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London Bloggers [Comic Blogs][Other Blogs] | 12 December 2000
[books] Tom Wolfe’s Hooking Up Digested by Books Unlimited. ‘The answer may be found among the new neuroscientists. We are what we are. Our brains are hot-wired, a genetically predetermined series of electromagnetic switches. There is no such things as consciousness, guilt or freewill. This is not a popular line of enquiry, and even as I write the evolutionary apologists are fighting a revisionist battle for our souls. I predict that as all the accepted 21st-century mantras slip back into the primordial ooze, a new theory will emerge. It will feel solid. And it will be named God.’
11 December 2000
[online comics] Been meaning to blog the for ages… an excellent online comic called True Artist Tales. Here’s two favourite strips of mine Good Grief and The Not-So-Secret Life of Plants.
[books] Interesting interview/profile of Zadie Smith in Books Unlimited. ‘White Teeth is a rich, sprawling domestic epic, about how families and people come together and fall apart in the most unlikely ways. It’s also very much a book about modern London, a city in which 40% of children are born to at least one black parent, a city in which the terms black and white become less and less relevant as we gradually meld into different shades of brown. White Teeth reflects a new generation for whom race is the backdrop to daily life rather than the defining characteristic of existence. Some people have said Smith is depoliticising race, removing it from its historical context, others say she’s ahead of her time, representing modern London as it really is for the first time.’
[politics] More on the Widdy Web from Simon Hoggart in the Guardian. ‘I found myself rather moved. Miss Widdecombe pretending to be horrified by something Jack Straw has said is much sillier than her thoughts about her cats, which at least are sincere and passionately felt.’ [via Pete@Bugpowder]
10 December 2000
[666] I’m wondering… Does the devil have the best web designers? Church of Satan vs. Church of England.
[state of mind] Happy? Most of this article seems pretty self-evident to me… ‘Depression, unhappiness and happiness can be understood and dealt with only by understanding how we each interpret ourselves and our world. We create our own individual interpretations, and our interpretations determine what we do and feel. We cannot always change what is happening to us, but we are always free to change how we interpret what is happening to us.’ [Coincidentally, whilst reading the ‘Happy?’ article I was also checking out my Amazon personal recommendations… they had chosen for me: You Are Worthless. :) ]
[watching] Magnolia. ‘I’ll tell you the greatest regret of my life: I let my love go.’ — Earl Patridge. [Related Links: Magnolia Trailer]
[savile] Morrisey Investigates… Jimmy Saville. ‘The first recorded instance of this charming man Jimmy Saville was in 1765 when the local minister of the small village of Piddletrenthide in Dorset recorded ” a man claiming witchcraft” who said he could make all our dreams come true. He proceeded to light up a magic stick in his mouth – he called this witchcraft a “cigar” then gave each of us badges reading “Jim Hath Fixed It For Me?” We naturally tried to burn him at the stake but he managed to flee before we could catch him. It seems certain that this was Saville.’
9 December 2000
[top trumps] Prostitute Trading Trumps. ‘Pete’s gone for an advanced tactic here. There’s not much text information on the card, so he’s going for a picture play. The more nudity the better. Two breasts beats a buttock and a half by a mile. Matthew wins.’ [via Pete@Bugpowder who also hosts an excellent comic related weblog]
[burchill] John Lennon? What a phoney! ‘Ah, the Yoko years! Move over Romeo and Juliet, Dante and Beatrice and Jimmy and Janette Krankie, and let this pair of lovers show you how it’s really done! In reality, of course, their alliance was a fetid mess of domestic violence, drug addiction and mutual adultery – hey, if I’d wanted that, I could have got it at home. After the initial provincial excitement of copping off with a “Jap”, as Lennon so frequently referred to his lady love, I think it fair to say that there wasn’t even a great deal of physical attraction – on either side, and who can blame either one after seeing that album cover?’ [Related Links: It’s Fandabidozi! It’s Krankie Web]
[history] Interesting page that looks at how the major TV channels (particularly the BBC) in the UK reacted to the news that Princess Diana was dead. ‘In the early hours, the BBC were quite happy to play this interview with eye witness Michael Soloman sourced from CNN. For some reason they cut the part at the end where he says “Baba Booey!”. As Private Eye reports, this is the catch phrase of American Shock Jock Howard Stern who encourages his listeners to phone CNN with bogus testimony of breaking news stories.’
8 December 2000
[kill!] KILL! DIE! KILL! Hamster Blast. Ah… I feel better now…
[books] From BooksUnlimited — Five minutes with Naomi Klein. ‘…in Britain I think there are a few things that have put the discussion around the difference between branding and advertising into the public discourse. One of those things has been the branding of Britain – the whole idea of very consciously building an identity around a country. I also think that having Richard Branson as a kind of rock star CEO (he’s basically the most well known CEO in Britain) has taught people in Britain a lot about what branding means. Here you have a company that is all brand, that is all about extending into new areas, about building these branded temples. It is really about selling an idea, selling a persona as opposed to selling products and that’s something that’s quite difficult to grasp. That’s why I think the discourse around branding is a lot more advanced in Britain than anywhere else.’
[comics] It seems that Kevin Smith does not read many Warren Ellis comics…. ‘I just hope that the comics field never loses its luster for me the same way it seems to have for Ellis. If I ever wind up a githeaded pillock who takes shots at a newcomer who’s sold tens of thousands of more comics than I did their first time up at bat, someone please pull a mylar bag (and board) over my head and cut off my air supply. Life’s too short to keep score like that.’
7 December 2000
[film] Media Nugget of the Day covers Touch of Evil… ‘Charlton Heston as a Mexican (yes, Mexican) narcotics investigator is just a bonus. Welles himself plays an obese and corrupt Texas cop, and Janet Leigh is wonderfully innocent as Heston’s American bride. Welles set out to make the ultimate B-movie and with the combination of pulp-novel plot, camp dialogue, and sleazy locales, he inevitably succeeded.’
[music] Julian Lennon reflects on John ‘Julian, Lennon’s son from his first marriage, described his father as a “guiding light” who was “sucked into a black hole”. He said he went through “love/hate relationships” with him whether he was there or not. “I wonder what it would have been like if he were alive today,” he wrote. “I guess it would have depended on whether he was `John Lennon’ (Dad) or `John Ono Lennon’ (manipulated lost soul).”‘ [Related Links: News Posting on Julian Lennon’s Website]
[comics] Great interview with Evan Dorkin in Psycomic. On Worlds Funniest: ‘I think a lot of these guys who know the DC stuff just have a fondness for these old comics. We aren’t trying to do anything Earth-shattering here. This isn’t the Dark Knight of humor books. It’s just a goofy, satirical, jerky funny book about how dumb comics are. And how great and loveable they can be at the same time. It’s a very sweet book even though we kill billions of people over and over again.’
6 December 2000
[ann widdecombe] Hey Kids! Put down that Playstation 2! Come and check out The Widdy Web Junior!! ‘I am called a Member of Parliament. We call this MP for short. A Member of Parliament looks after a lot of people in an area which is called a constituency. My constituency stretches from Maidstone almost to Tunbridge Wells.’
[annoying introspection] Wherever You Are asks Have You Ever?. Vaughan has turned weblogging into a destressing late night party session of Truth or Dare with a bunch of complete strangers…
 [comics] Excellent interview with Dan Clowes in Salon. The humdrum life of a cartoonist: ‘Clowes and his wife, Erika, whom he met on a small-scale California signing tour in 1992 (“I had just gone through a depressing separation from my first wife, and was trying to escape from the grim horribleness of Chicago; a beautiful young woman in Berkeley asked me to sign her underwear, and the rest is history”), will soon vacate the house for a larger one not far away.’ [Related Links: Buy Ghost World. You won’t regret it. Via Robot Wisdom]
5 December 2000
[simpsons] What more do you need from a link? The 50 Greatest Moments in Simpsons History. From Rosebud: ‘Homer: “Mmm… 64 slices of American cheese.” “64… ” [eats a slice] “63… ” [eats another] [Next morning] “Two… “[slowly] “One… “[finished] [Marge walks in] Marge: “Have you been up all night eating cheese?” Homer: [slurred] “I think I’m blind… “ [via LukeLog]
[it must be love] BT’s lastest banner ad for ISDN. ‘If we can still monopolise it, we can still be cack at it.’
[chat] The Barbelith Underground discuss what will be the next name on Madonna’s t-shirt. Saveloy sez: ‘”Your Mum” is what it will say. When you next see your mum, she’ll be wering a t-shirt that says “Yeah, that’s right, ME.” Later, Madonna will play a gig with EVERYBODY’s mum coming on in turn to do an excruciatingly embarrassing dance, and thus the whole world will be united in humiliation and so drawn together and there will be no more war or death.’
4 December 2000
[weblog] Great archive of links about articles on weblogs [via Under.Construction]
[quote] The Wisdom of Steve Aylett: ‘One golfer a year is hit by lightning. This may be the only evidence we have of god’s existence.’
[web] Danny O’Brien discusses web stalking… ‘Over the decades I have been online, it is incredible how many personal tidbits I have let slip onto the net. These days, a determined net stalker, armed with a search engine, could find out where I have lived in the past five years, my previous employers, a summary of my political interests, the names of all of my close family, and three or four of my most recent haircuts.’
3 December 2000
[comics] Jon Katz reviews Unbreakable. A film which improbably casts Samuel L. Jackson as a comic book collector….‘The Superhero stories are among the great and most enduring American myths, an often unacknowledged part of this country’s original and unique folklore. One of the distinctive traits of the Superhero genre in comics is the ambivalence of many of the characters. Heroes (Batman, Spiderman, the literal Superheroes themselves) are often innocents. They are ambivalent, reluctant. They are far from indestructible, in fact they are all oddly vulnerable. They never asked for their gifts or reveled in their powers.’ [Related Links: Unbreakable Trailer, Unbreakable at IMDB]
[weblogs] Meg’s Under.Construction has got off to a good start with a number of interesting posts… ‘Welcome to under.construction. This weblog is intended as a forum for discussion of cyberculture, community, communication and other cultural facets of cyberspace. It’s also intended to be a repository for interesting stories and links – an evolving, collaborative bookmark list.’
2 December 2000
[books] Jorn from Robot Wisdom has a great list of links about Tom Wolfe. Here’s a chapter from The Bonfire of the Vanities. ‘Sherman leaned back in his chair and surveyed the bond trading room. The processions of phosphorescent green characters still skidded across the faces of the computer terminals, but the roar had subsided to something more like locker-room laughter. George Connor stood beside Vic Scaasi’s chair with his hands in his pockets, just chatting. Vic arched his back and rolled his shoulders and seemed about to yawn. There was Rawlie, reared back in his chair, talking on the telephone, grinning and running his hand over his bald pate. Victorious warriors after the fray . . . Masters of the Universe . . . And she has the gall to cause him grief over a telephone call!’
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