June 2009
51 posts
The Bulwer-Lytton Contest Award Winners, 2009 →
I recommend in particular the winners for Adventure, Fantasy Fiction, Purple Prose, and Spy Fiction, the last of which achieves a beautiful deflation in the final clause.
“We lost a lot of the original fans when I stopped being miserable. But the only...”
– Stuart Murdoch, in an interview.
Spotted on Twitter
@katyperry: ...ready to sing I Kissed a Girl for the 100,000x with a fuckin GRIN. Lez do this... I should shower now. bye.
@grahamcoxon: @katyperry get used to it, love
***
Link: http://twitter.com/grahamcoxon/status/2311158685
Books of the Times: In the Jungle With Herzog... →
A review of Werner Herzog’s new book, Conquest of the Useless, in which he writes about the making of Fitzcarraldo. (One of my favorite movies of all time, actually.)
WatchIn which Hitler’s subtitler gets a cheap font CD.
Most of the Re-Subtitled Scenes of Hitler From Downfall videos have left me kind of cold, but this one actually made me literally laugh out loud. Especially the bit that starts right around 2:15 or so.
WatchMichael Jackson, sci-fi superstar?
Of all the celebs of whom, when they die, you say “He’s not really dead; he’s just gone back to the mothership”, you can almost believe it of Jackson.
say, say, say what you want
(AIM chat, slightly edited, mostly to keep thoughts together properly and to help make Sara and I look like the adults we are, rather than the twelve-year-olds that most people sound like in AIM chat, whether they want to or not.)
***
Sara: Wow. This might be it for Jacko.
Me: Jeebus.
Sara: I'm surprised at how kind of scared I am. Or sad, maybe. Weird mix of emotions.
Me: You know, I have to say... there's part of me that feels like you do when you've got a relative who's been terminally ill for a long time. It's like, the Jacko I really adored when I was a kid? Was gone a long time ago.
Sara: You're just waiting for the other shoe to drop, and when it does, you're relieved.
Me: Yeah
Sara: He's been already dead for years. A ghost.
Me: Some sort of weird poltergeist version of himself.
Sara: I always had this fantasy that he would embrace his ghoulishness and use it to his advantage. Like become the uber Marilyn Manson. That would have been kind of amazing, actually. But that would involve him accepting himself for what he was, and he was always so stuck on convincing everyone (or really, himself) that he was normal and really masculine
Me: It's really sad. I mean, he never, ever seems to have been truly happy with himself.
Sara: He's probably the loneliest guy in the world
Me: That's one thing you get from that insane auction catalog: a guy who surrounded himself with shit to try and ... make himself happy? Put on some kind of facade?
Sara: Seriously.
Me: Surround himself with idealized images of a childhood he never had?
Sara: I think that last one is key.
On the inevitability of a third Transformers film
Me: Well, I guess we can count on a Transformers 3: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/25/transformers-sequel-had-record-breaking-opening-on-wednesday/
Peter: Is it wrong that I want T3 to be a simple extrapolation of the trend set by 1 and 2?
Me: You mean for it to be even bigger, louder, and more crass?
Peter: At this rate, T3 should just be a film of a junkyard in a centrifuge.
WatchOlivier Messiaen’s “Oraison”, transcribed for Buchla 200e synthesizer and Haken Continuum Fingerboard controller and performed by Richard Lainhart. More about this performance, and more about Messiaen and “Quartet for the End of Time” (part of which was based on “Oraison”) from the always-interesting Alex Ross.
“Since the days of Un Chien Andalou and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, filmmakers...”
– io9 - Michael Bay Finally Made An Art Movie - Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (via lizlet)
“Afghanistan, Argentina, Zebra, test, test, test.”
– Technician/flunky setting up a microphone at Gov. Sanford, prior to his speech regarding his sudden AWOL-ness to Argentina.
Sweeney Todd →
The true story of Sweeney Todd—perhaps. This account seems to draw heavily from Peter Haining’s history of the matter, also written up here. Haining’s account is debatable, but probably not entirely implausible; life was pretty damn cheap in the period of which he writes, and they get that much right, anyway.
BBC: The Tome Lord →
asphalteden:
hangingfire:
Mark Gatiss reminisces about the Target novelisations of the classic Doctor Who series. This is how we managed in the days before DVDs and NTSC-format VHS tapes. Uphill, in the snow, both ways. God, I wish I had my collection back.
I still regret selling mine when I was in college. I had a nearly complete set.
On top of this, there’s a 30-minute BBC Radio 4...
BBC: The Tome Lord →
Mark Gatiss reminisces about the Target novelisations of the classic Doctor Who series. This is how we managed in the days before DVDs and NTSC-format VHS tapes. Uphill, in the snow, both ways. God, I wish I had my collection back.
WatchZachary Quinto and Leonard Nimoy talking about the American myth cycle that is Star Trek.
“Have they found out where you live?”
“Ssssh! Ssssh!”
bunny #1382: for the journey →
“Stopped Believin’.” Me too.
The Incredible Century Old Color Photography of... →
I’m reminded of the Calvin and Hobbes strip where Calvin’s dad tells him that in the past, the world used to be black and white, and that “black and white” photos are actually color. Somehow color photos of things long past make those things immediate in beautiful and unexpected ways.
In 1909 a remarkable project was initiated by Russian photographer Sergey Mikhaylovich...
The Cook's Oracle, and Housekeeper's Manual →
From the introduction:
The publishers have now the pleasure of presenting to the American public, Dr. Kitchiner’s justly celebrated work, entitled ” The Cook’s Oracle, and Housekeeper’s Manual,” with numerous and valuable improvements, by a medical gentleman of this city.
The work contains a store of valuable information, which, it is confidently believed, will not...
Pixar grants girl’s dying wish with home viewing... →
Yeah, so … as if “Up” itself weren’t painfully tearjerking enough, there’s this:
lizlet:
spytap:
From the minute Colby saw the previews to the Disney-Pixar movie Up, she was desperate to see it. Colby had been diagnosed with vascular cancer about three years ago, said her mother, Lisa Curtin, and at the beginning of this month it became apparent that she would...
'I got a new head, and I'm fine' →
“The bikes … the robots … the dream of man and machine in perfect harmony. How is the Kraftwerk vision of the future shaping up? Ralf Hütter gives a rare interview to John Harris”
Among many other things, there’s this:
What he says next is probably not intended as his verdict on Twitter - a Kraftwerkian development, if ever there was one - but it may as well be....
The Readers of Boing Boing interview Michael... →
Here’s the post where BB originally solicited the questions. And here’s where they announced the “interview” post. Somehow my question made it in there. Oh dear me.
AlphaDictionary: The 100 Most Beautiful Words in... →
Isn’t it cheating to include “billet-doux” in there? Or “lagniappe”? I’m sort of amused by how many of these words I actually use on a semi-regular basis.
WatchFrom failme.net, a video from the recent performance of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop live at the Camden Roundhouse.
NY Times: The Long-Beaked Echidna →
“…plump, terrier-size creatures abristle with so many competing notes of crane, mole, pig, turtle, tribble, Babar and boot scrubber that if they didn’t exist, nobody would think to Photoshop them”
War Child: Heroes →
An album benefitting the War Child nonprofit, full of cover song goodness. And it’s for a good cause.
The National Review cover for the June 22, 2009... →
This week’s big loser in the Cultural Sensitivity sweepstakes? The National Review. More commentary at TPM.
“This Court is not aware of, nor has Plaintiff alleged the existence of, any...”
– Lowering the Bar: Reasonable Consumer Would Know “Crunchberries” Are Not Real, Judge Rules 