Kazhes pierakstu burtnīca

You know what? I had nothing better to do, since I was in no mood for intellectual masterpieces, so I watched another of those "Bridget Jones" films. The first part it was. So, let`s go into details. Bridget Jones is a woman in her early thirties, a bit overweight, a bit too much drinking and smoking, absolutely stupid (ok, not absolutely but pretty far from intellectual for sure), and single. But that`s bound to change. How strange it might seem (knowing that she never had a real boyfriend of her own) there are whole two seekers of her body and soul. One of them is Colin Firth who happens to go around under the name of Mark Darcy. The other one is Hugh Grant, who also has a name for his character. Mark is a lawyer, and a not very interesting person. Hugh, on the other hand, is a very cool guy although he`s a bit sex obsessed. And only one of them can come out the winner. Although Mark stays with Bridget in the end, I guess Hugh shouldn`t be unhappy about - he had his share of love-making and he doesn`t have to stay with a smoking girlfriend. Although he strangely doesn`t feel happy at all. Comparing this film with the sequel, I found the first part a bit better. Why? I`ve absolutely no idea.

It`s one of those boring books in German. By the way, I`ve noticed that most Austrian writers are even worse than classical Germans themselves. With the exception of Kafka surely. God, what makes people like Broch waste paper to write about characters I have very little interest for? So, he writes about a man who`s a mathematician and a physicist. That`s cool. But the way he writes! It just drives me mad! Broch seems to be the German Joyce yet I can`t find anything experimental in his work it`s basically just depressingly uninspiring. The most interesting thing about this book wasn`t its contents for sure. When I was on the tram on my way home from work two days ago I intended to go on with reading "The Unknown Value" but I found it missing from my bag. "I`ve forgotten it on my table at work," was the first reaction. Despite that I checked at home whether the book was there (although I had read it on the way to work the very same day therefore it couldn`t be at home by definition). Yesterday when I came to work first thing I wanted to do was to put the book in the bag so I won`t forget it once again. But I couldn`t find it anywhere. Now that got me worried. I never like losing books from libraries and this seemed to be just the case. Luckily a colleague of mine with whom I also study together claimed to have noticed a book in German on a table in the University a day ago. So we went to our English class and after the class I went to the doorkeeper to ask whether anybody had brought in my lost book. But before I could ask him I already noticed the book on his table. How huge was my relief!

"Fly on the Fall" oficiāli neskaitās viens no labākajiem AC/DC albūmiem un netiek dēvētas par jauno "Back in Black" viena gluži vienkārša iemesla dēļ - šis albūms patiešām nav nemaz tik ievērojams, lai tam dziedātu dižas slavas dziesmas. Visīsākais tā raksturojums būtu - vienkāršs AC/DC, bez nevienas izteikti izcilas kompozīcijas, ok, daži gabali ir tīri interesanti, bet ne vairāk. Diezgan būtiska ieraksta problēma ir problēmas ar Braiena Džonsona balsi, ja tu esi radis viņu dzirdēt tādu kā, piemēram, "Hell`s Bells" izpildot, tad šeit viņš tāds vairs nav, ne tuvu ne. Protams, viņš joprojām nav gluži vājš vokālists, bet viņa balss spēks ir ievērojami samazinājies un līdz ar to lielākais uzsvars šajā albūmā tiek likts uz brāļu Jangu ģitāru saspēli. Reizēm tā ir izdodas patiešām laba, kā dziesmā "Playing with girls", reizēm - ne tik ļoti. Noteikti pie albūma mīnusiem ir pieskaitāms salīdzinoši mērenais ieraksta temps, te nekas nenotiek fenomenāli ātri un pa brīžam šķiet, ka bez šī albūma es tīri labi varētu arī iztikt. Piemēram, "Hell of high water" ir tik tukša kompozīcija, ka tai veltīt vairāk nekā pāris vārdus jau ir nepamatota greznība. "Fly on the wall" ir labs ievads, rifs gan ir apmēram tāds pats kā iekš "Highway to hell", bet problēma ir tāda, ka tālāk dziesma ne par ko lielāku neattīstās un rodas sajūta, ka Džonsons ir bišķi par traku aizsmacis. Spēcīgāks gabals ir "Shake your foundations", kurā tu jūti lielāku līdzdalību brāļu Jangu pasaulē, taču atkal jau Džonsons to visu nedaudz sabojā. Vispār gribētos izteikt patiesas skumjas par to, kā viens tips varēja dažu gadu laikā tik ļoti "novājēt" - ja astoņdesmito sākumā ar viņu nevarēja sacensties neviens līdzīgu grupu dziedātājs, tad astoņdesmito gadu vidū ne viens vien viņu varēja pārspēt. Protams, rock`n`roll lifestyle tur varētu būt pie vainas. Bet man ir gluži vienalga, kāpēc Džonsona balss nerullē, ja tā nerullē.

Atzīšos, ka šobrīd nepacietīgi gaidu, kad būs garām divas lietas manā dzīvē - maģistra darba rakstīšana un 9. mp3 disks. Kamēr ar maģistra darbu viss ir skaidrs - līdz šīs nedēļas piektdienai tas ir jāpabeidz un ne vēlāk kā pirmdien jānodod, ar šo disku situācija ir mazliet bēdīgākā. Rindā aiz "Candlemass" gaida vēl tādi simpātiski izpildītāji kā "Empyrium", "Macbeth" un "Michael Schenker Group", arī otrais "Foo Fighters" albūms īpaši nesteidzas pats sevi noklausīties. Īsi sakot, es gaidu, kad beidzot būs pāri mana metāla ierakstu ēra (kurai teorētiski ar šo disku būtu arī jābeidzas).

Modern life is rubbish. That`s a quote by Blur I guess. But modern literature is rubbish as well. Especially if we`re talking modern German literature. Ok, maybe not all of it stinks but books like this one do for sure. It`s the story how a woman goes through several relationships one less interesting than the other. Eden Plaza is the place where she meets one of her men. This is a perfect example of an empty book, the bad thing about it is not that it`s not interesting but the fact that there`s absolutely nothing in it. It doesn`t stand out for anything. It`s just one more book. Some more cut trees is all that it can produce. I may be a little harsh on Mrs. Leupold but the only reason why one could read such a thing is trying to maintain his knowledge of German. Since it`s just what I`m doing it I can`t complain. Yet there are undoubtely zillions of better books than this one. Even the books that are worse are probably better than it - for some of them are at least interesting to read. If "Eden Plaza" would be found on a shelf I`d call it filler. If I read it all by itself it`s still filler without any stuff to be filler for.

"Generation P" manā uztverē neapšaubāmi ir viens no izcilākajiem Peļevina darbiem, un, tā kā es šo krievu rakstnieku vērtēju patiešām augstu, tad tas ir nopietns atzinums. Protams, kad es to lasīju iepriekšējo reizi, daudz kas no tur aprakstītā man nebija īsti skaidrs - tomēr es biju vēl pavisam zaļš vidusskolnieks ar diezgan šauru zināšanu loku. Tāpēc arī saņēmos šo grāmatu pārlasīt (vispār, kā var novērot, pēdējā laikā nodarbojos nevis ar jaunu grāmatu lasīšanu, bet veco pārlasīšanu, tāda nostādne izveidojusies).

Nē, nupat man metāls ir jau patiešām pilnīgi piegriezies. Un ko citu var gaidīt, ja tu diendienā to vien dari, kā to klausies? "Macbeth" ir kārtējā gotiskā metāla grupa, kas, kā jau ierasts, pārstāv rokmūzikas ziņā apšaubāmu zemi - Itāliju.

Having already said it once, I shall repeat myself: Roald Dahl is one hell of a creator of horrific and very masterful stories. There`s 11 stories in here. And not one of them is a stinker or a filler. So I guess I`ll spend a whole sentence for every single one of them. "The Landlady" is a sad yet funny story about a woman that specialises in taxydermy of her loved ones. "William and Mary" is a tribute to "Professor Dovel`s Head" - a soviet sci-fi - where a woman finds out that her husbands brain is artificially kept alive after his death and she at last has a chance to repay to him everything she didn`t like about him. "The Way up to Heaven" is about a woman who was always afraid of getting anywhere too late and how her husband took advantage from that, but in the end it was him who died in the elevator. "Parson`s Pleasure" is a funny story about a guy who buys antiques for peanuts and sells them for zillions - he accidentally finds a buffet done by Thomas Chipendale but he`s too miserly and he fails badly. "Mrs Bixby and the Colonels Coat" - I read this at school some years ago - is about a woman that gets a precious coat as a gift from her lover and comes up with a plan to keep the coat without receiving questions from her husband about the coat (you can guess that she also fails). "Royal Jelly" is somewhat of a horror tale where a man feeds to his newborn daughter bee jelly thus turning her and himself into bees. "Genesis and Catastrophe" is a weird tale about how Adolf Hitler was born. "Edward the Conqueror" tells us how composer Liszt was reincarnated as a cat and how he died. "Pig" is a very tragical story about a man who becomes meat. And finally there`s "The Champion of the world" - an optimistic (slightly) tale about steeling pheanants. Overall: this will make you laugh, this will make you shiver, and you won`t feel no sympathy for the poor unlucky people. Dahl is for your joy not for making you feel miserable.

I had read this collection of stories before. But if can write about films that I don`t watch for the first time why couldn`t it be the same with books? Only I`d probably prefer re-reading stuff that strikes me as brilliant. Chapek`s stories don`t really achieve that. I considered him to be a very funny writer indeed when I was much younger (oh, it`s the old me talking right now) but nowadays I don`t find him particulary amusing. Basically he`s just a second-rate Jerome K. Jerome - not too daring and not too funny. His humour does work well on some occasions but on others his jokes fall completely flat. His writing style doesn`t impress me either. The rating is mostly given for the memories of reading it for the first time and not for the actual impression I have now.

Nu, beidzot, līdz ar "Empyrium" beidzas mana trakā iepazīšanās ar doom/goth/death metāla žanriem (vismaz uz kādu laiku)... un labi, ka tā. Protams, Empyrium nav sliktākā grupa, kādu man jebkad ir nācies dzirdēt, bet īpašas simpātijas pret viņu spēlēto daļēji simfonisko doom metālu manī nav radušās. Un vispār man darbā ir šausmīgi smagas austiņas, kas nospiež galvu, vajadzēs nākamnedēļ pāriet atkal pie vieglākā austiņu modeļa, kas tik lielas ciešanas nesagādā. Nekā, ko par šo albūmu teikt, man gan nav :)