Bending Point

Here I am.

Following my last post, gosh! Changes in my life have been smooth but sharp, light but weighty. I am now a full-time editor (of BOOKS, my friend, yes! I am an honest and professional editor of BOOKS), which is an interesting new lifestyle to adjust to. My time is different: no more of the student life for me. Strange and not strange.

So. I've been thinking about this blog. I think it's time to make a change here, too. My personal time is more limited than it used to be, and my non-blog creative commitments (scripting & noveling) have been backburnering for too long. So I think it's time to refocus myself on those other things, and to put these Mistakes Being Made on a more permanent sort of hiatus. Possibly actually permanent, I mean. As in: no more this blog.

This has always been a very casual, experimental & ad hoc little blog – something for my own fun, rather than any serious attempt to build an audience or anything – but I've got to the point where, like I said, things need to change. Focus or no focus, do or do not. Etc.

When I come back to blogging – whether here, or somewhere new – it'll be with a much clearer sense of purpose and focus, I hope. If I decide I want to focus on music, then I'll do a Rage Roundup every week and I'll be an active presence on other music sites to try to actually build an audience, and so on. Or if I decide to do a blog that focuses on some other thing, then I'll focus on that some other thing instead. And if I decide to do another random meandery half-hearted self-indulgent blog like this one, then I guess I'll do it like this again; but at least I'll try to do it in a much more focused and wholehearted way, I think. If you're going to do something, better to do it right; better to try to do it best, don't you think?

(Or, better to do something that will actually get more readers to comment more often, at the very least...)

So, anyhow. That's what I've been thinking. And that's what I'm going to do, I think.

In the meantime: I may be about to give up long-form textual blogging for a while, but I'll be continuing to post beautiful (mostly) wordless content over at my other miniblog, the wonderful looktime.tumblr.com, which is freaking awesome and you should totally be following. (Seriously, go there, it's great. It's mostly not my stuff, it's just stuff that I like. You'll like it too, I bet.)

Thanks for everything.

More later.

:)

Soon

Whoo!

Lately, I have been way too busy to give this blog the attention it deserves; luckily, however, my busyness is not quite at Axe Cop's level, yet. (Axe Cop being the webcomic from which the sublime moment above derives.) Most of my specific busynesses look to be cooling down soon, too – but anyhow, we'll see how that goes . . .

In the meantime, I also wanted to draw your attention to what may be the greatest news headline of all time: the "Ash Dash Rash Cash Splash". Subeditors of Fairfax, I salute you.

)

--Thoapsl

Graped In The Face

Q. What's the difference between pinot noir and merlot?
A. Nothing, suckers.

So yeah, you remember how that movie Sideways did so well? It was a fine film: Paul Giamatti drinks a whole lot of Californian wine, rants about how pinot noir is so great and merlot is so terrible.

Mmm. Grapes.

Most people who saw Sideways immediately decided that, yes, indeed:

1. pinot noir is brilliant

2. all other wines – especially merlot – are really just fermented hackjuice

There was thus an instant craze in the market for pinot wine, and a corresponding crash in demand for the less respectable grapes (like merlot and shiraz). So: a group of French wine merchants decided to scam the American market by repackaging 13.5 MILLION LITRES of their excess merlot and shiraz wine as pinot noir, instead.

A couple of years later, French auditors became suspicious of some unusually cheap "pinot" grape transactions; a few days ago, a French court unravelled the scam and found a cartel of Carcassonne wine merchants guilty of fraud.

Mugshot!

In the meantime, how many American wine drinkers had figured out that they weren't actually drinking pinot noir? Here is a picture of them all:

Aw, it was only 13.5 million litres . . .

Like A Tiger

I do not care about this recent Tiger Woods affair car-crash whatever thing. I also did not care about the Premier of South Australia having an affair last week, or whatever that was. I mean, I don't think I ever used to care about "celeb adultery shock!" stories, much – but lately I've been more than uninterested, I've been damn well anti-interested, to the point that celebrity sex scandals are actually repelling my interest.

Is it just me? I know that famous people's extramarital affairs used to be much more of a big deal, years ago, because extramarital affairs used to be much more of a big deal in general, years ago . . . Until the 1970s, divorce was always scandalous and/or nigh-impossible; sex scandals could literally bring down a government. Fair enough these stories were well newsworthy, then.

Today, though . . . how is adultery still worth a broadsheet's front page? Is it really news? I mean – what's the divorce rate, these days? I'm 28 now, and I'm almost the only person I know whose parents aren't divorced. Only a minuscule fraction of marriages last from the vows 'til death without being interrupted by adultery and/or divorce. Shouldn't it be a hell of a lot more newsworthy when famous people don't have an affair and/or break up?

This is the gist of my rant: adultery is BORING. Adultery is ROUTINE. Adultery is EVERYWHERE, even if some people still refuse to admit it. So can't we just assume that most famous married people are having affairs, and then forget about it? With rare exceptions, adultery has no bearing on anything that the famous person is actually doing in the public sphere. And it's none of our business, right? Look, I enjoy reading about (some) famous people, I totally understand the impulse to learn the "private" details of their lives; it's a neat thrill, sometimes. But adultery just isn't doing it for me, anymore. Adultery is dull, predictable and petty; it's not exciting, it's not even sexy. It leaves me feeling vaguely glum. I'd rather know what Tiger Woods eats for breakfast than know the state of his marriage, and I don't really care what he eats for breakfast. I don't even play golf.

I DO NOT CARE about Tiger Woods's marriage.

However. I did find this Chinese news report rather intriguing:

(via Pajiba)

The Onion's version of events is compelling, too.

Am I in a minority of one, in not caring about celebrity adultery? Am I being too old-fashioned, or too new-fashioned, or just daft?

/end rant

2009 ARIA Awards: Nominees!

As shiny as the Oscars, as confusing as the Grammys, as lucrative as the Nobels? No, the ARIA Music Awards are something else – Australia's own. And the 2009 nominees have been announced!

However, I have some questions:

1. How can there be "nominees" for the "Highest Selling Australian Single/Album"?

This has always confused me. Shouldn't winning this award be about statistics, not nominations? It generates competitive interest and publicity, I know – but surely anyone could figure out the winners right now, just by looking at the sales figures?

(Moral of this story: music journalists cannot be bothered to look through sales figures.)

2. What does "Adult Contemporary" mean?

Nominees this year include Bob Evans, Josh Pyke, Little Birdy and Paul Dempsey – all indie mainstays, each one loved and supported by youth radio stations (especially Triple J). So has "Adult Contemporary" become a replacement for the abandoned "Alternative" category? The teenagers of the 1990s "alternative music" boom are getting into their thirties now, so maybe the ARIAs are growing up, too. (Either that, or Triple J is actually a station for contemporary adults. Hmm . . .)

3. How come 2009 includes AC/DC's first ever ARIA nomination, and not their 50th?

Because the ARIAs only began in 1987. And let's face it, AC/DC have released only two albums since 1987 that are arguably better than "adequate": Black Ice (this year's nominee) and The Razors Edge (1990). Razors Edge does include "Thunderstruck", one of their best hits, but it was disqualified due to the lack of apostrophe in the word "Razor(')s". You can't rock out without appropriate punctuation, and I commend the Australian Recording Industry Association for their strong and principled stance on this issue.

4. Do the ARIA nominations violate their own guidelines?

This year, C. W. Stoneking was nominated for "Breakthrough Artist – Album", despite being ineligible (because his previous album was nominated for a 2007 ARIA). He's since been stripped of this nomination – but he's still nominated for "Best Male Artist", "Best Independent Release" and "Best Blues and Roots Album", so he's doing all right.

Another odd nomination is Ladyhawke (Pip Brown), who's nominated in 6 categories despite being a New Zealander. (Not that we aren't happy to claim her as an honorary Aussie, of course.) ARIA fine print indicates that artists are eligible if they've lived in Australia for more than six months and applied for permanent residency, which may or may not be the case – I'll keep you posted . . .

5. How many nominees have an exclamation mark in their song or album title?

Answer: At least four!!!!

It's good to see a strong field this year – I don't think there are any "what the?!" nominees making up the numbers. Award ceremonies are often controversial (one way or another), but their real purpose is to celebrate the industry and create publicity for deserving nominees. On that count, the 2009 ARIAs are already a success.

What do you think about giving awards for high sales, "Adult Contemporary", AC/DC or Ladyhawke's fair dinkum kiwi-ness?

Beware! - The Ghost Fleet of Singapore!!

The most evocative and exciting news story I've read for ages:

"The biggest and most secretive gathering of ships in maritime history lies at anchor east of Singapore. Never before photographed, it is bigger than the U.S. and British navies combined but has no crew, no cargo and no destination ..."

Isn't that a spectacular introduction? Great article, too – check it out. If you haven't already.

Some day soon I'll blog something that's more than just a link to something else . . . but on the other hand, right now I'm on a break, so some day soon isn't tomorrow. Also, it looks like I'm writing a script for an actual movie, did I tell you that? Busy times, my friends! Busy times!

I did tell you about the script thing via Twitter, but I haven't actually told you that I am a twit before now (because, look, all this tweeting is still just an experiment, and it still leaves me feeling kind of . . . dirty . . . ), so, um, anyhow. There you go. Whatevs. Vive la communique ;)

Synaesthesia

I usually don't do linkblogs, but goodness me: this is spectacularly awesome, I think.

Hat-tip to the fine people of io9, and there's more detail here.

(Pic unrelated. But if it intrigues you, you should really go check this out.)

MICHAEL JACKSON IS UNDEAD

Friday Is Out Of Context

MENA, AR—After an extensive three-month-long search, the Polk County Sheriff's Department located missing 9-year-old Joshua Meyers in an abandoned home, rescued the child from his captors, and returned him to his loving parents, the still bound and gagged boy imagined Tuesday.

So, check this: surely, the most disturbing article ever published by The Onion. Onion jokes have explored similar territory before, but this particular example is freaking hardcore. The final paragraph, especially...

I mean – wow. Really. This shit is crazy.

This Friday Is Out Of Context Thoapsl Says: A dream is not a traum.

Latest Headlines

I often find myself weirdly fascinated by fashion. Clothes, I mean. Not by the way that fashion relates to my own clothes, so much (whether actual or potential); I suppose it's similar to the way I sometimes find high finance interesting, despite the fact that I don't actually possess huge amounts of money.

For instance...

It was a dark and stormy night on the television. While I waited for Lost to come on, a news bulletin was being broadcast. It looked like this:

Now, this is a perfectly reasonable look for a 2008 newsreader. But it's also a perfectly reasonable look for Farrah Fawcett.

Isn't that kind of interesting?

Seriously... the magenta, the frills, even the hairdo — it's not quite what you'd expect, right?

It could be 70s or even 80s, but either way it's unmistakably dated. A pastiche, even. Wear this out to a trendy bar and people will nod approvingly at your daring, ironical appropriation. And yet a fairly conservative, commercial, free-to-air television channel was willing to let their newsreader wear it on air. Did the producers think that this was a slightly daring fashion move, or a perfectly standard one? Or could they be so old-fashioned — ie, genuinely stuck-in-the-80s — that they didn't even notice how retro it looked?

I'd love to take this as a sign that the producers are actually letting newsreaders wear whatever they want, in the hope that journalism will naturally overshadow presentation. Wouldn't it be refreshing to see something really unusual — newsreaders in t-shirts, maybe? (Please don't mention stuff like this, that's not what I'm talking about). Is there any good reason for male newsreaders to always appear in formal suit & tie, for example?

Uh, now I'm actually thinking about it... yeah, maybe. People are so used to the standard conventions of newsreaderwear (shiny formal) that they don't even think about it, which allows people to (hopefully) think about the actual news instead. If newsreaders wear an outfit out of the ordinary, it can be a distraction: not an opportunity for journalism to overshadow presentation, but the opposite.

Aw, nuts! I thought she looked cool. You know what? To hell with potential distractions, I'd still rather see newsreaders wearing whatever they want.

--the Fashionical Thoapsl