the men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums
…he is, quite simply, a genius.
§
Here are some rather good live links:
Honey & the Moon – live (solo) [Late Late Show]
Too Much To Hide – live (band) [Late Late Show]
Slide Away – live (band) [Letterman]
In The Sun – live (band) [Letterman]
Good About Me – live (solo) [Bowery Ballroom]
A Smile That Explodes – live (solo, with a violinist) [Late Late Show]
KEXP Live at the Triple Door (w/Lonely Astronauts) [50 min. gig - {scroll down for video link}]
Last Monday, I took a ten minute walk from our flat to the Company Inn, a pub alongside the canal in Nottingham, to watch the Tottenham Hotspur vs. Aston Villa game on Setanta. ‘Twas a bad night for Spurs all round really, and they ended up losing 2-1. So, with Spurs 2-0 down with seventy minutes gone, and finding myself increasingly disinterested in the football, I pulled an old battered copy of William Blake’s ‘Songs of Innocence and Experience’ out of my coat pocket and, in rather unconventional surroundings, began reading. One poem in particular jumped out at me:
I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen;
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.
And the gates of this Chapel were shut
And “Thou shalt not,” writ over the door;
So I turned to the Garden of Love
That so many sweet flowers bore.
And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tombstones where flowers should be;
And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires.
Now, anyone remotely familiar with Blake’s work will find no new or unexpected thought in this poem; Blake’s suspicion towards the church of his day, which he perceived to stand against those ‘joys’ and ‘desires’ which he saw to characterise proper human life (as well as God’s life [see 'The Little Vagabond']), is well known. Indeed, it was not that Blake had a problem with religion or the biblical Jesus or even Christianity per se - he was rather protesting that which represented these things during his lifetime. Nevertheless, I think it likely that his words, and his view of the church, still ring true for many in society today. This has regularly been the case in my experience. Continue reading ‘On The Enjoyment Of _Things_’
This is short, but a friend sent me a link to a fantastic video of Sigur Ros recently playing live at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. Katie and I got the chance to visit MoMA on our honeymoon, so that adds to the personal interest, but the performance is superb and well worth a look!
And while we’re on the subject, may I also recommend Heima, quite simply the best and most beautiful tour documentary I’ve ever seen.
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