Mr T Vs Everything is a repository of links to fictional fights between Mr T and, you guessed it, anything and everything. The complete shittiness of the Photoshopping involved in finding and altering pictures to storyboard the fight is part of the charm, as is the repetitive use of key elements such as youth centres, his helluva fast van, milk, and how far he can throw someone. There are too many fights to browse through, and most are really mediocre, but I think Mr T Vs Hitler, Mr T Vs Shakespeare, and intriguingly, Mr T Vs His Own Abstract Thoughts were a little above the morass.
Archive for November, 2004
Again I am brought to my knees by Graham Greene. Again I find myself fumbling for words that deserve to be used in a review. Harold Bloom’s Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human is an incredibly audacious book; perhaps one day I’ll write an equally bold one about Graham Greene – because in my life so far (narrow-horizoned as it admittedly has been), I have not read a writer who can equal his understanding of what it is to be human.
Continue reading ‘Graham Greene: The Power And The Glory’
Three articles for you to read, in the obvious absence of any good reading here:
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David Sedaris writes about love, boils and existential panic for The New Yorker.
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Dave Eggers rants about indie cred and the fallacy of selloutitude.
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The most fascinating article I have ever read about tomato ketchup and product branding. I now crave fries.
My Civil Procedure paper was wild. Two fiendishly long questions and 40 short questions in 3 hours, each one of which involved frenetic flipping and re-flipping through voluminous notes and statutes, with an exhausted mind that had gone completely blank. I don’t know why anyone even bothers with extreme sports when they could be getting their adrenaline rushes from doing death-defying examinations in Civil Procedure.
So anyway, after an indulgent dinner at Michelangelo (Me: This panna cotta is so wonderful, it’s solid cream! Everyone else: Michelle, that just sounds really gross), I was reading IS on the bus home and found finally, finally, a DJ at Zouk who I’d bother leaving the house for! Meat Katie! He was there last Saturday. Kan ni na.¹
I have to echo Laces’ plea for Zouk to bring in some interesting DJs and stop being so goddamn pedestrian. I want Diplo and Michael Mayer too. Also DJ/Rupture. Also Akufen. Amon Tobin. The Scratch Perverts. And world peace.
As I do every now and then, I was surfing around to find out how London is, and found out that DJ/Rupture was at 93 Feet East with Supersoul on Sunday, Ty is at Cargo tomorrow, and Eclectic Method are doing weekly video mashups at Herbal.
Again I am reminded of my grim theory that if the amount I saw and did over four years in London is anything to go by, the amount I’ll have missed this past year and over the next six is just…depressing. Then why, you shriek in aggravation, do you keep CHECKING UP ON WHAT YOU’RE MISSING, MASOCHIST? The answer is: because one of my biggest fears is ignorance. I would rather know what’s going on where things actually happen, even as it makes me chafe at my limited options here, than escape back to London years from now and be completely out of touch with everything that used to excite me so much.
In the meantime, I’m sitting at my computer listening to Amon’s Solid Steel Presents and shouting KAN NI NA to a funky beat.
¹ Definition here
If only I’d had a pint glass close at hand when Casey was still kitten-sized.
During previous exam study periods, my walls have been adorned with post-its bearing various motivational messages such as “A 2-1 IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH”, “YOU CAN’T WRITE ESSAYS ABOUT ____________ (whatever book I was absorbed in at the time) CAN YOU??” and “STOP PLAYING DOPE WARS”. They worked.
This time I wanted to quote Dizzee from Stand Up Tall, but then realized that my mum wouldn’t take too well to “Can’t run the marathon without training or stretch the arsehole without straining” whenever she comes to my laptop for her Solitaire fix.The poor woman already takes issue with the photos I paste on my desk wall (of my life in England):
My mum: From these photos it would look as if you’ve had strings of boyfriends!
Me: Mum, two of the men with me in those pictures are priests, and another one is the preserved corpse of Jeremy Bentham.¹
My mum: That’s even worse!
¹ Upon graduation, I thought it was only polite to pose for a picture with the subject of my dissertation. (Jeremy Bentham, not his corpse.)
I was listening to Lamacq Live (show of November 15th, available here but not for much longer I reckon), where Lady Sovereign was presenting a special report about MCs from the countryside. As they put it, “Can you be street if you live in a lane?” Let me just say that if you’re one of those hataz who can’t take UK hip-hop seriously because of the funny accents, you ain’t heard nuffin (well, nothing quite as funny) until you’ve heard a Scottish MC freestyling to grime.
It was a sweet little program, but a little depressing. There were a lot of exchanges like this:
Lady Sovereign: So wot do you rap about?
Random Cornish/Welsh/Scottish MC: About life and stuff.
Lady Sovereign: Yeah, so, like wot?
Random Cornish/Welsh/Scottish MC: Dunno, really. Not much happens round here.
At least I’ve finally found a watertight argument against Alec ever moving me to the countryside. My future career as a top MC would clearly be jeopardized.
…Gangsta’s Paradise is on the radio, you start rapping along with it in glee (you are studying and very bored), you get to the line “I’m twenny-three now, but will I live to see twenny-fo’?” and you realize that THE LAST TIME YOU RAPPED THAT LINE YOU WERE FIFTEEN AND NOW YOU ARE TWENNY-FO’.
A guy and a girl trade verses and half-meanings, some proclaimed, some whispered, all against a background of stripped-down synths and minimalist percussion. That is all. It lasts only 3 minutes 5 seconds. And I am completely addicted.
You can hear You Make Me Like Charity, the song that’s currently ruling my life, here (it’s track 11), as well as the rest of this rather lovable album by The Knife.
Edit: Shit. Looks like they’re no longer streaming the album. Sorry about that. I’ll just have to listen to it a couple of extra times for all of you.
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Sylvester was bizarrely bad this week, it felt like watching a car crash. After junking his previous identity (which I actually liked) for a less radical hairstyle and a lot of gummy smiles (while he was about it he might as well have junked the pathetic rocker poses which no one above the age of 12 should find cool, but alas, he didn’t), this week he seemed to have completely lost grip even of that second tenuous identity, and instead just tried to be everything to everyone.
I mean, Music Of The Night? (Or should I say, Der Music Of Der Night?) Has he heard Michael Ball singing it? And if he has, why did he even think for a second that he could? I haven’t cringed so much since Christopher Lee’s Josh Groban attempt, and even then at least Christopher had the right type of voice and good diction, neither of which seemed within Sly’s reach in this performance. His other two were less embarrassing but still stunningly mediocre compared to what I have come to expect from him. Boyzone’s Picture Of You??!! Ozzy Osborne run for covaaaaa, this man is truly a bad boy rocker. Kiss From A Rose is a nice song, but so hard to sing well that even Seal himself screwed it up when he tried to sing it live at the Oscars, and I think it was also slightly beyond Sylvester’s ability tonight.
Sly’s biggest mistake this week was in song choice. Music Of The Night and Kiss From A Rose need to sound effortless. Boyzone was actually a pretty good match because there are some similarities between his raspy style and Ronan Keating’s, but out of the cesspool of crap that is Boyzone’s repertoire, he certainly reached right down to the bottom and groped around. Sly is a good singer, who has impressed me many times in the past. But tonight confirmed that his rightful place must be third.
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Olinda has the best voice in the competition, but I keep longing for her to grow some stage presence. As far as I’m concerned, that’s her biggest inadequacy. Her size and build is fine with me. I’d rather look at bubbly funky-haired Olinda than, say, the surgical (and sartorial) nightmare that is Nicolette Sheridan.
But it was just awfully disappointing to see a performance of Holding On For A Hero that sounded even better than Fantasia’s, but featured Olinda just…well…bobbing around. Hopelessly Devoted To You was a boring song boringly performed. Olinda is not good at looking dewy-eyed, although she’s fine at conveying less sweetie-pie emotions. Don’t Cry For Me Argentina is a case in point, especially that one brief shining moment (brownie points if you can name the musical those last four words come from) where she thrust the mike downwards so that her (fantastic) high note wouldn’t deafen everyone, and she was utterly compelling.
I want more of those moments from Olinda, which is why I don’t want her to leave this week. I want to see more of those moments from her in the finals, where she really does deserve to be.
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Every week I worry about Taufik the same way I used to worry about Fantasia – after such a good performance, how is he going to top that next week? And then I see him the next week and am amazed, and so I start worrying about the week after. True to form, if he gets through this week you can bet I’m going to be worrying about whether he can top Ain’t No Sunshine in the finals.
Unlike Sly, Taufik did know how to sing a song from a musical, and knew how to change his voice accordingly. Unlike Olinda, Taufik knew how and when to just ground himself and radiate presence even while standing still, and I don’t think anyone can deny that where dancing is concerned, he’s head and shoulders above the other two. The only criticisms I could make are that he did go flat a number of times during This Is The Moment, and his outfit for True To Your Heart was awful, but really, assessed in completion, Taufik ruled this night.
But! DO NOT ASSUME TAUFIK IS SAFE. Sly has crazy teenage minions, and Olinda has money. If you think Taufik’s pretty good but can’t be bothered to vote for him, then for the first time ever on this blog I must appeal to your sense of patriotism. Just imagine Sly representing us at World Idol. Cringing? Good. Text 2 to 43657. VOTE FOR TAUFIK.
