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London Bloggers [Comic Blogs][Other Blogs] | 18 September 2000
[big numbers] According to this calendarhome.com I am 11,129 days old. Which is interesting.
[books] Crime Magazine asks if In Cold Blood is a dishonest book. Interesting look at the story behind the creation of the book — but be warned… the page contains some disturbing images. ‘However, early on I’d like to raise the question of Capote’s basic honesty in writing this book. He set out to write a masterpiece, yet he took no notes. He recounts lengthy, complex conversations – sans notes. Capote told Plimpton that he had trained himself to do this – that, for a year and a half prior to embarking on the book, he had a friend read passages from a book to him, for an hour or two a day, then he would write down what he had heard – and in his estimation he had a unique facility for accurately remembering interviews, with an accuracy quotient of 95 percent. Which any newspaper reporter can tell you is horse feathers.’
17 September 2000  [books] The Guardian’s original book review of In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. ‘The utter banality of the Clutter murder, the fact that it was resolved not through some acute feat of detection but by a facile indiscretion – one of the assassins had discussed the family with a cell-mate before leaving prison – make Truman Capote’s radical point. Looked at minutely enough, filtered through the lens of a highly professional recorder, caught by the tape recording ear in its every inflection and background noise, the most sordid, shapeless of incidents, take on a compelling truth. Exhaustively rendered, the fact is richer than any fiction.’ [Buy this Book: UK / US]
[gummo] The Loafer’s Guide to Harmony Korine… ‘What next? Korine has been making Fight Harm, a film in which he provokes fights with strangers, a camera recording the violence. ‘I wanted it to be the funniest movie ever made, a cross between Buster Keaton and a snuff movie,’ he says. Work was stopped after he ended up in hospital or jail too often. After breaking his ankles in one fight, he’s had to abandon his plan ‘to invent a new form of tap-dancing’.’
[uk weblogs] Blue Lines returns. Better than ever. ‘The current affairs content of this page has been low recently, because while incidents such as doctors getting attacked by illiterate mobs who couldn’t tell the difference between a paediatrician and a paedophile hold a certain black humour value, they’re also symptomatic of what a fucking depressing Summer it’s been for anyone of vaguely liberal leanings.’
[horror] The Observer interviews Stephen King. ‘Stephen King paused, took a breath, he got stiffly to his feet, and smiled. ‘That’s not to say that there won’t always be a market for crap… Just look at Jeffrey Archer! He writes like old people fuck, doesn’t he?” [part of the Observer’s Stephen King Season]
16 September 2000
[ch-ch-ch-changes] Guardian Unlimited explores how to change your life. ‘…many of us are creatures of habit: we know exactly what we like and we make sure we stay well inside our comfort zone. Just remember that there’s always somewhere more comfortable than your comfort zone, and eventually that thought will make you so uncomfortable that you’ll venture out.’
[weblogs] Linus, Bill and Steve have an amusing Newbie Blog Chat… ‘BillGates34: My blog is named Blog O’ Bill, in case you guys wanna link me. It’s an acronym…..B.O.B. ….it spells Bob. A guy’s name. Cool, eh? SteveJobsMac: Um….yeah, Einstein. Real cool. Except that your name isn’t Bob. Correct me if I’m wrong. BillGates34: Sheeesh…it’s just a joke. Lighten up, dude. Hey…what browsers do you guys use? I use IE :) LinusTorvalds69: DUH!! SteveJobsMac: DUH!!’
15 September 2000
[more big brother] The Daily Express interviews the Big Mother behind BB… On Nasty Nick: “It was obvious we had to get him out. People asked why we didn’t get rid of him earlier but this was the first time we had concrete proof he’d been trying to sway nominations and he was told he had to go. He came straight out of the house and into the back of a car. I was with him. We drove out to Welwyn Garden City to a hotel. He was very shaken and upset and had absolutely no concept of the scale of the big debate, so for the first four hours it was my job to gently tell him that he was probably the most talked about man in Britain…and that it wasn’t all good.”
[big brother] Desmond Morris on the Human Zoo that is Big Brother. ‘The housemates were nextdoor neighbours to millions of us, and gave us a great deal of innocent fun. If ever you find yourself in the midst of a remote tribe, living in primeval conditions and you investigate what they are chatting about around the fire, you can be certain that they will not be reminiscing about their tribal myths or ancestor figures, but gossiping incessantly about village trivia. Gossip is the oil that lubricates social conversation and that helps us to understand our tribal relationships and our shared feelings and attitudes. In an urban world, this village smalltalk finds it hard to survive. Many people hardly know their neighbours. Big Brother has given us, briefly, a small group of national neighbours and we have all enjoyed comparing notes about them the following day. That’s all it is, a bit of gossipy fun, and good luck to it.’
14 September 2000
[ellroy] Old Salon interview with James Ellroy… On his mother: ‘She gave me gifts — her death did. Those gifts have stood me in very good stead. I cannot go back and undo the past. I never even think of what might have happened had she lived. Would I be a writer? I had gone to great lengths in my life, in my career, to seek consciousness and get better and better. That eclipsed everything with me, everything in my subconscious.’
[cartoon] Yet another great Steve Bell cartoon on the petrol crisis… ‘Fat Blokes United in Disgruntlement’
13 September 2000
[referer log] Looking for Charlie Dimmock naked? I can’t help you… but the BBC does has some naked Gardeners’ Question Time action right here…
[comics] Comic Book Geek Purity Test. I got: “You answered “yes” to 103 of 300 questions, making you 65.7% comic pure (34.3% comic corrupt).” [via Threadnaught]
[censored] Guardian Unlimited covers the handling of Lady Chatterley’s Lover censorship case back in the 1960s. ‘Under the heading “Gratuitous filth”, the DPP’s office had tried to keep a running count of the offending words. It notes on page 204 a “bitch goddess of Success (coined by Henry James)”, a “fucking”, a “shit”, a “best bit of cunt left on earth” and “balls” (three times). On page 232 is found “arse” (twice), “arsed” and “slits” (twice), and so the file goes on. At the trial Griffith-Jones told the jury that the word “fuck” or “fucking” appeared no fewer than 30 times.’
[aids] Heretic! Scientists argue over whether AIDS was caused by western virologists developing polio vacines in the 1950s… ‘Since The River was published Hooper has had his integrity questioned throughout. His powerful critics have accused him of being a “madman”, “a tenth-rate journalist”, a “conspiracy theorist”, of having “more time than sense”, and of being “speculative”. His accuracy has been questioned as well as his journalistic methods and motives. John Moore, professor of microbiology and immunology at Cornell University, has accused him of “twisting and manipulating” facts, of being paid by his “crony Hamilton to write about his pet theory”.’ [BBC Report: Scientists rule out polio link to Aids]
12 September 2000
[comics] Bad weblogger…. did not spot this great Steve Bell cartoon on the Petrol Crisis earlier.
[weblogger on the verge of a…] …Nervous Breakdown. Sunday’s Observer actually covers what a nervous breakdown means… ‘The most common kind of breakdown, according to Dr Philip Timms, a consultant psychiatrist with the South London and Maudsley Trust, is someone developing moderately severe depression, normally over a period of weeks. ‘A person would begin to feel more on edge, find it more difficult to sleep, find themselves thinking more negatively about themselves, feel increasingly hopeless and incompetent about what they’re doing, and then there comes a day when they just can’t face going to work, or getting out of bed, perhaps. Breakdown occurs if a depressive episode is not dealt with – it builds up and it’s part of a process.’ ‘
[big brother] Is Bernie Winters dead? Yes he is… and here’s his gravestone. He’s buried in Golders Green cemetary along with Peter Sellers.
[weblogs] blogger.com covers How to publicize your blog.
11 September 2000
[tv] seethru.co.uk goes live… reads a bit like a weblog “music – wit – no shit my personal Internet filter” But it’s not. It’s a manufactured website for the new TV series Attachments.
[McCartney] Guardian Unlimited interviews Paul McCartney. “It was summed up one morning when we were doing the White Album. I was working all day and till three in the morning and we’d worked late right through the weekend. I was coming into work and there was a guy watering his garden. It was a sunny morning and he just looked at me and smiled, ‘Good morning !’ and I said, ‘Good morning,’ and I just stopped and said, ‘Shit, who’s got it right here?'”
[teletext] Ceefax in amber — here’s the news headlines from Monday 3rd October 1983. [via Playing with Cobras]
10 September 2000
[80’s authors] Bright Lights, Big City — the Observer profiles Jay McInerney. “‘I think I’ve been trying to prove I’m a really bad guy for 20 years, that I’m not a mother’s boy. But part of me is stuck with being a Catholic boy who is slightly shocked by things.’ Part of him – but perhaps a decreasing part. He once admitted that, as a teenager, he was deeply influenced by the Playboy ‘Adviser’ section and he still retains that slightly tacky notion of sophistication – he really has to have a beautiful woman on his arm. And the emotional detritus is piling up.”
[ARTICLE NUMBER REMOVED] Need To Know seem to have removed article numbers pointing at usenet news postings on deja.com containing the hoax transcript of Jimmy Saville on Have I Got News For You which they published on Friday. Why? [Related Links: Some of the Corpses are Amusing, LMG Posting #1, LMG Posting #2]
9 September 2000
[adrian mole redux] Must…. not…. blog… Adrian Mole… ‘It’s time I found a sexual partner: a non-neurotic, childless, non-smoking, beautiful woman who enjoys literature, spotting Eddie Stobart lorries and housework would be ideal. Is it too much to ask that I should be allowed a little happiness?’
[bad craziness] Some deeply weird headfucks on the Barbelith Underground… ‘“The simplest explanation is most probably the truth.” — Occam’s Razor.
[life] 101 ways to slow down… ‘102. Don’t worry about finding interesting/useful/life-changing links for your weblog.’
[weblogs] Getting blogged everywhere — Rebbeca Blood talks about the rise of weblogs. ‘Dell manages more webpages than all of the weblogs put together. Sprite’s PR machine can point more man-hours to the promotion of one message–“Obey Your Thirst”–than the combined man-hours of every weblogger alive. Our strength–that each of us speaks in an individual voice of an individual vision–is, in the high-stakes world of carefully orchestrated messages designed to distract and manipulate, a liability. We are, very simply, outnumbered.’ [One Word: Linux]
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