Rob Wickings's Blog, page 23
July 17, 2021
The Cut Season 2 Episode 29
The Second Summer Of Covid. We are entering unknown territories, expected to act as if things are back to normal when they clearly are not. Will you be wearing a mask when you next go shopping? What happens if you get pinged by the NHS app? It feels to us that we have to navigate these strange new waters without a map or guidance, left by a government with other priorities to sink or swim. Strange days indeed.
Anyway. Let’s check out this week’s linkeration, which includes Nicolas Cage and a pig, the late renaissance of a pair of musical legends and a comic about wombats.
Now is the time. Here is the place. This is The Cut.
We all have a process, a method by which shit gets done. That can include a favourite place to work, a particular way to organise your desk and of course your favourite tools and devices. What happens, then, when one of those tools is discontinued? This bit in The Believer describes the dreadful moment when a writer realises their favourite pen is no longer being made…
Tool: Uni-ball Vision Exact Micro Pen in Black, $24 for a dozen
There’s a lot of noise about deepfakes, the process by which famous faces can be replicated using CG tech and puppeted, saying and doing anything the creator wants. The boys behind South Park have already created an eerily accurate version of Donald Trump for their show Sassy Justice. The technology is now sufficiently advanced for musicians to convincingly fake the voices of other artists and use them in their own songs. Want Eminem to spit rhymes you wrote? Totally doable. In fact, it’s been done…
https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/hip-hop/9596987/deepfake-music-imitations-history/
On a similar subject, why is it that so many presenters and influencers sound the same? There is a very particular way in which they enunciate certain words and deliver set phrases. Turns out there’s a very good reason for the similarities. Doesn’t make it any less annoying to listen to, though…
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2021/7/13/22570476/youtube-voice-tiktok-influencer-sound
We love craft beer, as we may have mentioned one or twice in the past. One of the fun elements of the scene is the names brewers give to their creations. We’ve moved a long way from simple descriptors of the beer type. The names are as wild and crazy as the flavours. The fine folk at Siren Craft talk us through the thinking behind the titles…
This short piece on tragic vs comic mode gave us a lot to think about. It’s easier to write tragedy than comedy, which is a very good reason to try something else. It’s important to strive for positivity in the stories we tell, as we can find different, less-trodden paths to wander down. It’s good for the work and our heads. Less blood, more drink!
https://the-pastry-box-project.net/mandy-brown/2014-february-25
There are a lot of really interesting movies coming our way this summer. One of the more left-field entries sees the mighty Nicolas Cage take on the role of a retired chef forced back into the kitchen as he searches for his stolen truffle pig. It’s gonna be a trip. Eater spoke to the supervising chef on the film, Gabriel Rucker, about how he chose the meals Cage cooks on screen and taught the actor to sling pans like a pro.
https://www.eater.com/22567549/nicolas-cage-pig-movie-chef-gabriel-rucker-le-pigeon-portland
The following link takes you to a comic about wombats. They have a superpower we bet you didn’t know about. That’s all you need for now. Go read.
https://theoatmeal.com/comics/wombats
One from the Excuses And Half Truths archives now, which we don’t push enough really. This piece, taken from a series written during a trip Rob, TLC and her brother’s family took to Colorado in 2018 is one we really enjoyed at the time. It dunks a little unfairly on New Mexico but is otherwise a piece we know Rob is proud of. We hope you like it.
2021 could be the year of Sparks. The LA twosome, once memorably described by John Lennon as ‘Marc Bolan jamming with Adolf Hitler’ have a documentary out in the next couple of weeks, alongside a musical they wrote directed by acclaimed director Leos Carax. The Mael brothers have always walked their own path, creating music of rare depth and gleeful experimentation. Their influence is everywhere. It’s only now that we’re seeing it.
If Ted Lasso was on terrestrial TV, it would be the biggest show on the planet. Taking the brave choice towards positivity in storytelling we mentioned earlier, it’s a sheer pleasure to watch—funny, heartfelt and moving. We recommend snagging a trial month to Apple TV when the second season drops next week and binging the lot. Variety has a great interview with the two women who are the heart of the show. Hannah Waddington and Juno Temple chat about the way the writing and directing team chose to shrug off negativity and create something fresh and delightful…
https://variety.com/2021/tv/features/ted-lasso-season-2-hannah-waddingham-juno-temple-1235019877/
Our musical choice this week keys into the sense of anxiety we’re all feeling about next week. You’re allowed to be nervous. On the flip side, we want the pubs, clubs, theatres and gig venues open again. So, we face an uncertain future with a song that ties into those feelings, in a version we really like. Please enjoy Colin Hay and Choir Choir Choir performing Overkill, from a time when it was OK to cram into a hall without masks on and sing our hearts out.
See you next Saturday, lab rats.
July 10, 2021
The Cut Season 2 Episode 28
Well yes so football, apparently. Any excuse to throw beer in the air instead of down your neck which seems to be the more logical place for it to go. For those of you who enjoy such diversions, have a jolly nice time and we hope you get the result you want. As for The Cut… business as usual.
This week, that business includes the race to document the Titanic before it vanishes, an extremely horrible book and the pitfalls of translating English nonsense verse into Chinese.
Now is the time. Here is the place. This is The Cut.
The Olympics is, fortunately, just around the corner. We won’t question the logic of staging a huge international sporting contest in a country which has just declared a Covid emergency. We are, however, intrigued by the tussle over gender in sport which has led a couple of leading athletes to be disqualified from competition. As writer Laurie Penny points out, there are interesting comparisons to be drawn about natural physical advantage, which always seem to work in the boy’s favour…
The Titanic is disappearing. Literally eaten away by the actions of the tide and marine life, a race is on to capture as much detail as possible before the ship vanishes into a cloud of rust and fine debris. While we’re all over the idea of space exploration, this seems like a bold step into the unknown indeed.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/titanic-decaying-expedition/
Kafkaesque is too mild a term for this next story, in which a French woman finds herself in the worst possible scenario—declared dead and unable to prove otherwise. As a cautionary tale about the perils of overzealous bureaucracy, it’s hard to beat.
There are certain books which should never have been created. There’s a strong argument that Mein Kampf should never have seen the right side of a printing press. The idea of an edition of The Koran written in the blood of Saddam Hussein feels like an idea plucked from the brainmeat of Clive Barker or another writer on the more deranged end of the horror spectrum. But it’s real. Worse, no-one can decide for sure what to do with it…
The Forbidden Book Written in the Blood of Saddam Hussein
Ok, things have started to get a little dark. Let’s lighten the mood. We loved the idea of a mischievous spirit gaming the Spotify micropayments system by putting up a short song which, when played, donates a bit of cash to a tree-planting initiative. Add this to all your playlists, Readership, and let’s get some green into the world.
https://www.thissongplantstrees.com/
The phrase ‘lost in translation’ is doing some heavy lifting in this piece for The Believer. Chinese is a very precise and straightforward language with little room or patience for nonsense words. Which makes the translation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice books a bit of a challenge. ‘Oh frabjous day! Calloo callay!’ Is a tricky one to put into pictograms…
Slaying the Chinese Jabberwock
Cocktails are great. Little sips of happiness. One is a good time. Two is a party. Three is… well, therein lie many stories. The culture of cocktails is rich and expansive and of course, like all such things, missing a chunk of history. Let’s look at the women who were pivotal to the mixological world and yet seem strangely forgotten.
We are not, strange as it may seem, massive gamers. But we are huge comics fans. And gigantic geeks. So the idea of a massive role-playing game where comics creators duke it out over imaginary territory and kudos is very attractive. Brace yourself as we enter the world of War For Rayuba!
The big hum in SFnal circles this week rotates around Isabel Fall’s story I Sexually Identify As An Attack Helicopter. Nominated for a ton of high-level awards, Isabel retracted the story from initial publication for… oh, look, check it out and make up your own mind. The story is highly pertinent to the struggles going on in SF right now and honestly, the arts in general. Is it ever possible to truly express yourself without fear of social media snark?
https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/22543858/isabel-fall-attack-helicopter
And finally. Another boost up for our beloved X&HTeammates. We are delighted to share the conversation pal Stuart Wright had on his brilliant Britflicks podcast with pal Simon Aitken about his brilliant anthology movie Modern Love. Stu and Simon are both doing amazing work getting low-budget British film-making out and talked about. The least we can do is share the love, which we do with a big smile because we love them both. Subscribe to Stu’s podcast. Stream Simon’s film. Support British movies.
Rob inserts himself into the feed…
This week’s Exit Music goes out to my nephew George and his lovely partner Frankie who move into their first house this weekend. I wish them all the joy in the world, but it’s still a weird moment to see someone I’ve known from the nappy stage become a homeowner. I could have been around more as an uncle. Hence the choice of track. The one thing you never have enough of is time.
See you next Saturday, time travellers.
July 3, 2021
The Cut Season 2 Episode 27
We understand there to be a sporting fixture scheduled for this evening which will garner the attention of a significant portion of the British public. Here at The Cut, we remain mildly uninterested in the whole rigmarole, although we obviously wish the national team the very best of luck. We’re waiting for the Olympics, frankly. At least there’s a bit of variety.
This week, join us in the joys of accidental connections, the delight of queer beer and bounce with us to a wild reinvention of a classic slab of metal.
Now is the time. Here is the place. This is The Cut.
Everything about our opening piece feels like a crazy bit of science-fictional satire. Hiring novelists to predict the possible flash points of a future war? Nonsense, right? Typically, the phrase ‘you couldn’t make it up’ is all too true in the strange case of Project Cassandra…
Vintage movie posters can go for a lot of money on the open market, due to their rarity. They were not designed to last. Advertising ephemera, the posters would go up for a couple of weeks and then go in the bin to make room for the next one. There are some forward-thinkers who chose to stockpile and preserve these lovely bits of functional art. Now The Harry Ransom Centre in Texas has digitised thousands of posters and made them available to download at very high resolution. Go have a delve. There’s some beautiful stuff in there.
https://www.domestika.org/en/blog/3033-over-10-000-movie-posters-available-to-download-for-free
Can beer be queer? Well, it can be brewed by LGBTQ people and sold with an awareness of gay culture and history. A percentage of the profits can go to queer charities. Is it likely to be any more or less delicious than other brands? That is a decision to be made by you and your tastebuds alone. We’re open to the idea, but then it’s difficult for us to say no to a beer. We do struggle with sours, though…
https://www.eater.com/22464377/gay-queer-lgbtq-beer-brands
Yes, it’s a Vittles piece, which you’ve probably already read if you’ve paid attention to our continued exhortations to subscribe. This is a good one, digging into an underground food culture run by women, filling the demand for cuisines which are not easily found on Deliveroo. Who knew Ashford in Kent would be such a hotbed of auntiepreneureal activity?
https://vittles.substack.com/p/the-whatsapp-auntiepreneurs
‘Kill your darlings’ is a phrase every writer will come across during their life at the word-mines. It relates to the painful process of editing, and the inevitable point where you have to get rid of some of your favourite bits of a work for the sake of the progress of the whole. Austin Kleon disagrees with the notion, and argues that there is another, less wasteful way…
Relocate your darlings
We dug this post on The Conversation about how Maasai herders embrace wrong numbers in order to make accidental and sometimes useful connections with each other. We have questions, particularly around the way women suffer from restricted access to the technology, but in general it’s interesting to see a set of people who welcome the appearance of an unknown number on their phone screen. Phone scammers can’t be much of a thing in east Africa…
The news of this week’s heatwave in the Pacific Northwest has brought a lot of concerns over climate catastrophe into sharp focus. It’s real, it’s here and it’s happening to people we know and love. The anxiety over this and what we do to cope on a personal level is a fascinating subject. A changing world needs new approaches to everything, including the care of our own mental landscapes…
Brilliant news from Neil Gaiman this week. He announced work has started on a sequel to Good Omens, the fantastic TV show based on the book he wrote with the late lamented Terry Pratchett. It seems a second story featuring Crowley and Aziraphail was completely plotted and ready to write. Circumstances got in the way. But now… you know, let’s let Neil tell the story. He’s better at this stuff than us.
https://journal.neilgaiman.com/2021/06/really-bloody-excellent-omens.html
COMICS NERDERY ALERT. The following is a very deep dive into 90’s Batman and in particular the art of Jim Aparo, who drew the quintessential Darknight Detective of the time. You will perhaps recognise characters featured in The Dark Knight Returns, but that’s not the point of the exercise. As writer Tegan O’Neil makes clear, there’s a lot of Batman out there. Over seventy years, thousands of issues and millions of pages appeared on spinner racks. Sometimes the stuff that is critically lauded and constantly reprinted is not the stuff which represents the character in the truest way.
The Light That You Shine Can be Seen
And finally, speaking of heavy nerdery, we offer up a link to an ongoing project from an X&HTeam-mate, Keith Eyles. His YouTube channel is currently running live-streamed discussions on the latest Marvel series, Loki (extremely good, by the way). Well worth a look if you’re into the show. Beware spoilers, obviously. This ep also features our good pal Clive ‘Leading Man’ Ashenden. Listen out for the nod to one of Excuses And Half Truths’ earlier adventures in podcasting, all still available through the Podcastery link in the sidebar.
Jason Isbell performs our Exit Music this week, with a killer version of Metallica’s Sad But True. It’s part of the Blacklist, an album of reimaginings of tracks from the classic Black Album. St. Vincent also does a killer version of this tune which is well worth checking out, but this shades it for us. A really imaginative twist that would definitely get us out on the dance floor.
See you next Saturday, cowpunchers.
June 26, 2021
The Cut Season 2 Episode 26
It’s been a long, busy week. The afterglow from our staff retreat barely lasted a day before it was wiped away with the demands of the fast-paced, high-pressure world of newsletter production. But we are here for you, Readership. Our sacrifice is your reward.
As we start this sunny weekend, let us entertain you with the insides of bowling balls, the fiftieth anniversary of a stone cold classic and the eerie sounds of The Apprehension Engine.
Now is the time. Here is the place. This is The Cut.
Ten-Pin Bowling is, you’d think, a simple game. Get the ball down the lane and knock over the pins. But no. It’s a complex puzzle involving physics and finely tuned mechanical engineering. Wired profiles the man who changed the game for ever in the 90’s by looking into the very heart of the matter…
https://www.wired.com/story/one-mans-amazing-journey-to-the-center-of-the-bowling-ball/
We have nothing but respect for the mighty Danny Trejo. A prolific actor whose work has a fearless truth behind it. He’s absolutely lived the life he portrays in so many of his films, to the point where he can advise film-makers when their attempts to tell stories of Mexican gangs are dangerously mis-informed…
https://www.gq.com/story/danny-trejo-prison-gangs
Comics about music shouldn’t really work—after all, the Ninth Art is a medium without a soundtrack. But that’s where the magic happens. So much of what makes comics special comes from the way our imaginations fill in the gaps between the panels, seeing action which isn’t really there, hearing voices which are just words on a page. We’re excited for a new venture coming soon—a graphic profile of the loudest band in the world!
The art of preservation and fermentation has come back into fashion over the past few years, and The Situation got many of us playing around with sauerkraut, kimchee and kombucha. The Scandi way of preserving fish may be a step too far in terms of intense smell and flavour, but it’s certainly worth exploring the way of the rakfish.
https://vittles.substack.com/p/preserving-the-glut-rakfish-the-new
We were unaware of Cornell Barbecue Sauce prior to this excellent Atlas Obscura article, but now we really want to try it. Hey, it’s warm enough to grill outside later. Who’s with us?
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/cornell-chicken-barbecue-sauce-upstate
The music of horror cinema is an integral part of the experience. The jump scare would not be the same without that sudden bang of atonal noise. The Film Desk argues that it’s the buildup to the shock which is more important, putting us on edge and building expectation. Open Culture looks at an instrument which is designed specifically to soundtrack those moments. Introducing The Apprehension Engine!
Discover the Apprehension Engine: Brian Eno Called It “the Most Terrifying Musical Instrument of All Time”
We’re big fans of the Netflix series Lupin around these parts. The Gallic take on Sherlock, it takes the idea of the beloved pulp classic and gives it a smart modern twist. Much of the charm of the series comes from its star, the brilliant Omar Sy. His confident yet vulnerable performance grounds the show and gives it real heart. This New Yorker profile tells us more…
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/06/21/the-formidable-charm-of-omar-sy
Here’s a fascinating bit of history which profiles one night during World War 2, when American troops stationed in a sleepy English village came to blows. The reasons for the riot, and the villagers reaction to it, make for a fascinating read.
And finally. It’s the fiftieth birthday this week of a long-time favourite of the Music Desk and Cut Central as a whole—Blue by Joni Mitchell. Celebrations have been going on all week, and we even saw an appearance from the reclusive lady herself. We liked this Guardian article which gave a plethora of musicians the chance to choose and talk about their favourite tracks.
There’s no excuse not to feature a track from the album as our Exit Music. We’ve chosen A Case Of You. It sums up Joni and her worldview so beautifully. As world-weary booze-sodden romantics we can’t help but empathise.
See you next Saturday, lovers.
June 19, 2021
The Cut Season 2 Episode 25
We’re coming up on the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. Funny. It feels like we’ve had more than one of those in 2021. As we enter the doldrums month, thinking about another set of plans made only to be abandoned, let’s give it one last try to hold it together. Hope we at The Cut can help, in our mountain retreat somewhere in the wilds of Cumbria.
In this ep, crazy masks, the greatest stunt ever filmed and the amazing story of Miss Shiling’s orifice.
The hills are the place. Sunrise is the time. This is The Cut.
Portals are fun. We love shows like Stargate and episodes of Star Trek such as ‘The City On The Edge Of Forever’ where our brave heroes step through a meniscus of shimmering light to arrive… elsewhere. Although this art installation in Lithuania and Poland can’t quite manage the feat of instantaneous travel, it manages something nearly as wondrous…
Sci-Fi “Portal” Connects Citizens of Lublin & Vilnius, Allowing Passersby Separated by 376 Miles to Interact in Real Time
One of the strangest items finding a new market in The Age Of The Situation is the MRE, or Meal Ready to Eat. Dried ration packs for the military, they have found a new following amongst the sort of people who are happy to stockpile in the face of a future societal collapse—or just folks who wonder what freeze-dried food tastes like. The New York Times has more.
We were talking last week about how certain chefs and home cooks would determinedly take their beloved recipes to the beyond with them, keeping their mouths shut even on their death beds. This is the flip side of that, ensuring with certainty that a particular dish will live on after the person who cooked it best has gone.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/4avavd/if-you-love-a-recipe-enough-you-can-put-it-on-your-grave
This Bon Appetit article reads like a companion piece to Nomadland. A striking recollection of food and companionship found in an RV park. Poetic and moving. We could almost taste the mesquite smoke.
https://www.bonappetit.com/story/dining-blind-salamander-rv-park
These are incredible. Let us stress before you dive in—Joel Cooper folds his masks from a single sheet of paper, no cutting allowed. Even when you see how they’re made, it’s still difficult to believe.
Elaborate Geometric Masks Made from a Single Sheet of Paper
No, of course Miss Shilling’s Orifice is not what you’re thinking, naughty Readership. It’s a tale of innovation at the time it was most needed, and helped to turn a war around. A damn good read, which shows how World War 2 was won in the hidden labs and facilities the Allies kept under a heavy veil of secrecy…
How Miss Shilling’s Orifice Helped Win the War
We’ve mentioned in past issues how stunt work is all about minimizing risk in the pursuit of the perfect shot, making sure everyone walks away unharmed. There’s always an exception to the rule. Jackie Chan does his own stunts and is well known for taking things a little further, a little higher, a little more bonkers. Here’s the tale of how he shot the pole stunt in Police Story, an iconic moment in action cinema…
How They Shot the Explosive Pole Jump Stunt in ‘Police Story’
According to writer Jason Crawford, it’s possible to see the future. Or at least look as if you do. All it takes is observation and the willingness to act quickly on the information you find. Simple, right? Well, yes and no. Developing a superpower always takes a little work. As a certain thinker, baseball hero and inspiration for a beloved cartoon bear put it…
It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.
Yogi Berra (1925-2015)
https://jasoncrawford.org/precognition
(Via Kevin Kelly)
And finally. We talked in an earlier episode about how important the news cycle is to the way we perceive and therefore react to world-changing events. This experiment on how the actions of bots is skewing the availability of good, honest information is, the more you think about it, utterly terrifying.
https://gizmodo.com/this-bot-clicking-ads-on-climate-articles-shows-the-new-1847123170
We saw this and instantly thought of you, Readership. It’s roller skates and day-glo skintight costumes and brutalist urban settings. It’s I Can’t Get You Out Of My Head and True Faith and Eastern Bloc SF and all sorts of other grooviness in a joyously po-faced package. Great to see Public Service Broadcasting back with such a strong track. Let’s skate our cares away!
See you next Saturday, skaterbois and rollergrrls.
June 12, 2021
The Cut Season 2 Episode 24
By the time you get this, we will be off on our second team getaway in just over a month. With the potential risk of the Delta Variant (now that’s the title for a seventies SF movie if ever we heard it) threatening to scupper the easement of restrictions, we figured we’d better take the chance while we had it. Therefore, expect a lighter Cut next week.
However, it’s business as usual for now. We’re looking at the joy of the SF ensemble cast, barbecue sauces to die for and how much skill it takes to make a ton of mistakes.
This now here time place yes Cut.
Stylistically, Disney movies can be sorted into several eras, all of which were heralded by new forms of technology. There’s usually a blurring of the edges—for a while CG was used as a way to animate the elements in a scene which would be too difficult to do by hand, like the clock-tower sequence in our favourite, Basil The Great Mouse Detective. Most of the character work then was still very much hand-drawn. The most marked shift in Disney’s style came about in the fifties and was brought about by a much more humble kind of labour-saving device…
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/how-one-hundred-and-one-dalmatians-saved-disney-180977869/
Posts on sport are rare here. We have not the knowledge nor, to be brutally honest, the interest. But we were drawn to this piece by England football manager Gareth Southgate as the Euros kick off today. Whatever you think of racism, of Black Lives Matter, of politics in sport… if you’re prepared go to a match and boo the members of your national team before they kick a ball then we wonder what kind of a fan or indeed a patriot you are. We take a knee alongside the lads, and hope they prove the gobshites wrong this month.
https://www.theplayerstribune.com/posts/dear-england-gareth-southgate-euros-soccer
The best SF has little to do with science, but chooses an oblique point of view with which to better examine the human condition. Family and a sense of belonging to a unit which supports and loves you is an essential part of that. Is it any wonder we’re so drawn to shows like Star Trek and Firefly, and books like Becky Chamber’s Wayfarers series? Space is a very big place and we all need something and someone to hold on to…
How Science Fiction’s Ensemble Stories Humanize Space
The Book Desk has just closed the covers on Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi and recommends it to The Readership most highly. The latest novel from the author of Jonathon Strange And Mr. Norell is an astonishing work of fiction, a puzzle box rich in rococo detail. It also, as this long interview with The New Yorker makes clear, has resonance to Clarke’s own life and difficult times…
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/09/14/susanna-clarkes-fantasy-world-of-interiors
Editor Rob has history in the field of video editing, and still uses those skills in his other existence away from the cluttered, noisy Cut office. He notes:
‘The more things change, the more they stay the same. Clips which used to take dedicated and very expensive editing suites staffed by skilled technicians can now be cut together on a phone with very basic knowledge. This is no bad thing—it shows how at a basic level film-making is story-telling. It doesn’t matter what tools you use as long as you can get that story out of your head and in front of people.’
https://www.vulture.com/article/online-video-editing.html
It takes a lot of skill in a particular discipline to be able to make a deliberate mistake. The comedy pratfall is no accident—it’s a cleverly executed stunt which if done correctly brings the laffs without landing the artist performing it in hospital. As illustration, we present The Mistake Waltz, Jerome Robbins’ clever short dance piece that escalates mis-steps and fumbled cues to hilarious effect.
The Mistake Waltz: Watch the Hilarious Ballet by Legendary Choreographer Jerome Robbins
While we’re on the subject, any excuse to show Les Dawson in full flow. Yes, we’re showing our age.
There is so much to parse in this brilliant Eater article on Black barbecue tradition and the secret sauces which make the food so delicious. Secret recipes chefs will take to the grave with them rather than share? There’s drama for you! Also, we are very down with the notion of the ‘lessipe’—a recipe with one key ingredient or technique missing to throw potential rivals off the scent. Man alive, this is heady stuff!
We still mourn the passing of cook, author and traveller Anthony Bourdain. His work transcended boundaries and his world view was one of acceptance, exploration and the joy of discovery. A bit like The Cut, you might say… David Simon, best known as the creative force behind The Wire and criminally under-rated New Orleans drama Treme offers up this tribute to his fallen friend. We miss him too.
Tony
And finally. SF writers are fascinated with the idea of non-human intelligence, from aliens to AI. Perhaps we need to shift our focus when searching for species which could rival us. We already know how playful and clever aquatic creatures like dolphins and octopi can be. But it’s important to keep an eye on the crows. They know more than they’re letting on…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/44645288
Sidebar:
We've been feeding a small family of four crows (mated pair and their two year old kids) for several years. Last week two days in a row they left these gifts, pull tabs threaded onto pine twigs. This isn't only generous, it's creative, it's art.
— Stuart Dahlquist (@StuartDahlquist) March 24, 2019
My mind is blown. pic.twitter.com/tT5ORZ3AHL
Exit Music this week is delighted to present the very groovy Nancy Sinatra in a clip from an Elvis movie, Speedway. She shows off all the effortless cool which has made her such an icon and the song, written by regular collaborator and serious dude Lee Hazelwood absolutely slaps. Dangerous Minds brings context (and another track from the film which we also urge you to crank up).
https://dangerousminds.net/comments/your_groovy_self_watch_nancy_sinatra_do_something_amazing
See you next Saturday, groovers.
June 5, 2021
The Cut Season 2 Episode 23
Aaaah, what’s happened to the sky? It is a strange blue colour, not at all like the familiar flat grey. And why is some of it on fire? It is so warm! We feel the urge to shed some of our many layers of heavy woolen clothing and cavorting in the fields. Time to air our flabby palps—Sumer is ybloody here!
In this week’s episode, tea and beer and cocktails because why not tis the season. Now is the time, outside in the sunshine is the place. This is The Cut.
The Music Desk was mightily amused by this piece on Swedish steel manufacturer Sandvik, who interpreted the phrase ‘heavy metal’ in a very different way. In collaboration with speed demon and notorious guitar smasher Yngvie Malmsteen, they set about the construction of the world’s first unbreakable guitar. Interestingly, there’s little mention of how it plays and sounds. Its credentials as a tool you could use to knock down a house seem to be beyond dispute, though…
https://news.3deo.co/the-unbreakable-guitar
In other ‘guitar as weapon’ news, a great interview emerged with Kevin Shields, leader of My Bloody Valentine, one of the loudest bands on the planet. They played at such a volume that the structural integrity of some of the halls they played in was weakened. As their records finally make the move onto streaming platforms, Shields reminisces about how he found his brown sound…
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/may/27/my-bloody-valentine-kevin-shields-band-killing-songs
A fascinating film/comics crossover next, as we explore one of the great movie might-have-beens. Davis Fincher was at one point going to adapt Brian Michael Bendis’ Torso for the big screen—a twisty, tangled tale of an uncaught serial killer in the 1930s which would have made a brilliant companion piece to Zodiac. We really want to see this one now!
A Brief History of the Serial Killer Movie That Was Supposed to Be David Fincher’s Follow-Up to ‘Zodiac’
Writer, activist and all-round clever-clogs Cory Doctorow recently celebrated twenty years of his blog with a really interesting post on—well, blogging. More precisely, the way a well-kept and annotated site can serve as a way of thinking in public. An element of that has crept into Excuses And Half Truths as we’ve been working on The Cut, although without any sense of orderliness. Cory sees his blog as a neatly-set out chest of drawers. Ours is more like a big pile of crap at the bottom of a cupboard.
https://doctorow.medium.com/the-memex-method-238c71f2fb46
Ta-Nehisi Coates is coming to the end of his extended run writing Black Panther comics for Marvel. His stint has been enormously influential, informing the approach the Cinematic Universe took in bringing T’Challa to the big screen. Ta-Nehisi joins Polygon for a long, absorbing chat about his work on the book and what comes next. Wakanda Forever!
https://www.polygon.com/interviews/22454722/black-panther-comics-ending-ta-nehisi-coates-interview
Slowly, slowly, bars and restaurants are opening back up. As they do so, we need to remember how to behave when we’re out and about. There are a lot of skills to relearn. As food writer Alicia Kennedy points out, there’s a big difference between hospitality and hostilpality.
https://www.aliciakennedy.news/p/on-cost
We try to stay apolitical here at The Cut—it’s just not worth the grief. We’re happy to take a stand on subjects with a clear and obvious moral grounding but otherwise, we choose to keep things relatively light and fluffy. We’ll keep our views on the monarchy to ourselves too, thanks. Howevs, we can’t resist sharing this bit on a power struggle amongst elements of the Italian House of Savoy. It’s delightfully ridiculous. Oh, maybe we are making our views on royalty known after all…
It was only last week that we discovered the lyrics to Sheryl Crow’s breakout hit “All I Wanna Do’ were largely taken (with permission) from a poem by Wyn Cooper. In this long read for Poets Org, he muses on the differences between lyrics and poetry, how he dealt with a whiff of fame and what happened when Buddy decided he wanted a piece of the action…
https://poets.org/text/words-and-music-three-stories
When you think of tea-drinkers the image springing to mind is of India, China or us Brits. However, there is a small corner of Germany where coffee is barely touched and a nice cuppa has a ritual all it’s own.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/tea-in-germanya
The Situation has been tough on all of us, ignoring common boundaries of race, religion and class. We’re all coming out of this one changed in some way. One group who don’t get much recognition for the punishment they’ve faced in these difficult times are the journalists who have reported on them. How do you cope when you have to not just face up to Covid, but dispassionately show us the effects?
The COVID Reporters Are Not Okay. Extremely Not Okay.
This next piece will make you a bit sad and angry, but it’s important. Misogyny in industry is a known, provable and toxic part of the workplace which we’re only just starting to confront and tackle. As the craft beer sector grows and more women decide to become a part of it (we shouldn’t forget that historically, in the times before pubs, women were the brewers) they’re facing the same old crap from self-entitled, fragile-egoed men. Charlotte Cook’s article for Beer52’s Ferment Magazine is an essential read if you love craft beer and want to support an industry which has had more than its fair share of knocks over the last eighteen months. The Cut believes and stands by women brewers. We’d be idiots to take any other stance.
https://www.beer52.com/ferment/article/958/misogyny-craft-beer
Finally, let’s lighten the mood a little with a cocktail or two. In the spirit of Cory Doctorow, we’re putting this list of great frozen drinks up so we can remember them later. But we love to share. Time to get out in the sunshine and enjoy something boozy and slushy, we reckon. Who’s with us?
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2021/may/31/get-slushed-10-delicious-frozen-cocktail-recipes
Crowded House are back! Dreamers Are Waiting is their first album in eleven years and it’s a doozy. Rich, textured and many-layered, the record is deeply rewarding. This is a hefty dose of the Crowdies’ singular blend of domestic psychedelia from a band that is now very much a Finn family affair (apart from Neil and his two boys, brother Tim co-wrote a song and matriarch Sharon is on backing vocals). We’re giving you Playing With Fire as our Exit Music, but there isn’t a duff track on the album. Grab your frozen beverage, find somewhere green to lounge and turn this up.
See you next Saturday, sunshines.
May 29, 2021
The Cut Season 2 Episode 22
Sumer is ycumin in, according to the old song. Really? We see little evidence of the change in sessions as yet. If anything, things seem to be going backwards. Still, all this rain is good for the garden, if not for our mood. We hold out hope for a sunny long weekend cos boy howdy do we need to get some mowing done.
This week, impractical devices, violent deaths and a card trick that still stumps all the experts.
Now is the bank holiday. The garden is the place. This is The Cut.
Paul Bettany is now best known for his role as everyone’s favourite android in the Marvel movies and WandaVision. For the Film Desk, he’ll always be Geoffrey Chaucer in his breakout performance alongside the very much missed Heath Ledger in A Knight’s Tale. As the movie hits its twentieth (!) anniversary, Paul took a few moments to reminisce and answer questions…
https://www.vulture.com/2021/05/paul-bettany-answers-every-a-knights-tale-question-we-have.html
The dining experience has been a little… shall we say unusual over the past eighteen months. Restaurants became takeaways or started offering meal kits, allowing us to make a rough approximation of the food we missed so much. Of course, chefs will always enjoy experimentation and finding a way to stand out from the crowd. In an effort to bring us the ultimate comfort food, a couple of American cooks have gone back to the fifties and resurrected a classic—the TV dinner, tray and all.
https://www.eater.com/22372045/tv-dinner-comeback-restaurant-takeout-meals-pandemic
Basil Rathbone was one of the great villains of the golden age of cinema. As such, he died on screen. A lot. The Great Baz breaks down the many ways he met his end. We would like to recommend the clip from The Court Jester where he battles a hypnotized Danny Kaye—an extraordinary bit of swordsmanship, stunt work and comedy.
https://thegreatbaz.wordpress.com/2021/05/16/the-violent-deaths-of-basil-rathbone/
Form over function or function over form? The best bits of tech manage to embrace both, being both efficient and nice to use. Then there are the three musical devices built by Yann Seznac, which are both and neither at the same time. This is a thoughtful and strangely beautiful project with a lot of melancholy and humour stitched through it.
Home
How are you reading The Cut? On a phone, a tablet, perhaps even a good old-fashioned desktop machine? However you’re doing it, you’re indulging in an experience which, not that long ago, would have been incredibly difficult and expensive. Here’s how you would have checked your email and shopped online in 1984…
How to Shop Online & Check Your E-Mail on the Go: A 1980s British TV Show Demonstrates
We’re presenting this short piece from one of our favourite writers, John Scalzi, as an example of reportage that cuts to the heart and chops through the preconceptions of a common argument. No further commentary. Just read it.
https://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/
“If you could triple your lifespan, and look young while doing it, would you? Would you still do it if it involved ingesting a tapeworm that rejiggers your fundamental physiology and slowly unravels the fabric of the society around you?”
We get the feeling there are still people out there who would absolutely go for this.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/05/ant-tapeworm/618919/
Our long read is the remarkable story of how the Allies found a way to defeat Hitler’s final desperate assault on Britain—the V1 flying bomb. It’s a tale of extraordinary ingenuity under the most impossible of odds.
https://www.wired.com/story/the-american-scientists-who-saved-london-from-nazi-drones
Craig Davison’s art depicts the feeling of sheer unalloyed joy that kids take when they embrace a film, TV show or comics character and involve them in in their play. We really like his work, and believe you will too. Editor Rob notes that he had a Chopper bike much like the one in the article, and that he too used to pretend to be Judge Dredd on it.
https://downthetubes.net/?p=127310
And finally. There are card tricks and card tricks. And then there is The Berglas Effect. Seemingly simple, yet it has stumped every magician who has witnessed it. Its creator, David Berglas, has revealed the secret behind many of his tricks over the years (we recommend watching the video where he explains how he made a piano disappear in front of a hall full of onlookers which is linked in the article) but has kept his cards very close to his chest when it comes to The Effect. Will we ever find out? The magician is now in his nineties and seems disinclined to put us out of our misery…
For our Exit Music, we had to share the sheer glorious blast of joyful noise coming from The Linda Lindas. This group of punky youngsters have blown up the interwebs this week with their brand of girl power, and we would be failing in our duties if we didn’t make sure you had a taste. The Linda Lindas have made a lot of new fans this week, us included. Hopefully, after this, you too.
See you next Saturday, grrls and bois.
May 22, 2021
The Cut Season 2 Episode 21
It fell to Liam Gallagher to sum up the mood of the British public in one succinct tweet.
PUB
— Liam Gallagher (@liamgallagher) May 17, 2021
Exactly. Have you been in-out yet (as opposed to out-out—frankly we find it hard to enjoy a beer while shivering under canvas)? How was it? A bit odd and creepy or a shining, joyous moment pointing the way to a new and brighter future? At the time of writing we have yet to indulge, although a lunchtime session is in the mix. It could well get emotional.
This week, we get a bit noir-y, take a look at a very literal Cold War and ponder the mechanics and logistics behind a one-shot movie.
Pub is the place. Opening time it is. This is The Cut.
Noir narratives are at their bleakest in places unfit for human habitation—deserts, jungles, extremes of hot, cold, wet or dry bring the beast in us up to the surface to play. Texas is one of those places, and Texan noir is a very adult affair. Author Jim Thompson was the master. In novels like The Getaway and The Killer Inside Me, he stripped away the pretence that we are civilised beings, showing what happens when our baser instincts are allowed to take hold. This feeling is based strongly on his own experiences. Thompson lived the life he wrote about so convincingly…
https://www.sullyville.io/texas-by-the-tail-now/
A similarly forbidding landscape is the setting for one of the great murder ballads of all time—Stagger Lee. This tale of a murderer who kills his friend Billy just because he stole his hat is one which has evolved in the telling. In some versions Stag pleads for his life while an impassive audience watches him fry on the electric chair. In others, death can’t stop the man, and he ends up on the throne of hell after shooting the devil with his trusty .41. Duke Ellington had a crack at the song. So did Nick Cave. So did Dylan and The Clash (not together, sadly—that would have been a blast). We are saddened to report the death earlier this month of Lloyd Prince, who recorded a fine version of the tune.
Any legend has a nub of truth at its heart, of course, and the true story of Stagger Lee and Billy is just as wild as the songs.
http://www.planetslade.com/stagger-lee.html
Speaking of wild and unusual musical stories, who here remembers the time the Bee Gees made a film of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band? Slotting neatly into the weirdly psychedelic era of Hollywood musicals which gave us gems like Xanadu and The Wiz, the loose adaptation of the beloved Beatles album is a whole step beyond in utter gleeful bonkersness. Let’s put it this way—it makes Yellow Submarine look muted.
Oh, now you’re interested.
We Hope You Will Enjoy the Show
Music and film are great partners. Many musicians have tried to make the jump to movies, with variable degrees of success. The Bee Gees may have made their name in the seventies with the music to Saturday Night Fever, but as we’ve just seen, their next venture onto the silver screen was a bit less successful. We’ve mentioned Dylan, The Clash and Nick Cave—all three have tried their hand at acting or writing. We were amazed to read of an unexpected name making a punt at the cinematic big time—The Fall’s Mark E. Smith, who co-wrote an extraordinary script mixing elements of recording studio dramas, Time Bandits and the freaky zombie biker flick Psychomania. We seriously want to see this in cinemas…
Music as a weapon. We could argue playing some of the tunes on the Sgt. Pepper soundtrack could qualify as cruel and unusual punishment. Kate Bush considered the subject in her epic Experiment 9. The military have considered deployment of sonic weaponry for decades, and it’s now even becoming considered for use in urban environments to quell unrest—a chilling step towards erosion of the right to protest. But what is the deadliest song of all time? Ted Gioia runs the numbers and comes up with a surprising result…
https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/the-deadliest-song-in-history
Imagine a stunt sequence involving a speeding train, a rickety bridge, explosives and a catastrophic crash. These days it would be done with a mix of CGI and model work. When Buster Keaton pulled the shot off for his masterpiece The General, he took over a whole small town, bought a train and did it for real. Silent movies, folks. None more hardcore.
https://www.altaonline.com/dispatches/a7822/buster-keaton-the-general-julian-smith/
We stay with remarkable feats of film-making in this oral history of the making of Russian Ark. There are a lot of films out there which claim to be one-take—1917, Birdman, going back to Hitchcock’s Rope. All of these are cheats, Readership, disguising cuts with clever camera trickery and the inevitable digital whizz-bangs. For his experimental history of Russia, director Alexander Sukurov chose the truer route. Along with long-suffering director of photography Tilman Büttner, he set out to go where no film-maker had gone before…
How They Shot ‘Russian Ark’ in One Take With No Hidden Cuts
Right, let’s play a little game, shall we? Survive The Century is a short sharp take on how the press can influence thinking, and therefore our future path. When it comes to reporting on climate change, the need to express the urgent issues facing us becomes even more important. Give this a go and see if you can help navigate the world away from disaster…
https://survivethecentury.net/
This is a long read, but absolutely compelling. It involves corporate shenanigans, disruptive technology and, most importantly, soft-serve ice-cream.
Oh, now you’re interested.
https://www.wired.com/story/they-hacked-mcdonalds-ice-cream-makers-started-cold-war
Science fiction and fantasy has changed massively over the last fifteen years. In line with general trends in fiction, female, LBGQTI and non-western voices are becoming much more prominent. That plays to the strengths of the genre as new angles on the same old tropes bring us fresh, strong storytelling. It’s an exciting time to be a fan, frankly. Polygon has more.
https://www.polygon.com/21515948/what-science-fiction-means-today
And finally. We all know Neil Armstrong’s famous first words on stepping foot on the moon. But what exactly did he mean when, soon afterwards, he sent a gnomic good luck message to the mysterious Mr. Gorsky? Did he, in fact, say anything of the sort? Our pals at Snopes dig into the story—or is it just a joke?
Good Luck, Mr. Gorsky!
It’s Eurovision week! Great to see the crowds back in an arena, even at reduced capacity. We’ve enjoyed the semi-finals and are massively looking forward to the event. The UK have a strong entrant with James Newman’s horny dance banger Embers—like any Brit fan, we are under no illusions as to the chances of it winning, but at least we’re trying, right?
We are proud, nay, delighted, to present The Cut’s pick for Eurovision glory in 2021. It’s from the same artist we would have backed last year who are back with an even stronger song. Although with at least one member of the band out with Covid, the stars are not aligning in their favour. Check out this listicle of Eurovision’s wackiest moments to get you in the mood, and we hope you’ll join us on Saturday night to dance and holler along.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/may/20/the-20-wildest-eurovision-performances-ever
See you next Saturday, ya ya ding dongs.
May 15, 2021
The Cut Season 2 Episode 20
Happy birthday to us! We’re having cake and pop. You’re having… well, much the same as ever, in a slightly extended form to mark our fifty-second episode in style. If you’ve stuck with us this long—thank you. Your patience and tolerance for our nonsense is appreciated. Sadly, things are unlikely to get any better, although we may attempt a tuck, nip and polish to enliven your reading experience. Or we may just clatter along in our ad-hoc ramshackle fashion until something drops off. It’ll be a ride, either way.
In our slap-up feed this week, we’re serving up no-knead bread, OKi Dogs and the juicy tale of the greatest thriller that never was.
Now is the birthday. Here is the cake. This is The Cut.
Those of us who take pleasure in watching Tom Cruise get inventively murdered over and over again will find a lot to enjoy in his slightly overloooked SF movie Edge of Tomorrow (also well known by its marketing slogan Live Die Repeat, oddly). A more shouty and explodey Groundhog Day, it still has a lot to commend it, especially if you’re a fan of Emily Blunt in badass mode. Most of the human members of the cast wear exosuits—powered upgrades which allow them run faster, punch harder, jump higher. It’s been largely thought these bulky, cumbersome items were CG add-ons. Wrong. They were real, and they were heavy. The exosuits were triumphs of costume, engineering and practical effects and go to show that not everything in movies is greenscreen. Let’s take a closer look…
How They Built the Battle Exosuits for ‘Edge of Tomorrow’
We really enjoyed this oral history of LA punk hangout Oki Dogs. For a little while in the early eighties it was the place to see and be seen if you were part of the tiny hardcore scene in the city. We’re not so convinced by the food, which even the regulars admit was best enjoyed steaming drunk and ravenous. But hey, at the hopeful end of a year in which dining with friends has been an absolute no-no, we’ll take a questionable chili-dog wrap if we get to hang with our pals in the sunshine again.
https://thetakeout.com/we-ll-see-you-all-at-oki-dogs-the-story-of-l-a-s-le-1846561092
2020–the year we all became bakers. We all sweated over starters and fretted over our garden focaccias. Then there was no-knead bread, a recipe that benefits from the time we were all now able to give it. A twenty-four hour rise? No problem. What else have we got to do? The technique has been around for a while. Some argue it’s a method used by the earliest bread makers. Here’s the story of how modern no-knead bread came to make it back onto the dining table.
Orson Welles is considered one of the greatest film makers of all time, and one whose potential was most wasted. For every movie he managed to release, there were dozens that foundered and died on the drawing board. We were especially fascinated by this story on Crimereads, which mourns the loss of a potential collaboration between Welles and the incredible Lucile Ball. Whatever happened to The Smiler With The Knife?
Orson Welles, Lucille Ball, and The Greatest Thriller That Never Was
The Music Desk, now stung by the increasing frequency by which they’re called out as hoary old rockers, would like to offer up this piece on electronic pioneer Wendy Carlos, who contributed futuristic takes on classical music for Stanley Kubrick on A Clockwork Orange. We didn’t know she was also behind the soundscapes on a formative movie from our past. Possibly Disney’s finest moment…
Pixel Perfect: How Wendy Carlos Gave an Extra Dimension to Tron
In a further attempt to show how they’re more than stinky old prog-heads, the Music Desk would also like to direct your attention to this history of The Blitz Kids. Named after the club in which they gathered to pose and dance, they were the people who brought the world New Romanticism and unwittingly created a great deal of what we think of when 80s style is mentioned. They took the DIY punk aesthetic and went to the moon with it.
Meet the London Club Kids Who Made Punk Go Pop
We came across a couple of extraordinary posts this week which show how the internet can be used to create work you simply couldn’t execute in any other way. First up, this comic/animation/article from Leise Hook on invasive species and the nature of belonging. It’s beautifully drawn and full of neat touches. Moving, thoughtful and immersive.
The Vine and the Fish
If we were to tell you you’d get lost in an interactive tutorial in the inner workings of the internal combustion engine, you’d probably laugh at us. We’d understand, but would gently point out Bartosz Ciechanowski has basically created an online toy which allows you to grab and spin at all the bits. It’s very clever, enormous fun and will leave you with a much deeper appreciation for an object many of us use every day without the faintest idea of its complexity. Seriously, give this a look and tell us you’re not immediately hooked.
https://ciechanow.ski/internal-combustion-engine/
In a sidebar to the post Rob put out earlier in the week, writer Dan Hon has some thoughts on writing for the internet, particularly when it comes to the ongoing spilt between blogs and newsletters. Look, we get it—this is probably going to be of limited interest unless you’re involved in web publishment in some form. Consider it a peek into the mind of our esteemed editor as he considers forward movement of both The Cut and Excuses And Half Truths. Bear in mind you’ll have to scroll past an article on cats and optical illusions, which means most of you will never get to the bit we’re talking about in the first place…
https://newsletter.danhon.com/archive/s09e25-cats-writing-on-the-internet-the-moon/
It may be our birthday, but we have a present for you! The Pulp Magazine Archive has flung open its doors, giving free access to over eleven thousand issues of classic SF, fantasy and detective fiction from the golden age of magazine publishing. All the big names are here and it’s well worth taking a random punt to see what you can dig up. Gems and howlers are all waiting to be discovered. YOU’RE WELCOME.
Enter the Pulp Magazine Archive, Featuring Over 11,000 Digitized Issues of Classic Sci-Fi, Fantasy & Detective Fiction
In a similar feel, the Ninth Art Desk has now woken up from a post-cake doze, brushed crumbs off its blotter and would like to share another treasure of British comics—The Trigan Empire. Published weekly through the sixties and early seventies, the strip is an exemplar of stunning art and frankly bonkers story-telling. The stories have been recently restored and are available as beautiful large-format editions. The first two grace our bookshelves, with the last collection out this summer. We can heartily recommend these classic tales of derring-do and wild adventure.
The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire Vol. I-II – Decades on, Mike Butterworth and Don Lawrence’s Masterpiece Lives Up to Its Legendary Status
Netflix recently launched a pricy live-action adaptation of Jupiter’s Legacy, Mark Millar and Frank Quitely’s comics on superheroes and family. You can’t avoid the nods to earlier works like The Incredibles but honestly, there’s a lot to consider when it comes to the idea of legacy and succession in superhero narratives. It’s something The ‘Flix’s other cape-based series, Invincible, is also dealing with. We think this ties back to themes which have been with us since The Fantasic Four first burst onto the scene. Families, eh? Who’d have them?
https://aiptcomics.com/2021/05/06/jupiters-legacy-succession-stories/
And finally. We’re not the only wildly successful web-based initiative celebrating a birthday this week. Nebula-75, a loving tribute to Supermarionation blasted off a year ago. In celebration, the wildly talented crew of Century 21 Films have dropped a fresh new episode with all the adventure, thrills and laughs we’ve come to expect. Bear in mind this has been mostly been put together in the cramped front room of a flat in North London, a long way from the huge sets of Gerry Anderson’s day. Well done to everyone involved. Stand by for action!
We’re convinced we’ve already posted the remarkable video of Prince’s solo on While My Guitar Gently Weeps at the 2004 George Harrison tribute concert, but perhaps we just imagined it. Age is clearly taking its toll. If we’re repeating ourselves, it wouldn’t be the first time. Anyway. A new cut of the footage has emerged focusing more strongly on The Purple One’s pyrotechnics, and is a must-see if you’re a fan of his work. Keep an eye on the guitar at the end. Where does it go…?
Watch a New Director’s Cut of Prince’s Blistering “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” Guitar Solo (2004)
That’s us done. As ever, if you have been, thanks for reading. A special thanks for those of you who have spread the word recently—we love you all. We’re off for a lie-down. All that cake won’t digest without a little help.
See you next Saturday.
