After eight years it's time for a break.
Saturday, January 12, 2002
Dexy's Midnight Runners and Public Enemy: together at last. Rock fuckin' on.[via the null device]
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There may be no news of the Anti-Bloggies yet, but it's reassuring to know that the Kaycees will be delivering award-based arsekicking sometime soon...
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And God said "Let there be Goo Goo Clusters." And all was right with the world.
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Friday, January 11, 2002
Odd news for those back home: radio over here is currently all over Josh Abrahams and Amiel Daemion's "Totally Addicted To Bass" single. Strange; it was released in October 1998, initally - so why the release here, now? Maybe the inroads made by The Avalanches are paying off. It's a strange thing to hear on the radio now, though - given that the album it came off was out in 1998. I thought those "wah-oh-wah-oh"s sounded familiar...link | Mail me. |
From the Pork Store comes the coolest expression of satisfaction, envy and general all-rightness ever: bacon. The CD I'm listening to, indeed, is so bacon that you wouldn't believe it.
Use it well, y'all.
Oh, a quick question, too; if anyone knows where I can download free .eps versions (or jpegs, or fonts, or any format at all) of HAZMAT or safety signs - you know the type; they're on the outside of acid bottles and such - then please let me know. You'll be rockin' with fists of steel if you do.. I've a yen for 'em, you know...
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From the inbox: We got your information from the internet. We would like to build up good business relationship with you. We can supply good quality zippers in very good price. If you are using big amount of zippers, please do contact with us. We believe we could help you to lower down your cost without sacrifice the quality. Welcome for your further inquiries. Looking forward to doing business with your esteemed firm in the near future. Thanks for your kindly attention.Dear Sir,
Damn. If I hadn't left my manufacturing concerns in my other pants, I might've taken them up on it, too.
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Two reviews today: The Spiny Anteaters' Well Laid Plans and Centrozoon's The Divine Beast get a listen.
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Before Mulholland Drive came on last week, the trailer for Gosford Park was shown. (There's a Salon review of it here.) I normally am not particularly a fan of country house capers, but in this instance, it's helmed by Robert Altman. And stars (amongst others) Michael Gambon, Helen Mirren, Maggie Smith, Stephen Fry and Richard E Grant as a butler. I can't wait for it to be released; with a cast like that, it's going to be phenomenal, surely? Altman must've done something right, I suppose - the film came in before Lord Of The Rings in the National Society Of Film Critics' poll on what was the best in 2001; beaten only by Lynch's Mulholland Drive...
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If you've seen Lord Of The Rings, go to this LiveJournal. Start reading from this entry and read onwards (click the green arrow pointing right). Keep going; there's sometimes one or two entries between them - they're well worth the wait.
[via barbelith underground]
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Thursday, January 10, 2002
REALHAMSTER! Made with cheap New Zealand labour, apparently. The news of such a groundbreaking link comes through Tom, though he remains to scared to actually click on it, for fear of BrainRot.Which is understandable.
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You know, I was sure that I'd received an email from Bernard Shifman - SpamMaster. And if I'm not recalling correctly, I wish I had; it'd be a nice break from the Viagra-shilling mails I keep getting.
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What? Slow on the uptake? Me? Ha.
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Genius search event of the day: looking around Streetsonline for a book, The Children Of Cthulhu. Which they don't have. Which isn't really noteworthy, except for the fact that when I searched for it, the very first result I got was for David Jason: The Biography. Strangely fitting, no?
In his house at R'lyeh, dead Delboy lies dreaming...
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Listen to this. I told you that the only reason The Rock got made was so that Sean Connery could have this line, didn't I?
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Blogstickers, via everyone. An antidote for the Legend In One's Own Lunchbox syndrome?
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If you're anxious for to shine in the high aesthetic line as a man of culture rare,
If there's one thing I've discovered over my life, it's that your can never feel depressed when you're listening to Gilbert & Sullivan operas. Especially if that opera is Patience. It's not The Gondoliers, but it's damn close. A wonderful; poetic pisstake and toffee-loving Dragoons - what more could you want in a musical experience? Combine that with some of the cleverest wordplay and memorable melodies that've ever graced a stage, and you've got - well, something like the good feeling ABBA music usually evokes, only better. There's a distinct air of learned dagginess that makes these works rather appealing, y'know. The libretto's here, if you're interested. Strangely, I have a craving to see Alan Cumming play Bunthorne: something tells me that he'd be perfect.
You must get up all the germs of the transcendental terms, and plant them ev'rywhere.
You must lie upon the daisies and discourse in novel phrases of your complicated state of mind,
The meaning doesn't matter if it's only idle chatter of a transcendental kind.
If you don't know any G&S, there's an excellent discography here. Check out anything by the d'Oyly Carte if you can: on the whole, there's nobody better. All those years of car-trip playing have paid off, Mum and Dad!
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Wednesday, January 09, 2002
Want to win the Turner Prize? Or, at least, sound like you have? I give you the Market-O-Matic [fine arts version] which will make you a powerful new force in art. Like me:http://www.captainfez.com/blog/I'm just too hip, baby.
http://www.captainfez.com/blog/
http://www.captainfez.com/blog/
http://www.captainfez.com/blog/
Work of Sub-Art in the Age of Symbiotic ReproductionThe vortex creates, the empire accentuates. In the material hallucination, art objects are deprecations of the musings of the vortex -- a vortex that uses the empire as a zeitgeist to represent ideas, patterns, and emotions. With the devolution of the electronic environment, the vortex is superseding a point where it will be free from the empire to transcend immersions into the machinations of the delphic hallucination. Work of Sub-Art in the Age of Symbiotic Reproduction contains 10 minimal java engines (also refered to as "memes") that enable the user to make lugubrious audio/visual compositions.
measuring chains, constructing realities
putting into place forms
a matrix of illusion and disillusion
a strange attracting force
so that a seduced reality will be able to spontaneously feed on it
Luke Martin's work investigates the nuances of surveilance cameras through the use of jumpcut motion and close-ups which emphasize the Symbiotic nature of digital media. Martin explores abstract and foolproof scenery as motifs to describe the idea of hyper-real hallucination. Using indefatigable loops, non-linear narratives, and slow-motion images as patterns, Martin creates meditative environments which suggest the expansion of art...<-- Obligatory ascii sig. Repeat until desired cyborg effect is achieved. -->
/u[0]{)]|]]-] -------------/u/u!@#$%^~!@#$%^&*()) __++_)(*&^%$--------/u/u!@#$%^~!@#$ %^&*())__++_)(*&^%$--------/u/u!@#$ %^~!@#$%^&*())__+, etc., etc.
<-- End obligatory ascii sig. -->
[via uren dagen nachten]
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Sexy knowledge top-up time: Ten Things You Didn't Know About Your Books lays the responsibility for printing at Faust's door. Which is the perfect place for it to be, if you've ever read The Weekly World News.
[via virulent memes]
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Ah, The Rock. To overcome feelings of general blah this evening, I resorted to watching this Nic Cage vehicle on TV. Channel 5, naturellement. I was prepared for it to be a whole lot worse than it was - and believe me, it was pretty bad - but was pleasantly surprised. There was room for a lot more suckage, though I do feel that the entire film was constructed around the idea of having Sean Connery call Ed Harris "a fucking idiot". Which, of course, is champagne acting the whole way. Cage eats the scenery through the entire piece - which is hard, given that the thing's set on Alcatraz, for fuck's sake - and Michael Biehn makes an appearance as someone who looks like he'd be happier gettin' some piglovin', but it's not so bad. There's an extraordinary of Blowing Shit Up in the flick, and some obviously faked "fighter-planes try to save world by Blowing Shit Up" scenes, but hey - it's passable.
Christ, I must be ill.
Worse than that, though, was the viewing from the night before last - Excalibur, a movie that I swear is better remembered than watched. John Boorman should be tortured for this hamfisted Malory-hacking; even the appearance of Helen Mirren's breasts couldn't redeem it from the terrible acting of Nigel Terry's idiot farmboy Arthur and Nicol Williamson's truly deranged (never mind the tinfoil scalp-cover, folks - that keeps the Evil Thoughts out!) Merlin. A very young (and pissed) Liam Neeson farts his way through a couple of lines, Gabriel Byrne (how old was he - 12?) gets shanked and Patrick Stewart is - well, himself. Hands come out of lakes (or are badly superimposed over them) and corpses look rubber. Classical music floats in and out of the mix with no sense of timing or grace. And... well, it's a shit-sandwich of a thing, really. I honestly thought it would be a lot better than it was; watching it is proof, as if any were required, that I'm already losing my marbles. How I could ever have thought that the film was an enjoyable retelling of the legend is beyond me: I wanted to find a crew-member and set them on fire.
Of course, the amount of whiskey we'd consumed (friends were over for a quiet dinner) probably ensured that my murderous musings stayed strictly theoretical.
And now, to mail.
Oh, forgot. If you'd been in The Gothest Pub In London on Friday night, you would've espied me, supping dark beer and looking Tired and Wan. A boozy night with Catherine, Ben and Sioux is just the thing y'need to end the week; already I'm looking towards the next one. And hey - I just dyed my hair this evening, so I'm sure I'll be much more Eldritch next time, too...
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Hot damn, I'm in love: the Rocklopedia Fakebandica! contains a list of fake bands discovered in movies and TV. What else can I say but... rock? I'm not, apparently, worthy.
[via the null device]
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Just in case you're a bit slow on the uptake, you should be aware that Funnypics is up again, thanks to the digital goodness of Jeb. Sign up and play - and try to pick my captions, I beg you.
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Late-breaking Apple Computer news: the name is now iHat. Thanks.
[via mijn kop thee]
When the car-crash that is my beginning-of-year lethargy is prised open by the jaws of creative life, I'll let you know. Until then, relax and enjoy the break in overextended metaphors and guff that passes as Writing here. Back to normal soon, I promise.
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Tuesday, January 08, 2002
Apparently, God Hates Figs. And in that case, I'm a tool of the devil - something that's long been suspected, I suppose - because I'm of the opinion that Fig Rolls are fucking genius.[via barbelith underground]
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Oh. The webcam is now back on. Occasionally. No more teacups for you!
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If you've a dialup connection, move right along. Unless you've the patience to wait and download 18.5MB of .mov action, that is. At any rate, this is The Lord Of The Rings. As imagined by Howard Hawks, with Bogie as Frodo. Some of the voicework is a bit on the whiffy side - well, some suck massively - but it's great to know that Orson Welles is Saruman. Oh, and make sure you watch out for Peter Lorre; his role is rather apt...
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More reviewing: Thievery Corporation's "songs we kinda dig from your record vaults, oh lovely Verve" disc gets a listen. Nobbad.
The disc, not the review, obviously. Ahem.
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Photoshop fun link of the day: Something Awful's History Special. It's all about Oscar the Grouch; I always knew he was up to no good. Checking some of the other Photoshoppery they've got going on, I can recommend the Bin Laden's Underground Fortress page (special mentions to this one, this one and this one) and the Sci-Fi Book Covers one (especially this, this, this and this.), too - though the humour's a bit naff, on occasion.
Oh yeah; their Scientology Fanfic is pretty rockin', too...
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Sunday, January 06, 2002
Another day, another review. How the fuck does Athens keep churning out decent bands? Buggered if I know.Yes, it's far too late to be up.
Being a big Lynch fan, I went and saw Mulholland Drive this afternoon, as it's just come out here in London. I went into the screening expecting nothing great (Russ had thumbs-downed it a while ago.) and was pleasantly surprised. I was intrigued by the amount of "Hey, Hollywood: go fuck yourself!" that was contained in the flick, and certainly think there was a bit more meaning in there than it appears. I really think I need a second screening, frankly; like any Lynch, it deserves another watching and a rethink. I'm kinda promising myself that I won't write much at the moment about it, but I just have to say that any movie that places Billy Ray Cyrus in some kind of koan-dispensing role is a-OK by me. Nice to see that he's still got the mullet, too, albeit in a shortened mode.
Hmm.
Anyway. I'd say go see it, because it does bear watching. I think it's more of a commentary on Hollywood and the filmmaking process than a straight story, per se: well, there is a straight story there, but it's kinda enclosed in this feeling of disgust at moviemaking. Is the man about to retire from major releases? Hard to say, but I think there's evidence in this baby to say that he's thinking long and hard about it.
Right. Sleep. Night night.
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