Forget “spoetry”; according to Boing Boing, experiments in the field stretch back a few years, and were known as “flarf”. The Flarf Festival is a series of live events in New York City between April 20-22.
For archival purposes, here are my own three attempts:
Pee Wee. Definitely Pee Wee. *shudder* (guest submission by Dave)
Who knew? Bush took the initiative in inventing the iPod. And now that a huge percentage of the population owns one, the Justice Department can activate the hidden Echelon II chip inside… NOW! (guest submission by Dave)
Chris Ware on the frustrations of having his elaborate comics printed & distributed. (spotted on Kottke.org)
Dorkiest. Link. Ever. [update: no longer online: x-entertainment.com/articles/0913/] Featuring Spider-Man and special guest star Agent Faces. Where do I sign up for The Mighty Marvel Marching Society? (guest submission by Your Friendly Neighborhood Andrea, with reporting by Dave)
Roll a real-world Katamari Damacy [update: no longer online: occlupanid.livejournal.com/70824.html] in San Francisco. (spotted on Boing Boing) q.v. my Katamari love letter.
The Brothers Wayan are on the offense again. These guys are a high-low concept machine!
Cute Overload (no longer online: cuteoverload.com) is so… cute, it makes my teeth hurt. Warning: the Cats ‘n’ Racks category may be not quite safe for work. (guest submission from Cute-as-a-Bug-in-a-Rug Andrea)
How can I be sure you’re not pretender? I want you to love me tender (no longer online: he.fi/video/armi_ja_danny.mpeg). Fabulous!
Childhood Renaissance (no longer online: worth1000.com/cache/contest/contestcache.asp?contest_id=9902&display=photoshop#entries). Favorites: Noodle Van Gogh, Christo, and Wrong Wrong Wrong! (guest submission by Dave)
That’ll teach (no longer online: www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1672) this li’l future businesswoman of the future to think outside of the box.
Yulp… ugh… gugggh… ulp… oh god… BARF (no longer online: mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=16958010&method=full&siteid=94762&headline=exclusive–tom-chews-name_page.html)! Placentophagists may do well to look up some recipes.
Wow (again)! Watch the awesome Thank You for Smoking opening titles (no longer online: shadowplaystudio.com/smoking.html) I noted in my capsule review. Typographica heroically identifies (no longer online: typographi.com/001054.php) most of the fonts. (spotted on Kottke.org)
Prove your Biblical Scholarly mettle and expose ancient conspiracies with… little Flash puzzles: The DaVinci Code Quest on Google (no longer online: google.com/davincicode).
Doctor Who Season Two premiered on Saturday to excellent ratings, and with the neat bonus feature of a downloadable commentary track (no longer available) on the official site. Meanwhile, Season One is attracting a fraction of that audience in the US, and garnering lots of yeah-but reviews.
The prog-rock/film geek in me is scrambling to my Netflix queue: Steven Soderbergh revisits one of his earliest films in his Director’s Cut of Yes’ 9012Live.
The Doonesbury Year in Bushisms (no longer online: www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/index.html?uc_full_date=20060416). In other words, Bushisms from Doonesbury this year.
The Notorious Bettie Page reviews are mixed, but The New York Times raves. Two fun tidbits gleaned from the forum: Rick Klaw’s article on his grandfather Irving, and Jungle Bettie’s jungle.
Don’t look like a wineglasshole. (guest submission from Oenophile Andrea)
“It sucks to be Frodo!” The Tolkien estate is going to love this.
“I’m the &%$#ing Doctor.” Tom Baker speaks and sings (no longer online: thedoctorsays.co.uk). (spotted on Pitchfork)
Can a virtual band break up [no longer online: enjoyment.independent.co.uk/music/features/article357310.ece]? The latest Gorillaz newsletter features the following response from Murdoc: “Absolutely gobsmacking! I know whatshisface gave us a hand with the record and, yes, a great big round of applause to him and his Gorillaz ‘tribute act’ concerts in Harlem, but who the hell is this bloke to say when it’s time to pull the plugs on MY band? Seriously. And incidentally, I think I may be overstepping the mark here, but I personally can’t really see a next album for Blur. ‘Think Tank’ was probably the best album they could make, so maybe a couple of gigs in Las Vegas then I’d put the whole thing to bed. Unbelievable!”
Obligatory Snakes on a Plane updates (featuring reporting by Herpetologist Andrea):
How companies get product placement for “free.” (guest submission Sponsored by Andrea)
Watch, nay, smell The New World in Smell-O-Vision. (guest submission from Olfactorally Pleasing Andrea)
Finally! Confirmation that The Beatles are remastering their catalog! Let It Be… Naked and 1 sound nothing less than glorious… I can’t wait for the rest.
I’ve been a loyal Lost addict watcher since the very beginning, but have strangely never thought to check it out online. Just for starters (featuring reporting by But-Now-I’m-Found Andrea):
Great Scott! The Jerry Seigel estate was awarded the copyright to Superboy [no longer online: comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=7054]? As the comics industry is about as historically evil as the music industry, this is remarkable.
Doctor Who Season Two kicks off Saturday! Lots to look forward to, including even a spinoff show for kids. [no longer online: bbc.co.uk:80/doctorwho/news/cult/news/drwho/2006/04/10/31130.shtml]
A new study on gender and reading finds some shocking, shocking results: evidently men are all about “angst and Orwell… puberty reading” while women reach for either Mr. Darcy or the “slash your wrist corner.” And let’s not even get into hardcover/paperback tendencies. (guest submission by Bibliophile Andrea)
A key component in everyone’s disaster survival pack: a genuine 19th Century Vampire hunting kit [eBay listing no longer online]. (guest submission from Dave)
Brings new meaning to the phrase beer garden (no longer online: msnbc.msn.com/id/12188118). OK, but does it facilitate pollination? (guest submission from Designated Gardener Andrea)
Spammers don’t know cute (no longer online: thepcspy.com/kittenauthtest). (guest submission from Dave)
Now, this is nothing but bait for Christian Persecution Complex-ers. “We’re under attack by … [whoghk, spit!] … scientists!” (guest submission from Complex Andrea)
Compounds & Elements (no longer online: compoundsandelements.com), a new sampler from the resurgent label All Saints.
What’s the opposite of an oxymoron? Stupid comics (no longer online: misterkitty.org/extras/stupidcovers). If not stupid enough, pick a random link from the bottom of the page. (guest submission from Dave)
More glorious comics trash in the Gorilla Cover Gallery (no longer online: members.shaw.ca/vcofell1/myweb4/aindex.htm). (spotted on Kottke.org)
Tiktaalik roseae gots da proto-wrists, baby! Take that, ignorant Darwin-hatas!
And she’s already a star. (spotted on Boing Boing)
Skip film school and pitch your scripts to Steven Spielberg On the Lot. (guest submission from Studio Insider Andrea)
Now dorks can reach out and touch their sweeties via Bluetooth with a Hug Shirt. (guest submission from Early Adopter Andrea)
And to close with a strong contender for all-time dorkiest link: an almost-full emulation of Mac OS 7.1… in Flash! (guest submission from Dave)
A question most appropriate to this blog: How geeky are you? (no longer online: msnbc.msn.com/id/11977271/site/newsweek) (guest submission from Andrea)
A pair of Doctor Who treats to kick off today’s Report:
Extra-strength tryptophan was clearly not enough to defeat Hagryphus giganteus’s predators. (guest submission from Andrea)
“cork and work” and… dork? Absurdities of English Spelling (guest submission from Dave)
Bjorn Tipling’s Color Tool (no longer online: color.sharewonders.com) (guest submission from Dave)
The Apple fan/apologist’s ultimate hell freezes over scenario (no longer online: apple.com/macosx/bootcamp). But maybe it’s time to share the pain.
You don’t say! Gosh, this really shakes my faith in our president. Cough, cough.
I’m a latecomer to this already-famous treasure: Overheard in New York. Incidentally, Harvey Pekar has written a graphic novel biography of its founding editor.
Wired counts seven sci-fi concept albums. Only seven? I nominate The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (more surreal fantasy than sci-fi, perhaps?) and Tales from Topographic Oceans (too sucky?). The latter clocks in at no. 4 in the Ten Scariest Concept Albums of All Time.
Careful, Doctor, you might sprain that eyebrow.
Hot on the heels of CNN.com’s redesign comes that of NYTimes.com. The constant: catering to wiiiiiide monitors. The winner: the latter (if for no other reason than extending the redesign to the interior pages).
Tomorrow’s a good music day: Gorillaz Live at the Apollo [no longer online: mtv.com/news/articles/1525131/20060301/gorillaz.jhtml] and two new cds: The Flaming Lips’ At War With the Mystics and Massive Attack Collected. Next week: Brian Eno & David Byrne’s My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.
Taste the meat! Taste it! (guest submission by Dave)
“Dreaming of a stolen purse has been interpreted as a metaphor for a missing penis” (guest submission by Andrea)
OMG, it’s not just me! (spotted on kottke.org)
Designers rise up! And, uh… fight Spider-Man. (spotted on The IconFactory)
Chris Whitley’s posthumous album Reiter In comes out today. About 1998 or so, I designed one iteration of his official-unofficial fan site.
A breathtaking ABC memo on preferred human misery for Extreme Makeover. Didn’t they see Thank You for Smoking? (guest submission from Andrea)
Clash of the memes: Snakes on a Sudoko (guest submission from Andrea)
The Rolling Stones would never sell out, would they? (spotted on The Onion AV Club)
History according to the movies. (guest submission from Dave)
Gorillaz are screening excerpts from their forthcoming Europe-only DVD.
Toss back a pint as the Guinness Book of World Records settles another hypothetical pub dispute: World’s Largest Coconut Orchestra. (guest submission from Andrea)
For all the negative buzz regarding V for Vendetta writer Alan Moore’s total disavowal of James McTeigue’s adaptation, I was surprised to find that the film kept far closer to the book than I expected. Closer, in fact, than the two other travesties of Moore’s comics, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and From Hell. Perhaps not coincidentally, it’s better than both, if by itself still not very good.
It’s impossible for me to imagine how I would have reacted had I not read the book several times, but I suspect I would have had very mixed feelings either way. When it comes to movies based on comics, it’s the prerogative of every fan to obsess over “what they changed.” So let me point out a few changes I feel illustrate how the filmmakers either misunderstood or deliberately warped some key themes that make the book what it is.
First, the dystopian state of Great Britain as seen in the film is in a far less desperate state than in the book. The book opens with Evey at the absolute end of hope, her parents dead and herself alone, blacklisted and unable to survive. She makes a misguided and pathetic attempt to prostitute herself, runs afoul of the corrupt police, and is “saved” (in more ways than one) by V. Her susceptibility to V’s seduction is much more plausible if she herself is already a victim of the state. In the film, as played by Natalie Portman, she’s a rather happy person with a regular job, and her encounter with V is motivated by a redundant invented character called Deitrich. Every theme Deitrich represents is already covered by the character Valerie (which is, incidentally, lifted almost unaltered from the book).
But perhaps the biggest deviation is the very nature of the fascist state Great Britain has become. In the book, it’s something that just happens; a form of order that arises out of the chaos following a nuclear world war. In the film, the great societal disruption is a conspiracy machinated by a cabal of shadowy old white men, who then step in and profit from the reconstruction. Of course, the filmmakers are obviously reaching for an analogy to the Bush Administration, Carlyle Group, Halliburton, etc. While that may make the story of the film relevant to today, it obscures a more powerful point of the book: it’s far more scary when fascism arises out of the common consent of the people, as it did with Nazi Germany.