The Day Today

Well, my clan of supporters make their way back to the UK tomorrow and I've just said my goodbyes. After showing them the wonders of Tucson, Arizona I've come to view my current life with greater invigoration. Perspective is a wonderful thing in all aspects of living. Before they left they bought me a tidy bookcase and a neat little coffee table that have turned my flat from a dingey student digs into a flowering bachelor pad. The swimming team swam today against Wisconsin and won fairly convincingly, which my travelling fans were able to witness, and the day's festivities have since kicked off proper in the typical American mode. Although having it's roots in the Christian reformation, Halloween inspires a lot more people to have fun in the US compared to the UK. Whereas the British culture takes only the darker side of Halloween, often employed as an excuse to get drunk and act stupidly, the Americans here promote the idea of dressing to amuse people. It's a communal thing. So far I've seen one wheelchair-bound companion who has customised his vehicle to mimic a freight train (wheels and cattle grill, etc.), and another dressed convincingly as Osama bin Laden. What can one do but laugh? It reminded me of Harry's stupid election of a Nazi uniform - would Osama be laughed at in New York? I doubt it. Nonetheless, the joke wasn't lost on me.

A Love for Turner

Since my beloved, Holly, took me the Tate Britain to see the JMW Turner collection affectionately housed there, I've harboured a secret passion. He is, in my opinion, totally unattainable for an aspiring artist. Every once in a while, talent and, the appropriately employed, genius, do trump all else. And so, when my German teacher convinced me to present to the class on my favorite painting, I knew I had to browse Google for my favorite Turner; I didn't know which Turner, but I knew it was a Turner. Here is my choice, a musing on the Eruption at Vesuvius. Perhaps not a typical Turner, but that's like trying to identify a typical Pink Floyd song. Some works are mesmerizing. This is it.

The Online World - An Update

McCain seems to have lost the election in my momentary blogging absence. Good. My Father, David, has been in Tucson to visit this week, which is why I've somewhat lapsed from my rigour. He predicts a "landslide" victory for Obama. Slate magazine have published their personal voting habits: something that's quite unique in the publishing domain. Fair play to them - they're an online outlet and, therefore, pioneers in pushing back boundaries of journalism. Not surprisingly, fifty-five out of their sixty staffers are going to vote for Obama, with only one voting for McCain, who gave a rather lengthy and convoluted explanation as to why. It does make me question my allegiance; should I be reading a self-proclaimed left-wing publication that will inevitably lead to subconscious bias? Who cares. This seems to embody a trend being set among educated America - Obama. However, let us remind ourselves that people like this still exist somewhere. Meanwhile, Bryan Appleyard has blogger's elbow and has probably suffered sun-stroke in snowy England after his first exposure to lights in some months. He has left a certain character in charge, "Brit", who, upon first impressions, seems worthy of our undivided attention until Bryan returns. Discovering a good blog is a quirky little perk that has the ability to transcend your normal reading habits. Whereas a poor headline might make you skip the article, a blog incurs a certain amount of brand loyalty. You feel part of a mini-online community, and you feel directly responsible for a blogger's success. If it wasn't for my dear readers, you, reading this now, I would have long since turned my nose elsewhere. This is a delightful phenomena that happened to me just moments ago when I scoured Michael Tomasky's blog documenting the many angles and perspectives on the American election. It's a great series of snippets, not centering too closely on extremes or merely quoting others, combining video diaries from around the country and succinct appraisals of certain aspects from the campaign trail. Video blogging is something that appeals to me on many levels; I've always fancied myself the orator, so perhaps its a natural step. Everyone is doing it nowadays, from the much revered Pat Condell, to the timeless film critic, Mark Kermode, to the sweet-talking American, Michael Tomasky. Maybe after Christmas...

The Atheist Bus Again

Just when I thought they'd missed the bus, two come along at the same time. I'm too good for these people.

Blogging Again

Wired magazine claims that blogging is dead. The long lost art of crafting an eloquent and profound post on a personal blog has been overtaken by the media giants who employ a team of staffers to churn out 30 posts a day. This, amidst the essay by blogging community icon, Andrew Sullivan, 'Why I Blog', and the everlastingly brilliant blog on Vanity Fair's website maintained by James Wolcott. Both are mentors and teachers for feiglings like me. I shall double my efforts. People still accumulate every week at my blog in their tens. Nevertheless, I shall provide a voice for the petty few who soldier on individually, offering glimmers of genius in a plethora of darkness.

[rec.]

Having finally forced my Arizona teammates to watch [rec.], perhaps the scariest horror film ever made, I now feel safe in the knowledge that it is a masterpiece of the genre. The first time I watched this I was sat in Houston airport, surrounded by strip-lighting and overweight Americans waiting for our flight. Despite that very real setting, I was totally transported into the terror of this brilliant Spanish film. Following the exploits of a two-person investigative team, that night disclosing the night-shift of the local fire station, we're subjected to a routine call-out to a nearby apartment block that turns very ugly very quickly. We're witnessing the ongoings through the lens of a single camera that keeps rolling and rolling and rolling. It's possible to retain some comfort from the thought that you're experiencing the horror alongside your fellow cameraman. And so, when, for a brief moment, the cameraman extends his camera up at arms length you're suddenly overcome with fear. Divorcing the viewer from the only source of comfort is a genius twist of cinematography that provides one of the scariest bits of cinema I think I've ever seen. Needless to say, my teammates cried out in anguish at the inevitable encounter. I'm trying hard not to spoil the plot for you, as I would hope that you now feel motivated to watch [rec.] yourself. There are even some rumours flying around that the actors were kept in the dark about some of the things that were going to happen, as if we needed any more realism. It won a number of awards on last years' European film festival circuit, including the best foreign language film at the British Film Awards 2007. I hate finishing off these posts with a complaint, but I feel I must. Hollywood has already released an English-language remake merely a year after the original. Unsurprisingly, the trailer contains more plot-spoilers than you could imagine, and the whole production looks too glitzy to embody the same real-life horror that the original so wonderfully captured. (Think The Blair Witch Project remade for Blu-Ray). Why do the American producers think that their audience can't handle subtitles? My colleagues were perfectly fine last night. What's more, they've even changed the name to Quarantine, distancing itself even further from the original, which I'd like to think was at the original director's request, but I fear it may be symptomatic of a typical Hollywood superiority complex. Regardless, go and find [rec.] and watch it. It will scare you like you never thought possible.

Atheist Campaigning

The Atheist Bus Campaign is off and running after some enthusiastic phone calls and a worthy Guardian newspaper flourish. However, as can be expected, Bryan is laughing at the apparent squeamishness of the designers by employing a particular word: "probably". The slogan reads, "There probably isn't a God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." Slightly forceful in my opinion. Scoff all you like at my hypocrisy, but let's remember that we don't wish to appear as arrogant as to assert ourselves just so single-mindedly as those who claim there IS a god. For the third time ever, I felt compelled to comment on Bryan's ignorance, which you can read by clicking on the link above. I'm always weary of this kind of thing because I don't wish to resort to the same tactics that organised religion employs to pull newcomers. I find there's usually a cleverer and more subtle way of subverting the attention of an audience than that used by the religious. Nevertheless, anything to undermine the constitutional absurdity of the British body politic is worthy of a thumbs-up.

Secondary

Two results from this years' US Presidential Elections: white tweenage girls grow up to think politics is easy, and Muslims grow up to realise they'll never be elected anything.

Petr Cech's Head

Something that's been bothering me now for some time is the Chelsea first-team goalkeeper, Peter Cech's head brace. Cech sustained the injury in a goal-line scramble exactly two years ago and it was reported that the depressed skull fracture nearly killed him, and could kill him if he returned to football too soon. Now, no one applauds his return to world-class goalkeeping more than me. However, since he came back he's been granted special dispensation to wear a rugby-style skull-cap. No other goalkeeper has been allowed to wear a similar form of protection. This was obviously dealt as a precautionary attempt to prevent any recurrence of the injury, but I would argue further. Since it's now two years since the injury, surely his head-guard gives him an unfair advantage; protection would give him greater confidence in a one-on-one encounter with a player, or, indeed, greater courage in a similar goal-line scramble to the one in which he sustained the injury in the first place. Nobody has asked the question, a far as I can see, regarding the length of time that this will be allowed to continue.

Ricky's Religious Rant

How had I not discovered this earlier? Ricky Gervais, now America's funniest man, discussed his role in The Simpsons this time last year with Simon Mayo on BBC Radio Five Live. What started as a routine interview turned into an all-out theological debate with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams (proved to be an idiot, here). I'm sure Ricky was withholding himself as best he could due to the way he stutters and concedes various points that he otherwise wouldn't. Still, a rare example of someone expressing their beliefs in the face of a formidable exponent of the enemy (with a lot of people listening in).

Human Relationships in Evolution

Just a thought, perhaps even a gradual epiphany. Why do you never see a five with an eight? I'm talking, of course, about human relationships. When walking along the street or dining in a restaurant, or, indeed, enjoying the company of your close friends, seldom does one see an ugly person walking hand in hand with a good-looking person. Before I continue I must confess that I did see an exception once during a meal with my own girlfriend: a fairly handsome teenager wining and dining a rather snidey, overweight, and generally unappealing female. Conversely to what one might suspect, he appeared enthusiastic and eager to laugh and chat, contrasting the increasingly unappreciative girl who spent most of the time skulking and avoiding any eye contact. Immediately, we questioned her obvious stupidity; why waste a chance with a reasonable, outgoing, good-looking guy? Nevertheless, this anomaly could act to prove my point. For some, the explanation may be obvious. However, I realised that this is simply a successful cornerstone of Evolution. We have long since evolved beyond the stage of raping one another to procreate. If we still multiplied through forceful intercourse, I would argue, we'd probably not be around today. And yet, genetic coding is undoubtedly the source of one's external appearance, but surely genetic coding also aligns one's sexual desires accordingly. Rarely do the alignments fall out of place. A ten is attracted to a ten; a four is attracted to a four, and so on. Obviously, the line fluctuates due to variable factors such as, wealth, personality, etc., but the overall trend continues fairly efficiently. You can draw conclusions from this assumption; this theory results in higher rates of procreation (if every male went for the same female because she was the prettiest (a ten) then the other females wouldn't ever be subject of a male's interest, until, of course, the ten grew old or died, in which case, the next-in-line would be similarly harassed and, likely, raped - giving rise to the question of which came first: rapist desires, or this genetic phenomenon?) You can also draw questions from this assumption; where was the crossover point in our genetic history when we started becoming attracted to our gender-opposites in terms of their appearance according to our own. So how does my anomaly compound the rule? If we take my assertion as positively accurate, it's now clear as day - she wasn't attracted to him. She may have accepted that he was handsome and sprightly but that made near as no difference to her as she daydreamed about threes and fours.

Mesmerizing

The talent of a generation.

There's a ghost on the horizon
When I go to bed.
How can I fall asleep at night?
How will I rest my head?
Oh, I'm scared of the middle place
Between light and nowhere.
I don't want to be the one
Left in there,
Left in there.

Blogging

Blogging is the metaphorical water-skier: slow down or stop moving and you sink completely. With the wind thoroughly in the proverbial sails, having posted more in the last few days than in the last month, I shall keep it up. Andrew Sullivan, the now legendary blogger, here, and former editor of my beloved, Slate, has written a piece for The Atlantic entitled, 'Why I Blog'. It's a fairly banal title, indicative of a fairly lengthy and generalised article, but it is, nevertheless, an Orwell reference. By exploring the various motives and perks of blogging, he regularly stumbles upon the very reasons that blogging can be so gratifying. The hyperlink, it is noted, has revolutionised not just the blogosphere, but the online news world total. From the comments I've received about this blog it's obvious to me that my readers have, in fact, taken the time to click the articles or snippets I link to and read them front to back. I shall not for one instance suppose that this is because I rouse so much enthusiasm that it is simply a reaction to provocative blogging. However, it may have something to do with the immediacy of blog posts, and the shorter length of most posts. It's true, most bloggers will simply insert a handy link rather than articulate the overall gist of a piece they have read merely to appear complete. A link is much faster and takes up less space, plus the reader will otherwise be forced to take your word for it if they were not directed to the piece themselves. I wonder how often people do, for instance, click a link embedded in lengthier online articles at Slate. It seems to me that people would like to read to the end of the article before jumping back and tapping a link. If they haven't understood the point of the piece then this seems more likely, but would that not, therefore, be a failing on the author's part? Yet for the blogger the opposite is true. If someone hits my hyperlinks, I must have done something right. By the way, don't bother with Sullivan's article, I've summed it up perfectly.

Gender

'“Brandon, God made you a boy for a special reason,” she told him before they said prayers one night when he was 5, the first part of a speech she’d prepared. But he cut her off: “God made a mistake,” he said.' Hanna Rosin, The Atlantic, November 2008.

Help?

An image has entered my thoughts. A married couple live happily together. They are very much in love and have been since they met many years ago. They are hardly separable to their acquaintances in their mannerisms and points of view, likely because they have spent much of their life growing up together and exposing themselves to the same cultural and social influences. However, they vote differently. One votes ardently Republican, the other Democratic. One votes ardently Conservative, the other Labour. Delete as appropriate. Why, therefore, should either one of them vote? They merely cancel one another. They are mutually exclusive. The negate the other. And still, both feel compelled to do so. Why would this be? Expression? They both accept and encourage the other's right to opinion. Why not stay at home and enjoy a warm cup of tea, safe in the knowledge that, once again, their differences have brought them together? Perhaps they are reminded that roughly 95% of those who vote will merely negate each other also. Perhaps this compels them to cast a vote; their individual vote is not offset by their partner's, but by someone else's. What a strange, and yet typical conundrum this couple find themselves in.

Voting

As if my American readers needed any more persuasion than this.

Declan de Barra Again

It's been a long time in music terms since I declared Declan de Barra as the new Damien Rice. It's now only a few days until he releases his second solo album, A Fire to Scare the Sun, after the cult success of Song of a Thousand Birds. Somehow, I've got my dirty hands on a digital copy, which I shan't reproduce here for legality's sake, even though I know Declan's stance on free music sharing, and, I can assure you, that I was wrong in my declaration. Declan's new album, unlike Damien Rice's second, 9, surpasses it's predecessor. I am the holder of a comforting thought - having uncovered a musical talent so superb that I scarcely feel I need to listen to anything else for a very long time. When the album is released later this month, I urge you to find a copy and bathe in the fluency and majesty of his voice. It's from a typical track entitled, Beautiful One, that I lamely reproduce the lyrics below, acknowledging that they lose the poignancy instilled through his voice. To stem that shortfall, I can merely refer you again to this live performance on Irish television of Throw Your Arms Around Me.

I've sailed across these seas
And I've lived our lives and dreams,
And I've done all the things we said we'd do,
My beautiful one.
The time has come,
Beautiful one,
I'm coming home to you.

One Cell Away

John McCain's grandfather died at age 60, his father at age 71, both of heart attacks. McCain is now 72 and has been treated for malignant skin tumours four times. He is prone. Palin is the Vice Presidential nominee.

More of the same, please

This type of report rarely makes the first few pages of any daily publication any more, but it's central to the state of our foreign affairs. This is fantastic news. Annihilating approximately 60 Taliban militants in one pre-empted firefight without sustaining a single casualty is testament to the prowess and increasing skill of our allied forces in Afghanistan. The longer this trend continues, and the more casualties our enemies sustain, the likelier it is that they lose favour among split local residents and the backing of radical leaders, and the likelier it is that they question whether god really is on their side. Only yesterday did I read a superb piece of dispatches journalism direct from the Korengal Valley outpost of Battle Company. This story ties in very well with the snippets of optimism and heroism that riddle Junger's article. It's good to see the modes of practise evolving, and the styles of warfare turning to our strengths.

Evolution never stops here

Through my continual neglect I've somewhat missed the bandwagon with this one, as I have with many other post-ideas floating around my cranium, but I should offer my two-cents now that I'm an expert on the subject. Prof. Steve Jones from University College London made the statement that humans, as we know them today, have more or less stopped evolving - humans of tomorrow, assuming we survive long enough to tell, will look the same as they do today. This, he claimed, was due to a gradual increase in the mixing of the gene pool between people of differing geographical ancestry, but also because we're having babies earlier; a man's sperm has a tendency to divide with greater fluctuancy at a later age, and therefore, younger fathers tend to produce alike sequences of genetic codes. The latter assertion I have some problems with for obvious reasons. Homo sapiens have been around for 100,000 to 200,000 years, and only in the last few centuries have we seen the lifespan that we've become accustomed to in the western world. One would also be right to assume that, due to our increased global population, mutations within the gene sequence will occur more frequently, which they do. However, Prof, Jones is right to argue that these sorts of genetic developments will likely be quelled as they have little chance of surviving another generation, at once because of Lamarckian sexual evolution, reminding us that mutations must be attractive enough for the opposite sex to want to mate with, but simultaneously because there are now far too many of us for the mutated strain to become prominent and overrule the dominant strains of what has become "normal". It would take two similar people, with alike genetic mutations for the strain to continue, and then for their children to reproduce, and so on (yet one knows exactly where this might lead). All in all, it's quite an interesting stance, but also something we've known for quite some time. Let us not forget that previous Homo species had hundreds of thousands of years to progress, and we're looking at this through the lens of modern times. It goes without question that if we look at ourselves in ten thousand years from now we're likely to notice some very stark differences, from the size of our extremities, to our height, to our skin tone.

Antony

I fell in love with you.
Now you're my one and only,
'Cos all my life I've been so blue,
But in that moment you fulfilled me.
Now I tell all my friends,
I fell in love with a dead boy,
And I tell my family,
I wish you could have met him,
And I'll write letters to Australia,
And I'll throw a bottle out to sea,
I whisper the secret in the ground.
No-one's gonna' take you away from me.

Elusive Language

Following in the veins of my earlier post, the Atlantic last month reminded its readers why they still turn to the back page for the language section. Shakespeare coined roughly 500 new words during his time as a respected public playwright, and the Atlantic does its best to uphold this English tradition, not by finding new uses for longstanding words, but by finding gaps in the language, where a word is needed to describe a certain cultural phenomenon or social advancement. In the latest edition they uncovered one such gap. How can we describe the commodity, or entity, that we see so often when not needed, and yet cannot find when so desperately required? Recall that frequent scenario: walking past cash machines every few yards, and yet searching high and low for hours for one when you finally run out of cash. The winner, which, intuitively, could be used to describe this very practise of word-searching, is 'elusiversal'. How wonderfully that word now appears. I predict a dictionary entry for 2010.

An Haughty Statement

Don't worry, humble pilgrim, I have not yet passed the metaphysical boundary into the abyss. I have caught myself fending off the encroaching, daily-procrastination and hesitation. Hardly the gallant blogger. The cure? Anger, of course. Something that seems to have metastasised into my routine lately has been the repeated misuse of proper lexis when identifying a noun with the prefixes 'an' and 'a'. For example, I recently read a poster promoting a local performance that announced, "an hilarious mix of...". Likewise, I have frequently read in the campus newspaper of "an helicopter circling...". Now, call me what you will, but the expulsion of air caused by the explicitly pronounced 'H' surely denotes the need for "a hilarious mix", and "a helicopter". Foregoing your inevitable quibble; yes, I concede that, on occasion, 'an' in place of 'a' is valid where the other is not. For example, "an honorable gentleman", in speech and in prose is much more pleasant on the ears and tongue than "a honorable gentleman". However, this distinction must be made clear, whether through deliberate overuse, such as what I shall now commence, or through simple word of mouth (literally). Humble pilgrim, this web space is oft ordained as a place of angst-ridden retaliation against anything and everything, this is no different. Combat the frenchification of the English language and meet the problem head-on.