Winter 2009 part 2
Rules are made to be broken so one more post before spring begins. My thesis is nearly in its half which is a bit behind the schedule but far ahead from where I thought it will truly be during this time when I`m leaving to French Les Deux Alpes for a week. After two years I`ve finally had a bit more time to ski this winter but this week is different. It`s the one I was looking forward to since fall and after which I`ll have to start reading stuff my university ultimate finals. The week when I`m according to doctors supposed to avoid sun, alcohol and physical effort but actually can`t think about any other thing I was doing there last winter. Anyway, today I`m leaving to enjoy last snow, first sun, my friends and broad french slopes no matter what. I`ll have a bunch of medical students around so nothing to be worried about if anything happens:)
After mentioning the movies and especially document Man on Wire last time I can not forget the document I`ve seen a while ago. The three years old document In The Shadow Of The Moon is covering the U.S. Apollo missions flying to the moon, attempting to land on it or really landing on, and exploring the Earth`s only natural satellite. It`s full of scenes that most of the people have never seen, radio talks between Houston and spaceships (interesting especially during landing of Appolo 11 and troubles of Appolo 13), interviews with spacemen who really took part on these missions and awesome atmosphere. It`s changing from breathtaking views from the spaceship or the moon itself to critical moments where the blood stops flowing in your veins in order to experience an extatic feeling of a solved situation right few seconds after. But the most interesting part for me was in the spacemen speeches about their feelings when sitting in the spacecraft on the ground and waiting for it to start or to explode, watching the Earth from 384 000 kms, standing alone on the moon and many others that you never could have read in the newspaper or seen in the news.
Moreover, their stories and thoughts exceed the scope of science and aviation and go to the mission of whole mankind, fragility of the Earth and make people think about what is really important and what is not because "when standing on the moon, you can hide your loved ones, your business and the problems of the Earth itself just behind your single thumb". The document could easily have slidden down to a political propaganda but doesn`t do that, remains absolutely disinterested and you can not recognize which year it was shot. It`s just filling its documentary and philosophical purpose, does that as good as possible and makes you think a lot about many other things than just flying a strange aircraft somewhere to deep space. I just wish I could have seen it in the cinema because the views would have been even more amazing. But whether on computer or in the cinema, this is the document every one should obligatory see just to think for a while and make Earth a better place to live. And thats all for majestic and lofty announcements today:)
Sticking to culture recommendations there is an album imho sticking out of the line of many new ones appearing in February this year. It`s Lily Allen`s "It`s Not Me It`s You". That Lily Allen, myspace star of 2006, a favoured child of an famous father as some use to say and owner of the high voice which was not likeable to me on the first album. But as it was a kind of breakthrough four years ago for many other following single vocalists like Kate Nash, Amy MacDonald, Regina Spektor and many others, she did even bigger jump with her new record this year. Her new album has everything that it needs to have to be perfect. She`s grown up but still remaining to be cheeky and a bit arrogant. The lyrics are usally very straight without any hidden significations. They are covering her relationship to her father, fame, god, drugs, lame lovers, old singles or living in big cities spending days with TV and chinese food. And actual radio hit Fuck You isn`t hiding (25 x "f*ck) her hatefulness to U.S. former president. They are about different topics but still consistent and are not there just to fill in the space but really make the most important part of all the songs. It even seems highly probable they are really Lily`s and not just put into her mouth. This believeable feeling is enhanced with her simple, civil way of singing.The other thing which makes the record so good lies in the strong melodies. In this pop or electro-pop genre you won`t admire bands skills but still every song is very different with many good and interesting melodic and rhytmical ideas. And it`s not just sticking to something that could be called electro pop but overlaps as well to brass music (Never Gonna Happen), swing? (He Wasn`t There) or music from spaghetti westerns (Not Fair). With this diversity might almost any of the songs be released as a separate catchy single. All the melodies will give you a pleasant feeling of nothing surprising and you might feel you`ve already heard it before but still it will let you discover a lot of new. So why to wait:)
