[idle thought] Separated at Birth?

Bette Davis (Film Star)	Davros (Dalek Leader)

[stats] 795,763 tonnes of building rubble — War on Terrorism statistics … ‘US planes have dropped 328,000 blankets, 3.4 million pounds of wheat and 2.5 million daily rations into Afghanistan. Ten thousand tonnes of bombs have fallen on Afghanistan since 11 September, half of what fell on London in the Blitz.’ [Related: Observer War On Terrorism Section]

[war] Does bin Laden matter anymore? … does the Pentagon care about ObL? ‘ Try as he may, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld cannot seem to shake the dreaded “OBL” question – even coming from his wife, Joyce. “Every once in a while … as I get up about 5 o’clock and get ready to take a shower and head for the office, she says, ‘Don, where is he?’ ” Mr. Rumsfeld told a military gathering last week. “I tell her that if I want to bring up Osama bin Laden, I’ll wake her up and bring it up myself,” he quipped.’ [via Red Rock Eater]

[machines] Why does it take so long to mend an escalator? — lots of escalators being replaced on the London Underground at the moment… ‘Why does it take so long to mend an escalator? As far as that goes I am willing to believe what I am told: that escalators are big, complicated machines packed into tight shafts and there aren’t many hours when you can work on them. More money wouldn’t remove those obstacles to seamless service, nor would improved logistics. In fact, a large influx of capital would, in the short term, increase time-outs – it takes longer to replace an escalator than to maintain it – even though the end result would be fewer maintenance sessions.’ [via Feeling Listless]

[comics] Artbomb has a number of reviews of Eddie Campbell’s Bacchus along with some preview PDF comics…

• Immortality Isn’t Forever — Review … Preview
• The Gods of Business — Review … Preview
• Doing the Islands With Bacchus — Review … Preview

‘The Cockscrew – A useful key to unlock the storehouse of wit, the treasury of laughter, the front door of fellowship and the gate of pleasant folly.’ — Bacchus quoting an unknown author.

[comics] The Ultimate Writer — Sequential Tart interview with Mark Millar … How to “save” comics: ‘The formula is very simple and was utilized in microcosm in Marvel Knights; the best writer and the best artist you can find on a character and the audience will seek them out. This was then applied to the Marvel Universe itself and created the beginnings of the new boom we’re looking at. DC will hopefully follow the trend and add their considerable marketing and retail muscle to the boom. I don’t know if it’ll happen under the current administration, but history has a habit of sweeping aside anyone who’s standing still.’

[911] America more serious? You must be joking — Christopher Hitchens on America after 911 … ‘”Can we be funny?” the hosts of Saturday Night Live asked Rudy Giuliani when they nervously invited him on to the set a few nights after the immolation of the World Trade Centre. “Why start now?” was his mordant reply and, with that, frivolity resumed her reign.’

[film] Oh, I can’t bear it. I really can’t bear it — Nicole Kidman talks about her fascination with The Shining … ‘In The Shining, Kubrick made these ostentatiously smooth camera movements – relatively new to audiences – into a motif for the film. The steadiness of the camera movements mixed with the grisly subject matter into a mood of unease, especially when juxtaposed with the odd, often emotionless speech. “Stanley would tell us he was not interested in naturalness,” Kidman recalls. “He was not interested in a sort of documentary style performance. He liked it to be slightly odd, slightly off.”‘

[comics] Judge Dredd in Links — the Guardian’s Net Notes celebrates 25 years of Judge Dredd … ‘Despite Dredd being the biggest draw for 2000AD, arguably the most media coverage the comic received did not have anything to do with him. It came in 1997 when it ran a satirical story called B.L.A.I.R 1, where the prime minister was turned into a bionic superhero.’ [Related: 2000AD Online, BBC News: Bambi overtaken by bionic Blair]

[politics] You Ask The Questions… Christopher Hitchens … Who is worse — Henry Kissinger or Mother Teresa: ‘With Kissinger, you can tell how many people he killed. With Mother Teresa, who only preached surrender to poverty, disease and ignorance and against family planning, we can’t be sure of the figures. But together they certainly make two out of the four pale riders of the Apocalypse.’

[blogs] Yesterday I asked Metafilter if this picture made them feel inadequate… lots of amusing responses. ‘…his hairstyle is horrid, his cock isn’t that big, and the expression on his face is ridiculous.’

[tv] The Truth about me and Louis Theroux — a profile of Ann Widdecombe … ‘One thing does, however, leave the viewer still utterly dumbfounded by the end of the show. Widdecombe actually believed that Theroux would stick to his promise of not bringing up her alleged virginity, which, predictably, he does within the first five minutes. (Widdecombe famously threatened to sue a reporter who suggested to her that she wasn’t still a maiden.) “As you probably realised, there was a huge row off-screen,” she says. (There’s a pretty enjoyable on-screen humdinger, too.)’

[comics] Writer Cool with Unauthorized Use of Script in Cerebus — Dave Sim stirs up a controversy again (kinda… no misogyny or fistfights this time) … ‘When the Journal, disheartened, expressed the opinion to Sim that this seemed to be shaping up as one of the smaller Sim controversies, he responded, reassuringly, “When it comes to Dave Sim, there are no small controversies.”‘

[tv] This is a Setup — yet another interview with Louis Theroux … ‘Would he happily pull out a pack of condoms from Jimmy Savile’s bag in real life? “Oh, no,” he says, shocked. “I’d never do that if the camera weren’t there. I’d worry that he’d get offended.” So the camera offers protection? “Well, it’s a licence to behave in a certain way.” He says that on television he is in character, even though that character is just a heightened version of his true self.’

[lmg] LinkMachineGo is two today. Got any favourite quotes from LMG? Let me know. Below is a quick review of the last year in quotes (and one picture) …

March 2001 … ‘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.’ — Tony Soprano.

April 2001 … ‘Pamela came round with an egg-decorating kit. William’s eggs were a riot of primary colours; Glenn’s depicted Jesus on the cross. He wrote a bubble out of Jesus’s mouth, “Father, why hast thou forsaken me?”, which disturbed Pamela: “For God’s sake, Glenn lighten up. It’s Easter!” Later, while William played with the packing of his Barbie egg and Glenn watched The Greatest Story Ever Told, she led me to my room and gave an erotic Easter egg, the centre of which contained a pair of edible knickers. She was keen for me to break it open and retrieve them. I was less keen: a glance at the ingredients told me they were choc-a-bloc with obscure chemicals and multisyllable flavourings.’ — Adrian Mole.

May 2001 … ‘Have you ever wanted to shove a glass rod right up Nick Jordan’s cock?’ — Venusberg.

June 2001 … ‘…do not dismiss a person until you have met them. It is a fuckload of work to be open-minded and generous and understanding and forgiving and accepting, but Christ, that is what matters.’ — Dave Eggers.

July 2001 … ‘Oh no! You’re not still seeing her, are you? You’ve been wanting to get out of this relationship for years, and now the mother speaks of marriage? You must do something drastic my friend. Make a pass at her father! Go on…. just give his knee a little squeeze…’ — Tango Advert.

August 2001 …



September 2001 … ‘I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.’ — Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto.

October 2001 … ‘Okay. I have a vestigial tail. It’s more of a nub, really. The spine just goes on a little longer than it should. Also, I’ve dabbled. I mean, perform fellatio once and you’re a poet, twice and you’re a homosexual. I remember once I was being fisted by Sebastian Cabot- but here’s where the story gets interesting…’ — Dr Evil.

November 2001 … ‘Sat in a sandwich bar in Westminster I meet the sharp south-London wideboy occultist that I’d created some years previously for a U.S. comic book. He looks at me. He nods, and smiles, and walks away. Years later, in another place, he steps out from the dark and speaks to me. He whispers: I’ll tell you the ultimate secret of Magic. Any cunt can do it.’ — Alan Moore.

December 2001 … ‘If the hijackers had been able to imagine themselves into the thoughts and feelings of the passengers, they would have been unable to proceed. It is hard to be cruel once you permit yourself to enter the mind of your victim. Imagining what it is like to be someone other than yourself is at the core of our humanity. It is the essence of compassion, and it is the beginning of morality. The hijackers used fanatical certainty, misplaced religious faith, and dehumanising hatred to purge themselves of the human instinct for empathy. Among their crimes was a failure of the imagination.’ — Ian McEwan.

January 2002 … ‘What kind of man are you anyways? I’m talking comics and you bring up chicks and romance.’ — Brodie.

February 2002 … ‘What the fuck is Voltron talking about? Is this some religious thing? Am I fucking being baptized by Voltron?’ — Get Your Voltr On.

[film] The Conversation … ‘Harry is a surveillance genius for whom other people’s privacy is an obstacle to be overcome using equipment he builds himself. He is also a man suffering intensely from guilt: one of his previous assignments resulted in the death of an entire family. This revelation, as well as the film’s depiction of Harry’s Catholicism (we see him at confession, an analogue of the secular eavesdropping Harry practices), complicates his detachment from others by introducing the one element that functions as the “bug” Harry can neither disable nor escape: his own conscience.’ [Related: Conversation at IMDB]

[books] Elizabeth Wurtzel went shopping… — review of More, Now, Again … ‘More, Now, Again is the real thing, Elizabeth Wurtzel’s Diary: Complete and Unabridged. This time she’s left absolutely nothing out. For instance, quite a large percentage of More, Now, Again is taken up with what Wurtzel happened to catch on television – and I mean between 10 and 15 per cent. On page 26 she “discovers” ER, while on page 41 we find her watching Saturday Night Live. Occasionally, she attempts something a little more demanding – on page 45 she dips into the latest issues of Vogue and Mademoiselle – but this doesn’t last long and by the time we get to page 47 she’s relapsed: “I watch more MSNBC.” I honestly had no idea that writers could sell this sort of material.’

[people] Various celeb profiles I’ve looked at recently …

• Oh Brother — What happened to Brian after Big Brother … ‘Comparisons with Graham Norton and Julian Clary don’t do Brian any favours, however. He is every bit as original, but he has a beatific charm that allows you to forgive his bitchiness. When Narinder asked, “I wonder which celebrity guy is watching now thinking, ‘Ooh, I’d love to shag that Narinder’,” Brian didn’t hesitate: “Er, Stevie Wonder?”‘
• Singer. Songwriter. Messiah? — profile of Bono … ‘Political gestures have been a part of Bono’s pop persona. Sometimes they have been inspiring, sometimes they have been inappropriate, even tacky. At the MTV awards in Paris in 1995, after French nuclear tests in the Pacific, he received the award for best group then attacked Jacques Chirac, saying: “What a city, what a night. What a bomb, what a mistake. What a wanker you have for president.” Perhaps that sort of outburst goes with the territory of being a rock star. Largely, though, Bono has succeeded in transcending this. It’s enough of a feat to remain musically and politically correct for 22 years.’
• No Pain, No Gain — more on Elizabeth Wurtzel … ‘She is one of those spectacularly neurotic New Yorkers who have to have their coffee a certain way. You know, this much coffee, this much water, this much milk, at this temperature, then stirred anti-clockwise for three turns and then clockwise for two. “Shall we chance it?” she asks the waiter. He is up for it, but when the coffee arrives she takes a tiny sip then abandons it. Perhaps he foolishly skipped the anti-clockwise bit.’

[comics] I invented Judge Dredd — BBC News interview with John Wagner … ‘This was back in the days of Dirty Harry, and with [Margaret] Thatcher on the rise there was a right-wing current in British politics which helped inspire Judge Dredd. He seemed to capture the mood of the age – he was a hero and a villain. That villainous aspect to Dredd’s character – and the Draconian laws of Mega-City One [the post-apocalyptic metropolis Dredd polices] – really caught the readers’ imagination. Occasionally we’d get letters from children who seemed to be agreeing with his hard-right stance, so we made the strip more political to bring out the fact that we didn’t agree with Dredd.’ [via Coffee Grounds]

[books] More, Now, Again by Elizabeth Wurtzel — the condensed version … ‘It’s December 1997 and I’m checking in to Silver Hill Clinic. There’s this guy there, Hank, who is fairly ugly but is the only one who’s remotely as clever as me. This is perfect as no way can we ever become lovers. Hank and I become lovers.’

[war] Nixon talked of nuclear bomb for Vietnam … [via Metafilter]

‘Kissinger laid out a variety of options for stepping up the war effort, such as attacking power plants and docks, in an April 25, 1972, conversation in the Executive Office Building.

“I’d rather use the nuclear bomb,” Nixon responded.

“That, I think, would just be too much,” Kissinger replied.

“The nuclear bomb. Does that bother you?” Nixon asked. “I just want you to think big.”‘

[tv] Evan Dorkin Exposes Geek Chic for Cartoon Network — Dorkin talks about Welcome to Eltingville … ‘”Because of Dorkin’s antipathy towards the “Eltingville” quartet, he plans to retire the group from comics. “I always knew ‘Eltingville’ was something I was going to stop doing,” he says. “I hate these characters, to a small degree. I find them maddening to work on. I’m drawing these horrific, ugly characters acting in a really nasty way.”

[comics] Get Your Wurtzel On — reworking of Get Your War On … ‘…when you get naked on your own book cover and yet nobody gives a shit, the world must seem pretty cold!’ [via RACM]

[war] Bin Laden’s private life revealed amid rubble … ‘Osama bin Laden’s underpants were hanging up to dry in the bathroom of his house outside Jalalabad. They were striped grey and black cotton boxers, with a label reading Angelo Petrico, a size XXL large for such a lean-looking man.’ [via Blogadoon]

[comics] Suck has been dead for a while now but before it shutdown it published some illustrated articles from the cartoonist Peter Bagge …

• There she is… The Most Resented Woman in America — Bagge visits Miss America 2000.
• I [Heart] the Blob — Bagge on Paul Allen’s Experience Music Project
• Indy 2000 [Part 1] [Part 2] — visiting the Indianapolis 500.
• Blah Blah Blah — Bagge at the 2000 Democratic National Convention.

‘”Just think!” I thought to myself, “I get to cover The Democratic Convention for Suck.com!” Yeah, me and about 50 million other journalists, but it still felt like a big deal to me at the time the prospect first came up. Plus there was a lot of buzz over the possibility of PROTESTERS getting out of hand like they did in Seattle during the WTO meetings. We’re talking RIOTS, folks! BIG ones!!! Who’d want to miss out on THAT action? Er, from a nice, SAFE DISTANCE, that is.’

[blogs] Metafilter: A Methodology — an examination of what is wrong with Metafilter … ‘This brings us to Matt Haughey, the owner and proprietor of Metafilter. Mr. Haughey is frequently overlooked for his efforts at hosting the site, maintaining Metafilter order and overseeing the day-to-day operations of Metafilter. Dwindle has presented new evidence that Mr. Haughey may face mortal danger in light of the high stress levels of trying to judiciously govern a community with so many disparate users. As we shall see in the ensuing statistics, Mr. Haughey’s efforts are not only overlooked, but they may lead to his untimely death, which, aside from depressing the living hell out of Dwindle and myself, would also lead to the death of Metafilter.’ [via Metatalk]

[comics] Some important comic-related research — Two Playboy Playmates that Chester Brown mentions in his autobiographical comic The Playboy [Links below not safe for work] …

• June 1975 Playmate [CB’s version of the Playmate]
• November 1975 Playmate

‘So — What are you feeling? Disgust with yourself for having bought such a publication. The typical self loathing you always feel after masturbating. Annoyance that you didn’t check out the skin colour of the playmate before buying the magazine. That last one leading to more feelings of self loathing — this is the first time in your life that you’ve had to face the fact that at some level you’re a racist. If only you’d never bought the damn thing, eh?’ — Chester Brown.

[cartoon] Steve Bell on Stephen Byers and the Spin Row … ‘Fuck, Minister.’

[news] Still hungry after all these Years — profile of Watergate journalist Bob Woodward … ‘The movie of Woodward and Bernstein’s book — in which they are portrayed by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman — reveals their efforts to reveal that the break-in, and a range of other nefarious incidents, was ordered by Nixon. What it does not make clear is that from the very beginning — when they discovered on the first day that the five burglars kitted out with Playtex rubber gloves were former employees of the CIA — the pair had stumbled unknowingly on to an obviously massive story.’

[books] Snort Story — interview with Elizabeth Wurtzel … ‘Wurtzel was in New York on 11 September, and her apartment is close enough to the World Trade Centre that her windows blew in. But she remained in bed until the second plane hit – in spite of the frantic ringing of the phone – and to this day seems oddly calm about the whole experience. She told a Canadian journalist: “My main thought was: what a pain in the ass. I felt everyone was overreacting. People were going on about it. That part really annoyed me.” When I asked her how she felt about the attack, she said: “Hmm, I’m trying to remember. I was numb for quite a while. I was preoccupied with trying to get my cat out of my apartment. I treated it like a natural disaster not Armageddon.”‘