Hallowecano

It's that fucking time of year again when the impossible task of Halloween costumes is upon us. Obviously you don't want to wear one of those costumes that involves as few items of clothing as possible but you don't to want to wear a costume where no one knows who the fuck you are, the perfect example of this dilemma can be seen in mean girls. My personal examples of misjudged halloween costumes are Maggie Thatch and Pussy Riot member. However if you want a nice scary costume that is easy to do then why not dress up as a volcano? The best and easiest way to do this is have massive orange hair, then you can wear some kinda grey capey thing and you're an instant fucking volcano. The bonus is that any erratic or volatile behaviour can just be part of your volcanic act. Here are two of my fave singers who have got the eruptive hair thing down.

I've written about my love for both Cyndi Lauper and Bjork lots and lots before so I won't do it any more but all I will say is that Cyndi is massively underrated. Anyway happy Halloween especially if you're a volcano. 

Bjӧrkano

This is amazing- it's basically Bjӧrk (I'm nordic now I use weird vowels) being a volcano which is obviously two of the best things in the world. I think this is really what I should have dressed up as for Halloween because while pussy riot was good  it's not a Bjӧrk-volcano hybrid. 

Joga

This is going to be another Bjork post so I'm sorry, actually I'm not cos if you're not a Bjork fan THEN WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU READING MY BLOG? Right now that's out of the way let me get to the crux of the post which is that yesterday I watched a Bjork DVD and planned the next VCZ (I'm unemployed so I can do fun stuff like that). She was going on about Iceland and nature and volcanoes and all that cool shit and the song Joga uses volcanic beats which is pretty great. I'm struggling to find out exactly what that means, I think it means she did something very complicated involving recording volcanic beats. The album Homogenic which Joga is from is supposed to be sort of a return to Iceland so it's full of references to all that amazing landscape and Bjork wanted it to sound like "rough volcanoes with soft moss growing all over it..." Which you can see in the Michel Gondry directed vid. 

Also as I said I'm said I'm planning the next zine which is going to about the differences between eruption and dormancy but also how they are linked, how you need one for the other to exist so let me know if you've got any examples, Volcanic or otherwise. So I've got Melanie Hamilton Wilkes and Scarlett O'Hara, guess which is which?

Happy Volcano Listening.

For a while now I've been mentally compiling a volcano play list (and slightly on this blog) and I aim to do a pop culture zine special soon. The main reason I haven't is cos my friend Alice said she'd write me a volcano song and I am currently too wrapped up in guilt for not contacting her in ages to ask her about said song. So Alice if you're reading this then writing you a letter is lit on my to do list- well it will be as soon as I can find a pen. But anyway I recently got notified to some new volcano music by a friend Rob. Firstly here is a pretty picture of a volcano record he bought (records with pictures of volcanoes on is a whole new field that my mind had never considered before but I'm pretty sure I don't have any).

 

Then we have a band called Volcanos with (It's Against) The Laws of Love, which is a lovely little song.

 

This has reminded of another band called Volcano who are a punk/country supergroup! Formed by one of the Meat Puppets, I haven't listened to this song yet because I'm listening to the radio now, its Josie Long's show and I need to pay attention so I can convince her that we should be best friends one day. But anyway it must be a good song as the band, album and song are all called volcano.

 

Finally the Bjork volcano song cos I don't think I've posted it here yet, even if I have, you can never have too much Bjork. 

Feel free to post more volcanic music below. 

Finally, a good film called Volcano

I am aware of the 1997 film starring Tommy Lee Jones however I am wary of watching it as it looks appalling and I fear it may reduce my love of volcanoes ever so slightly (which may not be a bad thing). I have also seen Twister and I don't think it is actually necessary to watch every single disaster movie when all they do is substitute the natural disaster. But the film that actually looks good is Icelandic, like most good things, it won prizes at Montreal film festival and also been nominated for Reykjavik film festival's Golden Puffin (see everything Icelandic is good). My favourite types of films are very slow and depressing, however I did watch Dancer in the Dark last night and it was a bit too much (I'm really resisting writing another Bjork related post but I'll try), Volcano seems to fit this bill- slow and depressing not Bjork related. After retiring and returning to the capital which I think is due to an eruption, Hannes starts to get know his family again but due to years of neglect this doesn't seem possible. I can't really write a proper review as I haven't seen it but I think it looks pretty great. So watch it if you can and it has footage of a volcanic eruption which should surely be enough reason to watch it. Here is a link to website with a trailer and reviews from people who have actually seen the film. 

Biophilia

Isaac and I went to Bjork's Biophilia on Saturday which was as predicted absolutely amazing it was her last show in Manchester so the encore was slightly more 'hooligan' than all the other nights (which was a lot of fun). Biophilia is about the extremities of nature; from the cellular and microscopic to the galactic and planetary, I have always found these aspects of biology a lot more interesting than the organismal and ecological. But I think this is because I find comfort in the fact that we are insignificant; that life in both the tiny and massive scale is much more advanced and complicated than humanity. Because while we will eventually fade and disappear, life will exist in some tiny molecule and there will still be some habitat in space for it to survive in. In the words of Rick Blaine "it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world" I think that my childhood love of Casablanca has led to my bleak view of the world.

Anyway back to Bjork (I will need to do stuff to my mushroom ragout soon so tangents will be at a minimum), so many of the songs in biophilia were about my favourite things such as the moon, DNA, solstices and cells there was of course a song on plate tectonics. If only she had done a song on photosynthesis it would have been perfect. Every song had some video to accompany it which are all going to be iPad apps and I think the idea is that you can alter the song by playing with the app (which is pretty cool). The plate tectonics one showed magma moving around under the earth's surface and the breaks in continental plates; this was very useful for me as volcanoes tend to be formed around the spaces between these plates. The volcanic ring of fire marks the edge of a tectonic plate; I say it was useful for me as I find it very interesting but don't really know where the plates are and the video showed this. The song didn't have an eruption and seemed to be constantly building up to one but never quite reaching it and was more about the events leading up to it. There was a female Icelandic choir who were fantastic, the other best new songs were the moon one, crystalline and the virus one. However some slight critisms would be that it was half way between a concert and an art installation but not quite either therefore the delivery wasn't quite right so you couldn't really see the stage. Also pretty much all of her old songs sounded better than the new ones, Isaac was particularly happy as she did Mouth's Cradle which is his fav but I loved the time lapse fungi growth to Isobel. But it was absolutely amazing and I might have to buy an iPad so I can play with the Bjork apps.

Sorry this has been very rambling; maybe Casablanca isn't really that relevant so in the words of Bjork 'thank you' (really its funny when she says it as she has a great accent)

Voliconos

Following on from the most recent issue, here are pictures of people who look like volcanoes. Let me know if you have any more.

Cyndi Lauper- I'll try and stop going on about much I love her- but look how cool she is!

Little My- should also probably stop going on about how much I love Moomins, her temper adds to her volcanicity and apparently I look like her, may also be due to grumpiness. 

Sideshow Bob- hair is the main way in which a person can resemble a volcano

Amy Winehouse- many reasons for this one

James Dean- smoking enhances a volcano likeness (see above), a personal style icon and the reason why I carry a comb in my pocket.

Brian Blessed- looks and acts like a volcano

Louis Saha- people say this hairstyle was a mistake but the poor boy was just trying to look like a volcano.

Bjork- like many on this list, I just really love her

Steve Bruce- pre eruption

Gerard Depardieu- crater nose

Regan McNeil- is her name, vomit is a bit like lava I suppose. 

So in conclusion most people don't look that much like volcanoes but this has been a very welcome opportunity to tell people how great Cyndi, Little My, James Dean and Bjork are.