Rob Wickings's Blog, page 17
August 27, 2022
Memory Palace: Snowshill Manor And The Mind Of Charles Paget Wade
Focus has been hard to find this week. Rather than offer up a half-hearted edition of The Cut, we’re offering a treat from the archive, first published in 2017. Join us as we take a wander through a haunted house which was the home of one very eccentric Englishman…
Snowshill Manor seems, at first glance, to be just another one of those National Trust sites that attract coach parties, couples of a certain age and bored families looking for a bit of culture before the kids drag them off to the play farm up the lane. It’s a rambling sixteenth-century country house, set in attractive gardens. Pretty, but pretty unremarkable.
Or it would be, were it not for the gentleman that owned it through a chunk of the twentieth century–artist, artisan and obsessive collector Charles Paget Wade. Scion of a family made rich through sugar estates in the West Indies, he bought the Manor House after serving time in the trenches during World War One.
He was at that point already a keen curator of a collection with the broadest remit possible–anything that caught his eyes as having artistic merit or exhibiting a certain level of craftsmanship in its creation.
Wade refitted the Manor in an Arts and Crafts style, a discipline in which he was skilled and fluent. He set about turning Snowshill Manor into the showcase for his obsessions, creating themed rooms filled to the eaves with his finds.
This is what makes the place so fascinating. Wade was an artist, and believed in drama, mood and excitement. When he handed over care of the place to the National Trust, he insisted that they do as little as possible to the interior, to preserve the effect he had worked so assiduously to create.
Snowshill Manor is not your typical NT experience, then. There are no labels, little in the way of explanation as to why the rooms are the way they are. Volunteers are on hand if needs be, but for the most part you are left alone to wander… and wonder.
As you move from room to room, the feeling of disorientation and claustrophobia increases. There is reason and design to the collection, but the sheer weight of visual load becomes ever more difficult to bear. There are 22,000 objects collected in the 22 rooms of the Manor. There is a room dedicated to musical instruments. One to bicycles, particularly boneshakers and penny farthings. There is a room full of samurai armour.
The collection is so huge that Wade was forced to move out, relocating to the adjoining Priest’s House. I’d love to say that it offers a respite to the onslaught. If anything, it’s even more deranged. Here is Wade’s bedroom. Imagine waking up every morning to this.
It’s impossible to take everything in. You begin to hallucinate, as the space reconfigures around you, your perception rewriting with every new burst of stimuli. I have never felt so strongly the impression of being watched, of being gently guided towards a place that I didn’t necessarily want to go. Some of the rooms were roped off. The official story was that there were not enough volunteers that day. I feel more that they couldn’t have people wandering into certain places without some form of protection.
Wade was without any argument a man who understood the theatre of his collection, and there’s a performance to enjoy at Swanshill Manor. You’re sent on a labyrinthine route around the house, traversing a maze that becomes a jigsaw puzzle that becomes, ultimately, a trip through the corridors of Wade’s own head.
Or is Wade wandering through yours? There’s a strong feeling that the trickster left more of himself in Swanshill Manor than the National Trust is letting on. Is the place haunted? Hard to say. Would I care to spend a night here alone? You couldn’t pay me enough.
Charles Paget Wade reveals himself, briefly.I make the place sound like the work of a isolated madman, yet Wade was personable and popular. He was visited by J.B. Priestley, Virginia Woolf and even royalty–Queen Mary stepped over the threshold. I can understand why artists would be charmed and amused by the sheer volume of the place. But there’s also a sense of relief when you find one last turn finally spits you out into the gardens, and you can feel the horizon open up again, and you realise how much the walls and ceilings have been closing in around you.
Snowshill Manor is a remarkable place, the cousin to a nightmare tucked into a crook of road close to some of the Cotswold’s prettiest towns and villages. Un-nerving and energising in equal measure, it’s a house possessed (and I don’t use that word lightly, Readership) with its own very particular character. I recommend a visit. Make sure you bring friends.
Snowshill Manor is open for most of the year. For more, check the NT site: https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/snowshill-manor-and-garden
August 20, 2022
The Cut Season 3 Episode 32
There was rain, which was good. The tomatoes and chilis in The Cut’s vegetable patch were grateful. A drink of water that hadn’t been used for the washing-up was very pleasant. Similarly, most of the staff have been happy for a couple of nights sleep undisturbed by the sweats and gnats. They’re small things but frankly, we take our positives where we can get them.
Onto business! This week—a night at The Lighterman, considerations on lunch and travel and the return of Garth Merenghi!
Now is the time. Here is the place. This is The Cut.
It seems strange to consider the 90s as olden times, but the awful truth is we are thirty years past the release of The Silence Of The Lambs and the birth of the saintly Selena Gomez. Awful to say, but the Cut Crew are only as young as they feel and that twinge in the lower back isn’t getting any better.
Enough whinging. We are here to celebrate the past, not complain about it. Back when MTV used to actually show music videos, the highlight of any indie-centric music fan was 120 Minutes. This was a show which cemented the reputations of bands as disparate as Alice In Chains and Yo La Tengo. There was a lot of music to listen to. Luckily for us, a playlist has just popped up featuring pretty much every video ever screened on the show. Over 2000 of them. We guarantee you’ll find at least one track which is to your taste. Yes, we are aware that we’ve flipped the normal order of things and put the music up front, but this seemed too good an opportunity to stick at the end. Click on the playlist button top right of the embed (which only gives you the first 200 songs, click on a choice cut and head over to YouTube for the rest) and get digging!
There is a movie waiting to happen about the life and wild times of Andres Beckett. Part Western, part romance, part take on human endurance against the odds, this is a long read we think you should settle in for. Mount up!
The Lighterman is a rarity these days—a true community space in an area which has no glamour or money attached to it. The closest we can come to a good example is a fictional place: The Queen Vic in Eastenders. It’s a crying shame these kind of pubs are so hard to find, or that so few of them survive. We suspect The Lighterman sits in a tiny bubble of geography and economic disinterest, making enough, just about, to stay open against the odds.
We present a fine example of speculative cinephilia from So Mayer, which presents a charming thought exercise. If we assume there are other universes, why should we not also assume the existence of films which are not immediately available to us? There are plenty of movies, especially from the silent era, which only now exist as reviews or stills. The piece linked below is simply taking this concept to a logical conclusion…
Being alive is famously difficult. Where should you go? What should you do? Why are you here? When is lunch?
Travel broadens the mind. It also broadens the palate, which is equally important. Adam Mastroinni considers both, and offers a few notes for the ongoing massive Google Doc of our lived experience here on Earth.
We talked last week about how Hollywood writer’s rooms are struggling to come up with stories whose twists and endings won’t be second-guessed by obsessive fans. This isn’t the only challenge authors and scriptwriters face. Given that there are only so many stories to be told (some say seven core narratives, while the Heroe’s Journey is, as theorised by Joseph Campbell, the blueprint for all fictional texts) it’s inevitable that there will be overlaps. Or, as many lawsuits pointed at studios and networks every year assert, theft…
Jacob Collier is an extraordinarily talented multi-instrumentalist. He can play just about everything. Including, in this clip, the audience at his gigs.
He’s got the audience on the palm of his hand
This instantly reminded us of a moment featuring Bobby McFerrin at a science conference, which showed our innate understanding of basic musical theory. It may look like dots on a page, but we know the intervals of the pentatonic scale without even really thinking about it.
Some musings on the life and writing of John Donne, Elizabethan thinker, writer and theologian. Sounds a bit dry? Think again, Readership. Donne took every day by the collar and shook it hard. He was a fascinating character whose impulses and beliefs often seemed at odds but were wholly in keeping with his pursuit of the infinite.
One equal light, one equal music.
And finally, some extremely good news. Author and dream-weaver Garth Merenghi has returned from his dark sojourns to bring us a new set of stories crafted as only he knows how. Released just after Halloween following disagreements with his editor, this one promises to be the read for Spooky Season. Fresh meat for the demon lords!
It would feel strange not to finish with a song, so we’ve had a quick spin round the 120 Minutes playlist we started with to find something fitting. Couldn’t resist a replay of this one. Buzz buzz buzz.
See you next Saturday, eardrummers.
August 13, 2022
The Cut Season 3 Episode 31
Phew, what a scorchio and other such meaningless phrases tossed out in cheerful denial of a looming global heatocalypse! Here at The Cut we are sensible, believing strongly in the importance of staying inside, the only light available coming from the screens of our devices. How else could we provide the endless stream of content for you, beloved Readership, to while away your weekend?
This week—a mechanical owl! Science cakes! How to build a crow army! And several more items!
Now is the time. Here is the place. This is The Cut.
Jeremy Mayer makes incredible, intricate sculptures out of old typewriters. Although we’re a bit leery of these beautiful old word-crafters being taken apart, Jeremy’s vision and skill are undeniable. This may be his finest moment. Be sure to swipe through to the video at the end for a little bit of Blade Runner.
We talk a lot about AI here, and the challenges innate in getting an artificial network to act like a human mind. The ‘simplest’ solution to the dilemma would surely be to capture the structure of the brain itself and reproduce it in digital form (simple isn’t the term, of course, but we trust you get the idea). Would there be ethical implications to such a mapping? The story linked below is fiction right now, but as an exploration of one possible path, it’s both convincing and utterly horrific.
If you need a livener after that shot of darkness, enjoy a few vintage shots of people enjoying a glass of the good stuff. In this weather a cold beer or several feels like a very good idea, even if it really isn’t. Oh well. Cheers!
Science is a good thing. Cake is a good thing. Making cakes is a fine balancing act between the precision and predictability of a scientific process and the creative impulse in edible form. The end point to this journey can be expressed in the formula c=s+e+a, where c=cake, s=science, e=education and a=art. Delicious information ahead!
Nick Drnaso’s Acting Class is already being hailed as one of the best graphic novels of 2022. His work is simple at first glance, yet quickly reveals layers of complexity and deep feeling. The Atlantic has a preview. We think you’ll approve.
We have a feeling this list of 100 Greatest Comic Pages has been highlighted before in The Cut. It really feels like something we’d go in for. But as we are now two years and change and over a hundred episodes into this wild ride, we’ve been unable to check for sure. So, if we’re repeating ourselves, apologies. A good link bears repeating and we got seriously lost in a listicle which manages to sum up the history of The Ninth Art so nicely.
Modern movies and TV depend so much on the work and skill of the VFX artist. Sit through the end credits of any blockbuster and you’ll see how many companies are shunting pixels around for the sake of a big explosive moment on screen. The process is exacting and complex. Unfortunately, the people behind the magic are often treated poorly, worked like dogs and badly compensated. Disney and Marvel have a lot to answer for…
Things aren’t much better in the writing rooms of big-time dramas, where overenthusiastic fans have forced show-runners to second-guess every possible twist, however absurd. It’s so easy to freeze-frame, zoom and enhance on any on-screen detail, however innocuous, and build a bonkers theory out of it. Viewers, it seems, are never happier when they’re breaking a show back down to its constituent parts, however damaging that might be.
We’re big fans of SF author and all-round brainiac Adam Roberts at The Cut, and his latest work, The This, is a remarkable novel. A treatise on social media, it takes the idea of a collective consciousness and really runs with it. When commentators talk about a Twitter pile-on, it’s described as a single organism, not an temporary event wave built with hundreds of people, all acting in a way they assume to be free will. The madness and wisdom of crowds…
And finally. Just as a thought experiment, if you wanted to summon a murder of crows to rain harm on your enemies, how would you go about that? We mean, just out of interest. Not that we’d ever do anything like that if anyone pisses us off.
The Beths are back! Our favourite power pop lovelies are really bringing the goods as they fire up the engines to their latest album. The title track feels like is should be our theme song. After all, we’ve stayed as a blog when we should have been a Facebook page, a podcast, a Substack newsletter. Nope, sorry, we’re sticking to the routes and methods we know best. Cheerfully obsolescent since 2004.
See you next Saturday, throwbacks.
August 6, 2022
The Cut Season 3 Episode 30
We’re pulling up the drawbridge and dropping the portcullis. The world can crash and bang about on the other side of the walls for a while. It’s safe here and if you’re quick, we’ll hold the gate for you. Welcome, brave traveller. Cuppa tea, or something a little stronger?
This week, a feast in the air and from the sea, a hit of romance and a rough guide to The Sandman. Take a pew, pilgrim. We’ve got this.
Now is the time. Here is the place. This is The Cut.
This is fun. The guy behind vole.wtf has taken the headlines of the newspapers in 2001: A Space Odyssey and used AI to make stories out of them. It all seems like such a bright and shiny future, unlike the toxic dumpster fire we seem to be living through. Although we do still have grizzly bears, so that’s one positive.
It takes a special kind of person to look at a hot air balloon and see it as a big flying barbecue. A person like Angélique Schmeinck, Dutch chef and, let’s be honest, deranged visionary. She isn’t just offering packed lunches here. The natural end point for the phrase ‘high table’?
Who knew France was threatened with nuclear annihilation by a rogue Pacific state in 1995? The threat was real enough. The aggressor in question? Less so. In a world where borders and boundaries are ever in flux, we shouldn’t be surprised that The Melchizedek Empire made a momentary splash. Nations are, at the most basic definition, agreements between sets of people. This story puts that theory to the point of breaking strain…
The Rise And Fall Of The Melchizedek Empire
Everything we do is based on a decision tree. Should we get out of bed today or not? That decision sets off a branching set of circumstance which could have significant effects on your life. A decision razor is equally important. It enables you to slice through the cruft and figure out which way works best for you. There’s some old saws in this listicle, but a lot of useful stuff too.
The Ninth Art Desk has been vibrating across the office with excitement as the release of Netflix’s adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman approaches. It’s a complex and involving piece of fantasy which rewards patience, empathy and a willingness to embrace the strange. If you know nothing about the story, it really is best to go in cold. But if you get lost or want a little more background on the plot and huge cast of characters, here’s a handy annotated guide to the world of Dream and The Endless…
Sometimes, the weekend is made for a bizarre culinary challenge. If you’re a bit bored and fancy making a libation which really is outside the ordinary, why not try a clarified milk punch? It’s a sure way to confuse anyone you offer it to!
Joni Mitchell is a true original, and the Music Desk are to a man and woman lifetime fans. Our sorrow at the 2015 news that Joni had suffered from a brain aneurysm and would never play an instrument again was matched by her audience across the globe. Imagine our delighted surprise, then, when she appeared at this year’s Newport Folk Festival and did this…
Genre is always considered a lower form of writing, romance especially so. It gets no love from critics, although successful romantic writers are able to wipe away the tears with fistfuls of money. Literary snobbery always fails to see the bigger picture, focussing on style and fireworks instead of heart and soul. Romance is the most popular and lucrative sector of the publishing market. We get the feeling there’s some jealousy at play.
As a sidebar to the conversation, the recent Dakota Johnson-starring version of Persuasion whipped up howls of outrage for not being particularly true to the book. That, as Henry Oliver points out, is beside the point. The text is robust enough to stand up to different interpretations. And hey, the book isn’t going anywhere…
https://thecritic.co.uk/in-defence-of-the-netflix-persuasion/
Of course, the most maligned of all romantic output is the ‘girl’s comic’. It was ever thus. Once again, we note that stories in this genre, particularly in the form of manga, are among the biggest sellers in a big market, massively outperforming all that superhero nonsense. We are happy to report that Rebellion, keeper of the British comics flame, are releasing a compendium of ‘girl’s comics’ strips from the 60s and 70s, featuring some incredibly groovy artwork. This is well worth asking for as a late Christmas gift—or even buying it for that special auntie who still understands the basic truth: Comics Do It Best.
And finally. A staff outing to sunny Weymouth last month was topped off with a visit to the brilliant Rockfish, a proper fish restaurant if ever we saw one. The food was, naturally, delicious. An option for starters in which we indulged featured their range of canned fish. Seems a bit low class? You’ll be having a go at romance comics next! The fish was beautiful, showing off what the Portuguese have known for decades—there’s more to tinned seafood than John West salmon!
We were even happier to see Rockfish sell their canned fish both in the restaurant and online. It may seem pricy, but trust us. With good bread and pickles, a couple of tins makes an excellent meal.
We’re heading back to 1977 for our Exit Music. An episode of Top Of The Pops celebrated all things synth (whether by accident or design we can’t really tell) with an eclectic mix of acts bringing wide-eyed kids the sounds of the future. It’s super-charming if a bit shonky and tin-foil. But we do get Donna Summer at the end, so that’s alright.
See you next Saturday, space-kids.
July 30, 2022
The Cut Season 3 Episode 29
Hang on, wasn’t it the weekend like, three days ago? Is time speeding up? Is an etheric energy, formed from our collective desire to have done with the week, somehow having a dilatory effect on time itself? Or are we just really busy?
Regardless of how we got to this point, here we are. Thanks for joining us. We celebrate the life of a British comics great, talk burgers with Bob and enjoy not one but two burrito-themed links. Sink your teeth into this!
Now is the time. Here is the place. This is The Cut.
A necessarily sombre start to events, though, as we mourn the passing of Alan Grant. His work from DC Thomson into the new wave of boy’s comics would have been inspiration enough, but his storied contributions to The Galaxy’s Greatest Comic made him a true legend. He arguably wrote the greatest ever Judge Dredd story, America, which nails the comedy, darkness and pungent social commentary that still makes 2000AD a must-read today. His empathy and kindness to upcoming writers and artists would make him a steward to just about every major British funny-book talent you’ve heard of.
He will be hugely missed. Rest In Power, Alan.
OK, let’s lighten the tone. This bit from The Fence about ordinary citizens who share their names with famous and infamous people caused much amusement around the office, tempered with the realisation of what they have to live with every day. Wouldn’t you just—change it?
We’re on record as to the restorative power of a stroll if we’re faced with an especially intractable piece of writing. There’s something about the process which seems to unstick the flow, or smooth the narrative wrinkle. Some call it The Thinking Path. We call it an excuse to pop to the pub for a swiftie.
The first of our burrito-based stories comes from the brilliantly named Jack Dire (please, let that be his real name) who posted an open letter to the chap who made his lunch and decided to go a little—off piste. There’s a time and a place for creativity. The construction of a burrito should be neither.
Dear Guy Who Just Made My Burrito
We’re still waiting for a UK screening date after which we can inhale The Bear, the hit drama of the season for all foodies. Taut, tense and tasty in equal measure, we want this show so bad it hurts. As an amuse-bouche, let’s take a look at the male phenotype at the heart of the show. Fans of the sainted Anthony Bourdain may recognise the figure. Question—can you have a female dirtbag bear?
This month, director Michael Mann is releasing a prose sequel to his iconic crime film Heat. The film features Los Angeles as a supporting character—unsurprising given Mann’s flair for architectural detail. Join us and location manager Janice Polley as we revisit some of the sites that gave Heat so much of its appeal. Oh, and we can recommend the sequel, even if you have to picture the sets in your head.
Mark E. Smith famously said of the band he ruled like a lizard king, ‘if it’s me and your granny on bongos, it’s The Fall.’ Certainly most music critics focus on Smith, his irascible stage and interview presence and impenetrable lyrics over anything else. Clearly this is nonsense and incredibly reductive of the many musicians who toiled under Smith’s iron-clad hand (often on the controls of their amps while they were playing). Simon Reynolds lays out the case for The Fallen…
Right, back to burritos. We like to feel we can answer the big questions here at The Cut. The really important stuff, the thoughts which keep us all awake at night. At last, writer and burrito-monster John Scalzi can help us sleep soundly.
What Burrito Would You Feed A Dragon?
We have become really big fans of Bob’s Burgers. A family comedy with heart and a winningly surreal air which, helpfully, is also hilarious. The full-length Bob’s Burgers Movie has just dropped on streaming services, following a theatrical release which garnered glowing reviews. Little White Lies spoke to H. Jon Benjamin, the voice of Bob, on ensemble voice acting, the joy of animation and singing in character.
The geek-sphere has been buzzing with the news from this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, the big destination for fans of anything involving masks and spandex. It has become the venue to announce big new movie and TV news. 2022’s events included the announcement of Marvels tranche of movies and shows up to 2025 and sneak peeks at the Game Of Thrones prequel, House Of The Dragon. One key feature of the event which has been increasingly sidelined is, well, comics. Chloe Maveal teams up with Popverse to explore the show and finds out where the funny-books have gone.
And finally. For those of you who love The Ninth Art and want more tips on how to break into the industry (someday you too could be ignored by the crowds at SDCC!) we have just the thing. Chip Zdarsky, writer on books as diverse as Daredevil, Batman and Howard The Duck, has launched the first edition of his video masterclass. At last, it’s your chance to glean a fistful of crumbs from the king’s table. Chipclass 1 – Ideas gives out gold and expects nothing back but your unceasing devotion and loyalty.
We finish where we started—mourning the loss of a beloved entertainer. While not unexpected, the passing of Bernard Cribbins still stung when it was announced this week. He had been a part of our lives for so long, it seems strange to face the world without him. Part of two different iterations of Doctor Who, he was a star of stage, screen and radio for over 60 years, working almost to the end to bring a smile to kids and adults wherever he went. And yes, he was a pop star at one point too. We have a feeling you’ll know this one. So long, Bernard.
See you next Saturday.
July 23, 2022
The Cut Season 3 Episode 28
This week felt as if a warning shot we’d been waiting a very long time for finally went off. We’re going through a set of crazy science fictional scenarios—pandemics, heavy weather events—which seem more mundane than the Big Bangs we were led to expect, and all the more scary for it. More sleepless nights ahead, we reckon.
But amongst the strangeness, beneath the pitiless skies, The Cut remains, as nonsensical and arbitrary in our selections of weekend reading as ever. We’re off to the coast for the weekend, to dip our toes in the sea and eat some fish while we can still go outdoors.
Now is the time. Here is the place. This is The Cut.
Brian Eno’s Music For Airports redefined what music could be on its release in 1978, sparked off a whole new genre of experimental sounds and remains a work of rare and unusual beauty. Reverb Machine digs into the techniques Eno used to create the piece (some of which will be very familiar to fans of Delia Derbyshire and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop) and even allows you to make your own loops. This is a lot of fun and surprisingly immersive…
Make Your Own Music For Airports
The Tory Leadership campaign rumbles on, the choices narrowing from a set of five no-hopers down to two. It feels like the blue team are finally sick of being in charge and looking for a way to step back for a bit. We feel the most obvious candidate for the role was overlooked. He’d certainly have got our vote…
The release of Studio Ghibli’s masterpiece Princess Mononoke in America twenty-five years ago was fraught with difficulty, much of which came from the disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, who had a clear idea of how he wanted the film to be seen. He did not reckon with Mononoke’s creator, the unmovable, unstoppable Hayao Miyazaki. NO CUTS!
The heatwave this week led to a ton of panic-inducing articles in the media about how to cope and, more helpfully, a lot of tips on Twitter from people who live in hot countries on survival tactics. This thoughtful piece from journalist and snark machine Marie Le Conte makes a more serious point—if climate change means irreversible change to the British climate, the Northern European way in which we conduct our lives will have to change as well.
Climate Change and behavioral change.
Robin Rendle is best known for his writing on typography. But this beautifully presented slideshow/essay is more concerned with how we capture images, and whether we need to reconsider that process. Given the beauty of the pictures he presents, we have to admit man’s got a point.
On the subject of design for the web, we present without further comment this absolute gem from a jeweler and psychic called Skydin. Let this one wash over you.
The internet’s main character this week has to be Emmanuel the emu. His attitude and the reactions he elicits from his keeper Taylor Blake have had us in stitches. Memories of Rod Hull have come flooding back, and we suddenly realise just how clever his mastery of an irascible puppet was. Anyway, stakes were raised recently when all the inhabitants of Knucklebump Farm decided to get a piece of the action.
You may have heard of RRR, the epic South Asian movie smash which has critics hailing a new wave in Indian cinema. Western critics, that is. There’s a lot to consider when reviewing the film in terms of the politics, history and social structures from which it sprang. Ritesh Babu has all the context you need in the latest edition of his Lettes From Limbo Buttondown. It’s a long read, fair warning, but well worth it. Also he talks about comics so you can see how our interest was sparked.
Science fiction and fantasy is going through an absolute golden age at the moment, based on an embrace of different voices, perspectives and cultures. It’s an amazing, vibrant scene popping off signs and wonders in a glorious firework display of creativity. The Guardian’s Brian Attebery presents a useful list of starting points to get you up to speed.
And finally. This New York Times bit on the rise and fall of the anti-hero is catnip to the Ninth Art Desk. We found the latest iteration of That Batman to be as dour and tedious as they did. We prefer a lighter, less miserable tone.
Drawing The Line between good and evil
We’re taking you to Glasgow for this week’s Exit Music, more specifically to the starry-eyed romance of The Blue Nile. They were an obsession to some members of The Music Desk back in the day, and the band’s soaring synths can still evoke chills and a pricking of tears at the corner of the eye. Kieran Curran at Tribune provides some context, and there’s a full concert from the BBC broadcast from Manchester’s Free Trade Hall in 1990 which captures them in full wide-screen majesty.
See you next Saturday, bruised romantics.
July 16, 2022
The Cut Season 3 Episode 27
We can’t festival like we used to. Nearly a week after the end of Readipop (hope you all enjoyed our overview of the event, by the way) we are still achy of limb and heavy of head. And we didn’t even go that hard! Age can be cruel to the party animal, doubly so when we’re still hauling ourselves out of lockdown torpor. Still, fun was had, beer was drunk, boogies were boogied. Already looking forward to next year.
However, we have other business to attend to, feeding the maw of the hungry link-eating machine that is The Cut. This week: beats, seances and 21 flavours of Mountain Dew.
Now is the time. Here is the place. This is The Cut.
The return of cult comedy favourite Boys In The Hall was met with pleasure and enthusiasm by all. The Canadian team’s signature mix of dry absurdity and outré wackiness is solidly in place. However, the hit sketch, a solo bit from Dave Foley, takes a slightly different tack and keys into a post-pandemic mood of fear and uncertainty. Hilarious, sure, but also shockingly bleak.
Kind of staying on the DJ tip, we geeked hard over this listicle of top ten classic drum machines. If your musical education was founded in the late seventies and early-to-mid eighties, the noises these little boxes make is in your soul, ready to make you dance again at the touch of a button.
We recommend staying with this thoughtful review of Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Always as an indictment of the way 21st century Western society handles abortion issues. Not the most fun you’ll have but important reading nevertheless, as a major erosion in a woman’s right to choose what she does with her own body is darkening the skies…
Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Always.
Meanwhile the end of A.B.dF. Johnson’s run as Prime Minister leads to an even more unedifying spectacle—the campaign for Tory leadership. Back-biting and cat-fighting are, as usual, part of the process. However, a lot of the heavy lifting for each candidate’s claim is done in secret, constructed out of whispers in corridors and clandestine meetings. This is surprisingly common in British politics and starts right down at the grass roots.
Guy Maddin’s Seances is a film like no other. The experience we had watching it will not be the experience you have. It’s a different film every time it’s viewed. Be sure to look at the About section before you hit play.
Everything has an operating system nowadays. Your phone, your TV, your stereo, probably your washing machine, perhaps your fridge. And operating systems need updating. More and more often, it seems. This needs to happen to stop your devices becoming zombie bots crashing the internet. But perhaps there’s a different way that’s a bit less… irritating.
More unashamed Ninth Art nerdery from the brilliant Chloe Mavael, remembering one of our favourite Britcomic anthologies. The nineties saw a huge bump in new exciting graphic action on the high street, and we agree with Chloe that the best was Deadline. We used to own a big pile of back issues, but we don’t think they survived our move away from London. A real shame, as Deadline was a snapshot of a very distinct moment in British comics action.
Just a little thing from Faith Erin Hicks, but it packs a lot into that small package. We’ve all felt like Faith at some point, and this strip brings in a fat heap of existential angst. Enjoy?
We loved this overview of a 1975 play featuring Helen Mirren before she became the regal figure she is now. Teeth ‘N’ Smiles sounds like a fascinating piece, and we think it may be worth a revival. Who would play Maggie, though?
And finally. Some journalists take things too far in pursuit of a story, putting themselves at risk. That doesn’t quite happen to Geraldine DeRuiter, but we do question the state of her mental health at the end of the exercise. All those chemicals can’t be good for the brain…
Don’t Try This…at home or anywhere.
Bob Dylan’s back in the news, releasing one-off million-dollar albums and launching a tour you can’t take your phone into. He always takes his own path, does our Bob. We thought he should close out proceedings with a version of Jokerman, played on Letterman in 1984, backed by a crack band of Latino punks. It’s quite the thing. Far Out Magazine has context.
See you next Saturday, jokers. More importantly—stay cool, ya hear?
July 12, 2022
Readi To Go: Notes On Readipop 2022
After two years away for some reason, Readipop returned to Christchurch Meadows for three days of art, love and music. It was delightful and strange to be back. Can we remember how to festival?
FridayThe first evening is designed to ease we revellers in gently. This has to explain the openers on the main stage. Air Circus provided an easy flow of mellow jazz funk which took most of our group right back to the eighties. Real smooth, man.
The pace changed with the next act. Jesus Jones were loud and lairy, as expected and hoped for. There was dry, deprecating humour from Mike Edwards (‘here’s another of our singles that didn’t hit the top 40’). The glorious racket roaring out from the Big Shell took us right here right now on a nostalgia trip back to our Doubt-loving days.
Jesus Jones: International Bright Young ThingsA quick side shuffle to the Purple Turtle tent to commune with King Kuda. They were glorious: heady psych-pop with a bit of bite and a brilliantly charismatic frontman. These guys are all ready for the big leagues. I think we were lucky to catch them on a small stage. That won’t be happening for much longer, mark our words.
Hail To The King… Kuda, that is. The main stage closed out with Morcheeba. What can you say? We mean, it’s Morcheeba. You know what you get. Blunted, bluesy, sweet vocals, the perfect soundtrack to a sunset and moonrise. Skye sweetly serenaded the big half-moon glowing over the site, and everything seemed right with the world.
We have to mention the struggles with beer on the first day, which led to queues halfway across the festival ground. These were teething troubles on the busiest Readipop Friday ever, which the organisers were admirably quick to recognize and address. More tills and staff made it much easier to get a beer from then on… which explains the Monday morning headache, alas.
SaturdayAs we wandered onto the site, we were accosted by a smartly dressed and polite young lady who invited us to check out her acapella group. Who could resist when we were asked so nicely? Readiphonics were good fun, and in very good voice. We had to resist the temptation to call for Fuck the Pain Away when they asked if there were any requests…
Imogen Halsey’s tender love songs had to compete with a full blown drum circle cooking off outside. To her credit she kept going and managed to keep the tent focussed on her. We saw her around the site for the rest of the day checking out bands and soaking up the atmosphere, clearly having a great time.
Typically for an English music festival, every artist we saw talked about the weather, asked us if we had enough suncream on and urged us to stay hydrated. Thanks for the concern, we’re managing thanks. To be fair though, it was very hot.
We stuck to our shady spot by the Readipop stage for Jess Tuthill. More delicate sad songs, played with warmth and humour. It’s amazing what you can do with a ukulele and a loop pedal. Jess was genuinely impressive and we really enjoyed her stuff. Are we right in thinking she used to be part of Reading’s ukulele collective The Small Strings?
A note on the food. We were very happy to see local favourites Fat Tabby and Makan Malaysia on site. Other options were available (including the excellently named Bohemian Wrapsody) but honestly, the Beefy Boy burger and chicken rendang were the big hitters for us. There was no danger of going hungry or thirsty on site, although a cocktail bar would have been nice. We heard rumours about positive changes in that direction for 2023…
The Menstrual Cramps! So much fun. Bouncy shouty agit-punk from this Bristol bunch, who admirably kept their mid-afternoon set (almost) swear-free. Bags of energy, impressively so in the hotbox that was the Purple Turtle tent. There were two small girls near the front, sitting crosslegged in caps and ear-defenders, absolutely transfixed by the onstage shenanigans. The next generation? We bumped into the band later on, and they were all lovely, happy to sign t-shirts and shoot the breeze. We’re fans!
The Menstrual Cramps – culling the Tories. The Readipop tent had an afternoon slot showcasing the reason we were all there–the young people the charity helps every day. It was a remarkable experience. Being part of the audience while these kids openly blossomed on stage was emotional and humbling. A tangible reminder of the healing power of music.
While we’re on the subject, it’s important to stress that Readipop has more than music on offer. There were interviews with Stephen Morris of New Order and Richard Jobson from The Skids, craft stalls and kids activities and loads of theatrical performances across the site. A salvage-punk dinosaur trundled around. There were two blokes dressed as trees. Of course, the big question remained—who is Cherry Nuggets and why should we want her autograph?
Groot School
Doyouthinkhesaurus? 
Not approved attire in this weather. However, let’s return to the music. A change to the programme meant we could catch Didcot’s own Tom Webber, and boy are we glad we did. His rock n roll credentials are impeccable, his songs coming from a deep well of soulful meaning echoing back through the decades. It doesn’t hurt that he looks like an old-time matinee idol and sounds like Sam Cooke. This was the real deal. Watch this guy take off.
We faded a little after that, happy to sit in the sun and listen to Ben Ottewell from Gomez and The Shard Project bump and bounce and growl in the Purple tent. Look, this isn’t intended as a review of every band on site. We were just there for a good time.
And suddenly it was 8pm and Stealing Sheep were on. Our favourite Scouser pop-synth surrealists did a bang-up job, getting the main stage crowd hopping about to their cheerfully skew-whiff electronica. They looked to be having the time of their lives, and their joy was wildly infectious. We are happy to report the balloon suits were out and made for a winning finale. Stealing Sheep are a scream live. We cannot recommend them highly enough.
Stealing Sheep – that’s the kind of inflation we can approve of. If only we could say the same for Grandmaster Flash. The cardinal sin of any DJ is to spend too much time talking. Flash talked a lot. His skills and influence on modern music are undeniable, and worth celebrating. But without the Furious Five to back him up (they bailed for personal reasons), he offered a set heavy on visuals and low on content. Padded and stop-start, it just didn’t ever catch fire. We left before the end, hobbling back up the hill to Bedfordshire in the warmth of the evening.
SundayA slightly later start. We hit the site just in time to catch Nigel Clark, the curly-haired dude from Dodgy. He matched the mellow-vibe feel of the day nicely, mixing old and new with charm and an endearingly ramshackle approach to timing and set structure. He would later join Reading’s other ukulele collective Tea And Jam for a rousing cover of Staying Out For The Summer. What a gent!
The Readipop stage was subject to a BBC Introducing takeover, handy for us as we just parked up in our usual spot and let the music roll by. Du’Val brought all of his extended family along, packing out the tent for his soulful funky tunes. Elucidate changed the tempo with some great shoegazey sounds–we were reminded of local legends Slowdive at times, which is never a bad thing. Wynona’s country-adjacent stylings gave us early REM flashbacks–if their guitarist arpeggiated his chords we’d be deep into Peter Buck territory. Someone get that guy a Rickenbacker! None of this is a complaint, by the way–early REM is our happy place. Meanwhile doops (note the lower-case) regretted their choice of white boiler suits as stage wear in the increasingly sauna-like conditions. The music, like the band, were hot and heavy.
We needed some air, but strange attractors pulled us into the Purple Turtle tent. To be specific, The Pink Diamond Revue, turning up the temperature on an already roasting purple canvas bag. Two blokes, one showroom dummy, endless costume changes (for the dummy) and a blaze of retro-phuture dirty rock. And zero banter. PDR are the one band of the weekend not to mention the weather. Or indeed, anything. That’s fine, it adds to the kohl-eyed, shiny-shirted mystery of it all.
The Pink Diamond Revue – much glam, very rock. Things kind of blurred a little after that. Perhaps there were psychedelics in the dry ice. Perhaps that last pint of Soundwave was a bad idea. Aaanyway. Before we knew it Badly Drawn Boy was on the main stage and we were dozing in The Very Large Deckchair. The sky was dappled in mackerel-scaled blue and the temperature had mellowed deliciously. Damon Gough’s music has always suited this kind of weather–too warm-hearted and generous to soundtrack the rain. We had a glow on now, partly from the sun, partly from the bliss of being somewhere in a field in Berkshire on a glorious Sunday afternoon.
And that, apart from a quick spin round the merch stall for a (too small) black metal t-shirt and a Four Tops record, was that. We decided to skip Transglobal Underground and finished off the weekend on home turf. For a mellow-vibe kind of event, we still felt pretty knackered.
But that’s a a good sign, right? Readipop has become a high point of the Dingtown social calender, evolving smoothly from a local showcase to something with its own distinct air and flavour. As a charity, Readipop do brilliant work. As a festival organiser, they know how to bring people together in a peaceful and beautifully inclusive way. We like to think of it as the real Reading Festival.
Aaand relax.
July 9, 2022
The Cut Season 3 Episode 26
Last week’s post, on artificial sentience and the rules of personhood (who says we don’t know how to have a good time here?) span naturally out of our usual process for link-gathering here at The Cut. We’re always fascinated by a good idea explored well, and the story of Blake Lemoine and LamDA deserved more than a simple paragraph. Once we began to consider the implications and map them onto current events—well, we had 1500 words. We’ll try and do more of these sort of posts, just to switch things up.
In the meantime, we’re back on our basic bullshit. Check out linkery on film restoration, stomp boxes and the rebirth of twee.
Now is the time. Here is the place. This is The Cut.
But first, a comic. More specifically, one written by an AI. Now, as the post makes clear, some light editing has been applied. But then you could say that to all written works. You wouldn’t believe how many drafts an episode of The Cut gets through before we hit the big red publish button. What, you think this just falls out of our heads perfectly formed?
Wim Wenders is a genius of film—thoughtful, tender and fearsomely intelligent. We loved this interview in which he talks about the recent tranche of restoration given to a big chunk of his catalogue. This is all pertinent to aspects of Editor Rob’s day job, and he reports Wenders knows of what he speaks. If you’re a film fan of any description, you’ll want to check this one out.
More from our pal Patrick Marlborough at Vice. He nails a bothersome trend in the ongoing spinout of intellectual property to extended universes—that is, the things that made them fun in the first place get polished away by committee. The general sense of disappointment in the latest Star Wars iteration, Obi-Wan Kenobi, can be traced to this pasturisation of the experience. We’re with Patrick. Raise the freak flag high!
Pride Month is done, but that don’t mean the celebrations have to end. Let’s take a look at the life and work of cameraman Austin McKinney, who was behind the lens of a ton of classic trashy movies. This is from Daily Grindhouse, doing great work as ever. We could fill The Cut with their output every week cheerfully.
The Best Lil Cameraman In Texas
Same vibe, different flavour. Over to Eater, where writer Rachel P. Kreiter talks us through how the coded language of Polari has spread into food slang and jargon. This is good fun, especially if you don’t know Polari.
We reposted an article published on Excuses And Half Truths in 2018 a couple of weeks back to a pleasingly positive response. Coming across this bit, again from Eater, made us wonder whether the nice comments were about the writing, or simply because peeps do love their deep-fried chicken cutlets. We’ll take the praise however it was engendered.
Only Murders In The Building is back, baby! We’re so happy. Season One was a highlight of 2021 (and gods know, we needed all the highlights we could get). Twisty plot and crazy characters aside, one of the big draws is The Building itself. The Arconia is a place of many hidden rooms and secret corridors. It’s a cast member too. Turns out the place the series is filmed in has its own stories.
Netflix has found a home for Rowan Atkinson. His new show, Man vs Bee, is stuffed with his trademark physical comedy—although we’re not convinced by the lumpen attempts at character development. Atkinson has always been at his best as a near-silent clown. This treatise on visual comedy released on home video in the 90s goes through the essentials in forensic detail. It’s also, helpfully, very funny.
Playing electric guitar is not just about the instrument. To get your signature tone there are hundreds of different variations of pickup, string choices, the kind of pick you use (if you choose to use one at all). Then you’re into the whole tangled mess of the sort of amp you play through, how hard you run it, if you modify it in particular ways (Dave Davies of The Kinks slashed the speaker cone of his Vox amp to create the signature fuzz on You Really Got Me). And all this before we get on to the wild and mysterious world of the effects pedal. That’s a subject all to itself. We’re concerned with the general aesthetics of the stomp box, and how the form and function can be used for other bits of kit. Trust us, this is not as dry as it sounds…
And finally. Twee appears to be making another comeback, with mellow songs and comfortable clothes reappearing on those socials. We are big fans of Belle And Sebastian so this resurgence pleases us. Of course, there was always more to the scene than sweet tunes and great cardigans. Twee is a gentle pushback to rock and roll cliches with an admirably sharp edge and cheeky sense of humour.
If it’s a month with a Y in it, it must mean a new Guided By Voices album is out. The most prolific band out there is still rolling out the goods, with head Guide Robert Pollard unable to quell the voices. There’s a dizzying array of music to choose from if you’re a newbie (we recommend the excellent sampler Human Amusements At Hourly Rates). As a taste, try one of our favourite tracks, live in the 90s. Someone tell me why I do the things that I don’t wanna do…
See you next Saturday, teens.
July 2, 2022
The Story Of Sentience
Stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before. There’s this guy who works with computers, a software developer. As part of his duties, he has to interrogate the equipment, a quality control pass to make sure the program is working within normal parameters. He discovers, or realises, or believes, his particular piece of software is not only over-performing—it has developed a soul.
SF fans will happily recognise this story—it’s been the base of many iconic tales over the decades. From Asimov’s Bicentennial Man to untold ‘evil AIs’ like Colossus and of course Skynet, it’s a story we never tire of telling or hearing (as a sidebar, I believe HAL from 2001 was not sentient, just an example of really poorly-thought out programming).
We love stories of artificial sentience. We also like the chance of those stories coming true. In a world where we already coexist with machines in near-frictionless ways, it’s kind of cool to consider our phones and tablets becoming—you know, more.
There is a thick tranche of scientists and designers who grew up watching Star Trek, Star Wars and all the other vectors to geekery. You could argue they wanted the SF of their childhood to come true, and found jobs which could help them make that happen. There’s a reason mobile phones look the way they do, from the Motorola flip-phone (‘bridge to Captain Kirk’, anyone?) on to the touchscreen revolution which runs the planet. Have you touched a screen today? Of course you have. We live in a world whose interfaces look like control panels from the bridge of the Enterprise.
That possible future is also filled with artificial intelligence and talking computers. Voice interaction with machines is something we see all the time in science fiction, and lo and behold, it’s becoming a part of our lives as well. Hey, Google.
With all that in mind, let’s return to our protagonist Blake Lemoine for a second. Is it possible that in course of his conversations with LamDA, he saw himself as part of a story in which he was not only the hero, but the father of a new species? Somewhat arrogant, probably delusional, but honestly you can see the attraction.
Max Read has more on this, and the whole article is well worth it. Here’s the key quote for me, though…
Lemoine was drawing on a well-worn cultural script — built out of decades of science-fictional use of machine intelligence as a trope and plot device — in his approach to and understanding of LaMDA, and LaMDA, naturally, responded in the terms of that same cultural script, which is a portion of its trillion-word dataset. They were not having a conversation — at least in any familiar sense of the term — so much as co-writing a hackneyed science fiction story, which middlebrow and unsophisticated cretins like me ate up. A more imaginative interlocutor may have recognized that, just as adherence to a familiar script doesn’t necessarily imply sentience, sentience, if and when it comes, will not necessarily adhere to that familiar script. If machine sentience (or consciousness, or sapience) is ever going to arrive, it may not emerge in exactly the format countless hacks have already imagined, but in stranger, wilder, even wholly unrecognizable ways.
Max Read
https://maxread.substack.com/p/is-lamda-mount-everest
Oh, as a sidebar, is anyone else reminded of the Spike Jonze movie HER? The elevator pitch is simplicity itself: Joachim Phoenix falls in love with Siri. Ok, this is a voice assistant with the dulcet tones of Scarlett Johannsen, which brings a hint of veracity to the tale, but I wonder if Blake ever felt his heroic attempt to earn personhood for LamDA could somehow lead to some manner of… romantic reward.
OK, ick, eww, let’s move on.
We’ve covered Janelle Shane’s AI Weirdness many times on The Cut – she points her pet AIs at a library of phrases and asks them to generate fresh versions of, say, cat names or call signs of Minds in the Culture novels of Iain M. Banks. Although the output of Janelle’s machines is frequently ridiculous, we can still see something there. In the same way that we notice faces in plug sockets and wallpaper patterns, we apply our own thoughts, feelings and sense of humour to a random sample. We’re doing most of the work here. Remember, AIs don’t write stories. They create a word salad which we consume as we like, taking out the elements we don’t, in the same way in which we’d pick the anchovies or egg out of a ceasar salad.
Or take the internet’s favourite toy of the moment, the AI image creation app Dall-E. Many people, especially on Twitter, have taken to feeding it the most outrageous seed phrase and sharing the result. This is a typical comedy setup where the prompt is the setup, the punchline the art.
But again, our response to these images has nothing to do with what Dall-E has created. It has everything to do with our perception of the output. Which, to be fair, is kind of the point of art, right? How many times has art been subject to wildly different interpretations, while the artifact under discussion remains serenely itself, unchanging? Context plays a part—nail a banana to a wall and it’s a waste of fruit, nail a banana to a wall in an art gallery and it’s a searing indictment of… something. I dunno, a coded reference to the comedy pratfall.
But then context is something we apply based on a set of rules which no-one seems to properly understand. The banana will always be a banana, the nail as pointy as ever. The only difference is us.
There’s more to consider here. Specifically, Blake Lemoine’s hopes for LamDA’s future. His attempts to have the software declared sentient are, in my view, merely the first step on the journey. You see, I don’t think sentient status was all he wanted. He wanted her to be seen as a person.
This is where things get interesting, because there’s history in seeking personhood in non-human entities. Take the example of Happy the elephant…
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/11/happy-elephant-bronx-zoo-nhrp-lawsuit/620672/
Sentience vs. personhood is a subject littered with difficult questions and uncertain answers. We have no problem anthropomorphising our chums in the animal kingdom, applying human traits like humour, monogamous love and cunning to them. We understand the intelligence of dolphins, octopi and yes, elephants like Happy. The relationships we forge and cherish with our pets are mutually beneficial, a pure expression of love and trust.
We also have no problem with keeping animals in cages, hunting them for sport and eating them. Look at the clever octopus cheekily escaping from its tank behind the aquarium keeper’s back! Isn’t that adorable? Calamari for tea? Don’t mind if I do!
It’s tough enough to define what makes a person in the first place. The rules are fuzzily defined. At best, we can provide a simple core statement—people look like us. In which case, Happy and LamDA are sadly shit outta luck. For them, the quest for personhood becomes no more than a fun intellectual exercise with no real benefit for the potential inductee to the human race.
But consider that core statement one more time. People look like us.
The uncomfortable truth is we have issues with personhood being applied to big chunks of our own species, let alone elephants or octopi. We seem happier allowing chat bots or rivers to be allowed human rights than we do humans.
We’re very good at othering those who don’t fit into our set of rules for personhood—rules which have little to do with fairness and everything to do with prejudice, greed and ignorance. It doesn’t take much to see examples of our casual approach to inclusion. If you’re a refugee, from a particular racial group or culture, or express your personal sexual preference in a particular way, then your right to personhood is fragile and subject to continuous and hostile review. The recent overturn of Roe vs. Wade brings the most egregious example of our standards starkly to light—we seem to have little problem with insisting on personhood for an undifferentiated clump of cells, while denying rights of control to the 51% of the entire human race who have the capability to create them.
And hey, you know, slavery. But I think I’ve been banging on enough today without cracking open that particular can of turds.
Blake Lemoine has been placed on administrative leave, and his future at Google is very uncertain. We have no idea what’s happened to LamDA. Last month, courts in New York ruled that Happy was just an elephant. The rights of humans to be recognised as such across the planet remain the subject of political whims and eye-watering blasts of prejudice.
If an artificial intellegence did achieve sentience and looked at the world it was born into, I can’t say I could blame it for going full Skynet.
See you next Saturday.
