August 14 00 guh. someone found my site through the phrase (altered to prevent more searches hopefully) "Ph+sh T+blature." not to be a snob, but feh! feh! hate them! (generalising, yes) When I was traveling in Europe (mostly from Berlin to London and back), path kept intersecting with the goddamn Ph*sh tour, or rather the fans who crowded every hostel I was in. I think I wrote about this before, about Bayswater, sharing a room with two rich hippie-clubkid girls in halters and bellbottoms, who covered the room with their expensive but hippie-style clothes, platforms, Birkenstocks, Vodka bottles and crumbs of hash. Who had not a brain cell to rub together between them. About being called "dread sister" by kids on the street touring with daddy's credit card, whom I would have happily hit with a pie. made of rocks. okay maybe not so much violence. but anyway.
Finally got a bicycle, after a long and fristrating saga i don't feel like elaborating much on, except that I think I've lost a friend over it. not as petty as it sounds, honest. anyway, took off for the library today --King's Cross. realised that actually it's not very near. Rode along the canal for about 3/4 of the way there. I think i took about 45 minutes. With my 8-pound laptop, bike lock and papers in my bag. Dodged the threatening rain (which was heading north and east as I pedaled west and a little south), literally riding out from under the stormclouds. Took another route back, and got a bit lost in Islington, where the streets are like the twilight zone. Got home and realised that I was exhausted and completely saddle sore. Actually I realised I was saddle sore about five minutes into the ride home. when did i get to be such a lightweight? I used to ride every day, everywhere. Then again, this was about 2 hours of riding, and a few hills that were more like steady grades for a long while. But no, basically I've become a big wimp. I completely passed out on the sofa after turning off the news. woke up 40 minutes later wondering where I was. Well, I'm going to build up my stamina. And my legs, I want my leg muscles back. Still have a few, but I would like to be a touch more burly. heh.
August 13 00 Last night I went to a bimonthly event where djs throw down a mix of ska-rocksteady-dub-reggae-roots and 60s soul. the music is scorching. actually it was pretty scorching all round. dripping with sweat for four hours, the sensual overload of the heat and the bass booming inexorably through speakers slung from the ceiling. Also discovered that there are people there you can dance with, like a partner. I have almost never danced in a club 'with' someone, and usually only with my sweetheart. since in this era, in the scenes I frequent, young people don't do the partner-dance thing in quite the way it used to work: here it's all mixed up with expectations of sex later. But on Saturday, spent much of the evening dancing with this cat who was absolutely the best dancer I've ever seen. Such a pleasure, to just move with someone, who isn't sleazy, where you're just enjoying the communication, and it's not going to be a pickup scene. especially if the communication is good. he had all the moves, the old ska moves, newer styles too. he said he learned from his mother, the shuffle, the slower ska, and winding it up dancehall stylee as well --even then, he was wicked sensitive as a partner, and not trying to push it, be intrusive. Clearly dancing itself was a great pleasure for him, not just as a code for other things.
Went to a festival on Saturday afternoon in a big park about 15minute walk from my house. It was hot hot with a bright sun licking over us. There is a huge field between the festival area and the street from my neighborhood, and it took about seven minutes to get to the entrance across it. as I walked, all around people were coming, in twos threes and fours from all directions across the field. Could hear the bass and occasional voices echoing across the green. 10 or 11 soundsystems (playing ragga jungle, techno, asiancrossover, funk and soul) and stages with bands (UK hiphop and R+B, live-vocal UKgarage, klezmer, rocksteady, reggae, punk). And a great crowd. all kinds of folk: lots of families with kids, many were traveller-type families, hippie counterculture folks, dreadlocks both crustypunk and rasta and any mixture, lots of obviously multiracial people, people in camo and velvet and fishnet and leather and feathers and jeans. Two shaven-headed white guys wandered through the crowd about 12 feet tall on concealed stilts, wearing baggy silver pants that went from their waists (which were at about 7 foot up) down to huge three-foot-long silver sneakers, wearing metal mohawks over a foot long, held onto their head by a metal strap round the skull. fabulous young black women glittering with shiny fabric and jewels and such. really good crowd all round. And then there was possibly the handsomest man I've ever seen. maybe 5 foot eleven, wearing pinstriped trousers not too baggy (kinda natty-style) but hanging verry low on his hips, revealing a bit of CK black boxer shorts waistband. Shirtless, darker-than-milk-chocolate skin, built but not exaggerated (cut, though), ridiculously handsome and happy in the sun, with short-ish curly hair dyed deep magenta. Oh. My. God. Couldn't stop looking at him. Inevitably ended up assessing his girlfriend as cute but not so spectacular. he was from The Planet of My Type, I'm telling you. damn...
August 9 00 British Library again today. That place is rad. More inspiration, another thousand words. Started working on the mixtape again (sorry nelson get it to ya soon), and nearly threw my back out at the decks again. I'm going to be doing the Web Broadcast thingy again, probably, in a week. I'll post the info shortly. It'll be next wednsday, if it happens, at around 2pm London time, or maybe 3, that's 9am or 10am EST.
August 8 00 saw that someone was checking out my music page, and realized that it's nearly four years out of date. just updated it a tad. may do more later.
wrote almost a thousand words today on the thesis. woo!
August 7 00 Today I learnt that the British Library is fucking kool. I hadn't really had any impression of it as an institution. But I needed to get in there to get at some books and stuff, you know, like they have at libraries, so I headed over. This big beautiful modern building, inside was just lovely. A big open interlocking kind of central space, with several wide-ish staircases AND escalators AND elevators tucked round the corner (since they are visually pretty mellow). Railings on the stairs were dark bronzey-coppery metal partially wrapped in what felt like leather, just along the part you'd run your hand down. I kept squeezing them as I walked up and down. Reading rooms are distributed on either side of the main openness, on three or four floors, and in the first floor in the back there is a cafe and restaurant. Out of sight from the entrance, but there's a sign. In the center of the building, running from the ground floor on up, is The King's Library, an old/rare book and manuscript collection --and this is so cool-- it's set up a like a building-within-a-building, sorta, a rectangualr structure of black metal-framed glass, with the books arranged bindings faced outwards and lit up, so from any angle you see big leather-bound, gilt-edged and decorated ancient manuscripts, row on row, stretching upward, in the center of it all. Just great.
August 6 00 sorry for the break there. it was a kind of low-energy week. This weekend was pretty good, though. Stayed in on Friday night and all day Saturday to work on my mix tape, during which time I hurt my back (remporarily) with several hours of standing over the decks which are on too-low tables in the living room. Saturday night was FAC's last weekend in town, before he heads off to conquer the US, so we met up in Brixton where he lives, and went to hear some Drum'n'bass. The music started out a little uninspired, then DJ Zinc came one and tore the roof off the place. The first 2/3 or his set were so fucking great i couldn't stand still. I was jumping up and down just describing it to other people later. He played some killer tunes, but it was also the way he mixed.. unlike lots of the other bigname djs, he really worked the songs together, and cut them up with the levels and the fader, sometimes i think he was running double and cutting up the same tune against itself, he made the most overplayed rollers sound new. And the crowd loved it. nuff respect dj zinc. By about 2 the music was not as good, not mixed as well, so we left. Our other friend was waiting for us outside, where someone had just stolen a bill *out of his wallet* as he was opening it to pay for something. Said friend was irate. so after a slightly sad and awkward (for me anyway) g'bye to FAC, as he spins off to another continent and moremore culture shock, me and otherfriend took a cab uptown to Old street. stopped at his place and ate some ice cream, then headed out to a squatparty. He was in a bad mood because his girlfriend is livin la vida coca and no longer has any sweetness. I met her too late to see any sweetness, but he's sweet and wanted a sympathetic ear. that sympathy plus some curiosity about more music plus a haagen-dasz-fueled second wind took us to the squat. which wasn't too too crowded. after a tour of all the floors, i ended up in the musty smelling basement where the jungle was. the tunes were pretty good, but it was so hot that I was literally dripping, and the sweat (plus the dust) was making my eyes water and tear up, which made my nose run like mad. so I kept blinking and getting dizzy from the heat and wiping my nose. no observer would have thought I wasn't on some or several substance, I'm sure. I was completely looped on lack of sleep plus heat, as it was. made my escape at 5:00 or so Home by quarter to 6am.
slept till noon today, then put on my floaty zebra-striped dress and headed out to the market and the Sunday walk. Came home and watched Romeo+Juliet but stopped before they died. It's so romantic, and I was already teary, and I already miss LDL. before the flick had a brief talk with him on the phone. I'm already eyeing airfares which I can't afford. maybe I can get him here? all this damn romance in the air. grrrr.
August 1 00 So I was riding the bus home from the library today, scanning through the radio stations (monday commute time is shitty for radio in London unless you like poppypoppop or UKgarage-lite), and I heard something familiar, and yet strangely horrible. Harrible, yet strangely familiar. Listened in disbelief, and the voices became clear: Tom Jones. Sheryl Crow. Together. singing "Burning Down The House." I pounded on the window in frustration (which made the two eastern-european guys sitting in front of me eye me speculatively). Then the ticket-collector accidentally hit me in the head with his elbow.