day2

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-40119562007-07-12T15:04:55.650+01:00day2 DRAWING and COMICSMikeBlogger448125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4011956.post-31465540559630004902007-07-12T14:26:00.000+01:002007-07-12T15:04:55.679+01:00DISAPPEARANCE ALERT! I'm packing my bags: I will h...DISAPPEARANCE ALERT! I'm packing my bags: I will happily send new comics pages to anyone who asks (e-mail pwis@lycos.co.uk) ...Thanks for all the supportiveness and amusing/sardonic comments from everybody, especially all at Cinestatic, and especio-specially Mr. Forrest (you can pull the plug whenever you like, Mike!) Bye, PetePetetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4011956.post-85744025782530222222007-06-26T18:22:00.000+01:002007-06-26T18:26:27.574+01:00Okay, this is really ffuukkdd... but I love to bas...Okay, this is really ffuukkdd... but I love to bash my head against a wall... No, I don't know how long it'll take me to put this page right!!!Petetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4011956.post-7014701216838247162007-05-31T13:04:00.000+01:002007-05-31T13:05:54.009+01:00Petetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4011956.post-27960956679670604502007-05-24T11:22:00.000+01:002007-05-24T11:23:47.629+01:00PHEW! PHEW! Petetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4011956.post-44591090896134820502007-05-14T14:26:00.000+01:002007-05-14T14:27:20.635+01:00Petetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4011956.post-91180576061833149142007-05-08T14:31:00.000+01:002007-05-08T14:34:13.887+01:00Right, back on it, two years to go... Right, back on it, two years to go... Petetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4011956.post-72030936189269624792007-04-30T14:21:00.000+01:002007-04-30T14:25:45.349+01:00Here are all 5 pages of SILAS PLANKTON... Here are all 5 pages of SILAS PLANKTON... Petetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4011956.post-1174815774581879562007-03-25T11:37:00.000+01:002007-03-25T11:42:54.596+01:00music music Petetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4011956.post-1173692356210947042007-03-12T10:37:00.000Z2007-03-12T10:39:16.226ZOkay, here are all three pages of 'our pigeon'... ...Okay, here are all three pages of 'our pigeon'... Petetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4011956.post-1173101518891726142007-03-05T13:25:00.000Z2007-03-05T13:31:58.906ZPage 3 of 'our pigeon' is on the way, but Friday w...Page 3 of 'our pigeon' is on the way, but Friday was a day for being outside so this is from my most portable sketchbook: Petetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4011956.post-1171286263333643742007-02-12T13:16:00.000Z2007-02-12T13:17:43.356ZPetetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4011956.post-1170685778978194412007-02-05T14:27:00.000Z2007-02-05T14:29:38.996ZPetetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4011956.post-1170249364219286402007-01-31T13:12:00.000Z2007-01-31T13:16:04.236Z ...and... ...and... Petetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4011956.post-1169471672904686282007-01-22T13:09:00.000Z2007-01-22T13:14:32.920ZPetetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4011956.post-1168866935831171202007-01-15T13:12:00.000Z2007-01-15T13:15:35.850ZPetetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4011956.post-1168260912320235582007-01-08T12:53:00.000Z2007-01-08T12:55:12.340Z [I shouldn't BE here!] [I shouldn't BE here!]Petetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4011956.post-1167743381777617962007-01-02T13:07:00.000Z2007-01-02T13:09:41.796ZPetetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4011956.post-1167304145243867042006-12-28T11:07:00.000Z2006-12-28T11:09:05.260ZPetetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4011956.post-1166447143703947002006-12-18T13:01:00.000Z2006-12-18T13:05:43.720Z ...and that's very most probably likely it until ... ...and that's very most probably likely it until next year...Petetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4011956.post-1165843058537414622006-12-11T13:16:00.000Z2006-12-11T13:17:38.556ZPetetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4011956.post-1165242868696014572006-12-04T14:33:00.000Z2006-12-04T14:34:28.723ZPetetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4011956.post-1164719153724263092006-11-28T13:02:00.000Z2006-11-28T13:05:53.886ZPetetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4011956.post-1164042672609751682006-11-20T17:09:00.000Z2006-11-20T17:11:12.670ZPetetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4011956.post-1163514634017341522006-11-14T14:27:00.000Z2006-11-14T14:30:34.036ZPetetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4011956.post-1162231571433842182006-10-30T18:04:00.000Z2006-10-30T18:06:11.450ZPete

infinite thought

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66869952009-07-03T08:49:17.786Zinfinite thØughta peasant from the futureithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10565403340913552852noreply@blogger.comBlogger1241125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6686995.post-42585803837552284282009-07-03T08:13:00.003Z2009-07-03T08:49:17.906Zon the streets of tehran[The following is a first-hand report from my friend Baraneh, based in Tehran]<br /><br />When I got back to Iran three weeks ago, we spent the first week demonstrating everyday in support of Mousavi. But these pre-election demonstrations were rather peaceful and festival-like. A prefect example of the return of the repressed, particularly the return of male homosexuality, or male femininity, which was displayed in some men’s behavior (a symptom from which Iranian men seem to suffer more than Western men, I guess due to their more intense exposure to patriarchy and chauvinism). So the ambience of these demonstrations were more liberal, goal-oriented, and even commercialized (for instance, we were showered with, and later participated in the distribution of, Mousavi’s pictures and posters, bandanas, wristbands, armbands, and even visors, which came to save me from an unwanted convergence with my own shadow under Tehran’s midday summer sun). <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.cinestatic.com/infinitethought/uploaded_images/mousavipost-798241.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="http://www.cinestatic.com/infinitethought/uploaded_images/mousavipost-798222.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />The air reeked of hot debates, as Karroubi’s proponents, who were in minority, tried to persuade Mousavi’s supporters and vice versa. As we walked in a crowd of around a million people on Khordad 19 (June 9), not an iota of doubt was left in our minds—knowing that the majority of people in the big cities were also Mousavi’s supporters—that Mousavi was going to be elected, unless the present regime would resort to a coup. The coup seemed so improbable, we thought, whilst we sanguinely marched on the streets. That was our intuition or conviction, which proved to be wrong. It proved to be wrong, not because we were soppy optimists, nor because we were too eager to harp on the realization of certain claims of the leftist political theory. Our conviction proved to be wrong, because the self-determination of people we walked with was tremendously contagious, encumbering us with its diversity, its righteousness, and its force. Any attempts by the regime to disregard this collective self-determination seemed to us tantamount to digging its own grave. From the top of a bridge in the Enghelab Street, we looked down only to be confronted with the street on both sides carpeted with people, as far as eyes could see.<br /> <br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.cinestatic.com/infinitethought/uploaded_images/engelhab-710865.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 256px;" src="http://www.cinestatic.com/infinitethought/uploaded_images/engelhab-710852.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />After the election, the rallies still went on for a week despite the threats from the government, the crowd growing even larger, the spirits more combative. We took part in another rally from Enghelab Street to Azadi Street on Monday Khordad 25 (June 15), similar to the one on Khordad 19. The crowd had more than doubled in size, but this time the demonstration exhibited an unprecedented sense of restraint, as if the crowd was so certain of its unity that it felt no desire to shout it. People no longer debated over their own interests or preferences, and all differences in opinion, all doxa, and entrepreneurial dispositions were left behind. It was breath-taking to see how the crowd organized itself impulsively. People who first joined the multitude tended to shout their slogans as they had in the previous days, but they were instantly hushed by the rest, and mute they became. It was somehow uncanny to see how a large population, consisting of over 2 million people could manage to remain dead silent. <br /><br />Now the protest had transformed into a means in pursuit of no telos. All they wanted was to show that they are the uncounted; they are the voters the regime has dismissed with a mere sleight of hand, and that they are prepared to summon a real state of exception, as opposed to the virtual one the regime has brought about. At the end, we heard a few gun shots and, as you know, the graceful body of our silent resistance was smeared with splashes of blood ... After the Leader’s speech, it took great courage to join the protesters. On Saturday Khordad 30 (June 20), no matter how hard we tried, we were not able to get to the street in which the main crowd had gathered; our relatively large group was scattered by the Revolutionary guards and the most degenerate by-products of the Revolution, the Basiji men. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.cinestatic.com/infinitethought/uploaded_images/mousaviattack-722545.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 307px;" src="http://www.cinestatic.com/infinitethought/uploaded_images/mousaviattack-722522.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />We could not convince ourselves to go back home and started a dangerous game of hide-and-seek with them, throughout which some of the ordinary policemen, who were at heart with the people, cooperated with us. We would pretend to be just walking on the street, until the crowd would grow dense; the pressure would build up in this way, reaching the boiling point, and at last erupting in scattered slogans. Then someone would shout at the top of his/her lung: “They are coming!” And we would run for our lives, now and then tripping over shoes or pieces of clothing that people had dropped while escaping. There were people of all ages and types among us, who, oddly enough, acted as though they’d got absolutely nothing to lose. I realize the same definition is true about us, but until that day I had not been aware of this! <br /><br />The street in which we were protesting—as many other streets—was in absolute chaos. People had set fire on garbage cans to neutralize the tear-gas. An old lady and a student were thrashed to death before our eyes, thrown into cars, and taken away. When some of us tried to intervene and rescue them, we were tear-gassed and bullied. As we were running past the University of Tehran, which was besieged by the guards, we saw the most astounding emancipatory scene, hundreds of students shouting from behind the university fences: “Do not be afraid! Rise to the dictator! We are everything!” The last statement inevitably reminds one of Abe Sieyes’ words in the wake of the French Revolution about the self-determination of the Third Estate, that only had to will to create itself out of ‘nothing’ and become ‘everything.’ People are forced to find more creative strategies now, as the regime has mostly suppressed the riots now, but a mixture of fury and restlessness roil in our bodies...<br /><br />For the first time in my life I felt true solidarity with my country people and Iran ceased to feel like a prison to me.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6686995-4258580383755228428?l=www.cinestatic.com%2Finfinitethought%2Findex.asp'/></div>ithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10565403340913552852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6686995.post-653936666293028302009-07-02T20:41:00.002Z2009-07-02T20:51:37.934Zthe coming insurrection!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.cinestatic.com/infinitethought/uploaded_images/comingin-707187.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 257px; height: 400px;" src="http://www.cinestatic.com/infinitethought/uploaded_images/comingin-707184.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />Got <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKyi2qNskJc">this</a> via Aaron on Facebook. It's Glenn Beck on Fox News going mental about the Tarnac 9 book, available <a href="http://tarnac9.wordpress.com/texts/the-coming-insurrection/">here</a> (the Beck piece is also transcribed <a href="http://tarnac9.wordpress.com/2009/07/01/fox-news-extreme-left-calling-people-to-arms/">here</a>): <br /><br />Beck:<br /><br /><i>This book has not even been released in this country yet. It has been passed hand to hand and via the Internet, much like the pamphleteers in pre-revolution America. Thomas Paine was one of them. He issued a call to arms. I am not doing that. You are an idiot if you start shooting people — all that does is delegitimize the cause. Be like Ghandi, like Martin Luther King.<br /><br />But people on the extreme left are calling people to arms. I am not calling to ban this book, but you should read it to know what is coming and be ready when it does.</i><br /><br />Meanwhile, Tarnac 9 themselves:<br /><br /><i>When things get serious, the army occupies the terrain. Whether or not it engages in combat is less certain. That would require that the state be committed to a bloodbath, which for now is no more than a threat, a bit like the threat of using nuclear weapons for the last fifty years. Though it has been wounded for a long while, the beast of the state is still dangerous. A massive crowd would be needed to challenge the army, invading its ranks and fraternizing with the soldiers. We need a March 18th 1871. When the army is in the street, we have an insurrectionary situation. Once the army engages, the outcome is precipitated. Everyone finds herself forced to take sides, to choose between anarchy and the fear of anarchy. An insurrection triumphs as a political force. It is not impossible to defeat an army politically.</i><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6686995-65393666629302830?l=www.cinestatic.com%2Finfinitethought%2Findex.asp'/></div>ithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10565403340913552852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6686995.post-13294509473017555542009-07-02T15:53:00.003Z2009-07-02T16:08:18.625Zphilosophy's peepshow<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.cinestatic.com/infinitethought/uploaded_images/peephole-730354.GIF"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 305px; height: 250px;" src="http://www.cinestatic.com/infinitethought/uploaded_images/peephole-730293.GIF" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />From an editor who would know:<br /><br />'The problem with analytic work, I've found, is not that it deals with exclusively with small problem and pulls out the logical pincers to deal with this toothache of a world - it is that the thinking is so godawful bad even on the logical level. It is the inability to go at things from more than one peephole of an angle - and the idea that you 'win' by showing your particular peephole is better than a peephole that was drilled in 'Mind' by some other analytic - that makes these things so damn depressing. And the peephole artists all defend these cliches! If they'd only take a ride on the wild side just once - defend solipsism, or nihilism, or relativism - but it is all just the most tiresome middle class views that await one at the end of the peephole.'<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6686995-1329450947301755554?l=www.cinestatic.com%2Finfinitethought%2Findex.asp'/></div>ithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10565403340913552852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6686995.post-89780677497145509992009-07-01T12:46:00.001Z2009-07-01T12:48:40.839Zgood design<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.cinestatic.com/infinitethought/uploaded_images/tdus-799019.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 372px; height: 400px;" src="http://www.cinestatic.com/infinitethought/uploaded_images/tdus-799017.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />Having just got the translation in the post (though I do have my own very ragged version of the first thirty pages), I have to say: Great cover! A red flag swirls over a backdrop of social housing, s'really quite moving. Good work <a href="http://www.neopandemic.com/">Ed Marshall</a>!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6686995-8978067749714550999?l=www.cinestatic.com%2Finfinitethought%2Findex.asp'/></div>ithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10565403340913552852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6686995.post-31364138937302620862009-06-28T19:55:00.004Z2009-06-28T20:32:39.666Zsundays: only really good for reading atheist books<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.cinestatic.com/infinitethought/uploaded_images/poniesareboring-784862.gif"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 281px; height: 400px;" src="http://www.cinestatic.com/infinitethought/uploaded_images/poniesareboring-784533.gif" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />[Totally irrelevant but rather good picture from <a href="http://www.robobandito.com/2009/03/">robo bandito</a>]<br /><br />Well <a href="http://adswithoutproducts.com/2009/06/28/sunday-in-the-spiritual-home-of-britains-left-wing-intelligentsia/">Ads</a> might like Sundays, but I bloody hate them. The slight tremor of jouissance that the possibility of post brings is absent, for a start, and a pallor of eventlessness hangs over everywhere like a damp tablecloth that your auntie,in a fit of sexless depression, just washed and hung out to dry. By the time you remember that you're out of bog-roll, the shops have already shut, and public transport (especially out here in Ballard-country) is minimal or non-existent (please, please re-open the Jubilee line on weekends, you're forcing me to stay in bed and read Feuerbach. Admittedly I should be doing that anyway, eternally, but not in bed, it's slatternly).<br /><br />The odd optimistic bastard pretends to play football in the park, attempting to ward off the ominous day-cloud of Mondayism...but no escape! Even if you go to the pub to pretend it's not happening, the 10.30 last orders will remind you that this is a Victorian country, if you please, and that a grown man (or woman) must not spend his (or her) weekly wage on devil's piss, or else children will grow beards and furniture will start looking sexy. <br /><br />But what did I do on Sundays in the countryside? I barely remember. My homework, I expect, listened to the charts, had a bath then lay in bed with that truly miserable kind of insomnia exacerbated by the knowledge not only that you have to get up early, but that you'd only be swapping one sort of boredom for another. What a miserable git I was/am! Ha ha ha! Only made happy by writing miserable posts! Ha ha ha! Sulking as catharsis! Ah, Feuerbach, the secret of Sundays is Monday, and the truth of humanity is waiting for the post.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6686995-3136413893730262086?l=www.cinestatic.com%2Finfinitethought%2Findex.asp'/></div>ithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10565403340913552852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6686995.post-31922909250959886942009-06-28T19:36:00.002Z2009-06-28T19:39:33.317Za fellow pigophile: adam curtis<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.cinestatic.com/infinitethought/uploaded_images/pigpin-754398.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 308px;" src="http://www.cinestatic.com/infinitethought/uploaded_images/pigpin-754396.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><i>It’s a miracle he’s allowed out, never mind that he dwells happily amid the ponderous, right-on bureaucracies and the archival bowels of the BBC. His entire career consists of telling people that everything they know and think is wrong, that reality is beyond their reach, that everything they touch dissolves on contact.<br /><br />“So what,” I ask him, pointing at a curious pink pig, about three inches long, on his lapel, “is that?”<br /><br />“It’s a pig. Sometimes a pig is just a pig.”</i> (from <a href="http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/article6578434.ece?token=null&offset=0&page=1">here</a> - thanks Bat).<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6686995-3192290925095988694?l=www.cinestatic.com%2Finfinitethought%2Findex.asp'/></div>ithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10565403340913552852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6686995.post-46511734360062588982009-06-28T07:28:00.001Z2009-06-28T07:31:37.654Zno redemption is possible at this timePerhaps my favourite place in the entire world, other than the soft embrace of pleasant-dream-smothered sleep, is the Chinese restaurant near the Ballardian flat I pay far too much rent for (I realised the other day that despite having worked full-time for three years I currently own £300 pounds, total, hmm, oops). The restaurant sits at the bottom of a chain hotel, and the staff resolutely pretend not to notice you've been in there about 500 times before, which I love. About two years ago I signed up for a loyalty card, and have dutifully collected points every time we go there - which, let's face it, is several times a week. Over the months I amassed about £1900 worth of points, which is certainly a lot of lemon chicken. They have a little card-reading machine by the entrance which tells you how many points you have, then afterwards, persistently, the message 'no redemption is possible at this time'. I adore this message. 'Before the Law! Before the Law!' I think, without fail, each time.<br /><br /><i>Before the law sits a gatekeeper. To this gatekeeper comes a man from the country who asks to gain entry into the law. But the gatekeeper says that he cannot grant him entry at the moment. The man thinks about it and then asks if he will be allowed to come in sometime later on. “It is possible,” says the gatekeeper, “but not now.”</i> <br /><br />But alas, the loyalty-card scheme has come to an end, and I got my 'redemption' - £10 off the final meal. Sometimes it's better to remain unredeemed and possibly even irremediable, else you sit there in front of the law, getting all strange about it.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6686995-4651173436006258898?l=www.cinestatic.com%2Finfinitethought%2Findex.asp'/></div>ithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10565403340913552852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6686995.post-53485277759554886222009-06-24T14:06:00.005Z2009-06-24T14:29:39.247Zwill the cat above the precipice fall down?[This piece, not published anywhere else as far as I know, apart from <a href="http://supportiran.blogspot.com/">here</a>, was forwarded to me by Ali Alizadeh. It's Zizek, very recently, on Iran]<br /><br />Slavoj Zizek<br /><br />When an authoritarian regime approaches its final crisis, its dissolution as a rule follows two steps. Before its actual collapse, a mysterious rupture takes place: all of a sudden people know that the game is over, they are simply no longer afraid. It is not only that the regime loses its legitimacy, its exercise of power itself is perceived as an impotent panic reaction. We all know the classic scene from cartoons: the cat reaches a precipice, but it goes on walking, ignoring the fact that there is no ground under its feet; it starts to fall only when it looks down and notices the abyss. When it loses its authority, the regime is like a cat above the precipice: in order to fall, it only has to be reminded to look down…<br /><br />In <span style="font-style:italic;">Shah of Shahs</span>, a classic account of the Khomeini revolution, Ryszard Kapuscinski located the precise moment of this rupture: at a Tehran crossroad, a single demonstrator refused to budge when a policeman shouted at him to move, and the embarrassed policeman simply withdrew; in a couple of hours, all Tehran knew about this incident, and although there were street fights going on for weeks, everyone somehow knew the game is over. Is something similar going on now? <br /><br />There are many versions of the events in Tehran. Some see in the protests the culmination of the pro-Western “reform movement” along the lines of the “orange” revolutions in Ukraine, Georgia, etc. – a secular reaction to the Khomeini revolution. They support the protests as the first step towards a new liberal-democratic secular Iran freed of Muslim fundamentalism. They are counteracted by skeptics who think that Ahmadinejad really won: he is the voice of the majority, while the support of Mousavi comes from the middle classes and their gilded youth. In short: let’s drop the illusions and face the fact that, in Ahmadinejad, Iran has a president it deserves. Then there are those who dismiss Mousavi as a member of the cleric establishment with merely cosmetic differences from Ahmadinejad: Mousavi also wants to continue the atomic energy program, he is against recognizing Israel, plus he enjoyed the full support of Khomeini as a prime minister in the years of the war with Iraq.<br /><br />Finally, the saddest of them all are the Leftist supporters of Ahmadinejad: what is really at stake for them is Iranian independence. Ahmadinejad won because he stood up for the country’s independence, exposed elite corruption and used oil wealth to boost the incomes of the poor majority – this is, so we are told, the true Ahmadinejad beneath the Western-media image of a holocaust-denying fanatic. According to this view, what is effectively going on now in Iran is a repetition of the 1953 overthrow of Mossadegh – a West-financed coup against the legitimate president. This view not only ignores facts: the high electoral participation – up from the usual 55% to 85% - can only be explained as a protest vote. It also displays its blindness for a genuine demonstration of popular will, patronizingly assuming that, for the backward Iranians, Ahmadinejad is good enough - they are not yet sufficiently mature to be ruled by a secular Left.<br /><br />Opposed as they are, all these versions read the Iranian protests along the axis of Islamic hardliners versus pro-Western liberal reformists, which is why they find it so difficult to locate Mousavi: is he a Western-backed reformer who wants more personal freedom and market economy, or a member of the cleric establishment whose eventual victory would not affect in any serious way the nature of the regime? Such extreme oscillations demonstrate that they all miss the true nature of the protests. <br /><br />The green color adopted by the Mousavi supporters, the cries of “Allah akbar!” that resonate from the roofs of Tehran in the evening darkness, clearly indicate that they see their activity as the repetition of the 1979 Khomeini revolution, as the return to its roots, the undoing of the revolution’s later corruption. This return to the roots is not only programmatic; it concerns even more the mode of activity of the crowds: the emphatic unity of the people, their all-encompassing solidarity, creative self-organization, improvising of the ways to articulate protest, the unique mixture of spontaneity and discipline, like the ominous march of thousands in complete silence. We are dealing with a genuine popular uprising of the deceived partisans of the Khomeini revolution.<br /><br />There are a couple of crucial consequences to be drawn from this insight. First, Ahmadinejad is not the hero of the Islamist poor, but a genuine corrupted Islamo-Fascist populist, a kind of Iranian Berlusconi whose mixture of clownish posturing and ruthless power politics is causing unease even among the majority of ayatollahs. His demagogic distributing of crumbs to the poor should not deceive us: behind him are not only organs of police repression and a very Westernized PR apparatus, but also a strong new rich class, the result of the regime’s corruption (Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is not a working class militia, but a mega-corporation, the strongest center of wealth in the country).<br /><br />Second, one should draw a clear difference between the two main candidates opposed to Ahmadinejad, Mehdi Karroubi and Mousavi. Karroubi effectively is a reformist, basically proposing the Iranian version of identity politics, promising favors to all particular groups. Mousavi is something entirely different: his name stands for the genuine resuscitation of the popular dream which sustained the Khomeini revolution. Even if this dream was a utopia, one should recognize in it the genuine utopia of the revolution itself. What this means is that the 1979 Khomeini revolution cannot be reduced to a hard line Islamist takeover – it was much more. Now is the time to remember the incredible effervescence of the first year after the revolution, with the breath-taking explosion of political and social creativity, organizational experiments and debates among students and ordinary people. The very fact that this explosion had to be stifled demonstrates that the Khomeini revolution was an authentic political event, a momentary opening that unleashed unheard-of forces of social transformation, a moment in which “everything seemed possible.” What followed was a gradual closing through the take-over of political control by the Islam establishment. To put it in Freudian terms, today’s protest movement is the “return of the repressed” of the Khomeini revolution.<br /><br />And, last but not least, what this means is that there is a genuine liberating potential in Islam – to find a “good” Islam, one doesn’t have to go back to the 10th century, we have it right here, in front of our eyes.<br /><br />The future is uncertain – in all probability, those in power will contain the popular explosion, and the cat will not fall into the precipice, but regain ground. However, it will no longer be the same regime, but just one corrupted authoritarian rule among others. Whatever the outcome, it is vitally important to keep in mind that we are witnessing a great emancipatory event which doesn’t fit the frame of the struggle between pro-Western liberals and anti-Western fundamentalists. If our cynical pragmatism will make us lose the capacity to recognize this emancipatory dimension, then we in the West are effectively entering a post-democratic era, getting ready for our own Ahmadinejads. Italians already know his name: Berlusconi. Others are waiting in line.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6686995-5348527775955488622?l=www.cinestatic.com%2Finfinitethought%2Findex.asp'/></div>ithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10565403340913552852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6686995.post-82864923698231655582009-06-23T23:10:00.004Z2009-06-26T10:35:08.152Zopen letter of support to the demonstrators in iranOpen letter of support to the demonstrators in Iran<br />Friday 19 June 2009<br /><br /><br />This morning Ayatollah Ali Khamenei demanded an end to the massive and forceful demonstrations protesting the controversial result of last week's election. He argued that to make concessions to popular demands and 'illegal' pressure would amount to a form of 'dictatorship', and he warned the protestors that they, rather than the police, would be held responsible for any further violence. <br /><br />Khamenei's argument sounds familiar to anyone interested in the politics of collective action, since it appears to draw on the logic used by state authorities to oppose most of the great popular mobilisations of modern times, from 1789 in France to 1979 in Iran itself. These mobilisations took shape through a struggle to assert the principle that sovereignty rests with the people themselves, rather than with the state or its representatives. 'No government can justly claim authority', as South Africa's ANC militants put it in their Freedom Charter of 1955, 'unless it is based on the will of all the people.'<br /><br />Needless to say it is up to the people of Iran to determine their own political course. Foreign observers inspired by the courage of those demonstrating in Iran this past week are nevertheless entitled to point out that a government which claims to represent the will of its people can only do so if it respects the most basic preconditions for the determination of such a will: the freedom of the people to assemble, unhindered, as an inclusive collective force; the capacity of the people, without restrictions on debate or access to information, to deliberate, decide and implement a shared course of action.<br /><br />Years of foreign-sponsored 'democracy promotion' in various parts of the world have helped to spread a well-founded scepticism about civic movements which claim some sort of direct democratic legitimacy. But the principle itself remains as clear as ever: only the people themselves can determine the value of such claims. We the undersigned call on the government of Iran to take no action that might discourage such determination.<br /><br />AGAMBEN, Giorgio, Università IUAV di Venezia, Venice<br />ALAMDARI, Kazem, California State University, Los Angeles<br />ALLIEZ, Eric, Middlesex Universtiy, UK<br />AMSLER, Sarah S., Language and Social Sciences, Aston University, Birmingham<br />ANDERSON, Kevin B., Professor of Sociology and Political Science, University of California, Santa Barbara<br />ASAD, Talal, Graduate Center, City University of New York<br />BADIOU, Alain, École Normale Supérieure, Paris<br />BALIBAR, Etienne, Paris X, Nanterre, and University of California, Irvine<br />BALKAN, Nesecan,Hamilton College<br />BANUAZIZI, Ali, Professor of Political Science and Director, Program in Islamic Civilization and Societies, Boston College<br />BAYAT, Asef, Professor of Sociology and Middle East Studies, Leiden University<br />BEHROOZ, Maziar, Associate Professor of Middle East History, San Francisco State University<br />BENHABIB, Seyla, Eugene Meyer Professor of Political Science and Philosophy, Yale University, New Haven <br />BEYER, Vera, Kunsthistorisches Institut der Freien Universität Berlin<br />BIENIEK, Adam, Jagiellonian University, Chair of Arab Studies, Institute of Oriental Philology, Cracow, Poland<br />BOCHENSKA, Joanna, Dept. of Kurdish Studies, Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland<br />BOGDAN, Jolan, Dept. of Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths College, UK<br />BOSTEELS, Bruno Bosteels, Cornell University<br />BRAULT, Pascale-Anne, Professor of French, Dept. of Modern Languages, DePaul University<br />BRUNO, Michael, Dept. of Philosophy, Lewis and Clark College, Portland, OR<br />BRUSTAD, Kristen, Associate Chair, Dept. Of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Texas at Austin<br />BURGE, Tyler, University of California, Los Angeles<br />BURGERS, Jan-Willem, Australian National University<br />BUTLER, Judith, University of California, Berkeley<br />BUTT, Gavin, Senior Lecturer & Programme Leader in MPhil / PhD, <br />CARDIN, Maryam, IUT of the University of Marne-la-vallée<br />CHOMSKY, Noam, MIT, Cambridge MA USA<br />COHEN, Joshua, Stanford University<br />COLE, Juan R. I., Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History, University of Michigan<br />DABASHI, Hamid, Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature, Columbia University, New York<br />DE CARO, Mario, Dept. of Philosophy, University of Rome<br />DI LUCIA COLLETI, Laura, Conseillor Province of Venice<br />DOGRAMACI, Sinan, University of Texas at Austin<br />DOLEZALEK, Isabelle, Freie Universität Berlin<br />DOMINIAK, Piotr, Chairman of ASK Association in Raciborz, Poland<br />DORFMAN, Vladimiro Ariel, Duke Universtiy, Durham, North Carolina<br />DÜTTMANN, Alexander Garcia, Goldsmiths College<br />EHSANI, Kaveh, Assistant Professor of International Studies, DePaul University<br />EISENSTEIN, Zillah, Professor of Politics, Ithaca College<br />ENGELMANN, Stephen, University of Illinois at Chicago<br />EPSTEIN, Barbara, History of Consciousness Dept., University of California, Santa Cruz<br />FALK, Richard, Professor of International Law Emeritus, Princeton University<br />FARHI, Farideh, Dept. of Political Science, University of Hawai'i at Manoa<br />FARNOODY-ZAHIRI, Nelly, UCLA<br />FASY, Thomas M., Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York City<br />FATIMA KHAN, Mahruq, Assistant Professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse<br />FIELD, Hartry, Professor of Philosophy, New York University<br />FORAN, John, Professor of Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara<br />FRIEDLAND, Roger, Professor of Religiou Studies and Sociology, UCSB<br />GAJEWSKA, Katarzyna, University of Poland<br />GANDJBAKHSH, Amirhosseing, Research Director, National Health Institute, Washington DC<br />GANZ, David, Universität Konstanz, Germany<br />GARRETT, Don, Dept. of Philosophy, New York University<br />GASIOROWSKI, Mark, Political Science and International Studies, Louisiana State University<br />GLOGOWSKI, Aleksander, Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland<br />GODMILOW, Jill, University of Notre Dame<br />GOLE, Nilufer, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris<br />HÁJEK, Alan, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University<br />HALLWARD, Peter, Middlesex University, UK<br />HASHEMI, Nader, Assistant Professor of Middle East and Islamic Politics <br />HEGASY, Sonja, Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin<br />HERRERA, Linda, Institute of Social Studies (The Hague)<br />HIBBARD, Scott, DePaul University, Chicago<br />HOEFERT, Almut, University of Basel<br />HONNETH, Axel, University of Frankfurt, Germany<br />IVEKOVIC, Rada, Collège international de philosophie, Paris, Université Jean-Monnet, Saint-Etienne<br />JIMENEZ, Maria, Université Paris Sorbonne, Paris IV<br />KAPLINSKY, Raphael, Professor of International Development, The Open University, UK<br />KESHAVARZIAN, Arang, Associate Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, New York University<br />KHOSROVANI, Sahar, University of Maastricht<br />KORBEL, Josef, School of International Studies, University of Denver <br />KOWALIK, Tadeusz, professor of economics and humanities, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw<br />KOWALSKA, Beata, Jagiellonian University, Poland<br />KOZLOWSKI, Pawel, Professor of economics, Polish Academy of Sciences<br />KUMAR, Victor, University of Arizona<br />LARRIVÉE, Pierre, Aston University, Birmingham<br />LEMISCH, Jesse, Professor Emeritus, History, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York, USA<br />MARTINON, Jean-Paul, Dept. of Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths College, UK<br />MASROUR, Farid, Dept. Of Philosophy, New York University<br />MCFARLAND, Andrew, Political Science Dept., University of Illinois,<br />Chicago<br />MCINTYRE, Michael, International Studies, DePaul University, Chicago<br />MEHDIZADEH, Hamidreza, Illinois Institute of Technology<br />MEMMI, Paul, Paris Ouest Nanterre la Défense<br />MOALLEM, Minoo, UC Berkeley<br />MORUZZI, Norma Claire, University of Illinois at Chicago, Political Science, History, Gender and Women's Studies<br />MOSES, Claire G., Dept. of Women’s Studies, University of Maryland<br />MOSHTAGHI, Nazgol, University of South Florida<br />NAST, Heidi, DePaul University, Chicago<br />NATCHKEBIA, Irina, Tbilisi University<br />NEGRI, Antonio, Collège International de Philosophie<br />NESPOULOUS, Jean-Luc, Université de Toulouse, Le Mirail et Institut Universitaire de France<br />NOYAU, Colette, Dépt des Sciences du langage, CNRS, Université Paris-Ouest<br />OBDRZALEK, Suzanne, Dept of Philosophy, Claremont McKenna College<br />PATTERSON, Ian, Director of Studies in English, Queens’ College Cambridge<br />PETTIT, Philip, University Center for Human Values, Princeton University<br />PHELPS, Christopher, Dept. of History, The Ohio State University<br />PIRVELI, Marika, Szczecin University, Poland<br />POTTER, Robert, Professor Emeritus, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA<br />PRÉVOST, Sophie, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris<br />PRINZ, Jesse, Professor of Philosophy, City University of New York<br />PROUST, Joëlle, Director of Research, Institut Jean-Nicod, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Ecole Normale Supérieure<br />PSTRUSINSKA, Jadwiga, Head of Dept. of Interdisciplinary Eurasiatic Research, Institute of Oriental Philology, Jagiellonian University, Cracow <br />RAKOWIECKA, Karolina, Jagiellonian University, Cracow<br />RAKOWIECKI, Jacek, Collegium Civitas, Poland<br />RANCIÈRE, Jacques, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris (St. Denis)<br />REZAEI ,Ali, Dept. of Sociology, University of Calgary, Canada<br />RIGGLE, Nicholas Alden, Philosophy, New York University<br />ROMAN, Richard, University of Toronto<br />ROSENTHAL, David M., Professor of Philosophy, Cognitive Science Concentration Graduate Center, City University of New York<br />ROSS, Eric B., Visiting Professor of Anthropology and International Development Studies, George Washington University, Washington, D.C. <br />SAHNI, Varun, Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Ganeshkhind, Pune<br />SANBONMATSU, John, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Dept. Of Humanities and Arts, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, MA<br />SCHAEFER, Karin, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany<br />SCHELLENBERG, Susanna, Professor of Philosophy, Research School of the Social Sciences, The Australian National University, Canberra<br />SCHIBECI, Lynn, (retired) Dept. of History, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico<br />SCHIELKE, Samuli, Centre of Modern Oriental Studies, Berlin<br />SCHRECKER, Ellen, Professor of American History at Yeshiva University, New York<br />SCHWABSKY, Barry, Senior Critic in Sculpture (retired), Yale University<br />SEDGWICK, Sally, University of Illinois, Chicago<br />SHAHSAVARI, Anousha, Persian Lecturer, University of Texas at Austin<br />SHEIKHZADEGAN, Amir, University of Freiburg<br />SIEGEL, Susanna C., Professor of Philosophy, Harvard University, Cambridge<br />SIMPSON, Dick, Head of the Political Science Dept., University of Illinois, Chicago<br />SINGPURWALLA, Rachel, University of Maryland, College Park<br />SOSA, Ernest, Rutgers University Philosophy Department<br />SPERBER, Dan, Institut Jean Nicod, CRNS, Paris<br />STEINSEIFER, Martin, Universität Giessen<br />STUART, Jack, Minneapolis, MN<br />Tabb, William K., City University of New York<br />TAVAKOLI-BORAZJANI, Farifteh, Freie Universität Berlin, Institut für Iranistik<br />TAVAKOLI-TARGHI, Mohamad, Professor of History and Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, University of Toronto<br />TISSBERGER, Martina, Freie Universität Berlin, Dept. of Educational Sciences and Psychology <br />TOHIDI, Nayereh, Professor and Chair, Gender and Women’s Studies Dept., California State University, Northridge<br />TOSCANO, Alberto, Goldsmiths College, UK<br />UNGER, Peter, Professor of Philosophy, New York University<br />VAHDAT, Farzin, Vassar College, New York<br />VAN BLUEMEL, Emeritus Professor of Physics at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, in Worcester, MA<br />VAN BRUINESSEN, Martin, Chair of Comparative Study of Contemporary Muslim Societies, Dept. of Theology and Religious Studies, Utrecht University<br />VICTORRI, Bernard, Directeur de recherché CNRS, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris<br />WATZL, Sebastian, Dept. of Philosophy, Columbia University<br />WEINTRAUB, Jeff, University of Pennsylvania<br />WHITE, Stephen, Dept. of Philosophy, Tufts University<br />WINANT, Howard, Professor of Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara<br />ZIAI, Hossein, Director of Iranian Studies, UCLA Dept. of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, Los Angeles, CA<br />ŽIŽEK, Slavoj, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia and the European Graduate School<br />ZUK, Agnieszka, University of Nancy<br />ZUPANCIC, Alenka, Institute of Philosophy of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6686995-8286492369823165558?l=www.cinestatic.com%2Finfinitethought%2Findex.asp'/></div>ithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10565403340913552852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6686995.post-1972577600891134302009-06-23T22:51:00.007Z2009-06-28T12:24:42.298Zmemory filmsSomeone sent me an urgent request to think of films about memory. If anyone can add to this list, please email me at infinitethought[at]hotmail.co.uk:<br /><br />These are already on the list:<br /><br />India Song, <br />Memento, <br />Professione: reporter, <br />Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, <br />2046, <br />Ararat, <br />Calendar, <br />La Jetée.<br />Immemory, Grin without a Cat by Chris Marker<br />In Search of Lost Time - Ruiz<br />The Machinist<br />Citizen Kane<br />Godard's History of Cinema<br /><br />UPDATE: Lots of additional suggestions here! Thanks to all.<br /><br />Travis: <br />I'd add Last Year in Marienbad+Hiroshima mon amour+Nuit et Brouillard+any other Alain Resnais movie. His memory movies might be my favorite in the class. Another Chris Marker film that might be added is Remembrance of Things to Come, about documentary photographer Denise Bellon and the spectral calm of prewar, peacetime photography when viewed with our 'memory' (or 'post-memory') of what followed. Also, Vertigo??? A mon avis, these could even knock some of the hip indies like Memento and The Machinist off the list--wasn't the whole 'oh shiiiit, that's what was really happening'-ending memory movie already perfected by Hitchcock, sexy male protagonist and all?<br /><br />Ryan: City of Lost Children<br />Dark City<br />Jacob's Ladder<br /><br />Edwin: <br />A Time To Live and A Time To Die (Hou Hsiao-hsien)<br />In The Heat of The Sun (Jiang Wen)<br />Balzac and the Little Seamstress (Dai Sijie)<br />Titanic (James Cameron)<br /><br />Herbert: <br />I'm tempted to say, obnoxiously, What film isn't about memory? But this is fun. Below are a few more titles that came to mind quickly<br />Blade Runner<br />Le Chagrin et la pitié<br />Blue [Jarman]<br />The Decay of Fiction<br />Eloge de l'amour<br />Marnie<br />Mulholland Drive<br />Paris, Texas<br />Velvet Goldmine<br />Waltz with Bashir<br /><br />Jayne: <br />Another great film about memory is Hirokazu Kore-eda's 1998 film "After Life" (Wandafuru raifu).<br /><br />Andrew:<br />Last Year at Marienbad<br />Hiroshima Mon Amour<br />Muriel<br /><br />Karim:<br />Resnais, Last Year at Marienbad<br /> Syberberg, Our Hitler<br /> <br />If you want to extend to television plays, there is also Beckett's 'Eh Joe'.<br /><br />Kodwo:<br />Je t'aime Je t'aime<br />Last Year in Marienbad<br />Toute la memoire du monde<br />Solaris<br />Zorns Lemma<br />The Man who Lied<br />The Final Cut<br />Dark City<br />Old Boy<br />Vanilla Sky<br />Paycheck (you didn't say they had to be good films)<br /><br />Michael:<br />Fight Club<br />Vanilla Sky (and the original Abre los Ojos)<br />Solaris<br />The Diving Bell and the Butterfly<br />A Scanner Darkly<br />Paycheck<br />Mysterious Skin<br />Total Recall<br />Johnny Mnemonic<br />The Final Cut<br />Reign Over Me<br />Hook<br />Groundhog Day<br />50 First Dates<br />The Bourne Identity (and sequels)<br />The Butterfly Effect (and the even worse sequel)<br /><br />Mark:<br />Blow Up<br /><br />Dave:<br /><br />I'm assuming you mean personal memory vs. historical memory or cultural memory. There are lots of films that are about memory without being explicitly about memory but I'm trying to stay stricter here. Off the top of my head, since its after 2AM here:<br /><br />lots of Alain Resnais films, especially these 3:<br />LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD<br />Hiroshima Mon Amour<br />Je t'aime, je t'aime<br /><br />much of Jonas Mekas's work is explicitly about memory, and the way we keep memories. There's too much to list.<br /><br />Lynch woks this ground a lot, in his recent work especially:<br />Mulholland Drive<br />Inland Empire<br /><br />Godard's Eloge de l'amour [In Praise of Love]<br />Marker's Sans Soleil<br /><br />more amnesia films!<br />Random Harvest<br />50 First Dates<br />The Bourne films (The Bourne Identity most of all)<br /><br />Abre los ojos [Open Your Eyes] (and the American remake Vanilla Sky)<br /><br />some docs about personal memory<br />Of Time and the City<br />Porto da Minha Infancia [Porto of My Childhood]<br /><br />John:<br />Last Year at Marieband, Resnais<br />Re-released this week for region 1 dvd (and bluray).<br /><br />UPDATE TWO: Everyone suggests Tarkovsky!<br /><br />Andrew (again):<br />Rebecca (Hitchcock, 1940) - woman haunted by others' memories of her husband's deceased wife<br />Rashomon (Kurosawa, 1950) - four recollections of the one sequence of events<br />Don't Look Now (Roeg, 1973) - man haunted by the memory of his daughter's drowning<br />Grey Gardens (Mayles & Mayles, 1975) - documentary on a mother and daughter that live almost entirely in the past<br /><br />Hugo:<br />By now, you seem to have more than enough, but here are two that<br />nobody seems to remember: Bergman’s Wild Strawberries, and Tarkovsky’s<br />Nostalgia.<br /><br />Nathaniel:<br />Mirror<br /><br />Richard:<br />Couldn't resist adding a favourite... <br /><br />Mirror (Tarkovsky, 1974) - you could include pretty much all of his films under this heading, but this one most of all!<br /><br />Has anybody seen Chris Marker's CD-ROM, Immemory? (An updated but Mac-only version has just <a href="http://www.chrismarker.org/2008/10/immemory-re-released-by-exact-change/ ">been released</a>) <br /><br />And to complete the La jetée/Vertigo link, there's Marker's <a href="http://www.chrismarker.org/a-free-replay-notes-on-vertigo/">text</a> on the latter - - oh, and Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys, of course! <br /><br />Julian:<br />For the interweaving and coexistence, not to mention confusion, of present, past and history (amazing archive wartime footage in an otherwise personal film), I would, inevitably, point you to Tarkovsky's 'Mirror'. Also the only film in which the sexy heroism of proofreaders is properly explored.<br /><br />Arlen:<br />Persona by Bergman !!!!!!<br />Nostalgia by Tarkovsky,<br />The mirror by Takovsky,<br />Memories of Undervelopment by Tomas Gutierrez Alea.<br /><br />Wayne:<br />A History Of Violence<br />Spellbound<br />Point Blank<br />The Man Who Fell To Earth<br />Spider<br />Once Upon A Time In America<br />All That Jazz<br />Synecdoche New York<br />Primer<br />Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte<br />Event Horizon<br />Rashomon<br />Sixth Sense<br />Birth<br />Amarcord<br />The Offence<br />Little Big Man<br />The Conformist<br />Time Regained<br />Two For The Road (?)<br />Sleepers<br />Cinema Paradiso<br />Remember My Name<br />Laura<br />Citizen Kane<br />The Killers<br />The Life And Death Of Colenel Blimp<br />Groundhog Day (oblique, but highly influential in the past decade's vogue for rearranged time/memory erasure)<br /><br />Ted:<br />Ok, not technically a "film" but both "The Singing Detective" and <br />"Karaoke," Dennis Potter's mini-series are great essays on memory and <br />how we reshape them to form narratives to justify our current behavior.<br /> <br />BTW, the Japan manga "20th Century Boys" is on a level with the <br />Dennis Potter work. The not-so-great film adaptations do not really <br />carry over this thread that makes the comic sooooo good.<br /><br />Giovanni:<br />Strange Days<br />Until the End of the World<br />eXistenZ<br />Impostor (on the established basis that they don't have to be good)<br />Minority Report (ditto)<br />The Forgotten<br />Wintersleepers<br />The Lives of Others (I hated this, but hey)<br />The Conversation<br />...so long as Cinema Paradiso is there, I'd add Decasia, which is like the antidote.<br /><br />Wayne:<br />Suture<br />Peggy Sue Got Married<br />Robocop<br />The Machinist<br />Total Recall<br />Seconds<br />Out Of The Past<br />Reds<br />Bad Timing<br />Anatomy Of A Murder<br />The English Patient<br />Land And Freedom<br />Hulk (Ang Lee version)<br />Batman Begins<br />Man Of The West<br />Crossfire<br />Detour<br />Shoot The Pianist<br />Pursued (Raoul Walsh)<br />Most Terrence Davies films<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6686995-197257760089113430?l=www.cinestatic.com%2Finfinitethought%2Findex.asp'/></div>ithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10565403340913552852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6686995.post-13439479290297389342009-06-22T13:47:00.001Z2009-06-22T13:47:50.708Ziran: academic appealWHERE IS MY VOTE <br /><br />To join this academic appeal send your name and affiliation at vincent.danos[at]gmail.com <br /><br />We are actively trying to get the appeal in the press (as of June 21). <br /><br />June 20, 2009<br /><br />A week ago, Friday June 12, Ahmadinejad was declared the winner of the Iranian presidential election. Immediately after, all other candidates, Moussavi, Karroubi, and even the conservative Rezaei, disputed the official results. So did some people who started several demonstrations to express their anger. More news fueled the suspicion of fraud at an unprecendented scale. On Monday June 15, and to the amazement of the world, millions of people – of all ages, classes, and backgrounds – were in the streets of Tehran demanding another election in what was the biggest demonstration since the revolution in 1979. A week later, despite the threats and beatings issued and ordered by the government, millions of people are still demonstrating, and the movement is growing and spreading to other cities. <br /><br />Observers might find the situation confusing, since Iran has long been an isolated country and the everyday Iranian is unknown to the outside world. One cannot even prove that there was a fraud. There remains the fact that millions of people are protesting in the streets of Iran. These are traditional, religious, modern, young, old, rich and poor, academics – some of them our colleagues – going out in the streets and risking their lives with a form of innocence in their aims and tactics. Some of them may stand on their roofs at night shouting “God is great” to keep the movement alive. They are braving the power because they insist that the Islamic republic is a republic. <br /><br />The government is imposing a ban on the foreign press, shutting down all means of communication within their reach, arresting hundreds of prominent activists, politicians and religious figures opposing the results, and terrorising demonstrators. Every day fewer videos and reports escape from Iran. The state media is depicting the protests as incited by the West, accusing the movement of being a party of hooligans and traitors. After a week of uncertainty, the head of the state, Khamenei, just issued yesterday strong and explicit threats against participants in the protests and rallies. <br /><br />This text is an urgent request to academics to fight the misrepresentation of this movement. This is not only about showing support to the courage and determination of people on the streets of Iran. It also means reaching for the many people in Iran who would like to participate but are frightened or know of the movement only through the state media. It means informing these people of the scale and nature of the movement, and thus widen its support within Iran. To all academics, please sign this appeal to support this movement in its call for a new election and oppose any violent intervention on protesters. <br /><br />Dr. S. Aaronson (MIT) – Prof. S. Abramsky (University of Oxford) – Prof. L. Aceto (Reykjavik University) – Dr. G. Alfano (Brunel University) – Dr. R. Alléaume (Télécom Paris Tech) – Dr. E. Andersson (Heriot-Watt University) – Prof. W. Arendt (University of Ulm) – Dr. P. Arrighi (Université de Grenoble) – Dr. S. van Bakel (Imperial College London) – Dr. A. Baltag (University of Oxford) – Dr. K. Banaszek (Nicolaus Copernicus University) – Dr. E. Barker (University of Oxford) – Prof. A. Bar-Hen (Université Paris Descartes) – Prof. S. M. Barnett (University of Strathclyde) – Dr. G. Batt (INRIA) – Dr. A. Bayat (University College London) – Prof. P. Bellot (Télécom Paris Tech) – Dr. S. Bliudze (CEA) – Dr. S. Bouzarovski (University of Birmingham) – Prof. T. Brandes (Technische Universitt Berlin) – Dr. D. Browne (University College London) – Dr. M. di Bucchianico (London School of Economics) – Dr. S. Buhmann (Imperial College London) – Prof. A. Bundy (University of Edinburgh) – Prof. P. Buneman (University of Edinburgh) – Dr. F. Buscemi (Cambridge University) – Prof. V. Buzek (Slovak Academy of Sciences) – Prof. L. Cable (University at Albany) – Prof. A. Cabello (Universidad de Sevilla) – Prof. T. Calarco (University of Ulm) – Dr. A. del Campo (Imperial College London) – Dr. N. Cannata (Università di Camerino) – Prof. A. Carbone (Université Pierre et Marie Curie) – Prof. P. Carbone (Università IULM) – Prof. S. Carroll (Caltech) – Dr. D. Cavalcanti (ICFO - Barcelon) – Prof. B. Chandrasekaran (Ohio State University) – Dr. K. Chatzikokolakis (Technical University of Eindhoven) – Prof. C. W. Clark (University of Maryland) – Dr. S. R. Clark (National University of Singapore) – Dr. B. Coecke (University of Oxford) – Prof. S. B. Cooper (University of Leeds) – Prof. D. W. Corne (Heriot-Watt University) – Dr. M. Cramer (Imperial College London) – Dr. P. Crépieux (CNRS) – Prof. W. van Dam (University of California) – Prof. V. Danos (University of Edinburgh) – Prof. G. M. D’Ariano (University of Pavia) – Dr. N. Datta (University of Cambridge) – Dr. O. Dahlsten (ETH Zurich) – Dr. J. Degorre (CNRS) – Dr. J. Desharnais (Université Laval) – Prof. M. Dezani-Ciancaglini (Università di Torino) – Prof. E. E. Doberkat (Technische Universität Dortmund) – Dr. T. Douglas (University of Oxford) – Prof. D. Dubhashi (Chalmers University) – Dr. P. Dumais (Université de Montréal) – Dr. R. Duncan (Oxford University) – Prof. J. Eisert (University of Potsdam) – Prof. H. Emamirad (Poitiers University) – Dr. M. Ericsson (Uppsala University) – Dr. K. Etessami (University of Edinburgh) – Dr. B. Farzad (Brock University) – Prof. R. Fazio (Scuola Normale Superiore) – Dr. A. Farjudian (Aston University) – Dr. J. Feret (INRIA) – Dr. A. Feito (Imperial College London) – Prof. F. Ferreira (University of Edinburgh) – Dr. J. Fitzsimons (University of Oxford) – Prof. W. Fontana (Harvard University) – Prof. B. Foroughi (St. Francis Xavier University) – Dr. I. Fuentes-Schuller (University of Hertfordshire) – Prof. E. Fox Keller (MIT) – Dr. E. F. Galvão (University of Federal Fluminense) – Prof. J. Gauntlett (Imperial College London) – Dr. J. George (University of Toronto) – Dr. G. Giuli (Università di Camerino) – Dr. D. Green (The City University of New York) – Dr. D Gross (University of Hannover) – Dr. G. Gualdi (Università di Camerino) – Dr. A. R. Hadaegh (California State University San Marcos) – Prof. S. Hanneton (Paris Descartes University) – Dr. R. Harmer (CNRS) – Prof. M. Hartmann (Technische Universität München) – Prof. J. M. Henderson (University of Edinburgh) – Prof. L. Hendren (McGill University) – Dr. W. K. Hensinger (University of Sussex) – Prof. J. Hillston (University of Edinburgh) – Dr. M. Hirschowitz (CEA) – Dr. S. Hym (Université Lille 1) – Dr. M. Huth (Imperial College London) – Prof. J. Hutnyk (Goldsmiths) – Prof. M. Ivanov (Imperial College London) – Dr. A. Iwasiewicz-Wabnig (University of Oxford) – Dr. K. Jacobs, (University of Massachusetts) – Prof. H. J. Jensen (Imperial College London) – Prof. P. Jorrand (CNRS) – Prof. J.-P. Jouannaud (INRIA) – Prof. R. Jozsa (University of Bristol) – Dr. E. Kashefi (University of Edinburgh) – Dr. S. Kedad-Sidhoum (Université Pierre et Marie Curie) – Dr. A. Kent (Cambridge University) – Dr. I. Kerenidis (CNRS) – Prof. D. Kesner (Université Paris Diderot) – Prof. F. Képes (CNRS) – Dr. H. Koeppl (EPFL) – Dr. P. Kok (University of Sheffield) – Dr. J. Krivine (IHES) – Prof. R. Laflamme (University of Waterloo) – Dr. M. Laforest (Delft University of Technology) – Dr. F. Laviolette (Université Laval) – Prof. B. Leimkuhler (University of Edinburgh) – Prof. M. Lein (University of Hannover) – Prof. G. Leuchs (Universität Erlangen-Nuernberg) – Prof. L. Libkin (University of Edinburgh) – Prof. G. Longo (CNRS) – Dr. P. van Loock (Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light) Prof. N. Lütkenhaus (University of Waterloo) – Dr. D. Markham (CNRS) – Prof. H. Mairson (Brandeis University) – Dr. R. Mardare (Università di Trento) – Dr. D. Mazza (CNRS) – Dr. P.-A. Mellies (CNRS) – Prof. M. Mislove (Tulane University) – Prof. E. Mjolsness (University of California) – Prof. C. Moore (University of New Mexico) – Prof. M. Mosca (University of Waterloo) – Prof. M. Murao (University of Tokyo) – Dr. A. Murawski (University of Oxford) – Dr. R. Nagarajan (University of Warwick) – Dr. M. Navascues (Imperial College London) – Prof. B. Nordstrom (Chalmers University) – Dr. P. Ohberg (Heriot-Watt University) – Dr. A. Olaya-Castro (University College London) – Prof. C.-H. L. Ong (University of Oxford) – Dr. N. Oury (University of Edinburgh) – Dr. M. Owari (Imperial College London) – Prof. C. Palamidessi (INRIA) – Prof. P. Panangaden (McGill University) – Dr. D. Pavlovic (University of Oxford) – Dr. M. Pedicini (CNR) – Prof. O. Penrose (Heriot-Watt University) – Dr. M. Planat (Université de Franche-Comté) – Prof. M. B. Plenio (Imperial College London) – Prof. G. Plotkin (University of Edinburgh) – Dr. O. Radulescu (University of Rennes 1) – Dr. R. Rahimi Darabad (Kinki University) – Prof. D. V. G. L. N. Rao (University of Massachusetts Boston) – Prof. L. Regnier (Université de la Méditerranée) – Dr. D. Reitter (Carnegie Mellon University) – Prof. L. Roversi (Università di Torino) – Dr. T. Rudolph(Imperial College London) – Prof. P. Y. A. Ryan (University of Luxembourg) – Dr. M. Sadrzadeh (University of Oxford) – Prof. B. Sanders (University of Calgary) – Dr. R. Santhanam (University of Edinburgh) – Dr. M. Santos (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais) – Prof. W. Schleich (University of Ulm) – Prof. P. Selinger (Dalhousie University) – Dr. A. Serafini (University College London) – Dr. P. Series (University of Edinburgh) – Dr. S. Severini (University of Waterloo) – Dr. M. P. da Silva (Université de Sherbrooke) – Prof. L. Smolin (Perimeter Institute) – Dr. P. Sobocinski (University of Southampton) – Dr. R. Spekkens (Perimeter Institute) – Prof. A. Steinberg (University of Toronto) – Dr. K. Szacilowski (Jagiellonian University) – Prof. F. Taddei (Université Paris Descartes) – Prof. A. Tapp (Université de Montréal) – Prof. A. Thiele (Newcastle University) – Dr. L. Tortora de Falco (Università Roma Tre) – Dr. F. Valckenborgh (Macquarie University) – Dr. D. Varacca (Université Paris Diderot) – Dr. M. G. Vigliotti (Imperial College London) – Dr. S. Virmani (University of Strathclyde) – Prof. N. Vitanov (Sofia University) – Prof. P. Wadler (University of Edinburgh) – Prof. B. Werner (INRIA) – Prof. R. F. Werner (Technical University of Braunschweig) – Dr. M. Zoli (Università di Camerino) – Prof. E. Zucca (Università di Genova)<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6686995-1343947929029738934?l=www.cinestatic.com%2Finfinitethought%2Findex.asp'/></div>ithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10565403340913552852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6686995.post-87949002209379338602009-06-22T06:50:00.002Z2009-06-22T07:48:52.157Zpeople reloaded: why mass protest in iran is true politics worth supportingMorad Farhadpour and Omid Mehrgan [translators and philosophers based in Tehran]<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">This piece is copyright-free. Please distribute widely.</span><br /><br />In the past two weeks, the majority of people in Tehran and other cities in Iran (including Shiraz, Ahwaz, Tabriz, Isfihan) have been on the streets, protesting against the theft of the presidential election by a handful of state’s agents at the top level. It was not a rigging in the usual western sense, no added votes or replaced ballot boxes, the election went on properly, the votes were taken and probably even counted, the figures transmitted to the ministry of interior, and it was there that they were totally disregarded and replaced by totally fictitious figures. That is why all the opposition forces (Sazman-e-Mojahedin-e-Enghelab, Mosharekat party...) together with people called it a coup d’état.<br /><br />Global public opinion and, especially, the body of (leftist) intellectuals, Inspired by recent events in the middle Asia and east Europe, mostly regard this Iranian mass protest as another version of the well-known, newly invented, neo-liberal, U.S.-sponsored, colour-coded revolutions, as in Georgia and Ukraine. But is it the case in Iran? This article intends to clarify the issue, to reveal the properly political essence of current mass movement, and to demonstrate that this movement has the potentiality of a self-transcendence, of surpassing its actual demands, of traversing its current phantasy. To do this, we shall first examine the contemporary tradition of radical politics in Iran. Without these references, the current movement, which truly deserves this title, can not be understood correctly.<br /><br />People, whether consciously or not, are frequently recollecting the 1979 Revolution and the 1997 Reform Movement. Many of their slogans are transformed slogans of the '79 Revolution. The paths of demonstrations are symbolically significantly, the same as those against Shah. But this does not mean that people are imitating the '79 Revolution: there are many new possibilities and creativities, many formal and thematic inventions. As for the 1997 Reform Movement, and its aftermath (the crushing of student protest in 1999), the affinities are even more obvious. Khatami, along with Mir Hossein Mousavi, is one of the most significant leaders and supporters of the protest. It is as if people are trying to redeem the 2nd of Khordad (May 23, 1997), to revive the unfinished hopes and dreams of those days. But this time, the protest is by no means limited to students and intellectuals. Although Khatami in 1997 was elected with 20 million votes from the most varied sections of the nation, the movement was characterized by the political and cultural demands of the middle-class, of students and educated people. But, apart from this, what is the true significance of the 2nd of Khordad Front for politics in Iran?<br /><br />On the 2nd of Khordad, for the first time since Iranian Revolution, we were encountering a dichotomy between the state and the total system of Islamic Republic of Iran, known as Nezam (System, which is based on the principle of Velayat-e-Faghih, the supreme authority of high-ranked Mullahs). This duality was partly due to the fact that the leader of the opposition, Khatami, was at the same time the chief of the state. It was the only occasion where this duality, which is, in a sense, one between the development of productive forces and cultural, political backwardness, between secular democracy and religious fanaticism, could be revealed. Before and after that period, the state and Nezam have been basically in accordance, as it had been in the Shah's Regime. One of the reasons, if not the main reason, why elections in Iran are of such importance for democratic movements, despite trends to boycott them, lies precisely in the significance of this very duality. Seen from a classical-Marxist perspective, in order to pave the way for the development of productive forces, in order to accomplish the ‘civilizing mission’ of capitalism, there must emerge a bourgeois state capable of carrying out the process of democratization and modernization. Whenever the state has been in full accordance with Nezam, this process fails to go on. Besides this, we deal with yet another duality, one between the capital and the state, the former as the means of development (with all its discontents, aptly and righteously exposed by the Marxist tradition), and the latter as the organ of regression and anti-modernism. So, the progressive and socialist opposition in Iran are faced with the unprecedented, hard task of fighting in two fronts: against religious fanaticism and the authoritarian factions in a semi-democratic government, and simultaneously against global capitalism and its hegemony by means of the production of wars. In a sense, intelligentsia in Iran are very similar to that of Russia and Germany of 19th century. We are a handful of schizophrenics who are, at one and the same time, against and for progress, development, capitalism, state management and so on. In other words, for us, the Faustian problematic, his tragedy, is formulated in a typically Hamletian way. This ambivalent attitude (to western civilization) can be characterized by the dialectic of state and politics. We are neither dealing with a pure politics a la Alain Badiou, nor with a classical Marxist politics, exhausted in class struggles, nor with the liberal-democratic politics of human rights, which was, by the way, the dominant discourse of opposition in Iran before Mousavi. Our supposedly radical politics consists of every one of these elements, but is not reducible to any of them. To deploy Agamben’s terminology, it is a politics of people against People, i.e. voiceless, suppressed people, against People officially constructed by the state. The current movement materializes, in many respects, this very politics.<br /><br />But the question, which has confused the western (left) intelligentsia and has caused the most varied misunderstandings regarding Iran, is whether Ahmadinejad is a leftist, anti-imperialist, anti-privatization, anti-globalization figure. The common answer is a positive one. That is why certain misguided western leftists tend to regard the current mass movement in support of Mir Hossein Mousavi and against Ahmadinejad as the struggle of liberalism against anti-imperialism, of privatization, liberal-democracy against the enemies of global hegemony of America. The main aim of this article is to expose, to expel this widespread illusion. As regards the other confused camp, the Western, more or less, Islamophobic liberals, who are inclined to identify Ahmadinjad with Al-Qaeda, who refer to Mousavi, because of his Islamic-Republican career in 80’s, as another version of Islamic, anti-democratic Ideology, one could say that they too are caught up in an illusion based on easy Euro-centrist generalizations and lack of familiarity with the Iranian historical context. We should thus answer the simple question: what is actually at the stake? Apart from the triad of French Revolution, the triad of modern emancipatory politics, liberty, equality, fraternity, one could maintain that the main bone of contention in this struggle is precisely politics itself, its life and survival. Our government is called the Islamic Republic of Iran. Now the republican moment, which has always been downgraded by the conservatives, is presently being annihilated. It is precisely through this very outlet that any popular politics, from social movement of dissent and class politics to the defence of human rights, might survive. <br /><br />Another common approach, no matter how radical, supportive, or conservative, to mass protest in Iran is the following: it is a youth movement, at its best, similar to 68’s student protests. New young generation in Iran, armed with Internet, socialized by social networking sites, tired of Islamic ideology, has awakened, claiming its own way of life, and so on. According to this attitude, which is evoked by a number of journalists, it is only the middle-class intellectuals, students, feminists, and other educated people in large cities who are rallying on the streets, communicating with each other thanks to the internet. What is striking is that the state discourse in Iran widely promotes this very attitude. The ruling elite, based on a populist rhetoric, tends to single out a certain section of the nation and call it the People. The state television, Seda-va-Sima, is the main place where this People is represented, indeed constructed, mostly through the usual populist tactic of one nation versus the evil external enemy who is the cause of all trouble. It presents a unified, pure, integrated image of People, all devoting themselves to Nezam, all law-abiding, religious, etc. This image of People is daily imposed on the masses and inscribed onto the body politic. Against this formally constructed People, with the state as its formal face, there has come out another people, a subaltern, muted people, claiming its own place, its own part in the political scene. June 2009 Election was a decisive opportunity for this people to declare itself, in the figure of Mousavi, who from the beginning insisted on people’s dignity as a true political right. But why him? Why not, say, Karroubi, the other reformist candidate? Has Mousvai, now the leader of the mass movement, appeared on the scene in a purely contingent way? Has he by mere chance, by force of circumstances, as it were, become the leading figure, the reform-freedom-democracy incarnate? The answer is positively negative. To elucidate this, we have to draw attention to the tradition from which he has emerged and to which he has repeatedly referred during his electoral campaign. As we said before, this tradition is rooted in 1979 Revolution and has been revived in the 2th of Khordad Movement -- whereas, Karroubi’s ‘politics’ was based on a subjectless process in which different identity groups would present their demands to the almighty state and act as its passive, divided, depoliticized supporters. In fact, Karroubi’s campaign, with its appeal to Western media, using the word ‘change’ in English, and profiting from celebrity figures, was the one that could be called a Western liberal human-rights-loving, even pro-capitalist movement. The fact that millions transcending their identity and immediate interests joined a typically universal militant politics by risking their lives in defence of Mousavi and their dignity, should be enough to cast out all doubts or misguided pseudo-leftist dogmas.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6686995-8794900220937933860?l=www.cinestatic.com%2Finfinitethought%2Findex.asp'/></div>ithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10565403340913552852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6686995.post-43615107758585530052009-06-21T10:30:00.002Z2009-06-21T10:40:54.824Zpost-feminism in action<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.cinestatic.com/infinitethought/uploaded_images/italiantv-761425.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://www.cinestatic.com/infinitethought/uploaded_images/italiantv-761407.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />(Italian TV photo from <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/thebrennanator/82907729/">The Brennanator</a>)<br /><br />'Nicolò Ghedini, Berlusconi's chief legal adviser, defended his client over the D'Addario affair by describing his client as a mere "end user" of the women, who was not therefore at risk in the Bari investigation. For good measure, he added that "Berlusconi could have them [women] in large numbers for free".<br /><br />The prime minister himself, although clearly rattled, is still trying to banter his way though the storm, using the brazen style that has gone down well in the past with many voters. On Friday, he spotted a female journalist whose sweater had slipped slightly off one shoulder. "Are you trying to get invited to one of my dinners?" he asked. "I used to do one a month, now I need to organise three or four a week"' (From <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/21/berlusconi-italy-barbara-montereale">here</a>).<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6686995-4361510775858553005?l=www.cinestatic.com%2Finfinitethought%2Findex.asp'/></div>ithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10565403340913552852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6686995.post-90565174250164629482009-06-20T11:28:00.003Z2009-06-20T11:36:59.796Zzizek's masterclasses 15-18th june podcastThe delightfully named René Wolf from <a href="http://backdoorbroadcasting.net/">Backdoor Broadcasting</a> sent me a link to <a href="http://backdoorbroadcasting.net/category/academic-service/academic-service-archive/">podcasts/downloads</a> of the whole of Zizek's recent Birkbeck series. That's a whole ten hours of excitability for you.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6686995-9056517425016462948?l=www.cinestatic.com%2Finfinitethought%2Findex.asp'/></div>ithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10565403340913552852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6686995.post-40022620919237737062009-06-20T08:51:00.003Z2009-06-20T09:00:29.552Zaudit crowdsourcing: towards a democracy of resentment!The Guardian's reader-mobilising <a href="http://mps-expenses.guardian.co.uk/">investigate your MP's expenses</a> is genius. Having uploaded something like half a million expense claims, they are asking readers to sift through all the documents to find anomalous/inaccurate/obviously piss-taking entries. Obviously it's no substitute for a structural analysis of corruption, but nevertheless, heh heh heh.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6686995-4002262091923773706?l=www.cinestatic.com%2Finfinitethought%2Findex.asp'/></div>ithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10565403340913552852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6686995.post-17585873732637410732009-06-19T18:08:00.004Z2009-06-19T22:22:59.596Znowhere to sit, nowhere to go, nothing to do<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.cinestatic.com/infinitethought/uploaded_images/gloriouspub-704707.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 394px;" src="http://www.cinestatic.com/infinitethought/uploaded_images/gloriouspub-704705.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />Seeing as I am on another Dr-imposed alcohol ban, whilst the slightly-menacingly-mechanically-named 'proton pump inhibitors' do their work on my snarling insides, it becomes clear once again that London is a city most unkind to those not happily lolling in one of the 7,000 or so public houses that dot the city like beacons of hope to the terminally over-worked, over-commuted and, in lots of cases, just over. Of course it is technically possible to sit in a pub sipping still water (nothing fizzy for me either), but it's a bit like being in a library and realising all the books are simply spines glued together for effect (actually, it's nothing like that, the image just came to mind. Ho-hum). Anyway, it's <i>not very fun</i>, and people start shouting the same thing at you about fifty times and unfunny things get funny for everyone else while you sit there like a lemon, often sucking a piece of the same for want of some - any - stimulation. <span style="font-style:italic;">Bah, look at the self-pity on this one, put it out of its misery already... </span><br /><br />But there is a more serious point here involving...gross social and urban hypocrisy! On the one hand, you've got a government desperate to push 'responsible drinking' as the NHS bills mount up, and on the other, you've got a country in which doing anything else after 4pm is almost completely impossible. Unless you're willing to pay £12 or so to see a film, or however much it costs to go to the theatre, there is nowhere to go, even if you've <i>swallowed</i> up a couple of hours already by, erm, <i>eating</i>. It's as if they want everyone not in a pub to simply stay at home, watch Sky TV, bid on ebay and go to bed early so not everyone tries to catch the twenty-to-nine buses and tubes in the mornings. Imagine.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.cinestatic.com/infinitethought/uploaded_images/drinking-797953.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 315px;" src="http://www.cinestatic.com/infinitethought/uploaded_images/drinking-797950.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />So it's 9pm, let's say. Cafes (minus a few over-crowded ones in Soho) closed five hours ago. Some McDonalds are open, wearing their grim late Nu-Labour upgraded lime-green swivel chairs and hint-of-sauna wood panelling. You'd have more fun building a model Eiffel Tower out of the hundreds of swirling Metros, thelondonpapers and London Lites, so you don't go in. A few of those Tesco Express things are open. You could buy scratchcards and doughnuts. But where to sit? The parks and graveyards are tempting, but often shut or a little bit too dark for comfort. So you look for little squares and plazas, forgetting that we never put any in for fear of public assembly, revolution and that strange game with metal balls that elderly Frenchman play in the evenings.<br /><br />If you want a piss you're in trouble. Absolutely nobody wants to deal with your effluence, and pubs only do so because they can't get around the fact that they contribute so much to its production. Even when open, sandwich bars and cafes are rubbish at providing bogs, presumably fearing business-folk shooting up in the stalls on their lunch-hours in between bites of avocado and crayfish baguette. All roads lead to <i>the pub</i>. All roads <i>have</i> a bloody pub, practically...I miss the <i>New Piccadilly</i>. Tax breaks for late-night caffs now! Late-night alternatives for the sober minority! More bogs for human beings! There's nothing you can do to stop them weeing, you know! <br /><br />What a wretched damn metropolis this is, despicable to those it exploits, hostile to those it makes sick and even more miserable to those who are trying to get better. Bah.<br /><br />Afterthought: and more booths, we want them. Diners where you can just order a drink instead of a frivolous expensive retro-burger. Why are we so horrible to ourselves?! The other side of a protestant work ethic is a protestant play ethic in which 'fun' is getting loaded on liquid anti-depressants whilst CCTV cameras stop you doing anything that the big other might deem joyful in any way. That's it...I'M MOVING TO GREENLAND. I bet they do brilliant things like seal-tipping and ice-carving in the evenings whilst playing three thousand piece Scrabble. Even Marx couldn't think of anything else to do past tea-time: criticise after dinner...? But where, man, where...The bench is covered with pigeon-poo and the tube is already shutting.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6686995-1758587373263741073?l=www.cinestatic.com%2Finfinitethought%2Findex.asp'/></div>ithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10565403340913552852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6686995.post-6307764115986111942009-06-19T10:46:00.003Z2009-06-19T18:06:19.378Zsoas cleaners update<a href="http://freesoascleaners.blogspot.com/2009/06/victory-to-soas-occupiers-directorate.html">Here</a>.<br /><br />Like the Roehampton protest <a href="http://www.cinestatic.com/infinitethought/2009/05/action-on-campus.asp">recently</a> against the presence of Shell on campus, the SOAS action draws on the contradictions between official University policy (sorry, 'vision') and practice:<br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />In the SOAS strategy and Vision document management state that they are<br /><br />'poised to become the University of the 21st century: it is concerned with the regions that matter and the issues that matter (such as human rights, poverty reduction and globalisation).' (“SOAS 2016: A Vision and Strategy for the Centennial”, p5 )<br /><br />That the directorate is disturbed by the possible role that ISS played in this raid demonstrates to us that the school are committed to upholding their further Centennial Goals of<br /><br />“maintain[ing] the highest ethical standards in all of its dealings and foster the values of openness, honesty, tolerance, fairness and responsibility in all areas.” (SOAS 2016: A Vision and Strategy for the Centennial, p9)<br /><br />We will work hard to ensure that this sentiment is translated into concrete action which ensures that cleaning is brought in-house and management never again facilitate an immigration raid on campus.</span><br /><br />Alberto <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/jun/17/soas-cleaners">points out</a> that 'Even the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has recognised the extent to which London's economy depends on the labour of immigrant and undocumented workers and has proposed an amnesty.' When the Tory mayor of London is more reasonable than Universities which are supposed to be bastions of internationalism and human rights, then something is seriously amiss in the academy.<br /><br />As my colleague pointed out yesterday, the raids at SOAS are the tip of the iceberg - many undocumented workers all over the city are being quietly spirited out of the country. <br /><br />Within the academy, there are other, newer problems to contend with. As Alberto notes, 'if the government has its way, universities will become extensions of the border control, with lecturers and administrators effectively required by law to monitor their students on behalf of the Home Office.' The government proposal is that lecturers constantly monitor their international students, and send attendance sheets to the government: academics are to become ultra-suspicious border guards.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6686995-630776411598611194?l=www.cinestatic.com%2Finfinitethought%2Findex.asp'/></div>ithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10565403340913552852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6686995.post-52602826767893539452009-06-18T08:42:00.006Z2009-06-22T07:57:00.188Zwhy are the iranians dreaming again?*[The following is a guest post from<span style="font-weight:bold;"> Ali Alizadeh</span>, Researcher at the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, Middlesex University]<br /><br /><b>This piece is copyright-free. Please distribute widely.</b><br /><br />Iran is currently in the grip of a new and strong political movement. While this movement proves that Ahmadinejad’s populist techniques of deception no longer work inside Iran, it seems they are still effective outside the country. This is mainly due to thirty years of isolation and mutual mistrust between Iran and the West which has turned my country into a mysterious phenomenon for outsiders. In this piece I will try to confront some of the mystifications and misunderstandings produced by the international media in the last week. <br /><br />In the first scenario the international media, claiming impartiality, insisted that the reformists provide hard objective evidence in support of their claim that the June 12 election has been rigged. But despite their empiricist attitude, the media missed obvious facts due to their lack of familiarity with the socio-historical context. Although the reformists could not possibly offer any figures or documents, because the whole show was single-handedly run by Ahmadinejad’s ministry of interior, anyone familiar with Iran’s recent history could easily see what was wrong with this picture. <br /><br />It was the government who reversed the conventional and logical procedure by announcing a fictitious total figure first – in four stages – and then fabricating figures for each polling station, something that is <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/2009/jun/17/iran-election-rigging">still going on</a>. This led to many absurdities: Musavi got less votes in his hometown (Tabriz) than Ahmadinejad; Karroubi’s total vote was less than the number of people active in his campaign; Rezaee’s votes were reduced by a hundred thousand between the third and fourth stages of announcement; blank votes were totally forgotten and only hastily added to the count when reformists pointed this out; and finally the ratio between all candidates’ votes remained almost constant in all these four stages of announcement (63, 33, 2 and 1 percent respectively). <br /><br />Moreover, as in any other country, the increase in turnout in Iran’s elections has always benefitted the opposition and not the incumbent, because it is rational to assume that those who usually don’t vote, i.e. the silent majority, only come out when they want to change the status quo. Yet in this election Ahmadinejad, the representative of the status quo, allegedly received 10 million votes more than what he got in the previous election. <br /><br />Finally, Ahmadinejad’s nervous reaction after his so-called victory is the best proof for rigging: closing down SMS network and the whole of country’s mobile phone network, arresting more than 100 leading political activists, blocking access to Musavi’s and many other reformists’ websites and unleashing violence in the streets...But if all this is not enough, the bodies of more than 17 people who were shot dead and immediately buried in unknown graves should persuade all those “objective-minded” observers. <br /><br />In the second scenario, gradually unfolding in the last few days, the international media implicitly shifted its attention to the role of internet and its social networking (twitter, facebook, youtube, etc). This implied that millions of illiterate conservative villagers have voted for Ahmadinejad and the political movement is mostly limited to educated middle classes in North Tehran. While this simplified image is more compatible with media’s comfortable position towards Iran in the last 30 years, it is far from reality. The recent political history of Iran does not confirm this image. For example, Khatami’s victory in 1997, despite his absolute lack of any economic promises and his focus instead on liberal civic demands, was made possible by the polarization of society into people and state. Khatami could win only by embracing people from all different classes and groups, villagers and urban people alike.<br /> <br />There is no doubt that new media and technologies have been playing an important role in the movement, but it seems that the cause and the effect are being reversed in the picture painted by the media. First of all, it is the existence of a strong political determination, combined with people becoming deprived of basic means of communication, which has led the movement to creatively test every other channel and method. Musavi’s paper was shut down on the night of election, his frequent request to talk to people on the state TV has been rejected, his official <a href="http://www.ghalamnews.ir">website</a> is often blocked and his physical contact with his supporters has been kept minimum by keeping him in house arrest (with the exception of his appearance on the over a million march on June 15). <br /><br />Second, due to the heavy pressure on foreign journalists inside Iran, these technological tools have come to play a significant role in sending the messages and images of the movement to the outside world. However, the creative self-organization of the movement is using a manifold of methods and channels, many of them simple and traditional, depending on their availability: shouting ‘death to dictator’ from rooftops, calling landlines, at the end of one rally chanting the time and place of the next one, and by jeopardizing oneself by physically standing on streets and distributing news to every passing car. The appearance of the movement which is being sold by the media to the western gaze – the cyber-fantasy of the western societies which has already labelled our movement a <a href="http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/443634">twitter revolution</a>, seems to have completely missed the reality of those bodies which are shot dead, injured or ready to be endangered by non-virtual bullets. <br /><br />What is more surprising in the midst of this media frenzy is the blindness of the western left to the political dynamism and energy of our movement. The causes of this blindness oscillate between the misgivings about Islam (or the Islamophobia of hyper-secular left) and the confusion made by Ahmadinjead’s fake anti-imperialist rhetoric (his alliance with Chavez perhaps, who after all was the first to congratulate him). It needs to be emphasized that Ahmadinejad’s economic policies are to the right of the IMF: cutting subsidies in a radical way, more privatization than any other post-79 government (by selling the country to the Revolutionary Guards) and an inflation and unemployment rate which have brought the low-income sections of the society to their knees. It is in this regard that Musavi’s politics needs to be understood in contradistinction from both Ahmadinejad and also the other reformist candidate, i.e. Karroubi. <br /><br />While Karroubi went for the liberal option of differentiating people into identity groups with different demands (women, students, intellectuals, ethnicities, religious minorities, etc), Musavi emphasized the universal demands of ‘people’ who wanted to be heard and counted as political subjects. This subjectivity, emphasized by Musavi during his campaign and fully incarnated in the rallies of the past few days, is constituted by political intuition, creativity and recollection of the ‘79 revolution (no wonder that people so quickly reached an unexpected maturity, best manifested in the abstention from violence in their silent demonstrations). Musavi’s ‘people’ is also easily, but strongly, distinguished from Ahmadinejad’s anonymous masses dependent on state charity. Musavi’s people, as the collective appearing in the rallies, is made of religious women covered in chador walking hand in hand with westernized young women who are usually prosecuted for their appearance; veterans of war in wheelchairs next to young boys for whom the Iran-Iraq war is only an anecdote; and working class who have sacrificed their daily salary to participate in the rally next to the middle classes. This story is not limited to Tehran. Shiraz (two confirmed dead), Isfahan (one confirmed dead), Tabriz, Oroomiye are also part of this movement and other cities are joining with a predictable delay (as it was the case in 79 revolution). <br /><br />History will prove who the real participants of this movement are but once again we are faced with a new, non-classical and unfamiliar radical politics. Will the Western left get it right this time? <br /><br />* The title is a reference to Michel Foucault’s 1978 writing on Iran’s revolution: “What are the Iranians dreaming about?”<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6686995-5260282676789353945?l=www.cinestatic.com%2Finfinitethought%2Findex.asp'/></div>ithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10565403340913552852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6686995.post-62786356051634785802009-06-17T07:33:00.003Z2009-06-18T14:03:01.758Zali on iran on radio<a href="http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0616/drivetime_av.html">Ali on RTE</a> (37.00-41.50).<br /><br />This interview is extremely useful: putting social networking in context and how Ahmadinejad must be understood in the context of diminishing support among rival hardline groups.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6686995-6278635605163478580?l=www.cinestatic.com%2Finfinitethought%2Findex.asp'/></div>ithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10565403340913552852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6686995.post-13835263014631276352009-06-17T00:29:00.002Z2009-06-17T22:49:35.782Zsoas cleanersAlberto on the recent injustices at SOAS: <a href="http://www.darkmatter101.org/site/2009/06/16/turning-universities-into-borders-the-case-of-the-soas-cleaners/"><br />Turning Universities into Borders: The Case of the SOAS Cleaners</a>.<br /><br />UPDATE: And the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/jun/17/soas-cleaners">Comment is Free</a> Guardian version.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6686995-1383526301463127635?l=www.cinestatic.com%2Finfinitethought%2Findex.asp'/></div>ithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10565403340913552852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6686995.post-91241322641878521952009-06-16T22:10:00.003Z2009-06-16T22:38:00.589Ziran<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.cinestatic.com/infinitethought/uploaded_images/tehran15june-704999.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 263px;" src="http://www.cinestatic.com/infinitethought/uploaded_images/tehran15june-704987.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />Held off writing about Iran, cos Ali said he'd send me something (hope he still does). You can in the meantime see him <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/newsnight">here</a> on Newsnight from last night (probably only for the next few hours, I can't find a lasting link) around 8-9 mins in.<br /><br />Suffice it to say that those speaking about Iran in terms of 'rural' support for Ahmadinejad vs. middle-class Tehrani Twitterers would do well to remember that by far the majority of Iranians live in cities and that not everyone who lives in the countryside is an ignorant religious conservative.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6686995-9124132264187852195?l=www.cinestatic.com%2Finfinitethought%2Findex.asp'/></div>ithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10565403340913552852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6686995.post-67652108559097725072009-06-15T20:02:00.002Z2009-06-15T20:04:58.733Zwritten-up version of the badiou interviewThe written-up version of my Badiou interview is now online at the <a href="http://www.philosophypress.co.uk/?p=303">The Philosophers' Magazine</a> site. It's for a general audience, so there's lots of stuff placing him in the French context and that sort of thing.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6686995-6765210855909772507?l=www.cinestatic.com%2Finfinitethought%2Findex.asp'/></div>ithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10565403340913552852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6686995.post-13502387813494290422009-06-14T13:34:00.003Z2009-06-14T13:59:30.306Zmake them disappear, or, what photoshop is for<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.cinestatic.com/infinitethought/uploaded_images/sizezero-731525.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 241px;" src="http://www.cinestatic.com/infinitethought/uploaded_images/sizezero-731521.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />Size Zero by <a href="http://www.vale-n-tina.com/offline2.html">Valentina D'Efilippo</a><br /><br />'Miss Shulman said that clothes created by designers for the catwalk which were then sent to magazines for photoshoots had become "substantially smaller" and that Vogue was now having to "retouch" photographs "to make the models appear larger"' (from <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fashion/fashionnews/5524676/Vogue-editor-Alexandra-Shulman-praised-for-calls-to-end-size-zero.html">here</a>).<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6686995-1350238781349429042?l=www.cinestatic.com%2Finfinitethought%2Findex.asp'/></div>ithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10565403340913552852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6686995.post-23420649212189083402009-06-14T11:04:00.003Z2009-06-14T11:07:10.337Zinhuman partners!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.cinestatic.com/infinitethought/uploaded_images/boardog-763436.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 270px;" src="http://www.cinestatic.com/infinitethought/uploaded_images/boardog-763433.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />It's a Deleuzian and a Badioudian going for a gambol. But which is which?!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6686995-2342064921218908340?l=www.cinestatic.com%2Finfinitethought%2Findex.asp'/></div>ithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10565403340913552852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6686995.post-34650138741855417022009-06-14T10:03:00.004Z2009-06-14T10:18:32.901Zsunday question<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.cinestatic.com/infinitethought/uploaded_images/godgirls-754350.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 319px; height: 400px;" src="http://www.cinestatic.com/infinitethought/uploaded_images/godgirls-754334.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />Is it possible to say the word 'why' without it sounding like a question? Try it - it's really hard. Obviously in context 'why' at the start of a sentence doesn't have this problem, but in isolation it definitely does, even (especially) if you try and say it sarcastically.<br /><br />Why.<br />Why?<br />Why?!<br /><br />UPDATE: There is also the 'Why, Certainly!' sort of why. This one just sounds jaunty.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6686995-3465013874185541702?l=www.cinestatic.com%2Finfinitethought%2Findex.asp'/></div>ithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10565403340913552852noreply@blogger.com

political peccadillo

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55505282008-10-14T11:11:30.165ZPolitical Peccadilloregular views from inside the unaccountable world of current affairs Brucenoreply@blogger.comBlogger112125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550528.post-89975348627530888422007-06-11T20:15:00.001Z2007-06-13T21:54:54.719ZFuck off down the Shatt"The Shia round up and kill Sunni suspects; the latter respond with market bombs, in addition to their rising attacks on the coalition. Unable to make headway against the Shiite shites, with figureheads like Al-Sadr experienced at manoeuvring around unseen after oppression from the Saddamite, and ex-Baath psychopaths, the coalition is locked into a costly game of managing the status quo". Four Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550528.post-6954324815188327432007-05-22T22:31:00.000Z2007-05-22T22:35:44.147ZDestructive processesPalestinian targets are being pounded in Gaza and north Lebanon, in a grim reminder that, apart from the Lebanese army's new show of strength, nothing has changed from recent conflicts with Hamas and Hezbollah.Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550528.post-64389117007158970472007-05-01T22:42:00.000Z2007-05-01T22:47:49.552ZHarry will need houdiniThe chief of the British Army, Dicky Dannatt, a man who once told it like it was when he said that coalition forces do not help the security situation, has decided that the prince must serve in the ongoing occupation of Iraq. These were some of his reasons why…Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550528.post-1176414996922422312007-04-12T21:51:00.000Z2007-04-12T22:02:22.503ZAdjust your cameron"The electorate is not exactly bovvered in Blair-appropriation speech by these trivial issues" "It was the sound of a man from Surrey living in Mumbai in 1912 commenting on the hot temper of the natives" "The suggestion that the Tories are electable because they’ve got a professional cream dispenser in charge is still laughable" Dave may appeal to Dagenham but bringing his rejuvenated party toCullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550528.post-1174345752547208142007-03-20T00:05:00.000Z2007-03-20T00:09:12.556ZTristunt"The PM was again dependent not on his own party for policy sign-off but the Tories, who once again played auxiliary tough guys on the real issues. Eighty-eight nays were nary enough to stall the nuclear bill. How this sits with Camers’ plans to get nearer to the public given that a majority do not want a new nuclear deterrent system is not clear, but the Cam-Can would go down with the Kursk if Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550528.post-1173831572357969572007-03-14T01:16:00.000Z2007-03-14T01:20:40.760ZMacrosoft OfficeStarfucks, halls of hell, everything bolted down, bonhomie go home; a Brazil-like life here we come – welcome to my new office...Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550528.post-1171054855419625732007-02-09T20:53:00.000Z2007-02-09T21:00:55.433ZSense bombThe latest take on developments in Britain's war on terror, a nasty brew of 'plots' on squaddies, detention without trial, the release of details to the press and needless backbench stirring. All of them lead to John Reid's head on a stick.Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550528.post-1170436249782700242007-02-02T17:01:00.000Z2007-02-02T17:10:49.806ZRPP RIP The other side launches a campaign to expose the opportunist pig Jeremy McClintock – perhaps the only political auteur capable of talking about homosexual monkeys in the context of the new terror laws. As Linda Smith said of Jeffery Archer, we’re quite keen to deny him the “oyygen of oxygen” as well as the “oxygen of publicity…”Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550528.post-1168970987786005442007-01-16T17:56:00.000Z2007-01-16T18:09:47.796ZSomalians - the next nongratas Somalia is a non-country whose violent despotism has sent us violent, Muslim asylum seekers that we can all safely detest and stereotype at our arrogant leisure. It's a relationship that we would not want to jeopardise, surely? Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550528.post-1166646005717836232006-12-20T20:17:00.000Z2006-12-20T20:20:05.726ZUnited KingdomsRiyadh told London to cease and desist from their nasty investigation into arms deals done 20 or so years ago, and a fetid tale developed of government connivance in perpetuating the military-industrial complex...Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550528.post-1165485543243052812006-12-07T09:54:00.000Z2006-12-07T09:59:18.220ZBritsh Import-Export Holding Company"This idealistic highgrounding also extends to formulating policy and parliamentary communication. The following two gems also tried in vain to search for appropriate language for an unprecedentedly repressed policy..." In the new immigration era, it's all about the 'bad people'.Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550528.post-1164236032756253692006-11-22T22:50:00.000Z2006-11-22T22:56:13.413ZUnfunny, and offensive"...Parochial whingers all love Peter Kay because they can see enough small mindedness in the jokes/jibes (especially in the shameful adverts for plastic bitter) and you are certainly not required to think. The message (and there always is at least one) is to not take anything seriously, especially the things vaguely hinted at by these Manning-lites..." Not just Kay, but Gervais, Carr and Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550528.post-1160264462420131762006-10-07T23:39:00.000Z2006-10-07T23:41:02.433ZPolitical correctness and multiculturalismLetter to the BBC about Skid ‘Mark’ Easton Click on to Cull for a wider view on Straw’s veil views and the right not to defend the Israeli embassy I am writing to complain about the dangerously simplistic and rancorous content of Mark Easton’s conflated report on British Muslims in the 10 o’clock news last night. The piece dealt with Jack Straw’s comments on his request to Muslim women wearing Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550528.post-1159628260205548632006-09-30T14:53:00.000Z2006-09-30T14:57:40.216ZState IT in a stateA sorry tale of corporate crapulence in the much-vaunted modernisation of the health service.Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550528.post-1159101710098156382006-09-24T12:40:00.000Z2006-09-24T12:41:50.106ZLowdown on the next Labour PM70s Scottish socialism, barneys with Galloway and Brown, plenty of dram, Defence of the realm, Karadzic, rightist arguments in leftist language… Saturday Guardian profiles Comrade Reid.Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550528.post-1158492019508630472006-09-17T11:19:00.001Z2006-09-17T11:51:24.653ZWindows on the whirl"In the end it is merely commonsense to suggest that there was a narrative of action, as well as inaction (ie, failure to arrest Bin Laden) that influenced the attack" – Cull finally gets round to commemorating the casus belli…Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550528.post-1157495142674280752006-09-05T22:21:00.000Z2006-09-05T22:25:42.686ZHome helpEver enthusiastic, the Home Secretary Right Honourable Dr. J. John Reid PhD MP’s has contributed to the British citizenship ceremony, by releasing a single on Hubris Recordings… [to be sung by all successful immigrants and lyrics to be kept with passport at all times and to be presented at police stations during times of possible terrorist attacks] "Oh, do the multi-culti; Oh, do the Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550528.post-1157198322952164942006-09-02T11:56:00.000Z2006-09-02T11:58:42.963ZPoly Race Like ‘political correctness’, ‘multiculturalism’ is only defined by the terms of the user. Officially, only loose definitions can be found… Cull wants Britain’s diverse culture to be about more than food and music…Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550528.post-1156676842891853872006-08-27T11:04:00.000Z2006-08-27T11:07:22.903ZRadio Solent on the Issues that Matter With Jeremy McClintock and William Shawcross on the panel, there’s surely no reason to ignore the transcript of a historic debate on democracy recently held on the south coast.Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550528.post-1155160047353442692006-08-09T21:39:00.000Z2006-08-09T21:47:27.430ZAt last, somebody stands up to be countedAs our Caribbean Queen of a PM heads for his hols, a Scottish Blairite MP resigns over Prestwick refuelling and the govt's pursuing of a policy on the 'middle east crisis' that the majority of Britons oppose... Elsewhere: Israeli Arabs get scant protection; Yes, the levelling of Lebanon was planned well in advance. Also, continue to check Cull on the subject, and check our original piece on Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550528.post-1154551453683403442006-08-02T20:43:00.000Z2006-08-02T20:44:13.696ZIsrael's war - West's policy meltdown The leaders of the free world, so keen to promote stable market-centric democracies in the Middle East, allow Israel to do what it likes for those causes, as well as the complimentary war on terror. And if it doesn’t work they just carry on talking… ...Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550528.post-1154271604280284422006-07-30T14:50:00.000Z2006-07-30T15:00:04.310ZHelp - We are a safe haven for Islamist paedos!A dream story for the tabloid muckrakers - Asian Briton had a long beard so we thought he was a terrorist when we raided him, but the contents of his computer make him an alleged pederast too! What's that in your suicide bomb or are you just pleased to see me? This simply won't do, so come on Tony for the sake of the chil-d-ren create a new register of the Fiddlers of Al-Qaida. The police, the Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550528.post-1153065598634818332006-07-16T15:56:00.000Z2006-07-22T20:34:40.336ZUpdate - Army of God against the Eretz Yisrael crewThe latest on the invasion of Lebanon over there... As Lebanon burns, we've had a thoroughly contemptible response from the leaders of the free world! But not Cull...Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550528.post-1152782614126064862006-07-13T09:21:00.000Z2006-07-13T09:23:34.140ZPrep Talk“Sane people ask each other the question – "will America really attack Iran?" And the reply is "no it wouldn't go that far". But the very insane Snow, Cheney (snr and jnr), Rumsfeld and co are pushing their twisted idea of appropriate measures into public discourse, buttering us up for another energy grab. Accordingly, Bush's lickspittles, British pro-war parliamentarians, are doing their best toCullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550528.post-1151688253632183572006-06-30T17:21:00.000Z2006-06-30T17:25:37.293ZPeddling delusionary lines"The Israeli invasion and completely illegal kidnapping of democratically elected Palestinian government officials mock selective commentary. No one in the international community will do anything about it..." Cull wades through the fog of occupation in the Middle East...Cullanoreply@blogger.com

meeja hoors

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55506452009-04-09T14:43:36.409ZMeeja Hoorsre:mediaBrucenoreply@blogger.comBlogger121125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550645.post-5321479830325522012009-04-09T14:40:00.002Z2009-04-09T14:43:36.419ZOld media in patronising outburstHow not to go about getting your book favourably reviewed.and just because the pr knows how to use Google Alerts (and knows what an embargo is!), let's throw them off the trail by saying the book was for Pride and Prejudice Zombies. Nothing to see here, m'luv, except your dodgy attitude.Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550645.post-57719705382298896402009-04-04T20:36:00.001Z2009-04-04T22:37:20.317ZSpoof linksAn inauspicious time to revive Meeja but as a place of record I thought it was worth mentioning the ">Age of Stupid spoof of the FT, which came out before the broader demo/march on Saturday 28 March, ahead of the predictable spectacle (from both protestors and police) on Wednesday: visually accurate, funny and far more readable than the real thing. Start at the dog jumping over the sheep and workCullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550645.post-45067573656839203432008-02-06T22:56:00.000Z2008-02-06T23:12:23.898ZGhost Blogwhat do you do with a blog that is technically spent? well, remark at that plan for retail to colonise the traditionally-close-for-the-sabbath City. An invasion of capital by capital no less. The city was an interesting and walkable place on sundays but now they want it to be oxford street east. Should be handy for the returning Olympic watchers. there are enough strips of shops in this capital Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550645.post-61723718727547591352007-08-07T22:28:00.000Z2007-08-07T22:30:27.422ZValidating every moment"There's nothing to do round here, the kids cry. Except prepare for a life of getting an erection over a detached house"Cull back after unjustifiable hiatus with comments on the pixel nation.Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550645.post-82996469089633607472007-07-25T21:29:00.000Z2007-07-25T21:31:30.098ZComedy skirting meaningStewart Lee is back on tour after more conspicuous times in the public eye as Springer opera man and the usual detours into writing, TV comedy and, also, artifact curation. Naturally, the appearance of someone with a track record ensured a packed crowd in the culture-free environs of SE23, at the newly airbrushed Honor Oak by the south circular (he’d originally been down to play the more Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550645.post-64400127088237058282007-06-26T18:50:00.000Z2007-06-26T18:54:20.571ZThey're corrupt sportsmen, not jihadisCull puts down the surprise at the natural causes verdict for Bob Woolmer's death as a blatant example of Islamophobia in the play-fair world of international cricket.Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550645.post-66414986443146079752007-06-13T21:59:00.000Z2007-06-21T21:59:26.913ZAs the Mirror Says - Chemically Castrate the PaedosA grim conclusion is being reached in the search for the stolen child, but that doesn't mean the ex-editor of Children Now reeling off some home truths about slack parenthood.Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550645.post-23432590376873203172007-06-07T21:01:00.000Z2007-06-07T21:14:32.261ZHow Mitchell and Webb look to the PC mogulsMicrosoft's Gates and Apple's Big Jobs were interviewed by two techy bloggers on stage a few weeks ago. During the course of their back-slapping the Microtoss Pista man and Apple's Big Jobs mentioned the little Brit comics who star in the Apple adverts, Robert Webb as Mac and David Mitchell as PCInterviewer I: Although you know what? I have to confess, I like PC guy.Interviewer I: Yeah, he’s Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550645.post-83103217968377289712007-05-24T21:57:00.000Z2007-05-24T22:02:39.828ZNaming and shamingYou'll have seen on Truth that we recently had a debut screening for our Jeremy McClintock comedy, and it went ok. Half the problem in the run-up to the night was getting the name right, and I'm not sure we achieved that. The guys parked their fat arses round their virtual table and came up with a list of about 150, and here is 20 or so of the more interesting from that long list. Any comments Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550645.post-7461313014139224422007-04-25T22:01:00.000Z2007-04-25T22:05:08.219ZMarket forces"These guys, if not the marketing, are the marketeers, marketing to market as much as they are remarking to market, and marking to market"Go to Cull for moreCullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550645.post-37170966854071185732007-04-20T19:23:00.000Z2007-04-20T19:26:01.663ZPay-as-you-go-deceptionOrder your media pack on Iran through these Israeli backers. Middle East common sense assuredCullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550645.post-1172660112667253552007-02-28T10:49:00.000Z2007-02-28T10:55:12.710ZLuvvy stuffQueen star props the Queen, and more gongs from institutions are likely.Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550645.post-1170093822748269762007-01-29T17:59:00.000Z2007-01-29T18:03:42.760ZBlood sacrificesDaily Mail editor Dacre tries to influence his readers like a politician but he isn’t. Dacre calls the BBC monocultural but it isn’t. Dacre says he’s not confused but he is..Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550645.post-1169248635663349042007-01-19T23:09:00.000Z2007-01-19T23:18:15.860ZCelebrity Big Brother Racehategate: “It’s ok, it was all a misunderstanding and the evictee has apologised” Except it isn’t, and this casual racism has to stop Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550645.post-1168005233678463452007-01-05T13:51:00.000Z2007-01-05T13:53:53.693ZPeople are change“All the ideological euphoria of New Labour is exhausted, and the only thing that matters is the self. As Warren puts it: ‘Arguing about the war is so last season’”Pete Clark’s smoking guns were unusually on target in the Standard, but Cull went several louder in its review of This Life’s trite 10-year-anniversary retreatment…Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550645.post-1166183137621224452006-12-15T11:44:00.000Z2006-12-15T11:45:37.633ZThinking must be outsourced and accountableCull with some apercus about the consultants infiltrating Westminster.Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550645.post-1164403413200349512006-11-24T21:19:00.000Z2006-11-26T21:01:10.243ZThe ghost of Alf Garnettthis is a reply from two Cull readers to an article orginally flagged up in Political Peccadillo, but we've now moved it to this section, while belatedly digesting the news about the racist act from the ex-Kramer man...Wrong-com is an interesting article, if a little po-faced. But then that’s half the problem, isn’t it? Taking things ‘too seriously’? hmm? It’s only comedy after all. Just a laugh Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550645.post-1163456628141884562006-11-13T22:22:00.000Z2006-11-14T10:23:37.396ZChilds in timeslight return…Mark Foley was a republication representative from Florida that knew a thing or two about coveting minors. And this link shows while protectors of his ilk should not protest that they are gay or straight – his “immature sexuality” makes him a paedophile plain and simple.Quite amusing reactions to the article, particularly the stuff about “30 per cent of males get aroused when shownCullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550645.post-1163164936854384352006-11-10T13:20:00.000Z2006-11-10T13:36:33.416ZEngland capital’s captain – a racist?After the dismissal of stiff-upper-chest-and-bent-face England captain JT, the message boards have been replete with manna from rumour mill heaven. It is alleged that Jaytee told Ledley King to 'shut up you lippy black monkey’ before getting sent off against the Spurz. This would explain why King went mad in an otherwise harmless-appearing incident; why Chimbonda went berserk and had to be Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550645.post-1161104148037520302006-10-17T16:53:00.000Z2006-10-17T17:01:20.313ZDifference be damnedThree series into Peepshow – a fourth is on the way – and now with their own comedy series, this is Robert Webb and David Mitchell’s moment. After years behind the scenes writing for others, taking bit parts and presenting their own radioshows, they’re now due their place on Jonathon Toss’ sofa. Get your laughing gear round them.Or don’t. Despite their years of experience, lame characterisation,Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550645.post-1161025910229980762006-10-16T19:06:00.000Z2006-10-17T10:32:03.980ZCorporate adventurism must pay offFollowing on from the recent look at Elephant residential conceits, two new projects have landed up the road in SE1, around Bankside and near Blackfriars, as if from average Space.This Southwark Street façade has coloured windows frames and outdoor shutters exposing the internal structure and maybe shifting shape and position like the diaphragms of Paris’ Institut du Monde Arabe. But it is a poorCullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550645.post-1159198514359636252006-09-25T15:19:00.000Z2006-09-26T09:51:33.210ZThe embryonic advisory(brought to you by Smuggies!)* Despite antenatal worries about whether you will be a responsible parent/love them enough/do your best by them, soon you will become besotted by their every move and willing to preserve them from the harshness of Mundo Exterior with formaldehyde, if necessary. Because you own them like an insurance policy. * You will develop a long list of nicknames – some Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550645.post-1157494951612747932006-09-05T22:21:00.000Z2006-09-05T22:22:31.623ZIt's your Shawcrosses...Cull reasons that to let writers like Billy boy off the hook now would be nothing short of appeasementCullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550645.post-1157113986662319002006-09-01T12:28:00.000Z2006-09-01T12:39:21.980ZErsatz gentrification of Elephant continuesNew and recent flat developments on Wansey Street and Steedman Street. The marine latter, ‘South Central East’, looks pretty exclusive, and visually gauche, while the former is a tangerine dream of wood facading next to Southwark library and museum.With the wider area, including parts of Blackfriars to the north, one of the last central zones to be colonised by people in search of an authentic Cullanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5550645.post-1156524562878355982006-08-25T16:48:00.000Z2006-08-25T16:52:39.313ZAnatomy of an atrocity Thatcher thuggery analysed again, and again Manchester City’s blind scrote of a left-back, Ben Thatcher, was thrust into disgrace on Wednesday night, after clattering Portsmouth midfielder Pedro Mendes in an ‘X-rated’ elbow-and-body clean-out. Mendes needed hospital treatment, during which time the moral opprobrium was ratcheted up big time within the soccer community. Initial response from Cullanoreply@blogger.com

sonic truth

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54998322009-07-03T12:27:58.135ZSonic Truth<strong>A SIDE: SONIC TRUTH</strong>: Packing in the certaintyBrucenoreply@blogger.comBlogger201125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-73971290276138275732009-07-03T12:23:00.003Z2009-07-03T12:27:58.144ZTrain overhearingThe two male students got on at Brockley. Opinionated, informed and fully commentisfreee, at first they were assessing the progress of the civil engineers on the east London line extension, perhaps wondering just when that direct link to Shoreditch will open. But thought soon turned to weightier cultural matters. Apropos of maybe a post-Glstnbry sartorial appraisal in this close summer, one Cullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-36668254115955295572009-06-26T12:37:00.005Z2009-06-26T12:40:54.853ZWhat a massive club looks likeAnd with Sonic Strewth in danger of turning into an offbeat football webzine, I also belatedly link to Owen on the Theatre of Creams, in itself part of an appendix on his ">BD urban trawl:“">...many curious things, including the bizarre Yeltsin-Constructivism of Old Trafford, where domineering symmetries, bared structure and outrageously kitsch statues prove the enduring ridiculousness of the Cullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-72871907218559828032009-06-26T12:35:00.001Z2009-06-26T12:42:23.864Zps......Iran promptly ‘retired’ four of the green armband-wearing players, just one element of Khamanei’s crackdown. Fifa’s complaint to Tehranwill make no difference at all.Cullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-36711538294179441802009-06-19T13:45:00.003Z2009-06-19T13:51:56.078ZTheory bumpJust as it should be, it's an actual tune that has done the best justifying of the continuum talk, though it has come from a theorist's camp. ">Cooly G's ep on Kode9's Hyperdub offers two belters in ">Narst and Love Dub. Narst is all early Wiley ominous strings with a banging undercurrent and firm subs redolent of early Warp amid hints of soca/funky influence. Love Dub pays homage to the often Cullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-89548182856117265582009-06-18T12:18:00.010Z2009-06-18T19:44:31.024Z2000:10 – Corky’s dizaineIn a definite boost for the stuttering http://www.cinestatic.com/whorecull/music/2009/03/top-10-of-decade-first-entry.asp">top 10 of the decade series (resuming soon! - I told you it would take all year), City fan and Leeds’ finest Corky offers an inspiring top 10, full of regional detail and free of London insular bias. LCD, the 'Werk and !!! among them - this is getting the compi fingers Cullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-38994201326677614232009-06-18T11:29:00.008Z2009-06-18T12:29:57.016ZIran players support anti-Ahmadinejad protestsForget the recession-proof world of obscene transfer deals - the 80 squillions that took the volatile hyena Ronaldo to the filthy merengues from the theatre of cream par example - by far the most important soccer gesture took place last night when half the Iran team, including captain Mehdi Mahdavikia, wore green armbands in support of opposition candidate Mir Hossein Moussavi, as efforts Cullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-45143383611046796552009-06-17T22:09:00.004Z2009-06-17T22:32:25.091ZPathetic and haplessIt’s a look I resort to all too often, and not just to myself when something mildly upsetting has happened. That’s because this little expression’s emotional range is deeper than you think, coming in handy as a hello substitute. It was particularly adaptive in this regard during a recent euro-fam break in the other Bretagne there in France. Here, you don’t know whether the almost-community of theCullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-67963350862769623582009-06-11T17:57:00.005Z2009-06-18T12:51:11.197ZLosing it in the family(adds some edits)Love Nina’s posting of various unequivocal positions on patriarchcal naming practices even by the so-called leftwing – husband insisting on wife losing her ‘maiden’ name, sons often being given the name of the father, vanity and pride and a cloying cosseting taking over. Let me mention my pet hate on naming for the next generation - the lurch to Victoriana. All these emilys, Cullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-17183038337001496122009-06-04T13:01:00.003Z2009-06-04T13:20:29.540ZSaturday nightBruce has flipped causes for his next spot of gig organisation. The man we used to recognise round these parts as Czukay has helped put together a benefit night for Climate Camp, again at London's Cross Kings, just a skip up York Road from King's Cross. Expect another set of diverse performances including improvisation, character comedy and some rousing musical acts to finish things off, Cullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-22045400738873707262009-05-27T23:04:00.001Z2009-05-27T23:07:54.821ZCALL night comes aliveIt is by comparison with a top CALL night that we can now honestly say how disappointing the night was in Lee a month earlier. Blame the relocation, and the location, but not the acts themselves, those of whom on Saturday’s bill at the Cross Kings again put in a great shift as a football manager might patronisingly say. These include the Amigans, Bard Stupid, Matt Dolphin and the Carbon Town Cullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-52738315706310923242009-05-19T11:21:00.002Z2009-05-19T11:33:33.694ZCALL King’s Cross, this SaturdayThe CALL fund and awareness-raising night returns this weekend, this time better located in town at the Cross Kings in, that’s right, King’s Cross. The cause of ‘Defend Education, Defend jobs’ is the same (with many people likely to come from a demonstration against LMU cuts), but the line-up has been refreshed with some new acts and Truth set to play a few sets, one early on and one after Radio Cullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-42807840390593055192009-05-19T11:16:00.003Z2009-05-19T11:33:05.803ZNew microgenre alertMotor’s rmx of Kanye West’s Robocop (from the forthcoming film) is not likely to make the CALL playlist, where more party-oriented fare rather than ‘death rave’ will be required. This grinding French-US techno act has spent a few years on Nova Mute churning out mechanihilist output (I’m a fan of their Stuka Stunt/Junker twelve from 2005; it sits nicely with Vitalic and all the spazz) but have Cullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-75706091259563030012009-05-06T12:42:00.009Z2009-05-06T14:35:31.593ZTop 10 of the Decade - fourth entryHiem – She’s the One (Matthew Jonson Circles in Time remix – Crosstown Rebels 2004) (series growing here)I knew about Hiem’s schlocky Sheffield take on song-based electro dance from Corky putting their Chelsea on one of his CD compilations. It was an abrasive, underproduced number, overlaid with spoken word about the reet headfuck that is the erstwhile local girl, which the NME described as ‘likeCullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-4704423989906322742009-04-28T10:47:00.004Z2009-04-28T11:02:40.239ZBenefits of a week offGetting to play six records ‘out’ is not why I still collect music, but that was the only opportunity during the latest CALL night, where the line-up was staggered and numbers were down due to the relocation and, perhaps, metropolitan aversions about suburban SE London in general and how far out the Dirty South is. (A train to Lewisham and a 15-minute walk down the A20 gets you there; props to Cullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-50214260404368231682009-04-15T13:43:00.002Z2009-04-15T13:46:52.747ZCALL night Thursday 23 April – venue switchNext Thursday’s night in aid of the Campaigning Alliance for Lifelong Learning has switched venue to Dirty South in Lee. Here’s the ">venue home page, ">Facebook event and that Jezza's ">palpable excitement at the upcoming event. Flyer is below. Hope to see you there.Cullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-41832408576197381222009-04-14T12:22:00.001Z2009-04-28T10:58:10.684ZDoes anyone want a So Solid picture disc?Recently there has been a breakthrough in clearing out the music crap that accumulated over the years from my partner working in the business then became serious landfill when her distributors/marketers went bust at the end of last year. Check ">Music Magpie out, it’s an ultra-easy way of selling unwanted CDs – just put the barcode in and the CD is valued straight away. Continue through your listCullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-18917554593777383592009-04-08T12:39:00.006Z2009-04-09T14:54:52.435ZTop 10 of the Decade - third entryVitalic - La Rock 01(international Deejay Gigolos 2001) (series growing here)There might be years of pre-ownership speculation about a tune you go on to love, especially if you have no idea which is the right remix or which label it came out on first or even if it is the right one. That was the case for me with Vitalic’s La Rock 01, first out on hell’s International Deejay Gigolos in 2001. A Cullanoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-79785842187690409672009-03-31T22:49:00.006Z2009-04-01T14:42:01.801ZSecond entryTo the critiks Rajko Muller [nom d’output Isolée] was in some ways the classic microhouse, sophist, undance artist who’d much rather add 12 bars of subtle tinkering than anything in search of pavlovian effect on the floor. But conventional house music and its already several contexts were pretty consolidated by the turn of century. What we needed now was rave artistry. Isolee had already switchedCullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-84838971195685611432009-03-30T12:20:00.003Z2009-03-30T12:27:34.865ZCALL night: 23 April @ Montague Arms, SE15An early plug for another night @ the Montague in aid of the ">CALL campaign, on Thursday April 23. It’ll keep to the same format of comedy, singing groups and bands such as tribal reggae punks Radio Revolucion (check the ">Gernika stylings on their myspace), but adds in new acts like The Rules, a promising pop-punk act led by Paul and George, formerly sticksman for Earl Brutus among others. Mad Cullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-13765193296623818392009-03-24T14:18:00.015Z2009-05-06T13:03:43.119ZTop 10 of the DecadeDJ Zinc – 138 Trek (Tru Playaz 2000)The decade starts with one of jungle’s prime movers stepping back from that scene to create something with populist appeal across rave's fractured genres. Mr Super Sharp Shooter DJ Zinc released the Beats By Design ep in January 2000, and 138 Trek, named after its bpm, quickly became the in-demand track and was soon released as a 12’’ with the trip-hoppy Cullanoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-24577021179630421822009-03-19T17:33:00.005Z2009-03-19T18:03:24.962ZDitching roadDigital crawlers will surely be on this, but Skepta has joined the grime digi-pop gravy train of Roll Deep, Dizzee, Wiley and Tinchy. Ostensibly a cover of the turn-of-century electroclassic Tiga & Zyntherius' Sunglasses at Night, all the key elements are there, catchphrase choruses (the particularly lame 'roses are red, violets are blue, you know i've got my eyes on you'), digital belches, a Cullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-15745407737760135582009-03-13T13:54:00.004Z2009-03-13T14:18:15.815ZComing up - the charts!In the third month of the final year of the zero-zeroes, the double 0s (please not the ‘naughties’), where is the noise and build-up for ‘Best Songs/Sounds/Albums/Squelches/Bubbles of the Decade’? Obviously there is still time for a belter to barge its way into any journalist’s carefully curated lists, but they should all be pretty much done by now, right?It's up to me then to work the fetish forCullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-31653416966014934652009-03-11T13:47:00.002Z2009-03-11T17:48:07.169ZBBC comedy bites UKG smash'Nuum support has come from the surprising quarter of comic actors Horne and Corden -who use Oxide & Neutrino smash Bound 4 Da Reload for a dance routine on their new sketch show, adding the call and response 'Stop Gun Crime' (such right-on concerns offset in their import by jokey evening ballroom wear). It's no surprise this latest 'we've been involved in a hit sitcom, so can we have our own Cullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-71256024672448492092009-02-13T11:27:00.004Z2009-02-13T11:36:46.318ZSqueeze the square into the circleNever one for generic fidelity, Ministry have seen fit to include ’08 underground smash/’09 overground smash Kid Cudi’s Day ‘N Nite in their latest Sound of Bassline II comp. Can’t say I know my bassline but Crooker’s take on the hip-houser has more euro characteristics in its synth-riff and robot house rhythm than British post-garage wobble. Then again, those stock digital sounds are pretty muchCullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-47900799971323381412009-02-09T22:20:00.004Z2009-02-09T22:48:48.487ZWatch out for your covered earsToo right that the headphone session is a central - and possibly the most fulfilling - listening experience de nos jours hypermodernes. The ‘kids’ know it at Silent Disco, whether it’s in tune to a central DJ or flash-style listening to their own shit. And we’re not necessarily talking about just the iPod, conventionally used on the train as immersion in the mePod in some Morleyesque poptimist Cullanoreply@blogger.com0