My New Favourite Song: You're So High by Eli & Fur

I have become obsessed with a brooding dance track I heard in a restaurant. This is how it happens. This is how I get into house.

That's Eli & Fur.

Let me set the scene. I'm in the concrete basement of a Japanese restaurant. A woman at the only other occupied table in the room has told me about her Groupon voucher, and how she often visits new restaurants via the beautiful deals available to her on Groupon. The waitress is also in very high spirits, laughing often. I have just consumed a good amount of sushi and sashimi, and there is some kind of marinated bass dish on its way. I have consumed a drink called 'matcha dream'. The ambience is good - the dim lights and all of the fish already in my stomach are making me nice and sleepy. And the songs are soft club tunes, which adds to that hazy feeling. We are not in the club, but the club is in us, the people in this room.

And then a new song starts, with a bold rhythmic synth and a mountain of echo, a sequence of distant exhales, and some classic claps for percussion. "You're so high," sings a woman who sounds as if she is emerging from a foggy lake. "Do you think of my heart?"

A bassy synth kicks in, and it is impossible for me to resist the music. By the time the chorus arrives, and the woman sings, "hey hey, I need a love right now" I am lost in the undulating, reverb saturated bliss of it. I feel as if I have entered a cloud. It's like when you're falling asleep and the pure relaxed pleasure of the process subsumes you. This is pure dreaming music.

I found out later that this song was You're So High by dance duo Eli & Fur, a 2013 debut track that apparently reached the top 3 on Hype Machine. At around that time, I was really into Hype Machine, but I had no idea it was still going strong to this day. Good for you, Hype Machine. Love you.

They describe themselves as 'platonic soulmates' on the about page of their website, which is pretty funny. Okay ladies. Well, in fairness, I did see them and think "oh, lesbians?" I stand corrected. This page also talks about a 2024 album in future tense, so I guess they haven't updated the site in a while.

I thought they might be lesbians because... they look really cool.

Anyway, the point is: I am going to listen to this five thousand times. Bye. 

I Saw the Totoro Musical

They did it. Those madlads actually brought huge, fuzzy freak Totoro to the West End, to a sort of musical-light show at the Gillian Lynne Theatre, where I once saw Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cinderella before it transferred to Broadway and became BAD Cinderella (a truly iconic and insane move).

Bloke spotted.

I wasn't sure what to expect with this, because shows aimed at kids can often veer towards the predictable and bland. I'd seen a few pictures from past My Neighbour Totoro performances, and the puppets and sets looked really cool, but as far as the story's translation to the stage was concerned, I had modest expectations.

Sure enough, the sight of two adult women playing bombastic, screaming children took a little bit of getting used to. Sometimes I feel like this sort of thing works better through the TV than on the stage, somehow. Looking at real people in person can change something about the believability of the performance, or my ability to suspend my disbelief for this, and there are a few scenes in particular (one where Mei sits on the ground and cries in that stop-start way that tiny children do, for example) during which I thought, unstoppably: that's a woman.

Women alert!

It's kind of a strange thing - and also perhaps worth noting that there was no child in sight in the audience - but after a while I more-or-less forgot about it, especially with Mei, because her actress, Victoria Chen, really channeled the pure energy of a four year old. She had some absolutely perfect small child expressions. I was convinced.

Photo via Victoria Chen's Instagram, @vhickles.

The biggest star of the show is the big man himself, of course, and he looks phenomenal. Totoro is some sort of balloon puppet creature, and his movement is so smooth and impressive. When he grins, you grin. When he roars, you sit in silent reverence. This guy is great.

Large.

There are so many gorgeously designed elements of the show - numerous puppets, and beautiful sets that are moved in very inventive ways that really propel the narrative. There's some new sort of visual delight to be seen almost always, and let me tell you, when Catbus arrived, its headlight eyes casting frightening beams of light through the darkness of the stalls, I gasped.

The gorgeous inflated feline bus entranced me. I couldn't resist it.

All in all, I was pleasantly surprised by just how much I did enjoy the show. The thing is a glorious spectacle. It's cute, it has some good little moments of humour, and quite frankly, it's Totoro. 

I loved it. 

***

The photos used in this post are from various productions.

Darren Aronofsky's AI Madness

It came to my attention recently that noted freak director Darren Aronofsky has made some short films from crunched up AI-generated scenes for TIME Magazine's YouTube channel. They concern snippets of early American history, and look a little something like this:

Okay, eww. What's going on here?

In the first one, January 1: The Flag, we see sexy old legend George Washington raise the Continental Union Flag (or the Grand Union Flag, if you like) at Prospect Hill in what was then Charlestown, Boston, to the shock and awe of onlookers.

The first (unofficial) flag of the United States. In all its AI glory.

This seems to spook and hurt the British, possibly because the British Forces in the area were at this time surrounded, but interestingly, the reaction of stilled dismay that the film attempts to show (all emotions are sort of blunted and still in these AI renderings, it's like watching the facial skin of a corpse shift slightly underwater and calling that an expression) is less interesting than the one documented by George Washington in a letter to Joseph Reed on the 4th of January:

"We are at length favored with the sight of his majesty's most gracious speech breathing sentiments of tenderness and compassion for his deluded American subjects; the speech I send you (a volume of them was sent out by the Boston gentry), and farcical enough we gave great joy to them without knowing or intending it, for on that day (the 2d) which gave being to our new army; but before the proclamation came to hand we hoisted the union flag in compliment to the United Colonies. But behold it was received at Boston as a token of the deep impression the speech had made upon us, and as a signal of submission.
By this time I presume they begin to think it strange that we have not made a formal surrender of our lines."

                - via Our Flag: Origin and Progress of the Flag of the United States of America,                                    by George Henry Preble.

Those British buffoons interpreted this sign of reverence for the thirteen colonies as a compliment to the king. Incredible.

Of course, they figured out quickly enough what this flag-raising was really all about - America slay, Britain nay - but isn't this reaction so much funnier, and even a better patriotic story, than its straightforward alternative? I'm struck by the flattening of a genuinely interesting historical moment, with its odd little false assumption, and George Washington's sneering, delighted mockery of that, washed away so we can instead watch AI's limp version of the beginnings of a frown on an old man.

My favourite moment, in any case, is the delivery of the line, "stripes... thirteen of them" at about 2:42. There is a slight Disney villain quality to it that I enjoy, provided to us by, not AI, but a real voice actor. Thank you to that man.

The Allure of the Dog

I don't know when it happened to me, when I became such a dog depicter, but it seems like they're the animal I draw most these days. I still think of the classic bunny as my number one creature, the iconic ME symbol, but the dogs just come out. They just happen to me.

I think it's probably because of the wobbly lines I tend to adopt. I do this for dogs, but usually not the other animals. Dogs are just curly to me. They are curly little spaniels, very much based on my aunt and uncle's dogs.

The dogs in question.

I just love a wobbly line too much. It's too enticing. The gorgeous wiggle of it all. We need that.

I forgot the L in wiggly because I was just too excited. Forgive me.

Any animal can have it, in theory - that lumpy, curly quality - but it's the dog that has attached itself to the curls in my mind. The dog is the ultimate sidekick animal, in many respects, and the dog is also one of the most insane pets. There is a bespoke goofiness to the dog. One cannot deny this.

The long, discerning snout also appeals to me. That nose can become the perfect prodding stick, an investigative device, a kind of visual representation of the great, inspiring sense of smell and stink.

I'm not actually the biggest dog fan in the world. I grew up with cats, and so my destiny was to be a bit more of a cat person. But in art, the dog has an incredible humanity to it, and for some reason, in my mind, a probing, lucid gaze. Not to mention that fluffed up, eternally wagging tail.

It's a dog world. What can I say? 

My Gorgeous Routine

Here's a blog post direct from the dome. I mean, most of my posts are dome-based, but today I really just thought I'd sit down and type without a plan. Keeps me on my toes, and also is a nice way to be very direct and personal, which I always think of as the true essence of the blog. Y'know, lately I've been doing a lot of writing about the tasty media I've been slurping down, but right now I'm just here to present my own noodling consciousness. It's just gone noon as I write this, and it's time to commune with my blog.

I have a lot of routine changes to contend with in my life - I move around quite a lot to different places and different family members, and so the turmoil of that shifting has to be quieted. Sometimes it's just tough to adjust to a new place, or to someone else's way of doing things, and I have to carve out my own flexible structure and, when necessary, white knuckle it through jet lag.

Me, in a hotel room.

I think I've gotten pretty good at scheduling. Most of the people I talk to about the concept of being a freelancer in full control of the management of every second of your life express a kind of horror at the idea. I couldn't do that, they usually say. I would just sit on my ass all day. I would rot. Me, though - legend that I am - I have no problem committing to a self-imposed workday, and I think the bliss of knowing I have complete and total control over my own time and can take a delicious and soothing tea break at any moment keeps me diligent.

Bad painting I made of a sculpture I saw in a hotel room.

I mean, I have my bad days. I slip into a too-relaxed state sometimes, as is unavoidable. The human spirit craves pleasure. Some days you just need to watch an entire season of thoughtless or nostalgic TV and be done with it. And I think those breaks are nectar for the mind, we need them. Just chilling. But I have gotten to the point where my methods for managing my time are bolstered by the sheer pleasure of meeting my goals.

It reminds me, somehow, of the brief period when I worked in an office. I have such fond memories of that. Logging onto the company system, perusing the database, drafting a press release. I was always meant to be on the computer.

I use a running checklist of the basic tasks I have to do, and I try to make most of them a daily habit that I can check off. Here's the checklist as it stands:

About to tick off "Write a blog post".

You'll notice that some of these are fun things. Most of them, in fact. But those fun things are sort of like breakfast to me. Something satisfying and nutritious to get me started. I like to think of the things I do for enjoyment as jobs, in a way. It's not just my time off to relax, but it's part of my job to take in these different cultural things and think about them. It's all part of the machine! My creative work requires movie pellets, or whatever. I need to gets gems in this mobile game. It's my task. It fuels me.

A list for drawing ideas, and a miscellaneous list.

I also keep a lot of lists and notes. All the time, about everything. It makes it easier to think, and then I can go back to these and remember tiny slivers of ideas. And I like to keep timed goals for certain tasks, which I also track with customised timers.

The red dots disappear when I complete the associated time goal.

I never reach all of these goals in a single day, but it's a nice way to track my activity, and works as an extended checklist. It simply makes me feel accomplished. I am like Mario getting a new coin.

In the last week of January I spent at least six beautiful hours writing (although I'm not very consistent on using this particular timer because I flip-flop a bit on what counts as writing).

All this to say that I kind of consider my blog a weird inbetween thing. It's more solidly in the fun zone, not the work zone, but it's certainly practice for work. I'm doing the same thing as my work, but in a looser, more casual way where it essentially doesn't matter at all what I say or do. It's free expression with no real consideration for an audience or for the merit or appeal of what I'm writing or showing. It's my messy sketchbook. And so, this is the first thing I'm doing today (after breakfast and watching an episode of The Pitt). Saying almost nothing. But it feels so right.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go watch a movie. It's important. 

***

Apps I use, in order of appearance:

• Loop Habit Tracker
• Google Tasks
• Google Keep
• Simple Time Tracker 

Don't Eat Ramen at Harrods

London has always struck me as a strange city. This could be largely the hateful bias of being born here (there is insurmountable joy to be found in mocking your own home), but it always seemed so much more segmented than other major cities.

A street in Kensington.

There's central London in all its particular flavours. The now-drowned gothic and alternative market in Camden that my friends would all make the trip to on weekends because we needed to see five thousand Slipknot hoodies, peruse a dark-coloured tutu collection, and marvel at the tantalising blacklight in Cyberdog. The red brick buildings and high street brimming with monotone designer goods in Chelsea. The crunchy concrete of the Barbican.

The Michelin Man was actually born here in the Michelin Building.

And then there's the truest London of all - the suburban sprawl, the looming presence of a Wetherspoons, and a stark brown brick emptiness. Sometimes, you are just too far from a Tesco to be really happy. London may have an excellent bus network, but there is something to be said about the sheer dullness of having to take an hour and a half to visit a friend who lives in London when you are already in London. It's an unavoidable downside to living in a big city, yes, but the big aesthetic and infrastructural differences borough by borough often bring the feel of the whole place down to its lowest common denominator.

What I'm saying is, Tulse Hill is not real, and you shouldn't go there.

But sometimes it's nice to enter central London, to pretend you are the kind of person who doesn't wince at paying £9 for a pint of beer, and to say: wow, a red telephone box. 

Go on, make a call.

So I had ramen at Harrods the other day, which was about £30, and good, but not amazing. The broth was a little bit thin and watery for my taste, but there were two delicious eggs in there, at least. The service, though, was pretty bad. When everyone is sitting at a circular bar around the staff, you'd think service would be attentive and snappy, because they can all really see you, but no, not really. It took a while to get a glass of water at the start of the meal, and that pretty much set the tone.

Being in the pretty dining hall and looking up at the mosaics of birds was nice, but I probably wouldn't go back. It's just a one-time thing. Instead, there's a Greene King pub down the road called The Bunch of Grapes. The fishcakes there are good. I might go there. It was nice and empty when I ate the fishcakes, which really enhanced my enjoyment. A woman should be as close to alone as possible to enjoy her fishcakes.

Me holding some swim shorts. Don't ask any questions please.

The Pitt is Sensational

Rejoice, injury lovers, for we have been blessed with new episodes of The Pitt, and I for one am glad to have the opportunity to see many more bleeding body parts. Yay!

He's back!

Last year I was dazzled and amazed by The Pitt's first season. The ensemble cast are a gorgeous tapestry of personalities, smirking with knowing mirth and/or shaking with nerves. I love the autistic one, Dr. King, an utterly charming geek. I love Dana, the sarcastic yet warm charge nurse. I love Javadi, her eyes wide with fear or narrowed in judgement at all times. I love them all.

Not that there are a lot to choose from, but she is easily my favourite autistic character of all time.

This show was, I thought then, maybe the best-paced TV show I'd ever seen. Each episode covers an hour of the shift, and so the season takes us, minute by minute, through a full twenty-four hours in the ER, and it goes at a breakneck pace.

The sense of urgency and very particular time management is conveyed through extremely tight scenario writing here, and it's impressive. We see the doctors and nurses weave through escalating emergencies and deaths and other surprises with a determined, relentless, unstoppable energy. Triage is an insane, twisted spider web, and our little flies are working themselves loose over and over again. It's incredible.

There are some wonderfully shocking moments that come from both excellent, surprising writing that keeps the viewer on their toes, and perfectly placed visual effects that unceremoniously show you the nasty conditions being dealt with. While much of this is gory and uncomfortable, I love how un-sensational it tends to feel. The human body is a marvel, in all its bloody, pulsing glory.

You are not gonna wanna open up that cast.

All of this great stuff continues into the second season, where we have yet another day to get through. It's main man Robby's last day before a fun little trip, and it's the fourth of July baby!!!! It's America's special day. Anything could happen.

What I immediately love is the way this season crafts the feeling of reunion. Some time has passed in-universe since that awful day that was the first season, and so we see that Whitaker has grown confident and can now instruct a new little man, his own little puppy dog, in the art of being a real, actual doctor.

Whitaker also has the tender start of a mullet forming. Powerful development.

We also see that Langdon's back after a long absence and stint in rehab, and can reunite with his bestie, King.

Aww.

The sense of that time having passed and the dynamics having shifted slightly in the absence of the audience is so well done - it really feels like getting to see old friends after having been away for a while.

And we have, as expected, some horrifying and downright spooky patient issues. I will say nothing more than that there is a penis draining. And it is so horrible. And so perfect.

Pure fear.

Babes in Toyland (1934) is a Mess

After watching the 1990s and 1960s versions of Babes in Toyland, I had to finally take myself to the source. Well, the first film, that is. All of these evil movies are based on a 1903 operetta. But we shall not speak of this.

This first filmed version is a Laurel and Hardy venture, and I do generally like their scenes the most. I'm probably the first person to say this, but Laurel and Hardy have a pretty entertaining dynamic going on. They should do more stuff as a duo, I reckon.

These guys are funny.

I was initially struck by the beauty of some of the sequences. There are some really impressive sets and beautifully lit shots. We get to see multiple sheep-woman hugs. Because the main woman in this version of the tale is Little Bo Peep. And she loves her sheep.

Aww.

We also see an electric performance by Henry Brandon, who plays this movie's Barnaby, the evil top hat man. He gives the role a wide-eyed pantomime quality, and he does it so well. This man is REACTING. I love him.

I could fix him. With a hammer.

So, for the first half of the movie, I was pretty into it. I felt a bit more connected to the very basic romance. A guy puts Bo Peep in the stocks and then kisses her, it's all very normal stuff. She loves her sheep, and so I support whatever other stuff she wants to do.

Sheep.

The second half, however, devolves into impenetrable nonsense. Mickey Mouse throws a brick at a cat's head. Monkey men get released. It's a whole thing.

The innocent, normal cat.

MICKEY NO!

And I know what you're thinking, you're thinking "Lilly, that sounds amazing". Well, listen, some of it is thrilling. I can't deny that I love to see Mickey Mouse attack. But sadly, chaos too can become boring, and this is very much the case here. You're watching scenes of constant screaming by the end, and it turns into a sludge. It's like watching thirty minutes of white noise and racing blobs. What's going on here? I don't know, I stopped paying attention. There's one thousand monkey men in the city. Are they the titular babes? Are the monkey men the babes?

Sure. Whatever.

Barnaby and his monkey boys.

One monkey man out of five. 

★☆☆☆☆