marramgrass

• I really wanted to post another xkcd comic, but it’s too soon since the last one :-) Also, this one is huge. Go and read it, though — there’s something strangely beautiful about it.
• A site with various fascinating bits of information design.
• I’m very much looking forward to next year’s Watchmen movie (although I know others who aren’t). These posters caused me a gleeful giggle.
• This is one that I don’t quite understand. Surely Glitter’s conviction doesn’t change his past music? And while the argument is made that the schools don’t want to contribute to his royalty income, I’m not happy with the notion that any convict, when released, should be denied the opportunity to ply their honest trade, especially in this case where it’s fair payment for well-past work.
• Finally, a video that’s been doing the rounds lately. Cutting :-)

(This post was intended for last night, but delayed by our late and tired return home after the concert in question.)

My wife and I have remarked often how we haven’t been to any live music since we moved back to Northern Ireland. Two-and-some years is a pretty long dry spell.

I’d never knowingly encountered the music of Beth Neilsen Chapman, but when Gerry Anderson played “Sand and Water” and plugged last night’s show at the Grand Opera House I decided it was worth a go. The decision was helped by promised support from local boy Brian Houston.

It was a very good call.

It’s something like nine years since I last saw Brian Houston live, but his short opening set told me that’s way too long. I guess he’s been doing the groovy, layered sample thing on “Jesus Again” for a long time, but it was one of several turns that blew me away last night. He’s a superb showman at work.

Turns out that I know more Beth Neilsen Chapman songs than I thought, and she can certainly sing. The three-piece for the evening included local talent Eilidh Patterson on backing vocals and the very dude-ly Maartin Allcock on bass and bouzouki.

I’d yet to hear Eilidh, although I know of her in a family-of-a-friend sort of way, but I was impressed. She was in great voice yesterday. And Mr Allcock sent me away swearing to never again pretend I can tame the four-stringed beast.

The Opera House wouldn’t be my first choice for a gig, but the sit-down-and-relax vibe was entirely appropriate — and you can’t argue with front row seats.

It’s a very big lift indeed. I’m quite glad it was only me and my wife in it at the time.

The same photograph I take at every wedding, birthday or other party I attend. And I’m still there :-)

About a year and a half ago I confirmed my status as a pretty sad case when I published the diary page layout I’d put together for myself after being unable to find one commercially available that I liked working with.

Since the advent of the iPhone and MobileMe syncing I’ve returned to an electronic solution for diarying and task tracking (and it’s by far the best such system I’ve used), but I’ve been receiving a steady stream of emails asking for a 2009 version. Because of those requests, and because I’m continually surprised by just how popular those first downloads were (they’ve been downloaded several hundred times!), I’ve taken a couple of hours to update them for 2009.

(more…)

“Faust 2.0″ from xkcd.

Ever bought a copy of Windows or Microsoft Office? Ever read the small print on the side of the box?

I’ve seen the signs that Christmas is coming. Shopping centres have tinsel everywhere, we’ve started buying gifts and Starbucks have rolled out the red cups and the “seasonal” music on repeat. Days are shorter and the deepest of winter is getting nearer.

It’s still the first half of November.

Since we got married, each year has brought a few more decorations, a bit more time and effort spent on the tree, a few more twinkling lights. I play the humbug, but the truth is that I love it. I love the carol services and the decorations and the music and trees and lights. I wish it would snow on Christmas day and I get that daft, growing excitement as Advent rolls into Christmastide.

But not yet, because it’s still the first half of November.

I won’t rail about the de-Christianising of Christmas — that’s just silly. Christians are just one group who feast in late December; the bottom of the year can’t but be a significant point in any calendar. More than that, we can’t pretend that Christmas hasn’t become a cultural event completely apart from our remembering the Incarnation, however deeply our culture has a Christian seed somewhere in its past.

(Not saying that’s not the heart of the season for me, but there’s more than me around, y’know.)

This is my question: what does it say about our need for celebration and a little joyfulness that the preparation and decoration and everything else was starting in mid-October, more than two months before Christmas day? We’re desperate for something, aren’t we?

Do we run the risk of being heartily sick of it all by December 25th? What good does a celebration do us when it’s been diluted down to nothing?

Think about it, and I’ll come back to you in a few weeks. Advent is my favourite season, after all.

Some reflections for you on Armistice Day:

Glenn talks poppies, twice. As do Jonny, Cheryl and David.

The poppy keeps coming up in conversation, along with the question of how to remember rightly. Brodie thinks carefully about the meeting of pacifism and Remembrance, leading up to what I’m sure will be a useful examination of solidarity and neighbourliness. It’s Brodie’s final point that rings most true for me:

Fourthly, remembering is not a glorification of war but a lament. Lament is a very scriptural practice and one that at times for the health of a nation needs a national expression.

Brother Maynard is also worth reading.

Every year I think about how I relate to our corporate Remembrance, and every year I seem to get further away from a conclusion. Perhaps our agonising at such length tells something about importance.

Last night, as we were driving home from a visit to family, we got to talking about music. The question was: what are the songs that you could listen to over and over again, winding the tape back or skipping the CD to the start of the track, because there’s something about them that makes your scalp tingle? (I’m sure you know what I mean.)

I could quite happily think of several dozen. Some because they capture a particular emotion; some because they evoke a time in my life (this was the criterion that prompted my wife most of all); some are faintly embarrassing while others are broadly accepted classics; some draw me in through the vocal, some through instrumentals; some are even notable simply for the tone of the guitar.

The following are a few of those songs that, at some time in the past, I have listened to again and again — just because.

• Pacing The Cage by Bruce Cockburn
• American Pie by Don McLean
• Vienna by Billy Joel
• Run-Around by Blues Traveler
• A Long December by Counting Crows
• Dry County by Bon Jovi
• Love Like A Tide by Brian Houston
• Birdhouse In Your Soul by They Might Be Giants
• The Good In Me Is Dead by Martyn Joseph
• One by U2
• Float On by Modest Mouse
• Come What May by the Maroons
• On her Majesty’s Secret Service by Propllerheads
• Shoebox by Barenaked Ladies

Like I said, there’s some fairly embarrassing music in there, but all are tracks that at some point have grabbed me and not let go. For each I could go into great detail why it’s here, and I could go many more again. Any to add?

One more from Dublin in September.