Truth Like The Dark

It’s official: my friend Derren Brown is now really famous. He’s just been blogged on BoingBoing, and he’s been profiled in the NYT (via IHT).

I knew him when he was just an itty bitty genius magician, knee high to a grasshopper.

Derren is huge here in the UK, and soon everyone in the USA will know of his amazing talents as a a psychological illusionist. A less known fact is that Derren is a fine artist. I’m proud to have been the subject of his work:

Let me tell you, an honest caricature of yourself is frightening at first. But I’ve come to love mine. It’s actually taught me to see myself differently. It now hangs in my hall, and I enjoy seeing it every day.

The Basement Gallery

Originally uploaded by re6smith.

I was walking through Southville (a part of Bristol, where I live) with my friend Ben Cole (pictured above), and a woman beckoned us into her basement. Before I could think that Bristol becomes more like Amsterdam everyday, we were donning miner’s helmets, entering a darkened underground room, and viewing pen-and-ink drawings by Tisa von der Schulenberg.

I don’t read German, but it seems that Countess von der Schulenberg was a nun that documented the lives of miners, and WWII, in her drawings.

And she was a friend of this woman in Southville.

The Basement Gallery is definately worth looking into if you find yourself nearby.

In our continuing struggle to bring you the most cutting edge in UK TV commericals, please see the Wall’s Magnum 5 Senses Limited Edition Ad.

Utter filth, about ice cream bars. Wall’s knows what’s up, though. This is their follow up to The Seven Deadly Sins Limited Edition.

When you can get a food product condemned by multi-national religious leaders, you are officially an advertising genius.

banksy

Originally uploaded by re6smith.

Seems everyone is on about Bristol’s own boy Banksy. Separate blog items have appeared from Cool Hunting, Metafilter, and my freind at tired fools.

This is a photo I took of a wall in Bristol, during my first few weeks there. At that time, Banksy’s work was the seen-everywhere (through strictly illegal) graffiti of the moment.

Years later, I attended a very civilized wine and cheese affair where Banksy’s work’s were on canvas. I could have had a great full color painting of sharks swimming around shopping carts, if I weren’t so cheap, dammit.

It was a fairwell party, as the artist was moving to London to sell out make his fortune.

More power to him on having made it to The Big Apple. I think his stuff rocks, on walls, on canvas, or on sale.

Tired fools has revealed my voracious appetite for the finest of British Cuisine:

Check out my new project, roundtuit.

Roundtuit is a moderated community blog to connect people who have great ideas with people who have the desire and wherewithal (skills, time, tools, etc.) to make them happen. We call these ideas roundtuits, and there are three things we want to help you do with them:

1. Give a roundtuit: You have an idea, and share it here.
2. Claim a roundtuit: You see an idea that you will make real.
3. Get a roundtuit: You do it (and share your success with us here)!

A roundtuit is an idea that you know can be done, wish would be done, and that you’d just do yourself, if you could ever get a roundtuit. Note those criteria! Give a roundtuit if:

* You know it can be done. In fact, you can see exactly how. “Develop transporter technology” or “create a world without war”, despite some merit as ideas, are not roundtuits, and they don’t belong here (sorry).
* You wish it would be done. You, and hopefully the multitude, would find it wonderful, or at least slightly useful, if someone ever gets a roundtuit. Feel free to explain why, with as much entertaining detail as you can muster.
* You, personally, will never get a roundtuit. Specifically, you won’t mind if someone else gets a roundtuit, even if they give you no credit whatsoever! There shall be no legal battles when someone gets a roundtuit here!

A roundtuit need not be a technical idea. We’d like to see roundtuits on art, gardening, literature, juggling, music, whatever.

Roundtuits are submitted by email to givearoundtuit@gmail.com.

A friend of mine brought up the current story of an accused home invader, child kidnapper, rapist, and killer.

My friend is anti-capital-punishment, but he is also a father, and he was tasked by another pro-death-penalty friend as to whether he would want this criminal executed.

He said:

Robin just asked me if I would consider the death penalty in this case.
If there were ever an event where it might be warranted, it is this one …
I do hope this pinhead has a tortured, miserable life from here on out.

My question is: why does my friend feel this way? I certainly understand, and I think I feel the same way. I believe what we are both feeling is the desire for vengence.

If everyone in our society felt this way, and we could be virtually certain of the man’s guilt, then we are down to this: if society has a common desire for vengence, and guilt is certain, should we kill to fulfill those desires?

It seems to me that this is the key question. If we believe that there are some principles that extend beyond the common desire of *all* of a society’s members, I would say that an extension beyond the *majority* of society’s members is clear.

Supposedly, the constitution is there to protect the rights of the minority from the desires of the majority, and one would imagine that this extends to the ultimate majority, so it seems the answer should be clear.

However, as I’ve said before, if a society (such as the USA) decides that the answer is yes: that a society’s desire for vengence should be acted upon, I’m not sure individuals in other societies (such as the UK) that make different decisions can feel eminently justified in their objections.

Blanket moral objections to a society (the USA) accepting the death penalty aren’t as clear as many (here in the UK ) might make out.

Grafitti

Originally uploaded by apreussler.

My friend and colleague Annabell Preussler took a few great photos while we were in Slovenia. This classic is better if you’ve been to lovely Maribor, where the slogan was scrawled.

For more fine photos of Maribor (and of many other things), see Annabell’s complete collection.

If there were a god, it wouldn’t be funny to watch chickens being sucked into a industrial machine and shot out into steel coops.
Click here, then click through to the video.

If there were a god, this sort of torment wouldn’t make for such a tasty Sunday dinner, either.

Wil Wheaton, formerly Wesley Crusher of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and now a damn good blogger (amongst other things), sent out a plea today. It seems he was being voted Most Annoying Trek Character on an online poll. This was quickly reversed by his blogreaders.

I not only want to cast my vote for Wil not being annoying, I want to weigh in on the whole question of Wesley. I have one word for those Trek Fans who found Wesley’s feckless, smarty-smarmy, dressed-by-his-Mom, naive dedication to the principles of Star Fleet annoying. And that word is MIRROR.

Wesley was a reflection, but one that would get a chance to become a warp traveler, and maybe score with a comely young Ashley Judd in a tight ensign’s uniform. Wesley wasn’t Kirk: something you could only dream of being. He was you, plain and simple, just with a better deal.

And, you know, Deanna Troi was by far the most annoying Trek character! She really only ever had one line: “Captain, I sense the incredibly obvious.”

By comparison, Wesley rocked. I want to know more. I think whatever Hollywood Clout Trek has should be thrown behind a “What Happened to Wesley Next” film. It should be weird, post-modern, Phillip K. Dickensian. If Mr. Wheaton wants to kick around script ideas, I’ve got a few. Besides, I’ve got friends in LA who I think would dig him as a regular person, anyway.

But what I really want to know is if Wil ever read any of the truly disturbing Wesley slash porn out there.