5 January 2004
[film] Movie-list.net … ‘Movie Trailers. Period.’
[spam] Colon Cleansing Spam on the Rise … ‘The average person contains five to 25 pounds of “waste” build-up in their colon, we keep reading in dozens of spam messages. This can lead to colon cancer, deadly toxins and even ‘parasite build up’. The growing amount of colon-cleansing spam has already led to obsessive debates in some news groups. “Dishwasher detergent works best for me. Any brand,” a helpful reader comments. “If you leave too much detergent on the dishes, it will REALLY clean out your entire alimentary canal”. Another contributor suggest you should swallow a tooth brush tied to a lead sinker.’
[comics] Cerebus #297: ‘Why Does Cerebus Feel Like Saying “Rosebud” All Of A Sudden?’
6 January 2004
[comics] Alan Moore vs. Grant T. Morrison … ‘An Epic Bare-Knuckle Brawl Between Two Mega-Legends’ [via plasticbag.org]
[media] UK Newspaper “The Daily Star” Swipes Content From retroCRUSH … ‘ On 1/05/04 I spoke with a the News Editor of “The Daily Star” named Kieran Saunders and what he told me takes the cake. He said, “Well, if it’s on the internet it’s up for grabs. You can’t copyright anything on the internet.” I told him that was untrue and he then refused to speak with me further, and said all future communication needed to be sent to their legal contact, Steven Bacon in London.’ [Related: retroCRUSH’s Worst Sex Scenes Ever | via Boing Boing]
7 January 2004
[web] So What Were You Reading? — Most read and emailed News Stories of 2003 from BBC News.
8 January 2004
[royals] How Did Di And Dodi Die? — Simon Hoggart at the Princess Diana Inquest … ‘Media from around the world had crowded into and around the Queen Elizabeth centre in London; no real courtroom could hold us all, and the coroner had to set up in a conference room. So the event had the air of a plenary session before the Institute of Chartered Surveyors annual dinner. Even the royal coat of arms was back-projected on to the wall, so you expected the coroner to say, at intervals, “next slide, please”. It was a classic instance of the way the British adapt, if unwillingly, to new circumstances, while insisting that nothing at all has changed. There was even a court official to remind us to switch off our mobile phones, a post going back to Tudor times; the holder was rewarded with an annual hogshead of Bailey’s Irish Cream.’
9 January 2004
[comics] Waiting for Tommy Interview with Warren Ellis … ‘Right now, it feels like 2004 will be my last very active year in American comics. This isn’t a big splashy f*ckyouall I’m-retiring I-won’t-play-Bond-again you-won’t-have-Dick-Nixon-to-kick-around-any-more kind of thing. I’m not flopping on the ground in weeping martyrdom or anything. I just think maybe I’ve taken this gig as far as I can go.’
10 January 2004
[religion] Things Creationists Hate — for example, The Power and Majesty of God Almighty: ‘..and His subtlety. They will only allow God the minuscule, infant universe described by the writers of Genesis (or Moses, if you prefer). They can’t stand it that God has been working on this version of the universe for something like 14 billion years, and His workshop is so inconceivably huge that it seems ridiculously presumptuous to imagine the Earth and its dominant species to be the center of God’s attention. They won’t allow Him to work His miracles of life patiently, subtly, using the gradual, majestic power of evolution.’ [via Oblomovka]
[comics] Morphing into New Forms. Devouring Young Adults! — article about Graphic Novels in book stores. Mark Farce (comic shop owner): ‘I believe I will outlive the comic book medium. My die-hard customers will just keep getting older and older. I don’t see young kids coming into stores to buy comics. I think the trades have re-tapped into the 25 to 30 year olds who were into comics, got married, sold their comics and are now wandering back in. But when we get young customers in with say a gift certificate they won at a Yu-Gi-Oh tournament, the last thing they’re interested in is comic books.’ [via ¡Journalista!]
12 January 2004
[web] How to Become an Obnoxious Internet Cam Whore in Five Easy Steps … ‘Here’s a simple formula to keep in mind: YOU + WEBCAM – CLOTHES – DIGNITY = $$$. Don’t let your dignity get in the way of your online prostitution.’ [via Pete’s Organic Link Farm]
13 January 2004
[nature] Penguins’ Pooing Powers Revealed — penguins prove the old saying that “nobody ever takes a shit on their own doorstep” … ‘[Scientists] found they shoot their poo 38 centimetres from their nests. The scientists worked out the penguins’ poo comes out at more than four times the force a human can manage. It might seem pretty gross, but the penguins are doing it to be clean.’ [via BlahBlah Flowers]
14 January 2004
[tv] Angry Middle-Aged Man — a Larry David / Curb your Enthusiasm Profile … [via Reenhead]
‘[In an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm], the chat between Larry and Krazee Eyez Killa (a rap star, played by Chris Williams) becomes a freewheeling improvised exchange in which Krazee Eyez Killa reads one of his raps and asks Larry for a critique. Larry nods judiciously. “I like it — I got one tiny little comment,” he says. “I would lose the motherfucker at the end — ’cause you already said fuck once … I would change the motherfucker to bitch.”
Krazee Eyez Killa beams, and gives Larry a hug. “You my dog,” he says, warmly. “You my nigger … I like you! Check it out — you like eatin’ pussy?”
Larry shrugs. “I like it, I like it,” he says. “But I’m a little too lazy … It’s a whole to-do, you know. It hurts my neck.”‘
15 January 2004
[comics] Jim Lee interviews Howard Chaykin … ‘Writing episodic TV is a constant series of negotiations between the writing staff and the line producer’s crew. When I’m doing comics, the old cliché is true – I’m the whole show-writing, acting, directing-and it’s a perfect place for a control freak like me.’
16 January 2004
[blogs] My So Called Blog — intriguing article about how teenagers use blogs … ‘On a sunny fall day, M. and his friends were hanging out in front of a local toy store, shooting photos of one another with digital cameras, when a group of three girls sashayed by. They sported tank tops, identical hairbands and identical shiny hair. I walked over to them and asked if they have LiveJournals. “No,” one said. “We have Xangas.”‘ [thanks Kabir]
[blogs] Kiss & Tell — London Call-Girl Belle De Jour makes the New York Post … ‘The author is a fascinating character. Now, if we only knew her real name. Her pseudonym is derived from the 1967 French film in which Catherine Deneuve plays a housewife who turns to prostitution. But this Belle is no housewife. She won’t post a picture, but she will reveal this much: She’s a Londoner “in [her] 20s.” with a steady boyfriend referred to only as The Boy. There are those, however, who claim she’s a fraud.’
18 January 2004
[comics] Chronicling The Revolutionary — interview with Chester Brown about Louis Riel – includes update about Joe Matt …
‘NRAMA: Did Joe Matt move back to Canada?
CB: Nope he’s in Los Angeles right now. He’s in negotiations with HBO to make Peepshow into a television series and it looks like it might happen. I’m not sure if a deal has actually been signed but if it hasn’t then its close. At least they’ll make a pilot.
NRAMA: Who will play you?
CB: I don’t know. Maybe I’m not even in the pilot.’
[mp3] UK song-swappers ‘could be sued’ … ‘Speaking at a London conference about music and technology, Mr Yeates said any legal crackdown would be “proportional”. Talks were taking place with internet service providers across Europe to streamline a process for identifying those who distribute the most songs, he said. The move comes despite healthy album sales for the UK industry. Album sales in the UK rose by 7.6% in 2003 to a record high, fuelled by falling CD prices.’
19 January 2004
[comics] ScaryDuck remembers the early years of 2000AD … ‘The first issue grabbed you by the balls and wouldn’t let go. The Russians (“Volgans”) invaded Britan, time-travelling cowboys harvesting flesh-eating dinosaurs, a rollerball clone, a six-million dollar man clone and …err… Dan Dare, an ill-advised revival of the Eagle character. But the real meat didn’t turn up until the following week – another 8p gave you another free gift and the first appearance of Judge Dredd. Make no bones about it, Dredd was a fascist…’
[quotes] The Random Albert Einstein Quotes Page — along with Groucho Marx, Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain … ‘The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.’ [via Mad Musings of Me]
20 January 2004
[comics] Cerebus #300, okay Dave, now what? — another article about Dave Sim and the conclusion of Cerebus … ‘Sim finished working on the final story pages of #300 the week before Christmas and, in keeping with his avowed commitment to rationality über alles, betrayed no hint of nostalgia — or even anticipation — as the finish line drew near. Asked whether his last few pages had presented any special challenges, he said, “The process remains the same. My approach to page 17 of issue 300 isn’t any different than my approach would have been to, say, page 14 of issue 220.” Shortly after completing the last page, he was hardly reveling in the accomplishment, admitting that his state of mind was “more relief and gratitude that God allowed me to finish than satisfaction, per se.”‘ [posted on the Cerebus Yahoo Group]
[blogs] The Devil’s Dictionary — amusing dictionary of terms sometimes used on weblogs … ‘blogosphere, noun … An poisonous environment of methane, self-satisfaction and other hot gasses … “The only creatures that can survive in the blogosphere are low-order molds, able to feed off the waste of others.”
21 January 2004
[comics] Sinister Ducks – March of the Sinister Ducks (MP3 File Download) — a song by Alan Moore and his band The Sinister Ducks from 1983 … ‘What are they doing at night in the park? Ducks, Ducks! Quack, Quack! Quack, Quack! Think of them waddling about in the dark. Ducks, Ducks! Quack, Quack! Quack, Quack! Sneering and whispering and stealing your cars, Reading pornography, smoking cigars. Ducks, Ducks! Quack, Quack! Quack, Quack!’ [via Scaryduck and Neil Gaiman]
22 January 2004
[web] Attention, Please — article about how technology is constantly distracting us … ‘”Surfer’s Voice [is the] habit of half-heartedly talking to someone on the telephone while simultaneously surfing the Web, reading e-mails or trading instant messages. On one end of the phone is an annoyed colleague or family member discussing an important topic. On the other end, a party puts on a meager soundtrack of knowing participation: “OK… uh-hum… right… OK.” It is punctuated with surreptitious tapping of a keyboard. The brainy people who study these things call this phenomenon “absent presence.”‘
[comics] Cerebus #300 — various comics creators and insiders on the last issue of Cerebus (due in March). Gerhard comments: ‘When somebody asked me what it was like working with Dave, I would half-jokingly respond, “What do you think it’s like working with a manic-depressive, paranoid schizophrenic, hypochondriac, misogynist with delusions of grandeur and a messiah complex?” He seemed to hate himself and yet he thought that he was above all others. On the other hand, Dave can be the most caring, compassionate, unselfish, equitable, honour and duty-bound, thoughtful, reasoned, humorous and generous person you could hope to meet…’ [via the Cerebus Yahoo Group]
23 January 2004
[blogs] A couple of Simon Hoggart’s Sketches caught my eye …
- As Morticians Gather, Blair Turns To The Cheese … ‘[Blair] always walks out in front of us with a great big cheesy smile on his face. I know that smile. It means: “I hate the lot of you bastards” – and who can blame him? We’re all on deathwatch. He must feel like a man in hospital who gets a visit from a polite but inquisitive class of trainee morticians.’
- Bouncing Ken Brings The House Down … ‘You could ever call Mr Clarke white. His face and hands were the colour of brick, a terrific testimony to the preservative powers of pints of ale, cigarillos, and late night sessions in Ronnie Scott’s jazz club. More than a decade ago Alan Clark called him “a puffball … that pudgy life-insurance risk,” but Clark died in 1999 and Ken remains with us, pudgier than ever but still defying the actuaries. He didn’t so much approach the dispatch box as bounce up, like a space hopper in a collar and tie.’
[mp3] The World’s Most Dangerous Geek — profile of the Justin Frankel the creator of Winamp … ‘By 1999, Winamp and Shoutcast put digital music — and its young creator — on the map. And America Online wanted in, to the tune of $100 million. Frankel responded with two words: “Holy crap!” In addition to acquiring Nullsoft in the summer of 1999, the company paid $300 million for Spinner, the leading online-radio service at the time. These were the boom years, and the message was loud and clear: The future of music was on the “information superhighway,” and Justin Frankel, hired to further develop Winamp as the standard MP3 player, was going to drive it. And AOL was going to own it. In a statement, AOL’s chief operating officer, Bob Pittman, the guy who had previously created MTV, trumpeted, “Combining these leading Internet music brands with the audience reach of our brands will lift music online to the next level of popularity.” He had no idea. ‘
25 January 2004
[archive] Sidebar Blog Archive #4:
- LEDhead… Classic handheld electronic game re-creations.
- Corporate Blogging … Flash: Blogging Goes Corporate — from Wired.
- Perpetual Bubblewrap … Hours of Fun.
- AtariAge … ‘Have You Played Atari Today?’
- Eric Raymond’s Blog … ‘ Sex, software, politics, and firearms. Life’s simple pleasures.’
- Phone Bashing … Classic. ‘We support the Solid Gold Chart Busters and their anti mobile phone sentiment, but we are prepared to take it one step further.‘
26 January 2004
[blogs] Hansard Society Public Meeting about the Political Potential of MPs and Weblogs — looks interesting, find out what Tony Benn thinks about the potential of Blogs for MPs. Tomorrow, at 5.30pm, Westminster Hall, Grand Committee Room … ‘The main focus of the inquiry will be on new media but the debate will also cover MPs’ experiences of keeping a traditional diary and how this affects issues of accountability and connection with citizens. The speakers will bring contrasting views as to the best ways of informing and involving people in the democratic process.’
[tv] Garth Marenghi.com … ‘As many of my readership can attest, I invented the internet back in 1976 with my short story ‘Mindgrid’. Many of my predictions, alas, have since borne sorry fruit, and I, too, have spent many troubled hours distracted by erotica.’
27 January 2004
[politics] What if? — worst-case-scenario for Tony Blair as he enters his toughest week in government … ‘Mr Blair is more likely to fall in the style of Margaret Thatcher, with his cabinet colleagues insisting he go after deciding he has lost his electoral value and is now a liability. That’s what happened to Mrs Thatcher – the last prime minister to be viewed as invincible – after she failed to beat Michael Heseltine by a big enough margin to avoid another leadership ballot.’ [via The Daily Chump]
28 January 2004
29 January 2004
[politics] PM Revels In Gloating – And Subconscious It Isn’t — another Simon Hoggart Sketch of Tony Blair. ‘…How he gloated! He didn’t just declare that he had been vindicated, washed clean, shriven like the lamb, proved utterly moist, fragrant, and smelling of roses, but he pranced and limbo danced on the graves of his enemies. As we prepared for the blizzard outside, Mr Blair was the new Captain Gloats: “Gentlemen, I am staying here. I may be some time.” He was triumphant….’
[blogs] According to Popbitch the weblog Belle De Jour is writen by a “young Brit author” such as Zadie Smith (or Toby Young, Caitlin Moran, Tony Parsons and Alastair Campbell – maybe it’s a group blog?) … [via Scary Duck]
30 January 2004
[web] Gathering At The Waterhole — overview of del.icio.us … ‘[The] aggregation of links, combined with a feature that lets users collect links from other users in a special “inbox” (like the front page, but only featuring the users you’ve chosen) turns the site into a unique social experience. Like a weblog, yes, and a bookmark managing application – but also a unique social link-sharing tool, crammed with potential for sharing information and ideas.’
1 February 2004
[philosophy] Course or Cult? — interesting article about what happens at a “Introductory Philosophy” course run by The School of Economic Science … ‘It’s the third week of a nationally advertised philosophy course. The tutor has been asked about the relationship between rationality and logic, and the students wait expectantly for his answer. “Listen,” he says, “this is logic. All trains are long. All coaches are long. Therefore, all trains are coaches. That is logic, and it is no good for anything at all. There is absolutely no relationship between rationality and logic.” Couldn’t happen? Well it did.’
[lmg] LinkMachineGo Syndicated on LiveJournal — LMG’s content available to Livejournal users. Thanks to Pete who set it up… [Related: LinkMachineGo’s RSS Feed]
2 February 2004
[comics] NeilAlien’s Ask The Mysterious Orb — Ask the Orb a Yes/No Question and receive your answer … ‘Warning: The demons within the Mysterious Orb might shriek horribly.’
3 February 2004
[blogs] You’re Fired! — the New York Post on Blog Privacy … ‘Dating can also become tricky terrain when one or both parties are blog-savvy. “The blogging community is terribly incestuous,” Lapatine admits. “If the relationship doesn’t go well, all your mutual friends will read about it. This,” he adds, “is how a friend of mine learned that he had halitosis and was a bad dancer.”‘ [via Anil’s Daily Links]
[politics] Simon Hoggart on Alistair Campbell: ‘…you have to realise that most ministers have the same view of Alastair Campbell as butlers might of his lordship’s nasty, slobbery dog; they pretend to like the beast, but would dearly love to get it in the pantry and kick it in the slats.’
4 February 2004
[comics] I guess Frederick Wertham was right about Batman and Robin… [via ¡Journalista!]
‘Only someone ignorant of the fundamentals of psychiatry and the psychopathology of sex can fail to realize a subtle atmosphere of homoeroticism which pervades the adventure of the mature ‘Batman’ and his young friend ‘Robin.’ — Frederic Wertham, Seduction of the Innocent’
‘Only someone ignorant of the fundamentals of psychiatry and the psychopathology of sex can fail to realize a subtle atmosphere of homoeroticism which pervades the adventure of the mature ‘Batman’ and his young friend ‘Robin.’ — Frederic Wertham, Seduction of the Innocent’
5 February 2004
[tv] The Severity Rating of Swearing and Offensive Language … The Top 10: ‘Cunt, Motherfucker, Fuck, Wanker, Nigger, Bastard, Prick, Bollocks, Arsehole, Paki’ [via I Love Everything]
6 February 2004
[tv] Influential Friends — a summing up of Friends (the last season begins on Channel 4 tonight) … ‘Friends resonated not only because it was brilliantly funny, but also because it struck a chord with its audience. If Seinfeld was, famously, a show about nothing, Friends was a programme about arrested development and our desire for an extended adolescence. The reassuring subtext to Ross and Rachel’s turbulent love lives, and Monica and Chandler’s unfulfilled careers, was that it was normal to be directionless in love and work even in your late 20s.’
[comics] A Short History of the Photocopying and Dissemination of My New Fighting Technique Is Unstoppable — David Rees describes the publishing and distributing history of MNFTIU. ‘…the book was being distributed via fax without my permission. This is called “file sharing.” I asked the guy if he thought his photocopy friend would make me some copies of the book at a reduced rate ? seeing as how he was already engaged in unauthorized fax piracy on the high seas of clip-art comics. He thought this was reasonable. I called the guy at the photocopy shop and we worked out an arrangement whereby I would stop by the shop on Friday afternoons with a 12-pack of beer. I would leave the beer on top of the counter and he would kick a box of books under the counter. I would lug the books (actually, collated pages) home on the subway and staple them in my living room. That is how I learned the ancient art of bookbinding.’
7 February 2004
[archive] Sidebar Blog Archive #5:
- Kill It And Grill It … ‘Ted Nugent likes to say, ‘You can’t grill it until you kill it.’
- Get Your Blog On … [via Haddock]
- Doomworld … ‘The definitive source for Doom news, information and development’
- Pagan Hierarchy … who looks down on who…
- 50 Essential Books … annoying book lists.
- TiVo Cute Pet … Comic Strip about TiVo’s from Jeremy Dennis.
- Captain Haddock’s Curses … ‘Billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles!’
8 February 2004
[tech] Why does the Windows Copy Dialog give such Horrible Estimates? — explains why copying files is often vaguely annoying. ‘…the copy dialog is just guessing. It can’t predict the future, but it is forced to try. And at the very beginning of the copy, when there is very little history to go by, the prediction can be really bad.’
[mumbo-jumbo] Francis Wheen’s top 10 modern delusions …
1. “God is on our side”
2. The market is rational
3. There is no such thing as reality
4. We mustn’t be “judgmental”
5. Laissez-faire capitalism is the prerequisite for trade and prosperity
6. Astrology and similar delusions are “harmless fun”
7. Thin air is solid
8. Sentimental hysteria is a sign of emotional maturity
9. America’s economic success is entirely due to private enterprise
10. “It could be you…”
10 February 2004
[quotes] Quotes from Either President of the United States George W. Bush or Senator / Chancellor / Emperor Palpatine from the Star Wars Movies … ‘Now witness the firepower of this fully operational battle station’
» WikidPad … Wiki Notebook / Outliner for Windows [via del.icio.us]
» Plep Redesigns! … the linklogger’s linklogger!
[ipod] iPod Pros and Cons — discussion on Metafilter … ‘An iPod, by contrast, keeps no secrets. The iPod records what songs have been played both most recently and most often, so it quickly becomes a record of the owner’s internal aural landscape. Listening to someone else’s iPod is thus an intimate, almost invasive activity. On the scale of personal exposure, it’s not exactly trading diaries, but it’s much more revealing than a mix tape’
11 February 2004
[tv] ‘I hereby vow never to work in TV again’ — more from Garth Marenghi. ‘…a woman, eyes bedewed with tears, laments: “Hast then our humble fabulist deserted his loyal readerhood [50 million sales worldwide and counting] in favour of televisual terrors [scary TV]?” Fear not, friends. This scribe ain’t about to hang up his nib. In fact my new novel Return of the Coil, in which a woman circumnavigates hell via a cursed contraceptive device, hits the shelves in mid-Feb (Asda do a three quid off deal, but if you order it direct from my website, the first 30 punters get a complimentary egg cup in the shape of a skeleton head).’
[politics] Boris Johnson on Andrew Gilligan … ‘I thnk the reason there is all this beastliness towards Gilligan is because he is not particularly good looking.’ [via Sashinka]
12 February 2004
[comics] 200 Words from Mark Millar — bite-size Q/A with Martin from the Copydesk setting the question … ‘Superman, for me, was the pinnacle of my ambition since the age of four of five and writing him was a nostalgic joy, but we’d be stunted as a creative community if we just followed our childhood ambitions. Even the guys who created Superman and Batman would just have written stories about Hercules and Sherlock Holmes if their ambitions had been limited by their ten year old day-dreams.’ [Related: 200 Words Archive, Mark Millar’s Official Site]
13 February 2004
[summary] The History of the Universe in 200 Words or Less — The Last Sixty Years: ‘World conflagration. Fission explosions. United Nations. Space exploration. Assassinations. Lunar excursions. Resignation. Computerization. World Trade Organization. Terrorism. Internet expansion. Reunification. Dissolution. World-Wide Web creation. Composition. Extrapolation? ‘
[music] One Hundred Albums You Should Remove from Your Collection Immediately … ‘The Police – Synchronicity — That this album is considered a classic is quite a feat for a collection of songs that Keith Richards deemed suitable for a dentist’s waiting room. Certainly, no album dealing with topics such as stalking, psychological abuse, betrayal and silent desperation has ever sounded so homogenized or made less thought-provoking pronouncements. To enjoy Synchronicity is to consider one’s self to be socially enlightened without having to dredge up any real empathy.’
[quote] Marc Smith: ‘If you’re 1 in a million, then there are 768 of you on the Internet.’
14 February 2004
[books] Fight Club Quotes … ‘You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else, and we are all part of the same compost pile.’
15 February 2004
[apple] Apple to open flagship London store this Xmas — the Register on an Apple Store UK … ‘The store is believed to be located at 229-247 Regent Street, locating it near Oxford Circus and Liberty’s, Dickens & Jones, Nike and FCUK stores. The site has been under re-development for a few years now.’
16 February 2004
[guardian] Guardian Rejects Tabloid — the Guardian won’t be producting a tabloid edition of the newspaper. Alan Rusbridger: ‘We’re still in the phoney war stage, with millions being ploughed into marketing a dual strategy which is, ultimately, unaffordable. No one I know believes that the Independent intends to keep publishing in two sizes. It will drop the broadsheet as soon as it can – and the Times is also trying to push its readers towards the tabloid.’ [via Words of Waldman]
17 February 2004
[comics] Introducing a Cartoonist Named Crumb — profile of Sophie Crumb from the New York Times … ‘When first encountered at a Berkeley cafe, she sat hunched over a sketchbook intently inking a portrait of two chess players seated nearby. “If I don’t draw for more than a day or two I feel depressed and useless,” she explained. Ms. Crumb at work is reminiscent of several scenes in “Crumb,” Terry Zwigoff’s 1994 documentary about her father. The resemblance is only heightened by her surroundings, the remnants of the hippie subculture from which Mr. Natural, Fritz the Cat and the rest of her father’s most famous characters sprang.’ [via Boing Boing]
[bbc] The Death of Reith — Scary Duck on working for the BBC … ‘Greg (we always called him that, bless him) may have come across as-too-matey-by half with his jacket slung over his shoulder, but he cared about the corporation from top to bottom, and wasn’t afraid to make unpopular decisions. The sale of BBC Technology killed of the illusion of St Greg in some quarters, as did the outsourcing of property management and the construction of the Grey Lubyanka in White City, where jobs would mysteriously disappear en route from other locations.’
18 February 2004
[bdj] Belle de Jour was featured in Arrivals/Departures in this months Face Magazine …
» ‘It therefore follows that I must have a stalker, but as it is a good time of year for stalkers, I’ll let it go for now.’
» ‘It therefore follows that I must have a stalker, but as it is a good time of year for stalkers, I’ll let it go for now.’
19 February 2004
[food] Why I love… All-day breakfasts — ‘To fully appreciate an all-day breakfast, it should be eaten after midday, hideously hungover, when the sober-minded are choosing between some disgusting wrap or trays of lurid raw fish. I hate to come over all Nigel Slater, but there is something comforting about a plate full of protein in the middle of the day. It’s the nearest these isles have to soul food.’
[blogs] The Blogfather’s Hit List — InstaPundit’s Bookmarks… ‘Reynolds keeps readers coming back by resisting the urge to play pundit on everything and instead focusing on important facts and phrases that don’t make the headlines. Where does he find them all?’
20 February 2004
[web] Anna Friel Dating — odd dating site – aimed at search spiders perhaps? … ‘Welcome to the Anna Friel dating and romance page. We provide personals and match making for dating Anna Friel interested persons. This is a great place to find love and romance for singles and those marridge minded. Don’t forget to check out the weekly dating tips and advice. This site will help you to date with people who are interested in Anna Friel romance. We have a huge selection of Anna Friel people wanting to meet you!!… If you want to jump straight into the deep end Click to find your Anna Friel partner.’
22 February 2004
» Curveball … 3D Ping Pong Distraction.
» The 10 Worst Album Covers … Joyce scares me.
» This week’s UK TV … Telly Listings [via Mo Morgan]
» alt.binaries.nl …‘Search the Latest Files in Binary Newsgroups’
23 February 2004
[porn] The Trouble with Larry — profile / interview of Larry Flynt …
‘At 40,000ft, the editor of Hustler looked down the cabin and had a vision of “a guy with sandals on, and an old man with a beard. I took it to be them,” says Flynt, referring to God and Saint Paul. Deeply affected by the appearance of his distinguished fellow-passengers, he began making changes to his magazine. The cartoon strip “Chester the Molester” became “Chester the Protector – Guardian of Young Girls”. Hustler, Flynt promised, “will no longer demean women.” If you take a look at the “Asian” section of the Hustler website (you might begin with “Noy”, a young woman who explains how surprised and thankful she was to discover that US servicemen have larger penises than the humble Vietnamese) you’ll notice there’s been something of a rethink on this front. “What happened to fighting for Jesus?” “What happened was, I went to a psychiatrist. And he diagnosed me as being bipolar.” “And that’s why you saw God?” “Right. If only all of those born-again converts would take a little lithium, like I did, they’d be fine.”‘
24 February 2004
[tv] Columbo Quotes … ‘I worry. I mean, little things bother me. I’m a worrier. I mean, little insignificant details – I lose my appetite. I can’t eat. My wife, she says to me, “you know, you can really be a pain.”‘
25 February 2004
[comics] The Dave Sim Experience — a Onion AV Club interviewer attempts to negotiate an inteview with Dave Sim … ‘I offered to fax him copies of the interviews I’ve done with Alan Moore and Scott McCloud, so he could see what kind of stuff we do. I mentioned that we look for people who have non-mainstream opinions. He said that Scott McCloud and Alan Moore ARE mainstream. I said that they’ve been embraced by the mainstream, but that they don’t necessarily express themselves in mainstream-friendly ways; for instance, Alan Moore claims that he worships a sock puppet. Dave said something about that depending on whether it’s a feminist issue. I asked how worshipping a sock puppet was a feminist issue. He said “Same pus, different zit.” I said “I’m not getting you.” He said “Yeah. I know.”‘
26 February 2004
[bdj] The Times covers Belle De Jour’s recently announced Book Deal … ‘Belle de Jour, the internet’s most talked-about web diary, has a book deal. According to Publisher’s Marketplace, the London call girl, who may or may not be a literary name masquerading as a high-class hooker, has inked a deal with Weidenfeld & Nicolson/Orion to turn her anonymous tales of love-for-money into a manuscript due for delivery in August. The film rights are also being frantically contested. Which begs the question: what happens when her parents find out?’
29 February 2004
[comics] The ROZZ-TOX Manifesto — created in 1980 by Gary Panter after conversations with Matt Groening … ‘Item 15 – Law: If you want better media, go make it. ‘
1 March 2004
[tv] History Today — archive of sketches from the Mary White House Experience … [via Green Fairy]
‘RN: You see that Theo Kojak? That’s you, that is.
DB: {spits} See that bit of flob?
RN: Yes.
DB: That’s you, that is.
RN: No, that’s your swimming pool in your garden.’
[politics] Downing Street Says… — blogging daily lobby briefings from Downing Street … From a Q&A with Tony Blair: ‘I’m not going to comment on the work that our security services do. No Prime Minister has done that. I’m not going to comment on it. Do not take that as an indication that the allegations that were made by Clare Short this morning are true. Simply understand, I am not going to comment on the operations of our security services.’ [via Tom Watson]
2 March 2004
[comics] Comics Weblog Updates — which comics weblogs have updated recently. [via Neilalien]
[mobiles] Mobiles sound on the Underground and London tube gets mobile access … ‘LU will trial mobile access in one or two deep-level stations to judge customer demand. The company stresss that this is unlikely to be a big money spinner, and it will be guided by the wishes of its customers.’ [via 2lmc]
3 March 2004
[comics] 5 Questions for Dave Sim — Q&A from ADD Blog… ‘The prime creative engine — at least until I discovered God — was the awareness that anything less than actually finishing the 300 issues would make the book a failure. Literally, “300 or Bust.”‘
4 March 2004
[quote] Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72: ‘On page 39 of California Living magazine I found a hand-lettered ad from the McDonald’s Hamburger Corporation, one of Nixon’s big contributors in the ’72 presidential campaign: PRESS ON, it said. NOTHING IN THE WORLD CAN TAKE THE PLACE OF PERSISTENCE. TALENT WILL NOT: NOTHING IS MORE COMMON THAN UNSUCESSFUL MEN WITH TALENT. GENIUS WILL NOT: UNREWARDED GENIUS IS ALMOST A PROVERB. EDUCATION ALONE WILL NOT: THE WORLD IS FULL OF EDUCATED DERELICTS. PERSISTENCE AND DETERMINATION ALONE ARE OMNIPOTENT. I read it several times before I grasped the full meaning.’
[quote] Grant Morrison, Animal Man: ‘What’ll it be next? Choice extracts from the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations? Trotting out the Nietzsche and the Shelley to dignify some old costumed claptrap? Probably.’
[quote] Tony Soprano: ‘Uncle June and I, we had our problems, with the business. But I never should’ve razzed him about eating pussy; this whole war could’ve been averted. Cunnilingus and psychiatry brought us to this.’
[quote] Alistair Cooke: ‘Last Tuesday night, for the first time in thirty years, I found myself by one casual chance in a thousand, on hand in a small, narrow serving pantry of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, a place that I suppose will never be wiped out of my memory: a sinister alley, a Roman circus run amok, and a charnel house. It would be quite false to say, as I should truly like to say, that I’m sorry I was there. It’s more complicated than that…’ [thanks Graybo]
[quote] Dr. Evil’s Childhood: ‘Very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink, he would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Some times he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy, the sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical, summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we’d make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds, pretty standard really. At the age of 12 I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen, a Zoroastrian woman named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum, it’s breathtaking, I suggest you try it.’
5 March 2004
[quote] Robert McKee in Adaptation: ‘Nothing happens in the world? Are you out of your fucking mind? People are murdered every day. There’s genocide, war, corruption. Every fucking day, somewhere in the world, somebody sacrifices his life to save someone else. Every fucking day, someone, somewhere makes a conscious decision to destroy someone else. People find love, people lose it. For Christ’s sake, a child watches her mother beaten to death on the steps of a church. Someone goes hungry. Somebody else betrays his best friend for a woman. If you can’t find that stuff in life, then you, my friend, don’t know crap about life. And why the FUCK are you wasting my two precious hours with your movie? I don’t have any use for it. I don’t have any bloody use for it.’
6 March 2004
[tea] A Nice Cup of Tea — George Orwell’s guide to making a cup of tea. ‘…one should pour tea into the cup first. This is one of the most controversial points of all; indeed in every family in Britain there are probably two schools of thought on the subject. The milk-first school can bring forward some fairly strong arguments, but I maintain that my own argument is unanswerable. This is that, by putting the tea in first and stirring as one pours, one can exactly regulate the amount of milk whereas one is liable to put in too much milk if one does it the other way round.’
7 March 2004
[tea] Douglas Adam’s Guide to making a good cup of tea … ‘The socially correct way of pouring tea is to put the milk in after the tea. Social correctness has traditionally had nothing whatever to do with reason, logic or physics. In fact, in England it is generally considered socially incorrect to know stuff or think about things. It’s worth bearing this in mind when visiting.’ [thanks Stu]
8 March 2004
[film] Making History — interview with Errol Morris about his documentary The Fog of War on Robert McNamara … ‘I’m not a conspiracy theorist, I don’t believe in conspiracies. People are far too confused, too much at cross-purposes with themselves, too argumentative, too nutso ever effectively to conspire to do anything. Maybe they manage to pull it off for a limited amount of time, but not on some mass scale, like deceiving the entire world. What scares me more, and it’s at the heart of the movie, at the heart of this particular story, is not that we make this plan to lie, to deceive, but that we somehow convince ourselves of our own rectitude, our own correctness, our own rightness, no matter what the evidence to the contrary. Humans love nonsense, they lap it up. Ultimately, we’re just big baboons!’ [Related: Fog of War Trailer]
[tv] Married to the Mob — preview of Sopranos Series 5. ‘…if season five has an overall design, it is that of things falling apart, and there is every indication, particularly as episode four draws to a close – on a devastating shot of Carmela entering the house that has become the most iconic television manor since Southfork – that Chase will now tackle the subjects of separation and perhaps divorce with the same uncommon understanding he brought, in previous seasons, to our collective fear of psychiatry, the perils of raising children and the long shadows cast by parents. Where this will all lead is anybody’s guess.’
9 March 2004
[comics] Illustrating the Imagination — Apple profiles Dave McKean. On Superheroes: ‘The problem with the “Supermans” and “Batmans” is that they really work best when they’re very, very simple and when they’re done by people who loved them as kids and want to recreate that naiveté. But I don’t have those feelings for them at all. I had a go at doing something different with Batman but as soon as you start trying to give these characters any kind of complexity or come at them from any other angle, their foundations are so weak that they all kind of collapse. It’s a really horrible calamity of form and content.’ [via blackbeltjones]
[google] Googlemaniacs — some great quotes about Google from notable users …
Garry Trudeau: ‘Google is my rapid-response research assistant. On the run-up to a deadline, I may use it to check the spelling of a foreign name, to acquire an image of a particular piece of military hardware, to find the exact quote of a public figure, check a stat, translate a phrase, or research the background of a particular corporation. It’s the Swiss Army knife of information retrieval.’
10 March 2004
[bdj] The Web Diary, the Book Deal and the very Happy Hooker [Password] — major article in the Times covering Belle De Jour’s Book Deal and the questions about authenticity and identity which surround the Blog … ‘So what does Belle look like? “It was simply nice to see that she wasn’t Toby Young,” jokes her editor Helen Garnons-Williams, relating their first meeting.’
11 March 2004
[politics] Playing with Pretty-Straight-Kinda-Guy Bat — another Simon Hoggart Parliamentary Sketch. On Anne Widdecombe: ‘…the fascination for us came from watching Ms Widdecombe while [Tony Blair] failed to answer her question. Her brain appeared to lose all motor control over her body. Head, arms and legs began to fly off in wildly different directions, like a marionette manipulated by four drunken puppeteers. Weird growlings, rumblings and squeaks started to emerge. They became louder and more alarming. Imagine you were at a traction engine rally and the engine running towards you started to shake and shudder, while steam hissed out of the boiler. Suddenly the driver leaps off the seat and yells: “Save yourselves! It’s too late for me!” The Speaker had to interrupt, in the interests of public safety. “When you ask a question, it is polite to get the answer – even if you consider it not to be an answer.” This is the equivalent of fire safety officers dowsing her with foam.’
12 March 2004
[comics] 5 Questions for Alan Moore — another Q&A from ADD Blog… Moore on Writing Voice Of the Fire: ‘As it happened, quite eerily, there were a number of events that more than satisfied the various things that I needed to finish the novel satisfyingly, you know, things like severed heads and big black dogs, often in conjunction with each other. So, it was very eerie at times, not just surprising, but incredibly eerie. There are moments during a writer’s life, especially if he or she is dealing with something very close to home, if it’s getting a bit self-referential, that sometimes the borderlines between fiction and your actual reality can get dangerously blurred and, yeah, that happened more than once during the course of Voice Of The Fire.’
13 March 2004
[music] They Shoot, He Scores — great interview with film composer Ennio Morricone. On Creativity: ‘I simply want to carry on expressing my ideas. Other people see the moment of creativity as magical, but it is not. That’s just a romantic notion. For me, it’s simply, “I have to get from A to B. How am I going to achieve this?” You have to be like the painter who knows his brush strokes. In the end it comes down to technique and experience. Sometimes a small idea will come without warning, but after that, I insist once more upon craft. If you know how to do your job, you will get a result. It’s very simple.’
14 March 2004
[comics] John Byrne on Grant Morrison and Alan Moore: ‘I get no sense from [Grant] Morrison’s work that he has any “love for the genre”. I get the same vibe I get from [Alan] Moore — a cold and calculated mixing of ingredients the writer knows the fans like, but to which the writer himself has no eviceral connection. Nostalgia without being nostalgic, as I have dubbed it.’ [via ADD]
15 March 2004
[bdj] Who is ‘Belle de Jour’, the high-class Hooker whose Web Diary is set to be a Literary Sensation? — the Sunday Times suggests that Belle de Jour maybe writer Christopher Hart.
‘…vague echoes and coincidences? Perhaps. But there are links between Belle’s blog and the real Hart, too. Early on in the blog Belle hangs out in the Blue Posts, a pub in Soho. It happens to be just round the corner from The Erotic Review, with which Walsh has of late been keeping in close contact, according to some sources.’
‘…vague echoes and coincidences? Perhaps. But there are links between Belle’s blog and the real Hart, too. Early on in the blog Belle hangs out in the Blue Posts, a pub in Soho. It happens to be just round the corner from The Erotic Review, with which Walsh has of late been keeping in close contact, according to some sources.’
16 March 2004
[bogs] “Recent Posts” Sidebar Code for Blogger — how to add a sidebar with Recent Posts to Blogger Blogs … ‘This is a strange story. At about 3:00 this morning I awoke with a headache and heartburn. Normally, my first instinct would be to stroll into the bathroom, prepare an Alka-Seltzer, and go back to sleep. Not last night, I woke up and I had a wild idea about blogging…’
17 March 2004
[books] Digital Utopia and its Flaws — Cory Doctorow interview by R. U. Sirius… ‘I think that we all have urges toward deviance in some ways. I mean, not in the kind of leather-and-chains sense but in the traditional sociological sense … being a little bit weird. I think the only reason in fact that it mostly appears that we’re all doing the same thing is because we don’t look hard enough. We have the assumption that all the people in the nightclub dancing to the band are all doing the same thing. But I think when you look closely you find that there are all kinds of differences. I think that every single one of us is an edge case.’
18 March 2004
[comics] The Reluctant Hero — another interview with Alan Moore … ‘Put together by Paul Gravett, an internationally renowned expert on comic-book art (he also curated last year’s Comica festival at the ICA), the exhibition features a mass of original, rare or never-seen-before art created for Alan Moore works over the last 25 years, as well as previewing The Mindscape of Alan Moore, an 80-minute documentary on the writer. “It’s an enormous honour,” Moore says of the show. “Even if it makes me feel like I’m almost dead.”‘
[bdj] Internet Call-Girl Unmasked — the Times unmasks Belle de Jour. … ‘Don Foster, America’s foremost literary sleuth, identified quirks in Belle’s text, such as the way she uses brackets, dashes, compound verbs and italics. He entered this information into Google, the internet search engine, and within 20 minutes found that Miss Champion was the only person who matched the linguistic fingerprint. “While no piece of evidence is conclusive by itself, I’m sure we have found our woman,” he said.’
19 March 2004
[bdj] Picture of Sarah Champion (outed yesterday as Belle De Jour) found on Andrew Orlowski’s website. Doesn’t it seem a little suspicious that the biggest critic of blogging at the very least worked with Sarah Champion in the past and they are both currently based in San Francisco? [thanks Rachel!]
» Orlowski on Badpress: ‘How I became a journalist. Scandalsheet started in 1992 with Sarah Champion. The first issue (150) was printed in 24 hours. Sarah has no recollection of this night.’
» Orlowski’s Byline in the Register: ‘Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco’
» Sarah Champion’s Location: ‘Last night Ms Champion, who is currently living with her boyfriend in California, did not deny that she was the woman behind Belle. “I’m in San Francisco at the moment… to hide,” she said, laughing.’
20 March 2004
[bdj] Who is the real Belle de Jour, the internet’s best-read whore? — The Independent suggests that Andrew Orlowski is Belle De Jour. ‘…as soon as one name appeared to slip from the frame, another one sprang up to replace it. The new contender is Andrew Orlowski, who grew up on the opposite side of the Pennines to Ms Champion, but with whom she collaborated on a number of minor publications in the early years of the last decade. Described in some quarters as a “cult figure”, Mr Orlowski has a record of cultured sex writing on the internet. Yesterday, however, he was not taking any calls.’
» Of Course Belle Was Faking It. That’s What Sex – And Cyberspace – Are All About — Jeanette Winterson on BdJ … ‘Belle is a natural-born blogger; her style is witty and compact, with the right mixture of intimacy and disassociation. We feel we know her, yet we don’t know her at all – doubly so, if she turns out to be a fake.’
» Tom Coates on BdJ … ‘Can we really be so shocked and startled by the idea that one of the enormous number of prostitutes in the world has decided to write a weblog? Certainly it’s worth a read. She seems like a nice, sorted, intelligent person.’
21 March 2004
[bdj] I was Branded a Call-Girl Blogger — Sarah Champion on what it’s Like to be mistaken for Belle de Jour … ‘Ever since I found myself described as a ‘wild child’ in a local paper as a teenager, I dreaded that one day I would wake up to find paparazzi outside my door. Since then I’ve published a book of ecstasy drug stories in the wake of Leah Betts’s death, briefly dated a well-known TV comedian and shared a spliff with a former member of the Beatles. But it never once occurred to me that what would finally bring the paparazzi to my door would be my use of commas.’
22 March 2004
[comics] Alan Moore’s memorial for Julie Schwartz: ‘And now we hear that Julie has been… discontinued? Cancelled? But they said the same about Green Lantern and the Flash back in the early ‘fifties, so we can’t be certain. This is comics. There’ll be some way around it, be some parallel world Earth-Four Julie, born thirty years later to account for problems in the continuity, and decked out in a jazzier, more streamlined outfit.’ [via Neilalien]
[bdj] Did Register staffer mastermind ‘call-girl weblog’ conspiracy? — the Register responds to the allegation that Andrew Orlowski is BdJ. Orlowski: I’m shocked. To be accused of being a whore is one thing, but to be accused of being a weblogger is actionable.’
23 March 2004
[macs] Douglas Adams’s Mac IIfx — vintage Mac collector finds a Mac IIfx which used to belong to DNA … ‘I popped an ethernet card in the IIfx, mounted an AppleShare volume and ran Norton Utilities to recover the files onto the server. The results? I recovered hundreds of documents relating to Jane Belson’s professional work and precisely two that bear the hand of Douglas Adams. I doubt whether the copyright lawyers would chase me for publishing his Idiots Guide to using a Mac but you wouldn’t be thanking me either. For now at least, the draft of a TV sketch called Brief Re-encounter is strictly for my personal enjoyment.’
25 March 2004
[comics] 5 Questions for Peter Bagge — another Q&A from ADD … ‘I’m pleased to see that comics are making inroads in books stores via the graphic novel route, I’m very upset at the shrinking demand for the traditional comic book format, which is by far my favorite medium to work in.’
[bdj] Belle Doesn’t Ring True — the Guardian rolls out Cynthia Payne to analyse BdJ … ‘I think this is filth, and I certainly don’t want to be associated with it. I was never involved in anything like this. In my day, we did it the proper way – £25 without extras, food and drink, and a choice of ladies. We knocked off £5 for old age pensioners and we charged men half-price if they were past it, and just fancied watching. We had a high-class clientèle – no rowdy kids, no yobs, all well-dressed men in suits, who knew how to respect a lady.’
26 March 2004
[comics] List of “Holy —, Batman!” uttered by Robin — from the Batman TV Series … ‘Holy Astringent pomite fruit!’ [via Neilalien]
[politics] Tom Watson: ‘One last thing. Intervening on Ken Clarke is as scary as you imagine.’
28 March 2004
[bdj] ‘I am a young woman. I have sex for money. And I love to write. This is my story…’ — BdJ wrote a five page article for the Sunday Telegraph Magazine …
» Don Foster in the Observer’s Letters: ‘Never have I said, either on or off the record, that Belle’s identity has been established by anything I ever said or contributed. I made perfectly clear, in a series of telephone conversations and email exchanges with the Times, of which I have a complete record, that Champion is a person of interest. Contrary to what the Times has reported, I do not believe that the search for Belle is over.’
» Sarah Champion’s Belle De Jour Page — links and scans of articles.
» “Belle de Jour” and literary forensics — more analysis of the text of BdJ. ‘…literary forensics is harder than it looks. It’s the practice of determining authorship from quirks, styles, idiosyncrasies, etc. I’ve played around with it, and been wrong. My speculations, which again, might certainly be wrong: 1) The “Belle de Jour” blog is a fake, written by at least two people, one starting it, then another taking over later. 2) At least the second person, the one who took over, is a journalist. I’m more certain of #1 than #2.’
» Belle De Jour: Diary of a London Call Girl by Anonymous at Amazon.co.uk.
30 March 2004
[film] Citizen Kubrick — Jon Ronson explores Stanley Kubrick’s Archive … ‘Tony takes me into a large room painted blue and filled with books. “This used to be the cinema,” he says. “Is it the library now?” I ask. “Look closer at the books,” says Tony. I do. “Bloody hell,” I say. “Every book in this room is about Napoleon!” “Look in the drawers,” says Tony. I do. “It’s all about Napoleon, too!” I say. “Everything in here is about Napoleon!” I feel a little like Shelley Duvall in The Shining, chancing upon her husband’s novel and finding it is comprised entirely of the line “All Work And No Play Makes Jack A Dull Boy” typed over and over again.’
[tv] Kenneth Williams Quote from Neil Gaiman … ‘”I’m a cult,” Kenneth Williams said to me, in 1985. “I’m an enormous cult. People stop in the street and point to me and say look, it’s that cult from the television.”‘
1 April 2004
[comics] Yet Another Dave Sim interview from the Onion AV Club … ‘It was pure guesswork on my part back in 1979 as to whether I would have the stamina to write, pencil, ink, letter, tone, and fill the back of a monthly comic book for 26 years. In retrospect, I should’ve said 250 issues. Finishing the book, the last four years, what had previously been an interesting job that left me a certain amount of spare time for other things had become a 15-hour-a-day, six-day-a-week, Herculean task. At the age of 23, I actually thought I would be fine into my 50s doing a monthly comic book, but that I would let myself slack off by ending it at the age of 47. It’s a young man’s game.’ [thanks Kabir]
2 April 2004
[book] Six Degrees of Lois Weisberg — one of the New Yorker Articles that formed the basis for Malcolm Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point … [via Sashinka]
‘Once, in the mid-fifties, on a whim, Lois took the train to New York to attend the World Science Fiction Convention and there she met a young writer by the name of Arthur C. Clarke. Clarke took a shine to Lois, and next time he was in Chicago he called her up. “He was at a pay phone,” Lois recalls. “He said, ‘Is there anyone in Chicago I should meet?’ I told him to come over to my house.” Lois has a throaty voice, baked hard by half a century of nicotine, and she pauses between sentences to give herself the opportunity for a quick puff. Even when she’s not smoking, she pauses anyway, as if to keep in practice. “I called Bob Hughes, one of the people who wrote for my paper.” Pause. “I said, ‘Do you know anyone in Chicago interested in talking to Arthur Clarke?’ He said, ‘Yeah, Isaac Asimov is in town. And this guy Robert, Robert…Robert Heinlein.’ So they all came over and sat in my study.” Pause. “Then they called over to me and they said, ‘Lois’ — I can’t remember the word they used. They had some word for me. It was something about how I was the kind of person who brings people together.” This is in some ways the archetypal Lois Weisberg story.’
4 April 2004
[blogs] New Kids On The Blog — the Observer examines blogs in the UK … ‘Those already bored with the phenomenon – particularly the techies who started blogging years ago as a way of sharing boring stuff about computer code – claim that the golden days of blogging are over, that what passes for blogging nowadays is the most banal wash-up of aimless lives, millions of pages slowing the internet and clogging Google. What they really don’t like is that publishing on the internet is not just for geeks any more.’
5 April 2004
[books] Amazon World — amusing user reviews from Amazon.com. Moby Dick: ‘I am quite the fan of stories which involve man eating sea creatures, such as Jaws. Moby Dick is nothing compared to such classics, I fear. In fact, it is boring with a capital B. What is the whales motivation? You dont know. There is no suspense, and I find the idea of people hunting whales offensive. Offensive with a capital O. Whales are lovely, peaceful creatures and that is why their slaughter has been outlawed. This book makes whales seem like demonic, murderous creatures of doom. Such a thing should not be read to a child, for it preaches that animal cruelty is ok. Never before have seen such an abundance of immoralality! I am offended! I feel as if my brainards are going to freeze over and crumble like spoiled peanut brittle. Take my word for it, dont read this book’ [via Kottke’s Remaindered Links]
6 April 2004
[ipod] The Incredible Future Boy Versus Malevolent Gutter Punk — blogger foils mugging attempt with iPod mini … ‘I was carrying my iPod Mini. Just in case you haven’t seen one, the mini is not your mother’s iPod. The rounded edges and soft plastic chassis that characterized the older generations have given way to one sharp little fucker of a digital lifestyle appliance.’
7 April 2004
[bbc] Alastair Campbell’s Wheel of Retribution — a little bit out of date but fun (especially if you work at the BBC) … ‘Whip… John Humprhys.’ [via Blah Blah Flowers]
8 April 2004
[blogs] How to write a Blog-Buster — Guardian Online covers Fiction written using the blog format … On Belle de Jour: ‘The anonymous prostitute’s diary is a familiar genre in erotic fiction, one that, in print, probably wouldn’t float many boats these days. But via the blog form’s sense of immediacy, Belle de Jour has revived the cliches so successfully that publishers are offering six-figure advances and journalists are desperate to find out who the real Belle de Jour is. But her real identity, call girl or literary hoaxer, is something of a side issue. The blog gets so much attention because, with its teasing sequence of daily “entries”, it tells an old story in a new way.’