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London Bloggers [Comic Blogs][Other Blogs] | 20 February 2002
[books] Philip Pullman Q&A On Guardian Unlimited … On how booksellers should recommend his books to children: ‘I’d say: “You are forbidden to read these books. They’re too old for you, and they’re full of things you shouldn’t experience yet, like sex and violence and dangerous ideas about religion. I’m putting them up here, on this shelf, and I’m going out for an hour or so. You’re not to touch them.” ‘
19 February 2002
[comics] Do Not Underestimate the Power of the Dark Side — Sequential Tart interview with Gary Groth … ‘I’m a romantic and a cynic and, in fact, I don’t think you can be one without being the other: a romantic because you want the world to change for the better and a cynic because you know it won’t.’ [Related: The Comic Journal Website]
[buffy] Oh, you slay me — interview with Anthony Head … ‘There are few things cooler than having Rupert Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer as your dad.’
18 February 2002
[web] So much content, so little time … seanbaby.com:
[comics] Charles Shultz Speaks! — MP3 downloads of an interview between Gary Groth and the creator of Peanuts … ‘Schulz discusses, among other things, the relationship between gag cartooning and strip cartooning, the blurring of fantasy and reality in Peanuts, Al Capp, Umberto Eco, and how Schulz brought existential despair to the funny pages of the 1950s.’ [via Bugpowder]
17 February 2002
[books] More, Now, Again — book extract. This time Elizabeth Wurtzel is on Ritalin… ‘Dr Singer suggests that I try cutting the pills in half with a sharp knife. So I get out a steak knife and cut a Ritalin pill in half. This is harder to do than I might have guessed, and it just splits into little pieces, crumbles like a biscuit, with powdery flakes all over the place. Eureka! Why had I not thought of this sooner? I swallow a couple of the chunks with water like I normally would, and the rest I chop up into even finer bits. I press on them with the knife and break them down until they’re a white powder. I snort up the Ritalin. It scratches and burns my nostrils a little bit, but it’s not too bad. And then I feel a tiny rush in my brain.’
16 February 2002
[film] Look, Dad, Top of the World — William Leith interviews Kevin Spacey … ‘I can’t help looking closely at Spacey’s eyes, and his mouth, and his hands, just as I have not failed to notice the camp touches he often gives his characters – the fluttering eyelashes, the snootily tilted head, the catty remarks delivered out of the side of the mouth. Spacey’s characters, mostly highly intelligent weirdos and losers, all come from left field, and he renders these people, these creeps and oddities, with more sensitivity and feeling than any actor I can think of. Could anybody else raise a glimmer of sympathy after cutting off Gwyneth Paltrow’s head and putting it in a box?’
15 February 2002
[wtf?!] I Was In Love With A Nutcase — What it’s like going out with a girl with multiple personalities … ‘Having four other personalities living in the body of your girlfriend was definitely an odd experience.’ [via JerryKindall.com]
[music] Looking for a new England — interview with Billy Bragg … ‘…you say Orwell came up with a list of things he thought were English. What would your list be? “Well, it’s dictated by my cultural background. So Bobby Moore winning the World Cup. It doesn’t mean the same to everyone, I’m aware of that. Chalk horses made in the Bronze Age; Marmite. It’s personal. Englishness is like a mantelpiece that you put things on. We all have that mantelpiece, it’s what you put on that mantelpiece in your soul.”‘
14 February 2002
[distraction] Dr Evil Soundboard … ‘There’s nothing more pathetic than an aging Hipster.’
[comics] Batman Valentines Day Card from The Cap’n’s Unfortunate Valentine’s Cards … ‘I fight a war that can never be won. I strive toward a goal that can never be reached. I am haunted. I am relentless. I am tortured. Won’t you be my valentine? ‘
 13 February 2002
[royalty] Two excellent articles on Princess Margaret … [via Blogadoon]
[comics] The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick — comic strip by Robert Crumb … ‘It is an interesting graphic interpretation of a series of events which happened to Dick in March of 1974. He spent the remaining years of his life trying to figure out what happened in those fateful months. You will find all 8 pages of this story here.’ [via Bitstream]
[books] The Hard-Boiled Bookshelf – James Ellroy … ‘His personal story has been relentlessly self exposed. He does 200 interviews a year and has written a quasi-autobiography in which he tells of his journey to “rediscover” his dead mother and to find out who killed her. He has examined, more completely and graphically than anyone (except perhaps himself) ever needed to learn about, his life as a druggie, shoplifter, petty criminal, peeper, B&E man, panty sniffer, white supremacist, and marathon masterbator.’
12 February 2002
[vd] Geekout E-Greetings — from Orbyn and ohskylab.com … ‘We at orbyn.com know how painful the approach of Valentine’s Day must be for some of you out there. Let us ease your pain.’
11 February 2002
[web] Workers of the world, Reunite — profile of the creators of Friends Reunited … ‘it makes fascinating reading for anybody remotely curious about people’s lives. “We had no idea how much appetite there would be for it. We had underestimated people’s interest in the past. People are nosey. They just can’t help being interested in what people get up to,” said Mr Pankhurst. The idea for the site was Julie’s. When she became pregnant, she wondered how many of her school friends had had children. She tried to find out via the internet, but discovered little to help her, so the couple decided to set up their own website dedicated to school friends. That was in October 2000 when they thought it would be little more than a diversion, an amusing hobby…’
[reading] American Tabloid by James Ellroy … From the introduction: ‘The real trinity of Camelot was Look Good, Kick Ass, Get Laid. Jack Kennedy was the mythological front man for a particularly juicy slice of our history. He talked a slick line and wore a world class haircut. He was Bill Clinton minus pervasive media scrutiny and a few rolls of flab. Jack got whacked at the optimum moment to assure his sainthood. Lies continue to swirl around his eternal flame. Its time to dislodge his urn and cast light on a few men who attended his ascent and facilitated his fall. They were rogue cops and shakedown artists. They were wiretappers and soldiers of fortune and faggot lounge entertainers. Had one second of their lives deviated off course, American history would not exist as we know it.’
10 February 2002
[past] Let’s Blog like it’s 1983…
9 February 2002
[books] What Should I Do With My Life? — preview of Po Bronson’s new book … ‘I wasn’t drawn to saints. We can worship saints, but we can’t emulate them. I would rather hear how the weak-of-will end up doing some good. The hesitant, all-too-human.’ [via Metafilter]
8 February 2002
[web] I have seen the Future … essay by James Gleick: ‘The hardest fact to grasp about the Internet and the I-way is this: It isn’t a thing; it isn’t an entity; it isn’t an organization. No one owns it; no one runs it. It is simply Everyone’s Computers, Connected. It is the network of all networks — the combination of all the large and small university, government, and corporate networks. It extends to individual PC’s at the end of the line, like shacks at the ends of dirt roads not far from the turnoff to U. S. Route 1.’ [via kottke.org]
7 February 2002
[blogs] not.so.soft: ‘There is so little that’s original on the web these days. Everything seems a bit recycled, plagiarised, stolen, revisited, reworked, repackaged. Especially in the personal publishing world.’ [via Venusberg]
[tv] Rock the vote — the Guardian’s Political Editor meets Will and Gareth from Pop Idol … ‘Gareth is 17 and was in his second year, doing his A-levels in Bradford when the Pop Idol opportunity interrupted. He has a painful stammer which he masters with difficulty and the help of his voice coach, Mike, who now travels with him. Gareth ought to be the underdog, except the bookies have him as the favourite to win – out of the original 10,000 wannabes who entered the competition last autumn. Meaning to be helpful, I tell him that Winston Churchill had a lisp and Nye Bevan a stammer. But he appears to have heard of neither of these recording artists. And why should he, I suppose. They are both very dead.’
[comics] What’s Your Comic Book Ideology? Mine Were: ‘#1 Dave Sim. #2 Steven Grant. # 3 Warren Ellis. # 4 Gary Groth. # 5 Scott McCloud. # 6 Neil Gaiman. # 7 Stan Lee. # 8 Grant Morrison. # 9 Kevin Smith. # 10 Joe Quesada/Bill Jemas.’ [via WEF]
6 February 2002
[film] 100 Years, 100 Stinkers — the worst films of the last century … ‘There ought to be a law with mandatory prison time for any studio executive who ponders doing an eighth “Police Academy” film. The basic story of misfits who enroll in a big city police academy and make the force was beat beyond recognition through six numbing sequels. Steve Guttenberg had the good sense to jump ship after #4. Most audience members bailed out with him.’ [via plasticbag.org]
[books] Newsround kids ask Philip Pullman questions… What would his daemon be: ‘…I think my daemon probably is if I could guess would be one of those birds like a Jackdaw or a Magpie, nothing spectacular to look at but they steal bright things, whether it is a diamond ring or a bit of aluminium foil or whatever it is, an old tin can, if it is bright and shiny they go and pick it up. That is what story tellers do – we look for bright shiny interesting bits of gossip or bits of news or bits of information that reveal a character or something. And we collect them all and take them back to our nest, so that is what I think my daemon probably would be, but I can’t choose and I don’t know.’
5 February 2002
[books] Machismo isn’t that easy to wear — interview with Norman Mailer … On America: ‘What would we think of someone who was seven-foot tall, weighed 350 pounds, was all muscle, and had to be reassured all the time? We would say that fella’s a mess!’
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