Oct 30
Just a terrific conversation between film-maker Orson Welles and author H.G. Wells. It was recorded shortly after Orson’s War of the Worlds, which was based on H.G.’s book of the same name. Frustratingly, the above clip cuts out with 30 seconds remaining. You can listen to the entire thing here or go directly to the …
Jan 31
Toughness has been rather out of fashion, as a masculine virtue, and Takeshi simultaneously radiates it and suggests its wounded core. There can in fact be no depiction of genuine toughness (not brutality but a sort of excess of substance of soul stuff) without this concomitant indication of that wound, else the piece simply becomes the pornography …
Dec 06
This is well worth a watch. Or a listen. Not much happens visually. Open Culture says about it: In early October of 2009, Malcolm McLaren was nearing death but didn’t know it yet. He showed up at the 2009 Handheld Learning conference feeling fatigued, but managed to deliver a provocative and heartfelt speech titled, “Never Mind the Bullocks, Here’s …
May 26
Today, I watched Oprah’s final show then Lady Gaga Live. They seem to be very different entertainers but they gave the same speech with the same message. Oprah talked about her hard-knock life, told people that if they just loved themselves, their dreams would all come true and nothing could stop them from being happy …
Nov 09
Alan Cummings wore this suit at some sort of award show in August. It met with a great deal of acclaim and derision. It’s a real love it or hate it number. Yet the people who love or hate it tend to love or hate the suit. They miss the point. The suit is fine. …
Sep 20
Though it’s impossible for me to dislike yoga any more than I already do, here’s yet another argument against it. As an activity, it seems a touch heathen for renowned Christian Mrs. Palin, to be so casually engaged in. (I’m not the only one who thinks so either. A Baptist Minister has taken umbrage with yoga though I …
Jun 29
Friday was George Orwell’s birthday. We have an odd way of celebrating such things in Toronto. We like to mark occasions like this with large art installations featuring performances by the local police. There was a moment,when I thought of the old fellow. Not in a This is so 1984 sense (that got old about …
May 22
“Media stars are spectacular representations of human beings, distilling the essence of the spectacle’s banality into images of possible roles. Stardom is a diversification in the semblance of life – the object of an identification with mere appearance which is intended to compensate for the crumbling of directly experienced diversification of productive activity. Celebrities figure …
Apr 08
“There’s nothing glorious in dying. Anyone can do it.” –John Lydon YouTube – Malcolm McLaren – Madame Butterfly. Though his role in the creation of the sexy pistols and punk rock is questionable at best, he did have some role. He was a lot of things and irreplaceable is one of them. There will be …
"This ultra-sharp, darkly satiric, hyper-speed novel is set in a world where multi-level mega malls serves as city states and everything on the outside lies in ruin. On the lower red levels, gang violence and media saturation and bio-tech designer drugs rule. During the weekend, slummers from the green levels leave their safe lives of jobs and families to partake in risky, sometimes deadly, fun on the red levels. And on every level, TV and advertisements literally penetrate the mind. Death is easy and life cheap, until that life is your own or your beloveds. Extreme stylization, great characters, and a high-level of intensity is maintained throughout. This is a whip-smart, truly violent novel that has at its core a still very human pulsing heart."
May 20, 1990: Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson’s remarkable Kenyon College commencement address on creative integrity.
川流不息 Endless stream by Singer 晴哥 on Flickr.
