Fish spotting
Posted under: Lunch time. Full tide at Clontarf bay. Spotted lots of fish; large Roach right in against the wall swimming in couples and threesomes. Busy shoals of silvery fry trying to stay away from the Roach, and even some jumpers farther out clearing a few feet out of the water and making a big splash like something from an old irish coin.
I can’t quite remember which came first. Being obssessive about trying to spot wild fish whenever I’m near water. Or those weird recurring dreams where I’m obssessively trying to spot wild fish whenever I’m near water.
I honestly can’t remember whether some memories, like spotting a big carp in the Liffey, are actual memories or just memories of dreams. But spotting fish is a bit of an odd experience these days; I have so many strange dreams about fish-spotting that when it actually happens for real, like at lunchtime, I feel a little dizzy, as if I’m half transported back to dreamland for a few seconds and have to look away from the water to get head back to reality. But I never can tear myself away, and have to wait for the fish to swim away before I come back to reality.
Yes – definitely one to be filed under waffle.
The Ambassador’s skull
You know that famous anamorphic painting The Ambassadors?
I was messing about with it in Flash and it’s very easy to show the distorted skull morphing into the image you’re supposed to see from an angle. Have a look see.
Yesterdays news
30 September 2010. Toxic bank cement truck crashed into the air just in front of the gate at Dail Eireann, while Google street view went live in Ireland.
Large version
People & Power – Secrets and children
Documentary by a friend investigating allegations of neglect in Ireland’s childcare system. Some HSE staff took big risks taking part in the interviews but it may never air or get seen by a wide audience, so please pass on if you can.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5oHCSaHcek
Images of the day
I might have uttered similar mutterings before; people always talk about blogs in terms of the quality of writing and other such piffle that we won’t bother ourselves with today. A lot of my favourite blogs contain few words, and lot’s of other cool media, mostly photos and images but often videos and bits and pieces. I see some great images every day. Here’s a few great ones that popped in to my feed reader just in the last day or so. And funnily enough, not one of them is from the many great photoblogs I’m subscribed to.
Freedom
source
Laura Byrne / Joe Coleman
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Three word phrase
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A US soldier patrols in a pomegranate orchard in Afghanistan
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Shadow Kissing
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Slurp
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Wet ‘n’ Wild
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My son James
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*Not listening*
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The pain of watching non geeks use a computer…
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3 Frames
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source
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Laura Byrne / Joe Coleman
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Three word phrase
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A US soldier patrols in a pomegranate orchard in Afghanistan
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Shadow Kissing
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Slurp
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Wet ‘n’ Wild
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My son James
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*Not listening*
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The pain of watching non geeks use a computer…
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3 Frames
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source
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Three word phrase
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A US soldier patrols in a pomegranate orchard in Afghanistan
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Shadow Kissing
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Slurp
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Wet ‘n’ Wild
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My son James
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*Not listening*
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The pain of watching non geeks use a computer…
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3 Frames
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source
source
A US soldier patrols in a pomegranate orchard in Afghanistan
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Shadow Kissing
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Slurp
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Wet ‘n’ Wild
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My son James
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*Not listening*
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The pain of watching non geeks use a computer…
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3 Frames
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source
source
Shadow Kissing
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Slurp
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Wet ‘n’ Wild
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My son James
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*Not listening*
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The pain of watching non geeks use a computer…
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3 Frames
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source
source
Slurp
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Wet ‘n’ Wild
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My son James
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*Not listening*
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The pain of watching non geeks use a computer…
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3 Frames
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source
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Wet ‘n’ Wild
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My son James
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*Not listening*
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The pain of watching non geeks use a computer…
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3 Frames
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source
source
My son James
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*Not listening*
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The pain of watching non geeks use a computer…
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3 Frames
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source
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*Not listening*
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The pain of watching non geeks use a computer…
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3 Frames
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The pain of watching non geeks use a computer…
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3 Frames
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3 Frames
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HIP HOP
HIP HOP. Is there anything like it for sheer bloody awesomeness? For all the fantastic things it’s given us? Every day I worship at the altar of Hip hop in some small part. There’s no other musical culture that comes close to it in everything amazing stuff it’s coughed out of its guts. People missed the second coming. It wasn’t Jesus. It was the holy trinity of Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaattaa. You’ve just got to stand back and look at it now and then and go wow. Well I do. Apart from the music itself, the list of absolutely amazing things that just keep developing from it’s roots more than 30 years later is staggering; turntablism, beatboxing, breakdancing, rap battles, graffiti. And all of these still developing and splitting of into other wonderful things.
I don’t think there’s been a movie to catch the vibe of it all since WILDSTYLE. I’ve heard people say it’s a rubbish movie but that would be completely missing the point, the acting is rubbish but it’s an amazing documentary.
There. I just wanted to say that. HIP HOP is fucking amazing. And I vote for Beardyman as president of the world. Here’s a youtube playlist I just put together showcasing a mere fraction of it’s awesomeness.
Cuimhnigh an bainne
Remember the milk for Irish phones….
I think this is pretty cool; you can connect Remember The Milk(RTM) and Twitter to your phone so that you can use Twitter or a text to send tasks to RTM. And then RTM will send you a text and an email reminding you to do things at a certain time.
I’ve been using remember the milk for a while now. I really needed a to-do list / task reminder that could really grab my attention and is also very easy to update. A lot of task apps that sit on my desktop just become invisible to me very quickly. As do gmail tasks. But the fact that RTM can send you texts really grabbed my attention and comes highly recommended but only when its hooked up with your phone is it a really powerful task reminder.
But it mostly only supports mobile networks in the US and other countries – but not Ireland. I’ve been checking back every now and then to see if they support Irish mobiles yet and they still don’t. But there’s a great way around it;
First you follow a special Twitter account http://twitter.com/rtm so that task reminders are sent to your Twitter account.
Then you set up Twitter so that it sends you texts when you get a new tweet. Lots of people do that anyway but if you’re like me and use the mobile version of Twitter on your phone then, like me, you’ve probably never bothered getting Twitter as texts. So I just turned off phone updates from everyone I follow except @rtm.
So now I can send @rtm a direct message like “take the bread out of the oven at 2:45pm” (I actually left bread in the oven for 2 hours longer than I should have yesterday. Dough!) And at 2:45 I’ll get a text and an email telling me to take the bread out of the oven. No more burnt bread! And I could have set that task up quickly from tweetdeck, from a text, or from the RTM site. And that’s all with the free version of RTM.
There’s more on twitter and rtm here: http://www.rememberthemilk.com/services/twitter/ . I gotta go RTM just sent me a text reminding me to record some of the Shane Meadows season on Film4.
DJ Bass video mashup
Remember the legendary DJ Bass from the Dublin Funk Collective way way back? He’s living in Las Vegas these days but here’s a recent video mashup he did. Good to see he’s still at it to some degree. Black eyed peas never sounded better!
Speaking of DJing, when I was moving recently I ended up rooting through my box of tapes from the attic and recorded/uploaded a few of mine. Might record upload other DJ’s at some stage. Here’s my 3:
April ’96 – lot’s of Detroit stuff, and non-banging techno
www.4shared.com/audio/0RRBfdIS/April_96.html
KissFM mix – Mix done for Keith Downey’s Pscyhonavigation show – quite chilled abstract techno / IDM / whatever you call it thee days
www.4shared.com/audio/BfuhjdVT/JohnBraine-KissFMmix.html
Al’s party – bit rough and ready, was just recorded at a friends party some night.
www.4shared.com/audio/E1EY_sER/als_party.html
Recorded lots more but the quality was quite shit.
Paranormal Activity
Wow. Just watched Paranormal Activity and found it genuinely scary. First time in years I can remember being scared by a horror. I even found myself getting anxious and short of breath every time a night time scene started.
To a large extent, horrors just stopped being scary for me after I had stopped believing in absolutely anything supernatural, including God and The Devil and many underlying notions of that type that give horrors some grounding. I heard mixed feelings about it on the Kermode podcast with some people finding it really scary and others who didn’t.
I’ve only seen the trailer below for the first time which probably builds it up a bit too much. But it really hit a bone with me for some reason. Maybe it helps to watch it on your own in the dark in the right frame of mind. That shaky camera stuff really works for me too. If you found Blair Witch at all scary, you’ll get a kick out of this.
Owl on the M1?
I was on a bus yesterday and spotted this funny arrangement of trees. It was at the first M1/M50 roundabout coming from the airport. From the bus I thought that was an X in the middle, but I had a look on Google Earth and you can see it’s a continuation of the inner circles. If you just look at the shape, it looks like an icon of an owl or at least eyes with eyelashes. Here’s a bigger image.
Or is it a sore arse?
JOR
I went out and about last year during one of those culture nights. I just looked it up and the next one is in preparation for next month. See http://www.culturenight.ie/. last year, I ended up at a small exhibition by John O’Reilly and I’ve have keeping up with his blog ever since. Check it out: http://jorgallery.wordpress.com/.
I love his work. Recognisably local, very urban, and done in a style that works really well for the subject matter. I think he has a bit of a graffiti background. Great stuff. I just wish I could afford to buy paintings!
I don’t know why so many people paint all the twee parts of Dublin. I can’t stand that stuff. Well I’m sure there are more that don’t paint that kind of stuff but it sure fills Merrion Square every week. Gimme some urban! Innit!? Oi oi.
The Italian job planet of the apes
GSOH
“Good sense of humour”. Bit of a pointless phrase really isn’t it? What people actually mean is “someone with the same sense of humour as me”. Which could be anything:
- Someone with really wry dark sense of humour?
- Someone who makes silly dad jokes at every opportunity?
- Someone who loves tasteless jokes?
- Someone who laughs out loud when they see Eddie Murphy in a fat suit?
- Someone who laughs out loud at pre-movie ads in the Cinema?
- Somehow who ROFLS at a clip of someone falling off a rope-swing crossing a river?
- Someone who thinks crazy talentless people on talent shows are funny
- Or even someone who thinks its funny to write a blog post dissecting frequently used but pointless phrases?
There’s no such thing as a good sense of humour. Your good is my bad.
Same with music*. When you say someone has a great taste in music, what you really mean is they have the same taste in music as you.
*And pretty much anything else; Call the press, hold the headlines, someone on the Interweb has discovered that the word ‘good’ is subjective.
Spun out
I entered a competition for an ipad today on spunout.ie thinking it’d be a quick questionaire that I could bluff my way through – but I stopped making an effort towards the end. Don’t think I’ll win somehow.
More books
Yes I’m still hooked on audiobooks. Some more reviews:
Bill Bryson – Notes from a small Island
I’m not particularly interested in travel books but some folk are such entertaining writers that the content isn’t all that important. I’m sure I could read Charlie Brooker writing about the telephone book. Actually that’s a complete lie, I’ve skipped all the political stuff on his blog recently. But Bill Bryson waffling about his UK trips? I can sure enjoy that.
There’s a great balance in the book. Lot’s of ranting and raving about all the things that are shit about the UK, a lot of which are common to living in Ireland. Like the architectural rape of our cities in previous decades where monstrosities of buildings (Phibsborough shopping center?) were hideously erected, often in place of beautiful old buildings. But it’s also balanced with a great love for all the things that make the country great, peppered with the turn of phrase that makes Bill Bryson so laugh out loud funny.
The narrator’s posh English accent didn’t really work for me. Words like ‘Fuck’ just sounded wrong coming out of his mouth. Like he was spitting out something dirty. And some really ranty bits that were meant to be funny, just didn’t have the right kick, and made him sound like an asshole. Which he’s not, I imagined him cringing at some bits. But I got used to it after a chapter or two and most of it sounded fine. I’ve since noticed that Bryson narratesNeither here nor there himself, but I had a quick listen and the confidence in his writing doesn’t seem to carry in his voice. And nor should every writer need to sound like a professional narrator, obviously. So I guess it’s hard work trying to get the right narrator for any autobiographical work, unless read by the author.
Transition by Iain Banks. Narrated by Peter Kenny
I can’t easily pick favourites but I can easily say The Wasp Factory is my favourite book ever, and just as it was with Wasp Factory it was a bad review that drew me to Transition. Something about a sick joke. I like a bit of sick lit! But it turns out, you can indeed read too much of the one author. I think I’m done with Banksie now. As I’ve said before I was a total Banksie fanboy. I’ve read everything he’s written, and with that in mind, I found Transition quite repetitive and lazy. All the same themes I’ve read before too many times. He seems obsessed with big operations running the world, or the universe. Either rich families or secret organisations. There’s nothing new in Transition, it’s Quantum Leap with a thinly veiled Contact pulling the strings, as in Contact from all his Culture novels but in this book they’re called Concern. Contact/Concern, thin veil alright. And I feel like I’ve grown out of this type of science fiction for sure. I’d love to see Banksie getting back to the small personal books like Wasp Factory. No complaints on the audio end of things, all quite good readers.
Nick Hornby – Juliet Naked
Nick Hornby is really good at is writing good books that are very easy to read. No mean feat. And he’s great at nailing relationships, I found a lot of the relationship stuff close to the bone, and quite funny. And I can remember really enjoying it at the start but thought it lacked something overall. Couldn’t help thinking I was reading a screenplay rather than a book. Considering the main plot device resolves around people writing reviews on the Internet, the irony of this review wasn’t lost on me and I did enjoy the musings about good art, and who has the right to say what does and doesn’t make good art, the author? the fan? or the regular Joe?
The three narrators were good at playing themselves, but it fell apart when they had to quote each other, which is common in every book but sometimes problematic in audiobooks; the american actor putting on a British female voice and vice versa did not sound good. Or even (English) Annie quoting her husband Duncan, that sounded quite off; she gave him a personality transplant with a really silly voice. You could argue that’s how they perceived each other but it just sounded off to me. Though that’s a small point as it didn’t happen so often.
Audrey Niffenegger – The Time Travellers Wife
I loved this book. I found myself enjoying it from the start, but then halfway through, at a particular chapter I just thought “Wow – this is fantastic”. Niffenegger is a great writer, I kept noticing how she conveys so much with such short phrases; with just a few words you would know the exact look on a character’s face for example. And I really warmed to the characters, in a way which I don’t easily do.
I enjoyed the fact that you’d think it’d be a sci-fi novel but it’s really about a couple’s struggle to come to terms with a problem. Sure everyone has their problems, in their case it just so happens that Henry can’t stop travelling through time. And yes every sci-fi novel has a back story, but as someone who’s just grown sick of space operas this was a refreshing antithesis. The idea reminded me of one of my favourite novels, Middlesex by Jeffrey Euginedes, the fact that the main character is an hemaphrodite is irrelevant; it’s the coming of age story anyone could relate to that normalizes a freak affliction, just like the husband of the Time Traveller’s Wife. I miss reading it.
Mark Kermode – It’s Only a Movie
I’d actually intended to buy the paper version of this until I noticed it was narrated by Kermode himself. I just know that wouldn’t have worked with anyone else reading. Specially as I’m so used to hearing his voice on the Podcast. Unless it had been read by Jason Issacs, as that’s who Kermode casts as himself, in this story of his life through the eye of a movie. I loved this book too. I love Kermode’s passion for movies and he’s captured it perfectly. The excitement he describes seeing his favourite movies for the first time is contagious.
I thought one chapter, in Russia, dragged on a little, and was eagerly awaiting some more good stuff when it ended! So it is with an audiobook – if you’re not keeping an eye on the timer. A dissapointing ending *only* because I was enjoying it so much and it ended too soon. Highly recommended if you’re a Kermode fan or a movie nut.
Stieg Larsson – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
It’s a jolly good romp for sure. A classic modern daywhodunnit that I mostly enjoyed… but I dunno… I found the characters a bit unconvincing, the heroine is interesting yes, but just not quite authentic enough. Too many conflicting traits. And the plot just started to feel a bit contrived by the end. I enjoyed the fact that it was a classic locked room type mystery at the start, but I’m not sure I’m much of a whodunnit fan. The plot devices are just all too similar. Maybe a low jab, but I couldn’t help thinking it was similar to the DaVinci code, page turners yes I suppose, but lacking in character depth.
On the audio end of things, not for the first time did it take me some time to get used to an overly posh stage voice. I don’t mind posh voices. Quite like them but when you have to listen to a single voice for 16 hours, any strong accent, one way or the other, can be grating.
David Sedaris – Me talk pretty some day
I don’t think I’ve read a book of essays before. But I really liked it. I couldn’t help thinking each essay was similar to a blog post. But written by a high calibre blogger who knows his craft. Amusing stories from the life of Sedaris, told with flair and wit, both touching and funny. It inspired my Mi Padres esta Muerto post and similarly a lot of the tales in this book involved struggles with a foreign language, though much funnier in the hands of Sedaris. Amusing take to hear some of the chapters being read in front of an audience. A nice mash up of stand-up comedy and audiobook. It was a slightly different experience to hear every sentence punctuated with laughter, which made me laugh rather than smile at the funny bits. I discovered this book via the Books for ears site, which is the best audio book review site I’ve come across so far.
Kurt Vonnegut – Slaughterhouse 5
Ethan Hawke! Wake the fuck up. That’s what I wanted to scream. He narrated like an old granny reading a fairy tale. Oddly it sounded great at the start, and I like Nathan Hawke but it became unbearable very quickly. I almost didn’t persevere, and it put me off the actual book. Or maybe I just didn’t like the book all that much. I couldn’t decide. Apparently a very important book, but like a lot of important books it was probably important of the time, but didn’t strike me as such an important read in the context of now. Such is the peril reading from “books you must read before you die” type lists. I’m sure they were all brilliant at the time – but sometimes the time, place and political impact is what makes them so great, and don’t always work outside of that context.
Colum McCann – Let the Great World Spin
Everyone seemed to be talking about this all of a sudden. Not sure where I heard of it at first but soon after McCann was on Arts Lives, and he came across as a likeable fellow. Next day Radge was talking about him, and then I stumbled across the Irish Times Book Club doing let the Great World Spin. So that was the next read decided.
I often have a problem of not being able to decide if I like a book until I get to the end but I enjoyed this book as I read it, enjoying each moment for what it was rather than waiting to see how it all fit into the bigger story. I think the Irish slant makes it a bit more likeable too. It’s one of those novels that weaves together many different lives, and does so without being forced (like that terribly contrived movie Crash). I can remember thinking that it was quite rich, possibly in contrast to The Girl With The Dragon.
I got to ask Colum a question via the IT Book Club.
I’m curious about the Philippe Petit character in the book. Apart from the actual Twin Towers walk, is his story somewhat fictionalized or strictly based on real stories from other books about Petit? Did you feel more pressure to get the character exactly right? More so than the fictional characters in the book? Did his appraisal invade your thoughts as you wrote?
—
John – it’s a great question and one fraught with all sorts of implications for what is true, what is real, what is imagined. Clifford Getz says that the real is as imagined as the imaginary. I like this notion, and I think the he corollary is true also … that the imagined is real. Sometimes this reality outraces the truth.
As for Petit the story is largely true, but it’s there to serve the purposes of fiction. As you you can tell, I’m not writing a book about Petit. I’m using the walk as a metaphor, a pull-through. In fact I didn’t really care all that much about Petit – and I don’t mean this as callously as it sounds. I certainly cared about the walk, the act of beauty, the act of creation, the art of it. But Petit as a character didn’t come into it all that much for me … the tightrope walker is the only one who remains nameless in the book. So a lot of it is based on truth – the date, the time, the details of the walk itself. Certainly it has a textural truth. But a lot of it is made up also and serves the purpose of the narrative. For example, Philippe Petit never fell in the snow as far as I know, he never thought of himself as “having sex with the wind.”
I did worry about his appraisal, yes. I talked with Petit on the phone and he gave me his blessing. I sent him the book in several different versions, but I never heard back from him except for an answering machine message. I salute his beauty, though. I salute the act that remains, even though the towers are gone.
The Dimiyagi code
Degas trotted off to the ballet school once more. He’d sketched the dancers hundreds of times now. And crafted many paintings. But to say he was infatuated with the dancers was a façade of sorts. It was the dance teacher who intrigued him most. He didn’t know anyone quite like him. He was not from Paris that was clear, but he didn’t even seem from this time. Though that thought might have been suggested by the tall tales that he would tease Degas with. That he was a man who traveled through time and place to teach his ways. That he was a man who traveled from country to country and from one century to another. He traveled from when and where so he could treat lucky individuals to his unique teaching style.
And his teaching style was unique. He often took the dancers on strange trips to perform bizarre chores for days on end. They would never question his methods and would spend days carrying out these strange tasks before returning to the dance class. Degas would humour the teacher always asking for more stories of his past, and he almost believed him, the detail of the stories wove a convincing tale.
Most intriguing of all was that the teacher said he never taught the same subject twice. And never lived in the same country twice. And never lived in the same time period twice. In 1924, he taught bullfighters in Spain. From 2040 to 2042, in Peru, he taught robots to play football better than humans. Of these tall tales Degas had a favourite; of the America boy the teacher thought to fight. Degas asked the teacher to tell that story again. And smiled as he heard it once more.
It was later that day that Degas painted one of his masterpieces, La classe de danse. The dancing class. This time he made sure to include their very special time travelling teacher. Mr Miyagi. Wax on, Wax off Daniel San.
e-flow reminder
I’ve made an e-flow reminder to avoid paying those extortionate fees when you forget to pay the toll. When you pass a toll, take it out of your glove box and stick it on your dashboard. Prints onto a 4×6″ photo size. Big version here.
Mi padre está muerto
If the sun on my face wasn’t good enough reason to be sprightly, having an appointment, some business to attend to, while hurriedly strolling down a dusty backstreet in Spain, felt quite good. You could almost imagine I lived there in Sitges, hastily checking my watch as 9am approached. That is, if it weren’t for my pasty skin buttered in factor fifty, and the plasters on my ankles where my new sandals chaffed.
We’d decided it’d be a good idea to take Spanish lessons for one week at the start of the holiday. A week in Sitges then up the coast to Barcelona by train for the weekend of Sonar. I’d never learned a language. Unless you count nine school years of Irish and three years of French. But that didn’t count. Then I didn’t want to learn, and now I found I couldn’t learn.
Two idioms merged to become truisms. One involves old dogs and new tricks. And the other, a slightly lesser known fact; it’s much harder to learn a new language if you haven’t already learned a language in your younger years. So trying to teach an old dog a new language is quite the battle.
The first thing I learned in Spanish class was that I was the only person in the dunces’ class, the absolute beginner’s class (the missus just needed some brushing up, and took the expert’s class). The next lesson I learned quite quickly too; they don’t speak English in Spanish school. I couldn’t speak a word of Spanish. And my teacher wouldn’t speak a word of English. Well, I had the holster of usual phrases but that was it, so this impasse was a major inconvenience. It was though they never actually expected an absolute beginners in the absolute beginner’s class. Not really. Surely everyone would have some basic Spanish at least? It was a very slow start. I stared at her blankly as she made funny sounds and gesticulated. It was like a game of charades but even if I’d know what she was mimicking, the answer in my head would merely be in English.
A phrase I learned quite early, and one that has stuck with me since is “no entiendo” (don’t understand!). I used this phrase many many times that week. It was my deflated sigh of defeat. Uttered with the familiarity of an aging Señor with long white whiskers. But despite being on holiday I worked hard, and did my homework, and made some progress. On the last day we were ending on an exercise that was going quite well, though still quite basic in form. I had to describe my father in short phrases.
While elsewhere in the same building, the missus discussed Spanish politics and perfected her imperfect tenses, I sat there like the village idiot and pronounced : Mi padre es feliz (My father is happy). Then scraped the barrel of my soggy memory for some more words I could use, true or not.
“Mi padre es gordo”
“Mi padre es inteligente”
“Mi padre es pequeño”
Just as I was beginning to run out of adjectives my mobile rang. It was my mum. “Madre” I said apologetically, eyes going up to heaven, then gesturing more seriously to indicate I should probably take the call. I found my next adjective in the call, but hadn’t yet learned its Spanish equivelant. I ended the call and finished the exercise in English.
“My father is dead.”
Nightwatching
With some rare free time to kill, I went to see this on a whim. Really wish I’d hung around the IFI another twenty minutes to see Dogtooth. But I’d already been hanging around a bit and I like anything to do with painting so I went to see Nightwatching, based around Rembrandt’s masterpiece.
I sure knew the name Peter Greenaway but couldn’t exactly place it. Then from the very first scene I realised it had to be the same guy who made The Cook, The Thief, The Wife and His lover (which I loved). Both are very theatrical, very well staged, broad panoramas, and slightly otherwordly.
Similar to the only other movie I’ve seen based around a painting, The Girl with a Pearl Earring, many of the scenes are like moving paintings. Tables adorned with fruit and shimmering crystal, and poised gentle folk laden in shadowed velvet. Very effective cinema in itself and it could have been great. But I can’t remember the last time I was so bored in a cinema. I couldn’t wait for it to end. After a lifetime, though it may have been an hour, a story began to appear and I realised why I was so bored, before the story it seemed like one random scene after another. But it didn’t get much better. I couldn’t care less when someone died, even though the music told me I really should care.
Riddle me this. If most of the cast, who are based on people from Amsterdam, speak with strong English accents, then why did one of the women have a very strong Dutch accent? What the hell does that mean? Is she über dutch? Confusingly inconsistent. And Martin Freeman was as good as could be. But his accent was so regional he might as well have been back in Slough wearing his office suit. It made some scenes appear like comedy sketches, albeit very well lit ones with great set design. Odd casting, or directing, or something.
I’d usually mull over the credits respectfully, but the second THE END appeared I was outta there, trying to get past people who were mulling over the credits respectfully and annoyed at my interference. Was very surprised I was the only one in such a rush to get away from it all. Lazy cliches to follow but I really found it to be terribly boring self-indulgence; a pale imitation of Greenway’s better work.
Expand truncated feeds
I hate truncated feeds in my reader. After subscribing to a feed that turns out to be truncated I usually end up skipping every single post for a few days and then unsubscribe.
Admittedly I’m oversubscribed (a few hundred items a day) and don’t have time to read everything, and those truncated bastards are first up against the wall. Unless they’re from blogs I really like, hi Red!
I subscribed to a few new blogs recently, and alas they were mickey teasing little truncated fuckers. So I cracked open Google to look for a hack or a plugin, but found nothing. Then I thought “Help me Lifehacker, you are my only hope.” Fired off a quick mail and to my surpsise and delight they had a post the next day. http://lifehacker.com/5523024/google-reader-full-feed-expands-truncated-feeds-with-a-keystroke.
I’m using the Chrome plugin. Didn’t seem to work for me at first, but had to do a computer restart last night and today it was working just fine. I just have to press Z and the truncated posts expand.
That’s that problem solved. Next, world hunger…
Ninja Paxman
The video below is doing the rounds at moment, just because Paxman gets lashed out of it for a change. Call me childish but I find it much more amusing that he’s a ninja for the first 3 seconds.
Free download: My soul
Creepy discarded dolls
I only just discovered that you can view a Flickr search result as a slideshow.
See bigger: http://www.flickr.com/search/show/?q=creepy+discarded+doll
Joke
Frank and Nuala hobbled out to the front of the nursing home for a smoke. And just then it started to rain.
Frank pulls a condom out of his pocket that has the end cut off.
“What the hell is that for?” cries Nuala.
Frank winks “It’s a little rain mac for my Benson & Hedges” and slides it onto the cigarette while Nuala’s fag gets soaked.
So Nuala waits for the rain to clear and guides her walking frame to the chemist down the road.
“Hi Sonny, box of condoms please” says Nuala to a young guy at the counter.
“Sure, what size?”
“Oh I don’t know….” say’s Nuala confused… “As long as it fits on camel, I’ll be happy”
A legend dies
Derek “Crosaire” Crozier died over the weekend. I made sure to get a paper yesterday and was determined to finish it but alas I didn’t quite make it.
No other crossword comes close to the elegance of the Crosaire. But I stopped doing it a couple of years ago. I couldn’t justify paying 1.80 every day when I just went straight to the Crosaire, and often didn’t look at the rest of the paper. Except for some interest in the art page, the rest of that paper just puts me asleep.
It was such a ritual part of my morning, an OCD ritual; I had that fold down to a tee, black bic at hand (had to be black), all answers in upper case, and a diagonal tick over the number of every solved clue. Doing the online version just didn’t do it for me somehow.
Elsewhere:
- Tributes flow as ‘genius’ crossword-setter dies
- O’brien press have a Crosaire book.
- Derek Crozier bio on a Crosaire blog
My attempt from yesterday
Upsy Downy Spinny Roundy
Ever wondered what it would be like to turn part of someone’s face upside down and then spin it round and round? I can’t think why, but you’ve come to the right place. See Upsy Downy Spinny Roundy.
Jack was queuing for so long that…
A Prophet
Dear movie fans, I have a confession. I don’t like the The Godfather movies. Testosterone filled bollocks. We’re tough guys. We stand tall and talk funny, we hard men, we cave men, we cartoon characters. The way they kill people while making wiseguy wisecracks. Just a step away from James Bond, “Shocking. Positively shocking.” Though that’s not quite it. I do enjoy a bit of wanton movie violence. But it just doesn’t work for me in The Godfather. I find all the hardman stuff a bit boring, and while we’re at it same goes for Al Pacino. Same boring character in every single movie. I don’t even like the sound of his voice.
And so, to the point! I saw The Prophet this week. Now that’s a gangster movie! Authentic. That’s a word I find on the tip of my tongue a lot lately. Imagine what it would be like to kill someone for the first time. No, really. You’d be a total wreck, before and after. It’s so refreshing to see that terror executed in a movie so well. And that’s just the start of it. Brilliantly authentic performance / script / direction from start to finish.
It kind of reminded me of experiencing City of God for the first time. Both gangster movies, but they’re nothing alike aprt from leaving you thinking, now that’s a fucking movie!
Maybe I just find all the american/italian gangster movies a bit cliché. I like Casino and Goodellas a bit better than The Godfather, and I love that Joe Pesci scene, but none of these movies would ever make any of my top lists they way they seem to on all the big movie fan lists.
That’s my kinda review! Have a rant about lots of other stuff and give the movie a wee mention along the way.
One more thing Columbo. This movie was all but ruined by some dickhead behind me. I don’t know if it was his knees or he had his feet against my seat or what but he kept rocking my seat. I thought of saying something but then I’d be the dickhead spoiling the movie. Instead I waited until it was over, shot him in both knees, then poked his eyes out with my thumbs, chortling as I left the cinema, while his girlfriend screamed and tried to push his eyes back in.
Hooked on audiobooks
I’ve been meaning to check out audiobooks for years and now I’m hooked, obsessed even. I got a nice birthday present of an ipod nano and some itunes vouchers on a recent birthday, so I bought an audiobook instead of music. The convenience of it is fantastic, I’m flying through books much faster than I would have been able to with paper just because it’s hard to get the time (and the silence) to sit down with a book. But with a little ipod I can appreciate a good book cleaning the kitchen, out for a walk, or pottering around the house doing bits and pieces, or even minding the rugrats.
My attention wavers very easily though. Even with a regular book I could quite easily read two pages before realising I wasn’t even listening to myself. Always reminds me of that Laurel and Hardy scene:
Laurel and Hardy “Beau Hunks”
Stan: reads a long letter to Ollie;
Ollie: sighs and looks sad
Stan: What’s the matter Ollie?
Ollie: Didn’t you read it to me!?
Stan: Yeah but I wasn’t listening.
I’ve had much more of a tendency to drift off while listening to a book and doing chores, or out and about, so there was lots of rewinding.
And I fell asleep listening to it every night too. I’ve read myself to sleep for as long as I can remember so an audiobook on a nano is great. No longer do I have to get up and turn the light off when the book hits the ground. And if I’m not falling asleep listening to a book, I’m listening to a podcast. Yes I’m very late to the world of Pod and I’m a total convert!
Sometimes lately I feel like my life is just fleeting away before my eyes. Not getting much done, or at least not much that’s fulfilling, plonking myself in front of the tv more often than I’d like. Never dreamed I’d be an Apple fanboy but it’s given me a new lease of life.
So, onto the books. For my first audiobook I asked for recommendations on Facebook and bought the one that was mentioned twice. But then I got the next few straight away and ploughed through them too.
The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño
Didn’t really enjoy this first one unfortunately. I just couldn’t relate to it and didn’t care about any of the characters. I didn’t find much of it entertaining. I really should have gone with my gut because I saw Bolaño compared to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Garcia’s 100 0f years of solitude is the only novel I decided not to finish. Both of them are Spanish-to-English translations featuring more characters than my brain can process. I had to keep referring to Wikipedia’s list of characters. I get the feeling I just didn’t get it (Savage Detectives), maybe the joke of treating a bunch of poets as if they were the Mexican Mafiosa was supposed to be more entertaining than I found it.
Most of the reviews on Amazon are 5 stars but this one struck a chord with me:
The Savage Detectives, I agree with several recent reviewers, lapses into spectacular and permanent tedium less than half-way through. Bolano has never lost me, until this book. When I reached page 400, knowing there were still a couple hundred pages left, I experienced something akin, I think, to torture.
Life’s too short for just ploughing on with it but I was curious if it would all come together at the end, and it cost 26 fucking euros. So I stuck with it.
The book was narrated by different male actors, who put on appropriate accents and personalities for each of the characters. One outcome of this, with so many characters, is that it can be hard to tell what sex the character is suppsoed to be. At one point I read of a long love affair between two guys. Then, only towards the end, one of them pronounced to have her period. Doh!
I didn’t really expect the acting you hear in an audiobook. It’s a restrained form of acting. Somewhere between straight narration and a radio play but it does enhance the experience when done well.
The Road
Next on the list was The Road. I deliberately wanted something a bit more mainstream and Iliked the sound of The Road. Sounded nice and dark. And it’s impossible to avoid hearing little pieces about it, and a lot of little pieces add up to a big spoiler. Tom Dunne and his guest’s are the biggest offenders. And you don’t need to hear any more about it from me, but I really enjoyed it. Was 1/4 the length of the previous book too yet was 4 tiems more entertaining.
Neil Gaiman – The Graveyard book
This was apparently awarded audiobook of the year at some ceremony. All the reviews I read were glowing. But not one of them mentioned that it’s a children’s book! With some things I’m still a big kid but not really books. I need something a bit more. It was entertaining, amusing and very well read by Gaiman himself. So, entertaining enough but still a children’s book and not really in a way, I thought, that was universal to all ages, like The Curious Incident. So, back to the big boy’s stuff.
George Pelenecanos – The Way Home
Chris Flynn, a runaway Wigga on the right side of the tracks battles against the sobering onset of maturity. Written by one of The Wire writers, and narrated by one of The Wire actors (who plays a minor role thiugh). It’s similar in content; really good characters and a good story wrapped around social commentary. In fact I found some of the social commentary, mostly with regards to the treatment of young offenders, a bit forced onto the characters. Similar to how you might contradict dialogue in a movie for explaining a plot. But only a little bit. I mostly really enjoyed The Way Home; and will buy Pelecanos again.
Next
I’ve wanted to try some nonfiction audio but some reviews I read, of Steve Pinker for example, is that it’s not really suitable as an audiobook. But I got something lighthearted. Notes from a small Island by Bill Bryson, who I love. I’ve justbought that, and that’s my itunes voucher gone now with the help of Gorillaz latest album. So I’ve joined Audible. Have these in my listening list:
Nick Hornby Juliet, Naked (Unabridged)
Stieg Larsson The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Unabridged)
Any recommendations?
Hold your Horses!
Nice video by Hold your Horses! recreating some classic paintings. Can you spot them all? The two paintings I don’t recognize are in the screengrabs below the video. Any takers?
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