More animation

I saw 'Skywhales' when I was a boy and it stayed in my imagination ever since. Odd to see it now through the magic of You Tube. Its so much shorter than I remember, and much less detailed. Over the years I've added a great many details to it in my imagination.

Rene Laloux 'Gandahar' 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
The art work looks like it was inspired by Caza (or maybe its the other way around).
Rene Laloux 'Le Planéte Sauvage' 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
This is another classic from years back. Can't actually recall when I saw this one first time. Just remember it made an impression. I've never seen or heard of 'Gandahar' though.

Here are a few contemporary works of animation.

Hardcover & Paperback
Red Ocean
Mars Science Laboratory Mission
The Ratrix
The Great Vince Balducci
Solar
Jotun
Oxota

Boom!

Beautiful destruction!

Klunserbeats

Analogik are a local band here from Århus and not well known. This is (I believe) their third album. I bought it two days ago and I've been enjoying it ever since. I've added a sample of two of the tracks, but which I shall remove later due to not having permission, as I wanted to get the style across. I'm not sure what the name of the style Analogik have is, but its a sort of mixture of old and new, tango, jazz, Russian folk music and anything else that takes their fancy. One of the band members whom I met told me this was their 'hip hop' album, but quite why I'm not sure. There are a few hip hop samples but no rapping. What ever it is, I like it. I'm only giving it four stars because I liked their previous album even better!

Hall of the Mountain ...chess game

Better late than never!

Three pioneers of the Apollo space programme, Wally Schirra, Donn Eisele and Walt Cunningham of the Apollo 7 mission were finally honoured yesterday, receiving the same Distinguished Service Award as the more well known Apollo crews received four decades ago. Too bad only one of them is still alive.

Its sobering to consider that NASA is rewarding its hero's so late. I wonder if this is some kind of exersize in nostalgia now that NASA faces a period with little to no ground-to-orbit capability. From 2011 the USA will not have any vessels capable of servicing the International Space Station. Russia is increasing its spending accordingly. Quite how the worlds foremost space service managed to paint itself into a corner like this is a mystery to me, but given how many interesting projects have been axed by NASA and its satelite corporations, it ought not to surprise. The Venture Star was supposed to have been online to take over from the shuttles but instead it was scrapped in 2001 apparently because NASA insisted on a particular type of fuel containment vessel which was too costly to make. The loss of the X-33/Venture Star programme was more than just a new shuttle design. Venture Star incorporated a full range of intermeshing technologies, and the cancellation ended a lot of interesting research that NASA could have used today.

There are currently no official replacements for the shuttle planned as far as I can tell.

• North American X-15 (museum)
• USAF X-20 Dyna-Soar (cancelled)
• Rockwell X-30 (cancelled)
• Lockheed Martin X-33 (Cancelled)
• Orbital Sciences X-34 (cancelled)
• Boeing X-37 (retired)
  
• NASA X-38 (cancelled)
• Boeing X-40 (retired)
• Blackstar (unconfirmed project)
• Black Horse (unknown)
  
• Chrysler Corporation Shuttle SERV (cancelled)
• Roton (cancelled)

Pyscho!

Another old favourite, this time by an Israeli duo, to put me in the right frame of mind after contemplating Swedish intellectual snobbery.

So whats it good for?

Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio has been awarded the Nobel prize for literature, according to Horace Engdahl, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, because Le Clézio is "a traveller, a citizen of the world, a nomad", and presumably his literary work reflects this. According to Wikipedia, the rationale for awarding Le Clézio is because he is an "author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization". Not bad, but what does it mean?

There is a lot to ponder upon here, for example, why does the Swedish Academy have a permanent Secretary and why does the Swedish Academy hand out the worlds formost literary prize? Just who is the Swedish Acadamy anyway? They're original mandate was to safe guard the purity of the Swedish language, and their motto is nothing less than Snille och smak, which translates in Danish to Begavelse og smag and in English to 'Talent and taste'.

Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio has been awarded the world's foremost litarery prize for a novel titled 'Le Procès-Verbal' which I can't read, because apparently its only available in French. Le Clézio is apparently only big in France and no one outside that country has ever heard of him, except it seems Horace Engdahl and his friends in the Swedish Academy. According to the BBC, I'm in good company as most of the worlds literary critics have never heard of Le Clézio either.

If there is a good reason why Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio should be given the Nobel prize for literature then, it isn't because of his ability to reach out and touch people, but rather because some French speaking Swede who just so happens to sit on an imporant chair in Stockholm liked his book.

If there is a reason why Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio shouldn't be given the Nobel prize for literature then it must be because the vast majority of the people of Planet Earth will like as not never have the chance to read his book, or should it be translated, will probably not do so anyway.

One must wonder what exactly is the purpose of a prize for literature given out by a Swedish academy who's purpose is to safeguard the purity of the Swedish language? If this prize is meant to establish what is the finest literature and reward it, then fair enough, but on what criteria? How many people have, or will read this fine literature?

I've read a lot of books over the course of my life, and I can safely say that I've never read a book awarded with a Nobel prize. In fact, I've never even heard of most of the authors who get the Nobel prize. When I look back over the last twenty years of winners, I don't see much to inspire my confidence in the Swedish Academy's 'taste for talent'.

2008 - Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio (68) - Never heard of him.
2007 - Doris Lessing (88) - Never heard of her prior to her winning, though she was described as famous. Have heard of her once or twice since on BBC radio 4.
2006 - Orhan Pamuk (54) - Never heard of him before or since.
2005 - Harold Pinter (75)- Name rings a bell, but I couldn't tell you why
2004 - Elfriede Jelinek (58) - Never heard of her before or since.
2003 - John Maxwell Coetzee (63) - Never heard of him before or since.
2002 - Imre Kertész (73) - Never heard of him before or since.
2001 - Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul (69) - Never heard of him before or since.
2000 - Gao Xingjian (60) - Never heard of him before or since.
1999 - Gunter Grass (72) - I had heard of Grass, but I knew next to nothing about his literary work. Since he won, I've heard him often referred to as a former member of the SS who is now a socialist, this appers to be his greatest claim to fame.
1998 - José de Sousa Saramago (76) - Never heard of him before or since.
1997 - Dario Fo (71) - Never heard of him before or since.
1996 - Wisława Szymborska (73) - Never heard of him before or since.
1995 - Seamus Heaney (56) - Never heard of him before or since.
1994 - Kenzaburō Ōe (59) -Never heard of him before or since.
1993 - Toni Morrison (62) - Never heard of her before or since.
1992 - Derek Walcott (62) - I knew his name before he won the award, but I've never read any of his books, before or since. Never even seen them in a book shop as far as I can recall.
1991 - Nadine Gordimer (68) - I have heard her name mentioned a few times since she won the Nobel prize, but I've never read anything she wrote, nor seen her work any where.
1990 - Octavio Paz (76) - Never heard of him before or since.
1989 -Camilo José Cela Trulock (73) - Never heard of him before or since.
1988 - Naguib Mahfouz (77) - Never heard of him before or since.

Of course, it might help matters if I actually bothered to read some of the books these people have written, but here's the rub. I get a lot of book recommendations and, although I do have a lot of time to spend on myself, I don't have a lot of time to waste reading obscure books simply because some guy in Stockholm thought they constituted great literature. I can listen to obscure neo classical and abstract classical music (both of which could be described as elitist), but thats the advantage music has over literature. Literature takes a lot of time, which is probably why most of the winners, and their respectable old Swedish fans, are all old. Orhan Pamuk being the youngest winner of the prize in the last twenty years at a sprightly 54 years old.

Now I can imagine a lot of 54 year olds might not like to think of themselves as old, but the fact is, they are. Sure, they are not as old as they are going to be, but its a safe bet to assume that your past the half way mark once you reach 50. Of course, the retort from Stockholm might be something along the lines of age equalling experience equalling great art, and yes, there's some validity in that, until you regard Mozart. Am I supposed to believe that in the last twenty years the best literature was all written by obscure old people, most of whom passed out of obscurity only long enough to pick up their ten million Kroners before shuffling off to die?

And what about the great authors who didn't win the Noble Prize despite their books making a tremendous impact? Where is Burgess, Joyce or Tolkien? Where are the science fiction authors? the children's book authors? Where are the authors whose work reaches into the hearts of millions and effects them in ways that most Noble laureates can only ever dream of doing? Granted just being popular isn't a measure of great literature, but what is such a measure?
Being Swedish?

According to Wikipedia,

In 1974 Graham Greene, Vladimir Nabokov, and Saul Bellow were considered but rejected in favor of a joint award for Swedish authors Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson, both Nobel judges themselves. Bellow would win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976; neither Greene nor Nabokov was awarded the Prize.

Who takes this insitution seriously, and why?

Autumn projects

The last week or two has been some what dull and uninspiring. I finshed my CS3 introduction course and now I'm waiting to find out whats next. There's talk of starting a three month period at a graphics place which is just across the road from our flat. I don't know if there's any traction in the idea, but I'd like to do it. I'm hopelessly out the loop these days and I need to get some insight into using CS3 and current DTP practice. I doubt the fundamentals have changed much, but I've never actually done real DTP work and I'd love to give a try.

In the mean while, my own plans and projects (of which I have about twenty) are all simmering quietly. We started playing Takshendal 2 'The Dark Marches' on thursday and if I pull myself together, it ought to be a good and interesting role playing game. I've planned it to be a maximum of fifteen sessions long, but with luck I may be able to cut that down to ten. I don't like long role playing campaigns that grow stale and boring. I've played games in my time that took years to chew through and they always devolve into meaningless encounters and 'ego massaging'. RPG's should be run like films, rather than soap operas, in my opinion.

In the mean time, I'm working on a retro science fiction game called 'Protected Species' inspired by old science fiction classics like '2001' and 'Forbidden Planet'. This will be a departure from the sorts of games I've been making these last few years, and quite frankly its not going to be simple as I haven't got a clue which rule system to use. The options are Oleg's home made sci fi skirmish roles, his 'Bayonet' pre WW2 equivalent or Mega-Traveller (I don't have the original Traveller rule books).

Of these, Mega Traveller may be the best option as the others are purely combat orientated, but frankly MT is rubbish and its the lesser evil. MT uses two d6 where as Oleg's systems use one. The alternative is I make my own skills system rules just for this one campaign and use Oleg's sci fi skirmish for any combat which may take place... Thoughts on a post card please.

I've also begun a spin off project spawned by 'Protected Species', using the game as a pretext to learning how to use Blender, which is an open source, 3d graphics programme. I'm building a (really phallic) interstellar nuclear rocket (see images below), which I hope to be able to animate. At the moment I'm going through the tutorials and learning how to build stuff. Its a bit like being a child again and playing with Lego, which isn't so bad as I loved Lego as a child (I hate it now as my knees don't take kindly to sitting on the floor with the Snoos building houses for her toy animals).



I don't know if Blender is better than 3d Studio Max, but it seems to be just as good, and given that I can't get my pirated copy of 3dSM to work any more and Blender only takes up about 30 Mb, I'm not complaining. The tutorials are a god send too. They cut down my learning time by 90%. Hopefully, when (if) its finished, the space craft model will do a long fly by of the camera to some suitably ambient music. Speaking of which, I watched '2001' again yesterday and I had to dig out my György Ligeti Cd thereafter. I walked about Århus looking for some warm socks with 'Atmospheres' filling my head with 'the infinte and beyond' moving through my mind. Every so often I'd mutter "My God. Its full of stars!"

Oddly, Bowman never actually says "My God its full of Stars!" in the movie, though the audio clip of him saying this is featured repeatedly in '2010'. Kubrick cut out and destroyed over an hour of extra footage though, so maybe that iconic phrase was a victim of editting? I can imagine what a monster film an extended edition of '2001' might have been like if Kubrick hadn't destroyed all his extra material.

Flammen og Citronen

Dir: Ole Christian Madsen

'Flammen og Citronen' translates as 'The Flame and the Lemon'. This is a Danish film, about two resistance fighters, during the Second World War whose real names were Bent Fauerschou-Hviid and Jørgen Haagen Schmidt and the title refers to their code names. These near forgotten hero's of the Danish resistance started by fighting the Germans in a resistance group called Holger Dansker, but eventually became celebrated assassins, on the run and with a price on their heads. This is the point in their career at which the film begins. With the burden of guilt from multiple killings hanging on them and living with the paranoid angst of betrayal. I don't know how realistic the film is, since I have never heard of these two before the film was made. Denmark doesn't dwell on the past and the resistance isn't really spoken about. A lot of bad things happened under occupation, not least by Danes against Danes, and this is a theme of the film.

The film is slow paced, but has a steady feeling of fear lurking through out. The certainty's which are presented at the beginning of the film are gradually peeled away until finally one realises that one suspects every one of betrayal and then one is left with the sense of abject loneliness these two men faced. On this level, its an excellent film.

Unfortunately there is also an abundance of post modernism in the film with various characters questioning the validity of armed resistance with the two main characters often being halted in their tracks by victims questioning them and installing a sense of doubt. I don't know how realistic that is, or if its a plot device by a 21st century writer, but I suspect the latter. I know I was almost shouting at the screen, "Don't listen to him, just shoot the bastard!"
When you have to kill some one, I suspect listening to them begging is not a good idea and if you have doubts, then its probably better to not kill people...

The two main characters were well played. Citronen, who was the driver for most of the time was portrayed as a man slipping over the edge as the toll of the war wore him down. With his wife and daughter slipping away, and the realisation that he may have helped murder innocent people, Citronen gradually slides into a place where he finds (to his horror) his moral convictions no longer restrain him. Mads Mikkelsen was his usual brilliant self but he was matched by Thure Lindthardt as Flammen (the guy in the picture above).

Flammen is the shooter. The man who liquidiates collaborators with a near proffessional detachment, or so it seems. As the film moves through its various, and sometimes long drawn out scenes, we see doubt eating away at Flammen's convictions too and when the two find they have probably been betrayed, Flammen begins to lose himself. Love blinds him and the consequences are disastrous.

I'm glad this film was made. This was a story every Danish child should know.

Where the drama lies....

Labyrinthine Snoos

This is a little maze I did as an exersize in Dreamweaver and which is hosted online for a short period of time (as in a few days). Its small and probably annoying. The idea is you have to locate the hidden links embedded into the pictures to make up for the small size of the maze. The idea is to find the way out again

Am gonna give you my lurve....

...and this track is really good for it



Yup. Tina's got her freak on too!


And here's a few famous peeps demonstrating their mediocrity
Oasis (not too bad)
U2 (trash)
Janes addiction (epic failure)
Slash and some guy (not bad, but its live so it sounds poor)
Slash, Joe Satriani and Chester Bennington (Also live, still suffering as a result)
James Taylor Quartet (Very nice, Brazilian style)
Collective Consciousness Society (Nod your head sucka! This one works!)

And just for the sake of equilibrium, heres some total unknowns having a go....
Is it just me, or are the unknowns doing a better job than U2?
One, Two, Three, Four, Five

Artist of the month: Adolf Lachman

Lachman is a Czech artist & graphic designer who is affiliated to Amanita Design. Though his earlier stuff is less impressive, I love his model and later work and I can see why the Amanita guys have him listed as a friend. I'm still trying to figure out what he's used to add the textures to the drawings shown here (1&3). It looks very similar to the imagery in the Samarost games and I'm assuming its either some kind of texture map, or Lachman is an expert at digital painting.