Catching up.

There is so much out there that I want to hear, watch, play and read that I’d need multiple lifetimes to get through it all, but one of the greatest joys in life is spending time getting through some if it. Sometimes it’s hard to know where to go next. Recommendations don’t always work, because they’re often someone else’s idea of what they think you would or should like.

I remember when Rach and I were at college together just getting to know each other, and in between stealing glances at her over our time in the college library revising together, I was getting her caught up on my music tastes, which I thought were eclectic at the time. I was 18, so you can’t blame me too much for thinking listening to both Manic Street Preachers and Prodigy meant I was eclectic. Turns out most 18-year-olds are pretty silly like that, on account of, you know, only being 18. It generally went quite well – Oasis, Manics, Suede etc. all good. Radiohead took a little longer, but eventually became a favourite. Then there was Nirvana. She just didn’t get them, didn’t like them much. I’d built them up a fair bit to be honest, and she didn’t really get what the fuss was about. She was wrong – she still is, because she still isn’t a fan, but it illustrates that sometimes other people who think they know what you’re going to like don’t always get it right. It’s often so much better if you come to discover new stuff yourself.

Blip.fm was pretty good for that, but since they allowed video streaming as well as audio streaming it seemed to lose something. Going to the Green Man festival for the past couple of years has turned me on to some music I probably wouldn’t have found otherwise, like Michael Kiwanuka, Curtis Harding and Anna Calvi.

Reading is another one. When you have a type or collection of authors you like, you find yourself sometimes sticking quite closely to them or authors like them, inevitably missing out on others. And this is where being married to a librarian pays dividends. Rach isn’t making recommendations based on her knowledge of what/who I like to read, she just picks a few up now and again from a genre she knows I like, and that’s how she brought home Flowers for Algernon. Technically sci-fi, it does what all great sci-fi does and is actually about something else entirely. Ostensibly it is about a man with extremely low intelligence becoming a subject in an experiment to increase human intelligence which turns him into a genius but in reality it is actually about so many things; the human need for love, empathy and understanding, the nature of humanity, intelligence and science. The nature of time and its vexing insistence on waiting for no-one. The fear of losing the ability to think for yourself and to remember. As the main character begins to understand more about his past, his ‘friends’ and himself, it is at once illuminating and desperately sad. It hit such a nerve with me that although it brought tears to my eyes I am so glad I found it and was able to ponder the questions it raised. At the same time Rach brought home Day of the Triffids, which, along with The War of the Worlds and The Time Machine was one of those cheesy film adaptations that I adored as a kid. I wasn’t quite prepared for how chilling the novel was – it was genuinely uncomfortable to read at times.

Then there’s TV. So much TV. The thing about TV is, there’s so much of it nowadays, and so much of it is supposed to be first rate, I often find I start something but take ages to get through it. I’m not a binge watcher – sitting through 4 or more episodes a night isn’t something I can seem to manage. I’m watching a load of good shows, just slowly. One of the shows I’m slowly getting through with Rach is Black Mirror. It you know anything about Charlie Brooker, you’ll know he’s not often one for cheery dispositions. I’ve heard there is an episode, San Junipero, that supposedly has a happy ending. I haven’t got there yet, but I did actually get quite a positive feeling from the ending to an episode I watched recently, Nosedive. Set in a possible future where everything from social status to what type of house or medical care you’re entitled to depends on the approval of others to your social media habits. Everyone and everything exists in an environment of enforced jollity, where expressions of negativity are met with negative feedback, putting your whole social position at risk. By the end of the episode the main character has gone as low as it is possible to go and has her connection to that world severed. The episode ends with her cheerfully exchanging insults with another person in the same situation and oddly, it feels really positive. The visceral relief at finally being free of the fake happiness that binds everyone else and being able to say what you want without fear of peer disapproval comes across brilliantly.

So without further ado I’m off to read/play/watch/listen to something.

Newish occasional feature: Ending with a song relating to the post:

Anna Calvi – Don’t Beat the Girl Out of My Boy