tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post8749527362271976223..comments2024-03-28T10:14:23.792+00:00Comments on call me ishmael: WHAT THE PAPERS SAY, THE FILTH-O-GRAPH, MORE LOVELY WAR.call me ishmaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14369028864168461729noreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-44185410189489621502011-03-04T19:17:15.099+00:002011-03-04T19:17:15.099+00:00Thanks, mr anonymous, there is a lot of good, woo...Thanks, mr anonymous, there is a lot of good, woody stuff there, which I didn't know about.call me ishmaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14369028864168461729noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-89476298361435654142011-03-04T18:49:38.742+00:002011-03-04T18:49:38.742+00:00Buffy, Bah, humbug, a western, Calamity Jane, for ...Buffy, Bah, humbug, a western, Calamity Jane, for clever clogses. And for my part I regret and resent the ongoing cine vampfest, much as I resented the StarTrek-ising of so much 'fifties sci-fi, the turning of it into an updated Boots and Saddles, a wretched, American intergalactic cavalry force. It was the stealing of the subjects of my reading, of my imagination and their Bowdlerising on cardboard sets, that's what pissed me off, still does.<br /><br />Richard Matheson, who wrote I am Legend, the vampiric, post apocalypesean tour de force, wrote, it is true, along with Harlan Ellison and other luminaries, many of the early StarTrek scripts but Oh, what a falling off was there, until, now, people think that science fiction is something to do with the insufferable Patrick Stewart and the Rodenberry franchise. It's the reading, that's the thing people should be doing, if we would thwart Ruin. And the writing. So few, now, thanks to the Infotainmentising of everything, can do either; their imaginations governed, enslaved by Twentieth Century Murdoch, which can remember it for us wholesale.<br /><br />Repent, Harlequin, cried the tick-tock man, too late.call me ishmaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14369028864168461729noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-25303967015700075312011-03-03T23:03:18.582+00:002011-03-03T23:03:18.582+00:00Agree completely about the merits of Buffy. Some ...Agree completely about the merits of Buffy. Some things the septics can do awful well. (JW's "Dollhouse" was pretty good, too, as were "Firefly" and "Serenity".) <br /><br />The vamp genre doesn't persist by accident. Plenty big themes; well handled, these can make for excellent work. There's a remarkable and quite affecting porn-punk/noir novel by (American) Todd Grimson called "Stainless", which I recommend, and a series of tremendous books by (Brit) Kim Newman: "Anno Dracula", "Bloody Red Baron", "Dracula Cha-Cha-Cha" and "Andy Warhol's Dracula."Vergehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16651753975933628764noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-35463963922778617622011-03-03T21:57:32.182+00:002011-03-03T21:57:32.182+00:00As it happens, Mr. Ishmael and Mr. Verge, I also h...As it happens, Mr. Ishmael and Mr. Verge, I also have seen "Let the Right One in". A colleague lent the DVD to me, the film being a favourite of her 14 year old daughter. My colleague believes me to be keenly interested in the vampire genre and has pressed upon me Twilight and Moonlight and now this piece of Swedish engaging unpleasantness. I should never have mentioned possession of all 7 series of Buffy. Which is a very different kettle of vampires. Quick, witty, referential, steeped in myth and folklore, a product of the genius of Joss Whedon; a million miles from the studiedly artistic LTROI. If the latter and Wallender are anything to go by, Swedish film vernacular is alien to eyes and ears attuned to Hollywood: lighting, camera angles, musical scores, even skin tone are spare and just different. It will be interesting to compare the American remake "Let Me In", made last year - I've not seen it yet.<br />The Vampire genre is all about sex and death, of course, so I guess Mr.Ishmael should have expected that LTROI would have covered the topics. Was it sensitive, beautiful, tender? I didn't find it so, but lots of critics did. The two child actors were twelve years old and were cast after a 12 month casting search. The vampire, frozen at 12, some two hundred years earlier, was created by the author as a castrated boy, a condition hinted at by the snatch shot which Mr. Ishmael mentions, a condition revealed by the vampire to the human child, "I am not a girl".<br />Does it deprave and corrupt? I would say that it certainly has that potential. Is it child abuse of the actors? Well, yes, of course. <br />In Western films, the credits carry a comforting notice, "No horses were injured in the making of this film". <br />It would be nice to see a similar credit in respect of children.<br />But that would put paid to the inclusion of any children in films.<br />If it is any comfort, Mr. Ishmael, the snatch shot was a triumph of the special effects department.But would that reduce the titillatory effect for the masturbatory viewer? I worked with a paedophile sex offender whose awesome collection of child porn included Littlewoods catalogues, the children's underwear pages well worn. <br />Drawing the line? Not exposing the simple souls to temptation? I think we'd have to disinvent too many things.Agathanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-18033556920068335722011-03-03T18:37:10.300+00:002011-03-03T18:37:10.300+00:00And then there's gangsta rap, this bad ass nig...And then there's gangsta rap, this bad ass nigger slap yo bitch up shit, is this in a direct line from Well she was just seventeen, you know what I mean, and the way she looked was way beyond compare, how could I dance with another, when I saw her standing there?<br /><br />I don't know if it's what we call post-feminism but I don't recall another time in my life when women were so graphically, so institutionally brutalised.call me ishmaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14369028864168461729noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-64589052886510620762011-03-03T12:14:10.526+00:002011-03-03T12:14:10.526+00:00"Power of moving images", indeed: how ma..."Power of moving images", indeed: how many generations now whose first years of sexual curiosity have been glutted with porn from the internet? Some strange shit afoot in the hive-mind, to be sure. <br /><br />Agree about young actors in most film/TV - I always marvel (briefly, it must be said - on reflection it's not marvelous at all) at the implied parental insouciance.Vergehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16651753975933628764noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-56025090495540080282011-03-03T10:49:36.624+00:002011-03-03T10:49:36.624+00:00I must try harder, mr verge, with this censorship ...I must try harder, mr verge, with this censorship issue.<br /><br /> Take two: I have known paedophiles who, I can fairly guess, would have got off on the archly seductive teeny-snatch imagery and the brutal themes of that film; I believe that a small, maybe tiny minority of people feel that the portayal of grossness and cruelty makes them the more permissible, - the copycat theory, Raoul Moat and Mr Bird, creatures as much of the Matrix and the Rambo movies as of their own internal daemons, gun fetishising their way into infamy; if evidence were needed of the power of moving images, consider, mr verge, that when we were lads the acid test of a hot chick was would she do oral, now, thanks to the porn industry and to the premiership gangrapists' league, the question is, does she do anal gangbanging, bless, and if not, let's make her, it's what the slut wants. It is the tendency to deprave and corrupt, downloadable on the iThing in your pocket. <br /><br />Other, non-specifically paedo events in the film, the human combustion and the severing of the drowner's arm were filmed with a studied, balletic, special effects, Wild Bunch beauty which undermined the horror of what was actually supposed to be going on, making arty the grotesque.<br /><br />And then, above all that, what about the impact on the child actors in this pretentious sewer of a film? No wonder the little bastards are usually all fucked up.<br /><br />I didn't think it needed spelling-out that the blood-finder was nonce, it was evident from his first appearance, only the suggestion of nobility in his self-sacrifice diluting the obvious.<br /><br />I, too, would probably defend its right to exist but like you and maybe most people, I often assume the best of the audience's sensibility - it wouldn't make me nonce, why should it make others? - the fact is, though, that the few who would be adversely moved by this stuff create an impact far beyond just bad taste.<br /><br />Not just thick, Page and Co; a decent society would have jailed them. Is it any wonder that, praisesinging depravity, we feel, on our cheeks, the hot breath of the Jihad?call me ishmaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14369028864168461729noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-44676726753509944712011-03-03T09:15:54.110+00:002011-03-03T09:15:54.110+00:00Didn't find "LTROI" offensive myself...Didn't find "LTROI" offensive myself, Mr I. As I understand it the Swedish novel it's based on does have some of the elements you mention (child vampire's murderous guardian being a nonce) but this was removed from the foreground in the adaptation. I know what you mean though; think I've mentioned before that Samuel Delany's "Hogg" is a book I decided not to keep in the house. I'd defend its right to exist - I think he means to imagine a world where the creatures of a pornographic universe have to fill the rest of their day, so to speak - but being pornographic creatures they have nothing about them apart from the urge to fuck and get fucked, regardless of any social, empathetic (or aesthetic - all horribly scatty) consideration whatsoever. It's disgusting, but seriously meant, and arguably quite moral if I'm right about what he was trying to do. <br /><br />Some mainstream films are irredeemably vile. Not that I was ever any kind of enthusiast of serial killer thrillers, but I've given them a very wide berth ever since "Wolf Creek", which is exactly the kind of sadistic shit that inspired the equally horrible, but utterly serious Austrian flick "Funny Games", which shoves our culture's appetite for cinematic (& not just cinematic, natch) cruelty right back in its face. <br /><br />Crowley's ego would have lapped up the adulation of rock stars. But he'd also have despised most of them for being so thick. (Wonder how Plant & Page would have coped with the real thing - a sorcerer whose magical practice usually involved getting fucked in the arse. "But Master, like, that's just for groupies, man. Not cool."Vergehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16651753975933628764noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-746103789554237602011-03-03T01:14:24.979+00:002011-03-03T01:14:24.979+00:00Competence doesn't come into it, does it, Mrs ...Competence doesn't come into it, does it, Mrs WOAR? If their masters wanted competent people they wouldn't look in political parties. Compliance, that's the thing.<br /><br />Along with the Incredible String Band, mr dtp, Mr Crowley is thought to have inspired the unspeakable ensemble, the Led Zeppelin and their insufferable corruption of, well, I was about to say the Blues but what I mean is everything. I don't know if you are old enough to be aware of LZ and if you are not you must consider yourself fortunate but Messrs Page and Bonham and Jones and the thick Brummy, Page, utterly devoid of creativity, were inspired by Crowley's black magic and satanism to produce much of the dark, lengthy, noisy rubbish to which they criss-crossed America, child-molesting their way from town to town.<br /><br />Mr Plant, now an old-age pensioner, bares still his androgyne torso and shakes his mane at a largely younger, but equally gullible audience. There is, as we never tire of saying, no business like showbusinesscall me ishmaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14369028864168461729noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-78822610431211245102011-03-03T00:59:08.901+00:002011-03-03T00:59:08.901+00:00I have some books on the top shelf which I would n...I have some books on the top shelf which I would not allow some people to read, however old they were, de Sade is among them. I do believe that many types of art have the potential to corrupt and deprave. I watched a film last night, with subtitles, hailed as a masterpiece ostensibly about a child vampire in Sweden. Let The Right One In. It was - I am guessing - delightfully padeophiliacal, the boy and girl stars being twelve years old and often in states of vulnerable undress and the film reeked with the menace of ritualised, suspended-upside-down killing and remorseless childhood bullying. it was bloody, shocking and uneasy viewing and I felt - as the jurors in the Lady Chatterly trial were prompted to feel - that it may well be a work of Art but I wouldn't want the wife or servants watching this shit.call me ishmaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14369028864168461729noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-77348642016307696542011-03-02T20:47:36.609+00:002011-03-02T20:47:36.609+00:00And, Mr. DtP, I have read some extremely outre stu...And, Mr. DtP, I have read some extremely outre stuff (all professionally - academics can call it research). But, do you know, I'm sure I ought to be calling for it for banned as offensive...PT Barnumnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-38946059172318527682011-03-02T17:32:23.774+00:002011-03-02T17:32:23.774+00:00Never heard of the dude. Tried reading some last n...Never heard of the dude. Tried reading some last night but didn't get very far. Puking over a book is pretty spectacular Mr PTB.Dick the Prickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02683095612320513712noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-11144718828095617032011-03-02T13:00:33.063+00:002011-03-02T13:00:33.063+00:00Libya`s up for grabs; neither Wisteria or Barry gi...Libya`s up for grabs; neither Wisteria or Barry gives a fart about the Libyans, its about the black gold under the sands. <br /><br />Although how we`re going to project force with the RN reduced to a coast defence force doesn`t appear to have occured to these idiots. Perhaps Osbum can recruit a scratch force from his dosh juggler chums: 1st City Chairpolishers (Goldman Sachs Own)<br />The 7th Light Hedgefunders (Battle of the Bonus), at least it`ll be no great loss if any of that lot stop a bullet.<br /><br />Given the people involved and our stellar record in the Middle East it looks like another step forward for Mr. Ruin.yardarmhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08700165830593026578noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-20784973834011019722011-03-02T01:00:54.917+00:002011-03-02T01:00:54.917+00:00Roaring, Mr Ishmael.
I went to see "Posh&quo...Roaring, Mr Ishmael.<br /><br />I went to see "Posh" by Laura Wade last week. It's set one evening at a Riot club (Bullingdon) dinner. <br /><br />It's OK, but despite the various mistakes and failed plans of the diners, she still draws them as ultimately competent, if unpleasant, when a big enough issue arises.<br /><br />Competent is what this lot are not. Just suppose we really needed to prosecute a war; we wouldn't be able to. We have been dismantling the armed forces since 1986 and Portillo was in the vanguard of it. <br /><br />Surely Cameron noticed we haven't got the Harriers? That even the boat coming back from Libya is on its last trip. At this rate, we'll be raiding the museum collections and operating an air arm which is comparable to Capricorn Rising, the account of WWI flying.Woman on a Rafthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08897415591130901416noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-8816484141850343002011-03-01T23:27:58.053+00:002011-03-01T23:27:58.053+00:00He was ahead of his time right to the end, old A.C...He was ahead of his time right to the end, old A.C. - ended up a smackhead in a Hastings boarding-house (circa 1948.)Vergehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16651753975933628764noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-4321075715157907572011-03-01T21:37:38.652+00:002011-03-01T21:37:38.652+00:00It was in the North Library of the old British Lib...It was in the North Library of the old British Library, Mr. Verge, at the Cupiditas desk where one's under-the-table motions could be monitored by the librarians (and one's chosen object of study read by people waiting to collect or return books). And the volume came from the PCC case within the locked cabinet, and thus could never be left unattended. (Very little has changed in the new "improved" BL.)<br /><br />It was an exceptionally rare edition (possibly owing to so many copies being damaged by earlier readers' queasy stomachs as well as a tiny print run) and is a sort of poetic <i>120 Days of Sodom</i> but infinitely more visceral, shall we say? It was the last poem in the volume that beat me, but I shall spare the digestions of any readers here.PT Barnumnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-8334952265532815282011-03-01T20:03:58.960+00:002011-03-01T20:03:58.960+00:00The power of words, Mr PTB - sounds like that one ...The power of words, Mr PTB - sounds like that one really cast a spell. If the old bugger was still around you can bet he'd want to quote you on the rear end of a reprint. (Was the book on general display, I wonder? When we lived in south London they kept Fr Rolfe's "Venice Letters" in a locked cabinet. Possibly a local peculiarity - Sir Cyril Black, DPP obscene publications stooge, was a local dignitary.)Vergehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16651753975933628764noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-78006115993232256262011-03-01T19:34:48.110+00:002011-03-01T19:34:48.110+00:00on a different note , i know your a lover of wood,...on a different note , i know your a lover of wood, well watch this moroccan wood turner make a chess piecehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnv0DAR_gWAAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-15496989641320613502011-03-01T17:55:49.923+00:002011-03-01T17:55:49.923+00:00Sorry, Mr. Verge, if I have misrepresented Crowley...Sorry, Mr. Verge, if I have misrepresented Crowley to you. The only substantial work I ever did on his ouevre was in relation to that remarkable volume of poetry <i>White Stains</i> which, while I read it as the greatest red flag to bourgeois sensibilities of all time, also has the distinction of being the only book I ever read which caused me to leave the library in order to vomit.PT Barnumnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-58003759690927525502011-03-01T15:38:17.163+00:002011-03-01T15:38:17.163+00:00It is baseless posturing, I hope, Mr Ishmael. And ...It is baseless posturing, I hope, Mr Ishmael. And anyway, better a no-fly zone silliness in Libya than a gore-fest in Iran.mongoosehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14173341928744479143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-83192818205336706912011-03-01T14:30:49.398+00:002011-03-01T14:30:49.398+00:00Steady on, Mr PTB - Crowley has his caddish moment...Steady on, Mr PTB - Crowley has his caddish moments to be sure but I don't think even he deserves to be mentioned alongside that ghastly shower.<br /><br />(And his "Do what thou wilt" etc didn't really mean "do whatever you want"; more an esoteric kind of "pay attention, for fuck's sake" as I understand it...wrongly, more than like.)Vergehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16651753975933628764noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-80088911704217125892011-03-01T12:39:36.497+00:002011-03-01T12:39:36.497+00:00Mr Ishmael - if by 'gerrymandering' you me...Mr Ishmael - if by 'gerrymandering' you mean equalising constituency numbers then I'm all for it.<br /><br />I know Labour stands to lose 20 or so seats under fair-sized constituencies but you must ask yourself would you be equally sanguine if the constituency sizes as they stand over-represented the Tories by 20 seats. And if the hold-up in the HoL looking to preserve this manifest unfairness in favour of the Tories was due to hereditary Tory peers as opposed to the hundreds and hundreds of partisan jackasses of the ilk of Prescott and Martin appointed by Blair and Brown to preserve their thousand year idiocy.jgm2noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-44569009410986089982011-03-01T12:20:08.096+00:002011-03-01T12:20:08.096+00:00Seem to have hit the nail on the head there Mr Ish...Seem to have hit the nail on the head there Mr Ishmael. Brilliant. Listening to the odious Chris Meyer wibbling shit upon shit. It's like diplomats and spunky arse bureaucrats have suddenly seized upon the idea that they can bullshit people that they really do have a job which isn't utterly pointless; it didn't fucking work, he's in Venezuala after all innit.<br /><br />Fuck me, and then a seguey into EU quotas forcing fishermen to lob fish back into the drink; why can't politicians 'fix' that instead of sucking Yanky cock, do something fucking useful. Too tired, too weary.Dick the Pricknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-87901330082363481362011-03-01T10:53:00.777+00:002011-03-01T10:53:00.777+00:00All we can hope is that Cameron sticks to making s...All we can hope is that Cameron sticks to making speeches of the type 'We're very disappointed....' and sets whatever navy we have left to making sure that all these refugees stay in North Africa and don't start deluging us in their millions. Albeit a bit late for that.<br /><br />Let the religion of peace with all their fucking oil money and all their 'One-Big-Happy-Family-Allah-is-Great and you westerners are drug-taking, dog-fucking monkeys' club together and buy 'em tents and food and suchlike. Maybe fence them in like <i>they</i> do with the Palestinians and toss enough guns and bombs and stuff in there to let them make a nuisance killing each other for a change instead of blaming every single fucking misfortune that befalls them on the yanks or the jews or us drug-taking, dog-fucking monkeys. Poor pawns that they are.<br /><br />Fuck 'em.<br /><br />Iraq and Afghanistan shows you that you will get fuck all thanks no matter if you <i>did</i> go in with the best of intentions (Which we didn't obviously but even if we had it wouldn't have been a materially different outcome).<br /><br />Have nothing to do with it. Freeze no assets. Take no sides. Sell guns to whoever can pay in oil or in hard cash and leave the fuckers to it.<br /><br />And if anybody gives us any shit then just point to Iraq and Afghanistan and say 'There is the thanks you get, in the arab world, for freeing people from their murderous government'. <br /><br />The fuckers obviously aren't completely happy unless they're killing people and I really don't think that, while they confine themselves to killing each other, we should get involved.<br /><br />It's none of our business.jgm2noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-85822104473357062372011-03-01T10:25:48.006+00:002011-03-01T10:25:48.006+00:00Yes, harrowing, mr ptb, they just do what they wa...Yes, harrowing, mr ptb, they just do what they want, unopposed, marginally regulated only by the four-yearly festival of competitive promising; parliamentary democracy, Power's fanciful game of musical chairs.call me ishmaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14369028864168461729noreply@blogger.com