Saturday, November 12, 2005

You call that music?

One of the surer signs of advancing age is that you find yourself saying things you remember your parents saying. I've long been detached from the pop music scene, but yesterday marked a new level of dissociation. In the never-ending fight against flab, I went to the gym. There is always something blaring out of the speakers, and I usually manage to ignore it. Yesterday, though, it was so loud and insistent, I couldn't avoid it. Several long tracks were played. They all had near identical throbbing beats, but the lyrics were different. Track one went:
I can't wait until the weekend
I can't wait until the weekend
I can't wait until the weekend
I can't wait until the weekend
I can't wait until the weekend
I can't wait until the weekend
I can't wait until the weekend
I can't wait until the weekend
I can't wait until the weekend
I can't wait until the weekend
I can't wait until the weekend
(Repeat ad infinitum)
The second track was a subtle variation on this masterpiece:
I can't wait until Saturday comes
I can't wait until Saturday comes
I can't wait until Saturday comes
I can't wait until Saturday comes
I can't wait until Saturday comes
I can't wait until Saturday comes
etc etc
The third track explored a whole new area of the artist's emotional palette:
Put your hands in the air
Put your hands in the air
Put your hands in the air
Put your hands in the air
Put your hands in the air
Put your hands in the air
(and so on until I had virtually given up the will to live)
Now, I'm not going to claim that in my day we had proper music, made our own entertainment, could have a night out at the pictures and a bag of chips and still have change out of sixpence for the tram fare...but we did actually require our heroes to write lyrics (often fey and pretentious it's true) and we did require them to master the rudiments of their instruments. Now we seem to have (almost) lyric-free, and certainly instrument-free "songs" that are almost identical to each other. I just don't get it. But then, I'm an old git.
memo to self:
1. Buy iPod
2. Load with Vivaldi
3. Go to gym.

Monday, November 07, 2005

John Fowles

Guardian Unlimited Books | News | Author John Fowles dies aged 79 I was sad to read of the death of Fowles. The French Lieutenant's Woman will go down as one of the most engaging postwar British novels, notable especially for a postmodern twist: alternative endings, presented by an intrusive narrator. That novel is a useful read for anyone studying Victorian history or literature, as Fowles did some extensive research, documented in un-novelish footnotes.
The Collector is a kind of Hitchcockian thriller, very well plotted, and genuinely creepy.
He would have a considerable reputation on these two novels alone, but he produced a good deal of other fiction and critical writing. One of the last grand old men of English letters.