October 2018 Update

The last book I read...


Coal Black Mornings - Brett Anderson

Over the summer I read John Harris' Britpop book 'The Last Party' and came away with an interest in Suede, whose story makes up part of that book.  At around the same time, I was scrolling through the Edinburgh Book Festival programme and noticed that their singer, Brett Anderson, was going to be appearing to discuss his memoir, Coal Black Mornings.  I had to renew my library card to borrow the book, which I devoured over a few days and adored.  The book covers the story of Brett's young life, from his beginnings in a little council flat with his eccentric parents, through his school and university years, ending with him living in London and finally signing a record deal with Suede after years of being ignored by the music world.  He describes the book as being about failure, rather than the classic celebrity success memoir that we're all used to, and it's full of little details which ground him as a regular person with an extraordinary job, rather than as the otherworldly indie rock icon he can appear as in the press.  I'm too young to remember a lot of what he talks about youth-wise, but I'm enchanted by his tales of time spent living in London in the late 80s and early 90s, especially the treatment of his relationship with Justine Frischmann.
After finishing the book I went to the Festival and saw him talk about it (in a room full of Suede/Britpop people of his generation, that is, twice my age) and had him sign a copy for me, which I'm still a little starstruck about two months later.  I've heard that he's planning to release the next instalment of his story in a year's time and am patiently waiting for it to arrive.

The last movie I watched...

The Lost Boys

When I was 18, I saw The Lost Boys for the first time and then proceeded to watch it every other day for the rest of the summer.  I knew every line, every song, every piece of trivia about the making of the movie.  I wrote about it in film class, pointed to it when asked what my favourite movie was and was basically obsessed by it for a while.  It's been a few years now since I last saw it so last weekend I decided to put the DVD on and find out whether it still resonated with me, and I was pleased to find that I still love it just as much as I ever did.  Having recently watched Stranger Things, I saw parallels between that squad of monster-hunting kids and the vampire-slaying team of Sam and the Frog Brothers who used to irritate me but who I now see as endearing.  I was always drawn to Kiefer Sutherland's David and his vampire gang so that very first shot of them walking around on the boardwalk carousel still makes me shiver.  I still remember what happens but there were little details that had faded from my memory which made it feel like I was seeing it for the second or third time again.  Aesthetically it's still on point; there's the black leather motorbike gang vibe of the vampires, Star's hippy-Stevie-Nicks thing, and I even appreciate and kind of want to emulate the trendy 80s looks that Sam wears.  If there's anyone out there who hasn't had the pleasure of watching The Lost Boys yet, please stop reading and go do that right now!

On my turntable...

Elastica - Elastica

I've listened to this album more than any other over the last few months.  Again, I became interested in Elastica after reading The Last Party (and, to an extent, Coal Black Mornings) and they quickly became my favourite band of the Britpop era.  Their songs are short, fast, sexy and witty, and it doesn't make sense to me that they aren't universally beloved by young women in the same way that Hole or Paramore are.  I'm fairly certain that Justine Frischmann is the coolest woman in the world and it's a shame that they split at the beginning of the millennium because I really want to be down the front at every one of their shows, singing every word back to her.  They reissued this, their fastest-selling, Mercury-nominated debut album, on vinyl last year and I snapped up a cut-price copy on eBay from someone who said there was a flaw in the packaging that I haven't been able to find, so now I have it on my turntable at home, in my cassette walkman at work and on my iPod for those places in between so that I never have to be without it.

My Autumn playlist:

1. Stay Together - Suede
2. TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME - The 1975
3. Elastica - Elastica
4. Suede - Suede
5. Filmstar - Suede
6. Love Interest - Dear Boy
7. Four Out Of Five - Arctic Monkeys
8. Bizarre Love Triangle - New Order
9. I Wanna Be Adored - The Stone Roses
10. Parklife - Blur

Currently watching...

The Good Place

I'm a big fan of Michael Schur's past shows (The Office, Parks & Recreation, Brooklyn Nine-Nine), so The Good Place has been on my radar since it started in 2016.  I'm almost at the end of the first of three seasons and find it very charming.  It follows Eleanor (Kristen Bell) who arrives in the Utopian 'The Good Place' after her death, despite not having earned her spot there while on Earth, and her struggle to become a good person so she can escape being committed to 'The Bad Place' where she belongs.  The show is filled with charming supporting characters, like Eleanor's supposed soulmate-cum-teacher Chidi and her philanthropic neighbour Tahani, but my favourite character is Janet, the humanoid designed to deliver goods and information to the residents of the Good Place who isn't quite perfect.  If you like your sitcoms to be a little whimsical and surreal, you should definitely give this a try.

From my journal...

These are the pictures I've used to illustrate my bullet journal this week.  The mood is a little romantic, a little retro, more Valentines than Halloween and a good excuse for me to test out some of the red and pink washi tape patterns I've been saving.