==pla|\|ing lakes==

Saturday, October 12, 2002

Tomorrow's Gleason biopic on CBS might be decent, shows some shadow

I was never a fan of The Honeymooners (landmark though it was), though I thought he was excellent in The Hustler and Nothing in Common.

The film stars Brad Garrett -- who is a foot taller than Gleason -- and only covers his life up to the his most famous role as Ralph Kramden.

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

Friday, October 11, 2002

Relevant lyrics

WARNING SIGN

Warning sign, warning sign,
I see it but I pay it no mind.
Hear my voice, hear my voice,
It's saying something and it's not very nice.
Pay attention, pay attention,
I'm talking to you and I hope you're concentrating
I've got money now, I've got money now,
C'mon baby, c'mon baby.

Warning sign of things to come (take it over, take it over)
Someone's talking on my telephone (when we're
older, when we're older)
Hear my voice, move my hair.
I move it around a lot, but I don't care. (what
I remember)

Warning Sign, Warning Sign,
Look at my hair, I like the design.
It's the truth, it's the truth.
Your glassy eyes and your open mouth
Take it easy, take it easy
It's a natural thing and you have to relax,
I've got money now, I've got money now.
C'mon baby, c'mon baby.

Warning sign of things to come (turn me over,
turn me over)
Love is here but I guess it's gone now (hurry up
babe, hurry up babe),
Hear my voice, move my hair.
I move it around a lot, but I don't care.

Do you remember
What it is that you remember
Baby remember
Baby remember.

-- Talking Heads

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

Michael Donaldson (Q-Burns Abstract Message) on re-mixing Eno

Hello friends ....

I do a project called Q-Burns Abstract Message ... have had three CDs released on Astralwerks ... blah blah blah ...

Anyway, I am a huge Eno fan ... have been since I was but a wee tot ... and I've done a bazillion remixes for a bazillion different artists ...

but, personally, I'd never touch Eno.

For one thing, my reverence for his tracks (especially the early vocal works) makes such a task completely daunting ... and also, a major point of remixing is to either improve a work or to help it apply to different contexts (i.e. the dancefloor) which seems a bit pointless to me with regards to Eno.

so ... my opinion : less Eno remixes, more Eno-inspired tracks ....

eh? [via Nerve Net list]

7:25 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Thursday, October 10, 2002

Jeffrey Eugenides, Donna Tartt and Zadie Smith on writing second novels

"I wanted to see if I could top myself," Eugenides confirms. "I made it hard on myself, because my idea for the second novel was to write a large comic epic of a book. There were times when it gave me enough trouble that I thought, Forget this big idea, let's do the small one. But it was like I had seen the enchanted mountain and I couldn't get it out of my head," he laughs. As she explains it, Tartt's desire to do something completely different from The Secret History entailed "starting again at the beginning and learning how to do my work in a completely different way: formally, psychologically, in all respects." Jettisoning the self-conscious pretensions of The Secret History, she focused on developing characterization and narrative. A fusion of the children's adventure genre and Southern gothic -- imagine Harriet the Spy meets Faulkner -- The Little Friend follows a young girl (named Harriet, incidentally) on a quest to solve the mystery of her brother's murder. In her Mississippi backwater town, Harriet is cosseted by a lovingly concocted menagerie of spinster aunts (the remains of a grand old family halfway to ruination). "The Little Friend is a much more symphonic work, with different movements and many different voices," says Tartt. "Very few of the lessons I'd learned in writing The Secret History applied." This meant that "sometimes, at the end of the day, I end up throwing away everything I've done, like Penelope unraveling her day's weaving."

1:53 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Tuesday, October 08, 2002

The Rich Pageant of Rural American Life As Seen On TV

I've had the opportunity recently to see episodes of The Waltons and Little House on the Prairie and I have to say I really enjoy both. The advantage of Little House is that with fewer characters you get to delve more deeply into the rich fantasy life and cultural complexity of the frontier/rural experience. Really get to KNOW the characters and the warp and weft of their existential, crisis-to-crisis lifeflow.

It's a real education, I'll tell you what.

3:00 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Classic Zippy on anime/Japanese culture today

Make sure you check it today, or you'll have to wait a month for the archive to view it -- or for the 2002 Zippy Annual.

12:04 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

After Dawn claims the House of Representatives has allowed a victory for small webcasters

Still seems like a lot of money to me, but anything would be better than no broadcasting at all.

Senate/shrub approval still needed.

Under the new licensing terms, small webcasters whose revenues are less than $250,000, will pay appx. 10 percent of their revenue or 7 percent of their expenses, in licensing fees to RIAA. Whichever figure is higher, that will be used. Also medium-sized webcasters, whose revenue is between $250,000 and $500,000 a year, pay based on their revenue -- 12 percent of their revenue or 7 percent of expenses (again, whichever figure is higher, it will be used). Big webcasters will use the old fixed fee contract.

1:17 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Monday, October 07, 2002

CSM reviews 3 new books of note

The Silent Takeover: Global Capitalism and the Death of Democracy by Noreena Hertz. The new No Logo, apparently. Looks like anti-globalization is sexy.

The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Secrecy by notorious hacker Kevin Mitnick. Not the juicy stuff which is in escrow for a decade, but how corporations can prevent computer crimes -- mostly through offline security measures.

The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith, which is getting firebombed by some critics -- which intrigues me because White Teeth didn't click with me -- so maybe this one will.

1:37 PM - [Link] - Comments ()

Fears of a lurch to the American motorized, alienated aesthetic in traditionally more socially-aware and environmentally-minded Holland

Rich in urban and environmental skills, Dutch architects and engineers have shaped civilized cities, doted on mass housing, and tooled well-crafted buildings. Notably tolerant, its citizenry has endorsed "social housing" or low-income rentals -- foreign to market-driven America. From public transport and bicycling, to sustainable space and environmental protection, the virtual island nation has framed standards for the world.

Now, however, some see a shrinking of these urban and social values. In the wake of the conservative election after the murder of far-right candidate Pim Fortuyn, the Dutch worry that market dictates and the move to the right could undo progressive living policies. Some fear that social housing, which once accommodated 70 percent of the population but now is down to 30 percent, could descend still further. Others watch anxiously as suburbanization and motorization expand and new shopping centers spin off the freeway.

Boom times in Europe's new global economy have fed the urge for more space for a swelling population of l6 million in l3,000 square miles (the size of Connecticut). Like the sprawling US population, the affluent Dutch display both a real and a perceived need for more living space. Even before the election, privatization and motorization had begun to worry planners.

10:54 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Another sign the end is near: Americans are spurning burgers

...McDonald's stock is already down 60 percent in three years. The golden archetype of reliable meals on the run has seen its same-store sales fall 2.5 percent globally in the second quarter. Revenues at rival Burger King are stagnant. Jack In The Box warns that same-store sales may drop 3 percent.

Experts credit the downturn largely to consumers' boredom with monotonous menus, as well as rise of health-conscious eating. The slow, steady shift in consumer sentiment, say observers, has left McDonald's and its peers with a mandate: Reform, or be deep fried.

A current effort to diversify menus by adding more-sophisticated items marks a significant turning point for the fast-food industry, which has built a food empire, and changed American culture, squarely on the back of burgers and fries.

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

Amnesiascope

I'm adding some amazon links here, more to advertise books I like than make any money (I've had some up on the other site for a while and after the first week I don't think anyone's used them at all).

I wanted to add Steve Erickson's Amnesiascope, but it's out of print (naturally). I really like it, and haven't read but one of his other books, finding them far less engaging (Days Between Stations -- no wait, I read American Nomad about the '96 election, it wasn't bad). That seems to be the 2 camps fans of his work fall into, from a comment on the amazon site linked above.

Anywho, Amnesiascope rocks. Henry Miller was an inspiration apparently. The link has used copies for as little as $3.24, and half.com probably has it cheaper.

Here's some:

I love the ashes. I love the endless smoky twilight of Los Angeles. I love walking along Sunset Boulevard past the bistros where the Hollywood trash have to brush the black soot off their salmon linguini in white wine sauce before they can eat it. I love driving across one black ring after another all the way to the sea, through the charred palisades past abandoned houses, listening through the open windows to the phone machines clicking on and off with messages from somewhere east of the Mojave, out of the American blue. I've been in a state of giddiness ever since the riots of ten years ago, when I would take a break from finishing my last book and go up onto the rooftop, watching surround me the first ring of fire from the looting. I still go up there, and the fires still burn. They burn a dead swath between me and the future, stranding me in the present, reducing definitions of love to my continuing gaze across smoldering panoramas as Viv, my little carnal ferret, devours me on her knees. I love having nothing to hope for but the cremation of my dreams; when my dreams are dead the rest of me is alive, all cinder and appetite. Don't expect me to feel bad about this. Don't expect my social conscience to be stricken. My conscience may be touched by my personal betrayals but not my social ones: the fires burn swathes between me and guilt as well. In this particular epoch, when sex is the last subversive act, I'm a guerrilla, spending my conscience in a white stream that douses no fire but its own.

Not sure about sex being the last subversive act, but I love the Ballardian mood, with a richer environment, not so de Chirico-empty-surreal.


2:00 AM - [Link] - Comments ()

Sunday, October 06, 2002

A rating of the best public libraries in the US (5-page .pdf) broken down by city/town size [The Virtual Acquisition Shelf and News Desk]

Ohio, Indiana and Utah come out best state-wide.

12:01 AM - [Link] - Comments ()