mona lisa musta had the highway blues
You know, it’s rare that I am willing to say this because I found a way even in Australia, but while I am away this week I will not be updating this blog. I am tired; so, so tired; and I really need the break.
I daresay I’ll be Tweeting fairly regularly though, because I can’t stay completely away from the internet. And my bezzer will doubtless get bored of my constant witticisms eventually. LOL STONEHENGE. I CAN HAZ TEA AND CAKE. Etc.
Peace out xxx
[PHOTO: Day 29.]
I know that I said I’d review the new Bruce Springsteen album, but I’m finding the whole thing pretty confusing to be honest. Despite a five-star review from no less a luminary than Rolling Stone magazine, I just… don’t think it’s very good.
I feel as if the album is treading much of the same ground, musically, as 2007′s Magic, but is nowhere near as strong an album.
So I don’t feel guity for having a little snigger at Stereogum’s suggestion yesterday that “Queen of the Supermarket” might actually be the worst Springsteen song ever. As a former checkout girl myself I confess the song makes me smile on a level distinct from its hokiness, but… yeah. Well played, Stereogum.
Elsewhere, the UK’s intellectual property minister David Lammy promises that the government will not force ISPs to pursue file sharers. “We can’t have a system where we’re talking about arresting teenagers in their bedrooms,” Mr Lammy told the Times newspaper. Common sense at last from an industry finally starting to realise that heavy-handed legislation only leads to bad press for the music industry? With a government report on “Digital Britain” likely to tackle this issue by the end of the month, time will tell.
How I learned to stop worrying and love the BitTorrent: when I became far too impatient to wait for the second season of my beloved, yet sadly cancelled, Pushing Daisies to air this side of the Atlantic. It was only after I burned out my laptop and wolfed down the ten episodes that have aired so far like the most delicious of pies that I discovered the show was actually back, over here, on Friday night on ITV1. I could have it all still to look forward to.
But, in a way, the quirky series saved my January so I can’t really complain – besides, there are three episodes still out there (and a potential movie, if Kristin Chenoweth is to be believed) and at this rate there’s a good chance we’ll get those last three episodes before our transatlantic cousins.
You know, I’d rather see my favourite shows cancelled than outlive their welcome, but the loss of Pushing Daisies leaves a hole no other show can really fill. It’s bright, smart, sweet and slightly wicked; I love Anna Friel’s wardrobe and co-star Lee Pace just has the loveliest little face.
Sad news though elsewhere from that other show I loved: Kim Manners, who directed 52 episodes of The X-Files including some of my absolute favourites, died of lung cancer on Sunday. Kim worked most recently on Supernatural and will I’m sure be sadly missed. I shot yesterday’s self portrait in tribute to the man whose potty mouth was satirised in his own show, and some people kinda liked it.
If you’re watching television around 9pm tonight, you might catch the Disaster Emergency Committee’s appeal on behalf of war victims in Gaza. Well, you might unless you tune in to the BBC or Sky News, both of whom have declined to show the five-minute segment for fear of jeopardising their impartiality as news broadcasters.
Doubtless you’ve already heard about this: the story hasn’t been out of the news all weekend, and in a way it’s helped the message to reach thousands of people who probably wouldn’t have otherwise been watching. Viewers, campaigners, archbishops and sixty MPs who have agreed to back a parliamentary motion condemning the appeal have already made their position clear. And you might even have changed your Facebook status. I know I did, which led to a bit of an exchange with one of my pals who (quite rightly, I thought) asked if I’d actually donated any money.
There is no denying that the internet has become a vital force for awareness-raising and building momentum in the campaign for political change. The most spectacular example of this has of course been the US presidential nominations and elections, and the tide of support for Twitter’s number one most followed at grassroots level. Joining an online group, or updating your Facebook status, is an easy way for a once-disenfranchised youth to get behind the causes that they care about with a single click and to feel as if their voices are being heard.
The challenge for charitable organisations and campaigning groups, of course, is how to translate these baby steps into action: activism, campaigning, donations. Personally, now the political pressure is mounting over the BBC’s stance on this matter I hope they don’t back down, but that they continue to report the news from the region in as frank and as unbiased a manner as they can – including that top story that is of their own making. But if you can spare anything to help those in need in the region, get over to the DEC page and donate now.
In lieu of pithy commentary, I’m posting this photo because I really, really like it.
And such. It’s been a busy weekend: I suppose the big news is that I dropped a couple of hundred pounds on some transatlantic flights!! September 2009: Lissie Does Dixie (and Philadelphia, and Cincinnati… assuming I ever learn how to spell the latter). Excited doesn’t even begin to cover it.
Actually, that’s not even the big news, but it’s all I’m really willing to divulge just now. Make of that what you will, but let’s just say I need a lot of luck, and a lot of love. I had a pretty long and fairly complicated task list this weekend, but I seem to be rattling through it. And yes, your first mix CD of 2009 was right up there!
Always Kinda Sorta Wished I Looked Like Elvis: last month’s mix, January 2009
1. Bon Iver: Blood Bank
2. Matthew Ryan: Trouble Doll
3. The Rolling Stones: Not Fade Away
4. Flogging Molly: Drunken Lullabies
5. The Gaslight Anthem: High Lonesome
6. Jim Bryson: Flowers
7. Elliott Smith: Miss Misery [early version]
8. Bruce Springsteen: The Wrestler
9. Kristin Hersh: Home
10. DGeneration: Capital Offender
11. Uncle Tupelo: We’ve Been Had
12. Lambchop: National Talk Like A Pirate Day
13. Leonard Cohen: The Window [live]
14. Jaymay: Sea Green, See Blue
15. Lisa Mitchell: Slow
16. Marah: Streets of Philadelphia
Monthly most played after the jump, in which I wish I’d reset my play counts at the start of the year because I’m sick of the sight of The Hold Steady.
Continue reading ‘it’s a pretty good song, baby you know the rest: last month’s mix, january 2009;’
Just checking in briefly, I guess, with news of a couple of compilations that sound pretty exciting. One glance at the tracklisting for the new War Child compilation, Heroes, states my interest up front; and although I’m not entirely sold as yet on Lily Allen covering the Clash’s “Straight To Hell” with Mick Jones himself (see above YouTube link) it’s a winning combination that will doubtless grow on me.
Even more exciting is this Dark Was The Night compilation, to benefit AIDS awareness organisation Red Hot. Featuring a cast of indie rock’s most wanted (I first linked to Feist’s duet with Ben Gibbard on my Tumblr the other day, but Bon Iver, Sufjan Stevens, Cat Power and even whiny Belle and Sebastian boy also feature), there’s a track a day streaming on Myspace. I missed the National yesterday, so you can bet I’d be picking up a copy even if it wasn’t for an incredible cause.
Coming soon on LYG: Pushing Daisies season 2 previewed, Bruce Springsteen’s new album reviewed and the atheist bus vindicated. None of these topics are guaranteed, but you will be getting your first Last Month’s Mix of 2009 this weekend. So, if you haven’t had enough of 2008 yet, it’s your final chance to pick up your year-end mixes. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
I’m sure I’m just one of millions of people thinking what they wouldn’t give to be a part of history in Washington today. I’m hoping I can find somewhere to surreptitiously stream news coverage from my desk.
Today is also an important day for me personally, but this is neither the time nor place to discuss it. Suffice to say I am nervous, excited and not a little bit scared.
Via my Nashville correspondent: Marah are back in the studio! And they’re touring too, although as a four-piece which has more in common with my all-time favourite Jesse Malin backing band than Marah. My favourite musicians are all so incestuous, and it sounds like quite a show. With excellent timing too, because it’s an open secret that I’d love the American trip I’m planning later in the year to coincide with the tour of a band or two. I’m sure anybody reading this can guess which ones.
We had a little snow last night: a light dusting over my hometown I couldn’t help but want to get damp in as I waited for my train back to Glasgow. The city centre itself was dry, as if existing in a heated bubble. We pulled up at a bus stop, and some kid darted out and wrote his name on the condensation on the window.
Today I feel hopeful.
[PHOTO: Day 19]
My first glimpse of the atheist bus the other morning couldn’t help but bring a smile as I fought with my umbrella and shuffled through the rain. I suppose these days I consider myself an agnostic, one more lost soul lapsed so far from Catholicism, but the tongue-in-cheek campaign (slogan: There’s Probably No God: now stop worrying and enjoy your life) can’t help but appeal to my particular sense of humour.
But it seems that not everybody is taking the message in the spirit in which it was intended. Funded by donations after humanist and comedy writer Ariane Sherine blogged for the Guardian about some unsettling religious advertising she had spotted on London transport, the Atheist Bus Campaign was:
…designed as a response, an affirmation for people that it’s OK not to be religious; that if you are not religious, there is absolutely no reason to worry about that, and that one can lead a happy, enjoyable and rewarding life without religion.
In other words, the opposite effect to its catalyst: an advertised website that doesn’t deserve the link juice, which condemns non-believers to “everlasting separation from God and then spend all eternity in torment in hell”. But the past few weeks have brought a raft of negative stories in the press, from the Christian bus driver who refused to drive a bus displaying the “stark” advert (one must assume those Saw V billboards which polluted First Bus in Glasgow towards the tail-end of last year never made it as far as Southampton), to the story that makes particular interesting reading to media law types: the complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority.
Christian Voice, the organisation which has raised the complaint (in between publicising the lewd acts of “rampant homosexuals” on their website), has done so under a clause in the ASA code which calls for “documentary evidence to prove all claims” made in advertisements. Stephen Green, national director, said in a statement:
There is plenty of evidence for God, from peoples’ personal experience, to the complexity, interdependence, beauty and design of the natural world. But there is scant evidence on the other side, so I think the advertisers are really going to struggle to show their claim is not an exaggeration or inaccurate, as the ASA code puts it.
The complaint is unlikely to amount to anything substantial. “I’ve sought advice from some of our key people here, but I’m afraid all I’ve got out of them so far is peals of laughter,” Hanne Stinson, chief executive of the British Humanist Association, told the BBC. The adverts steer clear of stating irrevocable facts, being more reminiscent of Carlsberg’s jocular probably the best lager in the world tagline than anything else. Regardless, one evangelist’s evidence is another man’s disproof. Should the ASA really be expected to rule on the probability of God’s existence, that’s going to be one heck of an evidence-gathering session at tribunal.
I suppose it’s appropriate that for Day 16, bloody Amy‘s gone and tagged me to provide “sixteen random things” about me. And then, last night, bloody Joss went and tagged me for another six things on teh blog.
I always struggle to come up with such things off the top of my head. I mean, I’m the most interesting person you’ll ever meet, obviously, but that never comes across under pressure.
Now that I’m here, I may as well post the full sixteen. But if I tag you, you’re good for just six. Here goes nothing..!
1. My parents were not Elvis fans: it’s actually Lisa-Marie short for Elizabeth-Marie, after my grandmother and Our Lady. My “full” name doesn’t appear on my birth certificate as my mum didn’t want my name shortened to Beth, or Liz…
2. …instead, it gets shortened to Lisa. Which I CAN’T STAND – don’t do it! “Lis” is a whole syllable less! To rhyme with “bliss”, not “fleece”, please.
3. Despite the above, the closest I get to Catholicism these days is the inside of a Hold Steady lyric booklet.
4. I’m 26 years old. I know this is hardly the most fascinating fact, but it still manages to confuse all those people who think I look teenaged in my photos. I’ll thank you in a few years, I’m sure.
5. When asked for my profession, I tend to simplify things and call myself a journalist: these days I actually manage a paralegal training qualification, as well as produce a quarterly magazine (the “deadlines” I frequently refer to). Whatever I end up doing, I’d still have to blog about it when I got home, so journalist will do for now.
6. My first paying job was as an extra in a movie. This movie
7. I made twenty quid, the standard fee for an extra at the time, which I spent on my first two cassette tape albums: Alisha Rules The World by Alisha’s Attic and Ocean Colour Scene’s Moseley Shoals. Purchased in Woolies – RIP!
8. My first gig, however, wasn’t nearly half as classy – it was Ant and Dec, on their ill-advised music career at the behemoth that is the SECC. Watch and weep.
9. My tipple of choice depending on the company or circumstance is one of a gin and tonic, a bottle of pear Kopparberg or a strawberry daiquri. In Glasgow, you can find the best of the latter at the Alea Casino, Springfield Quay.
10. New York City is my favourite place in the world. This isn’t as much news as a statement of fact that is one of the first things anybody could tell you about me. Yes, if I could emigrate there, I would – but I think the city is full of people who’d love to make their living as writers.
11. I am of Irish-Italian stock, on my mother and father’s side respectively. I am perhaps the only person you know who shares her name with a town and province in Sicily. I believe our Mafia connections are as near as two generations back: my dad has already given my long-suffering boyfriend The Talk.
12. I played violin all the way through school; not to an amazing standard or anything, but I was involved in a few youth orchestras in my teens. I elected to sing instead for my Standard Grade music, and my tutor never forgave me. I still have the violin, and would love to play again sometime. I also own an acoustic guitar I purchased on eBay on a whim for £20, but I got bored picking out the chords to Kathleen Edwards songs.
13. Actually, I think it was one time, at band camp, I discovered my first grey hair – which would have made me thirteen years old. They say premature greying is a sign of intelligence, so I don’t mind and it gives me an excuse to blow fifty quid every couple of months on a colour that’s a little warmer than my natural dark brown.
14. I suffered from pretty severe depression for a number of years, but although I can’t remember much of 2004 these days I can, thankfully, mostly just look back and laugh. Mostly. And hey, my LiveJournal was famous on the internet!
15. I have two piercings (the typical ear ones), one tattoo (the artwork to Ryan Adams’ Cold Roses on my inside left wrist), flat feet, wonky knees (a direct result of the feet) and am short-sighted, with severe enough astigmatism in my right eye that I can’t get perfect vision from contact lenses. You want me. You do.
16. I bought the dress I’m holding months ago – it was the first thing out my wardrobe with a tag on it – and it still doesn’t fit. I’m not even sure if I like it anymore.
My victims: Wee-H, the Hedgehog, Miss America, Paulie, Steve and my bezzer (because we need to get her blogging again 
PHOTO: Day 16]
I’ve just gotten a Tumblr account, originally to keep up with some friends who use the site but I think I’ll use it to post those snippets that clutter up the end of my blog posts and clog up my bookmarks. If you use the site, you can follow me by adding “lastyearsgirl” (of course!) – alternatively, subscribe to tumblr.pixlet.net through your traditional RSS reader.
I know, I know. It needs a layout…
Lis. Writer/Photographer/Muso/Traveller/Waffler. Famous on the internet since 1999. Got something you think I should hear? Get in touch!
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