2010: The Cultural YTD
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As for the whole USA vs Russia thing in 2010, that was out of date within 6 years of the movie, and no mention was ever made in either film of the actual technology juggernaut of the next 20 years - the internet - which did actually exist at the time.
Horrible movie, obsolete before it was released. Here's why.
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get with the programme fullas...Iain M is yesterday's man.
To be fair, how many interesting stories can you come up with in a galaxy-spanning post-scarcity society where death is a (reversible) lifestyle choice? It would be a nice place to live in, but hellishly dull. :)
we're all about China Mieville these days. Buy yourselves The City & The City and get learned up
Never really got the appeal, myself, but have to admit I'm the minority report on that one.
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damn,where's the emoticon for a raspberry when you need it?
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Will be a hard album to beat for the year
I'd throw into the happy mix: José James, Phoenix Foundation, Caribou, Ikonika, Paul Weller, Panthu Du Prince and Four Tet
We old folks and our albums......
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To be fair, how many interesting stories can you come up with in a galaxy-spanning post-scarcity society where death is a (reversible) lifestyle choice? It would be a nice place to live in, but hellishly dull. :)
I thought there might be the merest soupçon of a hint in 'look to windward' of a civil war brewing within the culture, which would possibly have been extremely hard to convincingly pull off, but which would have made things very interesting.
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would it be too impolitic to express a little less than unfettered enthusiasm at Poi E threatening to become the song of 2010?
Yes, you durned furriner, it would. :) I just watched that new video and am filled with tender fondness for my grey, stalinist childhood with its limited consumer choice and two TV channels. (Two other observations: the original breakdancing dude in the 80s video was such a badass; and all that Michael Jackson-combined-with-kapa-haka stuff in the new parts would be a really fun close reading exercise for a media studies class.)
We old folks and our albums......
Listening to an entire album seems like such an *effort*, Simon, when the 'shuffle' button is *right there*...
Al Green and the Pixies are my two cultural touchstones for this year. Then I got distracted with that whole birth/newborn/pre-eclampsia thing... but Wanda Jackson is coming in June! I'm excited!
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Film highlight thus far = "Up" (saw it for the 1st time in April.) I'll be surprised if anything beats it (and I dont mean just in the anime category.)
Not fond of Iain M. Banks (prefer China M. or Justina Robson - both of whom are rumoured to have new works due out 'soon'-
my tastes in music are kinda...Neanderthal? And I dont go to live gigs of any kind unless they're held in Donovan's (surprisingly frequently actually, since you ask-) 8>)
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This week, I'm very interested in Sleigh Bells - initial track off their album available here, full album frustratingly only available via US iTunes. They're M.I.A.'s latest proteges, released on her N.E.E.T. label. Also rather looking forward to M.I.A. herself's latest album - still a wee while away by all accounts.
Otherwise, rather liking the new album from New Young Pony Club, Gogol Bordello's live/BBC sesh album "Live from Axis Mundi" is of course a thing of intense beauty, and the King Midas Sound is very nice indeed.
Reading: currently working through Banks' "The Steep Approach to Garbadale", which is good so far. But the jacket copy saying "as good as anything he's ever written" does rather sound like it's damning with faint praise... Didn't like Dead Air, though Transition was great fun.
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Freaky "OMG, not-so-young fogey" Moment of the YTD:
Being in Marbecks (the real one) and finding myself enjoying The Bird and The Bee's unironically titled Interpreting the Masters Volume 1: A Tribute to Daryl Hall and John Oates chugging away in the background.
Wiggling my arse in public to a Hall-and-fucking-Oates cover. Bah... what is wrong with me?
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Reading: currently working through Banks' "The Steep Approach to Garbadale", which is good so far. But the jacket copy saying "as good as anything he's ever written" does rather sound like it's damning with faint praise... Didn't like Dead Air, though Transition was great fun.
Yes, enjoyed Transition, but Garbadale was not up to his usual standard. [Spoiler Alert] Maybe I don't find families that hunt and live in large country estates that interesting. The Crow Road did it better, and there weren't so many annoyingly entitled toffs.
Reading Jasper fforde's Shades of Grey, and I want Tuesday back. Readable, but not earth shattering. I'm hearing a Mockers song. Go figure.
Bah... what is wrong with me?
Change the sentences around, and all will become clear.
Oh it's Friday, what the hell.
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O, having "Hicksville" as a graphic novel is tinopai - I already had the separate components, but now I can corrupt the2nd & 3rd generation from me with Horrocksian brillance.
I love the way he's made - irresolution manifest-
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Wiggling my arse in public to a Hall-and-fucking-Oates cover. Bah... what is wrong with me?
You're fine. The Bird and the Bee are cool. At such point as they cease to be so, I'll forward you the memo, to save embarrassment.
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Hall-and-fucking-Oates cover.
As a nerd I'd would like to say that first two albums on Atlantic were shit hot. After that, not so much.....
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After that, not so much.....
Awww. No love for Private Eyes? (This is a perfect opportunity for someone to say 'I can't go for that. No can do'.)
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Jack if you like Gogol Bordello check out Balkan Beatbox they're great
though their latest video is a tad derivative:
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To be fair, how many interesting stories can you come up with in a galaxy-spanning post-scarcity society where death is a (reversible) lifestyle choice? It would be a nice place to live in, but hellishly dull. :)
We're limited only by our imagination. Seems that the limit is not as unlimited as first thought. It's a given that we have to write about a future that we can engage with. I doubt the real future will be like that. I certainly doubt our ability to predict anything, given the hilarity of old science fiction.
Never really got the appeal, myself, but have to admit I'm the minority report on that one.
I'm still stuck at halfway through my first China Mieville. Just didn't grab me. The Algebraist did a much better job - that was a one night stand.
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I don't know whether it stands up to the year, but it certainly stands up to a few listens... Ratatat's new song 'Drugs'. It does what it says it does.
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I have to say that being outside NZ it's become a lot harder to find outstanding new music. There's something to be said for turning on the radio and hearing something completely different, and gripes about staid presenters and formats aside, that's something the bNet does exceedingly well.
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We're limited only by our imagination. Seems that the limit is not as unlimited as first thought. It's a given that we have to write about a future that we can engage with. I doubt the real future will be like that. I certainly doubt our ability to predict anything, given the hilarity of old science fiction.
I'm enjoying Bruce Sterling's The Caryatids*,
it's a predicted future, 2060, I can believe in...
..thus far, guess I won't see it myself.*2009 novel though, not 2010
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George: indeed.
I was in the car yesterday when Mr Havoc dropped this little number at the top of his show:
Miike Snow - 'Black & Blue' (Netsky Remix)
Choice.
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The generation gap - for this person - is now officially the African Rift-
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I'm enjoying Bruce Sterling's The Caryatids*
So am I -- even though it doesn't have the sheer mind-shredding WTF-ness of reading Schismatrix and his Shaper/Mechanist stories twenty years back (BTW, you ever going to get around to reading the copy I loaned you, Mister Brown?), Sterling's still got serious writing chops and a nicely skewed sensibility.
I'm also still bitterly envious that Gene Wolfe, who turned 79 a week back, is still tripping across genre lines and making it look as easy as breathing.
The Sorcerer’s House is exactly the sort of thing you would expect from Gene Wolfe if you had for some reason been expecting him to write a disturbing urban fantasy set in a cryptomunicipality called Medicine Man, populated with the sort of quirky characters you might expect to find in a cozy mystery. Which is to say, it’s clever, intentionally obscure, deeply ambiguous, and above all gorgeously written.
When I say “urban fantasy,” I mean “urban fantasy” in its original sense. Which is to say, there are no leather-pantsed werewolf hunters in this novel, although there is a werewolf. Or twelve. This is more in the mold of Little, Big: or, The Fairies’ Parliament–a dreamy, ineradicable sort of a book that does not worry itself overmuch with explanations.
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Books - Cory Doctorow's "Little Brother". (Published in 2008, but I'm always late.)
Movie - "Boy", by Taika Waititi.
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If you're listening to The Rock or Hauraki then it's gotta be...
"Stairway to Heaven"
TV- "M.A.S.H." -
I haven't mentioned Crystal Castles have I?
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