On Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction

I watched Pulp Fiction last night, the second time I have seen it. I was struck by how loose it was compared with tight theatrical Reservoir Dogs. Pulp Fiction could be seen to be the equivalent of Chopin's Preludes or a tapas dish in that each scene is by itself a work of art, greater than the whole. So characterisation is not of great importance: the differences between Samuel L Jackson's and John Travolta's characters not nearly as important as those of Harvey Keitel's and Steve Buscemi's (let alone Michael Masden's, the psychotic Mr Blonde). In Pulp Fiction, gangsters get screwed (one literally) as well as screw and their responses are invariably predictable: so what counts is situation not character. In Reservoir Dogs the gangsters are in the same kinds of situation to each other but find very different and contradictory ways to deal with them. Reservoir Dogs, along with Gosford Park, is perhaps the best film I have ever seen, partly because there is no slack and partly because the script and acting are uniformly brilliant; of particular merit is Harvey Keitel's performance when his character explains to Mr Pink at the warehouse why he told his name to Tim Roth's character(strangely it is the pauses that do it), and Lawrence Tierney's performance throughout the film which I learnt last night was him being pretty much how he is off-screen (grouchy, intimidating, and by all accounts too annoying and even downright malignant to be called a lovable old rogue).

My nasty conjunctivitis has spread to the other eye but the virus has lost its venom so healthwise I feel fine. I bemoan the lack of time to do everything I want to do. So many books to read, films to see on cinema and dvd, Radio 4 programmes to listen to and, oh yes, time should be spent with friends I guess. These fortnightly wednesdays off work are wonderful but the compressed hours mean more time at work. Work is bearable but I have pertinent and potent information to get into my head and sensuous beauty to experience. I shall be old in 40 years and dead in 60 so no time to waste.

Yesterday evening started well. I took the music drug, listening to a cassette I recorded my favourite music on in my teens. I'm prepared to be very very candid in blogs - partly because nobody is likely to read them! - but that does not extend to revealing some of the songs on that cassette, songs which I love to this day. The wildest of the bunch is undoubtedly "Everybody wants to rule the world" by Tears for Fears!

But then disaster. I will explain...

I would guess that all reasonably intelligent and clued-up people are savvy enough not to fall for common computer scams - usually the "Dear Friend" and broken english make them stand out a mile off - but I confess that last night I fell victim to one. What's this? My laptop is corrupted by trojan worm number 3145? It's critical???! Oh but wait, now I see a pop-up with a soothing official-looking logo informing me that this "critical" virus can and should be fixed straight away using that reassuring software. Just $59.99 would crush this worm (just the word makes one flinch). It was late, I was tired, my internet had stopped working - as it does periodically - so I couldn't check the saviour's reputation, and besides I was shit scared and wanted peace of mind: no nightmares about serpents devouring my laptop.

So I paid the money and when the internet eventually started to work I decided to see what this "Personal Antivirus" as it styled itself actually was. Google it now and you will see.

After buying some genuine spyware, I finally got rid of it but by then it was 3am which no doubt accounts for my extreme tiredness tonight.

Where has that gorgeous jazz gone?

I will never forget it. The night of 31 August 1997, the night Princess Di died. It didn't inspire me to do what I did - in fact I felt curiously unmoved by the whole incident - but I listened to Jazz FM late at night, something not done before or since for any length of time. The songs they played were divine, I felt moved to my core, yet I did not have the presence of mind to write down the names of the songs that were played. A letter and phone call to Jazz FM asking them for the playlist were both fruitless and so now I have lost that night forever.

Periodically, like this afternoon, I listen to Spotify in an effort to find jazz similar to that which so melted me. I type in "cool jazz", "piano jazz", "smooth jazz", I have heard much but much tat and no jewels save for a pearl called Blue Harlem by Ike Quebec. No diamonds. The songs I heard that night were diamonds. It is a certain type of jazz which means anything to me, the rest to me is worthless. A solo instrument evoking soul and, importantly, a melody - not the randomness of so much jazz which ordinarily precludes me wasting my time listening to Jazz FM. I am extremely discerning with my music. At the Hard Rock Calling event on 27th June, Neil Young (my favourite artist bar Beethoven) I loved; the first two acts, some of the Pretenders and Seasick Steve I thought were very good, but the others I couldn't stand. Yet there were people smiling and bopping away to all the songs by all the acts. What is their mentality? Do they do it because all the music sounds equally good to them or do they feel they should be seen to be continually singing and dancing? Maybe it is a symptom of the prevailing attitude that what is currently cool should be enjoyed, a social thing. Individual tastes when experiencing art are secondary. Maybe. But if so I myself could never compromise on aesthetics. I experience near-ecstasy when I listen to some of Chopin's nocturnes but cannot abide Beethoven's 9th - and this despite my earlier comment about the guy.

And with jazz: the "classic" album by Miles Davis, I forget its name, I have listened to twice out of courtesy to the artist and his reputation but never again. Instead I will continue to mine for diamonds.