And the reviews are in... again.

Oh well. Apparently I sing like Borat!

Youtube Commentary for this clip: Superhelter said: "lol, i found this hilariously rubbish at first but i like how obscure this is! It paints a picture of Borat being blown away by the talents of The Magnetic Fields . He then decides to buy a piano and BANG! This is the result... Well done!"

Yeah, being 'obscure'... at least I know how to do that! :-)

THE DEATH OF FERDINAND DE SAUSSURE


I met Ferdinand de Saussure
On a night like this
On love he said
"I'm not so sure
I even know what it is
No understanding
No closure
It is a nemesis
You can't use a bulldozer
To study orchids"

He said...
So we don't know anything
You don't know anything
I don't know anything
about love
But we are nothing
You are nothing
I am nothing
Without love

I'm just a great composer
And not a violent man
But I lost my composure
And I shot Ferdinand
Crying "it's well and kosher
to say you don't understand
but this is for Holland-Dozier-Holland"

His last words were
We don't know anything [etc]

And the original version, in case you need to get my voice out of your system:

"Beanworld", and The New York Times Graphic Books Best Seller Lists

The New York Times has introduced three new bestseller lists for comics. One for hardcovers, one for softcovers and one for manga. Read about them here.

I was particularly happy that Larry Marder's legendary "Beanworld", which after fifteen years in limbo is being reprinted and is having new stories created, has made it's way into the list. Along with Gaiman's "Sandman", "Beanworld" is one of the comic book series that truly understands the power of myth. If you haven't read this series you MUST BUY the new edition! This series is difficult to explain, but I think it's truly mind expanding.

Entertainment Weekly: "Like George Lucas, Stan Lee, and J.J. Abrams, 
cartoonist Larry Marder is the creator of a deeply imagined alternate world that inspires obsessive fandom and yields glossaries, maps, and 
websites. " -Sean Howe

Newsarama: "It’s not the sort of world of imagination you lived in as a child, but it is the sort of world of imagination that Marder must have lived in as a child, and which he reconstructs for you to live in as an adult seeing things as a child again. It’s not exactly a modern work of mythology, but it certainly taps into the same things that mythology does, and works in much the same way mythology does." - J. Caleb Mozzocco

The Village Voice: "Beanworld life is a carefully calibrated blend of the quotidian and magical. Like the best imaginary universes, it provides a constant unfolding of anxious and ecstatic mysteries both sacred and profane. " - Richard Gehr

MTV: "...one of the most original and brilliant comic-book universes ever created."

- Spash Page

"Blueberry Girl"

Blueberry Girl is a poem originally written for Tori Amos' Daughter. It has now been released as a book. Also available for free on youtube, as an animated video:



"Hello.

You're probably wondering what kind of book this is.

This is the kind of book that comes about when a friend phones you and says, "I'll be having a baby in a month. Would you write her a poem? A sort of prayer, maybe? We call her the Blueberry. . . ." And you think, Yes, actually. I would.

I wrote the poem. When the baby was born, they stopped calling her the Blueberry and started calling her Natashya, but they pinned up the handwritten Blueberry girl poem beside her bed.

I kept a copy at my house, taped to a filing cabinet. And when friends read it, they said things like "Please, can I have a copy for my friend who is going to be giving birth to a daughter?" and I wound up copying it out for people, over and over.
I wasn't going to let it be published, not ever. It was private, and written for one person, even if I did seem to be spending more and more of my time handwriting or printing out nice copies for mothers-to-be and for babies.

Then artist Charles Vess (whom I had collaborated with on Stardust) read it.
And somehow, it all became simple. I made a few phone calls. We decided to make some donations to some charities. And Charles began to draw, and then to paint, taking the poem as a starting point and then making something universal and beautiful.

On his blog he said, "Taking Neil's lovely poetic meditation on the inherent joys of a mother-daughter relationship and developing a compelling narrative impulse without robbing the poem of its highly symbolic nature was an interesting conceptual journey." Which I think is Charles for "It wasn't easy to make that poem into a picture book.” He did an astonishing job, but I still worried. I stopped worrying the day the assistant editor at HarperChildrens, who was herself pregnant, called me to let me know that she'd got the artwork in, and read it, and then started crying in the office.

It's a book for mothers and for mothers-to-be. It's a book for anyone who has, or is, a daughter. It's a prayer and a poem, and now it's a beautiful book.

I hope you enjoy it. I'm really proud of it. And I hope this means I don't have to copy it out any longer….

Neil"

Francis Ford Coppola introduces "Tetro"

This youtube video of Francis Ford Coppola intruducing his new film is pretty cool, it makes a living legend seem quite human:

Schoenberg: String Quartet no. 3

Well, this blog started as "The 1930s culture blog", so occasionally I will go back to that subject.

Here's Schoenberg's 3rd string quartet, in a historic recording from the 1930s. It's the Kolisch quartet supervised by Schoenberg himself. he first movement in particular is just awesome.

PART 1
PART 2
PART 3
PART 4

I own this quartet in a more recent recording with the New Vienna String Quartet

New Alan Moore interview

And a new Alan Moore interview, one of the most illuminating in a while. Interesting! The Future's looking bright.

edit: oh, and another one here, from Wired.