Ice cubes in the fire

Sickening

You can't have missed the publicity surrounding the release of Mel Gibson's new film The Passion of the Christ. It's not yet out in Britain, but I'm not planning on watching it when it is. Two-and-a-half hours of sado-masochistic, anti-Semitic, practically-Medieval-in-its-values, cinema is not my cup of tea. Slate's Christopher Hitchens has, however, like everyone else in the US, seen the film, and gives Mel Gibson the flogging he deserves:

So let us not be euphemistic about what is staring us in the face. Last Wednesday, the Lovingway United Pentecostal Church in Denver posted a sign on its roadside marquee. It read "Jews Killed the Lord Jesus." This pigsty of a church has, I think you will agree, an unimprovable name. But its elders, or whatever they call themselves, can't have had time to see the movie, which only opened that same Ash Wednesday. Nor, I think it safe to say, had they chosen the slogan only on the spur of the moment. No: They had been thinking this for quite a long time and were emboldened to "come out" and say so under the cover of a piece of devotional cinematic pornography. Some of us saw this coming. In America, I hope and believe, the sinister effect will be blunted by generations of civilized co-existence. But think for a moment what will happen when Gibson reaps the residual and overseas profits from screenings of the film in Egypt and Syria, or in Eastern Europe, where things are a bit more raw. Who can believe that he did not anticipate, and intend, this result?

Apparently seeking to curry favor, Gibson announced a few weeks ago that he had cut the scene where a Jewish mob yells for the blood of Jesus to descend on the heads of its children (a scene that occurs in only one of the four contradictory Gospels). Gibson lied. The scene is still there, spoken in Aramaic. Only the English subtitle has been removed. Propagandists in other countries will be able to subtitle it any way they like. This is all of a piece with the general moral squalor of his project. Gibson's producer lied when he said that a pope Gibson despises had endorsed the film. He would not show the movie to anyone who might object in advance. He will not debate any of his critics, and he relies on star-stricken pulp interviewers to feed him soft questions. Now, as the dollars begin to flow from this front-loaded fruit-machine of cynical publicity, he is sobbing about the risks and sacrifices he has made for the Lord. A coward, a bully, a bigmouth, and a queer-basher. Yes, we have been here before. The word is fascism, in case you are wondering, and we don't have to sit through that movie again.

Go read the whole thing.

Poet, and he doesn't know it

Does Ralph Nader, who is again seeking the US Presidency, news that will strike fear into the hearts of voters everywhere, speak in verse?

Here's his announcement:

After careful thought
And my desire
To retire
Our supremely elected president
I've decided to run as an
Independent candidate for president.

Not exactly "I am a very model of a modern major general," but it works.

Broken again...

I'm sure that one of my New Year's Resolutions was not to get quite so drunk, quite so often. Oh well, rules, rulers and resolutions are meant to be broken.

The Voice of Seb's Conscience: Yes, but every day?

Hee. Hee hee. Hee hee hee...

Via Wonkette:

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay: "Americans have been tolerant of homosexuality for years, but now it's being stuffed down their throats and they don't like it."

Too true! Most Americans actually prefer to take it in the ass.

Amateur Profundities

I woke up this morning, and wanted to know what rain looked like.

Have you ever seen a picture of rain? Or any kind of falling water, for that matter? It's strange. When you experience it first-hand, you think of it as a continuous flow. Stand under a shower, and you get a straightforward stream of water. Look at a picture of water coming from a shower, and suddenly all you see are pixels, points of light, water reflecting the flash.

I've been trying to work on a stream-of-consciousness short story for a while now. I finished a first draft, didn't work on it for a few days, and now I come back to it and... nothing. This might help though. Especially when trying to replicate the workings of the mind itself, you can't treat life as a continuous flow. Like falling water, it's not actually a steady stream. It's a series of isolated moments, distinct from each other. You just need to capture each point of life.

Heh...

Dan Renzi is a funny guy -

"What was his name?"

I don't remember. He was nice though. Everyone told me he's a drug dealer, but it took me a while to realize they were saying it like it was a bad thing. I thought they were trying to be helpful and tell me in case I wanted some.

"Did he offer you anything?"

No, not at all. And like I give a shit. I think they were just being bitchy and judgemental.

"Probably."

And if I'm not supposed to talk to drug dealers, when I go back to LA I'll only be left with my friends who are drag queens and porn stars.

"Fierce."

True or False?

The Washington Post has an interesting article up about the authenticity of the 'Vinland Map' that supposedly proves that Nordic people discovered North America hundreds of years before Columbus made that slight error in navigation and sailed West, to America, and not East, as he had intended, to India.

McCrone, who died in 2002, never wavered in dismissing it as a fraud. And that year a British team from University College, London, used laser analysis of the stain to draw conclusions identical to McCrone's. "I'm not taking any glamour away from McCrone," said chemist Robin J.H. Clark, co-author of the British study. "We used a completely different technique to obtain the same conclusion. I think the matter is over."

Not quite. At the same time, an Olin-led team published results from radiocarbon testing that dated the parchment to 1434 A.D. -- proof that the paper was old enough, even if the map wasn't.

And it isn't, Seaver said. Fascinated, she read everything written about Norse exploration since the 18th century and gradually homed in on the Rev. Josef Fischer, a German Jesuit cartographer and prolific Norse historian who died in 1944, as her chief suspect.

Seaver theorizes that Fischer, upset at Nazi persecution of the Catholic Church, drew the map in the late 1930s and deliberately larded it with religious references. "The Nazis loved to talk about a Nordic heritage, and the map was great for them," Seaver said, "except that it also told the story of how the Roman Church had been there from the start. It presented them with a wonderful dilemma."

If you're at all interested in the history of the Viking peoples (i.e. you are doing Medieval History AS-level, ahem) then give it a read.

For today. For him.

I’ve found a way to make you
I’ve found a way
A way to make you smile

I read bad poetry
Into your machine
I save your messages
Just to hear your voice
You always listen carefully
To awkward rhymes
You always say your name,
Like I wouldn’t know it’s you,
At your most beautiful

I’ve found a way to make you
I’ve found a way
A way to make you smile

At my most beautiful
I count your eyelashes, secretly
With every one, whisper I love you
I let you sleep
I know your closed eye watching me,
Listening
I thought I saw a smile

I’ve found a way to make you
I’ve found a way
A way to make you smile

Who's Afraid of Friday the 13th?

Well, I was, but it turned out I didn't need to be. This last half-term has been unbelievably stressful, and I've been ill for much of it, but... Last night, singing Handel's Cara Sposa to about 60 people, everything came together. I'd been working on that piece for what feels like most of the last year, and to have it pay off so spectacularly was a joy.

And now it's St. Valentine's Day. The site has this whole red theme going on to match. This will be a good day, I know. See you all later, and have fun.

Redesigned

Because everybody seems to be going in for the white/minimalist look this year, I decided it would be fun to give it a go.

What you think?