Alphabet vs. the goddess – leonard shlain. Well it’s only taken me three years to finish this book… Shlain proposes that alphabetic, left brain/logic dominate societies have constantly subjugated more feminine, visual religious practices – causing years of oppression and war. There are some interesting examples in here, especially talking about how Jesus preached using a lot of water based, more feminine doctrines which then got turned around once written down. In the end he holds out hope for our future as television and especially computers open up our right brains again. The book is basically flawed in that a lot of it is written ‘in my opinion’ with minimal backing evidence. He also rushes through the last century as if nothing happened of interest! Like most schlock science you can put any ‘theory’ over the facts if you ignore certain things. So an interesting read, but not highly recommended.
Category: Musings
Kingdom of fear – hunter s thompson. A lovely Christmas present from Oliver – thanks! This is a more biographical account than usual of Hunter’s life and times as gonzo journalist, attempted sheriff and sampler of extreme lifestyles. Great reading in his usual style that really makes you wonder where all his ‘novels’ blur from fact to fiction and back again. It’s also good commute reading due to nice short chapters that you can easily dip into.
Fear and loathing in heaven or hell
Wow. Just saw that Hunter S Thompson shot himself the other day. A sad loss to extreme writing everywhere.
Recently I’d just finished reading Kingdom of Fear, an autobiographical review of his life, although many would argue all of his writing is biographical anyway.
Chocoholic
When I came back from my Christmas break in England I ‘smuggled’ about four Tesco’s bags full of chocolate back with me. Most of it survived, with some heroic chocolate bars sacrificing their lives for their fellows – they will be remembered with honour.
This full set of bounty consisted of Kit Kats, Twirls, Curly Wurlys, Aeros and Cadbury’s chocolate bars in all sorts and varieties. Mint, dark and filled with Seville orange – whatever will those geniuses think of next? Personally I have some favourites: mint Kit Kats are great, that slight sharpness taking the humble Kit Kat to another level, Twirls are always just best plain as the chocolate used is rich and pasty on your tongue and Aeros also seem to fare best in their original chocolate flavour. Stay away from the filled Kit Kats!
What is the point of this chocolate rant? Well amazingly, after a stressful two months of hard work and not much time to buy healthy food, I still seem to have a large fridge vegetable contained full of chocolate… go figure. I am however working to rectify this horrific situation as we speak.
Techno, Techno, Techno
A lovely fun bouncey night out at Substance last night reliving my old uni clubbing days. Surgeon, one of the original stalwarts of Third Eye back in Brum, was headlining and played a great set full of old school trance techno. Just like House of God all over again – except without the epic grandeur of the Que Club as a backdrop. Plus American dancers have a whole different approach to these kind of events – lots of break dancing and over-zealous self expression, as opposed to the usual drug fuelled Brit style of ‘stare at the DJ, gurn and wave hands at varying levels’.
The start of the night was also fun, after a brief nap and one of my episodes of suspected narcolepsy (I ‘wake’ up while asleep unable to move), went to join Paula at her friend Maria’s art opening. Fun little gallery in Billyburg that is also an artists house. The show was based around Maria’s five coldest nights – represented by a sequence of slightly larger than postcard size drawings lined up across the wall, and related lumps of ice each containing items pertaining to the story melting outside. Fun stuff. Then off to the after party where we warmed our chilled butts against one of the few open fires I’ve found in New York – bliss.
JTEXT, MAURY & ROGER
A very exciting day yesterday – all three of our Universal campaigns went live with great success! There’s definately a thrill associated with seeing Jerry Springer talk about something you’ve helped set up. Plus it’s great to have finally gotten a proper night’s sleep – almost.
All the hard work has paid off though and everyone on the team has pulled together really well to get it all done. Congratulations everyone!
Now hopefully I can find some time to catch up on my homework for my photography course. I somehow managed last week to find time to run off two 36 films and buy a pile of developing kit in amongst the madness – and even got to the class on Thursday where I finally learnt how to develop black & white film (in summary: a pain in the butt – not tricky, just messy). This week our lesson is to use two light sources to take ‘portraits’ of a head shaped vegetable, and then to repeat the same with a person shaped person. The theory is that when you ask the vegetable to do something it’ll be easier than with the person = so you’ll be thinking more about lighting and so on. Bought my veggies.. now just need to find a willing human victim!
Crazy days
Been a hectic couple o’ weeks in matt-land, so apologies for the lack of regular bloggage. Fell ill the other week with a nasty throat thang which coincided nicely with friends being in town and stopping me fully enjoying the bravery in concer (they were splendid in their hometown venue of NorthSix). Plus while I’ve been recovering from that all has been madness getting ready for our first big text campaign since New Year’s Eve. For the next four weeks we’ll be running a promotion for Jerry Springer, Blind Date and Maury Povitch.. all very exciting, and certainly felt a slight thrill seeing Jerry talk about the promotion in the spot.
So now I’m off to get a couple o’ hours of well deserved sleep before the excitement begins.. first Jerry is at 7am EST. Go Jerry! Go Jerry! Go Jerry!
Purty
The first snow storm of the season has hit and boy is it a doozy! Whatever a doozy is.
The snow started here about midday as I wandered down to yoga, and by the time I got out about two hours later there was 1/3 foot across the ground. What’s kind of surprising is that even though it’s daytime the snow was settling on the roads and not doing the usual grey, mucky New York road snow thing. Guess that’s because it has been so arsingly cold here that the snow can settle properly (it’s been pushing -20 C, that nice kind of cold where you can’t feel your toes and your face feels like it’s falling off).
Now there’s almost a foot on the ground and a strong wind creating some fun little drifts. Still white and pretty though, well, fluorescent yellowy white from the city lights. I’m hoping that by tomorrow it will have gotten to a better consistency for making snow folk, as it’s not particularly sticky at the moment. Fingers crossed!
We hold these truths to be self-evident
Today is probably the best public holiday in America – Martin Luther King day. It’s a day to remember the injustices of the past and re-affirm that they shouldn’t happen again, to anyone, of any race or beliefs. Especially at the moment it seems like this should be the most important day of the American calendar this year.
Anyways, thanks to Talli for sending out a link to King’s letter from Birmingham jail and here it is.
Gingerly
Apparently I wasn’t drunk enough on New Year’s Eve this year… even though I tried to drink enough to compensate for not drinking at all last year since I was driving to take Holly to the Falls Festival for her performance. We managed to both fall asleep in the car that night, missing Aussie New Year – so I had to make sure this year I was doubly awake {;)
Why was I not drunk enough? Well I reckon because not only did I wake up feeling relatively good at midday yesterday, but when ‘evil’ Sophy texted over to suggest meeting her and Miguel at Milk & Honey for a few drinks I hummed and hawed and texted back ‘yes’. I’m sure I did write some new year’s resolutions down somewhere…
Anyway I’m glad she did as Milk & Honey is a great little place. An intimate little speakeasy where you have to be on the guestlist to get in but there’s no velvet rope policy – just a ‘keep it chilled and mellow’ policy inside. The drinks, although expensive, are wonderful – the haute cuisine to most bars fast food – which covers the time it takes to make them as well as the amazing flavours. Served with fresh juices in long glasses with long shards of ice instead of cubes, they are stimulating to both the palette and the eye. The bourbon and ginger drink, made with real ginger juice not ginger all, was a complete blast through my slightly fuzzy system – wonderful.
Aside from finding an interesting little bar it was great to see Sophy and Miguel again – hard to believe it had been almost six months. Miguel was mildy excited about the upcoming War of the Worlds, as he managed to score himself a speaking line to Mr Cruise himself. Good job! Strangely they did casting calls for people who could speak Portuguese, but then his line is in English – go figure. What this led to was finding out that Miguel’s 2nd or 3rd cousin is an actor who was in Robocop amongst other films – his name, also Miguel Ferrer. Oh, the other other aside is that through other slightly convoluted familiar paths the Miguels are also related to George Clooney. Small world.