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London Bloggers [Comic Blogs][Other Blogs] | 14 April 2002
[uk] Call Me Middle-Class And I’ll Punch You — Julie Burchill writing about class in the UK … ‘And a special set of questions just for me, because I’m in charge of this page. Do you persist in believing that there is something intrinsically and non-specifically sad about anyone over the age of 16 who remains in full-time education? Would you rather eat your own head than mix your own salad dressing? Do you keep the TV on at all times between rising and retiring? Is the only thing you have put away for a rainy day a stylish raincoat? Yes, yes, yes, yes! – so, culturally, that means I’m working-class, too.’ [Related: Earl steps into ‘working class’ dispute]
13 April 2002
[quote] Albert Einstein: ‘You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.’ [via Sore Eyes]
[politics] Statecraft by Margaret Thatcher — a Digested Read … ‘First and foremost, you cannot trust any foreigners apart from the Americans. Take Communism away from the Russians and the Eastern Bloc countries and you’re left with a bunch of gangsters and freeloaders. The Chinese think they’re superior and the Middle East is full of people who dress oddly and don’t go to church. Only the Americans have moral right. This is because they speak English, are devout Christians and are very, very big.’
[cartoon] Yet another amazing Steve Bell cartoon — this time on US efforts to promote peace in the Middle East. ‘Peace… in your own time, Man!’
12 April 2002
[comics] Comics Turn a New Page — BBC News looks at on-line comics and interviews Scott McCloud … ‘McCloud knows that he is known as something of a maverick. “Among my peers, I am known mainly as the kooky guy who talks about the internet a lot. I don’t mind being associated with my books about comics, especially Understanding Comics, which I still rather like.” There will be more comics about comics, he says, but not for a while yet.’
[brain] The Fully Immersive Mind of Oliver Sacks — great profile from Wired Magazine … ‘The periodic grid of the elements first appeared in a dream to the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev in 1869. Before falling asleep at his desk, the white-bearded chemist played several rounds of solitaire, and his ordering scheme may have been influenced by the arrangement of suits in the game. The table in South Kensington was an unusual one, containing not only the atomic weight, number, and symbol for each element but also samples of the elements themselves sealed in jars, bequeathed to the museum by one of Napoléon’s heirs. To the young chemist and neurologist-to-be, this grand display was an irrefutable confirmation that there was order underlying the apparent chaos of the universe, and that the human mind had been keen enough to perceive it.’ [via Follow Me Here]
11 April 2002
[food] Meat is murder — Nick Lezard reviews Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser … ‘The principles of uniformity turn out to be not only bad for the soul, a seedy Orwellian nightmare, but bad for people. Ray Kroc, one of the founders of McDonald’s, once memorably said of independent-minded franchisees: “We will make conformists out of them in a hurry…The organization cannot trust the individual; the individual must trust the organization.”‘
[wtf?] ‘X-Files’ star takes ‘Confidential’ Role — David Duchovny as James Ellroy? … ‘Ellroy, a burly, eccentric man was 46 at the time he began investigating his mother’s murder, and on the surface, Duchovny makes for an odd match. “It’s odd to see someone who doesn’t resemble me physically in the least playing me,” Ellroy acknowledged to Variety.’ [Related: Brief extract from My Dark Places, Buy My Dark Places at Amazon, link via WEF]
10 April 2002
[blogs] Graybo’s infamous Passport Gallery … ‘and it was only ever meant to be a bit of innocent fun. that’ll teach me.’ — Graybo
[comics] Jonathan Ross interviews Alan Moore … [via Bugpowder]
‘ROSS: Let me tap back into some more Alan Moore mythology. Are you married? Or are you living with Melinda?
[blogs] They Have Blogs! … ‘He’s a punk goggle-eyed performance artist who has the hots for Angelina Jolie. She’s an overweight ambidexterous graphic design artist who writes about her amazing, talented and deeply-loved spouse more often than she writes about herself. They have blogs.’ [via kookymojo]
[dead] Farewell to a mother, a queen and a symbol of a bygone age — Jonathan Freeland on the Queen Mother’s Funeral … ‘The cars around Westminster Abbey were banished; only horses remained. The clatter of traffic was gone, replaced by the music of marching feet, pipes and drums. For one morning only, the 21st century was held at bay.’
9 April 2002
[funk] The Periodic Table of Funk … Ai: ‘For the rare occasions you may be required to entertain your woman’s shortie: behold the Atari 2600 VCS. Nothin’ is gonna beat the multiple-bit power of the almighty 2600. Yar’s Revenge, River Raid, Combat, Q*Bert, Super Breakout… ‘ [via I Love Everything]
[books] The full text to Neal Stephenson’s The Big U online — it’s probably illegal so if you feel guilty you can buy yourself a copy here. ‘This is a history, in that it intends to describe what happened and suggest why. It is a work of the imagination in that by writing it I hope to purge the Big U from my system, and with it all my bitterness and contempt. I may have fooled around with a few facts. But I served as witness until as close to the end as anyone could have, and I knew enough of the major actors to learn about what I didn’t witness, and so there is not so much art in this as to make it irrelevant. What you are about to read is not an aberration: it can happen in your local university too. The Big U, simply, was a few years ahead of the rest. ‘ [via Jerry Kindall]
8 April 2002
[blogs] Feeling Listless Logo Archive — I really like these logos… my favorite … ‘the best option was to combine the name of the site with it’s subject matter, my life and how I feel about the latest cultural events. And so I struck upon the idea of cultural artifacts which mean something to me (to a greater or lesser extent) also expressing the name of the site. The picture at the top would be as much a part of the weblog and the writing. This is an ongoing record of these logos …’ [Related: Feeling Listless]
[tv] The Complete Tapehead Columns — all Jim Shelley’s Tapehead articles are archived on the web … Tapehead on Sex Addicts: ‘Sex Addiction is all the rage these days, and no wonder. Where better to meet dozens of horny men or women than a Sex Addicts therapy session? Fine Cut: I Am A Sex Addict illustrates how sex addiction can lead to devastating debilities for S&M, pornography and violence, and the sort of massive self-loathing that causes one addict to describe herself as “a hopeless romantic in a vibrator life.” Phew. “What sex addicts have in common,” Fine Cut states, “is their compulsion and the fact that they are people, just like you and me.” It looks as if you and me have lot of problems then.’ [thanks Vaughan :) ]
[comics] Long interview with Brian Michael Bendis [Part 1 | Part 2] … ‘I have always admired and respected the work of people who produced a lot of work like Jack Kirby and John Romita. I think that them producing a lot of work made the work a lot better. I think that when they were using all of their steam, it wasn?t the volume of the work that mattered it was the quality that mattered. I always aspired to be that kind of comic creator. On the same note, I don?t want to be ?Oh look he can write 50 titles?. I have no interest in being that guy. It?s just I can. So, I don?t drink and I don?t play video games, which is the more horrible thing to happen to mainstream comics ? the creation of Playstation. If they would take them away from comic creators you wouldn?t even hear about a late book.’ [Related: Jinxworld]
7 April 2002
[web] Christopher Walken’s LiveJournal … ‘have you ever wanted to punch someone square in the teeth, just to see how many fall out? i met ben affleck today.’ — March 24th Entry. [via Grammarporn]
6 April 2002
[media] Publish and be Damned — profile of Felix Dennis … ‘It was not an act of stupidity when, two years out of prison, when Oz folded and an underground comics venture was facing bankruptcy, he talked to some kids in the street in 1974 and discovered they were queueing (at 9am) to see “the Chink who beats people up”. The Chink turned out to be Bruce Lee; Dennis started up Kung Fu Monthly and never looked back. He has proved to be an astute backer of hunches and chooser of markets and personnel, and clings to his counter-culture roots by publishing an “anti-corporate brochure” and claiming: “I’m not a real businessman.” So what is he? He considered for a while. “I guess I’m the fat bastard in the glasses with the money, aren’t I?”‘
[tv] We are Family — profile of the Slater Sisters from Eastenders … ‘This is a trial we’re talking about; there’ll be tears before, during and after summing-up. Alex Ferns, who plays Trevor (enemy of the Slaters and, indeed, all womankind), watches them with pure admiration. “Look at them,” he says in the extremely quiet voice that telly people are so good at. “They look like Reservoir Dogs.” He thinks for a bit, and then looks sad as he says, “I’d be Mr Dead.”‘
2 April 2002
[dead] Mourning Will Be Brief — Christopher Hitchens on the Queen Mother … ‘The flags that now dip are also standards that have fallen. Much of the emotion of the leavetaking will be genuine (in spite of the yellow-press effort to make it seem bogus by hysterical overstatement). It will be genuine because it is a tribute to longevity confused with a tribute to history. And it will also be genuine because it is a farewell to something that is irretrievably lost – the authority of monarchy in Britain. We are left alone with our day, and the time is short for the elderly Queen and for her arrogant consort and self-pitying son.’ [via Parallax View]
[books] White Frights — extracts from Michael Moore’s book Stupid White Men … ‘Yet as I look back on my life, a strange but unmistakable pattern seems to emerge. Every person who has ever harmed me in my lifetime – the boss who fired me, the teacher who flunked me, the principal who punished me, the kid who hit me in the eye with a rock, the executive who didn’t renew TV Nation, the guy who was stalking me for three years, the accountant who double-paid my taxes, the drunk who smashed into me, the burglar who stole my stereo, the contractor who overcharged me, the girlfriend who left me, the next girlfriend who left even sooner, the person in the office who stole cheques from my chequebook and wrote them out to himself for a total of $16,000 – every one of these individuals has been a white person. Coincidence? I think not.’
30 March 2002
[dead] Googling for “Queen Mother” gets some interesting results at the moment … ‘Queen Mother – free the lady within.’
[quote] Warren Ellis: ‘Do you know how creepy it is to think that at least eight people will be having sex tonight because of you?’ [from Bad Signal … Subcribe]
[tv] Queen of Cringe — interview with Daisy Donovan from William Leith … ‘It would be over-simplistic to say that what Donovan does is to interview people on television in order to embarrass them, but it would not be inaccurate. Some people say she’s a bit like Louis Theroux; she has also been called “the female Ali G”. In a way, she’s the anti-Dando. She has a way of subverting all televisual authority, including her own. She started off as a presenter on Channel 4’s 11 O’Clock show, where she interviewed important, or self-important, people and asked them awkward, deflating questions in the manner of Dennis Pennis. Asking the former Tory chairman Norman Fowler about his life, she suggested that it must be like standing on the edge of a precipice: “Have you ever tossed yourself off?” she asked.’
29 March 2002
[blog quote] Inkiboo: ‘Really think I shouldn’t call this site a ‘blog’ anymore. Two reasons for this. First being that there seems to be a high percentage of male bloggers who are gay. This is all well and good, but it could reduce my chances of getting laid. Second, a lot of bloggers are just self obsessed assholes.’ [more]
[film] Great review of the 20th Anniversary edition of E.T. The Extra Terrestrial … ‘Watching it again is like getting a masterclass in American popular culture. Without ET there would be no Toy Stories, yet the Toy Stories with their hi-tech sheen can’t match the easy swing of Spielberg’s live-action storytelling. Without ET there would be no X Files, but Spielberg’s passionate idealism and faith in the power of love make the cramped, paranoid X Files look ridiculous. Without ET there would be no Harry Potter, but ET doesn’t have Harry’s glow of self-congratulation. In the strange and beautiful love story of ET lies the genesis of Douglas Coupland’s vision of Generation X: people in the west growing up in a secular, affectless society, yearning to feel rapture, and looking for love in the ruins of faith.’
28 March 2002
[war] American Crusade 2001 Trading Cards … ‘World affairs today can sure be confusing!’ [via Follow Me Here]
[web] Tom and Cal have revamped The Barbelith Underground. Grant Morrison described it as the bulletin board for ‘cool egghead stoner motherfuckers’. Enough of a recommendation? [Related: The comic section on Barbelith is here / What does “Barbelith” mean?]
27 March 2002
[comics] Reno man threatens to blow up comics store … ‘He said he wanted to blow up the place or burn it down. If he couldn’t have his comic books, nobody could.’ [Related: Metafilter has some amusing comments … ‘What are mylar snugs? They sound like diapers? Waterproof underwear?’]
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