I'm hard pressed to take any decent pictures these days, kinda sucks actually because I sit down and realize that lots of interesting visual things have happened and I have absolutely no record of them. You'll just have to take my word for it.
In the news lately are a lot of Birthdays. My friend Viktor's birthday was on Friday, though he didn't care to celebrate. My friend Dave's was the following Saturday, and he threw a pretty splendid party at his and Frenchy's place (scene of the American thanksgiving bonanza). And now Phil's is today, so I spent some good currency on two beautiful fruit tarts and we'll be having a lowkey dinner at that house. I enjoy all the celebrating, for the most part everyone is very fun and gregarious and parties turn out to be really nice occasions, although the tendency to spill over into excess is pretty widespread, but ultimately I think that's probably a good thing.
Really the reason why I'm writing is to report the AMAZING concert I went to last night. It was Badly Drawn Boy in the Brussels Botanical Garden, and the show itself was almost the cherry on the cheesecake. The venue was beautiful. In order to get to the Orangerie (a smallish auditorium toward the middle of the main building) we had to walk through two beautiful indoor gardens, filled with large tropical water plants and those little white and orange goldfish you see in decadent places. The crowd was smartly dressed without being pretensious, and everyone was very friendly and I heard no fewer than 10 languages spoken. It was really wonderful, I felt encouraged on some existential level. I went with my friends Cordelia and Shannon, and we got there just early enough to get a good place in front of the stage. I was so close I could have pulled Damon's Gough's guitar cord if I wanted to. He played a lot of songs from Bewilderbeast, which I love as an album, some stuff from About a Boy, and then some of his new stuff, which I'll admit to not being terribly fond of, but they certainly play as a team and the drummer in particular was a thrill to watch. He looked like a blonde Toby McGuire, with that kind of sleepy, dorky slow smile. BDB himself played the crowd really well, alternating between Elvis-esque charm and completely insecure defensiveness, it was interesting to see. I know it's his trademark, but the knit beanie did not make any sense. It was so hot, and he was sweating profusely, and had a jacket on over two t-shirts! That seemed a bit silly, not that I'm to be excluded from such irrational practices.
What was a very special moment though, happened at the very beginning, before anyone played. Cordelia and Shannon went to the coat check and I stood around in our spot and people-watched etc. I was feeling pretty comfortable and pleased with the whole thing, thinking to myself how much better concerts are in Europe, and then the ambient music changed to the Kings of Convenience's "Homesick", which is one of my favorite songs of all time, but especially since I've been here. It was so perfect I almost jumped out of my skin, and I couldn't control my grin, even though I guess it's kind of a sad song. Sad songs that hit the mark are somehow not so sad really.
Anyway, beyond all that social stuff I've just been working. I actually started writing the intro to my thesis, which feels good, even though I know I'll have to rewrite it eventually. The idea is just to give a brief catalogue of all the references Lacan makes to Kierkegaard's Repetition, which are as numerous as they are impenetrable. The first one I site is from "The Function and Field of Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis", and just to give you a feel for Lacan's obscurity, the important sentence reads: "...the exhaustion of being consummated in Kierkegaardian repetition." Needless to say, I'm probably not going to be able to pull this one apart until the very end of my thesis.
I hope everyone is well, keep in touch.
Ashley
In the news lately are a lot of Birthdays. My friend Viktor's birthday was on Friday, though he didn't care to celebrate. My friend Dave's was the following Saturday, and he threw a pretty splendid party at his and Frenchy's place (scene of the American thanksgiving bonanza). And now Phil's is today, so I spent some good currency on two beautiful fruit tarts and we'll be having a lowkey dinner at that house. I enjoy all the celebrating, for the most part everyone is very fun and gregarious and parties turn out to be really nice occasions, although the tendency to spill over into excess is pretty widespread, but ultimately I think that's probably a good thing.
Really the reason why I'm writing is to report the AMAZING concert I went to last night. It was Badly Drawn Boy in the Brussels Botanical Garden, and the show itself was almost the cherry on the cheesecake. The venue was beautiful. In order to get to the Orangerie (a smallish auditorium toward the middle of the main building) we had to walk through two beautiful indoor gardens, filled with large tropical water plants and those little white and orange goldfish you see in decadent places. The crowd was smartly dressed without being pretensious, and everyone was very friendly and I heard no fewer than 10 languages spoken. It was really wonderful, I felt encouraged on some existential level. I went with my friends Cordelia and Shannon, and we got there just early enough to get a good place in front of the stage. I was so close I could have pulled Damon's Gough's guitar cord if I wanted to. He played a lot of songs from Bewilderbeast, which I love as an album, some stuff from About a Boy, and then some of his new stuff, which I'll admit to not being terribly fond of, but they certainly play as a team and the drummer in particular was a thrill to watch. He looked like a blonde Toby McGuire, with that kind of sleepy, dorky slow smile. BDB himself played the crowd really well, alternating between Elvis-esque charm and completely insecure defensiveness, it was interesting to see. I know it's his trademark, but the knit beanie did not make any sense. It was so hot, and he was sweating profusely, and had a jacket on over two t-shirts! That seemed a bit silly, not that I'm to be excluded from such irrational practices.
What was a very special moment though, happened at the very beginning, before anyone played. Cordelia and Shannon went to the coat check and I stood around in our spot and people-watched etc. I was feeling pretty comfortable and pleased with the whole thing, thinking to myself how much better concerts are in Europe, and then the ambient music changed to the Kings of Convenience's "Homesick", which is one of my favorite songs of all time, but especially since I've been here. It was so perfect I almost jumped out of my skin, and I couldn't control my grin, even though I guess it's kind of a sad song. Sad songs that hit the mark are somehow not so sad really.
Anyway, beyond all that social stuff I've just been working. I actually started writing the intro to my thesis, which feels good, even though I know I'll have to rewrite it eventually. The idea is just to give a brief catalogue of all the references Lacan makes to Kierkegaard's Repetition, which are as numerous as they are impenetrable. The first one I site is from "The Function and Field of Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis", and just to give you a feel for Lacan's obscurity, the important sentence reads: "...the exhaustion of being consummated in Kierkegaardian repetition." Needless to say, I'm probably not going to be able to pull this one apart until the very end of my thesis.
I hope everyone is well, keep in touch.
Ashley
No comments:
Post a Comment