Microhouse In The Morning

Over the past months I have discovered that if I begin playing Immer when I get on the bus to work, the track that heralds my eventual arrival at Collyer Quay, powers me up and across the Change Alley bridge with its motley crew of dejected 70s-frontage shops (“For Rent”, Dinky Di House Of Russian Goods, Intimo), and eases me apologetically into my desk at work is the Superpitcher remix of Carsten Jost’s You Don’t Need A Weatherman with its febrile synth walls, pondskater beats, and birdsong. (Yes, birdsong.)

I think it’s a more positive way to start the work day than Satan.

My Lost Yoof

Via Policyblender, the BBC is apparently compiling a “lexicon of teen speak” (Brit teen speak, that is). Out of the rather long list of teen phrases provided, I was only familiar with:

  • buff
  • buzzing
  • feds
  • fo sho
  • jack
  • lush
  • off the hook
  • owned/pwned
  • random
  • roll with
  • sick
  • slap up
  • vexed (only because its teenspeak meaning seems to be the same as its usual meaning)
  • wagwaan (only because I listen to dancehall, I wouldn’t have a clue otherwise)
  • wicked
  • your mum

I was not, however, aware that the new word for “minger” is “munter”, nor did I know that to “unass” is to “relinquish or surrender control of an object or person; to leave”.

So would a fine young English gentleman these days therefore say “I unassed my beyatch ‘cos she was a right munter”? I don’t know. I feel adrift. Come July when I return to London to roll with my So Squalid Crew in the mean streets of Fitzrovia, I fear I will no longer have their respeck.

“Not Guilty” x 14

Innocent.

Acquittal on all counts was the only fair outcome from a fucking shambles of a prosecution case cobbled together by one man with a vendetta and a family of liars and defrauders. Whether you personally like Michael Jackson or not, no one deserves to be convicted on a case that bad.

The DA couldn’t even get a criminal case started in 1993 (if you’ve never read this article, you might find it illuminating as to why), so he lobbied to change the law, brought this case, and still lost. Great legacy, Tom.

I hope Michael Jackson sleeps the sleep of the just tonight. He deserves it.

Purchase Notes (10 CDs)

CDs I have ordered/purchased in the last week:

From Django’s:

  • Low: The Great Destroyer
  • Andrew Bird: The Swimming Hour
  • Alison Krauss & Union Station: Lonely Runs Both Ways
  • Of Montreal: Satanic Panic In The Attic
  • Amon Tobin: Permutation (having loved this album for the last 5 years, I’m so happy to finally own it!)

5 for $10 at Music Junction, Parkway Parade:

  • Mia Doi Todd: The Golden State
  • The Rosenbergs: Mission: You
  • Steve Earle: I Feel Alright
  • The Whitlams: Torch The Moon
  • The Donnas: Spend The Night

[I saw the Mia Doi Todd and couldn’t believe my eyes, the other 4 were mostly just leaps of faith from my vague memories compiled over a decade of music geekery. It’s quite possible they’ll suck, but at 5 for $10 who cares?]

Ridden On A Horse?! You’re Using Coconuts!

From the online-only archives of The New Yorker, Dave Eggers talks about Monty Python.

The anarchic form of the show was really my first look into how you can break something down, break down the fourth wall and take it all apart, and then be left with not less but more.

So it influenced your writing directly?

Yeah, absolutely. Later on I found what they were doing in book form. The year after we found

No One Will Watch The Watchmen / Mute Miyazaki

Random surfing led me to the following nuggets of information at Sci Fi Wire:

  • The Watchmen movie isn’t happening any more. Oh well. As I wrote a while ago (in response to a comment telling me that a Watchmen movie was in the works), I had my doubts about how well they could adapt it. I’m still not going to stop compiling my dream cast list when bored on the bus though. Recently, Dennis Hopper came to mind as The Comedian.

  • The person making an English dub of Howl’s Moving Castle had to do so without any input from original director Hayao Miyazaki. Upon sending a long list of his questions to Japan he was warned that Miyazaki probably wouldn’t answer, and true enough, he didn’t.

    “We didn’t add anything that wasn’t there in the film. So, of course, we are faithful to the dialogue that’s there. But in the end, you just kind of have to trust your own instincts on a lot of things, and that’s apparently what Miyazaki [who did not respond to Docter’s questions] expects from us.”

    I don’t know if the English dub of Spirited Away was done the same way, but if it was then I guess that might be one reason people don’t tend to be that satisfied with it. And unlike Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle is pretty damn incoherent to begin with. It seems a curious way to do things to me – certainly an interesting experiment in film interpretation, but not the best way of producing the only version of Howl’s Moving Castle most casual English-speaking viewers will ever see.

Songs To Get Your Freak On To

I particularly like reason 7 of the ILM thread Ten Reasons Why Silk’s “Freak Me” Is 100000x Better Than “Sexual Healing”:

General tone of inclusiveness. Though Silk are perhaps being a little self-centered with the title, they also promise to lick you up and down (and to be sensitive to your limits while doing so), also offering to make you real hot and to do all of the things you want them to do. Marvin, on the other hand, isn’t thinking about anyone’s needs besides Marvin’s. “I need some loving,” “I know you’ll be there to relieve me,” “you’re my medicine,” “it’s good for me and it’s good to me”–Marvin requires his sexual healing, dammit, and fuck if he’s going to let your wants and desires get in the way of that.

Later in the thread, someone says that as sex songs go, Shai’s Comforter would KO either of the 2 songs under consideration – this is bollocks, unless you think “When you are in pain I’m in pain” and “He don’t know how sensitive you are” are meant to be kinky lyrics.

But perhaps I’m in no position to pass judgment on other people’s sex song preferences, given that out of the two songs I find sexiest (off the top of my head), one includes the line “I drink on a daily basis” and the other is about a spiderman coming to have you for dinner tonight.

Beethoven At The Beeb

BBC Radio 3 is playing every single note of Ludwig van Beethoven during this week, and will also make all 9 of his symphonies available for download. I think this is pretty damn awesome, and the product of far greater vision (and okay, public funding) than that which motivates the Best Classical Hits In The World…Ever! vibe of Classic FM.

I’m hoping to use the site and whatever programmes I manage to listen to online to broaden my existing Beethoven knowledge beyond his symphonies, violin and piano works. Although I only revisit my classically-trained past occasionally, it always feels like time well spent once I do.

Burning (Rhetorical) Questions, I Have

  • Why, if you are on your way to arrest a Sith Lord, do you only bring 2 other Jedi Masters, who appear totally unprepared for violent resistance?
  • Why, if you are attempting to sneak into the heart of a planet that the enemy has taken hostage and surprise the enemy general in his lair, do you choose a huge multi-coloured lizard which regularly emits high-pitched squeals as your stealth vehicle?
  • Why, if you use state-of-the-art computer graphics to populate and landscape entire planets and orchestrate massive outer space battles, can you not airbrush the volcano off Ewan MacGregor’s forehead?

But you know, these are better burning rhetorical questions than I had for Attack Of The Clones. Those were:

  • Why?
  • WHY?
  • WHYYYYYYY???!!!!!

All Your Merchandising Base Are Belong To Us

Here are some Revenge Of The Sith products I think someone should make.

  • Chia Kenobi: Adaptable to Chia ZZ Top or Chia Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart if you get tired of Star Wars hype.
  • Cabbage Patch Padme: Am I the only one who thinks that the most awe-inspiring special effect in the movie was how ugly they managed to make Natalie Portman?
  • General Grievous photo holder: Holds 4 Kodak moments.
  • Star-Crossed Lovers Hallmark cards: For all true romantics, now with exclusive Anakin/Padme dialogue not featured in the final cut of the movie: “You hang up.” “No, you hang up.” “You!” “You!” (Nausea not included.)
  • Darth Gyrater: Responds to shitty film-making with swivelling “NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!” action.
  • SimSellout: How much merchandising opportunities can you spot and exploit in one Star Wars movie? Only the shameless survive.

[I actually enjoyed the film quite a lot, it’s just that for me taking the piss out of Star Wars is a big part of the fun of Star Wars.]