Saturday, 31 October 2009
Tuesday, 27 October 2009
The Ghost of a Flea.
William Blake - The Ghost of a Flea.
"Blake's explanation of the spirit he saw accords with the painting's extreme drama of scale, the contrast of the huge invisible monster with its tiny incarnation as insect. The blood-drinking household flea, said Blake, is in fact the physical shape taken by the souls of men who are so bloodthirsty that they are providentially confined to the size and form of insects.
The ghost is gorging on a bowl of blood. This is Blake's ultimate critique of the English portrait. How can empiricism, good manners and the sociability of a Gainsborough possibly acknowledge, as Blake does here, that one aspect of human nature is that of a blood-drinking ghoul?" - Johnathan Jones, the Guardian.
"Blake's explanation of the spirit he saw accords with the painting's extreme drama of scale, the contrast of the huge invisible monster with its tiny incarnation as insect. The blood-drinking household flea, said Blake, is in fact the physical shape taken by the souls of men who are so bloodthirsty that they are providentially confined to the size and form of insects.
The ghost is gorging on a bowl of blood. This is Blake's ultimate critique of the English portrait. How can empiricism, good manners and the sociability of a Gainsborough possibly acknowledge, as Blake does here, that one aspect of human nature is that of a blood-drinking ghoul?" - Johnathan Jones, the Guardian.
Tuesday, 20 October 2009
I have no love for the rich
One of the best detective/noir films I've ever seen... In fact, one of the best films I've ever seen generally, and probably my favourite Kurosawa so far:
This is the best trailer I found on Youtube, because it doesn't give too much away (unless you read Japanese, in which case it might well give the whole plot away), unlike most of the other ones. But you should go and watch the whole film; it's pretty long, but brilliantly suspenseful and doesn't seem long at all.
This is the best trailer I found on Youtube, because it doesn't give too much away (unless you read Japanese, in which case it might well give the whole plot away), unlike most of the other ones. But you should go and watch the whole film; it's pretty long, but brilliantly suspenseful and doesn't seem long at all.
Thursday, 15 October 2009
"No more squishin' and squashin'!"
"Or flippin' and floppin'!"
Sorry to keep going on about dumb informercials, but these things are just so fascinating and hilarious. The volume of this guy's voice is through the fucking roof. It's like they're just trying to scare and intimidate people into buying this shit. This must be where they got the inspiration for Barry Scott, guys like Billy Mays.
Sorry to keep going on about dumb informercials, but these things are just so fascinating and hilarious. The volume of this guy's voice is through the fucking roof. It's like they're just trying to scare and intimidate people into buying this shit. This must be where they got the inspiration for Barry Scott, guys like Billy Mays.
"The money you can claw back from things like home insurance is... invaluable."
Surely it is very easy to value money... It has a directly corresponding monetary value. It's pretty much the most easily valuable thing you get.
Stupid adverts.
Also, "School of Comedy" looks fucking awful. I hate TV, it makes me so angry.
Speaking of how much I like TV, here's a selection of interesting/amusing interviews from across the ages:
"Poppin' right around the studio"
Dave Letterman is a real asshole... As it says at the start of this video, you should check the context of what it is they're arguing about, but basically it comes down to Harvey protesting against General Electric, for various offenses like dumping toxic waste and testing nukes. General Electric own the television station NBC, which broadcasts the Dave Letterman show, so when Harvey came on with a t-shirt prompting people to boycott NBC, and starting mouthing off about General Electric, Dave Letterman wasn't having it and tried to shut him up, following which the in-house band played over him speaking and they cut to a commercial, despite having just come back from one. The video above seems to be NBC basically getting Harvey back in simply to make him look as stupid as possible, in order to belittle him and make sure that anyone who might have got a shock from the first time round fell back into being close minded zombies who don't care about what General Electric does as long as David Letterman keeps on with the funnies, which is incredibly hypocritical given how much Letterman tries to shout Harvey down by telling him he's being very rude in the first video. It also doesn't work, because he comes across as a complete prick. I think in both videos it shows how much of a bunch of assholes the live audience are also. Here's the first video:
While we're on the subject of television, I came across this guy today, who puts Barry Scott to shame in terms of sounding ridiculously hammy and over the top:
"Stop having a boring tuna, stop having a boring life" - basically the funniest line ever. "You're gonna have an exciting life now." If only this guy actually knew what irony meant... Perhaps he's taking the piss, but I'm afraid he might be serious. "You're gonna love my nuts". People say sex sells, I guess they're trying to sell this product to extremely desperate housewives or something.
Outside of the adverts, he was also arrested for beating up a prostitute after she bit his tongue. This guy is like the most stereotypical numbskull from L.A. that you could ever think of; clearly a failed actor, leading some empty vapid life where he goes around beating prostitutes and doing incredibly bad infomercials.
Anyway, sensory overload, that's enough for today.
Stupid adverts.
Also, "School of Comedy" looks fucking awful. I hate TV, it makes me so angry.
Speaking of how much I like TV, here's a selection of interesting/amusing interviews from across the ages:
"Poppin' right around the studio"
Dave Letterman is a real asshole... As it says at the start of this video, you should check the context of what it is they're arguing about, but basically it comes down to Harvey protesting against General Electric, for various offenses like dumping toxic waste and testing nukes. General Electric own the television station NBC, which broadcasts the Dave Letterman show, so when Harvey came on with a t-shirt prompting people to boycott NBC, and starting mouthing off about General Electric, Dave Letterman wasn't having it and tried to shut him up, following which the in-house band played over him speaking and they cut to a commercial, despite having just come back from one. The video above seems to be NBC basically getting Harvey back in simply to make him look as stupid as possible, in order to belittle him and make sure that anyone who might have got a shock from the first time round fell back into being close minded zombies who don't care about what General Electric does as long as David Letterman keeps on with the funnies, which is incredibly hypocritical given how much Letterman tries to shout Harvey down by telling him he's being very rude in the first video. It also doesn't work, because he comes across as a complete prick. I think in both videos it shows how much of a bunch of assholes the live audience are also. Here's the first video:
While we're on the subject of television, I came across this guy today, who puts Barry Scott to shame in terms of sounding ridiculously hammy and over the top:
"Stop having a boring tuna, stop having a boring life" - basically the funniest line ever. "You're gonna have an exciting life now." If only this guy actually knew what irony meant... Perhaps he's taking the piss, but I'm afraid he might be serious. "You're gonna love my nuts". People say sex sells, I guess they're trying to sell this product to extremely desperate housewives or something.
Outside of the adverts, he was also arrested for beating up a prostitute after she bit his tongue. This guy is like the most stereotypical numbskull from L.A. that you could ever think of; clearly a failed actor, leading some empty vapid life where he goes around beating prostitutes and doing incredibly bad infomercials.
Anyway, sensory overload, that's enough for today.
Tuesday, 6 October 2009
You feel so glad to be unable to go beyond
Not sure if the person who posted this on Youtube made it, or Wavves made it, or what, but here you go:
Monday, 5 October 2009
Thursday, 1 October 2009
Random
1. Proceeding, made, or occurring without definite aim, reason, or pattern: the random selection of numbers.
2. Statistics. of or characterizing a process of selection in which each item of a set has an equal probability of being chosen.
3. Building Trades.
a. (of building materials) lacking uniformity of dimensions: random shingles.
b. (of ashlar) laid without continuous courses.
c. constructed or applied without regularity: random bond.
It doesn't mean quirky, strange, or vaguely unlikeable. Just to clear that up.
I know a lot of people have a problem with the word "nice", I don't mind it, when it's not overused, and it's a lot less annoying and offensive than "random". I'd pretty much ban the word "random" if I could, for a while at least, so it could have a little cooling off period. People just insert it anywhere, as an exclamation or as a totally irrelevant adjective. It's pretty irritating, especially when people do it in my classes:
Lecturer: "Has anyone seen all of these poems?"
Person who never says anything vaguely interesting or useful: "Yeah... I have."
L: "OK, so what did you think of them?"
P.W.N.S.A.V.I.O.U: "I dunno... they were a bit random..."
Sigh...
This is good:
babel and escha - Urbanalities
I especially like the clock part, and the strange flowing shape inside the red clock face that follows it.
2. Statistics. of or characterizing a process of selection in which each item of a set has an equal probability of being chosen.
3. Building Trades.
a. (of building materials) lacking uniformity of dimensions: random shingles.
b. (of ashlar) laid without continuous courses.
c. constructed or applied without regularity: random bond.
It doesn't mean quirky, strange, or vaguely unlikeable. Just to clear that up.
I know a lot of people have a problem with the word "nice", I don't mind it, when it's not overused, and it's a lot less annoying and offensive than "random". I'd pretty much ban the word "random" if I could, for a while at least, so it could have a little cooling off period. People just insert it anywhere, as an exclamation or as a totally irrelevant adjective. It's pretty irritating, especially when people do it in my classes:
Lecturer: "Has anyone seen all of these poems?"
Person who never says anything vaguely interesting or useful: "Yeah... I have."
L: "OK, so what did you think of them?"
P.W.N.S.A.V.I.O.U: "I dunno... they were a bit random..."
Sigh...
This is good:
babel and escha - Urbanalities
I especially like the clock part, and the strange flowing shape inside the red clock face that follows it.
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