Zoo in the head

Big swinging dicks of the avant-garde

Shaun Whiteside pointed me in the direction of this, after I had enthused about a radio programme on Frederic Rzewski. (The programme was an episode of Music by My Friends on Resonance FM.) The music is very good - echoes of Charles Ives and Bruce Hornby - but I was disturbed to see that it had been uploaded by someone called John11inch. The phallocentrism of the world of classical music is well known, but I didn't realize anybody took it quite that far. Apart from Pierre "Lick My" Boulez, obviously.

Barking

Over the years, many people whose opinions I respect have tried to convert me to the Dylan cause and Lord knows I've tried, but it just won't take. There are a number of individual songs I find perfectly tolerable; I can sit through Bringing It All Back Home or The Basement Tapes without chewing off my own tongue; Theme Time Radio Hour is a lark, even. Sometimes I'll read a Greil Marcus essay about how The Basement Tapes transformed human consciousness and I'll believe light is about to dawn; but in the end I'm stilling grub around in the dark for clues.

In last Friday's Independent, Andy Gill (a person whose opinions I certainly don't despise) listed "70 reasons why Bob Dylan is the most important figure in pop-culture history". A lot of these turn out to be restatements of the proposition rather than reasons for accepting it, and while No. 61 ("Because he created an entire industry of Dylanologist commentators and interpreters, way beyond the attention afforded any other songwriter or performer") is, I suppose, a reasonable supporting argument it makes me heavy with nausea.

But if you want a knock-down argument, take reason no. 60: "Because, if you turn the cover of John Wesley Harding upside-down and look at the bark of the tree, you'll see The Beatles (vinyl only) (drugs optional)." This sounds like one of those "I buried Paul"/"It's fun to smoke marijuana"-type myths, but further research suggests it may be true, and there is something odd going on at the top of that tree. Is the ability to have upside-down photographs of a well-known beat combo concealed on the covers of your records really a measure of cultural importance? If it is, I for one intend to give up on importance now: I will settle down in my rocking chair and dwindle out my days reading old paperback collections of Peanuts and listening to Val Doonican, as the light of poetry and imagination fades in the west. Please do not disturb this side of the Rapture.

Wow. Just, wow.

Christopher Tayler offers 10 of the weirdest sentences in David Brooks's The Social Animal. The one with most relevance to this blog's areas of interest runs:

Like most women, she got lubricated even while looking at nature shows of animals copulating, even though consciously the thought of being aroused by animals was repellent.

But every one of them has something - fallacy, solecism, outright meaninglessness - to marvel at.

Gaudy seed-bearer

The latest issue of GQ Style asks an interesting question:

In case you can't make it out, it's about halfway up on the left: "Robert Pattinson - Is he the Brando of his generation?"

There are two possible answers to this question. 1) "If you mean 'Is Robert Pattinson doomed to become a bloated, hysterical parody of his former self?', God yes, I hope so." 2) "No. You idiots."

Coincidentally, Pattinson - the sexually restrained vampire heart-throb of the Twilight films - is the same age, 24, that Brando was when he became famous playing Stanley Kowalski in the first production of A Streetcar Named Desire. Here's how Tennessee Williams' stage direction introduces Stanley:

Stanley throws the screen door of the kitchen open and comes in. He is of medium height, about five feet eight or nine, and strongly, compactly built. Animal joy in his being is implicit in all his movements and attitudes. Since earliest manhood the center of his life has been pleasure with women, the giving and taking of it, not with weak indulgence, dependently, but with the power and pride of a richly feathered male bird among hens. Branching out from this complete and satisfying centre are all the auxiliary channels of his life, such as his heartiness with men, his appreciation of rough humor, his love of good drink and food and games, his car, his radio, everything that is his, that bears his emblem of the gaudy seed-bearer.

Literally anybody could fill those boots better than Pattinson: me, you (it doesn't matter if you're a woman), my dog, Daniel Radcliffe. No, not Radcliffe, but you take my point.

"This is the saddest story I have ever heard."

Much comment has been aroused by this entry at the Internet Movie Database:

On the now overflowing Anne Sellors messageboards, a poignant comment has been left by toothpastelaser under the heading "anne sellors is my aunt STOP THE LIES!!":

Usually I dont post on IMDB with the many trolls perverts and indy film makers but this is getting out of hand. Anne Sellors AKA woman who urinates herself (just a CHARACTOR!!!) is my aunt and I cant bear to see some of the posts from here and 4 chans that school freinds have forwarded me on AIM. please STOP the following ridiculous rumors about auntie anne:

1, anne sellors is STILL ALIVE

2 - the role was to be titled differently or she would have chosen another I AM SURE

2a she does not urinate herself and never has, those pointing to the fact the title is 'urinates' and not 'urinated' need to GROW UP!! stop laying semantics

3/ NO she was not in anything else and esepcially NONE of the others I have seen mentioned eg emaneulle 2000, death race remake, LOTR deleted scene or vo for monkey island, those pictures are PHOTO SHOPS

Needles to say I havent mentioned any of this to her yet. I HOPE I wont have to. Find someone else to talk about please. BTW Thanks guys this has really lowered my opinnion of humanity nice job. The internet needs to be regulated asap

Does the equation of trolls and perverts with indy film-makers suggest this is a deadpan gag, or is that just what people think about indy film-makers?

Albert Camus: "Every achievement is a servitude. It drives us to a higher achievement." (Notebooks, iv: 1942)

"Sans serif Superman"

Over at McSweeney's, Comic Sans finds its voice:

People love me. Why? Because I'm fun. I'm the life of the party. I bring levity to any situation. Need to soften the blow of a harsh message about restroom etiquette? SLAM. There I am. Need to spice up the directions to your graduation party? WHAM. There again. Need to convey your fun-loving, approachable nature on your business' website? SMACK. Like daffodils in motherfucking spring.

Won't find me arguing.

(Written by Mike Lacher!!! You are funny dude!! Pointed out by @eyemagazine on Twitter!!!! ;) )

Visitors from beyond

A brief update on who comes to this blog: a big drop-off in zoo-porn aficionados - to be fair, I have no way of knowing they are aficionados: they might be prudes looking for stuff to censor - but still getting lots of searches for bulbasaur and dead zebras. We've also had somebody searching for "Andrew Sullivan's faux British accent": if you're reading this - Andrew Sullivan's British accent is entirely genuine, from Surrey; it's the American bits (rhotic Rs, flattened As) that are faux. And one search for the phrase "So sorry to hear you are starving robert hanks". Which is sweet.

The Daily DSCH

"Mother, give me the whoopee-cushion."

From today's listings for Radio 3 in the Guardian:

9.15 Nightwaves. Philip Dodd reviews a new production of Ibsen's comedy Ghosts.

To be fair, they probably just assumed this was another of his Farrelly Brothers-style gross-out comedies - along the lines of John Gabriel Dorkman, The Wild *uck, An Enema of the People, and, of course, The Master Bator (love the ending, with him falling off the tower - slapstick heaven).

Hold the front page

The head of Telegraph Media Group's digital operation, Greg Hadfield, has announced his departure, telling a somewhat startled audience at the news:rewired conference that newspapers have no future. Understandably, Telegraph Media Group puts a slightly different spin on the story - it was a 12-month contract which was ending anyway.

But where on earth did Hadfield get the idea that newspapers are in trouble? It can't be from the Telegraph, which is still the kind of alert, responsible and intellectually vital news organisation essential to the health of any democracy: as evidence, may I point you to this story, and this one?