on the internetz.
Flash mobs, a concept first espoused by Stephen King in a short story about teleportation, are now becoming more of a reality – what with the rapid information distribution of email and mobile phones. One of the originators of New York flash mobs has written a great article about the whole thing in Harpers.
As I sit here listening to the rain fall on the balcony outside I realised I’d forgotten how relaxing that sound was. For some reason it associates with tropical rainstorms falling on bamboo huts near a beach. Just the thought of nature doing it’s thing right outside the door brings a sense of calm that all is right in the world. That said it’s still bloody annoying when you forget an umbrella…
As a 33 1/2 birthday treat I went to see Tristram Shandy last night and I have to say it was one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time. Hilarious, awkward, intense and pretty deep – the theatre was laughing the whole way through, even drowning out the sounds of the subway below (ah, the Angelika). Steve Coogan is amazing, playing himself, Tristam Shandy and Tristram’s father all at the same time, often overlayed as the interplay between the actual story and the making of the movie come together. The layers of interaction between story and reality are constantly changing, right to the very end.
Let me give you an example, in the middle of the movie proper Steve Coogan, dressed as Tristram, watching a younger version of himself, that is Tristram, played by a child actor who was ‘the best of a bad bunch’, in an awkward situation only to change, seconds later, to being Steve Coogan having finished shooting the scene and walking to an interview with Tony Wilson, who Coogan played in 24 Hour Party People, where he asks Wilson not to introduce the interview with ‘Knowing me, Tony Wilson, knowing you, Steve Coogan’ as he is trying to outgrow ‘a comedy series that was eight years ago – I’m a serious actor now’. Having passed this social gaffe, Wilson completes the interview only to turn to camera to tell us that the whole interview will be available on DVD as one of the many extras. Genius. Intense, maddening, wonderful genius.
[IMDB: Tristram Shandy]
Check out these images from a Jain festival in India. Stunning colours, especially when they coat the giant statue with tumeric.
Someone has uploaded this great mash-up of Blair and Bush edited to sing ‘Gay Bar’ by Electric Six. Great stuff, and a classic example of how pixel perfect finish isn’t as important when the content’s good.
Apparently shareholders of the company that makes Grand Theft Auto are getting a class action lawsuit together. The reason for suing? The shares plummeted in value after news broke on the ‘Hot Coffee’ game mod that lets you have sex within the game, causing large family companies to ban the game.
Given they were trying to make money off a company that makes a game in which beating a prostitute up with a baseball bat after sleeping with her in your car is an integeral part of the game play then I think the phrase ‘caveat emptor’ applies here. Or maybe we should all get in on this, and sue any company with shares whenever the value goes down – then everyone’s a winner!
The British government has just voted for a total ban on smoking in all public bars and members clubs. This is great news indeed. England has some of the smokiest bars that I’ve come across in the world, most likely because as a country we have an apparent blind spot to the concept of air conditioning, thinking that a small, arthritic fan in a high window is sufficient. Many a night I’ve come back from being out with friends and almost had to burn my clothes from the smell of cigarettes.
Yes, it will be hard at first for all the smokers, and everyone else who hangs out with smokers who has to listen to how hard it is for smokers – but having seen what happened in New York and what a difference it now makes I have to say the pain will be worth it. People here in New York still smoke, they go outside, chat, come back in – plus after midnight there’s a loophole which means many bars let you smoke. Everyone, including smokers I know here, does not want to go back to the way it was – so England, just try it out for a while, and if it doesn’t work then vote in a party that only runs on policies of forced, non-consensual inhalation of stinking, carcinogenic fumes in the name of ‘having a good night out’. Cough.
One day all the mild mannered hipsters might just rise up to save the day. Why is that you ask? Surely with their geeky trendy glasses and hip thrift clothes they could not prevent world disaster? Ah well, consider this good reader.. like Clark Kent was Superman’s mild mannered disguise so too do most hipsters have their secret identity. By day, mild mannered (sometimes) waiter/bar tender/shop assistant, by night crazed, intense film maker/band member/actress. What’s your secret identity?
The imminent arrival of Richard Linklater’s version of the classic Philip K Dick novel ‘A Scanner Darkly‘ has gotten a lot of people excited. Me included. A large chunk of my adolescence and beyond was spent reading Dick’s amazing blend of science fiction, deep philosophical and sociological concepts and compelling stories and Scanner was one of my favorites, as my dog eared copy back home will attest. Fingers crossed the final result is worthy of the hype.
Of course I’m also prepared to be sorely disappointed, as Dick’s ideas are hard to translate to the screen without losing a lot of their mental muscle. Even his short stories of 20 or so pages translate easily into full length movies (see Minority Report and Total Recall amongst others) and still lose some of the storie threads.
What I didn’t realise until I read a great article in this month’s Res magazine was that Terry Gilliam, my all time favorite director, had tried to option the book – and Charlie Kaufman, my all time favorite screen writer, had written a script for it. Just imagine the movie that might have been if those two had shared talents…
After a long stretch of wonderfully warm spring-like days, winter has finally decided that New York needs some snow. There’s already about a foot outside my window, but the worst part is the wind which is driving drifts all over the place besides making interesting patterns on my window. Guess I’m having another lazy day at home having not left the house yesterday – oops.