Apathy Jack writes:

Today’s video is Rabbit In Your Headlights by Unkle, with guest vocals from Thom Yorke. It’s less a music video and more five minutes of something happening, with Unkle music as the soundtrack, but, in its own way, it’s as mind blowing as the Just video.

(As per usual, linked to rather than embedded because of the drop in quality that comes with embedding.)

Apathy Jack writes:

More Scroobius Pip stuff - the track "Letter from God", from his collaboration with DJ Dan Le Sac, complete with home-made video by a fan.

Apathy Jack writes:

I'm the mood for poetry! (This will take a day or so to get out of my system. Live with it.)

Today's unspoken word poetry, open-heart flowetry is from bearded weirdo Scroobius Pip; An improvised piece he made upon getting out of bed one morning. The quality of the sound is appallingly bad, but by gracious he can rhyme quite well.

Slings and Arrows and Lesbian Bikers

Josh writes:

OK, do we all watch Outrageous Fortune here? About last night's episode...

Can someone explain this to me? Van goes, in the space of half an episode, from A Bit Thick to Genuinely Mentally Damaged, fucks up his life in a fit of hysterical paranoia and contributes directly to the death of his girlfriend, and yet the overall feeling I got from the episode was that we should be feeling sorry for him? Or at least, no sympathy seemed to be on offer for Aurora, who's only sins were to try to please all the people all the time and fail to penetrate the heavy wall of Retarded Jealousy that had magically materialised around Van, getting nothing but a "stop messing with my son" from Cheryl. The "Goodnight Kiwi Music" playing at the end was a nice touch, but only really served to make Aurora's death all about Van, as opposed to, say, Aurora.

Was that bad writing? Am I just being overly critical, possibly suffering Chasing Amy flashbacks or something?

And where are they going with this, if anywhere? Is it meant to be telling us something about the nature of Cheryl's relationship to Van (Bad Son in season 1, Good Son in season 2, Mummy's "Special" Little Boy in season 3)? The trailer for next week's episode seemed to indicate that the Wests are in full-on righteous indignation mode at being refused access to the funeral of the woman their son killed, rather than, say feeling a bit guilty or contrite or anything. We'll see.

RSJS writes:

I have a scheme. It'll make me rich. And with minimal initial capital expenditure; in fact, for under $50 I can become a millionaire. Maybe. I just have to figure out advertising...

My idea is: "The Epiphany Hat".
OH yes, it's gonna be big.

Y'see, people go through sea-changes in their lives. Those sudden, shocking alterations in basic perspectives, wet paradigm shifts that shake the very bowels of their beings. Lives can change overnight. But the problem is, though the next morning one might float from one's bed on angel's wings and have one's path to school, work, the gym, the gay bar or whatever, paved in golden sunlight coalescing into yellow bricks beneath your ruby slippers (probably better suited for the bar than the gym, but you never know...), the problem is no-one else knows. You might think you're glowing with your newfound crotchful of lover-boy's cloying seed, or your new size 0 sundress, or high score in the maths paper in your groovy Nightmare Before Christ backpack but the passers-by don't Appreciate how Important the day is. How Significant and Sweet-smelling. Poor, ignorant fools...

That's where I come in. Cue fanfare and speed lines behind my tiny head. What one really needs on those brisk mornings blessed by the finger of the Lord is a simple way to let the world know you're new and/or improved, a totally different person who has so much more to give now you've Seen the Light or whatever. Sure, you find God and you clap on a crucifix and khaki pants. If you've found the Mighty Boosh you get a t-shirt and an eighties haircut. But what if you've found something without an easy indicator? A partner, a pet, a raison d'etre, a raisin muffin, or even something more intangible? Who makes intangible-themed t-shirts for shorthand revelation-signalling?

What you need is an all-purpose indicator. And I think "The Epiphany Hat" is the way to go. A peaked trucker's cap with either "I've had a epiphany, ask me what!" or "I'm a TOTALLY new person today, ask me why!" stitched in gold across the front. It is a perfect garment so the world understand that on that one day, You are New and Special and Taller. Unless you're special due to a new haircut – but that's a fucked reason to have an epiphany so don't waste my hat's time.

Now, how will this make me so very rich, you ask? Simple. I only make one hat of each design, for photographing. Because people will never actually want them. Ever.

Why? Because my target audience is the American fatty who survives their first day of a fried-cheese-free diet and wakes the next morning feeling like Kate fucking Moss, imagining there are ribs beneath their udders (guys or gals) and singing the Rocky theme song through fat-choked lungs. They'll be all excited and though the world can't see their miraculous weight loss (celebrated with a 42-ounce Coke from McDogbugers) they want everyone to know of the dawning of a new day. So they order my hat online, pay by credit card, and wait the six-to-eight weeks for me to deliver.

Which I won't, because within 24 hours the call of the grease will be too much and their new skinny self will be drowned in pig-lard and sugar-coated spare ribs and they'll be fatter than ever. If I'm lucky, they'll forget their impulse buy in their gorging and all their money is belong to me. If they remember later and query hat delivery we'll stall until their coronary. Or if they do demand a refund we'll hit them for massive service charges for doing exactly nothing and refund a pittance.

Those freaky kids who discover Manson and believe themselves to be the hippest and edgiest brat in the 'burbs gets a hat off the 'net late one night thank's to Daddy's Visa, then next day goes to school full of their unique brand of rebellion and excitement and mummy's eyeliner only to find the entire school's fringes have gone lopsided overnight and there's so many edgy kids there's no-one left in the middle except that guy who eats tuna from the tin and cries when you talk to him. Who will grow up to push all those fuckers RIGHT OFF THE EDGE, oh yes, oh, yes, he's right behind you cool bastards and you can smel lthe fish can't you, CAN'T YOU? Sobby McFishpants is coming for you, you counterculture curs! Rue the day! Grow wings! BOUNCE!...

What the fuck?

Right, who else? Oh, born-agains, perhaps, who quit when they find out the communion wine doesn't keep coming. Ninjas who find pyjamas don't make the man and there is a lot of rolling to be done on cold concrete floors before Sensei gives 'em a sword. Future hair-metalers who discover Rock God posing isn't quiiiiiiiite enough to be a musician (though is enough for pre-teen Myspace sex, thank god). Gym bunnies whose stairmasters will be inches thick in dust before their cap would have been due. All those try-and-fail fuckers who haemorrhage money and ideals for about 48 hours before collapsing exhausted and broke into their ruts – everyone else gets money from specific idiot audiences (the As Seen on TV crowd are fuckin' RAKING it in with the late night abdominator ads) but I'm targeting the whole mass of desperately unhappy fools clamouring for better lives through technology.

My hope is I'll con enough cash off the retarded herds to pay for my new Pilates classes. And a mountain bike as petrol costs are astronomical these days and I always said I'd start pedalling when prices got over a buck fifty. And with better earnings, I can eat Healthy! As I only eat fish and chips and pies as they're cheaper than macrobiotic clods of nuclear-free harp-seal approved peat. Not to mention the new wardrobe I'll need when I drop my winter weight from the winter of aught three... Hahah, those saps will pay for the new me! I need a hat...

Apathy Jack writes:

Today’s video is a genuinely creepy piece of work; which is doubly impressive given that it’s filmed entirely in claymation. From their album Jar Of Flies, Alice In Chains with I Stay Away, wherein the band stops off at a circus, and things are sent horribly awry by a mysterious boy with, as it happens, a jar of flies.

(As per usual, linked to rather than embedded because of the drop in quality that comes with embedding.)

Apathy Jack writes:

Happy National Poetry Day, you artless fuckers. In honour of said, you get my three favourite pieces of poetry right now:

Busta Rhymes, with Woo Hah, which is silly, but has surprisingly clever rhymes (when you decipher them).




Sage Francis, with Got Up This Morning, one of the cleverer things I’ve heard in a long while.




And Taylor Mali, with The The Impotence of Proofreading, which struck a particular chord with the English Teacher in me.

Harry Potter: The Definitive Verdict

That Morthos Stare writes:

So, 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.' I've read it. I am, as far as I can tell, the only person on this blog who actually knows what they are talking about in regard to the book, the series and the pornographic calenders the 'special' pre-orderers get.

So, is the book any good?

No. Not really.

It ends, and it ends in such a way that it isn't open to a sequel and that you know the villian is dead, which is fine. It doesn't contain a single surprise in its 600+ pages, however, and some (read: all but one chapter) of the prose is, quite frankly, not just a bit crap but a whole lot of inadequate English

But, then again, the comment about the prose doesn't mean much, does it? Most books you find on the shelves are poorly written. I mean, Rowling's prose is, even in its unedited state (because when she was subject to editing she was a much better writer), is much better than that, say, of Dan Brown or John Grisham. Rowling, at least, has complex characters who change over time. Dan Brown's Robert Langdon just gets to have sex.

And it's not even that well described.

So, Brother Morthos, was the series any good?

Frankly, yes.

Harry Potter is, osteniably about magic, in the same way that 'War of the Worlds' was osteniably about Martians. Both use a metaphor to explore 'issues.' Yes, that sounds like mumbo-jumbo po-mo, but its one of those things that has been true of literature well before Virgil got around to writing 'The Aenid.'

People like metaphors. They really do.

So what was Harry Potter about? Well, school, obviously. But also racism, authoritarianism, equal rights and a whole host of 'socially relevant' topics.

And they're not brief, lightweight treatments, either. The equal rights (in regards to gender, class et al) starts in earnest in book three, the abuse of institutional power in book four, and so forth. Rowling devotes large tracts of her increasingly big books to showing the injustices of the world, injustices children readers should be aware they are growing up with. Notably these injustices are performed not by evil adults but rather by people who simply don't question their beliefs. Rowling may not be a Kurt Vonnegut (who specialised in not having villians at all) but she does show that, Voldemort aside, people who do evil are not necessarily evil themselves.

Fans of genre literature like to claim that Fantasy and SF (Science Fiction) deal with 'issues' better than mainstream literature because it's easier to critique things via analogy than to try and deal with them directly. This isn't actually true, but people who wear anoraks like to blieve it so that they sleep better after a marathon session of comic books. Still, it does make it easier to relate morality; you don't find real-life Voldemorts but if you understand why they are immoral then you might be able to question the Don Brash's of our world.

One virtue to Fantasy over that of SF is the deus ex machina angle. Yes, I'm fond of 'magic.' Not so much magic but that fact that most Fantasy doesn't pretend to be scientific. Nearly all the supposed SF you will read is as based in science as dragons are based in biology. At least in Fantasy you don't get the prolonged attempted to justify a flight of fantasy; just drop in the conceit and let it drive the story. I think this is the reason why people prefer Fantasy to SF; no one really cares whether paedophile Arthur C. Clarke worked out how to get Sarah Silverman to Mars and back without suffering radiation poisoning. The endless justification of technology tends to hide the fact that these writers can't depict fleshed-out characters.

So, 'Harry Potter and the Seven Books of Increasing Length and Decreasing Quality...' They were books, are books and films and will, I suspect, be exasperating popular for decades to come. Rowling may not be 'big shakes' and her contribution to child literacy has not just been overrated but quite possibly imagined. Still, the books aren't slight, they aren't worth dismissing and they were worth reading.

If only because the books are entering the lexicon of our society, and responsible citizens are always well-informed.

--

I should point out that I'm not really a fan of either genre now; '...Deathly Hallows' is likely the last fantasy book I have any intention to read, and whilst I'm always up for an Iain M. Banks book I don't go out of my way to read SF. I'm not sure why I'm pointingt this out; possibly for some future archivist to go 'Hmmm, so that's when the music died...'

Laugh or Cry?

Josh writes:

OK, seriously: Are they taking the piss or what?

Apathy Jack writes:

One student to another “You blasphemous, treacherous little leech!”
Me “Don’t hold back now, tell us what you really think.”
Student “Motherfucker!”
Me “Alright, start holding back a bit...”