Half a percent

It was pretty much exactly what I'd been told to expect - a slow film without that much plot but absolutely beautiful. Some of the indoor scenes reminded me of Peter Greenaway. Apparently the actor playing the assassin herself was down for one of the lead parts in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, but her manager insisted that doing a Coke advert instead was a much better move.

This morning, though. A council truck has just driven up with a car on the back, lifted it into a parking space, and left. I have woken up in science fiction story, but I've read too many of these to know what's expected of me now. Should I be vomiting up food, putting it back into its packets and taking it to the shop to exchange it for money? Or when I get food will they give me extra money that I have to give to other people to persuade them to accept goods and services? Or is this by an author I haven't read?

If you don't see me again, it's because I daren't leave the house.

Oh, Pixies : one of the ads at the cinema was for some sort of boneheaded killing game-console franchise. It was soundtracked by a gentle piano version of Where Is My Mind. Presumably it's a comment either on the game or its players.

I saw an article today concerning controversy over this sculpture. If they don't want it over there, I think we should have it here.

Leila was round yesterday picking up some Beltane-related stuff, and via conversational peregrinations I ended up finding her those pictures of a Fishing Cat being kept in a Russian flat. One of the pictures isn't worksafe, for most values of, but not actually wildly offensive. In an event obviously totally unrelated to that URL, apparently a plan to make a sequel to The Wicker Man has just fallen through. I'm generally against sequels, but this one sounds potentially interesting. Hopefully they'll get their funding sorted. Shall we not mention the musical, please?

The curse of Bladerunner has not been airbrushed out - Pan-Am, Koss and Atari are still prominently advertised. Drinks do rather better. You can still buy Coke and Black Label - in the same glass even, if you wish. TDK also survive.

The numbering discrepancy has been fixed.

( Gigantor 23-11-07 )

( Neon 25-11-07 )

As I'm here, I'll just mention this article about Joy Division and Control.

"This sounds awful but it was only after Ian died that we sat down and listened to the lyrics," says Morris. "You'd find yourself thinking, 'Oh my God, I missed this one.' Because I'd look at Ian's lyrics and think how clever he was putting himself in the position of someone else. I never believed he was writing about himself. Looking back, how could I have been so bleedin' stupid? Of course he was writing about himself. But I didn't go in and grab him and ask, 'What's up?' I have to live with that. Watching the film, there were moments when I wished I could have stepped into the film. Unfortunately, you can't."

This, of course, reminds me of Mark & Lard's quiz "We Love Us", which had them getting band members out of their beds and asking them tricky questions like what the second track on their own first album was, which they wouldn't generally know, or which of their songs particular lines came from (although the singers would be much better with lyrics than the rest - usually).

I've been avoiding the news this weekend, mostly. The Hoose last night had the BBC on, and it seemed to be rather singlemindedly pursuing the obvious agenda. The chicken, however, stops here - I hope.

The other week I came across a website with an early draft of Barry Hughart's highly excellent Bridge of Birds. If you haven't read the published version, then I'd recommend having a look at this to see whether it's likely to be your sort of thing. If you have read it then you're probably going to read that without my prompting.

niddrie_edge pointed me at a very odd story concerning a film called Darklands, made about ten years ago and in some ways rather like a version of The Wicker Man set in South Wales. The producers seem to have been putting it about that they and their film have been cursed by a scary gang of Edinburgh witches called the Beltane Fire Society (of which I are a member, and which is not witches). Now, in spite of the fact that this is very obviously the tallest Scottish witch story since the exceedingly tall Tam O'Shanter (or possibly even since MacBeth), they allegedly convinced Richard Stanley of this too, which I'm not sure I believe either.

On Sunday I went to the FIlmhouse to see Conspirators of Pleasure as part of their short Svankmajer season, and very fine it was too. It came out about ten years ago, and I didn't see it at the time. Mostly live-action, with only a little animation, it concerns the strange and obsessive secret activities of six Czechs, and the connections between them. For some reason it got an 18 certificate, and I'd love to know how that was justified - there's no violence against people (although a couple of straw-stuffed effigies get it fairly nastily) and no nudity stronger than a couple of shots of a guy's arse. Nevertheless, it's a deeply diseased piece of work. As this review has it, "I don't think I've ever seen a film that is quite so obsessively fetishistic - almost everything that passes in front of his camera is given a weirdly erotic charge [ . . . ] it manages to present a portrait of human sexuality of unusual complexity and philosophical depth without once resorting to spoken dialogue". Perhaps they used the same phrase as for Crash - "general tone".

Fantastic stuff. Massively recommended.

Mr Inglis has given me the OK to tell you about his Writers' Bloc MySpork page, where you can listen to a few of the clips recorded at their readings. Currently you can hear Hannu Rajaniemi reading his poem "Numbers" (the bit about numbers stations existing is entirely true) and Gav himself reading "From a completely unexpected direction" (you should probably, for best results, know that before starting he had left a selection of carrier bags on and around all the tables). I know for a fact that he has an awful lot of excellent material he could put up there, so it might well be worth keeping an eye on that for developments.

In a slight surprise, the Subway is closing. The management, and apparently all the various clubs, are moving to the Hive, on Niddrie Street. Apparently the Hive is nicer. That would not, to speak frankly, be difficult. The place has always been a noxious little dive of poor reputation, and what higher recommendation could there be than that? Many years ago some friends of mine saw the Clash play there. Rather more recently (but still not actually recently) I and some friends saw Radiohead. At around the same time (perhaps even that night) I saw a support band (Tinkerbell's Dope Ring, IIRC) do a mad thrash version of Groove Is In The Heart, with (if memory serves) vocals verging on the yodel during the chorus. Someone said they'd heard that it was likely to become an R'n'B (or what passes for it these days) venue. I can't see it. Bling? In a hole like that?

In the runup to the new smoking ban Doon Sooth, the Guardian dropped into a Hull pub to record a couple of prize comments from disgruntled tobacco devotees:

"I smoke 100 to 120 cigs a day. The ban will kill us"

. . . and . . .

"They'll be banning sex next."

Now, technically speaking it hasn't been legal to get it out and get on with it in the middle of a busy pub for quite some time, but why let sanity get in the way of a good rant? Well, either that or Hull's a more fun place than I've been led to believe.

And finally, and definitely not raising the moral tone at all, thanks to whichever of you it was who posted this link - file under "Don't children make you laugh?" Not necessarily worksafe. Entirely textual. Neither big nor clever. A couple of my friends have a story that would fit in neatly there . . . but I'll let them decide whether to share it.

Got to see Pan's Labyrinth. Not exactly a bundle of laughs, but very good. There was a building near the beginning which might have been inspired by the proposed Monument to the Third International, which wouldn't have jumped out at me except that in the foyer there was a poster for a kids film featuring Tom Hanks, which had something quite similar in it. Of course, there are other things that could have inspired them - some depictions of the Tower of Babel, or the spiralling Malwiya Tower of the Great Mosque of Samarra, but the proportions and threading look more like Tatlin's version. To me, anyway.

Anyway, the fascists were cardboard cut-outs apart from the Captain, a real swine of a man, but everyone else was well-drawn. My efforts to make it to the Cameo more are working. Next, the Filmhouse.

My granddad once told me about going to church some time back for Mass. The priest was fulminating about the evils of supporting leftists - in particular, he had heard of some of the congregation (I can't imagine who he might have been meaning) who had been collecting in aid of Spanish Republicans. This, he declared, was unforgiveable, because they were opposing Franco, an honourable Christian gentleman. Barney got up and walked out. It's been more than 70 years, and he's still not been back. I wonder sometimes whether his entry into the Royal Artillery in 1937 was spurred by being only just too young for Spain. Regardless, it's good for me that he did. He'd never have been in Ayr otherwise.

Sorry. I'm talking shite again. I'll shut up now.

I haven't seen Silent Running in quite some time. I'd rather like to.

[Poll #818018]

Jon and Kathryn have been and gone, it was great to see them, and I enjoyed the Joyriders a lot. It was the best free concert I've been to in a long while, and I got a CD of their complete output too. The flat's also tider than it's been in ages. Which is nice. More of you should come visit, OK? I've said this before, and quite frankly I'm a little disappointed in how few of you take me up on it.

In other news, we have some tentative Gigantor dates. Nothing until October, and obviously we'll let you know what they are as soon as they become definite. In the meantime, we'll be taking part in a night called "Alternative Culture" in the inevitable Park Room / Underground / Whatever on the 30th of September, along with (I believe) Cyberia, Bitch and Ascension. Could be a lot of fun.

Karen Armstrong's back in the Grauniad today :

During the 20th century, a militant piety erupted in almost every major world faith( Read more... )

In other news, I went to see a film last night with assorted friends - RLex, Lara, Seth, Crash & Judith - with thanks to the last (two?) for dinner. It was a film with boats in, which I rather enjoyed. Turner senior and Jones were both excellent, and it definitely has the silliest swordfight ever committed to celluloid. The Errol Flynn references in the fights scenes generally were rather fun too, but not as good as the Jules Verne joke, which is a hoot. Considerable liberties are also taken with the Flying Dutchman story and the "dead man's chest" itself. It started off a bit lumpenly, but warmed up a enough before long. Depp didn't seem to be playing things as remorselessly for laughs. Maybe this reflects him having the studio (Oh God, I went to see a Disney film . . . ) on his side after the success of the first. Not going to hit my top ten, but a good laugh. I'm looking forward to seeing Keef in the third.

I did, as predicted, start sniggering when Port Royal came into shot. There's a view here illustrating the lack of hills for at least ten miles, as well as some history and information on recent submarine archaeology of the site. Worth a look regardless, in fact.