Reading List: April

Fiction: 

Matt Ruff: Bad Monkeys.
Douglas Coupland: Generation X.
Yiyun Li: A Thousand Years of Good Prayers. 

Film:

A Serious Man (2009, Ethan and Joel Coen) ****.
Sorority Row (2009, Stewart Hendler) *.

Invasion (2007, Oliver Hirschbiegel) **.

Katyn (2007, Andrzej Wajda) ***.

Chloe (2009, Atom Egoyan) ***.
Kick-Ass (2010, Matthew Vaughn) ***.

Into the Wild (2007, Sean Penn) ***.
A Single Man (2009, Tom Ford) **.

Series: 

The Pacific (in progress, I-VII).

Music:

Social Studies: This is the World's Biggest Hammer.
Le Loup: The Throne Of The Third Heaven Of The Nations' Millennium General Assembly.

Foals: Antidotes.
Kaki King: Junior.
John & Jehn: Time for the Devil.
Monochrome: Laser + Radio.

...

"As the vast and growing oil slick spread across the Gulf and approached shore, fishermen in coastal towns feared for their businesses and the White House stepped up its response to the worsening situation."

NY Times: Oil From Spill Is Reported to Have Reached the Coast, April 30, 2010

"Es ist, als läge ein Fluch über dem Land"

"Seit Donnerstagnachmittag herrscht offiziell Notstand in Louisiana. Das Weiße Haus in Washington hat die Navy mobilisiert. Auf dem Wasser und aus der Luft wird versucht, die Ölkatastrophe einzudämmen. Das Wetter spielt aber nicht mit. Der Wind dreht sich genau so, dass der Ölteppich noch schneller der Küste entgegentreibt. Die Menschen stehen vor einer Katastrophe – schon wieder. Die Erinnerungen an Katrina sind in diesem Landteil noch nicht verblasst. Ausgerechnet solche Gemeinden, die sich von den Folgen des Hurrikans gerade mühsam erholen, trifft die Ölpest besonders hart. Es ist, als läge ein Fluch über dem Land."

Die Zeit: Louisiana zittert vor der Ölpest, 30. April 2010

NY Times: Oil Spill’s Blow to BP’s Image May Eclipse Costs, April 29, 2010

Linkliste unbehandelter Themen

Politics: 

Following an explosion on an oil rig only a few kilometres off the Louisiana coast on April 20, an enormous spill is spreading in the Gulf of Mexico.

Greece's debt crisis threatens to spill over, as negotiations about the European Union's and the IWF's loan continue.

Things are not looking good for the Labour party. The UK votes on May 6, 2010.

Pop Culture:

In an interview with afterellen.com, writer Michelle Tea says that a film adaptation of "Valencia" is in the works. 21 filmmakers will direct segments, amont the names she mentions are Jamie Babbit ("But I'm a Cheerleader") and Rose Troche.

Douglas Coupland explained 2010 to someone from 1935 in Penguin book covers ("Fame is a curse").

This is old news but Joss Whedon is probably going to direct an Avengers-movie. I've never read the comic, but it's Joss, so (some people aren't happy though). "The Cabin in the Woods", which Whedon co-wrote with Drew Goddard, is scheduled to come out early in 2011 (I am much more psyched about that because Amy Acker! Bradley Whitford! Fran Kranz! Tom Lenk!)

Talking about Amy Acker, the reason why Doctor Saunders was barely in the last season of "Dollhouse" just started airing, and the least negative way to describe it is possibly that it's an hommage to the 20th anniversary of "Twin Peaks". But hey, Amy Acker!

Beautiful randomness

So I’ve been listening to Kaki King a lot over the past weeks, not just because “Junior” is a brilliant, beautiful record, but also because it is much easier for me to connect to her non-vocal tracks now, for some reason. And one of the songs that is currently on my playlist is “Doing the Wrong Thing”. And then today I read, just randomly, someone’s comment about how they’d watch stuff by Kristen Stewart because she was so good in “Into the Wild”, a movie I’d heard about a lot, but never taken the time to see. So I downloaded it, and found out during the credits that it had Jena Malone (“Donnie Darko”, “Secret Life of Altar Boys”) and Catherine Keener in it (even Merritt Wever, Zoey from Nurse Jackie, has a tiny tiny bit part). And it’s a beautiful movie. I guess when I first heard it was about a boy who goes into the wild to escape civilization, I thought it would be this pretentious survivalist crap that I can’t stand, but it’s not. It’s beautifully shot, and it tells… I don’t know, it’s just well done. It has two timelines, one of him alone in Alaska, slowly losing his mind, the other about his way there, about his family and why he is running away, and basically Emile Hirsch is just so likeable in this role, because he doesn’t say much, but what you see of him is great, and Jena Malone plays his sister and narrates the movie.
Anyways. Kaki King contributed to the soundtrack. It’s mostly Eddie Vedder, but “Doing the Wrong Thing” is one of the songs from the movie. I didn’t know that. And I love these little … coincidences. It’s what the randomness of the internet does, and it makes life a bit more beautiful than it would otherwise be.

Similarities

There is the new M.I.A. song which uses a sample of Suicide's "Ghost Rider". And then there's zZz's "Ecstasy", a song that was used in a very important scene in the "Katie" episode of the fourth season of "Skins". Somehow, they sound similar, right? 

By the way, this discussion of Romain Gavras short movie to "Born Free" is better than anything else I've read about it so far. Essential questions: would the video be "better" if the nationality of the military carrying out the ethnic violence was not clearly identified as American? 

Does it help to consider Gavras's work with French band Justice? 

Justice - Stress
[the parody! UNO! And no, apparently I can't take anything seriously. Sorry.]

 

That ALWAYS happens to me

LOLWUT
I don't even remember the last time the UK has a conservative prime minister (I think I was ten...).

How else would this policy be executed?

"The law requires state and local police to determine the status of people if there is "reasonable suspicion" that they are illegal immigrants and to arrest people who are unable to provide documentation proving they are in the country legally.
[...]
Opponents of the Arizona law, some of whom held a vigil outside Brewer's home on Monday to urge her to veto the measure, say it is unconstitutional and would discriminate against Latinos.
"You cannot tell if a person walking on a sidewalk is undocumented or not ... (so) this is a mandate for racial profiling," said Pablo Alvarado, director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.

Reuters: Arizona passes tough illegal immigration law, April 19, 2010

“I sure hope it does have an effect,” Mr. White said of the new law as he packed his car with groceries. “I wouldn’t want to show proof of citizenship, but I also don’t feel it is racial profiling. You are going to look different if you are an alien, and cops know.” 

NY Times: Growing Split in Arizona Over Immigration, April 25, 2010

"Hispanics and Latinos (of any race) [make] up 29.0% of Arizona's population."
Wikipedia

NSFW, disturbing, violent.

M.I.A. - Born Free

"You can think big with your idea / You ain't never gonna find utopia"

via Pitchfork

Directed by Romain Gavras, son of Constantinos Costa-Gavras. It's always interesting to see what kind of content still creates controversy and leads to censorship.

Die Posts der letzten Tage + das Ergebnis =....

Cake. Hm, cake.

Quelle: DerStandard.
Die Wiener Landtagswahlen werden lustig. Notfalls kann ich immer noch nach Norwegen.

"Borrowing" moods

It just took me forever to realize that the song used in one of the pivotal scenes of "Kick-Ass" made the scene it accompanied so evocative and strong because it came right out of a different scene in a different movie: Danny Boyle's "28 Days Later" (the song is called "In the House - In a Heartbeat" on the soundtrack for "28 Days Later). There was a strange disconnect there, for a moment, because what I was seeing was actually not quite that great, but the music, and the KNOWLEDGE that I'd heard this in a different, better context before, made it interesting. The film uses snippets of music previously used by Danny Boyle throughout.

"Shut the hell up and pick your weapon."

The movie itself isn't bad either. The first thing I heard about it was the mixture of horror and enthusiasm for the fact that a 13-year old girl causes more damage and uses fouler language than any other character in the movie, yet remains clearly pre-adolescent (unlike Natalie Portman's character in "Léon"). Somehow it's telling that the use of excessive violence isn't what leads to a red band trailer, but the fact that a girl says "cunts" before slicing up a group of criminals. Chloe Moretz, who played the insightful and delightfully intelligent little sister in "(500) Days of Summer", is pretty amazing and does overshadow everybody else. 

"With no power comes no responsibility, except that wasn't exactly true."

The director of the movie is British (Matthew Vaughn, long-time collaborator of Guy Ritchie), but the tone (it's based on a comic book by Mark Millar) resembles that of "Superbad", therefore lacking some of the depth Greg Mottola gained in the follow-up, "Adventureland", although apparently all vaguely geeky but not completely socially inapt male teenage leads must now look like Jesse Eisenberg. 

Nicolas Cage, however, probably gives the best performance in a long while. This might start "Wes Anderson gives Bill Murray a new purpose" like revamping of his career.

How have I never seen this?

Bananas!

I believe that is all I want to say before tomorrow's election. If you are so inclined, read this questionnaire.

I solemnly swear...

"Bis zur Nationalratswahl 2006 hielt er sich dann jedoch weitgehend zurück. Er äußerte zwar den Wunsch nach einem Homo-Pakt und zusätzlichen zweisprachigen Ortstafeln, forderte, die EU nicht „grenzenlos“ zu erweitern, unterschrieb 2005 aber den (später gescheiterten) EU-Verfassungsvertrag, ging eifrig auf Reisen, blieb realpolitisch aber im Hintergrund."

Die Presse: Heinz Fischers Bilanz: "Gute-Laune-Präsident" und Diplomat, 23. April 2010

"Lass uns einen Pakt schließen. Einen HOMO-PAKT."

Wer auf Anhieb fünf "realpolitische" Eingriffe österreichischer Bundespräsidenten aufzählen kann (dieser zählt nicht...), bekommt einen Keks. 

...

tried to battle unexpected cold (wtf? it's like almost summer out there?) with booze. didn't work. volcano  of doom stopped just in time to let my friend return back home north safely. eventually, coherence will return. just not tonight.

also, tumblr is like a black hole for people who are sick and can't do anything but mope around in front of the computer.

Positionen

I like chocolate. Now, I know that you might suspect me not to be old enough to vote yet: I get this a lot. I get carded for beer. Strangers talk to me as if I were a child, until I say something that surprises them. BUT I LIKE CHOCOLATE. And I'm not saying that because you decided that I wasn't worth your little election gift I will vote for the woman who has been doing nothing but half-heartedly back-paddling from her positions on the Verbotsgesetz ever since becoming the candidate for her party, or the man who compared abortions to the holocaust and can think of nothing worse than gay marriage (how can you talk about Christian values in times like these and not be ridiculed by everyone? What kind of world is this?). It's still bad publicity to withhold chocolate from a potential voter. It's irresponsible (I am not really taking this seriously enough, am I). 

Anyways, exhibit A. Rudolf Gehring.

"STANDARD: In Ihrer Parteizeitung liest man von einem "Babycaust". Ist das als Analogie zum Holocaust zu verstehen?

Gehring: Schauen Sie sich doch die Massen an Ungeborenen an, die getötet werden! Derzeit werden ungefähr so viele Kinder getötet wie zur Welt kommen."

DerStandard: "Homosexualität ist eine Verirrung", 31. März 2010

Exhibit B. Barbara Rosenkranz.

"Dass sich aber auch eine gefährliche Tendenz hinter dem Gender Mainstreaming verbirgt, schreibt LR Barbara Rosenkranz in ihrem ersten Buch „MenschInnen - Auf dem Weg zum geschlechtslosen Menschen“ auf.
Was sie darin aufzeigt, ist alarmierend: im Zusammenwirken verschiedener Kräfte auf internationaler Basis greift eine gefährliche Entwicklung Platz, an deren Ende allen Ernstes die Leugnung der biologischen Unterschiede der Geschlechter steht.
Nicht nur in Zeiten sinkender Geburtenraten ein katastrophales Signal in unserem Kulturkreis!"

offizielle website, googlebar, entnommen am 22. April 2010

Das Fehlen einer erstnzunehmenden Alternative, die fragwürdige Verwendung des Bürgerbegriffs, das Anrufen von "Werten" (auch vom hier nicht "ausgestellten" Kandidaten"), ohne diese näher zu definieren oder zu hinterfragen - all das hat zu einem traurigen, verkürzten Wahlkampf geführt. Ein Wahlkampf ohne Debatten und Diskussionen, die vielleicht notwendig gewesen wären. (und wer unter diesen Umständen zum Weißwählen aufruft, hat wirklich alles falsch verstanden).

Now I don't know who this person is but...

this cover of Lady Gaga's (OK I know who she is and one of her songs played a prominent role in a lovely episode of "Skins", but I can honestly say that I haven't heard an entire song before) "Poker Face" by Two Door Cinema Club is great. 

via We All Want Someone To Shout For

Not Travis plays "Baby One More Time" great, but close.

Also, I am really trying not to give up on "Lost" weeks before the final episode, but it's getting really, really hard. WTF are they doing with all the female characters? Strength and independence gets you killed on the island if you happen to be female.

"A civil divorce"

"Africa's biggest country is poised to split into two. In January the south is due to hold a referendum on independence. If, as widely expected, it votes yes, it will create the continent's first new nation since Eritrea declared independence from Ethiopia in 1993.
"It is highly likely that the south will choose independence," Scott Gration, the US special envoy to Sudan, said last month. "I don't see that the north has to re-invade the south and start the war again. If we can resolve these issues, I think there is a fairly good chance that ... the south can have a civil divorce, not a civil war."

Mail&Guardian: Sudan votes, and stands on the brink of splitting in two, April 18, 2010

I'm not sure which yet but she's bloody brilliant.

 I feel this urge to mention how great "Doctor Who" is this season with every single new episode. Here's an interview with showrunner Steven Moffat and Matt Smith.

Das entscheidende und.

Einem kreativen Menschen in Breitenlee/Hirschstetten ist aufgefallen, dass der simple "und"-Zusatz zwischen "Ohne Mut keine Werte" den intendierten Sinn verkehrt. Gibt es eigentlich in Marketingabteilungen, die Plakate und Sprüche für Wahlen entwerfen, eine eigene Arbeitsgruppe, die sich überlegt, wie beliebige Passanten mit Eddings mit wenig Mühe so viel Schaden anrichten können? (Wahrscheinlich findet man diese Plakate in ganz Wien, aber ... ich bin das halt nicht gewohnt, von der Peripherie. Kudos, stranger, for making me smile like a fool on the bus). 

Also: I wouldn't want to be among the first passengers who get to fly tomorrow morning. Those past few days were kind of...absurdedly strange in a very scary, yet intriguiging way, weren't they?

Songs with Rooftops in them will never be the same again.

Kaki King: The Betrayer. 

“I did this to you, yes I did, I had my own life to save
I did this to you yes I did
Again, I've become someone else
Someone new.
It's up to them -
Will they let me through?
Running on rooftops now
The great escape”

Kaki King's new record "Junior" is very beautiful, also secretly heavy metal.

In the same vain: "Rooftop" by The Envy Corps ("I need a rooftop I can look from or jump off / I guess that I get this way / What's the problem, dear? Are you feeling unloved? / That's what I was most afraid of") and "The Rooftop Song" by Port O'Brien (“In my heart I know that I love and the wind will blow.”).

(oh, this is why, although watching the scene out of context is probably not a good idea)

Linkliste unbehandelter Themen

Bei dem Absturz in Katyn kam nicht nur der polnische Staatspräsident Lech Kaczynskis ums Leben, sondern auch große Teile der Führungselite des Landes (nicht nur Parlamentarier von Kaczynskis "Prawo i Sprawiedliwość"-Partei). Under den Opfern sind der Chef der Nationalbank, sechs der sieben höchsten militärischen Kommandanten und Abgeordnete von Oppositionsparteien im Sejm. (Wikipedia hat eine vollständie Liste der Opfer hier). Die Zeit meint nüchtern dass die vergagenenen Jahre in Polen viel politische Verantwortung vom Staatspräsidenten zum Ministerpräsidenten (derzeit Donald DTusk von der  liberalkonservativen Partei Platforma Obywatelska) transferiert hat, und Polens politische Stabilität deswegen nicht gefährdet ist. 

Slate: Another Tragedy in the Haunted Forest, April 12, 2010 

Foreign Policy: Putin Sends His Condolences, April 12, 2010

Das Massaker in Katyn 1940

In den ungarischen Parlamentswahlen erreichte die rechtskonservative Fidesz unter Viktor Orbán eine absolute Mehrheit von fast 53 Prozent. Die rechtsextremistische Jobbik, die bereits bei den Europaparlamentswahlen letztes Jahr 15 Prozent der Wähler für sich gewinnen konnte, schaffte fast 17 Prozent. Die bis jetzt regierenden Sozialdemokraten mussten schwere Verluste hinnehmen; die Grünen sitzen erstmals im Parlament, was, wie ein ungarischer Historiker meinte, auch an der von Österreich verursachten Verschmutzung ungarischer Flüsse liegt.

Die Zeit: Der Rechtspopulist Orbán erlebt ein erstaunliches Comeback, 12. April 2010

Die Zeit: Ungarns Verführer, 10. April 2010

Guardian: Hungary party to follow European extremism's move away from fringes, April 8, 2010

Mit John Paul Stevens geht nach David Souter ein weiterer Supreme Court Justice in Pension. Stevens wurde 1975 vom Republikanischen Präsident Gerald Ford nominierst und ist damit der längstdienende Richter, der derzeit im Amt ist. Er gilt als Führer des liberalen Flügels im Verfassungsgerichtshof. Er schrieb einen vielzitierten Dissent zur Entscheidung des Supreme Court über das Ergebnis der Präsidentschaftswahlen in Florida 2000 ("Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this years Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nations confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law. I respectfully dissent.") . Slate meint über ihn: 

"Stevens used empathy not to skew or manipulate his jurisprudence, but to consider the effects of his decisions on real people and to accept that the law can look quite different depending on where you're standing. That's part of what made him such a great justice, and it's a quality the president should bear in mind in selecting his replacement."

Einige Republikanische Abgeordnete erklären sich bereit, den Filibuster (nach der Wahl von Scott Brown in Massachussetts fehlt den Demokraten die filibuster-sichere Mehrheit von 60 Senatoren) gegen einen liberalen Nominierten einzusetzen, andere denken über die politischen Kosten nach.

Die Abhängigkeit Chinas von Iranischen Energielieferungen ist einer der Gründe, warum Chinas Unterstützung von Sanktionen gegen den Iran fragwürdig war. Bei einem Nuclear Security Summit scheint es zu einer Einigung zwischen Barack Obama und dem chinesischen Präsidenten Hu Jintao gekommen zu sein.

NY Times: China Pledges to Work With U.S. on Iran Sanctions, April 12, 2010

Brookings: The Economics of Influencing Iran, March 2010

Brookings: Sanctioning Iran: If Only It Were So Simple, January 2010

Sudan is currently holding its first multi-party elections in 20 years, but the outcome is easily predictable - and next year's referendum on a partition of the country, with the richer South becoming independ, is far more relevant for the future of the country.

Foreign Policy: How Sudan's Election Got Messy, April 12, 2010

The one thing that never happens in a Whedon-show

I read this review of "The Pacific" yesterday or the day before. It's the companion piece to "Band of Brothers", focusing on the Pacific war the US fought during WW2. Anyways, the last sentence of this paragraph haunts me: 

"There are nighttime battle scenes that last as long as ten minutes in “The Pacific”—an attempt to give viewers some sense of the unrelenting, terrifying reality of it all. This artistic decision echoes the one that Spielberg made in showing us almost half an hour of the Normandy invasion at the beginning of “Saving Private Ryan.” But authenticity in a war movie doesn’t depend exclusively on the accumulation of gory detail; it also requires emotional and psychological realism. Here, when Basilone dies, the camera pulls up from the splayed body in an aerial shot, as if the angels were lifting him up to Heaven, while generically elegiac orchestral music plays, and then cuts to a shot of his widow with a sunset in the background, as the music comes to a sweetly sad resolution. The scene is a lie about death."

The New Yorker: Hell on Earth

...

I am trying to come up with a catchy title for a seminar paper on the changing face of democracy in the European Union and the only thing in my head right now is "Demos or Die". I think this will need some more work.

References

3sat-Kulturzeit just presented an exhibition on surrealism in the Swiss town of Winterthur. Among the pictures is this one of three artists (one of them, I believe, is Max Ernst, but I can't read the other names) having fun with a "Photomaton", a photo box that started to appear in Paris in the mid-1920s. One features prominently in "Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain", but I had no idea how far back they go. It's such a random shot of three people, but at the same time, there is something so.... strangely lovely about this, I can't quite describe it. It looks so contemporary, like something a friend might have pinned to their wall, yet it was shot in the 1920s.

...

With just a bit of research: the other two people in the photograph are Marie-Berthe Aurenche, who became Ernst's wife in 1927, and her brother, Jean Aurenche.

Random stuff is random

One: Music, once again, taken from "Skins" (this one isn't even out regularly as far as I know)

Laura Marling: Is a Hope (Drinking Alone)

This article on Foreign Policy asks whether Anti-American extremism is more motivated by politics or...Lady Gaga. Well, "decadent" pop culture I guess.

This article on Eurozine tries to grasp the importance of technology in political power struggles ("Cyber Wars"). 

This is just getting more and more disgusting but to be perfectly honest, I spent a good part of my youth being incredibly angry at and scared of the Catholic Church, I really can't be bothered. If it was my club, I'd, like, cancel my membership? 

The director of "Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist" which I found much less terrible than most other people who saw it (as mentioned before, I have a high tolerance for Michael Cera...) is rumoured to be involved in the Runaways-movie-project, and that is not THE Runaways, but a movie-version of Brian K. Vaughan's comic books (which are currently on indefinite hiatus). I have plenty of ideas about who should be in that movie.

I'm the Doctor. I'm worse than everybody's aunt.

These two are quite lovely. Surprisingly, getting over the Tenth Doctor was easy. (also, Scottish accents. I've talked about those before...) Evil!Gina Campbell helped (so that's where Naomi's mum was all these months!).

File under: posts that make absolutely no sense if you haven't seen the two shows mentioned. Sorry. 

Das Lied zum Sonntag

The xx - Shelter


I find shelter, in this way
Under cover, hide away
Can you hear, when I say?
I have never felt this way

Maybe I had said, something that was wrong
Can I make it better, with the lights turned on
Maybe I had said, something that was wrong
Can I make it better, with the lights turned on

Could I be, was I there?
It felt so crystal in the air
I still want to drown, whenever you leave
Please teach me gently, how to breathe

And I'll cross oceans, like never before
So you can feel the way I feel it too
And I'll mirror images back at you
So you can see the way I feel it too

Maybe I had said, something that was wrong
Can I make it better, with the lights turned on
Maybe I had said, something that was wrong
Can I make it better, with the lights turned on

Maybe I had said, something that was wrong
Can I make it better, with the lights turned on.

[on "xx", 2009]

I've had this on repeat for an hour now...

Electrelane feat. Buck 65 - This Deed

"Diese Tat ist ihnen immer noch ferner als die fernsten Gestirne, und doch haben sie dieselbe getan!
Hände hoch!" (Friedrich Nietzsche: The Gay Science)

Odd couple of days. Don't know why.

At the movies...

Allen Coulter's "Remember Me" which I found very well done and acted, despite some of the bad reviews it got, suffered from the fact that a movie pulling a female, teenage audience because of the lead actor just simply can't have a line like "are you afraid you will lose your immortal soul?" (to add to the fun, this is what I saw right before leaving the apartment. I only saw "Mean Girls" a couple of days ago, so perfect timing on all accounts). Seriously, never before have I seen random people who did not even know each other spread a giggle attack infection so effectively. The trailer for the next Twilight-movie before did not exactly help (sadly, I don't see "Runaways" coming out in Austria anywhere but in one small cinema...)

Ruby Jerins, who played the little sister of the main character, stole every single scene. She is brilliant in "Nurse Jackie" as well.

(also, the movie is still enjoyable when you know what the big reveal at the end is going to be, because I've always enjoyed looking for clues more than being surprised. This was the first movie I've seen that explicitly dealt with that particular American trauma, and you don't even KNOW it until the last few minutes.)

Broken promises.

  Seriously, never change. Movie? Please?