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London Bloggers [Comic Blogs][Other Blogs] | 24 December 2000
[comics] Okay… a last couple of comic links before Christmas… Go check out Dylan Horrocks website, read Understanding Hicksville, a review of his best comic and then buy a copy at Amazon…. ‘The story, with its layers of flashbacks, and jaunts into comic strips within the comic strip, defies synopsis. It is organized along the lines of a Gothic tale, following a fanboy comics journalist and his discovery of an isolated rural town, the Hicksville of the title, that is protecting a secret. As we meet the town’s various denizens, Hicksville grows into a comment on art and people that exist in the margins of history.’
23 December 2000
[interesting metaphor] BBC News profiles the major players in British politics as pantomime characters… ‘William Hague, unfortunately, has been likened to Aladdin. He was down on his luck, unloved and alone when he suddenly discovered his magic lamp. Trouble was when he rubbed it, rather than a genie leaping out to fulfil his every political desire, he got Michael Portillo. The new shadow chancellor immediately went around tearing up all Aladdin’s policies and refusing to get back into his lamp. He now hovers over Mr Hague’s shoulder insisting there is no way he wants his job.’
[comics] Suffering Sappho! Salon looks at Wonder Woman and her new artist/writer Phil Jiminez…. ‘Sitting in the catbird seat of the comic-book world, Jimenez remains refreshingly guileless. At a midtown Manhattan signing in late November, he warmly greeted scores of fans who could be slammed for forgetting to get a life. Better-known artists, he said, too often exhibit an unwarranted haughtiness toward fans. “The strange thing about my industry is how so many people are unpleasant,” he lamented. “We’re comic-book people; we’re not that important.”‘
[music] Eminem Vs Bob The Builder. :) ‘Then I got an email from Tim Ireland (hello Tim) who put one of those dangerous propositions to me; What would happen if Bob took on Eminem in a full on 12 round musical punch up ? Well, armed only with a copy of a computer program called ACID and several cans of bitter I set about the task of sellotaping the two contenders together and a couple of hours later the job was done.’
[tedious autobiography] Tonight I was here — the Small and Beautiful in Kilburn. Highly recommended… great food, cheap, very relaxing… ‘We began with the Moules Mariniere (steamed mussels in garlic, lemon, parlsey and white wine) and the sublime Baked Red Peppers, which are stuffed with fetta cheese. Highlights of the main menu are the Char-grilled Tuna Steak, with a sauce of anchovies, capers and butter; and the Rigatone Verde, a risotto with spinach and cream.’
22 December 2000
[politics] Senior Tory regrets Spice joke. I’m surprised this piece of Tory ignorance did not get wider coverage — but who stares at a snow flake in a blizzard? The joke in full from the Guardian: ‘Liam wandered around the room, perhaps having had one or two and being full of Christmas cheer. “Have you heard my new joke?” he puppyishly asked a group of people. “What do you call three dogs and a blackbird?” No one knew. “The Spice Girls,” said Liam. Embarrassed shuffling ensued, but either misinterpreting this as collective deafness or perhaps out of exuberant delight at his own wit, Liam told it again.’
[comics] Fandom.com looks back at Grant Morrison’s Animal Man…. ‘Safe to say, it was a Morrison story, so there was tragedy – brutal tragedy that came as a total shock. But there were also revelations about the universe, theoretical physics, cosmology, suffering, redemption, discovery, and, of course, a touch of peyote. For readers who`d been with the series since it`s beginning, the beginning of Morrison`s final run was incredibly cohesive. Mirror Master`s attack back in issue #8 was of key importance to what Animal Man was about to go through. His revenge was swift and horrible, and at the same time, satisfying, but hollow, leaving Animal Man saying to Mirror Master at the end of issue #21, “I can fix it. I can fix it all. I`ve had an idea. A time machine. All I need is a time machine. I can fix everything.”‘ [Related Links: grant-morrison.com, TimeMachineGo]
21 December 2000
[online animation] Warren Ellis does a trailer for an online film called Bad Places… ‘Murder scenes are messy. Just ask Mike Charon, a detective who has seen the worst that killing has to offer. Inevitably, Charon gets called on every D.O.A. He’s the one who sees the stabbings and shootings before the coroner.’
[comics] Alan Moore watches the K Foundation burn a million quid… ‘I think we’re moving towards some sort of paradigm shift, or massive collective mental breakdown some huge step of some kind; a basic change in our thinking. In politics, religions and the various structures we have built up, the world not the planet but the idea of the world we’ve created is likely, at least conceptually, to go up in flames the end of the world figuratively, but not apocalyptically not like a traditional notion of Armageddon. Maybe we’ve always imagined it’s going to collapse I’m not trying to be millennial about this I don’t see ‘the destruction and end of the world’, that chimera that we always seem to dangle over ourselves. Rather around this juncture of history when all of our systems are unstable and teetering towards this point of climax and collapse, we should consider the speed at which our culture is learning.’ [Related Links: Alan Moore: Magician, The K Foundation: Why We Burnt A Million Pounds]
20 December 2000
[reading] Just finished The New New Thing by Michael Lewis. ‘…in a 1994 issue of the Journal of Development Economics Romer wrote, “Once we admit that there is room for newness – that there are vastly more conceivable possibilites than realized outcomes – we must confront the fact that there is no special logic behind the world we inhabit, no particular justification for why things are the way they are. Any number of arbitrarily small peturbations along the way could have made the world as we know it turn out very differently . . . We are forced to admit that the world as we know it is the result of a long string of chance outcomes.’
[conspiracy] What is a crazyveigh? ‘The truth must be told! I’m sorry, Timothy, but I can’t be quiet anymore! The reason Timothy has been quiet for so long is because the day he was arrested, A microscopic chip was inserted into the lower part of his left ear! This chip not only tortured him by playing death metal and christmas classics but it made him unable to speak. Then thin slices of razor blades were inserted between his liver and urapoopilikeno causing sharp pains to travel through his hands every time he was near paper! Timothy is really the son of God’ [via Follow Me Here]
[politics] Francis Wheen in the Guardian — John Redwood on William Hague: ‘After talking to Hague during the second leadership ballot in 1997, Redwood confided that he had “had more interesting conversations with a bathroom sponge”. When Hague was subsequently elected, Redwood said: “They have actually chosen the worst of all the six candidates.” On another occasion, he described Hague as looking like “a very old baby”. If this is Redwood’s idea of being nice, what is he like when he turns nasty?’
[linkmachinego] Where LinkMachineGo and TimeMachineGo come from… The Invisibles by Grant Morrison. ‘…Mason receives a fax from one of his researchers in San Francisco reading ‘Time Machine Go.’ This interests Robin. Once in SF, Jack and Fanny are sent on a mission to collect the Hand of Glory. They meet the mysterious Pierrot and Columbine in a nightclub, whilst King Mob meets his ex Jacqui for a massage and an argument about his motives and his actions. At the offices Mason’s researcher Takashi explains that his breakthrough is to think of time as a single place, if you build a machine that can go ‘up’ above time, it can then choose its own re-entry point.’ [Related Links: grant-morrison.com, Barbelith – from Tom Coates.]
19 December 2000
[film] Excellent collection of articles from Time covering Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. ‘As the sage said: dying is easy, filmmaking is hard. But everyone was so serious on Crouching Tiger because Lee, who made his reputation with adult dramas-of-manners like The Wedding Banquet and Sense and Sensibility, had a child inside screaming to get out. He was finally ready to pay homage to his lifelong ardor for martial-arts novels and pictures. He had made beautiful films; now he would bend his considerable artistry to make, dammit, a movie.’
18 December 2000
[weblogs] The Barbelith Collective — the weblog for ‘cool egghead stoner motherfuckers’.
[ad] Great spoof of the White Horses Guinness advert…. [requires Quicktime]
[am i this or not?] Tell me… am I REALLY A STIFF or NOT?
17 December 2000
[eminem hoax] Another Eminem is dead hoax using Ananova this time… ‘Mathers, who authorities believe was under the influence of alcohol or drugs, was behind the wheel of a Saturn coupe that witnesses say swerved to avoid a slow moving vehicle, then lost control and slammed into a grove of trees. The car was crumpled by the impact, making extraction of Mather’s body very difficult. He was declared dead on the scene by paramedics who arrived a short time later.’ [Related Links: Explanation here?, Ananova link via Wacky Brit]
[hoax] Very well done hoax. Claims that Eminem was killed in car crash. Had me fooled for about a minute this morning….
[comics] Time picks the Best Comics of 2000. [via Comix Mailing List]
16 December 2000
[memes come together?] Tell me… am I CLAIRE SWIRE or NOT?
[comics] Warren Ellis on the American Elections… ‘Let me first congratulate my American readers for finally having a President selected for them. My contacts in the American political power structure inform me that the American national anthem will be changed in January to “Duelling Banjos” from the film DELIVERANCE.’ [Related Links: Duelling Banjos MIDI, Deliverance]
15 December 2000
[email] The Claire Swire Email Meme story makes it onto the BBC… ‘The e-mail contained a couple of smutty jokes and an exchange which included a female employee giving explicit details of a sexual act. The e-mail, initially sent on 7 December, quickly passed outside the company to other prestigious law firms in London before making its way across the world. Up to a million people are now thought to have read what was meant for private consumption amongst friends.’ [Related Links: Claire Swire Story on the Register]
[tech] Interesting article on the first email message. It turns out it wasn’t in the same league as the first message sent by telegram — ‘What hath god wrought!’ ‘Sometime in late 1971, a computer engineer named Ray Tomlinson sent the first e-mail message. “I sent a number of test messages to myself from one machine to the other,” he recalls now. “The test messages were entirely forgettable. . . . Most likely the first message was QWERTYIOP or something similar.” It seems doubtful that “QWERTYIOP” will make it into the history books. And Tomlinson’s name hardly lives in the public mind. When he is remembered at all, it is as the man who picked @ as the locator symbol in electronic addresses.’ [via Slashdot]
[politics] ‘NOBODY expects the Liberal Elite! Our chief weapon is surprise…surprise and fear…fear and surprise…. Our two weapons are fear and surprise…and ruthless efficiency…. Our *three* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency…and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope…. Our *four*…no… *Amongst* our weapons…. Amongst our weaponry…are such elements as fear, surprise…. I’ll come in again.’ [Related Links: The Spanish Inquisition – Monty Python]
14 December 2000
[reading] The New New Thing by Michael Lewis. ‘The truth was that no casual observer could say when Clark was working and when he was playing. In part this was because, to Clark’s way of thinking, the big distinction wasn’t between “work” and “play” but between “creating new technology for money” and “creating new technology for pleasure.” In part it was because there was no distinction at all.’
[god is everywhere] LinkMachineGo is proud to present the link of the year… It does not get more profane or blasphemous than this… religious sex toys… Who – *CHOKE!* wants a Baby Jesus butt-plug or a Jackhammer Jesus? ‘Jesus was a carpenter. Now he’s a powertool.’ [via the Warren Ellis forum on Delphi]
13 December 2000
[music] Oops! Slim Shady Did It Again. Enimen’s Slim Shady to the tune of Oops! I did it again.
[politics] Kiss of death — astrologer predicts that Gore will win. ‘”Mercury is going into Sagittarius,” she explains. “This is a move that puts the emphasis on truth, and things being out in the open. My assumption from this is that the recount will be allowed to continue. It would be the way to find out the truth and not having anything hidden.”‘ [via Guardian Weblog]
[books] Nice review of Hunter S Thompson’s new book — Fear and Loathing in America: the Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist 1968-1976. ‘In 1975, sent to Vietnam by Rolling Stone to gloat over the withdrawal of American troops, Thompson wrote an uncharacteristically deferential letter to a Vietcong official, requesting an interview. He apologised for his typing, but assured the colonel that, ‘I am one of the best writers currently using the English language as both a musical instrument and a political weapon.’ It was sweetly naive of him to imagine that military despots value such credentials; nevertheless, his self-assessment was just. The music made by the language, in his use of it, resembles the percussive iteration of gunfire, or the fulmination of an exploding grenade.’
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