3-D

Recently, noted film critic Roger Ebert declared his disdain for 3D and I am completely on the same page with him there. We disagree strongly on the point of video games as art--he declared, in an absolutist, Sith, blog post that video games will never be art. (If you want to here the sound of man exploding, ask The Engineer what he thinks about that Ebert essay. I caution you with the knowledge that The Engineer works in the video game industry.) However, I think you O Constant Listenerz/Readerz, will appreciate these 3D adaptations of classic art.

High Art

Banksy is an artist and provocateur and we love him for it. Not enough perhaps to invite him to mural our Very Special Secret Location, mind, but we love him nonetheless. What is most heretical about Banksy is how he elicits such extremes: those who would decry his work as mere vandalism, low brow, ineffectual, trite, or worst of all insipid. And then there are those who are convinced his is the hand of new art, the most important living artist.

We look forward to this documentary.

Heretical Outing ce soir / Word of the Week: p, s, e

Mr. The Engineer and I are going to see an art show at Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal this evening.

I've wanted to see it for sometime and this is the last weekend so it is now or never. The artist is John William Waterhouse a favourite of a good friend of mine. I like his work, although not to the level of a gushing fanboy (not to disparage too strongly the aforementioned friend). His favourite piece is Godspeed. Perhaps you are more familiar O Constant Reader, with Waterhouse's The Lady of Shalott.

A different friend was here at Our Secret Location for lunch and heated discussion (who would have thought that Christopher Hitchens could possible elicit vitriol?) and mentioned, with high praise, that she had gone to the show on cheap Wednesday.

(Note how the main page has a clock counting down the end of the show. In an otherwise tasteful high end musée, it seems a bit tacky. All that is missing is harsh repetitive voice over SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY the LAST DAY DAY DAY FOR WATERHOUSE WATERHOUSE WATERHOUSE! etc. etc.)

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The Word for this Week is inspired by the exhibit.

Sortilège

Which is French for magic spell or spellbinding. Obviously derived from sor- roots in Latin. It is also an archaic English word (borrowed directly from French) for magical drawing of lots. Also a Canadian Whiskey. How cool is that?

Cthulhu on High

Dr. P Zed Myers and Joe.My.God. have both been following the ridiculous mess that is the painting of Jesus delivering the US Constitution. I'm not going to give you the link because I really don't want to have to find it again. It is widely available. Sadly. Instead I'll give you my favourite of the parodies featuring Cthulhu. (Dr. Myers and I both love squidy goodness).

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn... Not anymore. It seems he's up and about. And much shorter than I imagined.



In offer this image in the true spirit of l'Action de Grâce or [Canadian] Thanksgiving.

Arising from Episode 8: Linguaphiles attend

How awesome are these images? Really, The Scream? The Doom Spikes are an instant fail because I love them and totally would want to visit.

(From the article here. A more detailed look at the subject is here complete with more amazing images and thoughtful passages many of which I read on the Podcast.)

Strangely Compelling: Carl Sagan - 'A Glorious Dawn' ft Stephen Hawking (Cosmos Remixed)

The Heresy Québec Review of the Marilyn Manson concert in Ottawa

For context read Lynn Saxberg's review in the Ottawa Citizen of Marilyn Manson's September 21st concert (here!) also the Calgary Herald review (here!), by Heath McCoy, of the September 11th show which is noteworthy because moral panic arose during the last time Manson performed in YYC.

I think Lynn Saxberg is a bit harsher than I was in my evaluation. Perhaps it is because I actually enjoy Manson's work and "art" (if you will). To a point. The concert opened late, but solidly with "We're from America",... and then spiralled into one of the most poorly orchestrated spectacles I have had the misfortune to attend. My beloved sister had described the Edmonton show to me and had lead me to hope that it might improve. I was really looking forward to his encore of Patti Smith's "Rock N Roll Nigger" a standard in his recent tours. (I love how McCoy can't even properly use the word "nigger" and has to instead write "n**ger" cuz changing the name of the song and replacing letters just makes all those years of slavery and oppression just melt away.) There was no encore. It seems as though the entire tour was lurching into the banal space of post-rock mediocrity and more importantly, from my myopic perspective, that the Ottawa show was the worst of the lot.

Upon exiting the Scotia Bank Überdome (or whatever the fuck it is called) I was struck by the fanboys and their overheard wankery: "That was so awesome!" And the perhaps more adulterated, "Well, at least he came to Ottawa." To the drooling first dyad I wanted ask, "Were we at the same concert?" I chose not to on the grounds that they were likely 13 and had no basis for comparison. I was reminded of the line from the Dayglo Abortion's "Black Sabbath", "he'd probably love me if I pissed on his face..." (Although the fan wankery is reversed there, the principle applies.)

I think even the over abundance of police were bored. Clearly their time was wasted in preparation for the rioting that just doesn't ever seem to happen moral panics be damned.

Mr. The Engineer made an excellent (and telling) observation: Tori Amos' performance was actually more transgressive. Perhaps that is the most salient point here. When a balladeer is more transgressive and much better an entertainer over all then perhaps the shock-rocker needs to fade back into obscurity and count the money received from residuals.