Artist and writer, or writer and artist. Sometimes other things, too.
Author: Alistair
A delightfully nihilistic quote attributed to physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, one of the main architects of the Manhattan Project and of the first atomic weapons, although it’s probably apocryphal. It seems to originate in French from Michel Houllebecq’s book H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life. The English translation of Houllebecq actually mentions in a footnote that the quote is untraceable.
Houllebecq is, shall we say, a not uncontroversial writer who may conceivably be projecting his own profound misanthropy and negativity onto Oppenheimer; Lovecraft’s, too. Even so, it’s in character for a man who made it possible for the human race to render itself and most other life on the planet totally extinct within a matter of minutes.
It’s also in character for Marvin the Paranoid Android from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. “The first ten million…
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A footnote to the previous post about Americans being the weirdest people in the world: the image above is the first one thrown up by a Google image search for “fat Americans”. It’s been reposted, Reddited and ripped off so many hundreds of times that I wasn’t able to track down its original photographer or origins. If you know or by some weird quirk of fate you are in fact the photographer himself or herself, leave a comment. It’s also been used by mainstream American magazines and blogs to illustrate articles about American obesity.
I’m not saying that many Americans aren’t obese, because they are and contrary to some particularly shrill and screwed up segments of obese American society it’s not “fat-shaming”, “hate speech” or whatever to tell people that it’s unhealthy, self-destructive and a needless drain on the state’s and the planet’s finite resources to eat so…
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Although I’ll be the first to admit that it’s an example of confirmation bias because I’ve been saying and writing similar things for years, I just read a lengthy but very interesting article about the ways in which social sciences like anthropology, economics and behaviourism may be even more ethnocentric, subjective and ideological than all but the chippiest post-colonial theorists have portrayed them.
In short, social science and its “truths” have been dominated by people from the USA and their culture. And the citizens of the United States are the weirdest and most subjective people in the world. US dominance means that Weird Japan or Weird Asia are internet genres, while Weird USA is just the internet in general. Hollywood films and US TV shows label Paris as “Paris, France”, implying that most people in the world think of the Paris in Texas first of all. They don’t. Studies of…
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My new Vizify profile has more infographics than anybody– including me– ever wanted or needed about my career and my past or present projects.
Normal nonsense will be resumed shortly, and if you’re on the front page you can scroll down to see the newest posts as normal. In common with most bloggers I do this in my free time with no great expectations because I enjoy it and because I relish the knowledge that thousands of people share my interest in the things that I post, and probably also because I’m a bit of an attention whore. As many of you probably do, I use an ad blocker and I tend to switch right off when people try to sell me stuff or talk to me about my responsibilities, so I understand that some of you might not want to hear this little lecture from me.
Also in common with most bloggers I have to make a living and I rarely make any money from blogging, although in my case one of my…
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“‘Bath and slept with Gladys,’ runs one entry in the diary. Such Gill family intimacies seem routine, a habit. A few weeks later there are more surprising entries; ‘Expt. [experiment] with dog in eve’ [the rest has been obliterated]. Then, five days later, ‘Bath. Continued experiment with dog after and discovered that a dog will … Continue reading Eric Gill, sans consentement
Etiquette: Rules and Usages of the Best Society was published in Australia in 1885 for the benefit of “the better sort” among our colonial cousins. Not the crims, in other words. Some of the advice is very wise, some of it is surreal, while some of it– such as the recommended homemade treatments for acne or grey hair– is liable to end with a trip to the accident and emergency room.
THE “CUT DIRECT”
The “cut direct,” which is given by a prolonged stare at a person, if justified at all, can only be in case of extraordinary and notoriously bad conduct on the part of the individual “cut,” and is very seldom called for. If any one wishes to avoid a bowing acquaintance with another, it can be done by looking aside or dropping the eyes. It is an invariable rule of good society that a gentleman cannot “cut”…
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The day when England barely celebrates its Greek patron saint and sheepishly denies having any national pride. The day when we remember that Christianity, via the story of George slaying the dragon, tacitly acknowledges the existence of dragons. If they weren’t real, how could George slay one? So not believing in dragons would technically seem to be heretical if you’re a Christian.
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Alistair Gentry 