Patrick McGilligan, "Alfred Hitchcock, a LIfe in Darkness and Light"

Although I've read quite a lot about Hitchcock over the years I'd never read an actual biography of him until now. The Donald Spoto has been on my to-read list for some time, but I won't read it now. I know from this book what it says. I was inspired to get this book by seeing the recent film with Anthony Hopkins, about his relationship with his wife Alma and the making of Psycho. 

I'm really glad I did. It's long, but never boring for a moment despite the wealth of detail, down to describing exactly how certain shots were achieved in some films. Hitchcock is seen here as something of a romantic, and with a Victorian sexual upbringing which probably did him no good. I can see that. It is also emphasised that he started his working life as a designer. If you think of his films as designed they make sense in a way they perhaps did not before, and did not always to critics at the time, some of whom dismissed them as pulp horror. I hadn't realised how much of the writing Hitch did in his films - he didn't take writing credits. This book is really good, don't be put off by its length. The title "A Life In Darkness and Light", while absolutely right for what most of his films looked like, gave me earworm of the Bob Dylan song "Isis", you know, "I came to a high place of darkness and light, dividing line ran through the centre of town" and suddenly I saw the scene portrayed in that song (the two men frantically chopping through an ice-bound cavern until one of them dies), as pure Hitch. Hitchcock should have made a film of the song. Can anyone tell me about other films which were based on songs?

the annus mirabilis

of the rock album was 1971, says David Hepworth on his blog here .  I know boys like lists, and I don't, much, but it is worth remembering how much great stuff in the form of albums was put out that year.  Some names on the list make me reach for the iTunes Store - Dory Previn, John Prine, Grin.  This was mostly music made by war babies.  We boomers did glam and punk, I guess.  Anyway, look at the list and see if you are reminded or inspired by anything on it.  I was.  I haven't thought in terms of albums for some time now, I just download tracks I want, or listen on Spotify, and I dislike CDs, always have - they just take up space and you have to go to IKEA and buy lots of Billy bookshelves to put them on.  Our sitting room would be quite big if it was not for significant other's CD shelves taking up the whole of one wall.

What am I listening to now?  Two very different things, and both of them albums.  Sexion d'Assaut, "L'Apogee", if you don't know them they are a high-class rap collective from Paris, seven fellows who know which way is up.  If they weren't francophone they would be big all over the world.  I have a ticket to see them in Strasbourg on 20th October, v. excited.  Naturally enough, because I am (just a little) older than the average demographic of their fans, I paid 10 euros more for my ticket and I have a seat.  Also, Bob Dylan's latest, "Tempest".  I've liked his last three albums very much, classy tight-knit blues.  On the latest one I especially like his song for John Lennon (more than 30 years since John was murdered, just think), "Roll on John".

In 1971 I was seventeen, and it was probably the year in my life when the greatest concentration of important things happened to me.  I had an email conversation with my brother recently about this very thing. A great deal of what and who I am now is because of things that happened that year.  It's only now that I begin to understand them, and the same is true of the music which came out then.  I've written a group of stories, to come out soon, which are loosely based on episodes of my younger life (though, I hasten to point out, they are not about me and the events in them did not happen to me), and I'm rather pleased with them.  I'm nearly always pleased with the stuff I write, which is probably not a good thing.  The first one is set in Berlin in 1971, and is called "Spandau Sweetheart".  The title is a very conscious homage to Haruki Murakami, the laces of whose shoes I am not fit to tie, but I don't try to write like him.  On the final read-through of the stories I realised that they are actually a bit porny.  That's not what I set out to write, but it's what I have written.  And no, I haven't read "Fifty Shades of Grey", and don't intend to.  If you would like to read "Spandau Sweetheart" free, send me a message and I'll send you a pdf.

The Taleban banned music.  An act of great wickedness, though not the wickedest thing that bunch of barbarians has ever done.