Movie of the Week

88 Minutes presents Al Pacino in top form. You should really see it. It’s directed by the visionary filmmaker Jon Avnet, whose work on 1989’s Do You Know the Muffin Man? confirmed the world’s suspicion that this was a talent that knew how to do something on celluloid. There was some controversy upon the release of 88 Minutes (there’s always some hubbub with the auteur directors) – audiences were reported to have mistakenly exited the theater at the 88-minute mark, thereby missing the remaining 20-minute finale, which is the most thrilling action sequence in the history of number-themed films. Avnet refused to apologize for the stunt, angering critics but solidifying his reputation among art-house audiences.

Quick Pig

New studies suggest that rather than eating the pig, we should be teaching him maths. Perhaps he would find Orwell’s Animal Farm a snortlingly sporting read. But oh, I’m serious. Some scientists say the pig is in no way kin to you and me, others say actually the genomes bear striking similarities, but all are coming to agree that the pig is one intelligent little food resource.

A New York Times article gives more information.

He dreams he is having dinner with Ben Jonson

Emily Bobrow profiles Lydia Davis, whose cerebral and perspicuous prose is compiled in The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis (she’s also currently producing a new translation of Flaubert’s Madame Bovary).

at More Intelligent Life

Berlusconi’s Complaint

From Harper’s Weekly Review –

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi vowed not to step down after the country’s highest court overturned a law granting him immunity from prosecution. “I am the best prime minister ever,” said Berlusconi, who is embroiled in corruption and bribery scandals. “I am absolutely the politician most persecuted by prosecutors in the entire history of the world throughout the ages.” He added that he had spent “200 million euros on judges… excuse me, on lawyers.”

Video Game Glitch in the Universe?

Outside of Geneva, Switzerland, experiments with the Large Hadron Collider, a gargantuan particle accelerator, are looking to be resumed this December. The LHC has been inoperative since last September, when a magnet quench occurred caused by a faulty electrical connection. But maybe that was no accident, and maybe the upcoming trials are likewise fated to malfunction. That’s according to a contentious and startling late hypothesis being advanced by prominent physicists Holger Bech Nielson and Masao Ninomiya. They say it’s possible that some cosmic agency may be preventing successful attempts to bring the Higgs boson into existence, or even revising such attempts through time travel (?), much like Marty McFly. And if a proton destruction derby hobbled by a not disinterested cosmic consciousness singing The Beatles’ “You Can’t Do That” does not provide quite enough inspiration for your next work of fiction, consider also that one of the scientists working at the LHC was recently picked up by French police for collusion with Al Queda.

The Collider, the Particle, and a Theory About Fate, Dennis Overbye, The New York Times

Dead Air

W.A. Pannapacker in The Chronicle Review:

What has been lost, according to Jacoby, is a culture of intellectual effort. We are increasingly ignorant, but we do not know enough to be properly ashamed. If we are determined to get on in life, we believe it will not have anything to do with our ability to reference Machiavelli or Adam Smith at the office Christmas party. The rejection of the Great Books signifies a declining belief in the value of anything without a direct practical application, combined with the triumph of a passive entertainment—as anyone who teaches college students can probably affirm.

Read the rest of the article here.

“a disgusting human being”

Norway’s Black Sheep, by Michael McDonald

This is an interesting article about Norwegian writer Knut Hamsun, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1920 and later re-gifted it to…Joseph Goebbels. Hamsun is apparently credited with the invention of the modern psychological/ existential novel, which assertion I think I also read in James Wood’s recent book How Fiction Works. I read Hamsun’s Hunger somewhat recently. My opinion was that it had the merit of inducing claustrophobia, but it seemed to go on and on in the same style for far too long. I had a hard time finding it to be very meaningful, but then again I’m not as sharp as I’d like to be. At any rate, I’d much rather read Dostoevsky.

Because best-of lists are, like, so important

Today Pitchfork finished up their list of the 200 greatest albums of the past decade. It was fine, but I think there were some notable omissions. The most glaring would be Think Tank by Blur. This album was simultaneously a sonic departure for the band and one of their strongest works in general. As a tract on our increasingly globalized and multicultural world, it was culturally and politically relevant. And that all this was done without the participation of guitarist Graham Coxon was not a little astounding.

Others they forgot:

The Unicorns, Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone?

Black Dice, Beaches and Canyons

Mum, Yesterday Was Dramatic – Today Is OK

Dirty Projectors, Rise Above

Out Hud, S.T.R.E.E.T. D.A.D.

Atlas Sound, Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel

I do like what Patrick Sisson writes about Interpol’s Turn On The Bright Lights (ranked at #20): “This album exudes gritty glamor, careless pride, and that special sad lament of twentysomethings who have nothing to be sad about and everything to look forward to in life.”

Yeah.

Writing a canonized novel – the cure for mundanity (knightships help, too)

Allen Massie writes about the life of William Golding as portrayed in the new biography by John Carey.

I think Lord of the Flies is often relegated to the domain of youth fiction, perhaps because this is one of the more approachable canonical books for younger readers (But is it really? If I remember correctly, it’s pretty depraved.). But I suppose it should be remembered that it won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1983. It also freed Golding from a life of perpetual mediocrity, according to Massie’s article. I also think few people are aware that Golding authored other books after that classic tale of savagery, but in fact he beat out Anthony Burgess for the Booker Prize in 1980, for his novel Rites of Passage. That novel is, says Massie, about a “young clergyman Colley, who takes to his bed and apparently dies of shame after participating in a drunken homosexual incident on the lower deck.” I’m not sure how to prioritize Golding’s oeuvre, but I’ll call myself curious.

More music from the mythological country of Iceland

http://foundsongs.erasedtapes.com/

Earlier this year Icelandic musician Ólafur Arnalds composed a series of seven songs – one song a day for seven days. The resulting work, “Found Songs,” is a well-crafted exercise in neo-classical minimalism. I’m not entirely familiar with the breadth of current neo-classical stuff, but I could say Arnalds has a close musical affinity with Max Richter, and to a lesser degree, indie rock classicists Sigur Ros. The songs are still available for free download, and they are well worth it. I’m very interested now in hearing some work from Arnalds that has been longer gestated.