The Equalizer Gone
Remembering The Equalizer: Edward Woodward Dead at 79
Edward Woodward, the British star of stage and screen arguably best known for kicking bad-guy butt on CBS’ The Equalizer, has died.
James Frey retrata a Los Ángeles en ‘Una mañana radiante’
James Frey retrata a Los Ángeles en ‘Una mañana radiante’
james Frey, guionista de éxito en Hollywood, se hizo un nombre cuando, apasionadamente recomendado por la estrella de la televisión Oprah Winfrey, en el año 2005 vendió cinco millones de ejemplares de sus memorias Un millón de pequeñas piezas, el relato de sus años de adicción a las drogas.
Pasó a convertirse en un apestado cuando se descubrió que había exagerado notablemente sus experiencias, pero ahora vuelve a lo grande con Una mañana radiante (Mondadori), una novela con historias cruzadas a lo Robert Altman que tiene a la ciudad de Los Ángeles como su gran protagonista. El intento de Frey (Cleveland, 1969) de construir la gran novela de L. A. y convertirla en un mecanismo de lectura compulsiva ha sido acogido con aplausos estridentes («un triunfo», según el escritor Irvine Welsh) y con abucheos inmisericordes desde medios como Los Angeles Times.
Una mezcla de horror y fascinación, del fracaso más horrible y del éxito más global, que no pueden existir el uno sin el otro. Para James Frey, eso es Los Angeles, la ciudad con el mayor flujo de inmigración, con la mayor variedad étnica, con las más grandes desigualdades económicas, la capital mundial de la industria de la cultura popular, «la representación del sueño americano». Un sueño que, sostiene, «aún existe, y más que nunca: Obama es la mejor personificación posible. Es el hijo de un inmigrante africano que en 10 años se convierte en la persona más poderosa del mundo, una historia de éxito al lado de un millón de historias tan parecidas pero que acaban en fracaso». Como las de su libro. «De los afiliados al Sindicato de Actores, el 1% tienen trabajo siempre, el 99% sirven en restaurantes y pueden pasarse todo un año sin actuar: esto se extiende –concluye– a todos los sectores de la sociedad de Los Angeles».
There’s an ear-o in my gyro.
Butchered Man Used For Kebabs
Suspect meat … cops probe ‘cannibal killing’
By VINCE SOODIN
SUSPECTED cannibals killed a young man, ATE part of him and then sold other bits to a KEBAB house.
Cops also believe the 25-year-old victim’s body parts may have been used to fill PIES too.
The trio of homeless men were arrested in Russia – accused of murdering the man with knives and a hammer.
Prosecutors revealed: “After carrying out the crime, the corpse was divided up – part of it was eaten and part of it was sold to a kiosk selling kebabs and pies.”
We’re All Going To Die Unless Someone Saves Us
Asteroid passes just 8,700miles from Earth – with only 15 hours warning
By Claire Bates
Last updated at 10:01 AM on 11th November 2009
Although no one noticed at the time, the Earth was almost hit by an asteroid last Friday.
The previously undiscovered asteroid came within 8,700miles of Earth but astronomers noticed it only 15 hours before it made its closest approach.
Its orbit brought it 30 times nearer than the Moon, which is 250,000 miles away.
[ click to continue reading about impending doom at The Mail Online ]
Festival Eñe This Friday
Llega el Festival Eñe, una nueva cita literaria anual que reunirá enMadrid a más de setenta escritores, editores, creadores, músicos, cineastas… para hablarnos de libros, actualidad y celebrar las letras.
Organizado por el Círculo de Bellas Artes de Madrid y La Fábrica (la editorial que publica Eñe), con la colaboración de diversas instituciones y empresas, se celebrará el próximo viernes 13 y sábado 14 de noviembre en el Círculo de Bellas Artes, que se convertirá en el centro de la literatura, en un ambiente donde los amantes de la palabra disfrutarán de libros, lecturas, música, conferencias, talleres, acciones… todo un conjunto de actividades en torno al placer de leer.
James Frey will be a guest speaker at Festival Eñe on Friday 13.
[ click to learn more about Festival Eñe ]
Turnip and Red Pepper Salad
Turnip and red pepper salad
This bright and colorful salad is a nice change up from the standard mixed greens. (Los Angeles Times/Ken Hively)
Servings: 8
Total time: 15 minutes plus wilting time for the vegetables and chilling time for the salad
Ingredients:
2 turnips
1 small red bell pepper
1 tablespoon plus 3/4 teaspoon salt, divided, more to taste
Juice of 1 lemon
1. Stem the turnips, then peel their white outer skin…
British Labiologists Issue Public Warning On Perfect Vaginas
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New warning on ‘perfect vaginas’ |
Women are undergoing surgery to create perfect genitalia amid a “shocking” lack of information on the potential risks of the procedure, a report says.
Research published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology also questions the very notion of aesthetically pleasing genitals.
Operations to improve the appearance of the sex organs for both psychological and physical reasons are on the rise.
But surgeons said the report overplayed the risks of an established procedure.
Researchers from University College London reviewed all the existing studies on cosmetic labial surgery – which generally involves reducing the amount of tissue that protrudes from the lips which cover the vagina. They found there had been little work to document any longer-term side effects.
Labioplasty, as it is known, costs about £3,000 privately and is offered for a variety of reasons: some women complain that wearing tight clothes or riding a bike is uncomfortable, while others say they are embarrassed in front of a sexual partner.
Bad Cop Goes To ROIR
from Reachout International Records
ROIR signs Bad Cop!
We’ve just signed a new kickass rock ‘n’ roll band from Nashville… say hello to Bad Cop!
| These four fiery psychedelic punks will show you how hard and dirty the South rocks. They will penetrate your eardrums with a tight guttural wall of sound, seduce with you with their brutally honest tales of love, self-destruction, sex and despair, and accost you with a sense of carnal danger; onstage, frontman Adam Moult mixes the intensity of Darby Crash with the primitive sexuality of Jim Morrison.
Bad Cop may be young’ns, but they’re experienced; they’ve played in bands since they were 12 and spent a lifetime listening to bands like Joy Division, The Doors and MC5. In the little over a year the bandhas been together, they’ve already played with larger acts like Jemina Pearl (ex-Be Your Own Pet), The Slitsand JEFF The Brotherhood, have already traveled the East Coast twice over and have been nominated The Deli Magazine’s Band of the Month. |
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Status Dissociatus
Are you asleep? Exploring the mind’s twilight zone
EARLIER this year, a puzzling report appeared in the journal Sleep Medicine. It described two Italian people who never truly slept. They might lie down and close their eyes, but read-outs of brain activity showed none of the normal patterns associated with sleep. Their behaviour was pretty odd, too. Though largely unaware of their surroundings during these rest periods, they would walk around, yell, tremble violently and their hearts would race. The remainder of the time they were conscious and aware but prone to powerful, dream-like hallucinations.
Both had been diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disorder called multiple system atrophy. According to the report’s authors, Roberto Vetrugno and colleagues from the University of Bologna, Italy, the disease had damaged the pair’s brains to such an extent that they had entered status dissociatus, a kind of twilight zone in which the boundaries between sleep and wakefulness completely break down (Sleep Medicine, vol 10, p 247).
That this can happen contradicts the way we usually think about sleep, but it came as no surprise to Mark Mahowald, medical director of the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center in Minneapolis, who has long contested the dogma that sleep and wakefulness are discrete and distinct states. “There is now overwhelming evidence that the primary states of being are not mutually exclusive,” he says.
“An ordinary person spends his life avoiding tense situations. A repo man spends his life getting into tense situations.”
Repo man pistol whipped in Mesa
Mesa police make an arrest after a repo man is pistol whipped Friday.
The car repossession man was conked on the head with the butt of the pistol. The force caused the weapon to discharge in a shopping center parking lot.
Mesa police spokesman Sgt. Ed Wessing said the repossession man was taking a car in the parking lot of a restaurant when the owner approached him.
Wessing said they had words and the car owner pulled out a handgun and hit the other man on the head with the gun butt.
Afterwards the car owner got into his car and drove off.
bow wow wow, yippie yo, yippie yea, bow wow, yippie yo, yippie yea®
‘Atomic Dog’ singer wins claim to phrase
By Clay Carey
THE TENNESSEAN
The phrase “bow wow wow, yippie yo, yippie yea” belongs exclusively to funk legend George Clinton, a panel of federal judges ruled this week.
Bridgeport Music, the company that administers Clinton’s work, sued Universal Music Group for copyright infringement over those words in 2001. At issue: the 1998 release of “D.O.G. in Me,” a song by hip-hop and R&B group Public Announcement, one of Universal’s artists. In the song, Bridgeport claimed, Public Announcement wrongfully used the words “bow wow wow, yippie yo, yippie yea,” as well as a repetitive use of the word “dog” in ways that infringe on Clinton’s copyright.
Clinton and two other songwriters first penned the phrase in 1982 while writing “Atomic Dog,” one of Clinton’s best-known works.
You Should See Her Play Field Hockey
Elizabeth Lambert – Soccer Assassiness
Greatest Stroller Ever Recalled For Amputating Children’s Fingers
One Million Maclaren Strollers Recalled — What’s up?
November 09, 2009 12:02 PM
Name of product: Maclaren Strollers
Units: About one million
Distributor: Maclaren USA, Inc., of South Norwalk, Conn.
Hazard: The stroller’s hinge mechanism poses a fingertip amputation and laceration hazard to the child when the consumer is unfolding/opening the stroller.
Incidents/Injuries: The firm has received 15 reports of children placing their finger in the stroller’s hinge mechanism, resulting in 12 reports of fingertip amputations in the United States.
Description: This recall involves all Maclaren single and double umbrella strollers. The word “Maclaren” is printed on the stroller. The affected models included Volo, Triumph, Quest Sport, Quest Mod, Techno XT, TechnoXLR, Twin Triumph, Twin Techno and Easy Traveller.
Sick-ass Amazing With A Blanket On Top – Jeff Beck and Imogen Heap
Kindle & The Great Age of Infrastructure
from John Gerzema’s THE BRAND BUBBLE
The Great Age of Infrastructure
by JOHN GERZEMA on AUGUST 19, 2009
I had an interesting discussion with James Frey, author of ‘A Million Little Pieces’ and ‘Bright Shiny Morning’ the other day. He was showing me all the books he was reading on his Kindle. I think if Jeff Bezos would have been at this barbeque, he would have signed up James to do his ads. But the interesting point James raised was that the value isn’t the device, but the pipe. Kindle isn’t really beautiful, or incredibly versatile. But because Amazon has built the means to virtually access books, magazines and other literature anytime, anywhere, our reading behavior is being transformed.
Like iPod’s value is in iTunes, and iPhone in its applications, infrastructure is once again, king. Just as Tom Friedman pointed out that cheap fiber optics after the 2000 recession enabled global commerce, the investments of the early part of this decade by Amazon, Apple, Cisco and others are now bearing fruit as this recession begins to abate. And this is creating value for a whole host of new partners. Consider my conversations last week with Andrew Rashbass, CEO of the Economist, they have found a burgeoning Kindle audience, which supplements their existing print readership.
Mano’s Low Pass
When White Folk Skank
Heroes Freakin’ Rule
La Danse
La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet (2009)
Photograph from Zipporah Films
A scene from “La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet,” a documentary filmed at the Palais Garnier.
Creating Dialogue From Body Language
By A. O. SCOTT
In “La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet,” his 36th documentary in more than 40 years, Frederick Wiseman takes his camera into the stately and elegant Palais Garnier in Paris, observing rehearsals, staff meetings and, finally, performances of seven dances, including classics like “The Nutcracker” and spiky new work by younger choreographers. To say that the film, sumptuous in its length and graceful in its rhythm, is a feast for ballet lovers is to state the obvious and also to sell Mr. Wiseman’s achievement a bit short. Yes, this is one of the finest dance films ever made, but there’s more to it than that.
Stealing from American Indians
from Art Market Monitor nee The Wall Street Journal
Stealing from American Indians
by Marion Maneker
In art, they say that talent borrows and genius steals. Either way, American Indian artisans are getting pushed out of their own market, according to the Wall Street Journal. The numbers of imported knockoffs of American Indian designs are simply staggering and heartbreaking, since much of the imported work is intentionally passed off as the real thing:
The authentic Indian-made earrings are on the right.
The Indian Arts and Crafts Association, a trade group, estimates that nationally, as much as 75% of the roughly $1 billion of jewelry, pottery, rugs and other merchandise sold every year as authentic is not.
In the jewelry business, as many as 90% of pieces held out as examples of Native American craftsmanship are fake, according to the New Mexico attorney general’s consumer-protection division, which is trying to police the trade along with federal authorities.
But it is extremely hard to tell the genuine goods from the faux artifacts, artists and experts say.
Why Music Videos Can Still Be Fun To Watch
Homem de Aranha
Brazil crime wars: Spiderman’s story of drugs and Jesus in Rio’s slums
How evangelical preachers are trying to stem the tide of killings in the Olympic city
by Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro
“If you add them all up I control 15 communities,” boasted Spiderman as his shiny 4×4 hurtled through the narrow backstreets of western Rio de Janeiro. Behind the wheel was Juarez Mendes da Silva, 28, one of the Brazilian capital’s most wanted drug lords, better known by the nickname Spiderman. The words “Jesus” and “Christ” were tattooed on to his forearms in black. In the boot his pet dog, Bloodsucker, shared space with an M-16 assault rifle.
With the dashboard’s electronic clock marking 2am, the car careered through the Complexo da Coréia, one of the city’s largest and most notorious slums, home to around 60,000 Brazilians and the HQ of one of the city’s three main drug factions, the Pure Third Command.
What would happen if we ran into the police? “They would open fire,” Spiderman replied bluntly, his mouth half full with fluorescent pink candy. Welcome to the inner-sanctums of a murky underworld of murder, violence and solitude that is rarely seen by outsiders. Spiderman was conducting a guided tour of the sprawling slum where he was born, and where he was now in charge of the area’s lucrative drug trade and the leader of 200-strong private militia of heavily-armed young men.
“The lives we lead – we know they aren’t right,” he stuttered, pulling up outside a local sweet shop so he could stock-up on candy.
Bikies crow, “It’s going to be a better option for us if he’s in jail.”
from the Sydney Morning Herald
Bikies have Coles in their sights
EAMONN DUFF AND STEVE BARRETT, November 1, 2009
AN OUTLAW motorcycle gang has threatened jail-yard violence against the alleged mastermind of Australia’s largest art fraud – if he is ever sent to prison.
The gang said 10 of its members were allegedly ripped off for a total of $1 million by former Sydney art dealer Ron Coles.
Fraud detectives have been investigating Mr Coles after receiving more than 150 complaints from art collectors and investors from whom he allegedly disappeared with more than $30 million in paintings and cash.
After Mr Coles’s hiding spot – on the Central Coast where he drives taxis to make ends meet – was revealed, a senior member of one of the state’s largest outlaw clubs threatened his safety.
The club member said it was waiting for police to charge Mr Coles before it took action.
”It’s going to be a better option for us if he’s in jail,” the member said. ”It doesn’t matter where he gets sent, we can get to him once that happens. It’ll be easier to work with him inside there.”
“It’s an exciting time in the art world – no one really owns the 21st Century.”
Pirate Cat Gone. The FCC is comprised of a bunch of assholes.
Where Were You When They Shut Down Pirate Cat Radio?
Chances are, when you’ve tired of your 19th straight listen to Black Eyed Pea’s latest jam, or can no longer stand the banal, pre-fabricated opinions that litter the FM airwaves, you have stumbled across a true San Francisco gem — 87.9 fm, Pirate Cat Radio. Chances are if you have tried to find it again this last month, you’ve heard only static.
That is because the FCC recently put an end to Pirate Cat’s 13-year reign of terrestrial broadcasting, and fined PCR founder Monkey $10,000. The FCC sites a breach in section 301 of the US Communications Act of 1934, which forbids any person from transmitting signals by radio from within the United States without a license.
Pirate Cat has always been aware of this breach, but argue that they are legally allowed to do so. They cite the US Code Federal Regulations Title 47 Section 73.3542, which authorizes broadcasting without a license in times of national emergency, or continued involvement in a war.
The FCC’s order has volunteers and listeners livid. In a statement posted on Pirate Cat’s website, Monkey argues that since the FCC was first established to provide fair, efficient, and equitable distribution of radio service to serve the public interest, shutting down a radio station which does just that is preposterous and hypocritical.
The statement continues:
[ click to continue reading PCR statement at SFAppeal.com ]
[ click to visit Pirate Cat Radio – no federal a-holes allowed ]
The Wave
Black and WTF
Pinball Lives
Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection
BY STU HORVATH
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Friday, October 9th 2009, 1:43 PM
The glory days of the arcades may be over, but pinball lives on in “Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection.”
It is hard to believe that in the era of first person frag-fests that a collection of classic pinball games can be so compelling, but developer FarSight Studios delivers something special with this anthology. With a combination of smooth controls, a loving attention to detail and a healthy dose of nostalgia, the budget title more than justifies its $40 price.
Pinball enthusiasts will drool over the extremely realistic rendering of such classic machines as Black Knight and Medieval Madness. There’s a good chance that the playfield and backglass art never looked this good in real life.
Porecore Twitchtronica
The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T
The view: The 5,000 Fingers of Dr T and other great lost children’s films
Why put up with tat the likes of Daddy Day Care or Beverly Hills Chihuahua when there’s a treasure trove of genuinely brilliant kids’ films out there?
Beware the child catchers … The 5,000 Fingers of Dr T. Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive
Let’s not be ungrateful here – for film-lovers with kids, these are heady times indeed. I’m not sure even the fond reception Fantastic Mr Fox received quite did justice to its handmade pleasures (the wolf salute alone makes me want to hug Wes Anderson and not let go). And then, of course, there’s Up, the movie that’s repeated WALL-E‘s trick of emerging as possibly the year’s finest film while being made (at least ostensibly) for an audience still doing its shoes up with Velcro. Whichever way you look at it, in the context of the careless tat parents usually have to dodge or suffer through, the autumn of 2009 has been a vintage season.
But the snag is that at some point in the future, these two gleaming moments will recede, and life for the young cinephile will return to normal. And normal is a bleak business for children’s movies in Britain, a wearying parade of the slapdash and tossed-off. Which is why it’s doubly frustrating when some of the most genuinely brilliant kids’ films ever made aren’t even available, much less as accessible and celebrated as they should be. It’s a sorry situation that brings me muttering darkly to the subject of The 5,000 Fingers of Dr T.