your nose,
I like the way your lips disclose
the neat arrangement of your teeth
(half above and half beneath)
in rows.

I like your eyes, I like their fringes.
The way they focus on me gives me twinges.
Your upper arms drive me berserk
I like the way your elbows work,
on hinges.

I like your wrists, I like your glands,
I like the fingers on your hands.
I'd like to teach them how to count,
and certain things we might exchange,
something familiar for something strange.
I'd like to give you just the right amount
and give some change.

I like it when you tilt your cheek up.
I like the way you hold a teacup.
I like your legs when you unwind them,
even in trousers I don't mind them.
I'd always know, without a recap,
where to find them.

I like the sculpture of your ears.
I like the way your profile disappears
Whenever you decide to turn and face me.
I'd like to cross two hemispheres
and have you chase me.
I'd like to smuggle you across frontiers
or sail with you at night into Tangiers.
I'd like you to embrace me.

I'd like to see you ironing your skirt
and cancelling other dates.
I'd like to button up your shirt.
I like the way your chest inflates.
I'd like to soothe you when you're hurt
or frightened senseless by invertebrates.

I'd like you even if you were malign
and had a yen for sudden homicide.
I'd let you put insecticide
into my wine.
I'd even like you if you were the Bride
of Frankenstein
or something ghoulish out of Mamoulian's
Jekyll and Hyde.
I'd even like you as my Julian
of Norwich or Cathleen ni Houlihan.
How melodramatic
if you were something muttering in attics
like Mrs Rochester or a student of Boolean
Mathematics.

You are the end of self-abuse.
You are the eternal feminine.
I'd like to find a good excuse
to call on you and find you in.
I'd like to put my hand beneath your chin,
and see you grin.
I'd like to taste your Charlotte Russe,
I'd like to feel my lips upon your skin,
I'd like to make you reproduce.

I'd like you in my confidence.
I'd like to be your second look.
I'd like to let you try the French Defence
and mate you with my rook.
I'd like to be your preference
and hence
I'd like to be around when you unhook.
I'd like to be your only audience,
the final name in your appointment book,
your future tense.


Link: John Fuller

Saturday, 14 June 2008

don't try this at home

Cindy Sherman
Untitled Film Still #7. 1978.
Collection The Museum of Modern Art, New York.


Thirty years after this photo, everybody is doing a Cindy Sherman.


Mostly on Facebook.


But not everyone can take a photo of themselves as well as Cindy Sherman, especially after a martini or two.


Believe me, I've tried.


And it ain't pretty.


Link: The complete Untitled Film Stills at MoMA, New York.

Friday, 13 June 2008

vintage Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds




By request - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds:"The Weeping Song."


Drinking wine on a boat in a mug under the moonlight.


Vintage Nick, darkly.


Link: What wine would Nick Cave drink?

Thursday, 12 June 2008

first of the summer wine


2003 Savennieres Clos du Papillon from Domaine des Baumard (Loire)



Summer always feels like a new idea in London.


Yesterday the weather man on the BBC said it was the end of the Summer weather.


*After three days of sunshine*


Well, I don't give up that easily!


This can't be the last of the summer wine, it's only June - glamdammit!


I want the first of the summer wines first...


And what is more Summer than a butterfly (papillon)?


This wine is sourced from a butterfly-shaped vineyard in the Loire and is full of pear, peach and lime characters. All it needs is a park and some sunshine...


Or just forget that. Use your imagination.


It is London, after all. The weather just is... weather.


Link: Domaine des Baumard or Leon Stolarski fine wines

Wednesday, 11 June 2008

hanging out with the stones

Stephen Webster, Rock n' roll collection

Mz C.C. Zirconia is at London Jewellery Week hanging out with the stones.


The real stuff: emerald, diamond, sapphire and ruby. Or not...


Keith Richards: "Who was Ruby Tuesday? Can't remember her name. It certainly wasn't Ruby. That's one of those things - some chick you've broken up with. And all you've got left is the piano and the guitar and a pair of panties. And it's goodbye you know. And so it just comes out of that. And after that you just build on it. It's one of those songs that are easiest to write because you're really right there and you really sort of mean it. And for a songwriter, hey break his heart and he'll come up with a good song."


(The Rolling Stone Interview: Keith Richards. Rolling Stone. No. 89. August 19, 1971 by Robert Greenfield)


Link: London Jewellery Week, 11 - 15 June 2008.

Ruby Tuesday - The Rolling Stones

Tuesday, 10 June 2008

What wine would Nick Cave drink?


If I was to recommend Nick Cave a wine, it’d be a black wine from Cahors.


Some wines aspire to ring-tones, these wines are epic ballads.


They take some time to yield in the glass, they are not instant and fun, you could say they are gruff and unfriendly; but once the story in the glass unfolds, it’s worth the wait.


Cahors, in South West France, has been a wine region since Bordeaux was only a swamp. Yet, they’ve only been accepted as an French wine appellation since 1971.


They're the outsider; dark, gothic and medieval, which makes me like them even more....


If you live in the UK try these “easy-to-drink” examples, all under £10, for a night, darkly:

• 2004 Cahors, Le Petit Clos Triguedina (Waitrose)
Blackberry and graphite flavours minus usual mouth-puckering

• 2005 Cahors, Château Gaudou, Tradition (Majestic)
Distinct licorice flavours with some Merlot to soften it out

• 2002 Château Paillas Cahors (Nicholas)
Classic Malbec aroma with spicy black fruit

Listening to: Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! by Nick Cave. All things I said about wines from Cahors, can equally be applied to this album.


Dark wines for the Tupelo bound.


Link: vintage Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds youtube clip
Link: For more about wines from Cahors: French Malbec


Where the Wild Roses Grow - Nick Cave & Kylie Minogue

Monday, 9 June 2008

Why wine tastes better with music

"It is widely acknowledged within the scientific community that music affects behaviour, however this is the first time it has been scientifically proven that music can affect perception in other senses and change the way wine tastes.
The research showed that when a powerful, heavy piece of music is heard, a wine such as Cabernet Sauvignon is perceived as being 60 per cent more powerful, rich and robust than when no music is heard."

From now on, dear readers, Wine Woman & Song will no longer hide what music is playing during wine tastings. It's only fair to disclose to this vital information in the tasting process.


Now, back to practicing my cat dance on last night's empty bottles...


Link: Why wine tastes better with music

Thursday, 5 June 2008

Jack The Ripper Slash Bansky


An anonymous East Londoner handy with a knife – sound familiar?


Exactly one hundred and twenty years after the Jack the Ripper murders, his ghost still looms large around his old stomping ground through an anonymous graffiti artist who decapitates ad posters.


Blink.


You may miss it.


Like this one for Uniqlo on Shoreditch High Street/Old Street E1. Or the truly ghoulish Carrie Bradshaw in the Sex and the City movie poster on Mare Street in Hackney.


Despite many people at the time claiming to be Jack the Ripper, the case remains unsolved.


The most famous confession letter began, "Dear Boss..." in cut-out words from the newspaper.


Decapitated advertising in 21st-century East London?


This is "Dear Boss," writ large.


Link: Mysterious Headless corpses found all over London

Rock of crack



"Chris Rock has been enjoying his time in
London, and popped into Rough Trade records
to do some shopping. Staff were so excited
they asked him to sign the ceiling.


He wrote “I love crack”."


Surely he's not referring to certain English musicians?


LOLZ.



Link: popbitch

Cocorosie presents Loris Gréaud's Cellar Door


When people tell me that I know how this story is going to end I usually tell them: wait till the end and you will see yourself… From Loris Gréaud’s Cellar Door exhibition.

What is the sound of two galaxies colliding?


Something like this.


On Saturday night at the ICA in London, Cocorosie, will be interpreting the score for the Opera of Loris Gréaud's Cellar Door exhibition, "Once is Always Twice".


The Opera – scored by Thomas Roussel and with a libretto by Raimundas Malašauskas and Aaron Schuster – will be staged at the Paris Opera at the end of the year.


More black champagne, please!


Link: This Saturday, 8pm, at the ICA, London
Link: Wine, Woman & Song's take on Cellar Door and after-tremors.

Beautiful Boyz - CocoRosie

Wednesday, 4 June 2008

Jewel of Russia Vodka vs The World



Would you ever avoid tasting something because it's too good?


Think about this question hard before you try Jewel of Russia Ultra 80 proof vodka.


Holding the heavy bottle with an individually hand-painted label, I stopped, thought about it, and then, decided it's a risk I'll take.


What the hell.


This is vodka, I don't know what I've been drinking before, but this is vodka.


It's like... I've been watching karaoke versions of vodka without even realizing there's an original song behind it.


You mean, people don't read lyrics from an auto-cue when they sing?


No way!


Yes, I'll never taste vodka the same way again.


But do I wish I never tried it?


No, it's beautiful and fine and overall, a complete aesthetic experience.


The problem is: now I know this, the other karaoke vodkas seem off-tune and crap.

1 to Jewel of Vodka
0 to The World


Link: Jewel of Russia vodka

Tuesday, 3 June 2008

Marcel Duchamp's Eau de Voilette (1921)


A readymade perfume by Rrose Selavy (aka Marcel Duchamp, photographed by Man Ray.


Not violet (violette), but veiled (voilette).


And still surreal as anything out there.

Monday, 2 June 2008

mindfucking


The Moor is of a free and open nature,
That thinks men honest that but seem to be so,
And will as tenderly be led by the nose
As asses are.
– Iago in Othello, The Moor of Venice
Mindfucking: A Critique of Mental Manipulation is the latest book by Colin McGinn, in a short 96 pages, McGinn defines what mindfucking is: from personal mind games to full-scale propaganda and mind control.

Hey, maybe it's just me, but I hardly use the word mindfuck in a negative sense! These are the two ways I use the word:
  • "Wow, that (book, film, conversation) was a total mindfuck."
  • "That relationship was a mindfuck. I'm glad it's over."
There has to be an emotional experience, after which your senses feel reorganised (or even, de-organised, like a suitcase of ex-boyfriend's clothes thrown out an 8- story window, "No more!").

McGinn argues mindfucking can be an intrusive and violating experience. Unless of course, you give your consent (!)

That's half the problem, like The Moor in Othello, mindfucking can make you feel like an ass if you are not careful. Or you ending up fucking yourself up.

Maybe if you read this book and know what's going on first, you can mindfuck back!!! OK, that's not the point... (be good, not evil!)

Link: Colin McGinn's blog with forum debate about title

Disco naps and the avant-garde: Jonas Mekas

At the Tate Modern today, I woke up two young guys when I sat on the bench in to watch Jonas Mekas'60s experimental film, Diaries, Notes and Sketches (also called Walden). I thought: well, this is not a bad place to have a disco nap.

They shook themselves awake and watched for a little while before dropping their heads back to sleep. But you know what? Dozing like this could be one of the most interesting way to watch Mekas' films. Dream a little of their dream, watch a little of Mekas' dream.

Jonas Mekas has mashed hours of personal footage shot between 1964 - 1969 in New York: pictures of sludge, a co-op meeting, a sled-ride in the park. The effect feels like the images in his head have been recorded while he sleeps.

After a few hours, I am not 100% sure which memories were mine, and which were Mekas' film; that's how intimate the film feels. Imagine the trouble the guys sitting next to me must be having distinguishing their dreams from the outside world... If they are not still there, asleep.

Link: Jonas Mekas at Tate Modern