I watched Shaolin Soccer on DVD the other night. The box is covered in recommendations from the Sun, FHM, Nuts, and similarly blokish publications, which was a bit off-putting, but actually it was the most entertaining film I’ve seen in ages. It uses the classic structure of a ramshackle team of outsiders who finally have to beat the all-conquering professionals in a cup final. The pros are called ‘Team Evil’ which pretty much sets the tone for the whole film.
Category: Culture
I’ve come up with a new design for the site, as I think should be pretty obvious. If you prefer the calmer qualities of the old look, there’s now a theme switcher in the sidebar so you can pick your favourite. The scarab picture is used by kind permission of elina. Fab, innit?
The main problem with the new theme from a design POV is that it looks a bit peculiar if you’re looking at a single post which isn’t very long. But I can’t think of an easy answer to that one. It’s also a wee bit visually aggressive, but hey, that’s what the theme switcher is for – you can take your pick.
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Mask of the Week
More from the BM, because they’ve got so much good stuff. This time a mask of Dzoonokwa:
Kwakwaka’wakw, 19th century AD, from British Columbia
Dzoonokwa is a giant of the forest, or Wild Woman of the Woods. She eats children, stops people from fishing, and encourages war. In one story a young woman comes across a Dzoonokwa catching salmon; she kills her and her family and uses the mother’s skull as a bath for her own daughter’s ritual empowerment. They were not all evil though; when a Dzoonokwa came across young men she may give them supernatural gifts – a self-paddling canoe, or the water of life.
Kwakwaka’wakw masks represent her with pursed lips so that the dancer wearing the mask could frighten the crowd with cries of ‘Ho, ho’.
I got this link from somewhere – Bookslut, maybe? – but anyway, it’s a letter to The Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences.
An epileptic patient “complained of being driven to write poetry. For 5 years, he experienced words as ‘continuously rhyming in his head’ and felt the need to write them down and show his writings to others. He did not talk in rhyme, write excessively in nonrhyme, or read poetry. The patient had not had a preoccupation with poetry until age 53 when he had the subacute onset of behavioral changes with irritability and anger.”
The brain really is peculiar. The fact that someone with brain damage would experience words rhyming in his head is remarkable but, given the extensive brain area devoted to language recognition and formation, makes some sense. The need to write it down and show it to people is what strikes me as most interesting. It suggests that the brain isn’t just exhibiting some kind of linguistic tic, but that the stimulus is somehow acting on his whole concept of poetry, including the associated ideas that you write it down and show it people.
I’m convinced that Burns Night is Scotland’s practical joke on the world. If you were writing a list of three ways to spoil a perfectly good dinner party, it would be hard to beat:
1) serve haggis and swedes
2) recite incomprehensible poetry
3) have bagpipe music
No wonder people drink whisky with it – it’s the only thing strong enough to dull the pain.
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lipstick of noise
The Lipstick of Noise is a poetry mp3 blog. Doesn’t seem to have an RSS feed, annoyingly. via Said the Gramophone.