Paid overtime.
My calendar for the near future appears quite uncharacteristically empty anyway, but I suspect I’m not going to be free most evenings for the next month or so. Just on the offchance anyone was planning to invite me to things.
Category: General Blogging
Sitting By The Train Tracks Reading Kafka To The Sky
Just in case anyone that was at South London Pacific is interested: Jason’s new limited edition EP “Eleven Saints” is available for pre-order. For under a tenner, including international shipping, you can get a 15 track CD, and limited edition vinyl. One might make some remark about a 15 track CD being more like an album than an EP, but he’s calling it an EP…
Only 1111 of them available, and I’ve already had one, so if you want it, order soon.
One for the West Wing fans
A six minute teaser for Aaron Sorkin’s new Show, “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip“.
Timothy Busfield looks strange without the beard.
Just a gentle reminder:
There are quite a number of people who pledged cash in exchange for the shaving of my head. And while many of you have already stumped up, there’s a fair number that haven’t yet.
I’m sure there are plenty of you that are just waiting for payday, or things like that, but I just thought I’d remind you about it, in case it’s just slipped people’s minds.
Donate here: http://www.justgiving.com/get_a_haircut_hippy
(Those of you who might be waiting to give me the cash in person: please don’t. If you donate through that link, then the tax (assuming you’re not foreign( is automatically claimed back for the charity. If however, I get money from you, then donate for you and enter it as “cash recieved off-line” then for legal reasons, that site cannot claim the tax back for Cancer Reasearch. You have until June 3rd, at which point the donations page will shut down.)
Show of hands…
Quick , in the last half hour before I dash off for the weekend: who’s at the Dresden Dolls gig tonight? Who’s going to be in the Ship beforehand?
Attention whisky drinkers:
The new batch of Compass Box’s lovely Spice Tree is out.
Compass Box have lost that fight though, and this will be the last batch ever made.
Thought you’d like to know.
American Legislation To Remove Public Access to Social Networks
Here’s a .pdf of a proposed amendment to American law the “Deleting Online Predators Act 2006”. The broad effect of this bill will be “to require recipients of universal service support for schools and libraries to protect minors from commercial social networking websites and chat rooms.”
Let’s be clear: “protect” in this instance means “remove access to”. Social networking sites are defined as “allows users to create web pages or profiles that provide information about themselves and are available to other users; and offers a mechanism for communication with other users, such as a forum, chat room, email, or instant messenger.” This definition encompasses Myspace, Livejournal, Flickr, Blogger, and loads of others.
The act, in fairness, says thing like “prohibits access by minors without parental authorization” rather than outright “ban”. However the act is aimed at schools and public libraries, and the only reliable and efficient means these institutions have to achieve that end is a to simply prevent access to these sites.
The problem with this legislation is that it will foster the already widening digital gulf between the rich and poor, and it’s the poorest families, for whom access is primarily through public terminals like schools and libraries, that benefit most from the increased opportunities available on the internet.
While I’m thinking of it: have I bored you all rigid on the subject of network neutrality, and why you should give a shit yet?
Swear to god, 2006 is starting to look like it’s going to be the year when the internet went away.
London Art Stuff
One more, before I duck out for a walk in the sun:
The Dreams That Money Can Buy is on at the Tate Modern on the 27th of May.
I saw it at the NFT last year. This is a brilliant bit of surrealist cinema, set to some bloody good music, and you should book tickets and go see it if you’re free.
A little dose of the future
I should have mentioned this on here before now, and the more switched-on of you have probably seen it on BoingBoing by now anyway, but still:
Bloodspell is a feature-length serialised machinima fantasy film. Machinima, in case you’ve been under a rock, or just don’t care about the future, is the art of making 3-d animated films using computer game engines. The product doesn’t look as slick as Toy Story, or Shrek, or anything else, but it can be made by anyone with a little dedication in their bedrooms for an outlay of a few hundred quid for a decent computer and an appropriate game. It is punk animation, and if you can’t see why that’s important, or get past the slightly clunky visuals to see what it will one day be able to do, then you are probably quite stupid.
Bloodspell is pretty much the most ambitious project yet made with machinima, and deserves your attention precisely because it is ambitious. It’s pushing the boundaries of what has done in its field. If people do not pay attention when others do this sort of thing, we stagnate as a culture. This is bad. And also, rather more importantly, because it is a cracking, fast paced action-fantasy film that is bloody good free entertainment.
And as if all that weren’t enough, it’s available on a creative commons license. Check the site for the full info, but basically, you can distribute and remix it however you’d like, for free, so long as you don’t make money off it. There are lots of reasons why that’s good.
Pay attention: this is the future of cinema, starting here. Even if Bloodspell itself isn’t to your personal taste, these are some very sharp people, working out how entertainment media will be made and distributed in the future. Tell your friends, because it’ll make you look clever if you do.
Full disclosure: My mate cairmen is the mad bastard behind this, and I’m listed as a creative consultant on the project. This mostly meant I sat about, got drunk, and talked rubbish, and said “why don’t you try this…” on a couple of occasions.
Penkiln-burn
It occurs that there are several gentlemen of this parish who might thank me for this link to a load of Bill Drummond’s writings over the last few years. Drummond remains, for me, one of the few art critics worth listening to, one who is both very sharp, and extremely engaging.