deckard is a replicant

in case you were wondering. ridley scott said so in a recent interview in the "new york times", coincident with the release of a new director's cut of "blade runner"—that oblique and (sadly) plotless film.

still, i'm surprised no one has made a stink about the asian appearance of the dystopian future envisaged in the film.

3 favourite railway station graffiti

back in the 80s, before the blight of "tagging", graffiti was seldom seen and usually of a political (the left, naturally) nature. and, consequently, more entertaining. the first two come from toorak station. the third is from windsor.

1. "ronald mcmurder, the cows aren't laughing".
2. "v.f.l. and c.i.a. conspire with tv to keep the people ignorant".
3. "the third way: neither moscow nor washington" (national front).

serene

meanwhile outside

cherry season is getting closer (if the parrots don't swipe them all first).

some more good names

for writers of soupy romances:
molly coddle
sarah toenin
donna tello
miss o. ginny

send for mr sowerberry

what fun. the university of nebraska press has just published the first two volumes of its planned 140 volume edition of "the complete letters of henry james". volume 1 is u.s.$90. volume 2 is $95. if this trend continues volume 140 will be $785. i love academic publishers. they know just how to price their books so as to discourage all possible interest in the subject. it works every time. any wonder the humanities are moribund?

a question for hannah

prior to 9/11 the foreign policies of western states toward the middle east was one of realpolitik and cold war balancing. as there were no good guys for the u.s. to ally themselves to, we tended to support the least worst of the available options: supporting tinpot autocrats who promised to keep a check on terrorists, maintained the flow of oil to world markets, and didn't threaten israel (the only genuine liberal democracy in the region). however, this "deal" proved untenable when terrorists, succored by our "allies" in the region, attacked the west. since then we've tried to "make the world safe for democracy" and civilize them by force. but they're proving quite resistant to civilization. in fact, in the case of iran, they're more barbarous than ever. so which way now? you're studying the region. what policy should we adopt that guarantees stability, oil, israeli security, inhibits terrorism, and isn't injurious to western economic and strategic interests?

governance

some peoples are democratic (u.s.),
some peoples achieve democracy (france),
and some peoples have democracy thrust upon them (germany).

somewhat spoilt

england—despite the crowding, the weather, the mosques, the kippers and curries, the lost ashes—is awfully spoiled when it comes to art exhibitions. the latest indulgence is a john everett millais show at the tate (go here). it looks terrif. just be sure to skip room 5: the "fancy" pictures, of what lady bracknell would call "more than usually revolting sentimentality". otherwise wonderful.

ee, it a'nt fair. where are our pre-raphaelite extravaganzas?

trouble at the top

the point of luxury goods is to make those who possess them feel superior, and those who can't afford them feel miserable. a perfect arrangement. it's like an x-ray of human nature (which contains by volume so much of pride, envy, unhappiness and snobbery). that's why pointless objects like this hermès handbag cost $5,000 plus. it's not worth $5,000, of course. no bag is. it's priced that way so most people can't afford it. hence, more happy feelings of superiority for the bags' owners, and more general misery for the rest. at least, where fashion-minded women are concerned. naturally i couldn't care less.

i'm reminded of this by 3 recent occurances.

1. hugo boss prosecuted a local retailer for selling boss suits at a discount, thereby "substantially damaging the reputation of the brand". in other words, the effect of making hugo boss more affordable made previous boss buyers unhappy (feeling a lot less superior) that more people could afford the clothes.

2. an enterprising melbourne woman is leasing the above mentioned kelly bag and its ilk for $100 a day; all to coincide with melbourne's dress-up season of the spring carnival. now the miserable can be made temporarily happy.

3. a hand-wringing article in the "australian financial review" worrying that luxury brands were losing their "premium cachét", as more people could afford them. according to the logic of marketing, luxury brands like hermès and louis vuitton were losing their "aura of exclusivity" and being "sullied". (at this point i had to choke back a tear. poor cartier! poor bulgari!). it all sounds like france before the revolution.

anyway, what all this demonstrates is how wonderfully perspicacious dr suess's "sneetches" story is. oh the narcissism of petty differences. unlike the story though there'll be no happy resolution in real life.

where to next?

i wouldn't be surprised to see a renaissance of the toff. when luxury brands become ubiquitous the only really socially exclusive criterion left is noble birth. you never know. the "almanach de gotha" may become the fashion bible of the 21st century.

{an addendum. a related instance of the above phenom was the louis roederer cristal champagne brouhaha. this wine, as you probably know, was originally conceived for the absolutist house of romanov. owing to its priceyness it had lately become popular with black hip-hop types—the most vulgar people in living memory—who know nothing about wine, but everything about conspicuous crassness. when quizzed about his new clientele the owner of louis roederer shrugged his shoulders and said ruefully it wasn't his fault; he couldn't help the people who bought his wine. cue pouty protests from offended nouveaux riche millionaires like sean "poof daddy" coombs. i felt sorry for the vintner. his crime was to have the effrontery to tell the truth.}

an uninvited guest (again)

because i'm still wowed.

this looks ominous

justice sec (that title sounds right bogus—what happened to lord chancellor?), jack straw, is looking to purchase 3 prison ships to house england's swelling population of prisoners. it was the failure of the prison ship scheme in the 18th century which lead to the malefactors being sent to oz. i hope he doesn't try that one again.

well said, old man

christopher hitchens in the "atlantic monthly":

"anyone who has ever tried to digest "the da vinci code" will know that bad writing, aimed at a subliterate audience, is actually much more difficult to read than anything by borges or kundera".

some consistency, please

much ado in the news about political represssion in burma. odd that we should get upset about one dictatorship (in burma), but not about another (in china). anyway now that liberal interventionism—the foisting of modern democratic polities on barbarous peoples—is so unpopular, especially in europe, it will be interesting to see what happens. a return to realpolitik perhaps?

strange exchange

the english are moving to france to escape the nhs and "chav britain"; the french are moving to england to escape labour laws which are as supple as a sarcophagus.

pilk fact

blind people don't need as much sleep because their eyes don't "get stinging" (i.e. tired).

quayle prepares for veep debate

reads opponent gore's doomsday book "earth in the balance". funny.

begin the day with a glow

with a spoonful of caesium.

what happened to

flash mobs? were they the shortest-lived fad ever?

taxidermy for tots

went book shopping for my 1 year old nephew, zoom. he won't be ready for "timon of athens" for six or seven months, so i was hoping to find something with a funny, arresting title like "taxidermy for tots". no luck. i settled for "peppa pig" instead. apparently this pig is also a star on tv. news to me.

during this bookshelf browsing i hatched what baldrick calls "a cunning plan". i thought i'd assemble a pre-teen survival kit: a holus-bolus of non-electronic toy necessaries to see the nephew through to the onset of his double-digit, girl-complicated years. nothing too extensive. just a small survival kit of amusing gizmos. such as:

rubik's cube*
yo-yo (they have ball-bearings now and spin forever)
frisbee
supersoaker
viewmaster
slinky
one of those vortex doodlebug things
joy-buzzer

*my only qualm about giving him a cube is the likelihood that he'll end up solving it before i do.

eh, what's that?

i often hear women say of men, by way of commendation, "he's a good listener". such small praise. anyone can listen (to paraphrase stephen sondheim). it's the good talkers who are few and far between.

this is

the most pathetic human being on the planet.

he exactly conforms to that type of "modern churchman", wonderfully described by evelyn waugh in "decline and fall", who "draws the full salary of a beneficed clergyman but need not commit himself to any religious belief". or, to put it more succinctly, a phoney.

also another blogger has met him and said he's creepy.

an uninvited guest

i heard a crash on the roof and going out to investigate i discovered this interloper had touched down in the backyard. très fantastic. unfortunately i couldn't persuade him to pop his tail. still, it was a great piece of improv.

pixar perfect

on weekend went to see pixar exhibition at the australian centre for the moving image. very wow. (all the stuff on loan from the barbican gallery apparently. thanks england.) "incredibles" is the only pixar film i like. didn't matter. show was terrific. highlights include a stunning 11 minute digital super widescreen 3d movie (this isn't like those naff warhol 3d movies from the 60s requiring silly glasses. very virtualistic. at one point the camera starts racing through the jungle and over the water. it was only when i heard the splashy pitter-patter that i realised we were reliving dash's running across the water sequence from "the incredibles", but this time from dash's point of view. amazing stuff.) also great to see lots of edna e mode mock-ups and large clay heads of mr huph, who is my second favourite "incredibles" star. only disappointment was no sign of syndrome, the petulant child who becomes the ultimate bad guy.

traison des clercs

in "1984" george orwell offered the smallest succor: "if there's any hope it's in the proles". meaning the establishment—the intellectuals & technocrats—he knew, couldn't be trusted. and so it is today. where all the "quality people" are busily engaged in the soft treason of e.u. absorption, and the defence of english sovereignty is left to the likes of the buffoonish "sun". well, bravo to the "sun". and drinks all round for reproducing the famous opening graphic from "dad's army". the only (minor) difference is 60 years ago the arrows had swastikas on them. just a case of europe carrying on regardless.

when black apparently isn't black enough

according to negress debra dickerson presidential want-to-be barack obama isn't black enough. but hillary clinton is. (pause and digest that for a minute.) i suppose obama speaks too well to be a brother. what can he do to ensure his black bona fides? murder someone? sell crack? cheer on o. j. simpson? dress atrociously?

nothing suggests the onward rush of summer

quite like decanting a new batch of limes off the tree—can't make a cold summery drink without 'em. these ones are undersized owing to the drought. nevermind. they're $1.80 ea. in the shops. super ouch. so if you want to get rich grow limes.

that noise you've heard all weekend

is the sound of chainsaws and pine trees being felled. thank god for jewish property developers. somebody's got to make the world safe from the threat of trees and parkland.

now that betty

has declared the start of summer—a little hastily i think—i rolled down to the off license to stock up on some suds. though i seldom drink myself (thai food is the usual occasion), the rest of the country is pretty gung-ho about it. which is a good thing, i think. it's yet another reason why we're better than the muslims who, blockheads that they are, aren't allowed to drink. at all. how miserable.

so while browsing the aisles i made a mental note of the best summer beers on the market. here are the top 8:

pilsner urquell (czech)
staropramen premium lager (czech)
blue tongue pilsener (new south wales)
little creatures pilsener (western australia)
kronenbourg 1664 (france)
budweiser budvar (czech)
the german one whose name i can't remember
snowy mountains pilsener (new south wales).

tawana bradley

just won't go away.

do not fry this at home

evicted

have reluctantly taken the new cat coco (aka snappy the alligator) to the rspca. it wouldn't get on with breakfast marmalade (the incumbent cat), and the vet's bills to patch 'em up after the fights were too much. a shame. because taking coco to the animal shelter probably means it's curtains. but i tried. hopefully it will be fostered out to someone. (i'd hate to work in one of those animal refuge places, constantly putting unwanted pets to sleep. i'd feel like a sonderkommando.)

and that's yer lot

one of the advantages of living in the age of jade goody is that most people now get their information from television and gossip magazines. so it is pleasing to see in "the times" this morning (see here) that research by the scottish executive has found that when people think of scotland they first think of groundskeeper willie. naturally i'm happy for willie but think fat bastard is a more accurate representation of the scotch people and culture.

so do you think he's dead, then?

faux bubble

it's a pretty lousy thing to do, but i'm stealing chloé's freshly baked morning bubble. it's "words i like". for the sound. for their sense. for their spelling. and for their funny.

spume (sounds gross, like sperm or spew, but isn't; use it often)
spleen
zebu (longest vowels on the block)
razzamatazz (its got 4 z's: irrezzistible)
dodecahedron (what a solid)
schwa (letters look better upside-down)
phlegm (for the g)
chutzpah
gristle (tasty)
ointment
soupçon (something french)
marmalade
cumquat

re-branding

the current commotion in the southern 'sphere is the abandonment of a 3 year old girl at a local railway station. this is rotten. what is even more rotten is the name the parents gave her: qian xun xue. hopeless. thankfully, though, all the media outlets have taken to calling her "pumpkin" (she was found wearing pumpkin patch apparel). this is the best exercise in re-branding since marion morrison changed his name to john wayne. i'm sure she's grateful.

welcome back

after a shameful period of collaboration under dominic de villepin, it was nice to hear bernard kouchner tell iran it would be bombed if it didn't abandon it's nuclear weapons program. soul-warming stuff. france, it seems, has finally rejoined the west. happy days.

drying out

what is it about women that makes them so susceptible to dehydration? why do they need such constant constant moisturizing? is it a chemical imbalance?

golf epidemiology

tiger woods has just won $12 million dollars hitting the ball with a new swing shape: a fade. naturally many will be tempted to adopt this technique. don't. do not try this at home. a fade is a junior version of the slice. and the slice is the hiv of golf: it's delbilitating and almost always incurable. once you've got it you're stuck with it for life. i know. i'm a survivor. one of the very few. but that's another story.

super yawn

sport, whether competitive or social, is good. lifting weights, however, is bad. boring bad. unfortunately i just picked up a moderately weighted item (60kg) and it felt heavy. it shouldn't. this is bad news. diagnosis: i'm enfeebled. so am taking the necessary remedial steps. yawn.

jane fonda explained

the safety salamander

the sister-in-law, who is an over-protective mother (having had a hatchling in her late-ish 30s), drives around with one of those dumb 80s "baby on board" signs. and she won't be deterred. so i'm thinking of having a "lizard on board" version made. to relieve my annoyance. at any rate, nobody will deliberately crash into me now.

a dillettante's delight

because the world isn't perfect "the skinny bitch diet" book won't be everyone's cup of tea. nevermind. i'm finding satisfactory consolation in clive james's "cultural amnesia". its brisk survey of 106 high culture subjects is just the thing for people like me who like to waterski over the surface of things. who has time to delve into stefan zweig?

where have all the bitches gone?

around the time of the millennium a lot of women started putting "bitch" stickers on their cars. who knows why? (why do women do half the things they do?) i recall seeing "crazy bitch", "dirty bitch", "sexy bitch", "evil bitch" and "violent bitch" everywhere. well, every kind bitch really. except one. i never saw a "fat bitch". it seems it's better to be cheap than overweight. anything, it seems, is preferable to being fat. though i think anyone who "bitched" their car at least deserved a complimentary "dumb bitch" sticker too.

horticulture slacker style

bulbs are great. you submerge them in autumn, go back to sleep and forget about them altogether, and zingo!, they "periscope up" in spring. came home today to find a yellow had appeared. what's not to like?

the best present ever

received copy of the comic book guy book today. funny funny stuff. (it's too good for your dumb book club, oprah.) thanks canada. it's the most.

2 things i learnt today

marshmallow peeps are real. and the punch buggy game is actually played in north america. it isn't just a figment of the simpsons writers' imaginations.

he's got that right

in one of the 400 shows milhouse pleads: "you can't take krusty away from us! he's all we have." amen to that.

it's a straight line

from sydney carton to rick blaine.

is it really so strange?

the frivolous section of the newspaper is buzzing with talk of vanessa hudgens (of the stupid "high school musical" show) minus her clothes. cue a lot of outrage and worried expressions. but why the shock? if there's one thing we've all learnt by now it's that women love to take their clothes off. especially actresses.

posh bread

even though the girl who sold it was gorgeous, and even though it's supposed to be a light rye poshed up with orange zest and caraway seeds, i still think $5 is a little steep for the world's most reviled mass of complex carbohydrate.

in the beginning

i wasn't sure whether to call this blog "foundfoundfound" (after the song, obviously), or "artie ziff's busy hands" (look! he's ready to grope!). i think i made the right choice.

my kind of silliness

saw this vespa parked in albert park. note the magnetic letters on the chassis.

i wonder if an iron chef

would ever make a peanut-butter sandwich for a snack?

pandas are so lazy

they can't even be bothered to bonk each other. (the perpetuation of species now depends on artificial insemination programs.) so i think any particularly bad, lethargic, or negligent lover should be given "bad panda" status. i'm sure everyone's encountered at least one.

caveat emptor

i thought prolonged staring at that magic eye puzzle would give me a headache. and it did.

sunnyside up

the promised rain
never came
now it looks like drought again.

i know i've been turned down

for top-tier jobs because i've never managed to successfully scoop a stuffed toy out of a skill tester machine. believe me, it leaves a big big dent in your résumé.

101 ways to cook baby suri

i'm not a bad person, i'd just like to see that stupid baby suri fired out of a cannon.

memo to steve jobs

the business pages have been buzzing with talk of the next generation of ipods with touch screens. that's swell. but new pods should also have pod-to-pod wireless data transfer for easy exchange of pilk podcasts. but most of all some licensing arrangement should be struck with namco so that new pods have pacman (or ms. pacman) pre-installed. that's vital. to any business plan.