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  • Randall Lard
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    a most pleasing terror
    M.R. James: Ghost Writer Mark Gatiss steps into the mind of MR James, the enigmatic English master of the supernatural story. How did this donnish Victorian bachelor, conservative by nature and a devout Anglican, come to create tales that continue to chill readers more than a century on? Mark attempts to uncover the secrets of James's inspiration, taking an atmospheric journey from James's childhood home in Suffolk to Eton, Cambridge and France, venturing into ancient churches, dark cloisters and echoing libraries along the way.
  • Anna rRxia
    Joined:
    The Colbert Show
    A monument to American excess mixed with a reverse twist of sarcasm. Colbert is a monumental ego who addresses his audience as "Nation". Inevitably there would be a comic who took it to this edge. Although a stupid conservative might feel a kinship with Colbert's comments, it is his unique brand of sarcasm that makes his show witty and Emmy-winning. Although entertaining, it can wear on the intelligent mind after a longer or shorter period.
  • Randall Lard
    Joined:
    Minister Of Information
    can't come a moment too soon. Robert Hood, Luke Slater, Jerome Sydenham, Shifted, jozif, Fritz Zander Oval Space/ 29-32 The Oval; Bethnal Green; London E2 9DY; United Kingdom. we await a plan for the floor.
  • Randall Lard
    Joined:
    exploratory bundles of intelligent matter
    'There's a marvellous antidote to the surfeit of office party faux-bonhomie and murder-inspiring John Lewis ads this Christmas thanks to Robin 'Scanner' Rimbaud. The electronic artist is curating a night called Scanner: Lachrimae takes place on December 13th 2013, and features the following excellent mordant entertainment: Scanner will be performing his interpretation of John Dowland’s Lachrimae, Carter Tutti and Gazelle Twin are playing, Chris Turner and Anna and Maria von Hausswolff are screening films, and friend of tQ Spencer Hickman of Death Waltz Records will be gothing it up in the lounge after.' Details and persons wishing to buy tickets are available here - https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/Online/default.asp?BOparam::WScontent::loadA… Tickets £15, concs £11.50 (Members pay £1.50 less) http://thequietus.com/articles/13796-scanner-gothic-festival Scanner - Lachrimae -

    Scanner / Lachrimae from Favourite Colour: Black on Vimeo.

    'One of the UK’s foremost composers presents an evening of live music and film inspired by the the gothic spirit. As well as performing an interpretation of John Dowland’s mournful ‘Lachrimae’, Scanner will be joined by Gazelle Twin and Carter Tutti in exclusive live cinematic performances, and present specially made films by Chris Turner and Anna and Maria von Hausswolff. With Death Waltz Records presenting spectral, dissonant dancefloor tunes in the Benugo lounge until late.'
  • Randall Lard
    Joined:
    Anna
    Thank you. Please see PM. A heartfelt response is coming soon.
  • Randall Lard
    Joined:
    Pussy Riot
    i sincerely urge everyone to watch this documentary film. Pussy Riot - A Punk Prayer i sincerely urge everyone to sign the Amnesty petition to release Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alekhina. http://www.amnesty.org/en/appeals-for-action/PussyRiot http://freepussyriot.org/news
  • PonchoBill
    Joined:
    Game of Thrones
    With season 4 just around the corner I can't help but wonder what's in store for some of the beloved characters. I haven't read the books so I really haven't a clue. But I will say that i'm rooting for the dragons and hoping for King Joffrey to have his throat slit from ear to ear...very slowly.
  • marye
    Joined:
    Side note from the mod: DO NOT POST FULL ARTICLES HERE.
    All things considered, I am not for the moment going to unpublish the full copyrighted article posted above. For future reference, as we have noted previously, please post a short excerpt with a link, as we have no legal rights whatever to reproduce other people's articles here, unless it's the author or another rights holder doing so. See the TOS, not to mention the Berne Convention. I will be editing down all future posts of the work of third parties in this fashion. Thank you. And now back to your regularly scheduled discussion. Thanks.
  • Anna rRxia
    Joined:
    Excellent, heartfelt writing there, Mr. Lard
    I wrote about Pussy Riot in the Current Events thread when the incident happened and it drew exactly -0- response from deadheads. As you aptly observe, nobody gives an apathetic two shits about Pussy Riot. These three courageous and creative protesters might as well be from Mars, being from Russia. Now they have disappeared into the Gulag with only Amnesty International left to look after them. I'm afraid institutional prejudice is going to win the day in this case and there is not much to be done, unless Ed Snowden takes up their cause personally with his new pal Putin. But I'll sign the petition. I believe what they did in the US, depending on geographical location, would have warranted a stern legal warning from a Catholic lawyer to stay away to a charge of Criminal Trespass with perhaps a few days of jail time, if it happened in Tupelo, Misssissippi. The Russians are a strange, long-suffering people and you don't want to cross them. Not in this way, in this institution. I think you aptly pointed that out. I know it sounds trite, but how would Christ have responded to Pussy Riot?
  • Randall Lard
    Joined:
    Victory will be for those who create disorder without loving it
    by Grace Dent - Storyville: Pussy Riot - A Punk Prayer. Review - The Independent. 'The actions that skewered Russian protest group Pussy Riot, causing national trauma, are, to the British viewer, so minor that the footage is rather laughable. We watched during Pussy Riot – a Punk Prayer as the girls donned pastel-coloured balaclavas in the Cathedral of Christ Saviour, Moscow, then ran about dancing, singing and making some unsporting comments about Putin. In fact, most Brits wouldn't even find this laughable. More utterly unremarkable. If I were to go to Westminster Abbey this Saturday and leap about in a silly hat and no bra saying David Cameron was a prick, I'd have a bloody long wait for Sky News and the police to turn up. The reactions, I'll wager, would involve: some Christian types who were mid-Mass tutting, someone in a Boden cardigan mumbling that this was a bit like when Jesus protested against money-lenders, some nuns on a day trip from Tring putting me on Instagram and then, eventually, a volunteer in a tabard from the tea shop bringing me a cup of milky PG Tips and a lavender slice. What it would certainly would not lead to is national horror, mass rallys, calls for my hanging, my burning, my exorcism and my eventual transportation to Penal Colony Number 14 in Mordovia. As the documentary aired this week on BBC4, Pussy Riot member Nadia Tolokonnikova was being transferred to another unconfirmed colony. Nadia was, essentially, missing in the Russian prison system, which feels, to me, as disconcerting as the threats that the girls would “be killed in Siberia” for their unholy, feminist, anti-establishment actions that were heard during the trial footage. Nadia is an enigmatic character. She is staggeringly beautiful and aware of the fact. She is emotionally ungiving and puts her feminist beliefs before her role as a mummy. She is wholly shameless about a previous protest she took part in where she had sex in a museum. She is calmly, aloofly and defiantly unrepentant about this whole Cathedral business. All of these elements – each and every one – so very very unbecoming in a woman, especially a Russian woman. The Orthodox Church, the media and her prosecutors detest her. The manner in which the Russian Orthodox Christians of 2013 quickly slip into calling Nadia, Masha and Katia “demons” or discussing how there must be a devil moving in them to commit this “sacrilegious act” feels like earwigging on footage of the Salem witch trials. But it's 2013 and they're holding the Winter Olympics there next February. As we watched footage of the girls in their prison cage, being refused the right to see their children, being warned they might die in prison, while their ageing parents were jostled about by Orthodox thugs, it struck me how half-hearted and duplicitous the tone of tolerance and acceptance would be at the Sochi opening ceremony as compared to Danny Boyle's explosion of Great British free-thinking tolerance. Pussy Riot could have ran across Boyle's Green and Pleasant land topless with chainsaws and, in the grand scheme of things, no one would have cared. “But don't you see, in Russia dancing in a cathedral is the equivalent of pissing on a war memorial?” someone Tweeted the other evening as I watched. And, yes, the documentary showed this too. It showed a country where religion was suppressed for many years and is thus now doubly sacred. But, more importantly, it showed a country with no history of performance or conceptual art protest; therefore, Pussy Riot playing bad electric guitar near an altar felt literally like the end of days. Like the Sex Pistols going on TV in the Seventies in Britain and telling Jesus himself to fuck off. Meanwhile, in Britain 2013, we're bored to death with performance art, with Spiderman clinging to Buckingham Palace shouting about his rights as a father, or the Turner Prize exhibition full of child mannequins with cocks for faces or a whole array of passionate political fools who turn up daily on the green at Westminster in fancy dress as toilets, sheep, vaginas etc waving banners to make their point about clean water, EU quotas or chlamydia. In fact, we're so bored by the British equivalents of Pussy Riot that when laws are brought in to deplete our rights to protest, we don't really give a damn. Whether one agrees with Pussy Riot's beliefs or their methods, A Punk Prayer's examination of the girls' fearlessness, their determination to shove feminist protest in the face of Russian Orthodoxy and their unflinching calm in the face of jackboots and holy water was wholly compelling. Before the girls were sentenced – their vows that they weren't being sacrilegious, weren't militant atheists and were in fact making a comment about state involvement in religion roundly ignored – they were permitted to give statements. Katia said: “I now have mixed feelings about this trial. On the one hand, we expect a guilty verdict. Compared to the judicial machine, we are nobodies, and we have lost. On the other hand, we have won. The whole world now sees that the criminal case against us has been fabricated.” I'm not sure that the whole world knows Pussy Riot's story, but this Storyville certainly helped augment their growing legendary status.' Randall Lard - I once again humbly urge everyone on this site to sign the petition here - http://www.amnesty.org/en/appeals-for-action/PussyRiot
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...and there's nothing on? Say it ain't so!
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...The Walking Dead.
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knowing what it is doesn't always help.but it helps a little. helps more than you might know. Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8 -
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How do you do that? Imbed the videos?

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12 years 4 months
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Lamotrigine--brand name "Lamictal"--works wonders (I know firsthand). Kay Redfield Jamison--An Unquiet Mind--excellent book--memoir Touched With Fire, same author Actually a variant of epilepsy
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This is my favorite Sunday morning show. Fareed's got cojones and is not afraid to ask the tough questions of whatever person or situation. Plus, he is bit younger than most of the bloated talking-heads from the networks. Last Sunday he has Israeli Defense Min. Barach Ehud on who has no comment about nuking Iran. Within three years Barach said Iran would have nuclear weapons. (The Israelis have vowed to stop any Iranian missile program). Several commentators on the Euro crisis did not sound upbeat. Italy and Spain are in the contagion zone and only at least 5 years of austerity measures there and in Greece can stop the contagion. The German and the French combined could bail-out the affected countries but they want austerity measures. If the weaker countries do not adhere, the Euro is sure to fall.
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the wonderful actor Tom Hardy in an astonishing role.Stuart: A Life Backwards.
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pressure point on every level.to epitomise the sound in my head...
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Excellent documentary film "The Interrupters - How To Stop A Riot". Tells the surprising story of three dedicated individuals who try to protect their Chicago communities from the violence they themselves once perpetrated. These 'interrupters' intervene in conflicts before the incidents explode into violence. Their work and their insights are closely entwined with their own personal journeys, which, as each of them points out, defy easy characterisation. Shot over the course of a year by acclaimed filmmaker Steve James, it is a vivid portrayal of a city under siege from spiralling violence, including the brutal murder of Derrion Albert, a Chicago high-school student whose death was caught on videotape. These wonderful human beings, part of the CeaseFire campaign, are truly extraordinary. They deserve as much support as you can give them. http://ceasefirechicago.org/
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in an intelligent world, Jonathan Meades would be on the television every day and be made mandatory viewing in the planet's schools. the first episode of his new series Jonathan Meades On France - Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 -
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the wonderful, inquisitive Dr. Gus Hayford started his new series this week on the Asante in Ghana. this is one of his previous programmes on Ehtiopia - Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 -
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14 years 2 months
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Jon Stewart, from Saturday Night Live, has consistently been winning the contest for most popular TV News Broadcaster. His sartorial wit and consistently good acting and funny writers have been a daily staple of mine every time a new show comes on, about 225 times a year. If you lean toward the right on the spectrum,you might want to stick to Fox or goose-step Rush. His guests can also can be very informative. The only time I've seen him be afraid was when he had Dick Cheney on, without his Darth Vader costume (Cheney that is), after is eight year stint as the President, errr-uhhh, excuse me, the Vice Prersident. Wait! Wasn't the last Bush declared brain dead during his second year in office and Cheney was running a shadow government? He got Google Earth to delete his home from the maps?
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a tribute to the Black Panthers by David Murray.
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12 years
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has anyone else ever seen ancient aliens on history channel? its extremely informative, and somewhat freaky. it goes back to the ancient mayan temples and the possibility of aliens back then.
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extraordinary encounters along the Amazon. Part 1 - Part 2 -
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16 years 2 months
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One can always count on Infotainment spin doctor's talking head puppets to have a tenuous grasp of the obvious.
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Part 1: North By Northwest - Part 2: A Passage To India - Part 3: Annapurna To Everest - Part 4: The Roof Of The World - Part 5: Leaping Tigers Naked Nagas - Part 6: Bhutan To The Bay Of Negal -
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One of the advantages to living in Europe is that you actually have media that is open to all things around the world. While the BBC is a bit stodgy, they are definitely World Class. In America, was have to suffer with isolationist tendencies and protective blinders that keep "those foreign countries" out of our experience. By the way, those foreign countries are all countries with the exception of Canada and Mexico. Thank God we have Globe Trekker on public television and the internet.
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Francis Baconpainter of hidden depths part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5 part 6
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what took it so long to spread it's erudite wings onto the cathode ray facilitator?indeed.
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14 years 2 months
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Best of the Sunday morning talking heads. He is a liberal who gives a lot of facts to back up his views. His commentaries are sharp and to the point and all over the political spectrum. He really went after China last week for human right violations in their own country and the hypocrisy of that country accusing the US on that subject. That there is actually a (relatively) new program in the genre that would appeal to the 45-62 demographic is unusual. Like newspapers, this genre of news/commentary is aimed at the 62 and over crowd -- a dieing breed, if you'll excuse the bad pun. I hope that his show has a long shelf life and gets moved to the 7pm slot on a Sunday evening.
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on July 15th. The show has lost some of it's better production values and nice time lapse of New Mexico's landscapes and skys but the story is still relatively fresh after five years, which is hard to do. Starting this Sunday at midnight you can watch/tivo the entire series. Amazingly, the commercial encourages people to record! The AMC channel has consistently provided some of the best new content starting with Mad Men and Breaking Bad about 6 years ago. Amazing. Who is reponsible for turning around this sleepy cable channel known for John Wayne and old Westerns?
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wonderful series by Simon Reeve. Africa - Asia - South America - please visit and enjoy more about Simon Reeve, broadcaster, author, tv presenter - http://www.shootandscribble.com/sr/1.html recent series, Indian Ocean should be available on BBC America. better still, purchase his DVDs.
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12 years
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About a trailer park in Nova Scotia. Its rather campy with a story line about a couple of losers in a trailer park who just got out of jail and their adventures. They like to shoot of guns but they are just white trash hosers who don't mean to harm anyone as they drink and attempt to grow dope. My favorite character is Bubbles who wears inch thick glasses backwards that make his eyes look huge. It's a good show to watch when you're trashed. The episode where one of them is offered $160 to buy hydroponics if he acts in a porno movie is especially hilarious. Leahy, as the ex-cop trailer park security is especially funny.
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Krautrock: The Rebirth of Germany. excellent documentary on some of the most transcendent music ever produced. featuring Can, Amon Düül II, Popol Vuh, Cluster, Neu!, Faust and more.
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South Bank Show documentary on the novelist, journalist, short story writer and willing participant in psychogeography, Will Self. part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5
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14 years 5 months
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I've been following this story about the murder of Brian Terry and find it sickening that Holder thinks it's more important to keep his secrets, save face and cover up the facts of the case than it is to be open and transparent and release the documents requested by the Congressional investigative team...I wonder why the incredibly embarrasing "Deadheads for Oblamer" agree that Brian Terrys' parents have no right to know exactly what happened to their son...???
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But I think you know what happened to Terry, Dewlover. He was shot by a weapon that was from the US government's "Fast & Furious" operation that was badly bungled (see my post in the Trouble Ahead, Trouble Behind thread). I haven't read comments by any Deadheads who feel "Brian Terrys' parents have no right to know exactly what happened to their son". Could you please point out some evidence for that assertion? We know where the guns came from. It wasn't a plot to kill Bill Terry. I think the bad guys have access to guns without the US Government's help. Why don't you admit that you just hate Obama and are chewing on this particular bone because it is an election year and this administration has been so free of scandal this is the only thing you have to go on? Nobody on this site cares about this, Dewlover. Nobody. Get help for your hate before it's too late! There are many good, free programs available to help with this tendency.
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as previously noted more than once, you are free to post your political views in the current events topic and such topics as may be started in the future where they are explicitly relevant (as, in this case, should there ever be an Eric Holder topic). This, however, is the TV topic, with no relevant connection whatever. Any future such posts here or in other inappropriate threads will be summarily deleted. Thanks. Mod hat off.
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Breaking Bad returned last evening for it's fifth and final season, sort of. The crew and cast has finished filming 16 episodes. 8 of which will air this year and 8 the next. I think it's great that writer and creator Vince Gilligan is pulling the plug at the story-line's logical ending rather than extending it out into banality for commercial reasons alone. While AMC touts this show as the greatest dramatic series ever on television, a fact that I certainly wouldn't agree with, I still find it hard to point to any TV show with better acting. The production values are certainly some of the best I have ever seen. Technically, this series is state-of-the art. Nobody does it better. In fact, last night's show had it's own website where viewers could interact with polls and short videos and such. It's ridiculous with the problems facing humanity that a fiction TV program breaks new ground with this technology while pressing issues remain untackled with this kind of tool! Last night's episode showed that Mike is angry that Walt killed his boss Gustavo. Ed survived his accidental fall while being shaken down by Saul's "A" team for the IRS payment because of Skyler's fears. Saul wants out of his professional relationship with Walt, who in turn asserts his passive-aggressive nature. Walt and Jesse use a giant magnet to erase Gustavo's laptop in the evidence lock-up because it contains surveillance footage of them in the super-lab, which is now a smoking crater. Unfortunately, this action reveals another clue from Gustavo's personal effects. On we go. There isn't another TV program I care about or watch on a regular basis. I'm not hopeful I'll ever find one as compelling, contemporary and consistently good as Breaking Bad.
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11 years 7 months
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The Balance

The Balance from KORB on Vimeo.

The Balance is a visual representation of two opposite audio waves. Director: Rimantas Lukavicius VFX / Design company: KORB Sound design: Andrius Rugevicius
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From Dr Who to the Dark Side of the Moon, the members of the Electronic Music Studios used pioneering technology and ideas to create a radical new soundscape for the 20th century. Post-war Britain rebuilt itself on a wave of scientific and industrial breakthroughs that culminated in the cultural revolution of the 1960’s. It was a period of sweeping change and experimentation where art and culture participated in and reflected the wider social changes. In this atmosphere was born the Electronic Music Studios (EMS), a radical group of avant-garde electronic musicians who utilized technology and experimentation to compose a futuristic electronic sound-scape for the New Britain.
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Rich Hall's Inventing The Indian Redressing the balance of misrepresentation. Questioning the screen image of execrable Hollywood films. A search for the real Indian. A different perspective on the people who set foot on American soil first.
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A World Of Sound In memory of David S Ware. A preoccupation with nothing less than humanity's place in the cosmos. Pure Music from a Planetary Unknown. 'Musically to go so deep that you touch upon those Universal forces.'
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11 years 7 months
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Sir Patrick Moore Astronomer Broadcaster Eccentric Audio/Visual element leaves a lot to be desired but these things happen. You've got to make the best of a bad job.
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future past perfect actor: kyusaku shimada music: alva noto voice: anne-james chaton director: carsten nicolai / simon mayer script: nibo director of photography: tetsuya shiota editing: david fabra