good grief

they've changed the names to protect the innocent, but the onion has an article about my adolescence.
5/30/2002 12:42:00 PM #

 

monday is meme day

this isn't actually a meme anywhere other than in my kitchen, but it's kept us amused for several hours...

after the international success of changing rooms, the bbc are pleased to announce some additions to their summer schedule:

okay, there's the comments thing; do your worst...
5/27/2002 10:16:57 PM #

 

b. (u) m.

to the british museum, to see the new prehistory gallery. rather than just an old room full of cases of stuff, this is billing itself as "the varied ways in which prehistoric objects, both the mundane and the exceptional, could be involved in the exercise of power and control". full of jean m auel, this certainly intrigued me as an idea, hence dragging b off to look at it on a torrential sunday afternoon.

the first thing that must be said is that though the exhibition is well advertised outside the museum, the same cannot be said for it inside. it's not sign-posted from either the montague place entrance or from great court at all, though a sign to the prehistory department helpfully points to a barred door. so (feeling rather like adso in the name of the rose) we set off through africa in search of our goal.

the 'gallery' is two smallish rooms (36 and 37 if you're working from an old guide book) which have been knocked into one. the fact that the alterations are still so obvious, and the missing labelling on several of the exhibits, only serves to compound the rather desolate and temporary feel of this little corner. and the "thematic sections" referred to in the museum's pitch are what used to be known as cases, and small ones at that.

the exhibits themselves are varied, and for the most part, extremely interesting. stone age art has long fascinated me, so it was the pieces of antler and bone inscribed with sketches of reindeer and ibex that most attracted me. i am prepared, probably, to accept that the depictions of wounded prey and the apparent anointing of those depictions with red ochre, is an attempt to prefigure a hunt and ensure its success. sadly, this principle seems to have been extended so that every piece of decoration is "significant". if a pot is decorated by impressing cord into the wet clay, why must that be any more significant than to indicate that neolithic people liked nice things. just like we do. it does not take more skill to stamp a pot with a pattern than to make the pot in the first place, so the assumption that these pots indicated higher social status or were for a more-than-mundane use (the exhibition labelling is not clear which it really thinks) seems to be unfounded at best.

and there is too much of this. ripple-flaked spearheads are indeed beautiful, and made with quite incredible technical skill. so do some stone carved balls from scotland and some gold foil neckpieces from ireland. but if the exhibition was trying to make the beauty of these objects invest them with a spiritual significance (and it was), it totally failed to indicate why.

ultimately the problem seemed to be the lack of focus and conclusion in this exhibition. very little distinction seemed to have been drawn between "power" as the expression of social standing and "power" as the ability to communicate with a supernatural world. to assume that these two are the same is very dangerous indeed.

we know very little of our neolithic ancestors' spiritual beliefs. that they believed in an afterlife can probably be safely inferred from the existence of grave goods. but to assume that an object is made beautiful only because it is dedicated to a higher spiritual being seems to be a serious insult to these skilled and intelligent people. at least they had focus, and knew what they meant. which is more than can be said for this show's organisers.
5/26/2002 04:38:40 PM #

 

sleeping gods lie

religion is not dying out, but scotland is a pagan country. and tonight a taxi driver, a real london lad who also used to be john hegley's milkman, told me buddhism had changed his life.

maybe, just maybe, we are slowly coming to the conclusion that religion should not be about rules to keep you out of hell when you're dead, but about ways to live right now. that grace is not found in revelations or conversions, but in the still, small voices of a million good acts performed every day. that there is more salvation in the laughter of one child than in a thousand masses sung for the dead.

this would be a religion i could believe in.
5/25/2002 05:27:15 PM #

 

that's what it's all about...

with all the sadness and terror in the world, let's spare a thought for those who try to make our lives a little happier. larry la prise, the man who wrote 'the hokey cokey', has died at the age of 83.

relatives had difficulty getting him into his coffin however. they put his left leg in, and it all went downhill from there.
5/24/2002 02:32:07 PM #

 

monday is meme day

how many bloody haikus this week? they are everywhere. including in my answers to the monday mission:

  1. when was the last time you went out with a true love of yours? what did you two do that made it so special?
    i live with my love. / i come home to him each night. / i leave him each day.
  2. which far-away friend would you most like to see again?
    far away in time / or far away in presence, / far away is gone.
  3. any high or low points about this past weekend? what went on?
    friday i leave work, / my depression fades away, / the sun shines again.
  4. i've been thinking about getting a buzz-cut for the summer, a big change for me. have you ever made any drastic changes to your appearance?
    twenty-first birthday, / no one knows who i could be, / my hair cropped so short.
  5. how long do you think a couple should date before they get married? or if you are married, do you think you should have waited longer to get hitched?
    now, i want you now. / my mother wants more time. and / that we live apart.
  6. i just found out my long-time friend does not like star wars (!) and has only seen the original 1977 movie! have you ever discovered anything new or shocking about a long-time friend you thought you knew everything about?
    does anyone know / everything about a friend? / i think not, again.
  7. well we had a nice picnic and saw the sunset, but now it's dark and i think we should liven things up. let's call some of your friends and go out. who do you want to invite and where should we all go?
    you don't need my friends / or dark or night or lights; you / know you just need me.
  8. why can't ya be good to me?
    counting syllables / does not necessarily / make good poetry.

and if anyone's bothered, it's raining like crazy in north london.
5/20/2002 08:50:55 PM #

 

crying werewolf

ever the cynic, i hesitate to call anything a classic until it's been around for twenty years to prove itself. nevertheless, dog soldiers is up there with the best films of the horror genre. think night of the living dead-style claustrophobia, think texas chainsaw massacre-style gore, think a nicely twisty plot that, if it doesn't quite rival the others, keeps you guessing right up to the end.

watching this two days after star wars was a timely reminder, if one were ever needed, that big budgets and spectacular special effects are no match for a good script and decent actors. sean pertwee in particular is excellent as sergeant harry wells, the leader of an army squad on exercises in a remote area of scotland, one that's becoming notorious for unexplained disappearances. when the men discover captain ryan, a special operations officer who has recently rejected one of wells' men for his own squad, raving and horribly injured, it becomes apparent that that this will be more than a routine exercise. werewolves haunt the area, and it's a full moon tonight...

the werewolves themselves are perfect, it must be said, and the extreme close-up, hand-held style of camera work, which never quite gives us a proper look at them, keeps everything firmly in the realm of nightmare. the constant edge-of-seat tension is counterpointed with some very well-placed humour. this is the film that blair witch should have been.
5/20/2002 12:33:42 PM #

 

stoners

at last, someone who is as skeptical about jean m auel as i am.
5/18/2002 07:48:08 PM #

 

in which i finally use my brain

for months now i've been having dreams where i'm back at college and i haven't been to any classes. the thudding realisation that i know absolutely nothing has woken me up in a panic attack about twice a week since christmas. i've been assuming that these are classic inadequacy dreams; i've missed classes, i'm going to fail my exams, i'm useless and stupid, yada yada yada, despite the fact that the exams themselves have never come into it. and so last night, i was starting to explain once again that i'd been missing classes and abigail said, very slowly, "no, it's not that you have missed classes. classes haven't started yet. it's that you are missing classes".

oh bless my wonderful little subconscious for telling me so overtly what it wants. it's missing learning stuff, that's all. that's everything. now i just need to teach it to read the calendar because enrollment anywhere doesn't start until next month.
5/18/2002 09:50:03 AM #

 

dear mr lucas

so the special effects were incredible. we knew the special effects would be incredible. that first flight-chase, like tokyo on too much speed, was gorgeous. but never put your best chase sequence up front, because everything afterwards feels like a playstation commercial. especially when chases are really all you have.

sure, you have two incredibly beautiful people who are meant to start their forbidden love affair. it's a shame you only gave them the dialogue to read, and forgot to tell them that they were meant to really be in love. still more, that you'd trailed the film as a story of the forbidden love and forgotten about it. that scene you slapped in at the last minute, where hayden tried to snog natalie and she said, oh no we mustn't, that was your idea of flouting the rules? come on george, you used to do better than that... weren't leia and luke nearly done for incest?!

and who told either of them they could act anyway? natalie was great playing a queen in total geisha get-up. no one could tell she wouldn't know an emotion if it came up and offered her acting lessons. but when you're supposed to be rolling around in a meadow with your lover, aren't you supposed to be, like, happy? hayden on the other hand has been checking out the way that eric conveys an emotion, and is good at faces, though less good at lines. and i don't need to tell you who, do i, but that death scene, man, that was the most melodramatic thing i've ever seen!

christopher lee was better, as you knew he would be. how clever of you to get him to reprise his role in lord of the rings so he'd only have to learn one treacherous part, and you'd get some reflected glory. on consideration, i'm not sure you didn't produce some of that scenery on your lord of the rings activity pack. oh, well done to your graphic artist who managed to produce real chrome for the outside of complex curved spaceships, but did you need to use it on every single one?

i know, i'm being mean. i liked it. you must have had an english writer in there somewhere, for the verbal puns and some of the bits of real humour: the death-stick salesman which was even funny at the expense of phantom menace, c3po's head and body going into battle separately, and obi wan telling anakin 'you'll be the death of me...'. i did like the things you prefigured from the later films: luke's aunt and uncle, the prototype death star. i just felt as though your film lacked any coherent centre, george (may i call you george?). two hours is a long time on anyone's butt; to sit still for two hours, you need a compelling, gripping kind of reason, and though your film had lots of slightly intriguing sub-plots, it was lacking a core. it felt like studying german politics of 1933 while pretending not to know what happened in '39 or '45 (that was the war where the yanks showed up three years late, but i'll come to that another time). if you'd only told the story in the right order, honey, we wouldn't have these problems.

lots of love,
su(zi)e

p.s. the baddies have red light sabers, but what is the difference between green and blue ones?
5/16/2002 11:03:25 PM #

 

less is more

you could enter this, except you needn't bother because my idea is far too spiffy. caterina's design is very lovely though.
5/15/2002 10:20:53 PM #

 

what to do on wednesday

 

  1. look at your watch.
  2. subtract how many hours, minutes and seconds from eight pee-em on thursday it is now.
  3. imagine that i wrote a cunning bit of javascript on this page to give you this information instead of going to bed with brother cadfael.
  4. know that in [insert amount of time here] i'll be watching attack of the clones.
  5. in [amount of time plus three hours], expect post here saying i didn't expect to like it but i did.

thank you for your assistance.
5/14/2002 11:07:46 PM #

 

monday is meme day

in a cunning combination of two of this week's memes, we answer the questions from deb's eight from the eighties with the lyrics of one band, stolen from srah who stole it from the internet. and whose lyrics better than goddess since the eighties, madonna.

  1. have you been working for the weekend? i need a holiday.
  2. can you do magic? i knew that if i had my chance, i could make those people dance and maybe they'd be happy for a while.
  3. are you like a rock? i'm like a virgin, touched for the very first time. do you know what it feels like for a girl?
  4. who keeps you hangin' on? i searched the whole world for someone like you, don't you know?
  5. are you runnin' down a dream? what i need right now is some good advice.
  6. when's the last time you just got lucky? i'll take my chance on a beautiful stranger.
  7. do you go crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man/woman? touch me once and you'll know it's true, i'm crazy for you.
  8. hit me with your best shot. i know where beauty lives, i've seen it once, i know the warm glow she gives, the light that you could never see, it shines inside, you can't take that from me.

hmmm.
5/13/2002 09:22:44 PM #

 

i see dead people

on reflection, it probably wasn't the smartest thing i ever did to go and see body worlds with a raging hangover. in case you missed the (one suspects, heavily courted, if not deliberately generated) controversy, this is an exhibition of real human bodies, preserved by a process called plastination, whereby liquids and fats within the body are replaced with polymers. the results are then variously displayed, most controversially as whole-body specimins: a flayed man with his skin draped over his arm, a reclining woman with her belly sliced open to reveal an almost-term foetus inside, a sliced man with tattoos still visible on his arms, and the piece-de-resistance, a man astride a flayed and plastinated horse, holding his own brain in one hand and the horse's in the other.

smaller exhibits clustered around these pieces demonstrate the complexity of human anatomy. smokers' and non-smokers' lungs are compared. a liver with extreme cirrhosis seemed all too familiar. various medical techniques, including bone-pinning, angioplasty, replacement hips and heart valves, were demonstrated. the circulatory system preserved in plastic down to the tiniest capilliaries showed the vast number of blood vessels clustered into fingertips. and we were told, if any of us were worrying, that the penises of the flayed men seemed so large because half of the organ is, in life, within the body cavity.

a small and rather sad little section at the end of the exhibition compares old wax and plastic anatomies with their standardised shapes and colours. i don't think that there can be any doubt that this process will revolutionise the anatomy business; real bodies in their infinite variety must be without doubt preferable to these one-size-like-nobody versions. but is it art?

aside from my long-held view that art is whatever i'm pointing to when it say 'this is art', my biggest reaction to this show was to question whether there was anything to question. sane adults are entitled to have done with their bodies after death whatever they like, and displaying them exploded into constituent parts in an old warehouse seems to me to be preferable to reserving large areas of prime real estate for them to lie and rot.

a better question than 'is it art?' is usually 'is it beautiful?', because be it ever so artful, if it's an ugly pickled shark or a smelly unmade bed, i don't want to look at it. the human body is one of the most beautiful things i know. from michelangelo to lowry, it has inspired artists for centuries. if not forever.

beauty in humans, conventionally, is based upon the interplay between skeleton and bones (athletes, bodybuilders), and upon the absense of fat (models). a process like plastination, therefore, which removes fat and allows indefinite retarding of aging and decay, ought to be the ultimate beauty treatment.
5/12/2002 05:24:21 PM #

 

stroppy cow

for as long as i can remember, i've wanted to be a writer. not, you understand, to do writing; i've always done that. but to be a writer.

i imagined that one day, i would wake up with an authoratative new voice, able to succinctly and wittily spin ground-breaking fiction. in much the same way that during french and german lessons, i imagined that there was somewhere a magic formula that could be learned, that would enable you to know and think the language in its entirety, and i wondered why they were wasting their time teaching us these little bits of grammar and vocabulary.

later, when i learned old english and old norse, i did find that there is a point at which you are reading the language itself, rather than a silent translation of it. but wonderful though this in itself is, it can't hold a torch to my expectation that one day, we would be told we'd paid enough in time spent dictionary-reading, and were now ready to know.

i didn't wake up spouting schiller or dumas and i can't write like them either. i can't write like michael or dean or leslie. and i don't create legends just by living my life like john does. i don't even (this one may be the killer) find new and unexplored areas of the internet to share like jason does.

what i do extremely well is self-criticism. when i am famous, don't go looking for juvenilia. there isn't any. i destroyed it. and not all in one grand, adolescent pyre of self-loathing either, but as i went along. write it, tear it up. james lileks wrote once, in comment on his chronic redesign-itis, "by the time you see it, i'm already bored with it". by the time you read this, i will have decided it's pointless trash.

for a long time, i didn't even bother to get the photographs i took developed.

i wanted to write a book in which nothing happened (until i found out that joseph heller already did it). a blank website would probably serve this purpose as well.

if i destroy it, i put it beyond criticism. i have already perpetrated the ultimate act of judgement, so no one else can damage it, or me, further. it's fear. it's cowardice. and it's going to stop. this week i wrote down a story (half a story, but it will be finished) on paper. i haven't thrown it away. let's call all this therapy.
5/11/2002 09:40:03 AM #

 

okay, i think i figured how this might work. give me a week, or two, please?
5/8/2002 08:25:13 PM #

 

thanks for looking. there is no more blog. my life is far too boring to make content from. while i do believe that the perpetuation of memes is worthwhile, answering lists of questions can't be everything. something will probably be here, at some point.
5/8/2002 11:42:21 AM #

 

i think this is done.
5/7/2002 09:45:12 PM #

 

my monday mission:

  1. do you have any tattoos? if no, why not and what would you get if you did get one. if you do have one or more, tell us how you came to get it, and why you chose the design you got inked with. oddly, i was thinking about this this morning. i want either a tattoo or my belly-button pierced, to celebrate being thirty. i think i'll have my belly-button done though, largely because i can't think of a design i want for the tattoo.
  2. has anything ever happened that caused you to believe, or disbelieve, in a higher power. being the child of born again christians caused me to believe in their god. watching the same techniques used in church as were used at the nuremburg rallies caused me to disbelieve. which is over-simplification of what really happened to the ultimate degree.
  3. have you ever seriously considered, or even attempted, suicide? yes. done the paracetamol thing three times. if i'm honest, i think about it a lot, the way you rehearse a fire drill.
  4. has anyone you have known committed suicide? no.
  5. this weekend you and i are going to the nature park for a picnic. i'll bring the blanket and make all the arrangements. you pack the picnic basket. what's inside? crusty bread, several different kinds of cheese, hummous, cherry tomatoes dressed with olive oil and basil, tzatziki, celery, spring onions, and very very cold white wine.
  6. have you ever been mad at god for something that happened (or didn't happen)? nooo... i think i either accepted that god knew best, or didn't believe in a deity at all.
  7. post (or describe) an image of someone that is no longer with us. tell us about that person. my grandfather had the softest earlobes of anyone i've ever met. it's been twenty-three years and still my heart aches for him.

bonus: who are you? wouldn't you like to know?
5/6/2002 01:57:00 PM #

 

i want to learn all these languages. i've always been fascinated by the idea of being the last person who speaks a language, what it means, to have a communication medium which can no longer be used to communicate.
5/6/2002 12:30:19 PM #

 

the song that is stuck in my head today is total eclipse of the heart by bonnie tyler. this is entirely the fault of musician extraordinaire. via anil, to whom i am happy to report that pachelbel is every bit as bad as you knew it would be.
5/6/2002 12:18:42 PM #

 

we went to see bend it like beckham. i had mixed expectations about this. i heard the director on the radio last week making it sound like a radical manifesto for asian women's rights. as it's billed as a comedy, i really wasn't so sure what to expect.

in the event, it falls somewhere between the two. jess is an eighteen year old indian girl living in west london, who is selected to play for a women's soccer team. her traditionalist parents disapprove of this, and think she should be helping with her sister's wedding. this being a typical british film, made in someone's back garden for a fiver, you can expect that everything will work out happily in the end. and, yes, it makes a reasonably eloquent plea for tolerence, respect and compromise on both sides. and is very amusing in places. i don't think it's going to set the world on fire, but it does have keira knightley. mmm.
5/6/2002 08:54:13 AM #

 

if you've ever looked in the mirror and winced, you'd better read this.
5/5/2002 11:01:17 AM #

 

i'm worried. i could bear that the people of hartlepool have elected a man in a monkey suit as mayor. if it had not happened at the same time that the french have nearly elected a fascist as president. and if it had not happened on the same day that i spent many hours knocking on doors and imploring people to go and vote. to be told, we are unhappy. and therefore [this part is the point, towards which i have been slowly working] we are not going to vote. not, we are going to vote for the opposition. no. we are not going to vote. at. all.

something bad is going on here.

if you were born in 1972, 'conservative party' and 'government' were synonymous. there was no such thing as society. then there was a night, in may 1997, when, seat by seat, we watched the country turn red like the dawn. we sang things can only get better with tears in our eyes, and meant it.

then we found out that whoever you vote for, the government get in. they still tax you. they still don't have enough money for schools and hospitals. they still don't stop crime and make it sunny all the time. there is not free candy for everyone [though there may be free bananas in hartlepool].

so we won't play any more. if democracy means we have to be for somebody, then we don't want it, because we're against everybody. and that worries me.
5/5/2002 10:28:28 AM #

 

my eight from the eighties:

  1. do you want candy? nooo, thanks. i'll have another cup of coffee if you're making though. black, no sugar, ta.
  2. i wish they all could be ________ girls/boys. not californian beach babes, that's for sure. all boys should be david duchovny (as mulder, not the silly men in sweaters he seems to be playing recently) or james marsters. all girls should be nicole kidman and kylie minogue. the entire planet should be completely in love with me. mmm...
  3. what dreams go on when you close your eyes? classic inadequacy ones at the moment: falling and loose teeth.
  4. what takes your breath away? sunsets, trees, buildings. rarely people.
  5. i was born in the... god's own county of yorkshire, sheffield. the northern general hospital, i think. girl babies had pink blankets.
  6. who drives you crazy? the crazy woman at work. grrr. no detail in case i get dooced.
  7. i don't know much, but i know... i have a excellent store of pointless knowledge, thanks. put me down for your 'phone a friend'. just don't ask me to know anything useful, like where i've left my glasses.
  8. (thanks melanie and happy birthday!) where you going, what you looking for? i'm looking for my glasses which i took off while drunk. of course, i have no hope of finding them because i'm half-blind. when i'm a famous inventor, i'm going to put a little thing in the arm of all glasses which will whistle back when you call them. and then i'm going to make myself some coffee, as i notice you haven't bothered...


5/5/2002 09:03:14 AM #

 

i bought loremipsumdolorsitamet.net. what shall we do with it?
5/4/2002 09:35:31 PM #

 

a fun game.
5/4/2002 05:36:44 PM #

 

for your shopping pleasure, love philtres and aladdin's lamps. no home should be without them.
5/4/2002 02:07:32 PM #

 

verisign are bad people.

but it seems they are not the only ones. this is an interesting article which does nothing to reassure anyone about the current dns.
5/4/2002 12:19:34 PM #

 

the sun is out, the sky is blue...
5/4/2002 09:42:36 AM #

 

i am so devilishly, horribly mean
take the "what's my fault" quiz.
stolen from listener while he was not looking...
5/4/2002 08:03:29 AM #

 

so as of 7 o'clock this morning, i officially have no digital television. as the nice girl in accounts kindly pointed out to me, i don't watch any television, so why would i care?

to say i watch no television is untrue. i am incredibly selective in what i watch. as i am just not interested in most of what is broadcast, i need a huge selection of channels to find the half an hour a day that i do, truly, want to watch. too often, i've found myself saying "thirty channels and still nothing on!". but even that is better than seven... mourn with me, for the loss of my little pleasures. no discovery. no sky one, so no simpsons. no buffy. and the uk television sector yet again in chaos.

i can live with the fact that i put up with their feeble channel selection, their intermittant signal (pixellation on your tv, anyone?) and their obscure billing system. what makes me angry is that we, the few stupid subscribers they had left, have had no word from itv during this whole process. even when it seemed that the company might be saved, there was nothing from them saying it was business as usual, don't leave. which from people who always seemed better at marketing than at delivering television, is surprising. the only source of information we had was the news media. until last night, when the first of the blue screened, channel gone messages appeared.

interestingly, the one piece of information that is being touted as definite is that we do not own our set-top boxes and must not throw them away. even though they don't work anymore. somewhere that makes sense, but not in my house.

half an hour after they went off air, i received the listings magazine for next week. i might have no television, but i can read all about what i'm missing...
5/1/2002 07:34:46 PM #

 

apologies to anyone who tried to access this and found it wasn't here during my "it's all a pile of shit" fit yesterday...
5/1/2002 07:53:45 AM #