Kazhes pierakstu burtnīca

Today, on January 23, 2006, I`m listening to the new Graham Coxon album, released on March 13, 2006. How can you explain that? Either I`m very close to Coxon`s record company (or G.Coxon himself for that matter) - and that`s a thing I wouldn`t mind as you can probably guess; or there are other options. I`m not sure whether Coxon is still a total drug addict like he was in his Blur days which were probably really blurred but I`m sure that he hasn`t lost the golden touch he once used to have when writing songs. His new single "State of mind" (which is coming out in February) doesn`t impress me though. As a whole the record is quite agressive and a bit punky with Coxon sounding like Johnny Rotten quite often. I like the beatlish "You & I" a lot, that`s the best song on this disc in my opinion. Maybe it`s not entirely beatlish - it`s more something like Beatles meet Lou Reed. "Gimme Some Love" sounds as if it was taken directly from "Never mind the bollocks", especially if you change its title to "EMI" or something like that. On some tracks Coxon doesn`t try to be a big punkster though and then he sounds like on "Don`t believe anything" - boring. From the sentimental songs I`d probably choose "See a better day" for my collection of Coxon`s best, it`s moody and nice but not exceptional.

When you take a book from a library just by looking at the cover and the size of the book you can never know whether it`s gonna be any good. On one hand you can accidentally jump into some novel that even Joyce would have considered a masterpiece but you can also find yourself in posession of a complete waste of your time. Jakob Arjouni luckily or luck-killy if you like it better that way proved to be a decent writer. He doesn`t aim too high - what he gives the reader in his novel is just some days in the life of a schoolteacher who had some great plans for the weekend but in the end he must face his son in coma, his daughter suspecting him for being a pervert, his wife has been in a mental hospital for quite a while already but now he`s also very close to losing his job. Oh, his car is crashed, his face is damaged after his son attacked him, a middle age woman called him a stinky anti-semite on the phone and he`s found out that he`s gay. No, the last thing isn`t really true. I just made it up so it would be even prettier than it already was. Anyhow, the book starts with a lesson at school where Joachim Linde (that`s the hero) asks his students to utter how the deeds of nazi-Germany affect the Germany of today. The discussion goes extremely wrong when a girl starts naming some boy`s parents nazis and the boy utters how sad it is that the girls grandparents hadn`t been gased in a concentration camp. And after that everything that hadn`t gone wrong already goes wrong after all. What this book lacked in my opinion was a bit of uncertainity - I would like to have my doubts about how clear Linde`s conscience was, but the author didn`t provide enough of that. A good book still.

Today is a rare occasion. I`m probably the most conservative person in the world - my feelings towards any kind of art artefact usually is tightly connected with my attitude towards the people behind it. If a book is written by Friedrich Duerrenmatt, a very high possibility exists for me to like it. If a film is starred by Arnold Schwarzenegger I`m not likely to become a fan of it. And I believe that everything that glitters under the name of Terry Gilliam is gold. Or at least I used to believe until yesterday. So I never fell for "Time Bandits" but I had my reasons for that - the film just had too many flaws for me to enjoy it more than anything. Maybe I didn`t find "Brazil" the best epic of all times, but it was very good after all. I even liked "The Brothers Grimm" despite this film being considered the worst Gilliam had ever made. But "The Fisher King" for me was just too senseless. Tim Robbins`s character was at least mildly memorable, but everything concerning the formerly great DJ who`s played by an actor who`s name I keep forgetting was just a bit too dull for my taste. I have to agree that some moments of this film show the genius of Gilliam still alive but most of the time it just doesn`t work for me. I probably could have given this film a higher rating in order to show that I`m an elitist and that I know a good film when I see one. Maybe I don`t but who cares.

It had been... days since I last watched a film with Johnny Depp, so I had no other choice but to watch this film. Actually I watched the first half an hour some weeks ago but then I thought - no, this is the kind of film to watch together with my girlfriend and not all by myself. Only she showed little interest in watching this film together with me. So I had no other option but devoting a lonesome evening to Johnny Depp alone. Well, maybe this isn`t really a film with the highest amount of Johnny on screen ever but this is a film with Johnny Depp without a doubt. The message of the film is quite clear - what you do is what counts and not what you don`t do (for example, helping a woman to leave her abusive husband is better than fasting before Easter). The film has some perfect acting, including Juliette Binoche, Judy Dench and some other actors I`m too lazy to look up on the IMDB. Anyway, the film was beautiful, I was close to tears in the end, but I have no time to write about. Who am I to spend my days writing about films that lots and lots of better ones have praised before me. As if my opinion mattered. As if life was worth living. Probably it would be the best for me to go home and eat some chocolate. Man, do I love chocolate! And Johnny Depp.

Finally the series comes to the logical ending. Episode 8 I found to be the best of the whole ten. But after that things got quite silly. I have absolutely no idea why the filmmakers needed to insert bits from old video chronics in the film, they appeared absolutely out of place and had no real purpose. The last episode was even worse (the biggest part of the chronics appeared in the 9th part) - it seemed that the director had to make 50 more minutes but had the need for only 10 minutes, so everything drags for way too long and goes absolutely nowhere.

The second day with the series didn`t produce a lot of unexpected effects. We see the first glimpse of Margaret, who happens to be pretty enough to be what she is. We also se Master meeting Ivan Bezdomny at the clinic and telling him that the stranger whom he met was the Devil himself. Apart from that the whole "Variete" gang including Rimsky and Varenuha suffer badly, Voland and his company have their performance and that is it. In terms of things bugging me or not bugging me. Most critics in Russia are somehow dissatisfied with the portrayal of Korovjev, although I find the actor nearly perfect. The actor playing Bezdomny reciewes only good words although he seems to much of Shura Balaganov (from "The golden calf") to me. The lack of special effects and the static camera grow more and more on me and I don`t care about them anymore. Probably I wouldn`t notice the camera at all, had I not read how badly it was used. The whole performance of the dark magic was done quite good despite some minor flaws combining two scenes in one. More about "Master and Margaret" will be written when I watch the later parts.

When I was a little baby-boy I used to read a lot of books for children. "The Chronicles of Narnia" was among the books I read. Today I am not a little boy anymore, therefore I don`t read books of this kind too much. Still there is a big inner child inside me which makes me watch every movie designed for little children and happily shout how great it is. I will not give you the story of this film for I`ve already done that on the record for the book of the same title, so I`ll just state how the film compares to the book. First, there`s a much longer description of World war 2 in the film than it was in the book. Ah, who cares about this stuff anyway. I don`t care, so you don`t care, so nobody cares. Hiphop rules!

This book is a collection of essays by a Jew that has survived the Holocaust. I doubt that there is a necessity to explain anything in more detail. But a one-liner always looks bad so I`ll try and do my best to express my own attitude. And what is it going to be? I am not particulary interested in essays, and I have read too much on the Holocaust. It sometimes seems to me that every second book in the world revolves around this subject. Ok, I admit that people like Jean Amery probably have little else to write about, I can completely understand him etc., etc. I understand him for refusing to write in German for a long time, I support him changing his name so he wouldn`t sound German, I support even his attitude towards the responsibility for your parents sins. But I still can`t like it. And I have no idea about the purpose of this book. It`s certainly ot entertainment, which is bad for it is what I seek. It`s not saying anything new - like everyone knows enough (or too much) has been said on this subject already. It`s not even dealing with his own enemies. To put it this way: I understand why Amery wrote this book. I don`t understand why I should read it. Maybe I shouldn`t, that would be a good way out for sure. I guess it would be a good idea for the Goethe library to add some tags on the covers of the books stating "Holocaust thematics", just as they do for crime stories. It would save me from reading a lot of the same. Not that I liked other subjects of the German literature that much better anyhow.

When I went to my favourite "Goethe" library I took 3 books with me to read at home, like I always do. What I didn`t know then was that more than 50% of those books were written by Jews, about Jews and about Holocaust. If it were not the case I`d probably choose a subject more merry than this one. By the way, I haven`t even looked at the third book yet, so theoretically a chance exists that it`s also about Holocaust. I hope it isn`t. But to be sure I`ll check it just now. Hoorray! No Jews mentioned! Now that`s a good thing. Still "The Boxer" ain`t no half-bad book. Jurek Becker is surely one of the most interesting personalities among the German speaking writers whom I`ve discovered by going to this library. This is a story of a guy named Aron Blank who`s family hasn`t survived the holocaust, but he has. After the war he finds one of his children who happens to be also alive, although after years in a concentration camp he doesn`t know anything about anything. Still Aron manages to put his life back on the trail and to survive in the modern world. I can`t say that I liked this book because of the content, for there was little likeable in it, but Becker`s writing style is such that you just can`t dislike it. Even when writing about the most grieve subject he never ever goes overboard and stays normal - which is a rare case for subjects like the Holocaust.

The Purples are still rolling. Their lineup changes between almost any two albums yet the sound remains the same. Concerning "Rapture of the deep" this sound is pretty much the same as it was on "Bananas". And who would wonder about it - Ian Gillan`s pipes aren`t as powerful as they used to be and he can`t pull off some "Fireball"-like stuff. But he can be an angry granddad if nothing more - his angry growlings about "MTV" and how old bands can`t get their new songs on TV or on the radio. In terms of lyrics this album is straightforward as an arrow - it seems to me a bit that Gillan has for once thought that he may have a little statement on the latest record. But I don`t like "Deep Purple" for the message. I love "Deep Purple" for the loud guitars and for Gillan`s voice. I`d probably say that "Money Talks" is the best song on the album but I still can`t say that it`s particulary great. Maybe there`s little difference between this and the previous album but "Bananas" was a much more relaxed and uplifting record. It was funny while here "Deep Purple" sometimes sound like "Brutal Planet"-era Alice Cooper. And that`s not a good sign for a band that once did "Highway Star" and the "Speed King".