Kill The White Rabbit

many many thanks to sweet rude and prejudiced swedish people for not hating on belgian sommarlight and making jenever and coffee visits very very special. we will tolerate much more in the future, dance to pop muzik and rip guts out of reality. FUCK FUCK FUCK in general!

(c) Felicia Webb How Do You See The World wil…

(c) Felicia Webb

How Do You See The World will go into hibernation mode for two weeks due to re-exams. So stay tuned and I hope to catch you all in september!

RLS CMW DJP RFP J?O CEP JJN PRG

It goes without saying that any list that aspires to record the best of anything — whether of books or film or music — leaves many well-deserving items off. There is no objective method for determining what is best; there is no list inclusive enough to encompass all that deserves attention. Of what use then to readers would be a list of books that Flak staff just happened to have read in the past 10 years and consider “best”? Rather than compile a traditional best-of-books feature (one of those Top 10 lists that dot publications around the new year), we decided to praise those books published in the last decade that did one thing exceptionally well, from cover design to punctuation use, and everything — from sentences to end notes — in between.

Flak Magazine did this great list of the best books of the 90’s, with very interesting categories like best description, best ending, best cover, etc. There are well written explanations on the website why they choose every book for that particular category, so definitely check it out.

My favorite category must be the The Decade’s Best Sentence. The winner was this very long opening line from the book The Hundred Brothers by Donald Antrim. and it’s an amazing sentence I must admit:

My brothers Rob, Bob, Tom, Paul, Ralph, Phil, Noah, William, Nick, Dennis, Christopher, Frank, Simon, Saul, Jim, Henry, Seamus, Richard, Jeremy, Walter, Jonathan, James, Arthur, Rex, Bertram, Vaughan, Daniel, Russel, and Angus; and the triplets Herbert, Patrick, and Jeffrey; identical twins Michael and Abraham, Lawrence and Peter, Winston and Charles, Scott and Samuel; and Eric, Donovan, Roger, Lester, Larry, Clinton, Drake, Gregory, Leon, Kevin, and Jack — all born on the same day, the twenty-third of May, though at different hours in separate years — and the caustic graphomaniac, Sergio, whose scathing opinions appear with regularity in the front-of-book pages of the more conservative monthlies, not to mention on the liquid crystal scenes that glow at night atop the radiant work stations of countless bleary-eyed computer bulletin-board subscribers (among whom our brother is known, affectionately, electronically, as Surge); and Albert, who is blind; and Siegfried, the sculptor in burning steel; and clinically depressed Anton; schizophrenic Irv, recovering addict Clayton; and Maxwell, the tropical botanist, who, since returning from the rain forest, has seemed a little screwed up somehow; and Jason, Joshua, and Jeremiah, each vaguely gloomy in his own “lost boy” way; and Eli, who spends his solitary wakeful evenings in the tower, filling notebooks with drawings — the artist’s multiple renderings for a larger work? — portraying the faces of his brothers, including Chuck, the prosecutor; Porter, the diarist; Andrew, the civil rights activist; Pierce the designer of radically unbuildable buildings; Barry, the good doctor of medicine; Fielding, the documentary-film maker; Spencer, the spook with known ties to the State Department; Foster, the “new millennium” psychotherapist; and George, the urban planner who, if you read the papers, you’ll recall, distinguished himself, not so long ago, with that innovative program for revitalizing the decaying downtown area (as “an animate interactive diorama illustrating contemporary cultural and economic folkways”), only to shock and amaze everyone, absolutely everyone, by vanishing with a girl named Jane and an overnight bag packed with municipal funds in unmarked hundreds; and all the young fathers: Seth, Rod, Vidal, Bennet, Dutch, Brice, Allan, Clay, Vincent, Gustavus, and Joe; and Hiram, the eldest; Zachary, the Giant; Jacob, the polymath; Virgil, the compulsive whisperer; Milton, the channeler of spirits who speak across time; and the really bad womanizers: Stephen, Denzil, Forrest, Topper, Temple, Lewis, Mongo, Spooner, and Fish; and, of course, our celebrated “perfect” brother, Benedict, recipient of a medal of honor from the Academy of Sciences for work over twenty years in chemical transmission of “sexual language” in eleven types of social insects — all of us (except George, about whom there have been many rumors, rumors upon rumors: he’s fled the vicinity, he’s right here under our noses, he’s using an alias or maybe several, he has a new face, that sort of thing) all my ninety-eight, not counting George, brothers and I recently came together in the red library and resolved that the time had arrived, finally, to stop being blue, put the past behind us, share a light supper, and locate, if we could bear to, the missing urn full of the old fucker’s ashes.

Loner In A Lone Country

All this kind of philosopher can do is to express, as fully as he can, his world, and attract our undivided attention to our own.
– Stanley Cavell in “The World Viewed”

Finally finished Craig Thompson’s latest graphic novel slash travel diary Carnet de Voyage. It’s a wonderful sketchbook combined with funny and sad insights on travelling alone in France, Marocco and Barcelona. It’s a delight to read how Thompson is feeling homesick after a broken relationship and isn’t afraid of writing all his thoughts down. There are moments where you even begin to wonder if it was such a good idea of him to make this trip but then he will make this sharp observation and you just know that he’s content with the tremendous influence the journey is having on him. It reminded me of another paragraph Cavell wrote in The World Viewed:

We must be willing to allow the self to exhibit itself without the self’s intervention. The wish for total intelligibility is a terrible one. It means that we are willing to reveal ourselves through the self’s betrayal of itself. […] It is why the path of self-knowledge is so ugly, hence so rarely taken, whatever its reputed beauties. The knowledge of the self as it is always takes place in the betrayal of the self as it was. That is the form of self-revelation until the self is wholly won. Until then, until there is a world in which each can be won, our loyalty to ourselves is in doubt, and our loyalty to others in partialness.

Carnet de Voyage does exactly what Cavell is hinting at. It goes down a travelling path that is rarely taken. Travelling doesn’t have to be fun all the time, it’s not about forgetting all your sorrows at home, visiting the next palace some sultan build and throwing a couple of coins to the first beggar you see, so he will stop bothering you. It can easily be about drawing a camel in the desert and feeling miserable because you got diarrhoea again. So on your next voyage, make sure you have this little book with you!

ps for more reviews, Bookslut offers yet another good one.

Must…. See…. This…. Film!

Must…. See…. This…. Film!

Ways to beat the system

Haha, it’s not easy making laws. First they kinda forget that maybe an imprisoned criminal shouldn’t be able to receive an insane amount of money, then they overlook “toe-licking”. Say what?

UsaToday writes:

Toe-licking could become a criminal offense in the Netherlands after a man who licked the toes of several women was released by police without charges. The toe-licker, whose name was not released, was arrested in Rotterdam earlier this week after a woman who had been sunbathing said he unexpectedly licked her bare foot.

Other women had also complained, and the 35-year-old man has reportedly been pursuing his fetish for years, but prosecutors in Rotterdam said they are powerless to stop him.

“A lick over the foot doesn’t qualify as a crime: there has to be some kind of objective sex act committed,” said prosecution spokesman Cees van Spierenburg in the Rotterdam Daily newspaper. “That’s the way the law is.”

Lawmakers Peter van Heemst and Aleid Wolfsen, members of the leading opposition Labor Party, asked Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner in a formal complaint to change the law.

“How can you explain that we can prosecute someone for throwing a cigarette butt or soda can on the ground, but not for this kind of misbehavior?” the men wrote.

Go Go Go

Always make sure you keep up to date on good music. Four really nice sites that will help you along the right track:

1. Womb Life is one of the reasons why blogs can be so interesting. Don’t know who MV & EE are? Find out here.

2. The Broken Face gives a wonderful introspective glance into the world of peripheral sounds.

3. the amazing online music magazine Foxy Digitalis is promoting weird music and culinary excellence (+ a lot of interviews & reviews)

4. and finally should I even have to mention Pitchfork?

They pulled me back in!

He that is taken and put into prison or chains is not conquered, though overcome; for he is still an enemy.
– Thomas Hobbes

Mr. Hobbes couldn’t have been more right since it appears that you can still make top of the world when in prison: in the UK a prisoner serving life for attempted rape has won 7 million GBP (= 10m € / 12m $) with the lottery. The story is yet another paradox of society: you sexually assault several women, you get taken away all your rights, you become imprisoned and then on your weekend leave you get rewarded by the lucky numbers. And the best thing is you get to keep to money!

The Guardian reports:

A prisoner serving life for attempted rape has won £7m in the national lottery. Iorworth Hoare, 52, was jailed for life at Leeds crown court in 1989. He was on temporary release from a Middlesbrough bail hostel when his numbers came up in last Saturday’s Lotto Extra draw.

Hoare, formerly of Seacroft Gate, Leeds, was convicted of attempting to rape a 60-year-old woman in a park in the city, after a series of crimes which included one rape, two attempted rapes and three indecent assaults.

According to the Sun, Hoare began a series of sex attacks while he was still in his 20s and was sentenced to a total of 18 years between 1973 and 1987.

Home Office guidelines allow prisoners in open conditions – such as day release or community projects – to take part in the lottery and claim any prize they may win.

Hoare was on weekend leave from Middlesbrough’s South Bank bail hostel when he won his £7,039,469 fortune.

A Prison Service spokesman confirmed last night that a prisoner had won the lottery. He said: “We are aware a prisoner on release on a temporary licence has participated in the lottery and we understand that he has won a substantial amount.”

After his the win Hoare was moved to a closed prison for “security and his own safety”.

—–

The lottery winner serving life for attempted rape is almost certainly immune from compensation claims, it emerged today.

Iorworth Hoare, 52, who scooped one third of last week’s £21m Lotto Extra jackpot in spite of being in the process of serving his 18-year sentence, was thought to have been open to claims from victims as a result of his new-found wealth.

But SocietyGuardian.co.uk has learned that as Hoare’s crimes date back at least 15 years, and in some cases even further, time limits on victim compensation laws effectively protect him from claims.

Richard Scorer, a partner at law firm Pannone & Partners, said the law on this was “black and white”.

“The time limit for bringing compensation claims for these kind of crimes is six years,” he said.

YOU THERE!

YOU HAVE BAD TASTE IN MUSIC!

Bricks and Steel

For all the people that liked Martin Parr’s Bored Couples and his Boring Postcards books, I found out about a website which collects Boring Postcards too. Visit retroglobe.com and check them out. Most of them are taken in Sweden (which reminds me of a classic postcard I bought there too, maybe I’ll upload that one later). And in case you were wondering, the author claims he didn’t ’steal’ Parr’s idea:

My gallery has been online since the summer of 1998, that is before Martin Parr published his Boring Postcards book. I was also way ahead of Jeppe Wikström and his book “Tråkiga vykort” which was published in 2002 in Sweden. So I’m not the copycat. :-)