Spicing the Grail

My annotations on Jack Spicer's poem, The Holy Grail, are back on-line. I decided to just put everything on a google.page since I was having such bad luck with free hosting services.

The pages are best viewed with Firefox or Netscape. They don't work too well with IE and not at all with Safari. Apparently 27% of Internet users use Firefox, so that ain't too bad!

http://spicingthegrail.googlepages.com/Jack.htm

Give me some Moore

One of the things that I've been reading quite fervently is the comics of Alan Moore. While my attention was first drawn to The Watchmen, V for Vendetta and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen several years ago, a chance conversation with a real comics freak (yooo hooo Andrew, how's Nottingham?) keyed me on to explore some of his other stuff.

Thus far, I've managed to read From Hell, which I definitely need to re-visit because I rushed through it while I was in back home. It's extremely learned and well-researched, and because it's filled with an amazingly arcane references to Free Masonry, it's almost like a comic book version of Eco's Foucault's Pendulum.

I also managed to read the Swamp Thing run that was the first major thing that Alan Moore did for DC and which sort of introduced him to America. His meditations on Nature, metaphysics and the fragility of human relations through, a comic about a glorified plant, is pretty amazing. I managed to get my hands on a collected DC Universe stories of Alan Moore, which features some amazing Superman and Batman tales as well. In that, he has short quirky stories, just two to three pages long, which are really original pieces of story telling.

I'vce just finished several issues of his Tom Strong series and Promethea. With these comics, Moore toys with comics conventions and more generally, the boundaries between fiction, the imagination and the Real.

There is a series of six videos from a BBC programme on YouTube which profiles Alan Moore and they're quite interesting. The best moment in the videos happens when he actually shows his extremely detailed (and indulgent) "script" for the illustrators (this is in the 4th video) and when he explains why he wants to dissociate himself from the film adaptations of his work (video 5). And here they are:

Part 1	Part 2
Part 3	Part 4
Part 5	Part 6

Strange Fictions

Apart from watching quite a few of the Star Wars movies (after I caught the "Revenge of the Sith" on TV), I haven't been watching much else owing to the fact that I'm burdened with memorizing the strange inflections of Old English and exploring the even stranger comics of Alan Moore (hmmm I might just write an entry about that ...).

Anyway, one thing that I finally watched (yes, I'm always several years behind), was "O Brother Where Art Thou?" This was promising because of the supposed inspiration from Homer's Odyssey. I didn't find that many parallels, either between the protagonist or the plot (some people who obviously know both works much better than I do have found extensive links) but I was pleased that the soundtrack was so brilliant. It's really one of those films (like Almost Famous) where the music becomes a character in the mix. Of course, in "Brother", music is crucial to the protagonists because they end up making a hit record that (they don't know about as they continue their scoundralling -- which is a nice comment on the way the workings of the media has shifted so tremendously, and I suppose a backward glance on the idea that Homeric performance and transmission may have been aural in nature ...) but the rest of the film is bouyed up by music that I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit that I enjoy (my common justification for liking "old time gospel and country blues": "it may not sound interesting but it's really fun to play").

Of course, writing this entry reminds me that I have watched something else: a little Spike Lee film on the IFC called "Bamboozled". It's a satirical look at big networks and an attempt to re-work "African-American" steroetypes. It was a pretty strange experience (with so many layers of irony that it became quite difficult to locate some ground beneath your feet -- whatever happend to that U2 song/Rushdie book anyway ...) The film stars Damon Wayans as a VERY middle class (read "white") black television executive who decides to mock his network (and his boss, who's a white guy who thinks he's "into black culture") by scripting an extremely offensive variety show: based on the black-face minstral shows of the 20s and 30s (see DVD cover left). Of course, things get out of hand and the show becomes a hit, with tragic consequences for all involved. Jada Pinkett-Smith is excellent in this, as Wayans' assistant!

When the Deal Goes Down

I'd like to think Bobby Dylan and I go back a long way. After all, I first got to know him in a real low-point of his career. I've still got it some where -- a cassette tape of 1990's "Under the Red Sky"-- probably Dylan's worst outing. Why I didn't just give up on him and put more effort studying for the 'O' levels, had a lot to do with a handsome copy of his complete lyrics that the National Library had in its Reference section. Reading through it, I couldn't imagine how he'd even recorded that horrible 1990 album.

Of course I quickly got acquainted with the rest of his earlier and much earlier work and he's been a constant companion ever since. Anyway, I came across this video from his new album "Modern Times". It's a pretty listenable ballad that manages to turn quite a mundane line: "When the Deal Does Down" into a rather lyrical refrain. One of the central features of Dylan's work, the "choric" nature of that last line to each verse. Anyway, here's the video, drenched in nostalgia (the man's 65!) with references to his roots (born in Minnesota) and influences ("Bound for Glory"). It's all about Scarlet Johansson with Dylan's haunting voice back there somewhere. Some of the video was supposedly shot at Coney Island on the Cyclone(though this footage doesn't make it to the video, she's there at the amusements and the beach) and opens with a shot of the Statue of Liberty!





"We eat and we drink, we feel and we think
Far down the street we stray
I laugh and I cry and I'm haunted by
Things I never meant nor wished to say
The midnight rain follows the train
We all wear the same thorny crown
Soul to soul, our shadows roll
And I'll be with you when the deal goes down"

The Power of Gmail

Ever wondered what your email was really about? In this world of words, we write lots of email but how often do we stop and wonder about what we're really saying in that sea of language. Now you never have to worry about not REALLY knowing what you were writing about. Because GMAIL, tells you, through their wonderful ads.

For instance, thought that you were conversing with a friend about school? Not really, you were really revealing your deep-seated desire for violence. You really want to KUNG-FU someone to death:



Thought that you were seriously concerned about a friend's love life and were really offering a listening ear so that your friend's love-lorn woes could receive some kind of emotional catharsis? How wrong you were. All you were really interested in was helping them find somebody else and making sure that they started producing babies in the process:


Thought you were engaged in a high-falutin' academic discourse about an intellectual topic most obscure in nature? Not a chance. You were really looking for the quickest way to avoid having to write that thesis yourself:

Shamelessly Advertising

Here's a shameless advertisement.

A few of us have started a blog where we write about / analyze Singaporean politics or current affairs. I suppose this is just like the thousands of blogs that do the same. However, I maintain that the project is still important and worth everyone's while. For the following reasons:

1. The production of political discourse is for everyone. So getting into the act, no matter how late in the play, is crucial in any kind of formation of political sensibilty.

2. The typical Singaporean political blog is marked out by its cult appeal. We, on the other hand, intend to keep this blog circulating within an intimate community (ie amongst people that we already know). Yes, so to all three of you who are regular readers of this blog, welcome to that intimate community.

3. We welcome contributions. Just email me if you think you have something to write about. At the moment, there are four of us who are supposed to be regular writers (of course only two of us have posted ... ) but hey! that's the nature of spur of the moment projects, ain't it? There is almost no editorial policy (I probably will only correct very bad grammar ... but of course ...)

Anyway, here it is : http://meetthepeoplesession.blogspot.com/