July 31, 2008
Puzzling
Zhang Ziyi, top ten successful Chinese actress of 2007 and sort of attractive, confesses she is "puzzled" by human rights protests* in the run up to the Beijing Olympiad (hat tip to Bill).
I cannot imagine I am alone in finding this combination of sentiment threatening.
* Real human rights, not the Canadian kind.
To succeed, planning alone is insufficient. One must improvise as well.
Ex-New Line Cinema founders Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne - perhaps best known for their stunning screen adaptation of The Lord of the Rings - are now set to produce an adaptation of Isaac Asimov's Foundation.
The first book in the trilogy, Foundation, is a combination of five short stories written by the legendary Isaac Asimov that together form one plot. The book focuses on a society that has figured out how to predict the future based on a method called psychohistory and sets up a foundation devoted to scientific research to protect itself and ensure its survival. The books contain political themes that center on the rise and fall of civilizations and span hundred of years, which makes this series troublesome and challenging for adaptation.
July 30, 2008
X-Men Origins
This Wolverine trailer has a significant "meh" factor compared to TR2N p2rn. It could be Wolverine's Canadianity is leaking through; this should have the awesome and it is lacking.
Related: Trailers and video clips for Star Wars: The Clone Wars are now on-line. Cool looking, artless and affectless; such are the latter days of George Lucas, heresiarch.
Fais ce que dois
I am intrigued to learn Small Dead Animals has earned an editorial readership beating out Canada's French language newspaper of record, Montreal's Le Devoir. A SnapShot of our site analytics suggests the Flea may be approaching Kate's editorial league. Most satisfying.
I include another Canadian political commentary blog in those analytics to add perspective. Though in fairness I think its readership got a little bump from irritating the Canadian dextrosphere recently so best not to misoverestimate its importance or influence.
Blur: Coffee & TV
This one goes with a shout out to The Michael Coren Show. Now is the time at the Flea when we dance.
July 29, 2008
Monica Naranjo: Amor y Lujo
Now is the time at the Flea when we dance (hat tip to Beautiful Atrocities).
Man, machine and the fusion of the two
Zoetica Ebb reviews Fantastic Contraption, an exhibit curated by Device Gallery owners Greg and Amy Brotherton.
Jaunt!
Warren Ellis offers a taste of classic British tv sf.
July 28, 2008
Howlin' Wolf: Smokestack Lightning (1964)
Now is the time at the Flea when we dance.
The new Bond car
007 will be driving an Aston Martin DBS* in Quantum of Solace. Nice. And now some time has passed I realize I can stand by my first impression: Daniel Craig's Casino Royale is the greatest Bond film ever (hat tip to Agent Bedhead).
* Now with iPod integration. Must be worth a few quid.
July 27, 2008
Pr0n 2
The Tron 2 aka Tr2n trailer is on-line.
Men of a certain generation are going to need some alone time.
Related: From the set of Watchmen, the interior of the Owlship (hat tip to Capt H).
July 26, 2008
DinoRun
It is a rainy Saturday afternoon in Toronto. Time for some DinoRun practice (via Ace).
July 25, 2008
Björk: Bachelorette
Live at Fashion Rocks alongside the work of Alexander McQueen: Now is the time at the Flea when we dance.
July 24, 2008
Amon Amarth: Runes To My Memory
Now is the time at the Flea when we dance.
Callooh! Callay!
Good news. Fetish model and former Suicide Girl, Apnea who is 22 years of age and 5'1" - just an FYI - and photographer Lithium Picnic have resolved their legal fracas with the aforementioned Suicide Girls. Good news. Though Fabiola offers a somewhat nuanced view of the turn of events.
Those legal bills do add up. And I want to point to my own exemplary moral fibre in choosing an image to illustrate this post. You all have Google in case you wish to investigate the, ahem, subject matter as thoroughly as I have done.
July 23, 2008
Subject: E-mail from Ireland
Besoeker receives an email from Ireland and thoughtfully posts it to the comments at Rantburg.
We, in Ireland, can't figure out why you people are even bothering to hold an election in the United States.
On one side, you had a pants wearing female lawyer, married to another lawyer who can't seem to keep his pants on, who just lost a long and heated primary against a lawyer, who goes to the wrong church, who is married to yet another lawyer, who doesn't even like the country her husband wants to run!
Now...On the other side, you have a nice old war hero whose name starts with the appropriate 'Mc' terminology, married to a good looking younger woman who owns a beer distributorship!
What in God's name are ya lads thinking over in the colonies!!!!!
Timeless
Holy holy holy. Manchester University's School of Arts, Histories and Cultures has revealed the existence of 267 tapes found in Delia Derbyshire's attic when she died in 2001.
Most unexpected of all, however, is a piece of music that sounds like a contemporary dance track which was recorded, it is believed, in the late sixties.
The BBC - for a brief moment fulfilling its public mandate - hosts audio clips. I confess I think they are over-blowing the dance track a bit. Despite what Paul Hartnoll says it is not a piece that could be released next week. It is, however, decades ahead of its time and part of a treasure trove for people who make electronic and experimental music. No need for hyperbole; Delia was the master.
Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio: Do murder and lust make me a man
Now is the time at the Flea when we dance.
July 22, 2008
'Tis as human a little story as paper could well carry
Ellen Bute’s Passages from James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake arrives via Feuilleton. Just the ticket to impress neighbouring cubicles with your erudition, love of language and of course Dublin.
Ulysses is quite popular as well, obviously.
Related: James Joyce reading from Finnegans Wake. Also, Accents and Edwardians.
Why India lost the war
Thoughts on why India lost the war with China include this telling comment by then Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
They were neither the first nor the last to have made this mistake; something to keep in mind. Those were the days when mainland China was threatened with invasion from Taiwan... good times.
July 21, 2008
Dizzy Gillespie: Manteca (The Funky Lowlives Remix)
Now is the time at the Flea when we dance.
It's difficult to get hold of dead horses
People are quite sentimental about that sort of thing in England. Failing that, get hold of a piano, some gasoline and your trebuchet project is good to go.
July 18, 2008
Lallakiss Battle Song: Kill the Humans
Now is the time at the Flea when we dance.
Virtual Gettysburg
Real soldiers. Real heroes. Real honour. Visit historic Gettysburg through these virtual panoramas.
July 17, 2008
The Hedgehog and the Fox
Isaiah Berlin on Archilochus' claim that the fox knows many things but the hedgehog knows one big thing.* Following Berlin's interpretation, the Flea is most definitely crazy like a fox. If, admittedly, an underachieving fox by comparison with the following.
...
The first kind of intellectual and artistic personality belongs to the hedgehogs, the second to the foxes; and without insisting on a rigid classification, we may, without too much fear of contradiction, say that, in this sense, Dante belongs to the first category, Shakespeare to the second; Plato, Lucretius, Pascal, Hegel, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Ibsen, Proust are, in varying degrees, hedgehogs; Herodotus, Aristotle, Montaigne, Erasmus, Molière, Goethe, Pushkin, Balzak, Joyce are foxes.
* With apologies to the blog where I saw this somewhat gnomic aphorism the other day; I have forgotten quite where it was.
Marianne Faithfull: Something Better
Now is the time at the Flea when we dance.
My Gothic Pony
This edition of Goth or not Goth arrives with a hat tip to the delectable SondraK.
July 16, 2008
At last
Joss Whedon presents Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. I have decided Neil Patrick Harris should play me when they get around to making a biopic of the Flea (with a hat tip to the Sister of the Flea).
So far, the first installment, or act, has been wildly popular, outpacing shows like Lost, The Wire and The Daily Show to rank No. 1 on the iTunes list of most popular television series.
Not about hardware and space battles
Caprica strikes out into uncharted territory for sf; an attempt to preemptively bore its audience.
Or about Battlestar Galactica, apparently. No substitute for Deadwood or Rome but - let's face facts - I will watch the show regardless.
Decoding the Northern Dunes
I am am convinced a careful examination of these landscapes of Mars will reveal worm sign.
Buffy Allstars: Walk Through the Fire
Now is the time at the Flea when we dance.
July 15, 2008
Kate Bush: Oh England My Lionheart
Let's start a new country and call it England; I still believe. Now is the time at the Flea when we dance.
July 14, 2008
Psalm 137
Charles Thomas Bolton, the first astronomer to present irrefutable evidence of the existence of a black hole*, crying on the steps of his observatory (hat tip to Agent Bedhead).
The university used the excuse that the observatory was no longer useful due to light pollution, but this is a lie as the facility is perfectly useful long-term research programs and large survey programs where relatively few observations are taken of a large number of stars. But more shocking than the closure of the observatory is the poor way the university is treating Mr. Bolton. It's heartbreaking to think that when you're looking at that photo that they carrying out 37 years of his life's work. The University of Toronto should be ashamed of their shoddy treatment of a man who is a real life hero.
* Cygnus X, hole of color, etc.; whatever my American cousins might call the phenomenon in these latter days.
It takes a lot to make me cry
In case I had not linked Christopher Hitchens on the knighthood for Sir Salman Rushdie and a sullen, resentful boring atmosphere in the room. Featured: The then future mayor of London.
Update: Higher quality linkage of the same material courtesy of your friendly neighbourhood Drink Soaked Trots.
Feist: Counting to 4
Now is the time at the Flea when we dance (hat tip to the Sister of the Flea).
Kaidan sounds
Updates to the musical stylings of the Flea.
Update the first: I am delighted to have been included in a sampler for a special issue of Otaku Magazine; "Kaidan Sounds" accompanies Otaku Kaidan.
Update the second: I am also delighted to have been asked to contribute to "Free Tibet Free", a Dark Transmissions industrial sampler whose proceeds are contributed to the Central Tibetan Secretariat in Dharamsala. It is an honour to have been anthologized alongside Asmodeus X, Bleiburg, Horologium, Aesthetic Meat Front and many others. I am particularly delighted to find Life's Decay on the sampler, they are a Flea-fav.
July 11, 2008
Marilyn Manson: Tourniquet
More from the mind of Floria Sigismondi. Now is the time at the Flea when we dance.
July 10, 2008
Teenager finds baby bat in her bra
Goth or not goth.
July 09, 2008
Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand
Spengler on America, a special grace for an "almost chosen people" and a billion more Christians in the world than in 1970. Such is the Good News.
Flags used by musicians
A search for imagery for the next Ghost of a flea gig revealed a handy resource for flags used by musicians. From this admittedly small sample, totalitarian imagery appears to have never gone out of vogue.
July 08, 2008
Clock DVA: Buried Dreams
Samantha Morton is a nice bonus. Now is the time at the Flea when we dance.
Adventures in true facts
Japanese bloggers: A whole lot more glamorous than other bloggers, apparently (hat tip to Agent Bedhead).
July 07, 2008
Blutengel: Vampire Romance
Now is the time at the Flea when we dance.
July 04, 2008
It’s the job of the good guys to kill the bad guys
The ten commandments for superheros according to Frank Miller (via Agent Bedhead)
“When I first got going on what became The Dark Knight, I just thought about him a lot, what kind of guy would do this stuff,” he says of his endlessly influential 1986 reinvention of Batman. That said, Miller says he’s sick of “therapy culture” and hand-wringing heroes like Spider-Man who go around whining all the time about the burden of great power. In 300 Sparta’s King Leonidas didn’t have to ponder the Persian Empire’s diplomacy—he kicked Xerxes’ diplomat down a well.
Also via AB, Kiera Knightley Kiera travels the yellow brick road.
RTF3 contact in Afghanistan
GolfBravoUSMC asks us to note the Austrian Steyr Stg.77 AUG assault rifles in this footage of Australia's Reconstruction Task Force 3 (RTF3) in contact with the enemy in Afghanistan.
Ghislain Poirier: Hit & Red
Now is the time at the Flea when we dance.
July 03, 2008
Our best qualities
Kathleen McGowan introduces the psychology of normality and some quite specific ways of being abnormal. Not certain how my antipathy toward normal people is classified by the APA but I figure it is a chronic manageable condition (via Five Feet of Fury, with a different spin on the piece).
Normal people may be nicer than average, but they also have character traits that aren't universally appealing. They're not adventurous. They're not above average in intelligence, nor are they outgoing. Truth be told, a lot of our best qualities are unusual. A sense for music like Mozart's is certainly exceptional. So is the ability to speak six languages, or the courage to leap onto the subway tracks to save a stranger's life.
As is the above image. Sadly, Kylie Minogue has retired her exceptional hot pants; something to do with aging gracefully (hat tip to Agent Bedhead).
July 02, 2008
Somewhere more appealing
British proles are advised not to join the rush to Canada. Though I cannot say I will be disappointed if Daily Mail readers choose to stay home, it is difficult to disagree with the argument on any substantive level.
...
As the Canadian poet Irving Layton once said, the Canadian political and intellectual communities' have a tendency to regard ' cowardice as wisdom, philistinism as Olympian serenity and the spitefulness of the weak as moral indignation'.
This via Quotulatiousness, observing "Better stay at home, where the loving eyes of the surveillance cameras can keep a better eye on you."
Apocalyptica: Nothing Else Matters
Now is the time at the Flea when we dance.