Living with The Fear

- A freelance correspondent in Baghdad wonders if it's time to get out.

A veteran war correspondent declared Baghdad the most dangerous war zone he'd ever been in. "Baghdad has everything you can think of," he said. "We're getting mortared, kidnapped, drive-by shootings, suicide bombs." People were dying, and, frustratingly, no group ever took credit. The enemy became shadowy, unknown, and, for people who devote their lives to information gathering, to seeing patterns and finding trends and knowing, this random violence was particularly unnerving. It was terrorizing.

Fascinating read from MediaBistro - Who would have thought that war reporting in Baghdad would change from hosting nightly parties to living in the fear of death threats, hyjacking, kidnapping and assasination?

You know you're hungry when...

You type "In the mood for Lunch" instead of "In the mood for Love" into Google. :P

Wahaha

This vs. this vs. that:
Damien Hirst's The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (1991) - tiger shark suspended in formaldehyde;
Paul Chan's Beanie Babies in the Mind of the Dead (1999) - "Crunch" the Beanie baby shark floating in olive oil;
Shark caught by Eddie Saunders in 1989 and displayed in his electrical shop in Shoreditch; displayed as anti-art last year in the window of Stuckism International, London.


Great in-joke for art historian types.

Reporting from MI of T, temporary land of good musik

Good music makes me happy, after good food, good friends and good clothes (in no particular order).

>> MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble
I can't believe I haven't gone to their concerts until now! and I missed the first half! It was (almost) total bliss. Artist-in-residence Steve Turre was the star of the night. The man's collaborators read like a who's-who in the history of jazz. Whoa. His and the big band's rendition of Duke Ellington's In a sentimental mood had me swooning teary-eyed. Hermanos Latinos, the closing tune, sees him blowing a dozen of seashells (conches to be specific) like trumpets or trombones. I've never listened to conches this way. Crazy stuff.

>>X-ecutioners
Hmm... were they that good? I can't decide. Maybe they are the top of the crop for turntablists, but I can't help feeling the music itself isn't all that. Scratches and beats with snippets of sampled melodies get boring after a while if there's no MC. BUT, they did have some pretty sweet tricks in the bag. The trio were juggling between 3 prs of turntables and playing musical chairs with their gig, and they did all those Nike-Basketball-ad-type tricks just like they did in Scratch. Roc-Raida was crossfading with his nose a lot. All flash? Maybe. Substance? After listening to the encore when they played a track from their forthcoming album Revolutions, I decide it's there. More so than in their gig.

Pentagon fury at war dead photos

Man, talk about state censorship... the US of A aint that much more democratic than anywhere else. After forking out $77 billion for this war, shouldn't people here see what they were paying for?

More about this hooha from Russ Kick's Memory Hole.

Spring Fever

Spring has FINALLY arrived~~~~ *breaks into imaginary five-octave-high soprano voice*
The sun is shining, birds are chirping, flowers are blooming, stores are selling COLOURed items instead of black's and grey's...

and I've stopped working. All together. Bad bad bad.

Cold grey weather > I sulk, get depressed, and I don't work. Nice warm weather > I feel deprived staying indoors writing papers, and I don't work. Christ, I need my mum to sit behind me with a cane, just like the old days.

Talking Fish

Imagine if your canned sardines spoke to you...

Jar of gefilte fish, opened in Israel, issues ultimatum for Saddam Hussein to abandon his weapons of mass destruction
[via the Underwater Times news archive]

and another report of dooms-day-prophecising-carp, from BBC, no less: 'Talking fish' stuns New York

Would someone care to enlighten me why only Jewish / Israeli fish have been heard giving prophecies?

Brain fart

I need to snap outta this lethargy. Get working girl! Repeat after self: you NEED to graduate, you NEED to graduate...

Happy Campy Fun!

Watch Connie and Carla if you need a pick-me-up movie. I'm not sure why but I am quite fond of movies with singing drag queens, or in this case, singing women (Nia Vardalos from My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Toni Collette) dressed as drag queens. And apparently, I'm not the only one. Half the room was packed with gay men on a queens' night out, but I was totally oblivious to that until Jenn told me so. (Helllooo, dysfunctional gaydar... *bangs imaginary antenna on head*)

Anyway, the flick was hilarious - tonnes of silly kitschy references to classic musicals. (CLC peez, remember they made us watch Barbara Streisand's Yentil in RS? *cringe*) Great for any Broadway / West End fan. I haven't laughed so hard in ages. Go see!

Fuzzy logic:

I want a puppy like this!!

Mr. TTT by Friends With You

Mills and Boons as Manga!

O junk food for the mind gets even fluffier ;p

O ye joyes of academia:

Got assigned to read George Bataille's Story of the Eye for my Avant-Garde art, film and literature class.
Thinking it's just another load of Surrealist gibberish, I opened the book with mild disinterest. Lo and behold, it turns out to be a cult classic for PORNO literature. No wonder everyone in the class kept telling the prof that they got raised eyebrows and funny looks when they bought it from the uni bookshop. ("Oh, that class...")

The obscenity puts modern soft porn pulp fiction to shame. Just about every page mentions "c*nt", "cock", mutual pissing and... a fetish with EGGS?! (soft boiled, raw, hard boiled... adds a new meaning to "How would you like your eggs?") Good thing there aren't any innocent 14-year-old-child-prodigy types in the class. *.*;;

On a random note, that reminds me of KK's tutor who puts Marquis de Sade right in the middle of her shelf. I wonder if these profs are suppressed or frustrated... :p

Das ist gut:

Call me slow, but I've just "discovered" International Pony. A lot like Daft Punk, but what Daft Punk doesn't do is getting me to put on my new zebra visor and jump around my dorm room, when I'm supposed to be working on papers.

Das ist nicht gut. *exercising what I can remember from Frau L's lessons, aged 15...*

Sexy Vibes:

Ok. Just a note of clarification - sex toys are not exactly my area of expertise. But beautifully-designed things are, and after coming across these whilst reading Dwell... *ponders about purchasing them as objets d'art when will earn dough*

Bone by Tom Dixon, Mojo by Marc Newson and Pebble by Mari-Ruth Oda
from Myla