cause I'm so bored with myself anyway, any time and any place, I'll just hang around

I'm definitely at a juncture where I need to meet some new people. I had the realisation the other day, when I had to bail out of a typical midweek show in Manchester before the headliner was even on, that if I just knew enough people to have somewhere to crash at during such situations I could maintain the even basic rudiments of an interesting life circa my late 20s. Mine is not the sort of life that a mortgage is on the cards for my third decade, nor would I want it to be any such ghastly thing. Sure, I'd like to rent somewhere central for a time, but putting down roots seems entirely incompatible with being single and is a miserably under-stimulating prospect. Not that I'm looking for adventure, it's the predictable clinging on to a careworn freedom of lack of priorities. It's a generational trope or something, one burp of philosophy, to tip on the edge of prolonged something-or-other.

(no subject)

Because Steve is eminently useful he propositioned me earlier and now we're getting married. Also we're seeing Derren Brown in Manchester in March doing his chinny, balding hypno-mincing on stage there. I am keen on this, as I like magic and tricksy bullshit as much as the next man and have been a fan of Derren in earnest for the last few years. Not appointment to view television as such, but certainly enjoyment to watch telly. I'm not an incredibly credulous person, and accept that the trickery is even more trickery than it appears to be, though I don't hold with some people's ironclad conviction that everything that he, and that kind of performer in general, does relies on willing and rehearsed plants in the audience. I think there are a lot of susceptible people. Indeed I've heard from friends who claim to have been hypnotised and was struck by the subdued way in which the experience was described, almost as if wasn't something entirely present and proportional with regards to the significance of the thing in their minds. Minds are odd things.

One thing I enjoy about Derren is that he lies, baldly and impishly, and the outrageousness and the irrelevance of his lies I find very entertaining.

What makes a movie good?

EBERT:
I love the definition of the great director Howard Hawks: “Three good scenes. No bad scenes.”