Friday, April 16, 2004
And we are in the North. Hmmm. Chips seem to be a way of life here. And shell suits.
Manchester was alright though.
Liked the architecture, anyway.
Looking forward to seeing Graham on Saturday though :)
We saw Together for the first time, though, which was really funny and heartwarming and such. Someone told me it wasn't very good, hence us just seeing it.
¶ 1:45 PM
Wednesday, April 14, 2004
OK, this is seriously fucked up:
GIs in Iraq escape sex-crime prosecution
Military records show soldiers receive light punishments
By Miles Moffeit
DENVER POST
U.S. soldiers accused of rape and other sex crimes while serving in Iraq routinely dodged prosecution during the last year with the help of commanders who gave them light punishments such as reprimands and pay cuts, according to military records released to the Denver Post.
Yep, the US army considers a pay cut a suitable punishment for rape. Jesus.
¶ 1:49 AM
Tuesday, April 13, 2004
Toksik put me on to 'Vanilla' today:
http://www.eyezmaze.com/vanilla/index.html
You have to make this weird bush with horns and eyes grow as big as you can. I can do it up until 25ft (or the length of my screen), but scrolling up and trying to keep on growing the bush thing is too much co-ordination for me :)
Today, I went swimming, which is pretty nice now I am wasting money on a swanky(ish) gym. I have goggle marks still, though. On the way, the sun was out and the denizens of Bermondsey were walking the streets, some even perched on the modern art in the park. Also, on my way back I noticed that a pretty cool modern edifice is emerging from one of the millions of building sites around here. Maybe it will be cool to live here over the summer after all.
The only other thing I did today was finish a review of Le Tigre I was working on for The F Word (check out my links on the right hand side), which *crosses fingers* should be in the next issue :)
Me and Mike are off on a trip tomorrow, to see his mum and then Mr. Graham Boag in Glasgow, which should be a lot of fun :) Will report along the way, as access to the interweb permits. ¶ 6:11 PM
So, Public Toilet, directed by Fruit Chan.
What a weird fucking film!
Kind of amazing in its own off the wall way. The film opens with a woman with a small boy, trying to use a packed public toilet. It's too full, so they go outside, for a 'penis cam' shot of the little boy pissing. And then cut to a man, also trying to get a girl toddler to use the public toilet, similarly frustrated, and similarly resulting in an on-the-streets 'vagina cam' shot. Of course, that's nothing to do with the 'plot' of the movie, it's just introducing the subject matter!
The film has a lot of unrealised potential. It cuts between various public toilet scenes: One of the characters is a teenage boy, who was found as a baby in a public toilet in Beijing - the 'toilet god'. He now lives next to a 'communal crap' house, where two old men - suitors of the lady who found him, his grandmother, socialise. Another character seems to work as some kind of fisherman by the sea. He finds a girl in the makeshift toilet, which flows directly into the sea he fishes from. This girl professes to be a sea creature, and when he takes her to be x rayed, she doesn't have any bones in her body. It goes on.
Other than toilets, the theme is really illness. Illness, death, and voyages all over the world to find magic cures. It's terribly moving in parts.
Overall though, what a mess. It's nearly impossible to follow the plot, such as it is, and the filming has a weird MTV style (including rap song credits), but is so slowly paced it is actually pretty boring in parts.
There is one really cool shot, taken from inside a toilet bowl, as it seemingly roams the streets.
See, so much potential.
Me and Mike also went to see Shaun of the Dead today, which was great. Really funny. Go and see it :) It's so British. Zom-rom-com. Ha. :) ¶ 1:07 AM
Sunday, April 11, 2004
I have something of a literary confession to make. I am obsessed with magazines. Not womens magazines, which, overall, I hate beyond measure. Or at least not Cosmo, etc. Fuck Cosmo. But, although I am cut off from this seemingly all embracing section of the magazine rack, I am still managing to leave Borders with a good 9 or 10 magazines every time I visit. And that's not even counting the ones I subscribe to.
OK, it all started in a very acedemic way at uni. At some point I started salivating in the Literary Crit. section of book shops over things with titles like 'Postcolonialism and Marxism in East Asia'. Then came the journals. International Socialist. New Left Review. At this point, I even read the Alaska Review. Yes. Alaska.
Then there are the magazines. Mostly these are more or less obscure feminist ones... my favourite is Bust, just because of the totally insane mantra that sewing is feminist :) Not that it's necessarily not, I guess. It's just funny :)
There are more. Film magazines. Literary ones. Basically anything that doesn't involve painting minatures.
End of confession. ¶ 6:28 PM