A way with...words?

It might just be me, but I find it a rather sad statement that Katie Price has managed to reach number 59 on the list of the 100 bestselling authors of the last decade.

That's £21.8 million in books.

I.e., what people are willing to shell out to read what Ms. Price has to say.

And that puts her 14 places behind Shakespeare.

There are moments when (just for a moment or two) I think that climate collapse/a giant asteroid collision/space invasion can't come soon enough to wipe this sorry species from the planet.

Though I may, I realise, be exaggerating.

Serious business

One legacy of an earlier period of job seeking is a daily job-vacancies email I receive from Monster.com. I've never bothered to suspend it (partly out of laziness and partly out of the feeling that, who knows, maybe something worthwhile would come along), and I usually take a quick look through the offerings.

Today, among the usual openings for 'Lead Consultant SAP', 'Junior Berater für den Bereich Business Development' and 'Leiter, Abteilung IT-Entwicklung' was one that I've never seen before.

Clown.

This is for German-speakers only it seems, (the full-time, permanent position is in Würzburg), judging by what is probably the most poetic job description I've ever seen.

But I note that along with a salary of €20-25k it offers not only a costume but also a tent ('Zelt').

What more could you want?

An interesting kind of crazy

One of the videos at Vimeo highlighted recently in an article at Der Spiegel was of, well, two guys skateboarding down a mountain highway.

That doesn't sound very impressive, I know.

But, it's actually pretty remarkable, once you get past the initial banalities. (Just skip ahead to about 2:18.)

It's best to go watch it at the Vimeo site, where you get a somewhat up-scaled, high definition video.


Adam Kimmel presents: Claremont HD from adam kimmel on Vimeo.


Then, at Mightygodking, I ran across this pretty outstanding collection of bicycle artistry from Danny MacAskill.



Whoa.

Whistle while (and before and after) you work

My non-professional existence these days is reduced to the 25 minute drive to and from work, which I tend to spend listening to Deutschlandradio Kultur (but for the bit where reception is bad and I get my daily dose of Radio Rockland). Although mildly annoying at times -- as the German artsy-educated-pc-liberal media tend to be -- there is plenty of interesting info and decent entertainment to be found on that channel (which may be compared to NPR in the US and Radio 4 in the UK).

DRK is not 1oo% reliable on the musical side of matters (there is a surplus of Coldplay's "Viva La Vida" at the moment, which they seem to have booked as their favourite final track before the news, and you have an angry rant triggered by my involuntary exposure to Chris Martin's purportedly deep lyrics coming), but typically I get to listen to one gem a day. Like this one, this morning:




What can I say: Mike Stipe looks like a cross between the Nuremberg Christkind (angelic, that is) and John Cleese.

[UPDATE]: Here I was willing to generously grant "Viva la Vida" the status of "halfway bearable tune" (but for the naff lyrics), but apparently the tune is the last thing that Coldplay contributed to the track. They're being sued for plagiarism by Joe Satriani. Oh, whatever will Gwynnie say to that?

In a world where movie trailers just won't be the same

You may not know the name Don LaFontaine. However, if you've ever seen a movie trailer in English, odds are you've heard his voice.

You know the one...

Sadly, it appears that he has died, aged 68.

His work, however, lives on.



Deathwish 4




Sinbad of the Seven Seas




GEICO (insurance) ad

Party on...

The latest from the festival circuit....

From Spain (h/t The Wife):

'If you've ever lived within earshot of a newborn child, it's no stretch to imagine they can have something devilish inside. The inhabitants of the northern Spanish town of Castrillo de Murcia have developed an ingenious technique for exorcising seemingly innocent children. Just spread them on mattresses in the middle of the street, and have a bunch of demons leap over them.'

From Italy:

'Orange fetishists are well advised to visit the northern Italian town of Ivrea, 35 kilometers from Turin, on the Sunday before Lent when the townsfolk stage their annual Battle of the Oranges, the country's largest fruit fight.'

It involves around 3,000 revellers on foot and in carts drawn by decorated horses and lasts for three days, after which everyone is covered in pulp and orange juice, and the streets are slippery with squashed orange peel.'

From America:

'Wild rides, fireworks and letting it all hang out. That's the updated American dream at Burning Man 2008.

The annual desert gathering always celebrates that most-American ideal: freedom. Freedom to ride a giant red, white and blue tricycle across the playa; freedom to blow your mind however you want; freedom to traipse around wearing nothing but body paint.'

In defiance of the Irish referendum ....

I don't know anything about Gunslinger Girl, but here's is a rather sweet appropriation of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy", aka "The European anthem", from the series:

Sunday reading (humorous)

Two related articles of note and interest:

1) The Express claims to have rock-solid evidence that one Jesus of Nazareth once came over to England for a visit, where apparently he had a particularly good time in Stonehenge - where the druids, or demons, or whatever, dwell.

As Glyn Lewis, author of the promising page turner Did Christ Come to Britain?, puts it in an awe-inspiring instance of, ahem, "historical" reasoning, Christmas carols like "I Saw Three Ships," which mention Christ sailing into the country, are “un-likely to be fanciful” because they “survived in the canon of carols.”

Full marks Mr Lewis, full marks for this lovely piece of religious ratiocination!

2) The Spiegel has a bit of a laugh about Erich von Däniken's equally rock- (or pyramid-/petroglyph-) solid evidence that our good old Earth witnessed several visits by aliens from outer space, who left us their various pieces of obscure artwork to ponder over for all eternity.

See what I mean?

Let reason prevail, today and any other day.

Friday Chill Out

Der Spiegel loves The La's -- and for all good reasons -- which is why I'm posting this here little video:



Have a good fin de semaine!

If it feels good, do it

The prize for the most interesting quote of the day goes to John Loughrey, reported in the Daily Mail:

"I've always been a Diana fan, but last year I woke up one day and decided to paint her name on my forehead - it just felt right," he says.

John is, as you can tell, quite committed to his idol. As a result, he has spent 48 days sitting in on the inquest examining the Spencer girl's death.

He sounds, actually, like quite a nice bloke. And, compared to some of the other people sitting in the public gallery of Court 73 at the Royal Courts of Justice, he seems to be relatively sane.

"I tend to get on with everyone, although I don't like all the chat from the Diana Circle - they say lots of nasty things about Camilla Parker Bowles, and talk about conspiracies, and play Candle In The Wind a lot."

No surprise there, of course, and it is well established that excessive exposure to Elton John's music can damage anyone's sanity. But what is more interesting is that some of the 'Diana Circle'--unlike Mr. Loughrey, who believes the crash was an accident--seem to not only talk about conspiracies but rather see themselves as caught up in one (or, more likely, several).

Such as one 'very well-spoken lady with immaculate make-up and pretty coral nails, dressed in a plum-coloured tweedy jacket.'

"I'd tell you my name, my dear, but when you've been threatened in the past and people have tried to kill you, it makes you more careful," she says cheerily.

"There are quite a few regulars, but first one has to differentiate which are MI5 and MI6 - they're everywhere.

"That couple who were here earlier, for example. He seemed a genuine man but he has the type of shoes that police wear, if you know what I mean."

It barely seems worth asking if she thinks Diana's death was an accident.

"I think there are a lot of people telling a lot of lies - I used to live with the mistress of a Viscount, in Fulham, so I've got inside knowledge - but dare I say that? Oh well, they want to kill me anyway."

I must admit that I find something endearing about Mr. Loughrey's rather excessive form of fandom. It's harmless enough, entertaining for the rest of us, and he seems to be enjoying himself tremendously.

And, however eccentric, he also maintains a very practical approach to things:

And the huge blue Diana on his forehead - isn't it all a bit of a palaver? "My sister Geraldine paints it on with a little make-up brush.

"If I do it myself in the mirror, it's backwards and hard to get the letters the right way round."

Kind though Geraldine is, she won't get up at 5am for him: "She does it at night, so I have to sleep on my back, which I hate, so it doesn't smudge on the pillow."

Just thinking....

As anyone who stops in here semi-regularly might have noted, things have gotten a bit slow of late.

This has partly had to do with my need to spend a greater percentage of my limited attention span and my sitting-at-the-computer time (there is only so long I can manage to do that these days...the fucking ageing process, as my mother used to call it, I suppose) on work-related projects and writing.

Which have been going well, so there's one gamble that's paid off.

I've also been travelling a bit, including to London last week. It was a very fine trip, not least since a good friend of mine (with excellent taste in such things) had arranged tickets for a comedy show by Daniel Kitson.

I'd never heard of him, but it was a great evening. But it was also an odd one.

Kitson is very funny, but his humour seems to contain more than a slight undercurrent of feelings that range somewhere between melancholy and outright existential despair. It's an unusual mix, but a very effective one.

At the show I saw, this combination of emotions was amplified by the opening set consisting partly of some excellent songs by a friend of his (whose name I've forgotten but whose music I haven't) which had the kind of effortless heartbreaking quality that many songwriters would kill for. (I can speak from experience...and I was myself quite close to homicidal thoughts on the evening in question.) [UPDATE: Ah, it was Gavin Osborn, whose Myspace...um...space...is here. Great stuff.]

In any case, the cycle of songs about a youthful love that was quietly longed for, forgotten, re-found, carefully tended and, ultimately, cruelly obliterated, was a strange (but lovely, really) appetizer for the comedy that followed.

It's also rare to find comedy that makes you think while still making you laugh at a word like 'cock'.

Kitson's website contains some very worthwhile audio and video files.

Speaking of thinking, though...

Some time ago You Are Here very kindly granted me a 'Thinking Blogger Award', an internet meme that started, appropriately enough, at The Thinking Blog and was aimed at recognising those bloggers that...well, that make you think.

The rules are 1) If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think and 2) Link to the original post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme. Winners get to display the nifty award logo.

I like the thought behind this award and I've been terribly remiss in living up to my part of the deal. So, I thought I'd do my duty and pass along the love...

It's a difficult choice, since I find things that make me think at many blogs, but if I really had to name those that I consistently find worthwhile to visit they would be (in no particular order):

1. Click opera: Momus's blog was actually one of the first ones I read and the one that suggested to me that there was something worthwhile in the whole phenomenon. A very fine mix of keen observation, art, music, philosophy, politics and appropriate solipsism.

2. 'Notes and Comment' (at Butterflies and Wheels): Butterflies and Wheels is one of the few sites that is literally worth looking at every single day to keep up on how things are going in the battle for reason and sanity. (Usually, they're not going all that well...) At the blog, Ophelia Benson comments on the fray. I don't always agree. But I do mostly. And in either case, I find it to be time well spent.

3. Geoff Coupe's Blog: Next to Ophelia's blog, I think I have found more interesting things to read on a regular basis via Geoff than through any other source. And I think in the ability to surprise me with a truly unexpected gem, Geoff takes second place to no one. (And, unlike your humble narrator, he has learned a useful thing or two about brevity.)

4. Fisking Central: Search as you might, it is rare indeed to find a place where the fine arts of argument and sarcasm are more fully developed. Mainly devoted to taking things apart rather than putting them together again...but as Franz Ferdinand has so succinctly put it, 'What's wrong with a little destruction'?

5. Pharyngula: Hardly an obscure link, I know. But really...this is about as good as it gets, thinking-wise. And I can't put it any better than that.

Thanks, all, for the thoughtful times.

And here's looking forward to many more.