Puppet Angel PWNed By Fluffy Representation Of Architectural Marvel

Here is the pictorial proof.


Last week Canyon and I went to Paris for a few days, which is why this blog went into yet more hibernation (and why, if anyone reading this has tried to contact me in recent days, there has been little or no response. Many apologies; I'll catch up ASAP). We learned a lot about Paris, and French culture, and took photos. Here are some of them. Many of these can be enlargenated using a cursor click to activate the process, FYI.

One of the things we felt compelled to do was visit the bookshop called Shakespeare and Company, as it had featured so prominently in one of our favourite movies, Before Sunset.


I had hoped that we would be able to retrace Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy's steps through Paris, but that would have involved even more walking than we already did, which made it untenable. Still, we had this as a consolation prize; a rare sighting of the Lesser-Praised Hawke-Novel.


Over the road from the world-renowned bookstore is the less well-known Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Bayeux, named after a famous carpet and a popular US university football team.


Within the cathedral are the usual churchly accoutrements, such as pews and elaborate windows. There is also, for the conspiracy theorists and Da Vinci Code fans, the infamous Swarovski Stable Scene.


This crystalline rendering of the birth of Christ has been carbon-dated to 5000BC, which has sparked much speculation about the chronology of events in the Bible. Whatever the truth behind this mysterious artifact, I think we can agree it sure does look pretty!

Speaking of pretty, here's the Venus De Milo.


It is, of course, named after the song by Television, "Venus", from their album Marquee Moon, and the fictional genius Milo Rambaldi, from the beloved pre-Da-Vinci Code conspiracy theory show Alias. This picture was taken by Canyon inside the Louvre. Here is the exterior, inspired by the terrifying Silent Hill antagonist, Pyramid Head.


In addition to Venus de Milo, the Louvre also contains the painting known as the Mona Lisa.


Named after the beloved Neil Jordan movie, starring Bob Hoskins and Michael Caine, it's a lovely painting, the epitome of beauty and classiness. I was humbled in its presence, made to feel so insignificant in the scheme of things. I doubt I was the only one who felt he should have arrived in this room wearing a dinner jacket or something. My Lego Han Solo t-shirt was not right for the occasion, but at least I wasn't this guy.


That's right, it's a National Pornographic t-shirt. Well done, sir. Da Vinci would have been honoured to have you around, that child-of-Christ concealing, codec-creating maverick.

Paris is full of relics of famous and talented people. While searching for the gallery of famous comic artist Jean Giraud, aka Moebius, I stumbled across this statue of Gaston Mangin, the inventor of the Mangina.


Such a small memorial to such a great man. However, that was more interesting than the Moebius gallery. Can someone alter his website to state that the building at 27 Rue Falguière is empty, so that no one else wastes half a day tromping through a really depressing series of backstreets? And can they go back in time to do it? For that, I'll side with Denzel Washington. Kirby Silver Surfer is definitely better than Moebius Silver Surfer.


Everywhere we went last week, we were watched by a train lady. Or, should I say, La Fille Du RER.


To put this into perspective, imagine a British movie called The Girl From The Docklands Light Railway. Actually, it does sound pretty good, though who knows if it will get a UK release. It doesn't happen that often. Still, there's an upside to that. At least we won't get to see Coco.



There were posters for this all over Paris as well, and after a day of seeing Gad Elmaleh's gurning face I began to quietly despair. I was almost tempted to see the damned thing just to exorcise myself, but without subtitles I doubt there would be much point. The trailer above is incomprehensible to me. I could have gone to see Marley Et Moi instead, with Jennifer Aniston as a private eye who dies and comes back as a dog.


It's silly to be annoyed at the posters for Coco. For all I know it's a highly sophisticated comedy, and Elmaleh is the natural successor to Jacques Tati's crown. It's just that it was everywhere, tainting the image of France as the cultural capital of Europe, home to great cinema, great food, great theatre.


Still, some parts of Paris were free from Coco. Paris is the city of romance, and so I felt compelled to visit the site of my favourite French romance, the Pont Neuf, immortalised in Leos Carax's notorious Les Amants du Pont-Neuf.



Yes, at 0:43 you do indeed see a fleeting, silhouetted glimpse of Denis Lavant's enormous schlong. Ah, Les Amants. What a movie. While the majority of heterosexual man-dom fell for Juliette Binoche in The Unbearable Lightness of Being, my own crush was formed during Les Amants and Carax's previous movie, Mauvais Sang. Both are great. (N.B. If anyone fancies buying me this, please feel free.)


Of course, Carax was unable to film on the actual bridge, seen above, so instead he filmed on a set. While standing on this stunning piece of architecture, I tried to see how much the surroundings matched the set; a silly task considering it's been years since seeing the movie, and I can't remember the exact details. While I pirouetted in an attempt to recall something, poor Canyon got more and more tired. We did a lot of walking that day.

Funnily enough, it wasn't until our last night there that we walked the relatively tiny distance to the nearest tourist trap. The apartment we stayed at was so close to the Eiffel Tower that you could smell the puddled iron. I wasn't about to leave Paris until I'd seen it, so a couple of us wandered over after an excellent meal of roast duck with duck pate, duck stew, and duck cassoulet. Here is a photo of Alec Eiffel.


He is, of course, named after the song by The Pixies.



The view from the bottom of the tower made me feel like I was docking with the Death Star.


Here is a shot of the famous Eiffel Death Ray.


This is used to repel all of the threats from outer space that have reduced the tower to a heap of melted slag in several motion pictures, including War of the Worlds, Independence Day, and Zéro De Conduite. Those previous three pictures are by me, and are flukes. These next four are by Canyon.


Yes, I have been horribly glib throughout this post, but it's merely to disguise my true feelings about the trip. Have you ever visited a place and fallen for it the instant you leave the station/airport?


It happened the first time I came to London, home of my heart even now that the substandard infrastructure drives me to distraction (and not my desired destination, 99% of the time). I thought that feeling would be replicated when finally visiting New York, but while I very much like it and want to spend more time there, there wasn't the immediate blast of emotion I had expected.


Paris, on the other hand, completely won me over. Never have I seen a city containing such effortlessly beautiful buildings, nor have I been lucky enough to visit somewhere so busy and yet filled with such charming and polite people. It's often said there is an antagonism between the English and the French, but I think that's bullshit. Even though my command of French is minimal, I felt relaxed and welcomed by Paris. My next visit cannot come soon enough.


Vive la France!

Can My Tindersticks Love Grow Any Further?

I'm currently reading The Gift by Lewis Hyde, which suggests that interaction with art is a gift exchange from the artist to the observer that exists in tandem with the commercial interaction that goes the other way, and that true spiritual satisfaction lies in that ephemeral transaction rather than in the monetary sense, which could (and often will) corrupt the nature of the relationship between the participants. There's much more to it than that, but right now it's making me wonder about how to discuss cultural experiences I've had, and what is the nature of my connection to the artists I respect and whose work has been important to me, particularly when I feel let down by them. Am I wrong to think like that? In reverse, what obligation do artists have to their fans, if any?


Tindersticks are one of my very favourite bands, responsible for a series of good-to-great albums that never set the world on fire, and probably never could. The parallel Earth in which they are the world's biggest band must be a peculiar place of eternal rainfall, darkened streets, murky bars and endless romantic strife for everyone living there. The French film industry would be the most popular artistic factory in the world, cigarettes would be smoked as an expression of inner torment, and all men must wear suits that have seen better days. This video for their song Rented Rooms, from their third album Curtains, sums up their philosophy brilliantly. The opening shows the public perception of their sound, and when it suddenly switches from the album version to their b-side swing band version, their hidden playfulness come out.



I guess they had to play with their public persona. That dour aspect and melancholic air is obviously ripe for parody. Melody Maker used to take the piss regularly, even though very few bands represented the more cerebral and fringe tastes of the Maker writers more perfectly than the 'Sticks. Whatever. Even though the band was obviously aware that the bleak nature of their songs was considered unfashionable or self-consciously depressing, their magisterial second album features a song, My Sister, that is so gratuitously miserabilist that I refuse to believe it is anything but a comment on their reputation as gloomy bastards. Here are the lyrics, spoken by Stuart Staples in his signature depressive, emotive drawl over a lolloping tune that even manages to be occasionally peppy, despite the subject matter.


That said, even knowing that the band are not just mechanically sourfaced, the relationships within the band seem to have been fraught with tension even at an early stage, something I had never noticed prior to tonight, while researching this post (in my traditionally half-hearted stylee). Even as early as Curtains, they were becoming unhappy with the demands of being in a touring band that had become their livelihood instead of an escape from the drudgery of the working life, as David Boulter explains here. One way to escape that tension was to change their approach to music. Their early albums were reiterations of the same sound, which I loved, but their first soul album, Simple Pleasures, left me completely cold. To this day I still dislike a lot of it. How could the band that had created something as perfect as that second album come up with something so peculiar? I reacted like a brat, and abandoned my previous adoration with much bitterness.


Of course, I was to be proved wrong. Their next album, Can Our Love..., was a masterpiece. Refining that new soul sound, they perfectly spliced their two approaches together, creating something new and wonderful, a hybrid that sounded like Serge Gainsbourg covering 70s soul tracks. I remember my first experience of it, being so astonished at its boldness and intellectual and emotional clarity that I could barely believe it existed. It remains one of my favourite ever records, even today. Here is the title track...



...and here is the Cosgrove-Hall-animated video for one of the other stand-out tracks, Dying Slowly. Again, the band is playing up to that depressive image brilliantly.



Their next album, Waiting For The Moon, was certainly no failure, but after the artistic success of Can Our Love... it had an uphill struggle to top it, which it couldn't do. And then, without realising there was anything wrong, and not long after I saw them play the first ever concert held at the Royal Court in Sloane Square, the band split up, and we were left with Stuart Staples releasing solo albums, the second of which, Leaving Songs, impressed me greatly. The other main artistic locus in the band, the absurdly talented multi-instrumentalist Dickon Hinchliffe, is now doing soundtracks for film and commercials, which is a natural extension of the work the 'Sticks did on Claire Denis' movies Nénette et Boni and low-key erotic vampire/cannibal movie Trouble Every Day (featuring Vincent Gallo and Beatrice Dalle, both in full-on bonkers crazy-go-nuts effect). Here's an example of his new direction; an unusually aggressive Kashmir-esque piece for this very expensive looking Mercedes ad.



His film career appears to be doing well, and he has it in him to become the British Alexandre Desplat, which is a good place to be. However, I only realised that he was no longer a band member tonight, having stopped waiting for news of new projects. The last time I had a Tindersticks experience was when I saw their All Tomorrow's Parties concert at the Barbican, performing their second album in its entirety. It was a masterful performance (though some will wrongly argue it was boring and one-note), and led me to believe the band were getting along despite their decision to split. So you can imagine my surprise when I found a copy of their new album (which I didn't even know existed) sitting on my desk at work, staring up at me like an unloved teddy bear, waiting for me to hug it and squeeze it. They had reformed?!!? With joy I leapt up and hurled it into a CD player, and listened with much feverish anticipation.


It was three songs in before I realised there was a problem. Even though I should have known it already, it was obvious even on my first listen that Hinchliffe was definitely missing, and their sound has suffered for it. It's a cliche that art has to be forged by toil and anger and emotion, but the tensions between the band members have created some amazing records, and The Hungry Saw, though not a bad album by any stretch, is missing the spark they once had. This is where my original questions come in. Hinchliffe has moved on and has projects of his own to worry about. Staples and the other remaining band members are trying to forge a valid artistic future for themselves. I wish them all luck, and at the same time I just want them to forget about all that independence nonsense, get the whole gang back together, and create something as startling as Can Our Love... Hell, even Waiting For The Moon made more of an impression on me on first listen. Other than some fireworks towards the end of The Hungry Saw, this is the first time I've heard a Tindersticks album and not felt some stirrings of excitement at some point. Compare that to April, the new album by Sun Kil Moon, aka Mark "Red House Painters" Kozelek, which sounds exactly the same as his other albums and yet still hit me in my soul like an ICBM.


Repeated listens will, I'm sure, yield better results, and there are already songs I've pegged as being possible future favourites, but there is nothing that has shocked me the way Mistakes did the first time I heard it, or She's Gone, or Sweet Release, or Bathtime, or Running Wild, or any number of other songs from their previous albums. Even worse, some songs hint at greatness but are almost sabotaged midway through. The promising Boobar Come Back To Me is derailed by some misjudged backing vocals. All The Love has a lovely haunting female vocal, but Staples' refrain is too reminiscent of his work on the aforementioned Running Wild. Flicker of a Girl, which is the first song they revealed on their MySpace page, is pretty formulaic, and just to be a dick, I can't help but be annoyed by the clarinet part that parps in about a minute in. And yes, I'm the kind of jerk whose enjoyment of a song can be ruined by the smallest thing.



The purpose of this post isn't really to rag on the band. I'm glad they're still recording, and The Hungry Saw will be listened to many times more than other albums that don't set my hair on fire straight away (Spoon's highly lauded Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga got about six listens before it was deleted from the iPod. This will not happen to Hungry Saw). What struck me as I listened to it, though, was how annoyed I was that the band had dared to split up in the first place, as if I was personally insulted by their choice. A moment's reflection later, and I realised I was being really unrealistic and arrogant, but that reaction was a potent one. What the hell business is it of mine to be pissy about this? I don't own their work, and I have no say in what they do.

And that rang true especially after beginning The Gift, in which Hyde argues that the artist will be fulfilled by the giving of the gift of his uncompromised art to everyone else, and the audience is equally enriched upon receiving the gift, and that should be pretty much the perfect relationship between creator and consumer. Tindersticks are one of the most individual and uncompromising bands I listen to, and that commitment to their artistic vision is one of the reasons why I love them so much. And yet now I feel like a Beatles fan getting annoyed at Lennon for daring to fall in with some weird Japanese performance artist instead of hugging it out with his bitch Macca. It's like Eno leaving Roxy Music all over again, or The Pixies splitting up. Just as Last Splash by The Breeders and Teenager of the Year by Frank Black were okay albums that pale into insignificance when held next to Doolittle and Surfer Rosa, The Hungry Saw and some commercial soundtracks will always seem pitiful next to the mighty Can Our Love...


Why can't I just accept the gift Hyde talks about, instead of thinking there is some obligation to me to battle through discord simply to make me happy? Why am I still resisting the idea of a gift economy like the one Hyde posits? We're not even talking about the actual economic version of it, just the artistic version. I still feel like I'm owed something, that fans have a say in what their idols do, even though what I'm hoping for is for years of tension and friction to be waved away for my benefit. It's amazing how pompous I felt when I looked hard at my initial reaction. Consider the awful, chastening irony that I laugh at the fools who railed against Dylan or Miles Davis for going electric, or the jerks who hated Radiohead for taking their favourite Autechre albums too seriously and daring to create something like Kid A (which I still maintain is a classic). (That said, at least in those cases the controversial works proved to be significant in an artistic sense, whereas I remain to be convinced of the merit of The Hungry Saw.)

I should just be grateful Staples, Hinchliffe, and the rest of the band are still around. If I could eventually come to enjoy Frank Black's later work even though it was not as good as his Pixies stuff, I should just embrace this new direction, and be glad they're still out there, even if they might not be able to capture that incredible magic again. I'm just amazed at how easy it is for me to become a swivel-eyed maniac when someone dares to exercise their autonomy and do things their way, which makes me doubt either the truth of the artistic gift economy idea, or my ability to adapt myself to the concept. It makes a mockery of my recent ranting against the evils of The Market. Tell me about an alternative that has worked in the past, and even when watered down to a hypothetical concept about transferring what amounts to good will, let alone moving actual physical resources around, and I panic.

Okay, enough whining about this. Look! It's a trailer for Kung Fu Panda! And amazingly it looks great! Check out the face of Master Monkey as he passes through the obstacle course in slow motion. That's made me love the movie without even seeing it.