According to Palmer, the Maggot Baby is hatching soon.
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Drunken Fuckwit Mangles Bikes
Last weekend the missus and I headed to Monterey for a relaxing weekend on the Pacific coast. We took our bikes and locked them to the railing between our motel room and the car park. We figured nobody would steal our bikes, they’re not exactly top models. However, when we got home on Saturday evening, after snapping the sunset, a pleasant dinner and a couple of drinks, our bikes had disappeared. Just as the idea of our bikes being stolen was sinking in, we realised the railing was gone too, and the smell of diesel was hanging in the air. Then we found our bikes.
Arsebook
New video: Sustainability Fair 2007
Last week I finished editing a short documentary profiling the Sustainability Fair the Davis Food Co-op held back in July. I could spend ages tidying it up and making it perfect, but I don’t really have time.
If you’re interested in reading my self-criticism, after the jump are some of the bits I’d spend time fixing in an ideal world in which days last 48 hours, I work for eight hours a day and need to sleep for only seven.
Green Window Dressing
It looks like M&S is working to reduce its carbon footprint, which is a good thing. However, their marketing surrounding the introduction of sustainable technologies exaggerates the effect it will have.
The chain’s first wind turbine, in Aberdeenshire, will provide renewable energy to the branches, which bosses say will lead to a drop of 55% in their energy use. This, the company says, will also contribute to the shops producing 95% less carbon dioxide.
[source: Guardian Unlimited]
It all depends on how you define a shop I suppose. If, like M&S seem to, you limit your measurements to the building itself, then you will achieve a huge reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. However a shop is not just a building. It needs to be stocked, and M&S’s goods are still made all over the world and travel many thousands of miles before they reach the shops. The food sold in their shops is often highly processed and overly packaged single-serving meals. Surely carbon dioxide generated by the manufacture, packing and shipping of goods needs to be taken into account when calculating a shop’s carbon footprint. Seen in these terms the reduction in carbon footprint is far smaller. Taking a wild guess, I’d imagine it’s closer to ten or twelve percent.
Now they’re starting to address environmental concerns in the part of the business that is most obvious to the customer, will they extend that thinking into the most polluting parts of their business? Does this news herald a deep-rooted change in their business plan or is their environmental commitment just window dressing?
Playing catch-up
Recently I’ve had ideas for posts, but I’ve either been at work, visiting family, or too tired to be bothered blogging.
I’m determined to make time to write, produce, shoot and edit a short before the year is out, so I’m slotting in screenwriting time when I can. I’m also helping a couple of friends out with shorts, and still trying to finish off editing another couple of projects – one’s work related, the other is not.
What else? I snagged myself a copy of Lindsay Anderson’s If….. I enjoyed it, but would have taken even more from had I not been tired and corpulently well-fed the night I watched it. Court and I rented Truffaut’s Day for Night the other day, and both loved every second, which is rare, and we just watched Miyazaki’s Kiki’s Delivery Service, which was delightful. Now I’ve consumed two feelgood movies in a row, I feel my next cinematic entertainment should be thoroughly perverse.
It will please certain people to discover that Courtney’s been renting DVDs of the re-made Battlestar Galactica this week. I’ve been watching a few with her, and I’m actually really quite impressed. There’s a sense of restraint in the action sequences and with only one real exception, the tension and plotting is good. It also gives a lead role to the guy who played the origami-making cop in Blade Runner.
No Stone
Here’s why my missus ain’t got no stone – check out this De Beers parody.
New Cinematic Orchestra Album
I’m just about to give Ma Fleur its first listen.
Update: It’s very nice indeed.
Three Day Weekend
A three day weekend is a chance to blog! It seems my free time has dwindled to nothing recently, which is OK for the most part, except right towards the end of my week, when I simultaneously want to sleep and have enough fun to reward me for my hard work in the last few days.
Why am I so busy? Two jobs, dear readers, will make one very busy indeed. I already mentioned the job at Davis Media Access. About a month after that I landed myself a part-time position doing grant admin work and other bits and bobs at the Community Alliance with Family Farmers. Both jobs are rewarding in completely different ways, and in both cases I’m learning genuinely useful stuff – for instance, last week I learned an awful lot about pomology. I’m also knocking myself into shape with some exercise.
My heaviest day is Thursday. I’m up at 7:30, on my bike by 8:30. By 9:00 I’ve normally cycled the five miles to CAFF. It’s a pleasant ride. I’ll record it on video sometime. I work at CAFF from 9am-2pm, then I cycle back to Davis for a 2:30 game of squash with my friend Tony. If my legs still work at 3:30pm I can get home, shower, change and bike to DMA by 4pm. I work there until 9pm, although I often don’t get out on time, and if I’m lucky Courtney has dinner waiting for me sometime around 9:30pm.
By doing this I get my 40 hours out of the way in four days, theoretically leaving me three days for fun and relaxation. However, Sundays are currently special project days at DMA, so most weeks I nip in there for four or five hours to get stuff done. Fridays are my Co-op volunteer work days, so that’s two hours on the meat counter, and I’ve started doing a radio programme from 3-4pm also on Fridays on the lovely, endangered KDRT 101.5FM. I’m going to try to make more time to keep my online life a little more up to date.
After much pressure from Eyelashjam I finally caved and joined Facebook. I’m now a little put out that he’s unresponsive to my request to be one of my boyfriends in an open relationship with a bunch of other lads and lasses. Maybe he was put off by my pseudonym. I concede that the idea of getting it on with a dead cabbage-headed Frenchman may be a little grim.
Dead Phraseology
Has anyone noticed that no-one is referring to the internet as the “Information Superhighway” any more? This makes me happy.
Attack of the Green Testicle
Now I know what it feels like to be Fidel Castro. For some reason I ate an unripe avocado last night, which gave me a itchy swelling in the back of my throat. It seems I’m allergic to unripe avocado. Eventually the itching spread to the insides of my ears and finally subsided after a couple of hours. As I was searching online to find out how serious my situation would get and what to do about it, I discovered my adverse reaction is caused by an enzyme called Chitinaze, of which there is a high concentration in avocado.
More interestingly, I found out that the name “avocado” comes from the Aztec or Nahuatl word “ahuacatl,” which means “testicle,” assumed to be a reference to the fruit’s shape.
Thanks to Courtney for initiating this voyage of discovery ;-)
Quick Tip
Avoid Tom Tykwer’s movie The Princess and the Warrior. It would be a good movie if Tykwer had realised he’d written a black comedy. Sadly for us, he didn’t, and all two and a half hours is played with a schmaltzy, po-faced earnestness which makes it utterly, utterly laughable.
Particularly outstanding among a host of contemptible moments is the bath time electrocution. This is a set-piece I’d been planning to use in my imaginary remake of Parting Shots. I’ve not seen Parting Shots, and nor do I intend to; it’s directed by Michael Winner and it stars Chris Rea, the singer. I want to take just the concept and make a bad-taste murderous revenge comedy, because that’s the kind of movie in which you dispose of characters by electrocuting them in the bathtub with a toaster on a 30ft cable.
In its defence, The Princess and the Warrior is beautifully shot and tidily edited. Contrary to the old adage, it is possible to polish a turd.
Armando Iannucci’s superheroes
This one is particularly great:
Creationist Kid
Jake Huckerman is by day a Baptist maths teacher in Alabama, but by night one of a new breed of superhero, the next stage in man’s evolution unleashing untapped potential within the brain. Unfortunately, Jake doesn’t believe in evolution because he thinks the world was created in six days from mud in God’s fingernails. Luckily, Jake’s unique special power is the ability to jump to a parallel universe in which he does believe in evolution. Unfortunately, he can’t tell anyone, because if he does, his friends and neighbours will hang him upside down from the neck of a negro. He channels all his frustrations into teaching a new kind of geometry to his pupils, showing them how quite literally to square a circle.
From his Guardian article.
Le Samouraï
Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samouraï has to be one of the coolest movies ever made. Just the production details offer a foretaste of its coolness: anything made in France in 1967 starring Alain Delon should at least pique a movie buff’s interest. Le Samouraï blends 40’s American gangster movie aesthetics, 60’s French pop culture and a dash of Samurai mystique.
Coming out of Chokey
Last night was my last official night in charge of the Varsity, so now I’m free of those particular obligations, frustrations and quirks. My replacement is a thoroughly nice bloke, and it’s been quite fun showing him the ropes – not least because it’s reminded me of all the bits and pieces I no longer need feel responsible for. My workmates wrote me a cute little card (best line: “Even though you’re going to hell you were a good person.”) and last night’s event was fun.
A group of undergrads rented the place to premiere a movie they’d made. A post-rock tinged band called Buildings Breeding started the night (they had a song in the movie) and I was impressed with what I heard. They list the Beatles, Velvet Underground, Beach Boys, T-Rex, Bowie, The Sundays, The Shins, The Cardigans, Belle and Sebastian, Elliott Smith, Silversun Pickups, Modest Mouse and Band Of Horses as influences, and most of those show in their music. They’re playing at SXSW in Austin soon, and I’ll be interested to see what happens to them after that.
I didn’t get to see the movie, titled Repeat, but from what I saw it looked above average. I’ll be checking out the DVD soon. Maybe I’ll be able to rope in a few of the folks who made the movie to crew for me on future video projects.
Now my time in cinema exhibition has finished I’ll be teaching video cameras and digital editing at Davis Media Access, which is another big reason to be cheerful. I may have another iron in the fire besides that, but I’m going to remain coy about it for now, just in case.
Too easy
Eyelashjam and pgd took this test. I was slightly off with “altruist.”
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Your Vocabulary Score: A |
 Congratulations on your multifarious vocabulary! You must be quite an erudite person. |
Update: If you own a Mac I’ve just discovered a perfect way to cheat at this quiz. Put the mouse pointer over the word in question. Now press ⌃ ⌘ D or [ctrl]+[cmd]+D, depending on how you prefer to notate keyboard shortcuts. Don’t you feel like a dirty cheat now? Apologies to non Mac users.
Ian Richardson, RIP.
I’m sad to hear of the passing of Ian Richardson, an actor with one of the greatest voices I’ve ever heard, and coldly hypnotic eyes. I never saw him on the stage, but his performances for film and TV were always mesmerising. Obviously he’ll be well remembered for House of Cards and To Play the King but for me his roles in movies such as Brazil and Dark City are just as important.
Playing Catch-up
Looks like I’ve not posted in a while. Here’s a summary of the last sixty-six days.
Those who saw me and possibly the missus during December will know how much we tired ourselves out having fun and visiting what feels like everyone (but actually wasn’t) during the festive season.
Discovering that I’m a little part of history in a photo in the Globe museum (along with Eyelashjam and a small bunch of others) was a happy experience. Somewhere within me a small organ swelled with pride. Seeing M & K happily set-up in Brighton made both of us happy, and reunions back in Worcestershire and Buckinghamshire were as sweet as always.
We’ve been back in Davis for a month now, and I suppose we’re back in the swing of things. The tiny PS2 Rev Rehash gave us as a Saturnalia present has seen a lot of use, and led me to discover a very 21st century relationship dilemma which I’ll cover in a later post.
I taught my Cornish pastie and Chicken Tikka Masala course at the Co-op for a second time. No-one died. Even better, I’m working with my friend Ellis on a video project which will stay under wraps until it’s ready to be seen. I’m still procrastinating over writing the script for the short movie I hope to make with Jeff. It’ll happen soon; I feel it bubbling up through the mire of my consciousness. I’ve also had an idea for a non-narrative piece which explores reproduction and degeneration.
So far this year I’ve caught the following movies at the cinema:
- The Queen
Well-observed performances from Helen Mirren and Michael Sheen, and subtly critical of both the traditional British establishment and Blair’s courting of populist sentiment. - Pan’s Labyrinth
Visually stunning, and a top performance from Sergi Lopez as a sadistic torturing fascist. - The Curse of the Golden Flower
A grand statement about China’s current regime disguised as a lavish period romp; largely disappointing when you compare it to House of Flying Daggers and Hero, but look at all those extras – and all those jiggling busts! - Children of Men
Felt like a hard punch in the guts; at one point I almost threw up with anxiety. It’s very impressive and I was slightly hungover. - Volver
Quirky and darkly sweet, but not as kinky as I’d hoped. Everyone’s talking about Penelope Cruz and she is good, but Carmen Maura’s better.
I’m going to make an effort to catch Notes on a Scandal, Little Children and a nice little American social realist pic (don’t see many of those) called Flannel Pajamas. The Last King of Scotland starts at my work in the next couple of weeks, which makes it easy for me to see and I’m hoping we can get Paul Verhoeven’s Zwartboek (Black Book) mostly because it’s guaranteed to be up-front steamy and sexual, and there has been precious little sex on American cinema screens since the end of the Clinton era.
February 18th is the first day of the Chinese year of the Boar. Mmm. Pork. I’m looking forward to it already.
Esoteric Early 80’s Humour
1) A Not the Nine O’Clock News sketch.
2) The FIAT Ritmo/Strada commercial it made reference to.
I have no idea why I know about any of this, because I think I was two at the time, but watching both jiggled my memory banks.
Casino Royale
The only bad thing about the new Casino Royale is the title song by Chris Cornell. Discuss.
Well, duh.
There’s a story linked to by boingboing.net about why a certain TV programme called Lost doesn’t work. I suppose it’s not really surprising that someone who gets paid to write for New York magazine took over two series worth of programming to notice what I did within two episodes. What is surprising is that so many viewers are still tuning in to have their plonkers pulled. It beggars every convention of standard dramatic plotting. It’s like a commercial Waiting for Godot without the existentialism, humour, artistic value and sense of purpose.
Better World Shopper
My friend Dr. Ellis Jones has just published a new book, The Better World Shopping Guide. He’s launching it at the Varsity on Saturday 18th November. There’s also a new website, Better World Shopper. It’s a very handy reference if you’d rather avoid buying products from companies whose practices are unethical, like Nestlé. You can also download a version of the guide for your iPod.
Christ!
Yesterday was my mainstream movie day. I caught The Departed and The Prestige at my local evil five-plex. Both good movies, and The Prestige was particularly noteworthy for being a fantastic exploration of artifice and deception, a real puzzle of a movie where the structure of the movie is the same as the structure of its subject – magic tricks.
Of course, we were bombarded with trailers. When I’m putting together the programme at the Varsity I normally attach a maximum of four trailers. Any more than that and I feel like I’m taxing the audience’s patience. At the evil five-plex you get twenty minutes of advertising for products and TV programmes and then six or seven (I lost count) trailers for coming features. Each one is about two and a half minutes. Towards the end of the reel or trailers, just as Jeff and I were asking each other if we were ever going to see the movie, an extended version of this played. "One family. One journey. One child who would change the world… forever." It looks like it will play well to the churches by the interstate in most of middle America. It looks fairly well shot in a Milk Tray advert style.
However, just in case Americans are in danger of forgetting what Christmas is all about, here’s another movie to remind them, Christmas at Maxwell’s, "powerful story of Christian happenings" complete with a small boy with wiggly eyebrows and crackling dialogue.
Look at this neat album! All of the pages are blank.
And here’s a movie about the people who are most likely to watch the previous two movies, Jesus Camp. I feel I should preface this trailer with a warning. It’s almost enough to put you off your dinner.
Eagleton on Dawkins
In his review of The God Delusion in the London Review of Books, Terry Eagleton plays Devil’s Advocate for theology in order to make some pointed criticisms of Dawkins’ rhetoric. As a firm atheist, I’m looking forward to reading The God Delusion over the festive season, and as someone who respects Terry Eagleton’s scholarly work, I was equally interested to read what he has to add to the debate.