Silence...

This time, the silence has been caused by working longer hours / being far more tired than I usually am in the week. This results in a weekend mood whihc can only be described as ‘Oh sod it, I just want to take it easy’ and has meant, tragically, that I haven’t been posting here for a while - sincere apologies to all who care.

However, my mind hasn’t been a total blank. For a start, yours truly is getting his passport (hopefully reasonably promptly) and will then be zooming over to London. Hopefully in time to see Jonathan before he leaves for North Carolina. It’s also then my intention to go again before summer is over, but as with most travel it’ll come down to holiday time and money, so watch this space.

My surfing habits have been kept partially up to date, and for those who remember the long series of Hurricane Katrina-related posts I made in the autumn of last year, you might be interested to know that the US Army Corps of Engineers have released a voluminous report on what caused the damage in New Orleans — their own shoddy workmanship in building the original levees and floodwalls.

The site has a security certificate you must accept, but it won’t eat away at your private data or give it to George W, so don’t worry.

Flickr’s pool of photos of modernist houses reminds me of a house which very much fits that description here in Northern Ireland. And in Toronto, you can see houses that aren’t houses at all.

Now to the meaning of the photo above: United 93, the movie that by now everyone must know about. It’s a cold, sober examination of events on the ground and in the aircraft on the morning of 9/11, and the handling is masterful. There is no trace of grandiosity, histrionics or pomposity in presenting the material. Although audiences don’t watch films like this one in order to appreciate excellent artistic decisions and directorial mastery, such films would lose much if those advantages were absent and in this film they are not. Go to see it, and prepare for a very intense experience. That’s the sum total of my review.

tags: [hurricane katrina] [new orleans] [modernist houses] [architecture] [9/11] [united 93] [film]

Perfect for the iPod generation?

Well, it’s done. Not just the period of silence on the blog, which was due to the death of a router, but Tate Modern’s rehang. Instead of doing everything pretty much as they had done it the first time round, Tate Modern has changed everything around. Gone are the expansive white walls I knew so well; gone, by the look of it, is the sense of space.

This is one of the most anticipated rehangs of any art gallery in the last 10 or 20 years that I’ve heard of, and the crowds bear witness to that. Indeed, I have heard somewhere that a custodian in the excellent Museum of Modern Art in New York City told a visitor to go to Tate Modern if s/he wanted to see great art.

Lynn Barber has said of the rehang: “There is so much going on, luring you round every corner, that it is difficult to stand still and study a single work of art for any length of time. You feel a self-conscious prat if you do. This is a museum for channel-surfers, for iPod shufflers, for kids with attention deficit disorders — the temptation always is to run around shouting ‘Wow!’”

Why is this? For a start, the juxtapositions of the works are even more jarring and creative than before. Farting sounds from what seems to be a movie about farting apparently intrude into the Rothko room And that is unfortunate. But I didn't think that Monet’s waterlilies suffered the last time from being hung opposite this: in fact the effect was to make the former more alive and settling, the latter deeper, and both more real and strange. This time he’s opposite Jackson Pollock’s Summertime, and I can appreciate why.

The list of themes should serve to satisfy those who don’t want the mental clang of having to wander around and think on their feet. The increased use of the walls to hang paintings in clusters and place one or two above or below each other should please those looking for spectacle. And infuriate those looking for their spectacles. I’m very glad that Joseph Beuys and Cy Twombly are still there, and indeed in a room together (you wonder whether they’d have been happy to be so), but I’m less glad to hear that the Rothko Room is playing host also to flatulence off.

It’s good that photography is hosted here too, particularly this in the Left Gallery on level 3. The presence of photography allied with the gallery’s trademark name will draw a larger crowd, but will it attract the iPod generation? What is the iPod generation anyway?

Young, insecure, and with iPods, according to Wikipedia. Hmm. An acquaintance of mine says he was wondering alone around the rehang the other day with his Ipod on (not full-blast, I hope) and, besides the fact that that would distract me no end, he said he quite enjoyed it. But does that mean those who really care about standing in front of a work for a long time to get the full, er, picture will appreciate it, what with all the crowds? First, it’s worth remembering that the first hang was never crowd-free. Second, most critics seem to like it a lot. I guess it’s too soon yet to lust after the opening of the three massive circular oil tanks underground near the gallery (they are meant to be gallery space sometime).

Last but not least, I haven’t visited it yet. Aside from the obvious pleasurable catching-up with London and its people that I have to do, visiting this rehang will be an essential activity when I’m next there. Because Tate Modern is mine. Very much mine. Dammit.

tags: [tate modern] [art] [galleries] [exhibition] [photography]

Classical 'CD' published online

It’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last: a group of classical musicians have released an opera by Handel exclusively online.

The website on which it is released licenses its music to the public under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike stipulation which is the same as that of the blog you’re reading right now.

In other words, you can listen to a lo-fi version of the music for free through internet streaming, or pay to download a high-quality copy. You can buy a CD which will be made on demand when you order.

However, as liberating as this is for the music, I do have reservations about the quality of the product. It’s all very well to evangelise increased coverage for classical music, but its audience will still be very much the same: classical music lovers.

Given this, a couple of things need to be thought about. First: very few classical lovers currently have the ability to pipe a digital music file to their audiophile hifi equipment (or even their stereo). There are external ways to do it, but until they become standardised in computers and audiophile amps, this platform won’t flourish as much as it could.

Second: CD booklets matter to classical lovers. They want to know about the historical, societal and musical contexts of what they are listening to. They want information on the works, composers, performers and conductors. They want, in some cases, information about the instruments used and the recording venues and dates. And it has to be detailed. In the case of an opera, context alone won’t do; neither will just a libretto.

So far, what I’m seeing is that the digital equivalent of a good classical CD booklet is nowhere to be seen. Hyperion Records has its sleevenotes online, and it has a listening room where I can preview new releases before buying a CD to be played in my hifi. Until the improvements I’ve discussed above appear, this is what I’ll remain happiest with.

tags: [classical music] [creative commons] [opera] [hifi] [audio]

Streets of coffee

We’re entering those wonderful mid-spring evenings which are cool and lush, and get pleasantly chilly a little later with the fading of the sun. That is the time to find the coffeepot, and enjoy little sips of a very hot beverage along with the breeze from a cool window.

And in the fading light, New Yorkers can now be forgiven for thinking that that thing... really is... a cup of coffee in the road...?!

tags: [coffee] [spring]

The Writer

From the suuuuperb blog nyclondon comes this set of photos of Neri’s table and chair on Hampstead Heath. I would post one of the nyclondon photos you’ll see there, but I haven’t the heart.

tags: [london] [photography] [writing] [sculpture] [art]

They're doing it

...already in my garden. Or rather, over the fence. Standing outside a few minutes ago, I heard a loud leathery flapping sound from a tree and at first thought 2 birds were fighting. But no.

I was a shameless voyeur as two pigeons, perching on branches close to each other, flew off and towards each other, beating against each other (heh, pardon the pun) and perching again. This went on for a couple of minutes until the female — shameless hussy that she was — took up a position on a branch in full view of every house in the neighbourhood. I’d like to be able to say that she tried to defend her virginity. But this is the start of the breeding season, so...

Birds must have really shit sex-lives, however, as it was all over in 15 seconds. The female flew onto the school roof, and the male stayed in the tree and went “coo-COOO-coo, coo coo” over and over. Clearly pleased.

Nicked from things magazine, a true site for Londoners: tubemap.org. Pick a tube station and go forth into the surrounding streets, taking photos. Jonathan, Scott and Owen in particular, this is your chance. And Jay, if you get enough time away from the cookies.

This month is also US National Poetry Month, and so as well as reading some great new work (please do check out the title-poem of Seamus Heaney’s new collection, and no he isn’t American but he’s good!) glory with Gothamist over Whitman. And listen to Garrison Keillor. Daily.

tags: [sex] [birds] [london underground] [photography] [poetry]

Spring

spring (n.)
7. A source, origin, or beginning.
8. b. A time of growth and renewal.
— Answers.com Dictionary

A day of bright sun and gentle melancholy today as I slowly close a long weekend in which Jonathan has been visiting. As usual, a mix of homeliness and activity, happiness created and shared, enduring bonds. And at his departure, the knowledge that more friends need to be caught up with, more distances need to be travelled, and reached across with the heart... so it feels like a true new year. A feeling, not yet familiarly comfortable, of newness all around. Truly spring.

tags: [spring]

Black-and-white

It was the talk of New York. The elevator operators, the cab drivers, the doormen, as soon as they saw you with a mask or headdress, they said, “Going to Truman’s ball, huh?” New York had that funny small-town feel to it; they were all excited that you were going to the ball. That part was fun. It was like the Super Bowl.
—Herb Caen, on Truman Capote’s black-and-white ball, New York, 1966

A page of reminiscences about Caopte’s black-and-white ball. There were 540 guests accommodated in the ballroom of the Plaza Hotel. $13,000 was paid by Capote, who at the time could probably easily absorb the cost of 400 bottles of vintage Taittinger. Celebrities and lesser-known writers moved through the grand rooms; later the usual arguments rose and fell in ragged waves, with Caopte, by all accounts, bobbing delightedly in the centre of it all.

tags: [capote] [new york] [masked ball] [black and white]

Capote

A novelist’s life can be lonely: consumed by the responsibility to fix plot, character and atmosphere on the page and make them real, the writer must work long hours and socialise rarely. As such, writers often make uncharismatic impressions, and their works are remembered more than their personalities.

CAPOTE the film invites you to imagine a time when writers achieved the kind of fame and notoriety that is today associated with pop culture personalities. Americans read more in those days than they do now, and books mattered. More importantly, Truman was a natural born self-promoter who paved the way for the cult of celebrity that is omnipresent today. His fame cut across all categories, from high to low culture, from literary seriousness to high society frivolity.
—promotional materials, Capote

Not so for Truman Capote. This film, directed by Bennett Miller, focuses not on his pen or his paper — although they are included — but on his face, his manner, the tilt of his head. The actor who plays him, Philip Seymour Hoffman, allows the audience to focus deeper. His portrayal bores into Capote’s insecurity and coldness as he takes two murderers as the subject of a non-fiction novel which — he assumes — will end in their deaths.

Truman Capote: I couldn’t have done anything to save them.
Nelle Harper Lee: Maybe not, Truman. But the truth is, you didn’t want to.
—Capote, 2005

His predation of the two murderers behind the Clutter murders of 1959 is masterfully dissected here, teased out into strands of determination, offhandedness, obsession, and the sardonic grotesqueries which result after a reading (which he gave while his befriended murderers were still alive and oblivious to the book’s title).

But Hoffman is skillful enough never to let his character slide into purely shallow opportunism. The film’s focus and characterisation are sparse enough to push Capote’s intentions into view for close examination, and what emerges is a very personal obsession with the killers. The writer who at first assumed — and then hoped — that they would die finds himself torn between his cold desire to master the non-fiction novel, and his hope that they might live.

I found myself grimacing with distaste and staring with arrested disbelief at Hoffman’s superb realisation of Capote, but a freakshow or a one-actor show this film is not. As Jonathan said to me by text the other week: “Capote. Go see it. And that’s an order.”

tags: [film] [cinema] [capote]

The little bastards!

Not the lovely clams sitting like divine little marine dumplings on top of the chowder above, of course. Oh no. They look lovely, as Gothamist points out, and aren’t in the least illegitimate.

However, over the past few weeks, peripathetic’s blogger has had at first a set of bites, next an unsightly and infuriating rash, which he suspects were caused by a few biting insects. Which somehow found their way to his skin and proceeded to raise their predatory (and illegitimate) spawn therein.

Of course, it could all have been caused by stress, or at least inflamed by it. But another post on Gothamist has caught your writer’s eye because of this: bedbugs. It turns out that students at Columbia University are being bitten by blister-inducing bloody little bed-infesting bastards, AKA Cimex lectularius, which feed on the blood and can grow to half a centimetre in length.

Of course, an animal that size doesn’t just “feed”. It has to punch its disgusting head violently through several layers of skin and surface tissue, bathe its vile face in blood — your blood — and then suck. A lot.

Oh, and they shit on your sheets afterwards. All over your sheets.

tags: [food] [seafood] [clam chowder] [parasites] [bed bugs]

Golden Gate Suicides — misrepresentation?

During 2004, a guy asked for, and got, permission from the Golden Gate Bridge authorities in San Franscisco to set up cameras which would film the bridge for the whole year.

During daylight hours, that’s whaty happened. Every single movement of the sun along the brick-red girders was recorded; every gradation of shadow and cloud stored away, the shades of the sky over the structure preserved for posterity.

As well as the people jumping off the bridge to their deaths.

Steel says his goal is to “allow us to see into the most impenetrable corners of the human mind and challenge us to think and talk about suicide in profoundly different ways.”

“Are we angry? Absolutely,” said bridge district spokeswoman Mary Currie.

“A guy this duplicitous — there must be a way to yank that stuff away from him,” said Marin County Supervisor Hal Brown, a member of the bridge district’s board. “It’s just a horrible thing to be taking pictures of.”

Interviewed for the linked article, the guy who set up the cameras has now revealed that that is really why he was filming — not to make a snuff movie but to raise troubling and very real questions about the human spirit that are framed by the bridge itself.

After all, give a city’s population something big and universally accessible to jump off, and those who want to kill themselves will use it, breaking their bones and liquefying their internal organs when they hit the water. In 2004 alone, 19 people actually jumped, and more carried out ‘cries for help’.

So how is this project of his unrepresentative of the reality of that bridge? Sure, when dealing with human death by suicide all the precautions necessary when interviewing people and editing a film should be followed. But aside from its history and appearance, the bridge is well–known for suicide. Let the guy make the film. And let him do it well.

tags: [golden gate] [architecture] [suicide]

West 16th Street

w16 street
Originally uploaded by mmonk.

Wow. A snowstorm in the NE USA, and this is New York City. Gorgeous.

3d optical illusions

And now for the reality...

More like this amazing installation / headfuck / here. Via the excellent things magazine.

tags: [optical illusion] [3d] [perspective]

The Prophet of Doom

There aren’t quite any fatwas yet, but if there were, the above image could get the cartoonist killed. As it is, the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten has got its home country into trouble with muslim countries because it printed cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed. He isn’t ever meant to be depicted visually because apparently, to do so would distract from the greatness of Allah.

It started when the paper printed the offending cartoons, and a cacophony of protest washed northwards from muslim countries and crackled over the country lanes of Jutland. The paper has had its second bomb threat in as many days.

Ambassadors from offended countries issued statements of reproach through diplomatic channels, as other European papers showed their solidarity on freedom of expression issues — by reprinting the cartoons themselves.

And then, with a sick sense of inevitability, the first diplomatic rebuke arrived from none other than Norway! Apparently Norway “understands the anger and dismay” (my italics) felt by the aggrieved states, and feels that for a Norwegian paper to reprint the cartoons is “not positive for the dialogue between different cultures and people of different religions”.

Germany’s Der Spiegel said:

But what should one call such a statement? Preventative capitulation? Suicide out of fear of death? A contribution to a multicultural life in which one side acts insulted and the other side promptly takes distance from itself? Or perhaps simply: The interplay of extortion and opportunism.

Today, at least outside of Norway, there is precious little solidarity with Jyllands Posten. The conservative daily Die Welt was the only German paper to show enough courage to reprint the caricatures. In Paris, France Soir stepped up to the occasion.

And what happened then at France Soir? Hmm. Let’s see:

Under the headline “Yes, we have the right to caricature God”, France Soir covered its front with Buddha, the Christian and Jewish deities and the Prophet all sitting on a cloud. The Christian God says: “Don’t complain Muhammad, all of us have been caricatured.”

Shortly after the paper appeared, however, its managing editor, Jacques Lefranc, was sacked. Raymond Lakah, the paper’s owner, issued a public apology: “We express our regrets to the Muslim community and all people who were shocked by the publication” of the cartoons, he said.

The Danish paper has now also been forced to apologise. Its editor has done so reluctantly, conceding that the forces of self-righteous indignation have won again, and predicting that nobody in Denmark will draw a cartoon of Mohammed for the next 10 years or more.

Whatever the truth of that augury, here is a page which has an article on the scandal and full-size reproductions of the cartoons. There’s a blog, called ‘Draw Mohammed Week’. MetaFilter discussion. Latest updates on this Wikipedia timeline. And finally, I’ll also support France Soir as it was before its editor was sacked, for writing this:

It is necessary to crush once again the infamous thing, as Voltaire liked to say. This religious intolerance that accepts no mockery, no satire, no ridicule. We citizens of secular and democratic societies are summoned to condemn a dozen caricatures judged offensive to Islam. Summoned by who? By the Muslim Brotherhood, by Syria, the Islamic Jihad, the interior ministers of Arab countries, the Islamic Conferences — all paragons of tolerance, humanism and democracy.

So, we must apologise to them because the freedom of expression they refuse, day after day, to each of their citizens, faithful or militant, is exercised in a society that is not subject to their iron rule. It’s the world upside down. No, we will never apologise for being free to speak, to think and to believe.

Because these self-proclaimed doctors of law have made this a point of principle, we have to be firm. They can claim whatever they like but we have the right to caricature Muhammad, Jesus, Buddha, Yahve and all forms of theism. It’s called freedom of expression in a secular country ...

For centuries the Catholic church was little better than this fanaticism. But the French Revolution solved that, rendering to God that which came from him and to Caesar what was due to him.

Moving on, lest I explode: lovely panoramas of New York, via Gothamist. If you live in the UK and are interested in the historical mapping of your surname, make with the clicking. The perils and pleasures of literary translation. (I once had some experience of this, and my god, it was fun. And infuriating.)

tags: [muhammad] [mohammed] [prophet] [religion] [extremism] [fanaticism] [atheism] [cartoons] [comedy] [denmark] [europe] [freedom of expression] [new york] [surnames] [translation] [literature]

Pipe organ building...?!

Here’s a very strange photo. Sorry I can’t provide a larger shot, but my photo links to the photo page, which in turn links to a very large full-size original — of a building, somewhere in Japan, whose façade seems to have been designed to mimic an organ!

A bit of googling gets you nowhere, because if you search for “pipe organ building” you’ll get pages about the building and construction of the musical instruments themselves. If anyone happens upon this post and has any knowledge, please let me know via comments, or my username at gmail dot com. Thanks...

tags: [pipe organ] [classical music] [architecture] [design] [japan]

Historical miscellany

Dropping by the excellent Things Magazine tonight, I’ve found one of the best repositories of historical maps of cities there could possibly be online. And of course, when I visited the London page, and another site linked from it, I started to think yet again about London. — Although not before I’d also looked at another recommendation which seems to be mostly maps of Swiss towns and cities.

Handy, then, that I clicked into Wikipedia’s page about London’s streams and rivers (now all fascinatingly hidden underground) — this is the real value of a site like Wikipedia. Many people call for its destruction but I can’t think of another way to get a comprehensive list and helpful links about such a subject on a single page. Can you?

To further business. We don’t often think too much about the now fragmentary and evanescent ‘street history’ of London. Mostly we think of the great fire or the menace of the Spanish Armada, but not how Moorgate got its name, or whether the new, shining walls of the corporations can measure up to those of the Romans. Nor do they think of the hidden delights like Bunhill cemetery, which I encountered before a job interview near Old Street, and in which William Blake is buried.

Which is all very strange, because in London, the modern world and the open wells of living history coexist on the streets. So next time you wander your city, do it with your eyes open.

tags: [london] [cemeteries] [romans] [maps] [history]

Cold... and snow on the wind...?

It’s a cold night, and I have been dreaming of London, and walks along Bankside past the New Globe, to get to Tate Modern. Where they will have a new gallery space this December, called Poetry and Dream. It sounds enchanting. And the above painting will be shown there.

Tate Modern in winter was dark and spacious — in winter it seemed even more spacious than it did in summer. Perhaps it was the neutral light and commanding works inside standing monolithic against the ever-changing city outside. Anyway, I only really posted this because I love this painting and it suits the night.

tags: [twombly] [winter] [cold] [london] [art]

Uncledom

I just called a friend of mine and the first thing I heard when he answered was not his voice, but the half-babyish, half-boyish attempts at speaking of his nephew.

Of course, we can never remember that far back in our lives, but how wonderful it must have been to realise, in glimpses, that our parents’ noises meant something. That we could make those noises. And how adventurous and exciting to start to make them ourselves.

My niece’s first properish word (or that I heard, at least) apart from ‘mamamamamamam’ was ‘shit’. But sort of like ɕɪʔ rather than ʃɪt. The wonders of a characterful mother! ;o)

tags: [language] [swearing] [phonetics] [speaking]

New Year musings

Well, another year... we’re in the strange and wonderful interregnum between the start of 2006 and the end of Christmas. I know that when the new year glow dies down for many, they assume that’s it — the end of the holidays; time to stow presents and cards away into the usual places of everyday life; the candles don’t get lit again; perhaps the tree even gets put away early.

All of which is anathema to me. Although religion has nothing to do with it as far as I’m concerned, I still like to think I keep Christmas in the way it should be kept: a reservation of time shared with family and friends, an appreciation of the childlike magic inherent in the season as winter really starts in earnest and all the contrasts between humanity and shivering nature are on display.

I love the decorations — around this house are sprigs of holly, some gathered from our tree in the garden, some from elsewhere, and to me it brings an exciting, sharp reminder of coldness and pagan ceremonies into a warm, cosy house. The tree contains some sparkling glass decorations and painted eggshells which I remember marvelling at when I was 5 or so.

For at least a few minutes each Christmas — possibly more — I go back to being 5. This is not about holding back the return of the everyday for a little while longer; every Christmas, I simply don’t feel the return of the everyday until sometime mid-January, even when I’m back at work.

For now, this house is warm, a cold sun shines on the ice-filmed twigs in the garden, and pies and cakes bulge with dark, spicy fruits laden with fiery alcohol. Millions of children still look at their empty stocking in wonder because Santa actually touched it... why waste that? Happy New Year, everybody. :o)

tags: [christmas] [new year] [relaxation]

Absences

This article says that prolonged silences on blogs are usually the result of bloggers getting disillusioned with the process, or lazy, or affecting a writerly repose. That’s not the reason for the latest silence here — and I apologise for it — which has instead been caused by a mixture of work, work, tiredness, more work, The Lord of the Rings DVD set, and most recently a week without a wireless router.

However, all of that is now solved. Today I was pointed towards an excellent blog about cooked breakfasts to be had in London, and reminded, with the arrival of a Christmas card from Jonathan, that I haven’t followed through with my cunning plan of actually writing cards to people this year and including little haiku in them. Oh well. *blush*

tags: [london] [breakfast] [food]

Ice wine

If you are at all excited by food and wine, the approach of Christmas, the excitement of shopping for increasingly special food and drink as this month progresses, you need to read this article in today’s Observer Magazine, in which Nigel Slater is educated by Tim Atkin:

As I bring in the long, thin mincemeat tart straight from the oven, Mr Atkin produces a glass of Riesling from the most elegant bottle I have ever seen, long and slim like a Giacometti sculpture. The contents are the colour of purest acacia honey. This is Tim's ‘navel’ wine and I see precisely what he means, though he declines my suggestion of a hands-on demonstration. He passes me a glass of garnet-red Port.

We take a mouthful of hot mince pie, followed swiftly by another of the chilled Riesling ice wine. ‘Look at the legs on that,’ says Tim, pointing out the rather beautiful pattern of streaks and dribbles trickling slowly down the sides of the glass. ‘The Germans call them “Cathedral windows”, the French call them “legs”.’ Their presence is a big clue as to the viscosity and richness of the wine. I’m listening, but it is difficult when you are eating a mouthful of food and wine that is so utterly, gloriously sublime. Soft, honeyed, sweet, hot, icy, intensely fruity and buttery — a mouthful that tastes like all your Christmases have come at once.

The wine, by the way, is this and is buyable here. You will have to make your own mincemeat and apple tart. And it will be a pleasure. Trust me.

tags: [food] [wine] [ice] [christmas] [pleasure]

Of waking from dreams

A few nights ago, I went to bed feeling not exactly anxious about the morrow, but aware that I would have to uncurl myself from my warm cocoon at an obscene hour and drag myself, defenceless and half-asleep, into an alien world. The following morning, I woke of my own accord a few minutes before the sterile bleep of the alarm.

For all of you who have done the same, here’s why. Absolutely fascinating.

When the volunteers knew they would be woken at six, levels of the central stress hormone adrenocorticotropin began rising around 4:30 a.m. But subjects expecting to wake at nine and rudely awakened at six experienced no such hormonal surge. Our bodies, in other words, note the time we hope to begin our day and gradually prepare us for consciousness…

The next question to be answered is: how is it that we are able to start the process of waking ourselves up, about an hour before a set time, while we are unconscious?

tags: [sleep] [waking] [hormones] [science]

‽

Sorry I haven’t been posting too much of late. Work, and all. Not that I haven’t wanted to — but tiredness and the desire to vegetate takes over...

So, to business. It’s snowing outside. Not heavily, and not forecast to be that heavy here either, but it is snow! And it’s also the first snow I can remember this early in the winter. So, I think it deserves a hearty “WTF?!”.

So here, for your enjoyment, are two typographical delights: the WTF ligature (which also includes ROFL for good measure), and the interrobang. (Warning: the first link isn’t suitable for work at time of posting, due to a rather yucky picture a good way down the page; hopefully the forum ops will remove it.)

Via MetaFilter.

tags: [ligature] [typography] [wtf] [?!] [!?]

Big scary clouds

Now, that is one massive big fuck-off scary cloud. Actually, if you want to get technical, it’s a supercell. Who are we to argue? I found it, via Plep (see sidebar) at the Cloud Appreciation Society (aww), and it links to the photographer’s own staggering site.

If you ever wanted to tell whether that 400-year-old document or Roman tablet you have is authentic, or just understand them better, go to this Palæography site.

“You need not say anything. You have nothing to hope from any promise or favour and nothing to fear from any threat whether or not you say anything.” The Miranda warnings of the world, at Metafilter.

And finally, and most importantly of all, BBC Radio 3 is broadcasting the complete works of J.S. Bach from the 16th of December, ending on Christmas Day. There will be quite a galaxy of performers, presenters and interviewees — and, arguably, the finest single corpus of pieces by any composer/musician, ever.

tags: [cloud] [weather] [palaeography] [miranda] [bach] [music]

A miscellany (mostly Londonish, actually)

I went on an unashamedly pleasureable surf just now to distract myself from the looming job (pah) and in the process turned up some rather fine things. The Virtual Tours of Architecture site has a basic layout but gems within. Among them are London’s Black Friar pub (which I’ve never been to and really must go before they ban smoking) and the Frank Lloyd Wright room inside the V&A.

Even if you’re not interested in astronomy, the BBC’s Sky at Night TV series, presented since time immemorial by Patrick Moore, is enchanting. Moore is always fun to watch anyway, but the most endearing thing is that the programme never pitched itself to mass appeal, so you feel you are eavesdropping on geekery. The site’s strength is that you can actually watch the episodes.

Sticking to London (it is autumn after all and I won’t be able to make Thanksgiving with Jonathan), Croydon Tramlink is the capital’s only tram network. Apart from trains and tubes, it was one of my first well-used routes when I lived in South London and had to commute to the meadows outside Mitcham each day.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec inspired licentiousness in his own time, and his work has inspired many artists since. The site concentrates on how his work and Montmartre worked off each other.

Belfast has, so far this week, felt very autumnal and raw — lots of high wind and cold wetness. Already the Christmas decorations have gone up in the local shopping-centre, and while I hate that kind of thing because it dissolves the magic of having a very concentrated celebration, this small exhibition of London Underground posters inspired by winter and Christmas is worth a look.

tags: [architecture] [art] [transport] [paris] [london]

Razzle-Dazzle

God, I never thought I’d be starting a post with that title anytime soon. Boing Boing has a post about Razzle-Dazzle camouflage, used primarily in World War I battleships to confuse the enemy.

When painted with strange stripes and colours, it’s difficult for a submarine commander, for example, to tell precisely which heading the ship is on, as well as its size, outline and speed.* You can see why. The effect must have been bewildering, as this painting shows.

* This mattered because torpedoes were slow and the movement and angle of the target were crucial to a hit which would actually pierce the hull in the right place to cause magazine explosions or enough flooding to force a capsize or sinking.

tags: [razzle-dazzle] [battleships] [navy] [painting]

Halloween

The eve of the Feast of All Saints, early evening, and I hear fireworks going off outside. I remember standing in the back garden, in darkness, as a small child with the fiery magic of a sparkler held before me, watching as elfin friends’ faces, lit up with different-coloured fire, seemed to zoom disembodied through the air.

I never once got burned at Hallowe’en, and we never had fireworks — those have always been associated with Christmas for me — but I do remember the pumpkin — or, in our case, the turnip — hung up on the beam outside, so wicked on the night and so corpselike the next day, wizening gradually until it started to smell of decay and old candles and had to be thrown out. I remember not liking toffee apples, but loving putting our pennies, covered in candle-drippings, into a bowl of boiling water after we got back from trick-or-treat.

From Wikipedia:

Some games traditionally played at Halloween are forms of divination. In Puicíní (pronounced “pooch-eeny”), a game played in Ireland, a blindfolded person is seated in front of a table on which several saucers are placed. The saucers are shuffled and the seated person then chooses one by touch. The contents of the saucer determine the person's life for the following year. A saucer containing earth means someone known to the player will die during the next year, a saucer containing water foretells travel, a coin means new wealth, a bean means poverty, etc. In 19th-century Ireland, young women placed slugs in saucers sprinkled with flour. The wriggling of the slugs and the patterns subsequently left behind on the saucers were believed to portray the faces of the women's future spouses.

It’s all very pagan, really. The Celts believed that the new year started on the 1st of November, with the celebration of Samhain, the beginning of winter and a time when the boundaries between the living and the dead were blurred. And on this night in 1938, Orson Welles played a frightening trick on radio listeners by broadcasting his production of The War of the Worlds.

tags: [halloween] [samhain]

Despair, Inc.

Now, I know I don’t usually post links to companies, but this one, selling superb reworkings of workplace ‘motivational’ posters, is inspired. And since I just got word that I’m starting another job in a fortnight, I thought it best to focus on essentials.

tags: [work] [motivation] [business] [idling]

Greenland

Everything you always wanted to know about Greenland, but were too clueless to ask. Additionally — original documents all about World War 2. Come on, I can’t be the only person out there to be interested in this sort of thing. A Passion for Jazz, which contains, among other things, a really impressive interactive tool for displaying various keys, chords, modes and scales on graphical piano keys.

Night photography in the UK, which has a stupendously good opening image. All these links are from the superb Plep, which is just about the richest and most linkworthy weblog I've ever seen, and which has been added to the blogroll. However it has a glaring fault: its archive pages are white text against a horribly–coloured background so please, Plep person, if you read this... change it? Please?

tags: [greenland] [jazz] [chords] [modes] [scales] [photography] [uk] [web design]

Light, wood, and angles

And you get this as a result. It’s a ‘mirror’ made of little wooden panels, lit from the top, and when someone stands in front of it the panels are tilted by a computer to produce a corresponding image. Once you think about the understanding of light and shade required to create it, rather than just the computer which operates it, it’s quite amazing.

Also, inspired by wonderful and expansive threads about classical music on Metafilter, I decided to nick a big pile of my dad’s CDs and rip them. (Remember, when ripping classical music to mp3, use LAME for encoding, and make sure that you choose the “extreme” preset to make sure that the bitrate averages about 300. If you want lossless ripping, still with some compression, but very large filesizes, use FLAC.)

And what riches I rediscovered. If blogs are your way of finding out about anything new or interesting, try reading these classical music blogs: PostClassic, Sequenza21, The Rest is Noise.

Panoramic views of the extravagantly decorated metro stations of Moscow. An utterly superb site.

tags: [music] [classical music] [art] [wood] [moscow] [metro]

House on the Rock

Following on from the earlier post which touched on the wild Winchester Mystery House, I was introduced (via a post on MetaFilter about said abode) to the House on the Rock, Wyoming Valley, US. It seems to be a chaotic museum with insanely large collections of everything, including some cobbled-together organ consoles with 15 manuals, etc. etc. Also, there’s an infinity room — really a huge cantilevered glass spike projecting horizontally over the treetops. Its end is the photo above.

Other things: Gothamist announces that Apple have a new iPod out, and a new iMac too. No official announcements yet, but MetaFilter links to advance photos.

Finally, again, shameless linking to other sites with no real discoveries of my own — Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony — lots of interesting resources. And for the sake of completeness, take a look at how the creaky classical industry responded to the BBC’s Beethoven download-fest earlier this year.

tags: [architecture] [quirky] [iPod] [iMac] [music] [beethoven]

Lovely roofscapes, and more

A while ago, I was entranced by a feature in Time Out New York about rooftop homes and gardens in New York. From the old Brooklyn Daily Eagle building (where a wonderful loft apartment has been created) to Rockefeller Center above, it has photos of wonderful homes, not to mention a Japanese tea garden. Photos from ground level are also included to give some perspective on how magic these places are.

This month, New York opens its doors for the yearly NY Open House — places you usually wouldn’t be able to see can be home to your wandering feet and prying eyes. I particularly like the building of the Folk Art Museum, and the Prince George Hotel — those are in Manhattan alone.

I’m reminded of my wander around various forbidden London places in 2001. London Open House was the aider and abetter of those transgressive trips over a weekend, in which I visited the Midland Grand Hotel, 19 Princelet Street (wonderful place, wonderful), the Old Operating Theatre (stuck in the roof of a Queen Anne church!)... and I probably intended to visit more after the Hotel, but Jonathan and I probably had more immediately pressing engagements with a cosy café.

Back to New York for a moment: a young poet drowned in the Hudson River after jumping in to retrieve a dropped bag containing his notebook. Writers among you will understand. And moving away from New York while still including it: amazingly goodlooking underground railway stations throughout the world.

tags: [new york] [london] [roof gardens] [architecture]

It's not safe! Not safe, I tell you! - Cut!

A can of worms is always opened up when members of a utilitarian profession criticise the way in which members of a creative, or (literally speaking) useless profession go about their work. Angry exchanges arise because, after all, utilitarian professionals have chosen their particular career in line with their concerns — and people with particular concerns usually feel that those concerns should be shared by all. So they give their opinions a passionate airing.

And in the wider world outside narrow subjects of concern, the majority of people listen to the raised voices and hear a risible, interfering whine.

That’s what I hear in today’s accusation by doctors, writing in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, that Hollywood films are very bad and irresponsible because in the space of one film, characters have sex but don’t often develop STDs.

Other concerns proceeding from the furrowed medical brow are that drugs are used, but with no health warning flashing up onscreen. Or condoms aren’t held up to the camera in what could, in the end, only be seen as a sermonizing way which would arguably ruin a film.

Dr Gunasekera and his two co-authors, Simon Chapman and Sharon Campbell, studied the top 200 movies of all time, as listed on the Internet Movie Database in March 2004. The researchers excluded any movie filmed before 1983, the pre-HIV era.

In 68%, people smoked and in 32% they got drunk. In only 8% was cannabis used and in 7% people took other non-injecting drugs. The researchers say the portrayal tended to be positive and without negative consequences. “The study showed there were no references to important consequences of unsafe sex such as HIV transmission, spread of STDs or unwanted pregnancy,” said Dr Gunasekera. “The social norm being presented in movies is concerning, given the HIV and illicit drug pandemics in developing and industrialised countries.”

Basic Instinct has six episodes of sex with no condoms used, no birth control and no public health consequences. American Pie has seven sex scenes, all involving new partners with no condoms or birth control measures. The “only consequences were social embarrassment”, the report says. Die Another Day has three sex episodes, all with new partners, “no condoms, no birth control, no consequences at all”.

Far be it from me to claim knowledge of all the intricacies of medical knowledge undoubtedly possessed by the concerned physicians. But, in the nicest possible way, bollocks to them. :o) Exhibiting all the awareness of cro-magnon man, they have spectacularly failed to recognise an exceptionally simple, visible, downright glaring point — which I’ve occasionally taken issue with here — Hollywood is not about providing culturally relevant teaching, but largely mindless entertainment.

Please, good doctors, realise this: the ramifications of your profession indeed extend to the bodies of every single one of us, but we all have wider lives countless times more massive than any profession can be. Don’t sermonise, or we’ll be forced to issue statements expressing our urgent and pressing concern regarding the lack of incidence of top-notch acting in medicine. ;o)

If you want to write to one of the doctors, follow the first link above: contact info’s given, refreshingly.

tags: [medicine] [movies] [film] [hollywood] [american pie] [sex] [drugs] [health]

Harvard's 'Court' against homosexuality

In 2002, a researcher for The Harvard Crimson came across a restricted archive labeled “Secret Court Files, 1920.” The mystery he uncovered involved a tragic scandal in which Harvard University secretly put a dozen students on trial for homosexuality and then systematically and persistently tried to ruin their lives.

In May of 1920, Cyril Wilcox, a freshman suspended from Harvard, was found sprawled dead on his bed, his room filled with gas — a suicide. The note he left behind revealed his secret life as part of a circle of homosexual students. The resulting witch hunt and the lives it cost remains one of the most shameful episodes in the history of America’s premiere university. Supported by legendary Harvard President Lawrence Lowell, Harvard conducted its investigation in secrecy. Several students committed suicide; others had their lives destroyed by an ongoing effort on the part of Harvard to destroy their reputations.

The above is from the blurb of a book about the matter; I happened upon this subject for the first time ever just now, on this Metafilter thread, whose main link is a lengthy, thorough and devastating article in the Harvard Crimson, backed up with another opinion piece and a Washington Post column. If you find the article link expires in future, contact me for a copy via the comments.

If I lived even close to Harvard, I’d be trying to find out all I could about the members of ‘the Court’ and why, in 1920, they felt privately compelled and lawfully able to not simply investigate and expel gay students in secret, but to then hound them throughout their future lives. It’s not as creepy, exactly, as Yale’s posture photos and the rather Nazi ideals behind them, but it is as glaring and grotesque a story of ceaseless, ruthless, deliberate ruination of lives as any I’ve seen.

tags: [sexuality] [scandal] [harvard] [discrimination] [human rights]

Robert Smithson: Floating Island

Robert Smithson, best known for creating Spiral Jetty (which I previously examined) has had a posthumous triumph with the eventual creation of his Floating Island, first planned by him in 1970. His concept was not detailed: apart from the general form and that the trees should come from the New York region, all that was required was that the ‘island’ was to be constructed on a river barge.

Well, the island finally made it to New York. There’s a flickr photoset of the island here. A blogger eloquently examines a more forgotten Smithson work, Amarillo Ramp.

Just so I don’t neglect them through lack of a better place to file them, here are two oddities: a mysterious oil which acts directly on the central nervous system to produce dangerous delusions which are hard to treat, and a wild, rambling house.

tags: [robert smithson] [manhattan] [religion]

Katrina roundup from Boing Boing

Here, because I can’t be bothered to source and write cogent posts when blocked up with cold. Sorry, people. Back properly soon.

tags: [hurricane katrina] [louisiana] [new orleans]

Bus fire kills Rita evacuees - London civilian harassed by police - NO flood alert

A short post as I battle a cold. Three pieces of news — all bad.

Evacuees on a bus to Dallas, TX have been killed by a fire on the bus carrying them away from Hurricane Rita’s path. The 24 elderly people were trapped and killed when the fire broke out spontaneously and was fed by oxygen they were carrying.

The Times-Picayune reports water seeping back into streets in New Orleans adjacent to the Industrial Canal on its west side.

A civilian in London was detained, checked, found to be innocent and then arrested by other officers while his house was searched and possessions taken.

Police first detained him because he was wearing a jacket ‘too warm for the season,’ did not make eye contact with police at the entrance to Southwark tube station, kept his rucksack with him at all times, and looked at other people while waiting for a train.

His rucksack was checked by bomb squad officers and found to contain a laptop; he was allowed to collect his belongings and start to leave but was then arrested on the insistence of other officers who entered the station afterwards. Further enquiries and a search of his house found nothing untoward but the man has not been reunited with his possessions and no proper apology has been given.

This is outrageous: London Metropolitan Police operations should only be undertaken where there is a credible threat to public safety, and not engaged in when police wish to conjure an illusion of absolute safety for PR reasons by violating an individual’s civil liberties in circumstances where there is clearly no threat. MetaFilter discussion.

tags: [hurricane rita] [new orleans] [london] [metropolitan police]

Love in Action told: stop that lovin'

Love in Action, the christian anti-gay brainwashing outfit which claims to ‘cure’ those who aren’t heterosexual of their depraved desires, has been ordered to shut down its centres by the state of Tennessee.

For those who don’t know what Love in Action is, here is my previous post on its unlawful detention of a gay teenager unwilling to be brainwashed, here is the aftermath of his detention, and here is the previous MetaFilter discussion. A blog post tracking the issue, and an entire blog about protesting Love in Action. Back to the news:

The state inspected two facilities in Memphis on Aug. 19 and determined Love In Action International Inc. was providing housing, meals and personal care for mentally ill patients without a license, according to a subsequent letter to the organization from the Department of Mental Health.

The department gave Love In Action until Sept. 23 to cease operation of the facilities and apply for a state license.

Now, this is interesting. The Department wrote to Love in Action and closed it down over an objection that it was prescribing medication to people it had classified as mentally ill without a licence.

This could mean one of two things: that the Department is itself anti-gay, as it considers after investigating that Love in Action’s prisoners are mentally ill by virtue of their sexuality (which seems unlikely); or that it is simply using existing legislation in whatever way it can to close down an operation it considers to be heinous in nature (much more likely).

What is even more interesting is what will happen next. What of the people who have been mentally damaged by the cult’s ‘efforts’ thus far? Will they be interviewed by the State? Will they be offered treatment for post-traumatic stress? Will they be assisted to sue the holy asses off these discriminatory monsters?

Additionally, what of Love in Action itself? If you look at its website, and click through to the Refuge section, it is now conspicuously changed from what it was, to promote a more “we’re not just dealing with sexuality” standpoint. Crucially, a careful read reveals that the practice of gathering young LGB people away from their family for a week or more has been shelved — but for the present only, I suspect. It would be very easy for this operation to morph into a different name, a different organisation, move to a different state... I’ll keep you posted.

[love in action] [sexuality] [religion] [brainwashing]

New Orleans updates

The probability of New Orleans facing renewed disaster in the future is explored in this article — meanwhile power has been restored to about 78% of the nearly 1m homes which lost it as a result of the hurricane. Power companies have been hit hard by the cost of repairs versus their revenue, with Entergy New Orleans considering filing for bankruptcy despite being able to operate.

Energy companies are, at the same time, evacuating the Gulf Coast area again in preparation for Hurricane Rita, which is expected to hit the Texas coast, well westwards of Louisiana and New Orleans. It is currently an extremely strong Category 4 storm.

Back in New Orleans, cleanup from Katrina continues with residents who returned hospitalised by stepping on nails, falling from roofs, or even stepping in water with cut feet. Federal flood insurance cheques are being rushed to policy-holders in an overdue acceleration of normal payouts, while further claims will have to be filed for nearly one-quarter of a million cars which were lost to the storm.

tags: [hurricane katrina] [new orleans] [hurricane rita]

Takk... (þessi var fallegur)

Sigur Rós are still most famous for Njósnavélin, their song from the album ( ) which appears near the end of the movie Vanilla Sky. They are notorious among unimaginative denizens of pop culture for the lack of lyrics in their music.

That’s a misunderstanding, and it’s wrong to say they have never sung: lead singer and guitarist jón þór birgisson does sing, but sometimes in a flow of vowel and consonant sounds which sound like Icelandic but actually aren’t language as we know it — it is called vonlenska or ‘hopelandic’. While we’re on the subject, each album, apart from ( ), has had a real-word title and real-word song titles, and has been sung mostly in Icelandic.

This new album, Takk..., contains a few hopelandic songs, and is a happier collection than ( ). Since three of the four members have married since ( ) and jónsi is happily settled with his boyfriend, this is unsurprising:

the album is called takk [thanks]. why?
takk. it’s a word that’s followed us through the years. oh, and it also means thank you.
does this word reflect your outlook towards music?
yes. we are thankful. we are content with where we are now and how things have worked out.
and where are you now?
we’re in a good place. we feel good. we get to make this music. it’s a privilege.
it’s safe to say you’ve done well.
yes. and not just that. we’re happy about our lives. but of course, things will go up and down.
is there a concept behind takk?
no. we have never been much for concepts even though it sometimes looks like it. concepts come afterwards. when you look closely at a work it’s always easy to find a concept there but we have never approached a project with a predetermined concept in mind. it’s not our style, really. sigur rós is not a clever band. there are no deep thoughts behind what we are doing.

Taken in that spirit, this album, as well as being happier than the last, embodies both the quiet and ecstatic frames of mind that arise out of a settled, grounded life. The mood it generated in my mind is the same quiet, centred, aching mood I have had while walking in beautiful, harsh outdoor surroundings: Sigur Rós are known to enjoy the landscapes of their native country, but it is the known and remembered mood that helps the process here, rather than the landscape itself.

inspiration is everywhere and nowhere. i can’t point in any direction. inspiration comes from your environment, the people you surround yourself with, movies, books, soap operas, mom and dad, nature. whatever. i’ve never been in a situation where i’ve felt i’m inspired by it. i have never gotten a great idea standing on a mountain. i’ve been up on a mountain and enjoyed how it made me feel. this might of course influence me as a person but that doesn’t mean it inspires me to make a piece of music.

And while this magnificent lifting of the spirit from ordinary things is evident in the album’s couple of impassioned crescendos, a quieter happiness is evident in tracks like Hoppípolla, whose lyrics are about jumping in puddles. Jónsi says of the lyrics: “when it comes to words we freeze up. we listened to the songs together and let the music trigger words in us. i think we learned something from this experience. the lyrics are very simple and naïve. moments and small adventures. nothing too deep.”

This music is magnificent, and of course while it’s interesting to surf around and find trascriptions and translations of the lyrics, they are not everything. The album definitely doesn’t fit within pop culture, which Sigur Rós seem to creatively dislike. I love it, and I highly recommend it.

As far as interest in the band goes, there is naturally only one place to visit: eighteen seconds before sunrise.

tags: [music] [sigur ros] [takk]

Paragraph

This is such a good idea: you’re a writer, adrift in the big city. Or your apartment’s in a mess, or full of people, or there’s a building site down the road that’s giving you some disturbance. Or you just need somewhere else to write.

So, providing you have things to work on and can stump up a few hundred dollars, pop to West 14th Street in New York, enter your PIN number on the door and walk into Paragraph, a writers’ space with a fireplace, a library and a kitchen where you can store your food.

It’s like a hotel for the creative mind. No sleazy assignations, mind.

If I could, I’d open one here called Line, and it’d have an ashtray as well. Heh.

tags: [writing] [creativity] [new york]

160,000-barrel oil spill nears final cleanup

160,000 barrels of oil which spilled from a refinery in Chalmette and from other storage facilities in Plaquemines Parish and Port Sulphur have been nearly cleaned up after a third was recovered and the rest evaporated and naturally dispersed.

However, the spill has wrought as yet unknwon havoc on local ecosystems, already fragile and shrinking before Hurricane Katrina hit. Costs incurred by local and State governments which have to deal with the damage are being repaid by FEMA which will release a total of $460m to satisfy costs related to all emergency activities.

The damage done in some areas has passed others by, and houses in areas which escaped flooding are expected to rise in value by 10-15%. The areas which escaped most unharmed are West Jefferson, River Ridge, Kenner, Madeville, Conington and Slidell.

Meanwhile, damage to roads has been estimated as at least $2.3 billion, which does not include damage to traffic signals and signs, ports, airports, levees, or trains and streetcars.

tags: [new orleans] [louisiana] [hurricane katrina]