Tori.
Partly because of the fact I was 6 when Tori Amos released the little masterpiece that goes by 'Little Earthquakes', partly because her music is largely inaccessible, it wasn't until recently that I got to appreciate her work and understand what a brilliant artist, songwriter, piano player, singer, performer and mind she is. I was anticipating with great excitement the first Tori Amos album that would be released after my enlarged familiarity with her work. After 10-15 listens of 'Abnormally Attracted To Sin', the artist's 10th album in her long and luscious legacy has left me abnormally attracted to the pause button.
If this album had been released by anyone else, especially an emerging artist, it would have been a great success. It demonstrates great talent, composing ability, innovation and a few potential 'hits'. Coming from Tori, I believe it is a disappointment. Long gone are the masterful piano solos, the soulful, angry singing and the passion and emotion that characterized her most successful work. Welcome To England is the first standout song, but compared to the mega-hit of her previous album, Bouncing Off Clouds, it seems to be lacking something. Together with Curtain Call, they are the most memorable and promoted tracks of the album, but 2 out of 17 songs is not a good success ratio. There are a few more good tracks thrown in there, but most could just be described as simply bearable. Even though Tori has explained numerous times why she doesn't release B-sides and puts everything in one album, she seems to overrule the option of omitting some of the songs from her overall discography. Unless she has a masterplan for Abnormally Attracted To Sin, one that will surface after a few extra dozens of listens of the album. But the general impression I am getting now is that Tori has seemingly sacrificed her old style for something that could be described as "sleek overproduction". Yes, some chord progressions caught me by surprise, making me thing 'That's interesting', but that was it. She remains a lyrical genius, but you still need music to draw attention to the lyrics.
Other reviews on the album have been mixed, and one can understand why. This is not everyone's cup of tea. First Trent Reznor getting engaged and putting Nine Inch Nails on the shelf, now Tori settling into domestic bliss and forgetting how to punch those angry chords and yell into the microphone while f*cking that Bosendorfer's brains out.
Now that the magic box has stopped broadcasting, for some briefly, for others for good, everyone's favourite shows, it is time to get up from our comfortable, secure couch and face the world. For, without the warm familiarity of facing our favourite characters each week on the screen, perhaps not knowing what is going to happen, but having the opportunity to look back and watch the previous episodes, and also having the luxury of getting sneak previews of the events to come, how are we to face...
THE REAL WORLD?
I believe, without meaning to quote Michael Jackson, this is it. The summer is near, the weather is getting more inviting (unless you have cases like yesterday where you had to walk in the sun, wearing your sunglasses and holding your umbrella - I felt so glam) and it's about time people get out there and enjoy real life. I can't deny I am an avid television junkie myself, but sometimes when I'm walking outside on the streets I'm thinking "There ain't no time travel here! If I got some kind of rare disease would I be able to find someone as good as Dr House?" etc. But that absence can be kind of exciting sometimes.
Our beloved shows, with some truly striking moments, can extend beyond the entertaining and penetrate our behaviour outside in the 'real' world; in conversations, in our thoughts, in our actions. That is not necessarily bad, because sometimes these series escape the realm of the entertaining and enter that of art, and in that case they should be having a positive effect on us. So, let's keep the good memories Juliet, and let us go and live.
And now, if you will excuse me, I will get off the couch, get dressed and leave the house. It's going to be 19°C today. Bueno!
"Live together, die alone" - Lost S05E16 'The Incident'
Posted by Pollopaiti Labels: finale, jack, juliet, kate, lost, sawyer, season 5, the incident
(SPOILERS AHEAD)
Talk about dramatic irony. For the entire fifth season of Lost, I was beginning to lose my faith in what I thought was one of the best shows to ever hit tv. Gladly, the writers proved me wrong. With a suspenseful extravagance of action, tears and, naturally, the raising of a few questionmarks and eyebrows, the season came to a powerful ending, reminiscent of a series finale. Not only did they know what they were doing from the beginning, but, thankfully, Lindelof and Cuse managed to throw a few open-ended situations in the plot to remind us viewers that the end is not as near as we thought it would be. Some, actually, suggest that it will take some more time than we first thought for Sawyer to see LA.
I will not provide a summary but a random commentary of the episode. I always find it really hard to summarise Lost anyway. The question "Where to start?" has become even more rhetorical since the introduction of time travel in the series and the jumping back and forth between the 70's and the 00's. Lost has always been a show that, above all, made me curious when watching it. So, let's speculate.
I've already read discussions on Locke's body and 'Locke'. He must be really dead. Christian's body was not in the coffin when 815 crashed on the island, and then there he was, walking among the characters with his white trainers and Claire on his side later on. Locke's dead body, on the other hand, is still there. This must only mean one thing: he hasn't been resurrected. Which only raises the question: "If that's not Locke, then who is he?" Good question, but also clever way of keeping Terry O' Quinn in the cast, I must say. The Lockeless episodes felt a little poorer without his presence. Some claim that who appears to be the new Locke is Jacob's 'friend' we see in the opening scenes of the episode. Maybe that was the loophole he was talking about. Ben killing Locke was not part of the plan, and this guy took good advantage of it.
The love quadrangle was one of the highlights of this episode on so many levels. Poor Juliet. The writers were criticized for making her react in an out-of-character manner when she 'changes her mind' and decides to help Jack detonate the bomb. However, she is human, and, as intelligent and rational as she might be, she loves. And she loves Sawyer, and he hurts her without meaning to, and she makes a rash decision. But all the shocks and apocalyptic moments of the show came after rash decisions, and if anyone was allowed to make one all this time, that was Juliet. Kate, on the other hand, causes trouble once again just by being there, and being a little troublemaker. She just can't stand still. She loves Jack, she decides to help him even though she knows things will never be the same. And oh, the irony, when Juliet truly dies alone, when she clings on for dear life, first hanging from the chains that Kate is struggling to hold, and then by grasping Sawyer's hand. Touching stuff. I liked how they brought that line back into the show, and they made it count. Jack, on the other hand, was peacefully passed out a few metres away, while all hell was breaking loose. Oh so typical of our 'hero', who, deep down, is just a little man, struggling for recognition and meaning. I'm curious to see how that will turn out for him next season. The writers will have to try really hard if they want to make him likeable again, because the more I watch the series, the more I start thinking that much of Jack's pain is self-inflicted.
One of the most enjoyable moments of the episode was Sawyer smashing Jack's face. I'm all for objectivity when it comes to reviews, but as far as Jack goes, he deserved it. Narrow-minded, stubborn, irrational, partly insane, partly alcoholic, an epic failure, Jack Shephard has turned into the new Locke of the show, dragging everyone down the spiral with him. If Locke's truly dead and he never came back, then (another hit of dramatic irony) the only point at which he did something meaningful in the show was when he died, because that brought everyone back (hence we got Season 5). Let's wait and see the results of Jack's latest actions. I'm really interested in seeing how a grief-stricken Sawyer will deal with Jack next season, if Juliet's truly dead and the past hasn't been erased.
The fading to white at the end was the icing on the cake, even though credit for that really must go to Alan Ball and the Six Feet Under people. Fading to white can mean a new beginning, either in life, or in what comes after it. White, like a blank canvas, might be suggesting that whatever happened over the past years will actually be erased, and a fresh start is ahead for everyone (apart from poor Juliet, probably, who served her role as the tragic heroine in the series. She will be dearly missed. Maybe the fading to white also meant Juliet finding her peace.)
I think what needs to be overcome in oneself in order to truly enjoy and appreciate Lost is rationality. Juliet's possible death, one of the few truly rational characters (well, not completely) of the show, might be hinting something at us, along with killing Faraday, the only guy who could explain the time travel. If the phenomena that have been taking place in Lost can be explained, only time will tell.
When it feels like you should be doing something different with your life, where do you start changing it?
People are born with gifts.
Some are lucky enough to do what they are meant to be doing, get a good job, be successful, make lots of money. The investment bankers, the consultants, the lawyers. The recession came to shake things up a little bit. I think it's the world's way of saying "Fuck you!" to the money-makers, to remind people that money isn't everything, and that it can't buy happiness but it can definitely take it away from you. People are so preoccupied with becoming rich that they have forgotten who they are, and they forget to look inside them from time to time to see who's lurking in there, in the shadows.
It could be someone amazing.
Which brings me back to my point. If you find out who you want to be, what you want to be, if you manage to remember where you came from, and who you are, and where you want to go, how do you set about following your track? There's one thing I know for sure: I'll keep taking photographs, even if it kills me.
Just because I felt like it.
I can't believe it took me 7 years to discover Six Feet Under. Seven! I just finished watching Episode 3 from Season 4, 'Parallel Play', and there is no other word to describe the closing scene of that particular episode but sublime. The combination and sheer raw power of the fire burning the Fishers' 'baggage' to the sound of Radiohead's Lucky that eerily fills the atmosphere through Claire's speakers creates a feeling of emptiness and fulfillment - a feeling of catharsis. It just makes you think everything's going to be ok.
It is the cremation of the metaphorical dead bodies that have been haunting the family house and the characters. The song, elegantly chosen, reflects the mood of the scene, the characters and the series as a whole. It is as happy as Radiohead can get in 'OK Computer'. The sound of Thom Yorke's voice blurting out "It's gonna be a glorious day!" through the dark sounds of Greenwood's guitar indicates the struggle of the family to leave the past behind and together move towards a more positive future. But, the dark undertones are still there.
The purging of their sins (their 'mistakes' as we like to call our sins in everyday life) and the brightness of the flames against the darkness of the night serve as a rare positive reminder in the show that no matter how dark the cloud, there may be a silver lining. I say 'may', and not 'will', because I haven't finished the show yet, and because Six Feet Under is realistic, not optimistic.
Echoing the emotional, life-affirming end of American Beauty, the scene creates a parallel play between life and death, happiness and sadness, past and future, light and dark, and, finally, black and white, as it fades to it like it always does at the end of each episode.
I have been fighting with myself for the past three weeks to manage to go to all lectures and classes of the week. If I miss today's lecture, it means I will have only missed two hours out of the nine of the week. And it's on statistics. Which means I don't really have to go, because I've convinced myself I'll be revising over Christmas. So, seriously, why go?
I'm so lazy. It's like every time I wake up a demonic mechanism starts working in my head, from the first sound of my alarm, and puts all the little energy I have in the morning into raising my arm and repeatedly pressing the snooze button. For an hour. One hour and a half sometimes.
I should probably start taking my vitamins.
I really haven't written in ages, so I don't know where to start and where to end. But, sometimes, the past is there just for reminding you that you're not there anymore, but you're here, where you're standing right now, at this very moment, and that's all that matters.
I started watching Lord of the Rings, and I think the words of Gandalf really affected me, even though they came from the film that I'd swore I would never see: "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us." They are similar to another set of wise words I derived from watching Lost (yes, I am spending my time constructively): "It doesn't matter who we were; only who we are."
Sometimes things are not that simple, unfortunately. Your past chases you, it surrounds you like a black abyss, refusing to let go. But it is up to us to let go of that, and step out of the dark and into the light. So now, I, too, have chosen to step out of the dark. I don't know how much light there is going to be in my future, but I can at least try and find out, and make it as bright as possible. I have already landed my very first photography exhibition, which is going to start 4 days before Christmas.
'You can take the artist out of Art but you can never take Art out of the artist.'
(LSE MSc Management student 2008 - ie. me)
I am probably studying one of the most boring subjects in the world. As a result I have been forced to shift my overanalytical mind to my personal life, or else I'm afraid it might completely switch off. And I don't really have that much material to analyse at the moment, but I like that in a way. It makes me feel calm.
