Reading List: September

Fiction:

Suzanne Collins: The Hunger Games. 
Suzanne Collins: Catching Fire.
Suzanne Collins: Mockingjay.
Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsley (ed.): State by State. A Panoramic Portrait of America.
William Sleater: House of Stairs.
Michelle Tea: The Chelsea Whistle.
Jeffrey Eugenides: The Virgin Suicides.
Mark Billingham: Sleepy Head.

Films:

The Killing Jar (2010, Mark Young) ***.
Wanted (2008, Timur Bekmambetov) ***.
Changeling (2008, Clint Eastwood) ****.
The Book of Eli (2010, Albert and Allen Hughes) **. 
Cube2: Hypercube (2002, Andrzej Sekula) *.
Before Sunset (2004, Richard Linklater) ***. 
Battle Royale (2000, Kinji Fukasaku) ****.
Ink (2009, Jamin Winans) ****.
Up in the Air (2009, Jason Reitman) ***. 
The Informant! (2009, Steven Soderbergh) ***.
The Rules of Attraction (2002, Roger Avary) **/****.
Fallen (2006, Barbara Albert) ***. 
Defendor (2009, Peter Stebbings) ****.

Series:

This is England '86 (four episodes)
Docor Who, Season Five.
Veronica Mars, Season One.
In Treatment, Season One.

Linkliste unbehandelter Themen: Politics

I've said it before, and it never changes: I find myself completely unable to write about the Viennese election. There are some things I find intriguing, like the fact that the Freedom Party candidate has ads in which he prominently shows off his Brojanica, a Serbian prayer bracelet (this started with the 2008 national elections, when his opposition to the independence of Kosovo was one of the only international issues he ran on). I am assuming that the "average" Austrian citizen can not read this message, as most are probably unfamiliar with the meaning of the bracelet, but the community of voters with a Serbian background are. The juxtaposition of "good" Christian Serbs and "bad" Muslim Bosnians is an old story, but the particular way in which he holds out his hand, sending his little message to those who are able to decode it ("mir vastegnan uns, oda?"), is a bit odd. Also, the one I mean can't be found on the official campaign website, despite the extensive library of current and past campaign posters.

After winning the Styrian elections, the Social Democrats don't rule out a cooperation with the Styrian Freedom Party, most famous for introducing a game with the title "Moschee-Baba" that was promptly banned and taken offline.

"Auch Bundeskanzler und SPÖ-Chef Werner Faymann baut auf die Ablehnung der FPÖ. Faymanns Credo lautet bereits seit dem Wahlkampf im Jahr 2008, dass eine Zusammenarbeit mit der FPÖ nicht möglich und abzulehnen sei. Diese Distanzierung würde in ihrer Glaubwürdigkeit allerdings radikal untergraben werden, wenn Voves jetzt in der Steiermark mit den Freiheitlichen eine Zusammenarbeit paktieren würde."

DerStandard: Voves liebäugelt mit FPÖ, September 27, 2010

Local elections are mostly local, but it is still interesting to look at how the distribution of voters has changed since the elections in 2005 (which were overshadowed by the division of the governing Freedom Party). Both the Social Democrats and the People's Party lost a lot of votes to non-voters (about 20 000 each) and to the Freedom Party (about 10 000 each). The Communists (who had a surprisingly high turnout in 2005 and carried the protest votes) lost about 8000 votes to the Freedom Party.

Elsewhere, 

Black Box Democratic Republic of Korea seems to be preparing for a leadership change but naturally, it all stays in the family, Ed Miliband took over the struggling Labour party, Astronomers seem to have found a Plan B in case Planet Earth does eventually become uninhabitable, although "living in constant twillight" doesn't sound that cheerful, and Carey Mulligan is quite charming and wonderful (I had to sneak in that last part).

So where did it come from? The infinite darkness? / More like the suburbs.

“A good place; that's what people said to each other over the kitchen table a month or so after they had moved in.
"It's a good place we've come to."
Only one thing was missing. A past. At school, the children didn't get to do any special projects about Blackeberg's history because there wasn't one. That is to say, there was something about an old mill. A tobacco king. Some strange old buildings down by the water. But that was a long time ago and without any connection to the present.
Where the three-storied apartment buildings now stood there had been only forest before.
You were beyond the grasp of the mysteries of the past; there wasn't even a church. Nine thousand inhabitants and no church.
That tells you something about the modernity of the place, its rationality. It tells you something of how free they were from the ghosts of history and of terror.
It explains in part how unprepared they were."

John Ajvide Lindqvist: Let the Right One In

Linkliste unbehandelter Themen: Pop Culture

I always end up watching pilots in autumn, and I usually give shows two or three episodes to decide whether I'll stick with them or not. The one show which most definitely made the cut just got cancelled. Anybody want to guess which network Lone Star is/was on?

I've always been fascinated by all the different versions of Nikita, so I couldn't escape the new show, and Boardwalk Empire is so overflowing with talent (Martin Scorsese, Steve Buscemi, Michael Pitt, Kelly Macdonald whose Scottish accent is supposed to be Austrian or something) that I expect it to eventually become really good. It's like Deadwood (politics! power! sex! violence!), but set at the beginning of the Prohibition.

The best thing on TV ("this season" doesn't really work anymore) apart from Mad Men is the four-episode-run of This Is England '86 by Shane Madows. It picks up three years after the original film and is just really, really brilliant - incredibly funny one moment, shocking, violent and horrible the next.

Glee is a disaster, and it's the only show I am currently watching just to find things that go wrong. I wish there was a special unit to rescue characters from bad tv shows ("Murphy seems intent on running this character into the ground, but Morris isn't going to have her stop being funny without a fight.") and put them into better ones.

Some of the movies I am looking forward to (apart from the very obvious "epic epicness"), even if most of them are probably not even going to be released in Austria: 

Howl, starring James Franco (ever the versatile actor) as Allen Ginsberg during the time he wrote his most famous poem. It also features Jon Hamm (Mad Men) and Mary-Louise Parker (Weeds, but probably more flatteringly, Angels in America).

Let Me In, the American remake of the Swedish horror film Låt den rätte komma in. This begins a period of time in which things that I thorougly enjoy will be remade (Skins, also, although I have my reservations about the original, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). I just started to read John Lindqvist's novel which, according to some reviews, deals more explicitly with the gender ambiguity of Eli. This was only hinted at in the Swedish version and is probably going to be missing entirely from the remake. About ten pages in, I am really intrigued about how the "suburbia" thing is going to translate, considering that this is one of my favourite tropes and seems well suited for an American remake. Chloe Moretz was impressive in Kick-Ass, so I don't think that the movie is going to fail because of the casting. 

Never Let Me Go. I read the novel a while back and remember disliking the narrator voice for some reason, although I didn't even mention that in the paragraph I wrote about it. It also completely escaped me that this would have been a pretty good reference for Dollhouse, so maybe my perception of it will have changed over the past (almost) four years. Also, Andrew Garfield, Keira Knightley and Carey Mulligan.

I am also intrigued about The Social Network, because it seems even more strange to me that Aaron Sorkin and David Lynch would devote so much energy and time into portraying the life of a guy who was born in 1983, but then, Mark Zuckerberg is a new kind of villain who everybody seems keen to understand. The personal messages (old ones, but I tend to take 21-year-olds seriously) which surfaced a couple of weeks ago are more interesting to me than all those articles written about how social activism changes (or doesn't) because of social networking sites. 

ZUCK: yea so if you ever need info about anyone at harvard
ZUCK: just ask
ZUCK: i have over 4000 emails, pictures, addresses, sns
FRIEND: what!? how’d you manage that one?
ZUCK: people just submitted it
ZUCK: i don’t know why
ZUCK: they “trust me”
ZUCK: dumb fucks

Back when I was younger and not everybody had internet (taking into account that Austria was probably five years or so behind the US), the first thing parents told their children over and over was how dangerous it was: don't tell strangers your real name. Don't share personal information. In fact, the way we were told to use the internet kind of resembles how we learned about sex: I think almost everybody in my generation knew about HIV before having any specific idea about sex (which has apparently changed in the last years). And then, Facebook came along, and suddenly everybody was willing to share all of that personal information (I am waiting for scientists to explain how the interface creates a fake feeling of privacy and security, or how people were willing to do this because thousands before them had also, or because we live in an age bla bla bla).

And finally, in a new category titled "lines I would not have expected in an essay about Tori Amos": 

"When you gonna make up your mind?" Tori Amos asked me inside that frigid dressing room. "When you gonna love you as much as I do?"
And then I realize I'm going to be all right. Head first, neck first, balls first—it really doesn't matter. By the fourth listen, I know I'm going to tear that place apart. 

Slate: The Wrestler and the Cornflake Girl

It would contribute greatly to the quality of entertainment reviews if paid professional writers were as passionate about what they are doing as retired wrestler Mick Foley is about Tori Amos.

New trailer!

[via]

"You have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide."

It appears as if the finale is going to translate the "state of emergency leads to an oppressive regime" thing that I found so haunting in the novels into the movie, which is good news, considering how utterly disappointing the last one was. The general epicness also helps.

aaaah. for realsies?

"Sleater-Kinney  are currently on indefinite hiatus, but now two-thirds of that great punk rock trio are, once again, in a band together. Singer/guitarist Carrie Brownstein and drummer Janet Weiss are members of the new outfit Wild Flag, which also features former Helium leader Mary Timony and the Minders' Rebecca Cole."

Pitchfork: Sleater-Kinney/Helium Supergroup

Carrie Brownstein und Mary Timony waren mal "The Spells", und das war schon ziemlich atemberaubend. Als Einstimmung:

Sleater-Kinney: Modern Girl

Mary Timony: Sharpshooter

Equality as a meat suit

"Lady Gaga, the pop music sensation whose real name is Stefani Germanotta, was here to make an impassioned speech to the crowd of college students, parents with small children, teenagers and service members calling for the repeal of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. A military authorization bill being considered by the Senate this week would repeal the 17-year-old policy, which allows gay and bisexual people to serve as long as they do not disclose their orientation or engage in homosexual acts. Supporters of a repeal are not sure they have the 60 votes necessary to overcome a Republican filibuster. Maine has become the last-minute battleground for them because its two Republican senators, Susan Collins and Olympia J. Snowe, are publicly undecided on the issue.
“Equality is the prime rib of America, but because I am gay, I don’t get to enjoy the greatest cut of meat my country has to offer,” Lady Gaga said, referencing a dress she wore last week to the MTV Video Music Awards that was made out of cuts of steak."

NY Times: Lady Gaga Goes Political in Maine, September 20, 2010

The video and the transcript of the speech. While I find her music only interesting when it is covered by other artists, it's hard to deny the appeal of a politically conscious pop star who is known almost everywhere around the world. I can't really come up with an example for something this outspoken from the years that I listened to mainstream pop music (not counting whatever "American Idiot" by Green Day was meant to communicate). Bright Eyes singing "When the President Talks to God" during a late night show just doesn't have the same kind of reach.

"Doesn't it seem to you that we should send home the prejudiced, the straight soldier who hates the gay soldier, the straight soldier whose performance in the military is affected because he is homophobic, the straight soldier who has prejudice in his heart, in the space where the military asks him to hold our core American values, he instead holds and harbors hate, and he gets to stay and fight for our country?"

Austria and all other EU member states allow gay and lesbian soldiers to serve openly. Here's a list of countries and their respective policies on Wikipedia.

random mixtape - they say we're the chosen few but we're wasted

[tumblr]

holly figueroa o'reilly. EVERYBODY KNOWS. laura marling. HOPE IN THE AIR. lost in trees. WALK AROUND THE LAKE (daytrotter). giselle. SMALL PEOPLE. cat power. ICE WATER. foals. ELECTRIC BLOOM. arcade fire. READY TO START (live). electrelane. BETWEEN THE WOLF AND THE DOG (live). titus andronicus. TITUS ANDRONICUS FOREVER. avps. NO WAY.

Das Lied zum Sonntag

Junip - Rope and Summit



We've got our rope and summit,
got our rope and summit,
but we need to wake up.
Baby wake up.

Unmasking your fears,
one by one see them disappear
into the fog down below.
Slipping is fine
as long as you don't fall.

Still in the quiet morning breeze,
swaying gently in unsuspecting dreams,
clues of a gathering storm.
It's time to wake up
time to move on.

[on "Fields", 2010]

Linkliste unbehandelter Themen

Die Grünen vor der Wiener Landtagswahl über die ich noch kein Wort geschrieben habe / Beatrix Karl will Eintrittsgeld für Lehrveranstaltungen und Prüfungen verlangen / "don't ask don't tell" ist verfassungswidrig (seit 1993) / die sogenannten "Bush tax cuts" werden wahrscheinlich nicht fortgesetzt / William Gibson hat einen Roman über die Überschneidungen der Modeindustrie und des Militärs geschrieben (und damit wieder eine Trilogie, wenn auch vielleicht eher unabsichtlich, fertig gestellt) / Arnold Schwarzenegger macht sich über Sarah Palin lustig / "The Fades", der von Jack Thorne geschriebene Pilot mit Lily Loveless, wird nächstes Jahr als sechsteilige Serie mit dem Namen "Touch" gedreht, noch keine Info ob die Besetzung gleich bleibt.

Orientiert sich die leistungsorientierte Gesellschaft nicht am Hochleistungssport?

"Eine bedrohte körperliche Existenz ist wahrscheinlich schlimm genug aber die Angst vorm Versagen in einer leistungsorientierten Gesellschaft ist wahrscheinlich noch höher."

Kleine Zeitung: Stangl: "Ich habe nicht bewusst diesen Blödsinn gemacht", 7. September 2010

Antiheld Christian Stangl, das tragische Opfer der Leistungsgesellschaft, der Mann, der mehr Angst vor dem Versagen als vor dem Tod hat. Ich hoffe jemand arbeitet schon an dem Drehbuch. Zum Abschluss noch eine Dosis April Ludgate: "Can you photoshop your life with better decisions?"