Velvets Fan

New blog: http://ricm.ac

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 08:27:52 GMT

I'm no longer active on Soup.io, despite it being an awesome service. You can find me now on ricm.ac.

Richard MacManus is watching The Boxer

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 11:44:53 GMT

Daniel Day-Lewis is one of my favorite actors. Intense and a great method actor. Emily Watson excellent in this film too.

Richard MacManus is watching Foo Fighters: Back and Forth

Sun, 24 Apr 2011 14:14:55 GMT

I loved this. Long live the Foos.

Joseph Arthur - Crying Like A Man (Live on KEXP)

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 11:51:27 GMT

Joseph Arthur - Crying Like A Man (Live on KEXP)

Phantogram - Running from the Cops (Live on KEXP)

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 11:09:32 GMT

Phantogram - Running from the Cops (Live on KEXP)

The Kills - Fried My Little Brains (Live on KEXP)

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 10:42:58 GMT

The Kills - Fried My Little Brains (Live on KEXP)

Richard MacManus is watching Pump Up the Volume

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 14:39:03 GMT

Classic 1990 movie, Hard Harry! One of Christian Slater's best. I'm wallowing in nostalgia tonight.

Richard is currently reading: Autobiographies: Memories and Reflections (Paperback)

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 02:20:38 GMT

Richard is currently reading: Autobiographies: Memories and Reflections (Paperback) by W.B. Yeats
bookshelves: currently-reading

Richard is currently reading: Concerning the Spiritual in Art (Paperback)

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 02:15:57 GMT

Richard is currently reading: Concerning the Spiritual in Art (Paperback) by Wassily Kandinsky
bookshelves: currently-reading

Richard is currently reading: The Art of Abstract Painting: A Guide to Creativity and Free Expression (Paperback)

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 02:10:38 GMT

Richard is currently reading: The Art of Abstract Painting: A Guide to Creativity and Free Expression (Paperback) by Rolina van Vliet
bookshelves: currently-reading

Richard marked as to-read: The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting 1890-1985 (Paperback)

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 02:09:16 GMT

Richard marked as to-read: The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting 1890-1985 (Paperback) by Maurice Tuchman
bookshelves: to-read

13th FLOOR ELEVATORS part 2

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 11:15:02 GMT

13th FLOOR ELEVATORS part 2

13th FLOOR ELEVATORS part 1

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 11:03:15 GMT

13th FLOOR ELEVATORS part 1

13th Floor Elevators - Slip Inside This House

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 06:12:22 GMT

http://www.last.fm/music/13th+Floor+Elevators/_/Slip+Inside+This+House

A. Norman Jeffares: W. B. Yeats: A New Biography ★★★★

Sat, 09 Apr 2011 11:51:32 GMT

W.B.Yeats is my favorite poet and I had read a biography of him before, but I didn't really take it in at the time (I was young, foolish and lazy). I felt like I discovered much more about Yeats' ideas and "system" - the term he himself used to describe the subconscious-based, supernatural mythology of his main book of poems, A Vision - through this biography. It was a little light on intimate details about Yeats, as if the author was too respectful of his own role as an academic to really probe into Yeats' personal life. But in general it did a good job of explaining the phases Yeats went through in his life and elucidating the ideas for his poems.

(I must visit Sligo. I must visit Ireland!)

I was inspired by this biography to read Yeats' Autobiographies - the next book off the shelves for me, got it at the library today. Also it gave me more background to re-read his poetry, and try and suss it out once and for all.

I'm in my 40th year, which in many ways is a depressing fact. But, like Yeats, I grow younger the older I get. Certainly more energetic of mind and curious. It was a bit disturbing to read about Yeats in his later years, writing about aging. But of course, life is finite.

I'm exploring the work of Yeats more deeply now than I was in University nearly 20 years ago. I'm glad I'm doing that.

Rating: 4/5

DIEGO JACOBSON - Part2

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:08:33 GMT

DIEGO JACOBSON - Part2

DIEGO JACOBSON - Part1

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:00:40 GMT

DIEGO JACOBSON - Part1

Diego Jacobson - "Museography of the Soul"

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:51:42 GMT

Diego Jacobson - "Museography of the Soul"

Foo Fighters performing at Stubb's during SXSW - Bridge Burning

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 11:53:36 GMT

Foo Fighters performing at Stubb's during SXSW - Bridge Burning

Foo Fighters - White Limo - Live @ Stubb's - SXSW 2011

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 11:38:03 GMT

Foo Fighters - White Limo - Live @ Stubb's - SXSW 2011

Yuck - Holing Out

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 08:55:37 GMT

http://www.last.fm/music/Yuck/_/Holing+Out

Nirvana - The Man Who Sold The World

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 05:36:18 GMT

http://www.last.fm/music/Nirvana/_/The+Man+Who+Sold+The+World

Buddy Holly - Take Your Time

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 05:18:04 GMT

http://www.last.fm/music/Buddy+Holly/_/Take+Your+Time

Kevin Kelly: What Technology Wants ★★★★★

Sun, 03 Apr 2011 05:42:28 GMT

Ambitious, expansive book by one of my favorite tech futurists, Kevin Kelly. It covers everything from The Big Bang Theory to evolution to AI and more. Very thought-provoking, highly recommend anyone involved in the tech scene read it.

Rating: 5/5

Herbie Hancock - Don't give up

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 01:32:11 GMT

http://www.last.fm/music/Herbie+Hancock/_/Don%27t+give+up

Foo Fighters - All My Life

Sun, 27 Mar 2011 06:25:25 GMT

http://www.last.fm/music/Foo+Fighters/_/All+My+Life

Richard MacManus is watching Beautiful Losers

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 11:49:39 GMT

Art doco.

Yuck @ Mellow Johnny's SXSW 3/16/11

Wed, 23 Mar 2011 10:04:44 GMT

Yuck @ Mellow Johnny's SXSW 3/16/11

Yuck - The Wall

Wed, 23 Mar 2011 07:35:50 GMT

http://www.last.fm/music/Yuck/_/The+Wall

Meryle Secrest: Modigliani ★★★★

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 07:24:58 GMT

I bought this book at SFMOMA and have been devouring it since then. Modigliani was my favorite artist before I read this and he's even more so now. The biographer attempts to re-tell the fabled story of Modigliani, who has historically been seen as a hedonistic artist who drank himself to death at age 35. In fact, Modigliani suffered from tuberculosis and the author contends that over his adult life he masked this disease with drink. So her thesis is that it was tuberculosis that killed Modigliani, not a dissolute lifestyle.

I came away believing this, because it paints Modigliani as a noble and elegant soul.

That corresponds with my own feelings about Modigliani's paintings. My favorite (which to this day is the default image on my iPad) is "Portrait of Madame Hanka Zborowska": http://velvetsfan.com/post/27664491/Modi... This painting is the height of elegance and beauty, to me. You can read in that post (linked) that my initial reading of Modigliani was the popular conception of him: "He died young, at 35, after a life of debauchery in Paris at the beginning of the 20th century." I'm very glad that this biography righted that wrong view of Modigliani. His paintings are simply beautiful, as I'm sure he was too.

I highlighted a number of parts of this book, which I'll no doubt tweet in due course. I can't resist copying out this one bit, a quote credited to Noel Alexandre:

"The popular version of Modigliani as a drunk, with women and drugs - people have invented a personality that didn't exist. The one that did exist was so much more admirable. A man who lived his life nobly. An artist, highly original, who looked for another path, different from Picasso, from Matisse. He is unique in his genre, unique in his nobility of intent."

Rating: 4/5

R.E.M. - Can't Get There From Here (Athens Demo)

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 00:46:48 GMT

http://www.last.fm/music/R.E.M./_/Can%27t+Get+There+From+Here+%28Athens+Demo%29

Victoria Finlay: Color: A Natural History of the Palette ★★★★

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 22:00:13 GMT

This is an adventure story, a history of colors told by a woman who traveled the world to see for herself how paint and dye colors were made. Firstly I was very impressed by her willingness to seek out the stories of color by exploring out-of-the-way places like an Afghanistan mine, the Australian outback and a Mexican village. Secondly, I enjoyed how she brought each color (and its many variants) alive through her story-telling. Some of the colors were literally alive, like the cochineal beetle - where bright crimson red comes from. At other times the author, Victoria Finlay, personifies colors. In one memorable part of the indigo chapter, she describes it as moody (a "sulky vat") and mystical.

Finlay also intersperses her own imaginative fiction into the book. She often imagines how the history of a color might have played out, if she wasn't able to get the full story from facts. This is very charming and adds to the sense of adventure in the book. At other times she makes surprising factual discoveries, which reinforces the importance of finding out stories first-hand - via travel and researching sources.

I also liked the constant theme of natural dyes / pigments vs. the "synthetic" dyes and paints. The latter don't have the same sense of history or romance. It's almost like the natural colors are 'the good guys' of the story and the synthetic ones are the baddies. Again, mixing non-fiction facts with fictional story-telling methods - which I've been a fan of for a long time, Tom Wolfe and Michael Lewis being two of my favorite authors.

This was a wonderful book which brought colors alive to me. The book was hard to get into at first, but from the red chapter onwards (ref cochineal beetles) I was hooked.

Rating: 4/5

Richard is currently reading: Feeling as a Foreign Language (Paperback)

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 20:51:45 GMT

Richard is currently reading: Feeling as a Foreign Language (Paperback) by Alice Fulton
bookshelves: currently-reading

Black Mountain - Night Walks

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 21:14:59 GMT

http://www.last.fm/music/Black+Mountain/_/Night+Walks

Best Coast - I Want To

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 21:54:28 GMT

http://www.last.fm/music/Best+Coast/_/I+Want+To

Richard added: John Baldessari: Pure Beauty (Hardcover)

Mon, 28 Feb 2011 07:34:31 GMT

Richard added: John Baldessari: Pure Beauty (Hardcover) by Jessica Morgan

Richard is currently reading: What's Welsh for Zen (Hardcover)

Sun, 27 Feb 2011 04:23:14 GMT

Richard is currently reading: What's Welsh for Zen (Hardcover) by John Cale
bookshelves: currently-reading

Richard is currently reading: Naked Song (Paperback)

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 20:55:09 GMT

Richard is currently reading: Naked Song (Paperback) by Lallācārya
bookshelves: currently-reading

Richard MacManus is watching Twin Peaks

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 14:11:51 GMT

Seeing as it's the 20th anniversary of Twin Peaks, I'm re-watching series 1 for the first time in years.

Bob Dylan - Just Like A Woman

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 02:26:48 GMT

http://www.last.fm/music/Bob+Dylan/_/Just+Like+A+Woman