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London Bloggers [Comic Blogs][Other Blogs] | 19 October 2006
[books] Penguin Books Covers — a collection of seventies book covers on Flickr … [via Limbicnutrition]
18 October 2006
17 October 2006
[london] Crap Headlines — photos of headlines from North London Newspapers … ‘HUNT FOR SHOPPING CITY FLASHER’ [via Tom Morris]
[doom] Supposing … We invent some decoy doomsday scenarios — more from Charlie Brooker … ‘Terrorist extremists? Yeah, they’re frightening – but what about those North Korean nukes? Or global warming, come to think of it? I need a personal bloody organiser to sort it out – a gizmo that’ll set me a “timetable of concern” just so I can break down my overall sense of creeping dread into manageable, bite-sized flurries of panic. Otherwise, I’m in danger of forgetting to worry about some things – like bird flu, for instance. I haven’t seriously crapped myself about that since, ooh, February? Whenever it was, a top-up’s long overdue.’
16 October 2006
[internet] Some Tech-Gen Youth Go Offline — Wired News on the growing disillusionment with social network websites … ‘Bugeja often lectures students about “interpersonal intelligence” — knowing when, where and for what purpose technology is most appropriate. He points out the students he’s seen walking across campus, holding hands with significant others while talking on cell phones to someone else. He’s also observed them in coffee shops, surrounded by people, but staring instead at a computer screen. “True friends,” he tells them, “need to learn when to stop blogging and go across campus to help a friend.”‘ [via meish.org]
[comics] Castafiore Can’t Say Haddock! — a list of Bianca Castafiore’s mispronunciations of Captain Haddock’s name in Tintin … ‘The Castafiore Emerald, page 6, frame 4a: Captain Bartok. (frame 4b: Haddock responds: Haddock, by thunder, Signora Castoroili! … Haddock!)’ [via Tom Morris]
15 October 2006
[books] The Candy Man — A Profile of Roald Dahl … ‘Children need the dark materials of fairy tales because they need to make sense-in a symbolic, displaced way-of their own feelings of anger, resentment, and powerlessness. Children also benefit from learning about violence and brutishness in fairy tales, Bettelheim writes, for it counters the “widespread refusal to let children know that the source of much that goes wrong in our life is due to our natures-the propensity of all men for acting aggressively, asocially, selfishly.” Many fairy tales-and most of Dahl’s work-are complex narratives of wish fulfillment. They teach the reader, Bettelheim writes, that “a struggle against severe difficulties in life is unavoidable, is an intrinsic part of human existence-but if one does not shy away, but steadfastly meets unexpected and often unjust hardships, one masters all obstacles and at the end emerges victorious.” Or, in any case, this is a hopeful fantasy which sustains us all’
14 October 2006
[comics] ‘300’ Comic-to-Screen Comparison — blog entry comparing images from Frank Miller’s comic on the Battle of Thermopylae to the movie trailer for 300. [via linkbunnies.org]
13 October 2006
[books] The Genesis of Gonzo — Extract from Who’s Afraid of Tom Wolfe by Marc Weingarten … ‘Like [Tom] Wolfe, [Hunter S.] Thompson recognised one salient fact of life in the 60s: the traditional tools of reporting would be inadequate to chronicle the tremendous cultural and social change. War, assassination, rock, drugs, hippies, Yippies, Nixon – how could a traditional “just the facts” reporter dare to impose a neat and symmetrical order on such chaos?’
12 October 2006
[books] In Cold Blood – The Last To See Them Alive — the New Yorker Online republishes one of Truman Capote’s original magazine articles which formed the basis for his novel In Cold Blood. ‘…in the earliest hours of that morning in November, a Sunday morning, certain foreign sounds impinged on the normal Holcomb noises-on the keening hysteria of coyotes, the dry scrape of scuttling tumbleweed, the racing, receding wail of locomotive whistles. At the time, not a soul in sleeping Holcomb heard them-four shotgun blasts that, all told, ended six human lives.’
[comics] Tintin Cars — a website which compares the cars Hergé drew in Tintin with photos of the real cars. [thanks Alister]
[comics] For Sale on eBay: Avengers #1 by Kurt Busiek and George Perez.
11 October 2006
[film] Ask Metafilter: Borat Ruined my Life … ‘Last year, a guy came to my town claiming to be filming a documentary for Kazakhstan. He recruited my friend John to be in it. John signed the papers and everything- that’s not the issue. However, the producers got John really drunk and he said some things he really regrets that made it to the final cut. John’s terrified that everyone’s going to see the movie and think he’s an awful human being (which he’s not). He’s very distraught…’
10 October 2006
[tv] Why We Watch… Columbo — from Radio Times Why We Watch blog/column … ‘Here was a show in which you saw who committed the crime in the opening minutes, an oddball narrative ploy that turned the rules of TV detection inside out. With the best line-up of villains since Batman, the likes of Donald Pleasence, Johnny Cash and Patrick McGoohan would then underestimate the cigar-chomping, raincoat-wearing Columbo, who would itch at them like a sore until they broke, all the while ingratiating himself on their time.’
9 October 2006
[space] Ask Metafilter: Has anyone ever had sex in space? From the comments: ‘I had a friend who worked with NASA, and he had this conversation with them at some sort of official place (I actually think he has a paper out on it). The main issue was birth control and pregnancy, with concerns about the effects on the embryo of radiation on re-entry being the biggest issue. He said that hearing officials in the space industry seriously debate enacting a “anal sex only” rule to be one of the most surreal moments of his life.’
8 October 2006
[quotes] ‘In the year AD 426 Augustine of Hippo reused what was already an old joke: “What was God doing before the Creation? Preparing Hell for those who ask that question.” Hell is clearly the natural home of cosmologists. Which has not reduced their number at all.’ [from Bang up to date? – A review of Parallel Worlds by Michio Kaku]
[futures] The Coming Death Shortage — interesting look at what happens in the near future as people live longer and longer lives … ‘Steve Jobs and Stephen Wozniak founded Apple in their twenties; Albert Einstein dreamed up special relativity at about the same age. For better and worse, young people in developed nations will have less chance to shake things up in tomorrow’s world. Poorer countries, where the old have less access to longevity treatments, will provide more opportunity, political and financial. As a result, according to Fred C. Iklé, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, “it is not fanciful to imagine a new cleavage opening up in the world order.” On one side would be the “‘bioengineered’ nations,” societies dominated by the “becalmed temperament” of old people. On the other side would be the legions of youth-“the protagonists,” as the political theorist Samuel Huntington has described them, “of protest, instability, reform, and revolution.”‘
7 October 2006
[comedy] Let’s Play Numberwang! … ‘Numberwang accepts no responsibility for any loss of personal items, injury or sudden death.’ [via Diamond Geezer]
6 October 2006
[books] Passing the Gladwell Point — some interesting criticisms of Malcolm Gladwell … ‘At times, lately, Mr. Gladwell sounds like someone trying to tell other people about something he read once in a Malcolm Gladwell piece, after a few rounds of drinks.’ [via Kottke’s Links]
5 October 2006
[comics] Ignition City Script — an excerpt from Warren Ellis’ script for a new comic called Ignition City … ‘Pic 2 … YURI, in his spacesuit, vodka bottle in hand, waking up as four hard little turds bounce off his head. YURI is also in his late forties. He looks as Yuri Gagarin would have if he’d lived that long, fucked himself out and become an alcoholic (both of which he was well on his way towards before he died). And, yes, he’s wearing an old Soviet spacesuit. Without the helmet, obviously. He just shambles around the settlement in a spacesuit he never takes off (and you can imagine what kind of mess it’s in), swilling vodka and shouting at people. Yuri is the town drunk.’
4 October 2006
[books] Steven Johnson on The Ghost Map — a ‘book trailer’ on YouTube about Steven Johnson’s new book on cholera, london, medicine and cities. [via Kottke’s Links]
[comics] Still in the shadows, an artist in his own right — profile of Maxon Crumb – Robert Crumb’s brother … ‘In his introduction to the 1995 collection, “Crumb Family Comics,” he wrote, “I have to continue indefinitely as a socially misfitted, god-mad, brooding ascetic and celibate, starving and street begging, eating a cloth string for meat and sitting on a bed of nails.” When I read that quote back to him, he says the description still fits, except for the street begging.’
3 October 2006
[search] i feel better after i type to you — a book reporting the 254 page search history of one AOL user in May 2006 … ‘The text in this book is pseudo-anonymous autobiography stored as proprietary corporate data which was de facto released into the public domain.’ [via As Above]
2 October 2006
[google] Eric Schmidt to address Tory conference — the Chairman and CEO of Google is speaking at the Conservative Party Annual Conference tomorrow … ‘Googling for policies?’
1 October 2006
[blogs] A couple of interesting comics-related posts on Metafilter …
30 September 2006
[books] An Evening with J.G. Ballard — a transcript of an interview and questions with the author of Empire of the Sun and Crash … ‘At the end of the last century, people would ring me up and ask me my views about the future. I said I can sum up the future in one word – it’s going to be boring. Vast suburbs that extend around the planet: utter boredom, broken by acts of unpredictable violence. The man in the supermarket who opens fire with a machine gun. And the suicide bomber, a man who has nothing, setting off a bomb in a desperate way to prove himself. The idea of meaningless violence, which I looked at in my previous novel Millennium People, has a huge appeal. I can understand that. It’s in the roots of one’s childhood – all children smash their toys. The trouble, of course, is that people get killed.’ [via As Above]
29 September 2006
[apple] YouTube: Steve Jobs likes to says “Boom!” alot. [via Blah Blah Flowers]
Alan Yentob wants to know why You Tube matters to you … From YouTube Comments: ‘Ah, great to see my TV licence is paying the wages of people like this. *Borat-length pause* NOT!’ [via plasticbag.org]
28 September 2006
[911] The Hopeless Stupidity of 9/11 Conspiracies … ‘To me, the 9/11 Truth movement is, itself, a classic example of the pathology of George Bush’s America. Bush has presided over a country that has become hopelessly divided into insoluble, paranoid tribes, one of which happens to be Bush’s own government. All of these tribes have things in common; they’re insular movements that construct their own reality by cherry-picking the evidence they like from the vast information marketplace, violently disbelieve in the humanity of those outside their ranks, and lavishly praise their own movement mediocrities as great thinkers and achievers. There are as many Thomas Paines in the 9/11 Truth movement as there are Isaac Newtons among the Intelligent Design crowd.’
27 September 2006
[politics] I’m right, you’re wrong, and the voters know it… — Simon Hoggart on Tony Blair’s last speech at the Labour Conference … ‘The organisers tried to whip up a frenzy which was almost, but not quite there. Before he arrived there was a “spontaneous” demonstration in which members of the audience held up hand-written posters: “We love you, yeah, yeah, yeah”, “Too young to retire” and simply “Thank you”. It was like waiting for a very cuddly version of Stalin. We saw a video in which ordinary folk and celebrities gave thanks for the existence of Blair. One old lady said: “I’m grateful for the £200 fuel allowance – it’s better than a woolly hat.” And they claim the British have a poverty of ambition! Then he arrived…’
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