Summer In The City
Dearest and I went down to Manchester on Sunday. The sun was still shining and the City was doing itself proud. The Cow Parade (exactly the same as the one in Prague) was still attracting kids who had to be captured on Compactflash, Smartmedia and memory sticks. We also have a fountain in Piccadilly that you can run about in without fear of slipping and splitting your head open like what happens in that crap fountain that they made in that there London. It was full of kids in various states of undress. A very dodgy place to be caught taking photographs these days though. Sad.A Cora player entertained me on Mosley Street - and he really was fab. On Market Street, walking down towards Cross Street, I encountered a Bagpipist, the ubiquitous Pan Pipe Southern Americans, a Jazz Trombonist, an exquisite Fiddler and a pedestrian guitarist.
As I ambled into St Anne's (the creme de la creme of Mancunian squares), I chanced upon an amazing young man playing an amplified nylon-strung guitar with an accomplishment you would pay good folding money to hear anywhere else.
I exchanged some of my birthday vouchers for some music that I'm not really that familiar with. A 2 CD sampler of Cuban stuff from the late 50s and early 60s, post-revolution. Bebel Gilberto (some relation of Astrud - Girl From Ipenema - Gilberto I believe) was only £4.99 (err......her CD not her body) and a mighty fine purchase it was an' all. I'm searching again for that certain something..... The Gypsy Kings I am familiar with so I bought one of their offerings also. Just need to rip 'em to my iPod now. I bet you can't believe I'm 50 can you?
Anyway......
Darcus Howe is a poor iconoclast. Discuss.
Last night I watched part of a Channel 4 doc called "Who You Callin' Nigger" or somesuch, It was a kind of trendy 1980s 'Marxism Today' title anyway. It was supposedly investigating the schism between young Muslim Asians and young Christian blacks.
Incoherent twaddle most of it. I've no doubt that the rise of militant Islam among Asian youth is causing friction in many areas, I can't help but think that the Muslim/Christian emphasis was overplayed though. The trouble with Darcus is that, although he can be a perceptive and erudite observer of the social condition, these days he tends to fall back on lazy rhetoric and lazier analyses. He focusses in on the more extreme stereotypes that can back up the opinions he already has. Everything else can oxidise on the cutting room floor.
And it's a shame really because in days gone by he was an interesting, thought-provoking commentator. Still, it's too easy to get funding from the type of production company that supplies C4 with an 'edgy', camera-all-over-the-place, one minute colour, the next B & W, provocative piece of scripted invective that guarantees the healthy cheque and rerun heaven.
Fay Wray has finally fallen to the bottom of the Empire State and been reunited with Kong - the only mammal that truly loved her. Still a fabulous film. And yes, it was beauty that killed the beast. Doesn't he/she always?
Probably.
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