Falling Sky

Swim Fat Boy Swim

Yet again days have hurtled past at great speed without me getting my hapless bonce around to blogging. I used to do this stuff on a daily basis by Jove, what's changed? The only sensible explanation is that my time is being stolen from me, when I'm not looking, most likely by little elvish creatures wearing plaid and berets (or so I imagine - obviously if I saw them, scarpering off with 13 minutes of my life in their green-gloved hands, I'd charge after them and kick their knees off). I suppose one time devourer is exercise, which previously I just ignored in the hope that the sheer effort of continued existence would burn off enough calories to stop myself from developing the dreaded belly, but there's no stopping that merciless fucker...

BELLAY! Seriously, I've seen tummies that size bouncing down Buchanan Street and up the Royal Mile. So, having toppled into the thirties sans six-pack (or four, or two for that fact) and more than a little concerned about the future of my lungs, heart and waistline, I've gone and joined Edinburgh Leisure, which basically means a season ticket for all the council gyms and pools in the city. I haven't swum seriously since schooldays, and until this year not at all since... christ, when was it? '96? Fucks sake!

The sad thing is, I used to be really good at swimming, and really enjoyed it too. Going to college rather put the kibbosh on it, with no pool nearby and uni gyms to use instead, and I never did anything about it after that. So, into the pool this month for the first time in well over a decade - how was it? Freaky. I started doing breaststroke... and it felt very wrong. My mind seems to have this physical memory of how it used to feel to swim, back when my arms were worth a damn, but these days they've pretty much got the consistency of pipe-cleaners. A few strokes in and I was all too aware of just how feeble my arm muscles have become. I'm swimming every other day now, though not for long each time as my lungs seem to shrink and I've completely forgotten how the blazes I used to do that head-up-to-breathe-then-down-under-water thing during breaststroke without spluttering like an offended colonel.

Thankfully my legs are alright, between living in top-floor apartments and walking to work every day. Going to the gym over the last few weeks has helped too, even if that too has confirmed the lack of strength in my lanky limbs, and I much prefer being there on my own lest I suffer from bicep envy. Don't get me wrong, I'd much rather be sat at home cheerfully playing away on the Wii but, boxing lurching aside, that's just not going to help my body make up for being sat at a desk for hours every bleedin' day. And if I'm going to continue enjoying real ales, tasty meats and other quality nosh that hasn't been vetted for calorie content, well, this is pretty much the only way. It's this or Mr Creosote.

"I Know, My Love, But This Can Never Be!"

In this photo and caption provided by Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, Beauregard, an 8-month-old male Grants zebra is greeted by Brandy, an Atlantic bottlenose dolphin while out on a daily walk around the park at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo, Calif., Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2007. Beauregard was hand-reared at the park and takes daily strolls around the 135-acre park. (AP Photo/Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, Mike Owyang)

The Afternoon After The Night Before

Jim Bob Kicks Out The Jams, originally uploaded by Falling Sky.

Carter USM last night. Absolutely glorious. Will write full review later. I'm covered in bruises from two hours of near-constant moshing, my throat is hoarse as fuck thanks to two hours of loud singing/hollering and my ears are ringing like Notre Dame remixed by Aphex Twin. Needless to say, it was a fucking superb night and you can see my photos of the whole shebang here. I'm utterly knackered and feeling old, creaky, and very very satisfied. Good work fine sirs!

Bumbling Along

Another quiet week on the blogging front, as life generally finds ways to keep me occupied and inspiration continues to fail me when presented with a blank page (well, apart from now).  What to report?

• Last Sunday the Lass and I went through to Glasgow, partly to check out the annual Organic Food Fair but mainly to see our good chums Rob, Clare and wee Emily, the sweetest little kid who's had a rough start on planet Earth and deserves to be spoiled rotten for the next few decades as recompense.  Chazzer made her a lovely little hat, while I bought a red ukulele for reasons that escaped me the moment I left the shop with it, but she seemed impressed by the colour.  Still, bet you she's playing with these guys by 2025 (seriously, check out their MP3 samples!  If they could just find a way to master Hey Ya...).
• Life drawing on Saturday turned out to be a great big FAIL, reminding me that I've still got plenty to learn about this whole painting lark.  What started off as a pretty decent portrait painting capsized into stodge when I tried to capture the shadow tone on the shoulders in the bottom-left of the canvas.  The shadow ended up a green-blue-ochre swathe of thick colour that, to put it technically, completely bollocksed up the entire thing - though, to be honest, the rest of it wasn't that much cop beforehand.  Infuriating, but a worthwhile reminder to myself not to get complacent about artwork.  There's no life drawing tomorrow due to half-term, so I'll have to rediscover my mojo next Saturday.
• I've discovered the perfect online invention for a lazy Jon Nagl who'd prefer to sit on the sofa than get up and select CDs from the shelves before playing - that little LastFM player that's on the right-hand sidebar.  Basically, it plays stuff that I've played at least once while using Audioscrobbler - the result being that every track's a winner!  Adding to the handiness is the ability to use this via the internet browser on the Wii, channelling the sound out through our proper speakers rather than the wee ones on the iBook.  For example, the last three songs have been Red Sparrowes, The Smiths and Yo La Tengo - how many radio stations out there could I hope to hear them in a row?
• Saw Black Sheep and Control this week, thankfully not as a double bill since you couldn't hope for two films more different.  Still, both are well worth seeing at the cinema - the latter's superbly acted, wonderfully filmed and fascinating, while the former has zombie sheep, buckets of blood and oodles of proper splatter.  Proper reviews to come if I ever get my arse into gear (it's currently stuck in neutral, though thankfully not reverse).

What else?  I'm seven hours deep into Paper Mario on the Wii Virtual Console and think it's bloody marvellous, while the prospect of Guitar Hero III on the Wii blows my mind to such a degree I'm actually willing to consider forking out sixty goddamn quid for the thing (Number of the Beast! Sabotage! Holiday in Cambodia!)  And the freebie that comes with Raving Rabbids 2 on Play keeps making me gurgle with laughter.  My first full week of training at Edinburgh gyms has gone nicely enough, even if I do feel conspicuously weedy compared to the other gym users.  That new Radiohead album is fucking brilliant and deserves a whole post to itself, as Pitchfork and Ryan have both done nicely.  And tomorrow it's over to Glasgow again for the long-awaited Carter USM gig at the Barrowlands.  Listening back to 101 Damnations and 30 Something this week, it's thrilling to think I'll be hearing some of those songs live again - this isn't listening through rose-tinted speakers of nostalgia, it's genuinely good music.  After all, if the current incarnation of the NME doesn't like it, hell, you know it's doing something right.  And on top of all that, a holy triptych of bunness on Cute Overload - the pocket, the palm and the holy fluff.  As the 'Tap would say, none more bun.

MP3 of the week: MAGICAL!

It's a typically rock'n'roll night in Castle Von Naggle (twinned with Chatiryworld) with online food shopping at Waitrose, a nice cold glass of water to drink, listening to some supremely sparse sounds.  Those sounds in question are coming from Susanna and the Magical Orchestra, a Norwegian duo I first heard thanks to the Rough Trade Counter Culture 2004 compilation which opened with the jaw-droppingly beautiful Believer, a song for every atheist who's ever dated someone with strong religious beliefs.  Ever since I've wanted to get the album it was from, List of Lights and Buoys, but it was always about £14 on Amazon, a bit on the pricey side.  But then - joys! - both that and last year's cover album Melody Mountain just became available on Emusic.  A couple of clicks later, and they were both in my clammy digital hands.

Both albums are absolutely lovely, so I should make a vague attempt to explain why.  It's very... bare music, the voice of singer Susanna Wallumrod gently backed with little electronica noises and chords from Morton Qvenlid.  And what a voice - you listen and feel as though you should be holding your breath, like the slightest movement could break that voice into pieces.  Her voice is clear, crisp and fragile, though not weak or feeble, and is reminiscent of Cat Power and Stina Nordenstam if they were standing next to you in the dark, singing quietly into your ear.  In fact, just listen for yourself - this track's off Melody Mountain and brings on so many chills it should come with a free jumper.

Love Will Tear Us Apart (MP3, 5.9MB)

Best enjoyed late at night with low lighting, a glass of wine and a handy beau/pet/cushion to hug.

Falling Sky: YEAR FOUR (AND A TEENSY BIT)

Bollocks!  Missed the official Falling Sky Blog Birthday for the second time!  Terrifyingly, it's now more than four years since fallingsky.blogs.com became something other than a nonsensical collection of letters and dots (plus ca change...) - man, does anyone else feel old?  Well, while you're adjusting your virtual zimmer frame, let's look back over the last twelve months and wonder where the bloody hell all that time went.

Look at the belly on that!  My first go at doing a lino print went okay (I really should get around to doing another before, oh, the apocalypse), plus a cat and mouse and a hippo and pumpkin.  Lass and I swan over to Glasgow to bask in the reflected glory of Grassroots and Lambchop.  The Stern Review gets published, fat lot of difference that ended up making, but at least Rumsfeld was gone.  A circular mark starts cropping up on my digital camera - behold the shocking evidence! - while I ponder on my painting of a lady's special place (my conclusion: it's not porn).  Read some fab childrens books, drink some shapely beer, the joys of a new camera and the glorious anniversary of a whole year living with The Burd in lovely Dean Village.

Indoor snowflakes as I got our christmas cards a-printed, while watching falling ducks and Tundra Boy.  Attended my first Humanist funeral and bought some whisky.  Started a second, Skye-move-specific blog (currently resting but due for a revival soon) and planned the entire soundtrack for my own funeral/wake/four-hour-TV-special.  I then take probably the best photograph I'll ever take and have an utterly splendid christmas, complete with sparkling pud and orangey duck.  The process of painting a portrait commission is revealed in twelve easy steps, while our second Torchlight Procession led to many nice photos but also an increasing exasperation at the frothing stupidity of fellow human beings given access to fire.

New Years Eve has me pondering over all the painting I did in 2006, while New Years Day brought a typically long-winded wibble on the best music from the last twelve months.  Not long after that, best films of the year, all of which continue to rule, and the obligatory rant following the horrors of Celebrity Big Brother (may it rest in pieces).  More meanderings on malt, not to mention seeing Mr Will Oldham for the second time in a year, and frustrated mutterings on the increasingly stupid locations of boring new housing developments down south.

February began suitably optimistic - what could possibly go wrong?  Oh wait - THIS.  Also the first appearance of the lolcats on Falling Sky to express emotion, along with Cute Overload, leading to this post of ultra-condensed-cutedom.  I start selling anything that's not nailed down, almost forgetting to turn 30 in the process, and it all just gets too much... but it's okay, because we moved - and we wouldn't have to do that again for aaaaages, right?  After all, it's a lovely flat - see how I list the ways!  After some frustrated 56.6kbps posting, we finally get broadband up and running, and settle down into the new place.

Gasp!  We are blessed with a real bundle of joy, leading to all sorts of blether and blurred lurching.  Bunnies on YouTube also make life better, as does news of Carter USM playing Glasgow, leading to winsome indiekid 90's nostalgia.  Some films tickle my fancy, while the Scottish elections lead to some intrigued chin-stroking.  The Lass had 24 hours of Typepad fame while I buy a keg of ale and drink the blighter dry.  We go to a pub, the Caley Sample Room, with which I am "pleasantly taken", and I gets tired.  Aww.  What could be wrong?

Skye calls, and we come back glowing, laden down with sketches and terribly sad to be back in the flat.  The lambs!  The peace!  A great big write-up of the first day and second day follow - the third will be here any day now - and I write a list of happy things in order to get happy.  The happiest thought of all - our two year anniversary together, bless our cotton socks.  I get temporarily swept-up in monster-movie internet-viral gubbins, then quickly get bored with it all.  And, finally, the reason there's been such a downer on the blog over the last couple of months is revealed, once we've got a way-out in sight.  From thereon it's a rush to raise enough money to fund the move and get enough boxes together, livened up with fireworks and sploshy ducks.  The briefest of film festival reviews, then finally - FINALLY! - we're on the cusp of moving, and science backs us up.  Still, the views were nice.

AND WE'RE OFF!  An internet-free gap of a few weeks gives way to this big ol' post detailing just how bloody good it is to be where we now are, followed by a return to life drawing after almost six months away.  One of my latest posts is just a list of happy stuff, but it makes a smashing change from what's come before.  I bumble into October jiggling with glee about Radiohead news, then my head blows up.  Three hours ago I sign up for Facebook, and come to the startling realisation I've missed the blog birthday.  Again.  I hang my head in shame and start trawling through the archives of October 2006.

And that, folks, is the story so far - stay tuned for twelve more months of equally unpredictable larks and japes!

Sit On My Facebook And Tell Me That You Love Me

Having noticed the global lack of Jon Nagl's on Facebook*, I've finally gone and plonked myself onto it - this has tickled the Lass no end, as we can now declare our love through the wonder of the Relationship status. Huzzah! Bask in our coupleness! Anyway, I only just signed on in the last hour or two, so if you're already on there and want my gurning mug staring out of your friends list, come and get me. I've already done the cliched thing of spotting chums I haven't seen for years and shrieking "WOAH! HE'S GOT A KID!", "WOAH! SHE LOOKS LIKE SOPHIE ELLIS-BEXTOR!" and so on, not to mention getting bogged down in these application thingys, most of which I probably won't even touch again after the initial dizzying thrill is over. Still, it's one more little patch of the internet I can clog up, and it does look like a rather handy way of keeping in touch with peeps, especially those without full-on blogs. Besides, I'm not touching fucking Myspace with a six mile pole.

*Oh sure, there's a few Nagle's, but they are mere cheap knock-offs of the one true e-less spelling. Ain't that right John?

Summary Sunday

Zounds, yet another week when barely an online peep emerges from meself, despite having the bestest of intentions to post wildly away.  More regular posting will resume, any day now, just as soon as I master the flow of spacetime and how I can twist it to my own devious ends.  That, or we get another computer.  Still, until then, here's what's been going on in la vie Jon Nagl these last few days...

More drawings!  I did a female torso study yesterday afternoon at life drawing using soft pastels, as you can see here.  Surprisingly tricky, due to the subtle shifts in colour and tone on the chest, but the final piece turned out alright and is now up for your capitalist consumption at a supremely cheap $90 (Fucking exchange rate!  Fucking wobbly American economy!  Clinton wouldn't stand for this shit!).  This session's soundtrack was mostly recordings of Orbital doing their last ever Peel session in 2004, which sounded bloody marvellous.  Quite how you'd get hold of it yourself, well, I couldn't possibly comment.

Also made my first clumsy stagger into the world of botanical illustration by starting a fold-out sketchbook just for flora drawings using watercolour pencils.  A bit like last year's Cow Parade, only smaller and with less tourist bystanders, with a lovely big shared garden and a park on either side of us there's plenty of petally goodness for me to work from.  Anyhoo, while this first diddy sketch is nothing to hoot about, it's a nice enough start and once the entire sketchbook is filled with plants of different colours and forms, it should look quite aesthetically pleasing.  Plus it makes a nice change from nipples.

BRAIN EXPLOSION!  HUH!  BRAIN EXPLOSION!  YEAH!  DAAAANG!  Last week was rather thrown when, on Monday night, I experienced my first ever migraine attack.  I've had plenty of headaches in the past, and they're no fun, but they were a fucking skip through a sunny park filled with blossom and bunnies compared to a migraine.  At around 6pm an hour-long headache suddenly got cranked up to 11 and it felt as though the front of my brain was making a determined effort to exit my skull via my eye sockets.  None of the freaky aura that I'd heard about - this was just a bog-standard common migraine - but a staggeringly intense and constant pain that had me flat out, doubled up and scared shitless.  In retrospect, I know it was just a migraine, but at the time it was a kind of pain I'd never felt before and over the hours it lasted the words stroke, aneurysm and tumour came far too easily to mind.  Ever the optimist, me.  Still, it subsided around 9/10pm and although the following two days felt very odd, there was no more striking pain.

The strange thing about the days that followed was a) a physical sense of pressure around parts of my head, as though I were wearing a headband, and b) my brain running notably slower.  Freaked the hell out of me on Tuesday, sitting at work and feeling the cogs and pulleys in my head lurching and grinding to a near-halt - I ended up going home because I seriously couldn't think straight.  Very peculiar, but I guess comparable to walking on a leg after a serious ankle sprain.  I haven't played any Sin And Punishment since, just to be on the safe side - in case you don't know, it's a supremely fast and downright mental video game that involves an awful lot of movement, loud noises and high-pitched squawky electro music - huge fun, but I fear for my brain.

Oh, temporarily promoted at work.  Cue ten months of giddy, awe-inducing POWER.  Can't give any details, obviously, but I'm now fighting the temptation to answer the phone by bellowing "I AM THE LAW!" and laughing heartily.  Give it a few weeks...

Reading lots of non-fiction books at the moment.  Will review another time, but James Lovelock's The Revenge of Gaia makes Cormac McCarthy's The Road feel like Wibbly Pig.

I'll save my new exercise regime for another post - tentatively titled SWIM FAT BOY SWIM! - and I really bloody well will get some film and music reviews up, if only to give Ratatouille and Stardust an extra little push for their UK releases (every little helps, and it doesn't get much littler than this).  Naturally I'm hyped up to my follicles about Wednesday, so that'll be nice (was it the thought of a new Radiohead album that made my noggin go pop?  Or maybe just those colours?).  Plus there's an organic food festival in Glasgow next weekend, which is also nice.  And maybe I'll draw another flower too.  Punk rock!

Twinkle Twinkle

Star Cluster Bursts into Life in New Hubble Image

Thousands of sparkling young stars are nestled within the giant nebula NGC 3603. This stellar "jewel box" is one of the most massive young star clusters in the Milky Way Galaxy.

NGC 3603 is a prominent star-forming region in the Carina spiral arm of the Milky Way, about 20,000 light-years away. This latest image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope shows a young star cluster surrounded by a vast region of dust and gas.

The image reveals stages in the life cycle of stars.

Powerful ultraviolet radiation and fast winds from the bluest and hottest stars have blown a big bubble around the cluster. Moving into the surrounding nebula, this torrent of radiation sculpted the tall, dark stalks of dense gas, which are embedded in the walls of the nebula. These gaseous monoliths are a few light-years tall and point to the central cluster. The stalks may be incubators for new stars.

On a smaller scale, a cluster of dark clouds called "Bok" globules resides at the top, right corner. These clouds are composed of dense dust and gas and are about 10 to 50 times more massive than the Sun. Resembling an insect's cocoon, a Bok globule may be undergoing a gravitational collapse on its way to forming new stars.

Oh Surprises!

It's not often I get music news from listening to PM on Radio 4, but it's through them that I just heard about Radiohead's unexpected shenanigans.  To whit, releasing a brand new complete album In Rainbows next bloody week by download... and people can choose how much or how little they want to pay for the album.  A fascinating development, whether you're into the 'head or not - though I'll gladly be shelling out for the discbox.  Summary of the whole thing can be read on BBC News, with more detail on Pitchfork.  Very, very cool.  Expect yelps of joy coming from me in 10 days time.