Goodle Good News.
Oh yes.
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February 29, 2004
Brother, Have You Heard the Good News?
Painless
This story gets more gruesome as it goes on. A little girl is born without the ability to feel pain. Sounds "cool" eh? Right, Mr. 2,000 piercings, Jim-Rose-Sideshow person? Howabout the fact that she scratched out her eyeball, quite unawares? Brrrr.
The Girl Who Feels No PainBy way of Metafilter.
Gabby Gingras has a disease so rare she's the only person her parents and doctors can find in the U.S. suffering from it. Like any other three-year-old, Gabby takes her share of slips and falls. Her reaction to each is predictable — at least for her family.For no matter how hard Gabby hits the ground, she will not shed a single tear. Hard as it is to fathom Gabby Gingras feels no pain. There is no cure, nor will she outgrow it.
"She fell down the stairs the other day in the garage," her dad says. "She just picked herself up and started climbing up the stairs again like nothing had happened."
"She never cried," her mother adds.
February 25, 2004
Jack the Ripper Parts 2-16
Funny found-tape of some kid riffing in and out of (presumably) his parents' spirituality tape as he tapes over it. I used to make tapes like this but not so, um, clean. Go to the page here and search for the Jack the Ripper link or go straight to the RealAudio.
Most vegetables are not vegetables
Steve Cook, who does somethingorother in the Biology department at the Imperial College of London wants you to know exactly what vegetable-looking-things are vegetables and what are not...I guess. I find these things fascinating.
Most of the time, actually. I was recently horrified when my flatmate was surprised to find out that aubergine (eggplant) is actually a fruit, and not a 'vegetable', whatever that means. Here, for the greater good and knowledge of humankind, is an exhaustive (well, it exhausted me) list of all the things made from plants you're ever likely to meet and eat, and what they actually are.The first thing I'll clear up is that 'vegetable' is pretty much meaningless: it's not the opposite of fruit (as the aubergine thing clearly demonstrates), and it's not the opposite of plants you eat for pudding (carrot cake, courgette cake, rocket and raspberry salad, etc.), and it's not savoury plant products either (sweetcorn, anybody?). Vegetable doesn't really seem to mean anything, so unfortunately, we will have to leave the cosy world of fruit and vegetables, and get our heads round some nasty botanical concepts, like the difference between a leaf and a flower, and some even nastier words. Nevermind, on we plough regardless...
A Closer Look at John Currin
Slate looks at the work of painter John Currin. The writer finds him ironic. I find him incredibly creepy, like that infamous cover of the Amok book catalog. (wish I could find an image to link to...)
I Did It for Science: Sex Doll
"Real Dolls" are the next generation of sex dolls--very lifelife pieces of plastic that for thousands of bucks you can customize and shag in the privacy of your own basement. Nerve's Grant Stoddard does the right, investigative-reporter thing and tells us what it's really like to stick your pee-pee in one. Hilarity.
It's a computer! It's a PDA! It's an unwatchable ad!
Admittedly the new OQO computer is one of the smallest 20GB PCs I've ever seen, and the keyboard should bring back memories of the ZX Spectrum. But OQO's Promotional Quicktime has to contain the most annoying use of motion graphics I've seen in some time. My eyes hurt after watching it, and not because the screen is small.
February 24, 2004
Ohmigod we're all going to die! etc. etc.
The most blogged and email story this week--the leaked Pentagon report that says that we will all die from global warming by 2050--is sanely discussed in this Oakland Tribune story.
Futurists see world coming to awful stew
In fact, GBN's report bears as much resemblance to probable reality as does the London Observer in describing it as "a secret report" predicting that climate change "could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy." According to unnamed experts quoted by the newspaper, the report concludes that climate change is a "threat to global stability (that) vastly eclipses that of terrorism.""We were imagining the unthinkable, a worst-case scenario," GBN's Randall said Monday by phone.
The Pentagon's unofficial futurist, Andrew Marshall, commissioned the report. He heads the internal DOD think tank that is responsible for scoping long-range trends and threats. Scenario-based projections are a staple of business and military planning.
The Defense Department released the report last month to a business magazine writer.
"There's nothing secret about it, there's nothing Pentagon about it and there's no prediction in it," Randall said.
This of course doesn't stop the fact that global warming exists--despite what the monkey fascist (and Dennis Miller) believes--and that the BushJunta have made it easier for polluters to destroy even more of our environment.
But it often points out a truth about doomsday scenarios: there's always part of our darkest nature that secretly wants to see it come true. And here that dark part met with our secret wish to see even the Pentagon point out how wrong Bush is.
Enki Bilal's IMMORTEL
Enki Bilal should be familiar to all fans of early Heavy Metal comics, sci-fi tales full of sex, machinery, and ancient gods. You can now watch a HUGE (32 meg) trailer for the film version of Immortel, which opened today in France. Directed by Bilal himself, it looks pretty faithful to his look.
February 23, 2004
Charles Baudelaire's Fleurs du Mal
A nicely organized online version of Baudelaire's Fleurs du Mal. All four editions are here, along with censored poems, in French and in an assortment of English translations. Goodness gracious me.
February 21, 2004
StinkyMeat
Amateur science experiments involving meat are what makes the Internet special. StinkyMeat
Thy Grooming is Terrible
Qveere Eye for thye Medieval Man. Well, vy forsoothe, it is spotte-onne.
The Final Decline and Total Collapse of the American Magazine Cover
Excellent post and comment section over at Design Observer about The Final Decline and Total Collapse of the American Magazine Cover or why you'll never find bold and daring magazine covers like Esquire any more. Some twat called Ted Mills went and added his two cents.
February 19, 2004
Bush's abortion hypocrisy: "I got the story nailed" says Flynt
Once again, our man Larry Flynt is intent on getting out some great gossip/cold hard facts about our monkey-in-chief. Whether or not you dig the man's porn empire, you gotta admire his investigative side. Go Larry!
Larry Flynt Activist rocker Moby raised Republican hackles last week when he advised President Bush's enemies to engage in political mischief.Moby told my fellow gossips Rush & Molloy: 'For example, you can go on all the pro-life chat rooms and say you're an outraged right-wing voter and that you know that George Bush drove an ex-girlfriend to an abortion clinic and paid for her to get an abortion.'
Now the incorrigible Larry Flynt says he plans to market a Bush abortion story as genuine - in a book to be published this summer by Kensington Press.
'This story has got to come out,' the wheelchair-bound Hustler magazine honcho told the Daily News' Corky Siemaszko. 'There's a lot of hypocrisy in the White House about this whole abortion issue.'
Flynt claimed that Bush arranged for the procedure in the early '70s.
'I've talked to the woman's friends,' Flynt said. 'I've tracked down the doctor who did the abortion, I tracked down the Bush people who arranged for the abortion,' Flynt said. 'I got the story nailed.'
Flynt wouldn't disclose whether he plans to name the woman."
Suicide Club (Jisatsu Saakuru)
Dir: Shion Sono
2002
I'm always up for a good Japanese horror movie, but this one didn't do it for me. The film felt like it began with a series of striking images (a mass suicide in front of a train; a roll of stitched-together flesh; a woman blithely cutting off her fingers; a theater filled with scary-looking children) and then a script was written to contain them.
Taking a lot from Kiyoshi Kurosawa (especially his classic "Kairo"--you should know this is one of my favorite films from the current Japanese horror renaissance), Sono creates a whole lot of questions, emotional and logical, and then confuses not explicitly answering them with not having an answer.
The plot centers around a rash of group suicides around Japan, and the detective (Ryo Ishibashi) called in to solve the case. The film opens with a bravura set piece where 50 or so high school girls jump in front of a subway. Trouble is, the editing reveals the budget, and the soundtrack (a kooky march) ruins the shock. It's actually (intentionally?) funny. Big waves of blood shoot out from beneath the train as it plows through the tender flesh--it's something that Dario Argento would love. But it is rather silly.
Much better is a later mass suicide set on the top of a high school where horsing around leads to the entire rooftop of students jumping to their deaths (although we get some more buckets-o-blood splashed on the ground floor windows). It's a well-written scene and the tone is just right. No marching music either.
Then there's a completely unrelated sequence set in a hospital with two nurses and a security guard--this is shot very dark, and is reminiscent of Kurosawa or Nakata (Ringu). In the context of the film though, it doesn't follow the "mass suicide" theme. Seems to me it's either mass suicide or just random suicides--Sono seems to change his mind depending on the effect. When things drag, Sono goes back to this set up for one more scare with the security guard--where he sees the nurses' ghosts. But this isn't a ghost story--and so we never see anything like this again.
Then there's some bits about an online Suicide Club (a bit reminiscent of Kairo's ghostly website); a mysterious child who calls the detective and offers up cryptic clues (don't they all?); and a 5 member "idol" group, a bit like Morning Musume, who seem to be everywhere, and who also seem to be singing cryptic messages. Gee, you think...? Naaaah.
Then there's Rolly. Who? Rolly.
This guy is a sort of glam rocker who was popular when I lived in Japan. Think Ziggy Stardust, but less subtle. He turns up as the head of a murder (or is it suicide?) cult in the third reel, and, whaddya know? he sings a song! I don't think this sort of thing has happened in film since Mick Jagger's Memo From Turner walked onscreen in Nicholas Roeg's "Performance" and baffled all. The movie really skids off the rails when this campy fella turns up.
Suicide Club wants to make us think, but more importantly, it wants to make us quietly depressed, like...well, like "Kairo" I'm afraid to say. But thinking back over the film only reveals its weak points. If young children are behind the murders, then who is producing the music, filming the shows, setting up the websites? Who is the (adult) guy in the executioner mask who planes off the victim's flesh? If--as we see--it's that hard to get into the flesh-planing place to start with, how come more and more people are offing themselves, as membership suggests? Well, you see, the film sort of falls apart.
The reason why Kurosawa is so good at his horror films is that, in Cure and Kairo in particular, once the "mystery" is solved, the film doesn't end--the knowledge is the horror, not a solution to it. Kurosawa takes the solution then expands it beyond what we've expected. Sono doesn't do that because, as I said at the beginning, he's working backwards.
For a rave review, for I could be wrong, check out the one at Snowblood Apple, although I feel Mandi Apple is reading way too much into the film.
Oh, and this is one of the first DVDs released by TLA Entertainment. I don't know whether the lack of a 5.1 mix is their fault, but unremovable subtitles? C'mon now...
February 17, 2004
Video Fractals
By using two monitors, one camera and a piece of glass, Peter Henry King has made video fractals. Check out the gallery...and why has it taken me seven years to find this page?
My New Rumsfield Fighting Technique Is Unstoppable
Dig those crazy moves, man.
February 16, 2004
Kitchen Confidential - Anthony Bourdain
Bloomsbury, 2000
Another thing the visit from my friend Phil turned me on to was Kitchen Confidential, the autobiography/expose/rant from chef Anthony Bourdain. I found out that Phil and I had been talking about the same guy--I was telling him about this show called "Cook's Tour" on the Food Network, and he was telling me about the book, yet neither of us could remember his name. When we browsed in Chaucer's Books--and nothing made my friend happier than being in bookstores, so I certainly indulged him--I asked him for that title and--ah-ha--it's the same bloke!
Turns out that I'm the last to read it--I've mentioned the book to several people and I get the "last on the bus" look.
I was going through a difficult chapter in the Will Durant book--the one devoted to Immanuel Kant, where even Durant suggests he has a bit of a problem reading the man (but not as much as Hegel)--so I eagerly turned to Mr. Bourdain's down-and-dirty stories from behind the swinging kitchen door.
Bourdain obviously delights in revealing the kitchen of haut cuisine as roiling pits of raw testosterone, much as early on in his career he was shown the blistered and scarred hands of his boss after having the nerve to ask for a bandaid. Bourdain makes it sound like you could cut your own hand off and still be expected to come back to work a few hours later, stump at the ready.
He tells us when not to order fish (Monday), never to order beef well-done (they'll pick out the worst cut for you, then throw it in the deep fryer), and the few simple ingredients to cook like a pro. In an amusing penultimate chapter, he visits a friend's restaurant and has to retract all his hard, fast, and swinging-dick rules after seeing the gentlemanly behavior on display. There's a nice chapter when he discusses his battle scars, and one section on a trip to Japan that made me quite hungry.
Bourdain swears like a sailor, has no fear in telling you what a smack-head he was in his early years, and successfully puts the fear of God into anybody half-thinking of owning a restaurant someday. Own one? I'm nervous now just to walk in one.
I read this in 3 1/2 days, so I don't feel so guilty of leaving the Kant on hold (that chapter is now done, anyway).
February 15, 2004
Ninjatune: The Videos
You can check out a fair sampling of Ninjatune videos over at their official site. Oh, if only all music sites were like this. (We're particularly fond of the cute Mr. Scruff videos. Kawaii!)
February 11, 2004
Spalding Gray: Vanishing Point
The only in-depth article on Spalding Gray's disappearance (and possible suicide) that I've read. It's depressing. Why can't we wake up in the morning and find headlines like: "Dick Cheney Disappears, Talked of Suicide, Unbearable Guilt"?
Feeeeeeed me!
Hi gang,
Long time no post. However, I've just updated all the pages to feature RSS feeds.
The reason why is that my friend Phil was here last week, spending a little time with me before the big EtCon conference in San Diego. He turned me on to a whole bunch of web sites, primarily being BlogLines, which I now use exclusively. Turns out that Blogger now has RSS available for free, so I updated. Now you'll never have to come here...unless you really need to.
Cool, eh?
David Lynch's Cigarette Ad
Dating apparently from 1998, this is one of a series of cigarette ads for French cinemas only. Other directors included Wim Wenders, Roman Polanski, and the Coen Bros. Lynch's commercial features his usual obsessions: fire, electricity, smoke. But it also features two black dudes who seem to entice fish to rise up into the sky. If this is selling out, go for it.
You can see other Lynch commercials at Lynch.net, and the other cigarette commercials over at LDM Productions.
February 10, 2004
On Writing - Stephen King
Scribners, 2000
I picked this up at Border's sale table. Good ol' sale table. This book had just been discussed in the most recent issue of The Believer, and so for $4 I got it. Came home and damn near read the thing in one sitting. Understand I was a big King fan when I was a teenager, but I gave up after the bloated "It".
Here, King gives us some tips on writing, but the first half of the book is really his autobiography. It's a good read--King no doubt has the page-turning knack--and the writing craft section is fair. He doesn't pretend that everybody reading the book can be a successful novelist, but he does preach dedication and obsession. "Throw the television out," is one of his first suggestions. I agree with him there.
As I plow my way through my film script, I took a lot to heart. It was just the break I needed.
Giorgio de Chirico: The Endless Journey - Wieland Schmied
Prestel, 2002
There's not too many books on DeChirico, one of my favorite Surrealist painters. And most of those are expensive and large, so it's nice to find this small book from Prestel. In between the mammoth reading of Barrows Dunham and Will Durant (a report on which I swear is coming), I've sneaked in a few "in-one-or-two-sittings" books. I picked this up at LACMA and spent my time in Phoenix (where I developed stomach flu) reading it. A good primer on DeChirico (Rule One for writing on Surrealists: Not many of them were really Surrealists. Wha?) and one that stretches out to bring in the influence of Appolinaire and how Max Ernst created art that "answered" the ideology/symbolism as seen in DeChirico's work. I had no idea really, but Schmied makes it all very clear. The book is no hagiography--it skips the last 30 years of his career--but hits all the major points. However, don't read if you are looking to having stomach flu-based hallucinations. I found my self in a half-awake state stuck in one of his empty plazas with his mannequins. Unpleasant.
Matrix Revolutions
Dir: Andy and Larry Wachowsky
2003
I come not for the philosophy, but one law: the law of diminishing returns. The Matrix "trilogy" is over and thank goodness. Revolutions is essentially two hours of being hit over the head with a electric hammer. So disappointing to see that all the philosophical conundrums of the first film are solved in Zion with a big gun battle and hitting the smart bomb button on the game console, and then in the Matrix with a punch-up in a mud puddle. And so once again science fiction in American film is reduced to "things-blowing-up-in-space", what was once exhilirating is now mastubatory, what was once multilayered is now Bush Administration good-and-evil. "Agent Smith is the yin to Neo's yang" is not the most revelatory observation by a long shot, but it's presented as such. Holmes/Moriarty, anybody? Superman/Lex Luthor?
Setting most of the final film in the "real world" of Zion makes for some great questions: If an EMP (or whatever) blast from a ship has the ability to knock out all the metal squid monsters and the fair people of Zion have enough technology and skill to build the city in the first place, why didn't they set up their own EMP system as civil defense? Also, knowing their enemy, why weren't the exoskeleton robotech machines designed to protect their pilots? As it is, it leaves the pilot exposed to the claws of the squids. I mean, ask a crab--does that have its tender juicy meat on the outside?
And so now Zion is saved, who really wants to live there? How depressing a place--if they've had to live there for centuries, couldn't someone splurge on a coat of paint? What's the economy of Zion? How does it feed itself? Who grows the space-cotton to make all those wool sweaters?
I don't blame the Wachowsky Brothers for not letting a good idea alone, but it just looks like they couldn't answer their own questions. And maybe the secret is that they weren't supposed to.
And why do evil places have to have such bad weather? If you controlled the earth, wouldn't you make sure you chose the best spot to set up HQ? I hear it's often sunny outside the offices of Halliburton, so what's the deal?
Mu - Afro Finger and Gel
Tigersushi Records TSRCD003
2003
With Mu's "Afro Finger and Gel" I finally get that feeling that I'm hearing something so different, so strange, that I can't really compare it to anything.
This was passed on by a friend and on first listening, it seemed very noisy, confrontational, and intentionally ugly. But unlike a lot of music that uses this tactic, that was just the surface. There's a lot of things underneath, disturbing, murky things, along with some heavenly brilliance which may be sunlight, but may be me passing out.
In no particular order, here's what caught my ear.
They love timbales. They love 'em like early '80s hip-hoppers and producers did. Anytime is great for a timbale break. Except these breaks are coming in the middle of dark, electronic hell-rides. There's also drum breaks that remind me of the African tribal kick that made its way into pop during Malcolm McLaren's reign (remember Bow Wow Wow? Peter Gabriel? Adam and the Ants?)
The Japanese female singer here is completely nuts, in the tradition of Frank Chickens and Yoko Ono--it's threatening, smeared-lipstick fuck-you delivery, occassionally manipulated into flanging and distorted squeaks. "My Name Is Tommi" features vocalist Mutsumi taking on several roles in a recreation of a cheesy "adulterers caught on tape" tv show. She plays announcer, jilted girlfriend, and narrator, while the guy in the band plays the part of the philandering male (or is that her?). What was probably once a distancing encounter on the original TV show, is split open into bloody emotions of jealousy and hatred, and is one of the most unnerving things I've heard since Throbbing Gristles "Hamburger Lady" on their Third and Final Report LP.
Each track is about 5 or 6 minutes. Within that time Mu go in several directions at once. "Let's Get Sick" starts off with a rhythm based around a skipping CD machine, but ends in a beautiful ambient mist. Yes, [looks at CD machine] this is the same song.
I don't know too much about Mu. They are credited as Maurice Fulton & Mutsumi Kanamori, and they're married, it seems. He's from Baltimore. Baltimore rocks! They live in Sheffield. Sheffield rocks too!
For those who grew up during the turn of the '80s, there was a brief time where the art rock crowd and the freakazoid hip-hop people engaged in a musical dialogue. Afrika Bambaataa, Liquid Liquid, Talking Heads (Mu nicks "Once in a Lifetime"'s vibe for the final track), Grace Jones, some of that stuff sounded so new it was scary, another-planet material. "Afro Finger and Gel" is like that all the way through. It's one of my favorite albums of 2003.
Here's a brief article on them and Mr. Fulton in particular that explains a little more Mu. But not too much. I mean, where does Mutsumi come from?