Miscellany And The Greater Love

I still haven't packed for going to Detroit, you know, tomorrow. I bought some stuff for everyone to convert them to Proper Chocolate... and eibbil_libbie, nearly a year after I promised them to you, I am bringing Flakes and will mail them to you from America- more chance of them not melting, I guess... If I don't get a chance over the weekend, I'll ask Eb or Sabs to do it for me. I promised them... I just didn't realise I meant months later.

*

I bought the Dark Horse Years George Harrison box set two years ago when it came out... and then promptly hardly bothered with it. Most of this was simply the knowledge that I could not hear him too much, could only listen a little bit on my own terms to certain songs. Last weekend, after reading something I once wrote about George, I brought the box from home to London so I could upload the albumings onto my computer and from there onto my iPod. So far, I've only put Thirty Three And 1/3 and George Harrison on, but...

It's the exact opposite feeling of what I expected back in 2004, or whenever it was released. It didn't make me sad to hear him at all. In fact, as I walked home from the bus a stop early in the sunshine, I laughed. I smiled as I so rarely smile. People stared at me. I waved my arms around. I laughed again. I felt as if all the troubles of the world disappeared for a minute or three as I played air bass to 'Woman Don't You Cry For Me' and air slide to 'Not Guilty'.

Some of it is terrifically seventies AOR in its production and style... but it's still George. George was so much his own man that a record made in 1976 really sounds as if it was made by the same man as Brainwashed, finished in 2002. The same guitar sound that flows like water over smooth rocks, the same biting, dark humour... the same sweet and scathing voice. Dearest, dearest George. I will mourn him in my way for the rest of my life, until the moment I scuff off to Heaven and see my boys... but somehow with George, it's not as sad as mourning the others. Does that make sense? They've all made me weep, literally or metaphorically... but only a couple have simultaneously dried the tears. George Harrison is one of those men. The feeling in my soul when George sings isn't bitterness or the many words I have for Jim... it is triumphant.

I hear Dhani has 'accepted his destiny' and taken up musically 'properly'. May he find his own way, his own sound and may it be great.

*

Off to watch House with Grandad.

Miscellany And The Greater Love

I still haven't packed for going to Detroit, you know, tomorrow. I bought some stuff for everyone to convert them to Proper Chocolate... and eibbil_libbie, nearly a year after I promised them to you, I am bringing Flakes and will mail them to you from America- more chance of them not melting, I guess... If I don't get a chance over the weekend, I'll ask Eb or Sabs to do it for me. I promised them... I just didn't realise I meant months later.

*

I bought the Dark Horse Years George Harrison box set two years ago when it came out... and then promptly hardly bothered with it. Most of this was simply the knowledge that I could not hear him too much, could only listen a little bit on my own terms to certain songs. Last weekend, after reading something I once wrote about George, I brought the box from home to London so I could upload the albumings onto my computer and from there onto my iPod. So far, I've only put Thirty Three And 1/3 and George Harrison on, but...

It's the exact opposite feeling of what I expected back in 2004, or whenever it was released. It didn't make me sad to hear him at all. In fact, as I walked home from the bus a stop early in the sunshine, I laughed. I smiled as I so rarely smile. People stared at me. I waved my arms around. I laughed again. I felt as if all the troubles of the world disappeared for a minute or three as I played air bass to 'Woman Don't You Cry For Me' and air slide to 'Not Guilty'.

Some of it is terrifically seventies AOR in its production and style... but it's still George. George was so much his own man that a record made in 1976 really sounds as if it was made by the same man as Brainwashed, finished in 2002. The same guitar sound that flows like water over smooth rocks, the same biting, dark humour... the same sweet and scathing voice. Dearest, dearest George. I will mourn him in my way for the rest of my life, until the moment I scuff off to Heaven and see my boys... but somehow with George, it's not as sad as mourning the others. Does that make sense? They've all made me weep, literally or metaphorically... but only a couple have simultaneously dried the tears. George Harrison is one of those men. The feeling in my soul when George sings isn't bitterness or the many words I have for Jim... it is triumphant.

I hear Dhani has 'accepted his destiny' and taken up musically 'properly'. May he find his own way, his own sound and may it be great.

*

Off to watch House with Grandad.

A Thought About Humans

I'm watching the DVD that comes with the George Harrison box set, right... and they're great music videos he made for 'This Song' and 'Crackerbox Palace' and 'Faster' and the two different versions of 'Got My Mind Set On You' (one of which features a very young Alexis 'Wesley' Denisof) and such...

And I am reminded that while George was a very environmental sort of fellow, big on gardening and the planet and stuff... he also liked Formula One racing. I am reminded more, though, of the way people call it a 'contradiction', that he was a very contradictory sort of person- curmudgeonly and yet funny, F1 yet nature, anti-ego yet egotistical, etc etc.

Well, colour me fucking surprised, OK? That's what ALL humans are like, not just the famous ones. I mean, some people are more contradictory than others perhaps... some of us seem to be more coherently one person than others- I am here reminded of Marilyn Monroe's remark that she didn't just have voices in her head, she had "a whole committee".

I wonder if people really are contradictory. I always remember how sad I felt reading cultural criticism of some kind at Irvine. The gist was that we will never get more than fragments of our celebrities, of the famous. We don't get to see the whole picture, no matter how much we learn. For some, the fragments are hard to come by- the passage of time is a bitch, especially for those whose heroes existed before video and the like. Good luck trying to get a real picture of exactly who the hell Alexander really was, right?

Then again, do we ever really get anything but fragments of anyone? I don't believe it is necessarily possibly to truly know another person. Maybe it is and I just haven't bothered... but it's all just fragments. Perhaps the people who appear contradictory just have more varied fragents, and those that seem to be 'together' just happen to have their fragments better organised.

A Thought About Humans

I'm watching the DVD that comes with the George Harrison box set, right... and they're great music videos he made for 'This Song' and 'Crackerbox Palace' and 'Faster' and the two different versions of 'Got My Mind Set On You' (one of which features a very young Alexis 'Wesley' Denisof) and such...

And I am reminded that while George was a very environmental sort of fellow, big on gardening and the planet and stuff... he also liked Formula One racing. I am reminded more, though, of the way people call it a 'contradiction', that he was a very contradictory sort of person- curmudgeonly and yet funny, F1 yet nature, anti-ego yet egotistical, etc etc.

Well, colour me fucking surprised, OK? That's what ALL humans are like, not just the famous ones. I mean, some people are more contradictory than others perhaps... some of us seem to be more coherently one person than others- I am here reminded of Marilyn Monroe's remark that she didn't just have voices in her head, she had "a whole committee".

I wonder if people really are contradictory. I always remember how sad I felt reading cultural criticism of some kind at Irvine. The gist was that we will never get more than fragments of our celebrities, of the famous. We don't get to see the whole picture, no matter how much we learn. For some, the fragments are hard to come by- the passage of time is a bitch, especially for those whose heroes existed before video and the like. Good luck trying to get a real picture of exactly who the hell Alexander really was, right?

Then again, do we ever really get anything but fragments of anyone? I don't believe it is necessarily possibly to truly know another person. Maybe it is and I just haven't bothered... but it's all just fragments. Perhaps the people who appear contradictory just have more varied fragents, and those that seem to be 'together' just happen to have their fragments better organised.