Category: And also

Head Clearing

I’m experiencing a bit of a freeze-up. I feel like all the balls in the air are taking longer to come down than they should be. It’s got me nervous but I don’t want to pick up anything else just now. Keep watching the skies for descending metaphorical balls (er).
The exquisite corpse is almost over – 9 parts out of 10 done. Someone out there who hasn’t read any of it so far want to contribute the final section? Hop on over to part nine and follow the instructions… (You don’t even need a blog of your own actually, I’ll host it here.)
Just cleared my spam filter from the last two months. Weirdly, it was mostly empty this time – 15 spam comments in two months, when I was averaging 100 a week for a while. Also caught three false positives, a comment from Marie on yesterday’s post, one from Ken at Open Parachute on an Ian Wishart post, and one from Suraya on a Filament post. Suraya always gets grabbed by my spam filter for some reason, even when she isn’t talking about cock.
Getting one sudoku wrong is a sign of carelessness, but two in a row is just embarrassing. Must stop doing them while watching television, wven if the television is Rhys Darby presenting NZs top 100 pop culture moments, which last night featured Martin Henderson pashing Britney Spears in the Toxic video, Geeling Ng pashing David Bowie in the China Girl video, Under the Mountain, and our own little piece of Guantanamo-logic, Ahmed Zaoui.
Speaking of Under The Mountain: poster for remake movie (courtesy blog leader @dritchie)
Enough. I go to officeland now. That should help.

Lose Books, Drink Wine

A great idea that you should steal.
I went to a party chez Jack and Heather. They had provided a big table of books. You could take any of the books you liked. You could bring your own books and add them to the table so other people could take them. It was a bookorama, a bibliophile’s delight, a bibliophage’s banquet.
While the eager guests thumbed through copies of fascinating books, Jack and Heather made smart conversation and poured drinks. Really, how could this go wrong?
(Here’s how: ogodnowwehaveEVENMOREBOOKSyarg)
If you suffer from groaning shelves, think about Jack’n’Heather’s “Literature vs Liquor” experience TM. It’s easier to say goodbye to books if you see them going to good homes, after all.
(Thanks Jack’n’Heather!)

Folk Music Revisited

Way back in December 2003, in what was only my 9th post to this blog, I generated a small eddy of argument over this:

Made me reflect for a bit on the absence of a ‘traditional music scene’ in Wellington, and perhaps in wider New Zealand. Traditional/cultural music groups exist, of course, but they’re pretty hard to find – I certainly never stumbled across more than one or two. (Although, now I think of it, the Cuba Street Carnival always seemed to summon them out of their shadowy corners.)
In New Zealand we have little in the way of local traditional ‘folk’ music that is shared with the community. Certainly, we have cultural music traditions that are strong – I defy any New Zealander’s spine not to tingle when a waiata rings out – but they are bounded into particular spaces and contexts. The Pacific Island musical traditions are likewise heavily tied into their particular communities. New Zealand’s European-descended pakeha seem to be largely happy to let the musical traditions of their various forefathers fade to nothing. The Asian communities are still a long battle away from being accepted as ‘part of New Zealand’ and their music likewise.

There was much discussion and a follow-up post with even more discussion. Lots of people challenged me, basically.
Anyway, I was thinking about that again when I read an interview with Stephen Fox, one of the PhD candidates at my workplace. It was printed in the DomPost a couple weeks ago but hasn’t turned up online, so here’s the excerpt I most want to quote:

He says pakeha today don’t have an equivalent to Maori and Pacific Island cultural arts. Pakeha folk arts and rituals, including annual celebrations and rites of passage, were replaced about the time of the Enlightenment, he says, although some survive in small pockets such as folk music and dance. “But they don’t have that deep core of information. With Polynesian dance, you have these massive genealogies. You are getting this massive dose on information of who you are within this cultural context.”

And that, I think, sheds some light on the position I was arguing back in ’03, and still have some sympathy for today. It also points at the value of, say, putting Maori cultural practice into play with Maori prisoners – they get information from it that pakeha wouldn’t get if someone turned up to make them morris dance, or sing “Thank You Very Much For Your Kind Donation”. (I kid because I love.)
Anyway. I really wish you could read the whole article, but you can’t. I can link you to Stephen’s website though.

Alien: The Prequeling

I can’t let this pass without comment.
It’s the 30th anniversary of the release of Alien this year (a couple weeks ago on May 25 to be precise). The anniversary has been marked by word emerging that a new Alien film is in the works.
Wikipedia entry for the “space jockey” alien from the first film: “In the bonus materials of the special edition Alien DVD, director Ridley Scott expresses the opinion that a film exploring the backstory of the Space Jockey would be an interesting direction for the series to take.”
Tom Rothman, co-Chair of Fox, 28 April, answering a question about whether something is going on with Ridley Scott and Alien: “I think he’s toying with the idea and that would be great for us. I mean, it’s always been a matter of, really, if you can get the originator to do it that would be the greatest thing, so I’ve got my fingers crossed, all of them.”
Tony Scott, Ridley’s brother and partner, May 29: “Carl Rinsch is going to do the prequel to Alien. He’s one of our directors at our company.”
Carl Rinsch is a director of commercials. The one doing the rounds is this: (here are others)

I’ll always have a soft spot for the Alien flicks. I first watched Aliens with a friend on an illegally dubbed copy hired from a friend’s older brother; we watched it in the afternoon and had to turn it off halfway through and do something else for a while because the ride was so intense. It remains to this day my favourite film, and my nomination for the most well-crafted film of all time. The Alan Dean Foster novelization of Alien was the first horror story I read, before I saw either film. I love the first film dearly, am a fierce defender of the third film, and think the first 3/4 of the fourth film has a lot to recommend it. I bought all the comics, which in many ways featured the best development of the source material and incidentally were my gateway into the broader comics scene. I paid actual human money for the Colonial Marine Technical Manual and two different editions of the Walt Simonson adaptation of the first film. I own a children’s book that is a genuine spin-off from the Aliens universe. And, of course, my translation of the Aliens mythos into roleplaying form means I’m still known as the Aliens guy around the NZ RPG scene, almost ten years after my last Aliens game*.
I love these films. And I have to say, I’m not wild about a prequel, Ridley Scott or no Ridley Scott.
There are mysteries to unfold, certainly. What was the nature of that space jockey alien? How did the Company know to send the Nostromo to that planet? Had there been human contact with the aliens before?
Is there a film in those mysteries? I don’t see it, myself. The mysteries around Alien are classic examples of questions that don’t need to be answered. They’re like the questions in the original Star Wars that were answered by the prequel trilogy – the answers served only to diminish the originals by closing down possibilities of meaning. What had felt rich ended up feeling empty. (Besides, Michael Jan Friedman wrote a novel that answered all those mysteries. Incidentally, it also featured the only appearance of New Zealand in the entire Aliens mythos.)
So I’m hoping this film won’t come to pass. In fact, I’m hoping that we do get a remake or a reboot instead of a prequel – the franchise is too lucrative to be abandoned for long, so I’d prefer something that didn’t try to weave itself into the margins of what has come before but instead made a forceful restatement. It would fail, sure; but at least it would only fail itself, rather than failing the original as well.
On the other hand, a 30th anniversary Aliens relaunch that I am excited about: a new comic series from Dark Horse. Rock.
* for those waiting for news of the next one, and I know you’re out there: I wouldn’t be holding your breath…

Frustration Post

8pm: “Hmm. That’s interesting. The scanner gives me an error message and doesn’t operate. I wonder why?”
10pm: “What do you mean my printer/scanner model number doesn’t exist? I’m reading it right off the plastic casing!”
1am: “What do you mean you can’t see the printer any more? It’s right there in the other window!”
3am: “What do you mean you can’t shut down? How can a computer forget how to shut down?”
*deep breaths*
Battle will be resumed this evening.

Filament – the thinking woman’s crumpet

[I’m advertising at you again – what can I say, except that friends are doing cool stuff.]
My friend Suraya is launching a print magazine. This, in itself, is a sign of madness in today’s world, but thankfully hers is a beautiful madness, and a clever one too.
Filament magazine is “72 quarterly pages of intelligent thought and beautiful men”. It offers smart articles and sexy pictures aimed at straight women. Here’s the website, which is worksafe provided your work doesn’t mind topless men and the word “erotic”.
It’s likely not gonna be available in shops (unless some enterprising indie mag shops chase Suraya down and ask to carry it, I guess) – but you can grab it easily using Paypal. Looksee. And if you act fast you can pick it up cheap! Reduced prices until the end of Wednesday (U.K. time?)!
It sounds like a great idea for a mag to me (speaking as someone who thinks an awful lot about the magazine as medium but is profoundly disappointed whenever he stands in front of a magazine sales rack). I’ve put my money where my mouth is and signed up for a copy, even though (as the alert among you may have noticed) i’d be a pretty poor excuse for a straight woman. But don’t take my word for it: terrifying internet prophet Warren Ellis has also lent his support.
If it sounds like your flavour of crumpet, you know what to do.

IP IP OORAY

After about four hours of messing about, finally got the new wireless router properly installed and running. Learned more about IP addresses as I tried, repeatedly, to answer the question “everything says this should work; why does it not work?”
This is not really four hours I had spare, but needs must and all that.
Home smells of feijoas right now.
(Cal and I both forgot completely about Flight of the Conchords on Monday. I’d forgotten how you can do that if you watch a TV show as she is broadcast. Forgetting to watch a TV show you like is a bit retro-cool, I reckon.)

Dave Arneson, RIP

There are two people with their names on the first ever version of Dungeons and Dragons. Just over one year ago, Gary Gygax died. Now Dave Arneson has joined him.
This one won’t earn obituaries in newspapers all over the world. Arneson never had a high profile, but he was the guy who put it together first, who assembled the technology that would become the role-playing game.
The RPG world has lost a swathe of its early creative powerhouses in the last eighteen months. Like them, Arneson will be remembered in the most appropriate way – through play.

Wolverine of Fame

Just in case anyone has forgotten that I am a complete geek: let me tell you about the Wolverine of Fame.
The Wolverine of Fame was a random free comic that I picked up at one of the very first Armageddon events, over ten years ago, when it was just a small gathering of comic geeks in a clubrooms with a couple of overseas comic guests. Because I’ve never been much into getting stuff signed, I didn’t bring anything to get signed, but then I wanted to join in the fun. So I took my free comic, presented it to the guests, and said “how about scribbling all over this?”
So they did. Thus was born the Wolverine of Fame.

Now you, too, can thrill to the graffiti of the comics-famous, for I have scanned in the relevant pages and tagged ’em up. If you click through this link to see them, you are geek like me. Revel in it! The world belongs to us now!
Ahem.