Posts by Isabel Hitchings
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What a wonderful thing to do!
We've run into the age appropriateness issue at our primary school a few times with some parents being horrified about their five year olds watching the older kids' videos of zombies and Hunger Games rip offs. I do see their point but also see that it's important for those kids to share their work with a wider community.
My oldest has largely avoided that ire by lovingly rendering his death and destruction in Lego.
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As someone who quite enjoys cooking (on a good day) but often feels worn down by meal planning and shopping I can totally see the appeal of something like this and there are most definitely days where we are in the privileged position of choosing to value time over money.
It would have to be a lot more customisable to be actually useful though. How many families have no food allergies, picky people or veg*ans to deal with and regularly have the same number of people to feed every evening?
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Hard News: Friday Music: The Cool Return, in reply to Simon Grigg,
Ironically the one reference point I can hear time and time again on this record is the first Decca album from 1967, both vocally and in the songs. He seems to have come full circle, and if this is it as it might be, it's a cool way to go out.
That's exactly what my partner said on first hearing though I hear a lot of 80s and 90s echoes too.
I've just finished the Doggett book and found most of his insights very interesting though I was perplexed by his hating on Lodger and the way that, of the later work, he seemed to rate Hours... higher than Black Tie White Noise.
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Lovely photos from both my home towns!
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Hard News: Friday Music: The Cool Return, in reply to Isaac Freeman,
Oh it’s all thoroughly planned and staged and very, very canny. I am well aware that my emotions and perceptions are being manipulated by a master and I’m entirely good with that.
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Bowie has always been about theatre more than anything else and the way he's stage managed his reemergence is, possibly, his best effort yet. As a long time fan (and one who actually liked a lot of his 90s and 00s work) having the first single arrive so unexpectedly felt like a gift. That the song was evocative and contemplative seemed to indicate that he was not merely after the nostalgia dollar.
Both the singles so far have, to my ears, an echo of some of the musical ideas he was exploring on Heathen and Reality. A progression rather than departure from the past. I am quite remarkably excited about the rest of the album.
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Am I alone in really not loving the Beck thing? The things I love about the original are its sparseness and the emotional flatness of the lyric. It's the song of a man who is right at the end of his ability to express how he feels. The song's charm lies in it's awkwardness and sadness.
I ws unsurprised to learn Beck's version was made for a car manufacturer. I admit that it's very clever but, to me, it looks like showing off and rings a bit hollow.*
*i am tired from an overnight school camp and am coming down with a cold so am probably being a bit curmudgeonly.
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My parents are staying with us. We took them to the new C1 for lunch and then for a walk in the botanic gardens. Dinner was pasta with pesto made from basil I grew myself and then we left the children at home with my parents and and went off to see Alan Davies who was utterly wonderful.. So, nothing particularly Waitangi-ish but a really lovely day.
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Buggerizing has gotten a fair bit of traction around here.
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I was a little older than many of my peers when I saw Star Wars, still a kid but beyond the truly impressionable stage, so these are films I enjoyed rather than defining experiences.
We showed the original trilogy to the kids a couple of years back and they loved them. Every tube became a lightsaber.
We debated the prequels and decided not to show them but then there was an earthquake. We were staying with my partner's father while our house was inaccessable and the only appealing movies in his collection were those three. At that stage a few hours of distraction for the small guys seemed more important than considerations such as artistic merit. Son the younger (five years old at the time) thought they were great and, to our horror, adored Jar Jar Binks. The nine year old was, blessedly, less impressed.