I’m in a state of painful bliss right now. Bliss because I’m still basking in the multicolor afterglow of Radiohead’s concert last night. Painful because of my dancing for two hours on concrete in shoes with no foot support. Yes, my ankles and back are not feeling so great and my throat is a little sore from screaming. Ahhh…but the bliss, the bliss. What a terrific experience. Thom Yorke’s spastic dance moves on the stage pleased me immensely. There were many songs I hoped they would play that they didn’t, but if they had played all the songs I hoped they would play, they would have been performing for five hours instead of two.
There was a t-shirt there that I wanted desperately. On it was written one of my favorite lines from one of my favorite songs: “You’ll go to hell for what your dirty mind is thinking.” Eeep! Look at that shirt, I said to Spence as we were leaving. That’s the line I love! The damn thing cost $40. I didn’t think twice about walking on by–there was no way I could afford such an expense. Had it been $30, I would have lingered a little longer, thinking about it (tho probably wouldn’t have bought it then either), but $40 was out of the question. However, seeing the t-shirt and what it looked like (the line from the song looked like it was stencilled on an old shirt) has inspired me to create my own Radiohead t-shirt, using the line from above and the stencils I have at the house. Yay for frugality and Radiohead.
And the idea of getting a tattoo has crept back into my mind. The idea comes and goes. Sometimes it lingers longer than at other times. It’s typically inspired when I see a design I like a great deal…something that encompasses a personal belief in a very unique and graphic way. Of course, there is still the issue of finances, so the idea will stay just that until I find a job.
To celebrate this week’s single release (we still have those in England) Radiohead have broken up the song ‘Nude’ into pieces for you to remix.
For those of you who enjoy this sort of thing, you can buy the separate components or ‘stems’ (bass, voice, guitar, strings/FX and drums) and remix your own version of the song. You can do this by adding your own beats and instrumentation or just remixing the original parts. More information here: http://www.radioheadremix.com/information/
You can upload your finished mixes here http://www.radioheadremix.com and be judged and even voted on by ‘the public’.
Okay. How cool is this idea? First of all, Nude is easily one of my favorite songs on the new album, and I listen to it compulsively. What could be better than listening to variations of it created by different listeners? Well, I suppose listening to the original is better (in my opinion), but hearing the interpretations of it is thoroughly entertaining.
After a harrowing experience with the Ticketmaster website, where they timed my every action and threatened to cancel my transaction if I didn’t respond within so many minutes, I succeeded in purchasing my Radiohead tickets. I lost the first pair of tickets that came up because I was too slow in deciding whether I wanted to buy tickets with assigned seats or lawn tickets. When I decided to buy the assigned seat tickets that were offered, the site told me I had missed my chance. It all worked out eventually. And this is quickly becoming a favorite song of mine:
This evening, KV, Spence, and I went to see Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, which is being performed by students of the university’s theatre department. I’ve not read this play, but was warned that it’s rather over-the-top. The play certainly lived up to this warning, but I enjoyed it. I was rather impressed with the lead players too. Not that I know anything about acting, but I was drawn into the characters they were portraying, with one glaring exception: the roles of Demetrius and Chiron. Now, there were many moments throughout the play when I assumed the (dark) humor was intentional. For example, when a messenger rides in on her bicycle to deliver to Titus the heads of two of his sons (wrapped in plastic), as well as his hand he had just cut off in hopes of saving his sons, there is a certain absurdity to her entrance on the bike, to the way she flings the heads on the stage (as if she were delivering newspapers), and the way she addresses Titus. However, I couldn’t tell if the portrayal of Demetrius and Chiron was unintentionally ridiculous, or if I’m too dense to understand a creative interpretation of these two characters.
In the story, Demetrius and Chiron are the sons of Tamora, and they rape Titus’ daughter, Lavinia. They then cut out her tongue and cut off her hands, so she can’t identify who raped her. This presentation of the play had two actresses portraying Demetrius and Chiron, and it didn’t seem as if there was any effort in disguising the actresses as men. They had rather long hair that was loose, and dark lipstick on. They were dressed all in black, with combat boots and capes, but this didn’t convey maleness or androgeny, for that matter. I was baffled when I learned they were portraying male characters. (This was not the case with the actress who played Saturninus; she was dressed in a way, and carried herself in a way that I could believe she was the emperor). So, I was unable to get past the very feminine visual of these actresses portraying Demetrius and Chiron. The way the two acted the part was hard for me to buy too. Okay…so we have two young punk brothers lusting after Titus’ daughter. The key word here is lusting. How does one evoke lust in his/her actions? I spent some time thinking about this after watching the actresses portray lust with lots of lurid tongue gestures, panting, and by licking their rapiers in a provocative manner. One, in particular, would strike very Christina Aguilera/Brittany Spears inspired sex-kitten type facial expressions, with lots of tongue…more in the vein of over-sexed nymph than mutilating rapist. But it had to be intentional, right? I mean, if she were acting like this during rehearsal, and it wasn’t what the director wanted her to do, he would have told her so. And they could easily have wrapped up the actresses’ hair, and made the effort to make them more androgynous, if not masculine, but they chose not to. Perhaps I have a narrow perception of how one should portray licentious, mutilating rapists.
After doing a search on the ever handy YouTube, I found this clip from Titus Andronicus, and can say the two actresses I saw today were likely trying to bring across the kind of dramatic energy these guys have in this scene, but it didn’t quite work in my (uneducated) opinion (again, I think if the actresses were more androgynous in their roles, it would have come together better). But, overall, it was an enjoyable (if violent and bloody) dramatic experience.
The Puzzle Box 