A quick mumble, don't grumble

I've been quieter than usual, I know...strange eh?

All the usual culprits are there but I'm also trying to get my writing notes in reasonable order for the first meeting of the scriptwriters group I've joined. We're meeting tomorrow night in a pub in Soho. I'm hoping it's a good crowd that aren't paralytic when it comes to talking about their writing or various opportunities in the city. It's definitely the kind of thing that will only be really beneficial if a certain level of trust can be created. If that happens then I reckon it will be very helpful to me if only because few things galvanize my writing quite like running through what I have with someone sitting across from me.

Meanwhile, though England is a seething mass of slang and has a somewhat notorious reputation for coin related slang from the pre-metric days (ha'pence, tuppence, shillings etc etc)....I just realized today I have not once heard any slang for coins while I've been over here. The closest is to hear a five or ten pound note referred to as "fivers" and "tenners" respectively - which isn't too crazy. Everything else is simply a ten pence coin, a pound coin and so on. What's up with that?

Also, airline food and VCR clocks and jokes about tired stand-up schtick.

Meanwhile, I'm sure most of you already know but for those who don't or maybe read about it a while back and forgot....the new Radiohead album is available to download both legally and free from their website. If Bjork is my favorite solo act than Radiohead has to be my favorite band, and while Beck sometimes jostles with Bjork for her position in my mental rankings...no other band ever threatens Radiohead. That being said, I try to stay highly objective about their work and frankly I found their last album to be kind of underwhelming given what incredible songs they'd put out before.

I also find that the very act of recommending something, anything, has become highly diluted thanks to the sheer proliferation of reviews covering everything which one all but trips over in their daily life. Think about how many times you've tried to recommend a movie to someone in recent years and how much you've had to qualify what you're about to say before you do - or how many times you've had the person half-roll their eyes while saying "I'll put it on The List".

SO

When I listened to In Rainbows for the first time, this Thursday past, I lay back on a park bench during my lunch hour and positioned myself so all I saw were my feet, trees, bushes, flowers and an old brick hut with a conical roof. I listened from start to finish with no interruptions and it felt like the band had somehow broke into my deepest memory vaults and carefully sampled pieces of all the sounds and songs I'd heard during my most primordial, formative moments from the womb up until my laying down in the park and plugging in my earphones.

I haven't felt like this while listening to an album since late 2001 when it happened almost back to back with Bjork's Vespertine (August) and Stereolab's Sound Dust (which came out earlier, but it was introduced to me in November that year). This is not hyperbole designed to overcome that problem with reviews and recommendations I mentioned. This is how the record made me feel.

I mean this. I mean every word.

And I gotta say, those who maybe get fed up with Radiohead's well expressed "dreary" side should download this because even the last track - to do with a videotape one leaves to be viewed after their death - fills you not with any kind of grief but instead an optimistic appreciation of how all things have their nobility, grace and charm.

So there you go, I've given this my best shot. Now I am spent, weak, sweating into the cheap carpet while leaving myself vulnerable to some foul degenerate sneaking up, twisting my arm into my lower back and making comical imitations of my cries for help to the staring crowd of strangers.

I shall now slink back again into my nook and leave the music reviews to better men than myself.