You and me were never meant to be part of the future

"Will physical books be gone in five years?" asks Cody Combs @ CNN ,October 18, 2010??

"The physical medium cannot be distributed to enough people. When you go to Africa, half a million people want books ... you can't send the physical thing."

says "Reliable Sources," author Nicholas Negroponte. Because how will Africans get their Stieg Larsson novels? How? HOW?

Relax, Cody. As any fule kno:

1. Oil will have run out by 2016 and we will be consumed by Mad Max style petrol wars. Or;
2. The ice caps will have melted by then and it will be like Waterworld. Bad news if you don't have webbed toes. Or;
3. We'll all be fucked according the Mayan calendar. Or;
4. We will be living in a domed city where mankind's sole pursuit is pleasure. Yay! Or;
5. Every book that now exists and is traded on Amazon secondhand will... still be traded on Amazon secondhand but with the tag "slightly worn." Or sold at "secondhand stores" much cheaper than the ebook. Or;
6. Even more horribly: the .epub DRM will have been cracked (oh... shit) and people will beam novels directly to each other's cerebral cortex. Or:
7. The planet will be ruled by apes. NB Primate empires could involve an alternate timeline, which would be subject to tax in some areas. (i.e. New Zealand.)

Einstürzende Neubauten, London 16.10.10

Is Blixa Bargeld the only singer to use air quotes? He was emphasising an ironic term for the Kentish Town Forum audience, many of whom were German anyway. He also corrected the translation of 'Kater' (as in 'Selbstportrait Mit Kater') which can be read either as 'tom cat' or 'hangover'. The audience cheered the latter and Blixa rolled his heavy eyes - 'Well yes, we are in the right country for that.' He held something in his right hand for the whole performance and I couldn't work out what. It wasn't until the last number, 'Silence is Sexy', when he fired up in defiance of health and safety regulations that the object was revealed as a packet of cigarettes. In between blasts of sound the band stood waiting for the audience to fall silent, which they did.

Einstürzende Neubauten were playing the first of two nights in Camden and I went along not really expecting anything except noise and fun but they were better than that: less spectacle, more musical. North London turned out more Goth than the Berlin nightclubs I found myself in earlier this year and the band were more German than I could have dreamed: precise, earnest, dry as a bone. Blixa (black three piece suit and I think bare feet) complained about the challenge of freighting a stage set (he actually got into figures) and the EN-branded merchandise included USB sticks and organic cotton T-shirts. From their performance art self-destruct origins the band have - can I say, mellowed? - into a very Krautrock, industrial hippie style. You could hear Neu! and Can in the performance as well as the found object / music concrete funk that so influenced Australian musicians, from Hunters & Collectors to Plays With Marionettes and, of course, Nick Cave, who dived into the Berlin scene and never came back.

Einstürzende Neubauten are not funky, however. This is music from the head, played with Classical rigour, all the deconstructionist outbursts in their proper place: N.U. Unruh's dropping metal cutlery on cue (he later crumpled autumn leaves); Ash Wednesday's keyboard touches; Jochen Arbeit's perfectly dischordant guitar. The fans knew all the lyrics. I didn't, which made it more fun. At one point Blixa was singing be about cushions, and there was a three-way discussion with Unruh and bassist Alexander Hacke that seemed to be about a time a toaster caught fire on stage but I could have sworn they also said something about Molotov cocktails. (Hacke is totally Derek Smalls.) It was that kind of night: pastoral darkness veering into Dada cabaret.

Oh Patty

I'll stop posting images from Mad Men but they're so damn good -- I love that sense of remove. In the wake of season four I've been re-reading The Cry of the Owl and visualising the period references in a different way, apart from the story. Which still works. PH nails it: she and Paul Bowles are the writers I would have liked to have hung out with. Them and Kurt Vonnegut, who sounds like everyone's cranky uncle.

Early morning, lotsa words; IHT crossword and strangers' faces at the French (yaysville); tonight The Social Network. Filmed from a first draft, folks, because movies aren't that hard. As Kurt said: don't take it too seriously. Big ups.

Tomorrow: Einstürzende Neubauten. Not so much musique concrete as, y'know, cement.

Never complain

Never explain. I prefer characters to say less. Sometimes they have to open up, though. And if I don't like the passage I can always delete it later. You put 'em in, we rip 'em out, as my local mechanic once said.

Soundtrack: The Naked and Famous, School of Seven Bells, Superhumanoids, The Ting Tings, Trent Reznor. (Are iPods encouraging us to remember music alphabetically?)

The moment you print out a manuscript it becomes redundant.

My whole damn day's parenthetical. However the exposition worked, I believe. You all have a nice day.

Stray thought

Favourite things

Daniel Knox, one of the greatest musicians out. Think Kurt Weill meets William Riker. Knox was the best thing at Jarvis Cocker's Christmas concert in 2008 (here he is gaslighting Judy Garland); did music for David Lynch... This is a live vid for 'Me and My Wife'.

The Amy Winehouse Comeback ™

2 ounces sweet Vermouth, 1/2 ounce Grenadine, 2 ounces dry Gin, 2 ounces Vodka, 2 ounces Tequila, 2 ounces Whiskey, 2 more ounces Vodka, 1 dash Grand Marnier, 1/4 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice, 1 lime cut into quarters, 1 orange cut into halves, 1 watermelon, 2 jiggers Midori, 1/4 ounce cream, 1/4- 1/2 bottle champagne, 1/2 ounce Galliano, 2 1/2 ounces Bourbon, 3 Mandrax, 2 Quaaludes, 4 Viagra, white wine spritzer, beer (to taste), 2 packets Marlboro Light, gunpowder, Semtex.

Build in a Collins glass 2/3 filled with ice, more Bourbon, Vodka. Garnish with orange twist.