Alas, poor Yorick!

The death mask of Laurence Sterne

("Authenticity not verified" ... how very Sternean).

The death mask of Jonathan Swift

Bloody Groundhog Day

Diary entry for 2nd February, 2008.

Celebrated Joyce's birthday in by now time-honoured fashion.

Went out to celebrate; got pissed on white wine; misquoted Ulysses in slurred tones; insulted two bully beef squaddies who, while I was searching for just that right bon mot, fetched me several blows about the head; staggered home, much the worse for wear. That's another pair of trousers beyond repair.

Can't wait for next year when I get to do it all again.

Joyce looks down from Heaven (he's very good about it, he lets God back on His throne on Sundays), shakes his head, smiles and whispers edjit.

Ten Guilty Little Secrets

Responding to the gauntlet insouciantly thrown down by Dominic Zero to confess to "ten records that hide at the back of your collection that no grown man should own" ... oh dear, it was a struggle to get it down to a mere ten.

1)Something Happened On The Way To Heaven - Phil Collins Actually, I put up a post on this very song, 24.1.07 - he may be a Tory-voting shitehawk, but I insist this is a wonderful and poignant little ditty. And the keerazy video, complete with dog shit, is still a kitsch classic.
2)King Of Pain - The Police The dreadful Mr Sumner, sucking up to any passing Amazonian Indian while treating his domestics like shit and indulging in, um, congress with that harpy for ten hours at a time ... what a tosser.
3)Synchronicity II - The Police Fuck me, two Police songs? Oh my God, am I a closet fan and never actually knew it? This was designed to appeal to my deep-seated pseudness, referencing as it does Yeats and Jung.
4)You're A Lady - Peter Skellern The dirty bastard.
5)Candy Girl - New Edition It's a thinly disguised rip-off of 'ABC', and it features Bobby Brown, who is, officially, an utter wanker. Nice little song, though.
6)Chasing Rainbows - Shed Seven Chronic indie under-achievers, with a lead singer more convincingly simian than Ian Brown could ever be. Be afraid, they have reformed.
7)Radio Africa - Latin Quarter The missus was once righteously appalled when I insisted on singing this in a dreadful cod Jamaican accent for the best part of an afternoon. Loudly. And, for a long time, I thought it was by Toto.
8) Hand Held In Black and White - Dollar As with (4), I was dubious about putting this down, coming perilously close as it does to 'guilty pleasure' style kitsch indulgence, but it's a Trevor Horn production and a lush old piece of Spectoresque pop.
9)Friends - Bette Midler Heard this on the soundtrack of The Last Of Sheila, a wonderful little oddity of a movie, written by Anthony Perkins and Stephen Sondheim (the movie, not the song). I even went out and bought a Midler greatest hits album just to get a copy of this song. And I don't care who knows it.
10)Who Made Who - AC/DC Has there been some kind of Led Zep style rehabilitation for AC/DC, or are they forever safely beyond the realms of good taste?

Tiny Cinema 5

The pedagogue in me offers major and definitive statement of filmic praxis. We intend to move on all fronts - the Gesamtkunstwerk is the building that must be built.

Diagetic vs non-diagetic - Eisenstein's horror of the merely anecdotal; the re/de/composition of the image/sound gestalt. Filmic space as privileged site. We are non-homogenous. We prefer to move vertically.

Montage is what films are. Films are what montage is. Is montage what films are? Are films what montage is?

No, really.

Tiny Cinema 4

... the old movies ...

Tiny Cinema 3

Tiny Cinema 2