==pla|\|ing lakes==

a forest called Simmer Down, wrapped in plastic
bloghome | contact: drbenway at priest dot com | blogging since Oct '01



This is Gordon Osse's blog.




NOTE: Though the comment counter is not working, you can leave comments and I check for them. if you want to leave website info or your name, do so within the textbox, not the signature box, which isn't operative. Thanks.




Too Cool for Internet Explorer




Stop the Spying!




















Save the Net











"He who does not at some time, with definite determination consent to the terribleness of life, or even exalt in it, never takes possession of the inexpressible fullness of the power of our existence." -- Rilke




Love,
        the powering,
                the Widening,
                light
                unraveling
                all faces followers of


                All colors, beams of
                woven thread,
                the Skin


                alight that
                warms itself
                with life.


-- Akhenaton, "Hymn to the Sun"







National Initiative For Democracy




'What can I do?' - SiCKO




Opt your children out of Pentagon harassment











Donations appreciated:







WHO I WORK FOR:
Mount Hope Wholesale
Wholesale nuts, grains, fruits and spices (and more) shipped from Cottonwood AZ
(Tell them you heard about them on Gordon's blog!)





WHAT I'VE SEEN LATELY:

MOVIES
(r) = re-viewing

God Told Me To (1976, Cohen)

Whispering City (1947, Otsep)

Times and Winds (2006, Erdem)

Dirty Money (Un flic) (1972, Melville)

10th District Court (2004, Depardon)

RFK Must Die: The Assassination of Bobby Kennedy (2007, O'Sullivan)

The Furies (1950, Mann)

In a Lonely Place (1950, Ray)(r)

The Adjuster (1991, Egoyan)(r)



TV

Mad Men
The Buddha of Suburbia
Intelligence (2006, Haddock)
Family Guy




SUGGESTED VIEWING:
The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear (2004, Curtis) [available for streaming/download here]





READING NOW:
(r) = re-reading

The Blonde - Duane Swierczynski

Swansea Terminal - Robert Lewis







LISTENING

vaccine - v/a [hot flush]

skin diagram - david tagg

microcastle - deerhunter

saturdays=youth - m83

the serpent in quicksilver - harold budd

index of metal - fausto romitelli

Rocket to Russia - Ramones

and then one day it was over - elian

monsoon point - amelia cuni & ali gromer khan

set or performance - richard chartier

the world that was surrounded by a deep forest and warm light - ryonkt

cocoon materia aurora










Archive Search

Archives
Jul/2008
Jun/2008
May/2008
Apr/2008
Mar/2008
Feb/2008
Jan/2008
Dec/2007
Nov/2007
Oct/2007
Sep/2007
Aug/2007
Jul/2007
Jun/2007
May/2007
Apr/2007
Mar/2007
Feb/2007
Jan/2007
Dec/2006
Nov/2006
Oct/2006
Sep/2006
Aug/2006
Jul/2006
Jun/2006
May/2006
Apr/2006
Mar/2006
Feb/2006
Jan/2006
Dec/2005
Nov/2005
Oct/2005
Sep/2005
Aug/2005
Jul/2005
Jun/2005
May/2005
Apr/2005
Mar/2005
Feb/2005
Jan/2005
Dec/2004
Nov/2004
Sep/2004
Jul/2004
Jun/2004
May/2004
Apr/2004
Mar/2004
Feb/2004
Jan/2004
Dec/2003
Nov/2003
Oct/2003
Sep/2003
Aug/2003
Jul/2003
Jun/2003
May/2003
Apr/2003
Mar/2003
Feb/2003
Jan/2003
Dec/2002
Nov/2002
Oct/2002
Sep/2002




Click "subscribe" for email notification when I publish (including text added)
Subscribe
UnSubscribe



Archives of charging the canvas, my defunct political blog


My Space





Boycott Smartfilter!


Try Netflix for Free!




REGISTRATION ALERT:

For New York Times access use:
Username: aflakete Password: europhilia




;



<;/TR>











; ; ;


VERY HANDY
jukefly
advanced windows care
techbargains
avast
open DNS
Lifehacker
yubnub
BLOGS I LIKE
Heino and Jerry in Uberspace
Daily Jive
meme machine go
things magazine
a spiral cage
beyond the beyond
L.A. Woman
the original soundtrack
neurastenia
frolix_8
Pop Candy
BLDG BLOG
The End of Cyberspace
i guess i'm floating
BibliOdyssey
simon reynolds' blog
bifurcated rivets
everlasting blort
god is NOT an asshole
the same river
with hidden noise
k-punk
Overheard in New York
The Pinocchio Theory
WFMU's Beware of the Blog
Sensibly Eclectic
Rigorous Intuition
James Wolcott
Incoming Signals
R.I.P.
Graywyvern
kikipu netlabel
Giornale Nuovo
Blog of the Day
WEB DESIGN
MandersonImage
FRIENDS & LINKBACKS
video guitar lessons news
Black Shiny Bug
leptard
EAR CONES
Coning Works
FILM/TV
Moving Image Source
Long Pauses
Rouge
Chicago Reader movie section (Jonathan Rosenbaum)
The Lumiere Reader
not coming to a theatre near you
Creative Screenwriting
Jerry's script-o-rama
Zatz Not Funny
Filmmaker Magazine
Film International
filmjourney.org
The Film Journal
Jeeem's CinePad
reverse shot
Cinema Scope
Like Anna Karina's Sweater
twitch
Hou Hsiao Hsien
1 2 3 4
Masters of Cinema Ozu site
Kinoeye: New Perspectives on European Film
Bright Lights Film Journal
Werner Herzog
Midnight Eye (New Japanese cinema)
archive.org's film collection
Ernst Lubitsch
Antonioni (fan archive)
Atom Egoyan
Walter Murch
Strictly Film School's directors page
Internet Movie Database
Metacritic
Entertainment Link Index
Art/Media Pro links
ZAP2it (alternative to TV Guide)
Subterranean Cinema
UK Guardian Film Picks
TV.com
DVD RELATED
The DVD Dossier
DVD Talk
Rate That Commentary
Global Film Initiative
DVD Times
digitally obsessed (DVD reviews)
Onvideo (new videos)
Hacking NetFlix
OVERSEAS/RARE DVDS
DVD Beaver
Other Cinema
YesAsia
5 Minutes to Live
Sendit
Artificial Eye
DVD Outsider
DVD Rare Movie Imports
Movie Mail
Russian Cinema Council
HK Flix
MUSIC (GENERAL)
furthernoise
tokafi
ReynoldsRetro
::Robosexual::
Rummage Through The Crevices
Downhill Battle
EmptyFree
Dusted Magazine
Paris Transatlantic
different waters
Waxidermy
The War Against Silence
errant bodies
Milieu
textura
large-hearted boy
movement nouveau
industrial.org
sinewaves
Avant Music News
disquiet (ambient/electronica news, reviews, interviews)
DJ Martian (comprehensive new music info)
Zeropaid (P2P news)
etree (lossless ripping)
close your eyes
Mp3 Players
365 lyric database
Pitchfork
neumu
Ogg Vorbis (alternative to mp3)
All Music (premier music database)
MUSIC (ARTISTS)
Richard Chartier
Bear in Heaven
karlheinz stockhausen
meat beat manifesto
niwi
jeph jerman
AMM
1 2
taku sugimoto
1 2
grkzgl
Joanna MacGregor
Bob Dylan
Francisco Lopez
Metamatic (John Foxx)
Githead
Aidan Baker
Fever Asym
seth cluett
Heribert Friedl
Captain Beefheart (Don van Vliet)
Kevin M Krebs (formerly 833-45)
Jandek (Steve Tisue's page)
Alexander McFee
Kronos Quartet
Q Reed Ghazala
Fred Frith
wire
1 2
John Cale
1 2 3
Jon Hassell
1 2
arovane
Janek Schaefer
Pauline Oliveros
Hans Joachim Roedelius
EnoWeb
9 Beet Stretch (Leif Inge)
MUSIC (netlabels)
Inq Mag
UMOR rex
tripostal
sublogic corporation
pueblo nuevo
rain
natural media
muertepop
mimi
lunar flower
Lost Children
Autark
chew-z
camomille
AudioTong
audio:808
La P'tite Maison
AMP
archaic horizon
Koyuki
menthe de chat
Phlow
schnurstrax
dna
Digitalbiotope
mixotic
frigida
laridae
meatronic
technoNucleo
enoughrecords
unfoundsound
Sonica
acroplane
deersound
Entr'acte
enypnion
experimedia
Flumo
Gruenrekorder
Frozen Elephants
TLHOTRA
Fronha Records
crazy language
Cyan Recs
Intervall/Audio
modismo
clinical archives
resting bell
rope swing ciites
Musica Excentrica
noise joy
Kyoto_Digital
alg-a
complementary distribution
one
earth monkey
one bit wonder
Out Records (CDs & online albums)
tu'm
darkwinter
Webbed Hand Records
-n
CONV
earlabs
test tube
Entity
Stadtgruen
microbio records
Magnatune
Loca Records
Op Sound
.microsound
kahvi collective
monohm
Stasisfield
autoplate
term.
Ogredung
Epitonic
MUSIC (hard copies)
Mimaroglu Music Sales
Artifact Music (John Oswald, Arraymusic, James Tenney)
.angle.rec.
Downtown Music Gallery (downtown NYC)
insound (online store)
PostEverything (wire, scanner, Murcof)
Aquarius Records
Forced Exposure
other music
Verge
Ear/Rational
WRITING
Soft Skull
Exact Change (experimental literature)
Charles Bukowski
Albert Camus
Samuel Beckett
Tricia Sullivan
manybooks.net (free ebooks)
dirt (also visual art)
infinity plus (fiction, reviews etc.: sf/fantasy/horror)
Literary Saloon
Authors on the Web
William S Burroughs
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
J G Ballard
1 2
Bruce Sterling
Philip K Dick
Matt Ruff
Ursula K Le Guin
Arthur Machen
Harry Stephen Keeler
James Sallis
Joseph Conrad
Maggie Estep
Charles Willeford
William Gibson
wood s lot
BookCrossing
Book Sense
Dover
The Invisible Library
Library of Congress
Index of Critical and Biographical Sites
Literary Kicks
Nanofiction
The New York Review of Books
The Modern Word
The Gothic Literature Page
The Literary Gothic
The Forbidden Library
Readerville
Dalkey Archive Press
Washington Post First Chapter page
The Unbound Writer's Online Journal
POLITICAL
Undernews
Reporters Without Borders
Wayne Madsen
9-11 Visibility Project
wanttoknow.info (Fred Burks site on cover-ups)
Reader Privacy
xymphora
War Resisters International
Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy
GENERAL CULTURE
stop smiling
nth position
bOING bOING
Robot Wisdom
disinformation
The Atlantic
Arts & Letters Daily
textz
The Society for Philosophical Inquiry
Classics in the History of Psychology
Killing the Buddha
ART
Paintings by Maverick Gonzalez
Cathedral Oceans (John Foxx)
Cipango: Giapponeserie e altre passioni
Frank Lloyd Wright
Wooster Collective (Street Art)
Urban Art online (English site for local artists/collectors)
Salvador Dali (link page for all works)
iola
Ubuweb
UFOs & Artwork
Tom Phillips
Nor-Art (Native Canadian Art)
Artcyclopedia
ikastikos
Witold Riedel
Bosch Universe
dada for beginners
dada pubs
Keith Haring
Pinhole Photography ring
some Russian Revolutionary art
Tom Shannon
Disused Stations on London Underground
World Wide Arts Resources
Queenpin Deluxe
Nuke Pop
Americans for the Arts
Ask Art (info on American artists)
Mary Blair
Metropolis magazine
Museum of Museums
Performance Art archives
Turbulence (online art)
COMIX
Doonesbury
This Modern World
Zippy
When I Am King
GENERAL REFERENCE
The Shifted Librarian (North America)
Green burials (North America)
The WWW Virtual Library
Librarians' Index to the Internet
Cybertimes Navigator (use info above for NYT entry)
Currency Converter
Measurement Converter
World Time Server
FOR INTUITIVES
mood alert
Astrodienst (free astrological charts)
Morgan's Tarot Online
Deoxy.org
Ritual Theory and Technique
Archive of Western Esoterica
Paranormal News
Megalithic Europe

Monday, January 30, 2006

elephant orchestra cover

"Purveyors of the unique and bizarre": Mulatta Records

Someone visited here from google's related search using this URL...I don't get it either, but it was someone in Hong Kong, and the handful of "related sites" yielded the above link.

7:13 PM - [Link] - Comments ()


Saturday, January 28, 2006

I've always thought that the advent of the internet and new technologies that by their nature undermine hierarchichal, tightly controlled realities (perhaps the penultimate extension (tool) of the humanitarian ethos of the 60s counterculture and the democratic ideal) was what 9/11 and much of the reactional spasm that followed was a reaction to; now a newly declassifed document demonstrates the US military's strategy for returning us all to the good old days [American Samizdat]
When it describes plans for electronic warfare, or EW, the document takes on an extraordinary tone.

It seems to see the internet as being equivalent to an enemy weapons system.

"Strategy should be based on the premise that the Department [of Defense] will 'fight the net' as it would an enemy weapons system," it reads.

The slogan "fight the net" appears several times throughout the roadmap.

The authors warn that US networks are very vulnerable to attack by hackers, enemies seeking to disable them, or spies looking for intelligence.

"Networks are growing faster than we can defend them... Attack sophistication is increasing... Number of events is increasing."

And, in a grand finale, the document recommends that the United States should seek the ability to "provide maximum control of the entire electromagnetic spectrum".

US forces should be able to "disrupt or destroy the full spectrum of globally emerging communications systems, sensors, and weapons systems dependent on the electromagnetic spectrum".
Sounds like paranoid schizophrenia to me, but then I'm not a trained expert....

9:13 AM - [Link] - Comments ()


Tuesday, January 24, 2006

And 2 other noteworthy reviews from DVD Talk: Universal's Collector's Edition Repo Man & the new Zhangke Jia release The World

10:23 PM - [Link] - Comments ()


melon kiss

Tsai Ming-Liang's recent bombshell release The Wayward Cloud (Tian bian yi duo yun) had audiences --in sophisticated Berlin no less -- walking out on the last scene -- and also won 3 awards and was nominated for a fourth; DVD Talk reviews the single disc Taiwanese edition this week (available in Region 3 NTSC edition only so far), and the colorful and somewhat explicit French site for the film is worth a look (the French title translates as The Taste of the Watermelon, I think)

From the review above, DVD Beaver's review of the 2 disc set, and the customer review on the YesAsia site (they have the best price), I think I'll wait to buy this, if I can help it ($13.99 for the single disc is sorely tempting though). The 3 (!) director interviews in the 2 disc set have no English subs, though the booklet does. And as the DVD Talk reviewer says, the film is a French co-production and there may well be a loaded Region 2 edition on the way (which will no doubt be pricy -- French DVDs are in general).

As to the film itself, it's clearly a break with -- as well as a daring continuation of -- Tsai's oeuvre. In fact, it is the third part of a trilogy which includes What Time Is It There? and the short The Skywalk is Gone (which appears on the Goodbye Dragon Inn DVD available in North America). The reviews make it sound like a cross between The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (which I guess I'll finally have to break down and see now -- I generally can't stomach musicals, even brilliantly executed ones) and something like Lynch's Blue Velvet. Acquarello's critical comments on it place it in the context of Tsai's other films and pedigree, and the distancing effect may not be obvious to viewers unfamiliar with his work and/or triggered by the explicit sexuality. Tsai was trying to keep a lot of balls in the air with this one, and he may not have completely succeeded.

But at the very least, it's a spectacular experiment, and a half-successful Tsai Ming-Liang film is worth 10 others in general.

BTW, nicheflix carries the 2 disc edition, if you have a region-free player.

10:11 PM - [Link] - Comments ()


Sunday, January 22, 2006

Guimar Pyramid complex, Tenerife

UFO sightings, the disappearance of a woman after being taken into custody by Spanish police and the little-known Guimar pyramid complex at Canary Island resort Tenerife [The Anomalist]

7:27 PM - [Link] - Comments ()


Friday, January 20, 2006

my favorite films seen in 2005 for the first time, whether new or not (in order of when i saw them)
Stage Beauty
Last Life in the Universe
A Snake of June
Tetsuo: The Iron Man
The Hole
(Tsai Ming-Liang, 1998)
Le Amiche
Birth
The Exterminating Angel
Millennium Mambo
Even Dwarfs Started Small
Hotel
(Mike Figgis, 2001)
Fando & Lis
Kairo
The River
(Tsai Ming-Liang, 1998)
Tokyo Twilight
Touching the Void
Punk: Attitude
Stupeur et tremblement (Fear and Trembling)
La captive
Bob Dylan: No Direction Home
Mysterious Skin
L'Eclisse
Yes
Spider Forest
The Browning Version
(Anthony Asquith, 1951)
Kings and Queen
The Boys from Fengkuei


11:55 PM - [Link] - Comments ()


As usual when a star whose career flourished before 1960 passes, TCM is pre-empting their schedule for a day and running a retrospective of Shelley Winters' films on Monday Jan 23

I'm delighted because I haven't yet caught the classic noir from 1951 He Ran All the Way, with Winters and John Garfield.

Of the others, many people have enjoyed A Place in the Sun (Winters won an Oscar for this and The Diary of Anne Frank) & A Patch of Blue though I never made it through either. Executive Suite is a fine dissection of corporate culture for the early 50s, and Winchester '73 & Odds Against Tomorrow are pretty good examples of their kind (Anthony Mann western & quirky late noir) and have aged fairly well. I've heard good things about The Scalphunters, but haven't seen it.

If you haven't seen Kubrick's Lolita and Laughton's The Night of the Hunter, please do so immediately.

9:45 PM - [Link] - Comments ()


Marking a London retrospective, David Thomson salutes Jean Renoir
The National Film Theatre in London is about to begin its most complete season on the works of Jean Renoir. Some argue that this season should be in permanent repertory. Others say that would be impractical. You are cheating Renoir and yourself if you pick and choose like a connoisseur. Nothing but greed and obsession will suffice: you have to see every film. Only then will you know which ones you need to see more than once. This will change your life.

I can only offer Renoir to you with the shyness that knows I do not have the words to convey the beauty, the wisdom or the full value of the experience. I feel like the Marquis (Marcel Dalio) in La R⃬e du Jeu as he displays his latest toy for the company's amusement. He adores his little piece of theatre. Yet he is timid about revealing so much raw love to sophisticated people. And he has the nagging worry that they may not see all he has seen. At the same time, he has given his life to the collection of mechanical toys and musical boxes and I suppose, apart from a few other things, I have been as lost in film. My report, coming back from that wild and lurid country - the cinema - is to study Jean Renoir.
I hold with Martin Scorsese, who says in an interview on the Criterion disc of The River that the latter film affected me far more.

But as Thomson says, if you want to experience how film can portray subtlety and depth of character and theme to rival the novel, Renoir's oeuvre is essential.

8:05 PM - [Link] - Comments ()


Thursday, January 19, 2006

After reading DVD Talk's review of the Canadian disc Radio Revolution: The Rise and Fall of The Big 8, I may have to shell out the $36+ it'll cost to get it, since even netflix doesn't carry it (yet anyway -- I just requested it)

I listened to WABC in Jersey, and this format was the soundtrack of my youth, and influenced me in ways I still don't get completely. At one point I even kept track of the top 20 songs each week. Especially for those in the suburbs (or without many or any friends), it was a lifeline to a bigger world, and the community of listeners linked by these stations around North America.

But it was mostly about the music, and there's no way to explain what that meant to people like me to iPodnodders.
The single most influential radio station in all of North America was a foreign juggernaut that single-handedly redefined Top 40 radio. This mid-sized media giant, going under the call letters of CKLW, is now the subject of the fascinating film Radio Revolution: The Rise and Fall of The Big 8. While overflowing with nostalgia, this masterful documentary is also a primer about how rock, pop and soul became completely ingrained into the fabric of our scattered social order.


10:09 PM - [Link] - Comments ()


Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Latin America leads the world into the 21st century, despite their reactionary superneighbor to the north

Brazilian musical legend and influential politico Gilberto Gil on copyright and network society
Gil’s constant references to the hippy counterculture are not simply the nostalgia of a 63-year-old with more than 40 albums to his name. For several years now, largely under the rest of the world’s radar, the Brazilian government has been building a counterculture of its own. The battlefield has been intellectual property - the ownership of ideas - and the revolution has touched everything, from internet filesharing to GM crops to HIV medication. Pharmaceutical companies selling patented Aids drugs, for example, were informed that Brazil would simply ignore their claims to ownership and copy their products more cheaply if they didn’t offer deep discounts. (The discounts were forthcoming.) Gil himself has thrown his weight behind new forms of copyright law, enabling musicians to incorporate parts of others’ work in their own. And in one small development that none the less sums up the mood, the left-wing administration of President Luiz Inacio da Silva, or “Lula”, has announced that all ministries will stop using Microsoft Windows on their office computers. Instead of paying through the nose for Microsoft operating licences, while millions of Brazilians live in poverty, the government will use open-source software, collaboratively designed by programmers worldwide and owned by no one.
I distribute Arthur magazine in my little corner of Arizona, and I recommend checking it out at a local distro point, and also checking their blog, Magpie, at the link above.

10:07 PM - [Link] - Comments ()


Monday, January 16, 2006

Kerouac reading on the road

The Beat Museum moves to North Beach in San Francisco from Monterey

The emphasis is on Kerouac, but the online store carries updated texts of Ginsberg & Burroughs as well.

9:12 PM - [Link] - Comments ()


Burmese pop cover

From the (still) exotic edge

The Sublime Frequencies catalog of CDs & DVDs

From Phnom Penh to Mali to Iraq, native instruments and rhythms and Western idioms collide. Plus field recordings of insects and folk music.

12:49 AM - [Link] - Comments ()


Sunday, January 15, 2006

Thursday Afternoon cover alt

disquiet's Mark Weidenbaum leads an email discussion on Brian Eno's Thursday Afternoon CD, 20 years on, as the disc is reissued/remastered and the video released on DVD with other work
Michael Jarrett: The music is tentative. It is no grand statement exemplifying (and, thereby, exhausting) all the possibilities of a medium. Long by pop standards, Thursday Afternoon is not Mahler or Wagner -- not by a long shot. It is a small gesture writ large (calligraphy on a banner?). It seems almost offhand. There's no attempt to erect a monument to an emerging technology. (The music, therefore, is not phallic; it is a matrix: womblike.) In a word, Thursday Afternoon is simple. Instead of waiting around, hanging back, trying to comprehend (to grasp it all) and, then, to express the potential of a new medium in a definitive work, Eno composed a note worth celebrating.
The pic above is a lightly doctored version of the cover.

11:10 PM - [Link] - Comments ()


igloo magazine interview with sound sculptor, labelmeister & multi-sensual artist Heribert Friedl (link to his site at left below, along with a few other new ones)
Like I mentioned, I come from a visual art context. I studied sculpture at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. I was first concretely confronted music at the age of six. During my time at school I also attended a musical school, where I first studied flute and then up to the age of 14, the Hackbrett. Afterwards I studied classical guitar. So music has always accompanied my visual art.

I took part in exhibitions in many countries. One of my favorite works was realized at the Museum Folkwang (Essen, Germany). It was an empty room you could enter from two sides. Only the walls were painted with scent substance that you could scratch and smell. Even though the room was completely empty, visually speaking, it was plumply filled with the scent.


4:36 PM - [Link] - Comments ()


Worth a listen

Had a nice chat with Federico Baglivi on soulseek last weekend -- he's behind Fever Asym, and his blog is here (in Italian, with snippets of a new project with a lady on vocals playing in the background)

He has net releases at no type's nishi subsidiary and at sinewaves (also here).

If you're visiting, hi Federico!

3:44 PM - [Link] - Comments ()


Saturday, January 14, 2006

Shelley Winters

R.I.P. Shelley Winters

I'll remember her for Lolita & The Night of the Hunter, and perhaps The Tenant, but she was in 127 other movies plus Roseanne. She won Oscars for A Patch of Blue & The Diary of Anne Frank, and her presence belied her diminutive height of 5'4".

Thanks, Shelley.

1:35 PM - [Link] - Comments ()


Friday, January 13, 2006

I was intrigued by Steven Shaviro's post on Tricia Sullivan's new book Double Vision, which actually seems to tread in Phil Dick territory -- unlike countless books reviewers have claimed such kinship for with little excuse that I can see

But not enough to pay two double fins for, since it's only available as a UK import right now (Sullivan is American but resides in the UK).

I haven't read any of Sullivan's other books, but I'll catch up with her eventually, I think.

Here are some interviews: Locus in 1998; infinity plus in 2000 ; a review of her last book, Maul; and a year ago in SF crowsnest, discussing Double Vision.

From Claire Brialey's review (second link above):
Imagine a world in which you’re just a passive observer of all the action undertaken by other people, able to move about and observe but prevented from fully interacting with those you spend the most time with.

Imagine a world in which your value to other people depends on you not knowing exactly what it is you’re doing. In which no one understands you, although they think they do. In which the levels of your mind that you thought were hidden seem to be getting out.

Imagine a world in which your life is screwed, although you don’t yet know quite how badly.

Imagine that there are several different worlds, with some connections you haven’t quite been able to puzzle out yet, and that you can move between them although you don’t have much control over when, or indeed over anything much else in your life.

Then tell me where the real world is, and how you can get there.


10:19 PM - [Link] - Comments ()


Thursday, January 12, 2006

America's model housewife turns feminist as husband abandons her
Terry Hekker wrote a book in 1980 that made her famous. Ever Since Adam & Eve was a passionate defence of her decision to eschew a career and spend her life as a wife and a mother.

Coming at the end of the Seventies, when feminism was enjoying a renaissance and the career woman was emerging from behind the cooker, Hekker became a celebrated poster child for more old-fashioned values. She wanted her job choice of 'homemaker' to be considered as valid as those of up-and-coming women bankers, bosses and company directors. The book sold well, Hekker appeared on all the TV prime-time chat shows and went on a national tour. But that was then.

Today, Hekker told The Observer, she is planning a follow-up book. Its working, albeit jokey, title is bluntly honest: Disregard First Book. For her life did not turn out as she planned, and she now believes her decision to become a housewife and homemaker should serve as a warning for young American women.

'My anachronistic book was written while I was in a successful marriage that I expected would go on forever. Sadly, it now has little relevance for modern women, except perhaps as a cautionary tale,' Hekker wrote last week as she announced her U-turn.

In a display of spectacular bad taste, Hekker's husband presented her with divorce papers on their 40th wedding anniversary and left her for a younger woman. The divorce left her facing an uncertain financial future, bereft of income and - after spending her adult life bringing up five children - lacking skills to make her attractive in the job market. Despite that, the judge in her divorce case suggested that - at 67 - she go for job training.

She ended up selling her engagement ring to pay for roof repairs and discovering she was eligible for food stamps. Her ex-husband, meanwhile, was holidaying with his new lover in Mexico. Hekker, once a role model for young homemakers, is now rapidly becoming an icon for so-called 'silver divorcees', older women who suddenly find themselves alone without skills and with a much reduced income.


11:32 PM - [Link] - Comments ()


Quicktime video of Windy & Carl live and being interviewed [textura]

10:04 PM - [Link] - Comments ()


Blog on netlabels and digital art, Milieu

9:52 PM - [Link] - Comments ()


Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Henry Flynt on a main American minimalist composers' inspiration, Pandit Pran Nath, part of a tribute to Nath on the hungry ghost site
The whole question of artistic use of the eerie, uncanny, sombre, morose, morbid, macabre — which is central in Hindu mythology. It is involving, not estranging, if it is sublimated [done with acceptance] — excluding resentment and ridicule.

Why does the vicarious encounter of grief conjured up with tones have a healing, remedying effect? [this function is intended in traditional music, characteristically]

Our emotion makes us real, and deep, and we want to re-experience it as a re-commitment to our depth. (And as a way of mastering or absorbing a loss or injury.)

The evoked joy is elicited, is real, not aestheticized.

A joy that heals despair and grief.

In Asavari, Guruji’s performance is profoundly mastered in terms of system and technique. Yet he stays close to the intonation of speech, chant, the storyteller. An ancient sound. He never turns himself into a musical instrument. He never leaves the intonation of speech, chant, storytelling.


10:32 PM - [Link] - Comments ()


Photo of Ozu's grave from DVD Beaver

10:20 PM - [Link] - Comments ()


Saturday, January 07, 2006

Remarkable (and deadly/costly) 2005 storm season finally over

9:06 AM - [Link] - Comments ()


Films I watched all the way through in 2005 (* = recommended; ** = highly recommended)
Movies 2005

The Time of the Wolf
The Office Special*
Mulholland Drive (r)**
Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism**
Smiley's People (r)*
A proposito de Bunuel*
Le jour se leve
Cutter's Way
Time Regained
The Forgotten (2004)
Le Quai des Brumes (Port of Shadows)*
Something the Lord Made**
Pickup on South Street**
Mean Creek
Notes from Underground
Lewis Black on Broadway
Thieves' Highway**
Secret Agent (series)*
Two Lane Blacktop
Eulogy (2004)
Bright Young Things*
Vanity Fair (2004)
Ray*
The Edge of the World**
Heat of the Sun: Private Lives (r)*
Fly Jefferson Airplane
I Heart Huckabees
Northern Exposure -- The First Season (r)
Io non ho paura (I'm Not Scared)
The Yes Men (2003)**
Bitter Victory
Goodbye Dragon Inn**
The Skywalk Is Gone**
Casque d'or*
Etre et avoir (To be and to have)
Ararat
La Cienaga**
Rey Muerto*
Stage Beauty**
Fear X
Fandango (r)
49th Parallel*
Last Life in the Universe**
Night and the City**
City of God*
What the #$*! Do We Know!?*
Contraband (1940)
Chappaqua
A Murder of Quality
Incident at Loch Ness
Against All Odds (r)*
A Snake of June**
Scarlet Street**
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp**
Doppelganger (2003)
Ride in the Whirlwind
Without Limits*
Les Bonnes Femmes*
Begotten*
Bright Future (2003)*
Riding Giants**
The Hole (1998)**
Mr Klein
Diary of a Chambermaid (1964)(r)**
Suspect Zero
Touchez pas au Grisbi*
The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream**
Zero Focus
Bad Education*
Le Amiche**
Birth (2004)**
Primer
Pepe le Moko*
Parajanov: A Requiem*
Since Otar Left*
Criminal (2004)
Mamma Roma
Munchhausen (1943)*
Maborosi (Maboroshi no hikari)**
Destiny (Der Mute Tod)(1921)**
Red Desert (Il Deserto Rosso)**
My Architect: A Son's Journey*
DiG!*
Nazarin**
Hearts and Minds (1974)*
Viridiana (r)**
The Exterminating Angel**
The Last Laugh (1924)*
The Eel*
Simon of the Desert*
Man of the West*
Vive L'Amour**
Kinsey*
He Walked by Night* (r)
Charisma (1999)*
Twisted (2004, Kaufman)
Millennium Mambo**
Tunes of Glory (r)**
Theolonius Monk: Straight No Chaser*
The Phantom of Liberty*
The 39 Steps (r)**
The Aviator (2004)*
The Red Shoes**
Los Olvidados** (r)
Wonder Boys (r)**
Panic in the Streets*
Seance (Korei) (2000)**
Nightmare Alley**
The Machinist*
Manny & Lo* (r)
Indigo (2003)
The Driver
Uzak (Distant)
Foyle's War: The German Woman
The Gleaners and I**
The Jacket*
Koza (Cocoon)*
The Big Combo**
Man of the Year (2002)
The Sea Inside*
Heat of the Sun: Hide in Plain Sight* (r)
Even Dwarfs Started Small**
Frontline: Private Warriors*
Rebels of the Neon God**
White of the Eye
Fargo** (r)
Philby, Burgess and Maclean: Spy Scandal of the Century*
Ulysses' Gaze*
Immortel (ad vitam)
Mike Yokohama: A Forest with No Name*
Dr Mabuse -- The Gambler**
The Americanization Of Emily**
Mephisto (1981)
The Woodsman*
Night Moves (1975)*
Signs of Life (Lebenszeichen)*(1968)
The Devil Thumbs a Ride*
Isaac's Storm (History Channel)
Yeelen*
The Hitchhiker (1953)
Hotel (Figgis, 2001)**
They Came Back (Les Revenants)
A Moment of Innocence (Nun va Goldoon)
The Seagull's Laughter (Mavahlatur)
Danger Man (Disc 7)
Tetsuo: The Iron Man**
At Last the 1948 Show
Cypher
Conpiracy of Silence (1994)
Untitled: Almost Famous -- The Bootleg Cut**
The Trials of Henry Kissinger**
Battles Without Honor or Humanity**
Abouna
Fando & Lis**
Kairo**
Constellation Jodorowsky*
Crazed Fruit*
Shadow of the Vampire** (r)
Memories of Murder
The River** (1996, Tsai)
Z Channel: A Magnficent Obsession**
Kiss Me Deadly** (r)
The 400 Blows*
Story of a Love Affair (Cronaca di un amore)**
Moonlight Whispers (Sasayaki)*
Tokyo Twilight**
Le Boucher
Contempt*
Six Feet Under: Fourth Season (disc 1)
L4yer Cake
Ulzana's Raid
Touching the Void**
Crash* (2004, Haggis)
Punk: Attitude**
Bright Leaves
3 Iron*
Empire Falls (disc 1)
Nobody Knows (Dare mo shiranai)
Whirlpool (1949, Preminger)
Boudu Saved from Drowning*
Brothers* (2004, Bier)
Downfall (Der Untergang)*
Stupeur et tremblemants (Fear and Trembling)**
Odds Against Tomorrow
Billion Dollar Brain (r)
Los Angeles Now* (Independent Focus)
La Captive**
Les Diaboliques* (Clouzot, 1955)
Gate of Flesh*
Bob Dylan: No Direction Home**
Saint Jack** (r)
Family Guy: Stewie Griffin -- The Untold Story**
Land of Silence and Darkness*
April** (1961, Ioselliani)
Off the Map* (2003, Campbell Scott)
Wild Palms: Everything Must Go
Batman Begins**
Hopeless Pictures* (disc1)
11:14
Les Bas-Fonds (The Lower Depths, Renoir)**
Le Trou
Get up Stand Up: The Story of Pop and Protest
Mad Hot Ballroom
Heat of the Sun: The Sport of Kings* (r)
Dominion: The Exorcist Prequel
Travellers and Magicians*
The Bird People of China
Edgar Cayce: The Beautiful Dreamer
Mysterious Skin**
Warning Shot (1967)
The Rage of Paris*
L'Eclisse (The Eclipse)**
Clockwise* (r)
Tsumetai chi (An Obsession)*
Yes** (2004, Potter)
The Hoodlum (1951, Nosseck)
My Forbidden Past
Wheel of Time*
The Fellowship of the Ring** (r)
Heights
The Interpreter (2005)
The River** (1951, Renoir)(r)
Under the Flag of the Rising Sun*
Masked and Anonymous*
Chi-Hwa-Seon: Painted Fire
Of Freaks and Men
Zero Kelvin*
Hopeless Pictures* (disc 2)
The Good Fairy**
Ugetsu Monogatari**
Kiss of Death** (1947, Hathaway)(r)
Spider Forest*
La Promesse** (1996, Dardenne Bros)
The Browning Version** (1951, Asquith)
The Dark Corner*
Winter Kills** (r)
Cockfighter*
The Last Lieutenant
Warren Oates: Across the Border
Vodka Lemon*
Bozo, Gar & Ray: WGN TV Classics
The Boys from Fengkuei**
Kings and Queen**
The Beautiful Country*
Dead of Night** (r)
Happy Here and Now*
La Sentinelle


7:48 AM - [Link] - Comments ()


Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Utopian fiction & subverting the dominant reality

Steven Shaviro's review of Frederic Jameson's Archaeologies of the Future
In the pages of Archaeologies of the Future, Jameson works his way through the projects and paradoxes of utopian SF. What he finds most crucial in utopian fiction is not its blueprints of a future existence, but rather its negation of the way things are now: Utopian SF posits "the future as disruption." In science fiction we traverse great stretches of space and time; we encounter alien beings, as well as conditions that are radically alien to our sensibilities. In these ways, SF shows us the contingency and changeability of even those things—like money and markets and multinational corporations—that we most take for granted.


8:15 AM - [Link] - Comments ()


Monday, January 02, 2006

Books I finished in 2005
Radio Free Albemuth - Philip K Dick
Seriously Funny: Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960s - Gerald Nachman
A Complicated Kindness - Miriam Toews
Headhunter - Timothy Findley
Beneath a Panamanian Moon - David Terrenoire
The Prism of Lyra - Lyssa Royal & Keith Priest (r)
The Pythons by The Pythons: An Autobiography
A Life in Movies: An Autobiography - Michael Powell
Godplayers - Damien Broderick
The Death Collectors - Jack Kerley
Take the Cannoli: Stories from the New World - Sarah Vowell
Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers - Daniel Ellsberg
The Midnight Eye Guide to New Japanese Film - Tom Mes and Jasper Sharp
The R Crumb Handbook - R Crumb & Peter Poplaski
Ice Haven - Daniel Clowes
My God! What's Happening to Us? - Lynn Grabhorn
Hour of the Cat - Peter Quinn
The Way the Crow Flies - Ann-Marie MacDonald
The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler (r)
Life Interrupted - Spalding Gray, others
Spy: The Inside Story of How the FBI's Robert Hanssen Betrayed America - David Wise
No, I didn't read much last year.

8:03 AM - [Link] - Comments ()


Sunday, January 01, 2006

kaori takano doll

Nice weird art site Cipango [incoming signals]

10:32 PM - [Link] - Comments ()


WFMU's staffs' best of 2005 lists

10:17 PM - [Link] - Comments ()


Mothers Against Noise raise a ruckus

They mean it, M.A.N.
Many noise fans will cite many upon many seemingly non-degenerate and/or positive noise musicians recording and performing today. I cant blame anyone for being ignorant about this subject, since noise is a brand new genre of music. Do not worry I will be here to answer your questions and show the light of what is really going on. Many will say even if some of the lyrical content of noise is not offensive, but ultimately it doesn't matter because it is usually effected with a lot of well... effects and you cant tell what they are saying anyways. Then answer me this, if it doesn't matter then why aren't they singing about birds and waterfalls and living in a wonderful world?? Why arent they helping make this world a better place?? I'll tell you why, we dont care about this world and we are hell bent on destroying it.
I hold out the hope this is satire, but I fear not.

10:12 PM - [Link] - Comments ()


Warp Records bleep (download) section is offering an "artists to watch in '06" comp for free
Contributing artists and labels incude Dexter (Clone), Jimmy Edgar (Warp), Mara Carlyle (Accidental), The National Trust (Thrill Jockey) Kero (Detroit Underground), Wisp (Sublight), Battles (Warp), Nectarine No9 (Creeping Bent) and Skeletons & The Girl Faced Boys (Ghostly).

The release is priced at zero: click "Buy Mp3 Release 0.00" to add to basket and hit 'Checkout' on the bottom right. No payment details are needed, just an email address and password from new users, existing users login as normal.
Sign up for their newsletter here.

10:46 AM - [Link] - Comments ()





This page is powered by Blog Studio.
and s-integrator




@me

Rarely has reality needed so much to be imagined. --Chris Marker