I'm listening to part of that 24-hour Beethoven thing. Quite remarkable.
11:31 PM | link
Heeeeeen. Finally I got Blogger to work again. Don't know what bug's bit it in the arse tonight, but thank Yog I at least managed to get something done with it. Piece of bloody shit that it is.
10:36 PM | link
OK, so let's just revert to NoteTab, so that I might be able to post something using fucking Blogger between now and the apocalypse...
Queensland kids soccer club uses homeless man for target practice.
Jews For Allah. Next: Ku Klux Klan for the Advancement of Coloured People.
Gerald Stone on his biography of John Singleton. I mention this cos at TAFE last year one of my fellow students was a bloke who claimed to be good buddies with Singleton. The obvious question of why, then, was he dicking about at this pissant TAFE college at Petersham instead of working for Singleton (who has no problems with the concept of jobs for the boys; just look at his acquisition of Alan Jones earlier in the year) was never answered.
I am not impressed about being left out of Tim Blair's OzBlog roundup.
Here's an ad campaign in the best possible taste.
In an advertising trick designed to create controversy, fast food chain Nando's is using the sensitive issue of asylum seekers in its latest campaign.
In a radio commercial to be launched on Monday, Nando's advertises that detainees at the Woomera detention centre have "decided to unsew their lips after hearing the news that with every Nando's quarter chicken combo, Nando's are giving away an extra quarter chicken free".
Not that I'm the sort of person who normally boycotts companies, and not that I've ever eaten Nando's anyway (not a fan of the feathered white meat), but for some reason this does not make me want to give them a try.
Police pursuit ends in a decidedly different way to the usual tragedy.
Bishop holds 48-hour sermon to get into the record books. Don't know about him, but his listeners should probably get some sort of reward too if they stuck out the whole 48 hours with him...
The Glyndebourne Festival's "battle of the bands". The whole "authentic" movement in classical music has annoyed me for some years. In theory, there's nothing at all wrong with researching scores to make sure they're actually correct, using proper period instruments rather than modern substitutions for them, etc. I have no issue with that; if you're going to play music from the 18th century, then it makes sense to want to recreate how it would've been heard then. But I'm sorry, almost any time I've heard an authentic instruments version of, say, Bach, it's just absolutely bored the tits off me. Did Bach really sound so boring to his audiences? On the other hand, Glenn Gould's performances never fail to excite and interest me, even though they could hardly be less historically correct in many ways. Surely that's what really matters, the quality of the music making, not pointless debates over the merits of authentic vs inauthentic performance? If it sounds like shit, I don't care how historically correct it is.
High school administrators having difficulty hiding 25-foot penis image.
American defence contractors invent blinding new laser weapon.
The 100-kilowatt infrared laser, which is being developed for the F35 Joint Strike Fighter by defence companies Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, is far more powerful than any laser ever used in war. But because it is designed to attack targets such as other fighter aircraft, ground vehicles and anti-aircraft batteries, it is exempt from the Geneva Convention's ban on blinding weapons.
So presumably it's tough shit for anyone else who does get injured by the thing, because it's not supposed to do that. Presumably also they never thought of building the machine so that it couldn't hurt anyone it's not supposed to.
Child-protecting Japanese god fails to deliver in terribly ironic tragedy.
Town abolishes public nudity, so strip club lets in underage boys.
Russian author faces jail for book featuring clones of Stalin and Khrushchev gettin' it on. Shit, and Steve Earle reckons he's in trouble?
KISS unretire. Bah. How often do you get rock musicians announcing their retirement from performing and/or recording, only to change their minds a few months later and pull themselves out of retirement? I for one am getting sick of it. The next time Robert Smith from The Cure says the band's latest album will probably be their last, someone should make the bastard sign an affidavit swearing that it will be, and same goes for all these other musicians who declare their "retirement"...
Turkish pop star faces jail for kicking a balloon. Maybe Steve Earle needs to try this.
Volcano threatens Congo town already wiped out by another volcano.
Crematory operator who neglected to burn hundreds of corpses speaks out.
"We live in the South and I'm a black man," Brent Marsh said Thursday, the day Cobb County Superior Court Judge James G. Bodiford set bond for him at $159,200. "A lot of people don't like me because I am me."
I suspect people also don't like you because you're a moron who held onto bodies of people who were probably relatives of those "lot of people" you mention. I didn't even know he was black until I read this, and frankly if that had been a family member of mine he hadn't disposed of, I wouldn't care what fucking colour he was, I'd be wanting to stuff him in his own incinerator...
Organic food not so good for you after all?
Dubya resorts to threatening Congress.
President Bush sternly warned Congress on Friday against passing a bill that limits the personnel and budgetary powers of the head of a new Department of Homeland Security, giving the clearest indication yet that he would veto a measure now before the Senate.
"A time of war is the wrong time to weaken the president's ability to protect the American people," Bush told a White House audience that included governors, mayors, firefighters, police and lawmakers.
What's he going to do, get John Ashcroft to sing to them if they don't do as he says?
Secret Service man leaves anti-Islamic graffiti while searching house. You know, I'd have thought joining the Secret Service would've required a special intelligence, not a special idiocy. Obviously I was wrong.
US government not happy about India buying missile system from Israel. Why wouldn't they be, it's a sale the US has lost, after all. And then there's this bit at the end:
Meanwhile, the administration advised Congress this week that it intends to sell arms to Pakistan and India.
You know, I could've sworn the US was trying to stop those two going to war against each other a few months ago. Now they want to sell weapons to both of them. I honestly can't figure out the logic here.
Britain pissed that the people of Gibraltar want to decide their own fate.
Gibraltar is to hold its own referendum on sovereignty in defiance of British and Spanish negotiations over the future of the contested colony.
But Britain immediately rejected the plan by Gibraltar Chief Minister Peter Caruana, saying it would "short circuit" democracy.
Right on. How dare the people of Gibraltar presume they know what's best for them. How dare they circumvent Britain's democratic right to divest the island and share it with Spain. Clearly the US military needs to take a break from Afghanistan and blow the shit out of the Rock to teach them a lesson in democracy.
24 Hour Beethoven. Yikes, and I remember someone reviewing Leonard Bernstein's performance of the 9th Symphony being pissed because Bernstein took 75 minutes to do it. If he thought that was presumptuous, I dread to think what he'd make of this. Near as I can tell, though, the concept sounds like it's been knocked off from 24 Hour Psycho, where someone took a video of the Alfred Hitchcock film and ran it through a projector at about two frames per second so it stretched out for 24 hours. I saw a bit of that, actually, at the Museum of Contemporary Art a couple of years ago as part of their Hitchcock exhibit, watched about 20 minutes of it. There was something strangely mesmeric about it. You can listen to RealAudio samples of the stretched-out Beethoven 9th too, I presume the effect is something similar.
Leah McLaren on the tragic ineptitude of the English male.
Theo's wunderbare Welt der Bandphotographie. I've yet to determine the level of irony involved in this collection of very dodgy 1970s band photographs; my German's gone rusty so it's hard to tell. At any rate, here are 21 pages of bad haircuts and worse clothing; I, alas, was not brave enough to get beyond the second page. NOTE: very large, and many, graphics ahead.
David Letterman scandalously not nominated for an Emmy.
This is the man who gave television one of its most important entertainment hours of the entire season: his Sept. 17 "Late Show With David Letterman" on CBS, six days after the terrorist attacks on his adopted city and home base.
It was a highly personal, intensely individual moment, and so brave, honest and mesmerizing a performance that it should have been a lock. Failing to acknowledge Letterman's finest hour, regardless of the arcane nominating policies involved, is simply inexcusable.
I got this one from Ted Barlow who is mightily pissed, and links to his own transcript of Letterman's monologue. Unlike Ted I did see it at the time, and it was even better in the actual delivery, absolutely heartwrenching stuff.
10:34 PM | link
Interview with Dan Brodie. Just to keep things on a musical tip. Wonder what he makes of the current Steve Earle kerfuffle, having supported him on tour here.
7:34 PM | link
The end of the Petrov Affair. A remarkable story indeed. Though she died a week ago, she's been living under an assumed name since the 1950s and only now, apparently, can it be revealed.
7:30 PM | link
Blogger's behaving in typically cuntish fashion tonight, so I'm typing this up using NoteTab so that if it doesn't I don't lose anything.
Anyway, Eric Olsen's got an interesting offer over at his blog. If only I had house room, and assuming the offer's open to overseas residents, I may well take him up on it. I could do with getting into reviewing something other than films for the show; indeed, I actually posted a couple of reviews over at the Mojo message boards the other day, first music reviews I've done for a couple of years; there's a thread there for people to post reviews, the idea being that whoever wants to post can talk about an album in more detail than they usually get to do in the course of conversation. Dawn Olsen was talking about the almighty Trail Of Dead at her blog, which leads me to repost here one of the reviews I posted at Mojo...
...AND YOU WILL KNOW US BY THE TRAIL OF DEAD
...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead
Madonna
Source Tags and Codes
Obviously the first thing that strikes you about this Texan band is their name, one of the most extraordinary band monickers I can ever remember coming across. My first experience of them was hearing the song "Mistakes and Regrets" from the second album a couple of years ago. Hmm, good song, I thought. Then the announcer read out the name of the band, and I just knew I'd have to go in search of them. Happily, the energetic emo/punk/whatever noise trapped in the groove of the CDs lives up to the band name.
The band formed around 1995, and after some low-level demo tapes (available on the Net from mp3.com—extremely rough-sounding they are, too), released their self-titled debut in 1998. The album gets off to a magnificent start with the wonderful "Richter Scale Madness", a pounding statement of musical intent. Unfortunately, though, they shoot themselves in the feet almost immediately after, following it with the overextended "Novena Without Faith". It throws the album off balance straight away, and though the songs following it are perfectly good, the album never entirely recovers from it. Already we can see their propensity for the MBV-ish inter-song segue at work. On the whole, not bad, but definitely the least of the three.
The second album, Madonna, is probably the first one that most people would've heard, as stories of legendarily powerful live shows began to spread outside of their immediate scene in Texas. After a brief tape cut-up intro, the album proper kicks in with one of the best hat-tricks I know of on any album, "Mistakes and Regrets", "Totally Natural" and "Blight Takes All" powering forth and building up brilliantly. After that the album tapers off to a less forceful midsection, and threatens to teeter again with another somewhat overdone piece, "Aged Dolls". Once that's over though, the band crank up again for the volcanic "A Perfect Teenhood", a ferocious piece of aural violence with phenomenally mad drum work. One last track, and it's all over. Notwithstanding that slight sag around the middle, Madonna wound up being my favourite album of 2000.
After that, their next release was one song on a small-label compilation, a tune called "Witches Web". Frankly, I was aghast. What was this nondescript, weak pop tune? Surely they hadn't wimped out on me already? Fortunately, though, "Witches Web" seems to have been an aberration. Third album Source Tags & Codes, released earlier this year, saw them rocking again, this time on a major label.
It's tempered a bit from what came before—there's nothing as fantastically profane as "A Perfect Teenhood"—but not much. The major label move doesn't seem to have hurt any, and the better production works to the benefit of the songs. Whatever that seemingly little-understood genre emo may be defined as, this is probably an outstanding example of it. Blessed with fine tunes and driving performances, it barely puts a foot wrong at any point, and any slips it does make are easily recovered from. Like its predecessor, this looks like being my album of the year.
At this rate, album number four should be an absolute balltearer whenever it comes out. Looking forward to their live shows here in a few months as well.
7:26 PM | link
Blogging has been a bit broken up tonight. Took a big chunk out of the afternoon cos I had to spend ages helping the folks work on something, then I spent the rest of the evening switching my attention between the blog and the delayed telecast of the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony on Ch. 7. Good show it was, too. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be a bit more focused on this. Hello to Mitch, thanks for the kind words in the email, glad you like the blog... Dave Trowbridge, glad you like the design... and that'll probably be it from me tonight. Haven't checked newsgroups all day and I got 200 messages to deal with...
10:52 PM | link
Belt buckle evacuates airport terminal.
The belt buckle had an image of an explosive device on it, said airport spokeswoman Gaby Pacheco. The item was discovered at about 4:30 p.m. by security workers monitoring a scanning machine on the departure level of the terminal, Pacheco said.
The Los Angeles Police Department bomb squad investigated the item, said Officer Don Cox, a police spokesman.
The suicide bombers in Israel have got it all wrong! They don't need real bombs to cause panic, just pictures of them! Yeesh.
10:41 PM | link
Blogspot's behaving like a real swine again tonight. Having to reload my regular Blogspot stops two or three times before they actually appear. Still, at least they're appearing when I do that, unlike last night when they weren't responding at all...
10:35 PM | link
Hunting bin Laden in cyberspace.
Al Qaeda is said to be computer savvy, and some investigators believe they have found markers or code words that indicate bin Laden is trying to signal supporters that he is alive.
"It's either bin Laden or an elaborate cyber-deception campaign" by his lieutenants, an intelligence official told CNN.
Well it's nice to see he's at least open to the possibility that there may be some fuckwit pulling a prank on him...
10:11 PM | link
Chess benches ordered removed from park owing to players being "loud, rude, insulting and lewd".
10:08 PM | link
The Beer Train. All the beer you can drink. Lovely gesture, but it might also have been nice for the operators to have included toilets...
10:05 PM | link
New book further fuels paranoia about things destroying us from space. Funnily enough, the book comes out at the same time we all get told of this asteroid due to hit us (maybe) in 2019. Coincidence? Surely not.
9:49 PM | link
Hiking group wants park cleared of unexploded bombshells. The park authority says it'll only do about two-thirds of the park. Which will no doubt lead to some lawsuits when some fuckwit goes off the trail and gets hurt by one of the remaining third and sues the authority for not clearing it. Oy.
9:48 PM | link
Local churches do prayer vigil against adult novelty shop. Yes, the good people of Grand Island clearly have nothing better (e.g. world peace) to pray for.
9:06 PM | link
Asylum seekers inspired to go to Britain by the Spice Girls and Margaret Thatcher. I honestly have no idea how to respond to that...
8:44 PM | link
Tim Blair praises this film review blog. I, on the other hand, cannot take anyone entirely seriously who prefers the Stallone Get Carter to the Caine one. Decide for yourself.
8:14 PM | link
John Woo's latest film. Sounds good at least on the action front. Opens next week here, so I'll go see it.
7:54 PM | link
John Quiggin's got a problem with names.
Gareth Parker nails me on my embarrassing habit of giving fellow-bloggers surnames belonging to others. First, I called him Gareth Powell, then Heath Gibson became "Heath Ledger". I should stop 6am blogging. In the meantime, look out "Weary" Dunlop , "Orville" Wright and "King" Arthur.
How about me, "Bertrand" Russell? I could live with being called that.
7:22 PM | link
Jason Soon attempts to illustrate Ann Coulter's appeal. Still don't get it. She looks pretty ordinary to me...
7:10 PM | link
Now here's an operation for you.
Surgeons have managed to stitch back a Moroccan boy's penis after it was bitten off by a donkey, the official MAP news agency reported Thursday.
MAP did not say how the donkey managed to bite off the boy's penis.
Is that such a bad thing? I don't think I want to know...
3:33 PM | link
Man calls cops to say his marijuana got stolen. And the numbnut of the week award goes to...
3:31 PM | link
Australian Services Union threatening to ban Oasis from entering Australia. Gee, wish they had that much spine when faced with actually controversial and potentially dangerous figures like David Irving, Louis Farrakhan, Gerry Adams, etc; obviously Liam and Noel are far worse people than any of these...
3:25 PM | link
Now we're not subscribing to that torture dealie either.
But Foreign Minister Alexander Downer dismissed the criticism, saying Australia did not accept inspectors arriving unannounced at prisons.
Australian prisons obviously did not engage in torture and it was against the law, Mr Downer said.
"Well obviously there isn't torture going on in Australian prisons," Mr Downer told ABC Radio.
"I must say I do think that goes without saying."
I'll repeat what I said yesterday for Alex's benefit: what are you afraid of? You have no reason (hopefully) to be against the amendment, therefore why are you? Shit, Alex, just because Bush and co. are against this doesn't mean we have to be as well; it's actually OK not to automatically mimic them...
3:19 PM | link
That shit with the Australian Democrats at the moment? Blame the Yanks.
In a new take on the internal row engulfing the party, the leader of the Australian Democrats in South Australia, Mike Elliott, today pointed the finger of blame at the Americans.
"There are a range of policy areas where the Democrats and the Bush administration would be at great odds and they wouldn't be sad to see us disappear," he told ABC Radio.
"The American government would love to see the Democrats fail.
"All I would say is I wouldn't be surprised if there are agent provocateurs at work. Who has put them there I don't know."
All right. Switch to decaffeinated, mate. Lay off the brown acid or something. Much as I'm not in favour of the Bush administration, even I think that just sounds like fucking stupid paranoia. Bush may be enough of a clown that he doesn't know the difference between American and Australian Democrats, but you're asking us to swallow a bit much there, I think...
3:16 PM | link
So, after the Winter Olympics and the World Cup, we have the Commonwealth Games, which will doubtless excite no interest in the US because by definition they can't compete. Anyway, Australia's competing, therefore it interests me. No international sporting event would be complete without at least one drug scandal, of course, and unfortunately for all the pious anti-drug contingent in Australia, it's an Australian who's been caught doing the banned substance. The real scandal, though, is that despite being caught, he's being allowed to compete anyway.
This is really bad for Australia, because there's a pretty much holier-than-thou attitude among our sports folk and commentators when it comes to cheating in sports. We get extremely shitty when anyone dares suggest an Aussie athlete might be doing something out of order. We rather sanctimoniously claimed our Olympics two years ago would be clean, and they weren't. And we kept pointing the finger at other cricketing nations amidst assorted allegations of bribery, match-fixing, etc, a few years ago while trying to ignore the fact that some of our own cricketers were caught up in said allegations. There was a bit of a sarcastic letter in the Telegraph the other day to that effect, saying how wonderful and honest our sports folk are and it's never their fault when they do something wrong.
In this case it does seem to have been an accident. Phillip Adams (the shooter at the centre of all this, not the sententious bore from The Australian) is on some blood pressure medication which contains a banned diuretic. Arguably he should've known, I think athletes do have a responsibility to ensure they're clean, but he didn't, and consequently he's been caught for it.
That's not the problem, though; as I said, he's being let off, and that's the problem. The only actual punishment he's had is that he had the task of being our flagbearer at the opening ceremony taken away from him. It was deemed that the diuretic in question would not enhance his performance—apparently it doesn't work for shooters for some reason—so he was let off... this despite the fact that the actual rules are supposed to be that anyone found to be taking a banned substance, whether or not they knew they were doing it, is guilty of it. That it wouldn't enhance the performance is irrelevant.
In the midst of it all, we still found time to be smug about it at the expense of other nations. Here's Australian Commonwealth Games Federation chief Perry Crosswhite:
Crosswhite said he expected a backlash from other Commonwealth nations following Australia's strong campaigning on drugs issues.
"You've always got to be aware that whatever happens, it will have an effect," he said.
"We didn't try to hush it up, we didn't send him home and say go quiet, go away."
Right you are. Other nations sweep their drug-takers under the rug. We send ours out onto the pitch to compete.
I feel sorry for Phillip Adams in all this. I didn't at first, and I still think he himself should've made sure his medication didn't pose problems, but I do now. I don't think he set out to do something wrong, and he's going to be operating under a cloud from now on. He apparently holds the record for the most medals won by any individual at the Commonwealth Games (17 in all), and if he winds up adding any to his tally at Manchester there's going to be some suspicion about it. The whole thing's a pretty bad business and it really does nothing for Australian sport as a whole.
Meanwhile, there's another Australian problem case at the current games which has excited less fuss... another simple mistake due to not knowing the rules. Adrienne McIvor failed to qualify for the Australian side, so opted to play for Northern Ireland instead, having represented them previously at the Sydney Olympics. She's been booted out because she hasn't lived in Northern Ireland long enough. You'd think the Irish team would've picked up on that, but no, again apparently they hadn't actually been aware of the rule. So she's out altogether, booted out of the athletes' village and forced to head back to Brisbane.
I just find it interesting that much less fuss is being made about this one, and that there appears to be some sort of double standard involved. As Perry Crosswhite has said elsewhere, had Adams' own federation not intervened the Australian administration would've packed him off home posthaste. But no, the Australian Shooting Association Tribunal said he was OK to play, and therefore he is. Meanwhile, Adrienne McIvor gets the plane back home with no appeal. Inconsistent, much? Australia may already be off to a good start at the games with medals already, but it's looking a little shabby on the image front...
3:04 PM | link
So as of 10pm (or near enough) I had 65 fresh hits on the counter. That astonishes me. It's actually still not the record for one day, which was 72 when I still had the counter on the index page for the main site (when I still had one of those before switching to focus on the blog and scrapping it). That was a freak occurrence though, and the average daily hittage (did I just invent a word there?) was only about five or so. So it does astonish me to get 65 just at the blog page. Clearly I've been getting more people reading than I thought. Hopefully today's not a freak either, of course.
Not that I'm obsessed with my counter stats at all. No way.
Incidentally, today marked my fourth anniversary of being online. At least from home; I made my first couple of isolated voyages into the electronic ether at university back in 1994. But today is my fourth anniversary of daily access from home. It's been an educational four years, and not always in a good way. Let's just say that about it.
10:15 PM | link
But I wonder....how do you tell if a poem is good? "Fog" is incredibly simple. What is it about those six little lines that merit them a place in almost every junior high school literature book ever printed? I've read a few poems on amateur poetry websites. Other than the tiresomely gloomy teen angst poems I like most of them fairly well but I haven't read a lot of poetry so I have nothing to judge it by.
Wish I could answer that one myself. Unfortunately I'm pretty much dead to poetry myself, so I can't tell. I really don't feel much for it, and (perhaps paradoxically) I tend to respond more to poetically-styled prose than actual poetry. There's exceptions, of course, but as a general rule I don't respond to it. Interesting question nonetheless...
5:30 PM | link
Klan won't march after being "insulted".
"I don't believe I'd march in York if you paid me $1,000," said Jordan N. Gollub, imperial wizard of the Carthage, Miss.-based Royal Confederate Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. "I don't like some of the things the mayor said about me the other day, so I don't have any great reason to come to York. They've given us a hard time, not giving us a reason originally why we couldn't march and all this."
God, what a fucking pansy! "Ooh, the big bad politicians were mean to us! We'll show them what we think of them by staying home!" Is that really the best response they could come up with?
5:13 PM | link
Angry mob marches on Indian witch doctor who prescribed a human sacrifice.
Police said that the mob, mostly local residents attacked the house of Abdul Sattar Malik also called Baba Rajak Bangali in Bharat Nagar, a sprawling slum near the Bandra-Kurla complex. “They were local residents and they were angry that the incident had spoilt the reputation of their locality,” a policeman from Kherwadi police station said.
Yeah, nothing like having a blood-happy black magician in the neighbourhood to wipe out property values. Never mind the poor bastard who actually got sacrificed...
5:06 PM | link
Suicide bombing spreading hepatitis? Apparently blowing people up isn't enough. The article says it's not known whether the hepatitis is being deliberately cultivated in the bombers, but if not it probably will be now, once Hamas or whoever reads this...
5:02 PM | link
The Sumerian dictionary. I find it kind of amazing that this hasn't been done already.
4:59 PM | link
US fighting amendment to UN charter against torture.
The Bush administration is fighting an amendment to the international Convention Against Torture that would send out inspectors to ensure that countries are not torturing prisoners.
U.S. opposition to the prison inspections is an indication of how the war on terrorism has put the United States in an uncomfortable position of going against its own professed values, international law experts say. [...]
Among the countries most opposed to the proposal are Iran, Cuba, India and China, all of which have been singled out for abuses against prisoners.
Well, the US is in good company, eh. Remember the recent fuss here about the drug-sniffing dogs being unleashed on buses and trains? There was a lot of commentary from people who no doubt would consider themselves on the right wing of things to the effect of "people with nothing to hide have nothing to be scared of, and you're only opposing this because you've got something to hide". Let's turn that around and ask: what, then, is the US scared of? If there's nothing to hide, they've no reason to oppose the move...
4:55 PM | link
Grad student deconstructs take-out menu. Pure Onion goodness.
4:45 PM | link
Reporters plunge into their work. Arseclowns.
4:43 PM | link
Want to escape the stigma of being on a sex offenders registry? It's apparently easier than you think. Kind of disturbing...
4:34 PM | link
Tony Blair wants a European superpower.
"My challenge to Europe is this: if we want to have greater sway and greater power, then instead of complaining about America, we've got to face up to what we need to do," Blair said in the interview, excerpts of which appeared in The Independent newspaper Wednesday.
"That means developing a coherent defense capability and a set of institutions to allow Europe to speak strongly."
But surely the problem is not so much just speaking strongly, but speaking strongly enough that you have an actual effect? The use of stern warnings and no uncertain terms requires no effort, and in itself is useless if all the US does in response is patronisingly clap them on the back and say "thanks for that, Europe, now go sit back down in the corner again and we'll do the hard work of ruling the world"...
4:32 PM | link
Judge orders Mattel and Universal to chill out.
A legal battle between the world's largest toymaker and the world's largest music company over the world's most famous doll has moved closer to conclusion when a federal appeals court in California ruled the 1997 pop hit "Barbie Girl" was a parody protected by the free speech provision of the U.S. Constitution. [...] While the El Segundo, California toymaker argued that the song could confuse consumers and dilute the power of the Barbie brand, the appeals court held that the song "pokes fun at Barbie and the values Aqua contends she represents," qualifying the dance-pop number for First Amendment protection.
Shame Mattel couldn't just sue them for being shit. They might've had a better chance then...
4:24 PM | link
The rise of pseudo child porn in Japan. In a not dissimilar vein, here's the story of a man who demanded he be given child porn if the FBI wanted him to confess to three murders. And the dead priest and the child porn. It's a child porn special here at the moment...
4:01 PM | link
Anthrax spores found in Antarctica. Yes, kids, Robert Scott was the man responsible for those anthrax letters...
3:58 PM | link
Men charged with stealing Jesus statue.
A Toledo man was arraigned yesterday and a Swanton man surrendered to authorities after the two were accused of taking a $6,000 fiber-glass statue of Jesus Christ from the front lawn of a West Toledo church and putting it into a closet in the Toledo man’s apartment, Toledo police said.
Police said the statue sustained significant damage to the back of its head, shoulders, left and right index fingers, right arm, and a hand.
Did it bleed, though? That's the important question...
3:57 PM | link
The responsibilities of reviewers.
This is an interesting question. Of all the famous American writers Peck so notoriously insults, none are women, or gay; one is black. And that's part of Peck's point; it's straight white guys who are writing the arid high-postmodernist "drivel" Peck loves to hate. But Peck's targets differ wildly in literary style -- can Eugenides, for example, really be considered to write high-postmodernist drivel? And by singling these writers out, Peck reinfuses them with the cultural cachet he so apparently lacks.
Peck, a gay writer who edited an anthology of gay fiction, says he admires many women writers (Heather Lewis and Kathryn Davis, to name two), but he never mentions a single one in his article. Evidently, Peck doesn't think writers like A.M. Homes and Willa Cather carry the same weight in the literary canon as a Dave Eggers or a Faulkner. Their consolation prize: They don't share responsibility for its bankruptcy. Stanley Crouch, still stinging from the drubbing his novel, "Don't the Moon Look Lonesome," received at Peck's hands, prefers a different identity-based analysis. "Dale Peck," he says, "is a troubled queen, and the only person who cares about him being a troubled queen is himself."
Actually, Dack Ragus doesn't expect people to do that with his work, but he is among the first designers of mobile-phone movies.
And the Minneapolis Web designer has settled on a distinct genre: He draws stick figures to play the lead role in famous movies, and he always decapitates them.
Bride gives birth at wedding reception. Yikes. I know some people get married while there's a bun in the oven like that, but that was cutting it a little fine...
3:25 PM | link
Death by chocolate. And I'm not talking about the chocolate manufacturer of that name.
3:15 PM | link
Tim Blair has a particularly excellent comment about that asteroid coming to kill us all.
3:13 PM | link
John Quiggin doesn't get instant messaging. I think what he says about it as being essentially cut-rate versions of other things is not far off, but speed and convenience and cheapness is what makes it useful for people. I've used it for conferencing and it's good for that sort of thing. I just don't have IM software any more cos I was getting tired of people constantly trying to message me when I didn't really want to be messaged; at least you can ignore email until you're ready to respond...
2:58 PM | link
Ephraem Chifley on why he thinks Mark Latham isn't that much of a loose cannon.
Where most press commentary goes wrong is assuming that Latham means what he says - a far from reliable assumption to make about any politician, especially over lunch. If he is to face censure it ought to be on the grounds that he is clearly incapable of the hate he espouses. Anyone who talks so plangently about the love he feels for his son, Oliver, doesn't deserve to be taken seriously when he talks about hate.
OK, so he's not that much of a hater really. Still comes over as a clown to me, though.
2:43 PM | link
The new Blackshirts. What a bunch of fucking idiots.
2:19 PM | link
Hell, I've even had my first odd-ish search request: "funny computer network disasters examples". Somehow the blog has managed to be result #58 out of about 1580 for this combination of words (not actually together, though). Quite why the person doing the search latched onto this rather than any of the 1579 others, though, is probably anybody's question...
12:07 PM | link
Yikes. I must've had more people reading this thing than I realised. By 10am (twenty-odd minutes ago) I'd already got 26 hits on my counter stats from various sources. Thanks to all who've been kind enough to link to me, including one or two I hadn't previously known about... but 26 hits in ten hours. Wonder what the figure will be by the end of the day...
10:24 AM | link
That Heathen album by David Bowie is rather good, I must say. Been giving it a few spins over the last couple of days. Still don't think it's up to the standards of his really great stuff, but there's some pretty good songs on it even so.
10:25 PM | link
A few more tweaks, as you may notice. Moved the counter from the front page of the site to the blog page here. Added an "about" page, plus a new page of links. See all these things over in the column at right.
9:49 PM | link
There's one less Fascist bigot in the world tonight.
The Anti-Defamation League, which monitors extremist groups, said "We hope the National Alliance will die with William Pierce."
Unfortunately, I fear that even if it does, all that'll happen is that a similar organisation will just rise up and take its place. If the KKK got shut down tomorrow morning, there'd be a replacement for it operational by tomorrow afternoon.
4:05 PM | link
El Salvador generals found guilty of perpetrating torture. They got away with it after an inquiry in the 1980s, apparently. Not so lucky this time...
3:51 PM | link
Fucking ignorant English cunts decide to subtitle Scottish film.
"Sub-titles would give a non-Scottish audience a chance to adjust to the language without missing any of the story at an early stage," Zak Brilliant of Icon Films told the newspaper.
Adjustment to what language? They're speaking ENGLISH, you fucking arseclown. Contrary to what you obviously believe, Scottish and English people actually do speak the same language. Do you insist on subtitling American films too to help your clearly moronic audiences? Honestly, coming from a Scottish background as I do, this offends me in a way that few things can...
3:46 PM | link
Auckland reservoir to get giant smiley face to greet visitors flying in.
Judith Aitken and Rosemarie Thomas were the only concillors to oppose the plan. [...] Before voting against the proposal Ms Aitken and Ms Thomas described it as "dated", "corny" and "banal" Ms Thomas suggested that it could in time be regarded as visual pollution equivalent to thick black overhead cables in the area.
Well then if it does, at least you can paint over it again. Can't do that with the fucking overhead cables...
3:40 PM | link
Bill Janz on the newspaper editor who asked his staff to write their own obituaries.
When 23 of us didn't write our obituaries, the editor sent a second memo dated March 11, 1970, and explained sensitively why he needed our obituaries - he was worried that our deaths would mean more work for him:
"The problems in getting the essential facts of a person's life under the pressure of deadline can be offset by advanced preparation. If you prefer not to write it yourself, ask a friend to interview you. And if you have no friends," he said in his usual sympathetic way, he would assign a reporter to the job.
Ooh, there's a threat for you...
3:06 PM | link
The strap-on rubber duck. And no, it's not the sort of strap-on you're probably thinking of...
2:50 PM | link
India's first eunuch lawmaker in trouble for menacing an official with her slippers. Oy, and they reckon Mark Latham's bad?
2:48 PM | link
2SER's programming reshuffle makes it into the newspaper. Wouldn't it be nice if they deemed the talks programming important enough to talk about as well as the music programming? No wonder some of the talks people at the station, like myself, get shitty about how the station treats them...
2:33 PM | link
Report proposes massacre of selective schools in NSW.
The inquiry, chaired by the University of NSW's Tony Vinson, released its latest report yesterday, recommending extensive and systemic change within public schools.
It also hit out at "appalling" conditions in some schools, arguing that the Government would need to spend large sums for at least a decade to remove ageing and decrepit classrooms.
"In so many instances the fabric of the public schools is simply unworthy of what is being attempted within them and fails to honour our society's obligation to its children," Professor Vinson said.
The seven selective high schools that would remain under the Vinson plan are Fort Street, North Sydney Boys', North Sydney Girls', Sydney Boys', Sydney Girls', Sydney Technical and St George Girls'.
Nice to know they're leaving some schools intact, eh? I don't know if it's still the case at SBHS, but when I was there the problem wasn't so much aging and decrepit classrooms as aging and decrepit books. Some of the books we used in English were printed back in the 1940s. And as I recall, the science textbooks left something to be desired when it came to being up to date too. Wonder if this plan's going to do anything to rectify that, at least if the situation hasn't been fixed up in the ten years since I was there...
2:30 PM | link
NZ keeping out of the war for now.
While the Howard Government is increasingly lining up with the Bush administration, New Zealand's Minister for Foreign Affairs, Phil Goff, said: "We acknowledge the reality of the balance of power in the world. But the days when New Zealand was an echo of London and Washington are over. We make decisions independently. We do not believe being a country of only four million people deprives us of that right."
Ah, if only some of our politicians had that much spine...
2:10 PM | link
Cheryl Kernot goes to the cops. This is great, I think. If this turns into a court case, she'll finally be forced to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, which would be more than she did in her book...
2:07 PM | link
John Howard joins in chorus of criticism over that Israeli attack. Never thought I'd see the day John Boy and me were in agreement, but for once we are.
2:05 PM | link
Odd. Seems my archive pages are still there—if I type the address manually they show up—though not listed in the archives box. And the ones not listed still have the old design. I'm hopelessly confused, as you can possibly tell. Damn technology.
1:55 PM | link
And yes, contrary to what I was saying yesterday, I am here. I have flu and throat problems which are conspiring to remove my voice from me, so I'm taking the liberty of a day at home. So normal blogging will be going on after all.
11:52 AM | link
Chris Textor on the latest shit in the Middle East:
Israel has killed innocents, yes, when faced with no other alternative in desperate security measures, trying to stop more slaughter. And hurting innocents is never, ever their goal. Hamas does this shit FOR FUN. And it's all they do. The entire goal of Hamas is the mass extermination of jews. Do you stupid fucking asshole low-life Palestinian apologist cunts not understand the difference, or don't you care?
I'm going to say exactly one thing about this. Killing innocents for whatever reason, be it deliberate or accidental, is wrong, and will never be anything but. Doesn't matter a damn who does it or how worthy their cause is. Call me an idiot or indeed call me a stupid fucking asshole low-life Palestinian apologist cunt (which I'm not; I'll concede the Palestinians have a worse record for this than the Israelis do, though that still doesn't automatically justify the latter), but I really do view things that simply. There are not differentiating degrees of needlessness when it comes to needless deaths.
11:28 PM | link
What in the name of Cthulhu is going on with the fucking archives? Blogger won't post any of the ones after the beginning of May. I've followed the suggestions on their help guide and that still hasn't sorted it. If anyone has suggestions for sorting this piece of bloody crap, I'll be happy to hear them...
8:58 PM | link
test
8:56 PM | link
A little word regarding Wednesdays. That radio show I do on 2SER, which used to be on a Monday night, is now on a Wednesday night at 8pm. Now my TAFE course finishes for the day at midday, meaning I have quite a large gap from then until the show. I intend to fill this gap with filmgoing; most likely I'll come back home for a short while, then head back out at the appropriate time to catch the screening, and then head into the station to write up the review and get ready for the show. Consequently I don't know what if any time I'll have for blogging tomorrow, cos I'll be probably out until fairly late (depending on how long we spend at the pub afterwards).
At least that's the plan. I have Mondays off altogether now as a result of the timeslot change, and used to go see films on that day prior to the show. I'll see how it works tomorrow, and if I find it doesn't really work then I'll just keep Monday as my filmgoing day and keep Wednesdays free (come home in the afternoon for a few hours, head back out into town around 6pm). At any rate, there may be no (or only limited) blogging tomorrow and possibly also on future Wednesdays. We'll see what happens, though, in any case...
8:49 PM | link
How to maintain blogging in the face of the Worldcom collapse.
Step 6: Displaying your new home page posterboard prominently, begin handing out copies of your first blog entry to random passers-by.
Yeah, but if I did that, that would just make me the equivalent of those tedious people outside the cinemas on George St and in the Pitt St mall and similar places who stand there and hand out flyers at you, and if other people are like me, they'd just take my freshly photocopied blog entry that I've forced into their hot little hand, look at it in disgust and bin it. Don't know about anyone else, but I'd find that ever so slightly disheartening...
8:29 PM | link
Sadly, this article did not originate in The Onion, though it probably should have done.
At least eight newspapers published the ad, including The Daily News of New York, The Boston Herald, The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Los Angeles Times. At least two, The New York Times and The Portland Oregonian, did not.
The New York Times rejected the ad because many readers would find it offensive, said Catherine J. Mathis, a spokeswoman for newspaper.
The Portland Oregonian rejected it because it could be not proved. "If the Rev. Moon had claimed he was the Messiah, I would have run the ad," said Fred A. Stieckel, the publisher of The Oregonian. "But when he started quoting that Jesus Christ had said that he was the Messiah, I couldn't check the veracity of it."
French ad-makers resort to grotesqueness in anti-smoking campaign. They're kind of cut up over this, yet it doesn't sound half as ugly as some of the recent ones we've had on TV here, like the one with the brain being cut in half and gallons of blood pouring forth...
7:27 PM | link
BBC defends decision to show September 11 documentary.
Carie Lemack, 26, president of Families of September 11, also expressed deep concern.
"They're going to show my mom exploding," she said. Her mother, Judy Larocque, died on American Airlines Flight 11.
"We are a country in which we don't show public executions, and that's basically what this boils down to," she told the New York Times.
You and a lot of other folks' mothers, dear. The commentary at the end is interesting too. Anyway, I've said somewhere else in this blog that I for one don't think anyone really needs to see the plane crash footage again, cos if it didn't get burned into your brain back when it happened, then it never will. I know I don't need to see it again. I don't know what to make of it all myself.
7:23 PM | link
Massive ukulele theft in Hawaii. They surely do like their ukuleles over there, given how cut up they seem to be over it...
7:16 PM | link
For over 100 years members of the Calabrian Mafia has developed and sung Malavita songs among themselves. The tunes were traditionally performed chiefly by members of the society and delivered at feasts celebrating the admittance of a new member, the release of a member from prison or a particularly successful act of vengeance. The songs, a mix of more sedate strummed folk forms and fast accordion-laced tarantella dance, are filled with lyrics in Mafia slang that expound on its bloody code of honor and respect. "Whoever took the liberty to neglect their duties, I'll slaughter him like an animal," goes one song. "And if someone dares to talk, I'll whet my knife for him."
Crap, I missed the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club at the Metro. Oh well. Must make sure to get a ticket for Trail Of Dead when they play here, that's going to be a show and a half, I'm sure. I don't know who this band The Bell Rays cited at the end of the piece are, but if there's some sort of stylistic connection between them, BRMC, Jesus & Mary Chain and the MC5, also cited at the end, they may well be worth examining in some detail...
6:29 PM | link
Woo. Just found there's a separate subsection for Australian weblogs over on weblogs.com. Will have to investigate more fully...
6:19 PM | link
John Howard wanted in the US for meth dealing. Regrettably, it's not the same John Howard as ours, but wouldn't it be nice if it were?
6:06 PM | link
God I can't wait for Tim Bailey to get back to doing the weather on the Ch. 10 evening news. The guy standing in for him at the moment is an arse.
5:53 PM | link
Vegard Valberg on that Steve Earle song.
Now Country music does not speak to some deep place in my soul, it speaks to my gag reflex, so perhaps I am intensely biased in this regard. However generally country music seems to go on the formula of your car breaking down, your dog dies, you lose your job, your house breaks down, and you catch some loathsome disease. In other words it's what people listen to if you are too white for the blues (though that's changing), or too normal for Goth music (or Cry-Baby Rock as I call it).
Though I see entirely where he's coming from, having long been a loather of country music and all it stands for, I have to admit I have been enjoying a bit of Johnny Cash lately. Got a mix CD of some of his stuff off a friend, plus I've heard the Folsom Prison live album he did, and enjoyed both of those, much to my very own great surprise. I do still have this terrible feeling listening to this sort of thing will just make me turn into my parents, or worse, but I can't help myself. Which is why I bolster myself with things like Bauhaus, The Damned, John Cale, Trail Of Dead, The Birthday Party, etc. Saves me from getting too entrapped by the country stuff...
5:51 PM | link
Thanks to this kind gentleman for his advice on fixing the problem I was having with blockquoting text.
Simple enough trick it was, too. Obviously I have far too many blockquoted bits in my (vanished?) archives to go back and correct them, but things will look OK from now on...
5:27 PM | link
WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO MY FUCKING ARCHIVES?????
9:55 PM | link
I was thinking yesterday, why not see if I could go a whole week without any politics-based blogging? Cos I hate politics and I hate politicians, and they just depress me mightily. So I thought about declaring a politics-free week, to see if I could do it. Naturally I just had to post seven politics-based things today. Sigh.
So let's talk about something more fun. Let me reintroduce you to "Lola" by the Kinks. I borrowed a Kinks compilation from the TAFE library last week, primarily of their 60s stuff (their stuff from the 1970s and later seems doomed, somewhat like the post-Lou Reed Velvets or post-John Lydon Sex Pistols, to have been generally forgotten by history; the Kinks actually put out their last album of all-new material as recently as 1993). I've never listened to the Kinks much before, though I almost always liked what I heard by them when I heard them on the radio. So I was looking through the library's very limited CD collection last Friday, saw the Kinks disc and thought OK, time I caught up with these blokes. And it came around to "Lola" eventually, and it just struck me what a cracking song it actually is.
Well I'm not the world's most masculine man
But I know what I am and I'm glad that I'm a man
And so is Lola
Ah, the delightful ambiguity of gender! And yet it was a reference to Coca Cola which got the wind up the BBC, they refused to play the song cos it could've been construed as advertising. Ray Davies had to change the words to "cherry cola" to keep the Beeb happy, though the gender-bending aspect seems to have passed them by. But apart from anything else, it's the combined singing of Ray and Dave Davies which makes the track really great. It's not the sort of thing I really know how to analyse, I don't know how to actually describe the effect of the harmonising, but God it's great.
Sometimes you need to not hear a song for a few years before rediscovering it to stop taking it for granted and realise how good it is. I had that experience last year when I rediscovered "Friday On My Mind" by the Easybeats, heard it on the Nuggets II box set and suddenly realised for the first time what a classic pop tune it is. And something similar goes for "Lola". Hadn't heard it for years until last Friday, whereupon it suddenly clicked for me in a way it never did before. So go listen to something you haven't played for a long time and see what it does for you. Hopefully it'll make you as happy as "Lola" made me last week.
9:12 PM | link
Sigh. The next time I decide to change the look of the weblog, please kick me. I have no especial desire to go through all that strife again. Why'd I go through it today? Cos Dave Trowbridge (see the blogroll) made a useful point in a followup to a comment I left at his site (hopefully he'll pardon me quoting him here):
Remember that most of us geezes are bifocular, and there's something about that white/black combination that makes the focal range within which the print is comfortably legible a matter of an extremely narrow range of neck flexion/extension, leading to a uncomfortable level of muscular tension in the neck. In addition, those of us who have floaters, or other glare-inducing problems, find that the white text tends to flare, putting more strain on the eyes as they try, in vain, to focus. These two effects, for me, limit perusal of your blog to a matter of a few seconds.
Since I don't want my limited readership to pass me by that quickly, I've taken that comment to heart and done a bit of a retool. The end result, which I hope is more easily legible, is what you see now. It actually does represent a mega change for me, as I've been using white on black almost exclusively at this website since the start of 1999 (prior to that it was white on purple and white on blue). And even I will admit it looks a bit nicer, a little bit more spacious. But oh the swearing I have done this afternoon, trying to tweak it into shape. And oh the temptation to just jack the whole thing and resume the old design. I still don't know how to sort out the problem with blockquoting, either; just italicising stuff doesn't really do it for me, but currently I can't see a better way out. If anyone out there does, please let me know by emailing me (address under the little South Park picture of me)...
8:16 PM | link
The Hello Kitty stress test (Flash required).
You easily feel stressful.
Only with a little bit of additional work plus controlling your temper, you would then lose energy.
Not only you would accumulate your stress, you are weak to release it. For this type exercise and Karaoke will be the best way.
Riiiiight...
7:47 PM | link
British tourists suck. Well there's a revelation...
7:26 PM | link
Steve Earle's new song about John Walker Lindh. Well, you've got to give Earle props for being willing to be considered a raving lunatic. I've not heard the song, but I'd like to, just to hear what he actually does with it...
7:01 PM | link
US official warns of concentration camps for Arabs.
Kirsanow, who was appointed to the commission last year by President George W. Bush, said after the session that he personally doesn't support such camps and the government would never envision them. He said he was merely saying public opinion would so strongly favor the idea that it would be difficult to prevent. There would be a "groundswell of opinion" for the detainment, he said.
Of course there would. After all, by that time I'm sure the government would have done their best to ensure public opinion was in favour of it.
6:53 PM | link
Australian physicists break second law of thermodynamics. Entropy, it seems, does not always increase.
6:50 PM | link
The end of film classifications? Well, so they're saying in the UK, anyway:
The president of the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), who is leaving his post at the end of the month, says the current system could be replaced by "advisory" certificates.
"In the very long term, all ratings will be advisory. It will all happen in a 10-year-period," he told the Independent on Sunday newspaper.
"To me, the BBFC's primary job should simply to be enable parents to regulate their children's viewing."
Well, that would necessitate the parents actually taking responsibility for their kids, and these days I'm not convinced many parents have either the knowledge or the desire to do so. Anyway, I like the classifications scheme, as long as it works (the OFLC here, for example, often seem to have problems with the application of ratings, as we've seen). The only problem with them in theory is people often seem to be too ignorant to take heed of them...
6:43 PM | link
Sacha Molitorisz on The Hives.
The Hives are a Swedish band who are interesting for several reasons. For starters, they're Swedish. Oh, I mentioned that? Sorry.
Eh. Ingmar Bergman's Swedish too. Never did anything to make his work more interesting...
6:31 PM | link
Leftist males and their fondness for George Orwell. I must be the exception to the rule. Orwell has never particularly done anything for me, I'm afraid.
6:14 PM | link
Richard Baillie delivers the smackdown to Ch. 10's Celebrity Big Brother.
The producers of the show have sold out and let him have a gym so that he can still train while he’s incarcerated. They should have denied him that right and given the Australian public something to watch—Anthony Mundine getting fatter and fatter as the week goes on, until he resembles one of his recent opponents.
5:57 PM | link
INITIALLY, she felt like "Salman Rushdie hiding from the fatwa".
But Cheryl Kernot, one-time Democrats leader and Labor's star recruit in 1997—when she was in the midst of an affair with then deputy leader Gareth Evans—broke her silence yesterday to blast her enemies within the ALP for what she described as a payback of "nuclear warhead proportions".
Well, they may be out to get you, Cheryl, but not in the way some people are out to get Rushdie. I dare say he'd be glad to have your chance to come out publicly and return fire...
5:49 PM | link
Afghans not taking money to go home. Gareth Parker asks if this is because most of them aren't real Afghans. I ask if it's just because they don't want to go back there. Irrespective of whether they were right to come here or not, I doubt I'd be happy at having to leave here once I'd made the effort to arrive...
5:43 PM | link
Liberal Party lost Tasmanian state election over the weekend for being too right-wing. Thus says former Liberal Greg Barns. I don't know, though, being right-wing and intolerant never hurts the Liberals at the last federal election...
5:33 PM | link
New look. I've spent the past FIVE HOURS trying to get this cunting thing to look how I want it to look. I have used some very bad words at very high volume. And I'm still not 100% happy. But I fear to tinker too much more.
4:51 PM | link
I will not descend to the cheap pun about this being a mammoth undertaking. Me, I just want to know why they didn't remove the mammoth remains when they found them in 1981, and why it's taken them so long to finally do it.
5:46 PM | link
US military wants more domestic powers. Well, that's all the country needs, an official declaration of fucking martial law. I don't know, I just have this terrible fear that this film may wind up one day being not so much of a fantasy after all.
5:44 PM | link
Hello to Dave Trowbridge with thanks for the link. Unfortunately, I'm one of those arseholes that likes white on black. That said, though, I'm considering changing the shade of red used, cos the computers at the 2SER newsroom, where I occasionally check the blog to retrieve those film-based news items for the show, have issues with brightness control and so the dark red links can be nearly invisible. Have to remember not every computer screen in the universe is as clear as mine...
5:18 PM | link
Aaron Retica on the letters of Mozart.
This is what Stanley Sadie means when he writes, of Mozart's nine letters to his cousin Maria Anna, that they were "full of the obscene childish humor, characteristic of Salzburg, that also runs through his letters home." In the 1983 book-length version of his original New Grove article on Mozart, Sadie does not mention Mozart's letters to his cousin again. This tendency to domesticate Mozart's wild wit obscures its significance to our understanding of his dense playfulness, his uncanny ability to hear music everywhere, even as a passing wind concerto. Mozart taught himself to embrace life from top to bottom.
I'll bet Mozart would never have needed a general anaesthetic for a colonoscopy, eh?
5:07 PM | link
The joys of Australia as viewed from the US. Though I really should let Lynn know there are two y's in Sydney and no k in crocodile.
5:02 PM | link
George W. Bush and his colonoscopy.
I’m no great fan of macho toughness, but I have to say that when I read about Bush being given propofol, a general anesthetic, for a routine colonoscopy, my first thought was that the guy was being, well, a total wuss about the colonoscopy thing. Or, to put it a bit more sympathetically, I realized that the President of the United States has some significant trove of unfinished business about his asshole if he needs to be knocked out to have a probe put up his butt—a bit of personal information, I think, that goes a long way toward explaining Bush’s somewhat tortured personality structure.I must say I'm actually with Dubya on this one, cos I'm not enthused about the idea of having a camera stuck up my arse either, however small it may be (i.e. the camera, not the arse). Still, a funny article nonetheless.
4:52 PM | link
Japanese firm pays employees for quitting smoking. And also those employees who snitch on their coworkers if the latter fall off the wagon.
4:40 PM | link
That fuckwit Jamie Kellner delivers more dire warnings about TV.
The wider use of systems like TiVo and ReplayTV, which allow viewers to easily skip through commercials, would force a change in how broadcast and basic cable television is supported, Kellner said Friday.If they did, I suspect you'd get more than a few who would simply refuse to have a TV set. Where would your advertising revenue be then, Jamie?
"Don't think for a moment there's a free lunch involved in this," Kellner told the Television Critics Association. Viewers could end up paying about $250 a year above any cable or satellite fees, he said, based on his own rough calculation.
4:23 PM | link
Bernard Zuel on The Whitlams. Good lord, Tim Freedman is almost exactly ten years older than me.
4:02 PM | link
New documentary on Sun Records. Though only screening at the Melbourne film festival. Wonder if it'll get any more of a release than that?
3:55 PM | link
2SER's program of screen culture Wednesday 8pm AEST; repeated Saturday 12.30pm AEST In Sydney, tune into 2SER FM 107.3, or listen over the Internet from 2SER.com |
Operating out of Sydney, Australia since February 2002. Designed for viewing at 800x600 or more.
About this site
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Links
I have various reasons for linking the sites below (a link rarely constitutes a 100% endorsement, of course). I'm usually happy to link to anyone who specifically asks, or anyone who links to me. I reserve the right to remove any link at any time for any reason.
1. Local heroes
The Age
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Bernard Slattery
The Bitchin' Monaro Guide to Politics
A Bright Cold Day In April
Catallaxy Files
Chris Textor
Don Arthur
Gareth Parker
John Quiggin
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2. Strange news from other stars
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The Rittenhouse Review
Sasha Castel
Ted Barlow
3.Non-blog/news links
I have a very extensive collection of links not specifically related to blogging. I keep them on an entirely separate page here.
What the critics have said
"short tempered, rude, sarcastic and generally unable to cope with authority figures"
-Martin Forrester-Reid (former employer)
"formidable"
-Gareth Parker
"outstandingly quirky"
-Jason Soon
"prolific"
-Bernard Slattery
"pithy"
-Jim Henley
"excellent"
-Dave Trowbridge
"my Australian pal"
-Eric Olsen
"Who?"
-Glenn Reynolds
