Da Arts

Ali G asking an art professor: What is Art Nouveau?, then What is Art Deco? and finally What is Art Garfunkel?

What an offer

Today’s The Times carried an advertisement for garden miscellania, among which was this digging dog statue for £19.95. I’m speechless.

Whodunnit?

I just happened to notice that American Psycho 2 is directed by, gasp, Morgan J Freeman. I sure hope that the J is significant. (Can’t check it out right now as I haven’t got net access.)

Rock quote of the day

From now on, it’s excess in moderation. – Brent DeBoer, the Dandy Warhols drummer in The Guardian Friday Review May 16 2003

Word 58: Blasé

The 1998 smash Not If You Were the Last Junkie on Earth (written about frontman Courtney Taylor-Taylor’s former girlfriend) appalled many with the blasé line ”Heroin is so passe”.

blasé (adj) 1: very sophisticated especially because of surfeit; versed in the ways of the world 2: uninterested because of frequent exposure or indulgence 3: nonchalantly unconcerned – source: The Guardian Friday Review May 16 2003, p. 6

Forget martyrs, remember victims

The Guardian has shown it has a strong moral backbone by reporting the stories of the victims of the Iraq war. This is exactly what should be done – not concentrate only on dead Americans or ignore everyone, but instead remember them.

Punctuality issues

For once my generous views on scheduling worked to my benefit. We were supposed to have an extra seminar session on Friday the 9th but I slept too late, thus missed the seminar and went straight into the computer room. See? Crime does pay.

Lights out

Power outage on our side of Keppoch Street. This means no telly tonight, which is a catastrophe because Chris Morris’s Jam would be on. Before you even start to think Oh, how romantic, a chance to relax may I remind you that it also means no hot water, no shower (warm or cold), no radiator, no coffee, no refrigerator and no freezer. The last item will become a huge problem unless this is fixed soon, as most of our six-person household’s food is in there. I’m already looking forwards to the smell of rotten meat.

I’m using the laptop and a maximized xemacs window as a makeshift light source. Hopefully it’ll last long enough for me to do some reading, because the next option is using my cellular’s backlight, and that ain’t too good. Yay.

Nekkid bodies

Janne once noted that Spartacus is an excellent movie, all the more so because it features Kirk Douglas clad in leather. By that token I’m sure he’d enjoy Vikings, a fine pseudo-historical adventure romp in which Mr. D dons a fur coat and some nasty looking leather leggings. On a more sordid note, it is quite remarkable that he plays a character with a scarred face and nasty character – quite unusual for a big movie star in his age, or indeed any age.

On the other hand there’s a really alarming scene in Striptease where Demi Moore’s character’s daughter sees her stripping, erm, dancing in the club stark naked. I just hope that the scene was actually put together in the editing room, for no one under 18 should be subjected to Ms Moore’s naked body. Come to think of it, most of the time it would be good to steer clear of her even when she’s dressed.

Three Kings seemed better the other time around, especially now that I knew more about the circumstances in Iraq during the end of the first Gulf War. Now the film seems almost prophetic, but of course it already had the benefit of 20/20 hindsight (it was only made in 1999).

We’re back

The laptop lasted for about an hour and a half last night, after which there was nothing to do. We post-post-modern people dread nothing like the lack of sensory stimuli, so I just went to bed at midnight.

It’ll be fixed in two hours, they said last night but of course it wasn’t. It wasn’t working this morning at 5AM when Sonja got up to work and it wasn’t working at 7AM when I woke up for some unexplainable reason. So I just took out my frozen pizza from the silent freezer, added some Danish blue cheese which was dying a quiet death in the warm fridge, cooked up the lot and ate it. And went back to bed.

When the alarm rang at 9.30AM, electricity was back but I was too tired to get up, so I missed the only showing of Rabbit Proof Fence. Shame, the movie seemed interesting enough.

Two things happened in the bathroom this morning. I was almost completely undressed when I realized by the way my bowel kept growling that I was going in for the big one. I started to get redressed to go downstairs to fetch some reading, before I realized that it had all the signs of obsessive compulsory paranoid schizoid whatever mental shortcoming. So in the end I didn’t.

Thing number two is that I’m quite sure I saw the letters HAL scribbled somewhere on our shower, and I swear to God that the bastard was trying to kill me. Boiling hot, then ice cold, then hot again, and I hadn’t even looked at the dial. Diabolical.

A Heartbreaking ∞ of Staggering Genius

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