tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52920872011-12-17T08:46:14.800ZTHE PILL BOXA CATALOG OF
CULTURE &
BARBARITYIanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.comBlogger4041100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1165609894991920472006-12-08T20:19:00.000Z2006-12-09T13:45:45.403ZSIMPLY ALARMINGI am absolutely knocked-out drug-down in total love with "Ring The Alarm" the thunderous record - but what IS it with Beyonce and her strange robotic increasingly Bad Mime-like video "dancing-acting-signifyin'"? It seems to get worse with each new release. I know she's meant to be, like, "mad", like with her "man" in the song; but here she just looks, like, MAD, like somewhere Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com29tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1165489276973999202006-12-07T10:39:00.000Z2006-12-07T11:20:37.343ZWHERE THE HEART IS {11}Interesting piece on SLATE about new "reality" shows in the States, whose closing line - "Reality television is out to identify every perversity there is." - made concrete for me something that had been hovering around my enjoyment of Michelle and Andy's Big Day [see below]: it hardly needs saying, but everything that we now call "reality" (on) TV, could just as easily be Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1165418689554527832006-12-06T14:48:00.000Z2006-12-07T13:38:33.646ZWHERE THE HEART ISThere was almost too much to enjoy - almost feverishly so - in Michelle and Andy's Big Day [ITV2]. The very fact that this is on ITV TWO is a clue to how low down the strata of "celebrity" we are here, and how desperate (and, at times, desperately sad) the actors look. Michelle is out of Liberty X (who I've always kind of liked), whereas her husband to be, Andy Scott-Lee, is, uhIanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1165404978085595372006-12-06T11:29:00.000Z2006-12-06T13:11:05.810ZEVER GET THE FEELING YOU’VE BEEN REPEATED?A decently enough put together PUNK documentary the other night on ITV 4. All the usual suspects: chirpy voiceover by Robert Elms, measured & intelligent enthusiasm from Jon Savage, quotes from various Upstarts, Shams, Damned etcIt was nice to (literally) see who has worn well and who hasn’t; who looks as if they have been on drugs for 25 years and who Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1165401300160405842006-12-06T09:05:00.000Z2006-12-06T20:32:02.016ZTHE BOGUS MAN (a slight return)focussed his mindon somethinghe cared aboutBUT ...I don't really know what THIS is all about, but the little I have read ... oh dear. How you get from "hauntology" to great long lists of things with the word "ghost" in them is a process beyond my ken. It seems a stripe of literalism worse even than that long-ago vogue for post-Psycho "Freudianism" in which every Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1165131783435840992006-12-03T07:01:00.000Z2006-12-03T08:13:17.353ZTHE GREAT ICON CON (contd)I started to watch The Culture Show last night – partly just to see through to the grim end their “Greatest Living Icon, British (G.L.I.B.) quest; but I had to turn the sound down before long because it was aggravating me SO much. I'm sure it's not actually Laura Levene's fault, cos she's just reading a script written by some clueless coked-up trustafarian 21 year old Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1165127704610681682006-12-03T06:33:00.000Z2006-12-03T06:35:04.613Z... and MURKIER ...?Woke up this morning, no blog: where the Pillbox should have been was just a WHITE OUT.It was the Russians, I tells ya! They POISONED MY BLOG!Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1165067355135846482006-12-02T13:37:00.000Z2006-12-02T15:49:29.196ZMURKIER AND MURKIERI don't know how trustworthy or unbiased THESE TWO posts on the Litvinenko/Gaidar poisonings are, but along with links arising from this latest Rigorous Intuition post, and a previous one, it certainly does give pause for thought and leads to follow. It does seem odd, or way too much of a 'coincidence', at the very least, that the whole story of this NEW EXTRADITION TREATY Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1165065384211838292006-12-02T12:59:00.000Z2006-12-02T13:18:52.356ZECHO AND NARCISSUS AT ONE AND THE SAME TIMECalling all hauntology fans ...If you've never actually seen Ken McMullen's Ghost Dance, here, thanks to the portal of wood's lot, are some intermediate links to YouTube excerpts featuring Derrida free-associating on Freud, phantoms, telecomunication(s), and everything under the black sun ..."Vivre les phantoms!" + a seperate link to a clip I hadn't seenIanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1164960130182276862006-12-01T07:39:00.000Z2006-12-01T08:09:31.870ZPULL HARDERAs someone who sat stony-faced and vaguely disapproving* through the entire two series of Nighty Night, I'm not a viewer you can make laugh simply by saying the unsayable or doing the shouldn't-do-able. But I have to say: I haven't laughed more at anything ALL YEAR**, than at Karl's moustache-related suicide attempt in PULLING [BBC3] last night. Funnier than the entire two last series Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1164900636536822012006-11-30T15:24:00.000Z2006-11-30T15:30:36.596ZIT BRINGS ON MANY CHANGES...I like it when people write elegantly and thoughtfully about old TV programmes a lot of cultural tzars would consider beneath consideration*; and THIS post by American blogger Lance Manion about the TV version of M.A.S.H. certainly qualifies. It's also worth following the links to the blog of Ken Levine, who co-wrote the M.A.S.H. episode under review, and a lot more Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1164893580795752022006-11-30T13:28:00.000Z2006-11-30T13:38:05.400ZQUOTE OF THE WEEK: Ys funny, no?Even though he seems to be generally pro Joanna Newsom, I can't resist the chance to pass on this fantastic para from Sasha Frere-Jones writing in the online New Yorker:"Her voice is an acquired taste: a wobbly mezzo-soprano that leaps into falsetto and breaks in a woody squeak. At first, she sounded to me like Lucille Ball reciting Edmund Spenser. She brought to Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1164842298188925782006-11-29T23:02:00.000Z2006-11-29T23:22:18.846ZPOP(e) MAGAZINE EXCLUSIVE!Pope Benedict XVI and Patriarch Bartholomew I discuss ... 'Beard and Trembling'.________________________... I just can't get this Kierkegaard thing out of my head, now; and so, snaking around the overgrown garden of the Interweb, I found a few interesting bits n bobs. FIRST off, a world renowned Kierkegaard expert considers Soren's take on Islam. "Did Kierkegaard offer Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1164783951282200062006-11-29T05:35:00.000Z2006-11-29T08:51:14.206ZDID YOU SEE?I was watcing NEWS 24 yesterday, specifically about the Pope "visiting", as they say, Turkey (as if it were the most natural thing in the world, like popping into Waitrose for some cat litter), where all these Muslims "turned out to protest" his "visit" (ditto, altho of course they NEVER seem to raise a squeak when some bunch of fellow Muslims sits down and plans and then enacts the Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1162981723728700092006-11-08T10:21:00.000Z2006-11-08T10:28:43.843ZTHE TRAGI COMIC PERILS OF LAZYDAY CHANNEL HOPPINGBeen clicking over to BBC NEWS 24 a lot the last 48 hours because of the MID TERMS.So, a few minutes ago I did just that only to find that the little tickertape thing for Breaking News was all about (snore zzzzzz yesterday's man, who cares) GAZZA ARRESTED - Paul Gascgoine detained by police for ABH - so I channel hopped to pop video land, where we Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1162980260185360162006-11-08T09:15:00.000Z2006-11-08T10:04:20.243ZNONE MORE TRIVIALvery conufsing yesterday turn on the TV NEWS and it's all this stuff about a Muslim guy named BAROT (pronounced, near as fine line damn it, BORAT i.e.) over in AMERICA and his Trigger Happy TV footage where he leans his camera over to make the Twin Towers collapse and makes this silly Lil Kid noise like "kuh-powww"but this is how trivial i am, what i could not get out of my head Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1161940882916532942006-10-27T10:17:00.000+01:002006-10-27T13:31:17.580+01:00Busy at the moment, so just a few days run-down of trivia.+ + + I was channel surfing the other night when I heard an advert start"WHICH Russian icon...?"It turned out to be a bottle of Smirnoff.(I have to say I think "Russian" is pushing it, frankly.)I channel flipped and heard a BBC4 announcer say "...with iconic images from 50 years ago..." and we were back in Hungary 1956.Maybe the oddest useIanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1161687817354895752006-10-24T11:29:00.000+01:002006-10-24T12:03:37.396+01:00NAKED GUFF: THE FINAL INSULT.o, DAMN and BLAST Film4 to an eternity of unending merde and approbation. Or something. I'm - yeah, you know, apopo... - inarticulate with rage. Just noticed.Tonight they've got a film I've desperately wanted to RE-view for ages - Rivette's hauntillogical CELINE AND JULIE GO BOATING ("The most innovative film since Citizen Kane" - David Thomson*). Film4 have scheduledIanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1161594133483003932006-10-23T09:26:00.000+01:002006-10-23T10:14:37.136+01:00FAN...TASMAGORIA... really good stuff HERE; and I'm not just saying this because my homegrrrl name drops the Pill Box, or is acute on the holey Greil:" [...] I've been finding The Shape Of Things to Come a real slog, to be honest - I'm skimming over large chunks of it. The chapter on Twin Peaks (the chapter where Marcus drops riot-grrrl into the picture, incidentally) is pure guff - I don't get Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1161168311198302082006-10-18T11:22:00.000+01:002006-10-18T16:00:20.463+01:00BANDA ON THE RUNFrom this post of MarK's on FAMILY VALUES (and the War on Terror); to my remarks below on the decimated, unstable Family presented in PRIME SUSPECT, to ...... well, surely to some kind of head-scratching meditation on the ridiculously over-blown "media circus" attending MADONNA's current Family arrangements (or, 'geo-politics as playing at Grown Ups') over the past few days.BBC Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1161164523281779112006-10-18T10:13:00.000+01:002006-10-18T15:56:44.126+01:00Well, I think there's no doubt who won in the Returning Heavyweights face-off - Cracker absolutely trounced by Prime Suspect. The hollowness, the laziness of Cracker's conceit (Fitz out of the way, lecturing in Australia for x years) was summed up by that asinine line McGovern gave Fitz - "Australia: land of skin cancer and Skippy!" - which was just unworthy of everyone involved, including us, Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1160988729819040922006-10-16T09:42:00.001+01:002006-10-16T09:52:09.823+01:00nite jane xMASTERCLASS in screen acting last night from Helen Mirren, in a thankfully back-on-form Final Act of PRIME SUSPECT. Every doe-eyed rubbery-lipped drama queen Hollywood actress should be sat down and made to watch some of these scenes (the opening five minutes of post-blackout waking up, e.g.), where Mirren barely seems to do a thing, but conveys immensities. The first meeting with TOM Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1160988080731865112006-10-16T09:10:00.000+01:002006-10-16T11:14:02.976+01:00QUIBBLE IN A MINORIsn't this getting a bit out of hand?I noticed that yesterday Joanna Newsom got more 5 star reviews - but also (via Observer) comparisons with ASTRAL WEEKS and HORSES*. Now, I'm perfectly prepared to concede that the reason(s) I don't get YS is that I'm a lazy old git who just won't put the effort in any more, and/or that, due to historical circumstances I'm fatally allergic to Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com31tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1160910975922725102006-10-15T12:11:00.000+01:002006-10-15T12:16:15.923+01:00COSMIC COINCIDENCE CONTROL... apparently working overtime this week.For what do we see on ITV4 tonight, 10.00?Yep: SCARFACE.{Which gets an unbeatable FIVE STARS in my copy of TV EASY. 23 years ago, on its release, it would have been lucky to scrape TWO with most reviewers.}SAY HELLO TO MY REVENANT FRIEND ...Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1160902607931006712006-10-15T08:05:00.001+01:002006-10-15T10:22:41.016+01:00SOME CLEVER ANGLO-FRENCH PUN ON (I)CONTo THE CULTURE SHOW last night, with its egregiously DUMBED DOWN new E4-style 'format' ...As well as their staggeringly pointless 'Greatest Living British Icon' (read, in actuality, ENGLISH icon, BTW), we also had a staggeringly patronising interviewer tell OUTKAST "you're fashion icons"*; had Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette "played as a pop icon"; John Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1160845311186859332006-10-14T17:52:00.000+01:002006-10-14T18:04:40.390+01:00ICON(S)ICIs this a new record? THREE TIMES in 25 SECONDS!!!I open today's GUARDIAN, page 2, headline: 'The truth about those iconic buildings ...'Just then, an advert on the TV [for tomorrow's Mail on Sunday] calls Victoria Beckham "one of the world's top fashion ICONS."I yawn, and consult the TV guide; and find that tonight The Culture Show [BBC2] is running a search for "Britain's greatest Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1160833568148072482006-10-14T14:30:00.000+01:002006-10-14T14:49:07.203+01:00TWO SAD TMF MOMENTS1)I've got TMF on, but with the sound down. This OVER-BLONDE pointy-faced wish-I-was-a-ROCK-CHICK woman comes on, in mutton-dressed-as-lamb leather, whose every desperate motion seems to SCREAM: I so wish I was Madonna. Worse, the rest of the running jumping twisting flexing stroboscopic video is filled with that quickly-tiresome thing that was briefly trendy about 18 months Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1160742805652779492006-10-13T11:27:00.000+01:002006-10-14T11:58:49.070+01:00EXTRAS{with a few EXTRA bits...Have to say I thought that EXTRAS hit new lows last night - and I don't mean in 'bad taste' (as per all that fabricated hoo-hah in the Press last week). One minute EXTRAS has aspirations to well-filmed, sophisticated meta-narrative commentary; the next minute it's just THE OFFICE with glitzy cameo spots, replaying all those OFFICE-bound scenes that feature long Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1160467525193221722006-10-10T08:30:00.000+01:002006-10-10T09:10:45.840+01:00BAFFLING SMOKE SIGNALSRe this blah blah (is it because people often do their online writing first thing in the morning or last thing at night that it can get so needlesly fractious, lazily misread, that people almost seem to be holding their breath waiting to take offence at the tiniest niggle?):I never said that Stone/De Palma's SCARFACE "invented" bling or showing out or signifying or however Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1159878331326253582006-10-03T13:19:00.000+01:002006-10-03T13:45:39.146+01:001) Recent screening of wonderful early/mid 70s 'on the road/in the van' documentary (or, if you will, rockumentary) on THE KURSAAL FLYERS.2) Recent BBC4 documentary evening dedicated to STIFF RECORDS.3) Recent night I spent in what is apparently one of the trendiest pubs in hardcore fashionable young London: observation therein of fashion, music, mood, singalongs, etc.4) Various current bands andIanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1159858387608208922006-10-03T06:44:00.000+01:002006-10-03T12:34:02.480+01:00How long ago was it I wrote that handful of staging-myself-as-Blimp posts about the over-use of the phrases 'icon' and (more particularly) 'iconic'? It was probably an iconic amount of time. Those posts are probably now iconic. I ought to take this more seriously because I'm sure it's an indication of something. It's reached a ridiculous overload level now. It's become like the use of offhand Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1159611830944475432006-09-30T10:58:00.000+01:002006-09-30T11:23:50.980+01:00RECOILCan I just put in a little advert for some of the THRESHOLD HOUSE re-issues currently on offer?There's great vertiginous, scrappy stuff on the twilight daze '... and the ambulance died in his arms' live set, ultimate 'dancing in your head' trance induction on LIVE ONE {London}, and sketches of melancholy shape shifting genius on BLACK ANTLERS; but the one I would really direct everyone's Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1159602724119777462006-09-30T08:20:00.000+01:002006-09-30T12:02:54.846+01:00BUSH WHACKGW BUSH has this week welcomed KAZAKHSTAN's President Nursultan A. Nazarbayev, and praised him as - guess what - a friend of democracy, an ally in spreading FREEDOM round the globe, a vital cog in the war on terror, etc. This is a guy who has been in self-elected power for SIXTEEN years and counting!At the last election the only opposition got - supposedly - a mere 6% of the votes. One Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1159520804829011152006-09-29T10:02:00.000+01:002006-09-29T10:42:39.016+01:00BLING BLING! I SHOT YOU DOWN!I think the only thing that needs to be added to this latest K-PUNK epistle is the passing thought that the possible MISSING LINK between De Palma and the newly hip-hop-ersized Aguilera would have to be ... SCARFACE.I would really like to read a decent piece on the huge influence SCARFACE has had on hip hop culture - I'm sure someone somewhere must have written one. Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1159440395760011862006-09-28T11:25:00.001+01:002006-09-28T11:56:54.066+01:00THE NIGHTMARE OF SELF PARODYI'm still trying to slog a way through the new Greil Marcus.*But it just strikes me that what was once pith, is now portenousness.What was once razor sharp is now waffle and camoflague and ... well, I once thought that British journo/author Gordon Burn couldnt be bettered (or 'worsted'?) when it came to the promiscuous and self-defeating quotation of Other Authors in aIanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1159437839280066822006-09-28T10:01:00.000+01:002006-09-28T13:18:58.426+01:00I'M NOT MAKING THIS UPWonderful dream this morning, in which CHARLOTTE CHURCH and I join forces to defeat the Nabob of Nothingness, the Preening Prince of Sham pop*, SIMON COWELL.In the closing seconds, Charlotte subsides magnificently upon a kingsize bed, in a P.O.V. shot whose hydraulic detail must have had HOWARD HUGHES spinning in his grave. As is always the way with these things, the moment Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1158307709220371132006-09-15T08:30:00.000+01:002006-09-15T10:32:34.170+01:00O.K.: when I read THIS story about the new Conservative Party logo [see above] I had three, no, hang on, four, thoughtful reactions. You can decide how much they (each) tell you about me, the state of politics, the country, blah blah, etc. 1. First reaction. Even though I hated myself (as every good doleful self hating ex socialist must) for having this thought, it was along the lines of: 'Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1158221560013975042006-09-14T09:05:00.000+01:002006-09-14T10:00:00.230+01:00I have been reading SEAN PENN: His Life and Times (awful, AWFUL title, which just buffs up the cliche image of Penn, the right wing blogger image of Penn, as a humorless luvvy prat with politico megalomania)*, and it struck me how many films from the past 5 or 10 (or even 20) years I have missed, or overlooked, or would really like to [re]view again; and - not to belabour this FILM 4 fixation of Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1157653583381012142006-09-07T19:21:00.000+01:002006-09-07T19:26:23.383+01:00At some point I really want to have a major grouse about FILM 4... The handful of decent / interesting / brilliant / rarely screened / European films that they actually have - why are they ALL, without exception, put out after midnight, whilst the prime time spot is reserved for the likes of 4 Weddings & A Funeral, Mickey Blue Eyes, etc, etc, etc... even 'classics' like Apocalyspe Now and Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com50tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1157644481468903612006-09-07T16:51:00.000+01:002006-09-07T16:54:41.473+01:00PROUST = angrm 'SPROUT'The other weekend we fetched up at my parents house in flat, flat Norfolk, where my Dad had been in process of emptying the attic - most of which had been filled with JUNK, VRS of mine own: memorabilia (handwritten letters from Phil Manzanera, Mark E Smith and John Peel; a whole bunch of original typed and hand scrawled Mark E Smith lyrics & track annotations circa Witch Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1157527688331712822006-09-06T07:00:00.000+01:002006-09-06T23:53:57.386+01:00COUGH COUGHAs a good ex-working class ex-socialist anarchist elitist, I absolutely adored the re-run of TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY [just finished on BBC4].You know how people sigh 'Ah, they dont make 'em like that any more!'? Well, for once, here, the cliche has a basis in real fact and detail. In this case, the SMOKING. Boy, there was a lot of smoking! There was a scene in the final episode Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1157446762094493402006-09-05T09:56:00.000+01:002006-09-07T00:38:20.693+01:00THE PARIS RIOTS{or: let them snort coke...}I think a lot of people ENVY Paris: because she knows EXACTLY WHO SHE IS. She knows exactly who she is, and isnt troubled by it. Doesnt show the requisite pennance. (Like a spell in rehab, or the mandatory fake charity gig.)There are hundreds of massively spoiled and coddled and vacuous and protected slebs in the world; but if you have an 'up from prole Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com31tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1156076167910158122006-08-20T12:45:00.000+01:002006-08-20T15:09:49.946+01:00STARS ARE BLINDI actually think this is a pretty good song, and if Paris Hilton had even half a voice (or if the producer, whoever it is, was even half interested in framing or treating it to some neat meta pop end) this wouldnt be half bad.It comes as no great surprise that there IS no memorable voice here (in any sense) - but what is surprising is how flat and awful and Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1156067392820831762006-08-20T10:41:00.000+01:002006-08-22T01:49:56.566+01:00pImP MY rIDeThe Pillbox car stereo is currently kaput, so ALL weekend, three very long car journeys, S. has to listen to me repeating the same two words ad infinitum: "I'M BOSSY!" (Given that S. hasn't even heard the new Kelis single, I think it was even more gruelling/perplexing for her to be sitting, for long motorway stretches, next to a 47 year old man who, every few minutes, for no apparent Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1155815321743727322006-08-17T12:45:00.000+01:002006-08-17T23:33:53.176+01:00TRIVA (contd)I was never persauded by Nelly Furtado, and remained unimpressed and completely unconvinced by the cynical seeming hip hop 're invention' of "Maneater".But the new one, "Promiscuous Girl" - WOW! What a brilliant, perfect single...Can't make my mind up about the new Kelis: song, video, OR haircut.As for the Fergie single ... the video takes uber-tacky bling/stipper "eroticism" to Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1155743149404084572006-08-16T16:42:00.000+01:002006-08-16T16:51:25.123+01:00ABSOLUTE TRIVIA (TOO MUCH MUSIC TV)Razorlight: I mean, is it just me, but doesn't this sound awfully like ... the Tom Robinson Band? new Scissor Sisters 45: ditto, but ... Leo Sayer? (and not good Leo Sayer, neither.)(Plus: isn't there smallprint somewhere that prevents post modernist gay New York vocalists using the phrase "when the old joanna plays"? Well, if there isn't, there should be...)Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com87tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1155312952217289712006-08-11T17:09:00.000+01:002006-08-11T17:15:52.313+01:00Stories likeTHISandTHIScall to mind the late Edward Said's pertinent remark, that the Palestinians had become the "victims of the victims" ...It hasnt been sufficiently noted, but ('neutral') interviews in the last few weeks with both Israeli civilians and politicians have elicited some truly appalling remarks re Palestinians and others, along the general lines of 'they are all insects who shouldIanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1155288978009320462006-08-11T09:51:00.000+01:002006-08-11T17:49:12.750+01:00Good Rigorous Intuition post on this latest 'Terror Scare', including links to emerging details, such as this; where we find that far from being something that fell out of the blue black sky, both US and UK Intelligence have known about this cell for a while; more, they had an undercover agent in there. Bush + Blair confabbed about it for the first time at the weekend, not yesterday. This points Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1155213709039309772006-08-10T13:38:00.000+01:002006-08-10T13:41:49.040+01:00POP TRIVIAAfter reading Simon's blog today, it occured to me that maybe the first neo Folk/ dubstep fusion may have occurred as long ago as 1994 ... "On The Shore", last track Side One, on St Etienne's wonderful wonderful TIGER BAY lp. {Consult the sleeve notes adn we find: "Rhythms, bass and mix" by ... Original Rockers. Which takes us full circle back to my original observation that a large Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1155213384803078842006-08-10T13:25:00.000+01:002006-08-10T13:46:49.886+01:00Is it just me (and have I been reading too many paranoid blog sites?), or is the timing of this MEGA TERROR SCARE, just a wee bit suspiciously convenient? Labour looked like having a possible backbench revolt on its hands over Blair's spineless support of the Bush administration's unqualified support of Israel's current ethnic cleansing programme in the Middle East. (Well, hey, let's call a spadeIanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1154246139070449912006-07-30T07:46:00.000+01:002006-07-30T19:25:32.146+01:00It's been a while since THE WEST WING was real essential zone-of-silence 'sssshhh-not-now' viewing (well, for me, at any rate: it got to the stage with the whole latterday 'Vinick v Santos presidential race' storyline that the previously unthinkable occurred and I happily missed whole episodes); but I tuned in this weekend, for sentimental reasons, to watch the final two episodes and a few of theIanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1153560497132155832006-07-22T10:23:00.000+01:002006-07-22T10:39:04.843+01:00Bush on stem cell research - he is agin it because it "crosses a moral boundary" by its "taking of innocent human life"... which is a further clarification of the Bolton Position: not only is there no "moral equivalence" between Israeli/American victims and Lebanese/Palestinians; but a squirmy lump of non-sentient human cells - IF AMERICAN - has more value than literally hundreds of dead Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1153308116251040952006-07-19T12:02:00.000+01:002006-07-19T22:39:43.570+01:00YO, JACQUES ..."In the Judeao-Christian tradition there is a commandment to be hospitable to strangers since one has been a stranger before. Deuteronomy 5 tells the Israelites to remember that they were slaves in the land of Egypt and therefore should accept those that come to them as guests in an unconditional way. The second notion of hospitality comes from the prophets who urged a general Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1153305867681836222006-07-19T11:37:00.000+01:002006-07-19T22:21:08.956+01:00I.E., 'TERMINATE WITH HIGHLY UNFORTUNATE CONSEQUENCE...'Well, at least one American politico has come right out and said what 98.9% of them think:US ambassador John Bolton dismisses any "moral equivalence" between dead Lebanese or Palestinians, and dead Israelis:"It's simply not the same thing to say that it's the same act to deliberately target innocent civilians, to desire their deaths, to fireIanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1153294924246368032006-07-19T08:37:00.000+01:002006-07-19T11:47:30.156+01:00Meanwhile, Iraq gets demoted to the kind of 'ah well' fifth place that deaths in Northern Ireland once occupied for decades at a time; even tho this may well prove to have been a pivotal week, in which scrappy internecine sniping was allowed to turn the corner into terrible all out Civil War ...MORE here;Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1153294131860680172006-07-19T08:04:00.000+01:002006-07-19T22:17:45.156+01:00AND IT GOES ON AND ON AND ON HOW I WISH IT WOULD STOP ...My favourite quote yesterday re the Middle East was from a rather impressively urbane Syrian minister/spokesman (I didnt manage to scribble down his name, sorry), who, in response to some twat-head 'neutral' question, purred: "Ah, but what you have to understand is... History didn't begin six days ago." The naive fool! Just look at how hypeIanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1153132143585373482006-07-17T10:59:00.000+01:002006-07-17T13:43:54.780+01:00I'd just finished putting a COMMENT below about how I preferred the deliberately (?) 'flat' comic book FX of THE HULK to the more hyper real blockbuster norm... when Entertainment Tonight [SKY 3, 10.55] launched into an on-set report on Oliver Stone's forthcoming World Trade Center... and how some of the actual NYC rescue workers had been "flown to a Hollywood sound stage" where "what they found Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1153096889173272942006-07-17T01:31:00.000+01:002006-07-17T01:47:43.913+01:00Only just caught up with Ang Lee's THE HULK this afternoon, on ITV 2.Now, I know I'm precipitously late on the scene and all, and a flaming hypocrite to boot (re: my dissing Zizeck-ian knee-jerk know-all anlyses of new films, yes yes) but - it is an allegory about the George Bushes, pere & fils, and how this Oedipal legacy has been played out geopolitically in the Middle East, mais oui ou non?{MyIanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1153096264774191262006-07-17T01:30:00.000+01:002006-07-17T01:31:04.783+01:00THE LEBANONMore Questions than Answers ...Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1152983650119178962006-07-15T18:03:00.000+01:002006-07-15T18:14:10.153+01:00SURPRISE SURPRISE!This is priceless.Letcher [see below] mentions a mid-Sixties play called (what else) eh? (written by one Henry Livings, and starring in the original production, Donald Sinden and David Warner), in which a young layabout uses an old dank factory to grow a crop of magic mushrooms - which are accidentally eaten by the factory's workforce, with the result that the factory (echoes Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1152964637326425662006-07-15T12:20:00.000+01:002006-07-16T20:39:40.170+01:00THE SHROOM SHROOM SAPI've been pretty sniffy with (if not downright dismissive of) the last few 'drug' books I've read or had to review (including the one I was most looking forward to reading, Sadie Plant's), but here's something I can thoroughly recommend:SHROOM: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom, by Andy Letcher [Faber & Faber]The title, and the cover print of a well known 'still' from Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1152893590823826442006-07-14T17:09:00.000+01:002006-07-14T17:13:10.850+01:00MINOR HISTORICAL NIGGLES DEPT.17.05, on the History Channel, series about the revolutionary Sixties.A characteristically smug Tariq Ali, talking about Vietnam protest and specifically Grosvenor Sq.: "Oooooh yes, John Lennon later told me that Brian Epstein forbade them from turning up, because he said they couldnt then go and do their big concerts in the USA..."I'm sorry? 1968? What "concerts" Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1152877238231343892006-07-14T12:00:00.000+01:002006-07-14T15:09:33.966+01:00RANDOM POP UP THOUGHT(s)I was really looking forward to watching the new series opener of one of my all time favourite TV progs, BAD GIRLS*, last night... and then it was all spoiled for me by a glimpse of a trailer. They'd decided to be 'topical' and 'meaningful' by putting a Muslim Woman Prisoner in amongst the slags and dykes and space cadets... I just couldnt watch it. In fact, I can't watch Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1152871493045599632006-07-14T10:53:00.000+01:002006-07-14T11:46:12.976+01:00My mind was blank - and then I read this apparently unconnected phrase from a day or two ago ("- how did I get here from there?") and it all flooded back in one go: this major major dream I had about or featuring Derrida last night. I'm sure it was full of sage, fatherly or contra-Oedipal advice - but can I remember any of it? No, I cannot. All I can remember are these strange Chinese/Egyptian Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1152836274514748992006-07-14T01:06:00.000+01:002006-07-14T01:17:55.283+01:00These latest developments in Lebanon are so depressing. It's late and I can't think of anything particularly articulate to say about it all - I've actually had horrible total FEAR dreams about this situation in the last week, about its escalation, its apocalyptic potential. Wasn't the occupation of Iraq supposed to have some kind of "domino" peace effect in the Middle East? Weren't civilians Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1152778213696622512006-07-13T08:20:00.000+01:002006-07-13T22:45:17.433+01:00The current Scotland Yard investigation into New Labour's 'cash for peerages' quagmire inadvertantly supplies a further way of looking at 'hauntedness' through digital tech. Rumour has it Scotland Yard has invested in some pretty major software from the States that can track deleted e mail exchanges. There's one e mail in particular that Number 10 fears may come (back) to light. Thus, haunting/Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1152706343320444572006-07-12T12:56:00.000+01:002006-07-12T13:14:46.126+01:00Double-You Oh! O.D. I'm a Moody Should Be ...Sleep, after reading Mark-P's latest e-SP-istle, and then a few pages of Walter Benjamin on Karl Kraus (intra-changeably, the Theorist and the Journalist), and then a few grains of this or that, and then the usual pre-sleep human+feline threesome amidst the loving arms & whiskers of Buckley and Belle... and then this strange uncannny dream ... a copy Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1152699617479708282006-07-12T11:04:00.000+01:002006-07-12T11:34:57.083+01:00From interview with Seth Lloyd (a professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, and "among the pioneers of quantum computing"):TR: Programming the Universe concludes with a personal note. You describe how your friend Heinz Pagels, a renowned physicist, fell to his death while hiking with you in Colorado. You find some consolation in your theory of universal quantum computation: "But we have not Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1152629216913416242006-07-11T15:39:00.000+01:002006-07-11T18:03:59.680+01:00Mention of Coil (in a comment-on-a-comment BELOW} reminded me that I had a long and preternaturally detailed dream about them last night; and I actually managed to scribble down a few of the details... some of which still make sense, some of which are now utterly obscure.I can remember, in the dream, Jhon Balance talking (with a big lovely grin on his face) about "messy ass" sex practices, and Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1152625872515234572006-07-11T14:49:00.000+01:002006-07-11T16:19:41.990+01:00R.I.P. , Syd Barrett.Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1152608860404307842006-07-11T09:53:00.000+01:002006-07-12T13:36:31.936+01:00I'm afraid Green seems to have turned into something of a Morrisey figure for me - which is to say, predominantly, that I find him far more interesting to read about than pleasurable to listen to; I find the relentlessness of that urgle-gurgle honeyed goo-goo voice just a bit much to take these days, like being force fed Sunny D and cherry liquer chockies and ickle mini jellies all at once; over Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1152084121561706112006-07-05T07:34:00.000+01:002006-07-05T19:09:34.450+01:00That PLW quote yesterday got me wondering ... whether it isn't precisely the huge volume of stories about Blair and Bush that somehow protects them, that is its own shiny slick Coat of Babel ... how many times in the past few years have you turned on the TV to hear all the Westminster pundits earnestly and solemnly discussing whether "Mr Blair could survive this latest blah blah blah" ...? As thoIanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1152017462245668692006-07-04T13:41:00.001+01:002006-07-04T13:51:02.260+01:00SECOND THOUGHTS FURTHER THOUGHTSMore, re Zizek.Maybe my fear is that with Lacan and Derrida and others, you were forced to engage with it on its own terms - it was difficult, almost alien to begin with. You had to work through it, and that could take months, years, decades even; and in the process of doing this work, you would find changes in your self taking place, almsot imperceptibly, but Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1152006543772596002006-07-04T09:54:00.000+01:002006-07-04T12:59:27.463+01:00FIRST THOUGHT BEST THOUGHTOK, I'm going to say just what I am thinking about that Zizek prog last night while I am still half asleep and not really censoring myself; you know, say what you really think, as if your analyst just said, oh, drop the college professor bullshit, what did it make you feel...?Well, my first thought is: I can remember both too much and too little about it.On the one hand,Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1151456581966928182006-06-28T01:52:00.000+01:002006-06-28T02:03:01.980+01:00MORE PROVOCATIONVery good Jon Stewart segment tonight, as it happens, on the Batiste case. (See 'The Usual Suspects' below.) He virtually just had to sit back and show the clips, from the press conference with (Attorney General) Alberto Gonzales . Me, nearly crying with laughter, I was.But at the same time ... I mean. There is certainly potential for tragedy here, too. There is something awful, Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1151455939446886462006-06-28T01:07:00.000+01:002006-06-28T02:12:11.173+01:00I'll have to address this properly at some point (and I have in fact been taking notes, on and off, here and there, for what is probably quite a time, now; little inarticulate squawks, scribbles, but all told, strung together, a certain Song may manage to make itself heard, or some kind of intermittant tolling, but anyway), yes, at some point, one point being, perhaps, in the muffled snigger Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1151427455292263952006-06-27T17:54:00.000+01:002006-06-27T17:57:35.323+01:00MORE PROVOCATEUR STUFFfrom The Raw Story website: FBI confidential informant also said to be provocateur..."According to activists from Des Moines, Philadelphia, Miami, Sacramento, and other locations, a young woman named "Anna" allegedly infiltrated peace and justice rallies and anarchist meetings, and even attempted to join protests against the Democratic National Committee (DNC) ahead of the Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1151417537851061892006-06-27T15:06:00.000+01:002006-06-27T17:32:10.720+01:00I HEAR YOUVE GOT THE - INTERSTITIAL PARADIGM BLUES...As previously noted, I.(P.) don't own a mobile phone; neither - I am now glad to say - do I own, or have I ever wanted to own, one of these 'more trouble than theyre worth' little dream machines:illPAIDIanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1151413674852103142006-06-27T14:03:00.000+01:002006-06-27T14:28:32.443+01:00TWO MOOR EXAMPLESThis was the case that was nagging away in the back of my mind while I was writing 'The Usual Suspects'; I had a vague memory of a C4 or BBC documentary about the whole farrago, but it took me a while to re-assemble the (f)actual details. A longer version here. (You might remember it: it was the originary 'guilty until proven innocent' case where, because the guys were Middle Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1151412576946126612006-06-27T13:38:00.000+01:002006-06-27T13:49:36.963+01:00I WANT MOOR...Explicatory link to Moorish Science {see previous story} :History and Catechism of Moorish Orthodox Church ;and a good 1994 Erik Davis article on Peter Lamborn Wilson, which touches upon the M.O.C. and its self-proclaimed 'prophet' Noble Drew Ali:"For Wilson, a more important instance of "heresy as cultural transfer" occurred early this century in the work of Noble Drew Ali, the Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1151407874247771092006-06-27T11:41:00.000+01:002006-06-27T13:15:59.000+01:00THE USUAL SUSPECTSThis current story from the States about the supposed major 'terror cell' who have been "foiled" and arrested...It seems to have been uncritically swallowed and regurgitated verbatim by most News outlets both there and here; but even ten minutes digging around by a lazy sod like me reveals a different story altogether.The real story seems to be that this poor Narseal Batiste Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1151404035554148752006-06-27T11:17:00.000+01:002006-06-27T18:03:49.546+01:00Sorry, Mark, but I just blew breakfast coffee out my nose, laughing at this, which I thought was the most inadvertantly funny headline I've seen since the days when The Onion was still really sharp and funny: .... WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? EVENT CANCELLED.There is even the equivalent of a footnote in the 'further details of cancellation' link. Note perfect! (It reminds me of a headline dream I once hadIanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1151232257493010862006-06-25T11:33:00.000+01:002006-06-25T11:44:17.506+01:00Every so often, you come across a piece of writing on the Net that really does justify all the half-bored virtual derives .... I stumbled aross this, The Tao of Junior Bonner, completely serendipitously. If you follow the left-hand column of links to pieces on other Peckinpah work, and a piece on the Peckinpah repertory gang, the quality doesn't flag, either. Lovely stuff - even if you don't Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1151229230265512282006-06-25T10:34:00.000+01:002006-06-25T10:53:50.313+01:00The only time I've ever wished I had a mobile phone .... I was skulking round various audio mySpace shrines or virtual vitrines the other night, which sometimes feels like a kind of nostalgic pub crawl, except you're crawling for jukeboxes not drinks, because in parallel with all the New Artist mySpace sites is a profusion of fan sites, some of which are rather odd, to say the least, although I Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1150796525348571732006-06-20T10:06:00.000+01:002006-06-20T11:11:53.550+01:00Finally got round to reading the uncut 'oral history' of that First Annual Rock Writers Convention from 1917 or whenever it was - and how fucking tame was that? It was like the missing link between High Fidelity and Animal House... they all drank A LOT OF BEER! (wow, gasp, you dont say) and some of the older, smooother boys (Tosches, Booth - see me after P.E.) had actual sex with probably real Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1150487918414436532006-06-16T20:48:00.000+01:002006-06-16T20:58:38.556+01:00I LOVE this story ...."BRITNEY pondering Jolie-style birthFollowing in the steps of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, Britney Spears is considering a Namibian birth for her next baby, a government official said. Deputy Environment and Tourism Minister Leon Jooste said officials have received an inquiry on behalf of the 24-year-old pop star. Spears already has a baby son with husband Kevin Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1150463241161991032006-06-16T14:01:00.000+01:002006-06-16T14:07:21.163+01:00SERIOUSLY: WHO KNEW?No surprise that the CIA has its own website; the bit that blows me away - hours and hours of dissing fun for all your dysFUNctional family - is the CIA's Homepage For Kids.And if you go to the section marked THE CIA SEAL and click on 'About The CIA Seal' you will discover that:"When our country was being established, Benjamin Franklin, one of our founding fathers andIanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1150462863824329962006-06-16T13:56:00.000+01:002006-06-16T14:09:00.886+01:00A MUST READ: this eye opening article from The Abolitionist on the deep background realities - and real politik - of the so called AVIAN FLU threat/pandemic...There are plenty of other good online exposes and analyses of Avian Flu if you cast about a bit, but this was the best, I thought. I got the link itself from this original article.Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1150461624055141192006-06-16T13:39:00.000+01:002006-06-16T13:40:24.056+01:00AND THIS WEEK'S GUEST PUBLICATION IS ... Inexplicata - The Journal Of Hispanic UfologyIanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1150461494033672492006-06-16T13:34:00.000+01:002006-06-16T13:38:14.033+01:00"REAL" LIFE IS STRANGER THAN PHILIP K DICK DEPARTMENTWhat WAS the Frequency, Kenneth?Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1150458877000310762006-06-16T12:41:00.000+01:002006-06-16T13:41:54.970+01:00THE SIX FACES OF ABU MUSAB AL ZARQAWI There's been lots of good online articles on Zarqawi in the last week, but the one that really grabbed my attention was this one from INFORMATION CLEARING HOUSE, concerning Nick Berg (and his Father)... I'd quite forgotten some of these details, if I ever knew them in the first place: "Nicholas Berg, on the other hand, was remarkably unlucky. More of an Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1150458098469149522006-06-16T12:30:00.000+01:002006-06-16T12:41:38.520+01:00WHEN FACT IS STRANGER THAN THE PARALLAX VIEW.... ... (Could This Be A New WATERGate?)Now this is a strange one. Maybe the reason this story has dropped off the map is that there is a perfectly innocent and logical explanation behind its apparent strangeness and inconsistencies and dubiousness. I'll trace out the Links here and let you speculate/meditate/decide...Start with these TWO Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1149844776043618412006-06-09T10:06:00.000+01:002006-06-09T10:19:36.916+01:00I think the new Busta Rhymes 45 is crud - over produced and under developed. It's like he's just thrown all the current 'in' signifiers at a wall and hoped some of it would stick. I hate the video for it, too (cash, jewellery, muscles, foxy ladies, etc yawn etc.) Especially sad, as at the weekend one of the video channels played the vid for WOO HAH! WOO HAH!, which, both sonically and video wise,Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1149843587732060932006-06-09T09:52:00.000+01:002006-06-09T09:59:47.733+01:00I have to say, I agree with a whole lot of what Marcello has to say here; I've been disappointed, or bored stiff, or impressed-but-untouched by 99% of Stuff I Should Like, lately. On the other hand, I found myself improbably moved by - of all things - the last two Will Young 45s;...... the one with the strange Nuremberg Tribunal looking video, and the new one with the too-smart-alecky Blue Peter Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1149843128166643062006-06-09T09:50:00.000+01:002006-06-09T10:05:10.646+01:00A first: last night I had a dream in which Lacan made an appearance. (I can't remember any more than that, unfortunately. My previously most notable/memorable oneiric Guest Appearance was this one dream where I had Breakfast with Mr & Mrs Les Dawson. I just know there's a punchline waiting to be made somewhere here, but for the half life of me I can't pin it down ...)Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1149581652708035012006-06-06T09:08:00.000+01:002006-06-06T09:14:12.743+01:00JOKE WHICH WILL MEAN NOTHING TO ANYONE UNDER THE AGE OF 40.Freddie 'Parrot Face' Davis sezLet It Be Known: I AM THE BEAST... ... TTTHIX TTTHIX TTTHIX!Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1149415525920908172006-06-04T11:03:00.000+01:002006-06-04T11:05:25.930+01:00... a good TALKING POINT alternative to todays business-as-usual Sunday papers.Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1149165548684894582006-06-01T13:35:00.000+01:002006-06-01T13:39:08.686+01:00LIFE IS STRANGER THAN X FILESMaybe I should have waited til 6.6.(0)6 to post THIS, but having stumbled across it, I now can't get it out of my mind.Follow up and actual illustrations (eeeeuuuuurrrgh: CREEPY) here ...Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1149161511692140142006-06-01T12:25:00.000+01:002006-06-01T13:41:25.906+01:00SPOOKS IN (postmodern) SPACE"[...]Just as many informants who happened to be actors or artists willingly and gladly provided whatever information they could provide. Some of them did it out of a sense of patriotism and duty; others did it because they just loved being involved in the intrigue. It was another stage to act upon, another canvas upon which to create an impression, another image or Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5292087.post-1149153863801649062006-06-01T10:03:00.000+01:002006-06-01T13:33:13.906+01:00Lost in rhetoric the other day, I forgot one instance of the Wire canon that lately did burn down my house in the same way as Screw/Trae/et al: Julius Eastman on the posthumous Unjust Malaise 3-CD set. Now this particular strain of head-noddy glacial Serialism/Minimalism/whatever the hell it is, isnt normally my idea of a walk in the park with the one you love. (In fact, in tandem, I listened - Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09361235409745779344noreply@blogger.com1