I Am Not A Lawyer

As I write this entry, I am sitting on the bus on my way home from work.  I've been here for 10 minutes or so, happily minding my own business and listening to some music.

Then the following occurred.

A woman tapped me on the shoulder.  I turned around and took out my headphones, expecting her to tell me it was too loud -- to make the quite reasonable request that I turn it down.

If only.

"Hey, if you had a friend who bought a Toyota Prius and it had been recalled, but they didn't want to give it back, what would you tell your friend to do?" was the question she asked.

"Um... what?"

"Well you've got a friend -- or two friends -- and Toyota want to recall their Prius because of a problem with the accelerator.  They don't want to give it back; do you think Toyota could force them?"

"I have no idea, sorry.  Maybe your 'friend' should speak to Toyota."

"But Toyota don't make the law!"

...she is now asleep.

America is weird.

-10 Respect Points For You: Nicky Wire

We all know the rioting in London was some kind of complex expression of the U.K.'s wide range of social ill's. But not everyone thinks it's that complicated, Nicky Wire from the Manic Street Preachers adds his shit to the bog of opinion here.

"I'm not even surprised any more. I think our brains have been totally rewired by the internet."

"There's a book called The Shallows by Nicholas Carr, about how it has just rewired a young generation's minds to bypass any serious consideration of (politics). They are just much more interested in whether there's a free Wi-Fi zone than the unemployment rates."

I'm Sorry, but WHAT? Please read more books Nicky.

Silencio - No Hay Banda

Continuing his assault on the at-best ill-defined boundary between reality and fiction, David Lynch has opened a nightclub in Paris based on Club Silencio from the apocalyptically strange Mulholland Dr.. While the real-world Club Silencio is seemingly devoid of familiar Lynch iconography (dwarves, red lamps, curtains, Laura Dern and a pervasive sense of aching postmodern despair), the entire club has been bespoke designed by Lynch over the last two years and it includes the following awesome pieces of furniture:

Lynch's Tati-esque take on cinema seating with sinister lamp extensions:



A Kahlo-esque acoustic monstrosity entitled "Grateful Vanity":



What are we to make of all this though? Certainly the club is beautifully appointed throughout, right down to the dark, cavernous bathrooms:



However, fascinating and delightful and above all ironic as all this is, Club Silencio should not exist. I say this not because of some overly abstruse theoretical point about it necessarily failing, in terms of being the physical manifestation of an impossible psychological scape. Nor that it is the "real" copy of a club from a film which is itself a condensation of "Hollywood" set smack in the middle of Paris. Nor do I have a problem with it being a private members club charging up to 1 500 euros for a year's membership, the first in France. Nor that it is built on 142 Rue de Montmartre, where Moliere is buried, where Zola wrote J'Accuse, and just across the road from where Socialist leader Jean Jaures was assassinated trying to stop the First World War. But then, I'm not French.

No, my problem with this is that Club Silencio took Lynch two years from inception to finished product, and the three years before that he had been focusing on art, with the occasional (admittedly brilliant) foray into music and bizarre sideline into coffee-making (why?). Now, it has been 5 years since Inland Empire and I can understand how making a film like that would take it out of you but come on! Creating a solid version of Club Silencio is all well and good but I won't go to see it - it's too expensive, too far, too exclusive - and that saddens me. It saddens me that David Lynch is creating something weird and beautiful right now and I won't be able to slowly lose my mind to it. I'm not saying he's sold out, because that's a ridiculous phrase, but he does seem to erecting a paywall around his subconscious and I believe, as citizens of world, we all deserve access to that fucked-up meting pot of crazy. Make more films David Lynch!

Oh, and here's the bar:

New Blogger Layout: Much More 2011

Honestly, what's not to like!

Several problems with your marketing approach, Asus.

We all love spam, especially when bored at work and trying to internet shop our way out of madness the 'economic growth slowdown'. Particularly I am a fan of targeted marketing, based on my web preferences (porn and mobile phones mainly), and often fall fowl to entering competitions and whatnot and getting associated spam, thankfully its normally for products I'm actually interested in. Until now:

Asus got it so, so, very wrong with this - the asus@vibe 2nd anniversary web event. Problems, I will provide for you in a simple list:

1. asus@vibe makes it seem like one of the worlds largest manufactures of consumer electronics has finally branched out into vibrating dildos. Note to self: If Apple did this perhaps their fangirls would be less stuck up about everything???
2. I had to read to the bottom of the email just to work out WHERE THE HELL YOU BUY THESE BOOKS! It's appears they are adorning their eeeeeepads with a bookshop! Would have been nice to have told me that before, also, leads to point - 
3. WHY DO THEY ONLY SELL CRAPPY TRASH FICTION FOR PRE-MENOPAUSAL WOMEN! Read any one of these blurbs for a shiver down your spine:

"Sara B. is losing her cool. Not just in the momentary-meltdown kind of way—though there's that, too. At the helm of must-read Snap magazine, veteran style guru Sara B. has had the job—and joy—for the past fifteen years of eviscerating the city's fashion victims in her legendary DOs and DON'Ts photo spread. But now on the unhip edge of forty, with ambitious hipster kids reinventing the style world, Sara's being spit out like an old Polaroid picture: blurry, undeveloped and obsolete. Fueled by alcohol, nicotine and self-loathing, Sara launches into a cringeworthy but often comic series of blowups—personal, professional and private—that culminate in an epiphany. That she, the arbiter of taste, has made her living by cutting people down…and somehow she's got to make amends."

ARRRRRHGHBHBHBHBHEBHE!

AS TRUE TODAY AS IT WAS WHEN IT WAS WRITTEN...

I've been listening to old CD's that I keep underneath the seats and mats in car, the result, loads of old school lyrics that really 'speak to me'. Any way, this one got me this morning:

Oh yeah! 

just a little somethin' to break the monotony
of all that hardcore dance that has gotten to be
a little bit out of control it's cool to dance
but what about the groove that soothes that moves romance
give me a soft subtle mix
and if ain't broke then don't try to fix it
and think of the summers of the past
adjust the base and let the alpine blast
pop in my CD and let me run a rhyme
and put your car on cruise and lay back cause this is summertime

Definitely as true today as it was when it was written!

Jehovah's Witness at the Bus Stop

While I was waiting for the bus yesterday morning (on what was a rather nice, sunny day) I was approached by a woman in large sunglasses smiling an unnaturally wide smile.

"Good morning." she said, "How're you today?"

I couldn't tell whether she was crazy or just being polite -- maybe she too was waiting for a bus, and wanted some company -- so I replied and we got chatting about the weather.

But suddenly, her attention shifted.

"Are you a Bible reader?"

That's when I realised I'd been cornered by a Jehovah's Witness -- for the first time in my life. I wasn't sure what to do, and didn't want to be rude, so decided to be honest: "No."

She pulled out a stack of Watchtower magazines and started telling me that the Bible isn't just about God; that we can learn a lot more through interpretation of the Bible's teachings, like how to be better people.

I must have looked uninterested, because she decided to change tactic.

"There's an interesting article about cork?"