Boats, Floats, Horses, Courses, Strokes, Folks

When you’re this bored and depressed and permanently sweaty, blogging anything more eloquent than a series of blehs becomes quite a challenge. I could regale you with thrilling tales of my afternoons on the couch watching whatever’s on Animal Planet (generally, too many proboscis monkeys), or go off on a rant about how Jamie Cullum makes jazz for lobotomy patients, or make dark statements about how if Fantasia Barrino doesn’t win American Idol there will be no truth, beauty or justice left in this world, but I really think it’s better for everyone if I do one of those links-as-substitutes-for-real-content posts, don’t you?

Here are some about porn.

I found this dictionary of Japanese porn perversions through Tamara’s livejournal, but it really needs to be shared with the world. To give you an idea of what’s apparently available to the average Japanese porn consumer, Fundoshi (women in traditional Sumo g-strings rolling around giving each other “really harsh wedgies”) is I guess fairly understandable, Pantsu To Kao involves putting panties which are several sizes too small over someone’s face so that they squish the nose, Shokku-shu kei involves tentacles, and Unagi (eels) may quite possibly no longer be my favourite Japanese dish.

People who know me should not be surprised that my favourite entries in The 100 Worst Porn Movie Titles are the ones that involve really bad puns (on Hollywood movie titles). To this effect, I offer you “Big Trouble In Little Vagina” and “Sperms Of Endearment”. However, I acknowledge that some people may find more esoteric joys in “Let’s Play Anal Twister”, “Airtight Granny” and “Beyond The Valley Of The Ultra Milkmaids”.

Alec once told me a Simpsons quote where Homer meets Billy Corgan at some rock festival. Billy says “Billy Corgan, Smashing Pumpkins”. Homer says “Homer Simpson, smiling politely.” The alternate title for this post should probably be “Michelle’s Readers, Smiling Politely.”

Radio Ga Ga

Matt asked for Internet radio links, an area I am willing and able to help with, given that I listen to all my music via the Internet these days (okay, okay, MTV too) due to the total banality of Singapore radio.

Matt-specific links:

  • Last FM: A great range of material and stations. From Aphex Twin to Emmylou Harris to Miles Davis to Portishead to Sonic Youth to you get the picture.
  • Videos from the Montreux Jazz Festival, including performances by Radiohead, Mogwai, Jimi Tenor and Big Band and, er, The Stereophonics if you like them. :P (I haven’t had time yet to see The Roots, RJD2 and Yo La Tengo performances, but certainly will at some point. Also Flavor Flav just for the fun of it!)
  • Not quite radio, but I don’t suppose you’ll say no to a mindbogglingly large array of obscure Radiohead mp3s
  • John Peel on Radio One

Other online radio sources I use regularly, for anyone else who’s interested:

  • D*I*R*T*Y for a large archive of mixes, including sets by DJ Shadow vs PC (and many other Solid Steel mixes), Matmos, Four Tet and Susumu Yokota
  • The Breezeblock on Radio One
  • Spank Radio: Lots of indie, mostly okay. Playlist includes Rachel’s, Polvo, Red House Painters, Interpol.
  • Anything on 1Xtra, where I wander from dancehall show to drum’n’bass show to garage show like a country bumpkin in a vast amazing city of utter joy.

[Mp3 treats for the day, courtesy of boom selection: scroll down the page to the entries for March 4 and March 6. There you will find a veritable treasure trove of the insanely catchy. Please treat yourself to drum’n’bass and glitch remixes of Toxic, and the dancehall divaness of Lady Stush ($ Sign) and Ce’cile (Rude Bwoy Thug Life).]

They Didn’t Use To Call Me Brainy Smurf For Nothing, You Know

Today’s links-as-substitute-for-actual-content post will delight many and bore just as many. It represents a surprising break from tradition in that it a) contains no musical content whatsoever b) contains some vaguely intellectual content and c) contains some vaguely intellectual content authored by me.

  • Going straight is a fascinating Guardian article about reparative therapy used to “cure” homosexuality and the ex-gay movement in America. It even manages to be fairly balanced, although this lapses somewhat in the last three paragraphs.
  • Random surfing of the UCL Law Faculty site recently yielded an online version of the UCL Jurisprudence Review 2002, in which my dissertation was published. It basically involves me analysing Jeremy Bentham’s treatise which denounces the French Declaration of the Rights of Man as a load of shite, and concluding that he rocks. I wouldn’t actually recommend it unless you’re also a jurisprudence nerd.
  • Achtung Baby! blog has an mp3 of Nabokov himself reading from Lolita. Excuse me while I scream like the total groupie I am.
  • I lied. This last link isn’t intellectual. It’s about boobs.

When Exams Attack

Studying will really really begin tomorrow. For real. Really.

Unfortunately, going by previously established patterns, dear Reader, this probably means you’re in for a rather slow 3 weeks. No more of my rapier wit and irresistable personality! No more visceral vignettes of my swinging rock and roll life! Indeed, my friends, you will have to get by with my usual exam output of unrestrained music geekery, pointless links collected during hours on end of study avoidance surfing, and most certainly nothing even remotely intellectual.

So, pretty much the same as what you’ve always got here, just with even less of a life than before. Sigh. Here’s a little taster:

Music Geekery
Newly arrived from Django, yay!

  • Bubba Sparxxx: Deliverance
  • Dirty Three: Whatever You Love You Are
  • Aereogramme: A Story In White
  • Lewis Parker: Masquerades And Silhouettes
  • Bedhead: What Fun Life Was
  • The Walkmen: Everyone Who Pretended To Like Me Is Gone

Pointless Links
In honour of For Alec, who had his first actual bout in a boxing ring a few days ago and wisely decided not to tell me about it until after the fact: Mike Tyson Quotes.

Here’s one I’d like to highlight for you, you big dolt no one in particular, because of course I’m totally cool about the fact that my favourite nose in the world could quite possibly have been broken before I got the chance to see it again – “I try to catch him right on the tip of the nose, because I try to push the bone into the brain.”

Nothing Remotely Intellectual
I certainly never kept my Will Young mania a secret on this site during the original Pop Idol, and I see no reason to be shy about my commitment to its American franchise. This Ryan Seacrest fellow is a poor substitute for Ant and Dec, and I like Pete Waterman so much more than the painfully inarticulate Randy Jackson, but at least sexy Simon is still around, and getting sexier by the episode. Oh, and GO FANTASIA!

All My Pretty Ones

It is rare that I watch a Colin Firth movie for sources of eyecandy other than him, but Girl With A Pearl Earring is just that beautiful.

Other things that are beautiful, and which will not cost you $6.50 to enjoy on a weeknight, are this photograph out of many others at this exceptionally well-designed site (in Japanese, but you can’t have everything), and these recent black and white photographs Scott (of erasing.org) took in an empty airport at night.

I want you all to have something beautiful to look at. I’ve been video-chatting with Alec a lot these past few days, and am feeling everyone else deserves visual treats too.

[Addendum: Random surfing just yielded an audio clip of Anne Sexton reading the poem this entry is named after. If you’re a fan, treat yourself. If you’re not, become one.]

A Sucker For Some Things

These links are loosely related by their cute cartoony content. (Stop rolling your eyes.)

  • Calvin & Hobbes Snow Art Gallery
  • I suppose there are hipper cartoon strips to be reading than Garfield, but I’ve always had a soft spot for it. There are literally hundreds if not thousands of Garfield strips that I love, but these are some from recent months that I’m rather fond of. (I must admit, the personal draw of the last two for me is that they quite accurately reflect my average daily wakefulness, or lack thereof.)
  • The Difference Between Europe And Italy is obviously inspired by the South Park School Of Extreme Low-Tech Animation, and manages to be just as appealing if not quite as offensive, except perhaps to Italians.
  • Animals On The Underground will charm Londoners a little more than others, but its genius deserves to be highlighted for all. (Out of curiosity, I tried to do the same thing with the Singapore MRT map, but could only come up with a snail, outlined mostly by the shell of the Circle line, the body of the East West line from Paya Lebar, and the two tentacles leading to Pasir Ris and Changi Airport.)

Hide It Like A Nuclear Weapon

If you like Orbital’s song Halcyon, this Perfect Moments In Pop feature at Stylus will evoke a blissful, understanding smile. If you’ve never heard the song you will think it’s a pile of shite written by someone on craaayyyzeee mushrooms, but ohhhh, please put yourself in a position to understand. Please.

In other music linkage, oh dear. Ohdearohdearohdearohdear.

Mission Of Justice

Apart from one minor grovel a week ago I’ve mostly refrained from comment on the Asia Weblog Awards 2003. Today, however, I discovered a travesty and must report it.

No, it’s not that my blog isn’t winning. Frankly, I’m ecstatic there are even 36 people who’d vote for me in the first place, and very grateful to everyone who has.

It’s that in the Funniest Blog category, Little Yellow Different isn’t winning. I should say at this point that I don’t know the guy from Adam. I have absolutely no vested interests in pimping his site. It’s just that more than almost any other blog I’ve ever read, this one has cracked me up (as in, it’s laughing-out-loud ha-ha-funny not just minor-internal-titter funny) so consistently I could tell my (currently non-existent) health insurance company about it in a bid for lower premiums.

Seriously. Read this and this and this. Web geeks will like this and this. And then there are his Ernie’s Mom stories. Look, just go.

I Love I Love Music

I think it’s only right given that I’m managing to waste vast swathes of time at a hitherto unimaginable level on the Internet rather than study for my impending exams, that I showcase a site that has been helping me do that.

The I Love Music blog is where I go to find people I’ve hardly ever managed to meet in real life (except Benny, Jeremy, Marten and Michael B, who are now either in different countries or just not particularly accessible) – who are as obsessive about music as me, with similar or far wider eclecticism, but also have a sense of humour and perspective and are not smug loser cocks.

From a thread on Missy Elliot’s Work It:

Imagine the child of Busta Rhymes and Missy Elliott.
— Dan Perry, September 6th, 2002.

a sexy fat guy with dreads in a megaman costume who can’t flow?
— Josh, September 6th, 2002.

Other threads of joy:
y’all ready for this?
Give me MEGA POP BALLADS and give me them NOW!
The Greatest One Line in Hip-Hop History
Did you really feel “welcomed” to the jungle by axl rose, or do you think that was sort of just insincere, halfhearted graciousness?