[LMG]LMG RSS Feed 
[Search][Projects]A Moment Of MooreMe and Belle de Jour TimeMachineGo Evening Standard Headline Pictures [UK Bloggers]
London Bloggers [Comic Blogs][Other Blogs] | 26 September 2001
[profile] The Best of all Worlds — A Telegraph profile-interview on George Best … ‘In 1997 Best set up a business importing bottles of wine with his name and picture on the labels. As one of his partners noted, “It was like putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank.”‘
 [9-11] American Life Turns Into Bad Jerry Bruckheimer Movie — the Onion’s take on 9-11. ‘When the president finally appeared on TV, it was George W. Bush addressing the nation, not Bill Pullman or Harrison Ford. At the conclusion of his address, Bush did not grab a leggy blonde reporter out of the crowd and kiss her. When Americans finally staggered into the streets, desperate to talk to anyone to try to make sense of what they had just seen, there were no Attack On America collector cups waiting for them at Taco Bell. The dead and injured did not, like Jon Voight, stand up in their wheelchairs as the music swelled. And Ben Affleck was nowhere to be seen.’
25 September 2001
[blogs] The Blog Twinning Project — LMG is twinned with Sore Eyes … and similar to The Null Device, Brainsluice and The View From Here.
[character] Portrait Of The Terrorist As A Young Man … The Guardian on Osama Bin Laden’s early years. ‘Yet of the young Osama there is almost nothing. Repeatedly, Saudi sources are cited describing him as “normal”, “unexceptional”, “quiet”, “intense”. Three years ago, the staff of one American magazine clearly struggled to dream up a subhead for the section of a Bin Laden profile dealing with his youth, but ended up inadvertently crystallising the state of our knowledge in six words. They were: “Ordinary young man – then joined jihad.”‘ [Related: Bin Laden Family Portrait, Steve Bell on Bin Laden]
19 September 2001
[lmg] I’m off to Italy for a few days so LinkMachineGo won’t be updated until sometime next week.
[distractions] Slime Volleyball — Yet another irritatingly hard flash game … From the Slime Forum: ‘I took a handful of anti-histimines and a half a bottle of wine last night. I love the little tail the ball has when you’re stoned. Psycho slime is beautiful.’ [via Tajmahal]
[rude] Roger’s Profanisaurus — Profanity in the UK! ‘Roger’s Profanisaurus By Roger Mellie. Edited by William H. Bollocks. Research by Ribena de Farquar-Toss. Fulchester University Press, Anus House, Fulchester, England.’
18 September 2001
[comment] Fear and Loathing — Martin Amis on 9-11 … ‘It was the advent of the second plane, sharking in low over the Statue of Liberty: that was the defining moment. Until then, America thought she was witnessing nothing more serious than the worst aviation disaster in history; now she had a sense of the fantastic vehemence ranged against her. I have never seen a generically familiar object so transformed by effect. That second plane looked eagerly alive, and galvanised with malice, and wholly alien. For those thousands in the south tower, the second plane meant the end of everything. For us, its glint was the worldflash of a coming future.’
[books] Bare Faced Messiah — an excellent out-of-print biography of L. Ron Hubbard complete on-line… ‘The glorification of “Ron”, superman and saviour, required a cavalier disregard for facts: thus it is that every biography of Hubbard published by the church is interwoven with lies, half-truths and ludicrous embellishments. The wondrous irony of this deception is that the true story of L. Ron Hubbard is much more bizarre, much more improbable, than any of the lies.’
17 September 2001
[distraction] Turret ‘a’ Phone… another classic distraction. ‘shit wank toss minge fuck arse knob scrotes shit flange spunk flaps piss’
[distraction] Clerks TV Pilot Episode — a twenty-one minute on-line episode from Kevin Smith’s cancelled animated TV show … ‘This job would be great if it wasn’t for the fucking customers.’ — Randall, From The Film. [via Feeling Listless]
[tv] Trivia pursuits — interview with Adam and Joe … ‘…a criticism that is frequently levelled at the duo: “We are unfashionably middle class and too posh,” Cornish says with a bristle in his voice. Buxton jerks back in his chair with irritation: “It’s just because we are this sort of nebulous item, so people fixate on the school we went to and think, ‘Oh, they’re not northern, they’re not stand-up, they’re not really anything, so let’s make them slacker toffs.'” After a two-second pause they both shrug self-mockingly: “Fair enough, really.”‘
16 September 2001
[comment] Fall of Empire: Bombs and Magic … Grant Morrison on 9-11. ‘Their destruction in this week’s monstrous assault on thousands of unsuspecting people, signals an end to America’s illusions about itself, its purpose and its boundaries. The isolationist image of a proud cowboy nation using super technology to defend us all against Cold War evil empire nuclear missile attacks is shattering along all its fault lines. Superman has just been exposed to Kryptonite. The American Century is very clearly over now as the shift in global power moves away from hi-fi monolithic, ‘individualistic’ structures towards lo-fi, viral cell culture models.’
[comment] ‘We just have to stop being Americans for a little while’ — P. J. O’Rourke was in Washington… ‘The four of us walked to the Dubliner bar on North Capitol. “The Congressional leadership,” said the second staffer, “has been whisked off to ‘an undisclosed location’. As far as I’m concerned they can keep most of them there,” which touches on another theory of terrorism, that the organisation of society can be attacked by striking organisations; that we can’t organise things ourselves. “Four Guinnesses,” said the first senate staffer to the bartender. “Time to take sides,” said the second staffer. “Time to turn sand into glass,” said the first.’
[comment] Religion’s misguided missiles — Richard Dawkins view… ‘I am trying to call attention to the elephant in the room that everybody is too polite – or too devout – to notice: religion, and specifically the devaluing effect that religion has on human life. I don’t mean devaluing the life of others (though it can do that too), but devaluing one’s own life. Religion teaches the dangerous nonsense that death is not the end.’
15 September 2001
[nyc] Brightness falls … Jay McInerney writes about the last few days in NYC … ‘Jeffrey lived in Jersey, and had no way to get home; he was going to look for a hotel room since all transit, all bridges and tunnels were closed. I told him to call me if he couldn’t find shelter, and Jeanine gave him my name and number. He looked at my name and asked me if I was the author of Bright Lights, Big City. “I just realised something,” he said. “Wasn’t the World Trade Centre on the cover of your book?” “My God,” I said, “I hadn’t thought of that.”‘
[news] The Images That Won’t Let Us Go … The Washington Post on news addiction. ‘…then it is back to the TV, back inside the bubble. Maybe this is our way of seeking meaning. Maybe it’s an act of mourning, or a form of therapy. Information is supposed to be power. But taking it all in, you only feel restless. And profoundly weak.’ [via Slashdot]
14 September 2001
[comics] Comic Book Monsters — from the Letters Page of the Guardian. ‘The omnipotence of American culture and childhood innocence ended in our house on September 11. I sat with my young son watching the images from the World Trade Centre. Suddenly we saw people hanging from the windows at the top of the stricken tower. “Mum,” he said, “where’s Spiderman? He could save them.” Later, as I tucked him up in bed, he asked sleepily, “Is Spiderman not real, mum?”‘ [via Comic Geek]
[comment] Blake Morrison on the attack: ‘…there is the history and symbolism. America has just been violated as never before. We’ve seen the heart of the world’s greatest empire – its military brain and financial nerve centre – going up in smoke. None of us was there to see the siege of Troy, the fall of Constantinople, the burning of Rome, the Great Fire of London, but we’ve often wondered what they were like. This time there were cameras present.’
[comment] Fear & Loathing in America … Hunter S. Thompson’s reaction. ‘This is going to be a very expensive war, and Victory is not guaranteed — for anyone, and certainly not for anyone as baffled as George W. Bush. All he knows is that his father started the war a long time ago, and that he, the goofy child-President, has been chosen by Fate and the global Oil industry to finish it Now.’ [via Dr. Menlo]
[comment] Ruin more beautiful than the building — The Times interviews Norman Mailer on the attacks. ‘… [He] said that the remaining steel prongs of the World Trade Centre would inevitably become a national monument. ‘It is more beautiful than the building was,” Mr Mailer, 78, who described the towers as ‘two huge buck teeth’ […] ‘I think they will keep it. If they have any sense they will. And politicians usually have exactly that kind of sense, if no other. I don’t disapprove of that. You’ve got that many people killed who’ve had nothing to do with bringing on their own death other than working in a monument to corporatism.”
13 September 2001
[postmortem] Security agencies attacked over ‘stunning failure’ … ‘Quoting a former senior CIA officer responsible for the Middle East, Reuel Gerecht writes: “The CIA probably doesn’t have a single truly qualified Arabic-speaking officer of Middle Eastern background who can play a believable Muslim fundamentalist who would volunteer to spend years of his life with shitty food and no women in the mountains of Afghanistan. “For Christ’s sake, most case officers live in the suburbs of Virginia. We don’t do that kind of thing.”‘
12 September 2001
[nyc] Chris Conroy: ‘A minute passed. Then, I heard a scream from the street below, and a light humming rumble. I lunged for the window, nearly throwing myself out in the process, and I watched as the south tower – the tower I’d stood beneath admiringly, the tower I’d ascended several times, the tower my family and I had entered and departed from bemoaning the length of the ticket line just days before – fell to the ground. It just collapsed before my eyes.’ [Related: Do You Feel Loved?]
[viewpoint] Beyond Belief — ‘…we saw Lower Manhattan disappear into dust. New York, and therefore all cities, looked fragile and vulnerable. The technology that was bringing us these scenes has wired us closely together into a febrile, mutual dependency. Our way of life, centralised and machine-dependent, has made us frail. Our civilisation, it suddenly seemed, our way of life, is easy to wreck when there are sufficient resources and cruel intent. No missile defence system can protect us. Yesterday afternoon, for a dreamlike, immeasurable period, the appearance was of total war, and of the world’s mightiest empire in ruins. That sense of denial which accompanies all catastrophes kept nagging away: this surely isn’t happening. I’ll blink and it will be gone.’
[history] ‘I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.’ — Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. [via LinkWorthy]
11 September 2001
[disaster] How do you blog something like this? People are trying:
From Metafilter: ‘Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.’ [symbolism] Tarot: The Tower … ‘The Tower is numbered sixteen and shows a tower struck by lightning, with raging fires within and the top of the tower falling. There are usually figures falling, head-first, from the ruins. The Tower shows us a basic fact of spiritual life – the power of the Gods can strike unexpectedly to break down all the long-established patterns and assumptions that we have taken for granted for so long.’
[history] You can find anything on the internet… JFK’s Autopsy Photos and Frame 313 of the Zapruder Film … Zapruder: ‘And I was shootin’ as the President was comin’ down from Huston Street and makin’ his turn… he was about half-way down there when I heard a shot (makes a down angle motion with his left hand) and he slumped to the side… like this (mimics left slump). I heard another shot or two — I couldn’t say if it was one or two — then I saw his head open up… (hand to head) all blood and everything… and I kept on shootin’…’ [Related: The Zapruder Film — interesting analysis, source of quote above. JFK Autopsy Photo link via LukeLog]
10 September 2001
[distractions] This has been blogged around a bit but it’s a quiet day so enjoy… 3D Pong. Very addictive.
[comics] Don’t Ask the Writer — interview with Alan Moore concentrating on From Hell … ‘The land of suntanned starlets and chiseled action stars would be a strange fit with the 48-year-old Moore, who could be a character out of a Victorian melodrama, with his wild mess of long black hair, beard and ominous voice. “Having a deep voice and kind of being physically imposing, you tend to find that you can talk almost any old rubbish and can make it sound creepy,” he acknowledges.’ [Related: From Hell Movie Trailer, link via Comic Geek]
9 September 2001
[politics] Tories’ leap of faith — intriguing profile Of Ian Duncan Smith … ‘This is what comes up most often when you talk to those who know him (along with his genuine ease as a family man: he likes to change nappies, and makes a mean pasta); principle, unshakeability, and loyalty to his friends, one of whom said, rather ludicrously: “He’s someone you’d go tiger-shooting with.”‘
|
