The weather has been amazing, day after day of sunshine and warm breezes. Today it's grey and cooler, although not rainy. Still, more familiar for September.

I've been wallowing in London's film culture: "The Killing," "Barry Lyndon," part of the Kubrick series at the national film theater; the Curzon Soho has double features on Sundays, last sunday I saw a Garbo double bill: "Camille," "Queen Christina," and I wept like mad. Especially Camille which is based on the Alexandre Dumas story, starring Garbo and Robert Taylor. Such great acting in a great weepy melodrama. I also saw (at my new friend Alfie's house) "12 Angry Men" and "Spellbound" with Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman. And then yesterday I saw "The Honeymoon Killers", a weird 60s experimental film, very subversive, and "The Return of the Secaucus Seven" which made me think of my parents. It basically seemed like it was them and t heir friends, just post Vietnam War protests, getting together in a house outside Boston. There's this amazing scene where one of the guys in the secaucus seven (they having been mistakenly picked up for deerhunting out of season) is reciting his list of arrests for participation in various demos, all the charges dropped. All between ''70 and ''73. I have to ask my folks if they have such a "dropped charges" list. THey were pretty active in that whole scene before I was born..

I've also seen some great music, the best was this huge show on Saturday night which was a tribute to Haroon from Joi Sound System, who had died in July, a guy in the "Asian Underground". There were tons of performers, singing in celtic, djing traditional indian vocals over dub and house and techno and a little drum and bass, and the best was this group of Qawwali (sp) singers -eight men sitting down, a tabla player, and these incredible voices, sometimes in unison, some call-and-response., these wild vocal riffs,and this driving rythm. amazing! There was also a man with a guitar and a beautiful woman in a red and gold sari who sang more trad. vocals along with the guitarist. really interesting lovely stuff. the crowd was quite mixed, south asian, caucasian, black, more people in the 20s than anything else, but a good number of people in their 30s and some older too. Because of the nature of the event is wasn't quite as rowdy as some, more of a thoughtful undertone.

The week before I saw a huge Metalheadz drumnbass thingy which was okay but not too inspiring..except for Storm. Kemistry and Storm were my favorite djs bar none for the oast two years. Theirs were the most creative, the most thoughtful sets. And then Kemistry died a few months ago in a really freaky car accident. I was really curious as to what Storm would do without her partner. And her set was amazing. Still by far more thoughtfuil than the other bigname djs, goldie, ss, grooveride. All of the others just slammed down tracks with the same beat one after the other, quite repetitive and without much of a sense of interrelation between the songs. Storm's set had ideas in it, directions, momentum. faaantastic. the only other highlight of the night was the song which is tearin' up the dancefloors, a remix of Shy FX's "bambaata" with the lyrics of UK Apache's "Original Nuttah". It is great, but what does it mean that my favorite song of the night was essential a remix of a song from 1995? That that was the most interesting tune? it sez something, anyway.

still later days

I've been searching and searching and searching for a house, and I think I may have found a place! The only drawback is that it's in a part of town where *none* of my new friends are.. not central london, and not south london (Stockwell/Brixton/Clapham). It's in East London, in an area called Hackney. But the place is SO BEAUTIFUL. The guy I spoke to on the phone was softspoken and quite friendly. It turned out he's the landlord and lives there, and a woman named also lives there. landlordroomie is youngish (30s?), he and I really hit it off. he's a music producer, and is producing a reggae album, and likes all the kinds of music I like (esp. Otis Redding and Ray Charles). He seemed happy that I would be bringing turntables in, and he has a small music studio on the top floor. the other person is a graphic designer from Johannesburg. She was more reserved but also polite and laidback.
the place is near-luxurious, with a nice kitchen, a good-sized garden (a REAL garden, english style, walled in, but not paved like many are. pretty lush, actually) and a great bathroom: large sunken bathtub with plants lining the ledge behind it, large mirror, window. My bedroom is large and clean, big windows on the street (it's a quiet street), a double bed (you'd be suprised how rare this is in apartments billed for one person), a dresser and two built-in closet/wardrobes. he said he could provide a desk for me ! The whole house is high-ceilinged. It's like a brownstone, tall and narrow, with a large living room and kitchen on the ground floor, mine and nicole's bedrooms and the bathroom on the second, and his room and studio on the third. And.... the rent is £315 a month INCLUDING bills (except for phone of course). I keep wavering because of its isolation from my newfound friends, but i think it's too beautiful to pass up. I walked into the kitchen (narrow, at the back of the house, with a window on the garden) and the counter was covered with ripe plum tomatoes.

I was pretty happy with it, overall. My german friend, who is a total music snob, came over afterwards and said "you're really quite good." that made me embarassed, but I felt good anyway.