Seven Degrees

Excerpt from an online conversation between the webmaster and Pelodia, 20-21 August 2006. (translated, expanded and hyperlinked)

[01.23.21] evaristo: seven degrees of separation.
[01.23.28] evaristo: Goscinny, creator of Asterix
[01.23.49] evaristo: was in New York after the war and worked with Harvey Kurtzman, creator of Mad Magazine.
[01.24.28] evaristo: At about the same time he met Morris, with whom he started to write Lucky Luke.
[01.24.54] evaristo: Some twenty years later, it was Kurtzman who brought together the first cooperation between Terry Gilliam and John Cleese, on a magazine called Help!
[01.25.10] evaristo: Gilliam was friends with Zappa at the time - it was the Garrick Theatre days i suppose.
[01.25.26] evaristo: In fact, Gilliam can be heard as one of the background voices in America Drinks And goes Home, on the Absolutely Free album.
[01.25.54] evaristo: Then Gilliam moves to the uk, and gets back in contact with Cleese for finding some project to do together...
[01.26.12] evaristo: ...some ten years later they're looking for funding for the first Monty Python feature film, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. (Edit: got this one wrong: it was Life Of Brian, but i couldn't be bothered to change the image)
[01.26.24] evaristo: and they end up getting funded almost entirely by George Harrison
[01.26.39] evaristo: who remained very good friends with Gilliam to the extent that he could be seen playing guitar at his birthday parties.
[01.26.46] evaristo: There, that's seven.
[01.26.49] evaristo: If i didn't count them wrong.

[01.26.56] Pelodia: That's very good. Now you just have to find the connection between Kevin Bacon and Osama Bin Laden.



The webmaster (with accomplice) will be meeting Terry Gilliam in Trieste tomorrow, and is very excited.


Epilogue. It has been said many times that there was, and is, a certain unexplainable something that flows in british popular culture bringing sudden bouts of inspiration and creativity and changing determinate things about our everyday life in general, that comes and goes but reappears each time in a completely different medium. This special something is the imaginary line that connects the Goon Show to The Beatles to Monty Python to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (and which i personally trace back to Segar's Thimble Theatre, very indirect inspiration for Milligan to name the Goon Show as such, but that's a theory for another day). This has often been said directly in connection with Douglas Adams, if not mentioned by the author himself. Pity i can't find the exact quote, even after a half-hour of thumbing through my paperback copy of The Salmon Of Doubt. I still felt like mentioning Douglas though, because i still miss him a lot.

Just making sure.

Me: So, how's your grandma?
Her: Fine! She's gonna bury us all!
Me: In the metaphorical sense or in the Frank Capra Arsenic and Old Lace sense?
Her: Metaphorical.
Me: Oh, ok.

Globalization

With apologies to A.*

Her: So, how was it?
Me: Fun, i guess. It ended up being something of a guys' night.
Her: Oh, cool!
Me: The reason it ended up being something of a guys' night is that we accidentally forgot the girl at the bar.

*Who doesn't read this anyway, but it had to be told.

Unorthodox flight configurations

Birds, as filmed by the webmaster earlier today.

1 - 23sec


2 - 9sec

These probably qualify as hallucinations.

Breaking News - Terry Gilliam visits Trieste, Webmaster goes bonkers.

This just in: Director, animator and comic artist Terry Gilliam will be visiting Trieste sometime between the 21st and the 26th of November 2006 as special guest of this year's Scienceplusfiction festival. Gilliam, who has worked with the likes of Harvey Kurtzman and Frank Zappa, and who rose to fame as a member of Monty Python, also happens to be the webmaster's favourite living director.

Gilliam links Here.
No news whatsoever Here (as of writing).

Upon receiving this information, the webmaster (who has already spoken to Gilliam on one documented occasion, but that's a story for another day) proceeded to start jumping around the house and hallucinating from excitement.

Videos of said hallucinations shall be published asap.

My own little private balkans

Me: Did you make this?
Him: Yes, it's a traditional serbian recipe.
Me: It's delicious, what's it called?
Him: We call it "Meat And Potatoes".

Eyes.

Fictional Friends

"And that’s because of people arguing over things that many people regard as imaginary. Chiefly, gods, religions, and national boundaries, which are absolutely imaginary. They’re completely notional. They don’t tend to exist. As soon as you pull back half a mile and look down at the Earth there are no national boundaries. There aren’t even any national boundaries when you get down and walk around. They’re just imaginary lines we draw on maps."

-Neil Gaiman, interviewed at Bookslut.
(An interview where he actually just talks about stuff completely unrelated to the above, but i loved that quote anyway and wanted to put it here)

Pun Headlines

Steve Winwood run over by truck
He was playing in Traffic.

Unfair

My dad was teasing me at lunch today because he has a copy of Eric Hobsbawm's Autobiography and i don't.

Oh, and i also still do the occasional freelance office work

ML: Marco, turn that pc on for Robin.
MP: That one? It's already on.
ML: Yeah? When did you turn it on?
MP: Some three weeks ago.

As you may have noticed, i've been rather busy lately.

l-r: The Webmaster, The Mystery Accomplice, The Chuk from the Trabant.

Completely random update post

As you may have noticed, i've been rather busy lately. Which accounts for the lack of updates around here.

The type content on this website has been rather erratic over the past years. It started out as a sort of diary-like thing as i suppose most blogs begin. Then when i realized that reading about other people's lives on the internet is about as boring as an unsuccessful comparison, the blog started to center more on stuff that i found interesting, links and the like. I don't link much to interesting articles, websites, etc. anymore mainly because i've started to use de.licio.us quite conspiciously over the last few months. Here's a link to my account. I'll eventually add it to the sidebar. I wish i could have direct links to de.licio.us pages on the sidebar like pino, for one, has. But i assume that's not really possible on a lowly blogspot template.

Just to contradict what i just wrote, here are two links i found interesting today:

• John French aka Drumbo officially declares the natural ending of the Magic Band's reunion. Lovely recap of three years of reconstituted greatness.

• Momus reviews Cornelius' new single. I didn't think i'd ever say this nor probably will i ever again, but in this specific case i could not possibly agree more with Momus' opinion. (Although i obviously appreciated the Point album much more than he did)

(There's also another reason i'm not posting many links to cool stuff anymore - said reason will be revealed in a month or two, but i can assure you it's something cool)

While we're here, sorry about all the conversation snippets i've been posting lately. I realize they may be found uninteresting or incomprehensible, but that's just the way things go. There's no telling how things will evolve here but usually it's just stuff happening randomly and ending up on the internet. Although i do admit i may have been toying with the idea of giving a completely different twist to this blog, but as i said, there's no telling.

(If you've read until here, please notice that this has been a really long post centering basically on "sorry for not posting")

Also, i've had a cold lately. Was brought a lemsip few minutes ago. Plus a glass of lemonade "while the lemsip cools down". As i gulped on the lemonade, the cat on my lap watched me with compassion, still puzzling over why us humans insist on wasting time by eating with utensils and opposable thumbs instead of just using the mouth like he does, which is so much more practical. Can't blame him. Of course, this is the same feline quadruped who leaves in a huff if fed from anything other than his own personal bowl. So it's all relative.

Weekdown Endload: Start Wearing Purple

Location: ShagooFest, last week.
Her: Did you see that guy's T-shirt? "Start wearing purple". It's true, more people should wear purple.
Me: Hey, i wear purple all the time!
Her: Yeah, but you're Robin. You don't count.



Gogol Bordello - Start Wearing Purple (128kps 5Mb Mp3)

The Webmaster once almost saw Gogol Bordello live but since the drummer had broken his arm he went to a party instead. And what a party that was.

YouTube Goodness - The Beatles

I knew it was on YouTube somewhere. And of course i found multiple copies. The following is, hands-down, my favourite Beatles live performance. (Second favourite is Paperback Writer live at the Budokan, which is sadly absent online. Pure energy in that one.) Paul screaming, George messing up the backing vocals and laughing, John playing keyboards with his elbow. Ringo...well, just being Ringo which is what we all love him for. This one is dedicated to all those who think pre-Revolver Beatles aren't worthy of their time. Think again.

So without further ado:
The Beatles - I'm Down - Live at Shea Stadium, 15.8.65

The alternative was handing it to the lost and found.

J: What happened?
C: Robin found a beer.
J: You found a beer?
R: Yeah, i found a beer.
A: (arrives) What's up?
R: I found a beer.
A: You found what?
R: A beer.
C: He found a beer.
J: So what?
R: So i drank it.

I also tasted my first ever tofu yesterday, thanks to these guys.
It wasn't bad, but i expected it to come as a little cube and dance around like in all those anime.

Update: bands i saw at the festival that are worth checking out, quite surprisingly because i don't usually listen to this kind of stuff:
Exit Failure,
Inner Glory,
Ornaments. <--particularly good

In Memory of C's defunct cellphone

C: My cellphone broke down this morning, i had to buy another one.
R: How did it happen?
C: I walked into a shop and bought it.
R: No, i mean the old one breaking part.
C: A bottle of conditioner i was carrying in my bag broke open and swallowed it.
R: I understand. I lost a relative that way once.
C: What?

(Disclaimer: perhaps a small portion of this conversation may have been made up)


This image has no relation whatsoever with the above conversation. It's only here because it made me laugh. Please ignore it. (Tnx to Kombatt)

Two in one. Last night's dream and: Later, in the library.

Last Night's Dream:
I dreamt that one of The Residents had died, and when they took his mask off it turned out he was Wolfgang Flür.

Later, In The Library:
Him: "What about her? Do you like her?"
Me: "Are you crazy? She's thirty! That's only one digit away from forty!"

Could be worse.

Trieste, 30.8.06

(No, not really.)

Sgonico, 1.9.06

(Perhaps)