Radiohead - Lotus Flower

Latest single from their new album The King of Limbs:

Ahahahaha, the dance moves are so cool! Nice to see Thom Yorke all spunked up again.

I hope this album is good, since I was a tiny bit unhappy with In Rainbows. Lets see. 

Ok Go - Let It Rain

Such a sweet song:

Air Quotes: the abyss between what you are for others and what you are for yourself

Not doing, just being. Aware and watchful every second. And at the same time the abyss between what you are for others and what you are for yourself. The feeling of dizziness and the continual burning need to be unmasked. At last to be seen through, reduced, perhaps extinguished. Every tone of voice a lie, an act of treason. Every gesture false. Every smile a grimace. The role of wife, the role of friend, the roles of mother and mistress, which is worst? Which has tortured you most? Playing the actress with the interesting face? Keeping all the pieces together with an iron hand and getting them to fit? Where did it break? Where did you fail? You were left with your demand for truth and your disgust. Kill yourself? No—too nasty, not to be done. But you could be immobile. You can keep quiet. Then at least you’re not lying.

Persona, Ingmar Bergman (1966)

image: cut form the poster of the film The Hour of the Wolf (Ingmar Bergman, 1968)

Come again?

When I went to Vietnam, there is a tribe there (the Red Hmong), where the women shave off their eyebrows and the front-line of their hair.


There is a tribe in Africa in which the most sexual part of the body is the thighs. Exposure of the thighs is considered highly inappropriate.


There is a tribe in Papua New Guinea where the women take on the role of the men and the men take the role of women. I.e. the women go out hunting and are the more dominant partner, and the men stay at home and take care of the children.

He may not have been here.

They just don't make hot physicists like Heisenberg anymore. 

Welding

I wish I had a professor who is a part time welder. How cool would that be? We could discuss welding at length.

Air Quotes: ultra violence

What we were after, was lashings of ultra violence.

Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange

image: still from the 1971 Stanley Kubrick movie, A Clockwork Orange

Air Quotes: veins run cold

Happy are men who yet before they are killed

Can let their veins run cold.

Wilfred Owen, Insensibility

image: Death with Child in Lap, 1921, Kathe Kollwitz

Air Quotes: to die for one's country

DULCE ET DECORUM EST by WILFRED OWEN


Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.


Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!---An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.


In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.


If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,---
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Random Musings (aka Blah)

WTF, Christian Bale is British? I just realised that now, when I was reading this article on Rotten Tomatoes. I used to always think he was American o__O
I guess now I love him more.


Henry Cavill is Superman! Although, I don't care at all for superhero movies, it's nice to see someone I know from another television show (The Tudors) cast in a big budget Hollywood movie. I really liked him from The Tudors - he was a perfect transition from a cocky playboy to a responsible Duke.


Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Inception, 500 Days of Summer, etc) might star in Christopher Nolan's installment of the next Batman flick - The Dark Knight Rises. Argh, I have had such a huge crush on him since I saw him in The Virgin Suicides; I love how he has those dimples and looks so young and cute despite being 29.


Argh, I have such a huge mountain of work! I can't even breathe beneath this mountain.


Enough moaning - time to work!

Oh Google...you sexy, sexy beast

Remember how pissed off I was after Google Images went all suicidal and claustrophobic? It felt like being betrayed by a lover. But now, all that disappointment has disappeared thanks to the Google Art Project (or rather Art Project, powered by Google)

LINK: http://www.googleartproject.com/

Because I am too incredibly lazy to write things down right now, here is the description of it from the article in The Guardian:

allows the user to navigate around 17 of the world's most prestigious art galleries in a manner similar to Street View, and look at images of many of the artworks on display in very high resolution. You can zoom in to beyond the craquelure and see whether the cleaner has been dusting properly; the image definition is just astonishing.

Tim Williams, The glory is in the detail of the Google Art Project, 4 February 2011, The Guardian, retrieved via link

The detail is absolutely stunning. With only about 25 percent zoom, you can see the cracks in the paint. I don't even want to know what will happen if I do a 100 percent zoom...probably an orGoghasm (ha ha, I'm so funny =__=).

I think art junkies everywhere should rejoice, because now you can study paintings in incredible detail from the comfort of your home, rather than pissing away money on a trip to Europe.

Albeit, looking at a painting in real life is a completely different experience, which even Google's love cannot replace. So art galleries should stop flipping around, worrying that this will reduce visits to art galleries. In fact, it will only make people more curious to visit art galleries, and see the paintings in real life.

Again, like I said, looking at paintings in real life is a completely different experience. Nothing can replace that smell of paint, mixed with the fresh scent of varnish from the floor; and the paintings just towering above you, seducing you to just stand there and stare at them.

Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, and my heart is going to cave in.

Two scenes from one movie: American Beauty; and both scenes belong to my top movie scenes list.

Watch them - they are both so sad and beautiful. A perfect script by Alan Ball, with the most piercing soundtrack by Thomas Newman.

And if you haven't watched the movie yet, I highly recommend you to watch it as well. The story involves an upper middle-class American man, who hits a midlife crisis, and starts lusting after his daughter's arrogant best friend.

Oh god, I know that the way I wrote the synopsis makes it sound like some cheesy flick, but that is my bad synopsis-writing-skills. The movie is incredible, and really explores the trappings of a middle-class life (or rather, life itself) from a hauntingly sarcastic perspective.