Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Hard News: Villainy and engagement, in reply to Russell Brown,
Kinda with Craig on this. Whether any of it’s planned or not, it’s all a massive set piece.
I find it quite hard to believe, in this case. I think something quite unusual just happened.
There are already conspiracy theories that the whole thing is a set-up, but they ignore the massive level of risk in even trying to pull such a stunt. Were the major sponsors who went ballistic this morning kept out of the loop
I don’t believe that it was a set-up, but I’ve perfectly comfortable thinking nobody should really be surprised when shows largely predicated on ritualized humiliation eventually implode.
And I totally agree with folks who’ve pointed out that even if you think Simon Cowell is a Philip Treacy arse-hat, he does have actual RL success to back up the attitude. (And hell, I understand even Cowell doesn't go Full Metal Jerk-Off like he used to. I don't know whether fatherhood is agreeing with him, or if he's actually smart enough to realise "nasty prick" is a brand you can only take so far before the risk of something going horribly wrong on a live broadcast gets too high.)
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Hard News: Villainy and engagement, in reply to Russell Brown,
I do take your point, but I have been around people on too much P, and the incident did have a similar flavour of incoherent narcissism to that kind of noise.
Fair enough – I’m just cynical enough to think this is entirely calculated, but Gomez and Morticia went way off script.
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The whole thing was the kind of bonkers we usually associate with meth addicts.
No – it’s exactly the kind of “bonkers” I associate with reality television’s law of diminishing returns. You’ve always got to go that little bit further, that little bit nastier, turn the humiliating screws that little bit tighter to get the attention of an increasingly calloused culture.
And the only thing that surprises me about this is that anyone is even pretending to be shocked at the entirely predictable results. This is NOTHING like drug addiction or mental illness; it’s exactly what corporate media do to get the only thing they give a shit about – ratings, media attention and revenue.
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Hard News: Masters of Reality, in reply to Sacha,
Inexperience has nothing to do with it.
No, it doesn't. I've said it before, and really wish I didn't have to repeat it, but there's still way too much FPP arrogance in both Labour and National. Here's a reality check: We've had seven elections under MMP, and the "minor" parties aren't going away (no matter how much I wish some of them would).
At the very least, if Little (and Key) insist on shitting on their actual or potential coalition partners in public, they really need to get a grip on the idea that being into scat is a pretty uncommon kink so they shouldn't expect to be thanked for it.
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Hard News: Masters of Reality, in reply to Russell Brown,
On the other hand, this isn’t really a big story
No it isn't -- and I certainly can't disagree with anyone that Gower would benefit enormously from switching to decaf and cutting sugar out of his diet. But I'm getting just a wee bit impatient with folks elsewhere saying it isn't a legit story at all. It actually is a useful thing when journalists point out when our political lords and masters don't quite practice what they preach -- and legislate.
Still, I'm sure we'll all be taking the highest of high roads and refraining from any further comment on Eminem's publishers suing National for breach of copyright. After all, it's pretty trivial in the great scheme of things, right?
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“Our objection isn’t to the t-shirt per se, our objection is ratepayer money being used for what is, at best, an item with little cultural or historic value.”
“In matters of taste there is a higher onus on publicly funded bodies to avoid funding matters of a highly dubious nature. One can argue that restrictions on freedom of speech and blasphemy are unjustified, while also acknowledging that higher standards should apply to what public money is used to promote.”
Let's add museography to the very long list of subjects Mr. Williams is woefully under-qualified to talk about without adult supervision. I don't know if he has ever visited the Jüdisches Museum in Berlin or London's Imperial War Museum, but I have. Both institutions -- which enjoy substantial public financial support -- contain material that should be profoundly offensive and distressing to anyone who isn't a moral cretin. Because that's what they're bloody supposed to do. I'm very glad Mr Williams lives in some rainbow lollypop fantasy world where everything is nice and generally inoffensive, but I don't. And no cultural institution with any standards whatsoever should either.
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Speaker: Public art is no place for committees, in reply to ,
It’s interesting that Henry Moore is used as an example of the artists interest in the spatial relationship to his/her artwork, or Pablo Picaso. These are not famous for building sculpture in context with there placement. They built stand alone artwork.
If that was submitted to me in an art history class, I'm afraid it would come back with a LOT of big red question marks in the margins. Henry Moore's entire sculptural practice was intimately concerned with their relationship to their situation, and most of his highest profile work was commissioned (and not always without tension and controversy). He also often sold work at a fraction of its market value to public institutions and local authorities because, as a committed socialist, he viewed public art as also having a social function. (Which is why in 2012, the Henry Moore Foundation protested the London Borough of Tower Hamlets plans to sell a piece he'd sold to the then-London County Council on the understanding it would always be on public display.)
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Found it… It was in response to a tweet by Craig about the London Shard.
When we were in London, we were staying at Greenwich so spent a fair amount of time waiting for trains at London Bridge – with the then incomplete Shard louring over a gigantic, gridlocked building site next door. Forget castration anxiety, it was the first time a building made me feel mildly claustrophobic. (I’d still like to know what Zombie Feud would make of Murdoch’s British newspapers and publishing interests all moving their editorial offices to the so-called ’Baby Shard’.)
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I've never met Stella, and probably never will but she's one of the smartest, most insightful and generally hilarious people I've ever come across. (She knows life is far too serious not to laugh at it all, a lot. Basic wisdom too many never get.) This, folks, is why the internet doesn't suck harder than a black hole, no matter how hard it tries to prove otherwise.