Listening to: Outro - Lupe Fiasco

After 8 months of waiting U2 made it to Auckland and I was lucky to be there.

As I have mentioned one of my big regrets is not seeing U2 on the Zoo TV tour. For me it was an event that was a distillate of the zeitgeist of the time - it was something that reflected my growing understanding of the world around me and the malleability of media and it’s message. It was one of those coincidental moments that I am sad I didn’t take advantage of.

Did Friday night make up for that? I don’t really know, but it was good. It was very, very good and I am very pleased to have seen U2 play live. The music was exciting and delightful - spanning most of their catalog. The band seemed genuinely grateful to be there - going to some effort to craft the experience, with words and images, so that it was an NZ experience. They small things maybe - but things that transformed what could’ve been a very generic event into one where you were glad you had held onto the tickets. It was also a real pleasure to see Kanye West live.

The scale of things really inspired me… the size of the crowd, somewhere between 20-40,000 cellphones turning on in the dark (a breath-taking sight) and the balloons floating across the crowd like a froth. All because of four Irish guys - at a conceptual level it was a first hand experience that showed a lot is possible if you set your mind to it.

Listening to: Sunshine - Lupe Fiasco

After waiting for weeks my CD order FINALLY came through:

Popular music is dominated by hip-hop music and a lot of it is complete dross. In this environment it is very difficult to experience the combination of factors that makes hip-hop great. Well, finally, the wait is over… Mr Fiasco is here.

Lupe Fiasco combines magical lyrics, fabulous music and a rat-tat-tat delivery to tell stories. Stories of the street and stories of society. Exactly the sort of soul that makes good hip-hop so compelling.

I was hooked a while back when I heard a demo of “Kick, Push” and so I was really hanging out for this album. My biggest fear, alleviated a little by the second single “Daydreamin’”, was that the track was the single light. Thankfully thats not the case… the whole album is beautiful.

Listening to: Further On (Up The Road) - Bruce Springsteen

The Missus was in Unity yesterday picking up a book for the 12-18 hours of flight
that she has a head of her. After making a beeline for the SciFi and Fantasy section,
a quick orbit of the Gender Studies section I ended up in the Politics section. Sitting
amongst the stacks of books about the Iraq war was a copy of ‘After the Neocons’ by
Francis Fukuyama. I figured that a) it was time I actually read something about neoconservatisim
and b) when one of the leading lights says that it’s failed you should pay attention.

Looking for the book on Amazon I found that it it goes under the polite title America
at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy.

The gist of Fukuyama’s essay is that neoconservatism as we’ve had it described to
us is not actually neoconservatism and that the term has been so awfully tainted over
the past 6 years that it’s not worth reclaiming.

Fukuyama is a very good writer and the book provides a fascinating insight into the
historical and philosophical roots of neoconservatism. Fukuyama initially describes
the past 50 years of neoconservative thought and places it in relationship with other,
more dominant, schoosl of thought about international relations.

The middle part of the book then compares the body of neconservative thought with
Bush policy statement and implementation. The comparison is pretty damning. Reading
between the lines you can see that the author is not terribly impressed with the world
that has resulted from the so-called neoconservative leadership in the Whitehouse.

The last section of the book deals with ‘well what next?’. For the first time I have
had described to me the biggest beef some people have with the UN… which, I have
to say, does provide food for some serious thought. The last pages of the book also
deal with the clumsily named concept of multi multilateralism and how this might form
the model for international relations into the future.

If you’re interested in how the world has gotten to where it is today this makes for
a good read on a rainy Sunday.

UPDATE: For my own notes: Globalised
Islam

Listening to: Driving Around - Strawpeople

I went to the Simple Minds concert last night. I have to say that I felt a little
uncomfortable. The crowd was full of people 10 to 20 years older than me. Watching
them get their “groove” on was …. well, an experience.

Simple Minds themselves were very professional and polished off a lengthy set list
with impressive ease. The songs were strung together one after the other and flew
off the stage like bullets from a machine gun. Very enjoyable. They had a lot of passion,
but it felt a little manufactured. I bailed after “Don’t You” - which I have to say
was the highlight of the night because the crowd went utterly ballistic and the band
fanned the flames for 5 to 10 mins.

Simple
Minds

I think I will be reassessing my currently desire to see 80’s acts live… we’ll see
how the Psychedelic Furs treat me next month.

>

Listening to: Lights - Editors

Feeling a bit uncertain I went to see V
for Vendetta this morning. I had read mixed reviews and so wasn’t really expecting
too much… I ended up being very very surprised.

This is a very good movie, it has a smart and relevant script enacted with great skill
by Natalie Portman and the faceless Hugo Weaving. The interplay between their characters
is strong and at moments almost intoxicating. Up until now I found Portman a competent
actor… but in this movie I think she has really shown how very skilled she is -
there are moments that are completely captivating.

We need more of these movies… and it’s when you see stories like this that you really
see how our mass media story tellers have really let us down of late. At about 2 hours
long this movie is wonderfully complete and refuses to treat its audience as idiots
(something that could’ve easily have been done I think). The movie challenges, scares
and educates all in equal measures and does do through very dense, but engaging, dialog.

I think this an important movie in that ’society as a boiling frog’ kind of way. That
is something that comes from the source material, the quality of the movie and the
way the world is at present - there are moments when I felt I was watching something
I shouldn’t.

UPDATE: The movie deals with governments using fear to cower the population and how
conquering this fear is vital weapon of the populace … the latest GOP ad is worth
watching (yes I think it is very sad to be able to draw such a vivid parallel).

Listening to: Nothing Man - Bruce Springsteen

I went to see Munich today…
in all over its 164 minute glory. It is a very good movie. Meaty and challenging…
an adult movie, not the children’s fun ride that we got with Bore War
of the Worlds.

To say that this an important movie is an understatement. In our time it is a crucial
movie, more so that it is told by Steven Spielberg. That this is his movie makes the
points about the zero sum game between the Israelis and the Palestinians irrefutable.
The fact that he closes the movie with the shot of the Twin Towers makes the movie
chilling for the rest of us. Speilberg states, in no uncertain terms, that two wrongs
don’t make a right…

Listening to: Geek USA - Smashing Pumpkins

I caught this TV programme this evening.
The basic premise is that a bunch of entrepreneurs get to pitch their ideas to a panel
of money people. It is utterly engaging… all the mind games of Survivor without
the bloody island getting in the way.

Awesome TV… distilled capitalism.

Listening to: LoopKast28 - loop@loop.co.nz

The Worlds Fastest Indian is the
story of Burt Munroe, the guy who builds a bike in the deep south of NZ and sets a
land speed record that still stands today. He did this in 1967.

I loved this movie… I spent a good chunk of the thing crying. A very, very odd experience.
Why did it move me? Because Anthony Hopkins renders Burt Munro as a Kiwi… not as
an Englishman playing a Kiwi. I simply couldn’t detach myself from this character.
Once you got your head ’round the sound of Hopkins destroying vowels just like any
good resident of NZ you just get swept up in it. Burt Munro is painted as this hearty
and hale old bugger that just wanted to do something great. Driven by this passion
he goes to Utah and does something great. Very, very can-do. I think Munro is what
I want to be like when I am that age.

While I enjoyed the racing footage, it was the characterizations of Kiwis and Americans
that I loved the most. The Americans are shown to be like the Americans I have encountered
both here in NZ and on my travels… just the nicest and most giving people. Kiwis
are portrayed as being both ’she’ll be right mate’ and ‘why on earth do you want to
do something crazy like that?’ which is bang on the money.

Just awesome! Big-Dumb-Grin material.

Listening to: Animal Planet

For a second weekend in a row I have seen a movie that alters my perception of ‘the
way things are’. While I would like to claim the credit for this insightful cultural
diversion… I think it would be fairer to hat-tip the missus.

Touch the Sound (imdb)
is a movie about … well, sound mainly. But more importantly it is about how we perceive
sound. The movie is a very good at investigating this because the main focus of the
movie, Evelyn Glennie, is a magnificent percussionist
who just happens to be deaf.

Glennie is this effervescent Scottish woman who has this innate ability to pick rhythm
out of any environment. It is through this that the viewer is shown a different way
of perceiving sound, a way that challenges the standard ‘I hear with my ears’ concept.
Her frustration at this limited way of thinking is shown when she describes how annoying
she finds it when people ask her how she is able to hear. Invariably, she says, if
she asks the same question she is not able to get a sufficiently insightful answer
from supposedly ‘hearing’ people.

While I found the movie was a little too ‘conceptual’ at points Glennie is great at
bringing things back down to earth. One scene involves her sitting on the floor in
a Japanese restaurant using a beer bottle, an ash tray, an empty can and a pair of
chopsticks to belt out a fantastic bit of music… it really reminded me of a line
by the The Red Hot Chili Peppers:

Music the great communicator
Use two sticks to make it in the nature

Having said that her classical training is also highlighted as, in the same restaurant,
she plays a magically moving piece with a glockenspiel accompanied by a piano.

If you get a chance check it out.

Listening to: The Wee Hours Review - Roman Candle

Having seen most of the movies worth seeing at present we (that would be the missus
and I) ended up going to What the Bleep Do
We Know?

Because I needed to leave early to catch the ‘The New Cool’ seminar I
wasn’t able to see the complete movie. What I did get to see was very thought provoking.
The movie looks at reality, our perception of it and how the current paradigm stops
people from taking advantage of how it might ‘really’ be. Starting with quantum physics
the movie moves through to subject of neuro-peptides to argue that, fundamentally,
our reality is created by the way we think about it (my grasp of biological processes
let me down at this point). By thinking about our lives in a different way we are
able to create real changes in our lives.

The movie is a documentary that tips more to the the fictional narrative than most.
Given the subject matter it works quiet well and is a clever way of communicating
some complex subjects. Still, the movie spends it’s entire existence teetering on
the fine line between well interpreted science fact and poorly interpreted science
fact (aka new age mumbo jumbo). In fact when ever the woman called Ramtha appeared
on screen the movie fell screaming and limb waving into the abyss of ‘good grief!
spare me please!’

Don’t get me wrong… it is a fascinating movie and even though it has got the ‘next
Kabbalah’ written all over it I think it is well worth seeing. By and large the scientists
they talk to are the types of characters you’d find in any physics or biology faculty.
It is the first time that I have seen a relatively sensible (minus Jar Jar
Binks Ramtha) set of theories that are able to move from quantum effects
to biology without having to rely to heavily on the ‘and magic happens here’ crutch.
I liked it and I found it a compelling story if only because it reinforces my belief
in personal responsibility and aligns with my concept of ‘God’.