Kazhes pierakstu burtnīca

A quite realistic story about a cop in Westindia in the middle of the 20th century. Some people die, some people don`t, the main character although being middleaged and married falls in love with a young but not pretty woman, has a difficult relationship with an influential Syrian merchant etc. It`s a book that can be read easily but that doesn`t stay in the memory for too long. Not first rate literature by any means - which is a clear indication that it won`t be found on the list of the best books the last century has given to us.

I went there on a mission to write about this exhibition. Here you can see the original artefacts from an era in which most of us (the post-Soviet people) were living quite a long time. Pictures of Lenin on the wall, posters instructing people what to do and what not to do, red banners, and that kind of stuff can be found here. What I liked was that such an exhibition was made and that it didn`t only provide information on the KGB, concentration camps, etc, but also showed some moments from the everyday life of a typical soviet person. But it still seemed a bit tendentious - you could feel that the people who created this exhibition weren`t really neutral when choosing the objects - they wanted to show how grey and uninteresting life was in the Soviet Union, despite the fact that being in danger is a great adrenalyniser, that there`s no way the government can make people to have no fun at all (if it is not a concentration camp, a gheto or a prison we`re talking about, and despite what nationalists say nowadays - people didn`t live in a prison in the soviet times).

I won`t try to impress anybody with my knowledge of Mr. Steiner`s work. Why? Because I have none. As far as I can understand the music of his is called something like electro jazz, techno jazz or that kind of noise that your recordplayer produces with a Rubin Steiner record inside. Why this has something to do with jazz is a riddle for me. The music is heavily based on samples which tend to go a bit overboard. I`m not gonna say that this is a bad record, but this most certainly is not my kind of music. My ears are simply unprepared for something like it. Listening to this record for the first time it sounds quite fresh and unexpected, but as I listened to it over and over again I thought my brain would explode. By the way I`m still listening to it now. Oh god!

Jack Black of the White Stripes joined up with a couple of friends and founded a new band that was supposed to be the greatest band in the history of rock bands. So the band recorded an album of merry songs, out of which I liked only the first ("Steady as she goes") and the last ("Blue Veins"). The rest is ok but not outstanding.

I don`t like modern classical music, even if it is composed and performed by popular musicians. I can`t call this music not because of this thing being unlistenable but because of it being about as interesting and mind expanding as a pair of old socks.

Probably this wasn`t the concert of my live, but like that guy in "Life of Brian" said about crucifixion: "It could be worse. You could be stabbed." Emir Kusturica ain`t no virtuoso and Dr. Nelle sings about as good as I do, but that doesn`t make such a big difference. Like you know "Truth doesn`t make a noise". The selection of songs was pretty good, but the crowd was pretty bad because the show was marketed as a treat for the "intellectuals" but gypsy music with a rock`n`roll flavour and silly jokes isn`t exactly what you`d consider to be intellectual. The sound was awful as well. But who cares about that (except for my ears, but ears don`t fall into the "who" category). "It`s only rock`n`roll but I like it". That could be the message of the concert. Or it could be "Baba O`Riley" although I don`t know why.

I never thought this could happen to me. Come on baby, let me see. I`ve seen films by Woody Allen before but today he just knocked at my door. Everybody`s got something to hide except for me and my monkey. L-O-L-(a).

You probably know that a sequel rarely can challenge the original, it just can`t but "Ice Age 2" comes pretty darn close to the first part. The story is a bit of an incoherent mess, of course, with lots of things going on at the same time, yet I didn`t mind that - basically it`s just very much fun, perfect animation, funny characters and little time of "for your consideration" moments. Thumbs up, man! Yeah, Scrat rules mercilesly! I hope next time they pull of a cartoon entirely about that creature for he`s the god of all squirrels.

Here we are on our trip with the Beatles. This time we`re located in a bizarre cartoon. A strange place called Pepperland is invaded by the evil blue Meanies who happen to hate music. An old guy named captain Fred escapes in a yellow submarine on a mission to bring help. He travels to London and asks the fab four to save Pepperland. They endure a strange journey which seems to be more important than saving the Pepperland itself to be able to impersonate the legendary Sergeant Pepper`s lonely hearts club band. And it`s just what they do. On their way the Beatles travel through the sea of time, the sea of science, encounter strange creatures ("Hey there`s a cyclops!" - "He`s got two eyes!" - "Then it must be a bicyclops!"). And by music they beat the meanies. The song selection is pretty powerful - there`s "Yellow Submarine", "Nowhere man" (btw, they take the nowhere man together with themselves), "Eleanor Rigby", "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", "Hey Bulldog" and more. The animation itself is very weird, like nothing I`ve ever seen before. And as for the plot - it`s so far in the background that you don`t really care for that.

This is surely the most controversial album Chumbawamba ever recorded. As a matter of fact it is that controversial that it wasn`t even officially released and ended up as "Sssh" with all samples cut out. The genre of the music can`t be described precisely - the content is punk without a doubt but the form has nothing to do with that. It`s pop and it`s rock, it`s dance music and it`s a bit of hiphop. It`s spoken word and it`s a capella. You name it, it is it. I like everything on this record but I can`t deny that some songs really do shine above the rest. "Look - no Strings" is nice, but the best of all is "Bigmouth Strikes Again" - partly a cover of a The Smiths song but in fact it has very little to do with the original. "Stitch it" is just magnificient.