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".

It`s been a while since I last heard anything from "Wheatus", a band that struck it big when I was still in high school and could perfectly associate myself with the loser person prom who`s perspective "Teenage Dirtbag" was sung. Since then some things have changed in the world while others have not. There was 9/11. Greece won at Euro 2004. My personal life has changed a lot (from zero to planning getting married). Ray Charles has died. Bob Geldof has organised a new Live Aid. Elton John has officially married his boyfriend. But the singer of Wheatus still has that cute falsetto he used on the last verse of "Teenage Dirtbag". The band still plays the same kind of alternative pop-rock as it did in 2000, relying on catchy choruses and simplistic instrumentation. The last aspect doesn`t come off as a wonder since the band has left a major label and is now recording and producing its album on its own. My personal favourite on this record is "I Am What I Is", a song with a title reminding of "You Are What You Is" by Frank Zappa. Overall the record does have one big problem - as it gets closer to the end the songs tend to get less and less interesting and more and more adventurous. Since I`m not interested in Wheatus for the bands ability to experiment I rather stay with "Something good" and "BMX Bandits" pop paradise and keep away from the less straightford tracks.

The story is as old as the world itself. Allen, the main hero of this novel (which is written from the first persons perspective as some kind of a diary) becomes the only heir of a very big amount of land when his brother suddenly dies. Being in the age of circa 20 years and not interested in his heritage at all Allen wants to pursue a much more spiritual life than that of a rich landlord. Still he can`t escape from the immense influence his mother has over him, and he knows that one day he will marry a girl who`s just 12 now but who also will inherit lots and lots of land. His life suddenly changes when he meets a woman working at a bookstore (he`s some kind of a reading freak). Although the woman is some 10 years older than he is and much wiser they become lovers (in the spiritual form of the word) and Allen is almost ready to break free from his mother. But he fails, despite the help by the woman (who doesn`t want to become his wife knowing that because of her troubled past she will be only a burden to a man of his statue) and a six-fingered man who almost became a priest but was much closer to becoming a lost soul. When everything seems to be lost it only gets worse - Allen suddenly finds a crush in himself on the 12 year old girl after seing her bathing naked in a lake but she knowing how much he hated her before runs into the woods where she gets raped and murdered by a local farmer.

The central hero in this novel has got a name quite similar to mine - he`s called Raymon. The novel revolves around two scenes in his life and concerns a weird polygone of love. Let`s start with the earliest episode. Raymon was an unsecure teenager in a family of a doctor. He wasn`t aware of his good looks and had he lived in the modern age he`d be probably called a goth for he wasn`t the most cheerful person in town. His life took an unexpected twist when he met Mary Cross on a tram. She was a woman of a very doubtful statue despised by many because of her affair with an elder man from the high classes. What Raymon wasn`t aware of was the fact that Mary was a patient of his father`s and that his father was unhopefully in love with her (she on the contrary didn`t notice his love considering him a saint). But that didn`t stop Mary from devoting a passion towards the young Raymon and almost seducing him (Raymon learned to understand that he wasn`t a freak after all but he blew everything about their possible romance by his foolish teenagers behaviour). After everything came to a logical conclusion Raymon still had a lot of bitterness towards Mary who had rejected him and planned to revenge himself by becoming a victor in the battle for many womens` hearts. He succeeded at that but when he met Mary some 15 years later he learned to know that he hadn`t come over his passion towards her (she didn`t see in him anything at all anymore) and that his father was also still mad for her. So they both - father and son who had never understood each other were tied by this woman that didn`t care for either of them. Sad, sad, sad.

Despite the name this band hasn`t a lot to do with United Kingdom, instead you should understand the name U.K. as a short form for "Udriitis" "K." - I`m not sure what the name of the second member of the due is. The former is quite a popular musician in Latvia as the singer for the band "Hobos" which is even mentioned somewhere on this factoid. On "K.U." he leaves behind his usual language of singing - English - and switches to his native Latvian. What this album has a lot of is pretty arrangements - what it doesn`t have is a lot of interesting songs - in terms of melodies there`s not too much to get from this album. "Tirgus" has a very resonant chorus in the language of the roman people. "It`s cold in Beijin" is by far the most catchy song on the album and it`s no wonder it became the first single of the record. "Gljuk" which is sung in Russian reminds of a Russian band DDT which is neither a plus nor a minus. Overall if you listen to this record a lot of times in a row you probably can find it quite a nice thing to listen to but once you`ve pressed the stop button on your cd player "U.K." ceases to exist for you.

If I knew anything about music I`d probably call "I`m a bird now" one of the best records (if not THE best) of 2005. And there`s no wonder why - this is music for intellectuals and not just some shlock for the average Joe. The lyrics are incredibly deep and emotional, the production is very accurate and full of pain and helplesness. But there`s one thing bothering me about this album - I don`t like it. Despite what THEY tell you I can`t find this disc particulary catchy. What is interesting is the feeling that this Antony is a 70 years old black man although in fact he`s neither black nor old. But his gospel-soul music isn`t exactly what I would want to find under the Christmas tree. He may be smart, he may be talented, he may be whatever he is but it`s still that old time rocknroll I want to hear and not his religiously sounding wailings.

I certainly remember having started to read this play quite a long time ago. Especially I remember it because of an episode where Max, a successful actor, talks about his problems selecting his favourite music for a radio programme because the only thing he likes is low quality pop music. If he was a fan o "Pink Floyd" it would be okay, but he was mostly addicted to bubble-gum stuff and music of the quality of The Everly Brother. Another moment I remember is also about music - it`s when Henry, a playwright, tells how Bach has stolen from Procol Harum and can`t even get the notes right. Apart from that the novel is quite a witty story of love and betrayal, with a particulary grotesque character of Brodie who`s gone to prison for lighting fire to a war memorial and who can only think in revolutionary categories but in fact he`s acting like this only to impress Annie, Henrys wife. Since I`m a fan of Stoppard`s I probably can`t dislike this play. Or maybe I`m a fan of Stoppard`s because I like his work, I don`t know. But "The Real Thing" is a real thing in deed. I`d love to see it on stage.

Since iceage there have talks around whether computer graphics have reached/will ever reach the level of reality that you won`t be able to tell the difference between a film done by living actors and a film created entirely in a computers lab. Being a born sceptic I usually spend a lot of time trying to convince every living soul that computer animation sucks and that no polygons will ever be as pretty as the rear of JLo (although I wouldn`t be surprised if her butt was surgically improved after all) but since I`m trying to be a different kind of myself this time I`ll critisize "Polar Express" for completely different reasons. After all, you don`t dislike Salvador Dali for his pictures not looking real enough but you dislike him for being an asshole. PE could have been a brilliant cartoon had it been circa 25 minutes long, but as a normal length feature film it just doesn`t have the story to back the visual setting up with. A little boy without a name doesn`t know whether to continue believing in Santa Clause or is it time to accept the truth that there is no Easter rabbit. As he is full of doubt he gets an opportunity to go on a train to North Pole to see Santa. So he does. And he finds enough belief for his whole life. End of story. Tom Hanks speaks most of the voices behind the characters and, if I got it right, he also does the motions of most of them (which explains which children move quite creepily in this film).

Weird. I was absolutely sure this was already on the factoid but here I look and it just isn`t there. Strange. Anyhow "Sputnik Sweetheart" may have a perfect title but it`s not a perfect novel by any means. In fact it`s just a love triangle between a man and two women. Yet the fact is that the man is only sexually interested in one of the women, the other woman has no sexual life whatsoever, while the first woman has found out that she is a lesbian. Since I`m not particulary keen on reading about women desiring making love to one another (ok, that may be good on film... wait a moment, I didn`t say that... I`m not a pervert) "Sputnik Sweetheart" isn`t the book for me. Sugiko (that`s the lesbian one) goes with Meo to Greece and suddenly dissapears after she has told Meo that she wants her. After that the book gets a bit mystical, a thing not too uncommon for Murakami`s novels but it still doesn`t become one of my favourites. First, it offers very little new elements to the ones I`m already familiar with. Second, the content is a bit too sexual with Murakami going a bit too much in detail. It is true that I can tolerate more sexual content on film than I can in a book. I don`t really know why, probably because in a book you usually feel that it`s written by a middle aged person from the viewpoint of a young one, and you don`t get that much on film. Maybe it`s because films rarely dig that deep, they just stay on the surface and if something goes wrong it doesn`t go terribly wrong as it is with books.