Reading List: December

Fiction: 


Mariko & Jillian Tamaki: Skim.
Alison Bechdel: Fun Home.
Harlan Ellison: I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream.


Films: 

Sleeping Beauty (2011, Julia Leigh).
Three Veils (2011, Rolla Selbak).
Some Like It Hot (1959, Billy Wilder).
The Ides of March (2011, George Clooney).
Restless (2011, Gus Van Sant).
Albert Nobbs (2011, Rodrigo García).
Beginners (2010, Mike Mills).

"They shudder at the thought of becoming bitter or cynical"

Nearly everyone in Brownstein’s life counseled her against starting a TV show and a band in the same year. But Brownstein now describes the decision to pursue both as “the most sane thing I’ve done in a long time.” “Portlandia” and Wild Flag are complementary, in a yin-yang way: rigid and rowdy; scripted and free. When performing music onstage, Brownstein says, the rules don’t exist. “All the parts of ourselves that need to be contained or put in check or regulated in our day-to-day lives all fall by the wayside. You can go to places that are dark or even dangerous or bizarre and hopefully find a little grace.” 

New York Times: Carrie Brownstein, Riot Grrrnup, December 29, 2011 

When Brownstein plays music, there is nothing ironic about her. The first time that we sat down to talk, at a restaurant in Portland’s loft-filled Pearl District, she said, “I’ve never understood people who play up the artifice of music. Music, for me, was like a tidal wave. It took me outside of anything I’d ever done.” She had been an isolated teen-ager, and punk was “a salvation,” she said. “You can never underestimate that moment of somebody explaining your life to you, something you thought was inexplicable, through music. That was the way out of loneliness.”

[...]

Armisen and Brownstein are fascinated by how couples interact—the shared references and gestures that mark intimacy—and since they often play couples on “Portlandia” they have been able to channel their outsiders’ observations into characterizations. “I get to play at connecting with people,” Brownstein says. “Because in every scene we’re in a different relationship, it’s like I’m learning how to have relationships from the show.” She has let go of some of her squeamishness about nuzzly couples: “When you’re embodying the person, you’re not judging.”

Armisen and Brownstein text each other every night before bed. Brownstein says of their friendship, “Sometimes I think it’s the most successful love affair either of us will ever have.” Both claim that it wouldn’t work if they were romantically involved. “It would be colder, because we’ve both treated our romantic relationships in a cold way,” Armisen says. “Carrie and I are more romantic than any other romantic relationship I’ve ever had—that sense of anticipation about seeing the other person, the secret bond. But things don’t become obligatory. I’m not thinking, I’m doing this because you’re my girlfriend; I’m just thinking, I love Carrie.” 

The New Yorker: Stumptown Girl, January 2, 2012

Wacky and completely inaccurate predictions about season six

...based on the trailer + behind a cut in case you are completely avoiding any kind of spoilers, even if they're just imaginary.

Das Lied zum Sonntag

James Blake - A Case of You




Just before our love got lost you said
"I am as constant as a Northern Star"
And I said, 
"constant in the darkness
Where's that at?
If you want me I'll be in the bar"

Presents

Cat Power - King Rides By (featuring Manny Pacquiao)




If time had a place, 
And space for your past. 
Like a little novel, 
I wanted to read again and again, 
Would I be in your novel, 
Would I begin and end in it. 


you can donate to purchase the song at http://www.catpowermusic.com.

...

What a weird year

"North Koreans weeping hysterically over the death of Kim Jong-il" aka the spookiest thing I've seen in months

They howled and whimpered and scrubbed raw eyes with fists. They flailed their arms in grief and marched in their thousands to the capital's landmarks. But no one, outside of North Korea, really knows what North Koreans felt at news of Kim Jong-il's death.

The Guardian: After Kim Jong-il's death, what next for the people of North Korea?, December 19, 2011

The son, Kim Jong-un, is such an unknown that the world did not even know what he looked like until last year. Believed to be in his 20s, he faces enormous uncertainty over his ability to retain power in one of the most opaque and repressive nations — the last bastion of hard-line Communism.

Even if he can, questions loom about Kim Jong-un’s ability to manage North Korea’s ravaged economy, with its chronic shortages and deprivations, to avoid a complete collapse. 

NY Times: Kim’s Heir Likely to Focus on Stability, December 19, 2011 

NY Times: In Kim’s Death, an Extensive Intelligence Failure, December 19, 2011

Danger Room: Nukes, Missiles and Porn: Kim Jong-Il’s Awful Legacy, December 19, 2011

Spiegel: Kim's Youngest Son to Become 'Great Successor', December 19, 2011

The Atlantic: In Focus. Kim Jong Il, 1942-2011, December 19, 2011

The Asahi Shimbun: U.S. hopes N.Korea will follow the 'path of peace', December 20, 2011

The Atlantic: In Focus. Inside North Korea, August 2, 2011

Die Zeit: Der Zombie-Staat, 10. Dezember 2010

Das Lied zum Sonntag

Arcade Fire - Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)




These days my life, I feel it has no purpose
But late at night the feelings swim to the surface.

Note the lack of coverage

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2012 was passed by both houses and is now going to be signed into law despite previous announcements that it would be vetoed by President Obama. 

The bill requires military treatment for foreign terrorism suspects. Defenders of the bill have pointed to one part of the provisions that say U.S. citizens are "exempted" from the requirement to be detained by the military, but legal scholars note that even though that detention is not required, it is allowed.

President Obama had threatened to veto the measure. But after provisions were added that gave him the final say over which suspects stay in military custody, he relented. Those provisions also ensured that the FBI and other law enforcement agencies would still be permitted to investigate and interrogate terrorist suspects. Mueller has called the provisions insufficient, warning that they will create bureaucratic roadblocks in the midst of vital investigations. 

The Huffington Post: Indefinite Military Detention Measure Passes On Bill Of Rights Day, December 15, 2011

Citizens who are suspected of joining Al Qaeda are opening themselves up “to imprisonment and death,” Mr. Graham said, adding, “And when they say, ‘I want my lawyer,’ you tell them: ‘Shut up. You don’t get a lawyer. You are an enemy combatant, and we are going to talk to you about why you joined Al Qaeda.’ ” 

NY Times: Senate Declines to Clarify Rights of American Qaeda Suspects Arrested in U.S., December 1, 2011 

NY Times (The Loyal Opposition. From the Desk of Andrew Rosenthal): President Obama: Veto the Defense Authorization Act, November 30, 2011

ACLU: Senate Poised to Pass Indefinite Detention Without Charge or Trial, December 1, 2011

Best-of-lists superficialities

Pictures of a war, coming to an end (maybe)

Those pictures capture the early celebration-by-defacement — the ebullient tearing down of the murals, statues and mosaics of Saddam Hussein, at times aided by U.S. troops pleased that the initial thunder run to Baghdad had ended swiftly.

But the joy passed quickly, subsumed by the wholesale looting of the capital and the beheadings of those captured during a nascent insurgency, by the Shiite uprisings and the Sunni Triangle, by the haunting evidence of American-supervised humiliation and torture inside Abu Ghraib, and by the bodies of Blackwater contractors hanging burned and beaten from a steel bridge over the Euphrates. 

Washington Post: Arc of Iraq war told in images, December 14, 2011

Das Lied zum Sonntag

The Black Keys - Lonely Boy 



I got a love that keeps me waiting.

Linkliste unbehandelter Themen

Ballaké Sissoko and Vincent Segal's Chamber Music is one of my favourite records this year. 

Politics: 

I am secretly always waiting for chances to use this song and the climate conference in Durban (for the record: this won't get any results except a mildly worded letter of intent that has no consequences whatsoever) seems like an obvious choice. The best case scenario already sounds pretty terrible ("warming of as little as 1.5C could cause dangerous rises in sea levels and a higher risk of extreme weather") and some smaller Island nations are literally fighting for their survival. 

Exactly 20 years to the day after European leaders signed the treaty that led to the creation of the European Union and the euro currency, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany persuaded every current member of the union except Britain to endorse a new agreement calling for tighter regional oversight of government spending.

NY Times: German Vision Prevails as Leaders Agree on Fiscal Pact, December 9, 2011

Here's the statement issued (apparently, the European Council prefers the term euro area to eurozone), and  a WSJ piece that points out that the problem isn't necessarily public debt but in some cases private debt. 

This is a fascinating article on an Ugandan computer scientist who founded an University in in Kampala. "Young homegrown scientists there are now nearing completion of their Ph.D.’s. And faculty members are carrying out cutting-edge experiments. They are seeking to endow cellphones with the “intelligence,” embedded in tiny software programs animated by mathematical algorithms, to identify diseases in crops or malaria in a person’s bloodstream."

Following the re-election of DRC's president Joseph Kabila, an outbreak of violent protests in Kinshasa. 

The Guardian follows the protests after the parliamentary elections in Russia (which resulted in losses for the ruling party - but United Russia still won almost 50 percent of the vote). 

The Economist analyses the success of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in the first elections after the revolution. 

Whatever the outcome, Egypt looks set to join a broader regional trend that has seen a more pragmatic, tolerant form of Islamism rise to dominate the political scene, by way of the ballot box rather than the gun barrel. As Islamist parties come to the fore, from Iraq to Morocco, it is worth bearing in mind the words of Safwat Abdel-Ghani, the leader of an Egyptian Salafist group that once preached terrorism in the name of jihad, on the death of Osama bin Laden: “Al-Qaeda has not been destroyed by the ‘war on terror’ but by popular revolutions that made it unnecessary.” 

The Economist: Everywhere on the rise, December 10, 2011 

openDemocracy calls for a more complex analysis in the debate about "religion, gender and migration". 

I enthusiastically posted a quote from Hillary Clinton's speech this week but I kind of want to frame the last paragraph of this Autostraddle article and hang it on my wall. 

Pop Culture: 

Ice Cube. Celebrating LA's architecture. Thank you, Pacific Standard Time. 

My favourite thing about end-of-the-year-best-of-lists is the level of consumer-involvement: it's a good way to let off steam without actually hurting anyone. What, you say, my favourite record of the year is nowhere on this list! Ridiculous! I shun you and your cultural ignorance (as you might have guessed, said record in my case would be Wild Flag's debut album... don't say you didn't see that coming)! Here's TIME's list of any- and everything (I mostly agree with television - Parks and Recreation!) but their film choices are... debatable, to say the least) and NPR providing samples of their music of the year (with loads of choices that are really good and completely new to me). 

The New York Times created a gallery of villain-archetypes starring some of this year's most remarkable actors and actresses (among them, Ryan Gosling, Viola Davis, Mia Wasikowska and Kirsten Dunst).

Rudy Rucker on The death of Philip K. Dick and the birth of cyberpunk, Karin L. Kross on "the Gibsonesque" or the "Gibsonian" ("the jury remains out") - a collection of Gibson's essays (Distrust That Particular Flavor) will be published in January. 

Alan Moore, author of V for Vendetta and Watchmen, comments on Frank Miller's (300, Sin City) rant about his opposition to Occupy Wall Street. "I thought the Sin City stuff was unreconstructed misogyny, 300 appeared to be wildly ahistoric, homophobic and just completely misguided. I think that there has probably been a rather unpleasant sensibility apparent in Frank Miller’s work for quite a long time."

Carrie Brownstein on Portland: 

Really, any new resident has that sense where you go to a place and you want to shut the door behind you. People discover Portland in a certain way and resent what it becomes later. Everyone has this insecurity about Portland like, ‘when does it arrive?’ and that comes with growing pains ... Portland is a very curated city. Because of growth slowly, deliberately taking shape, people here have been able to make it what they want it to be. It’s almost like a “Greatest Hits” city. It’s a little weird, but I love it.

The Atlantic Cities: Why I Love My City: Carrie Brownstein on Portland, December 7, 2011

Also, in random internet things: here's a video from what seems to be the late '90s, celebrating the beauty of one Agent Mulder. My favourite part is Buffy Summers, but basically this is really cool for playing celebrity bingo. 

Gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights.

President Obama issued a memorandum directing American agencies to look for ways to combat efforts by foreign governments to criminalize homosexuality. The new initiative holds the potential to irritate relations with some close American allies that ban homosexuality, including Saudi Arabia.

[...]

Specifically, Mr. Obama said in the memorandum that the State Department would lead other federal agencies to help ensure that the government provides a “swift and meaningful response to serious incidents that threaten the human rights” of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people abroad.

It was not immediately clear whether that would mean a cut-off of American aid to countries that target the gay community, but it suggests that American agencies will have expanded tools to press foreign countries that are found to abuse the rights of gays, lesbians and others.  

NY Times: U.S. to Use Foreign Aid to Promote Gay Rights Abroad, December 6, 2011

This recognition did not occur all at once. It evolved over time. And as it did, we understood that we were honoring rights that people always had, rather than creating new or special rights for them. Like being a woman, like being a racial, religious, tribal, or ethnic minority, being LGBT does not make you less human. And that is why gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights. 

It is violation of human rights when people are beaten or killed because of their sexual orientation, or because they do not conform to cultural norms about how men and women should look or behave. It is a violation of human rights when governments declare it illegal to be gay, or allow those who harm gay people to go unpunished. It is a violation of human rights when lesbian or transgendered women are subjected to so-called corrective rape, or forcibly subjected to hormone treatments, or when people are murdered after public calls for violence toward gays, or when they are forced to flee their nations and seek asylum in other lands to save their lives. And it is a violation of human rights when life-saving care is withheld from people because they are gay, or equal access to justice is denied to people because they are gay, or public spaces are out of bounds to people because they are gay. No matter what we look like, where we come from, or who we are, we are all equally entitled to our human rights and dignity.  

Hillary Clinton's Human Rights Speech [transcript]

Linkliste unbehandelter Themen

Politics: 

The International Criminal Court has issued a warrant for Sudan's defence minister Abdel Rahim Muhammad Hussein in connection with war crimes in the Darfur region. 

Reporter Ed Vulliamy, a witness in the trail against Radovan Karadzic in The Hague, recounts a private encounter with him before being interrogated by Karadzic in front of the judges.

The Atlantic Cities on the relationship between car use and gas prices in US cities. 

"We typically associate high automobile use in the U.S. with Americans' need to drive and love to drive. But ultimately there's a pricing and policy structure that enforces that," says Lane. "If we fully costed out some of the impacts on driving and had any inhibitions on car use — not to the level of inhibitions on public transit now; I'd never wish that on anybody — but simply had some way to make automobile travel more difficult and more expensive, and gave an alternative in the form of public transit or denser neighborhoods or shorter multimodal trips, then you could really see a pretty large change."

Foreign Affairs on one of the challenges after the Arab spring: writing new constitutions. "Even before this year, the nature of constitutions in the Arab world varied widely." 

The Guardian has a series of articles on the Summer riots: this is a study of the grievances of the participants. 

Disregarding whether this collection of photos is actually "the most powerful images" of this year - 45 images of 2011. 

Pop Culture: 

This is awesome, especially the I am the Doctor bit, which I will apparently like in whatever form it is delivered. 

Jamie xx of The xx recorded an essential mix for BBC's Radio 1. 

The Quietus interviews Janet Weiss of WILD FLAG: "People really want to compare us to Sleater-Kinney. You cannot have anything even close to Sleater-Kinney without Corin Tucker. She is just a force of nature. There are four people in this band – and our chemistry together is totally unique."

Vulture has an interview with Cary Mulligan in which she talks about how she convinced director Steve McQueen to cast her in Shame. 

I haven't yet mentioned that W13 (especially the final episode of the season, gosh) was really, really good this year, have I? Also, does that make it text rather than subtext? "We decided, 'Wouldn't it be fun if they were kind of in love?' So we fell in love."

The "Sixth Extinction"

[....] All these seemingly disconnected events are the symptoms, you could say, of a global epidemic of sameness. It has no precise parameters, but wherever its shadow falls, it leaves the landscape monochromatic, monocultural, and homogeneous. Even before we’ve been able to take stock of the enormous diversity that today exists — from undescribed microbes to undocumented tongues — this epidemic carries away an entire human language every two weeks, destroys a domesticated food-crop variety every six hours, and kills off an entire species every few minutes. The fallout isn’t merely an assault to our aesthetic or even ethical values: As cultures and languages vanish, along with them go vast and ancient storehouses of accumulated knowledge. And as species disappear, along with them go not just valuable genetic resources, but critical links in complex ecological webs. 

SEED Magazine: In Defence of Difference, December 1, 2011