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Mar 06 2010
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Regular, Review, Writing

Slint and Swainston’s Fourlands

Slint are a seminal alternate guitar-rock band from the 1990s. I first came across them on the soundtrack to Larry Clark’s Kids, which was one of those albums which promised that the film would be a-fucking-mazing. Instead it was a bit of a bummer, but the majesty of Slint’s “Good Morning Captain”…

Steph Swainston’s Fourlands is the setting for her novels, which are part of the New Weird, an extension to the fantasy genre that allows authors to escape the sword-and-sorcery crap that they’ve been stuck with by certain best-selling authors. Where fantasy had become reliant upon pastiche and re-invention of Tolkein-esque themes, writers operating within the New Weird allowed themselves to create truly new worlds.

Swainston’s books are set in a world ruled by immortals, who fight an endless war against giant insects. There is no orcish horde to defeat, but instead an unknowable enemy who seems to only operate by instinct – something we can all understand, especially if you’ve ever found a cockroach in your kitchen. Familiarity doesn’t end there though, as despite living in a feudal world, her characters wear jeans and t-shirts, know what serial numbers are, and are generally as badly behaved as us in the modern world.

Slint’s work came at a time when Grunge defined what rock was, but they weren’t working alone. Shellac and Helmet released albums around the same time, opening up rock music to a wider range of textures than the pop-orientated sounds that were prevalent within Grunge. The influence that these bands had opened up the sound of rock music in a post-modern sense, meaning that not only could things be heavier but that they could also sound different.

The New Weird is a similar movement in fantasy writing. Swainston’s work, and that of others who accept the genre, are swimming against the idea of fantasy as ‘epic’, or the introduction of vampire mythology into the humdrum present day (such as the Sookie Stackhouse series). It’s a reinvention that enlivens a creative discipline, and while both Slint and Swainston share a common theme of narrative and flawed characters, the best link between them is to see how revolutionary they are.

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Mar 02 2010
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Favourite Shoes

Some ShoesI love these shoes! They’re my favourite ever trainers, and I say this as a thirty-one year old man who has owned one pair of ‘proper shoes’ since leaving school. That is a lot of trainers, running the entire gamut of casual foot-covering styles, from skateboard pretentiousness to faux-classy leatherette things. What makes these shoes so good is the fact that they have a layer of goretex built into them, stopping rain from soaking my feet.

It’s that layer of goretex that makes these shoes worth buying. And I’ve brought two pairs of them, so I should know. I originally brought a pair after a rainy spring, where it seemed like everywhere I went involved getting soaked. It’s no fun going to the pub dripping wet, or leafing through books at the library in your own personal puddle, so I changed the way I dressed and started buying things that used modern fabrics. From that period, I’ve got a few things that suck, a few things that are ok, and a few things that stand out because they are excellent. These shoes stand out.

That’s the deal with using new materials and new technologies. Sometimes, taking a little bit of something new and adding it to the familiar creates excellence. The word for this is ‘progress’, and it’s given us things like dry feet, iPhones, and liquorice allsorts. You might not like everything that comes out of the relentless march of progress, but you’ll have to admit to finding some of it useful.

Feb 09 2010
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Review of Tesco Metro, Heaton (originally for The Crack magazine)

I originally wrote this for the back page of The Crack Magazine (hi Helen!) sometime last summer, but a series of events caused it to disappear for a while. I just remembered where I had a copy, and decided to put it up. Back when I wrote this, Tesco had just taken over the Chillingham Road site, Obama was still new and shiny, and I lived in Newcastle… the past: it’s kind of like another country, but harder to get to.


As living beings, we’re defined by certain natural urges. We need to breath, sleep, move, reproduce, and eat. Now Tesco’s have seen fit to help us out with eating in Heaton, taking over the role of local supermarket from what used to be Somerfield’s in Chillingham Road.

Somerfield was notoriously expensive, and Tesco’s are only continuing the trend, with prices raised so high you’ll find confused students wandering the store looking at the cost of pesto. On the day I visited, a can of beans and sausages was selling for over a pound, and it was hard to find a loaf of bread that wasn’t stuffed with some sort of seed. Also, I was deeply disappointed to note that they didn’t sell pop tarts.

Despite the fact that it’s always cheaper to shop at either of the two supermarkets within twenty minutes walk, this branch of Tesco’s is always busy. Most of the people shopping here have just been caught on the hop, short of those few bits and bobs we all need but forget to pick up when doing the weekly ‘big shop’, but there is the odd lazy bugger stocking up on frozen lasagne and beer.

Between the two markets of last-minute need and easy-living slackers, Tesco will be raking in the cash at this new site, but anybody living locally is going to find it more costly to do their shopping here.

Jan 12 2010
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The Sunday of the Space Pen

I spent the whole of Sunday obsessing over my space pen, because I’d lost it. I also broke my tooth, but I was far more concerned over my pen. I mean, that pen’s damned good.

I think it’s because I’d had that pen on me, continually, for over a year. I originally brought it because I saw Merlin Mann toting one in a video, which is a terrible reason to buy an expensive pen, but it’s a space pen. It’s the pen made for NASA’s astronauts, and it’s super-duper in that it can write underwater and in fire and upside-down. I’ve tested this (apart from the thing with the fire).

But it’s also tiny. When I came back to recuperate at the Hindle Family Book Repository I knew I’d lose it at some point; tidiness does not run in our genes. In fact, so messy is our house that I knew I wasn’t about to find it after the first five minutes of looking for it. I huffed and I puffed, and generally made a bit of a twat about myself by extolling the virtues of this pen to my parents.

Really, I was just annoyed at myself for losing it. It’s probably the only thing I’ve kept on my person for the whole year. It’s usually warm when I pull it out of my pocket to scribble notes. Or to pass it to somebody who really needs a pen, making me look super-organised (although it’s blatantly obvious I’m not).

In the end, I let it ruin my whole day. I did brake one of my teeth, but I was so annoyed about losing my pen I didn’t freak out and panic like I usually do about dentistry (perhaps this is a side affect of recent events – don’t sweat the small stuff). Eventually, I went to bed, annoyed at losing the pen, but more annoyed at myself for not letting go.

I woke up the next morning and put my favourite jumper on. In the pocket was my space pen; it’d taken all of two minutes to find it, and most of that time was spent working out which arm to put in the armhole.

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Jan 09 2010
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Regular, Technology, Writing

MMX – The Start of the Post-Digital Decade

2010 and after are going to be about post-digital, by which I mean what comes after we’ve finished staring at our screens. We’re going to see an explosion in the amount of physical objects that would have been impossible without using digital process in the workflow, and objects that won’t work without a connection of some kind to the internet.

Spimes and RFID are only part of what I’m talking about here. Short-run publications, bespoke objects, and even distributed craft networks are also part of this new post-digital boom. There are going to be a lot of interesting tools for artists and designers to explore in the next decade, as we move away from computers being the site of the art (on websites) to being tools that enable interesting things to happen.

With this in mind, I’ve got three predicition for what the post-digital will be about:

  1. It’s about fitting the digital into your workflow
  2. It’s not venerating the things that are on our screens
  3. It’s real-world hard work, and engaging with both hands

With this in mind, I looked back at my last decade and I thought about how my use of computers changed over that time. Do you remember using computers in 2000? I had to wrack my brains a bit, but here’s a personal timeline of digital use:

2000 – Started Foundation course. Used Kai’s Power Tools for the first time, made first video, got first real email address (by which I mean not a hotmail account)

2001 – First year of university. My first computer that was mine- a G3 desktop, zipdisks.

2002 - New computer – G4 eMac with OSX! Lots of browsing at uni, then taking software updates home on disks. Became expert on TWAIN, scanning, photoshop, and waiting for photoshop scanning to finish.

2003 – First external hard drive. Also brought Wacom tablet, midi keyboard (both mostly useless). Made videos, learnt non-linear editing software, wrote dissertation, stared out of the window a lot.

2004 - First broadband connection. Brought Max/MSP, downloaded Processing (alpha!), went on PD course. Still confused by all three ‘easy’ languages. Got Gmail account and my first laptop – a G4 powerbook.

2005 – Overused first broadband connection. Made some digital installations, brought Teleo card, got into electronics, nearly blew Teleo card up. Brought first iPod and Arduino.

2006 - Social networking via Flickr. Went on Arduino course in Barcelona with Massimo and David, gave up on Max/MSP and PD as patcher languages suck time, fun, and light from life.

2007 - Joined Twitter and Facebook. Facebook annoying from start. Finally buy proper domain name and start running my own website. Run the Glowbikes project, using SpokePOV’s as part of an art installation.

2008 – Powerbook dies, replaced with MacBook. Attended geek conferences, wrote and taught two courses for wordpress, made serious effort to learn Processing (which is then forgotten) and brought iPhone.

2009 – Discovered international roaming charges. Erk. eBay’d and sold things on Amazon, wrote thematic blog posts, and interviewed serious hacker-types.

2010 - Now.

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Jan 04 2010
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Regular, Review, Writing

Review of “The Wikipedia Revolutions”, by Andrew Lih

This book starts with a potted history of Wikipedia, beginning at it’s predecessor Nupedia, and then follows the development of the site until sometime in mid-2008, when the book was published. As an effort to keep up with both change and the technology, a wiki was set up to act as an afterword. Weirdly, although it’s mentioned in the text of the book, the only place I could find a link to it was the Wikipedia page for the book – not the books flashy website.

The book itself isn’t shy of the typical criticisms of Wikipedia, which are over-reliance on volunteers and exclusion of expert voices, but also adds a new practical consideration by noting that costs might exceed the budget set out. This is something that has obviously turned up in the research of the book, as it is an ongoing concern for the Wikipedia foundation (and at the time of writing in 2010, wikipedia is plastered with “personal appeal” banners from Jimmy Wales).

Obviously a work of considerable sophistication, the book will stand as that rare type of useful academic research that can be read by interested laymen. It does seem that researching the earlier days and structure of wikipedia was easier than discussing the later, more recent days, but considering the charges of revisionism laid at Jimmy Wales’ self-aggrandising claims, this is research that might actually become more useful as time goes on.

Tricker details – as referred to by the case of RickK, the admin who left owing to difference with others of the elite wikipedia admin corps, despite the goodwill he had generated in the community, are briefly touched on in the end. The book was published too early to touch the controversy of when it was found that the short-stock articles explaining several financial practices central to the recent economic meltdown were written by a journalist directly employed by Wall Street investment banks (although it’s hard to fault a book on things that happened after it was published).

Personally, I found the book interesting, if a little too willing to explain some of the easier-to-grasp ideas behind wiki’s. Some of the technological advances that wikipedia had been responsible for were news to me, but the more interesting stories of clashes within the new online/wikipedia culture seemed rushed the further the book went. I’d say that while this book isn’t the definitive history of wikipedia, it’s certainly a start on documenting the massive effect the wikipedia foundation is having upon contemporary culture.

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Dec 30 2009
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Art, Regular, Writing

The Culture (and Appreciation) of Screaming Hand

Screaming Hand

Above is an image by illustrator Jim Phillips, called ‘Screaming Hand’. It’s one of the most famous pieces of graphic design in the skateboarding culture, a piece of marketing that would still be in use as a company icon twenty-five years later.

Such is the fame of this image that Phillips himself relates this tale of an encounter with a skateboarder who had damaged his car:

“I looked at my car, and then at him, as he picked up his skateboard. I said, “I think I can see a dent!”

He looked at me in horror, and said “Oh no! No way… You’re not gonna pin that on me!” I followed with “I think I should be able to see your license!”

He looked even more horrified. “No way man! No way you’re gonna make me pay!”

I was feeling a little cocky, and wondered if I could pull it off, when I yelled, “LISTEN!… you don’t realise who you’re dealing with! I CREATED SCREAMING HAND!!!”

I held up my left hand, making it look anguished like my famous sticker logo for Speed Wheels Santa Cruz.

From Skateboard Stickers, by Munsen and Cardwell

After this, the skater pulls out his wallet, shows his license, and vows to always buy Santa Cruz skateboards. Can you image this happening with any of the top-flight contemporary artists of the art world? Perhaps Jeff Koons (“I CREATED PUPPY!!!”) or Damien Hirst?

Screaming Hand was adopted by the skateboard culture, and still to this day has an iconic status. It’s beyond my ability to say why, but it’s popularity is undeniable. Strangely, the unpopularity of contemporary art is also undeniable, as is it’s inability to create objects beloved of those outside the subculture of art appreciation.

Contemporary art is also usually ignorant of visual culture outside of it’s own milieu, unless it is “appropriating”. Therefore, the stunning imagery of Phillips goes unnoticed, as do many other striking images from contemporary culture. Although Fine Art prides itself on a visual language, with the advent of the internets acceleration of visual culture, it has retreated to a style-less ghetto of unskilled design and tasteless tat. But, as Screaming Hand shows us, there are other cultures.

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Oct 21 2009
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Future Plans

I think I’ve narrowed my future career path down to these few options:

Wise Urban Shaman
Bedroom Nerd
Wise Bedroom Nerd

Sadly, I don’t think “Bedroom Shaman” will come up as a career option any time soon.

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Sep 08 2009
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Researching Tumblr

Pac-Graph

I’d have to say that Tumblr’s great if you want to look at pictures of bookshelves or semi-naked women. It really fails at presenting anything more complex though.

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Aug 02 2009
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Art, Irregular, Regular, Review, Writing

An Ironic Reading of Portions from Silver Surfer, Issues 5 and 6

One (cover)

In my teenage years, I had a big comic habit (graciously funded by my parents). It all started with the Silver Surfer double-issue where the Kree-Skrull war kicked off, on a holiday in Saffron Walden. I can’t remember the year it was, but it was before my reading speed kicked into the ludicrously high speed it is now, and those 60-odd pages of space battles and cosmic forces made me want to read more comics.

Fast-forward to today, where myself and Brian dragged ourselves to the Newcastle SciFi, Comic and Card Fair, run by these folks. And it kind of sucked, because there wasn’t any SciFi, just comics and cards. But it had cost a pound to get in, so I forced Brian to root around in the comic sections, and whilst he was suspiciously eyeing the covers of Witchbreed I was reminiscing about when comics used to be good.

Warren Ellis’s comics commentary column Come in Alone (also see here) laid it all out ten years ago, saying that the two party system of comics, which only produced comics that existing fans wanted to read, was a slow boat to suffocating the industry. Well, he was right, and all the interesting comics like the Silver Surfer have been culled. These days it’s all ‘dark’ heros such as Wolverine, Superman clones, and the odd offbeat black and white.

(Webcomics are where it’s at. Shhh! Don’t tell the capitalists.)

But coming across a stash of old Silver Surfer comics, I had to buy them. For starters, they were only 50p each! So I ended up buying a few comics from before the Kree-Skrull war, setting the scene on a galactic scale. We are introduced to a number of different races, such as the Celestials, a race of… really big people.

I See Paris, I See France...

Above: He’s just standing there, and I can see right up his…

The green guys are Skrulls. I like the fact that the tubby green Marlon Brando feels he can’t stand the site of this monster anymore. Okay, I might have been thinking “monster what?”, but that’s a little crude. And how do you think talking to the enormous city-high man goes?

Three (bugger)

Oh-fecking-really, Kylor – a giant green bloke comes and stands over your city, and there’s nothing you can do? You’re lucky you don’t have a week of ‘special yellow rain’ forecast, especially after you tried to nuke him. And – point of order here – didn’t you just try and nuke him right over your own city? Kylor, you’re an asshole.

This is also a good time to point out the fantastic colour process used in late 1980′s comics. I’m not an expert, but you are seeing a really restricted palette put to a great use here, with overlaying tones of less than sympathetic colours really popping out. I actually get quite excited by this sort of print quality. Also notice that the paper is all yellowed with age; I could have auto-corrected that in with the scanning process, but I feel that it adds a little to the reading of the media.

After Kylor and his Conservative-style mismanagement of local politics, there is a few other plotlines that are in these issues of the Silver Surfer. The big one is the Surfer’s “friendship” with Mantis, a green lady who flies through space wearing an improbable suit. Why would she hang out with a shiney silver man in space, who constantly talks about his ex-boss all the time, and how his ex-boss exiled him to Earth?

Four (likes me, eh)

Oh, she likes him.

I have to admit, on reading that frame I was thinking “my God, somebody even worse at dating than I am!” – after all, he’s got the hot green girl in the stripper outfit saying nice things to him, but he’s all “yeah, it’s been a long time, and I’ve only kissed that other girl three times…” He should probably be clear that he’s got a thing for Shalla Bal, but – hey – who knows how long it’s been for our Surfer? It could be a long time. He doesn’t have a crotch.

Five (emo)

He’s so emo.

Six (in like Flynn)

Surfer, she’s practically putting it on a plate for you there. Plus, catch that little Saigon reference? You might think she’s subtly trying to tell the Silver Emo that he’s got Prospects, but then she drops that next line quite casually. Well, she is dressed like a stripper, mind.

Later on in this issue, the Surfer’s courtin’ is interupted by this lunk-headed dick. His backstory is that he’s immortal because he’s the last one of his race (apparently, the universe preserves the last one of a sentient race in the world of Marvel), but he used a cheat code – he slaughtered the rest of his species.

Nice.

Seven (no hobbies)

Rather than judge his actions, the Silver Surfer uses the mighty Cosmic Power imbued in him to remove the weapons lunk-head (I can’t find his name, and I can’t be bothered to look it up) had implanted in his body. So after five billion years of killing people, he didn’t ever take some time out and grab a hobby? It was just kill kill kill? Whatever.

This is still a Marvel comic, so after having a fight they declare the issue over and move onto issue 6. This starts with a great one-page drawing of space – termed a splash page in print terminology. Here:

Eight (War Splash)

The thing about these splash pages is that you tend to find them at the start of the comic book. I suspect this is both for dramatic input and for the fact that they would have time to draw this stuff at the start of the monthly schedule for the comic book. But forget all that – lasers! Pew pew pew! Burning things! Explosions! Wow!

Oddly enough, for an issue titled “War”, that’s not what the Surfer gets up to in this installment. But before we find our Space Emo sitting outside Boots with his Space Goth Girlfriend, there is a slight bit of backstory to get through:

Nine (end of the universe)

In todays world of comics, the above would be a quick dash through the plug-ins section of Photoshop, but the illustrative team of Rogers and Rubenstein have really pulled out the stops with this splash page. There’s stippling and all sorts – man, that must have taken them ages! But it’s so cool I wouldn’t really mind if the last page was just a picture of some stick men saying “we’ll be back next week”.

I’m telling you, this is the sort of stuff you don’t find in today’s comics. The combination of old-school graft and limited printing techniques means that some real special knowledge went into this image. Appreciate it, because in our realm of pixel-perfect Blue-Ray DVDs, we often lose sight of how hard it is to craft something beautiful.

Ten (seize it)

Surfer also finds it hard to recognise when something beautiful is infront of him. Seriously, he has got to be the worst date ever – “But I’m pledged to somebody else!” Thankfully, our girl Mantis is a little bit more forward. Plus, to be honest, I think Surfer might be her lift home – she’s got the power of plants or something, which isn’t that nifty in the infinite void of space.

So, after the romantic kiss, what next? Why, what else but SPACE NOOKIE!

Eleven (space whoopee)

So, one things puzzling me here: are they just going off for an extended hug in the asteroid belt, because the Surfer doesn’t have any bits. He does have a Cosmic Power (or possibly a Power Cosmic) which might come in useful here. But we don’t see that – this isn’t something from the pages of Heavy Metal. It’s straight to the afterglow for us readers.

Twelve (silver shell)

I don’t quite understand what he’s saying that’s so romantic she wants to kiss him – “hey, if you weren’t around, I’d still be pining for that girl who only kissed me three times”. Hmm. Well, maybe she has a thing for surfers.

But wait, what’s that? Does that last panel depict the sound of a cosmic voice-mail being delivered?

Thirteen (cockblocked)

Oooh, mean! Mantis, he’s going to leave you with some plants and then get back to his other honey. That’s low, and don’t be making all lovey-dovey eyes behind his back – it’s quite clear that the Surfer got his oats and then just pissed off. But, y’know, he’s just so darned noble about the whole thing. “Hey babe, I’ll call you after saving all of reality. Missing you already, ciao.”

I hope this brief breeze through some of the Surfer’s classic period in the 1980′s has been interesting for you. I don’t think this period is collected anywhere, but the good news is that these comics only cost me 50p each. You could totally clean up before all the other cool kids get in on this.

Disclaimer: It’s quite obvious that I’m not claiming ownership of any of the artwork or characters above, and that I’m using them for review purposes.

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