- Artists Ryan Ottley and James Harren have a Tumblr where they release non-comic pieces of art they’ve been conjuring up. There seems to be themes, too. Like the other week they called ‘Shadow Week’. The site is called “THEBOG“. James just posted this, as winter is not over yet:
- More comic stores are refusing to sellOrson Scott Card’s new Superman book on account of his straight-forward, clear stance on gay rights and indeed lesbians, gays, and bisexuals as people too. I love that Mark Millar came out and said something to the tune of, “that’s the thing about free speech, it isn’t always something you’re going to agree with. But that doesn’t mean you ban someone, you threaten their livelihood.” Actually Mark, that’s the thing about Free Speech, you can sell or not sell whatever products you choose as dependent upon however you feel about said products, production methods, or producers themselves. And while we’re at it, work on your dialogue please.
- Very interesting perspective here. Former ‘sex worker’, now journalist on what feminists get wrong when it comes to prostitution (from Guernica): WAGING WAR ON SEX WORKERS.
“I’ve been free in my writing to have that opinion. I’ve never been constrained by journalism in a formal way in which I have to hear both sides. I don’t even know who “both sides” would be on this issue. No, I’m not going to have a debate with you about how you feel about sex work. It has no impact on what happens tonight with the police in the streets. Our feelings alone don’t change what happens with the police, what happens in jail, what happens when someone tries to go to the welfare office, the unemployment office, or any kind of state agency where a criminal record comes up for prostitution. How we feel about the commodification of sexuality and violence doesn’t actually translate to those people’s lives. A lot of the debate is really academic and a waste of time.”
- The latest Watch Dogs video looks unbelievable. Too bad this is a PS4 game, cause I’ll probably wait to buy one of those ’til they go down in price. I still haven’t finished even 50% of Skyrim, and have Dishonored to get into. A new Playstation will guarantee one thing though, super outrageously cheap games on eBay and Craig’s List for the last system. Anyways, here’s that video:
- That Sioux Falls group Phantom Balance — I discussed them a couple posts ago — is releasing a new album called “Loser” tomorrow I believe. I’ll stream it here either tomorrow or later in the week.
- New How To Destory Angels (Trent Reznor’s latest band; his wife is the singer, and Atticus Ross co-producers/performs) is streaming. The new album is called “Welcome Oblivion” and will be released March 5th. 13 tracks at 65 minutes. On Columbia Records. Wikipedia’s labeling it as “post-industrial” and “electronica”.
- Holy shit, a week off? A week?? Well I hope get that job I was interviewed for… hope it was worth it. Let’s get at this.
- It’s nice to read direct quotes from Mark Hamill this morning, rather than speculation derived from an article that’s mostly speculating. In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, he has some really, really wonderful things to say in terms of the direction he hopes the movies take, including a more balanced approach between practical and CGI effects, not such a heavy-handed tone, and that he and all the old actors/characters would not be the focal point. I’m still disappointed that neither of my picks got the directing job (Rian Johnson and Duncan Jones), but damn Ben Affleck I bet would make a really cool hanger shootout with laser guns… just imagine that last shootout scene at Fenway in The Town, but with smugglers and new government agents…
- Sadistik’s new album is good. Perhaps not his magnum opus, but it’s good. And I mean that in a good way, I think eventually he can do something even better than this. And with the rise of Macklemore, it’s nice to hear a Seattle rapper who actually reflects the city. Not that “Flowers For My Father” is all depressing. The song (and a handful of other tracks) that details the first-hand account of Sadistik and Kristoff Krane knocking on the late Eyedea’s door and no one answering is actually very positive. In defense of the rest of the tones though, what do you expect from a guy who saw that amount of death firsthand since the release of his last proper album? I actually find it hard to believe that the production on this was handled by multiple people, there’s a consistency to it throughout (both in quality and feel).
Also, hearing a new Cage verse make me want new Cage album. And RIP Eyedea.
- Yesterday marked the 3rd anniversary of someone very close to me. Something I never thought I would say at the age I’m at now. But when I think back to that day, and being in that room with those other people I shared that moment with, I remember it as being a really beautiful thing. I couldn’t stop shaking after it happened, and I was probably in some form of shock, but that wasn’t fear or terror or horror doing that; it was the sheer power of what I — we — had seen before our very eyes. Something rare and otherworldly and unexplainable. Something breathtaking and beyond all of us. I’ll never forget it, it feels like it was yesterday.
“Chips based on the ARM architecture run a majority of the world’s smartphones, including the iPhone and most Google Android phones, and now, a wide range of hardware makers are building ARM chips for the computer servers that drive web services and the sweeping software applications used inside big businesses. The idea is to significantly reduce the power and money needed to operate a computer data center, and clearly some big-name buyers are interested.”
- So I’m a regular reader of comics. At any given time I’ve got anywhere from 5-10 books on my pull list at the shop. But for some reason I have never read any Avengers stuff (I don’t read too much superhero stuff besides some classics and/or products of great writers). I was simultaneously trepidations and excited to jump into the deep end when I heard Jonathan Hickman (a writer who’s creator-owned work I follow) would be writing not one, but two, Avengers books. And though I firmly stand on the side of the “New Avengers/Illuminati”, I did catch up on the regular “Avengers” title last night. I read a lot of slightly negative things about the 2nd and 3rd issues of the book, which I don’t really understand because the quality is almost exactly the same as the first. But a lot of readers of comics — and your fanboys who don’t read comics — don’t have the best taste. Anyways I’m hoping these “Creators”, these spectacularly complex and borderline sympathetic villains, are revisited later on during Hickman’s run… perhaps reigniting the evolution of Mars and thus far surpassing Earth?
- An article on Wired is garnering quite a bit of views: Inside The Battle of Hoth. It basically takes a satirically serious look at the strategies employed by both the Empire and the Rebellion during the big first set-piece of Empire. But after reading this article, you’ll realize how inept and incoherent a military strategy the Empire employed in their best chance at wiping out 90% of the Rebellion with one stroke.
- Alfonso Cuaron‘s first film since 2006′s brilliant Children of Men has finally set a release date: October 4th, 2013. While this may seem like eons away it really isn’t too far to go considering it’ll have been seven years since “Children”. The movie stars Clooney and Sandra Bullock as astronauts attempting to return to Earth. I’m a sucker for high concept, intelligent sci-fi flicks, so I’m counting this as one of my most anticipated releases of the year. Not to mention Cuaron’s spectacular direction… he’s certainly got an eye for it. The movie is called Gravity.
- Similarly, Shane Caruth‘s first film since the brilliant Primer (2004) is also set for release this year, it’s called Upstream Color. Primer is confusing, no doubt, but it’s one of the best science fiction films of the 2000s and one of the best time travel films of all time. And — it could be argued — the complexities of the film serve a purpose, in putting the viewer in the shoes of the characters. Synopses for “Upstream” have been vague to say the least. The IMDB description reads: “A man and woman are drawn together, entangled in the life cycle of an ageless organism. Identity becomes an illusion as they struggle to assemble the loose fragments of wrecked lives.“ The obvious wrench in there is “ageless organism”. Hmm.
- Rian Johnson posted his original script for his film “Looper” on the official website of the science fiction flick. He stresses that it’s only the “shooting script”, therefor it is different in some ways from the final product. I found it interesting that he noted writing the first half years ago, and starting the script back up again years later. It’s obvious where this happens when you watch the movie. And at first it’s a little jarring but in the end the 3rd act is what gives the movie all of its heart.
- I’m compiling a list of my favorite albums of the year and holy shit I have a ton of them. Probably more than I’ve ever had before. Last night I was writing up little 3 or 4 sentence justifications for my picking them. I still have quite a few do to. So hopefully that’ll be posted soonish. While I was digging I ran across a review for P.O.S.’ latest album “We Don’t Even Live Here” and was kinda blown away by it. Apparently though, I am not the first to find frustration with a review from this guy at Pitchfork, a one Ian Cohan. This led me to the site RipFork, in which select music critic reviews (mostly from Pitchfork) are torn apart in pretty hilarious fashion.
Actually I’d like to, when I have time, dig into that POS review line by line, because a lot of it just doesn’t make much sense.
The lamp is as simple as it is inexpensive. A cable hangs from a gear mechanism holding onto a plastic bag filled with dirt or rocks. The energy created by gravity pulling the bag downwards is enough to power an LED bulb for up to half an hour. Riddiford and Reeves have posted their creation on the fund sourcing site indiegogo and thus far pledges have doubled the $55,000 goal.
The two note on their page that over a billion and a half people in the world today have no access to a reliable electricity source. When it gets dark, their only light source comes through burning wood, peat, or other biomass materials – the most popular by far, is kerosene. They also note that the World Bank has recently estimated that up to three quarters of a billion women and children regularly inhale smoke from kerosene lanterns, which is they say, equivalent to smoking two packs of cigarettes a day – a situation that leads quite naturally to very high lung cancer rates.
- Cover for Jonathan Hickman’s next “Avengers” issue:
- On Thanksgiving I wrote quite a long piece about the infamous comic strip “Huxley was right; Orwell was wrong”. It very poorly tied the idea that Huxley was right to Black Friday now spilling over into Thanksgiving now, the day of the year we’re supposed to be thankful for what we have. The only day of the year in this country where we aren’t supposed to be consumers. It also compared and contrasted 21st Century living to what Brave New World and 1984 predicted would happen to our societies. I wrote it, edited it, and published it. For some reason the published version wiped about 3/4 of the thing clean. Probably a good thing as it was terribly written.
“In June, director Martin Scorsese tried to show his 1993 film The Age of Innocence at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens. Thelma Schoonmaker, Scorsese’s editor for the past 40 years and a three-time Oscar winner, called Grover Crisp, the senior VP of asset management at Sony, for a 35mm print. But Sony not only didn’t have a print, it couldn’t even make one.
“He told me that they can’t print it anymore because Technicolor in Los Angeles no longer prints film,” Schoonmaker recalled. “Which means a film we made 20 years ago can no longer be printed, unless we move it to another lab—one of the few labs still making prints.”
- A swath of Nordic countries (all of them?) are telling Facebook to stop unsolicited advertising of users in their countries or face legal action. Good for them. Not only did they cite the current EU on “privacy and electronic communication” in their threat, they also are looking into amending the law to uniquely tackle the topic. “It is prohibited to send electronic advertisements to consumers who haven’t given their consent, either by email or SMS… We think that some of the advertising that Facebook calls ‘sponsored stories’ is beginning to look like unsolicited electronic messages.”
- The Independent: “The Future of War Is LookingBleak“. What a spectacular title for a news article! Now we’re talking! Havard Hegre, a professor at the University of Oslo, developed a model for predicting future events and trends on a global scale this past year, his work has just been published. In it Hegre discovered that the amount of “wars” (defined as a conflict between countries in which at least 25 people die) has dropped dramatically in recent history, and the extended model shows a continuation of decline in the next 40 years. “War has become less acceptable,” Hegre said, “just like duelling, torture and the death penalty.”
- I’ve been getting really into a remix project lately, and will likely come very close to finishing on my days off work this week. Seems like lately I keep having the same crisis: during instrumental breaks do I go batshit crazy with a guitar or with a turntable. Obviously this depends on the song, but it’s still hard to be clairvoyant and know which one will work better. So typically I will just record both and compare and contrast. First World Producer Problems.
- I think I’ve posted Ulises Farinas’ art here before, but it’s well worth a second mention:
The past three decades of wanton patent-granting have created a disastrous environment for innovation. Today it’s practically impossible to build anything without violating a patent of some kind—and risking a multimillion-dollar lawsuit for your troubles. Once intended to protect lone inventors, patents now form a kind of shadow tech industry, in which billions of dollars are spent on amassing huge portfolios. (A recent New York Times article noted that Apple and Google, companies that define themselves by innovation, now invest more in patent acquisition and defense than in research and development.)
Why are companies spending so much money on patents? First, as protection. “Patents are like bullets,” law professor Chien says. “They’re cheap to acquire but can cause a lot of damage.” But if you have your own bullets, would-be assassins are less likely to target you. That’s the thinking behind RPX (Rational Patent Exchange), whose clients include Google, Microsoft, and IBM. RPX amasses patents, it says, to keep them out of the hands of lawsuit-happy competitors, and it vows not to sue anyone over them.
- I’m a massive proponent for not going to war with Iran. The problem with my viewpoint is we kinda already are at war with Iran. It’s just a sophisticated war, a secret war.
The dramatic spike in suspected Iranian cyber attacks this year also has some in the U.S. distinctly worried. While direct denial of service attacks on U.S. banks – widely seen as retaliation for US sanctions and attempts to freeze Iran from the international financial system – were seen relatively simplistic, attacks on US allies in the Gulf were more complex.
The most worrying, experts say, were those on Saudi oil firm Aramco and Qatari gas export facilities. Last month, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta described the Saudi attack as the most sophisticated yet launched on a private company, effectively destroying tens of thousands of computers – although he stopped short of blaming Tehran directly.
- So Disney bought Star Wars. If you don’t know. Which is… meh. I mean, I’m not like a huge Star Wars fanboy or anything so I don’t have to strong of feelings either way. I do, like 80% of humans, love the old Star Wars movies; and I do, like 85% of humans, hate the new ones. From what I’m reading from people who know a lot about this stuff, there are novels that act as the official “post-Original Trilogy” story. Something to do with Han and Leia’s kids, Luke running a new Jedi order, and the resurgence of the Empire and the Sith. This could be decent I suppose. The problem with the new ones — and I’m sure this has been written about extensively — is the fear of treading new ground. This notion that they had to fall back on the old ones to be good. You can see that in everything from the bizarre and wacky coincidences written into the story, the way the ships are designed, even the way Palatine was scarred to look like a shitty Halloween costume of himself in Jedi. As long as they don’t do any of that, and focus on a new story, new characters, new designs, they should be alright I hope.
[But hey, I'm one of like 3 million assholes writing my opinions on the Internet about this so what the fuck do I know?]
- William Gibson’s seminal novel Neuromancer is being turned into a film as we speak. Little is known about the project. The IMDB page is empty, to say the least. Liam Neeson’s name is on the cast, which may or may not be true, but sounds awesome. If you don’t know about the novel it’s one of the best science fiction novels of all-time. It started the genre we call “cyberpunk”. It also featured characters “jacking into” the Internet which was obviously directly lifted for The Matrix movies. Anyways, here’s a new poster (the first):
I have the impression that this is the opinion the government wants to impose on people, their way of opposing the situation. I think that when a person goes somewhere, she reflects, she thinks about where she is going and why, because she is using her time and energy. It’s a conscious choice. I don’t go to a demonstration because it’s cool. It isn’t at all cool to go to demonstrations today. The forces of order are nearby. They can beat you up. The demonstration on May 6th proved that. Nowadays, many people find themselves behind bars solely because they went to a public demonstration.
If I mentally transpose the words “entertaining” and “sport,” Dylan’s sentiment gets close to what I’m trying to express (and what I want to feel, but can’t). There was a time when I watched football in order to not think about my day-to-day life, but fantasy sports slowly changed that — in fact, my affinity for fantasy only makes it worse. I turn the players I draft into tiny parts of my life, which stops me from remembering that they have no relationship whatsoever to who I am. It makes me unconsciously think of them as extensions of myself. And I wonder if this is more problematic than I want to accept. Do I have any right to get angry at Chris Johnson? Does anyone?
- The Trouble With The Mask. Great op-Ed on the inherent problems with the new Joker in Batman and featuring a brilliant Bukowski quote.
- Early and limited reviews of “The Master” are generally positive with caveats. The main caveat being, “what the fuck does this movie mean?”, which should be a question anyone asks about a movie wherein people are searching for meaning. It’s puts us in their shoes. It’s really quite an easy concept, I don’t understand how people don’t get that. I’m also reading that the whole Scientology thing is not of too much concern in the film. Rather it is simply a platform for Anderson and the actors to explore the relationships between characters. The main relationship of course being that of Phoenix (the wandering, lost WWII veteran searching for meaning in a post-War existential crisis) and Hoffman (the L. Ron Hubbard stand-in), servant and master. Apparently there is some sort of strange sexual connotation to their relationship even, though this is not explicit; and indeed sexual themes are prevalent throughout the film. After a summer of explosions and CGI shit, I’m ready to be challenged by a movie.
- Another very anticipated movie of mine is the time-travel flick “Looper”, which I’ve been patiently waiting for since I heard it was Rian Johnson’s next project. Now, I’ve read in a few different places that this is one of the best time travel movies of all time. I don’t take that lightly, as there have been some brilliant ones (even a brilliant one with Bruce Willis). Though I did not see “Brother’s Bloom” — I heard it was just okay — Johnson’s debut “Brick” is an incredibly smart movie, especially for taking place in and around a high school. The negative reviews of this flick — there aren’t many — talk of “barely missing this mark” and a far too meandering plot. Again, based on the complaints… I’ll likely dig this.
- There is a new and FREE Death Grips album out now, called “NO LOVE DEEP WEB”. It’s batshit:
- Oh yes. Yes, yes, yes. Christopher Waltz just signed up to star in the upcoming Terry Gilliam flick, Zero Theorem. Course, in Gilliam time “upcoming” could mean years upon years. But supposedly, the film we be going into production soonish… with Waltz fresh off his stint on Tarentino’s set. Reason I’m so excited — besides loving said star/director combination — is because SlashFilm is calling the script “a Philip K. Dick story on steroids”. It revisits the Orwellian world and themes of Gilliam’s Brazil. BleedingCool has a synopsis, if you like. The story involves virtual sex, a Big Brother-esque organization called “Management”, therapists as computer applications, and suits that allow users to explore their souls (falsely?). Not to mention the theorem (titular) Waltz’s character is working on, which will once and for all prove that life does or does not have a purpose. Wheew.
Living in an Orwellian corporate world where “mancams” serve as the eyes of a shadowy figure known only as Management, Leth (Waltz) works on a solution to the strange theorem while living as a virtual cloistered monk in his home—the shattered interior of a fire-damaged chapel.
His isolation and work are interrupted now and then by surprise visits from Bainsley, a flamboyantly lusty love interest who tempts him with “tantric biotelemetric interfacing” (virtual sex) and Bob.
Latter is the rebellious whiz-kid teenage son of Management who, with a combination of insult-comedy and an evolving true friendship, spurs on Qohen’s efforts at solving the theorem. But these visits turn out to be intentional diversions orchestrated by Management to keep control of Qohen’s progress.
Bob creates a virtual reality “inner-space” suit that will carry Qohen on an inward voyage, a close encounter with the hidden dimensions and truth of his own soul, wherein lie the answers both he and Management are seeking. The suit and supporting computer technology will perform an inventory of Qohen’s soul, either proving or disproving the Zero Theorem.
Such an event occurred in March 2011, when scientists using NASA’s Swift telescope detected a sudden flare of X-rays from a source located nearly 4 billion light-years away in the constellation Draco. The flare, called Swift J1644+57, showed the likely location of a supermassive black hole in a distant galaxy, a black hole that had until then remained hidden until a star ventured too close and became an easy meal.
The resulting particle jet, created by material from the star that got caught up in the black hole’s intense magnetic field lines and was blown out into space in our direction (at 80-90% the speed of light!) is what initially attracted astronomers’ attention. But further research on Swift J1644+57 with other telescopes has revealed new information about the black hole and what happens when a star meets its end.
