Well, the parents arrive later this evening. I was hoping to pontificate on a wide range of matters, but that may now have to wait through a bit of a dry spell over the next week or so. I am totally going to try and get guest entries out of my parents, but no promises. In the meantime, here are the short shots:
–new text has appeared:
“Urban Media and the Politics of Sound Space,” in “Sound in Art and Culture,” a special issue of Open: Cahier on Art and the Public Domain #9 (Fall 2005): 6-15.
This is the first print iteration of my work on the use of Muzak to chase people away from public spaces — really, the closest thing I’ll ever have to a sequel to that Mall of America article from 1997. Another iteration will appear in an edited book called Ubiquitous Musics but that may be awhile. I’ve been presenting on it for years, so it’s about time. It was simultaenously published in Dutch, but I didn’t get that copy, alas.
–Surprise: George Bush is evil. Like they’d even know which phone to tap for that all-important Al-Quaeda phone call.
–WebCT Vista: in what world do web designers actually think popups are a good idea for courseware? Usability, people. Usability.
–The other day, we were forced by a police detour into a lovely little neighborhood south and east of here, which led us to drive around some more and explore a bit. We found some pockets of stand-alone houses near metro stops. We have a fantasy of buying a stand-alone house (like they have in the midwest, where we’re from), though there’s also the fantasy of buying something in the Plateau or another hip neighborhood. Can’t have both. . . . On the way back, we did a quick tour of the Olympic Village apartments, mostly out of curiosity, since i can’t imagine us moving except to buy. Looks like it’s largely a retirement community, or at least the majority of the population living there is older. Which is no wonder, since it’s basically a self-enclosed city. A 5 1/2 with 1300 sqaure foot balcony is $1800-$2100 a month. Ouch.
–Harvey’s: the best, but also saltiest, of the fast-food veggieburger world.
—King Kong. It’s so weird that the movie’s now a bit of a nostalgia flick. The original was all about being ultra-modern. Now it’s about recreating a past moment as vividly as possible. Weird. But I guess I can add it to my list of movies where I enjoyed the mise-en-scene in particular.
When a meat eater, I used to love Harvey’s, but for the fries mainly. Could go for some of those here, as that soggy/crisp mix doesn’t seem to be a part of the fast-food culture here.
Kong appears to be a bit of a bust, in the end. I saw it the day after the big red carpet affair in Wellington (only 20 000 people showed up for it – compared to 100 000 for LOTR), and there were only 15 people in the audience. Same complaints as most I suspect (too long, too many weird slo-mo shots, lo-fi cgi at points, the running of the brontosaurus, Kong on Ice, Jack Black, Adrian Brody, etc.). It’s not like the world was hankering for a remake of 1930s New York anyway (but that might have been the best bit).
Peter Jackson is named man of the year in NZ, in part for what creating Weta Studios here in Welliwood (what’s ignored is his anti-union policy, which almost saw two workers killed a year ago, which meshes with his overall lack of concern for employees). You can’t spit without hitting someone who works there, so the behind-the-scenes stories are part of the everyday goss here.
And I’m missing the snow right now. It’s sunny and warm here, which is just odd. It doesn’t help that many of the Xmas ads include images of snowflakes and Santa is fully-decked out in completely out-of-season winter wear.