Dylan

I'm Not There

2010-07-12T21:38:00.004+08:00

I'd write a long, annoyed post about the hipster arrogance of I'm Not There and lack of awareness that I see everywhere with self-important people around my age, but I'm going to take the hipster's way out and say I can't be bothered. All the issues pertaining to the way movie criticism aspires to get as far away from grounded reality as possible are there to be seen, I don't need to explain it.

The American blogger Abagond has the right idea about how to write posts, I might copy his format.

This should be on the Worst of Perth

2010-07-09T23:28:00.002+08:00

I've been reading about local Islamic feminism, and I came upon this article:
http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/brothel-forces-out-muslim-womens-support-centre/story-e6frg13u-1225876704903
This is really depressing, not in the least because of the horribly sexist way this is written - more attention (and a photo) is given to the male owner of the Muslim Women's Support Centre than the women who manage and use it, not to mention the women working for the brothel. And of course the media uses this as an excuse to promote hatred of women who are both too sexually open and too prudish and too non-white.

My take on creativity, ideals and empathy

2010-07-03T15:10:00.005+08:00

I appreciate creativity and I value art because, personally, it lends ammunition to the kind of oppositional tactics people who fall through the cracks of commonly-accepted templates rely on. When you walk in on a display of ideological allegiance which contradicts your own existence you either lie to yourself and to the others and try to align yourself with a reality that's directly opposed to yours or challenge it and try to offer something new to the people who, you are convinced, are suffering from the template's limitations. If you say you're an artist this process can be made a lot easier, but you don't have to be an artist to be creative.

Children of separated parents are familiar guilt, as it imposed upon them by society for being aberrant and acting as a symbol of the dysfunctional reality behind the ideal promoted by society through cultural institutions and, through them, individuals who haven't experienced the same degree of dissonance. Ideals formulated by establishment figures who haven't experienced a great degree of elaboration from the accepted norm or those who have, but haven't come to terms with it logically, only serve to divide people and stifle natural human empathy for conditions applicable to everybody in society. Art, in that sense, acts as a medium for a social and personal energy that encourages empathy and common human understanding, that being creativity. The same institutional controls as mentioned have as much a role in art as creativity, but at least the social aspect of art encourages you to be aware of it.

The 'average person' and stupidity

2010-07-02T15:26:00.004+08:00

If there is any overarching, symptomatic, pervasive problem with the way people communicate in the present day, it would be how it's fashionable to describe the average person as 'stupid'. I was reminded of this by a recent Cracked editorial, which chalks up the popularity of unfunny sitcoms to how "a lot of people are stupid." The popularity of this kind of sentiment doesn't really need to be explained - the person saying this and the person hearing it are both excluded from this supposedly rampant stupidity and consequently receive unwarranted ego boosts - but the problem with it isn't quite as logically straightforward, although it's still pretty obvious.

Put simply, it works on the same level as advertising: calling the vast majority of people stupid associates your intellectual superiority with common sense, without any rational basis, just like advertising associates certain values, which are in turn associated with buying a particular product, with common sense. It also discourages empathy and understanding and, this being something I probably fall victim to every now and then, causes you to associate any opinion that differs from yours as being opposed to common sense. Because the mass media encourages this particular behavior, these attitudes turn into tropes aimed at regulating a certain understanding between different people about the proliferation of cliche in various media - that is, it encourages people to accept it as a natural consequence of most people not being as intelligent as they are. People who watch commercial television who, after a point, cotton on to some of the formulaic constraints applied to the production of a number of television shows, are discouraged from analysing what signifies the lack in creativity, and why they don't like it, and are instead prompted with the simpler option of just dismissing their own, very valid concerns in favour of having their ego pampered through irrational association.

So, if you know anyone who tends to justify the lack of creativity in media produced by large, profit-motivated institutions, or the removal of political freedoms, etcetera, with a perceived median stupidity, or if you do it yourself, ask them what they think makes them more intelligent than the average person, or ask yourself, and offer some sympathy for the faceless 'average person' who is blamed for something s/he has no hand in.

Drugs and currency

2010-07-02T11:57:00.003+08:00

Dick Gregory recently proposed an interesting idea as to why the Euro is currently threatening the US Dollar. The gist of it is something like:

The drug trade is a multi-million dollar industry and most drugs are sold on street corners (he said something like 98%)
This means most dealers are carrying a huge number of 5s and 105s and 20s and 50s by the end of the day, and they don't store them in a warehouse or anything, they take them to the bank and exchange them for $100 bills
The Euro, on the other hand, has 500 Euro bills. So the drug trade is migrating because they can minimise the amount of contact made with the establishment.

2010-06-28T18:13:00.002+08:00

I have grown uninspired again, probably because of too much freedom, Fable 2, cold mornings and biscuits. A post on the Young Ones is in the works, when I feel interested enough in the show again, not to mention the one on video games (it's taken ages to sort through the list and order it).

Oh dear

2010-06-23T21:18:00.003+08:00

Australian TV is filled with fat male idiots who think they're funny and advertisers who want you to know that the mining corporations are on your side and if they lose money then they're going to mug you for their losses. Will Anderson was funnier and more insightful than Dave Hughes, so it's a shame that his crippling cocaine addiction has made him a stooge for public relations firms. Oh dear.

I'll post something soon

2010-06-21T00:37:00.003+08:00

At the moment I'm working on a list of my favourite video and computers games. There's around 60 or 70 and ordering them is proving labour-intensive. Age of Empires wasn't really that great, but it meant something at the time. Should have it up later tonight or tomorrow.

Empty rooms and routine

2010-06-19T01:32:00.006+08:00

One of the reasons that I have been recently motivated to post on this blog again is that my first semester at university this year is over and, consequently, I have a lot of free time. This free time usually comes at a cost, however, as studying at university means regularly participating in an intellectual environment, entering a thought space which - especially in art - encourages the relating and comparing of different concepts which I wouldn't otherwise associate with one another outside of this thought space, leaving me alone in the bedroom of inertia, with its musk in my nostrils. There's a lot to be said for relaxing, but that just means I don't have to spend three hours a day on public transport anymore, I don't intend on developing Alzheimers or juvenile dementia.

What I mean to say by this is that I have come, over the last year and a half, into certain situations which require a consistently active mind without one, and I've struggled to catch up. I'd imagine it's a familiar narrative for most people - you don't regularly use your mind in one way and when you're forced to you almost give up. It was a struggle for me to write the last essay for the Visual Culture unit because, as well as not reading very regularly since the start of the year, I hadn't written anything in ages, not even on the websites I visit frequently (my patronage of Answerbag has shifted to Facebook, which encourages a greater use of the mouse than the keyboard in using it). This blog, too, has been hard to kickstart again and, on the simplest level, it's because I don't have anything to write about - or anything cohesive to write about. Thoughts and opinion develop after talking to other people or reading things but they dissipate and I move onto something else. Knowing you're going to write a post later in the day (or a bit after midnight) forces you to keep the old water circulating in the bath, even though I'd rather rinse it out and fill it up again with something a little less colourful and detailed, or perhaps even just have a shower, and that means concentrating and analysing and all sorts of other things not traditionally associated with relaxation. At least, that's what it means for me - I'm sure there are plenty of people who can cruise through the day and improvise something in five minutes - I'm trying to figure out how to do that without turning each post into free association.

Anyway, I've decided I'm going to try and keep a routine during the break that'll avoid the inertia society wants me to fall into. I'm going to try and read 20 pages of a book, listen to five or six songs (by three different artists), spend some time on the internet, and watch a film (that's not going to be easy). I read 20 pages from Women, Art & Society after I got up and it gave me enough thought space to avoid leaning my conscience on one or two stalactites of negativity that show up as I walk through the cave (and I'm thinking Donkey Kong). And I think reading some facts about history, followed by some systematic analyses, helps you along when you spend most of the day with no idea what you're talking about. I get stressed less (although I still get some), and I live longer because stress kills you, as Dick Gregory has explained. So now, after I finish writing this, I can go to bed clear headed, and that means I'll wake up with a better idea of how to get out of bed and adjust.

I watched Inglorious Basterds for the second time tonight, and I realised that, while it is a lot of fluff dressed up in subtitles and long sequences of people trying to be polite to weirdos, its themes are pretty real and the technical 'seriousness' backs that up. It's subversive in the sense that it's about ordinary people causing violence against the people who would normally kill them, and how people who kill a lot of people get away with it, and how horrible that is. Hitler may have killed himself, but Eichmann survived for a while, and other mass murderers, like Zia ul-Haq, never had to face a court or execution, neither did Stalin, or Reagan, and Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates will probably never have to. And Tarantino can be irreverent, with close-ups of strudel and cream, if he wants because you can do that if you're annoyed and you're an artist. It's better than being patronising. I've been thinking about those associations and why it's satisfying to watch a lot of violence, and you become aware of a lot of weird subconscious processions when you've got the space to think about them. And I'd rather be aware of them if it means I'm going to not walk out in front of a moving car or step on a cat.

I'm only saying this because I think it's important to establish a context when you try to talk to people, with whatever application or lack of subtlety, because it's honest and it gives people room to consider what you're saying. I guess it's also self-orientation, but it gives me something to write about. Sorry about all the sentences starting with 'I'.

Children and rich vans

2010-06-17T23:33:00.000+08:00

The media seems to have regained its fascination with child abduction recently. I doubt the same attention would have been paid had the attempts at abduction taken place in somewhere like Maddington or Thornlie - it would have warranted a small mention in the news at most, where we could all reassure ourselves that were not as bad as those people in that part of town - instead of upper-middle-class Mindarie, where all the pedophiles have cushy bank jobs and don't have to drive around looking for kids in vans. Or so we thought, anyway. If you want to see how the media treats child victims of sexual assault who don't belong to affluent white families just look back at how the media approached the issues with the truck drivers abusing young aboriginal girls a couple of years ago - they spent more time talking about the truckers' families than the victims of their abuse.

It's not like there's any actual sympathy in the treatment of these cases, the media just milks all the drama they can from the initial shock and then tells you when to stop caring. But I feel that, by just referring to it as 'the media', I'm effectively blowing over the people who are encouraging this apathy, and they're too important not to warrant attention in and of themselves, but they're probably white, and they have more money than you. And while it's tempting to say that this sort of thing doesn't matter when you're talking about children, that's not true at all, because we're still being emotionally manipulated when we look at these news sources, and those are the factors they tap into to manipulate us. Until we step out of our comfort zone, so to speak, we're still speaking from a certain perspective, and when we do we're alone the last people who will help us will be the idiots telling us to worry about children.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx4ixXQFUQY

Humour in video games

2010-06-16T18:55:00.000+08:00

I wouldn't disagree were someone to argue that most attempts by video game designers at being funny don't work - but while most video games that try to be aren't funny, most video games (and computer games) aren't all that good anyway. Or are, at the very least, mediocre. This probably has something to do with most game developers being American, and the fact much humour in American film in television more involves people forcing you to accept that they are funny, based on a supposed cultural template of what is and isn't funny, rather than actual, creative attempts at writing something that encourages laughter. For an example of this, you need only watch any generic American sitcom that's popular at the moment. Everybody Loves Raymond (which, admittedly, hasn't been on television for at least a couple of years) seemed to be screaming at you 'this is funny because all wives are mean to their husbands, aren't they?' and 'Frank is funny because he is being spiteful and mean and you want to be like that to your family, don't you, because that's normal'. It only follows that people living in this thought space, exposed to thousands of different people shouting at you for the better part of the day what you should consider funny, struggle to come with anything creative and insightful when making video games for the mass market.

This is not to say that all video game writers are devoid of good humour - on the contrary, plenty of great games have had their moments. The Grand Theft Auto series, produced by Rockstar Games, a British game developer albeit, has a pretty good grasp of brutal satire, although GTA IV had a tendency to rely on stereotyping and shock value (the immersion the game tries to offer is hampered by the excessive, poorly written profanity on the talk radio stations). The mission packs managed to get away from this, though. Similarly, Rare seemed rather aware of the surreal nature of the Donkey Kong Country series and made a point of subtly acknowledging it. There's a level in the second game which involves playing a coiled snake jumping across gaps in a shipwreck (against the backdrop of a hazy green sea) by bouncing off the backs of overly large bees, killing them in the process, with a sea shanty-like musical theme (one of David Wise's masterpieces) so involving and catchy that even the bees are bopping to it before you kill them.

However, these are mostly exceptions to the rule. While developers and critics alike enjoy harping on about immersion, better described as conceptual involvement, the developers often have a habit of breaking it by involving poor attempts of humour that clumsily reference elements of the real world you'd rather forget about. Bethesda's Oblivion, while in many ways a thoroughly creative, if a little generic in terms of scenery (Morrowind created an entirely new feeling of landscape, Oblivion only expanded on the party line of what ancient Britain supposedly looked like), has a WWF announcer in a Roman arena and female orcs who sound like they're from New York (because American's mostly can't voice-act, but I'll leave that subject alone for the moment). While the latter was probably just negligence, the former was an obvious attempt to make dialogue that wouldn't make the cut on a daytime American sit-comedy seem funny in a quasi-Medieval setting.

Writing dialogue that actually makes people laugh doesn't just take thought, it takes thoughtfulness, and there isn't a lot of room for this in the patronising attitude a lot of game developers take towards scripting. Anyone who's had to sit through Daxter's inane quips in the Jax and Daxter series to enjoy what are otherwise rather fun games is aware of this. As is anyone who's had the misfortune to be exposed to many of the Oblivion and World of Warcraft fan videos. Game writers set a benchmark of awfulness the games' fans are all but willing to measure up to, which effectively makes this lack of thoughtfulness and creativity even more sinister, especially for those of us who would argue that video games can be considered art, despite the economic context in which they are produced.

A directory of lists

2009-10-09T16:55:00.000+08:00

It's been a while since I last posted, and I've decided I'm going to make this post a directory of list-based articles I've found on the internet. It'll update a fair bit, I hope.

I shall organise it into categories based on necessity.

Business

The 25 Secret Perks of Working at Google, Cracked (January 19, 2007), by Chris Kula

Culture

6 Insane Christmas Traditions From Around the World, Cracked (December 26, 2006), by Jay Pinkerton and Sean Crespo

Film

The Top 19 Movie Blunders of All Time, Cracked (April 24, 2006), by Chris Bucholz
Five Steps to a Horrible Comedy, Cracked (May 18, 2006), by Ritch Duncan
The 7 Best '80s Movie Girlfriends, Cracked (June 15, 2006)
The 9 Most Spin-Off Worthy Comedy Characters, Cracked (July 31, 2006), by Jack O'Brien and Vinnie Penn
The 10 Best Robot Chicken Sketches of All Time, Cracked (August 14, 2006), by John Lichman
Zoology Handbook: The 5 Deadliest Movie Directors, Cracked (August 20, 2006), by Forrest Rice
5 Movies Hollywood Needs to Stop Making, Cracked (September 22, 2006), by Alex Blagg
The 007 Lamest James Bond Scenes, Cracked (November 20, 2006), by David Campbell
The 7 Lamest Fight Scenes of All Time, Cracked (November 29, 2006), by Al Farrell

Internet

Online Dating Strategies, Cracked (October 27, 2006), by Chris Bucholz

Music

10 Rules for Summer Concerts, Cracked (June 20, 2006), by Michael O'Brien

The Five Worst Lyrics Ever to Ruin Good Rap Songs, Cracked (August 25, 2006), by Chris Pitino & Jack O'Brien
The 5 Most Absurd Moments in VMA History, Cracked (August 31, 2006), by Jack O'Brien and Clive Bannister
The 9 Biggest Wusses in Rock Today, Cracked (December 18, 2006)
Rhyme Crime: The 20 Worst Rhymes in Pop Music History, Cracked (January 17, 2007), by Kevin Hill

Nerdery

The 7 Greatest Superpowers, Cracked (June 29, 2006), by Jack O'Brien

Television

The 11 Best Chappelle's Show Skits of All Time, Cracked (July 19, 2006)
The 5 Most Obviously Drug-Fueled TV Appearances Ever, Cracked (August 18, 2006), by Jack O'Brien and Ryan Grim
The 5 Most Ineffective Anti-Drug PSAs, Cracked (September 18, 2006), by Ethan Ryan
The 5 Most Ridiculous Celebrity Cameos in Japanese Ads, Cracked (September 25, 2006), by Chris Kula
The Best Cable Television Prank Calls, Cracked (October 18, 2006)
The Rise and Fall of 5 Wacky Sitcom Neighbours, Cracked (November 27, 2006), by Rob Bloom

Food

The Best & Worst Candy Bar Fillings, Cracked (October 25, 2006), by Matt Wilson
The Best and Worst Thanksgiving Food, Cracked (November 21, 2006), by Matt Wilson

Politics

President Bush Learns 5 Important Lessons from History, Cracked (June 12, 2006), by David Maize

Products

5 Awesomely Bad Christmas Gifts, Cracked (December 20, 2006), by Maddox
Insane Japanese Halloween Costumes!, Cracked (October 31, 2006), by Chris Bucholz

Sex

The Best and Worst Euphemisms for Sex, Cracked (October 20, 2006), by Matt Wilson

Sports

Things To Look For At the US Open, Cracked (June 16, 2006)
The 5 Most Insane Coaching Meltdowns, Cracked (October 26, 2006)
The 15 Most Unnecessary College Bowl Games, Cracked (December 27, 2006), by Brendan Fitzgibbons
9 Predictions for This Year's Super Bowl Broadcast, Cracked (January 25, 2007)
The 11 Obnoxious People You Meet at Every Super Bowl Party, Cracked (January 31, 2007)

A side-order of kvas with your gulag

2009-08-24T15:13:00.000+08:00

A friend of mine has started a rather interesting blog in the same vain as the 'Stuff [insert ethnic community] People Like' blogs that were popular last year: Stuff Russian People Like. Have a look, it's quite well-written.

Forward Jah Jah Children

2009-08-17T18:11:00.000+08:00

The great thing about Youtube is that it can introduce you to collaborations with obscure artists in various genres you'd never listen to otherwise. Jacob Miller, for example, seems to be practically unknown off Youtube. I have no idea, he has a great voice. Augustus Pablo had some damn good collaborations:

Things communists like

2009-08-17T18:03:00.000+08:00

A friend of mine has started one of those '[ethnic group] people like' that were popular last year - in this case, Things Russian People Like:
http://thingsrussianslike.blogspot.com/
Worth a look, she's quite a good writer.

/plug

Jah Light

2009-08-06T13:33:00.000+08:00

I've been listening to (the awesomely named) Augustus Pablo recently, mostly on Youtube, and I came across a song with one of the best bass lines I've ever heard. Someone really needs to use this in a rock song.

Thought Process

2009-08-03T23:40:00.000+08:00

I got into Outkast again during the past couple of weeks, properly this time (although I haven't quite managed to work my way through Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik just yet, and I think I'll give Idlewild a miss), and, in an effort to diversify my tastes, I decided to try and listen to a few songs by the Goodie Mob as well, seeing as they're held in similar regard as Southern rappers and are a part of Outkast's Dungeon Family. While Outkast has a tendency to explode in various musical directions at once, more often than not looking towards the sky for a(t)liens or astrology, what I've heard of the Goodie Mob so far sounds much earthier and grounded (even Big Boi has a tendency to muse philosophically). Soul Food is a great song, even if the film clips depiction of the stated subject makes me feel physically ill.

The one song of theirs that really reaches me, however, if Thought Process. There's a lot of socially conscious hip hop, and a lot of it, unfortunately, falls victim to the grand American tradition of cloyingly emotional tripe. But this song avoids that trap effortlessly. I honestly haven't heard a better song about poverty, everyone involved is fully involved. The line-up is great - T-Mo (I think it's him) wrote some incredibly confrontational lyrics, but managed to make it sound so self-aware and, to a degree, selfless, that his rap embodies a sort of timeless humanity (sorry, but I couldn't think of a less pretentious way to word that). And Andre 3000 caps it off nicely.

A Life in the Day of Benjamin Andre

2009-06-09T22:30:00.000+08:00

Just a quick post (I've got 2 others in draft stage at the moment). I found this great song by Outkast the other day, it won't leave your head. Force yourself to like it.

Carnivàle

2009-04-23T00:01:00.000+08:00

I've meant to write a long, in-depth review of the cancelled American TV series Carnivàle for more than a year now. What it really needs is a complete, detailed run-through of each episode of the first season and, because it's such an insanely detailed show, that requires a lot of time. Now that I'm finally getting around to it, I think I'll post in episodic installments - although I can't promise I'll make them short. I'll also try and provide some stills here and there to break up the reviews.

For the moment, I'll give a brief (to use the word lightly) summary of the series. Carnivàle is one of the greatest, most artistically-realised, intelligent, nuanced TV shows ever made. I can't think of a single American program to compare it with in the last ten years, perhaps even before that. It was extremely well-written, it had some of the best, most artistically rich cinematography ever seen on television, and an ideal cast. Daniel Knauf, the series creator, wrote a really detailed, logically intricate and historically infused backstory rooted in Christian theology and mysticism, and at the same time managed to create a number of characters very strongly rooted in reality to apply it to. That balance, between the academic, worldly and spiritual and the exploration of individual suffering in a setting strongly grounded in a past reality, is what separates Carnivale (in particular, the first season) from ordinary television and fair and what makes it such an great experience to involve yourself in.

It's set in Depression-era 1930's America, in the Dust Bowl, and follows two separate stories: a young, poor man being picked up by a travelling carnival in Oklahoma, and a socially-conscious Methodist preacher in small-town California trying to open his congregation to the influx of poverty-stricken migrants. Of course, this is just at the outset of the story - the plot unwinds at a steady rate from episode to episode and details like the ones mentioned grow into and are replaced by entirely different events and consequences. I'm not sure if I'm being terribly unique in describing the show in this fashion, but I feel it's important to stress the nature of the show as a serial, with each episode being only self-contained in themes, not plot (although they still make a great watch on their own if you've seen the entire series).

There, I think that just about sets out what I wanted to say. Expect the next post to be a full recap and analysis of Milfay.

A conversation with M____ the Terrible

2009-03-25T21:04:00.000+09:00

Here's an interesting snippet from a conversation Masha and I had the other day on MSN (posting it to a blog format was her idea):

Indigo: --I'm not sure, I've never studied cannibalism. All I know is that, according to the movie Hannibal Lecter, cheeks are the best part of the human body for consumption.
D'lan: Facial or arse?
Indigo: facial, though I'm sure arse cheeks work as well.
D'lan: That wasn't what I was asking. :P
Indigo: You're quite the young pervert, sire.
D'lan: /Douchebaggery win.
D'lan: Why thank you, milkmaid. Your udders do sparkle so.
Indigo: My udders are black with grime and leprechaun sperm, you flatterer, you.
D'lan: Nay, they are solid green with brilliant ivory toggles! Just like daddy's.
Indigo: Your daddy has nothing on my daddy's udders. His were blue as the summer sky.
D'lan: Au contraire, Daddums had only the most the expensive filigree embroidened upon his dainty pecs.
Indigo: My daddy won a competition for the spiffiest gentlemen of England with his udders, just because he trained each of his nipples to smoke a pipe.
D'lan: Pish posh, my Dadé can do that just as easily himself, provided he imbibes enough hallucinogens.
Indigo: Your papa has unsightly yellow hairs on his udders -- it just won't do.
D'lan: It is true, once a man reaches a certain age, he discovers coarse hairs encroaching upon priorly sacred territory. But such material concerns should not impede upon a man's dignity.
Indigo: Your father's udder hairs aren't even properly blessed! My Papa went through the ceremony seven times just to make sure that when his (venerable, no doubt) hair does grow, it will not absorb evil spirits. Or food.
D'lan: Wench, your fatherre only participated in that celebration of sodomy because he thoroughly enjoys the loins of the parish butcher! 'Tis the truth, his udders be soiled upon thy ungodly mount.
Indigo: You lie, you ungodly creature. It is common knowledge that your father is the only butcher around, and my Papi would never socialize with the likes of him.
D'lan: My father is no cleaver of meat! As you know fully well, he merely dissects the occasional stallion for medical and artistic research. Please, do not soil my father's good name with the penis'an'test' of your homosex' patriarch.
Indigo: Medical, ha! It is well know that your vater's udders are not his, but those of a young cow he slaughtered behind the milkman's house.
D'lan: Lies, gross untruths! He was still a cleric then, not a milkman! What utter sloth.
Indigo: Ah, but he was an apprentice at milkmanship and he had mastered the fine art of pouring day-old milk into glass bottles. What else makes a good milkman, if not that?
D'lan: The pleasuring of feisty and uncouth milkmaids, no doubt.
Indigo: He was not pleasuring me, you spying ragwort, he was but checking if my drawers needed to be washed.
D'lan: Such enthusiasm for laundry I have not seen since my youth.
Indigo: He is training to be a laundryman as well. A much nobler position than yours, I should say.
D'lan: I'll have you know the court has appointed me systems technician due to my impeccable skills in abstract calligraphy.
Indigo: Your abstract calligraphy suffers when shown next to my impeccable nose hair arrangements.

Misery, by the Beatles

2008-12-31T01:10:00.000+09:00

This song is partly responsible for getting me (half-heartedly) into the Beatles. It stays in your head for a long time after you listen to it, although I suppose a lot of Bealtes songs do. A lot of reviewers seem to enjoy pointing out that it sounds fairly upbeat for a song of its subject matter, but I think the performance better reflects the meaning and intent. For a simple song, a lot of effort is put into the vocals (listen to the way Lennon and McCartney hold out the first "Baaad"). For a little while at least, it really resonated with me.

2008-12-24T16:08:00.000+09:00

A friend linked me to this comment on Jezebel.com, I hope the poster doesn't mind me quoting it, but it's one of best analyses of modern sexism I've seen:

This is why I hate un-moderated internet forums, including places like YouTube. They are places were the nastiest, most sexist, most racist and most homophobic take over.

Usually these comments are made by just a handful of bad seeds, the real problem is the huge number of decent people who ignore it, think its kind of funny, or think they have it worse.

Its long, but I love this Kate Harding piece [kateharding.net]
You, dear male reader, are totally not one of those men. I know this, and I appreciate it. I really do. But here's where all this victimy girl shit concerns you:

every time you don't tell your buddies it's not okay to talk shit about women, even if it's kinda funny;
every time you roll your eyes and think "PMS!" instead of listening to why a woman's upset;
every time you call Ann Coulter a tranny cunt instead of a halfwit demagogue;
every time you say any woman-Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Phyllis Schlafly, Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, any of us-"deserves whatever she gets" for being so detestable, instead of acknowledging there are things that no human being deserves and only women get;
every time you joke about how you'll never let your daughter out of the house or anywhere near a man, 'cause ha ha, that'll solve everything;
every time you say, "I don't understand why thousands of women are insisting this is some kind of woman thing";
every time you tell a woman you love she's being crazy/hysterical/irrational, when you know deep down you haven't heard a word she's said in the past 15 minutes, and all you're really thinking about is how seeing her yell and/or cry is incredibly unsettling to you, and you just want that shit to stop;
every time you dismiss a woman as "playing the victim," even if you're right about that particular woman…
You are missing an opportunity to help stop the bad guys.

You're missing an opportunity to stop the real misogynists, the fucking sickos, the ones who really, truly hate women just for being women. The ones whose ranks you do not belong to and never would. The ones who might hurt women you love in the future, or might have already.

'Cause the thing is, you and the guys you hang out with may not really mean anything by it when you talk about crazy bitches and dumb sluts and heh-heh-I'd-hit-that and you just can't reason with them and you can't live with 'em can't shoot 'em and she's obviously only dressed like that because she wants to get laid and if they can't stand the heat they should get out of the kitchen and if they can't play by the rules they don't belong here and if they can't take a little teasing they should quit and heh heh they're only good for fucking and cleaning and they're not fit to be leaders and they're too emotional to run a business and they just want to get their hands on our money and if they'd just stop overreacting and telling themselves they're victims they'd realize they actually have all the power in this society and white men aren't even allowed to do anything anymore and and and…

I get that you don't really mean that shit. I get that you're just talking out your ass.

But please listen, and please trust me on this one: you have probably, at some point in your life, engaged in that kind of talk with a man who really, truly hates women-to the extent of having beaten and/or raped at least one. And you probably didn't know which one he was.

And that guy? Thought you were on his side.

http://jezebel.com/5116867/not-really-diggin-it

Sci-fi anachronism

2008-12-22T23:32:00.000+09:00

You walk towards the bus,
I'll walk towards the station

Little ado in my mind to post today, but I have come across what may amount to be the holy grail of science-fiction anachronism discussions. I've always had a keen interest in time-based scientific inaccuracies in science-fiction, and the nerd blog Topless Robot has recently started a competition of some sort that has led to a huge 62 comment post of Star Wars and Star Trek fans slagging off their favourite TV shows and books. Worth a look:
http://www.toplessrobot.com/2008/12/tr_contest_stupidest_lack_of_technology_in_sci-fi.php#comments

An explained justification or justified explanation for disliking self-important American television

2008-12-22T01:22:00.000+09:00

Something I came up with in the comments section of this website, hope it means something to you:

American trash can be alright and entertaining when it's aware that it's trash - like most of Star Trek. But shows like House aren't escapist because they try to pander to the viewer by representing the way the writers think the average viewer lives and experiences things - but they end up giving the impression that what they depict is normal, and anything differing from that is aberrant.

Political correctness

2008-12-21T22:28:00.000+09:00

I hear a lot of talk of 'political correctness' lately, from various people I know and don't know. To me, it doesn't seem to have any value as anything more than a vague descriptive. Every debatable case of 'political correctness' needs to be judged on its own merits and no categorical ruling can be applied, so it seems to distract attention from the actual details of why people try and be 'politically correct'. Mostly it tends to come down to being considerate and not coming across as an idiot, and although some people do tend to disillusion themselves about their level of ethnic understanding, I don't see the concept working as the one big coherent farce that it is painted to be.

Evolution

2008-12-19T18:51:00.000+09:00

What does evolution have to do with luck? If you think about it as an organism adapting biologically to changes in its environment over long periods of time, luck doesn't even appear to come into it. It's more like a form of progressive survival. It also casts light on the somewhat popular notion that by insulating ourselves from the environment we're denying our genetics a chance to respond to changing environmental conditions. However, we may also be changing to adapt to the built environments we've constructed for ourselves. But I guess I should stay away from eugenics.

Pederast culture, harems and alcoholic sexuality

2008-12-17T17:49:00.000+09:00

One thing that can be said for Britain is that it has never had, to my knowledge, any great deal of gender segregation. Life for British women may have been a living hell from ancient times until well into the 19th century and beyond (especially when compared to particular societies in different parts of the world), but they've never had to go through any lengthy and arduous process to find a male to copulate with. Due to this and the strict anti-sodomy laws that were applied until recent decades, the British Isles never appeared to have suffered from the pederast culture that afflicted the Arab (and general broader Islamic) World through its glory years.

Women may have been given property and inheritence rights in parts of Arabia more than a thousand years before such reforms were instituted in most European nations, but they were gradually seperated from the men in the majority of Islamic societies from the beginning, leading to a misunderstanding of sexuality for both men and women. However, this was never quite as severe as the European orientalists depicted the harem in paintings and literature. These beliefs of luxurious rooms filled with naked women, owned by Arab and Persian men, were largely fabricated by the overactive imagination of European Romantics. Yes, rich Arab men had (and many continue to have) multiple wives. But one gathers orgies were largely out of the question, and financial concerns took precedence. Each woman had to have (by law) their own lodgings, clothing and food, and the work demanded by the sizeable upkeep no doubt kept the man on his feet for most of the day. Were the women mistreated? Most likely. Were European women treated better by comparison? Probably not.

Since alcohol has always been more prevalent in Europe than the Islamic World (although equally prevalent in the European Islamic World - i.e. Albania, Bosnia, etc.), at least Islamic women didn't, for the most part, have to deal with the alcoholic nature of agressive male sexuality in the way that European women did.

Tooth decay, alcohol and paranoia

2008-12-15T20:38:00.000+09:00

Earlier this evening I downed a rather hefty glass of bourbon and coke, rinsing the post-cola sludge with a few swigs of bottled water. This made me paranoid enough to check my teeth in the bathroom mirror, and I was greeted by the unpleasant sight of four seperate blackish spots on my lower teeth and at least one or two on my upper teeth. This didn't come as a surprise to me, as I am in the midst of a series of infrequent dental appointments, the next being sometime in January. However, it still unnerved me enough to partially read the Wikipedia article on dental caries, and after viewing some of the rather horrifying images the article contains I felt a little better about the mostly shallow cavities in my dental framework. Still, the enamel has worn away on some of my back teeth due to what is most likely excessive acidic drink consumption when I was younger, and I'll never get the enamel back (leading to expensive talk of 'crowns' with my dentist). I feel slightly uncomfortable drinking another glass of rum and coke, even though I plan to rinse it out with some water afterwards (will that do much at all?). But what choice do I have, if I want to drink alcohol? Is beer any better? I don't want to get into drinking pure spirits, although it may be better for my teeth.

You are sleeping, you do not want to believe

2008-12-10T17:15:00.000+09:00

Wafts of fat and grease through thy suburbs,
Diabetes at my doorstep, McDonalds.

It's been a while since I posted, and I apologise. I have enrolled formally for arts in Curtin next year, chosen electives and all that. There's an article on comics that I read when I was younger that I'm working on when I can be bothered, but for now I'm just going to direct you to whatever websites I stumble upon (via the medium of other websites).

Yesterday, through the nerd blog Topless Robot, I found this amusingly conceived webcomic concerning the Star Wars prequels and Dungeons & Dragons:
http://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0001.html
Although I was never nearly nerdy enough in high school to have partaken in D&D or any of its tabletops variants (didn't have the money or the inclination to spend 50$ plus on little bits of plastic, either), I still find some entertainment out of the clever way they've laid the plot on the author(s) rather than the actual comic.

Also, I've been reading about 419 scambaiting lately, and this site has great 'baits (music videos elicited from rich Nigerian gangsters, sculptures, embarrassing signs, long, pointless trips called 'safaris', etc):
http://www.419eater.com/

That's all for now. I hope to post more regularly in this new format (and get a driver's licence).

Characters on the next Super Smash Brothers

2008-11-12T23:20:00.000+09:00

Sorry for not posting in ages. I honestly can't be bothered writing regularly. I think from now on I'll just post stuff I've written on messageboards and the like. Here's a list of new characters I'd like to see in the next Super Smash Brothers that I wrote on the IMDb forums:

"What about Star Trek? There have been quite a few Trek games out. You could have Kirk, Worf, Tuvok, Odo, Seven of Nine even, as playables.

Also, Jedi-wise, it'd be nice to see Luke, Darth Vader, and perhaps Han Solo. Someone else said Kyle Katarn, who's an excellent choice.

The only character I'd like to see imported from Donkey Kong is perhaps Dixie Kong, considering how well they did DK and DDK in Brawl (especially when compared to how slow and bulky DK was in SSB1).

From Mario, perhaps a Toad team, although I'm not sure how much more they can use from the series.

What about the Prince of Persia? Or even Aladdin, he had a more-than-passable video game on the SNES.

They could brake into the GTA series and have Tommy Vercetti or CJ as playable characters (although all of their decent dialogue wouldn't really be okay with with a child-friendly audience).

Perhaps a character or two from Morrowind - not necessarily the unnamed protagonist, that wouldn't work, but maybe one or two of the demigods.

Oh, and the game is crying out for Knuckles to be in it if Sonic is. But it'd better if they didn't give him a voice and just kept him silent - he's Australian, and the possibility of awful regional voiceacting scares me. And Tails is meh.

Final Fantasy-wise, the game could benefit from the addition of Barret or Squall (not sure about anyone else, though).

Jak and Daxter's an obvious one, although it would be best if Daxter's dialogue is kept to a minimum.

Crash bandicoot - again, make him silent again. The voiceacting on Crash of the Titans was just awful.

That's all I can think of for now."

Spock vs. Tuvok

2008-07-29T14:05:00.000+08:00

It's been a while since I last posted, and this is a subject I've had in my head for a while (as nerdy as it may seem). While Spock is an icon, the veritable symbol of the entire Star Trek franchise to outsiders, Tuvok is something of an unheralded achievement in Vulcanism, a remarkable step forward in characterisation. Although I've probably watched more Voyager than TOS, the temptation to compare the two is very strong, not in the least because they're written and acted so differently (which is a remarkable achievement in itself - I guess the writers had a vested interest in avoiding copying an already popular character). Anyway, below are some comparisons I've thought up about each, starting with the obvious:

Spock was a famous diplomat on a famous starship with a famous captain, and hence very well-known in the Federation and respected, while Tuvok was little known until his stay on Voyager. This could explain why Spock seemed to have a noticeably breezy attitude towards things compared to Tuvok, to whom one would struggle to ascribe the word 'relaxed'. Tuvok also had darker skin than Spock, which would seem to confirm the notion that Vulcans (in Star Trek - I feel like an idiot and a nerd for describing this in the in-universe style) have the same system of blood melanin levels as humans.
Tuvok is 100% Vulcan, whereas Spock was half-human. Theoretically, this should mean that Tuvok is more humourless than Spock, but Tuvok was written with a biting wit and command of sarcasm that Spock lacked entirely. While Spock had to have simple idioms and jocular similes spelled out to him by Kirk or McCoy, Tuvok held sway with the Voyager crew with a series of biting one-liners. After Janeway orders him to 'straighten out' the crew for not following Starfleet regulation, Tuvok drily replies "shall I flog them as well?" Having trouble imagining Spock saying something like that? It just wouldn't happen. Besides, I don't think William Shatner understands sarcasm either.
Spock seems almost universally liked and respected by the Enterprise crew, with the possible exception of Bones on occasion. And while I have no doubt that Tuvok commands a decent amount of respect, he is more particular than Spock with his interpersonal relationships (an awful term which I would rather not use, by the way). Janeway is his close friend and confidante, but there are not many other characters who could claim the same. Tuvok acts as a sort of mentor for Harry Kim in various episodes and the subservience is clearly pronounced, and while him and Chakotay get along amiably at times with a clear mutual respect, he picks on Tom Paris as much as anyone else in the senior crew. Torres gets off easy, aside from a few raised eyebrows at some of her more aggressive impulses, and Tuvok's verbal spars with the Doctor (after he acknowledges him as a sentient being) rival in dignity and potency any of the arguments between Bones and Spock. As with everyone else in the crew, Tuvok saw nothing to dislike about Kes and took on a fatherly role towards her, nurturing her telepathic abilities, and Seven of Nine's straight-laced yet very cynical logic made her seem at the very least tolerable to Tuvok's similar sensibilities.
While I do believe Tuvok would have sacrificed himself for the crew in the same manner as Spock in the Wrath of Khan, I doubt he would have ever said "I will always be... your friend." More likely, he would have made a grim comment about the futility of life and the human incapacity to accept death.
In the interest of juxtaposing each character with different crews, I do not believe Tuvok would have as calmly accepted Bones's repeated insults - he almost certainly would have returned them, albeit in a more veiled manner. Either way, Kirk would have driven him off the ship with his relentless vanity (and bad acting). Spock, on the other hand, would mostly likely have got on quite well with the bridge crew of Voyager. It just seems as if the TOS crew was more mild mannered - even Chakotay managed diplomacy with iron fist on occasion.

That's all I can think of at the moment, and I think I should stop here before I grow obese and start eating large quantities of pizza.

Concrete Jungle

2008-07-02T18:50:00.000+08:00

In my limited experience with Bob Marley & The Wailers, I haven't heard a song quite as effective as the early Wailers number Concrete Jungle, released on their 1973 debut album Catch a Fire, particularly the 'English' version of the song that was remixed by Chris Blackwell with extra lead/rhythm guitar parts and an organ. It opens with an almost menacing electric guitar crawl, Marley's playing a standard reggae rhythm while the lead (which I think - or would like to hope - is being played by Peter Tosh) strikes some declining minor chords which sound almost muffled behind the subdued yet very distinct soundscape created by an organ, a staccato bass guitar and the standard reggae insane percussion line-up which I couldn't pull apart if I tried (see another Wailers song, So Much Trouble In the World for a good example of how wildly convoluted percussion can get in reggae/rock music). After this understated performance sets the atmosphere for the rest of the song, the tempo drops and Bob Marley utters the opening lines in a pitch so low (for him) he could almost be chanting:
"No sun will shine in my day today. The high yellow moon won't come out to play."
Two or three male back-up vocalists repeat parts of each line spoken by Marley ('no sun will shine...'; 'high..yellow..moon..won't-come-out-to-play...'), emphasising lyrics that sound like nursery rhymes for clinically depressed children, yet make a dramatically rich statement that would feel more at home in a theatrical production than a rock song.
"I said darkness has covered my light, and has changed my day into night, yeah."
Switching into a higher pitch, Marley wails the next two lines while his backup vocalists in turn echo and interrupt him, filling in the pauses his erratic singing allows for. The pitch lowers again.
"Where is the love to be found? Won't somebody tell me..."
The backup vocalists become a harmony section as Marley spells out the next two lines, which segue into an expected yet unusual chorus.
"...because my life must be somewhere, to be found... Instead of concrete jungle, where the living is hard."
Marley belts this out in the vain of an R&B singer, while the music unobtrusively gains tempo during the chorus. The song then reverts to verse form and needless to say it follows a similar structure until the bridge, which (in the English version at least) opens into an awesome guitar solo which shapes the mood perfectly without sounding too cheesy. I'm not going to go through the whole song like I've done above because, in all honesty, I can't be bothered, but you get the idea. It's a great song and you can get the lyrics here:
http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Concrete-Jungle-lyrics-Bob-Marley/6B54560B7F8EA5C548256945000C569F
It's available quite easily on FrostWire, and there are several performances of it on Youtube. So far, I've found that Bob Marley tends to be at his best when his songs have a sort of moaning quality, or at least a certain wistfulness, which this song certainly possesses in abundance. Worth a look.

If I Ruled the World...

2008-06-26T01:08:00.000+08:00

For some awful reason (for which I am sure we can at least partly blame the Simpsons), the Monty Python greatly overshadowed the Goodies in popularity. Modern audiences seem to think being eccentric involves shallow satire of perceived social norms (more often common social targets) combined with everything that made the Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy insufferably boring. However, I grew up watching recorded Goodies repeats, and I like to think I know better because it makes me feel like an important person.

It seems like the only reason people laugh at John Cleese is because he has a moustache and pretends to be old-fashioned. I've never heard anything from him that makes me believe he is particularly witty, certainly not when compared to the regrettably unrecognised comic genius Graeme Garden. Which brings me to the point of this post - I found clips from an awesome BBC quiz show filmed in 1998 called If I Ruled the World on Youtube the other day. Its panelists (Garden a regular) act as mock-politicians and have to perform a variety of segments that reflect the rather sordid relationship modern politicians seem to share with television interviewers and the public in general. For example, in one segment, called I Completely Disagree, one panelist has to find a way to disagree with a number of particularly sane points that his/her opposing panelist puts forward (much in the same way the government and opposition see fit to treat each other). Another involves a panelist giving a non-straight answer to a bunch of very direct questions from the show's host. In the second half of the clip I've included below, Graeme Garden makes a telephone sex line transcript sound like a convincing poltical speech - one of the best things I've ever seen on Youtube. There's more available at the site, knock yourself out.

Things TV writers need to stop doing

2008-06-17T18:44:00.000+08:00

Something I posted on the Cracked forum. I kinda thought it was worth a blog post, seeing as I've been neglecting posting for a while, despite several American users freaking out at the idea of someone not wearing expensive clothing to their funeral:

There was a period drama from HBO named Carnivale made back in 2003 which had some of the best cinematography ever. They had to dumb it down to get a second season, but it was still too weird for them so they cancelled it, which was unfortunately because it (an American TV series, no less) showed so many different ways of improving television. For example - I live in Australia and hardly ever watch commercial TV anymore, but when I do, these are the things I notice:

Characters have to have spotless skin, apparently, so they heavily apply makeup to the actors (especially to the women, giving most young women on television the complexion of shop-store mannequins. As far as I can tell, in Carnivale, the actors either wore no makeup while filming or were actually made to look dirtier for the working-class Depression-era context. It may sound cliched, but it made the show that much 'richer' and relative.

Suits, collared shirts, etc. When I switch on in the middle of a show and everybody onscreen is wearing formalwear, I switch off. It's offensive, I never wear formalwear, and I don't see why every fictional character in a (mostly American) TV show has to look affluent and 'trim'. Carnivale was set in the thirties and still they managed to get by with most characters wearing dresses or shirts and cheap pants.

Having good guys and bad guys. Seriously, life's not that simple, there's no such thing as good in evil reality, just shades of grey. I know a lot of shows have accepted this and are trying to create characters who aren't moralised at all, but there's simply not enough of them.

'Chemistry' and 'character development' don't have to be invoked to create a great TV show. Look at the original series of Doctor Who, or Wire in the Blood. In the former there was only one brief flirtation at the beginning of it's 26 year run and the Doctor only changed dramatically every now and then with each incarnation, there was nothing in between and it worked. Wire in the Blood is a good example of merely shaping how two characters in a more-than-working relationship interact, aside from any romantic ideal. It emphasised realism (at least in the earlier episodes) in human relations and avoided the cliches associated with the term 'chemistry'. And even though, they kinda tried to change this in later episodes, Tony Hill played out as a real human being who had to deal with his own anxiety, and no great leap was made with each episode in the name of 'character development'. Both of these terms more often than not cheapen productions that were already pretty cheap in the first place.

A lot of shows work well with self-contained episodes. But that doesn't mean that serials should be forgotten about. Shows like Carnivale and Doctor Who both had continuing plots many episodes long, and The Office (original version) and Deep Space Nine both formulated decent individual episodes with continuing backstories. People are as dumb as advertising makes them, there's nothing to say the average viewer can't handle a few more story arcs.

The government only gives out money to nuns and unconsenting concubines

2008-05-31T23:13:00.000+08:00

Or at least it did thirty years ago. Here are a couple of rather confronting snippets from a book I'm currently reading called Damned Whores and God's Police, authored in 1975 by reknown feminist academic Anne Summers, negating any doubts as to whether or not single mothers had it easier in the seventies (as if anyone would believe something like that in the first place):

"...Further, the Government has an evident horror of being cuckolded; it requires the undying sexual fideliy of the women it is supporting. One of the strongest complaints of single mother claimants of welfare has been the practice of welfare officers searching their houses for evidence of a man's presence; if such evidence is discovered welfare payments are stopped."

"...The morality of forcing women into what is a situation of virtual prostitution by demanding that a man with whom may have formed only a temporary alliance support them does not seem to perturb the Government, yet this is the effect of the practice of stopping welfare payments if it is decided (often on very meagre evidence) that a single mother or a deserted wife is living with a man."

That's not to say single mothers have it easy now. Rather, it gives a good idea as to the underlying ethical structure that our version of social security is built upon.

Picking apart the latest Indiana Jones film

2008-05-27T16:50:00.001+08:00

Yesterday, I saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull at the cinemas. It was terrible. But it wasn't quite as bad as Transformers (both films share an annoying male lead), it was at least entertaining in its badness. Not being a huge member of the cult following behind either franchise, my disinterest in the new Indiana Jones film is from a purely anti-Lucas perspective. And it's impossible not to dislike him, not after what he did to the Star Wars films (great escapism), and now this ludicrous tripe. These are some things about the film that made me depressed:

It falls back on anti-communist sentiment to elicit sympathy from the viewer. They may have done the same thing with previous films, I wouldn't know, I only saw a couple when I was young, but it just doesn't work in this day and age. And the socio-historical context they tried to impose upon the viewer in a vain attempt to be knowledgeable was just embarrassing. That being said, at least they didn't make the enemies Muslims, as anti-Islamic sentiment is arguably more ridiculous than anti-Communist sentiment.
The Russians themselves weren't played by Russians and I've heard Cate Blanchett's accent was horrid. I also have a sneaking suspicion that the Russian they were speaking was actually gibberish. I understand why they deny us subtitles - to make the characters seem more 'foreign' to the viewer - and that heaps of people, for no reason that I can think of beyond basic illiteracy, can't handle them, but really, there was a lot of 'Russian' dialogue, and it would have been nice.
Why should we have disliked Irina? She worked all of her life to get where she was, she was surprisingly cooperative and un-ruthless in points as well, it was only toward the end that Lucas decided to make her character a 'hungry for supreme knowledge' cliche so he'd have an excuse to gruesomely kill her (via CGI). Were we supposed to dislike her because she's a woman who wants to make something of herself? Aren't we too modern and sophisticated to buy into that nonsense now?
It has just come to my attention that Shia LaBeouf mimicked Marlon Brando in his opening scene. No. I'm afraid that's not acceptable.
I'm fairly sure the only reference to Star Wars George Lucas intended was the awfully ham-fisted "I have a bad feeling about this" line, which was violently and thoughtlessly inserted during the last few scenes of the film, but the boring expository dialogue evokes the prequel trilogy to the point of retching. It's patronising, assuming we are unable to figure out anything on our own. Which brings me to my next point.
The plot itself is ridiculous, ludicrous, wildly pathetic, etc. However you want to describe it. The two writers must have realised this, as they muddled the basic plot points up in a vain attempt to try and hide it. This combines stupidity with incomprehension, which is pretty much what you're intended to feel while watching this film, I'm sure.
They tried to instill in it their own cliched idea of 'eccentric' film-making. The first shot of the film involves a CGI prairie dog. Which somehow segues into a group of irrelevant hoons. These prairie dogs will be seen later. Monkeys help Shia LaBeouf catch the bad guys, Tarzan-style. I suppose it warms the viewer up for the extra-terrestrial discovery.
I'm sure Harrison Ford said at one point something like "all Indians bound their infants' heads at birth", and then proceeded to plug Christianity. As you may have guessed, there's nothing behind that. Maybe one or two obscure Native American tribes practiced it, but not the entirety of South American proto-European civilisation.
You can't do movies about 'lost tribes' anymore, not even if they're set in the fifties. Modern anthropology doesn't buy into the tacit assumption of 'primitive man', of the supposed racial superiority of civilisation. Every society does what it can to survive in its own environmental circumstances, which is why it's just wrong to write scenes where the heroes are chased by ugly Mesoamerican demon savages. The film certainly doesn't have the intelligence to do it ironically, either (much unlike Dead Man's Chest, but even then the Caribbean islanders were given some degree of respect). Beat your chest and proclaim 'political correctness' if you will, but the inclusion of this, solely for the purpose of dramatic suspense, is historically inaccurate and offensive.

That's all I can be bothered writing for the time being, I'll edit this and put more in later.

Problems with Oblivion in comparison to Morrowind

2008-05-11T17:11:00.000+08:00

It's been a while since I last posted, partly because I got bored of writing a kind of free-verse short story every day and also because the uncensored copy of GTA IV I ordered from Hong Kong arrived last Tuesday/Wednesday, and I have been spending as much time as possible playing it (rather enthusiastically).

In keeping with the nerdy video game motif, I got thinking, so to speak, about some of the disadvantages the much-liked Oblivion has compared to its predecessor, Morrowind, while playing the former at my mother's partner's house a couple of nights ago. While games in the Grand Theft Auto series can easily claim to be solid updates from their predecessors (although that's not to say that each previous Grand Theft Auto doesn't stand on its own as a highly playable work of culturally satirical art), Oblivion does fail noticeably - at least to me - in some areas of gameplay when compared with Morrowind, and I question whether some of the choices they have made actually further the series, rather than just dumb it down for a (supposedly) wider audience. Below, I have gathered some of what I see as problems with Oblivion, and other issues, which may or may not be entirely negative but are worth mentioning all the same:

I'll start with the problem which inspired me to write this list: Dunmer in Oblivion. This race was a solid part of what made Morrowind so beautifully unique. In particular, the voices were excellent, a raspy, swarthy brogue for the males offset by an almost BDSM-mistressy old country snobbery for the women. But, for no discernible reason, Oblivion discarded the previous vocal stylings for maybe one or two voice actors who sound like Ewan McGregor, ruining the collective Dunmer personality that so defined Morrowind. Also, Dunmer in Oblivion go bald. You see Dunmer in Morrowind with no hair, but none have that bald semi-ring that you see on monks and civil servants and such. One assumes that the same ash-ridden qualities that give them their red eyes prevent any embarrassing hairstyles as well. But no, Oblivion disposes of that illusion. Also, you never see fat Dunmer in Morrowind, but you do in Oblivion.
Stat simplification. Oblivion declined to include a number of in-depth statistical properties for the player and items which Morrowind included in sublime detail. For example, in Morrowind you have three armour classes: light, medium and heavy. But Oblivion gets rid of medium armour, I guess in the interest of simplification. But why? Having in-depth statistical properties won't exactly hurt gameplay, and it'll hardly take up much space on the game disc. Unlike the reduction of weapon varieties (the hardware stores in Vice City were kind of pointless) in the Grand Theft Auto series, it just makes the game more shallow.
Voice acting, in general. The voices in Morrowind were great, with the possible exception of the annoying Bosmer, but they only said a few things to you as you began to interact with them - most of the dialogue was text-based, and there is nothing wrong with that. In Oblivion, on the other hand, almost all dialogue is spoken and, because of this, the quality is much cheesier in parts. The beast races in particular (Khajiit, Argonians and Orcs) suffer from this, with seemingly one actor for each race/gender, most doing their job rather poorly as well. And the dialogue itself isn't much better, written by a group of people who were apparently trying to make it fit in with the whole Medieval Britain theme of the game, without realising (as so many do not) that pre-15th century English is mostly incomprehensible and their attempts to emulate the linguistic culture of that period are essentially baseless.
It's just a minor issue really, but the menu system in Morrowind is much more lightweight and easier to use. You right-click and a bunch of windows come up, one for inventory, another for spells, stats, etc. But in Oblivion you press TAB and have to deal with a graphic-heavy pause screen which offers mostly linear navigation and a very standardised version of gaming options. I suppose this is just another example of the move away from the Elder Scrolls being an option-reliant game, but it is still tedious enough to warrant attention as a gaming issue.
The map is much smaller than the one in Morrowind (which was a lot smaller than Daggerfall's - but Daggerfall sucked). Overall, I've found gamers seem to like this, which is understandable enough for anyone who has spent hours navigating the Ashlands for the storyline quests, or has even had to, at one time or another, go to Ald Velothi. But you can't expect everything to be given to the gamer on a silver platter, and the experience, while lengthy, really added to the desolate atmosphere of the game. Perhaps Oblivion's fast travel option was added to help hide Cyrodiil's distinct lack of geographic diversity.
Oblivion's story and lore may be part of the main Elder Scrolls narrative, but Morrowind's was much more engrossing and multifaceted.

I can't think of anymore now, maybe I'll add some more later. And I also can't be bothered to copyedit this, sorry.

Medical Aid

2008-04-27T16:34:00.000+08:00

"No-one ain't gonna push me around," said the drunken American, waving his gun around the restaurant. "You ain't gonna put words in my mouth." One of the more elderly patrons, a doctor named Margaret, shifted uncomfortably in her seat as she reached for her mobile phone.
"Bail's for fools and I need cash," the aggressor continued. He was incredibly intoxicated at this time, stopping every now and then to take a long draught from a hip flask. His theatrical display of stylised theft worked often when he needed a little something extra to supplement his meagre salary as a solicitor, and it was also a great way of meeting people - or so he thought.
"Excuse me, sir," inquired the doctor all of a sudden, "might you have a credit card on you? I'm afraid I've been drinking here all night and I have simply not enough money to pay for another can of bourbon and coke, something I dearly crave." The thief thought about this for a moment and, after he was certain he understood the logic of her proposal, quickly slipped his hand into his pocket a produced a sparkling gold card with 'OBESITY' stencilled on one side, as is the style of the modern American. Pensively, yet earnestly, he flicked the card at the good doctor with a cock of the eyebrow. Just as Margaret was about to catch it, she double-took and performed a feat of Hollywood physics so magnificent that all of her fellow diners were forced to suspend disbelief. She leaped into the air, somersaulted 584 degrees north-east and smashed the card into a million deadly shards with her left bicep. Like a skilled golf shot, one of the shards went directly into the American's open mouth and lodged deeply into his brain. After the unavoidable flatulence, the man fell down to the ground rigidly, dead. The disbelieving crowd stared at the woman, flummoxed, but she carefully and sullenly pointed to one of her toes, poking out from her denim sandals, and somehow, they knew. They knew.

Tales of the North

2008-04-26T16:21:00.000+08:00

Her golden mammoroids, Lady Eliathia the Queen of Green walked into the bazaar at ten o'clock in the morning. Her long, lascivious mane attracted the attention of all the male buskers and hustlers (and some of the female ones, too). Her aides kept the wolves at bay with sharp, poisoned scorpion steaks, but it was never enough to quench the desire of flatulent obesity exuded by those of the lower strata. They burst through the ranks, waving their geometric cubes and leonine purses like knives, swords of bitter doom. The Lady screamed in despair as her guards we cut down into jam in a righteous fury. Laughter reigned as the peasants revolted in an orgy of flying colours, and life as the gentry knew it was deposed in favour of a new agricultural dynasty. Long live the libido.

Spam and Despair

2008-04-25T23:35:00.000+08:00

Looking for a friend. Looked around the boulevard, but I couldn't find anyone willing to give me the time of day. They said my hair is too long, my mouth is strange and I have a disreputable temperament. Disreputable temperaments make no friends. But I have reason, reasonable disrepute, for my life is rotten like a pigsty. The dearth of my inner fear is only heightened by the ridiculous bollocks that is posted every day into my letterbox. It is a letterbox of despair.

'Dear friend.

How dare you pay us such a rude visit. Such travesty! My daughter has nits, she is a moral female girl and you have corrupted her with your Green politics and the dreaded avant-garde. Such alternatives are corruptive [sic]! I refuse to allow such secularism into my homosexuality. It is a religious privlege [sic], enjoyed by the Greeks, no less! My solicitors will be paying you a visit shortly.

Sincerely,
Envoy Thompson'

Faith and excise do not justify cruelty, we have known that for a while. And yet, I am plagued with only the rudest of spam, festering under the surface of my cerebellum like vile maggots, eating away at my memories. Memories not to be repeated.

My five favourite Youtube videos

2008-04-24T17:23:00.000+08:00

On Answerbag today, I was allowed the chance to list and describe five of my favourite 'things' and I chose Youtube videos. As concerned as I am about our download cap, I couldn't quite resist the opportunity, and I guess I'll include what I wrote below [number of personal pronouns = 9]:

"5. Neil Young performing War of Man in 1992. He sounds like three guitars playing at once, and he's practically crying towards the end.

4. Some intense early Velvet Underground footage dubbed over with a version of Venus In Furs which is clearly all-Cale and no-Reed. The footage itself features Gerard Malanga gyrating and tossing a microphone around like a baton, Nico just after she had given up modeling and a nice gratutious close-up of John Cale when he was practically the most stylish person who ever lived.

3. Noam Chomsky calmly changing the way BBC journalist Andrew Marr views the journalistic world in an incredible interview for the Big Idea. This provides the perfect template for dealing with irrationality, and expresses a number of things which ought to be more widely known.

2. A tie between two incredibly confronting and bizarre live perfomances by John Cale at his low (i.e. coked up and drunk; fat) point during the eighties. The first video is a surprisingly groovy live rendition of Elvis Presley's Heartbreak Hotel, a song he has played endless variations of over the years. However, this version really catches Cale during what can only be described as a period of artistic diarrhea, playing alongside Andy Summers - who he somehow recruited wearing an elegant tuxedo - and wearing himself the epitonym of a poor man's suit, complete with trucker cap. To top it off, he's takes a nap on the stage halfway through the performance. The second video is a significantly less easy on the ears piano-based rendition of the Velvet Underground's Waiting For My Man. Words can't do justice to the grunting, sweaty, screaming mess Cale is in this video.

1. In what is, for my money, probably the funniest thing I've ever seen, Billy Connolly recounts a family vacation to Ibiza and what happens when you drink bacterial tap water. I was in tears, and I can't recall anything else I've watched on television or the like that's had that effect."

A Golden Awakening

2008-04-23T19:40:00.000+08:00

Arthur sat quietly in the corner of the room. The appraisal of the Cotopaxi Situation he had ordered from his secretary was not up to scratch, not in the least. But did he care? Not at all. They had been in a relationship for several months and he didn't want to ruffle the bedsheets anymore than he had to.
Ah, yes. Sweet Silvia they called her. Not in the least because of the problems with her tastebuds. Yes, she knew how to harvest grain, but a field dominated by men is never very forgiving to an attractive young women and she soon learned the ropes had more to do with bondage and discipline than any kind of farm machinery. Secretarial work was the best career path she could hope for with her qualifications.
He looked at her sullenly from his chair, admiring her brazen display of farmyard muscle work with the photocopier. It made his heart warm to see such a brutal display of man (or woman, rather) verse machine, the eternal fight of blinding white light and a cheese grater. Life had been cruel to her and this savage, electronic beast was her release. It took her Herculean blows with all the dignity of a member of the House of Lords, squeaking in annoyance and a producing a copy of the NAFTA treaty for all to see.
Standing up suddenly, Arthur walked over to his secretary and gave her a dutiful pat on the shoulder for her hard work. She beamed with delight as he slid his finger into her ear and produced a golden watch of introspection.
"I like the socks."

Hungry as the Sea

2008-04-19T15:30:00.001+08:00

Written by the popular South African novelist Wilbur Smith, Hungry as the Sea concerns a rather wealthy English salvage tug captain and his personal struggle through high seas and self-gratificatory romance. In many respects, it is as much an awful read as it sounds, but that's not to say it doesn't have its riveting moments of high drama and suspense. Smith's heavily detailed (yet suspiciously scienced) forays into the tug salvage world and dangerous seas of the Antarctic coast are stylishly, if a little conventionally, detailed, and one can't help but enjoy the vivid descriptions of the elements impacting upon the human condition. However, like Michael Crichton, Smith has the annoying habit of referring to twenty-something attractive women as 'girls'. But Smith takes it many steps further, almost indulging in the pedophillic overtones that he himself has implied upon the relationship between the forty year-old main character and his youthful lover, which is disturbing to say the least. That's not to say you won't enjoy the novel, not if you're able to overlook such social discrepancies and others (not the least of which being the unforgivably incorrect assumption that Australians refer to each other as 'beauty'). But I don't recommend indulging in mainstream literature, no more than a frugal taste to see what all the fuss is about.

EDIT (19/6/2010): Ignore that last sentence. I come across as a bit of a snob, huh.

Star Wars

2008-04-16T17:15:00.000+08:00

The original Star Wars film is a good example of Hollywood doing Hollywood well. It's entertaining, mindless and simplified, and you hardly notice the sinister undercurrents of violent conservatism and reinforcement of the status quo. But a lot of it was luck. George Lucas managed to to get some decent actors to make sense of his ridiculous dialogue. Just think of the scene in the control room of the first Death Star, where Luke is trying to persuade Han Solo to rescue the Princess (I feel awful writing this, but what can you do). He comes out with a line which would seem at home in one of those cheesy fifties Hollywood Eastern epics, "...more wealth than you could imagine." But Mark Hamill, his public image being that of a William Shatner-lite withstanding, managed to speak the line so creatively off-kilter and conversationally that it almost sounded natural. Almost. Hollywood mainstay Alec Guinness hated working in Star Wars, and his embarrassing dialogue would have had no small part in that (the oft-parodied "wretched hive of scum and villainy" line being a good example). But he still managed to play his part (which was ridiculous - like most of Star Wars, when you give it too much thought) convincingly. Star Wars was also fortunate because the first film was filmed in the seventies, and the style and haircuts carried through, although eighties kitsch and poor taste eventually caught up at least partially in Return of the Jedi. A hallmark of this is would be that video games now, specifically Jedi Knight II, tend to portray characters, particularly those in the Rebel Alliance, with decently shaggy haircuts and obscure facial hair - all of which adds to the admittedly rather weak story.

However, for all the praise given to the original trilogy, I don't think film need more ham-fisted patrimonialism, government hating and violence glorification, no matter how well it was portrayed. Sometimes I think it would be a lot of fun to give a full semiological analysis to each Star Wars film, but the prospect daunts me.

Plexus, by Henry Miller

2008-04-04T13:12:00.000+08:00

I finished reading this a few days ago, and I think it is probably the second foray I've made into modern American literature, after Kafka's America. The novel is essentially a mix of autobiographical narrative, fictionalised exaggerations of character and philosophical meanderings over various literature the author has read. An anonymous critic on the back cover makes the case that if you are bored with this book, then you are bored with life, and that is, in my opinion, an excellent insight into the very nature of the novel and how it manages keeps your attention, despite (or perhaps because of) a narrative form that lacks coherent structure. Characters appear and disappear without explanation beyond the 'this is how it happened' justification, and since they are depicted as real people and nothing more, with the garnish of Miller's own (usually high) opinion of them, they are not missed more than their presence is enjoyed. Miller's entourage of colourful friends, including a variety of socialites, lawyers, artists, 'pollocks', widows and Jews, seem almost too bizarre to be real, and one suspects he has exaggerated from time to time. The content of this work is quite free from the accepted moral restrictions at its time of publication (1953), describing unapologetically group sex, drunken abuse of colleagues, scatological enterprise, what may amount to rape in the modern context and various illegal activities. One may question the ethics of Miller living off his wife's prostitution and the extracted charity of his close and not-so-close friends, but he certainly never does. He is seemingly a man with an unnatural ability to ignore remorse (and later describe it great detail when it suits him), and has no qualms with writing large paragraphs about what other people think of him. Reading this is an exercise in endurance, but having said that the book has a grip on you and won't let go easily. I guess I'm not well-read enough to analyse just what exactly in the author's technique grabs a hold of you, but I can recommend this novel (the second in a trilogy of sorts).

Biofuels

2008-04-02T22:48:00.000+08:00

A corporate solution to an extremely forboding environmental issue, of course it's not going to work. No, it's not even a solution to the environmental problem, it's a public relations-constructed solution to their own growingly (and rightfully so) negative public image. Biofuels aren't meant to be grown from scratch - biodiesel ideally comes from old fish and chip oil, or some other form of expended production. It is a local thing, it can't be sold by multinational corporations, that's just not what it's all about. It just seems like another way for poor people in developing countries to be cheated out of their land.

Curiousity and Pantihose

2008-03-31T09:10:00.000+08:00

I understand and comprehend the boiler suit, I'm not too sure what he's doing to the guitar, the goggles perturb me but I think I understand their significance, but why on earth is he wearing a stocking on his head? What is he trying to prove?

'Bukowski' by Modest Mouse

2008-03-25T15:04:00.000+09:00

It's been a while since I've posted, so I thought I'd share with you this rather well-produced number by the alternative rock band Modest Mouse, who I have recently discovered. It's off their 2004 album, and is about the eponymous American poet and novelist. To be honest, I haven't read anything about him more than I've read in his Wikipedia article, and I only like a couple of Modest Mouse songs because many of them are sung in this annoyingly high strung melody and have that boring acoustic tinge that has been popular for the last ten or so years (for an example of acoustic that isn't boring, look up Neil Young). As I said, this song is very well-constructed - notes are sounded with space to spare on the electric guitar, while the acoustic plays out an understated rhythm while someone playing a banjo underscores the verses. Although this was recorded before Johnny Marr joined the band (the reason I started listening to them in the first place), it may as well have featured his technique as the music certainly bares Smithian influence. The song is lyrically satisfying, with Atheistic undertones and paranoia in the vocal stylings. But this is pretty much a gem amongst more boring stones. The band was never really that interesting, and now it's going more commercial it is becoming progressively less interesting - as much as Marr may be trying to make it otherwise. Here's a video of a live performance:

Circus Live

2008-03-19T16:24:00.000+09:00

This is the first Cale album I've paid money for, and probably one of the best live albums of all time (definitely the best I've heard). Recording quality has improved to the extent that you could mistake most of these tracks for studio takes, if it weren't for the audience appreciation and energetic performance. You could describe this album as 'career spanning', as have the few reviews I've managed to find, but it's a good deal more than that. The music, as is common with John Cale, sounds very modern, and he's never been one to dwell over the past musically (one suspects he must find the constant referencing during interviews of his role in the Velvet Underground intolerable). I'm not sure how to describe it stylistically beyond what I've already said, so I'll make a song-by-song analysis below:

Disc 1

Venus in Furs - Originally penned by Lou Reed after reading a dirty sadomasochist novel of the same name, this was one of the more distinctly Calesque tunes on the Velvet Underground's debut album. It was one of my favourites when I first started listening to the VU, not in the least because a song concerning certain activities involving "shiny, shiny leather" with a sound that is the literal embodiment of Edward Said's Orientalism on steroids is something any socially introverted teenager can be proud of listening to. However, the Circus version outdoes the original from the sixties in a number of ways. Cale's vocals are more powerful and evocative than Lou Reed's, they always have been. You see, Cale has only released one (very pretentious) spoken word album, Words for the Dying, whereas the majority of albums Reed has expelled are all spoken word because he simply can't sing. Because of John Cale's classical background, the song has evolved from what was originally a cacophonous jam into a composition of sorts, beginning with an electronic and cavernous drone, seguing in a rolling, low-pitched rock beat which sets the backdrop for Cale's satisfyingly matured vocals, oscillating in pitch and rythm. Some songs require patience to enjoy fully, but this one forces patience upon you with all the power of a migraine muted by large quantities of pain relief.
Save Us - This is an awesome, grinding revision of an obscure little song on 1975's Helen of Troy, a rather grim treatment of needing to be saved from religion by religion. Although I have read it described in places as 'eerie' and 'menacing', I wouldn't really give it enough value to warrant emotional analysis. John Cale has been more dissolute and despairing in other songs, and the music doesn't seem to have passed beyond the creative conception, leaving a rather unlistenable implementation (not in the generous use of the term). However, the Circus version is a transformation for the better. Turning the awkward pace in the original song into a sort of heavy metal/hard rock hybrid, Cale has successfully used modern developments in music to reinvent and give new life to (pardon the cliche) a previously untenable concept. This version of the song is an enjoyably nihilistic amble through grungey ambience, contributing to a genre of hard rock with intelligent heavy metal-styled (it is slightly Iron Maiden-y) lyrics and complex rhythms - if such a style indeed already exists.
Helen of Troy - In yet another example of John Cale gloriously reinventing an older song for the better (and yet another Cale cliche which I'm borrowing off other reviewers), this version of Helen of Troy is an incredible listen with a solid edge over the original album version. Cale always seemed to like taking Helen to electric gigs, adding new depth to the song in each performance (you can find a good example of this in a 1975 live version with Chris Spedding hosted on this site) - presumably to make up for the album itself having been released prematurely by studio executives, much against the man's wishes and giving his fans a rather demo-ish, slightly awkward studio take as the introduction to this song. The studio take itself features a rather bare, simplistic guitar track, moderate Cale vocals and an unfortunate drag queen voice over that makes it embarrassing to listen to when you know other people are within hearing range. The Circus version (I seem to be following a pattern here), on the other hand, is a raucous, high energy, solid hard rock song with faint avant-garde touches. Cale's vocals are those of, lacking of a better way to put it, an old man who's been working out, the guitars are in turn screeching and beeping like angry synthesisers, and there's some manic free-jazz drummer very much in the foreground who I can't figure out if he's Deantoni Parks or Michael Jerome. Primarily, this version makes use of what is a very good riff for a rock song, and it'll leave it in your head for a while afterwards.
Woman - A rather funky, R&B flavoured song on 2005's Black Acetate, Woman is redone of sorts here into a more of a straight-forward rock song. It's not really something I can get into, to be honest - there's too much repitition in the lyrics, the riff is a consciously standardised mainstream one, complete with 'funky' clapping at each beat, and, to top it all off, John and his band start making monkey noises by way of a bridge. You suddenly realise that this man lives in the same city where they film Sesame Street. I don't know, maybe he's trying to get as far as possible away from the pretentiousness of his work in the early nineties, or maybe he's just putting on a show for his band. It isn't any less depressing, however.
Buffalo Ballet - A quiet little ballad from Fear performed quitely with muted acoustic guitars. About time in a small town. I don't have the patience to sit through it, but apparently a lot of people like it. That make sense, as it is soft enough to sound mildly mainstream. The only real difference between the studio cut and the live version is that Cale's electronic piano has been replaced with the aforementioned acoustic guitars, and he doesn't seem to mind sounding old and sleepy.
Femme Fatale/Rosegarden Funeral of Sores - Femme Fatale is a sweet little song written by Lou Reed for the late German vocalist Nico, who was admittedly on better terms with John Cale when she died on Ibiza during the eighties. Although she has performed the song very well live, John Cale's voice just comes across as more powerful. He injects a surprising amount of emotion into a remake which clearly bears inspiration from Brian Eno. Rosegarden Funeral of Sores, originally from Sabotage, also works quite well as a sort of weird bridge - although I can't comment properly as I haven't actually heard the original.
Hush - Another from Black Acetate, this was widely regarded as one of the closest to hip hop songs he's attempted. Even on this accelerated performance, you can clearly see he's been influenced by several funk and rap producers. However, I've never really been a fan of the song, and beat gets repetitive.
Outta the Bag - The opening song on Acetate, this is Cale trying to be a funk rocker. Whether it worked or not on the album is dependant on your perspective, but him and his band do a fairly good job on this version. It's loud, drunken while still sounding completely sober, and funky. If you like that sort of thing, then you'll enjoy yourself. There's too much repitition for me, though, so I usually skip it.
Set Me Free - This was a grossly mellow track on 1996's Walking on Locusts. Yes, I suppose it could be called 'beautiful', but I don't enjoy many 'beautiful' songs. It's sure to please a few people, though, and it probably has. The versions aren't that much different, even though the live version feels a little spare compared to the overproduced effort from the studio.
The Ballad of Cable Hogue - This is one of Cale's most popular songs - he likes it too - but not one of mine. The beat of the song is too slow and the overall sound too upbeat to keep my interest, and European versions of the Old West are unable to keep my interest lyrically. Sorry for sounding like such a consumerist, I just can't sit through it, even with the unexpected scream to look forward towards the end of the song (which he replicated astoundingly well in concert, mind). This was on Helen of Troy.
Look Horizon - A techno-electronic-ambience-rock hybrid from 2003's HoboSapiens, this was one of the first Cale songs I heard. It's brilliant, I still like listening to it now, even though I've heard it to death. This is what you get when you lock someone with John Cale's background in a basement with a copy of Pro Tools for a year or two - a beautiful, stuttering yet symphonic assortment of classical and modern samples that flow together dramatically well. I haven't heard anything quite like it, yet I've heard snippets of it everywhere. The album version may be preferable to this one simply because you get more detail with the samples, but the live version still has a certain degree of energy to it that makes it quite entertaining.
Magritte - Another gem from HoboSapiens, this was another one I liked. It's about the artist, as you'd expect, who happens to be John Cale's favourite painter. The sampling here isn't overloaded as in Look Horizon, rather Cale creates a sense of sparseness and a very moody atmosphere which is constantly changing. It's a very mature effort, and the lyrics are appreciably symbolic and thematic. The live version is louder and faster, but not a great deal different. Both are works of art, however.
Dirty Ass Rock and Roll - One of the most striking titles in Cale's catalogue, this one dates back to a slow, sort of embarrassing studio take on 1975's Slow Dazzle. Needless to say, this version is much better, with Cale smashing away on his keyboard and the band being surprisingly raucous. It grows on you.

Disc 2

Walking the Dog - A Rufus Thomas cover and one of John Cale's earlier explorations into funk rock, this was originally released on Sabotage. I suppose this version is entertaining enough, but the dog sounds during the bridge make repeat listens rather poor. You do wonder what makes Cale think that animal noises are somehow avant-garde and acceptable in live performances.
Gun - A quintessential John Cale song, Gun was originally released on Fear. With it's sprawling length, pulpish tale of the criminal underworld and extremely out-there Enoed Manzanera guitar solos, any live performance of this song is by definition excellent. This lengthy, noisy, quiet-then-deafening industrial rock take of Gun takes a while to like, but you end up really liking it. Even the whole claiming he's a pig and he's eating everything thing doesn't really get to me - I suppose that's his idea of improvising these days.
Hanky Panky Nohow - A soft little tune from 1973's Paris 1919, this version is a lot better than the original. The growth of synthesisers has created ambience where there was once only sap.
Pablo Picasso/Mary Lou - Pablo Picasso was originally a Jonathan Richman song from an album John Cale produced which he also covered, releasing his heavy, drawling version first on Helen of Troy. Mary Lou was a sort of semi-Pablo that he recorded later. Pablo Picasso was a live staple, and pretty much any live version you find is great. However, none of them quite compare to the loudness of this version. John Cale's singing might leave something to be desired, but the the aural intensity of this song is unmatched. The Mary Lou thing makes a nice bridge.
Intro drone into Amsterdam Suite - It's a drone, which I haven't listened to fully. It's quite nice.
Zen - From HoboSapiens, this version is clearly the winner. His voice seems clearer, and the song ultimately benefits from the sparseness of the live atmosphere.
Style it Takes - This is from John Cale and Lou Reed's brief collaboration to mark the memory of Andy Warhol, Songs for Drella.I never quite cared for it, and the heavily synthesised version on this album can chew up your speakers a little, but it's still a definite improvement over the original.
Heartbreak Hotel - This must have been recorded while John Cale was in an experimentalist mood. He's covered this old Elvis Presley song so many times now that he's running out of sane methods of reinventing it. Hence the strings and the harmonica on this version (and some very gentle percussion). It's not particularly bad, but I choose not to sit through it. Interestingly, he opened with this song at the concert I went to, deciding to put his voice behind a vocoder and replace the chorus with saying the word 'diggity'.
Mercenaries (Ready for War) - I couldn't quite accept that he had seemingly given up the intensity of this extremely loud and distorted Sabotage centrepiece. But the sparseness does grow on you, I suppose, and you can sort of listen to it like a meditative ambience experiement. A fitting-ish album ender.
Outro drone - Another drone. And with that, I'm ending this post. Sorry about skimping a little towards the end, but I've been working on this for hours and I'm tired. I'll post again soon.

Film critics

2008-03-11T17:05:00.000+09:00

There's a lot to be said for reading other people's opinions. It's a very humbling experience, I find, curbing your own propensity towards being an opinionated bigot long enough to digest that there are indeed other views out there (and other topics of interest, for that matter). I have moments when I spend hours reading movie reviews, the entertainment lying predominantly in the multitude of perspectives and witticisms there is to find on the internet. It is always very satisfying to find a review that acknowledges how good Alien3 really is, and one can never read enough criticism of American patriotic orgies like Pearl Harbor, or Armageddon. I guess this blog will branch out into film criticism sooner or later, but for the moment I can only be bothered recounting my own, personal experience of the concept.

Metapost: Intellectual intoxication

2008-03-08T01:01:00.000+09:00

Once in a while one finds oneself ebrium enough to sense a concrete slab pushing against the forehead, challenging the fabric of academic perception. Many testify that this only impedes the pursuit and clay-moulding of intellectual material, but I vehemently (of sorts) disagree - it only changes the metaphoric playing field. I myself have a habit of slipping into a more lucid discourse - or so I've been told - whilst under the influence of the Catholic sanguis, thus changing my perceived variety of discourse and stimulating debate with other such ivrognes. If one only ignores the often overwhelming tendency to eternally interject, despotic deliberation becomes a sort of anarchic ambience, characterised by a variety of knowledgeable meanderings interspersed with metaphysical pronouncements of certainty. I have had one such colloquium tonight with an unobese and thoroughly bearded Devonshire individual, whoes desperate worries of an all-controlling international, yet secretive confederation of bankers leaves one a little on the quizzical side. Needless to say, it was a strangely enlightening experience that I do recommend on occasion. Goodnight and good fortune to you.

Metapost: Nothing in particular

2008-03-05T21:47:00.000+09:00

I'm sorry for not posting lately, I'll try and come up with something later. For the moment, however, I'm just going to post this photo of a cucumber I found. Have a good... uh... weekend(ish).

Editing Wiktionary and sticking it to the man

2008-03-02T18:38:00.000+09:00

Because I can't be bothered making another massive writeup, today I'm going to tell you about the wonderful things I do on Wiktionary. Wiktionary is a kind of dictionary counterpart to Wikipedia. Its main aim to is to 'define every word in every language', and so far the English version has 700,000 definitions. Naturally, I'm enthralled. Since I first opened an account there in 2006 I've made heaps of edits. It's very easy to waste a lot of time performing mindless tasks like categorisation, as there is a huge back catalogue of things to do on the basic level of keeping the site running cleanly. However, what I'm doing at the moment is a little more valid with regards to basic Wiktionary concerns. I am currently scanning through this mangled Collins Dictionary and crossreferencing the content with anything that Wiktionary doesn't currently have. This may or may not be plagiarism, and if it is, well that makes me happy. You see, I don't think much of copyright law, nor do I value the supposed right of several comfortably off publishers to make enough money to buy their second sports car. So that's why I'm sticking it to the man, as per the title of this post, by (possibly) plagiarising on Wiktionary - and one hopes they'll never find out.

I'm also blowing up the Pentagon on Thursday.

Metapost: "The Middle East has always been a violent place..."

2008-02-29T21:08:00.000+09:00

You could say that about any part of the world, really. Very few countries have never been involved in a war of some sort fought on their own land. Saying this sort of thing makes people ignore the broader context and remain ignorant of international affairs, as well as reinforcing their own bigotry. The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is due almost entirely into British colonial mismanagement. Saddam Hussein was in power because of the Americans (they certainly supported him). I'm tired of people saying there were ethnic divisions in Iraq already, with the violence already being there - there are ethnic divisions in most countries around the world, and once you start bombing places of worship and littering heavily populated areas with cluster bombs for their kids to pick up, those ethnic divisions start to get really heated.

Sorry I don't have a real post for today (or yesterday - sorry about that as well). But you know, I'm tired, and I had to look after my younger brothers tonight. 'Night, all.

Wire in the Blood

2008-02-27T16:57:00.000+09:00

"How do you know they're dead?"
"Because of the level of control this person likes to exercise. Making Hattie imprint 'I love you' amounts to a final expression. A last will and testament, if you like. That was something that was denied to Mica. Had Mica followed the same patterns as Hattie, then she would have died within twenty-four hours of her abduction as well. You are looking for a missing person, you should be looking for her body. Our killer likes to control their victim's actions and what's now apparent is the way they're trying to control yours. There's no ransom demand, meaning the arrival of the hair. So you work it out, you do all the work, you look for the message. Anyway, you'll find it, which is what they want because the hair... that makes it a game."
"The hair...?"
"Well, it could have been a finger or an ear, but hair's easier: it doesn't form the body and by its nature it's dead already. At least this proves our killer's not a mutilator, and likes to keep the body whole... probably because they're still have a relationship with it."

The BBC and ITV in the UK have created a lot of cop shows, a lot of murder-mystery series, many detective and forensics-oriented shows, and more than enough shows that combine all of the above. With my semi-limited experience of said shows via the ABC, my personal favourite would have to be Wire in the Blood. When it begain in 2002, it was about a criminal psychologist/university lecturer named Tony Hill, played by Robson Green, who starts helping the local police force (in a fictional city named Bradford, somewhere in Yorkshire) trace the movements and thoughts of murderers, and develops a close friendship with Detective Inspector Carol Jordan, played by Hermione Norris, one of the few he has in his lonely life.

There are a number of things which separate Wire in the Blood from the wider community of British crime series, but they're rather hard to pin down. A wholesome dose of photo-realism is expected from any show dealing with these subjects in the twenty-first century, but you get the idea that the writers in the first three seasons really took this seriously. It's not just about the proper graphical depiction of murder victims, or the acute acting of suspects with recently deceased relatives. The ethic goes deeper than that, giving the viewer insights into the postmortem life of a murder victim by showing quick cuts of a cheap black plastic sex toy approaching a horizontal fridge, by showing Tony Hill making basic mind maps with a blue marker on a white board, pausing to erase previous markings and move various poor quality photos of the crime scene. Very little is spick and span, the characters do not work with 'the latest technology' in clean and high tech environments - they work in a clutter-filled but busy building filled with dingy offices, with faded wooden boards on the walls. Outdoors shots aren't afraid to show rubbish blown across streets by the wind, and the characters respond to the natural environment in an equally natural manner.

But the show still manages to utilise a lot of sparse stylistic techniques. Voice-over narration, hand-held camera, and an extensive, eerie soundtrack (consisting of electronic warbles, synthesized and distorted choirs, and other such avant-garde materials) are all blended seamlessly, and sometimes with the seams emphasised for dramatic effect. And the title sequence is always cool, with a graphic of wirey fire-like lines on a black background.

Another thing which really sets the show apart are the aforementioned characters. Not just Tony and Carol, but the police supporting cast of DS's and the superintendent are great as well. They aren't idealised, but played as real human beings with obvious aesthetic and emotional flaws. Because of this, you can sympathise with them and they can speak like normal human beings, rather than having to melodramatically bare their soul to you in order to elicit a response, as happens in so many movies and TV series.

Unfortunately, the intelligent plots and inspired realism couldn't last forever. Hermione Norris decided that she didn't want to be typecast after finishing the third season, and they replaced her with Simone Lahbib, a Scottish actor who had previously acted in a drama series set in a women's prison. The writing really went downhill in the fourth season. There are so many examples you could cite - the self-contained nature of each episode, with dramatic changes to characters in one episode not showing up in another; the poor explanation for Carol's disappearance and the introduction of the new DI, who Tony conveniently has exactly the same feelings for as Carol (which makes these great characters appear disposable); the introduction of a regular, soppy and annoying as hell child actor as Lahbib's son; cliche upon cliche, and reusage of old storylines (like Tony's brain cancer from the end of season three showing up again solely to further his relationship with Simone) - there's no end to the possible criticism. And season five was even worse, giving everything a disgustingly sleek and modern look, introducing a 24-styled clock for the characters to work against, awful American choppy editing, the introduction of one of the regular DS's in a new 'tough guy' role, Tony's bantering toned down for simple audiences, etc. It's almost unwatchable.

However, if you just stick to watching the first three seasons, you'll find an intelligent and involving crime show. So many episodes (the length of each increasing from 45 minutes in the first season to 90 in the third) are worthy of note - the first episode, involving BDSM, a hermaphrodite killer and gratuitous male nudity; the season finale in season two, which combined successfully a critique of private health care, fundamentalist christian pedophilia and radical Islam; and Synchronicity in season three, involving a sniper and a healthy dose of victims, not to mention the Tony Hill equivalent of Western show down. It should be said before closing this post that the way each episode progresses is a work of art in its own right. The big picture, the main conflict is so realistically big that you are unconsciously immersed in the process of working from each new development in the case, and in Tony Hill's psychological formulations therein.

Anyway, sorry about making another lengthy and convoluted article instead of a blog post. I hope you enjoyed reading it. Stay away from season five if you can, but the rest is okay (well, season four sucks, but if you watch it you'll know why). Good evening.

(Sorry about the lack of images. I'll try to put some in later. I can't at the moment, because I can't get the screen capture option on WMC to work properly.)

Metapost: Global private ownership

2008-02-26T17:45:00.000+09:00

Just a small post for today, because I can't be bothered writing another article the length of yesterday's Cale. According to Noam Chomsky [1], US foreign policy operates under the assumption that the United States owns the world. Because of this, they are free to refer to Iranian soldiers in Iraq as 'foreign forces' - because they own the world, American troops certainly aren't foreign. American generals talk about 'protecting our resources'. It's just a geographic anomaly that they happen to be in another country.

What's so bad about this is how so few people question it. Public relations firms manipulate perception by managing and constructing arguments, so that they make unspoken assumptions. I often wonder how many people notice.

John Cale

2008-02-25T13:47:00.000+09:00

"I was staying at the Tropicana Hotel in Hollywood. One day we heard all this noise. We looked across the parking lot to the other side where the noise was coming from and suddenly the whole door of this room came flying out onto the balcony, and there stood John Cale. He couldn't work the doorknob, so he just knocked the door down, right off the hinges."
- Leee Childers

John Cale is probably my favourite rock musician. There really is a lot to recommend him and his music - it's diverse, alternative, intelligent, violent, progressive and it just sounds good. I saw him in concert last November, and the extent of his innovation really surprised me. It was a mix of electronica/funk fusions, off-key acoustic numbers and plain hard rock, with hip hop influences. He's probably best known for being a founding member of the Velvet Underground (something which invariably comes up in all interviews), the most influential alternative rock group in the sixties, along with the embarrassingly bisexual and Jewish Lou Reed. However, what most people don't seem to know is that John Cale was the major influence - Lou Reed wanted to 'pursue a mainstream sound'. Since then, John Cale has worked in a variety of musical styles, written movie soundtracks, ballets, produced vital punk albums and has contributed to severe structural damage, if the above quote is anything to go by.

Born in 1942, the man grew up in working-class Wales, an experience he described as 'Draconian'. He went to music school later and, from what can be gathered on the web, he was kicked out over writing a composition that consisted of an actor screaming at a plant until it died. Apparently, the audience walked out. He also took the time to write a composition named 'Piano and Axe', the contents of which I think I'll leave to your imagination.

He soon left the British Isles in pursuit of new musical territory, and wound up in New York during the sixties in minimalist composer La Monte Young's Dream Syndicate, creating some thoroughly pyschotic experiments in drone. He soon broke away, met Lou Reed and later Andy Warhol, who 'produced' the Velvet Underground's first album. He also met German singer Nico, who's albums he would produce several of later (that was poorly worded, I'm sorry). He produced a string of awesome albums in the seventies after his fair debut, Vintage Violence. His performances got more frantic as he began drinking more and adding more narcotics to his repertoire, and, by the mid-seventies, punks began showing up at his concerts. One particularly infamous incident occurred in 1977, where Cale bought a chicken from a farm before a gig. Several members from his band, who were vegetarians, complained and questioned him about what he was going to do with it. He killed the thing off-stage before the show and had someone slide it to him, along with a machete, halfway through a performance of his own disturbed cover of Heartbreak Hotel. He figured some of the punks at the front of the stage were getting a little too aggressive with their chains, and chopped off the head of the chicken and threw it into the audience. It stopped the show completely, half of his band walked off the stage in protest and the audience tried to get as far away from the head as possible. The incident has come up in pretty much every interview Cale's had since then.

It was around this time that he decided to start wearing a hockey mask on stage (years before Jason Vorhees, mind). He was also producing albums by Patti Smith and the Stooges, giving him a firm standing in both proto-punk and post-punk. The insanity of earlier albums, such as Fear and Slow Dazzle, culminated in an extremely loud 1979 live album, Sabotage, where Cale affected a satirical persona of a deranged right-wing pundit, screaming about war and all things paramilitary. Unfortunately, this beautifully inspired period could not last, and Cale entered the eighties releasing a couple of weird-but-good concept albums and, finally, a couple of extremely mid-life crisisey pop albums that really aren't worth the time it takes to listen to them. It didn't help that he was in rehab for half of the eighties - after snorting some cocaine to celebrate the birth of his daughter he decided to go back on the straight and narrow, getting interferon injections for his damaged liver and embarking on a grueling routine of daily squash.

After losing some weight and reclaiming as much sanity as was possible, Cale went pretentious. He first realised an obscure spoken word album named Words for the Dying, combining Dylan Thomas (my almost-name sake), the Falklands War and a fanciful haircut in the most striking of ways. Resisting the temptation to fade back into complete obscurity, Cale recorded a hauntingly beautiful cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah", possibly the most popular thing he's ever done. He then released a piano and classical guitar live album named Fragments of a Rainy Season, featuring his own idiosyncratically classical treatments of old songs and a quote from Hamlet on the front cover. Not quite sure where to go from there, he started writing soundtracks and movie scores again, including a ballet dedicated to the recently deceased Nico (via a bicycle accident on Ibiza). He eventually decided to crop his hair into some sort of circular mohawk, bleach it, and release an overproduced puddle of an adult alternative/neo-country rock album called Walking on Locusts which I happen to own (and I'm still very proud of that).

He went quiet for a while in the latter part of the nineties, appearing in concert with Siouxsie Sioux on occasion and playing small parts in art films, all the while producing for various obscure indie bands. Sometime between 2001 and 2003, someone gave him a copy of Pro Tools and he spent a good year or so locked in his basement recording his next album, the weirdly electronic yet surprisingly substantial Hobosapiens (and that's probably my favourite album title of all time). He followed this up in 2005 with a rather edgy, funky rock album, which was about as far removed from the avant-garde he was part of in his former years as possible. More recently, he recorded an incredible live album just last year named Circus Live, the intensity of which was only matched and outdone by the concert I went to see last November. For the moment, I read in an interview that he's thinking about a hip hop crossover. As scary as that sounds, although he doesn't like "the motherfucker this, the misogyny that, and all the homophobic comments", he assures us that "there's a lot of funky stuff" there.

In the interest of winding up this unfortunately lengthy post, I'll make this last paragraph short. I found out about Cale after hearing Hallelujah in Shrek. There's a lot to like in his catalogue, and the raw screaming of his seventies stuff doesn't get old. For anyone new to Cale, there are a few songs I would recommend:

Hallelujah - The version on Fragments should do. It's a great little pop song, and the unedited version is dark enough to give it a bit of street cred.
Dying on the Vine - The Fragments to this should do as well. It's one of Cale's archetypical songs, isolated in its obscure subtext (a Mexican revolution) with an intelligently addictive riff.
Fear (is a Man's Best Friend) - Probably Cale's most popular song from the seventies, although it may take a while for a newcomer to appreciate it. The album version isn't particularly severe by John Cale standards, but it's heads and toes above the aforementioned two in that regard. A simple melody played out by the piano, with well-timed guitars and a descent into mild chaos.
Leaving It Up To You - If you liked Fear, then you should listen to this. This is probably the most psychotic thing (aside from his latest creations) he's released on a studio album. You just want more after listening to it the first time.

That's all I really have to say about John Cale for the moment. Seek him out, if you want to hear something new. He could well be considered the most influential and most unknown rock musician out there - if you care about that. Here's a live performance of Hallelujah from the early nineties, complete with string quartet and aristocratically homosexual arts presenter:

Me.

2008-02-24T20:01:00.000+09:00

"...As we all know the horrified perception of the reality of evil has led to at least as many conversions as the experience of good."
Jung: Selected Writings, compiled by Anthony Storr, p. 266

Hello world, this is my new blog. My name's Dylan, as per 'Mister Dylan', and I live in Australia - but more on that in a bit. This blog is going to be compiled of my thoughts on things I find, people I meet, musicians I listen to, songs, books I read, etcetera. The basic format of each post I haven't quite got around to yet, but so far I've figured that each post will be named after its subject, it will include an applicable or non-applicable quote as a kind of subheading, and if I can I'll try to include a relevant picture of some kind. I honestly hope that I'll actually post with some degree of regularity, but I guess 'only time will tell' (as per the popular cliche).

Now, because this is the opening of my blog I'm taking the opportunity to dive head-first into vanity: I'm making the first post about me. My name is Dylan James Hewson and I live in Perth, the capital of Western Australia. I'm 18 years old as of last October, around 186cm tall and I have long brown hair. I'm fairly unemployed (in the modern English sense of the word), and I live at home with my mother and my two younger half-brothers. I graduated high school in 2006 and I tried a couple of university courses at Curtin, but they didn't work out due to a number of things, not the least of which is me struggling with being antisocial and depressed. I worked at the local IGA here in Kinross for a little while from September to December last year, but things went weird and I quit. After taking a break for the Christmas period, I applied and got into a similar job in Woolworths, but I quit that one as well.

I've been unemployed for a few weeks now, and I spend most of my time on this computer in my room, playing the guitar, or reading. Some websites that I like to frequent (and which may, possibly, be the subject of later posts) are:

Answerbag.com - A very addictive online question/answer site, filled with all sorts of intelligent and semi-intelligent vagrants (my self included), staffed by some profit-oriented amateur businessmen and secretly owned by a man who gives money to the Israeli military (no, I'm not making that up).
Wikipedia.org - You probably know about this massive encyclopedia project already. I've had an account there since August 2005, making for the most part inconsequential, minor edits all over the place. At the moment I'm looking at a certain video game, the criticism section of which is subject to frequent anonymous blanking.
Snopes.com - A rather entertaining and informative site dedicated to debunking various urban legends. The archives go back pretty far, and they'll generally post three or four new legends each week, so it's worth a look if you're interested.
The Comics Curmudgeon - A blog written by a hyperactive, American red haired nerd in his early thirties making fun of a variety of daily and weekly comic strips. It's been going for a few years now, and it is indeed popular enough to warrant a Wikipedia article. The author's observations compliment the dry-yet-fun-to-read comics rather well.
Deviantart.com - An image hosting site where people can host any artwork or poetry of theirs. I happen to have an account there (hint hint).
Dubyaspeak.com - A fanciful online repository of all of George W. Bush's verbal blunders and obscurities. Very entertaining to read, and a great introduction to basic political cynicism.
Engrish.com - An archive of various real-life examples of poorly translated English, mostly from China and Japan. The stuff itself is surprisingly prevalent, and isn't just confined to temporary noticeboards and cheap t-shirts. It's always entertaining to see that some culturally illiterate entrepreneur opened a clothing store named 'Violence Jack Off'.

As already mentioned, I play a bit of guitar (I have an electric and an acoustic). My favourite influence is the criminally unknown but scarily important (in the history of alternative music) multi-instrumentalist, charming vocalist and indie producer John Cale. I'm also quite fond of the Smiths and Morrissey's solo career, Neil Young, Joy Division, The Fall, and the song "Zombie" by the Cranberries. With regards to reading, there's a large shelf of old books that belong to my mother that I'm currently working through. I'm reading the quoted novel at the moment (I only quoted a point at where I'm currently reading because I couldn't think of a good quote about me), and I couldn't give you any favourite books in particular.

Politically, I support the Greens. I took this test and my little dot thingy was positioned in the very bottom left corner, and I'm quite proud of that. I guess I'm an Atheist, and I admire certain elements of Islam. I feel it's a shame that the significant contributions made to modern science during the Islamic Golden Age aren't widely known or recognised, and that the once socially and technologically advanced position of Islamic society has degenerated into psychotic-conservative Wahhabism and violent post-colonialism.

That's all I can really think to say about me - except for the fact that I'm single, which is just awful. I've always fancied the Russian island of Sakhalin as the end of the known world, hence the URL of this blog. If you know me and you think I'm embarrassing myself in some horrible way (which I most probably am), then please leave a comment. If you don't know me and you want me to just go away and leave you alone, then please leave a comment as well. To end this post logically, I've included a photo of myself Photoshopped in the Myspaceian manner. Enjoy.

Me, via the emo by ~Sakhalinskii on deviant ART