Late night ramblings

Feel obscurely that ought to post, but nothing of note has happened, particularly. This is not unusual, things of particular note do not often happen. Possibly my "things of note" standards as too high.

Actually, I went to the Lord of The Rings Exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum this evening, which was good. Had to work hard to suppress the urge to fangirl and giggle at the actual costumes worn by the actual actors (next to their actual skin....oooh…). Had mixed success.

It's impressive, really, the level to which LOTR seems to effect people. A book leading to a movie leading to people queuing (how ought that be spelled, do you reckon? It looks wrong) to see costumes worn in the movies, and sets and so on, and paying a hundred dollars for a cardboard cutout of the characters, or one thousand, seven hundred dollars for a LOTR- style cloak from the souvenir shop. Not to mention spawning an entire genre of books and movies. How amazing. I wonder what Tolkien would think? What would it be like to have that sort of impact? I know Schroedinger (the guy with the hypothetical dead/alive cat in a box, and father of quantum theory) was irritated by the thing getting so out of hand, and later in his life snapped that he "wished he'd never thought of the damned thing". Would you resent that sort of intrusion? Do you get to resent it if you publish? I think not. If it was the sort of idle philosophising that one did in one's lounge room whilst watching Rage at 2:30 am on a friday, then one would be justified, perhaps, if people went and built a scientific discipline out of it.

Seems to be common, such resentment, now I think about it. Marx famously said that he wasn't a "Marxist". My history lecturer always talks about the difference between Marxism and Marxian (the latter being his name for Marx’s approach). Of course, he's Russian, so he has that accent, and instead of pronouncing it "ism", he says [and here I realise that it's impossible to make this distinction in writing, which is probably the source of his problem] it as two syllables "is-muh".

Its not a proper Russian accent, though. Only femmes fatale with dark lipstick can have a proper Russian accent.

Everyone seems to have an accent this year. My history lecturer, obviously. My History and Philosophy of Psychology lecturer, who is dutch, and the absolute best lecturer ever (more on this guy when I can be bothered). My new flatmate, whose name is Bryan (or Brian, who knows?), but who inexplicably prefers to be called Felix (well, not inexplicable, perhaps, I'm not a fan of the name Bri/yan myself), is Scottish, and hence has that inimitable accent of the Scot.

I've never had any trouble with accents before, and certainly never with UK accents, but every now and then, even though his accent is not broad, he'll say something and either I will completely and embarrassingly misunderstand, thinking that I have understood, or, which is preferable, I will not even think in error that I have understood, but will rather have to nod and smile, and hope it becomes clear with time. Oh well.

I am, in fact, watching Rage at about 1 am on a Saturday at the moment. Bjork seems to be popular with today's guest programmer, and the more of her clips I watch, the more I like them. They're really different, not only from other people's clips (also big this evening has been nineties rap, bizarrely. I never previously knew that large [like, 25 cm diameter] clocks hung about the neck were the precursor to bling. Apparently they were. So there you go), but also from each other. Each is truly unique, a bit like the singer seems to be. She has an unusual sort of beauty, she's occasionally oddly presented, but you can't deny her prettiness. Or I can't, anyway, and Cat agrees, so I guess I must be right.

That sounds rather like that Robbie Williams line "You can't argue with popularity, or you could, but you'd be wrong". You have to admire the.... the only word here is spunk, of that guy. His effortless arrogance, his smooth admissions of vulnerability, and his... well, his englishness doesn't hurt either to be honest. But its the staggering confidence that you have to really admire. Also his reactions to people asking him if he's gay all the time. Instead of denying it in a fit of threatened heterosexuality (which would be terribly unattractive), he just shrugs it off, like he's straight, but he's not going to rule it out if he gets a better offer. ["Press be asking do I care for sodomy? I don't know, yeah, probably."]

Um... didn't mean to end up waxing lyrical about singers, but so it goes.

Ooh, early Beatles clip, Paul McCartney was a bit of dish when he was younger, wasn't he? Definitely more of a Paul- than John Lennon fan. Also, I like the early Beatles songs better. I know its cretinous, but really, beautiful as "Golden Slumbers" may be, who can go past the infectious cheerfulness of "I wanna hold your hand" and "Just to dance with you"? They're just so adorable.

Now Prince is on. Am much less enamoured of him. For one thing, they've played three Prince clips in a row, and for another, the second one, "When 2 R in love" ( I shudder at this txt-style language. Honestly. Ugh) was just a blck screen with subtitles. In txt style. So really boring. And yes, this does direct your attenti0on to the words, but when it also writes "synthesizer plays bass beat staccato" this is pointless, it intellectualises what ought not be an intellectual thing. Also it points out that a synthesizer is being used. Not classy. Worst of all, it makes more obvious and intrusive such lyrical gems as "When 2 r in love, the hips move with the speed of a runaway train" [ew, thanks for that, Prince] and others which I either can't remember or have perhaps actively repressed, but which were of a similar calibre.

Either way, leaving the subject of Prince's musical depravities (and here I must admit to rather liking one of his songs, though none of the ones played this evening, and anyway, this doesn't count, because I liked the Backstreet Boys too, at the time), I move on to the subject of my new jeans. Or rather, my old jeans.
My old jeans which newly have ribbon and beads and buttons sewn onto them. They're terribly shiny and nice. They also have a defunct hairclip and bracelet charm on them. And herein lies the cause of their decoration.

Now, when charms fall of my charm bracelet, I do not have to bid them farewell, but can instead sew them onto the jeans. Yay! This is particularly the case with my anchor charm. Easily my favourite charm, but also easily the most absolutely flipping irritating charm I've ever had. An anchor can, for the purposes of charm bracelets worn around fabric, be thought of as a pair of linked, barbed hooks, lying in wait to tie themselves inextricably to your coat, your scarf, and, on one memorable occasion, the lining of your handbag [think about it, a disaster in its own way. Spare change and the inevitable embarrassing contents went everywhere].This might explain the weakness that developed in the link, and the eventual falling off of the charm from natural causes. And now it's out of harm's way. And it's making my jeans prettier. Its absolutely win/win.

Anyway, I suppose it's about time to wrap this up, so I bid you all good night, and shall retire to bed with further ado.