Hi Scores

For the last few months, I have, slightly embarrassingly, somehow become, well, addicted, to playing Snake (II), on my antiquated mobile phone.

I had hoped I could reach 3000 and then never play the bastard thing ever again, but tonight I have accepted defeat.



I got 2883.

Capitalism sure is sunny!

Two 3 hour long films that deal with two types of capitalistic society; Lindsay Anderson's O Lucky Man and Lars von Trier's Dogville.

Capitalism arose and took off its pajamas. Another day, another dollar. Each man is valued at what he will bring in the marketplace. Meaning has been drained from work and assigned instead to remuneration. Unemployment obliterates the world of the unemployed individual. Cultural underdevelopment of the worker, as a technique of domination, is found everywhere under late capitalism. Authentic self-domination by individuals is thwarted. The false consciousness created and catered to by mass culture perpetuates ignorance and powerlessness. Strands of raven hair floating on the surface of the Ganges…Why can't they clean up the Ganges? If the wealthy capitalists who operate the Ganges wig factories could be forced to install sieves, at the mouths of their plants… And now the sacred Ganges is choked with hair, and the river no longer knows where to put its flow, and the moonlight on the Ganges is swallowed by the hair, and the water darkens. By Vishnu! This is an intolerable situation! Shouldn't something be done about it?

Tati + Kaurismäki + Kafka =

Roy Andersson?

Oh, I don't know, I don't know where Kafka fits in, but there's something of him in there.



You, the Living (Du levande) is peculiar, but wonderful.

Bertolucci's The Conformist (Il Conformista) looked a lot better than it actually is, sadly.

Snow White

In the further development of the story, would you like more emotion ( ) or less emotion ( )?



Perhaps it is wrong to have favorites among the forms, but retraction has a special allure for me. I would wish to retract everything, if I could, so that the whole written world would be...

Women of the World, Take Over

Fat Girl (or, À ma soeur!, to anyone who prefers it that way)



Awful film, in almost every way.

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown



As good as anything by Almodóvar, brilliantly ridiculous.

A Woman Under the Influence



Far, far too great for me to even try to write about.

Welcome to Everytown

I confess that I wanted to hate this book more than I did.



There is even half a page about education and (the poverty of-)aspiration. What more could anyone ask for?

Funny Games

For a long time, I have wondered what a novel written by me would look like. My best guess is that it would look like some tenth rate Beckett.

On occasion I have also pondered what the result might be if I turned my hand to making music, but I am yet to come up with a satisfactory answer.

I had never really considered what a film made by me would look like, until I saw Funny Games a few days ago.



There is a half-decent piece here about it. The parallels with A Clockwork Orange are obvious, and I am rather disappointed that I did not consider the Brechtian angle, especially given its general verfremdungs-ness. There might also be profit in considering the film in relation to the plays of Pinter, but that is well beyond my capabilities.

The Dolt

Thinking of anything was beyond him. I sympathize. I myself have these problems. Endings are elusive, middles are nowhere to be found, but the worst of all is to begin, to begin, to begin.

Consider this a beginning.