Culture - January

Books Read:

Merlin Coverley - 'Psychogeography' (non-fiction)
Jonathan Swift - 'Gulliver's Travels'
Georges Bataille - 'Blue of Noon'
Lebbeus Woods - 'War and Architecture' (non-fiction)
Norman Mailer - 'An American Dream'
Paul Eltzbacher - 'Anarchism' (non-fiction)

I managed to wade through quite a large amount during January.  I hope I can keep it up throughout the year.  I particularly enjoyed reading Swift’s ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ for the first time; such a lacuna of ideas and inspiration, reading it you can sense the imaginations of later writers like HG Wells, Burgess, Ballard, Roald Dahl just firing off at all trajectories.  The late Lebbeus Woods’ pamphlet on ‘War & Architecture’ offered an intriguingly radical manifesto for how cities should be reconstructed following the destructive event of war.  One particular credo that really resonated with me was that we should aspire to, 'architecture drawn as though it were already built - architecture built as though it had never been drawn'.

Films Watched:

'Tommy' (Ken Russell)
'McCullin' (Jacqui & David Morris) (documentary) (at Curzon, Soho)
'McVicar' (Tom Clegg)
'The Grudge' (Takashi Shimizu)
'Django Unchained' (Quentin Tarantino) (at Ritzy Picturehouse, Brixton)
'Child's Play' (Tom Holland)
'Lincoln' (Steven Spielberg) (at Ritzy Picturehouse, Brixton)
'The Cabin in the Woods' (Drew Goddard)

The documentary feature ‘McCullin’, examining the remarkable life and career of war photographer Don McCullin, was an insightful and constantly fascinating exploration into his working methods and the scars that have inevitably wrought themselves onto his psyche through his experiences in Vietnam, Biafra and the Congo.  Some of the images shown were among the most harrowing you will see on screen, but it served as a stark and necessary reminder of the inherent cruelty in the world, as well as the moral duty we have to capture and face it.

I found ‘Django Unchained’ to be yet further proof (if any were needed) of Quentin Tarantino’s status as the premier onanistic auteur working in cinema today.  The first 90-minutes were rollickingly compelling with more than a few hints at his former brilliance, before it all-too-predictably became bogged-down in his own flabby self-indulgence.  The triple ensemble of Waltz, Foxx and DiCaprio gave laudatory performances, and the character of Samuel L. Jackson was audacious, but this didn’t stop the film ultimately being hindered by its own towering ego.

At the polar opposite of the spectrum in terms of handling the slave trade, Spielberg’s ‘Lincoln’ was captivating and thoroughly worth the investiture of concentration demanded.  The careful restraint Spielberg afforded the dramatic performances – in surely his least characteristic film to date – meant that emotions were never unduly manipulated or exploited; a charge often levelled at him by his detractors.  Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance was, perhaps unsurprisingly, a monumental achievement and he well deserves that third Oscar.  

Albums Played:

John Talobot - 'Fin'
David Bowie - 'Hunky Dory'
David Bowie - 'Ziggy Stardust & the Spiders from Mars'
David Bowie - 'Aladdin Sane'
David Bowie - 'Pin-Ups'
David Bowie - 'Young Americans'
David Bowie - 'Station to Station'
David Bowie - 'Heroes'
David Bowie - 'Lodger'
David Bowie - 'Scary Monsters'
David Bowie - 'Tonight'
David Bowie - 'Never Let Me Down'
Eels - 'Wonderful, Glorious'
Four Tet - '0181'
Esben & the Witch - 'Wash The Sins Not Only The Face'

Following the exciting revelation that ultra-reclusive David Bowie would be releasing a comeback album, I began working my way through his gem-encrusted oeuvre, refreshing myself on those familiar classics and alighting upon those hitherto overlooked.  It is astonishing his level of creativity and sheer consistency (surely the only comparable musical artist is Bob Dylan); in the 70s he seemingly tossed-off albums with a weighty stature that most self-respecting bands never even get close to.  Indeed, charting the course of his career through genres as diverse as folk, glam rock, plastic soul, electronica, funk is endlessly rewarding.  Personally, I believe his zenith to be ‘Heroes’, although I was newly enamoured by early effort ‘Hunky Dory’ and latter-day 'Scary Monsters'.  However vibrant an individual’s genius and however plentiful the highs, there are always the inevitable lows; listening to his self-confessed late-80s nadir ‘Never Let Me Down’ it is possible to wrangle a slight perverse enjoyment out of the album if only by ruminating on how less than a decade earlier the same artist had been in the throes of his ‘Berlin Trilogy’.  Nevertheless, I look forward to continuing my Bowie odyssey into February.

Gigs Attended:

My Bloody Valentine (at Electric Brixton, London)