The Proverbial Note-On-The-Fridge

Just a quick post to let you know that there's going to be a distinct lack of prolixity until, at earliest, Friday afternoon. This is due to various factors, not least of which my stupidity at leaving a 3000 word essay until the last possible moment, and an exam on Friday morning.

But...yeah, thought i'd check in. And by way of keeping you occupied until then:

The Animal Collective's new album is the shiz, listen to the spacey new single 'My Girls' at their myspace. It's The Animal Collective at their most concise and accessible, and this turns out to be no bad thing.

RockPaperShotgun have an excellent interview up with Edmund McMillen. Distinctive artist behind some absolutely fantastic flash-gamery. Check out his Newgrounds profile for more info. Aether and Coil are particularly special. Seriously, check them out. They're short-form games, so they'll take up half an hour of your time at most, and i found them to be both thought-provoking and aesthetically brilliant.

Oh yeah, this week i found out that the cognitive scientist and philosopher Jerry Fodor is a total badass. Even more so than Chomsky maybe. There's a great article in Meaning And Cognitive Structure (Pylyshyn, Z. and Demopoulos, W.) in which he just has it out with two of his critics, in the format of a massive bitching session. Needless to say, he put them in their place. Pow!

A choice quote:

"Fodor (In response to Newell): Because you know that the subject solves that problem, and it's your problem to model how he does it. It's his problem and he knows how to solve it but you don't."

...anyways, i have some choice content updates planned for when i'm a free man again, most notable of which is something called DIARY OF A DWARVEN FORTRESS which is going to be weekly and i'm not going to tell you anything about it!

Must not link to some music, oh crud.

Stuck In Nowhere-land

Why did i think that isolation would breed productivity?

I write this as a warning to those that would think so; It doesn't. I've totemised this essay to the point where i have to work myself up to a zen-like hollowness of being before attempting even the most inconsequential of note taking. I partially blame the early deadline. Deadlines warp the normal passing of time.

The rate that time passes is a function of the time left before the deadline, with the days immediately before stretching out to unforseen, torturous lengths.

Anyway, i went out and about around Camden last night in an attempt to break the cycle, and even though i awoke horrendously late this morning and with a moderate hangover, i feel oddly cleansed. I suppose i, at least partially, succeded. I think it's odd that i find drinking to be like a kind of detoxification. After i get over the initial guilt (both monetary and for my body) i always have this 'cleansed' feeling, for want of a better word.

I've been listening to a lot of music by a man called Luke Haines recently, as well as releasing records under his own name, he was the most prominent creative force behing the bands The Auteurs and Black Box Recorder. His music as an appealing cocktail of acerbic, dark wordplay and perfect pop hooks.

Ere iz a video ov im dat u can watsh.

Lyrics in pop music seem to matter to me much more than they ever used to, and it's not that the music matters less. I suppose that the sub-genres i used to be into included words as an afterthought rather than a focal point, and i do like words. I've also gained more of an appreciation for brevity, to the point where i find it very difficult to listen to anything past the four minute mark. A pop song should never need to go beyond four minutes, in my opinion.

After much consideration, i've finally came up with a New Year's resolution for myself: Only use adjectives where absolutely necessary.

A Free Thing Is A Good Thing

Ok, so that isn't necessarily (or sufficiently) true, but it does appeal to my deeply ingrained instinct as a cheapskate.

This has been doing the rounds over the past couple of days, so forgive me if you've seen it already but Deadspace #1 is free over at Newsarama. It's a comic based on the game so it's a bit of an unknown quantity, i haven't had the chance to read it yet but the art and the colouring certainly look nice.

This also gives me the oppurtunity to plug Phonogram, one of my favourite comics of recent years. Phonogram: Rue Britannia #1 is free over at Image's website and there's also a preview of Phonogram: The Singles Club, which is in the middle of a wildly successful run, at the moment. It would take a while for me to extol the virtues of this particular series, and i'd prefer to devote a whole post to that topic. Just stop reading this and go and bloody read them instead.

Free comics are especially good when the cost of comics is apparently rising due to the weakening of the pound against the dollar. Is nothing sacred?

In Real Life news, i have a huge essay due in next Friday which i have yet to start. I moved back to the halls on the 3rd (a week early) in the hope that the isolation would spur me on...no such luck, unfortunately. The essay is worth a fifth of the entire year, so suffice to say that i will be wracked with guilt until such time as i can bring myself to put my head down. Idiot.

Since free comics (and underlying that, procrastination) seems to be the major theme of this post, i leave you with news that the comics on Eegra.com are hilarious. For a web comic anyway. They're even moderately well drawn! Shock horror and all that. This is no Ctrl Alt Del.

The archives are well worth clicking through, if you have twenty minutes to kill.