“Impeach Obama: America’s Small Businesses Are Failing; Help Us Spread The Message.” And the billboard shenanigans continue. The above Wisconsin road sign will stay there for 6 months at the cost of $1,000 per month, and was paid for by a “company supported by number of area businessmen concerned about tax and spend politics.” Tom Wroblewski, a lawyer for the company (whose identity he naturally wishes to protect), is quick to point out that, “the billboard is not meant to allege any impeachable offense has been committed, it’s nothing personal.”
Bonus recipe for despair: read sign, contemplate this, repeat.
As a tie-in to the Gagosian show, Iain Sinclair, writing in today’s Guardian, offers up a wonderful account of his trip to Shepperton, where Ballard spoke of the art and artists that most inspired him. When it came to such things, Ballard was clearly a lucid, passionate speaker. You can get a rare glimpse of this yourself in the below, ‘93 interview from British television:
I’m not someone who tends to read much fiction. Ever. As in never. I read a novel once every… fifteen years. I prefer documentaries to narrative films as well. I need to devour information—lots of it—and fiction just doesn’t offer me the sustenance I require. I’m not saying novels are bad things, they just aren’t for sir.
Recently I started listening to audiobooks in the car during my daily commute in Los Angeles. I especially enjoyed the audio version of SuperFreakonomics read by Stephen J. Dubner because 1) it’s a wonderful, thought provoking book, a genre unto itself even and 2) Dubner’s delivery is incredibly engaging as he reads his and Steven Levitt’s well-constructed prose. He really knows how to hit his script perfectly and charmingly animates the book’s clever ideas. Listening to an author read their own words, especially when the writing style is somewhat idiosyncratic, is for me a real pleasure.
Post-SuperFreakonomics, I had no immediate plans for my drive-time entertainment, but this problem was solved by the audiobook of Nick Cave’s novel, The Death of Bunny Munro arriving in the post, thoughtfully sent to me by Iain Forsythe, co-producer (along with Jane Pollard) of the set. The novel is read by the author over 7 CDs, accompanied by a moody (and effective) score by Cave and Warren Ellis. There is also a DVD.
For a guy who claims to hate fiction, it took me all of about ten minutes to become completely engrossed in The Death of Bunny Munro. Admittedly, I’m quite well-disposed towards Nick Cave to begin with, and come to think of it, one of the last novels I did read was his And The Ass Saw the Angel. But I had no expectations, and not much foreknowledge of what the new book was about. I think this was a good thing, but I doubt that anything I write here will spoil anything for anyone.
The Death of Bunny Munro is one of the most profane novels ever written. It makes Celine or Henry Miller seem timid in comparison. The title character, an immoral, middle-aged, door to door beauty products salesman and unrelenting lothario, drives his wife to suicide as the book opens. Upon finding her corpse, the first thought that pops into Bunny’s head is that her tits looked nice. Bunny, a character devoid of any redeeming qualities, scoops up his sweet nine-year old son and goes on a road trip to Hell. It’s all downhill from there as we witness his flailing flameout.
Read in Cave’s distinctive mellow bellow, his prose comes richly to life. Cave is a performer as much as he is a writer, of course, and his performance of his own novel is remarkable. The musical soundtrack, which at first I thought “slight,” is a grower and I came to love it. My interest never flagged for a second of its nearly eight hour running time. It’s really well-produced, with some sort of spatial 3-D recording technique that makes Cave’s voice feel like it’s in the center of your skull, and inventive sound effects.
What occurred to me as I enjoyed the audiobook of The Death of Bunny Munro so very much was the notion that the plain old book version is a lesser experience when compared to the audiobook. When an audiobook is done this well, inevitably the text-only version will come to be seen as the script of the audiobook. Of course not every author is a performer the caliber of the great Nick Cave, but as the audiobook form matures, why would the consumer choose to forgo the music and intimate storyteller aspect of authors reading their own work?
A word about the packaging: The UK version is a beautiful object, with the top photograph, taken by Polly Borland printed on a waxy, sturdy box that feels like a luxury item. The American version sucks. The idiot who chose to go with the packaging they used for the US version should get an award for shitty design (or else fired). The British version you would keep and display on your shelf even if you had no intention of devoting another 8 hours of your life to it for a repeat listen, the US version you’d just pass on to someone when you’re done like it’s disposable.
Back in the 1990s I did a lot of development work in virtual reality - another technology destined to be the Next Big Thing. I helped Sega develop a head-mounted display (fancy VR headgear) that could be plugged into the Sega Genesis (known as the Mega Drive in Australia). Everything was going swimmingly, until we sent our prototype units out for testing.
Virtual reality headsets use the same technique for displaying 3D as we find in movies or 3D television sets - parallax. They project a slightly different image to each one of your eyes, and from that difference, your brain creates the illusion of depth. That sounds fine, until you realize just how complicated human depth perception really is. The Wikipedia entry on depth perception (an excellent read) lists ten different cues that your brain uses to figure out exactly how far away something is. Parallax is just one of them. Since the various movie and television display technologies only offer parallax-based depth cues, your brain basically has to ignore several other cues while you’re immersed in the world of Avatar. This is why the 3D of films doesn’t feel quite right. Basically, you’re fighting with your own brain, which is getting a bit confused. It’s got some cues to give it a sense of depth, but it’s missing others. Eventually your brain just starts ignoring the other cues.
That’s the problem. When the movie’s over, and you take your glasses off, your brain is still ignoring all those depth perception cues. It’ll come back to normal, eventually. Some people will snap right back. In others, it might take a few hours. This condition, known as ‘binocular dysphoria’, is the price you pay for cheating your brain into believing the illusion of 3D. Until someone invents some other form of 3D projection (many have tried, no one has really succeeded), binocular dysphoria will be part of the experience.
This doesn’t matter too much if you’re going to see a movie in the theatre - though it could lead to a few prangs in the parking lot afterward - but it does matter hugely if it’s something you’ll be exposed to for hours a day, every day, via your television set. Your brain is likely to become so confused about depth cues that you’ll be suffering from a persistent form of binocular dysphoria. That’s what the testers told Sega, and that’s why the Sega VR system - which had been announced with great fanfare - never made it to market.
Two headlines this morning that seemed of a piece: First, in the Guardian, there was this alarming item: Utah delivers vote of no confidence for ‘climate alarmists.’ The US’s most Republican state passes bill disputing science of climate change, claiming emissions are ‘essentially harmless.’”
The original version of the bill dismissed climate science as a “well organised and ongoing effort to manipulate and incorporate “tricks” related to global temperature data in order to produce a global warming outcome”. It accused those seeking action on climate change of riding a “gravy train” and their efforts would “ultimately lock billions of human beings into long-term poverty”.
In the heat of the debate, the representative Mike Noel said environmentalists were part of a vast conspiracy to destroy the American way of life and control world population through forced sterilisation and abortion.
By the time the final version of the bill came to a vote, cooler heads apparently prevailed. The bill dropped the word “conspiracy”, and described climate science as “questionable” rather than “flawed.”
This weekend is the weekend that every reggae fanatic (or reggae snob, as the case may be) in Southern California waits for—the annual Ragga Muffins Festival in Long Beach. Now in its 29th year, the Ragga Muffins Festival (formerly Bob Marley Day) has a stellar lineup that includes classic roots performers from the 1970s—Gregory Isaacs, Big Youth and the Mighty Diamonds—and dancehall superstars like Capleton, Frankie Paul, Yellowman and Shaggy. The fest features North America’s largest international crafts and food fair and free admission for children 12 and younger when accompanied by a paid adult.
Admittedly, I am one of those reggae snobs. I’ve waited years to see the one and only Big Youth—who was Bob Marley’s favorite Jamaican musician—in concert. I’ll be there.
Ragga Muffins Festival, Long Beach Arena, 300 E. Ocean Blvd., Feb. 20-21, doors open at noon, $38-$60
