Apr. 30, 2011
Album of the month: Mirrorwriting by Jamie Woon Jamie Woon was brought to my attention late last year by Pitchfork who wrote an article about the video for lead single Night Air. I’ve put that video down below because I think that it is very good, a simple well executed and the tune itself is brilliant, probably my favourite individual track of 2010. It’s a downtempo tune full of dark spaces and empty beats, full of nocturnal promise and mystery.
Tags: Music, Album Digest, April, Jamie Woon, Young Knives, Katy B, Elbow, Fabric, Eleven
Apr. 6, 2011
I saw Betty Blue (original French title 37,2 Le Matin) for the first time in 1996 shortly after having read the book and it remains one of my favourite films to this day. Although there are many obvious reasons why a sixteen year old boy might like it, I think it does stand up to scrutiny beyond the sex and nudity. This post is a brief explanation of some of the obvious and not-so-obvious reasons why this is a film to be loved and cherished.
Tags: Films, Lists, French, Chili Con Carne, Eleven
Apr. 5, 2011
Facebook is wonderful for keeping in touch but I’ve noticed that quite a few of my friends tend to use it to tell the world that they can’t sleep. Here’s some advice for you if you find yourself unable to sleep one night. I’ve often had to try these out myself! Note that these are just things that work for me and your mileage may vary, particularly if you are fortunate enough to have a partner next to you!
Tags: Ideas, Insomnia, Life Experiences, Self Improvement, Eleven
Apr. 3, 2011
As I mentioned before I am re-reading the novels of Iain Banks and this weekend I managed to finish Consider Phlebas. A little post about it will be coming up soon. One of my favourite things about the Culture novels is how the ships are named and having found a list on Wikipedia, I thought I would share ten of my favourites with you!
You’ll Clean That Up Before You Leave Ravished By The Sheer Implausibility Of That Last Statement All Through With This Niceness And Negotiation Stuff Prosthetic Conscience Of Course I Still Love You Size Isn’t Everything Hand Me The Gun And Ask Me Again Dramatic Exit, Or, Thank you And Goodnight We Haven’t Met But You’re A Great Fan Of Mine Anticipation Of A New Lover’s Arrival, The Great names all I am sure you would agree.
Tags: Fun, Books, Science Fiction, Iain M. Banks, Eleven
Mar. 31, 2011
This is not an Album Digest March 2011 Well as I said at the end of last month’s album digest post, I took a bit of a break from pursuing new music quite as closely as I have been. As promised, I sidestepped the new R.E.M. and Elbow albums - although I had been promised the latter as a birthday present it is yet to show up, maybe I will look at in April.
Tags: Music, Album Digest, March, Eleven, Ramadanman, Nicolas Jaar, Julianna Barwick, Yeasayer, Saint Etienne, LCD Soundsystem, Salva
Mar. 18, 2011
Never mind the Ballards I have been writing about books by J.G. Ballard pretty much to the exclusion of all others. Gradually the posts have tricked out about four novels and ground to a halt. I’ve got a fair way through two other books but I am getting very tired of reading his novels all the time, much as I love them. The mistake I made was that I hadn’t read enough of them in the first place.
Tags: Books, Reading Projects, Eleven
Mar. 17, 2011
In the understated classics series, I try to alternate between pop/rock and electronic albums. Keeping with this trend number eight is the wonderful dub-infused album Second Light by Dreadzone. Released in 1996 it was well-received critically and four of its tracks featured on John Peel’s best-of-year list that year. Little Britain received a lot of radio play, a popular choice for that flag-waving period of britpop and assorted other demons.
Tags: Understated Classics, Dreadzone, Music, Electronic, Eleven
Feb. 28, 2011
February, the shortest month, harbinger of such delights as Groundhog Day and Valentine’s Day. Could it possibly produce any good albums? Well the candidates are the eponymous début album by James Blake, Zonoscope by Cut/Copy, Let England Shake by PJ Harvey and Smart Flesh by The Low Anthem. Furthermore, there was an unexpected bonus when Radiohead announced that their new album would be out and available to listen to this month too.
Tags: Album Digest, February, Music, James Blake, Cut Copy, P. J. Harvey, The Low Anthem, Radiohead, Eleven
Feb. 3, 2011
Hurrah for more exoplanets making the news this week. This time it is a star with a whole bunch of small planets very close to the star, usually they tend to be single gas giants larger even than Jupiter as this list of stars with exoplanets from Wikipedia shows.
But these stars are all so far away! The closest star with an exoplanet found in orbit around it so far is 10 light years away (Epsilon Eridani) and this week’s system was found over 2000 light years away.
Tags: Science, Exoplanets, Eleven, Speculative, Telescope
Feb. 2, 2011
It turns out that programming the UNO game is not that complicated once you start designing the thing. This post will get the rules and game elements clear.
The deck An UNO deck consists of four sets of coloured cards (red, yellow, green and blue) together with eight wild cards. The non-wild cards are marked with either numbers or special symbols. The numbers range from zero to nine with two of each number except for the zero, which is unique.
Tags: Programming, Projects, Games, Fun, Eleven
Feb. 1, 2011
Form and function, deformation and dysfunction I think we should get one thing out of the way first. For me, there is nothing erotic about a car or a motorway. The place in popular culture of the car in particular as sexual icon has always bemused me. In fact, I’m really rather ambivalent about cars. This matters when discussing Crash, the 1973 novel by JG Ballard that resumes this strand of posts about his novels.
Tags: Books, Reading Projects, J. G. Ballard, Eleven, Fiction
Jan. 31, 2011
Here’s to 2011 and the start of a monthly album digest. I want it to be a brief trot through some of the albums I have listened to each month. Sometimes January can bring a few quiet releases by big name bands. This happens if the previous album did not do as well as the record company hoped or if it is the kind of artist who would get lost under the hype of all the Christmas releases.
Tags: Music, Album Digest, January, The Decemberists, Iron and Wine, British Sea Power, The Phoenix Foundation, Joan as Police Woman, Eleven