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"It's not for you to know, but for you to weep and wonder/When the death of your civilization precedes you."

--Neko Case

"The insane are always mere guests on earth, eternal strangers carrying around broken decalogues that they cannot read."

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

Archive

Jan
27th
Fri
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“If we die, we want people to accept it. We are in a risky business and we hope that if anything happens to us it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life.” — Gus Grissom - CDR Apollo 1

“If we die, we want people to accept it. We are in a risky business and we hope that if anything happens to us it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life.”

—

Gus Grissom - CDR Apollo 1

Jan
25th
Wed
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The fact that a gay guy painted the Sistine ceiling is not nearly as dumbfounding as the papacy’s protection of pederasts in spite of their official attitude toward such “objectionable” practices—one of which ought to be the ceiling itself, for if anything is unnatural, for them, genius is.
— William H. Gass, “The Literary Miracle,” his acceptance speech for the 2007 Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism, available in his collection, Life Sentences: Literary Judgments and Accounts.
Jan
8th
Sun
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Films I Saw in 2011

Arranged by year of production, then chronologically by viewing.  My favorites are in boldface.

90 Degrees South: With Scott to the Antarctic (1933)

The Night of the Hunter (1955)

Carnival of Souls (1962)

Doctor Who: The Daleks (1963)

Doctor Who: The Edge of Destruction (1964)

Head (1968)

Vanishing Point (1971)

Macbeth (1971)

Time Bandits (1981)

The Thing (1982)

The Decalogue (1989)

Fresh (1994)

Twelve Monkeys (1995)

Doctor Who: The Movie (1996)

Live Flesh (1997)

Star Wars (1977/1997)

The Empire Strikes Back (1980/1997)

Wild Things (1998)

Yi Yi (2000)

American Psycho (2000)

George Washington (2000)

All or Nothing (2002)

House of Sand and Fog (2003)

The Machinist (2004)

The Manchurian Candidate (2004)

Finding Neverland (2004)

Little Children (2006)

Man on Wire (2008)

It’s Hard Being Loved by Jerks (2008)

A Girl Cut in Two (2008)

Fanboys (2008)

Bronson (2008)

A Town Called Panic (2009)

Welcome (2009)

The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia (2009)

The Invention of Lying (2009)

The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans (2009)

Whip It (2009)

The King’s Speech (2010)

You Don’t Know Jack (2010)

127 Hours (2010)

Black Swan (2010)

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work (2010)

The American (2010)

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)

Easy A (2010)

The Runaways (2010)

Hot Tub Time Machine (2010)

Unstoppable (2010)

Paul (2011)

Thor (2011)

The Sunset Limited (2011)

Bridesmaids (2011)

X-Men: First Class (2011)

Super 8 (2011)

Mildred Pierce (2011)

Horrible Bosses (2011)

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

The Tree of Life (2011)

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)

Fright Night (2011)

Contagion (2011)

Hot Coffee (2011)

Bobby Fischer Against the World (2011)

Cinema Verite (2011)

Drive (2011)

George Harrison: Living in the Material World (2011)

J. Edgar (2011)

The Ides of March (2011)

The Descendants (2011)

From the Sky Down (2011)

Appropriate Adult (2011)

Young Adult (2011)

Dec
29th
Thu
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The river grinds away, through all seasons, furiously in the spring, high in its bed, in a deep-throated roar, quietly in the winter, sometimes so quietly that you must silence all thought to hear it. Each time the water passes over each stone, it makes a tiny noise. These lapping and tinkling sounds, conjoined with thousands of others, are the announcement of the first infinitesimal steps by which rock is converted to soil, upon which all embodiment will feed: life begins in a kind of music.
— Stanley Crawford, “A History of Flat Stones,” DoubleTake 2 (Fall 1995).
Dec
19th
Mon
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nevver: Seoul

nevver:

Seoul

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If Simon Pegg were forced to name the collaborator who brought the warmest glow to his geek-culture-connoisseur’s heart, it wouldn’t be his “Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol” co-star Tom Cruise or the director Brad Bird. He would probably say Steven Spielberg, who directed him and Nick Frost in “The Adventures of Tintin” and caused some we’re-not-worthy moments. “We’d say, very casually: ‘So what was it like shooting “Close Encounters”? Was that fun?’ ” Pegg says. “He’d tell us a big, long story about it, and we’d just nod and be like, ‘Yeah, whatever.’ And then we’d get outside and scream and hold each other.
— Dave Itzkoff, “The Big Profile: Simon Pegg,” The One-Page Magazine, New York Times, 16 December 2011.
Dec
16th
Fri
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… We are in need of a new Enlightenment, which will base itself on the proposition that the proper study of mankind is man, and woman. This Enlightenment will not need to depend, like its predecessors, on the heroic breakthroughs of a few gifted and exceptionally courageous people. It is within the compass of the average person. The study of literature and poetry, both for its own sake and for the central ethical questions with which it deals, can now easily depose the scrutiny of sacred texts that have been found to be corrupt and confected. The pursuit of unfettered scientific inquiry, and the availability of new findings to masses of people by easy electronic means, will revolutionize our concepts of research and development. Very importantly, the divorce between the sexual life and fear, and the sexual life and disease, and the sexual life and tyranny, can now at last be attempted, on the sole condition that we banish all religions from the discourse. And all this and more is, for the first time in our history, within the reach if not the grasp of everyone.
— Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.
Dec
14th
Wed
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burbanked: MEMO FROM GEORGE LUCAS RE: HOW TO FIX THIS SCENE IN FUTURE RELEASE REVISIONS: Move the guy closer so that Luke actually looks like he’s kicking him. C’MON PEOPLE. OUTSIDE THE BOX HERE. Make Luke’s foot bigger. And, the guy explodes. Change the guy into an elaborately detailed space-lemur thingy. When the guy flings his blaster into the air, it hits the other guy in the head. SOUND EFFECTS TEAM: find me a comical sound effect for this, like BA-GINK or DO-BOING. Something. Luke kicking him in the face is kind of cruel here, isn’t it? He’s not that guy. Let’s insert a close-up of fly-by Boba Fett shooting at the guy. This will explain how he’s propelled backward and we can show Luke shaking his head sadly or something. What if one of these guys farts? Might lighten it up a bit, right? Replace Luke with Hayden Christensen and add in time-travel subplot.

burbanked:

MEMO FROM GEORGE LUCAS RE: HOW TO FIX THIS SCENE IN FUTURE RELEASE REVISIONS:

  • Move the guy closer so that Luke actually looks like he’s kicking him. C’MON PEOPLE. OUTSIDE THE BOX HERE.
  • Make Luke’s foot bigger. And, the guy explodes.
  • Change the guy into an elaborately detailed space-lemur thingy.
  • When the guy flings his blaster into the air, it hits the other guy in the head. SOUND EFFECTS TEAM: find me a comical sound effect for this, like BA-GINK or DO-BOING. Something.
  • Luke kicking him in the face is kind of cruel here, isn’t it? He’s not that guy. Let’s insert a close-up of fly-by Boba Fett shooting at the guy. This will explain how he’s propelled backward and we can show Luke shaking his head sadly or something.
  • What if one of these guys farts? Might lighten it up a bit, right?
  • Replace Luke with Hayden Christensen and add in time-travel subplot.

(Source: absolutefucker)

Dec
10th
Sat
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Indie rock culture wasn’t invented on the internet, or in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I went to the record stores and I watched other people browsing through records. Nothing is more telling than when someone pulls that one-square-foot piece of cardboard out of a bin filled with hundreds of similar pieces of cardboard. You’re definitely going to look at what he’s chosen. You see him pull out the Pat Benatar record, so you blow right by that person. But if he pulls “20 Jazz Funk Greats” by Throbbing Gristle, you perk up and take interest in what he might pull next. We’d do this dance around the record store with each other, and that was one way to find like-minded people. We don’t do that dance now. Now you read someone’s blog or use a search engine or do social networking.

Most people are passive consumers, the ones who hear something all over the radio and then buy the record or see the band at Madison Square Garden. Then there’s the questioning, investigative type of person, the type who seeks out the new music—and that was us.

— Bob Mould, See a Little Light: The Trail of Rage and Melody.
Dec
2nd
Fri
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deareje: So I finally got a decent copy of this article on Sherlock 2 from GQ UK, January 2012. Below is a type up by me. Do tell if there’s any typos. And please link back to this post if reposting. Sherlock - Five things you need to know about the dapper detective’s new series. It’s the scariest Sherlock yet… “There’s a big difference between the three episodes this year,” says co-creator Mark Gatiss, “and, of course, you can’t do Sherlock without admitting that people get killed. For me, The Hound Of The Baskervilles is one of the great horror stories that never quite delivers on its horror. So we [in a second episode ‘The Hounds Of Baskerville’, starring Russell Tovey] had a chance to go for it!” …but also the closest to the original stories “We’re taking elements of the books quite liberally this time,” says co-creator Steven Moffat. “It’s a magpie approach; another story may have a great idea that we’ll put in. But it’s quite overt; the short story ‘A Scandal In Bohemia’ becomes our ‘A Scandal In Belgravia’, the novel The Hound Of The Baskervilles becomes our ‘The Hounds Of Baskerville.’” Sherlock gets a girlfriend! Well, sort of. “It’s a non-love story,” says Moffat of “A Scandal In Belgravia”, where he meets Irene Adler (True Blood’s Lara Pulver). “But if one woman could claim him, it would be her. Not Sherlock in love, but Sherlock and love. In the stories, he’s not saying he doesn’t feel these things, but that he mustn’t feel them.” And a love scene! “Er, well,” squirms Pulver when quizzed about a possible Sherlock sex scene. “I would say there’s a lot of intimacy. And passion… A lot of chemistry…” Yes, yes, yes, but do you get down to it? “Well, it’s complex. Let’s say we leave a lot to the imagination. We leave it ambiguous.” Sherlock will use more tech “One of the things we established last year is that Sherlock is always at the cutting edge,” says Gatiss. “Why wouldn’t he be? He’s not a fogey. He needs to be across everything. He’s the person hovering over his computer getting a Kremlin tan.” SM Doctor Who versus Sherlock How similar are Sherlock and the Doctor? We ask the writer of both stylish super-geniuses, Steven Moffat. “The Doctor is lovely and warm and cuddly and silly and very emotional - and values all the things Sherlock doesn’t. They’re both in the tradition of the Edwardian adventurer. The nice thing they have in common is that intelligence is their secret power. Sherlock is a bit of a b******.” Sherlock returns to BBC One next month.

deareje:

So I finally got a decent copy of this article on Sherlock 2 from GQ UK, January 2012. Below is a type up by me. Do tell if there’s any typos. And please link back to this post if reposting.

Sherlock - Five things you need to know about the dapper detective’s new series.

It’s the scariest Sherlock yet…

“There’s a big difference between the three episodes this year,” says co-creator Mark Gatiss, “and, of course, you can’t do Sherlock without admitting that people get killed. For me, The Hound Of The Baskervilles is one of the great horror stories that never quite delivers on its horror. So we [in a second episode ‘The Hounds Of Baskerville’, starring Russell Tovey] had a chance to go for it!”

…but also the closest to the original stories

“We’re taking elements of the books quite liberally this time,” says co-creator Steven Moffat. “It’s a magpie approach; another story may have a great idea that we’ll put in. But it’s quite overt; the short story ‘A Scandal In Bohemia’ becomes our ‘A Scandal In Belgravia’, the novel The Hound Of The Baskervilles becomes our ‘The Hounds Of Baskerville.’”

Sherlock gets a girlfriend!

Well, sort of. “It’s a non-love story,” says Moffat of “A Scandal In Belgravia”, where he meets Irene Adler (True Blood’s Lara Pulver). “But if one woman could claim him, it would be her. Not Sherlock in love, but Sherlock and love. In the stories, he’s not saying he doesn’t feel these things, but that he mustn’t feel them.”

And a love scene!

“Er, well,” squirms Pulver when quizzed about a possible Sherlock sex scene. “I would say there’s a lot of intimacy. And passion… A lot of chemistry…” Yes, yes, yes, but do you get down to it? “Well, it’s complex. Let’s say we leave a lot to the imagination. We leave it ambiguous.”

Sherlock will use more tech

“One of the things we established last year is that Sherlock is always at the cutting edge,” says Gatiss. “Why wouldn’t he be? He’s not a fogey. He needs to be across everything. He’s the person hovering over his computer getting a Kremlin tan.” SM

Doctor Who versus Sherlock

How similar are Sherlock and the Doctor? We ask the writer of both stylish super-geniuses, Steven Moffat.

“The Doctor is lovely and warm and cuddly and silly and very emotional - and values all the things Sherlock doesn’t.

They’re both in the tradition of the Edwardian adventurer. The nice thing they have in common is that intelligence is their secret power.

Sherlock is a bit of a b******.”

Sherlock returns to BBC One next month.

(via sherlockology)