Contrary to what we were thought in highschool, I've seen that people who take things easy sometimes accomplish more in life. Take me for example - I take nothing easy and I don't accomplish much. On the other hand, you can take this story of how Fran Krause made his short "Nosy Bear" in his sketchbook, probably while sucking on a straw, as an example of the opposite:
Original Post Here
Mar 29, 2011
Mar 19, 2011
Mar 9, 2011
Stuck in Boromir limbo
Something needs to be done for actor Sean Bean. He appears to be stuck in the worst case of typecasting I've ever seen. It's not that he keeps playing the same type of character, he seems not to have had a change of clothes since 2001.
This is him in "Fellowship of the Ring"
"Black Death"
...and now "Game of Thrones"
As we say in the cyber circles, what the wtf?!
P.S. My libido is very much in favor of this look, and isn't concerned at all with the damage to Mr. Bean's carreer.
This is him in "Fellowship of the Ring"
"Black Death"
...and now "Game of Thrones"
As we say in the cyber circles, what the wtf?!
P.S. My libido is very much in favor of this look, and isn't concerned at all with the damage to Mr. Bean's carreer.
Feb 28, 2011
Where the passive-aggressive assholes shop!
This commercial is my current pet peeve. For those of you who don't speak Hebrew, the idea is that the husband wakes up in the middle of the night with a cold, so he wakes his wife up and sends her to "Super Pharm" to get him some medicine. While there, she spots the nail polish rack, buys two almost identical colors, and asks him which one looks better. Luckily for him, she got him headache pills.
Mmmm, where to begin, where to begin?
First of all, kudos for managing to degrade both men and women equally. Really, nice job.
Secondly, here's my definitive list of midnight medical conditions that would justify waking up the spouse: if you're bleeding in a way that might cause loss of consciousness. If you are choking. If you're experiencing heart or appendicitis symptoms. If you've soiled the bed in some way. If an internal organ has popped out. If your water broke. If a wild animal is eating your face. If you woke up and don't remember who you are. Anything else wrong - you wait until morning. If you wake up with a cold, put on a warmer shirt, a scarf maybe, make yourself a hot tea quietly! then try to go back to sleep.
Thirdly, and more importantly, is this: I know that I'm very old-fashioned and outdated, but I remember when commercials used to send the message of "buy this, it's what all the successful people are buying". All the cool kids eat these chips, all the rich businessmen have this car, all the modern women wear these shoes, etc. Lately, and I didn't notice exactly when this happened, the people in the commercials are bastards, swindlers, morons, they have bad marriages, dysfunctional relationships, they are bad parents - and still I'm supposed to want what they have! How'd you like to be stuck in line behind this passive-aggressive asshole? Not that this one would ever be caught shopping for himself - I'm sure that his wife buys everything for him, from underwear to birthday presents for his parents.
In conclusion, the next step that I recommend for the creators of this commercial, is what Bill Hicks used to recommend to all advertising and marketing people, i.e. this:
Feb 23, 2011
Czernobog / Bielebog
This is from Neil Gaiman's "American Gods" - a book I've developed a strong fetish for. The part where Shadow and Wednesday stay with the Russian gods is one of the best parts, where surrealism mixes with the reality of an old immigrant's household:
Czernobog shook his head. He looked up at Shadow. "Do you have a brother?"
"No," said Shadow. "Not that I know of."
"I have a brother. They say, you put us together, we are like one person, you know? When we are young, his hair, it is very blond, very light, his eyes are blue, and people say, he is the good one. And my hair it is very dark, darker than yours even, and people say I am the rogue, you know? I am the bad one. And now time passes, and my hair is gray. His hair, too, I think, is gray. And you look at us, you would not know who was light, who was dark."
"Were you close?" asked Shadow.
Czernobog shook his head. He looked up at Shadow. "Do you have a brother?"
"No," said Shadow. "Not that I know of."
"I have a brother. They say, you put us together, we are like one person, you know? When we are young, his hair, it is very blond, very light, his eyes are blue, and people say, he is the good one. And my hair it is very dark, darker than yours even, and people say I am the rogue, you know? I am the bad one. And now time passes, and my hair is gray. His hair, too, I think, is gray. And you look at us, you would not know who was light, who was dark."
"Were you close?" asked Shadow.
Feb 21, 2011
HTML
One of my minor achievements that I'm pleased with, is that I've learned basic HTML. Nothing that will get me a Noble prize, I know, but it comes in useful every day. For example, I have built my website by myself. I can tweak the controls of this blog, for example, and I can add the little window on the side here that takes you to my new "Self Portraits" page. Make sure you check it out - I won't be showing any new additions here anymore.
Labels:
general,
me me me,
self portrait
Jan 30, 2011
Roman Polanski's "Bitter Moon"
A couple of years ago I sat in the first lecture of a course about Roman Polanski in the Tel-Aviv university, given by a much beloved but very pompous professor. He began by listing all of Polanski's films, and I fell into his silly little trap by raising my hand and pointing out that he had left out "Bitter Moon". His well-rehearsed answer was "I've left it out, because it isn't worth talking about, and I'd rather forget that it was ever made".
Then he spent a month talking about "The Tenant".
As I read some of the reviews for this film, my hands start to shake with anger. The consensus seems to be that Polanski started out with the intention to describe a moving love affair, then got lost in his stupid desire to create provocations by inserting as much soft-core porn as he could get away with. They mock the cliche lines that Peter Coyote's character speaks with a straight face: "Have you ever truly idolized a woman? Nothing can be obscene in such love. Everything that occurs in between it becomes a sacrament." and nobody knows what the hell Hugh Grant and Kristin Scott Thomas' characters are doing there. Roger Ebert is the only one who seems to have some kind of idea of what this film is really about. So, listen carefully, I'm only going to explain this once:
Oscar and Mimi are living out the romantic fantasy of romantic Parisian romance that we've been conditioned to want and fantasize about. He is a brooding American writer who lives in Paris and expects to become the next Henry Miller or Ernest Hemingway. He meets a divine creature on the bus and falls in love at first sight, but doesn't get to speak to her. After looking for her for months and almost giving up, he finally runs into her by mistake, and this "written in the stars" affair can finally begin. Of course she remembers him, of course she has also fallen in love with him at first sight. As they crash into each-other's arms with phrases like "I might have been Adam with the taste of apple fresh in my mouth. I was looking at all the beauty in the world, embodied in a single female form.", they reach the point where Meg Ryan films usually end, and step into uncharted territory. What happens next, or rather what doesn't happen, is that they never reach the comfortable, "boring" stage of the love affair. They never learn to enjoy eating breakfast together without tearing their clothes off and licking milk off each-other. They giggle and kiss while shopping for sex toys, but they will never giggle and kiss while shopping for groceries.
And so the grotesque part of the story begins - how far can you go on desire alone? At what point does sexual exploration become a silly cartoon? What do you do when a person kneels at your feet and tells you "You can do anything you want to me, just don't send me away"? How does it feel to go in an instant from being all-powerful to being completely powerless? And after all the battles have been won and lost, how do you spend eternity? Perhaps by poisoning the lives of a young couple you meet along the way, by mocking their seemingly boring and lustless relationship, and forcing your personal hell on them.
Just like Mimi and Oscar's love, Roman Polanski the masterpiece director is gone now, and it's too late to hug his ankles and cry "Please don't go, I'll do anything!". Instead, we can quote another cliche and say "We'll always have Paris", we'll always have "Chinatown", "Rosemary's Baby", and "Bitter Moon".
Then he spent a month talking about "The Tenant".
As I read some of the reviews for this film, my hands start to shake with anger. The consensus seems to be that Polanski started out with the intention to describe a moving love affair, then got lost in his stupid desire to create provocations by inserting as much soft-core porn as he could get away with. They mock the cliche lines that Peter Coyote's character speaks with a straight face: "Have you ever truly idolized a woman? Nothing can be obscene in such love. Everything that occurs in between it becomes a sacrament." and nobody knows what the hell Hugh Grant and Kristin Scott Thomas' characters are doing there. Roger Ebert is the only one who seems to have some kind of idea of what this film is really about. So, listen carefully, I'm only going to explain this once:
Oscar and Mimi are living out the romantic fantasy of romantic Parisian romance that we've been conditioned to want and fantasize about. He is a brooding American writer who lives in Paris and expects to become the next Henry Miller or Ernest Hemingway. He meets a divine creature on the bus and falls in love at first sight, but doesn't get to speak to her. After looking for her for months and almost giving up, he finally runs into her by mistake, and this "written in the stars" affair can finally begin. Of course she remembers him, of course she has also fallen in love with him at first sight. As they crash into each-other's arms with phrases like "I might have been Adam with the taste of apple fresh in my mouth. I was looking at all the beauty in the world, embodied in a single female form.", they reach the point where Meg Ryan films usually end, and step into uncharted territory. What happens next, or rather what doesn't happen, is that they never reach the comfortable, "boring" stage of the love affair. They never learn to enjoy eating breakfast together without tearing their clothes off and licking milk off each-other. They giggle and kiss while shopping for sex toys, but they will never giggle and kiss while shopping for groceries.
And so the grotesque part of the story begins - how far can you go on desire alone? At what point does sexual exploration become a silly cartoon? What do you do when a person kneels at your feet and tells you "You can do anything you want to me, just don't send me away"? How does it feel to go in an instant from being all-powerful to being completely powerless? And after all the battles have been won and lost, how do you spend eternity? Perhaps by poisoning the lives of a young couple you meet along the way, by mocking their seemingly boring and lustless relationship, and forcing your personal hell on them.
Just like Mimi and Oscar's love, Roman Polanski the masterpiece director is gone now, and it's too late to hug his ankles and cry "Please don't go, I'll do anything!". Instead, we can quote another cliche and say "We'll always have Paris", we'll always have "Chinatown", "Rosemary's Baby", and "Bitter Moon".
Labels:
film,
me vs the world,
teachings
Jan 20, 2011
Jan 6, 2011
The Millemium Trilogy
This is what it feels like to read Stieg Larsson's Millenium Trilogy:
The first book is fascinating, though vulgar, and you fall completely in love with Lisbeth Salander. The second one is exciting, though far-fetched. By the middle of the third one, you just want all the characters to take their women's rights, their journalistic integrity, their hyperactive libidos and their overblown IQ and end it all in a nearby fjord.
I shudder to think what the other seven books would've been like.
The first book is fascinating, though vulgar, and you fall completely in love with Lisbeth Salander. The second one is exciting, though far-fetched. By the middle of the third one, you just want all the characters to take their women's rights, their journalistic integrity, their hyperactive libidos and their overblown IQ and end it all in a nearby fjord.
I shudder to think what the other seven books would've been like.
Dec 27, 2010
Tron Legacy
For the life of me I can't understand why, in this age of over-population, the majority of texts our mainstream culture manages to produce still preach the doctrine of reproduction above, and instead, of all other acts of creation.
Kevin Flynn has attempted the god-like act of creating an entire alternative universe from scratch, and he expects to get results from it that will benefit our world as well - something about perfecting the human genome, eliminating disease and so on that I didn't entirely follow. But oh no! He has been swallowed up, literally, by his work, and can't spend time with his son. How unfortunate. Too late he realizes that the only perfection he should've ever attempted is the one that hides inside this child. All his ideas about making the world better for the kid to grow up in - too bad, he should've scrapped those the moment the stick turned blue.
Well, I'm sorry, but screw you, Mr. Kosinski, and screw you, eight (!) people it took to write this script, and screw you (passionately and at length, and sleep for a while and wake up and then screw you again, but always with contraceptives), Mr. Bridges, but being able to create something other than offspring is what separates us from the animals. It's one of the few good things that separate us from the animals. If you don't mind, some of us would like to keep that option open.
Kevin Flynn has attempted the god-like act of creating an entire alternative universe from scratch, and he expects to get results from it that will benefit our world as well - something about perfecting the human genome, eliminating disease and so on that I didn't entirely follow. But oh no! He has been swallowed up, literally, by his work, and can't spend time with his son. How unfortunate. Too late he realizes that the only perfection he should've ever attempted is the one that hides inside this child. All his ideas about making the world better for the kid to grow up in - too bad, he should've scrapped those the moment the stick turned blue.
Well, I'm sorry, but screw you, Mr. Kosinski, and screw you, eight (!) people it took to write this script, and screw you (passionately and at length, and sleep for a while and wake up and then screw you again, but always with contraceptives), Mr. Bridges, but being able to create something other than offspring is what separates us from the animals. It's one of the few good things that separate us from the animals. If you don't mind, some of us would like to keep that option open.
Labels:
blagh,
blasphemy,
film,
me vs the world,
teachings
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