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Saturday, November 15, 2003 A group of writers including ex-Python Terry Jones claim to know Who Murdered Chaucer?: A Medieval MysterySo the last thing Arundel wanted, Jones argues, was more descriptions of rip-off churchmen. And yet here's Chaucer, using his final masterwork to make everyone laugh at the pardoner who sells fake indulgences to poor congregations; at the summoner (a church court policeman, who probably is the pardoner's significant other) demanding bribes from defendants or will-be-defendants-if-they-don't-cough-up; at the monk spending all his time hunting; and at the friar, who should be penniless but is clearly a pampered, harp-strumming social climber. In fact, it's arguable that the entirety of the Tales - with their gentle mockery of the fake piety of pilgrimages - is an assault on the "church commercial" which relied so heavily on income from pilgrims. Friday, November 14, 2003 "everyone was stoked when Jesus walked the earth"
If you're having spam problems, Norton's new program looks like a good solution
Much good stuff at Ubuweb if you're into artaudio Wednesday, November 12, 2003 I've read mostly widespread praise for Jonathan Lethem's The Fortress of Solitude, and I liked Motherless Brooklyn & Gun, With Occasional Music, so I'm sure I'll give it a spinThe Fortress of Solitude knows no literal, actual time, even though the first part, called "Underberg," ranges more or less chronologically over Dylan Ebdus's childhood, from his mother's disappearance and his father's awkward efforts to make up for her absence to the "yoking" and bullying Dylan endures on the street; his academic success; the arrival of Mingus Rude's shiftless, bible-thumping grandfather; a languid summer in Vermont; the rise of disco, punk, rap, crack, and the cataclysmic turn of events that puts an end to childhood for Dylan and Mingus both. The book is a Bildungsroman in the exact sense, the story of Dylan's self-development in the context of place and time. It's also a comedy, a history and a fantasy, where the strange and supernatural mix freely with the solid and austere, as they do in life, in memory, in everyone's autobiography.It's a big book the reader will either love or drop, like any big book. A lot of people love this one, though.
"the need for love to counteract the vile wind of history that breeds loss and dislocation" Tuesday, November 11, 2003 More on Llactapata & Machu Picchu [newsmakingnews]
For fans of the seminal German group Can: a 2-DVD/CD box set is available, including a concert film from '72, a short film by Brian Eno, much more [Nerve Net list] Sunday, November 09, 2003 Interesting review of Stefan Kanfer's Ball of Fire: The Tumultuous Life and Comic Art of Lucille Ball[Arnaz] wasn't just Cuban, dark, unintelligible, but all rhythm; he was also sexy. And this is the guy who somehow gets to be the pillar of society, the ideal family man, as well as the adoring hubby who keeps his wife's madcap ways out of electroshock treatment? Remember, this was 1951, when Lena Horne sequences got cut out of MGM films when they played the country. Put it another way: how likely do you think it would be today to have a hit sitcom in which Ving Rhames plays a successful show-business businessman and Lisa Kudrow is his half-crazy homemaker wife who can't control her dream of the limelight? I mean a mixed-race couple, married, in prime time?Some good insights into the I Love Lucy phenomenon, and the weird, jangly marriage of reality and TV the show was.
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