| Friday, May 31, 2002 |
 | Interesting article about the way technology deforms around the Amish. On the bright side, although they have worked out "plain" ways to generate electricity and run computers, the mobile phone is a massive sticking point and telephones have to be kept in an outhouse in the fields so calls do not interrupt family and community life. So you can still do the joke about phoning up the Amish and shouting "Gotcha".
Besides, the Amish refer to everyone who is not Amish as "the English". And that, my friends, rocks. So hard.
(On other news, I can't believe Ian Brown has just totally missed Pat Nevin's "dark night of the Seoul" gag. The man has no culture)
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| Cripes! And indeed, yay. Lord alone knows how low the tabloids will sink in reporting Pape Bouba Diop's winning goal against France. "Plucky" may well occur. As may "natural enthusiasm". As may the headline "Bouba Feat"...
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| Shakespeare versus Mark E Smith. Now that's what I call a royal rumble. I imagine the tiny skelp-faced mutant would establish an early lead but Shakey would pin him back with a series of well-placed observations. Then get punched in the mouth.
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| Wednesday, May 29, 2002 |
| When postmoderdism attacks! A children's book out either now or soon, depending on which side of the Atlantic and when you find yourself reading this, Child X, features a teenaged character who has been cast as Lyra in a production of Northern Lights. Is it me, or does the cycle time of cultural enthronement keep getting tighter and tighter?
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| Friday, May 24, 2002 |
| Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.
And sometimes you have to be cruel....
....for purely recreational purposes.
See David Thomas, performing the musical versions of the cautionary tales in a bewildering mix of drawl, soft sprechstimme and unearthly yodel. Bacxked by Keith Molin and the brilliantly-named Andy Diagram, the musical vignettes are accompanied by some superbly-done dance, mime and puppetry (the puppetry fucking rocks).
Basically, go see.
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| Thursday, May 23, 2002 |
| From the Guardian:
After all, spreading random fear does seem a curious way to prosecute a war on terror. And if this ever had been a place willing to agree with Cheney and Attorney-General John Ashcroft's unremitting insinuations that criticism of the White House is somehow unpatriotic in a time of war, it certainly was not this week.
I actually do love New York.
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| I'm drinking alcoholic orange juice. That's fucking insane.
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| Scary experiences on the London Underground, number about seven zillion in a continuing series (and I'm not even mentioning the ruination of my shiny new pale trousers on Monday. Curse you, God....):
On the escalators up, this morning, saw an ad for Chicago. Those who don't have the good fortune to occupy this sexy metropolis (pause to hawk up a gob of black filth the size of an apple), be apprised that West End Chicago's adverts tend to be moody B&W shots of the latest star looking sexy and a headline like "Alison Moyet: Top Lass" or "Denise van Outen. She may have Jamiroqunt filthstink on her, but at least she dumped him, and the old girl can give it some with the old lungs".
This time around, however, there was a darker project afoot. Pinned to the wall, sliding past my horrified eyes as the escalator carried my gibbering form toward the upper air, was the monochromatic mug of one Marti Pellow, former chubby-faced rehab hoover of Wet Wet Wet and as such one of the most evil men in history.
This is like casting Adolf Eichmann in Kiss Me Kate, for God's sake. You want something more like a soulful singer than Marti Pellow? Fine. Take a duck. Put it in a microwave. Cook it until its BILL FUCKING WITHERS.
Voila
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| Monday, May 13, 2002 |
| I once sent ten pounds to a woman I'd never met. I'd got an email from her, saying she was Nigerian; her husband had been killed by the militia; her daughter needed to get to Europe for an operation. After I'd phoned my bank to transfer the money, I felt guilty, because it seemed like so little. But a few weeks later, I got another message. The details were different, the email address was different, but the account number was the same.
There's been some really good stuff on Upsideclone of late, not least this tale of mutant spam from Ned, and Holly Gramazio's truly mighty tale of fierce artistic competition, which I can't quote for fear of spoiling it. But read it. It rocks.
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| Sorry. Away. In Brighton. Having fun. More chunky Venusberg goodness soon, but for now some mad props for my homies:
The first of us to go was Robert, who passed his last week by reciting every object in his New York apartment in exacting detail. The way a teacup felt cupped in his fingers, the warmth of a glass paperweight by the window. The cracked window panes. The sheepskin rug.
Brooke has a writing style that might fittingly be described as pathological. It makes me tingly in a wrong way. Bonus points for use of the word "marasmus" also. Check out what the dead remember here.
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| Tuesday, May 07, 2002 |
| As ever, I don't quite know what compels me to take online tests. Some lunatic quest for self-knowledge? An attempt to throw perspectivism after perspectivism into the existential void? Not being entirely comfortable viewing hunkswithstumps.com at work?
In any case, it turns out this time that I am Sylvia Plath, Maya Angelou and Carl Sandburg.
Now let's just wait one moment here, spunky. Sylvia is pretty much a shoo-in (bit broody, wide mouth, dislikes cooking and Ted Hughes). Sandburg I can deal with, in a "why can't I be Frank o'Hara?" way. But Maya frickin' Angelou? Oprah in verse? I think the Hell not.
Let's go through this one more time, Maya. The caged bird doesn't sing because it remembers being free. The caged bird doesn't sing at all. It cries. It just sounds like singing. Mmmmmkay?
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| Wednesday, May 01, 2002 |
| There are some truly terrifying phrases in the English language. Phrases like "It's malign, I'm afraid", "Could I speak to you in private?" and "Is that your bike? It's a girl's bike. Let's cut off the girly-bike loser's face, boys!". But none has turned my blood to ice quite like Robyn last night, with her "I think I saw Hasselhoff" text message.
And you poor schmucks always thought Hasselhoff was an urban legend...
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