So long September

My favourite method of procrastination is to make mix tapes (well, CDs). As September was mostly about writing (see previous post), this meant it was also mostly about procrastination. And so without further ado I present to you my September '08 playlist:

1. Suedehead - Morrissey
2. I'm Good, I'm Gone - Lykke Li
3. Not Fade Away - The Rolling Stones
4. Victoria - The Kinks
5. Senses Working Overtime - XTC
6. Pink Moon - Nick Drake
7. Cold Blooded Old Times - Smog
8. A Town Without Pity - Gene Pitney
9. Darling - Sons & Daughters
10. A Million Reasons - Stellastar
    
11. Lion Rip - The Duke Spirit
12. Slow Hands - Interpol
13. Cannonball - The Breeders
14. Today - Smashing Pumpkins
15. Heart Shaped Box - Nirvana
16. Doll Parts - Hole
17. The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack - Liars
18. Handlebars - Flobots
    

Play the whole thing streamed here (minus the Duke Spirit track as bloody favtape.com couldn't seem to locate it).

Here's to a prosperous October...

the day before the deadline

• Hours of sleep had: Less than four
• Number of drafts written
10 pages: About five
One-pager: Still not enough
• Deadlines met: One
• People in the line ahead of me at the Post Office: what seemed like 100
• Minutes spent deciding between the veggie brunch or the pancakes at brunch: Also about five
• Tantrums the godson had during the couple hours I spent with him: At least three. Including throwing a bowl of chips on the floor at Giraffe.
• How we got him back in the buggy without another tantrum: bribed him with Maltesers.
• Plan for the next day or two: bloody sleep.

Bonne chance à tous. I hold no hope but at least a deadline gets me writing.

badlands #2

You're So Cool - Hans Zimmer

In the badlands of south west London, a sunny Saturday afternoon spent lying in the sun in Richmond Park. Deadlines be damned.

cogito ergo procrastinato*

Lazy Sundays are an art form, best typified by that amazing SNL skit of a few years ago (which has become so embedded in the pop culture subsection of my mind that I actually can’t say Chronicles of Narnia without (a) saying Chronic-what?-cles, and (b) start laughing). (Man, I miss SNL).

Today was a very, very lazy Sunday; the sole aim of the day was procrastination (sorry, 30th September is how far away? A whole nine days you say? That’s fiiiiiine…)

I got up late.

I had coffee and watched The Warriors (I dressed up as a Warrior for Halloween ’05, when I was living in NY. Had never actually seen the film, but there was a massive billboard a couple blocks away from my offices for the videogame of it, and the image had lodged itself in my mind, clearly, as I couldn’t think of a single other thing to dress up as. At the big Halloween ball we went to in Williamsburg some very drunk guy cornered me at the bar, grabbed me by the shoulders and slurred “No one will ever understand how amazing your outfit is.” Which I took to mean he approved of it.)

I went back upstairs to get dressed… but got back into bed instead.

Got up again about half an hour later, feeling guilty that I was wasting the day so badly.

Back downstairs, completely ignored Ratatouille that someone had put on, internetted for a good long while. Joined twitter.com after months of hovering around all, all in the name of procrastination (it’s great, join! we can all follow each other procrastinating! It’s like the most fun part of Facebook – the status update bar - without all the other Facebook crap).

Put Shaun of the Dead on (see below).

Paused Shaun of the Dead to walk round to open-all-hours pharmacy. Pharmacist not in, came home, resumed Shaun of the Dead.

Paused Shaun of the Dead again an hour later, walked to corner shop, bought poppadoms, went back to pharmacy, pharmacist in, picked up prescription. Came back, watched last part of movie.

Had dinner.

Internetted, made playlists, generally mooched around.

Watched repeats of No Heroics (has potential) and Samantha Who? (quite funny, could do without the weird writing bits).

Made a cup of tea.

Read Neverwhere.

Decided it was too late to try and salvage the day by doing something productive, so went to bed.

An art form. As you see.

*Yes, there's a large chance this actually isn't Latin.

Master Blaster

So my sister got last minute tickets (as in, 5:30pm-when-he-went-on-at-8pm last minute) free tickets to Stevie Wonder at the O2 last night, courtesy of her workplace. Cue much stress as I tried to figure out if it'd be feasible for me to go - of course, it's Stevie fucking Wonder, you drop everything and make it happen - then major rush over to Greenwich, but everyone got there in plenty of time.

And oh my, he was amaaaaaazing. Total legend.

badlands

Saw Badlands at the BFI tonight. My gosh, what a film. Like visual poetry. Masterful.

Note to self:

Films to re-watch as soon as I have time:

• Repo Man. "...Ordinary fucking people, I hate 'em."
• Total Recall - which I haven't seen since I was about 12 and made some friends watch it at a sleepover. Perhaps that was the beginning of my oddball reputation... when all they wanted to do was watch The Outsiders and cry over Johnny, and I make them watch a total mindfuck of a film.
• Memento. Know I've seen it, but don't remember.
• The Matrix
• Shaun of the Dead. One of the rainy Sundays in August (and it felt like there were many), when the grey skies drained all productivity out of me, I sat and watched all of the second series of Spaced (having watched the first the day before), followed by Hot Fuzz. For some reason I never got round to SotD that day, so it feels like a piece is missing.
• A History of Violence
• Withnail & I
• Kill Bill (both volumes)
• Pulp Fiction. Haven't seen since the year it came out and I was a wee teenager. As much as I liked it then, I'm sure I'd appreciate it much more now.
  
• Brick. One of my favourite scripts I've ever read.
  
• Brazil, which is playing the BFI at the end of September so must try and twist someone's arm into going with me.