mardi 27 juillet 2004

Post, interrupted Tony, back from another adventure in Switzerland, finally saw that film. The one about the temperature at which truth burns, or whatever it is: "When I say 'see' I mean what I witnessed between two catnaps: after the second snooze I left early," he informs me. "Too long, too slick &, above all, too much propaganda persuading me what to think rather than a more documentary approach which might have let me make up my own mind. The cutting was pure cliché: Bush on the battleship announcing 'We have prevailed' followed by an explosion & mangled bodies. I know Cannes isn't famous for good taste but I did find voice-over interjections like 'It helps when Daddy is President' a little on the cheap side." So my fine friend has done my "duty as a journalist" for me, along with all the other ones who have written or told me similar things... I shouldn't really say "Moore is less" without having sat through it myself, but enough already! Being in a "to hell with all politicos" mood again, I'm more interested in the "new musical functionality", ('plasticbag') an ambitious venture Tom Coates has embarked on of late. While I really wouldn't want to have all my music in my pocket all the time, Tom's notions of where the iPod may be leading us are well worth the visit. Oups! This week is off to a bad start. More, maybe, on the desktop pic some other time. 9:17:23 PM  link   your views? []

dimanche 25 juillet 2004

'Strange Days': hard-wired sparks in dark times Of all the places an "old European" would like to visit in such a vast and varied country as the United States, Los Angeles must be close to the bottom of my list. The notion of a big urban sprawl where an automobile is held to be almost indispensable appals me and the proximity to the world's dominant industrial dream factory gives me the shivers. Yet such a city, seen as backdrop -- and occasionally subject matter -- of countless feature films and documentaries and as recounted by American friends, exercises a magnetic fascination and sometimes future-minded appeal. Barely three years after the Los Angeles race riots (Wikipedia) set parts of the town ablaze and claimed at least 50 lives, it became the place where Kathryn Bigelow and her movie team got 20,000 people to the Millennium rave party that became the setting for the last part of an astonishing and provocative film. In 1995, 'Strange Days' (Amazon UK) was a box office disaster in the States and pulled in a mere 160,000 people when it was released here in France. This much "underrated" movie is, however, being rehabilitated in well-deserved terms by some users at the iMDB. In a racially explosive city where the police use armoured cars and tanks as well as riot gear, sacked LA cop Lenny Nero (Ralph Fiennes) has turned seedy, persuasive dealer in "virtual reality" wire tapes, or clips which are no games. These clips are recordings taken from the cerebral cortex, enabling the voyeur customer to get inside the head of somebody else and share their experience, emotions and memories. Sex is, of course, a hot commodity. At the nastiest, foulest end of the market -- a place where Nero refuses to go on account of the few ethical values he has left -- "snuff" recordings are hotter still. Some wire tape clients get a hell of a kick out of the direct experience of violent death, taken from the head of murderer or victim, and, most appallingly, in the case of the well-connected killer who proves extremely dangerous to Nero and his friends, both. 'Strange Days,' dark, racy and brutal from the opening sequence (which is one of these "snuff" recordings), becomes a "trust nobody" movie from the moment Nero gets hold of a clip in which two police officers cold-bloodedly execute one of America's top black radical militants. This is December 30-31, 1999, but could it just be a not too distant tomorrow? A Los Angeles almost torn apart by casual crime and greed is gearing up for the biggest New Year's Eve party it has ever seen. Nero, with a clip which could trigger an all-out street war, is also landed with the rape and murder of a prostitute to investigate, and an ex-girlfriend turned star nightclub singer (Juliette Lewis) who is probably going to get killed. But Faith is no longer in love with him and really not interested in his crazy rescue efforts, since her career and her sex life are now a matter for ruthless music producer Philo Gant (Michael Wincott). In all this bloody mess, Nero reckons there are just two people he might be able to count on, his old buddy Max (Tom Sizemore) and wealthy men's chauffeur, bodyguard and martial arts expert "Mace" (Angela Bassett). There you have a few elements of a twisted and demanding plot from no less a movie writer and maker than James Cameron (iMDB), who for a few years shared his life with gifted painter turned hard-assed film director Bigelow. What these two achieved in 'Strange Days' (Cameron didn't want credit for his considerable hand in making the film, including developing the light prototype camera needed for the seamless wire-tape scenes) is, at nearly two and a half hours, apparently too long and convoluted for some. But others speak of it in the same breath as Ridley Scott's sci-fi masterpiece, 'Blade Runner.' The acting runs from good to first-rate. Bassett and Fiennes turn in two of the best performances of their careers. "Mace" hangs on to her morals and proves as sensitive as she is a kick-ass bodyguard. Nero is another complicated character, a likeable, quick-witted, untrustworthy and screwed-up scumbag who has to face up to the harsh truth that he is one of his own worst enemies. The plot is tense, socially interesting and emotive. To the several people, again at the iMDB, who don't seem able to articulate their reasons for hating this film and calling it "crap", I imagine it seems subversive and anti-American -- the latter it isn't -- particularly in today's political climate. The film takes on high racial tensions, crime, voyeur consumerism, corruption and unrequited love. The music is loud, contemporary and will be adored by the Kid. Peter Gabriel's in there, along with Marilyn Manson, P.J. Harvey and Deep Forest. It's an eclectic soundtrack, from a bit of New Age to heavy rap and chunks of metal. The visuals -- camerawork, artwork and atmosphere -- are so relentlessly good that I think some critics have concentrated too much on the technology of the medium rather than the film's several messages, which got enough of my neurons firing to make me want to watch 'Strange Days' again soon. Coming just a night after I belatedly discovered 'eXistenZ' and that movie's very different take on "giving the 'virtual reality' punters what they want", 'Strange Days' proved a solid, exciting meal after an excellent entrée for the senses. Now, what on earth -- or off it for a change -- am I going to have for dessert? 1:14:33 PM  link   your views? []

samedi 24 juillet 2004

Dégeu and delicious: masks for 'eXistenZ' Apart from Joel Schumacher's 'Batman and Robin' (1997; iMDB) -- which really is the worst of the 1990s bunch, but still deserves more than the 3.6/10 it's got at the Internet Movie Database for outstanding loyalty to the true, two-dimensional comic-book style -- I've caught up on a couple of near cult classics. First, there was 'Pulp Fiction' (1994, too famous to add my own drooling contribution to the slop-bucket), then, last night, I found myself possibly glad I haven't yet seen 'eXistenZ' (1999) on a big screen and most relieved I hadn't let the unsuspecting Kid walk off with it as she'd wanted. "Dégueulasse" is a fine, expressive word for use in impolite company, with no equivalent in English. As employed by the Kid, it combines the notions of nasty and disgusting with the literal image of puking, and is often voiced with hushed admiration. Both Tarantino's landmark 'Pulp Fiction' and David Cronenberg's 'eXistenZ' are "puke movies" of the very best kind, strong on acting, intelligence and wit. While the former is one of the few films that have made me laugh out loud on my own, the latter actually succeeded in giving my brain the shivers, as well as inducing occasional bouts of sustained nausea. I enjoyed being challenged to think about games within games and the slippery frontiers between reality and virtual reality while being physically revolted and totally fascinated by what Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun-Times) nicely put as "gooey, indescribable organic things, (while) some of the most memorable scenes involve characters eating things that surgeons handle with gloves on". Next to these, the pictures I blogged of various bits of my insides during the Condition last year reek of roses. A dose of "mild mind-fucking", as I first heard the expression from an entertaining American, was just what the doctor ordered before going to bed with more Gurdjieff. I wouldn't immediately have thought to look for an 'eXistenZ' review at 'Spirituality and Health', but why not? If Marianne persists in wanting to see it, I'll warn her that doing so is likely to have on her the same effect as walking past the excellent fresh fish shop up the road, which puts some of the goriest specimens out front. I've never seen the Kid do this without first taking a deep breath and holding it until she is well clear, while she sometimes used to avert her gaze too. She's on the right track, because Ridley Scott reveals on the 'Alien' DVD that some of his most memorable visual effects were relatively simply and cheaply achieved with rubber gloves and stinky platters of fresh seafood. Returning to game-playing, the Withheld Wildcat wanted a chat on the 'phone this morning about matters such as the "persona", the mask -- and in my view -- masks, plural, we all present to the world. She was delving into interesting topics of self and identity, for the most heart-warming literary purposes. I've long held the notion of self to be little more than a kind of virtual reality, a convenient construct which enables us to maintain a sense of continuity, but the Wildcat also wanted to know whether I'd heard of Erich Fromm. I was much surprised to see that this eminent psychologist, who broke both with Freud and his own early religious convictions (eventually coming to see great spiritual stories as rich metaphor and allegory rather than statements of truth and historical fact), doesn't get a sizeable place on his own in most of my encyclopaedias and brain-box books. If I recall correctly, he notably disagreed with the old greybeard about the universal application of such notions as the Oedipus complex to people, irrespective of their inheritance, background and culture. Instead, Fromm explored individuality in a social context and wrote a great deal about how and why he thought people turn their backs on freedom. He does, however, get a entry, dear friend -- and a very good one which grew a little more only last month -- at the indispensable Wikipedia. You couldn't find a better place to start online, but you may not want to come out again for an hour or two. Incidentally, the Wildcat informs me that "dégueulasse" does have an equivalent in the English spoken in her native part of the southern hemisphere: "vomituous". The SlangSite is one of several virtual dictionaries to agree with her. But I find "Beurk, dégeu!" much more musical to the ear. 6:47:16 PM  link   your views? []

vendredi 23 juillet 2004

Fiery heights and burning loins Well, I've crossed the "dragon bridge". That's the description Ursula gives to the last of her 'Tales from Earthsea': four short stories following a novella, 'The Finder,' in which she tells us how the school on Roke island was founded. Unless you've only recently stubbed your toe on this log, you'll know that I have been an almost unconditional admirer of Ursula K. Le Guin since my childhood, so I won't repeat myself tonight on the subject of a woman I consider to be one of the greatest story-tellers, inventors of other places, times and spaces (all serving as mirrors of our own), and thinkers and sages of our day. In the five tales, Le Guin gave us more of the history and the stories of 'Earthsea', which she had left for more than a decade after 'Tehanu' (1990, which was the last part of the 'Earthsea Quartet' and itself waited for 17 years to take shape). With 'Dragonfly', she spans time and space between 'Tehanu' and 'The Other Wind', an enchantment still to come for me. I like the comment made about Le Guin by "lin-da-finn" in a customer review of this and other 'Earthsea' books at Amazon UK: "To read them as wizard-adventures is to miss out on their almost Taoist meditations on death, freedom, fear - moving and noble themes. All the Earthsea books I've rediscovered concern the painful relationship between the living and the Dry Land - our human fear and grief at the thought of dying and giving up everything here - and the destructive results of trying to avoid that fate." Yes. And always with plenty of the "fifth element", love, woven in with earth, water, air and fire. I'll return to 'Earthsea' another day. In the meantime, keeping a decades-overdue promise to myself, I embarked last night on 'Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson', to be both highly irritated and occasionally laugh at the pretentious, unfathomable, wearisome and wise man G.I. Gurdjieff was. Tom Cochrane (at Amazon) describes this massive tome as "masturbatory theosophy of the most boring kind", while Fabricio E. Bouza reckons it's "one of the most important books ... ever." Open-minded, I intend to plough on. In today's occasional escape from African affairs into the blogosphere at the Factory, I browsed through those listed on the left, to find that the current preoccupation of many of them, on this side of the Channel and the Atlantic as well as the others, is sex. Lynn was even wondering whether to transform 'Bacon, Cheese and Oatcakes' into 'Belts, Chains and Orgasms.' Nathan at E/B/T/B (Fr) and me this week began a desultory bilingual discussion of why women, more than men, seem to have "asses of fire" when you sit where one has just been sitting on the Métro. My colleagues consider this to be a worthwhile matter for scientific probing. As for Joe, I really wouldn't even go to his book. I mean that! Not unless you want to share his graphic and deeply retarded delight in morphing Sheryl Crow into porn star Inari Vachs. She who shall never be mentioned has ... almost disappeared. That's what comes of taking eight days, this time, to write a billet d'amour and then actually sending it (after a further week's reflection). So, Francesca, take note! I shan't be participating in 'Project Blog', but it's an intriguing idea and I'm glad somebody has stepped in to help you push that elephant up the stairs. As for the Withheld Wildcat, she's not blogging about sex, but she's writing what may turn out to be a novel about it. She claims that it isn't, but the only bits she wanted to read me on the telephone reminded me of a modern-day Anaïs Nin. I don't know that she'll like the comparison, but if she doesn't it serves her right for being right for once, when she suggested that to send anything like what I envisaged giving to the only woman who interests me all over was "lovely, romantic ... and unwise." 9:30:36 PM  link   your views? []

mercredi 21 juillet 2004

Real service: an acronym, Amazon and Asian adventures A frequently updated and free piece of Mac OS X software useful for making perfectly legitimate -- under French law, but by no means everywhere -- copies of DVDs goes by the cryptic name of 'ffmpegX', the work of Fabrice Bellard "et al". The French are hot in computer video technology. ffmpegX gets mentions on VersionTracker each time it's updated, but can be a right bugger to install because you need to fetch other ... "bits" to make it work properly. These binaries are sometimes hard to track down, but the best place to start is at major4's Mac page (Eng). If all seems as clear as mud there, the linked forums are very helpful. That was how I managed finally to update to the latest version of this very remarkable tool, which was released three days ago. Still on the DVD front, Amazon UK get a special mention tonight for being ... as cool as ever. The most avid reader may remember how delighted I was when the full, four-hour version of 'Lawrence of Arabia' (David Lean, 1962, should anybody need reminding) came briefly last year to Paris's biggest and best screen, the Max Linder Panorama (Allociné; Fr). Thus the Kid saw this masterpiece as it should be seen. I must have been eight when I was taken to see it after its release -- in a cut version. This left out scenes that reflected the nastier sides of T.E. Lawrence's charismatic and tortured nature. I didn't even know Lean had filmed them until I saw the full version on French telly, when I had one. Amazon UK posted me the DVD version of reference more than a month ago, but it never arrived. At the weekend, I asked them about it by e-mail, to be told virtually by "return of post" that a new order had been placed at no charge. It was sent by DHL, arrived yesterday when I wasn't in, and delivered for a second time today, to the concierge in my building, who passed it on to me when I got home from the Factory. So this is a good time to mention that out of many orders I've placed with Amazon in the UK, France or the States over a decade now, their staff have been unfailingly polite, efficient and swift to remedy the problem for free on the rare occasions one has arisen. That is why Amazon features on this site. I get a tiny cut should you ever order something via this log, but I'm not in this partnership to "earn" a few euros per year. Amazon is here because it's a first-rate online store and I'm happy to promote it. I wouldn't say the same for the Royal Mail, or whatever it's called these days. Unlike most other European postal services, they make "parcel tracking" via the Internet either impossible or so expensive that I can't afford it. Consider me ancient if you must, but people look askance at me when I go to Britain -- which I haven't done for about two years now -- and talk about "British Rail". How the hell are we expatriates supposed to keep up? Things used to be so much simpler before Thatcher. I've mentioned before that I don't promote Amazon US since so many other people do, but if you read blogs and want to buy American, Blogcritics needs the cash they make from their Amazon links to survive. As well as being a fun place to disagree with people completely. I nearly forgot. Zapping around the blogosphere today when I needed a break from a heavy workload at the Factory, I found Lee's ongoing account of her very real travels a long way from Odessa Street exceptionally entertaining. 8:40:05 PM  link   your views? []

mardi 20 juillet 2004

Why I'm never here Rainer put it nicely: 'Hiatus confirmatus' (Solipsism Gradient). But Abhik, now firmly ensconced in Johannesburg as part of his sterling service for the Factory, complained on the 'phone that my hiatus here was long even while I was "resting", a time when he expected this log to flourish. Well, I was busy causing trouble elsewhere. Now that I'm back at AFP there's many a day when I have all of Africa to myself, editing and often translating stories by him and other correspondents all over the continent. And causing trouble. When I was away, a trade union, a Société des Journalistes which too many people still mistake for a trade union when it isn't (it's a self-appointed editorial 'think-tank') and then a large number of people in the English Service produced tracts and signed a petition, which led to another tract from another labour union. All this palaver has -- depending on which way you look at it -- either opened old wounds or usefully revived a healthy debate both within and outside the walls of the Factory about the relative standing and role of English-speaking journalists, French speakers and those with other mother tongues in the world's only non-"Anglophone" international news agency. I won't go into details likely to be of no interest to most other visitors here. Suffice to say that I see the several sides of the row debate and have retired to the back benches of union activity. However, many years' experience of this issue, which used to be a trench war when first I arrived in the place, have left me with strong, non-partisan opinions of my own. After voicing these views loudly of late, I have been offered political asylum, should I need it, by my friends in the French-speaking Africa news service. I'm quite happy where I am with a non-aligned foot in both main camps, but what with such lively diversions, plenty of jesting and dozens of news stories to report every day, I regret to say that blogging is unlikely to be top of my agenda when I quit the Factory at the end of the day at least until the end of the holiday and silly season. At present, I'm largely content to visit other people's blogs and leave comments and sometimes encouragement when I feel like it. Particularly encouragement for people like Les Orchard, who is right at the top of my list on the left simply because of the nature and name of his blog. Les, who is also on 'Hotlinks', wrote almost a week ago that he was suffering from a "dork funk", aka blogger's block. Somebody saw fit to inform Les that "blogging about blogging" (or "not blogging") was against his number one Rule, which I thought was a snotty-nosed and unhelpful comment to make. Plenty of people write well about blogging, including Les, and if there's one place where rules are made to be broken, it's the blogosphere. That feller's self-imposed rule also won't stop me from informing Mac OS X users who like linking their computers to "Bluetooth" mobile telephones that the Salling Software people have just pushed laziness to an even finer art with their latest version of Salling Clicker. "To top it off, Salling Clicker v.2.2 even lets you quickly check for new e-mail or news (NetNewsWire, the full version)." This is icing on an already very rich cake. When I told the Withheld Wildcat -- as she henceforth wishes occasionally to be known because of what my telephone tells me when she calls -- about it, she said, in a woman's practical and dismissive way, "But your computer is a few metres from your bed!" So what? Version 2.2 of this extraordinary piece of software now allows me not only to control more than 250 CDs worth of music from my bed, it also lets me check my mail and read all the BBC and other news headlines, plus hundreds of other people's blog entries, while I am lying in bed. And if I had an Apple rather than external DVD player, I could even run the cinema from my bed. I think this is fantastic, whatever the Wildcat might think... The Wildcat is going to want to talk to me again. Today, she decided there's a special "hell for people like you and me and it's here on earth", for lovers who miss their beloved, and wanted to take me into it with her. I was there last night and think that "purgatory" will do. Remember that, Abhik? You too were young once! To try to take my mind off she who shall not be mentioned, I watched 'Jeanne d'Arc' aka 'The Messenger' (darned 'Tomatoes') for the third time and the first on DVD. And again decided, unlike almost every reviewer featured at 'Rotten Tomatoes', that Luc Besson's version of the Joan of Arc story is high on the list of my all-time favourite films. I can only conclude from what's written by many of those critics that either they saw a totally different film or they were too dim to understand it. This is pretty apparent, in many cases, from poor spelling of French words and historical mistakes, as well as a widely shared ignorance of the identity of the character played by Dustin Hoffman in the closing scenes. Had they wished to know, either having a brain or lip-reading the credits at the end is required. All this has nothing to do with the fact that Milla Jovovich sometimes bears a close resemblance to my beloved. This is because the former is modelled on the latter. 11:17:09 PM  link   your views? []

samedi 17 juillet 2004

Persistence and protection Despite my recent attempts to be sporadic and boring, it would seem that two 1/4 of you are still out there. I've received one request and two impertinent e-mails. Before dealing with these, on further listening to the delectable CD of music by Stefano Landi recommended in the last entry, it struck me that at least two or three of the pieces would sound almost contemporary to anybody whose taste in the 1960s and '70s included the likes of Fairport Convention ('Liege and Leaf'), Pentangle 'Sweet Child') and Steeleye Span ('The Early Years'). As teenagers going to concerts by "Brit folk-rock bands", few of us imagined how steeped these splendid musicians and singers must have been in traditions at least four centuries old. That period, just before I started working for the Beeb and writing about music, saw the beginnings of the 'Early Music' revival and fierce arguments about the rights and wrongs of performance styles. Now that such music is part of the "mainstream", one ambitious web site worth knowing, still partly "under construction", but with some fine articles under several headings and a very good set of links for further exploration is the 'Goldberg' portal. One of the cheeky notes is from Jean-Pierre C., who thinks I've lost all interest in more contemporary music. Far from it, J.-P.. The problem, if such it is, is that the iPod now holds more than 200 songs issued with magazines reviewing releases of the past 12 months or so. Slowly exploring these is to find a few delights and surprises bubbling up to the top of a cauldron of noxious noises and stale potions. I'm still creaming off the best and don't currently have an afternoon to share discoveries ranging from 'Absent Friends' (The Divine Comedy', March 2004) to 'Crève Coeur' (Daniel Darc, March 2004) and Bebel Gilberto's latest, released last month with her own name for title. David S, a veteran Mac user when not at the Factory, has recently opened an account, as I have, at the iTunes Music Store in Europe. And David has found, to his annoyance, that he can't make playable CDs out of music he has duly purchased. David doesn't want to be an expert in AAC format. Especially the protected kind and how to "crack" it. He doesn't want to read through the morass of information about this problem on the Net. And I don't blame him, because I've read only too much of it. David -- and others -- might do well, however, to take a look at "AAC is a mystery" in the MacFixit Forums, which covers most of the difficulties (and how to get round them). At present, that thread ends with a joyous comment from 'Hal Itosis': "> The problem has been solved though why is not totally clear. Correct. It's the 'software equivalent' of smacking the top of the TV set, or jiggling a loose toilet handle." I've yet to buy anything at the ITMS-Europe, because I've already overspent my "culture budget" on DVDs again. When I do and once I've burned a successful CD, I'll reveal how I did it. In the meantime, once David's done it successfully himself, he could rejoice in the ongoing campaign holding that "iTunes iSbogus" (Downhill Battle). I've downloaded, but not yet tried, a beta application being developed by Mario Diana, who is need of testers for iTmsBackup (SourceForge). This does something else. It: "makes it easy to back up your purchases from the iTunes Music Store® to a hard disk or other removable media, saving you the inconvenience of using multiple CD-ROM's for data backups. Backups of all your purchases can be stored in one convenient location." Finally, a long, imperious missive was from Somebody who thinks I have been unfair to "whet the appetite with (the tale of meeting the) love of your life and declining to update me since". Well, Somebody, a promise is a promise. However, I didn't make any promises to you, did I? But here's a double update for the price of one. Milady is lovelier than ever and still talking to me. The last time she did so, she used a term of endearment which surprised me. This may have been an accident. But I prefer to hope that it wasn't. The Wildcat, still prowling her corner but now starting to break the bars of her cage, was extremely indiscreet. When I confessed last month that it had taken me five days to write a billet d'amour, she saw fit to pass on this morsel to a friend of hers. He thought it was very funny. Now you know why I have very little more to reveal here. 8:08:56 PM  link   your views? []

jeudi 15 juillet 2004

Dances of life. Passacaglia. 'The Pianist.' "In the sacristy of the church where we recorded (...), there was a small, very well-equipped kitchen, with a large bay window looking out on to the surrounding trees. Light, calm, silence. We met there from time to time between takes, a glass of wine, bread, fresh fruit, coffee... It was a moment of great tranquillity, few words, many glances exchanged. Open windows, cigarette smoke vanishing into the cool air of those summer afternoons. After the music, those few minutes allowed us to get our energy back between one piece and the next; we exchanged our impressions, comments, smiles. We spoke different languages, we didn't all know one another, but as can mysteriously happen sometimes, there was a subtle musical esteem that enabled us to play and sing together as if we had always done so. And it is true that music brings people together, cuts across the frontiers of our feelings. From Finland to Naples, from Japan to Austria via Holland, France and Belgium, from one side of the Po to another in search of who knows what blackbird, a little songbird flying high up there (...)." Marco Beasley, tenor, thus added a personal view, dated Genoa, 25.09.2001, to round off the programme notes provided with a wonderful recording of works by a singer, harpist, guitarist and organist previously unknown to me, Stefano Landi, who first turned up in Rome as a choirboy in 1595. Landi went on to become a teacher, part-time member of the papal choir, and rich patron's composer. However, the title of the CD most strongly recommended to me by Barry J is 'Homo fugit velut umbra...' (Man flees like a shadow), an anonymous song-dance of death which precedes the varied collection of songs and poems set to music by Landi and recorded by L'Arpeggiata. When I told Barry of the Bach I wrote about yesterday, he asked whether I'd heard of Christina Pluhar and L'Arpeggiata ensemble. Now I have. As Barry and the fellow who reviews 'Homo fugit...' at that Amazon.fr link said, this achievement is a marvel. It ranges from the mystical to the amorous. Others have more to say of it on a page in the BBCi Classical Reviews. Thanks for that one! Last night, a film and music left me haunted throughout today. When 'The Pianist' came out in the cinemas after taking the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2002, I avoided it, being too much of a coward to face any more Holocaust at the time. Unlike many of the professional critics who managed to gather their thoughts and impressions of Polanski's literally stunning film within a few hours of seeing Adrien Brody's performance in 'The Pianist' (Rotten Tomatoes), I scarcely know yet what to say since it has left my mind reeling and revisiting many scenes and images over and over again. All I'm sure of is that it's one of the greatest and most terrifying movies I have ever experienced, devoid of melodrama and cliché. I have also decided, I think, that this largely true account of survival in and beyond the Warsaw Ghetto under German occupation is one of the very few films that I still consider the Kid, for all her considerable but hard-won maturity at 15, may still be too young to see. There may be a dark side, which worries me not at all, to her 'belcatja2' blog -- currently winning her more than 500 "hits" a month -- and her iTunes may be full of the direst heavy metal among a much brighter musical collection, but Marianne remains ultra-sensitive to real violence and inhumanity. I'll discuss it with her, but this DVD may be a film to give her nightmares for weeks. If hell is the absence of God and the absence of god is no more and no less than the absence of love, Polanski's Warsaw is it. Of course there are scenes of horrifying bravery and courage in such a hell. There is resistance. Some of the characters retain humanistic values and care for one another. The film is full of the ironies and the paradoxes that constitute life, but what kind of life? Drawn utterly into 'The Pianist', I felt like a voyeur, much as I did in 1994 when we were reporting on the genocide in Rwanda. Organised extermination is the rule and still in this film each individual murder comes as an almost physical blow. Like the audience in the concert hall at the end of the movie, we are outsiders, mere survivors perhaps, looking in on the edge of a place where hell strangely meets heaven. The music is genuinely miraculous, somehow. It "cuts across the frontiers of our feelings", as Beasley wrote of Landi's pieces from a different age. Some reviewers suggest that Polanski has shown us his most intimate understanding of the nature and power of art itself. I don't know. Perhaps that is one way to comprehend the scene where the pianist plays for the SS captain who returns to give him bread, a greatcoat and life. Like the pianist himself, disintegrating throughout a superb performance among nothing but other outstanding pieces of acting, you could feel detached, disengaged from the horror of which you are at once part and witness. Or you could see him as contemptible, emotionally frozen, unable to take sides in a total war where almost everybody else finds they have no choice but to do so. By the end of this film, what the hell is it that we, as part of the audience, as both voyeurs and people sharing in the completely personal experience of music, are applauding? A performance? Survival? Art? Transcendence? Again, I don't know. I think I prefer not to know. To write that we all have hell and heaven in ourselves is a cliché and perhaps became one because it's true. There is also, inevitably, the "what on earth would you have done and become?" question that tales like this leave behind. Seeing 'The Pianist' is, I think, one of those experiences that render judgement virtually impossible, yet verdicts have to be reached if we're to retain any humanity at all. It's an insight into what the Nazis called a "final solution" which raises enormous and perhaps unanswerable questions. It reaches beyond reason. It's a film I certainly want to see again, several times. But none of them too soon. Until I read those liner notes for the Stefano Landi album, I didn't know where the musical term passacaglia began. Referring to the subtitle of that anonymous first piece, Christina Pluhar tells us that "'Passacaglia della Vita' suggests a dance of death, a danse macabre, which conjures up before our eyes the mediaeval vision of a skeleton dancing through the streets of the town (passa=calle, the original meaning of the dance in Spain)." In one of the most powerful long shots in 'The Pianist', a skeletal musician hobbles through the ruins of a city. I can't help but leave this on that unfinished note. 9:58:02 PM  link   your views? []

mercredi 14 juillet 2004

What 'special day'? Julie's back to ask whether a special 'Bastille Day' entry is planned. Well, no. I referred to its 'Diverse Distractions' last year and nothing has changed, except that I'm obviously back at the Factory and Google has again proved through two-timing July 14 banner cowardice that Franco-US relations are no better. Oh, and soldiers appeared outside the Factory in full dress uniform with funny hats simply to prove that Napoleon's armies are alive and well and looking better now than they did when they got back from Russia. In between, there's been the Michael Moore phenomenon, but he doesn't get a special mention from this part of the country where packed cinemas are merely preaching to the converted. I can't be bothered to see the film, since MM apparently preaches in person, incapable of simply letting his propaganda do the job for him. This worries others less. Barry J argues that MM has merely resurrected the fine old tradition of pamphleteering. In short, ask me how I feel in 12 months' time if that damned regime is still in the White House. Meanwhile, I'm accidentally a belated convert to 'The West Wing' (TV Without Pity), since somebody sent me three episodes of Season 2 as a gift DVD with a recent order. Even such intelligent writing and fast-moving wit isn't going to persuade me to acquire a telly. Now Julie's a confirmed Mac OS X convert, it's time for a quick link to my favourite blog-reader and writing tool. At the MacDevCenter, Giles Turnbull last month compared NetNewsWire with relative newcomers like Shrook and PulpFiction, in "RSS: the Next Generation." This is recommended reading before trying or buying, not forgetting that a NetNewsWire 2.0 is in the pipeline and will be a free upgrade. Brent is still working on it (inessential.com, once he's done with talking about memory). 7:51:19 PM  link   your views? []

mardi 13 juillet 2004

'Kind of interesting.' And inspired... When Barthelemy, the Factory's old hand in Kinshasa, told me how many seats are held in Democratic Republic of Congo's National Assembly by a former rebel movement, he confused me. "Pardon?" "Nonante-quatre," he said again. "OK, thanks," I said as it registered and I hung up the 'phone. Of course, he would say "94" in the same French that people speak in parts of Belgium. And that's a numbering system which generally confuses me less than the "standard" French "quatre-vingt-quatorze" ("four-twenties-(and)-fourteen"). After all, his huge African country was once considered the private reserve of the King of the Belgians. Even now, when French people give me 'phone numbers the high side of 70, when 73 becomes "sixty-(and)-thirteen", I tend to check them by repeating the figures back individually. I'm glad the word "innumerate" exists because it was invented for me, but the thinking behind my query brought me back to an old favourite. For French-speakers who care to know where the numbering systems diverged, since the alternate usage can sometimes still stump us, editor Luc Bentz's "hand-sewn and non-profit" 'Langue française' reveals all. Well indexed and with a FAQ and S.O.S. service (the latter on holiday this month), Langue française enlivens what could be one of the dullest academic subjects on earth with a few good jokes. That takes me to the award of this month's prize for a Factory note. When AFP, like the other huge news agencies, updates a story with a "lead" using the same master-search words as before, we also like swiftly to tell clients what's new with what's known as a "trash line" under the headline. Nobody's going to beat Lauren, now working out of Dakar, for updating one of today's "stupendously tedious but necessary" items by telling the simple truth: "ADDS SOMETHING INTERESTING". Unfortunately, the house rules wouldn't allow me to send it on to the punters quite like that. My most interesting and rewarding musical find so far in July comes not from the totally modern repertoire I'm still exploring on the sampler discs that come with various good music magazines, but from an almost newborn (May) recording of an absolute foundation stone of western classical sounds. French organist André Isoir has stunned me with his interpretation of "Grandpa" Johann Sebastian Bach's Art of the Fugue, which has become the third version of the work worth a place on my iPod. Though performed countless times in a multitude of ways, Bach's art still gets something new from Isoir, who provides technical reasons for a re-arrangement of the order in which he plays the fugues; this doesn't in fact need explanation both to surprise and make total sense to keen ears. By discovering the freedom that can be the fruit of strict discipline, Isoir uses the remarkable tones and colours of the organ of Saint-Cyprien en Périgord, in the heart of a lovely part of southwest France, to offer one of the most joyful "readings" of an inexhaustible piece of music you could ever have the luck to hear. For about 10 euros on the adventurous Calliope label, it's a must. As a sometime aspiring (ethno-)musicologist, I also savoured the unusually good programme notes (mostly translated into English) by Jean-Michel Verneiges, who even manages to bring modern chaos and complexity theory and approaches to infinity into it without being insufferably pretentious. I found this CD at a local bookshop whose tastes are much appreciated by the Kid and me, but have just taken in a rather evident but easily overlooked fact. On the Net, for those who don't have a habit of reading the music magazines but want to keep an ear to the ground, by the simple expedient of exploring the "new releases" links in the Amazon empire, you can make some most interesting discoveries. Calliope, it would seem, is the Muse of Eloquence. With another new moon coming -- I can already feel certain influences waning again -- I think I might need some of her help soon. The 'Circle of the Muses' is closed to newcomers, but remains informative and possibly inspiring. As for the somebody who recently told me that something I wrote to her was "kind of interesting", she's lucky. She's far too lovely to be strangled for it. And has even usually been kind of kind to me. So far. 9:12:35 PM  link   your views? []

samedi 10 juillet 2004

Hack(er)'s holiday Almost nothing in the past four weeks has gone quite as intended, including the weather. Blogging, especially early silly summer contributions, had been part of the plan, but instead I've been visiting other people, either in town or on line. A handful of the magazines in the growing piles devoted to music, cinema, sci-fi, science and Macs remain unread, but since this is the season of July-August double issues, I can catch up when everybody else goes on vacation. However, it's been a good time for hacking and chipping away at all sorts of things, ranging from the rest of my life to my poor but spirited computer. Some of this has been legal, but most of it has been "against the rules". Now that I've updated the reading list on the left, Morbus Iff, self-proclaimed master of disobedience, gets a special mention: "...besides series editor Rael Dornfest, I believe I've been mentioned or involved in the most O'Reilly Hacks books (...). Seven total. I rule." (at Disobey). There's evidence of the axiom that modesty got nobody anywhere. The Kid, meanwhile, has decided that her prowess on the Internet and at school remains insufficient. This afternoon, I frogmarched her from our Parisian village to another very nice one nearby, the "Convention" district of the XVth arrondissement, where we found 'Total Music' (Fr.), a shop where everybody was friendly and Marianne will now buy her first guitar. She was a little distressed when a customer as helpful as the staff told her that if she wants to learn classical guitar, holding the object of her latest dream the way she was would not be a good place to start. I've never seen John McLaughlin or Paco de Lucia ever lift a leg as high as this kindly fellow's demonstration, but the Kid merely turned pale with fear, practising for the stage fright she'll be feeling if she sticks to her plan to be famous by this time next year. She was reassured when he added that it wasn't necessary to become a latter-day Jimi Hendrix overnight, but there ensued a great debate about whether she will buy a classical guitar or the folk guitar she really wants. This was made no easier by her determination to believe that every music teacher in Versailles, where she'll be having lessons with a young friend come the autumn, is of necessity an old fart about as revolutionary as the palace. I reminded her that the population of Versailles includes a few more modern minds. It'll be the folk guitar she really wants. In our little spare time together, we continue to raid the growing DVD collection, which must stop after Doctor Zhivago gets released cheap later this month, otherwise I'll have no bank account left for anybody to hack. Marianne doesn't know it yet, but tonight she's in for 'The Color Purple'. This recommendation by she who no longer gets mentioned here filled in a very big hole in my upbringing. Our big surprise of the week was 'The Mists of Avalon' (Tomatoes). Reviewed as "rotten" by almost everybody referred to on that page, this 2001 retelling of the Arthurian legend from the viewpoint of the ladies (a superb Julianna Marguiles and splendid Angelica Huston and Joan Allen) deserves far better than that and gets it elsewhere on the Net. We should know, since we're both experts in the field. Anyway, 95 percent of the people can so easily be wrong. Why else does Bill Gates earn a living? As for the Kid, she was so angry at the magical mayhem 'The Mists' made of one of her favourite myths, she's now decided to read the book as well. Me too. 8:34:27 PM  link   your views? []

dimanche 4 juillet 2004

Messages of unexplained origin Again pressed for heart's counsel, I was subsequently told that while such guidance as I'd ventured proved to be, if not quite what a friend hoped to hear, no less than "divine inspiration". Hmm. That was a new one. Far more simply happy to have helped, such "wisdom" as I shared exacted a hefty price: yesterday a growing pain in my jaw became almost intolerable. No longer will I be a pearl dispensary if the cost of the most brilliant of such gems is a wisdom tooth. The very last thing I need for the coming final week of rest from the Factory is the dentist's chair. Today has brought a respite for no good reason, but I can't ignore the sudden new signs. All four of my sage teeth are slowly growing sideways. Tony says the word for this is "impacted" (animated teeth). A copious collection of X-rays of the bits of my anatomy to have taken blows of outrageous fortune no longer appears to include the jaw ones, but I remember them and am pretty sure my lower right gum is what that web site calls a "worse case scenario". Both wisdom tooth and wobbly next-door molar will have to go. The two-year-old geraniums in the window-boxes are, however, flourishing, to the surprise of Olya my florist, who says seasonal pollution has taken a heavy toll of such flowers in the neighbourhood. She wanted to be reminded how old mine are because she felt this might be a factor in the oddity in this picture. While it's a mediocre shot, do you see those spikes, like thick needle points, growing out of some of them? I show this to the Faithful Five ¾ because, though experts, Olya and one of her friends have never seen humble geraniums do this before. Mine did, without ill effects, last summer too, irrespective of the colour of the plants. The spikes come out of the middle of individual blooms and get longer by the week, but don't do anything but die with the flower after it eventually withers and becomes ready for pruning out. Any notions of what they are would be welcome. Far more commonly seen is this weekend's bunch of wild flowers for my true love, often to be seen in cornfields, though its meaning is for her to discern. She must rest assured, I'm afraid, that the message is but a footnote to things said on an exceptionally prolific Full Moon Friday when a force some people call God purportedly worked its mysterious ways on my various writings and other doings. All this was as open to different understandings as the closing scenes of 'Contact' (1997, iMDB), Robert Zemeckis's superb film of the story by Carl Sagan, who died before the scientific novel in which the astronomer offered one of the most intelligent accounts about how humanity's first encounter with alien intelligence might happen was finished on screen. This was one of four highly varied movies I watched again during a very lazy Saturday after my shortest night's sleep of this year and while the raging ache in my cheek required the most lack of attention. It's probably worth adding that while I certainly wasn't going to study the whole film three or four times, I found what I did want to hear of the separate audio commentaries on the 'Contact' DVD, some by star Jodie Foster and the rest by Zemeckis and others behind the scenes was fascinating. Less wise, given bits of my nature scientific friends sometimes think superstitious, is to keep the desktop pic that adorned the Mac for the best part of June. I'm not among those who alter these workstation backgrounds very often and dig into a rich stock of them twice a month at most. Some of my friends even like desktops that change once an hour, but if I let my computer do that I'd find it maddeningly distracting. However, given the big event of the past few weeks of my life, it's high time to say goodbye to this image for a new one. The lady of the lamp here looks quite cheerful at her meeting with a big bad wolf, but it would be silly to make such assumptions about the woman I'm no longer mentioning in these blog entries. This insightful beauty has cast so much light my way. But last week, it dawned on me that my perfidious subconscious mind might have chosen to work with the desktop, one of several I like by Belgian artist Niels Vaes, for odd reasons of its own! Vaes's own 'Inner Dreams' web site has gone, but for others who sometimes have a taste for artists more or less inclined to tap the vein of fantasy, one good place to find some of his work and many others is SurrealPlaces, put together by Kevin Cappis. 7:11:19 PM  link   your views? []

jeudi 1 juillet 2004

Nearly everybody is somewhere else Still here. Not blogging. For much of yesterday, the Mac was being put through one of its binannual major maintenance routines. And I've had other stuff to write. That said, Eliza might still need cheering up. Not just yesterday's -- and every day's? --office scapegoat, she was feeling the 'Pudge' (Fembat). So was I, despite a two-day fast. Now the Condition is largely gone, I have to watch my waistline again. Took myself off to Aquaboulevard, the Parisian attempt at a big swimming pool cum theme park. It's quite appalling for crowds in July and worse in August because the hottest month is the one most city swimming pools close down -- we have such wise authorities here!. But Aquaboulevard at least offers jacuzzis for its exorbitant entry price, along with toboggans so twisted you can almost kill yourself in them. You can even simply swim! However, I would have preferred company. She (the one I'm not blogging about any more) didn't come. She didn't know I was going and neither did I until I was there, but that's no excuse. As for the Kid (Belcatja, Fr.), she had a better reason. On Monday, she sought admission to the lycée (high school) she was really hoping to be allowed into in Versailles, hard work but arts and literature rather than the sciences she considered a threat. She was sent away for lack, almost needless to say, of a piece of paper. On Tuesday, she went back. She was sent away because her mum had forgotten to sign a different piece of paper. On Wednesday, she was told entries were only being considered before 10 o'clock in the morning. But she was there by that unpardonable hour -- unforgiveable when you're a "let me go back to sleep" 15-year-old and it's school vacation (that, by the way, is one of my latest little concessions to Americans, apart from my heart silence. I will say "vacation" when I mean "holiday". Sometimes.) Today the Kid told me, when I asked what she was doing out there rather than here, that she made it. She has got a place in the school of her dreams. Or her nightmares. Depending, 'cos they work them damned hard in France. Anyway, I'm over the moon. Which is fortunately not quite full tonight (I also wanted to give somebody else this month's "white rabbits", but Marianne got there first, being the first person of the opposite sex to speak to me today. This also means, I suppose, that she gets most of the special extra good luck that comes with it being the start of the second half of 2004). Coincidentally (but for reasons I won't go into), Kathryn's given birth to another haiku. 'A Mindful Life' often comes up with surprises. Check out the picture she has used to illustrate it; she's about in season as I am. As for a friend in Brazil, he's there. In Brazil I mean, no longer touring Albion, Land of Hope and Glory my birth. Only to inform us, a couple of days ago, that "traveling brings you two great joys: once when leaving, and once when coming back" (Solipsism Gradient). Virtually nothing about the bit in between. Yes, well, Rainer. I know I've not been following the news of late, but has England really got as bad as all that? If so, please publish the gruesome photographic evidence. Tony asked me today whether Lee was still there. Living a couple of stairways above his head is what he meant. When I said, "Yes, as far as I know," he replied, with all the logic of your average US president, "Well, I've finally noticed that her e-mail address is Odessa Street." Which, as hardened sufferers will know, is where they both live... Except, Tony, as the above link will inform you, Lee was last heard of "stuck" in Laos. Being "lame", she says, another of those American faux amis (false friend words) we Brits think we understand but don't once they've decided to reinvent them. A bit like their current commander-in-chief, whom heaven may yet have decided is a very lame duck indeed now, with luck. He decided to reinvent the world, and just look what's happening to him... Sorry, was that gratuitous? Like a lot of the violence of the past couple of years? One can but gloat hope... 10:45:13 PM  link   your views? []