Monday, January 05, 2004 :::
 
Happy New Year! Updates have been nonexistent for a few months now, and it is doubtful any more are coming anytime soon. Still, feel free to peruse the archives for blogs of historical note and thank you for visiting The Perch.

::: posted by Andrewski at 4:38 PM

Friday, November 07, 2003 :::
 
Who cares about Russian politics? Well, it was just 10 years ago that the Soviet Union collapsed, it was just 86 years ago that the Bolsheviks seized power in the 1917 Russian Revolution. And it's today, right now, that Russia's biggest billionaire was arrested for fake competition. Check it:

Few Russians paid much attention when the state offered part of a fertilizer company called Apatit for sale to private investors back in 1994. Few, that is, except the four bidders. According to authorities, they were all one and the same.

The idea, prosecutors allege, was to create a fake competition through front companies and then have three of the "rivals" back out, leaving only the low bidder to seize the prize at a bargain rate. The ruse worked, authorities say, and the winner then failed to put up the money it pledged and sold off the shares before the state could take them back.

So just a decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall et al, the debate in Russia between capitalism (good!) and communism (bad!) is still going on. And 42% of Russkies still seem to consider themselves friendly to the Bolsheviks.

Another poll, coinciding with Friday's 86th anniversary of the revolution that brought Vladimir Lenin to power, found that 42 percent of Russians would support or cooperate with the Bolsheviks if the revolt happened today, compared to just 10 percent who said they would fight them. The anniversary these days is officially celebrated as the Day of Accord and Reconciliation.

What do we see here? As nice as it is that Bush, at the helm of the world's reigning superpower, seems to be working towards the huge philosophical goal of a "global democratic revolution" (see his recent speech), we still see instances of corruptive capitalism and popular support for communism. Perhaps we should do as the Daily Show suggests, and start building bombs that can destroy ideas.

::: posted by Andrewski at 9:10 PM

Friday, October 31, 2003 :::
 
Pervert beaten by schoolgirls! Man bites dog!

::: posted by Andrewski at 1:05 PM

Thursday, October 30, 2003 :::
 
Fascinating tidbits from upcoming Van Sant movie Elephant (reviewed here):

It's based on Columbine.

The dad of one of the killers is Tim Bottoms, who is known for playing President Bush in shows like That's My Bush! and the "Tragedy in DC" 9/11 made for TV flick. So, the dad of the killer is a shoe-in for President Bush? Does this suggest that our national leadership, like the raising of a child, can send us into psycho territory?

One scene shows the killers hanging out- one is playing violent video games, the other is playing Fur Elise on the piano. Are both equally encouraging of violence? Why does the music not soothe, while the entertainment stimulates? Why are their murderous intentions not overwhelmed by the beauty of the music, the grace and higher order that classical Beethoven seems to suggest? Are they that fucked up by their society?

There's a scene where the killers are a little gay together in the shower. It's fucked up, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris shot up Columbine because jocks were calling them "fags", and now Van Sant pretty much does the same thing. The reviewer suggests that it shows they crave human closeness, but I still think it's ghey.

Much of the movie is filmed from behind the perspective of the students as they wander the halls. Hm, is Van Sant evoking the "videogame" perspective? I always thought the Tomb Raider movie would be a bazillion times better if they had just ONE shot of Lara Croft from behind- one single, long take, just like the videogame. If you can use a computer to make Lara do a bunch of cool shit in one long take from a 3rd person perspective, why wouldn't it work with real actors? Anyways, Elephant features this type of shot a lot, which is cool, the reviewer also suggests it makes us feel bad for the kids, for whom bad shit is right around the corner.

The title, I love this, refers to "The elephant in the room that nobody talks about". That is absolutely what Columbine was about, the bad shit in high school, the bad shit in the world and in society that we ignore, the guns and hate and picking and teasing, the frustration and the ease in which we let eachother hurt eachother, that's the fucking Elephant, and it seems Van Sant hit it on the head. So did Michael Moore, with Bowling for Columbine, but I can't wait to see this new one.

Now, as for the opinion that you could tell "a Columbine story" a bunch of different ways and make a bunch of little creative decisions and use it to make some sort of giant sweeping statement about America, well I guess you could, and Van Sant went ahead and did. I think there will be odd bits that don't belong, like this is some artifact from an alternate dimension of Columbine. Anyways, I get fucking goosebumps when kids in military camo walk onto school grounds with a duffel bag full of firearms, because that's a distubring image that is new to our generation, one we're still trying to make some goddamn sense out of.

::: posted by Andrewski at 1:13 PM

Wednesday, October 08, 2003 :::
 
All hail the conquering hero! I for one welcome the glorious age of lunacy, as Arnorld Schwarzeneggar is now right heir to governorship of California. I was dissapointed the big guy didn't hold a huge Conan sword over his head on election night. I sure as hell didn't vote for him. But a whole lot of people did... unbelievable. Real life has gotten too artificial. Well it's always been and always will be, but do they have to be so fucking obvious about it right now? I mean, movie-star governor. Sure, we had a movie-star President a few decades ago, but Arnold Schwarzeneggar as the people's choice? I swear, Donald Duck or Darth Vader or the Easter Bunny could have pulled those kinds of numbers if they were capable of putting their names on the ballot. Arnie is a plastic image, a bronzed Achilles of our cinematic hearts and minds, and he's now governor of the fifth largest world economy. We have this guy until 2007. Even Jessie Ventura got sick of his job a few years in, and was happy to not run again and go back to doing wrestler stuff. I'm already exhausted by the novelty. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go re-experience my Jingle All the Way DVD.

::: posted by Andrewski at 6:09 PM

Monday, September 29, 2003 :::
 
Fuck Quiznos, and their horrible, repulsive TV ads.

First they did this thing where the Quiznos chef is so involved with making subs that he lets his pet parakeet die of starvation in its cage. Turns out this really pissed off a lot of bird enthusiasts, who complained to Quiznos. So, they changed the ad to depict slightly less specific violence- the chef's house blows up because he left the gas on. The parakeet people have a point, I guess... there's nothing funny about a pet starving to death.

So, you'd think the ad wizards Quiznos employs would learn from their mistake of risky advertising. You'd think wrong.

Seen the ad where two guys are sitting at a bus stop having a conversation, one of them is eating a Quiznos sub, then it cuts to a shot of him lying on the ground with his face buried in the belly of a large dog, apparently suckling the nipples of the beast? After this shot, we immediately are cut back to the guy, grinning with his sandwich.

What the FUCK? Is somebody deliberately trying to get fired? Why subject the viewing audience to this sudden and graphic depiction of bestiality, and then have the gall to cut back to a Quiznos sub? Whose been doing the reading about the early 20th century technique of Soviet montage, where the associations between edits say as much as the content of the shots themselves? There's no clearer way to say that Quiznos subs are like performing oral sex on a large canine than to do it with contrast cuts. Best part about this ad, though, is that AFTER the sudden and striking image of the man at the dog's belly, there is no explanation or rationalization for what we have just seen. The audience is struck dumb, horrified at what they have seen, and all that remains is a focus on a particular brand of sandwiches and eating animal muff.

I think Quiznos has now changed the ad- a bunch of puppies lick the guy's face instead of him getting hot with just one big dog, but still. What. The. Fuck.

Here's an essay that examines Kantian theory applied to Quiznos and their socially irresponsible marketing.

::: posted by Andrewski at 12:33 PM

Saturday, September 13, 2003 :::
 
Falluja residents were also mourning the death of a 3-year-old girl who witnesses said had been shot in the head by American soldiers during street fighting late Friday.

::: posted by Andrewski at 12:01 PM