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12 November 2001
[film] Shallow Hal — Salon previews the next Farrelly Brothers film … ‘Hal (Jack Black) is a pudgy, not overly good-looking guy who, after taking the advice of his dying dad, nevertheless thinks he’s entitled to the most gorgeous babes. He and his pal Mauricio (Jason Alexander) spend most of their time comparing notes on which women are most perfectly suited to enter their dazzling orbit. They succeed with virtually none of them, of course, and can’t accept what they have on the rare occasions when they do. (Mauricio rejects his knockout of a girlfriend because her second toe is longer than her big one — this from a man who tries to disguise his baldness with what looks like a yarmulke of iron shavings.)’
11 November 2001
[war] Things that jumped out at me while reading the Observer today … Two months on, the new battles at Ground Zero — ‘…Ground Zero is all crooked, cruel ruins bayoneted on to steel mesh. Under the harsh glare of floodlights, the arm of a heavy crane lifts another limb of incinerated steel from the dunes of rubble. There is a flare, a burst of flame – for the buried fire still burns white-hot – and a pall of ghastly black smoke rises into the night, blocking the view of the illuminated Empire State Building. The stench of the plume is sickly-sweet; everyone knows what it is but no one says so. Only: “this is how Auschwitz must have stunk only diluted,” as one police forensic scientist remarked. “Fifteen hundred degrees down there,” says a fireman, “and still burning”.’Bin Laden taunts the West: ‘I’m ready to die’ — ‘The full transcript of their discussions has yet to be released but it is clear they were wide-ranging. Bin Laden was, according to Mir yesterday, in “high spirits”. “He’s very healthy and he laughs a lot. Previously he was very softly spoken. Now he speaks like an experienced orator, he is very hard-hitting… There’s a big change in that man.”‘Britain placed under state of emergency — ‘…will pave the way for indefinite imprisonment of foreign nationals who the Government suspects are terrorists, and comes less than 24 hours after warnings from America that Britain is a top target for Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terrorist network. The move reveals the seriousness the Government places on the threat to Britain. Such orders can be used only in times of war or when there has been an event that puts the security of the nation at risk. Whitehall sources said the order would not be reviewed ‘for at least a year’.’
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[furthur] “We are all doomed to spend our lives watching a movie of our lives – we are always acting on what has just finished. It happened at least 1/30th of a second ago. We think we’re in the present, but we aren’t. The present we know is only a movie of the past, and we will really never be able to control the present through ordinary means.” — Tom Wolfe quoting Ken Kesey’s philosophy in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. [ Related: Author and hippie icon Kesey dies]
10 November 2001
[comics] Jack The Ripper: From Hell … a Master Mason comments on From Hell — the film and comic. ‘As unlikely as it may seem, From Hell is not simply a product of Hollywood greed or opportunism. It is based on a remarkable “graphic novel,” of the same name, by writer Alan Moore and artist Eddie Campbell. Graphic novels, a fairly new phenomenon, are pricey novel-length comics, most often published in quality paperback format and usually aimed at a teen or adult audience. From Hell, an engrossing retelling of the Jack the Ripper chronology, is possibly the most prominent graphic novel yet published. It weighs in at over 500 pages of a detailed story, with an additional 42 pages of notes and annotations, where Moore explains some of the more obscure details of Ripper history and gives reasons for choosing among the dozens of competing theories of who did what when. This is important to note because, despite the reputation of comic books for shallow plots and characters, From Hell, the graphic novel, is a multi-layered story that is more akin to the complex novels of Thomas Pynchon than to the simple comics of Walt Disney.’ [via I Love Everything]
[books] Driven by daemons — excellent profile and interview of Philip Pullman … ‘He is emotionally involved. He sits in the shed and makes it up and he weeps, yes, weeps copiously at the tragedies that unfold. He frightens himself and upsets himself and makes himself laugh. If the story evangelises, it isn’t him that’s doing it. It is merely his nature to admire qualities such as courage, kindness, intellectual curiosity, inclusiveness and open-mindedness, and to deplore cruelty, intolerance and fanatical zealotry, but he wouldn’t dream of writing stories to promote that world-view. If stories teach, that is not his conscious intention. “It’s craftsmanship. Your aim must be to tell a story as well as you can, shaping it and bringing the emotional currents to their… peak of emotional swishing about. You turn the raw materials, and all those loose bits of imagination and experience and memory, into something that stands up like a table with four legs and that doesn’t fall over when you put your elbows on it.”‘
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9 November 2001
[school] Bullies Reunited … ‘Bullies Reunited is a site for those of us who spent our schooldays tormenting, ridiculing and psychologically disturbing other children who were smaller, weirder, younger, poorer – or, indeed, richer than ourselves. Kids who wore glasses. Kids who walked a bit funny. Kids who needed go to the toilet too often.’ [via I Love Everything]
[tv] Turner’s Lost Love, CNN, Has A Doomsday Plan in the Can — great story on Ted Turner and CNN’s “end-of-the-world video”… ‘Turner, it seems, has been a doom-and-gloom kind of guy from the very day in June 1980 when he launched the cable network. He said then, as only he could, “We gonna go on air June 1, and we gonna stay on until the end of the world. When that time comes, we’ll cover it, play ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee,’ and sign off.” Ten years later, I’m told, Turner used CNN production facilities to create what he called his “end-of-the-world” video. Sources tell me it consists of a recording of “Nearer, My God,” over footage of a waving American flag. Turner is said to have ordered the tape locked away until it was determined that the world was about to end. “It was like a sign-off tape that you often see in the middle of the night,” says one source. “But to Ted, it was a sign-off forever.”‘ [via Follow Me Here]
[film] Go Ahead, Pinko Liberals, Make My Day … Guardian interview with John Milius. ‘The second world war has replaced the western as a morality play, as a venue where these things exist. The western is no longer the western; we’ve changed our attitude towards the Indians, the frontier, the open spaces. So the second world war is a much better place to say, “Here’s what you should measure up to be.” It’s no longer Shane. It’s Sergeant Rock.’
8 November 2001
[tv] A Taxi Ride to Success — interview with Rob Brydon from Marion and Geoff … ‘Marion and Geoff was a series of exquisite ten-minute monologues delivered by Brydon in the character of Keith Barrat, a Welsh minicab driver. Keith spoke to us via a video camera mounted on the passenger side of his dashboard – mostly about his wife, Marion, his two children, Alun and Rhys (‘little smashers’), and his wife’s new partner, Geoff, the pharmaceutical salesman of the year. In the face of dreadful domestic and professional disappointment, Keith was endlessly optimistic – which only seemed to confirm the depths of his despair. “Beautiful day,” he would announce brightly, before looking up through the windscreen at the sky and adding, “Bit overcast. But Mr Bluebird’s on my shoulder.”‘
 [tea] Stupid Christmas Gift Ideas from LinkMachineGo… for the tea drinker in your family. ‘Your favorite sipping spot isn’t always equipped with a place to park your soggy tea bags. This 12 oz. ceramic mug has a built-in bag holder. use it to carry your fresh tea bag to a favorite spot, brew your tea, then tuck used bag into pocket and sip your tea while its hot.’ [via The Daily Chump]
7 November 2001
[comics] The Best of the Marvel and DC Comp Boxes — Mark Millar does brief reviews of last months comics… Millar on Marvel’s Alias: ‘Ah, Bendis. I love you. Who else would have Luke Cage shagging the title character up the arse in the opening issue of a new Marvel comic? I haven’t read issue two yet, but the buzz seems to be really building on this so I’m looking forward to it.’ [ Kinda Related: JinxWorld]
[tv] You ask the questions: Louis Theroux … ‘[Q] Who was more scary to interview, Eugene Terreblanche (of the Afrikaner Resistance Movement) or Paul Daniels? [A] The company of Terreblanche is the scariest. He smelt of booze and he did seem a bit volatile, switching between being overly friendly to angry and crazed from moment to moment. With Paul the terror is that he’s going to tell you another endless Frank Sinatra anecdote.’
6 November 2001
[tv] Other Listings Magazine — more DIY TV Go Home … ‘18.30 Good Old Dad. First of a new six part series in which Richard Briers meets children he illegitimately fathered as a result of a series of sordid sex sessions during filming of the first series of “The Good Life”‘
[postmortem] Hijackers’ Meticulous Strategy of Brains, Muscle and Practice — good overview of the planning behind 9-11… ‘With all the suspects dead and no conclusive evidence, as yet, of any accomplices, investigators have been left to recreate the architecture and orchestration of the plot largely from the recorded minutiae of the hijackers’ brief American lives: their cellphone calls, credit card charges, Internet communications and automated teller machine withdrawals. What has emerged, nearly two months into the investigation, is a picture in which the roles of the 19 hijackers are so well defined as to be almost corporate in their organization and coordination.’ [via Robot Wisdom]
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[comics] Girls’ World — excellent interview with Dan Clowes about Ghost World … ‘”I once had this idea to do a comic where a mother tattoos a message on her baby’s head so that years later, when he’s losing his hair, he finally sees it. It would say something like, ‘I never loved you’.” Clowes lets out a bright, engaging laugh, so contagious it’s hard not to laugh along with him, until you realise exactly what it is he’s just said.’ [via Kooky Mojo]
5 November 2001
[tv] Don’t stop me now — an interview with Jonathan Ross … ‘Ross owes his success to his unembarrassability. Much of his humour is at his own expense. Hence the interminable bad-taste jokes, and the celebrated occasion on which he exposed himself on They Think It’s All Over last year. (He protests: “The BBC loved it! They thumbed it with something like “Wossie whips it out”. They used my cock as a selling point. Well, I didn’t show my cock anyway, not to the audience or to the cameras. I showed it to Nick [Hancock], and I showed it to Ian Wright, who looked suitably horrified. There was a great photograph of him recoiling in absolute disgust that I was thinking of having it made into a T-shirt.”‘
[war] The Sims Take on Al Qaeda — a look at computer simulations of war and terrorism … ‘He is looking for ways that seemingly small actions have big consequences. “I think about terrorism in terms of popcorn,” he said. “You assume you’ll always have some kernels that are going to pop. How much lower does the temperature have to get before you have a dramatic decrease in the ability of terrorists to operate?” His research has found that when the underlying relationships between color blocks are constantly shifting, the blocks look to the government as an anchor and their colors mesh into a pattern of support. But if the blocks share a common concern about risks from the outside world, they are more likely to become disaffected and blend with dissident groups. Lustick’s flashing grid is conflict in its most abstract form. That turns out to be its greatest strength–as well as its most glaring weakness. Researchers are painfully aware that their models omit the messy edges of real life, and some of them might turn out to be critical.’
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4 November 2001
[cheggers] The show must go on [ Part 1 | Part 2] … Louis Theroux meets Keith Chegwin. ‘I look up and there’s a man standing there, with short legs and receding grey hair, he looks like Keith Allen, the actor. Then I realise it’s Keith Chegwin. I must be tired. He changes into his stage gear: blue shorts and an orange Hawaiian shirt. We head for the stage. As we’re puffing up the stairs, past the pipes with bubbles in them, Keith says: “Do you do gigs? You should!… Coronary classic, these stairs! I want somebody from St John’s, now!” I part ways with Keith as we approach the main dance floor, where Keith will be performing. The club is loud and packed with drunk students. The energy is great – despite being tired, I’m caught up in the swell of excitement. Keith hits the stage, and screams through his microphone, so loud the sound is distorted and barely comprehensible. “Have we got anyone here who can’t stand the effing sight of me?” There’s a huge roar.’
[reading] Snakes and Ladders by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell … ‘Sat in a sandwich bar in Westminster I meet the sharp south-London wideboy occultist that I’d created some years previously for a U.S. comic book. He looks at me. He nods, and smiles, and walks away. Years later, in another place, he steps out from the dark and speaks to me. He whispers: I’ll tell you the ultimate secret of Magic. Any cunt can do it.’
3 November 2001
[quotables] Dwight D. Eisenhower: ‘Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children… This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.’ [via Wood s Lot]
[war] Victory for the doom-mongers in a passionate war of words — Simon Hoggart on Labour MP’s and Afghanistan. On a speech by George Galloway: ‘…he had never thought he would see the day when Labour – Labour! – MPs supported the use of cluster bombs. “Is this war so finely poised that we need the use of cluster bombs?” He recalled Clare Short crying on Brighton beach at the very thought of land mines. “But cluster bombs are much worse than land mines.” Ms Short sat squat, alone and disgruntled on the front bench as Mr Galloway reached his peroration. It was the Northern Alliance who had destroyed and beggared Afghanistan with its mediaeval obscurantism. It was the Northern Alliance who hanged the former president and stuffed his penis into his mouth – “those are your new best friends!” he raged.’ [ Related: Hoggart Archive]
[comics] Wanted: superhero — interesting analysis of Marvel’s business problems … ‘Comic-book publishing remains nicely profitable, with a 27% operating margin, but it contributes only 20% of Marvel’s revenue. Licensing has next to no costs but is stuck at 8% of sales–just where it was in 1992. The drag on the company is the Toy Biz division. It develops Marvel characters and Pokémon and World Championship Wrestling figures. The unit had an operating loss of $45 million on revenues of $167 million (72% of the total) in 2000. A plunge in toy sales this year has depressed results further.’ [via Neil Alien]
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2 November 2001
[paul is dead] The Fool on the Hill … Did Paul McCartney expose himself on the Magical Mystery Tour film? ‘The zoom view clearly shows the left coat tail billowing up. There does seem to be a fairly clear image of his penis extending out from under it and pointing to his right at a slightly upward angle. The coloring really adds to the impression: the shaft is darker toned than the head which would be consistent with the coloring of the shaft and head (glans) of a penis. (Yes, unlike most British men, Paul is circumsized.)’ [ Related: Paul is Dead, link via Robot Wisdom]
[film] Typhoons, binges… then a heart attack — interview with Martin Sheen about Apocalypse Now … ‘The shoot is, of course, a cinematic legend. It was regarded as such a year before the movie was even released. Typhoons destroyed several huge sets. Sheen had a heart attack, aged only 36. Brando – obese, overpaid – was rumoured in the press to have been difficult and self- indulgent, though no one on set thought so.”Marlon wasn’t difficult at all,” Sheen says. “Never. The only problem we had was the image, his presence, but he’d just dismiss it. He treated everyone the same – Francis, me, the guys on the crew. Also, out of all of us, I think he’d spent the most time in the third world. So he was more aware of the fact that the world’s not made up of first-class service and over-privileged people. I was in awe, because for my generation of actors there were only two guys, Marlon and [James] Dean. And for Dean there was only one – Marlon.”‘
[profile] The prime of Ms Julie Burchill — quite an intriguing interview … ‘From reading her columns, it is hard to gauge what her values are, if indeed she has any. “Well, I wouldn’t take money from a poor box and I always give to beggars. Can’t go out in Brighton without giving away at least 50 quid. When you look into their eyes, it’s like looking in to the eyes of Jesus. That sounds corny, but I just love that moment of connection.”‘
1 November 2001
[comics] Pieces of War — interview with Joe Sacco from Sequential Tart … ‘I do comics because I’m a cartoonist. It’s as simple as that. My roommate is a documentary film maker and I see the trouble he has getting funding and making things happen. A cartoonist needs only pen and paper. I’m not taking a two-man camera crew with me on my trips. I think comics are an inviting medium, one that pulls in a reader who might not otherwise read a book about Bosnia or the Palestinians, for example. I feel I can present very hard and complicated material in comics form if I give myself the space. With comics, I feel I can really drop a reader into a time and place. The medium allows me to use flashbacks seamlessly. (Those reenactments popular in documentaries these days seem so embarrassingly out of place.) You add those attributes together, and comics turns out to be a great medium for something like journalism.’
[distraction] TV Misguidance — DIY TV Go Home. ‘20.00 Fear of a Blue Planet … David Attenborough gets eaten by Sharks. (Repeat)’
31 October 2001
[funny ha ha] A couple of amusing Onions: Let Us Freak … ‘Girl, please allow me to break it down for you. You are the love of my life, and I would travel to the ends of the earth to prove my love for you. I would fly to Europe in order to personally select the finest champagne for you to drink. I would climb to the peak of the highest mountain to demonstrate that my lower-back muscles are powerful and won’t give out. I would weave for you the most comfortable silk sheets ever known to creation. I am the man for you, and I will make you want to get down and get funk-ass nasty with me. I will make you scream and shout all hours of the night. I will make sweet love to you like no man has ever before. In addition to all of that, I will wash you.’ [via Haddock] Now More Than Ever, Humanity Needs My Back To The Future Fan Fiction … ‘ Sadly, the flux-capacitor technology masterminded by Dr. Emmet Brown remains a fantasy. As such, we cannot go back in time and change the terrible events of Sept. 11. But we can draw strength by drawing close to one another and holding fast to the faith that tomorrow will be a brighter day. And also by reading my Back To The Future fan fiction.’
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[questions] You ask the Questions: Larry Hagman … ‘[Q] JR had many classic lines, but which one of them is your own favourite? [A] “Once you get rid of integrity, the rest is a piece of cake”.’
[books] First Chapter of Emergence by Steven Johnson… [via kottke.org] ‘…they solve problems by drawing on masses of relatively stupid elements, rather than a single, intelligent “executive branch.” They are bottom-up systems, not top-down. They get their smarts from below. In a more technical language, they are complex adaptive systems that display emergent behavior. In these systems, agents residing on one scale start producing behavior that lies one scale above them: ants create colonies; urbanites create neighborhoods; simple pattern-recognition software learns how to recommend new books. The movement from low-level rules to higher-level sophistication is what we call emergence.’
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30 October 2001
[sysadmin] An Actual Letter from a Fed-Up Systems Administrator … ‘Never fuck with your systems administrators, because they know what you do with all your free time.’ [via BenHammersley.com]
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[comics] Scot plans to make Batman hang up cape — brief interview with Grant Morrison and Mark Millar from the Sunday Times … In the wake of September 11, violent superhumans are not enough anymore. We should be putting the current international developments in context rather than just having wrestling matches between colourful characters. I’ve already started writing X-Men as a pacifist comic. They don’t believe in violence. They want to change the world in other ways. I don’t think there will be as much fisticuffs anymore. I always thought that was rubbish anyway. I’m more into the philosophical basis of comics, the ideas they explore.’ [ Related: Newsarama on the Article, via Barbelith Underground]
29 October 2001
[flatmates] Cleaning The Fucking Kitchen For Dummies … ‘The pizza may have arrived at your door on its own, but once you eat half of it, it’s dead and it won’t actually go away on its own. It doesn’t matter if you hide it somewhere like some sort of demented squirrel, it will stay there. Unless someone throws it away. That means you, if the world is just, which it plainly isn’t.’ [via Ms. Woo]
[books] More from Adrian Mole: ‘Glenn has been excluded from school, for calling Tony Blair a twat.’
28 October 2001
[comics] What Warren Ellis would do if he were a comics publisher [login as Guest] … ‘My initial plan would be to release two books a month. One of them would be original, and one would be reprint. There are major works that have, for whatever reason, been lost to the modern reader. AMERICAN FLAGG issues 1-12, Howard Chaykin. THE NEW ADVENTURES OF HITLER, Grant Morrison & Steve Yeowell with Nick Abadzis. NIGHT MUSIC, the short stories of P Craig Russell. Disappeared. I’d even attempt to license some away: DC Vertigo has let Milligan and Fegredo’s wonderful FACE vanish, and Milligan and Ormston’s darkly funny THE EATERS too. If they don’t want to publish them, I’ll publish them. Alan Moore has probably published enough creator-owned short work in enough venues to merit a collection. In fact, you know what I’d do? I’d assemble what was completed of BIG NUMBERS. I’d go to Alan’s for a couple of days and interview him fairly exhaustively about the project. I’d spend a week talking to a few other people by email. Give me another three weeks to collate and arrange it all, and I’ve got BIG NUMBERS: The Lost Graphic Novel, a book about the thwarted realist breakthrough work of the 80s.’
[film] O Brothers, Thou Art Cinematic Gold Dust — Sunday Times profile of Joel and Ethan Cohen … ‘Pranksterism has always been a feature of Coen productions. In the days of Blood Simple they invented a crusty old English film editor called Roderick Jaynes, who blasted the production before dropping out of sight. The awful Jaynes cropped up again for Barton Fink and Fargo, lambasting the “inept” scripts and “silliness” of the camera work before vanishing again. His name, nevertheless, appeared prominently on the credits, and for Fargo he was nominated for an Oscar. The Coens persuaded Albert Finney to dress up and attend the awards ceremony in disguise, but his cover was blown by the trade paper Variety and the academy huffily withdrew its nomination.’
27 October 2001
[no logo] Between McWorld and Jihad — Naomi Klein on 9-11 and the anti-corporate movement… ‘Of course, there is little evidence that America’s most wanted Saudi-born millionaire has a grudge against capitalism (if Osama bin Laden’s rather impressive global export network stretching from cash-crop agriculture to oil pipelines is any indication, it seems unlikely). And yet for the movement some people call “anti-globalisation” others call “anti-capitalism” (and I tend to just sloppily call “the movement”), it’s difficult to avoid discussions about symbolism: about all the anti-corporate signs and signifiers – the culture-jammed logos, the guerrilla-warfare stylings, the choices of brand name and political targets – that make up the movement’s dominant metaphors. Many political opponents of anti-corporate activism are using the symbolism of the World Trade Centre and Pentagon attacks to argue that young activists, playing at guerrilla war, have now been caught out by a real war.’
[war] Steve Bell’s brilliant step-by-step guide to “smart-bombing”. ‘…can we talk about something else?’
26 October 2001
[books] Out of the ordinary — Douglas Coupland has been touring England taking photo’s … ‘Coupland adores objects, and most of his book-tour photography has been of hotel rooms, shop windows, products, promotional displays. But why do it? “I’ve never taken pictures before and I said to myself, ‘Dammit, I’m going to learn how to do this. I don’t remember my dreams. Do you? No one does. But if you wake up and write them down straight away, you can look at it 15 years later and like, ‘I remember that dream perfectly.’ It’s the same with this 36 days, or 46 days, or whatever it has been, I really want to remember them. But your body tends to remember the airport and the train rumble, rumble, so I’m trying to remember the good stuff.”‘
[search requests] People keep visiting via Google searching for this — so here you go… 
25 October 2001
[tv] It’s nearly ten o’clock on a Thursday Night… time for Attachments Everybody Hates Attachments. The script for the final episode has been leaked apparently: ‘JON: FUCK! Gareth’s faxed all our HTML to a chatroom! DYSON: No problem! Just re-route it, stick it on a floppy and save it as an animated gif! JON: I can’t! I’m too busy reformatting the coffee machine! TESS: Oh Christ! We’re really IN THE SHIT!’
[politics] You can’t beat a bit of bullying — more on the way the way a Labour Whip dealt with an awkward MP over government policy in Afghanistan. ‘…they found it impossible to stick to the argument. Within minutes they had moved from the issue of loyalty to attendance records to trust (Marsden: “It would help if your deputy didn’t send me snotty letters”), to the question of war as a matter of conscience, to risible fibs about telephone messages (“Er, perhaps I got the wrong number”), to appeasement “Don’t you dare!”), to the pressing question of which of the two was the more northern (Marsden: “Do you mind? I spent four years at Teesside Polytechnic”).’
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24 October 2001
[books] Sue Townsend: You ask the questions … ‘[Q] Where do you see Adrian Mole aged 51? [A] Still trying to flog his abysmal novel, Lo! The Flat Hills of My Homeland, to a London publisher. He’ll almost certainly have early prostate trouble and I think he’ll be really strong on cardigans, in particular the Marks & Spencer zip-up range for men.’
[comics] Two interviews with the Big Scary Hippy Magician Guy (who writes comics) … Comic Book Resources interview with Moore ‘The thing that turned me towards magic was a panel in From Hell where William Gull was saying something to the effect that the human mind is one place where all of the gods and monsters in human mythology are arguably real, in all of their grandeur and monstrosity. And after writing I thought, oh shit, that’s true. Now I am going to have to rearrange my entire life around this. There is no way to disprove it. I thought I was writing this great piece of Gothic villain dialogue. The gods and monsters inarguably exist and they are real. Because if they don’t exist how many people died because of them, or how many history changing things have been done in the name of these Gods that don’t exist? If they don’t exist why do they kill so many of us in their name?’ [via WEF] Massive Two Part Onion AV Club interview with Moore [ Part 1 | Part 2] ‘I’ve got the whole of Big Numbers plotted. I’d got this enormous A1 sheet of paper the size of a tablecloth that had been divided into 40 rows down the side, and 12 columns along the top. One column for each of the 12 issues, 40 rows for each of the 40 characters. And then, in this grid in tiny, incomprehensibly small biro writing which looks like the work of a mental patient, and which gives you a migraine just to look at it, there is what happens to each of the 40 characters in every one of the 12 issues. It’s this map of the entire plot. I’ve never done it with any other work, because it is kind of an insane thing to do. I’ve kind of got all that stuff in my head anyway, so the only real reason for writing it down on paper is just to impress and frighten. But because I’d still got the plot, we were able to reconstruct the basis of a 12-episode TV drama series. Whether it’ll ever make it to TV or not, no idea.’ [thanks to Kenny]
23 October 2001
[wtf?] A long way from Ambridge — Afghan’s are addicted to a BBC World Service Soap opera based on The Archers… ‘The Afghans were very news hungry,” says Andrew Skuse, a social anthropologist who wrote his PhD on the success of the soap. “They really trusted the BBC. After years of abuse of the media under various regimes, the BBC was seen as more trustworthy than the national service. Some thought it was the national service. They hadn’t a clue where it was located. People would often tell me they thought the BBC was a village in Afghanistan”.’
[politics] ‘Those that are not with us are against us’ — interesting transcript of a conversation between the Labour MP for Shrewsbury Paul Marsden and the Chief Whip Hilary Armstrong about UK Government policy over Afghanistan… ‘HA: In fact we may well hold a vote, but if we do, it will be whipped. PM: That is outrageous. You won’t even give us a free vote on whether we go to war – it is an issue which should be a matter of conscience. HA: War is not a matter of conscience. Abortion and embryo research are matters of conscience, but not wars. PM: Are you seriously saying blowing people up and killing people is not a moral issue? HA: It is government policy that we are at war. You astound me.’
22 October 2001
[comics] Excellent, long Comics Journal interview with Peter Bagge by Gary Groth … ‘Ya know, Alan Moore recently described the current state of alternative comics to me really well, comparing it to right now as opposed to five or ten years ago. He said it’s kind of like somebody left the top of the soda pop bottle off, where it looks the same and it tastes the same, but the fizz is gone.’ [ Related: Bagge’s Website]
[movies] Return of the Legend — brief interview with Nick Broomfield about the documentary he is currently working on… ‘Broomfield is an undisputed success at marketing his own image, even down to starring in self-parodic adverts for cars. And he’s loaded: an English country pile; a place in Santa Monica. What’s interesting is how he divides opinion. Depending on who you talk to among those who really know him – producers, co-producers, commissioning editors, journalists, film-makers and friends – he’s an innovator, a shark, a genius, a fraud, a legend or a has-been; people love him or hate him. The work is brilliant or boring, revealing or repetitious, always fresh or endlessly formulaic. They all have to agree, however, that a Nick Broomfield film is hard to ignore.’
[distractions] Check out:
21 October 2001
[books] All Authors are Pyschotic — interview with Douglas Coupland … ‘…when you look at the history of the smile in the photo… up until World War II most people in photographs had their normal faces. And then Kodak and other camera people and filmmakers always had their people smile, and then we entered this cult of the smile collectively. If you try not smiling when people are taking your picture they basically tell you to fuck off and start smiling.’ [ Related: BBC News on Coupland, via Feeling Listless]
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[history] Hinges of Opportunity — was 9-11 a “hinge moment” in history… where everything changes and we feel that nothing is the same as before? [via Ghost in the Machine] ‘What changes after a hinge is our stories of ourselves. Who we are, how we got that way, where we’re headed, and what makes us tick. The lesson is that any cultural revolution represents a grand new alignment of great forces — technological, economic, environmental and spiritual. These shape the tales we tell to make sense of our new world.’
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20 October 2001
[aftermath] The Last Post — the inside story on the 90,000 mails per-day sent to addresses at World Trade Centre which don’t exist anymore and one of the people who used to deliver it… ‘Together the carriers have recreated, in miniature, a semblance of their old routes. The World Trade Centre buildings were allotted sorting areas ringed with dozens and dozens of beige and grey metal pigeonholes to accept the buildings’ mail.Thornton’s cubicle is marked with a large sign that reads “1 World Trade Centre” in bold black letters. Each of the companies on her old route has its own pigeonhole. She sits in this cramped, dim space for eight hours a day sorting mail. When a pigeonhole fills up, workers come and dump the overflow into large, marked crates. Thornton says she doesn’t want to feel ungrateful. After all, she is alive and getting a pay cheque. But most days she feels lost and disorientated. She misses the din of the building, the rush of the lifts, the friendly chats in the lobbies. “I have no place to go,” she says. “It is like I am homeless.”‘
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[comics] Mad Man — MSNBC interview with Alan Moore … ‘[Interviewer] Are you planning on attending the “From Hell” premiere? [Moore] If left to my own devices, I wouldn’t. I’m not really a big cinema guy, and I don’t really like public appearances. I only signed up to be a writer. I didn’t really sign up to be a celebrity. When I became a comic writer there was no more obscure job in the world. But my daughters, they’ve got some sort of plan that involves kidnapping Johnny Depp and giving him roofies. So I’d probably better be there.’ [via Barbelith Underground]
19 October 2001
[film] Terry Zwigoff: ‘Every guy wants a teenage girlfriend’ — facinating interview with the director of Ghost World. ‘…Ghost World’s Seymour has a horrid mom. What’s Zwigoff’s like? Until now, Zwigoff’s sails have been full of wind. Now they collapse. Mrs Zwigoff, it turns out, was “very critical, very negative, everything I was wildly passionate about she had no interest in whatsoever”. She didn’t get to see Ghost World (“she died, luckily”). She did, however, get to see Crumb, at its world premiere at the New York Film Festival. When the lights came up, she turned to Zwigoff’s cousin, Sherwin, and said, “So, are you still awake?” I tell him she sounds hilarious. He shakes his head morosely. “She was a very depressed person.”‘
 [comics] One of the weirder comics of the 70’s: Superman vs. Muhammad Ali ‘From start to finish, the book is a miniature time-capsule of the era that spawned it. For starters, it sports a wrap-around cover depicting hundreds of late-70s celebrities from the world of pop culture. Entertainment legends like Frank Sinatra and Lucille Ball are easy to spot, but for today’s readers even the “key” inside the front cover may not explain the identities of all the has-been stars. Ron Palillo and Robert Heyges? (Here’s a tip: “Up your nose wit’ a rubber hose!”) Tony Orlando? Wolfman Jack? Trust me, kids, you didn’t miss anything. Sharing “the good seats” with these pop icons are comic book characters like Billy Batson, Hal Jordan, Oliver Queen, Barry Allen and Diana Prince. Little do they know that neaby sit the DC writers and artists who control their destinies (Joe Shuster, Jerry Seigel, Neal Adams, Wally Wood, Cary Bates, Gil Kane, E.Nelson Bridwell). Over there in the front row is something you don’t see every day — President Jimmy Carter sitting next to Sonny Bono and Batman (!).’
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