TOM WAITS, MATERIALIST
Tom Waits is always very sensitive to the material conditions of storytelling, and often grounds his songs in everyday situations. For example, “Gun Street Girl” is presented as a tale told by a man in a drunk tank, and opens by noting this framing device. Similarly, “Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis” [...]
Archive for November, 2008
30/11/2008
29/11/2008
g is for google
a is for amazon
b is for best buy
c is for craigslist
d is for dictionary
e is for ebay
f is for facebook
g is for google
h is for hotmail
i is for imdb
j is for jennifer hudson
k is for kohls
l is for lowes
m is for myspace
n is for nfl
o is for obama
p is for photobucket
q is [...]
27/11/2008
BEWARE OF SANTA
“A Santa Claus was removed from his grotto after a woman complained that he asked if she wanted to sit on his lap, despite warnings about his behaviour by his helper elf.”
The Guardian
27/11/2008
MY GIRLS
How many times
have I lain alongside them
willing them to sleep
after the same old stories;
face to face, hand in hand,
till they smooth into dream and I can
slip these fingers free
and drift downstairs:
my face a blank,
hands full of deceit.
By Robin Robertson
27/11/2008
SAVOIR/CONNAISSANCE
“Is our children learning?” asked George Bush. He might have asked: “What are they learning?” The ideal of education is often taken for transparent and self-evident. In truth, there is as much opacity here as anywhere. What is transmitted in a classroom – what is transmitted generally – is never just abstract knowledge; but also [...]
24/11/2008
ARSENAL
Arsenal aren’t doing very well this season. The reasons for this aren’t hard to decode. Actually, the main problem here is the number of reasons. Myles Palmer has already delivered an ebullient screed on the matter, which I don’t think could be topped. “Song is an idiot! This squad is crap! This team is crap! [...]
22/11/2008
PRIMER
Primer is an unusual film. Written, directed and produced by one-man-band Shane Carruth on a budget of $7,000, the movie is geared around the narrative-splintering effects of an accidental scientific discovery, made by two tech entrepreneurs in their garage.
The cleverest part of the picture lies in the way it effectively narrates – through theoretical metaphor [...]
22/11/2008
WHAT IS POLITICS?
I was having a coffee with a colleague yesterday, and at one point she said to me: “We have a different understanding of the word ‘politics.’” I’d been talking about the political implications of the internet and had been making the case that the internet was creating new patterns of social organization, and [...]
