Plimsouls

SMYR hearts Plimsouls muchly.

Chocolate fondue

Is really easy. I made it today. This is what you do:

Take equal parts chocolate and double cream (300g/300ml will do for 8 people). Break the chocolate into equal sized chunks (or different sized chunks if you're lazy) and put in a bowl and stick cream in a pan and bring it to the boil. Pour cream over chocolate. Stir lots. Add whisky. Dip stuff in it.

You don't need a proper fondue bowl, melted chocolate stays runny for ages when there's cream in it.

The end. Delight all round.

Added bonuses are that you won't need to eat for the rest of the day and that it turns into Nutella-style gloop once its hardened.

Forgotten gems

My music listening is largely dictated by the device most convenient and closest to hand. This for a long time was the laptop on which I type now. It was passed up for my iPod, perfect for nasty London commuting, good old fashioned CDs and my work computer. Said laptop is experiencing something of a resurgence and today I had a dig through my old tunes. I came out with some corkers (many of which I cannot claim I discovered myself). They are the songs I defined myself by, danced to and played out most but which I have rarely listened to since coming to London.

I remember that there was a time when MSTRKRFT was the most exciting thing in the world, Jesse F Keeler was beating Josh Homme in the contest of hottest man in rock and I spend hours accumulating thousands of MP3s. Some discoveries lead to further listening (thanks for Jenny Wilson, Uncritical) and others just to some dancing (Panico). Many of them I never really listened to (apologies to those of you I passed up, you'll get over it).

Here is today's top 5 re-discovered, undisovered gems. Totally danceable, totally disposable. Perfect for a Sunday night when you've been pissed off by a vanishing plumber and have consumed little but Lemsip and porridge for the last 48 hours.

1. Ce'cile - Hot like we
2. Panico - Transpiralo
3. Capricorns - The new sound
4. The Fever - Ladyfingers
5. Diamond Nights - Girls attractive

New York Times on My So-Called Life

This article is almost perfect, like My So Called Life.

Choice bits:

"To a certain sort of woman who is somewhere between late youth and an unacknowledged middle age, the name Jordan Catalano isn’t a television reference, it is a sense memory. You don’t recall Jordan Catalano, you feel him." Fact

"There is never any question that Angela and Jordan are doomed as a couple. The show gently mocks her infatuation, cutting to Jordan applying eyedrops whenever she begins to read in his intense blinking the signs of poetic torture. Where she sees soulfulness we know there is merely corneal irritation and presumably a bad habit."

Read here: Dear Rebecca, rocker boys are useless. Also, its AMAZING how MSCL uses Jordan Catalano as a piece of comedy, even though he's the love interest. Apart from when he can't read. That's not funny.

"As the touchstone examination of adolescence in the ’90s, “My So-Called Life” rejected the Clintonian ethos of ambition: striving, perhaps, wasn’t better. And at the same time it linked itself closely to the feminism of the period, one that prized interiority, self-help and revolutions from within. It was a diluted notion of female advancement, but at least it was a modestly dressed one."

Anyone with me for a modestly dressed revolution? Thick tights and polo necks here I come...

Pop conversion

I am undergoing a pop conversion. I am going back to my roots. I am also (re)discovering a love for solo artists. I think the only solo artists I ever really loved were PJ Harvey and Jeff Buckley (for which I am ever repentant). Nick Cave is good too. Sleater-Kinney obliterated my need for solo songstrels.

In today's pop world it seems that being a lady solo pop start means you can take risks and make interesting but accessible (crucial for me, that) music and, most importantly, be as wacky as you want.

Cases in point, in descending order of love:
Robyn
Roisin Murphy
Gossip (essentially a solo vehicle in pop world)
Jenny Wilson
Girls Aloud (do it multiple)
Britney Spears
Marnie Stern (not really pop but pretty crazy and I find it really hard to edit my lists)

I am going to investigate Sara Berg in more depth but I have a feeling she should go on there.

Which leads me to ponder, as ever channeling SJP, is perfect pop
Sassy woman + awesome outfit + electronic future music?

Kitty Empire discusses this much better here.

Bop

With more internet comes more posts.

Tonight is the bop, my favourite night of the month.

Bop bop bop.

Posts will get longer. Eventually.

(re)Acting

You can catch me at (re)Actor 2, the second international conference on digital live art at Leeds Met University on Monday 10th September. The theme is Bad Girls, Gadgets and Guerilla Performance. I will be giving a paper on Girls Rock! UK, focussing in part on the experiences of campers and volunteers with the technology of music production.

The conference looks great - the Guerilla Girls are giving the keynote! Very excited about that since I missed them at Toynbee Hall a few months ago and their work is liberally plastered over the femoloo in the flat. I’m sure I’ll meet some interesting people too.