Now if I were in Roskilde (which I'm not), I would be first in line for:
Bloc Party (because Kele Okereke rocks my boat)
Bright Eyes (gotta be curious about Conor Oberst, doncha?)
Dresden Dolls
Duran Duran (yeah, yeah, I know, they're rubbish, but I have never loved anyone so intensely as I loved John Taylor)
Outlandish (don't ask...)
The Raveonettes
Roots Manuva (hail to the saviour of British hip hop or whatever)
Sonic Youth (they'll kick your ass and you won't notice until it's too late)
Le Tigre (Grrrr)

But, alas, I'm here.
posted by charlotte at 19:16 - comment

It is still really, really hot in the city and the humidity lies heavy. It is impossible to breathe properly and lethargy is common all around the park benches and in offices and on balconies.
We keep hoping for rain but apart from short bursts of showers, absolutely nothing happens. There's a deadness in my head that is only partly due to the heat.
And I've been reading Jim Carroll's Basketball Diaries which depressed me no end and yet filled me with hope for the of the future of the written word.


Good stuff has happened too:

Hedwig shook his angry inch at Heaven the other day in a great performance by David Bedella who was divine in a plethora of different ways. The small and tight venue suited Hedwig who must be the centre of attention, of course,and the songs and the story of Hedwigs journey were interspersed with quips and nods to current news items and even a karaoke moment with Hedwig taking (to) the audience up the aisle.


Then yesterday was the day of the great Ewan MacGregor all-singing, all-dancing extravaganza; Guys and Dolls was fabulous.
Sky Masterson was all swagger and sweetness, less ruthless, more decent than could have been. MacGregor is no Sinatra, so when he belts out Luck Be A Lady one does wish upon a Frank, but Ewan can sing, no doubt about it, and held his own in a group of generally much better singers.
Jane Krakowski was wonderful and she can churn out a song to make the audience go crazy in rapturous applause.

All the girls in the audience went ooh and aah when Ewan made his entrance and I'm just glad that someone invented the theatre binoculars so there were close-ups and cheeky grins and long, slow kisses- that Ewan, he sure knows how to suck face. (His American accent, on the other hand...)

All in all, an energetic, stylish, sexy production that was just about having a good time, and I, who have a natural suspicion towards musicals, was utterly charmed.
posted by charlotte at 18:56 - comment

And thus it began...

Batman Begins is just what I hoped it would be. The story makes sense, the acting is great, the casting is brilliant, it's stylish and it's clever.

I approached the cinema with slight apprehension, as I really wanted to like the film - after all Chris Nolan made Memento, for pete's sake! - but I was nothing less than concerned. Dare I mention Batman & Robin?

But it's good. And no, it is not because I want to like the film (or the fact that I've loved Christian Bale from the bottom of my heart since we were both was 14 and he starred in Empire of the Sun) it is because it - is - good.

Only cause for concern now is that reportedly Bale has signed up for another two films, with or without Chris Nolan.
Why must there be more? Batman Ends? Batman Reawakens? Please don't.

Other than that: have been eating my way 'round Regent's Park, mainly due to free tickets (there's nothing like freebies), unbearable heat and a massive need to sleep and not enough time in whch to do it. Pity me.
posted by charlotte at 14:40 - comment

I never actually make it into the pool in Vegas, due to a desert storm and a fabulous marble bathroom. Las Vegas is Disneyland and and a red light district rolled into one; it's entire purpose of existence is to make people spend, spend , spend, and does everything it can to make you forget space and time.

Our hotel had an oxygen bar, not so much for the trendiness of it all, but to KEEP YOU AWAKE, wheee, so you can SPEND more money.

Las Vegas is a city so full of sex and dust and holidaying rednecks and Celine Dion billboards and CASH (kerchinnng!) that I need to go back to spend a couple of days hanging out in bars, smoking cigarettes, listening to the lounge pianists, pinching the bar girls in the short skirts in the bum, imagining what it's like to be Dean Martin.

Another place in which I never made it to the pool:
The small fishing cum tourist village somewhere between LA and San Diego. Beach too close nearby.

Place in which I spent only 10 minutes in the pool, due to nightfall and chill:
The 10th floor above downtown San Francisco.

There were other pools and other places and now I'm back and it's so not very sexy or even interesting but at least I get to go to Sheffield next week...
posted by charlotte at 19:00 - comment

So I'm in a pool next to the Merced River and with the sound of the waters rolling down the mountain and the sun over head, things are not bad at all.

24 hours later I'll be standing at the foot of a waterfall, being soaked through and through but it will be so much fun that we will have to go twice.

24 hours earlier I was browsing a bookshop in Berkeley, nicely named 'Mrs Dalloway's' and smelling of hay, buying a bit of Cummings and comtemplating a life in American academia.
posted by charlotte at 18:22 - comment

So I'm in a pool by the freeway in San Diego and it's 8 in the morning and I can't sleep because the sun is out already and it's really hot and the traffic is insane -

Last night we had a right old knees up in the hotel restaurant with singing and dancing pensioners and loads of utterly pished Australian rugby fans.

24 hours earlier we were more than 8000 feet in the air, looking for mountain lions and trundling through snow in our flip-flops.

24 hours later we'll be splashing in the sea, fending off surfers and dogs and my husband has decided that this is where we need to live, while I'm still undecided -
posted by charlotte at 18:23 - comment

So I'm in a pool in West Hollywood and it's really hot and outside is this kicking city and if I jump on the bed I can just make out the big Hollywood sign in the hills.
This is such a rock'n roll place to be and there's cool people around so that's fab.
The diner is open pretty much 24/7 and seems like a local which I like and the weather is good enough for us to sit outside and eat loads of junk and get an LA Times out of the stand and rich kids right out of Beverly Hills 90210 descents on us, undoubtedly from the hills in their convertibles.

24 hours later I will search in vain for Vince Vaughn in Los Feliz and check into a big pink hotel in the middle of nowhere where there's a rock waterfall shower and loads of leather.

24 hours earlier I was cavorting on a beach before buying beer and take-out Mexican.


Mrs Charlotte is doing good.
posted by charlotte at 20:04 - comment