Topping and Butch in the Pleasance courtyard
Mel checks out Topping and Butch's programme
And one of my favourite pics - lots and lots of sweets! This was a vendor tent at Fringe Sunday selling all sorts of colourful nougats and fudges - yummy!
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Random Fringeing
Well, the Fringe, Book Fest and Film Festival are all over, although the official International Festival runs to this weekend (and ends with the annual huge fireworks display above the Castle). The city has that day after the party feeling – still a lot of tourists around (well, it is
MirrorMask
I finally wrote up a bit on MirrorMask and also Land of the Dead, which I’ve posted over on the FPI blog, along with a picture of Dave McKean at the Q&A after MirrorMask. It’s a little dark, but it’s hard to get a decent picture in the gloom of the cinema auditorium and most subjects were too far away for the flash to be effective, but you can still see him reasonably okay, unlike poor George Romero who is in a picture so dark he could be one of his own zombie extras.
Film Fest winner
Well, Tsotsi did indeed end up pipping Serenity at the post for the Standard Life Audience Award at the Edinburgh International Film Festival and also took the Michael Powell award for best British film. Actually it was a nearly 60 year old film by Michael Powell which was my favourite movie of the entire festival. Yes, I adored MirrorMask and I really enjoyed Thumbsucker (could it be this year’s Napoleon Dynamite or Garden State?) but it was this movie from 1946 which stole my heart: A Matter of Life and Death.
Like me I suspect many of you will have caught it on the television – its one of those movies that turns up on BBC2 on a wet Saturday afternoon. An incredibly young David Niven is a
Except he doesn’t actually die. Waking up on the beach he thinks at first he is in the afterlife. Spotting a black
The film is incredibly imaginative – the views of heaven are wonderful with separate receiving rooms at the end of vast moving staircases for different people. His
We never find out really if the events which play out are true or the product of our young aviator’s mind. He has a neural injury we discover later on, which may be manifesting itself in this series of highly constructed hallucinations; luckily for him his new love is friends with an exceptional Doctor who realise regardless he has to help him ‘win’ his appeal for life, if he fails it could destroy him mentally even if it isn’t real. Unspoken but nevertheless very clear is the issue of survivor guilt; ‘why me?’ ‘Why did my friends die and not me?’ The terrible burden of living after a traumatic event is evident in there, something most of the 1940s audience would have understood very well I suspect. The cure is good friends and, of course, love. The film has that sweeping romance typical of many films of that period, yet despite the ‘darling, I love you’ scenes it is never truly slushy, being informed also with a certain wit and cynicism to balance it.
I’ve watched A Matter of Life and Death a number of times on TV but this was the first time I’ve ever seen it on a big screen. The mix of black and white for the afterlife and early colour for the living world is both clever and quite beautiful. The mis-en-scene, detail, use of shadow, the play of the camera with light and angle are all astonishing; they must have seemed even more amazing to the original audiences, sitting in the grey austerity of post-war
The man who photographed them for Powell was Jack Cardiff, a legend among cinematographers the world over. In a fabulous surprise, before A Matter of Life and Death begun a charming, little old man was brought out before us all: Jack Cardiff himself. He told us of meeting Powell in the mid 1940s, getting his first full work with him, of many famous films now timeless classics. As he wound up and invited us to enjoy the film I swear he became more spry; he had walked up to the front of the screen like and old man but he left it with a spring in his step and a huge, infectious smile on his face. It was as if this gorgeous film and the warm memories he had shared with us all in the cosy darkness of the cinema had re-invigorated him; what a delightful introduction to such a gorgeously moving film and certainly one of my highlights of my movie going life.
Saturday, August 27, 2005
Council
Got a nice letter in the mail today with all sorts of nasty connotations to it from Edinburgh council demanding overdue council tax from a previous year. This despite the fact I wrote to them concerning it ages ago and never had a reply - this morning's pay or else letter doesn't even mention it. This comes on top of the two letters I've sent them asking for a new council tax book for this financial year since they still have me down as unemployed months later, despite being told twice now that I am not. Oh and the 'overdue' bill from a previous year originally came with a letter explaining that they had computer trouble and staff problems and so they think they may have overlooked something from last year...
Doesn't that instill confidence? They 'think' they may still need money form me? Don't they know for sure? Given they can't even deal with their mail who knows how accurate any of this is... No doubt at some point I will get a letter demanding more money for this financial year at the employed rate once they finally get round to dealing with that (and I'm sure they will deny ever receiving any of the letters I sent them - they once took something like 8 months to reply to a letter I sent a few years back, so fair to say they are not terribly efficient. I think they train their staff the same place Sam worked in Gilliam's Brazil).
Ah, Edinburgh City Council doing its bit to make life better for the city's citizens (and this is with the council holding a huge surplus from previous years tax in the bank - around 25 million, which is more than a justifiable 'rainy day' emergency amount I think - and still raising the tax by more than inflation each year into the bargain) - still they need to wring every penny they can get from locals to pay for teams to remove the huge chunks of gum from the pavement, left by visiting Italian teenagers and, of course, to pay those efficient people in their offices who don't reply to the mail citizens send them...
Got a nice letter in the mail today with all sorts of nasty connotations to it from Edinburgh council demanding overdue council tax from a previous year. This despite the fact I wrote to them concerning it ages ago and never had a reply - this morning's pay or else letter doesn't even mention it. This comes on top of the two letters I've sent them asking for a new council tax book for this financial year since they still have me down as unemployed months later, despite being told twice now that I am not. Oh and the 'overdue' bill from a previous year originally came with a letter explaining that they had computer trouble and staff problems and so they think they may have overlooked something from last year...
Doesn't that instill confidence? They 'think' they may still need money form me? Don't they know for sure? Given they can't even deal with their mail who knows how accurate any of this is... No doubt at some point I will get a letter demanding more money for this financial year at the employed rate once they finally get round to dealing with that (and I'm sure they will deny ever receiving any of the letters I sent them - they once took something like 8 months to reply to a letter I sent a few years back, so fair to say they are not terribly efficient. I think they train their staff the same place Sam worked in Gilliam's Brazil).
Ah, Edinburgh City Council doing its bit to make life better for the city's citizens (and this is with the council holding a huge surplus from previous years tax in the bank - around 25 million, which is more than a justifiable 'rainy day' emergency amount I think - and still raising the tax by more than inflation each year into the bargain) - still they need to wring every penny they can get from locals to pay for teams to remove the huge chunks of gum from the pavement, left by visiting Italian teenagers and, of course, to pay those efficient people in their offices who don't reply to the mail citizens send them...
Top movie
The final weekend of the Edinburgh International Film Festival has begun and its getting pretty tense in the voting stakes for the Standard Life Audience Awards. For qualifying movies the audiences are handed a voting slip before the film which you can use and hand back afterwards, ripping off the insert for the relevant choice, eg 'excellent', 'good', 'poor', 'Michael Winner' (okay, I made the last one up, but if anyone from the EIFF is reading this it would be a good choice to add to the slips!). Good idea to rip off a tab as well - no fumbling for pens in a darkened auditorium.
Unsurprisingly Joss Whedon has commanded a lot of solid support and Serenity has been riding around the top spot a lot over this week but in the latest update it has been knocked off with South African gang-drama Tsotsi taking the number one spot while Serenity goes to number two and MirrorMask number three, so in the final two days it really is everything to play for:
1.Tsotsi
2. Serenity
3. Mirrormask
4. Mad Hot Ballroom
5. On a Clear Day
6. Land of the Dead
7. Saraband
8. Kinky Boots
9. The Beat that My Heart Skipped
10. Wah-Wah
The final weekend of the Edinburgh International Film Festival has begun and its getting pretty tense in the voting stakes for the Standard Life Audience Awards. For qualifying movies the audiences are handed a voting slip before the film which you can use and hand back afterwards, ripping off the insert for the relevant choice, eg 'excellent', 'good', 'poor', 'Michael Winner' (okay, I made the last one up, but if anyone from the EIFF is reading this it would be a good choice to add to the slips!). Good idea to rip off a tab as well - no fumbling for pens in a darkened auditorium.
Unsurprisingly Joss Whedon has commanded a lot of solid support and Serenity has been riding around the top spot a lot over this week but in the latest update it has been knocked off with South African gang-drama Tsotsi taking the number one spot while Serenity goes to number two and MirrorMask number three, so in the final two days it really is everything to play for:
1.Tsotsi
2. Serenity
3. Mirrormask
4. Mad Hot Ballroom
5. On a Clear Day
6. Land of the Dead
7. Saraband
8. Kinky Boots
9. The Beat that My Heart Skipped
10. Wah-Wah
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
Fringe
Well, I'm now off on my first holiday break since starting at FPI - can you believe it has been six months already? Wow, went past fast and feeling nicely settled in and, crucially, still really enjoying it (I keep seeing more graphic novels I want to read every time I add more to the site). But its still nice to have a break and as is my custom I'm taking time off to enjoy the Film Festival and a bit of Fringe going while I'm at it.
Melanie and I went to a fantastic Bach concert by the Dunedin folk at the Canongate Kirk (right down the Royal Mile, near the Parliament and the Palace) - one of her colleagues has a partner in the chorus. It was mid-evening and had been one of those weird weather days where it was bursts of sunlight then clouds all day. The kirk is very simple but elegant - very post-Reformation with its plain glass windows and white walls (if it was wood instead of stone if could pass for a New England church); halfway through and the sun suddenly re-appeared just before it dipped below the horizon. The church was flooded with warm, amber light as the ensemble sang Bach; if they had arranged the lighting it couldn't have been done better, it was as if the setting sun paused on his descent to listen to the music. Artistic beauty and the beauty of nature collided for a few precious moments of sheer wonder.
I've been off to another couple of shows since then and taken in a number of movies at the always-excellent Film Festival with a bundle more to see (Daniel Auteil and Gerry Depardieu to look forward to this Thursday, together for the first time on celluloid). MirrorMask was utterly gorgeous and we had the added delight of a Q&A from Dave McKean himself. It was very Neil Gaiman territory story-wise and visually looked like one of Dave's gorgeous mixed-media artworks come to life. I came out dancing with delight and with a grin I borrowed from my friend the Chesire Cat, it was fantastic! I'll get a decent write-up on it along with George Romero's Land of the Dead when I get a chance (and what a huge cheer George got when he appeared).
Caught Guy X today with Jason Biggs and Natascha McElhone which was great - at first it looked like it was going to be a comedy of mistaken identities in the US army in the 70s, drawing on MASH or Stripes, but actually went off in other directions much to my delight. I was even more delighted when they brought in the director and some of the cast for the Q&A aftewards (one of the delights of the Film Fest, getting to see and sometimes even meet the folk behind the films). So today I found myself only a few feet away from Natascha McElhone who looks even slimmer and more gorgeous in person and her eyes are as luminous. Probably the closest I'll ever get to her, but hey! On the way out who did I see on the red carpet but Mr Frodo himself, Elijah Wood going in for his new movie premiere (I think he plays a football hooligan), waving to a big crowd of fans.
I also had a kind invite from Mainstream to attend the launch of their new book, the Literary Traveller in Edinburgh by Allan Foster in the Scottish Writer's Museum just off the High Street (and a very nice spot for anyone visiting the city). Its an excellent book lover's guide to the World City of Literature, arranged by area so the reader can use it for a little tour of the city, from tombs of poets to the spot where J K was writing the early Harry Potter drafts, pubs where Stevenson hung out to what bookstores are where (nice mention for the Edinburgh branch of the Planet in there - Allan asked for info on our specialisations, hours etc a while back which I was happy to supply and he nicely asked me to come along to the launch). I used to get asked for just such a guide back in my old job so I think they will do well with this. I was impressed enough to buy my own copy. As an extra treat I bumped into a former colleague, who was part of my team when I set up the new They Who Shall Not Be Named at Ocean Terminal the other year and who now works for Mainstream and got to catch up a little with him while snorting the complimentary wine. Pretty good day then! I'll try and write up a bit more on MirrorMask later on.
Well, I'm now off on my first holiday break since starting at FPI - can you believe it has been six months already? Wow, went past fast and feeling nicely settled in and, crucially, still really enjoying it (I keep seeing more graphic novels I want to read every time I add more to the site). But its still nice to have a break and as is my custom I'm taking time off to enjoy the Film Festival and a bit of Fringe going while I'm at it.
Melanie and I went to a fantastic Bach concert by the Dunedin folk at the Canongate Kirk (right down the Royal Mile, near the Parliament and the Palace) - one of her colleagues has a partner in the chorus. It was mid-evening and had been one of those weird weather days where it was bursts of sunlight then clouds all day. The kirk is very simple but elegant - very post-Reformation with its plain glass windows and white walls (if it was wood instead of stone if could pass for a New England church); halfway through and the sun suddenly re-appeared just before it dipped below the horizon. The church was flooded with warm, amber light as the ensemble sang Bach; if they had arranged the lighting it couldn't have been done better, it was as if the setting sun paused on his descent to listen to the music. Artistic beauty and the beauty of nature collided for a few precious moments of sheer wonder.
I've been off to another couple of shows since then and taken in a number of movies at the always-excellent Film Festival with a bundle more to see (Daniel Auteil and Gerry Depardieu to look forward to this Thursday, together for the first time on celluloid). MirrorMask was utterly gorgeous and we had the added delight of a Q&A from Dave McKean himself. It was very Neil Gaiman territory story-wise and visually looked like one of Dave's gorgeous mixed-media artworks come to life. I came out dancing with delight and with a grin I borrowed from my friend the Chesire Cat, it was fantastic! I'll get a decent write-up on it along with George Romero's Land of the Dead when I get a chance (and what a huge cheer George got when he appeared).
Caught Guy X today with Jason Biggs and Natascha McElhone which was great - at first it looked like it was going to be a comedy of mistaken identities in the US army in the 70s, drawing on MASH or Stripes, but actually went off in other directions much to my delight. I was even more delighted when they brought in the director and some of the cast for the Q&A aftewards (one of the delights of the Film Fest, getting to see and sometimes even meet the folk behind the films). So today I found myself only a few feet away from Natascha McElhone who looks even slimmer and more gorgeous in person and her eyes are as luminous. Probably the closest I'll ever get to her, but hey! On the way out who did I see on the red carpet but Mr Frodo himself, Elijah Wood going in for his new movie premiere (I think he plays a football hooligan), waving to a big crowd of fans.
I also had a kind invite from Mainstream to attend the launch of their new book, the Literary Traveller in Edinburgh by Allan Foster in the Scottish Writer's Museum just off the High Street (and a very nice spot for anyone visiting the city). Its an excellent book lover's guide to the World City of Literature, arranged by area so the reader can use it for a little tour of the city, from tombs of poets to the spot where J K was writing the early Harry Potter drafts, pubs where Stevenson hung out to what bookstores are where (nice mention for the Edinburgh branch of the Planet in there - Allan asked for info on our specialisations, hours etc a while back which I was happy to supply and he nicely asked me to come along to the launch). I used to get asked for just such a guide back in my old job so I think they will do well with this. I was impressed enough to buy my own copy. As an extra treat I bumped into a former colleague, who was part of my team when I set up the new They Who Shall Not Be Named at Ocean Terminal the other year and who now works for Mainstream and got to catch up a little with him while snorting the complimentary wine. Pretty good day then! I'll try and write up a bit more on MirrorMask later on.
Anniversaries
It seems to be a series of anniversary events this month. Today marks the seventh century to pass since the brutal execution of the Scots patriot William Wallace (the real Wallace, not to be confused with Mel Gibson who is shorter than Wallace's sword, fun though the movie was). He was betrayed at Robroyston on the outskirts of Glasgow, just a few miles from my childhood home and close by the Wallace Well, one of hundreds of parts of Scotland named or associated with him. Once again the old chestnuts of historical accuracy was raised, with historians having a bash at Bravheart and Blind Harry's Medieval epic poem, The Wallace (isn't it funny how many heroes accrue 'the' before their name, becoming more than a person, becoming a symbol. The Wallace, The Bruce, The Batman).
Well, neither of those were histories - what both did was to use the scarce facts of Wallace's struggle then re-interpret them to make suitable entertainments for their respective eras. And both helped to secure and preserve the myth for future generations - historians may whinge about Braveheart, but I know for a fact how many more Scottish history books I sold to the public on the back of it and it still fuels the expansion of the very market those same historians write for. Yes, as a devourer of history I laughed at the innacuracies, but I enjoyed them anyway and was happy more folk wanted to read the real histories afterwards. And Blind Harry's Wallace is a riot - think a medieval Scots Iliad crossed with the over-the-top violence of Slaine or Conan.
What is more important with Wallace, as with all heroes (real and imaginary, from Hector and Achilles to Washington or the Dambusters or the NYC firefighters), is the mythology. It doesn't mean we should ignore the history but the myth is more important; characters like Wallace are no longer just men, they are symbols on which each generation can impose and draw upon according to their times and needs; they are larger than life (and judging by the size of his sword he was pretty large to begin with!). The symbol, the myth, is far more important than the person; it gives us support in our personal beliefs, reassurance that the greatest obstacles can be overcome, inspires us when things look dark and answer that deep-seated human need for heroes. I think if the real Wallace knew that 700 years after his death he would continue to be an inspiration and symbol for freedom he wouldn't mind that at all. Like much of our history he is half wish-fulfilment and myth and half actual history, but by god it's still a terrific tale.
On the other anniversary fronts this month (in no particular order) I have an aunt and uncle celebrating their golden wedding anniversary. 50 years together, pretty amazing; hard to think when they were hitched Gagarin's spaceflight was still 6 years in the future and there was no such thing as Beatlemania. And since my dear uncle (affectionately known as 'comrade' to me because he is old school left-wing) has been fighting cancer for the last few years you can imagine how much it means to our family that he's here and reasonably healthy to celebrate this event with his wife. Hot on their heels my mum and dad's anniversary is this month - I was a little taken aback on learning it is their ruby anniversary! 40 years for mum and dad... I'm flabbergasted... How can this be? Surely they're far too young and I'm still just a boy...
Just to make me feel even older is the fact that its now ten years since I became Joe Gordon BA Honours. Yup, ten years since I graduated - wow, where did those years go? Oh yeah, I drank my way through a fair chunk of them... And I'm guessing if I total them up the movies, books and curries must account for a fair percentage of that particular decade too. Personally I take as a productive use of my decade. Actually I'm not bothered about it so much - I think if I had still been where I was last year then I might have felt more downbeat about it, but actually I'm in a pretty good place and don't mind it - it is, after all, another excuse for a few drinks. And that's the best way to look at it - sod the glass half-full or half-empty, just finish the bloody drink and get another round in!
It seems to be a series of anniversary events this month. Today marks the seventh century to pass since the brutal execution of the Scots patriot William Wallace (the real Wallace, not to be confused with Mel Gibson who is shorter than Wallace's sword, fun though the movie was). He was betrayed at Robroyston on the outskirts of Glasgow, just a few miles from my childhood home and close by the Wallace Well, one of hundreds of parts of Scotland named or associated with him. Once again the old chestnuts of historical accuracy was raised, with historians having a bash at Bravheart and Blind Harry's Medieval epic poem, The Wallace (isn't it funny how many heroes accrue 'the' before their name, becoming more than a person, becoming a symbol. The Wallace, The Bruce, The Batman).
Well, neither of those were histories - what both did was to use the scarce facts of Wallace's struggle then re-interpret them to make suitable entertainments for their respective eras. And both helped to secure and preserve the myth for future generations - historians may whinge about Braveheart, but I know for a fact how many more Scottish history books I sold to the public on the back of it and it still fuels the expansion of the very market those same historians write for. Yes, as a devourer of history I laughed at the innacuracies, but I enjoyed them anyway and was happy more folk wanted to read the real histories afterwards. And Blind Harry's Wallace is a riot - think a medieval Scots Iliad crossed with the over-the-top violence of Slaine or Conan.
What is more important with Wallace, as with all heroes (real and imaginary, from Hector and Achilles to Washington or the Dambusters or the NYC firefighters), is the mythology. It doesn't mean we should ignore the history but the myth is more important; characters like Wallace are no longer just men, they are symbols on which each generation can impose and draw upon according to their times and needs; they are larger than life (and judging by the size of his sword he was pretty large to begin with!). The symbol, the myth, is far more important than the person; it gives us support in our personal beliefs, reassurance that the greatest obstacles can be overcome, inspires us when things look dark and answer that deep-seated human need for heroes. I think if the real Wallace knew that 700 years after his death he would continue to be an inspiration and symbol for freedom he wouldn't mind that at all. Like much of our history he is half wish-fulfilment and myth and half actual history, but by god it's still a terrific tale.
On the other anniversary fronts this month (in no particular order) I have an aunt and uncle celebrating their golden wedding anniversary. 50 years together, pretty amazing; hard to think when they were hitched Gagarin's spaceflight was still 6 years in the future and there was no such thing as Beatlemania. And since my dear uncle (affectionately known as 'comrade' to me because he is old school left-wing) has been fighting cancer for the last few years you can imagine how much it means to our family that he's here and reasonably healthy to celebrate this event with his wife. Hot on their heels my mum and dad's anniversary is this month - I was a little taken aback on learning it is their ruby anniversary! 40 years for mum and dad... I'm flabbergasted... How can this be? Surely they're far too young and I'm still just a boy...
Just to make me feel even older is the fact that its now ten years since I became Joe Gordon BA Honours. Yup, ten years since I graduated - wow, where did those years go? Oh yeah, I drank my way through a fair chunk of them... And I'm guessing if I total them up the movies, books and curries must account for a fair percentage of that particular decade too. Personally I take as a productive use of my decade. Actually I'm not bothered about it so much - I think if I had still been where I was last year then I might have felt more downbeat about it, but actually I'm in a pretty good place and don't mind it - it is, after all, another excuse for a few drinks. And that's the best way to look at it - sod the glass half-full or half-empty, just finish the bloody drink and get another round in!
Saturday, August 13, 2005
Festival time
The city is in full-on Festival mode and it is ludicrously busy - even getting lunch from nearby Piemaker (mmmm, pies....) is harder as there are lines of tourists, backpackers and Fringe folk to get past. Each evening tremendous bangs echoe around Edinburgh as that night's Tattoo concludes on the esplanade of the Castle (not my favourite event, although I have to admit the Castle, lit with great iron braziers of flame for the Tattoo looks marvellous in the flickering light).
There's a venue right under the floor where my desk is at work and Fringe goers and performers are to be heard noisily in the lane beneath the staff room window. Every afternoon one guy leads some would-be audience memebers in a chorus of 'what do we want? Free tickets! When do we want them? Now' for several very loud and annoying minutes. Tired of this every day after a week I leaned out the window, waited for the appropriate moment and bellowed 'free Tibet' instead. My spontaneous artistic contribution to the Fringe :-).
In the streets its pretty normal to pass Kabuki performers in full makeup walking past an 18th century building, people on stilts, cloaks, top hats, you name it, although even I found the spectacle of a man in concentration camp uniform leading an SS officer round on a leash and collar, handing out fliers for their show, worth watching (its easy to get jaded and blase about the manic Fringe when you live here).
And then there were the mimes... Like, I suspect, many people, I have an instinctive distrust of mimes. I find them creepier even than clowns - maybe its the un-natural body language - and, as one chum agreed with me, their tendency to imitate passers-by when performing on the street is bloody annoying (and lead to a great bit in Berk Breathed's Bloom County strip where Opus the penguin beats a street mime unconcious with an olive loaf). I spotted this gaggle of mimes smoking ciggies in the back alley below the staff room window before going back into the (literally) underground venue beneath the store deep in the Old Town.
Having read Jeff VanderMeer's bloody brilliant City of Saints and Madmen I was not fooled by these folks - I know they are almost certainly trying to lure the unsuspecting visitor into the subterranean lair of the Gray Caps, because beneath every city (except maybe New Orleans where underground = underwater) there are tunnels and caverns which all lead to underground Ambergris...
And speaking of Jeff, he kindly contributed a list of his favourite graphic novels for the feature in the Recommends bit of the FPI GN site a while back. He's just posted on Vanderworld to explain a bit more of the reasons behind the selection of his favourite graphic novels, so if you're a GN fan (or a Jeff fan, or both) you might want to have a gander. He also had a very good edition of his regular Five Questions interview with other authors; the answers by Kelly Link are excellent and I really want to read her Magic for Beginners now, but its not easy to source in the UK.
The city is in full-on Festival mode and it is ludicrously busy - even getting lunch from nearby Piemaker (mmmm, pies....) is harder as there are lines of tourists, backpackers and Fringe folk to get past. Each evening tremendous bangs echoe around Edinburgh as that night's Tattoo concludes on the esplanade of the Castle (not my favourite event, although I have to admit the Castle, lit with great iron braziers of flame for the Tattoo looks marvellous in the flickering light).
There's a venue right under the floor where my desk is at work and Fringe goers and performers are to be heard noisily in the lane beneath the staff room window. Every afternoon one guy leads some would-be audience memebers in a chorus of 'what do we want? Free tickets! When do we want them? Now' for several very loud and annoying minutes. Tired of this every day after a week I leaned out the window, waited for the appropriate moment and bellowed 'free Tibet' instead. My spontaneous artistic contribution to the Fringe :-).
In the streets its pretty normal to pass Kabuki performers in full makeup walking past an 18th century building, people on stilts, cloaks, top hats, you name it, although even I found the spectacle of a man in concentration camp uniform leading an SS officer round on a leash and collar, handing out fliers for their show, worth watching (its easy to get jaded and blase about the manic Fringe when you live here).
And then there were the mimes... Like, I suspect, many people, I have an instinctive distrust of mimes. I find them creepier even than clowns - maybe its the un-natural body language - and, as one chum agreed with me, their tendency to imitate passers-by when performing on the street is bloody annoying (and lead to a great bit in Berk Breathed's Bloom County strip where Opus the penguin beats a street mime unconcious with an olive loaf). I spotted this gaggle of mimes smoking ciggies in the back alley below the staff room window before going back into the (literally) underground venue beneath the store deep in the Old Town.
Having read Jeff VanderMeer's bloody brilliant City of Saints and Madmen I was not fooled by these folks - I know they are almost certainly trying to lure the unsuspecting visitor into the subterranean lair of the Gray Caps, because beneath every city (except maybe New Orleans where underground = underwater) there are tunnels and caverns which all lead to underground Ambergris...
And speaking of Jeff, he kindly contributed a list of his favourite graphic novels for the feature in the Recommends bit of the FPI GN site a while back. He's just posted on Vanderworld to explain a bit more of the reasons behind the selection of his favourite graphic novels, so if you're a GN fan (or a Jeff fan, or both) you might want to have a gander. He also had a very good edition of his regular Five Questions interview with other authors; the answers by Kelly Link are excellent and I really want to read her Magic for Beginners now, but its not easy to source in the UK.
Romance
Adding forthcoming titles to the graphic novels site this week I found a new range of graphic novels from Dark Horse (home to Hellboy among others) coming in collaboration with Harlequin, the romance novel specialists (that's basically Mills & Boon to those of us in the UK)! The previous week I had added on some other romantic graphic novels aimed at women readers from the Manga imprint Blu, which included - are you ready for this, a title about gay ninjas in love! Heh! Oh, you have to love the comics industry!
And yes, I added them all on to the catalogue - they don't really look like my cup of tea - I'd rather read the new Alex Robinson, Tricked and I'm dying to read The Fountain by Dan Aronofsky, who directed Pi (this is his own adaptation of his own Hugh Jackson and Rachel Weiz movie) - but I want to be able to offer as diverse a range of titles as possible. I think the mix is getting better every month, with more unusual entries getting represented as well as the more obvious titles from major publishers of graphic novels. I've even had a few of the indepedent publishers sending me details of new titles to add, so it looks like this approach is working.
I know as a reader I want to be able to browse the unusual and offbeat new material as well as works by my favourite established authors (and on that score I'm glad to say Richard Morgan is working on a second Black Widow mini series for Marvel). I suppose its the difference between running the site merely as a job and being a reader of much of the material I'm posting to it. It's also rewarding to be able to support new writers and artists and hopefully bring them to a bigger audience.
Nova Scotia
On the book front one my Book Picks in the new FPI magazine from Scottish independent publisher Mercat Press was getting much attention this week. Nova Scotia, an anthology of new Scottish speculative fiction, was, my Glasgow colleagues tell me, our stand-out bestselling book at the FPI tables in the dealer room at the Worldcon last weekend - it fairly flew out the door, which was superb to hear. I suspect a lot of attendees had bags over the weight allowance at the airport on the way home! Perhaps airlines could help promote health by offering larger baggage weight allowances if the passenger loses weight between arriving and departing?
On Thursday I was at Blackwell's (what was once James Thins) Edinburgh bookstore near the FPI branch I'm based in for the Nova Scotia evening. Great turnout for the launch and a great collection of the contributing authors were present - obviously not all of them could get to read from their short stories, but it was great that so many of them came along to sign books and talk to the readers. Ken MacLeod, Charlie Stross, Jack Deighton, Neil Williamson, Andrew J Wilson, Mike Cobley and Debbie Miller were just some of the writers present (and Hugo-winning Charlie's attempt at an Edinburgh accent had to be heard!). It also gave me a chance to catch up with my mate Matthew and see Fiona and Adam who have just come back home for a few weeks before returning to Taiwan where Fiona is teaching English and performing death-deying stunts on a scooter on Taiwan's roads.
Naturally I had to get my copy of Nova Scotia (thanks to Vikki at Mercat for that) signed for my collection (must be the single book with the most author signatures in my collection) and as I had Accelerando in my bag with me Charlie signed that for me too. Great evening and a good week for Nova Scotia - always good to see an indy publisher doing so well with a good book (which I heartily recommend) and I'm really happy we've been able to give it some support.
Adding forthcoming titles to the graphic novels site this week I found a new range of graphic novels from Dark Horse (home to Hellboy among others) coming in collaboration with Harlequin, the romance novel specialists (that's basically Mills & Boon to those of us in the UK)! The previous week I had added on some other romantic graphic novels aimed at women readers from the Manga imprint Blu, which included - are you ready for this, a title about gay ninjas in love! Heh! Oh, you have to love the comics industry!
And yes, I added them all on to the catalogue - they don't really look like my cup of tea - I'd rather read the new Alex Robinson, Tricked and I'm dying to read The Fountain by Dan Aronofsky, who directed Pi (this is his own adaptation of his own Hugh Jackson and Rachel Weiz movie) - but I want to be able to offer as diverse a range of titles as possible. I think the mix is getting better every month, with more unusual entries getting represented as well as the more obvious titles from major publishers of graphic novels. I've even had a few of the indepedent publishers sending me details of new titles to add, so it looks like this approach is working.
I know as a reader I want to be able to browse the unusual and offbeat new material as well as works by my favourite established authors (and on that score I'm glad to say Richard Morgan is working on a second Black Widow mini series for Marvel). I suppose its the difference between running the site merely as a job and being a reader of much of the material I'm posting to it. It's also rewarding to be able to support new writers and artists and hopefully bring them to a bigger audience.
Nova Scotia
On the book front one my Book Picks in the new FPI magazine from Scottish independent publisher Mercat Press was getting much attention this week. Nova Scotia, an anthology of new Scottish speculative fiction, was, my Glasgow colleagues tell me, our stand-out bestselling book at the FPI tables in the dealer room at the Worldcon last weekend - it fairly flew out the door, which was superb to hear. I suspect a lot of attendees had bags over the weight allowance at the airport on the way home! Perhaps airlines could help promote health by offering larger baggage weight allowances if the passenger loses weight between arriving and departing?
On Thursday I was at Blackwell's (what was once James Thins) Edinburgh bookstore near the FPI branch I'm based in for the Nova Scotia evening. Great turnout for the launch and a great collection of the contributing authors were present - obviously not all of them could get to read from their short stories, but it was great that so many of them came along to sign books and talk to the readers. Ken MacLeod, Charlie Stross, Jack Deighton, Neil Williamson, Andrew J Wilson, Mike Cobley and Debbie Miller were just some of the writers present (and Hugo-winning Charlie's attempt at an Edinburgh accent had to be heard!). It also gave me a chance to catch up with my mate Matthew and see Fiona and Adam who have just come back home for a few weeks before returning to Taiwan where Fiona is teaching English and performing death-deying stunts on a scooter on Taiwan's roads.
Naturally I had to get my copy of Nova Scotia (thanks to Vikki at Mercat for that) signed for my collection (must be the single book with the most author signatures in my collection) and as I had Accelerando in my bag with me Charlie signed that for me too. Great evening and a good week for Nova Scotia - always good to see an indy publisher doing so well with a good book (which I heartily recommend) and I'm really happy we've been able to give it some support.
Monday, August 8, 2005
Photograph
I had, like several of my chums, planned to go through to the Worldcon at Glasgow this weekend, but like most of them finally had to abandon that plan due to the cost factor - £40 for a day ticket. Add in train fares, food and drink (probably a lot of drink - well, I'd need to be sociable to any writers I know who I bumped into) and you're looking at a fair bit of cash, at least 70 or 80 quid (and that's assuming I didn't buy anything from the dealer room) - too much for one day back in Glasgow, much as I really wanted to be there and had looked forward to it for months. Obviously the con has a lot of overheads to meet, but since a lot of folk I know pulled out for similar reasons its perhaps something organisers will have to consider in future or, as one mate commented, they will end up with the same folk going each time and a lot of rank and file fans feeling priced out. I'd loved to have been there for the Hugo ceremony last night and the Orbit party beforehand, but it wasn't to be - at least Charlie got himself a Hugo; details of winners over on the FPI blog.
Sunday was still enjoyable though as Mel and I had a pleasant walk down to Dean Village (a gorgeous part of Edinburg) in the sunshine to go to the Dean Gallery to see the Henri Cartier-Bresson exhibition (it's only appearance in the UK). It was extremely busy, but that was to be expected since the Festival is now in gear, although we were a trifle miffed that the Gallery said in the Fringe Guide it was taking part in the opening weekend 2 for 1 ticket offer, but charged us for two tickets. When I asked why they explained you had to go to the Fringe box office in town to get those tickets, then come back out to the Dean Gallery - not clear in the Fringe Guide and a bloody stupid idea since they are far apart, so something of a rip-off on that score, although still worth the fee because it is a marvellous exhibition.
The Berlin Wall going up, the fall of the last Chinese cities to the communists, the funeral of Gandhi, portraits of Matisse, Picasso, Truman Capote, Sarte, folk going to work in 1930s Paris, images taken in the late 90s, cities like New York and London and women in the Kashmir; it was, in effect, the 20th century in microcosm, frozen moments of the century in black and white.
And what images - many of you are probably familiar with his work - he is, after all, one of the most famous (and important) photographers ever and one of the founders of Magnum (I love my Magnum collection books). Cartier-Bresson, who died just last year, had a knack for being able to frame an image perfectly and for finding interesting views of places and people. His landscapes and cityscapes are beautifully aligned to draw in the viewer. His image of three women in the Kashmir is gorgeous and timeless; this picture could be today or fifty years ago while the black and white imagery makes the women looks almost like dusty statues - colour would be totally different.
But it is his people pictures that are his strongest forte: Cartier-Bresson took some amazing pictures of people, sometimes portraits, sometimes groups, sometimes famous people, sometimes just people in a crowd. Some of the ordinary folk he captured are amazing, with the most unusual faces, full of character - I was reminded very much of the sort of extras Sergio Leone often employed in his movies with odd, often grotesque yet fascinating faces which his camera would linger upon in close up. There were also lots of personal family pictures and various bits and pieces from his life, which helped to round the whole exhibition out and give a better idea of the man behind the Leicka lens.
A wander past the giant metal man of late local artist Eduardo Paolozzi and a quick look at the brilliant replica of his studio in the Dean (I always have to stand there and drink in that sight when there - pieces of plaster statues, works in progress, brushes, pictures, jigsaws and all sorts of toys from 50s tin-type, wind-up robots to a plastic Millennium Falcon - anything that took his fancy, sparked his imagination. When my mother complains about the untidiness of my flat I point her in the direction of this studio).
Some drinks in the cafe then a wander over the road to the Gallery of Modern Art to take in the Landform earth sculpture. I've mentioned it here before (probably last summer) but last time I was there it was overcast and I wanted to see it and photograph it in the brighter, sunny light. It's a gorgeous piece that you can lie out on, walk around and, as the kids were proving, slide down the slopes; a great space. Since it was bathed in such lovely light and surrounded by greenery and blue skies I resisted the urge to greyscale this image to fit in with the others!
I had, like several of my chums, planned to go through to the Worldcon at Glasgow this weekend, but like most of them finally had to abandon that plan due to the cost factor - £40 for a day ticket. Add in train fares, food and drink (probably a lot of drink - well, I'd need to be sociable to any writers I know who I bumped into) and you're looking at a fair bit of cash, at least 70 or 80 quid (and that's assuming I didn't buy anything from the dealer room) - too much for one day back in Glasgow, much as I really wanted to be there and had looked forward to it for months. Obviously the con has a lot of overheads to meet, but since a lot of folk I know pulled out for similar reasons its perhaps something organisers will have to consider in future or, as one mate commented, they will end up with the same folk going each time and a lot of rank and file fans feeling priced out. I'd loved to have been there for the Hugo ceremony last night and the Orbit party beforehand, but it wasn't to be - at least Charlie got himself a Hugo; details of winners over on the FPI blog.
Sunday was still enjoyable though as Mel and I had a pleasant walk down to Dean Village (a gorgeous part of Edinburg) in the sunshine to go to the Dean Gallery to see the Henri Cartier-Bresson exhibition (it's only appearance in the UK). It was extremely busy, but that was to be expected since the Festival is now in gear, although we were a trifle miffed that the Gallery said in the Fringe Guide it was taking part in the opening weekend 2 for 1 ticket offer, but charged us for two tickets. When I asked why they explained you had to go to the Fringe box office in town to get those tickets, then come back out to the Dean Gallery - not clear in the Fringe Guide and a bloody stupid idea since they are far apart, so something of a rip-off on that score, although still worth the fee because it is a marvellous exhibition.
The Berlin Wall going up, the fall of the last Chinese cities to the communists, the funeral of Gandhi, portraits of Matisse, Picasso, Truman Capote, Sarte, folk going to work in 1930s Paris, images taken in the late 90s, cities like New York and London and women in the Kashmir; it was, in effect, the 20th century in microcosm, frozen moments of the century in black and white.
And what images - many of you are probably familiar with his work - he is, after all, one of the most famous (and important) photographers ever and one of the founders of Magnum (I love my Magnum collection books). Cartier-Bresson, who died just last year, had a knack for being able to frame an image perfectly and for finding interesting views of places and people. His landscapes and cityscapes are beautifully aligned to draw in the viewer. His image of three women in the Kashmir is gorgeous and timeless; this picture could be today or fifty years ago while the black and white imagery makes the women looks almost like dusty statues - colour would be totally different.
But it is his people pictures that are his strongest forte: Cartier-Bresson took some amazing pictures of people, sometimes portraits, sometimes groups, sometimes famous people, sometimes just people in a crowd. Some of the ordinary folk he captured are amazing, with the most unusual faces, full of character - I was reminded very much of the sort of extras Sergio Leone often employed in his movies with odd, often grotesque yet fascinating faces which his camera would linger upon in close up. There were also lots of personal family pictures and various bits and pieces from his life, which helped to round the whole exhibition out and give a better idea of the man behind the Leicka lens.
A wander past the giant metal man of late local artist Eduardo Paolozzi and a quick look at the brilliant replica of his studio in the Dean (I always have to stand there and drink in that sight when there - pieces of plaster statues, works in progress, brushes, pictures, jigsaws and all sorts of toys from 50s tin-type, wind-up robots to a plastic Millennium Falcon - anything that took his fancy, sparked his imagination. When my mother complains about the untidiness of my flat I point her in the direction of this studio).
Some drinks in the cafe then a wander over the road to the Gallery of Modern Art to take in the Landform earth sculpture. I've mentioned it here before (probably last summer) but last time I was there it was overcast and I wanted to see it and photograph it in the brighter, sunny light. It's a gorgeous piece that you can lie out on, walk around and, as the kids were proving, slide down the slopes; a great space. Since it was bathed in such lovely light and surrounded by greenery and blue skies I resisted the urge to greyscale this image to fit in with the others!
Saturday, August 6, 2005
The day the Sun came to Earth
Today is the 6th of August and marks the sixtieth anniversary of a day when science fiction became a hideous reality: the day the Bomb was dropped on Hiroshima; the day the world was introduced to the awful possibility of Nuclear Holocaust, a nightmare that would stalk us for decades. Even when I was a boy in the 80s it was always there, in the background; imagine growing up knowing that the entire world could end five minutes after the banshee wail of an air raid siren. That's what we did - against that terrorist scum aren't quite as terrifying (although I must admit I felt nervous for the first time on the bus the other day when a very Arab-looking man got on with his hooded top pulled up tight round his head and constantly fiddling with his bag).
I am not going to get into the ins and outs of the entire debate circling the dropping of the Bomb: was it a purely strategic decision to end the war and save from a blood-soaked invasion or was it aimed even more at other powers like Russia to illustrate American know-how and power? I don't think today is for that; I think today is for people to remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to remember people who were so utterly annihilated that all that remained of them was their shadows, blasted onto nearby walls as if some ghastly flash gun had gone off, except it wasn’t a flash gun, it was a miniature sun brought momentarily to Earth.
For the first time our technological race had brought us to a stage where we were now using some of the very forces that held the universe together; in the classic parlance of the many atomic-nightmare infused SF films and books that came in its wake, we were ‘meddling in things we cannot comprehend’. And for once the B movies had it, at least partially, correct: even Oppenheimer and his crew didn’t fully understand the processes they had unleashed, let alone the new horror of radiation poisoning which would physically poison the bodies of survivors as effectively as the idea of it would poison our minds for generations.
It’s a time to remember the people who died and the many others who died in the slaughter of a world on fire. And as the nuclear programmes of Iran and North Korea feature once more in the new it is a day to recall how, for many decades we, as a species, danced on the edge of oblivion at our own hands (as if any political ideology was worth the entire world’s existence) and how the nuclear nightmare hasn’t gone away with the end of the Cold War but has mutated into a new and equally terrifying form of rogue states and terrorists. Oppenheimer, famously, quoted from Indian myth and religion when he saw the first Bomb exploded, saying “I am become Death, destroyer of Worlds.”
He was right, but perhaps they should also have recalled the Classical myth of Pandora and how once her box is opened it can never really be closed. The one shining light in this tale of human folly is the same as the light from Pandora ’s Box: hope. After the evils of the world were released from her box, so too was Hope to balance against them. We somehow got through the Cold War, often by the narrowest margins, without the End of the World and we should look upon that as Hope that perhaps we’re not all as foolish as our species can sometimes seem.
For anyone interested I blogged at work yesterday on this subject because it tied in with the timely re-publishing of the classic Japanese graphic novel Barefoot Gen, written and drawn by Nakazawa, a survivor of the Bomb, a fascinating work on a par with Spiegelman's Maus. There is also a link in there to a site with eyewitness testimony from Hibakusha.
Today is the 6th of August and marks the sixtieth anniversary of a day when science fiction became a hideous reality: the day the Bomb was dropped on Hiroshima; the day the world was introduced to the awful possibility of Nuclear Holocaust, a nightmare that would stalk us for decades. Even when I was a boy in the 80s it was always there, in the background; imagine growing up knowing that the entire world could end five minutes after the banshee wail of an air raid siren. That's what we did - against that terrorist scum aren't quite as terrifying (although I must admit I felt nervous for the first time on the bus the other day when a very Arab-looking man got on with his hooded top pulled up tight round his head and constantly fiddling with his bag).
I am not going to get into the ins and outs of the entire debate circling the dropping of the Bomb: was it a purely strategic decision to end the war and save from a blood-soaked invasion or was it aimed even more at other powers like Russia to illustrate American know-how and power? I don't think today is for that; I think today is for people to remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to remember people who were so utterly annihilated that all that remained of them was their shadows, blasted onto nearby walls as if some ghastly flash gun had gone off, except it wasn’t a flash gun, it was a miniature sun brought momentarily to Earth.
For the first time our technological race had brought us to a stage where we were now using some of the very forces that held the universe together; in the classic parlance of the many atomic-nightmare infused SF films and books that came in its wake, we were ‘meddling in things we cannot comprehend’. And for once the B movies had it, at least partially, correct: even Oppenheimer and his crew didn’t fully understand the processes they had unleashed, let alone the new horror of radiation poisoning which would physically poison the bodies of survivors as effectively as the idea of it would poison our minds for generations.
It’s a time to remember the people who died and the many others who died in the slaughter of a world on fire. And as the nuclear programmes of Iran and North Korea feature once more in the new it is a day to recall how, for many decades we, as a species, danced on the edge of oblivion at our own hands (as if any political ideology was worth the entire world’s existence) and how the nuclear nightmare hasn’t gone away with the end of the Cold War but has mutated into a new and equally terrifying form of rogue states and terrorists. Oppenheimer, famously, quoted from Indian myth and religion when he saw the first Bomb exploded, saying “I am become Death, destroyer of Worlds.”
He was right, but perhaps they should also have recalled the Classical myth of Pandora and how once her box is opened it can never really be closed. The one shining light in this tale of human folly is the same as the light from Pandora ’s Box: hope. After the evils of the world were released from her box, so too was Hope to balance against them. We somehow got through the Cold War, often by the narrowest margins, without the End of the World and we should look upon that as Hope that perhaps we’re not all as foolish as our species can sometimes seem.
For anyone interested I blogged at work yesterday on this subject because it tied in with the timely re-publishing of the classic Japanese graphic novel Barefoot Gen, written and drawn by Nakazawa, a survivor of the Bomb, a fascinating work on a par with Spiegelman's Maus. There is also a link in there to a site with eyewitness testimony from Hibakusha.
Scrabbling
Once upon a midnight dreary, as I pondered, weak and weary, came a scrabbling, a scrabbling beneath my apartment floor... Thought I had imagined a sound in the flat the other night until a couple of hours later I was certain I heard a scrabbling sound, which seemed to come from beneath the floorboards. This time I knew I hadn't imagained it because the cats pounced on the spot where the sound came from and started pawing the boards and emitting yeowls, at which point there was even more fantic scrabbling then silence.
Checking on my neighbours it transpires that a couple of them have heard scrabbling beneath the floorboards and one actualy sighted a mouse a few months back. I do recall a couple of years back my upstairs neighbour had a mouse problem. It is an old block - a nice 19th century Victorian tenement; I love old places but these are one of the sorts of problems that can come with them. Luckily no mouse has actually gotten into my flat and it would be a prety suicidal Kamikaze mouse that entered a home with two cats in it. I suspect the sound and scent of Pandora and Cassie scared the buggery out of the critter beneath the floorboards, so hopefully it won't be back.
Assuming, of course, it is ordinary mice. It could be the world's smallest cell of terrorists. Fundamentalist Muslim Mice right beneath my feet. Perhaps Mr Blair can overturn the human rights legislation and get them deported on behalf of our block? In the meantime though I am asking the girls to employ their special cat anti-terror training. We were at Super Neon Alert (credible intelligence pointing to likelihood of Mouse Attack) but have now stepped down to Candy Stripe Alert, which means heightened state of Mouse Alert (I couldn't bring myself to use red, amber and orange alerts like Bush's team, so dull and unimaginative, much like the man himself).
I have full confidence in the Emergency Services (that would be the cats) to respond appropriately to this serious breach of flat security. Both Pandora and Cassie have been undertaking regular sweeps on Mouse Patrol, but so far have only turned up my Tom and Jerry DVD. They are now using their advance training, by which I mean they lie around dozing a lot so they are refreshed and ready for any threat, should the mice be daft enough to return (assuming the poor thing didn't crawl away somewhere and have a cardiac arrest from the sound of the cats leaping onto the floorboards right above it). We may have to consider stronger measures, such as closing down Mice Mosques if they are proved to be hotbeds for radicalising local rodents and deportation for those overseas devils who incite British mice to attack people's homes. Free people of the West, be on your guard against this new threat; speak softly but carry a big cat.
Once upon a midnight dreary, as I pondered, weak and weary, came a scrabbling, a scrabbling beneath my apartment floor... Thought I had imagined a sound in the flat the other night until a couple of hours later I was certain I heard a scrabbling sound, which seemed to come from beneath the floorboards. This time I knew I hadn't imagained it because the cats pounced on the spot where the sound came from and started pawing the boards and emitting yeowls, at which point there was even more fantic scrabbling then silence.
Checking on my neighbours it transpires that a couple of them have heard scrabbling beneath the floorboards and one actualy sighted a mouse a few months back. I do recall a couple of years back my upstairs neighbour had a mouse problem. It is an old block - a nice 19th century Victorian tenement; I love old places but these are one of the sorts of problems that can come with them. Luckily no mouse has actually gotten into my flat and it would be a prety suicidal Kamikaze mouse that entered a home with two cats in it. I suspect the sound and scent of Pandora and Cassie scared the buggery out of the critter beneath the floorboards, so hopefully it won't be back.
Assuming, of course, it is ordinary mice. It could be the world's smallest cell of terrorists. Fundamentalist Muslim Mice right beneath my feet. Perhaps Mr Blair can overturn the human rights legislation and get them deported on behalf of our block? In the meantime though I am asking the girls to employ their special cat anti-terror training. We were at Super Neon Alert (credible intelligence pointing to likelihood of Mouse Attack) but have now stepped down to Candy Stripe Alert, which means heightened state of Mouse Alert (I couldn't bring myself to use red, amber and orange alerts like Bush's team, so dull and unimaginative, much like the man himself).
I have full confidence in the Emergency Services (that would be the cats) to respond appropriately to this serious breach of flat security. Both Pandora and Cassie have been undertaking regular sweeps on Mouse Patrol, but so far have only turned up my Tom and Jerry DVD. They are now using their advance training, by which I mean they lie around dozing a lot so they are refreshed and ready for any threat, should the mice be daft enough to return (assuming the poor thing didn't crawl away somewhere and have a cardiac arrest from the sound of the cats leaping onto the floorboards right above it). We may have to consider stronger measures, such as closing down Mice Mosques if they are proved to be hotbeds for radicalising local rodents and deportation for those overseas devils who incite British mice to attack people's homes. Free people of the West, be on your guard against this new threat; speak softly but carry a big cat.
Thursday, August 4, 2005
Quixotic
Watching Lost in La Mancha on BBC4 tonight I was struck with both a desire to re-read Miguel de Cervantes glorious book and a longing to see the Film That Never Was; how cool would a Terry Gilliam version of Don Quixote have been? Arguably he has taken to the character in previous work; Robin Williams' character in the Fisher King being the most notable and his version of Baron Munchausen sharing a certain amount of Quixotic traits (and I don't care about the box office poor returns or the critics, I thought that was a wonderful fantasy). Gilliam and Don Quixote is as natural a pairing as a dark fairy tale and Tim Burton or Michael Mann and a cityscape.
Alas, it was not to be, but we do still have the book. I recall a few years ago a poll was taken of a wide variety of authors, including such luminaries as Isabel Allende, from all around the world of the best works of world literature. By an overwhelming majority the favourite book from any language and across several centuries of novels chosen by these writers was Don Quixote. I was very pleased to see when I made a display to this effect in my old work I sold a pile of the books to readers who had always meant to pick it up and just needed a little encouragement.
It truly is one of the finest books ever written; even those who have never read it know of it - it has entered our language as we talk about 'tilting at windmills' or someone behaving Quixotically. It has charmed and enthused readers in many lands for centuries. The Don himself, a hopelessly romantic dreamer attached to a time long gone is, some argue, meant to be seen as riduculous. Yet most of us today see him as a hero; we know he is deluded, but he is happy and he is noble, an elegy for living one's dreams. The fact that his character has conquered the literary world is, I'd like to think, proof positive that tilting at windmills can be successful.
Favourite movie riff on Quixote: Cyrano de Bergerac. When his love rival, de Guache asks Cyrano if he has read the book Cyrano replies that he has practically lived it.
De Gauche: "Meditate on the windmill chapter.."
Cyrano, curtly: "Chapter thirteen."
De Gauche: "If you fight with windmills..."
Cyrano, interuppting again: "Are my foes like the air?"
De Gauche: "The heavy spars may dash you to the ground."
Cyrano pauses, smiles and answers in true Quixotic fashion: "Or lift me to the stars."
Of course since Cyrano has just single-handedly defeated 100 of de Gauche's assassin's with his sword he has a right to feel smug!
Watching Lost in La Mancha on BBC4 tonight I was struck with both a desire to re-read Miguel de Cervantes glorious book and a longing to see the Film That Never Was; how cool would a Terry Gilliam version of Don Quixote have been? Arguably he has taken to the character in previous work; Robin Williams' character in the Fisher King being the most notable and his version of Baron Munchausen sharing a certain amount of Quixotic traits (and I don't care about the box office poor returns or the critics, I thought that was a wonderful fantasy). Gilliam and Don Quixote is as natural a pairing as a dark fairy tale and Tim Burton or Michael Mann and a cityscape.
Alas, it was not to be, but we do still have the book. I recall a few years ago a poll was taken of a wide variety of authors, including such luminaries as Isabel Allende, from all around the world of the best works of world literature. By an overwhelming majority the favourite book from any language and across several centuries of novels chosen by these writers was Don Quixote. I was very pleased to see when I made a display to this effect in my old work I sold a pile of the books to readers who had always meant to pick it up and just needed a little encouragement.
It truly is one of the finest books ever written; even those who have never read it know of it - it has entered our language as we talk about 'tilting at windmills' or someone behaving Quixotically. It has charmed and enthused readers in many lands for centuries. The Don himself, a hopelessly romantic dreamer attached to a time long gone is, some argue, meant to be seen as riduculous. Yet most of us today see him as a hero; we know he is deluded, but he is happy and he is noble, an elegy for living one's dreams. The fact that his character has conquered the literary world is, I'd like to think, proof positive that tilting at windmills can be successful.
Favourite movie riff on Quixote: Cyrano de Bergerac. When his love rival, de Guache asks Cyrano if he has read the book Cyrano replies that he has practically lived it.
De Gauche: "Meditate on the windmill chapter.."
Cyrano, curtly: "Chapter thirteen."
De Gauche: "If you fight with windmills..."
Cyrano, interuppting again: "Are my foes like the air?"
De Gauche: "The heavy spars may dash you to the ground."
Cyrano pauses, smiles and answers in true Quixotic fashion: "Or lift me to the stars."
Of course since Cyrano has just single-handedly defeated 100 of de Gauche's assassin's with his sword he has a right to feel smug!
Wednesday, August 3, 2005
Shortlisted
The nominations for the World Fantasy Awards have been posted in the last few days and I was bowled over to see that our own Ariel and The Alien Online have been nominated in the special category which recognises non professional contributions to the SF&F community. Its well deserved as Ariel, Sandy and the rest of the TAO crew have made a great site over the last few years.
I've loved writing for TAO (it's very rewarding when you see quotes from reviews and interviews from the site being used on book covers) and it is also great to see a major award recognising how much of the worldwide SF&F community is held together by folks giving up their time to run fanzines, websites, newsletters, cons and clubs - hopefully more awards will follow suit in the future. Actually I was so delighted I blogged it twice - it just had to go on the FPI blog!
I also heard from one of my colleagues behind the new FPI magazine who said he'd been receiving some great feedback from readers. He was also kind enough to pass on a generous comment from a reader who enjoyed my article on 6 books you should have on your shelves and felt they wanted to read them (which is a very rewarding feeling for a booklover). For this first article I chose a theme of books with a dream-like (or nightmare-like) quality to them; the sort of tales that not only have an ephemeral quality to them but also linger in your mind long after, the imagery weaving in and out of your dreams. For anyone interested the books were:
American Gods, Neil Gaiman
White Apples, Jonathan Carroll
Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
Prospero's Children, Jan Seigel
Lanark, Alisdair Gray
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson
If you haven't read any of these they are all quite wonderful books. I'm just polishing off the article for the second issue (6 books again) and I'll talk about those after the publication. On teh book front I was sent a finished copy of Nova Scotia by the nice people at Edinburgh's Mercat Press. Its a rather tasy anthology of Scottish Speculative Fiction and includes tales from many writers I admire, including Ken MacLeod, Charlie Stross, Debbie Miller, Matthew Fitt, Willie Miekle and Jack Deighton (who wrote a fantastic SF novel a few years back, A Son of the Rock, which criminally didn't sell - I thought it was superb, but maybe it was too serious for popular taste. Jack, if you read this I'd love to see another full-lenght novel from you).
Hal Duncan is also in there; his incredible debut novel, Vellum, out at the Worldcon in Glasgow this weekend. Like Nova Scotia it's one of my Book Picks for the FPI mag's new books section and honestly it's one of the most amazing books I've read; incredibly lush prose, descriptions so well articulated you feel you're there and layer upon layer of interlocking characters and stories and myth. A word of warning though, Vellum demands of its readers that they think; so if you're the type of reader who actually wants to engage your cognitive faculties and your imagination then I can't recommend it enough. Gee, anyone looking at this blog might get the impression I like books!
The nominations for the World Fantasy Awards have been posted in the last few days and I was bowled over to see that our own Ariel and The Alien Online have been nominated in the special category which recognises non professional contributions to the SF&F community. Its well deserved as Ariel, Sandy and the rest of the TAO crew have made a great site over the last few years.
I've loved writing for TAO (it's very rewarding when you see quotes from reviews and interviews from the site being used on book covers) and it is also great to see a major award recognising how much of the worldwide SF&F community is held together by folks giving up their time to run fanzines, websites, newsletters, cons and clubs - hopefully more awards will follow suit in the future. Actually I was so delighted I blogged it twice - it just had to go on the FPI blog!
I also heard from one of my colleagues behind the new FPI magazine who said he'd been receiving some great feedback from readers. He was also kind enough to pass on a generous comment from a reader who enjoyed my article on 6 books you should have on your shelves and felt they wanted to read them (which is a very rewarding feeling for a booklover). For this first article I chose a theme of books with a dream-like (or nightmare-like) quality to them; the sort of tales that not only have an ephemeral quality to them but also linger in your mind long after, the imagery weaving in and out of your dreams. For anyone interested the books were:
American Gods, Neil Gaiman
White Apples, Jonathan Carroll
Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
Prospero's Children, Jan Seigel
Lanark, Alisdair Gray
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson
If you haven't read any of these they are all quite wonderful books. I'm just polishing off the article for the second issue (6 books again) and I'll talk about those after the publication. On teh book front I was sent a finished copy of Nova Scotia by the nice people at Edinburgh's Mercat Press. Its a rather tasy anthology of Scottish Speculative Fiction and includes tales from many writers I admire, including Ken MacLeod, Charlie Stross, Debbie Miller, Matthew Fitt, Willie Miekle and Jack Deighton (who wrote a fantastic SF novel a few years back, A Son of the Rock, which criminally didn't sell - I thought it was superb, but maybe it was too serious for popular taste. Jack, if you read this I'd love to see another full-lenght novel from you).
Hal Duncan is also in there; his incredible debut novel, Vellum, out at the Worldcon in Glasgow this weekend. Like Nova Scotia it's one of my Book Picks for the FPI mag's new books section and honestly it's one of the most amazing books I've read; incredibly lush prose, descriptions so well articulated you feel you're there and layer upon layer of interlocking characters and stories and myth. A word of warning though, Vellum demands of its readers that they think; so if you're the type of reader who actually wants to engage your cognitive faculties and your imagination then I can't recommend it enough. Gee, anyone looking at this blog might get the impression I like books!
Things that have been making me think
Why is there a regular aroma of French Toast in the stairwell of my tenement? Almost every day this last week at all sorts of different times I've sniffed the distinct smell of someone cooking French Toast. I like French Toast but obviously one of my neighbours really loves it. Or they have a really unusual air freshner.
Why have I had a recurring short dream where the theme to Bonanza is being played on an electric guitar with a Wah Wah pedal?
Why has the theme for Hawaii Five-O been going through my head during the waking times, along with the urge to imitate the native canoeists in the opening credit through the medium of mime?
Is it too late to stage a one-man show at the Fringe about a man trying to create his own graphic novel based upon a musician who plays Bonanza on an electric guitar with a Wah Wah pedal while secretly worrying he should be miming canoeing to the theme fromHawaii Five-O? Hey, I've seen worse at the Fringe! And maybe I could sell the idea to Fantagraphics. Or if I add a schoolgirl who turns into a super-powered kitten when she wears magic panties to the mix I could make a Manga of it.
Why is there a regular aroma of French Toast in the stairwell of my tenement? Almost every day this last week at all sorts of different times I've sniffed the distinct smell of someone cooking French Toast. I like French Toast but obviously one of my neighbours really loves it. Or they have a really unusual air freshner.
Why have I had a recurring short dream where the theme to Bonanza is being played on an electric guitar with a Wah Wah pedal?
Why has the theme for Hawaii Five-O been going through my head during the waking times, along with the urge to imitate the native canoeists in the opening credit through the medium of mime?
Is it too late to stage a one-man show at the Fringe about a man trying to create his own graphic novel based upon a musician who plays Bonanza on an electric guitar with a Wah Wah pedal while secretly worrying he should be miming canoeing to the theme fromHawaii Five-O? Hey, I've seen worse at the Fringe! And maybe I could sell the idea to Fantagraphics. Or if I add a schoolgirl who turns into a super-powered kitten when she wears magic panties to the mix I could make a Manga of it.
Chocolate
How good is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory??? Roald Dahl and Tim Burton - a great combination; I came out with a grin larger than a Cheshire Cat's and having to restrain the urge to sing and dance the Willy Wonka song. Mel and I also came out with an overpowering desire for chocolate... Lapping up the style, the dark overtones and the lavish visuals part of me was also thinking throughout the movie 'chocolate, chocolate, chocolate...' And since I generally believe in giving in to these impulses, naturally I stuffed myself with some quality choc afterwards... Chocolate is good... The trailer for Burton's Corpse Bride looks wonderfully ghoulish as well.
Mel and I also caught Festival at the cinema. I expected a passable wee film about jaded comedians on the Edinburgh Fringe circuit, but it was way better. Funny, satirical, frantic and also parading its fair share of pretentious shows and, let's be honest, the wank which goes with much of it, it was a bit like a microcosm of the Festival itself, the great bits and the wanky bollocks of it together. And Daniel Nardini getting her kit off didn't hurt either! Actually there was a fair bit of the old rumpy pumpy in it. And we also got to play the 'guess which Edinburgh pub they're filming this scene in' game.
Oh yes, Festival Time is upon us in Edinburgh, as the population will practically double in the next few weeks and the world's biggest arts festival gets underway (with the aforementioned mix of humour, greatness and sheer art wank). Blues and Jazz Fest is underway, Fringe is about to begin (we can see them preparing one of the many venues right under the FPI store), Festival and Book Fest just after that and my fave, the Film Festival. I've got that week off (my first holiday I've taken in my new job) and I'm going to enjoy a nice load of diverse movies.
Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean's MirrorMask and Romero's Land of the Dead mixed with a new French film with Daniel Auteil and Gerard Depardiue together - I know little of this movie, but if it has these two in it I'm there! France's two best living actors - for a movie buff this is akin to when Michael Mann put Al Pacino and Bob DeNiro together for Heat. Hopefully like last year I'll do a write-up on a few bits of it and try and get a few pics at the Q&A's which often accompany some of the films like I did for last August's blog. There's a classic retrospective on too which I need to book more of - already got A Matter of Life and Death booked, the classic war movie with a very young David Niven as a bomber pilot on a failing plane returnign from a mission, suspended between life and death. It has the classic scene of him on a literal stairway to Heaven, it really is a remarkably unusual bit of classic Brit fantasy and I'm looking forward to seeing it on the big screen for the first time, always a different experience to watching on DVD.
I also saw in the new Empire movie mag that one of the no-budget movies I reviewed last year for the Alien Online has a more general release, Primer. Made by a bunch of friends it is an intriguing time-travel-paradox story made on a shoestring and will appeal to those who enjoy very indy movies or a nice bit of cerebral SF. Looking forward to finding other little gems like this at this year's bash - it is one of the great things about the EIFF is the chance to see some material you may otherwise never watch and I love finding an unusual indy film as much as I enjoy finding indy books for the graphic novel site; its often where you find the most challenging work in a genre.
How good is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory??? Roald Dahl and Tim Burton - a great combination; I came out with a grin larger than a Cheshire Cat's and having to restrain the urge to sing and dance the Willy Wonka song. Mel and I also came out with an overpowering desire for chocolate... Lapping up the style, the dark overtones and the lavish visuals part of me was also thinking throughout the movie 'chocolate, chocolate, chocolate...' And since I generally believe in giving in to these impulses, naturally I stuffed myself with some quality choc afterwards... Chocolate is good... The trailer for Burton's Corpse Bride looks wonderfully ghoulish as well.
Mel and I also caught Festival at the cinema. I expected a passable wee film about jaded comedians on the Edinburgh Fringe circuit, but it was way better. Funny, satirical, frantic and also parading its fair share of pretentious shows and, let's be honest, the wank which goes with much of it, it was a bit like a microcosm of the Festival itself, the great bits and the wanky bollocks of it together. And Daniel Nardini getting her kit off didn't hurt either! Actually there was a fair bit of the old rumpy pumpy in it. And we also got to play the 'guess which Edinburgh pub they're filming this scene in' game.
Oh yes, Festival Time is upon us in Edinburgh, as the population will practically double in the next few weeks and the world's biggest arts festival gets underway (with the aforementioned mix of humour, greatness and sheer art wank). Blues and Jazz Fest is underway, Fringe is about to begin (we can see them preparing one of the many venues right under the FPI store), Festival and Book Fest just after that and my fave, the Film Festival. I've got that week off (my first holiday I've taken in my new job) and I'm going to enjoy a nice load of diverse movies.
Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean's MirrorMask and Romero's Land of the Dead mixed with a new French film with Daniel Auteil and Gerard Depardiue together - I know little of this movie, but if it has these two in it I'm there! France's two best living actors - for a movie buff this is akin to when Michael Mann put Al Pacino and Bob DeNiro together for Heat. Hopefully like last year I'll do a write-up on a few bits of it and try and get a few pics at the Q&A's which often accompany some of the films like I did for last August's blog. There's a classic retrospective on too which I need to book more of - already got A Matter of Life and Death booked, the classic war movie with a very young David Niven as a bomber pilot on a failing plane returnign from a mission, suspended between life and death. It has the classic scene of him on a literal stairway to Heaven, it really is a remarkably unusual bit of classic Brit fantasy and I'm looking forward to seeing it on the big screen for the first time, always a different experience to watching on DVD.
I also saw in the new Empire movie mag that one of the no-budget movies I reviewed last year for the Alien Online has a more general release, Primer. Made by a bunch of friends it is an intriguing time-travel-paradox story made on a shoestring and will appeal to those who enjoy very indy movies or a nice bit of cerebral SF. Looking forward to finding other little gems like this at this year's bash - it is one of the great things about the EIFF is the chance to see some material you may otherwise never watch and I love finding an unusual indy film as much as I enjoy finding indy books for the graphic novel site; its often where you find the most challenging work in a genre.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)