the bohemian aesthetic eZine :|: patsy's picks

June 2007

BOOK

Experience: A Memoir

(Martin Amis)

"We live in the age of mass loquacity," Martin Amis writes by way of introduction to Experience, thereby placing the reader in a curious bind. How to feel about a memoir by a writer who deplores our current enthusiasm for memoirs? Can such a public appeal for private life be convincing? The son of misanthropic comic novelist Kingsley Amis, Amis the Younger's life story is "a literary curiosity", he tells us, "which is also just another instance of a father and a son". He's spent his whole life bathed in the dubious yellow glow of celebrity—from the cries of nepotism surrounding his first novel's publication to the bizarre tempest in a teapot involving the size of the advance for The Information, his choice of literary agent, and, of course, that famously expensive set of new teeth.

Here, finally, is Amis' chance to set matters straight, and if you're looking for his take on these controversies, you won't be disappointed. In fact, you should turn right away to the end of the book. After all, how many memoirs have indices, and how many indices are this entertaining? In addition to movers and shakers like "Travolta, John", "Brown, Tina", and "Bellow, Saul", one finds an extended entry for "dental problems", which includes "of animals", "sexual potency", and "Bellow on", and—more ominously—"tumour".

Yet, it's as "a clear view of the geography of a writer's mind", not as a celebrity tell-all, that Experience succeeds. Organized not by chronology but by a strange thematic schema all Amis' own, this messy, tangential book moves backward and forward in time and comes studded with footnotes and interspersed with schoolboy epistles. As a result, it's much truer to the actual texture of experience than anything more "novelistic" could possibly be. Amis' charming, quarrelsome, almost entirely helpless father; the tragic disappearance of his cousin, Lucy Partington; the daughter discovered only as an adult; those teeth—the narrative circles around these events and personages in prose as virtuoso but often less chilly than that found in his novels. This is memoir as anatomy of obsessions and, in the most profound way, it illuminates the source and power of Amis' remarkable work. -Mary Park

FILM

The Lookout

(rated 'R' for drug content throughout, language, and some sexuality)

The Lookout marks Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Scott Frank's directorial début. The intelligent crime drama is centered around Chris (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a once promising high school athlete whose life is turned upside down following a tragic accident. As he tries to maintain a normal life, he takes a job as a janitor at a bank, where he ultimately finds himself caught up in a planned heist. The film also stars Jeff Daniels, Isla Fisher, Matthew Goode, and Carla Gugino.

MUSIC

Fox Confessor Brings the Flood

Neko Case

Nine seconds into her first studio album since 2002's Blacklisted, and there it is. You can't miss it. The voice. Instantly recognizable and uniquely commanding, it has been uniformly overlooked by the masses and beloved by those who have caught on. And, believe it or not, it gets even better—whether Neko Case is warbling like a porch-swing neighbor to Loretta Lynn ("Margaret vs. Paulene", "John Saw That Number"), pontificating from the spiritual pulpit of Etta James ("Lion's Jaws", "Maybe Sparrow"), or unleashing the high-octane zeal of a power-pop spitfire ("Hold On Hold On", "The Needle Has Landed"). Her uncanny, often eccentric lyrics have always been delivered with an inherent passion behind the impulse, but rarely have they approached the boldness of these dozen—many of which were inspired by generations of tales from her Ukrainian ancestors. As usual, Case's industry running buddies collaborate to make the sounds behind her, from Calexico to Howe Gelb of Giant Sand to The Band's renowned Garth Hudson. Still, it all comes back to the voice—that serenading urgency that asks in the title song, "How can people not know what beauty this is?" -Scott Holter for Amazon

"Creature Comforts"

(Thursday - 8 pm; CBS)

The original Creature Comforts was conceived and directed by Nick Park, and produced by Aardman Animations featuring the voice acting of the Great British public. It was produced as part of a series called "Lip Synch" for Channel 4 and can be found online exclusively at AtomFilms.

The film shows various animals in a zoo being interviewed about their living conditions. These include turtles, a female gorilla, a family of polar bears and a melancholic puma who complains about the lack of "space" and the "grass with pollen that gives me hay fever every day!"

The dialogue was created by interviewing residents of a housing development, an old folks home and a family that lived in a local shop (the polar bears). Clay animation was then created that attributed the answers to zoo animals. One of the most popular characters was the puma. He was in fact a Brazilian student who lived in a hotel and was talking about his own situation.

The film won an Academy Award for Animated Short Film, beating off the challenge of two other films — one of which, (A Grand Day Out), was also a creation of Nick Park.

In 2003, a series of Creature Comforts films was made for the British television network ITV by Aardman, with episodes directed by Richard Goleszowski. On ITV, the series is sponsored by British Gas. This series since aired as re-runs on Comedy Central, usually late at night. Starting in 2005 it has also aired in Australia on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, in The Netherlands on Veronica, on pay-TV channel UK.TV and on internet peer-to-peer TV Joost Aardman Animations Channel.

Another series of 10-minute episodes was aired on ITV, starting October 30, 2005. A 30-minute special in which the regular characters attempt to perform and interpret the Christmas carol "The Twelve Days of Christmas" was first aired on 25 December 2005. The special was broadcast in Canada on the CBC on December 26, 2005.

Humor pervades all aspects of the series, which gently mocks the constructed performance sometimes given by members of the general public when being interviewed for television vox-pops and documentaries. This includes the attempts to present a cogent but simple conclusive answer to a general question—a sound bite—and the attempts to present a cheery spin on a complex issue while the subject attempts to hide their personal issues and problems with the issue.

In February 2006, it was announced that CBS has commissioned seven episodes of an American version of the show, to feature members of the American public. The episodes began airing on 4 June 2007. Moreover, CH will simulcast the show in Canada. The American version is being co-produced by Aardman Animations and The Gotham Group.

WEB

Creature Mag

a creature spawned from the underground, bringing subterranean creative culture overground

TED

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader.

The annual conference now brings together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).

This site makes the best talks and performances from TED available to the public, for free. More than 100 talks from our archive are now available, with more added each week. These videos are released under a Creative Commons license, so they can be freely shared and reposted.

TED's mission: Spreading ideas.

TED believse passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and, ultimately, the world. So, it's building a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world's most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other.