==pla|\|ing lakes==
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
By the end of our time in Malibu, I felt cut off from the rest of the world. After making tha drive, after having the mountains come down, after being hit by the ocean. The ocean's not your friend. The ocean hates you. The ocean wants your home. The state doesn't want you to have beach. They want the public to have your beach and the public's entitled to it. Below the mean high tideline. So you're in constant battle there. The siren goes off and the bells on the abbey go off to let you know fire is coming. The fire can only go one place, to your house because it starts in the Valley and can only go one way. To the ocean. The fires occur during the Santa Anas, and the Santa Anas come from the east, and they're going to burn to the sea. No matter how you cut it. You're going to get cut off at Topanga and you're going to get cut off at Point Dume. So you're trapped. Twenty-seven years in the Colony was enough. I'd had it. I had to get out. For me, it was time to go.From Bruce Dern's Things I've Said, But Probably Shouldn't Have: An Unrepentant Memoir , which is consistently convoluted, unvarnished and engaging throughout. And often laugh out loud funny.
8:34 PM - [Link] - Comments ()
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
also from simon reynolds' blog, a link to a rant on Withnail & I, 20 years old this year (and i just a few weeks ago finally got around to it)
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this is getting ridiculous
R.I.P. Stylus [bliss blog]
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Monday, October 29, 2007
R.I.P. Paul Raven
. . .of Ministry, Prong, Godflesh and on.
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R.I.P. davisdvd
that's 2 blogs in a few days. jeez.
9:48 PM - [Link] - Comments ()
Paste magazine is offering $1.00/year subscription (or whatever you want to donate) [link] [pop candy]
9:40 PM - [Link] - Comments ()
Saturday, October 27, 2007
top 50 dystopian movies [neurastenia]
i'm watching one right now that didn't make the list (Altman's Quintet) and there are many others (Alien, Bright Future, Red Desert, Sunshine, safe etc.) .
the ranking is easily ignored.
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"Bring on the Dancing Horses" by Echo & the BunnymenJimmy Brown
Made of stone
Charlie Clown
No way home
Bringing on the
dancing horses
Headless and all alone
Shiver and say the words
Of every lie you've heard
First I'm gonna make it
Then I'm gonna break it
Till it falls apart
Hating all the faking
And shaking while
I'm breaking
Your brittle heart
Billy stands
All alone
Sinking sand
Skin and bone
Bring on the dancing horses
Wherever they may roam
Shiver and say the words
Of every lie you've heard
First I'm gonna make it
Then I'm gonna break it
Till it falls apart
Hating all the faking
And shaking while
I'm breaking
Your brittle heart
Brittle heart
Brittle heart
And my little heart
Goes
Jimmy Brown
Made of stone
Charlie Clown
No way home
First i'm gonna make it
Then i'm gonna break it
Till it falls apart
Hating all the faking
And shaking while
i'm breaking
Your brittle heart
Bring on the new messiah
Wherever he may roam...
Brittle heart
Brittle heart
And our little hearts
9:24 PM - [Link] - Comments ()
the new hi-def Last Supper makes it hard to believe that's a guy to the left of christ
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thank you, mr scheerThere was a time when responsible politicians would decry this looting of the public treasury, but not now, when we are in the midst of a never-ending "war on terror." Not now, when a Marine dies a needless death in Iraq, a country that had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11, or in any substantiated way presented a threat to the United States, and his family can be produced as cover for a president determined to morally and financially bankrupt the nation.
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fema is just the bomb, isn't it?
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Thursday, October 25, 2007
read and burn 3 coming soon
a blog linked on giornale nuovo, one of the reasons i'll miss it.
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R.I.P. Giornale Nuovo
sad to see mister h go. great blog it was.
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the best radio show you'll never hear (unless you know Polish) according to this guy
i was looking for info on serbian composer arsenije jovanovic, when i stumbled upon this learned blog.
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Sunday, October 21, 2007
remarkably dark-themed stained glass art from judith schaechter [Giornale Nuovo]
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oil production peaked last year?
"The world is at the beginning of a structural change of its economic system. This change will be triggered by declining fossil fuel supplies and will influence almost all aspects of our daily life"
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russia's star city thrivesBaikonur, once one of the Soviet Union's most secret cities, is still closed to outsiders and surrounded by barbed wire. Armed soldiers at checkpoints guard dozens of launch pads, five tracking control centers and a missile test range.
The continuity is especially striking because the 1991 collapse left the cosmodrome stranded in what had become a foreign country, the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan. "We did not know what country we belonged to, but we kept on launching rockets," said Sergei Kuzmin, a former military officer, now a city clerk.
Russia rents Baikonur from Kazakhstan for $115 million a year. The mayor is jointly appointed by the Russian and Kazakh presidents.
[...]
The city itself is a rusting relic of the golden age of Russian rocketry, yet if anything, its place in the space industry is heading toward expansion. For at least four years after the space shuttle program ends in 2010, the United States will completely depend on Russia — and Baikonur — to send its crews to the international space station.
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malibu has 25 rehab centers?
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Saturday, October 20, 2007
good articles on james turrell & robert wyatt reprinted at arthur's blog, magpieTurrell’s newest project — and first public installation in Southern California — is what has come to be known as a “Skyspace,” a sophisticated architectural structure that doesn’t call attention to itself but humbly serves anyone who passes through it. Titled “Dividing the Light,” this open-air pavilion on the campus of his alma mater, Pomona College, goes out of its way to make whatever time you spend with it satisfying, whether you’re an enthusiastic pilgrim who has traveled far to experience Turrell’s work or a casual passerby who just happens upon it. The longer you linger, the more you experience.exhibit page for Dividing the Light.
During the day, its red granite benches, black granite floor, serene reflecting pool, sleek metal columns and gently curved canopy provide a relaxing escape from everyday busyness. The seemingly weightless steel canopy shades the comfortable seats and forms a frame around a big square of sky.
The magic happens at sunset, sunrise and on every hour throughout the night. Hidden LED lights illuminate the canopy from below. Turrell has programmed them to shift in intensity at twilight and dawn, depending on the season and time. This causes the sky that is visible through the nearly 16-foot-square opening to appear to be palpable — less like a distant dome sprinkled with stars and more like a velvety chunk of color close enough to reach out and touch. At night, the canopy is softly illuminated. Every hour, the lights flicker and shift, in what Turrell calls “the visual equivalent of church bells chiming.”
Every night is different, depending on the weather, the smog, your mood. What is constant is Turrell’s capacity to pull experiences of sensual refinement out of the heavens — to make down-to-earth, experience-it-for-yourself art out of light and space — and to get visitors not only interested in the subtleties of our perceptions but thrilled by the wonder of it all.
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Thursday, October 18, 2007
Hearts of Darkness out on DVD next month
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R.I.P. Deborah Kerr
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Wednesday, October 17, 2007
factory Girl
it's not as bad as some have said. i've been thinking about warhol lately, and had to check it out. guy pearce is very good as warhol, and sienna miller does well. the direction isn't bad, but doesn't make the film memorable somehow, though there's a sense of versimilitude, and the characters the above actors play are memorable.
the story references real things but the romance between edie and dylan and it's pivotal dramatic function in the movie has little to do with what happened, as i remember it from Edie: American Girl, the book you should check out if reality is what you're looking for.
the movie's timidity -- the quick, anonymous shots of the velvets, which slide off people before you can tell it's not the real people, for instance -- drains the power it might have had. it certainly has some truth to it, and is a good starting point if you know nothing of the factory and warhol at his peak creatively.
i couldn't begin to imagine this movie without referencing the people and time and mise-en-scene it's based on. i know too much about them. the movie doesn't capture the highs, the genuinely joyful release many felt in the sixties and the innocence as well, even among the warhol crowd, who seemed anything but innocent. that's part of the mise-en-scene i mentioned. how warhol fit into that context is essential to getting what happened at the factory.
check out swimming underground: my years in the warhol factory by mary woronov for a book by a first-hand witness which plumbs the same depths. factory-made: warhol and the sixties looks good, but i haven't read it. andy warhol (penguin lives) by wayne koestenbaum gets into warhol's head in a way no one else has.
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Sunday, October 14, 2007
imagine someone like gilberto gil even showing up on tv in this country, never mind being a cabinet memberFree culture advocate and Brazilian Minister Gilberto Gil said that digital technology offers a rare opportunity to bring knowledge to under-privileged people around the world and to include them in the political process.
[...]
He called for loosening intellectual property regulations to give more people the freedom to use and republish digital forms of content as a way of encouraging personal expression, culture and political participation.
"Today's digital technologies represent a fantastic opportunity for democratizing access to knowledge," Gil said. "We have found that the appropriation of digital technology can be an incredible upgrade in skills of political self-management and the local political process."
As Minister of Culture, Gil helped spearhead the creation of 650 "cultural hot spots" where people have access to free software and computers, typically for the first time.
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Saturday, October 13, 2007
"pizdets", indeed
not easy to find stuff (in english at least) on one of my favorite writers, russian victor pelevin -- here's an article from 7 years ago by jason cowleyThe title is an arch reference to America's jaded Generation X, but what does the P mean? "It could mean any one of three things," Pelevin says. "It could stand for Pepsi, or Pelevin, or pizdets, or all three of these at once." Pizdets is the most brutal of Russian expletives: it loosely means "absolute catastrophe" and has something of the offensiveness of the word "cunt." Pelevin's generation of liberal freedoms and designer excesses is also the generation of criminality, corruption and despair. "I feel disgusted by everything about my country," he says. "In Soviet times you could escape from the evil of the state by withdrawing into the private spaces of your head; but now the evil seems to diffuse everywhere. We are all tainted by it."I've read Homo Zapiens, which can be had for a song used now. just ordered his entry in the The Myths series of modern writers retelling ancient myths, The Helmet of Horror: the Myth of Theseus and the Minotaur.
i've read that his english translator doesn't do him justice, but what are ya gonna do?
i also recommend reading james womack's novel on post-yeltsin russia, Let's Put the Future Behind Us, which is even older than that article on pelevin, but still relevant methinks.
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Thursday, October 11, 2007
doris lessing wins nobel prize
read the golden notebook & the grass is singing for college, and enjoyed them both a lot.
glad to see her work acknowledged, though the nobel thing doesn't do much for me.
the latter book is a great memoir of an anglo growing up in colonial africa.
she's probably written some great stuff since, just haven't gotten to it.
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Saturday, October 06, 2007
R.I.P. Richard Cook, influential former editor of The Wire magazine [bliss blog]
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if you're going to be near seattle monday, it would behoove you to check out keith rowe performing cardew
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Thursday, October 04, 2007
everyone's a criminal file
minnesota woman fined $222k for sharing 1700 tracks, but really for having the gall to challenge her case in court
this country's spirit is sick. very sick.
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and s-integrator
@me
Rarely has reality needed so much to be imagined.
--Chris Marker