From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V11 #3 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Friday, January 4 2002 Volume 11 : Number 003 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: my winter hols [] Re: ramble on [Aaron Mandel ] 52 stations [grutness@surf4nix.com] Re: Dogs/movies [grutness@surf4nix.com] dog said, "Yeah!" ["Natalie Jane" ] Dragon [] Re: Dogs (aka birds) ["Fric Chaud" ] Re: Dogs ["Fric Chaud" ] More movies! [The Great Quail ] RE: More movies! ["Larry O'Brien" ] The Other Morris ["Redtailed Hawk" ] the society of dark birds ["ross taylor" ] Re: the society of dark birds ["Randy R." ] Re: Dogs [Viv Lyon ] Grammy nominations [Eb ] Re: Grammy nominations [The Great Quail ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 13:09:07 -0800 (PST) From: Subject: Re: my winter hols > On Wed, 2 Jan 2002, Natalie Jane wrote: >> Firstly and most importantly: congratulations to the ever-expanding >> Clark menage! (Tom, did you get to see the placenta???) > Yes I did, and it was delicious! Just kidding. I was pretty amazed that the whole process was not as gory as I expected. I guess all the horror flicks I've seen really did desensitize me afterall. - -t "actually, it's still marinating" c ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 16:32:00 -0500 (EST) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: Re: ramble on On Thu, 3 Jan 2002, ross taylor wrote: > James -- I agree that Monster's Inc. rocks. > "The child threw me across the street with his > mental powers." --confused monster-in-street > interviewee. Yeah. I saw a review (salon?) that panned the movie for not making the monster creepy enough. Like, hello? They're normal; children are weird. The beauty of the movie is how much of its humor derives from the audience identifying with the monsters. And I thought the staging of the finale, which could have been a very cliched bit, had some nice ingenuity to it. a ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 11:16:21 +1300 From: grutness@surf4nix.com Subject: 52 stations Miles a dit: > >This is one of the most brilliantly designed links pages I've ever > >seen: http://www.lilypad.demon.co.uk/bragg/ > >Indeed. However, it needs a Northern Line that would intersect with Robyn >at the "Bingo Hand Job" station. > >I'm voting for Clapham Common as the Bingo Hand Job station, unless someone >here has first-hand knowledge of a more likely Northern Line candidate. :-) Didn't Robyn used to live around the Highgate/Archway area? If so, one of those would make more sense. You'll have us all playing Mornington Crescent if you're not carful... James (Mind the gap) James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand. =-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= .-=-.-=-.-=-.- .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-. -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= You talk to me as if from a distance =-.-=-. And I reply with impressions chosen from another time -=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- (Brian Eno - "By this River") ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 11:32:26 +1300 From: grutness@surf4nix.com Subject: Re: Dogs/movies Dogs... I was very scared of them in my youth (having been bitten twice when very young) and am allergic to their hair (probably psychosomatic because of the above). Like some breeds (usually the larger, less hyper, quiet ones), others I ehh, although there are individual dogs that I like a lot. A friend used to own the most amazing borzoi, which I used to help walk (sometimes those things need two people to walk them!) Cats... I love. I've been owned by a string of cats over the years, and although there are none currently extant in this household, I am a surrogate extra ape servant to Alice's two (the suave sophisticate Jimble and the elegant brainless thug Grizabel a.k.a. Grug). One of those rare occasions when Quailie and I are exact opposites, given his comment (although I agree about the French!): >I love dogs and dislike cats. I mean, there's been one or two cats I >have liked in my life, but like the French, they are better taken as >unique individuals than as a culture. Birds... never owned any, but there's plenty of wild ornitho life around here, so I encourage them into the garden via food and particular trees. A blackbird pair usually follow me round while I garden, and there are bellbirds, waxeyes, finches, warblers, the odd kereru, and of course starlings, spadgers, and dunnocks. - --- having not yet seen either of 'the big two wizard movies' of 2001, my top movies of last year were probably (in no particular order) Memento Shrek Sexy Beast Monsters Inc Sunshine (hm... no-one's mentioned this one on the list yet) James now flying... Hong Kong! Red, with a stylised five petalled bauhinia flower, eack petal containing a small red star. PS: I like that new Rwandan flag! James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand. =-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= .-=-.-=-.-=-.- .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-. -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= You talk to me as if from a distance =-.-=-. And I reply with impressions chosen from another time -=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- (Brian Eno - "By this River") ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2002 14:33:30 -0800 From: "Natalie Jane" Subject: dog said, "Yeah!" >Other films supposedly coming soon: Stop reading Coming Attractions, you'll only give yourself a rash. >yeah, a bit. Back at that time the NZ music scene was dominated by >Split >Enz and a bunch of bands that were sort of more advanced >versions of the >pub rock ideal (Dragon, Th'Dudes)... I thought Dragon were Australian. Wasn't Terry Chambers a member, after he left XTC and moved to Australia? >Martin has always been a big fan of - as his song says - Randy >Newman, Scott Walker, Brian Wilson, Syd Barrett, and Nick Drake. I hear a lot of Velvets in that early stuff. I'm working on Disc 2 of the box set now, which has a lot of radio sessions and the like. I'm not very familiar with the Chills' pre-"Submarine Bells" material so this stuff is a revelation. Now I've decided that I want Martin Phillipps to be my future husband again. (It just wasn't working out with Wayne Coyne.) But will he have me back? Kay, re. elven abodes: >Theres a sense of wedding-cake >prettyness here, too much sugar and not enough strong but subtle > >flavoring. Yeah, "wedding cake" is the exact term I was looking for. Everything's too sweetsy-neatsy. Re. the Ents, I never saw all of the Bakshi movie but I found a book with stills from it, and was appalled by the fact that Treebeard resembled a large stalk of broccoli. Shades of "Bored of the Rings" (in which the Ents are giant sentient vegetables). I hope Jackson does a better job. As for dogs - I loathe the tribe as a whole: smelly, noisy, slobbery, servile. I like individual dogs and will pet them should I encounter them, but I can't even imagine owning one. But worse than dogs are dog owners who leave their beasts' stinking feces lying about, and babble ceaselessly about their creatures given the slightest opportunity. Innocent inquiries as to "Oh, what kind of dog is that?" have made me the victim of half-hour monologues about pugs, dachshunds, and huskies. I've learned my lesson. Not that cats and their owners don't have idiosyncracies, but I can tolerate them a lot better. At least cats know how to dispose of their own poop (most of the time). They also purr, which is a much more pleasant sound than barking. n. _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 15:07:16 -0800 (PST) From: Subject: Dragon On Thu, 3 Jan 2002, Natalie Jane wrote: > >yeah, a bit. Back at that time the NZ music scene was dominated by >Split > >Enz and a bunch of bands that were sort of more advanced >versions of the > >pub rock ideal (Dragon, Th'Dudes)... > > I thought Dragon were Australian. Wasn't Terry Chambers a member, after he > left XTC and moved to Australia? well they were originally a NZ band and but as the rose to greater fame they all lived in Australia and i think they broke up in like 1980 and then reformed in 1982 and Terry joined that version later. Jason Wilson Brown - University of Washington - Seattle, WA "Life boring when you no can die" -Solomon Grundy ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 21:07:02 -0500 From: "Fric Chaud" Subject: Re: Dogs (aka birds) On 3 Jan 2002, at 9:27, The Great Quail wrote: > As any Feg who has visited our house knows, LJ is a crazy bird > person She can take my crazy birds! The red-winged bastards in the garden make nesting season a misery for humans by dive-bombing anybody who enters "their" territory. All I want to do is tend my garden! Is it true what they say about raw rice? - -- Fric Chaud ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 21:09:45 -0500 From: "Fric Chaud" Subject: Re: Dogs On 3 Jan 2002, at 1:33, Redtailed Hawk wrote: > Since I am deep in the throws of dog-love, I was wondering... > There are loads of cat refs on Feg and in Robyn, but 1)does - anyone- > else own a dog here I have two. The younger one speaks much more clearly than the other. Should I be concerned? - -- Fric Chaud ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 09:59:38 -0500 From: The Great Quail Subject: More movies! Saw "The Royal Tenenbaums" last night. I know a lot of Fegs have raved about this movie -- as have critics, friends, co-workers, etc. -- but I have to say, it left me pretty disappointed and unimpressed. I liked "Rushmore" a lot, but I thought TRT lacked its subtlety, wit and charm. It seemed too precious, too in love with itself, too self-consciously clever and deliberately eccentric by half. Some good performances, though -- Hackman especially; it's nice to see him do something serious again. And I liked a few scenes or moments well enough, and thought there was some great music, though it was overused. But still, it mostly left me cold. I kept waiting fro the movie to really begin, for something to happen that involved me in the characters; but only Hackman, Huston and Stiller seemed worth watching. The audience in general seemed to love the movie, laughing and sighing at appropriate places, but I just had the feeling that I wasn't "in" on the joke -- which is unusual, because I like eccentric movies, whimsical characters, and rambling plots. Nice mice, though. Liked the mice. - --Quail ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 10:04:39 -0500 From: "Larry O'Brien" Subject: RE: More movies! Impostor opens today. That's where I'm going. - -----Original Message----- From: The Great Quail [mailto:quail@libyrinth.com] Sent: Friday, January 04, 2002 10:00 AM To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Subject: More movies! Saw "The Royal Tenenbaums" last night. I know a lot of Fegs have raved about this movie -- as have critics, friends, co-workers, etc. --(snip) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2002 16:45:23 +0000 From: "Redtailed Hawk" Subject: The Other Morris So Eb, why is it that no one in filmland seems to think the world can still give new or interesting twists to the same old stories? It dosn't make sense to me. If nothing else, our world is changing so fast tech-wise I should think that alone would suggest all sorts of inventive new plot-twists. I mean--where's the movie bout the denizens of an off-beat/high geek listserve dedicated to a guitar-playing, blinking-blepharon??? (Clue, blepharon is actually spelled correctly;-) And just think what they could do with the themes in "The Conversation" these days. Theres a boggle for you. - ------------------------------------------------ Glenn: >While I never use the word "own" when describing my relationships >with my >animal companions, Point well taken. I'm still learning. Susan: >Doug and I >are planning to get two when we get into our own house. :-). Yes--we went dogless till we had, not only our own house, but our own yard. And we're already contemplating getting a pal for Corey. BTW--I do like cats, I'm just too allergic to live with one. I'm restarting up my allergy shots since living even with Corey is snotting me up but, like Stewart, I doubt I'll ever get unallergic enough for an inside feline. Would love one thou. - ---------------------------------- Ross: >it made me think back to my theory that there was some connection >between LOTR (the books) and William Morris' late fantasies such as The Sundering Flood, or >The Well at the World's End. You're throwing me a misty grey-green soft-ball, arent you;-)? I'd say its a pretty well-established fact. The proofs in the reading. In fact Id also bet dungeons to dragons that the first place Tolkien might have grokked the northern myths would be in Morris's poetry. Morris is actually one of my fascinations. The amount of stuff he did to better the human lot was staggeringly heroic. How could anyone have done so much in so many areas? How about a movie of his life? I don't believe its been done, and just think of all the drama--The Pre-Rhaps, Jane and Rossetti(maybe paste in footage from "Dante's Inferno" for that ;-), Morris & Co, The Red House, the Socialists. Half the important cultural and social trends of the second half of the 19th century involved that man. Here's a rec. His poetry and prose tended to be long and convoluted but for a relatively short taste read "The Haystacks in the Flood." Brooding, bloody and beautiful. Kay, who thinks if love isnt enough, its still a whole lot. All the world's a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed. Sean O'Casey _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2002 11:56:59 -0500 From: "ross taylor" Subject: the society of dark birds I'm very sympathetic to Quail's idea of small & large birds as being from totally different orders. Small birds are nice to observe in their habitats, but they seem mostly decorative. I'm guilty of befriending a crow, who I call McGillicutty. I could identify him/her by some feathers near his/her beak which, due to deformity, accident or just bad grooming, never lie flat. Guilty, because, well, there's never just one crow. Crows don't flock but are very gregarious, & when McGillicutty decides we're nice people to visit, the whole poker party comes over to our place & hangs out on our front fence, checking out our trash, checking out our *neighbors'* trash ... not liked by our well- manicured neighbors. So my relations w/ McGillicutty have to be under the table (or bench as it were). Crows are very unbirdlike. They don't have the instinctive poise of other birds, almost as if they've been infected by something like consciousness. A crow will try to land on a small branch & almost demolish it, much to his consternation. I've seen a crow bump into a tree. I've seen tons of birds crash into glass, but a tree? This makes them very un-mythic to me. The Black Crow Knows -- just enough to get into trouble. Intelligence isn't all-knowing, in fact it's pretty stupid sometimes. They look around more deliberately than other birds (except maybe parrots or vultures). I've seen a couple of crows take on a barn owl, but mostly they're bullies to smaller birds. Intelligence often isn't nice. I'm OK w/ the jokey, trickster crow in Ted Hughs' Crow or Anselm Hollo's Corvus, but it's not the real bird. Ross Taylor just bought The Raven by The Stranglers Join 18 million Eudora users by signing up for a free Eudora Web-Mail account at http://www.eudoramail.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 10:16:58 -0800 From: "Randy R." Subject: Re: the society of dark birds While I was camping in the San Juan Islands, I took a break and ate at a diner. It was nice, eating on their back porch. I saw a great sight, a once in a lifetime probably. A crane, with a fish in it's mouth swooped right by us. Followed closely by a bald eagle. And right behind the eagle, a crow. Working to get the scraps, I suppose. I think that's the food chain. Our waitress exclaimed her dislike for Eagles, "Our cat has been missing for a week........damn eagles........" It was a nice memory. Vince (crows always Cah Cah Cah at me. I have black hair) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 10:22:27 -0800 (PST) From: Viv Lyon Subject: Re: Dogs On Wed, 2 Jan 2002, Glen Uber wrote: > On 1/2/02 5:33 PM, "Redtailed Hawk" wrote: > > Because I have only recently moved into a place where I could keep Elvis, he > has always lived with my mom and stepfather. I have "visitation rights" > however and pay all the bills. It's like being a divorced dad in a way. That's how it is with me and my cat. My beautiful, noble, sentient cat. Jeme and I are far too allergic to take him to live with us in Portland (besides, I don't think Jeme groks him), and so I must love him at a remove of 2000-odd miles. > I wonder how many fellow bird lovers there are on this list? Recently I have found myself more and more fascinated by birds, especially large ones. Owls, in particular. In fact, one of the main reasons I went back to see Harry Potter (other than for the pleasure of seeing it with my nephew) was to ogle the owls one more time. The Royal Tenenbaums' Mordecai the Hawk was also a sight to behold. Vivien ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 12:57:21 -0800 From: Eb Subject: Grammy nominations http://entry.grammy.com/pdf/44noms.pdf Brief comments: Gosh...not a single nomination in the Best Album field which offends me. I guess that I'm most rooting for Love & Theft to win Best Album (what a coup it would be for Dylan to win Best Albums twice in a row at this late age!), OutKast in their rap nominations and PJ Harvey for Best Female Rock Vocal. I see there's another stinker in the my pet-peeve Best New Artist category: David Gray, whose first album was released in *1993*. They really need to simply rename this category to "Best Breakthrough Artist." The "New" adjective is totally inappropriate. (But Alicia Keys will win, anyway.) And where are the Strokes? Coldplay is up for Best *Rock* Vocal? Tori Amos' nomination for Best Alternative Album is objectionable on just so *many* levels. Cannot...believe...that...Afroman...got...a...rap...nomination. Am I hallucinating, or did Ann-Margret get a Grammy nomination in the *Gospel* category? And I *know* I was hallucinating when I saw Tim Curry vying against Dr. Ruth Westheimer in the Spoken Word category. Hey Quail, who are you hoping will win in the Soundtrack category, John Williams or Tan Dun? Just curious. ;) Eb ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 16:54:54 -0500 From: The Great Quail Subject: Re: Grammy nominations Eb writes, >Gosh...not a single nomination in the Best Album field which offends me. Yeah -- all over the place I see U2, Dylan, Bjork... Looks good to me, surprisingly enough. Though -- the U2 album was released last year! >Hey Quail, who are you hoping will win in the Soundtrack category, >John Williams or Tan Dun? Just curious. ;) Heh heh.... Believe it or not, I think A.I. was one of William's most mature scores -- Hell, he nearly went atonal at places! So realistically, he probably almost deserves the Grammy. (Though didn't Tan Dun already *win* the Grammy for Crouching Tiger? Or am I hallucinating?) Anyway, I have to say, no original score this year really grabbed me all that much, even Elfman's "Planet of the Apes." Though in the compilation section, pitting "Moulin Rouge" against "O Brother," hmmm..... Two excellent choices..... The classical category holds no surprises, and actually has a few good selections -- some very modern works are in categories that are normally dominated by traditional works -- Schoenberg, Webern, Varese, Boulez, Ligeti, Tan Dun, Rouse, Messiaen.... Nice. (Though I guarantee the Vaughan Williams will win.) Of course, modern American music is totally overlooked, with no mention at all of John Adams "El Niqo," probably the best piece of American music written in several years. Also, I noticed that several releases are from 2000 -- the excellent Boulez "Sur Incises," for instance, which was my own favorite work of 2000.... - --Quail, happily working on his own top ten lists.... - -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Great Quail, Keeper of the Libyrinth: http://www.TheModernWord.com "All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event -- in the living act, the undoubted deed -- there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall?" --Herman Melville, "Moby Dick" ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V11 #3 ******************************