Apologies if you’ve seen this before, but if not, ladies and gennelman, I give you The Kansas City Library.
A terrific bit of architecture, I’d say – and I’m rather taken by the eclectic choice of books as well.
Bravo, Kansas!
Author: John Page 9 of 121
Today was my birthday, and for the first time in my working life, I didn’t take the day off.
How was it, you ask? Well, the title of this book by the late David Foster Wallace sums it up best:
I shouldn’t really complain: I’ve long thought that there wouldn’t be any harm in everyone having their birthday as a day off school, college, work or whatever. It’s just the one day, and since everyone has only one every year (except the Queen and people who were born on February 29), it’d apply pretty much equally.
Now I think about it, this is probably one of the few beliefs I have which hasn’t changed over time. A solid and definite policy decision, maybe I should (crap pun approaching) form a political group and stand on this policy and this policy alone, under the name The Birthday Party?
Oh hang on, looks like Nick Cave and friends have beaten me to it. Ah well, probably for the best.
Do forgive my nonsense, it’s late and I’m increasingly old. Though I guess that applies to all of us.
Last summer, I wrote about watching the solar eclipse in India, and mentioned that there’d been thousands of other people observing the event.
However, what I didn’t know at the time was that a camera crew was there making a BBC science-based programme, and you won’t be surprised to hear that their film of the eclipse is much more professional.
The footage forms part (some might even argue the centrepiece) of the first episode of the BBC2 series Wonders of the Solar System, presented by physicist Brian Cox, who’s both smiley and enthusiastic about his subject matter, and it’s generally a very interesting programme.
The eclipse stuff is around the halfway point, but I’d heartily recommend watching the whole show (not least because, if it’s phenomena in the sky you like, there’s a great sequence about the Northern Lights towards the end of the programme).
One of the things Cox does well, I feel (in addition to explaining issues clearly) is to convey a genuine sense of wonder and amazement about things; so often people will tell you that something is important or startling, but Cox is good at telling you why he thinks this is the case. I understand they’re doing a trimmed-down version of the show for children, which sounds like a terrific idea.
What’s that you say? Where do you find the programme? Why, m’love, tis right here. Enjoy.
Yes, I know, this sort of link-passing is what Twitter is for, but I don’t have a Twitter account, so here it be.
Back in May 2009 I gave a resounding thumbs-up to the first issue of the comic The Unwritten by Mike Carey and Peter Gross.
This week, it’s been made available online for free in PDF format, so you can have a look at it and see if I was way off the mark or not.
In the months since its release, another ten or so issues have been published, and I feel they’ve fleshed out the underlying ‘mythology’ rather well, including a number of historic figures such as Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Rudyard Kipling and even Joseph Goebells.
It’s currently one of the comics I look forward to most each month, so I’d urge you to have a look at the freebie first issue and see if it’s your kind of thing.
For me and many other males of a certain age and inclination, the reaction to Princess Leia in the Star Wars films was one which changed as the years went on and morefilms came out.
When the first film came out, and I was 7 or so, she was just, well, there, being captured and rescued and arguing with the male characters and then dishing out medals at the end. I think I may have had the Leia action figure which came out, but it wasn’t my favourite or anything.
Then The Empire Strikes Back came out, and I seem to remember Leia having more to do – she was in charge on the ice planet, and more like one of the troops. Still, as a boy of about ten, I saw that she was a girl, and of course that meant she probably smelled like flowers and liked ponies or something. I don’t know, all right? I was young and foolish then (as opposed to older and … well, yes).
But a few years later, in Return Of The Jedi there was a frankly gratuitous scene with Leia in a metal bikini (much referred to amongst boys of a certain age, and the focus of an episode of Friends), which coincided with certain age-wrought changes in me to the extent that… well, yes, I found the scene oddly compelling. That’s how shallow and facile I was then (and probably am now, some might say).
As I say, the scene with Leia in a metal bikini in the 1983 film was pretty unnecessary really, and I don’t think it would be stretching it to say it was sexist. Fortunately, in 1995 a remodelled version of the Princess Leia action figure was released, and I think it’s fair to say that it went some way to addressing the unnecessary sexualisation of the character:
… well, maybe you find that alluring. It doesn’t do it for me, and I’m not alone in that, as apparently collectors call this the ‘Monkey Face Leia’ figure. I can see why, though it looks both simian and constipated.
Still, Carrie Fisher has demonstrated a sharp sense of humour about all this, I feel – in 2008 she said “Among George’s many possessions, he owns my likeness, so that every time I look in the mirror I have to send him a couple of bucks. That’s partly why he’s so rich.”
I derive a strange delight from seeing international editions of magazines on the shelves of newsagents (often the larger branches).
I’m intrigued to see the differences between the covers of the US and UK versions of, say, Esquire or GQ; whilst this may have its roots in my childhood discovery of imported american comics alongside copies of Whizzer and Chips and Krazy comic (and wonderment at the fact that the US comics were, despite being smaller, in full colo[u]r), it’s also quite interesting to pre-spot cover features on films or bands which may well make their way across the Atlantic in a month or so’s time. This used to be very apparent with the film magazine Premiere, where last month’s cover-feature in the US often seemed to be this month’s in the UK edition, though I’m not sure if that mag still exists in either form.
Anyway, as ever, a thousand words or so when the pictures say it all: the UK and US editions of the current edition of Wired, and I’m amused by the different approach to the same cover-featured article: the US version looks like something from a Haynes manual, and the UK edition looks more like a poster from the era of Communism or the like.
I have no real point to make here, in all honesty; I’m just sharing something which amuses me a bit.
Self-indulgent? Very probably, but I suspect I’ve posted worse.
… in the 25th Century, Brainiac 5 demonstrates his contempt for those members of the Legion Of Super-Heroes too stupid to figure out how to make their own flight-rings.
Go on, Brainy! Flick them the rods!
For some years now, the shelves of newsagents have been awash with… well, I don’t know what you’d call them, really; tragic confession magazines? I’m sure you know the sort of thing – like the one pictured here, they’re jam-packed with true tales of tragedy and woe, and yet often topped with a no-context-at-all picture of a smiling woman. Given the coverlines swirling around her, I always wonder: just what is she smiling at?
Anyway, there are a lot of these magazines, and a lot of the tales seem to focus around death or children or the deaths or illnesses of children, but there seems to be very little coverage of them; I can’t help but wonder if, like their equivalent in book publishing, they’re a bit of a ‘dirty secret’ – very lucrative, but not necessarily something that the folks involved want to admit to being involved in or talk about too much. Like being a pimp or drug dealer, or the composer of The Ketchup Song.
But, in a strange case of synchronicity, these magazines are the focus of not one, but two programmes on TV this week – one on Tuesday and another – on a different channel – on Thursday.
Hang on a mo, though… is it synchronicity… or a clever marketing ploy?
Hmm. If the latter, then my simple-minded ways have been exploited by a cruel media machine. I feel so dirty and used, like my very soul’s been violated.
Perhaps I should sell my story.
None of my schoolfriends believed me when I maintained that there was something… unexpected on Penelope Pitstop’s car dashboard.
But this screengrab vindicates me. Oh yes.
And now, with this decade-spanning disagreement finally resolved in my favour, I can move on with my life.
NB: There is a possibility the above is slightly exaggerated to justify showing an innuendal image. Do not panic. All is well. Please do not adjust your ‘nets.