On Web Culture

Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz:

“What has been surprising in the post-Cold War period are those beautiful and deeply moving words pronounced with veneration in places like Prague and Warsaw, words which pertain to the old repertory of the rights of man and the dignity of the person. I wonder at this phenomenon because maybe underneath there is an abyss. After all, those ideas had their foundation in religion, and I am not over-optimistic about the survival of religion in a scientific-technological civilisation. Notions that seemed buried forever have suddenly been resurrected. But how long can they stay afloat if the bottom is taken out?”

Source: Towards a Theory of Human Rights: Religion, Law, Courts, Michael J. Perry, p. 28

I am currently reading David Foster Wallace’s collection of essays ‘A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again‘, a gift from a friend. It is so good, and so sad he is no longer alive. Reading his work I am struck by the same feeling I got reading about John Lennon’s life. A rare talent gone too soon.

This link will not be for everyone, David Foster Wallace writing about tennis is a select audience. But I do recommend it:

The String Theory [esquire.com] (even better with Readability)

BONUS

• Federer Reawakens My Inner Sportswriter [salon.com]
• Can Rafael Nadal Survive His Own Grueling Style of Tennis? [NYTimes.com]

There is a high-quality version courtesy of video.google.com if you follow the link, look for “watch in high quality”, I couldn’t find a way to link to that directly.

Source: YouTube

Bonus:
Jermaine Clement’s lips

Top 5 albums of all time?
Hmmm. This could either be really easy or really hard. Well, in my opinion and in no particular order…
Radiohead – OK Computer (I’m going to limit myself to one from these guys)
U2 – The Joshua Tree (All That You Can’t Leave Behind was also very very good)
The Mars Volta – De-loused In The Comatorium
The Beatles – Revolver (Hard choice due to The White Album, Sgt Pepper’s…, Rubber Soul)
Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin (Led Zeppelin IV is good too)

If you could be in any band/group, who would it be and why?
Rage Against The Machine during the early & mid-90′s – angry, political and brilliant

What would be your ultimate concert line up?
Mate, what a question. The only caveat I’ll put on this one is that the artist or band has to playing still and reunions don’t count (i.e. Led Zeppelin, Rage Against The Machine):
Radiohead, Dave Dobbyn, Massive Attack, SJD, Lemon Jelly, The Prodigy, The Chemical Brothers, The Mars Volta, The Arctic Monkeys, Coldplay, The Foo Fighters, Bjork, Metallica, The Phoenix Foundation, Muse, Nine Inch Nails, Oasis, Queens Of The Stone Age, Sigur Ros, The Killers, The White Stripes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Roots Manuva, Blur, Beck, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, U2.

First CD/tape you ever bought?
Mmm, I’m not going to admit what my first cassette was. But I know I did buy a Now That’s What I Call Music compilation with ‘Spice Girls – Viva Forever’ on it. Oh the horror.

Song that most reminds you most of your childhood?
That song by Cliff Richards that goes ‘We’re all going on a summer holiday. No more working for a week or two…’

All time favourite movie?
The Shawshank Redemption

Book you’d be most likely to recommend?
Ooh, Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves.

Do you have any pets?
Nein…

Best Christmas present you ever got?
Um, well there is the digital alarm clock that my Aunty gave me that just keeps going and going and going on one battery. And a very sensible jacket that I’ve had for years and recently wore all over the South Island.

Who are you tagging to complete this as well?
Monsieur Bartleby, DB, Pete Corin, Meg.

UPDATE (19/11/2007): Well, what do you know, their archives seem to be staying online for now. I’ve added a direct link at the bottom of the post to accompany the Google cache one.
—————————————————————————–

Damn. Well, StylusMagazine.com has been and gone and I didn’t manage to link to them before they died.

StylusMagazine.com had a lot going for it, passionate opinionated reviews and articles about music, film, audio. Manned by loyal staff members who wrote well and I enjoyed reading. It was like PitchForkMedia.com but more low-fi & probably a bit more snobby :-) It is a loss.

If you read one article retrospectively, try “Imperfect Sound Forever”:

“…Think about how you listen for a moment. I’d wager that a large chunk of your listening is done during a commute, whether that’s in a car or on a bus or train or a walk through a city centre. I listen a lot on the train myself, running my iPod (songs encoded as 192kb AAC files) through a pair of Koss Portapros and trying to sit next to other people who have earphones in so my leaking sound doesn’t offend commuters who want to read or whatever. Unsurprisingly I see a lot of other people with MP3 players, most of them using tiny earbuds of various kinds. Often their ears are plugged and their eyes are intently focused on a book or magazine or even a mobile phone screen too, senses shut to the horror of public transport. I get the impression that they’re not listening to music so much as avoiding what’s outside.”

Link: Imperfect Sound Forever
Google cache: Imperfect Sound Forever.

Kurt Vonnegut dies at 84.

Closing lines from his poem ‘Requiem’:

When the last living thing

has died on account of us,

how poetical it would be

if Earth could say,

in a voice floating up

perhaps

from the floor

of the Grand Canyon,

“It is done.”

People did not like it here.

Source: nytimes

Source: coutant.org

Keynote from Edward R. Murrow at the RTNDA Convention in Chicago, USA, October 15, 1958. I highly recommend reading this keynote in full.

Read the full transcript
(web.archive.org)
(Google cache)

Excerpt:

I do not advocate that we turn television into a 27-inch wailing wall, where longhairs constantly moan about the state of our culture and our defense. But I would just like to see it reflect occasionally the hard, unyielding realities of the world in which we live. I would like to see it done inside the existing framework, and I would like to see the doing of it redound to the credit of those who finance and program it. Measure the results by Nielsen, Trendex or Silex-it doesn’t matter. The main thing is to try. The responsibility can be easily placed, in spite of all the mouthings about giving the public what it wants. It rests on big business, and on big television, and it rests at the top. Responsibility is not something that can be assigned or delegated. And it promises its own reward: good business and good television.

Perhaps no one will do anything about it. I have ventured to outline it against a background of criticism that may have been too harsh only because I could think of nothing better. Someone once said–I think it was Max Eastman–that “that publisher serves his advertiser best who best serves his readers.” I cannot believe that radio and television, or the corporation that finance the programs, are serving well or truly their viewers or listeners, or themselves.

I began by saying that our history will be what we make it. If we go on as we are, then history will take its revenge, and retribution will not limp in catching up with us.

We are to a large extent an imitative society. If one or two or three corporations would undertake to devote just a small traction of their advertising appropriation along the lines that I have suggested, the procedure would grow by contagion; the economic burden would be bearable, and there might ensue a most exciting adventure–exposure to ideas and the bringing of reality into the homes of the nation.

To those who say people wouldn’t look; they wouldn’t be interested; they’re too complacent, indifferent and insulated, I can only reply: There is, in one reporter’s opinion, considerable evidence against that contention. But even if they are right, what have they got to lose? Because if they are right, and this instrument is good for nothing but to entertain, amuse and insulate, then the tube is flickering now and we will soon see that the whole struggle is lost.

This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful.

Source: rtnda.org

More: Good Night and Good Luck, and Murrow speeches online [boingboing.net]

Props to the Stagecoach bus drivers this week. They are both dudes and hardcore. Early this week going home my bus driver got the route wrong which caused Panic! On The Bus! and people getting out of their seats to let the bus driver know we were going the wrong way. He had started to take a different route that still went to Newmarket but which skips out Parnell. He realised straight away but this didn’t stop a couple of people weaving down the aisle while we were moving to queue at the front of the bus to tell him.

It could have ended there once he told us all we would rejoin up with the correct route as soon as possible. But once everyone had sat down one lady, in her early thirties I’d say, stayed standing next to the driver clinging to a pole and staring at the rest of the bus. Initially I thought she was just eager to get off at the first available stop but no. Instead she wound into the bus driver, starting by speaking her mind and getting steadily louder, shriller and more emotional with a strong Russian accent. It seemed that she was upset we had gone the wrong way and what time this was costing her (all of 10 minutes, lady).

But it didn’t stop, I don’t know if she had just had a bad day but she got more and more angry and the bus driver started defending himself, explaining he was doing all he could to get us back to her stop. This just aggravated her more, she started swearing: “You f*****g b***h! You b***h! Do you know how much this is costing me? You should think before you do such things…..you know? Do you know?….f*****g b***h” At this point the rest of the bus were staring at her in silence going Er, what the hell?

She went on, right in the bus driver’s face as he was driving, she yelled at him about cost and I think things along the lines of making him pay her back her back for the money she was going to lose and the bus driver saying the bus drivers union or something would pay her back. Eventually she got at him so much that we stopped in the middle of a backroad so she could get off.

So that bus driver was a dude. Thursday’s bus driver was hardcore though. Months before he got the bus stuck in the narrow streets behind Parnell shops trying a shortcut to get around some fire engines. He’s a pretty gung ho Arab guy and tends to operate his bus a little independently of the rules. On Thursday his bus arrives and we are queuing up to pay to get on board when he gestures to me saying “Get on board, get on board now” so I step up and he pulls the lever to close the doors.

There are still people wanting to get on the bus, the Asian chick behind me puts her foot in front of one of the closing doors while she tries to get money out of wallet. Gung Ho bus driver says to us inside the bus “I am going now, they, they can catch the Link”, the Link being a bus that comes every 15 minutes. Which is not a great plan dude, some of those people may have needed to catch this bus specifically. It is unusual for a bus driver to leave before letting everyone on board when his bus is only half full.

He starts to move the bus slowly forward to the consternation of the Asian chick with her foot in the door. I’m looking at her foot and then back at the bus driver then back at her foot. She takes her foot out just in time and goes ballistic at the bus which is fair enough. Gung Ho bus driver proceeds to let those of us who got on pay for our ride all the while tooting away and absolutely flooring the gas pedal. Hardcore.

Best Valentines Day story:

“Mellons Bay Primary, 1992, Mrs Gavin’s Standard 2 class – a hotbed of tender emotions where hearts were broken daily and girl germs were rife. Mike Smith* was a shy and innocent blond-haired boy. He was not in my direct circle of schoolyard chums, primarily because he didn’t do My Little Ponies at playlunch, but I knew that he must have been pretty cool because he regularly sat up the highest on the classroom mat. However, it was not until he let me use the hallowed mint coloured crayon first that I realised that his feelings for me were more than platonic. I would catch him watching me during stories, and I’m pretty sure he bribed the teacher to be put on guinea-pig duty with me. It culminated in the best love note I have received to date. I caught him dropping it in my letterbox at home: “Dear Fiona, Do you want to come round to my house and draw ninja turtles? Love Mike.” I don’t recall acting on this confession of love. I do recall that it was adorned with his favourite turtle, the blue one. Mine was Raphael, so I knew it would never work. I didn’t tell him as much, but he must have realised when he found “Mike smells” scrawled in the mint crayon on the cloakroom wall. Not my finest hour admittedly. Mike’s unrequited love grew dim and we drifted apart. Tragic, but true story.
*Not his real name”

Via NZHerald.

I think Daily Show clips are now getting pulled from YouTube so watch this before it becomes broke.

Via YouTube.