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Just saving the link off...
Checking In With Robyn Hitchcock from Bonnaroo on Vimeo.
You can watch this video on www.livejournal.com
Checking In With Robyn Hitchcock from Bonnaroo on Vimeo.
Yeah, he has a fabulous life, hasn't he, the travelling troubadour. AND he can make a living of it, too. AND he's fit and healthy, as he's back on cheese :-)... *celebrating*... Link to appropriate song:
http://sixbucksamonkey.vox.com/library/audio/6a00cd97849482f9cc00e3989ecdae0004.html
Much better than being back on acid... *LOL* On an album I had overlooked and only bought last week ("A Star for Bram" from 2000), there is a beautiful piano-song on it referring to what we discussed in Spain while getting lost in those golf-hils (*LOL*)... Robyn, Syd and drugs. Good to know:
I used to love you, I used to walk the line
I used to love you, though you were in decline
But then I left you to be with someone else
Oh I left you to be with myself
I used to love you, 'cause you were where it's at
I used to love you, and I would be your cat
I wore your hairstyle, I tried to speak like you
But then I left you, because I'd learned from you
I'm going to Cambridge, I'll take that narrow train
I'm going to Cambridge, then I'll come down again
The police station is still on Parker's Piece
It hasn't shifted, nor have the police
They do their job, and I do mine
I used to love you, I loved your liquid voice
I used to love you, because I had no choice
But now you're crazy, and I myself am straight
And every child must avoid its parent's fate
A propos "making choices" - while packing our possessions into boxes (and getting rid of a lot of stuff... *LOL*) I found "The post birthday world" again and read it yesterday night, though language doesn't capture me. Very clever as a construction - and, yes, I kept scanning the boring Lawrence-parallel-universe... it didn't really seem an option to me, right from the beginning - even before knowing that Lawrence was being unfaithful and although I knew that Ramsey would die (yep, bad habbit of spoiling books for myself by thumbing through the remaining pages...)
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Wow..you have a good memory as I can only vaguely remember that conversation....I remember the golf courses and talking about saving water....I remember being pleased when we decided to go to the mountains when the road to the country park was closed. :-) That was a great day! (Well they all were.)
Whaaat? *LOL* You've only just finished it? *LOL* And how could you bother to continue reading knowing the end and that Ramsey dies? I didn't actually blame Lawrence for having an affair as Irena wasn't really in the relationship was she? She was always kind of....absent. Only with him because she couldn't think of anything else to do with herself. (same with Ramsey)I never quite saw what was attractive about Ramsey and I think she only chose him because she identified with him so much. I'm afraid I found her most annoying as a character....not very likeable at all...... except towards the end perhaps, when she showed a little independence personality and backbone.
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*LOL* Probably that's why I hadn't continued reading for... 10 months or so. *LOL* I must really stop looking up the endings of books. (Particularly bad with detective stories.) I had no idea Lawrence was betraying her until I got there, though. I thought he was just the same as Irena - bored, but comfortably bored. Too lazy to revive the relationship and too lazy to end it. Afraid of change.
Good. *LOL* I felt forced to identify with her and resented... probably that's what I didn't like about the book. That and the sugar-coated use of language... and the fact that the author failed to create any degree of erotic tension, although there are some passages that are clearly meant to be not funny but sexy... oh, well. The author seems to strongly identify with Irena, though.
Ramsey? He had abdominal muscles like a "school of fish"... come on, that IS irresistible... *ROFL* See what I mean?... *staring at the guppies*
Yeah, she probably wanted to BE like him, not to marry him. Full of himself, respected for what he does, even though it's "just" a sport she's not even interested in. Her job is "just" illustrating children's books and she feels constantly overlooked. She's bored with drawing, would love to have been to university, identifies with him who seems to be working-class and uneducated - oh, small wonder, he isn't even from a working clas family, it turns out as she meets his parents at his funeral... Lawrence, though, is intelligent and "taking care of her" (and she feels inferior). Oh, and the book ends in the conclusion that a woman should pick her partner accoring to whether she's ready to help him die... (provided she outlives him). A tiny bit negative. I thought it was meant to end in a conclusion about having a choice in life... *LOL* But the other conclusion was stronger...
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Lawrence was bored but was willing to be seduced by his colleague. Yep...change....the enemy of most.:-)) I couldn't identify with her at all and found I wanted to shake her. No...it def wasn't a sexy book....but I did think it was very honest and perceptive about relationships. I also got the impression that there was a fair amount of auto biographical stuff....if not factual then feelings wise.
Erm....it takes a lot more than 'abdominal muscles' He had the intellect, empathy and sensitivity of a guppy I'd say. *LOL*
Erm...what? Help him die? I thought the book was about relationships, choices and self awareness....Irena not having much....mainly because she didn't allow herself any. It WAS pretty negative...and could have ended positively.....but didn't. Because she was so stupid and couldn't see beyond either/or. She couldn't see any possibilities and just went with what life gave her or sent her way. She was SO annoying.
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Off topic: I just realized I sent you quite a large number of mails on the 11th August *LOL*. You obviously didn't read the Alan-Rose-Theatre one. Did you get any of the others?
I copy one with non-personal content here... does this sound familiar? (You must remember the photo) If not... check your mails. :-)
Mail from 11th August:
*huggles*
Not sure about Robyn’s religion (some of his songs suggest he’s a Christian, some suggest he’s Jewish, and so does he when he uses Jewish terms, for example when he says that working with Andy Partridge was his musical "bar mitzvah".
By the way... he performs alternative outside-church weddings... Had I known... I wonder if S. is feeling like marrying me once more? *LOL*
The lay priest / rabbi here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mayjuliettebarruel/2690499576/sizes/o/in/set-72157594258530105/
The bridegroom is, it seems, is Collin Maloy (the photo just says “Collin”, but I think that’s him). He’s a musician (“Decembrists”), Robyn’s HUGE fan and greatly influenced by him (oh, well, lets put it that way: He accidentally or deliberately does Robyn-impressions on stage... Robyn doesn’t seem to mind, though. *LOL*)
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The parallel universe angle could have been really interesting. Irena didn't have any choice! She didn't give herself any. How strong and feminist was that?
Hmmmm...reality seems to take place in Irena's subjective mind. A very small world....which is negative and self punishing with....NO choice. *LOL*
Yes...I think I received all your mails sweety...just been incredibly busy. Can't go to The Rose...no time. Btw...I was confused between the Rose and the Globe when I asked you if you'd been.
Yes...I'm thinking Jewish....but non practicing...perhaps never has done. *shrug* Is that significant for you?
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*LOL*... as long as you haven't marked me "spam"... *LOL*... oh... you've done so.... *LOL* Ok... ok... I love you, nevertheless. *kick*... erm, I meant... *HUGS*. :-)
I think it is. Weirdly enough it is. (I was baptised Protestant (mum's doing) and brought up Jewish (by Dad, more heritage-wise than religion-wise), married a non-believing Catholic ex-altar-boy *LOL* (with a Jewish great-grandmother, a Protestant mother and a Catholic father). I'm a bit of a religion-drifter, but I'm kind of proud of being technically half-Jewish and spent a lot of time researching Jewish life in Franconia with my Dad (who's the archive keeper in his home-town). Yes, and the Jwewish quarter in Prague had the right "energy"... again, not religion-wise, but culture-wise. Moreover, I'm now moving to Fürth. (Mhm... the English entry doesn't even mention the importance of Jewish life in modern-day-Fürth. There's a big Passover parade in spring, for example.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%BCrth
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*LOL* Of course you will never be marked 'spam' *hopping on one leg* Hugs.
The Jewish quarter of Prague was fab....I could have lived there. But then I'm sure I've been Jewish in another life....or a few other lives. Looking forward to visiting Furth....looks nice.
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It is as good, heartfelt and deep as "Eye", "Luxor" or "Trains"... You'd love that album, this is your kind of "not funny" Robyn. :-))) He was a "Warner-Brothers-pop-star" from 1999 to 2001... and he let Warner publish the brilliant, witty and funny album "Jewels" (which also meant handing on the rights)...
http://www.robynhitchcock.com/detail-pages/jewelsforsophia.htm
...and at the same time he kept the sole rights for the melancholic and poetic "outtakes"... "Star"...
Here... some seconds of each song, test-listening (my favourite is "I used to love you", the song for Syd. *sob*):
http://www.emusic.com/album/Robyn-Hitchcock-A-Star-For-Bram-MP3-Download/10827702.html
By the way, just asking him about drugs pretending you want to know about music is the easiest way with someone as open and communicative as Robyn, apparently. *LOL* (No, it wasn't me on Myspace who asked him, but e-music magazine, found it, looking for "Star" ... - but here's Robyn's answer, anyway.)
On "Acid Bird":
"That guitar sound - I got that sound by unintentionally having the wah-wah pedals pressed down to high treble. I think I played bass through a flanger - this was all done on four-track. This is one of my few actual drug songs. I only took about five trips, but I remembered one of them and I think at the time I felt nostalgic. On the whole I'm much less drug-influenced than people think I am. It's more that I listen to people who took these drugs. In my usual cagey way when I approached the 'big boys' in the drug world I was extremely careful.
I must say, I am very anti-drug now. I think marijuana should be illegal - I think all it did was make people more selfish. I love the music that people made in the mid-60s as the result of taking LSD, but they really mortgaged their futures. All of them were really kind of spent lightbulbs by 1969. I dunno. Drugs are for kids. It's depressing to see new generations of kids coming up on them. When I heard that Kurt Cobain was strung out I thought, "Oh Jesus, not again." Nowadays all you have to do to look bad is pull out a cigarette. So maybe life is simpler.
But, anyway; that bright pinging electric guitar sound you hear on things like the Byrds' albums or George Harrison on "And Your Bird Can Sing" - there's a kind of wire that connects your ear to guitar if you play on LSD, and it helps you to get that 'ping' sound. I wasn't the first to discover it, I just had the good fortune to discover it five years after everybody else."
(Yes, he learned from everyone else's dying / going mad... just in time. Five "trips" is "extremely carefull"? Non-psychadelic drugs don't cause "trips"... so that's the mescalin and LSD ONLY, in addition to all the dope causing selfishness *LOL*... and he's still frustrated about the smoking ban...)
*LOL* Robyn REALLY (day- and night-)dreams of trains... :-)
He says:
"The title of this song is meant quite literally - I do often dream of trains. There's a train route that goes through Waterloo in London, and I have this kind of imaginary route in my head that goes from Southampton to Oxford. I don't think it ever really existed, but I often find myself on it, in a very old railway carriage, usually on a Sunday. It's all really literal. That line "Summer goes to autumn overnight," that happens in the dream. It suddenly goes from mid-August to October."
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Looking forward to being with you in a couple of weeks. Have you booked other stuff or might you like to go see that link I sent you? Or just follow the energy? You and S. seem to be quite good at that...but more practice could be good.
I'm so pleased for you about your new flat.
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In a couple of weeks?! *LOL* Friday NEXT week! :-)))) Errrrmmmm.... will you be there? Sure? *LOL*
Not booking anything more because of grandma - but we can go and follow the energy. Or'll just fall in trance in the presence of Robyn... and only wake up when it's time to board the plane... buzzzzzz... I might fly back with my own green wings, I'm a fly, after all.
Thanks... somehow the old flat takes revenge, though. We keep getting injured moving out there... the last thing was that Stefan has cut off the tip of his right thumb (he'll be fine).
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Ok....we always end up with great possibilities if we follow the energy. Hope grandma is going to recover sweety.
Oh no *sharp intake of breath and cringe* Poor S. Kiss it better for him. Did he loose the tip or were you able to have it sewed back on?
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Grandma isn't better but she's not worse, either. Somewhere between life and death. She won't decide for a while where she wants to go...
It's only a flesh wound, the bone isn't injured. He wanted to unscrew some brass parts from an old glass lamp for recycling, the lamp cracked and cut off the very tip of his thumb. At the hospital he was told to hold up his thumb... so he's been doing an "OK" sign for a week now... with a bloddy thumb... *LOL* (The wound is closing quickly, but he has sucessfully removed his fingerprint... when might this come in usefull? *LOL*)
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Lets meet for dinner Friday?
Perhaps brother in law could send her some energy....to help the transition I mean..and make it easier for her to leave her body?
Ohhhh....*cringe* I can't look at others injuries without feeling very squeamish. Same with my own till I learned self hypnosis. Before that I cut myself whilst chopping tomatoes once...and fainted. *LOL* Last time I had an injury was five or six years ago and my body sat in a chair waiting to be stitched up.... for 12 hours.....whilst I relaxed and went someplace else......no problem. Havn't you taught S. how to do that sweety...it comes in very useful sometimes.
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Poor you had to wait for a doctor for 12 hours?! How did that happen? *HUGS*
Stefan hasn't got any problems with wounds (if they don't hurt too much) and is healing qickly, too. I, on the other hand, am a bit squeemish when it comes to other's wounds... but I can still do first aid with kids' wounds. A student has told me while I was cleaning her bruised and bleeding knee: "Yeah, vomit on it, that might help." *LOL* I felt so ashamed... *LOL* With own injuries I'm usually fine - and when I skinned my right knee to the bone in a bike accident about seven years ago I should have just washed out the stones and dirt. The doctor left small pieces of road-dirt in the wound and said I'd be fine... my knee got infected, had to be cut open and was almost totally stiff until two years later. Was I relieved when I could finally bend it again! Probably the doctor had a problem with wounds... his job must be impossible to do for him.
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