Quay Brothers

Surreal, creepy, beautiful, and not in a hurry to tell their tales. The Quay Brothers are twins from PA who create haunting/haunted puppet animations. I would have to say that they are not for everyone, say like Joel-Peter Witkin at his best, and mercifully the Quay Brothers do not descend into campy shock for the sake of shock as Witkin can do at times. Recommended for any-one with patience and black sense of humor.

Video for His Name is Alive



Commercial for FSN



Joel-Peter Witkin's Las Meninas

Here at the Millerntor things are a bit different

Enjoy this brief intro to FC St. Pauli though it is a bit out of date.



Interested? FC St. Pauli Amis is a site run by a friend who has a strong connection to the club. They update regularly with news and info.

Amon Tobin vid mania.

Amon Tobin "El Cargo"



Amon Tobin in his Cujo mode

Amon Tobin & Cujo - Traffic
Uploaded by arnaud34

Trailer #1 from Amon Tobin's Foley Room

Amon Tobin - Foley Room trailer #2
Uploaded by Pyxmalion

And Trailer #2

Foley Room trailer #2
Uploaded by Pyxmalion

Toronto FC 1 - DCU 2

Yes, an away win. Sadly I was unable to see the game. Work ya know! Reading the boards it sounds like we battled well and deserved the win. Though I'm getting the impression that alot of fans are waiting to be convinced by this years edition, myself included. Given our results so far, I say fair enough. Outside of winning first place, the regular season is one long grind and not of the greatest importance and as fans we do need to keep our feet on the ground. What is important is getting the team right. By that I mean right mix of Healthy players, right tactics with those players and a positive attitude. I'm getting the impression that Tommy understands that, as evidenced by some of the changes he has been making to the starting line-up and his subs. Credit to him for going for the win today as well, a willingness to go for the win if it there for the taking is nice to see. So yeah, winning as often as we can during the regular season is important to me as a fan but after our start this regular season looks like a rollercoaster ride. Its on upswing now but .....

And that is one of joys of fandom. That up and down swing which has you swinging between hopelessness and joy. Maybe that's what I'm seeing in this team right now. There are bits and pieces of something really good here but it seems to be not far away from really bad as well. That anticipation of something good is addictive. So in hope of Saturday v Houston.

Highlights



Now come on St. Pauli!!!!

Amon Tobin Verbal

China Mieville

China Miéville is a British author of what he describes as “weird fiction”. This description references the horror tales H.P. Lovecraft. Miéville is considered as a part of the New Weird literary movement which draws inspiration from Lovecraft and other early writers of weird tales. The authors in this genre often combine elements of horror, fantasy, science fiction, mystery and westerns in an effort to expand the storytelling opportunities within their works. Miéville’s fiction uses elements of various genres, strong characterization, compelling storytelling and a dose of politics to create award winning novels that would be of interest for readers looking to move beyond the sometimes limited parameters of genre fiction.

Miéville was born in Norwich, England and has lived in London since his youth. He has a B.A. in social anthropology from Cambridge and a master’s with distinction from the London School of Economics. He has written a number of books; KING RAT, PERDIDO STREET STATION, THE SCAR, THE IRON COUNCIL, and UN LUN DUN. LOOKING FOR FOR JAKE is a collection of short works. Miéville has also written a number of articles with a range of topics that include architecture, Marxism, world building in fantasy writing, and a bibliography for aspiring Socialists. The topics listed here read as list of a few of the themes which appear in his fiction. Other themes would include personal choice, physical and spiritual transformation, socio-economic struggle, technology, racial and cultural diversity, architecture and betrayal.

Mieville's reputation rests on his first three books; PERDIDO STREET STATION, THE SCAR, and THE IRON COUNCIL. In these books he has created the expansively realized world of Bas-Lag that is both familiar and alien. Bas-Lag is based upon an industrialized Victorian England and has all the smoke, filth and social ills of that age. New Crobuzon is the main city of Bas-Lag and in PERDIDO STREET STATION this sprawling Dickensian city becomes a character in it's own right. The fact that New Crobuzon is industrialized and the characters embrace urbanization is in opposition to the bucolic settings and pre-industrial nostalgia of many fantasy writers.

Bas-Lag is populated with humans and a menagerie of non-human life forms and cultures that add to the otherness of this imagined world. Creatures such as the scarab beetle headed Khepri, the Garuda with an avian head and feet merged with human body, the Cactacae plant people, the frog like Vodyanoi and others mingle with humans. An important creature that exists in this world is the Remade. The Remade were once human or otherwise who, as a result of a conviction by the city of New Crobuzon's judiciary, have been transformed or "Remade". This process grafts organic and/or non-organic appendages to the victims' bodies. The addition then serve to enslave the Remade and to mark them as both convicted and freaks.

Mieville uses the alien races, Remades and humans in a large cast of characters who drive his stories. These characters include scientists, linguists, artist, street urchins, socialist revolutionaries, blue collar industrial workers, thieves, beggars and more. He takes these characters on epic journeys, both physically and spiritually, during which horrible and amazing thins will transform them and their world. Bus as a self-described pulpist Mieville will make these journeys full of action and adventure in the form shoot-outs, revolutionary street battles, vampires, pirates battling at sea, unknown beasts in the wilderness, magic, espionage and political crises. There is a lot going on in Mevilles's fiction and a poor writer could lose the plot amongst all the description. Mieville does not and it is a testament to his skill that his characters and their development have always been the life blood of his work.

Novels
King Rat (1998)
Perdido Street Station (2000)
The Scar (2002)
The Tain (novella, 2002)
Iron Council (2004)
Un Lun Dun (February 2007)

Short fiction
"Highway Sixty One Revisited" (in Young Words, 1986)
"Looking for Jake" (in Neonlit Vol. 1, edited by Nicholas Royle, 1999)
"Different Skies" (in Brit-pulp!, edited by Tony White, 1999)
"An End to Hunger" (in Book of Internet Stories, edited by Maxim Jakubowski, 2000)
"Details" (in The Children of Cthulhu, edited by John Pelan and Benjamin Adams, 2002)
"Familiar" (in Conjunctions: 39, The New Wave Fabulists, edited by Peter Straub, 2002)
"Buscard's Murrain" (in The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases, edited by Jeff VanderMeer and Mark Roberts, 2003)
"Reports of Certain Events in London" (in McSweeney's Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories, edited by Michael Chabon, 2004)

Collections
Looking for Jake (collection, 2005)

Nonfiction
Between Equal Rights: A Marxist Theory of International Law (nonfiction, 2005)
"At the Mountains of Madness": An Introduction, 2005
"The Borribles": An Introduction, 2001

Bibliography is copied from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Mieville#Bibliography, 05/17/07

Interviews

Recent Movies - Multipass!!!

1. Fifth Element - Bought it, love it and now have seen it, well more times than I can count. Always have loved it, always will love it. Okay I haven't named my cat Corbin Dallas but still it is a classic in terms of look, story, and fun. Watch it if you haven't and watch it again if you have.!!!!!

2. Louis Malle - Phantom India and Calcutta. These are beautiful movies, just gorgeous. They were created in 1968-1970. A fascinating moment in time in the world and these films show India in interesting times as well. He is critical most of the time, not in a mean-spirited way, he just seems to find India absurd in its contradictions. He may be right. I've never been to India. I've lived in W. Africa for three years and much in the films seemed very similar to me. Where I lived there were no massive temples as the Hindu faith has but otherwise Africa was filled with extreme contradictions as well, so the film didn't shock me. The politics though, yikes, those were strange. Right-Wing v. Left-Wing communists. A placard at a rally: "They call it Gandhism, We call Fascism". These movies have some very powerful moments indeed.



3. Pitch Black (The Chronicles of Riddick: Pitch Black) - The only Vin Diesel films I like are the Riddick films and this is the better of the two. It is just a good fun, creepy little adventure flick. Definitely worth the price to track down and rent/own.

Books 4/20 - 5/9

"Let's be about it"


Well not many new books. I've gone back and reread some of David Weber's Honor Harrington Series. There are seventeen books in this series and some do not involve Harrington, though most do, and the ones that don't are set in the same universe or Honorverse. I enjoyed the first ten novels in the series, "On Basilisk Station" thru "War of Honor". In these ten I felt as though Weber got the balance right between the military, action, aspects of stories and characters. Throw in some fascinating science, economics, references to the age of sail (Napoleonic War era, Nelson that sort of thing), some pretty interesting alien species and you've got yourself some cracking good space opera. If you must call it something then hard military space opera will get close, if you must. Really the only down-side I can think of is the military aspects of it. If you can't overlook the violence inherent in military sci-fi (insert Grail comment, go ahead I don't mind) and the regular killing off of characters well, then this may not be for you. If you can or you like military sci-fi and prefer that the cast of characters change then I highly recommend this series. Another point very much in this series favor is that Weber does not, I repeat, does not write the same book over and over again. What about the remaining seven novels in series? I don't know, I feel like they got too mushy. I preferred Harrington in full Valkyrie mode of the early books myself.




"Majestrum"

"Majestrum" is my first encounter with the author, Matthew Hughes. Based on this book I think I've got to start tracking down his other work, his web-site has some interesting tasters to get one started. So I got interested in this particular book by all the favourable references to good ol' Sherlock and the fact that it was set in the far far future, I mean science fiction and mystery in one book, you might as well put a pint of Guinness and shot of Knappogue Castle whiskey in front of me! However, combining my two favorite genres has often disappointed and so with a bit of trepidation I dug in.

I was not disappointed. The main character of this work is Henghis Hapthorn who is a discriminator, ie detective. His method is one of pure rationality or so he thinks. That is one the major themes of the book, rational thought v. intuitive thought, or as it called in this novel "suggestive association". Hapthorn's reliance on rationality is Holmesian as is his arrogance. He is arrogant about his methods, his successes, and his place in what he sees as his world and his times. His world is "Old Earth" which is our Earth but in this universe it just one of ten thousand planets populated by humans after a number of Diasporas. This world is rendered in vivid and concrete terms by Hughes. This Earth has gained a type monarchy, the Archonate, and it has become very fussy about protocols, class and etiquette. I had a vision of Europe in the 16Th century until the early 18Th century, in terms of social structure. Obviously this is a space faring time and technology that underpins this universe is appropriately complex. His times are "rational", without magic, but that is changing towards a period of magic. That imminent change forms one the crises for Henghis Hapthorn. The others are number of cases, discriminations, that he is employed to resolve. The the main discrimination that he must perform is complex and allows Hughes to discuss rational thought v. intuitive thought at length. This results in the book spending large amounts of time directed at the internal affairs of Hapthorn. The danger of becoming bogged down in these internal crises is avoided by a brisk writing style and healthy dollop of action sequences that force the characters out of themselves.

The novel is brief totalling 210 pages. The language used by the characters can be described as dense. Some times this can be difficult but worth the occasional obscure term as it just adds to the otherness of the novel's universe. The desciption of the language can also describe the novel; at times difficult but worth the effort.

My Goodness it has been awhile!!!!

Okay so let's start of with DCU.

Thursday 3 May we get a draw v. the Revs. 45 mins without conceding in the 1rst half. Good. Concede goal early in 2nd half. Bad. Quickly tie game up. Good. Continue to press and force their keeper into some fine saves. Good. Hit post with shot. Bad Luck. However I saw good attitude and good effort. We just didn't get the result.

Sunday 6 May, Chivas. Are we up to it? Again 45 mins without conceding in the 1rst half. Good. Goal conceded early in second, by Chivas. Excellent. Press on and get second goal. Excellent. They get one back and we hold on. Yes, signs of life are present. Like what I saw from Kpene, Moose, and others.

Key thing from these two games: Heart. Yup we saw some fine efforts over these two games. Simms against revos was impressive and the aforementioned Kpene.

"So do Press on, Slack not your zeal", as the hymn goes!!!!