Whimsical Musings of a Loon

When Kate Bush announced she would be performing live again after over 30 years of absence from audience shows, I had to pinch myself it was real. It was surely yet another myth. It was surely yet another silly rumour, created to tease and taunt. I had heard and suffered this disappointment so many times over the years. It was part of being a Kate fan. It was part of the deal. She was elusive. She rarely, if ever, appeared in public anymore, neither did she do interviews. As I was growing up in the late 90s and as the internet fuelled mass media driven celebrity obsessed culture expanded faster than you could say 'world wide web' - this elusive behaviour seemed even more intriguing, and yet even more frustrating. By the 00s, I was resigned to watching old Aspel clips on youtubes or getting very excited when Top of the Pops 2 showed old Kate videos. But it was part of the pact. Part of accepting her work into your domain. Accept her work into your life, but this is the pr...

It takes a special kind of film to bewitch you. It takes a particularly rare specie of film to intwine itself into your core, so that you become so affected and absorbed, it lingers in your mind like a stubborn infection, digging its heels into the very walls of your brain. Dramatic of course, but Boyhood, director Richard Linklater's latest movie release, had and continues to have precisely that affect on me. The culture equivalent of having my soul taken out, shaken, strewn through the washing machine and hung out to dry like wary bed clothes. On the face of it, Boyhood tackles themes and issues that have been dealt with copious amounts of times, not only in films but most culture forms - 'boy grows up', 'coming-of-age', 'families' 'struggling relationships'. It is understatedly filmed and shot. It has a couple of known actors in Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke, but no one overly 'blockbuster'. Its not set in glossy bustling New York ...

Why can I not be the lark ascending? Wings that glide on strings a-singing. Swoop and soar devoid of care; Nimble dart, slice through air. Lose me as a feather in space; Gone forever - to that other place. Becomes a shadow painted in kind, Remnants only in passing mind. Why can I not be the lark ascending? Wings glide free leaving strings a-singing.