Good art is difficult to do, great art even more so. Personally, despite the technical accomplishment, The Prophecy strikes me as kitsch of the highest order. It’s a pity, because the artist, Aymeric Giraudel, has some stunning digital photos on his site. But this work leaves me stone cold. It’s The Chinese Girl for the 21st Century gay male fashionista. And the accompanying video – complete with Madonna reading a bowdlerised version of Revelations – is even more toe-curling. Not for me. Give me Pierre et Gilles any day.
Year: 2008
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Windows Live Photo Gallery – Part II
I see that Microsoft has released an update to Windows Live Photo Gallery. The build number has gone from 12.0.1308.1023 to 12.0.1329.201.
I can’t see any obvious changes in the functionality of the program, so presumably there are only bug fixes in this release.
I had hoped that one of the bugs to be fixed would be the one that is in the “Publish on Flickr” process. As I wrote back in October last year, during the upload process, the XMP Title field gets put into the Flickr Description field. What should happen is that the XMP Description field should be used for the Flickr Description field. Microsoft has acknowledged the bug, but here we are, four months later, and no sign of a fix.
Sigh.
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XML People
OK, if you’re not a geek, this will mean nothing to you. Tim Bray writes about the people behind XML. Wonderful. I have had the privilege of meeting some of them. What continues to give me electric shocks is the self evident fact that Ted was right; Tim BL has reinvented the whoopee cushion and the joy buzzer in Internet terms. But, ultimately, that doesn’t matter. Le roi est mort, vive le roi! -
Damn
One of the blogs I try and make a point of reading regularly is Tom Reynolds’ Random Acts of Reality. Consequences is a fairly typical entry. Just when you think the story is bad enough, he delivers a real kicker in the last line. Damn. -
Freeheld
I’m pleased to see that Cynthia Wade’s film Freeheld has been recognised with an Oscar. Laurel Hester may not have died in vain, but the fact that her life was held in such contempt continues to leave a very nasty taste, and a reminder that the struggle for simple recognition of human rights goes on, seemingly without end. -
Strawman Alert
Andrew Brown reaches a new low in his opinion piece in today’s Guardian. I really am getting awfully tired of the falsehoods that he and people like him (Theo Hobson springs to mind) trot out whenever they mention the name of Richard Dawkins. -
Can You See The Stars?
Light pollution is increasing, which means it is becoming ever more difficult to see stars in the night sky. The Globe At Night organisation is asking people around the world to take part in a survey of light pollution levels during the period from 25 Febuary to 8 March 2008. It’s quite easy to do, and I’ll be hoping for some cloudless nights to add my observations into the total.(hat tip to Phil Plait for the link) -
The Salamander’s Tale
YouTube user RodHullIAmHim has provided some visuals to The Salamander’s Tale. This is a short extract from the Audiobook version of Richard Dawkins’ The Ancestor’s Tale. The voices you hear are of Dawkins and his wife, Lalla Ward. The tale itself illustrates the phenomenon of ring species – evolution happening on a spatial dimension, rather than a time dimension. The tale ends with a typically thought-provoking twist from Dawkins, one that he explores further in his book. -
Ballard on Ballard
Ballardian has a transcription of a terrific interview that J. G. Ballard gave to James Naughtie. Unmissable. Here’s Ballard talking about his book Empire of the Sun:In a way it shows the lengths that human beings will go to survive, the instinct for survival is intensely strong, no doubt about that, people will give up everything: every shred of dignity, every dream, every illusion, they will give up their most cherished fantasies, just to live for another half-an-hour. It’s a terrible thing to have to face but it’s true — war is a corrupting experience, it’s corrupting in the sense that violence is quite seductive, it has an appeal, In that, you can understand a world entirely given over to brutality and violence, whereas, sort of, peace — civilised life in the everyday sense of the term — is much more ambiguous, in fact, because we keep discovering there are things about ourselves that don’t quite accord with this notion that we are — civilised inheritors of the whole enlightenment tradition, and that we live in welfare societies and, you know, care for each other, but then something happens that reminds us that maybe it’s not quite that straightforward — war is very corrupting because it is so clear cut — people have a ruthlessness about the need to survive that is unmistakable really. -
From The Desk of Mr. Thompson John
I see that scamming is alive and well. I’ve just had a message "From The Desk of Mr. Thompson John" [sic], who purports to be the head of the auditing department in the Buckingham Palace Road branch of Barclays Bank in London. Yeah, sure. You’ll forgive me if I don’t bother to claim a share in the $10.5 million that you claim to have just lying around waiting for a sucker to send in their bank details to you.Actually, there’s now an emerging sport of folks who spin out the line to these scammers. My favourite at the moment is the exchange between Lewis D. Noogie and the Contract Killers. Worth reading… -
Cruel Clock
The Turing Alarm Clock is a very clever idea – but if you’re not good at mental arithmetic, it seems a rather cruel and unusual punishment… -
The Dame Edna Experience
Following on from a nod to the passing of Emily Perry, I can’t help reminiscing over an abiding memory from The Dame Edna Experience, broadcast back in 1987. Dame Edna was chatting to her guests: Cliff Richard and Mary Whitehouse before introducing the next guest. The idea of Barry Humphries, an Australian female impersonator in his persona of Dame Edna Everage, having Mary Whitehouse, the epitome of all that was the worst in sanctimonious mealy-mouthed moralists, as his/her guest was enough to beggar the imagination. My brain was already rolling over and begging for mercy."Ladies and Gentlemen", trills Edna, "Would you please welcome Mr. Kurt Waldheim, President of Austria!" She stands up and waves grandly towards back centre stage, where on a raised podium over the band, double doors slide open and reveal Kurt Waldheim, clutching a bunch of gladioli! He steps forward to great applause and waves shyly to the audience. Meanwhile, Cliff and Mary are also on their feet, beaming and applauding. You could see the thought going through both of their minds: "Kurt Waldheim? – how is this possible? – but, he’s a really important politician, and I’m here as well…"Mr. Waldheim turns, and walks along the podium. Suddenly, a trapdoor opens up beneath his feet, and he falls through it, gladdies and all. Complete deathly hush in the studio – camera cuts to Dame Edna returning a lever on the table next to her chair to the upright position. Cliff Richard and Mary Whitehouse ashen-faced. Cliff, horror-struck and mute, turns to Dame Edna, his hands making little gesturings towards the podium as if to say "shouldn’t we be doing something to help?" Dame Edna shrugs her shoulders and says to Cliff: "Ï’m sorry dear, but he was getting boring, so I aborted him".Well, the look on their faces as they realise they’ve been had was priceless. I don’t think I laughed so much in years. -
Brain Implants
I see from this post over at the io9 SF web site that John Varley has a new book coming out next month: Rolling Thunder. I’m hoping it will signal a return to his old brilliance. His last couple of novels have had mixed reviews. When he is good, he is very, very good. When he is bad, it appears he writes like Robert Heinlein churning out space opera…The io9 post is about Varley’s plot device in the new novel whereby everyone has a brain implant that allows them to Google information. As you might imagine, there are pros and cons.As I say, I hope Varley is back on form. As I’ve mentioned before, his novel Steel Beach has the greatest opening sentence in all of Science Fiction:"In five years, the penis will be obsolete" said the salesman. -
Not A Good Idea
My heart goes out to the shade of Sir Adrian Boult. His earthly remains must surely be spinning in his grave over this LP cover. Yes, it was the 1970s, but still – did no-one register that this was not quite the best image to use to advertise Gustav Holst’s The Planets? And I can’t help feeling that the comment by Extracrispy points out something further that is troubling in the image.
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David Shenton
This seems like a blast from the past – I’ve just been told that David Shenton is still producing his comics. And here he is! I remember his work from years ago in the old Gay News. Good to see that he’s still around. Here’s a typical example. His amateur artist has obviously never met Detective Inspector Twist (a private reference for those who knew me back in the 1970s) -
There’s Nowt So Queer As Folk…
And here’s the next installment of an occasional series. This time, a tip of the hat goes to Jim Downey for drawing our attention to people who trepan for fun. Warning, if you follow his links to the diary entries, you’ll get the full works – amateur operating theatres, blood, and clear contenders for the Darwin Awards.
Geoff Coupe's Blog 