2010: The Cultural YTD
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I was quite underwhelmed by Moon, actually.
+1
Great soundtrack, though, courtesy of Clint Mansell (ex frontman of the Pop Will Eat Itself).
Now, that little factoid has enlivened my morning.
Goodbye city, hello moon!
Hands up! Vote Dr Doom!Gimme big mac gimme fries to go!
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On the geek front, I've got to say my highlight of the YTD is Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl (which has just won the best novel Nebula ). It is wonderful discovering a new (to me) writer who just blows your cliched socks off...
Anderson Lake is a company man, AgriGen's Calorie Man in Thailand. Under cover as a factory manager, Anderson combs Bangkok's street markets in search of foodstuffs thought to be extinct, hoping to reap the bounty of history's lost calories. There, he encounters Emiko...
Emiko is the Windup Girl, a strange and beautiful creature. One of the New People, Emiko is not human; instead, she is an engineered being, creche-grown and programmed to satisfy the decadent whims of a Kyoto businessman, but now abandoned to the streets of Bangkok. Regarded as soulless beings by some, devils by others, New People are slaves, soldiers, and toys of the rich in a chilling near future in which calorie companies rule the world, the oil age has passed, and the side effects of bio-engineered plagues run rampant across the globe.
What Happens when calories become currency? What happens when bio-terrorism becomes a tool for corporate profits, when said bio-terrorism's genetic drift forces mankind to the cusp of post-human evolution? Award-winning author Paolo Bacigalupi delivers one of the most highly acclaimed science fiction novels of the twenty-first century.
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New People are slaves, soldiers, and toys of the rich in a chilling near future in which calorie companies rule the world, the oil age has passed, and the side effects of bio-engineered plagues run rampant across the globe.
Wait, this is based on fact, right? The question is, how near?
In related news, hopefully Timeout has it in stock, cause I want it now.
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To quote Neil Gaiman: George R.R. Martin is not your bitch. -- and every syllable of his reality check for fans with inflamed entitleitis is quotable for truth.
I'm not complaining out of a sense of entitlement, believe me. That doesn't mean I can't point out that being unable to lock down a 600 page book in 5 years on themes and characters already established (when an author is not on hiatus) does not bode well for the quality of the remainder of the series. Seriously. I'll still read it when he finally gets aroumd to it, but I'm getting the sense that it'll be significantly overdone by the time it hits the shelves.
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That doesn't mean I can't point out that being unable to lock down a 600 page book in 5 years on themes and characters already established (when an author is not on hiatus) does not bode well for the quality of the remainder of the series.
As Gaiman pointed out, you can't win. As I said, I'm not a huge fan of multi-volume epic fantasies -- and the ones that get bunged on an annual basis like clockwork stuffed sausage are generally as bad as that sounds. If my memory serves, Martin got stuck on a serious structural problem with the latest, which required extensive re-writing, then had a fair amount of mortgage-paying bread and butter work to deliver.
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Has anyone read Roberto Bolaño? I've heard his 2666 described in very glowing terms, but I've yet to read it. As such, my review is along the lines of this one:
Roberto Bolaño’s 2666 is an obsessive and world-shifting epic. When I read it, I will be completely absorbed by it. It will be all I think about. It will affect my daily life in ways I can’t fully understand, and when I finish it I will have come to profound revelations about the nature of existence. I will finally understand all the literary theory I wrote essays on when I was at university.
From The Joy of Unread Books.
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Has anyone read Roberto Bolaño?
I did try and around the fifty page mark decided that life is too short to read fiction I'm not actually enjoying unless there's a cheque or academic credit at the end. To be fair, it might actually mean more to folks who read Spanish, and can place it all in some kind of meaningful context but I'm not that guy.
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Benka Borodovsky Bordello Band
are no longer, having imploded...
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A shame. I was rather fond of their cover version of the Dead Kennedys 'too drunk to f***'.
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I don't know about year to date, but day to date perhaps. This Enya - Die Antwoord work is somewhat mindwarping (lyrics particularly NSFW):
(via @jackelder)
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A shame. I was rather fond of their cover version of the Dead Kennedys 'too drunk to f***'.
The Dead Kennedys had a few good songs. Can you believe that incredibly cute little kid from the 60s tv show The Courtship of Eddie's Father grew up to sing in that band? (he replaced Jello Biafra for a while).
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I went to see the stage version of Yes Prime Minister in Chichester on Saturday. It certainly was rather odd to see an early 1980s tv show transferred to the stage for the 2010 political world.
While I did enjoy the production I do think it has lost a little in the effort to modernise it for current political realities. Although they were able to get the boot into the hung parliament, which was amusing.
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3410,
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George, I got through the first 150 pages or so of 2666 last year before end-of-semester obligations and an unwillingness to take such a big book on a flight from the US to NZ meant I had to put it down. I enjoyed what I read of it, I think. The part I read was very Borgesian in its literary mind games, but I didn't get far enough in to say much more than that. It's very much in the tradition of Latin American literature, though. I'm planning to go back to it later this summer though, as soon as I'm done with Adrian Johns' Piracy.
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Can you believe that incredibly cute little kid from the 60s tv show The Courtship of Eddie's Father grew up to sing in that band?
Had to wiki that show. Never heard of it before.
But on the same theme, a few years ago, a really good way to wind up emo-goths was to put on your best faux-sincere face, and ask if it was really true that Kevin from 'The Wonder Years' grew up to be Marylin Manson.
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Had to wiki that show. Never heard of it before.
I guess it never aired here. It was huge in North America (it was a cute, clever show - that defined 60s & 70s childhood in North America). There are clips of Jodie Foster at about 6 in a guest spot all over Youtube. Cruz is one of the few child stars that has really happy memories of his years in front of a camera.
It was one of the shows that really helped my NZ husband Paul and me compare cultural and consumer notes. He is convinced NZ was in a different century during those years, all lumpy knitting and stern schooling. For me, that looked like my childhood.
Brandon did indeed grow up to sing with the Dead Kennedys, he sings a cover version of the Harry Nilson theme song somewhere on youtube. The chemistry he shared with his on-screen Dad Bill Bixby was for real - Cruz grew up to spend the fortune he made as a child star on Bixby's expensive cancer treatment in his last days.
Brandon Cruz grew up to be this very, very cool guy, and has organised lots of benefit dinners for the homeless in LA. His band is on the whole Dead Kennedys/Nomeansno Butthole Surfers/Chili Peppers skater/surfer music scene.
The skater punk scene are all big on social responsiblity. Nomeansno were the first (before Madonna, before Iggy Pop, before IceT before INXS, before Billy Bragg, before U2, before the Stones, before Blondie) to help with AIDS education campaign. Punks for social responsibity, yeah.
But on the same theme, a few years ago, a really good way to wind up emo-goths was to put on your best faux-sincere face, and ask if it was really true that Kevin from 'The Wonder Years' grew up to be Marylin Manson.
Huh, well you just have to look at the faces, Marilyn Manson and that kid don't look much alike. Now the kid from Freaks and Geeks is instantly recognisable, despite being so much larger, in his role on Bones.
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My best books so far this year have been wildly diverging - Wolf Hall and Will Grayson, Will Grayson.
Both madly entertaining but in totally different ways. -
Now the kid from Freaks and Geeks is instantly recognisable, despite being so much larger, in his role on Bones.
That's where I know him from!
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Now the kid from Freaks and Geeks is instantly recognisable, despite being so much larger, in his role on Bones.
I suspect John Francis Daley is going to be one of those weird people (like Matt Smith, Michael J. Fox and Matthew Broderick) who will look like a twelve year old the day he dies.
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. . . ask if it was really true that Kevin from 'The Wonder Years' grew up to be Marylin Manson.
Jeezus. I thought he grew up to be Lockwood Smith.
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While I did enjoy the production I do think it has lost a little in the effort to modernise it for current political realities.
I think a bigger problem is that no matter how good Henry Goodman and David Haig are (and they're very good actors indeed), they're not going to shake the ghosts of Nigel Hawthorne and Paul Eddington.
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The Courtship of Eddie's Father did air here - I can certainly remember it. It would have been early-mid 70s when it showed here.
And Dead Kennedys without Jello Biafra? Not the Dead Kennedys (takes elitist music nazi hat off)
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Two books about the recent financial nonsense. The Big Short by Michael Lewis, great reportage. The Privileges by Jonathan Dee, a great novel about a super rich American family: The Sopranos by Edith Wharton.
Mourning the great Hank Jones by listening to him on Artie Shaw's Last Recordings of 1954: a cultural highlight any year you listen to it.
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Just a wee note further to Jolisa's post too... *coughs*
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Well there goes my kitty-litter theory
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