“Most importantly, I’m a comic strip artist”

Garry Trudeau was Thursday night. My expectations of the Doonesbury creator were dashed – his reputation as reclusive and publicity-shy did not match up to the slightest bit of reticence or awkwardness, indeed he was incredibly comfortable before the audience and downright effusive. Sean Plunket would ask a question and he’d skid off on long, winding replies full of well-practised gags and insight. He had well-worn anecdotes for everything that was thrown at him, but there’s no cause to resent that – the guy’s a legend and just seeing him was neat.
Still, not much of note to report. Much more fun to be there listening than to read about it afterwards, I expect.
I was pleased by his opening words, where he said yes, he was a satirist and social commentator and even soap opera writer, but most importantly he was a comic strip artist.
Was even more pleased that almost the first question from the staid, politics-minded 50-something crowd (one always gets such a crowd at Writers and Readers week) called back to this, by asking him what other comic strips he enjoyed. No surprises in his response (Calvin & Hobbes, The Far Side and currently Dilbert) but it was nice to hear. Classic newspaper strips are enjoying a surge in legitimacy with lots of well-assembled archival collections on release, such as the Complete Peanuts and Complete Popeye; I would have liked to hear more on that, but to be honest I’m a politics-minded dude like everyone else in the crowd so I was delighted with what we got.
For more on Trudeau, Grant enthuses here.

Streaming Video

I hate sites that deliver video content by streaming it. As soon as I see the word “buffering”, I close the browser window and do something else.
Streaming is straight-up bad technology. Let us download the files, already.
(I have always thought this, but post about it today because I discovered Cory agrees with me.)

“A Failure of Empathy”

Writers/Readers Week @ Festival of the Arts: New York Stories
Three authors spoke about their novels, each responses to the events of 9/11. Of the three, I’d only heard of Mohsin Hamid, whose recent book The Reluctant Fundamentalist has caught my attention if not my reading commitment. He proved to be the most compelling guest, despite being present only by voice linkup from London.
Hamid spoke about 9/11’s cause and consequence as “a catastrophic failure of empathy”, on the part of the Muslims celebrating when the towers fell (who were, like the character in his novel excerpt, “caught up in the symbolism of it all” and at a remove from the human cost); on the part of those in the US and UK who turned to war.
Empathy also in his answer to Terry Eagleton’s recent broadside at Martin Amis et al, (“I have no idea why we should listen to novelists on these matters any more than we should listen to window cleaners.”)
Hamid suggested that what novelists bring that others don’t is empathy. Through story and characterisation, good writing can deliver empathy. And empathy is crucial.

Farewell, Hoyts

Can’t say I have any fond feelings towards the Hoyts cinema in Lower Hutt that just closed, and is eulogised by Judge/Jury and Off-Black. Even when it was new it was disappointing. It was the scene of my first date, and of numerous other fond memories, but I can’t spread the rosy glow of those times to the venue itself.
My fondest memory of Hoyts Lower Hutt: going to see The Last Action Hero there. This is a movie that showed promise in its first half-hour as a satire of ridiculous action movie cliches, then quickly degenerated into another example of the genre it was supposed to be mocking. By the halfway mark, it was quite incredibly bad.
I remember seeing it with a friend in a mostly-full cinema, and at about the half-way mark, the sound cut out. Suddenly the whole audience was sitting there watching a silent movie.
At first, no-one moved.
Then, after a minute, it became apparent no-one was going to move. No-one went to shout at ushers and ask for the sound to be put back on and for money back. Everyone just remained in their seats. No-one wanted to hear the movie. Conversations started, laughter started bubbling up, everyone was suddenly having a much better time. We went through a full 20 minutes before a projectionist noticed what was up and got the sound going again. By that time, the audience was a lost cause, merrily nudging each other and chatting away through the remainder of the film, then happily going downstairs to get a voucher for a free trip next time.
I’ve still never heard the soundtrack for that 20 minutes of Last Action Hero. Can’t say I really consider that a situation worth rectifying.
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Yes, posting mostly inconsequential stuff. It is a busy week this week.

Something else to go to in Wellington

Pearce convinced me
Now I try to convince you: if you are in Wellingtown, make some time to go see Gravity and other myths at Civic Square. It is a free show. There are hot boys and hot girls on trapezes and other aerial devices, all to the strains of Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds and other such pleasantness. We saw it on Friday. Wickedy.
It’s on until the 15th at 7:15pm. Go see. You won’t regret it. (Unless, like me, you forget that dressing in Wellington is about LAYERS and forget to take anything to wear over your shirt and so are cold the whole time. But enough about me.)

Zine Launch

Wednesday 19 March, there will be a launching of a zine I contributed to, the rather wonderful Seven Copies Of The Scream. It’s going to be in the Welsh Dragon bar from 6pm to 8pm – do come along.
7CotS is a pretty wild joint venture. I’d honestly given up on it ever seeing the light of day, but apparently it’s now all go again. Here’s the blurb from the website:

All right so the new issue of 7COTS (that stands for SEVEN COPIES OF THE SCREAM) is ready and waiting we just need to get off our ass and get it out there so the punters (which is YOU) can read it
it is an absolute killer of an issue, 70 pages or so of P-smoking brilliance that will have you weeping in your cornflakes and inhaling rice bubbles by snorting with laughter at the wrong time
Featured articles include:
* are we all going crazy (investigative report)
* why vampires really do suck so bad
* music that is cool
* f***d up books
* the best movie review you will ever read (better than the movie and cheaper than paying $16 for a movie ticket CHRIST that is a lot of money who can afford that)
* and THE TEN GROSSEST MOVIE MOMENTS EVER (all of these are on DVD so you can get them from Aro Video)
Also lots of other random awesome.
SO make sure you don’t miss the latest issue of 7COTS because it’s probably going to be our last and its definitely the best one so far, available at places that carry zines, [this is blatantly not true, it isn’t available anywhere – morgue]
you can’t miss it because Isabella Rosellini is being nuzzled by a pig on the cover

It’s true, the cover does show Isabella Rosellini (sp?) being nuzzled by a pig.

Climate Change Skeptics: hee hee!

Back in November 2k6, I wrote my “Now we have won” post saying that the public landscape of ideas has changed, and that the Iraq war is now seen as an endless failure, and anthropogenic climate change is accepted as happening. (There were some stoushy comments that led to a followup “No, seriously!” post.)
That post was when i thought we’d hit tipping point. Some might say I was too early or too late, but it seems impossible to deny that we’ve tipped somewhere along the line.
The example that got me today was featured in the DomPost, sourced from the Washington Post – an article about climate change sceptics that gives them all the credibility of the Keystone Kops:

While the IPCC enlisted several hundred scientists from more than 100 countries to work over five years to produce its series of reports, the NIPCC document is the work of 23 authors from 15 nations, some of them not scientists.

or even:

Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters, said he was not surprised that roughly 500 participants had gathered at the meeting. “I’m sure that the flat Earth society had a few final meetings before they broke up.”

This article simply wouldn’t have been printable a couple years ago. Thank heavens we’re over that nonsense.
(The DomPost version takes note of the fact that some of NZ’s own Clown Skeptics, Vincent Gray among them, made the pilgrimage.)