Kafka On The Shore

Elliott Smith - PitselehHere, a favourite of mine.

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 12:22:44 +0000

Elliott Smith - Pitseleh

Here, a favourite of mine.

First there was the book by investigative reporter Kurt...

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 11:33:00 +0000

First there was the book by investigative reporter Kurt Eichenwald, then This American Life’s one-hour episode, The Fix Is In, and, nine years later, the film by Steven Soderbergh…Well, actually, first came the facts, since this is a true story. And what a great story this is.

I haven’t seen the film yet and will probably never read the book, but I strongly recommend listening to The Fix Is In. Mark Whitacre, the corporate whistle-blower-turned-FBI-informant at the heart of the story, is a fascinating guy: funny, gutsy and completely delusional (turns out he’s bipolar). It really takes a crook to catch a crook.

Grizzly Bear - Ready Able / video directed by Allison...

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:24:00 +0000

Grizzly Bear - Ready Able / video directed by Allison Schulnik

(via headunderwater)

“Surreal mix of sadness, repulsion, and a kind of otherworldly beauty” — Stereogum. Yeah, totally. The more I watch this, the more I find that the otherworldly beauty overpowers the repulsion. “Ready, Able” is my favourite song on the album; could it have anything to do with my liking this video in the first place? Probably.

Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995) by Todd SolondzThis is the bit...

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:42:00 +0000

Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995) by Todd Solondz

This is the bit when dickhead Steve Rogers is singing the title song and Dawn is head-dancing to it. I don’t care what anybody says but in this scene, she’s the coolest kid on the planet. It’s not easy being Dawn.

Memory Tapes - Green KnightIs that a basketball dribbling we can...

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:08:00 +0000

Memory Tapes - Green Knight

Is that a basketball dribbling we can hear in there? And also the screeching sound that shoes make on the basketball court? Whatever that is, I love that sound effect. And this track is my favourite on Seek Magic.

Other cool songs from the album already posted by fellow tumblers:
Swimming Field via mmddyyyy
Plain Material via thenotes
Bicycle via Britticisms

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-11-1)

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:07:54 +0000

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-11-1):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

Carey MulliganJust saw An Education (2009) by Lone Scherfig...

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 22:38:00 +0000

Carey Mulligan

Just saw An Education (2009) by Lone Scherfig (adapted for the screen by Nick Hornby) and the film is all about Mulligan. And it’s a good thing. It’s a very good thing, in fact. She is absolutely fantastic in it. She’s amazing. She’s radiant, luminescent, incandescent…She’s everything to do with light, fire, stars and all those things… Someone needs to start a fuckyeahcareymulligan tumblr this instant.

Louis Vuitton “Superflat Monogram” video by Takashi...

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 23:05:00 +0000

Louis Vuitton “Superflat Monogram” video by Takashi Murakami

In my (failed) attempt to find on the web that Murakami video starring Kirsten Dunst, I stumbled upon this very interesting short animation film he did for Louis Vuitton. I really dig the music on this.
Sidenote: I think the little girl is having one hell of an LSD trip.

I open wide my eyes but see no scenery. I fix my gaze upon my...

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 22:50:00 +0000

I open wide my eyes but see no scenery. I fix my gaze upon my heart by Takashi Murakami.

I went to see Pop Life, an exhibit currently showing at the Tate Modern, and the last room was entirely dedicated to Japanese artist Takashi Murakami, otherwise known as the Warhol of Japan.

As far as I was concerned, Murakami’s room was the most interesting and the highlight of the exhibition. The cherry on the cake was a really cool music video by Murakami shot with the collaboration of McG and starring Kirsten Dunst as “Akihabara Majokko Princess”, a blue-haired manga-like cutie dancing and singing a cover of the Vapors’ “Turning Japanese” on the streets of Akihabara (Tokyo manga central). The video is full of cuteness, weirdness and real sleazy undertones. Not available online yet but worth checking out when/if it is.

Murakami’s both an artist and an entrepreneur (=> an artrepeneur?), having built a commercial empire through his company Kaikai Kiki LLC. I’m not quite sure I understand what his “Superflat” movement is really about, but I do like how he’s all over the poku (pop+otaku) culture and how well he distorts the cute in the anime and manga imagery to highlight the scary and the deviant.

The Flaming Lips - The Sparrow Looks Up At The MachineEmbryonic...

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 12:20:00 +0000

The Flaming Lips - The Sparrow Looks Up At The Machine

Embryonic is such a great album. I couldn’t choose which track to post between this one and that one.

Also, Karen O’s turn in I Can Be A Frog is too cute for words.

The Flaming Lips - Silver Trembling HandsEmbryonic is such a...

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 12:20:00 +0000

The Flaming Lips - Silver Trembling Hands

Embryonic is such a great album. I couldn’t choose which track to post between this one and that one.

Also, Karen O’s turn in I Can Be A Frog is too cute for words.

Cold Souls (2009) by Sophie BarthesI saw the trailer for this...

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 12:01:00 +0000

Cold Souls (2009) by Sophie Barthes

I saw the trailer for this yesterday and at first it looked like an annoying, lesser version of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind… “Giamatti stars as a fictionalised version of himself, an anxious, overwhelmed actor who decides to enlist the service of a company to deep freeze his soul” (— wiki). But then, as he tries to get his soul back (Joss? I know you’re hiding somewhere), he finds out that it’s been smuggled to Russia as part of a soul trafficking scheme. And that, to me, sounds like a rather cool plot twist. Giamatti in Russia? I’m in.

The Joy Formidable @ Koko, London, 27 Oct 09I had never heard of...

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 11:44:00 +0000

The Joy Formidable @ Koko, London, 27 Oct 09

I had never heard of them until I saw them open for Passion Pit at a recent gig. That was a very nice surprise. Particularly because I was in the mood for that type of music that night. Ritzy Bryan is such a good poser; I don’t know how much of a rock chick she truly is, but man does she play the part well.

They’ve made a few tracks downloadable for free on last.fm. Good stuff but their sound and attitude translate better on stage; they’re just more enjoyable live and loud.

The Joy Formidable - Austere

The Joy Formidable - Whirring

Flick set: The Joy Formidable @ Koko

Tales from the Golden Age (2009) by a few Romanian directors...

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 10:46:00 +0000

Tales from the Golden Age (2009) by a few Romanian directors under the supervision of Cristian Mungiu

The final 15 years of the Ceausescu regime were the worst in Romania’s history. So of course, the propaganda machine of that time decided to refer to that period as “the golden age”. Now, if humor is what kept Romanians alive under Ceausescu, then Tales from The Golden Age captures that mood perfectly.

The film is a collection of five cine-sketches, each story portraying a different aspect of every day life in Romania under the hated regime. It’s mainly about the survival of a nation having to face the totally absurd and twisted logic of a dictatorship.

I’m not familiar with the new wave of Romanian cinema (most notably Cristian Mungiu’s critically acclaimed 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days and Cristi Puiu’s The Death of Mr Lazarescu), but I hear that Tales from The Golden Age stands out as a more commercial attempt to reach a wider international audience.

But even though the comedy in the film feels quite light and no matter how funny and farcical you find each situation, you never lose sight of how fucking sad it all is.

Check out the trailer
Check out Philip French’s review in The Guardian

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More detailed synopsis + some personal rambling:

> Story one: The Legend of the Official Visit:
“… about a village preparing frantically to Potemkinise their dismal community before the arrival of a party bigwig, but when an underling arrives to say that the visit is cancelled, everyone piles on to a fairground carousel swing in a mood of delirious relief. Too late, they realise they can’t stop, because no one can reach the off button – they must just whirl on until the machine runs out of fuel 12 hours later: a great image for incompetence, insincerity and an eternity of desperation.” — Philip French, The Guardian

In fact: on the occasion of Ceausescu’s working visits, countryside mayors ended up hanging fruit in trees to make sure their villages would be noticed, obeying even the strangest orders from the ferocious Party activists (at one point in the story, when the mayor is showing the Party Inspector some pigeons, explaining that he’d make them fly as a welcome to the official escort, the inspector gave him a bored look and said “make them white”).

> Story two: The Legend of the Party Photographer:
An official photo-retoucher has the job of making Ceausescu look as tall and imposing as Giscard d’Estaing during that pre-Photoshop era. Then he had to make him wear a hat. And do that in time for the newspapers to hit the stands the next morning. At some point, someone actually shouted “Stop the presses”… Yes, you guessed as much: serious cock-up and hilarity ensued.

In fact: communist party secret regulations stated that in official pictures, President Ceausescu couldn’t take his hat off in front of the representatives of the rotten capitalistic world.

On a more personal note: I seriously felt for that poor pre-press guy as he collapsed in his chair, clutching his chest, after someone had shown him the photo cock-up on the front page of the newspaper. This story particularly touched me for I’ve experienced this sort of situation first hand in places like Russia and Uzbekistan, and, believe me, just like the protagonists in the story, I wasn’t laughing then.

> Story three: The Legend of the Chicken Driver:
This one is rather tragic. A truck driver has the task of trucking chickens across country in food-strapped Romania, under strict orders not to stop. But then, there’s this woman he lusts for and want to impress with chicken eggs. And that’s when things go bad.

> Story four: The Legend of the Greedy Policeman:
A cop scores a pig from his brother-in-law. All OK so far. Except that the pig is brought to him alive. Now, the problem for our cop is to find a way to slaughter the pig discretely so as not to alert the neighbours to his pork supply. So of course, he choses to gas the animal in his kitchen”…I’d personally re-title this story “pig explosion”.

> Story five: The Legend of the Air Sellers:
A couple of students embark on a confidence scam to part people from glass bottles, which can be sold for cash. The “bottled air” scam is quite ingenious actually but only made possible by the absurdity of life under Ceausescu.

Myth: rumor has it that, in the golden age, a lot of Romanians purchased their cars by reselling empty bottles.

Mumford & Sons - I Gave You All“But you rip it from my...

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:24:00 +0000

Mumford & Sons - I Gave You All

“But you rip it from my hands, and you swear it’s all gone
And you rip out all I have, just to say that you’ve won
Well now you’ve won”

This song is like a punch in the guts. Marcus Mumford’s voice and lyrics are so full of drama that the live stage is probably the best arena to experience them properly. On that note, I’m kicking myself for having missed them live the other day just because “I couldn’t be arsed” (just as I should be kicking myself for using what has to be the ugliest British expression known to man).

Mumford & Sons’ debut album is fantastic: folk music with a lot of attention-seeking instruments like the cello and the trumpet, which add richness and layers to the music and give it a dramatic kick. And let’s not forget the banjo for those of us who like the taste of bluegrass now and again.

Sidenote: Looking back at the BBC Sound 2009 selection (Mumford & Sons were on it), I like a lot of the acts appearing on their long list, but there are probably only a couple of them that I’m confident l’ll still be listening to a few years from now…Florence, for one. And Mumford & Sons, definitely.

Other M&S songs to have landed on my shore: White Blank Page & The Cave

I can’t make up my mind about David Lynch’s...

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:54:00 +0000

I can’t make up my mind about David Lynch’s Interview Project. On the one hand, I find the concept irritating and full of shit (the idea of the road trip and meeting and interviewing “real” people along the way, in search for the heart and soul of America snore blah snore) — to top it all, Lynch’s video intro is rather lifeless and awkward. One the other hand, I could as easily imagine Alvin Straight at the helm of this project as he tours the country riding his John Deere lawn mower, and that, my friend, is and idea I’d find much more appealing all of a sudden.
Well, If anyone finds an interesting interview in there, give me a shout, as I haven’t found one yet (not having browsed the site for very long it has to be said).
…To be revisited.

The Cove (2009) by Louie PsihoyosPowerful documentary following...

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:02:00 +0000

The Cove (2009) by Louie Psihoyos

Powerful documentary following a team of marine activists and filmmakers as they put together a black op to infiltrate the heavily guarded cove of Taiji, a remote village in Japan, where more than 20,000 dolphins get slaughtered every year. It’s a blood bath and the footage they snatched of the entire cove turning red is disturbing.
Now I really want to free Willy.

Ironically, I went to see this film right after devouring my own weight in sushi at Ten Ten Tei, my favourite Japanese caf in London. Anyway, remember folks: chose the safest fish to eat.

Gregory Crewdson’s Dream House portfolio for the New York...

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:17:00 +0000

The Dream House, Rutland, Vermont

Philip Seymour Hoffman

Tilda Swinton

Dylan Baker

Dylan Baker

Jullianne Moore

William H Macy

Tilda Swinton

William H Macy

Gregory Crewdson’s Dream House portfolio for the New York Times, 2002.

“The catalyst for these pictures was an empty ranch-style house in Rutland Vermont. The furniture, lamps, even the hand-towels in the bathrooms, were exactly as the owners had left them ten years earlier when they passed away. It was an eerie and beautiful place, painted with memories. Absence was one of the furnishings.”
— Kathy Ryan, photo editor of The New York Times Magazine.

“…I just brought two unrelated ideas to the table. One was that I had always wanted to photograph Tilda Swinton and the other was that I also wanted to make a series of photographs in a particular uninhabited ranch house in Vermont. […] We amassed an additional list of actors, who I felt could inhabit the world of my pictures. […] We had mapped out a concept: to spend the entire month of August, with a production crew, in the house, separately photographing these actors. My parameters were that I would have complete artistic control and that the actors must come alone, unaccompanied by assistants or entourage. What ensued was a magical adventure, strange, enchanting and totally unique magical adventure.
— Gregory Crewdson

Japanese ad scored by RACNo idea what’s going there, but...

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:44:00 +0000

Japanese ad scored by RAC
No idea what’s going there, but who cares, I find Japanese ads endlessly entertaining.

“I said no photos, you little shit!” — angry...

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:57:00 +0000

“I said no photos, you little shit!” — angry Michael Angelakos bashes a fan’s camera with his mic at a recent Passion Pit gig.

….Ok, so, that’s not exactly what happened. Angelakos is too sweet a guy to be doing that. But his mic did collide with my camera. The collision was very minor and totally accidental, I am sure of it. Now, I wish I could say the same of the tiny girl standing next to me: she suddenly disappeared under Michael’s weight and when she resurfaced a minute later she looked somewhat damaged by that unexpected encounter. Ouch.

Flickr set: Passion Pit at Koko, London, 27 Oct 09