I've actually been getting spam trackbacks on this blog, which means that someone has set up a number of websites elsewhere, referencing individual blog entries on my site, and somehow feeding me links. As with other spam, this is futile on the part of the spammer, if pretty damn annoying for me.
So ATP totally rocked! TV on the Radio were my favourite band, with honourable mentions going to Blood Brothers, Services, the Drones and Black Mountain. Devendra Banhart sounded like the Eagles. Tom took photos, to be found here, and Nick has presented awards here.
Unfortunately, what with all the partying I have one of those week-long hangovers, which sucks, but there you go.
...this has been floating around on the Internet for a while, but is so laugh-out-loud funny that it deserves me blogging it! Colbert is a regular on the Daily Show, and gives the assembled press corps and the president the kind of satirical roasting that must have taken a great deal of courage, and would make the likes of Hunter S Thompson and Steve Bell proud.
A couple of the funniest lines: "Fox News gives you both sides of every story: the president's side, and the vice president's side.", and ""Oh, they're just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic." First of all, that is a terrible metaphor. This administration is not sinking. This administration is soaring. If anything, they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg!"
...as some exciting things are happening! First, it's All Tomorrow's Parties this weekend down at Camber Sands. It should be great, with lots of interesting bands playing, and the weather is looking good as well, so hopefully there will be plenty of frolicing on the beach. I have bought a very OTT pair of aviator sunglasses, which I will be wearing throughout the weekend.
Second, I've managed to blag another work trip, this time to Chicago, at the end of June. I've never been further east of West Virginia in the US, so visiting the Midwest should be very interesting. I've heard nothing but good things about Chicago, in terms of its architecture, museums, food and nightlife, so it should be a great few days.
I now have a myspace account, just like I'm some kind of crazy teenager or something! If you'd like to become my Internet "friend", or if you're a spambot and wish to sell me viagra, you can visit me here.
I watched Primer on DVD last night, a most unusual sci-fi film about a pair of techy friends who inadvertantly build a time machine in their garage. This leads to all sorts of confusion, including some Groundhog Day-style attempts to defuse a tense situation involving a gun-waving maniac at a party.
The movie is nothing like hysterical, slick and over-blown Hollywood sci-fi (Michael Bay's The Island springs to mind). Instead, it is set in the empty business parks and suburbs of what I assume is Northern California, the kind of locales that JG Ballard writes about so well. There is no Eureka! moment for the two protagonists on realising what they have created, but instead a kind of slow, stunned realisation of the implications of their discovery.
The film is extremely opaque in a variety of ways- dialogue is fragmentary, overlapping and tech-jargon heavy and it is shot in a flat, strangely lit tone. Most baffling is the plot itself, which makes sense very little, if at all, with doppelgangers, time-shifts, and a 3rd person voice over apparently being delivered by one of the main characters as a fugitive in an alternate future. Despite all this, the weirdness and distinctiveness held my attention, and it lasted just 80 mins- lucky, since much more would have given me a headache.
