Elvis Costello Fan Forum

If you face the world in a state of paranoia, you are defensive. If you are defensive, you make people round you nervous. Nervous people are mistrustful and are a lot more likely to turn mean than trusting people are. If there are lunatics about with truly evil intent, no amount of planning or contr...

You know, I had the same reaction when I saw Eurythmics come over all political a few years ago at a gig in The Point Depot. There’s no doubt that U2’s musical achievements are fantastic – just as it happens, musically they’re not my particular bag of bananas. I also occasionally find myself reactin...

Well said, Noiseradio. Couldn't agree more. And the beauty of democracy is that everyone has the freedom and the right to have their say: to at least be respected and heard. But the trouble is that (clicheed but always true too), with rights come responsibilities. We can't just blindly, mindlessly, ...

...then we have Guantanamo

Those who can, do. Those who can't, criticise...

It makes me snigger to see Imperial Bedroom elevated to such dizzy heights in The word (don't get me wrong: I was an enthusiast from the very first listen on my super groovy brand new concept Sony Walkman...yes! I remember it well). But as I recall, IB was panned by the critics at the time... "...

Nice Ice Nine! Thanks for the compliment, but it's Homer & the ancient greeks who should really be accepting. Those myths are incredible - everything inevitably seems to lead back to them at some point or other. Even the romans nabbed them and made their own of them when they were setting up sho...

Lapinsjolies and all other comers for that matter, I find it hard to express this without falling into cliches...so I won't even try. Ulyssess has proved extremely universal. Your interpretation is as good as anyone else's here or anywhere so please don't be shy about sharing thoughts. I've heard so...

Well you're positively leap-frogging ahead of me so, LJ. As my last pre-project, I'm pooling info with a friend and at the same time picking his brains so I can do correlation between Homeric references and character's in Ulysses. I'm a great believer in short cuts: anything to avoid the reference b...

o Next Odysseus and his men sailed southwards, and on to the floating island of Aeolia, south of Siciliy. Aeolus held sway of the winds hereabouts, to release or bind them at the will of Zeus (king of the gods). Luckily Aeolus was well disposed toward Odysseus. To make sure that the fleet had an une...

At the risk of causing offense to anyone who knows all this already, I thought it might be useful to straighten out the bare bones of the story of the wanderings of Odysseus. You can work out the parallels yourselves. It'll help clear up a lot of the classical references in the Joyce Ulysses. Won't ...

Checked with a friend this afternoon: turns out that Joyce actually lived in the Martello Tower under the circumstances he described in Ulysess. He moved there out of the latest in a line of flea pits his family had been reduced to as a result of his father's drinking.

Women of action! Otis, get on stand-by with your master class! I never took this on. In case it's of any help, and you don't know the who's and wherefores, here's a very, very potted intoduction to Telemachus: Odysseus (Greek for Latin version of same character, Ulysses), as regional Greek king, was...

STONGLY recommend to the uninitiated to read about Joyce's life before you tackle Ulysses itself! Also inclined to agree with Blue Chair about buying the book. Trying to read it on the net... you'll be cross-eyed within the first half hour. Better again, get Otis to give you prelimin class. Galvanis...

Otis: not pooh-poohing group idea at all. Definitely good plan for non Dubliners especially to get a backdrop. My swim-in-it notion is simply from my own experience. It took me years to realise that I needed to just go with it to "get" it. I don't purport to be anything approaching a Joyce...

Ulysses deals with mainly banal things in taking place in a very ordinary day. Leopold Bloom is Jewish, which was unusual in Dublin. Leopold Bloom is the inside of Joyce's head. I think his Jewishness is mainly for that reason: to set aside the workings of the subconscious as special, rich: to eleva...

It's like art. You use a different part of your brain to read Ulysses. Start with Dubliners & Portrait of Artist As A Young Man. Then school yourself to deliberately switch off all "think and analyse" buttons in your head, try and forget everyone else's opinions, and then just float in...

Anyone else see "The Company", Robert Altman's latest on Chicago Ballet? Pretty much wall to wall dance; fab dance it is too. Elvis' "My Funny Valentine" is in there in the backdrop, along with a few other interpretations. It never fails to press poignancy button for me. I especi...

Dark Side Of The Moon. I'm not sure it's life defining for everyone, but at the time this was for me. Recently, having fended off waves of self consciousness and a sense of being very uncool (those who don't recall should know that it was kind of vital to hate all this when the "New Wave" ...

It's possibly partly BECAUSE of the IRA's hijacking of the concept of Irish nationalism that I have difficulty with the concept of nationalism full stop. There's an awful lot of palmed off in the name of isms. But I do admit to missing the smoke in the pubs. Aside from anything else, its exit has un...

Nationalism, eh? Here in Ireland it’s found at its most passionate furthest away from any actual fighting. Bars are a great spot for nationalism, I find. Just another way of slaughtering a few braincells I suppose. As an irishwoman I know better than most that most people mean well and just want to ...

What El Vez is saying makes complete sense. As an outsider, I can't understand is why there isn't a greater populist outcry in the US against this terrible war. To state the obvious, aside from the unfortunate Iraqis, it your US citizens, mainly young with a whole lot to contribute to their undoubte...

Good grief! I can't imagine anyone censoring SJN for expressing his views. What makes me a little ... tired and depressed to read this style of hyperbole is that it shows few people ever really learn from any mistakes of the past ... it's all SO repetitive, designed to rehash hoary old absolutes and...

How about "I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down", Clairequilty?

Belated birthday wishes: do whatever makes you the most happy regardless of age, and to hell the begrudgers!