The tongue and cock and hand and asshole holy!

Howl, by Allen Ginsberg

CLICK THIS LINK!

Thank you. I'm not going to copy and paste the poem, because it's absurdly long, and it's impossible to pick out a best bit. Aaaaah.

Guess who Feels like Grady Tripp?

I do!

Haha. There is no weed, typewriters or dead dogs (:( ) but there is red wine and a new vintage dressing gown. It's silk. And it's dark red. With a paisley pattern. And it was pretty darn cheap. Win.

I seem to be a magnet for books. They accumulate around me. Not that I mind. It's just getting hard to walk across my bedroom floor. And that's nothing to do with the wine. :)

Also, I got concussed last week. Misjudged the height of a ski jump - it was snowing pretty heavily, visibility was crap, anyone could have done it - and got really panicked because I couldn't remember the four noble truths, and hence probably had lasting brain damage. Luckily I've remembered them now.

Maaaaaaan

Obsessing over the sound of 'Blase' by Archie Shepp.

At half past one in the morning.

After getting back finally from France at midnight.

After being delayed in stupid fucking tiny french airport for hours.

And after promising my mother I would not touch my laptop.

I read an article in the FT magazine (or at least I think it was the FT. Some newspaper colour supplement anyway) last weekend, about this photographer guy in like the 50s or something in New York (what is it about 50s New York? The Beat Generation running round in coffee shops - remind me to talk about Howl some time - and all those Salinger characters talking in italicized syllables, which is just darling.) Anyway he lived in this loft and all these incredible people, like writers, and Jazz guys, and artists, and just random junkies and prostitutes and everyone hanging round and he took pictures of them all, and I just googled him to find the pictures because if I can't live without them you can't either. So here you go.

Also dreaming of the day I move out and get my own flat. (In New York... or Paris... or Rome... (mmmm gelato)) And yes, I will confess this is mainly so I can smoke naked in bed and hence complete my image of tortured existentialist/jazz person/beat generation wannabee. While reading Sartre. In French (yes, this is what I have been attempting to do for the past week - pretentious I know but so worth it) And this rather nicely leads me to my other new obsession, which is this passage from 'Nausea" - best book ever. I'm copying and pasting it directly, because I just need to share the beauty. It's so beautiful it makes me cry.

I think about a clean-shaven American, with thick black eyebrows, who is suffocating with the

heat, on the twentieth floor of a New York skyscraper. Over New York, the sky is burning, the

blue of the sky has caught fire, huge yellow flames are licking the roofs; the Brooklyn children

are going to stand in bathing drawers under the jets of hose-pipes. The dark room on the twentieth

floor is baking hot. The American with the black eyebrows sighs, gasps and the sweat rolls down his

cheeks. He is sitting, in shirtsleeves, in front of his piano; he has a taste of smoke in his mouth and,

vaguely, a ghost of a tune in his head. "Some of these days." Tom will come along in an hour with

his hip-flask; then the two of them will flop into leather armchairs and drink great draughts and the

fire in the sky will come and burn their throats, they will feel the weight of an immense, torrid slumber.

But first the tune must be written down. "Some of these days." The moist hand seizes the pencil on the

piano. "Some of these days you'll miss me, honey."

There. Irrelevant, really, to the plot of the book, but one of the most fucking beautiful passages I've read in a long time.

At The Hop

Well weather-wise, today has been a fucker. Anyone else in London will know that it's been flashing between sun and snow every five minutes practically, which is as confusing as hell. For once, I'm actually not hoping the snow will settle, since I'm off on a skiing holiday on Friday, and years of experience with Heathrow airport has taught me that planes WILL NOT leave if there is more than a centimeter of snow. Britain's inability to cope with snow is remarkably confusing, since we do get it pretty regularly every year.

Also, even though it is only Febuary, I feel like this is a good time to start counting down to summer (actually, I lie, I've been counting down since Jan 1st). My family is already planning summer holidays - (10 days in Paris and then the South of France, so I am as happy as an unusually elated clam).

Here's some summer inspiration.

I WANT THOSE SUNGLASSES!

And yes, I am aware that they're chanel. or I think they are.

My hunt for cheap/vintage knockoff begins.

Not really summer, but I love it too much.

When it comes to summer, I always get about twice as exited about clothes then I am normally, and I already have a feeling that this is going to be the summer of white dresses. At the moment I'm on the look out for the perfect white lace mini dress, something kind of 60s mod inspired or something. Actually, I've already seen it. Unfortunately it belongs to a sixth former I don't know at all at my school. Grrrr. She has the best wardrobe I've ever seen, and I have to deal with her cavorting round school all day in MY dream dress! Bitch.

I lied. The one that girl at school's got is not quite my dream dress, my dream dress is this one, pictured above, but mystery stylish blonde at school (MSBS) has one as close to this as possible that is actually wearable in real life for someone with a less than perfect body and a sense of decency.

Her Life Was Saved by Rock n' Roll

Oh the Velvet Underground had it so right there. My personal belief is that music truly does save lives, or souls, or something. It would take a better mind than mine to explain properly, and without being corny (and I am corny far too often), what the right song can do to a mind.

So instead I'm just going to talk about some songs that have been particularly essential to making me what I am today, complete with pictures, because as I'm sure you've spotted by now I am a very visual person, and what would Ziggy Stardust be without the mullet?

Somebody to Love - Jefferson Airplane.

Jefferson Airplane

I don't know if you've ever seen Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but I heard this song for the first time in that film (and my GOD it's used well) and honestly it blew me away. Grace Slick's voice is so crazy and wild, in this song it's practically the audible equivalent of a sneer. (By the way - a friend of mine recently overheard someof the most annoying girls in our class talking about this song - they were arguing about whether it was by The Beatles or The Rolling Stones. I'm dying inside.)

Candy Says - The Velvet Underground

Candy Darling

Is it odd to be able to relate enormously to a song about a transvestite? No, seriously. But the themes of enforced physical alienation from what you'd like to be, and longing to be free of your body - that's something universal, or at least I think it is. And who can resist a little doo-doo-wop?

Colleen - Joanna Newsom

Joanna Newsom

I've spoken about my love for this woman before, but jesus christ I love this song. It reminds me of all the fairy stories I used to read when I was a child, especially the Irish ones for some reason (maybe because I used to have an irish friend called Colleen? Who knows?) Suffice to say that the lines 'I hate the sight of that empty air, like stepping for a missing stair and falling forth forever blindly' are marvelously beautiful, as is 'he-who-easily-can-curl-himself-against-the-sky'.

Ziggy Stardust - David Bowie

David Bowie/Ziggy Stardust

Aah Ziggy. The red-haired martian motherfucker of kickarse songs. That guitar riff is iconic. Here's a little story; a few months ago now me and a friend were late for a party, and we got there when all the booze had been drunk and everyone was pissed but us. Harsh, yes, but we managed - we started playing this over and over again on the speakers in the garden and doing a dance, since everyone else was too drunk to laugh. It was fun - but that's not the story. I guess we listened to that song a little too much, because afterwards, at about eleven, we went for a walk and ended up in a park on our own (not clever, but we were lucky). And then... oh jesus I can't describe it. It was a feeling that can only be partially recreated by reading Alan Ginsberg's 'Howl' about five times in a row with music on full blast the whole time and some weed to help you along. But we hadn't smoked anything, and I'd left all my books at home. It was kind of a spiritual experience - and yes, I know that sounds corny as hell, but it was. It was like seeing God, only instead of God there was some weird mash-up of David Bowie, Dean Moriarty and Buddha. All done by the power of music alone, and whatever other factors contributed to it, but we really aren't sure what the hell they were.

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This is Our Last Goodbye

On Wednesday, the great J.D Salinger passed away, and I just thought I'd take a few minutes to remember him. Safe to say, I morned him a lot more than I did Michael Jackson in June (July? When was it?) Even though he lived till 91, an incredible age for anyone, some little part of me assumed he would live forever, just like I subconsciously do about Bob Dylan and Mick Jagger (Paul McCartney can go suck it. I just don't like him.)

But J.D. Salinger, dead? It just doesn't compute. I can't say I thought about him an awful lot, but he was just there, in some crummy town somewhere. Holden Caulfield was my first real boyfriend, despite being fictional, when I was about twelve. Him and his ridiculous cynicism helped me through most of adolescence, I couldn't have made it through year 8 without him, and two years older, with most of the hell of puberty behind me, I can still see myself, or what I'm probably going to end up being, in Franny and Zooey Glass.

I don't know, it's just sad, thinking that he's gone. J.D. Salinger and Holden Caulfield, their names were always intertwined, and now one's gone, Holden is just left there, and all those generations of kids who've become him in their heads have made him real despite all his fictionality. And now the only adult who he might rather like is dead. And that totally sucks.

American Beauty

After mentioning him in my last post, I just thought I'd give a shout out to the (sadly deceased) wonder that is/was James Dean. Honestly, I think he might win my prize for sexiest man of all time - just look at that smile in the first picture! Makes me want to tear my clothes off just looking at it. Was reading about him on wikipedia earlier and have learnt that he got out of serving in the US army by registering as gay, because gayness was classified as a mental illness back then, had a ton of awesome cars and when asked about his sexuality replied "Well, I'm certainly not going through life with one hand tied behind my back", which is a) my attitude exactly and b) very handy for planning the orgies I'm going to have once I get my time machine.