Posts by JackElder
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Lord of the Rings had the classic "One does not simply walk into Mordor.", ditto "You shall not pass."
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I'm pretty sure I've seen 'Climate Scientist' used as an insult.
Sorry, I know what "merchant banker" and "Berkshire hunt" are rhyming slang for, but I'm struggling to think of what "climate scientist" rhymes with.
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Also, what's with this whole "all gingers are Pakeha" thing? I've met several kazakhs with natural red hair, and they certainly didn't look "pakeha" as it's usually meant.
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The thing about the Haden comments was that he kept insisting that it was the sort of term he'd call his PI friends, and they'd call him honkey, and everyone would have a laugh. And I couldn't stop thinking, "Well, yeah, in the pub, sure... but on TV?" I mean, does the man think that anything he'd do in one context is kosher in all other contexts? How do we know he wouldn't suddenly break out into a rendition of The Ballad of Eskimo Nell in the middle of a press conference?
And the whole ginga thing; how recent is this? I'm strawberry blond, with a red beard, and can't recall hearing anyone being baited for being a red-head when I was at school. Then I went to the UK at the end of the 90s and it was quite common there - people would call out "hey ginger-pubes!" to try to start fights, that sort of thing. Then after we came back in 2005, it seemed to have taken root over here. Not as badly as the UK - where I could reliably expect someone to call it out every few weeks - but you do get it.
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So I nominate Stephen Judd for best of the web.
I thought we weren't supposed to be suggesting the blindingly obvious?
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If you are looking for another thoughtful movie which explores the dislocation and uncertainty of identity in a scifi settimng, I highly recommend the 2009 movie Moon (directed by Duncan Jones, David Bowie's son).
I was quite underwhelmed by Moon, actually. Virtually everyone I know raved about it, but I thought it wasn't really saying anything that Philip K Dick hasn't said a few times before. It was nicely done, but I saw the twist coming a mile away (though I may have drunk too deep at the well of dislocation/identity confusion fiction in my youth). Great soundtrack, though, courtesy of Clint Mansell (ex frontman of the Pop Will Eat Itself).
If people are on a sci-fi/fantasy tip, I've just re-read (and thoroughly recommend) Joe Abercrombie's fantasy trilogy (starting with The Blade Itself). Wonderful fun: takes a lot of typical fantasy tropes and then plays around with them. Snappy, evil, and fun.
Someone recommended Balkan Beat Box - indeed, I'm a big fan of their stuff (Eugene Hutz does some stuff with them too). It's interesting seeing the revival of the Eastern European sound, with bands like Gogol Bordello, Golem, Devotchka, and so on. Even locally there's a bit of a revival - I believe that the Benka Borodovsky Bordello Band are now back in Auckland, and here in Wellington we've got the Klezmer Rebs, Niko Ne Zna, the Raskolniks, and Oy Azoy.
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This week, I'm very interested in Sleigh Bells - initial track off their album available here, full album frustratingly only available via US iTunes. They're M.I.A.'s latest proteges, released on her N.E.E.T. label. Also rather looking forward to M.I.A. herself's latest album - still a wee while away by all accounts.
Otherwise, rather liking the new album from New Young Pony Club, Gogol Bordello's live/BBC sesh album "Live from Axis Mundi" is of course a thing of intense beauty, and the King Midas Sound is very nice indeed.
Reading: currently working through Banks' "The Steep Approach to Garbadale", which is good so far. But the jacket copy saying "as good as anything he's ever written" does rather sound like it's damning with faint praise... Didn't like Dead Air, though Transition was great fun.
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Can I just say, as an ex-Philosophy student myself, I'm astonished - nay, astounded - that anyone would try and use philosophy as a pick-up technique. Actual philosophy is remarkably unsexy. Plus. virtually every male philosophy lecturer I've ever met has a beard you could lose medium-sized mammals in.
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I should say right now that my own dress sense lurches wildly between "I can't remember whether I'm wearing shoes" and "Techno squire of the manor".
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Pyjamas. If you're really really up for it add slippers. Pantingly desperate, a dressing gown.
So you're saying that the uber-stud is Arthur Dent?
Jack, where are you? Did I, or did I not, fulfill my responsibility of being slightly sober when you arrived??
"Slightly", yes. Adverbs cover a multitude of sins.