“He was my effin’ friend maan.” River’s Edge[IMDb] is a modest, compact sort of film by a director who seemed to have peaked early and then spent the rest of his days stuck in a televisual limbo land, dipping in and out of hit series such as Twin Peaks, CSI, Deadwood, Dexter and most recently directing a whole bunch of of Mad Men episodes. It is this quiet, methodical approach that gives this story of teenage life in backwater USA it’s unexpected kick. It also contains some of the best performances in recent times (well mid 90s) from Keanu Reeves, further fleshing out his trademark ‘like totally dude’ persona by adding the thin veneer of emotional depth the story requires; Crispin Glover doing a suitably bonkers turn as bogan stoner dude with a cause, whose every utterance seems to provoke mayhem and Dennis Hopper, who has probably never been as good since getting to play Feck, future ghost to the film’s protagonist. The protagonist being a particularly disaffected youth known as John who kills his girlfriend and leaves her on said River’s Edge in order to show his friends how completely disaffected he really is. It’s rare, these days, that a film will allow almost every character within it to be fleshed out so well. It’s strange that a film, supposedly about how shallow modern teenagers can be when facing extreme circumstances turned out to be have such depth.
Feel clean in a dirty world by helping dissolve landmines. A portion of sales of Clean Up[cleanupsoap.com] soap bars goes towards landmine removal and help for survivors of landmines.
The Freemasons insist that they are not a cult and, in fact, list the many reasons many they should not be referred to as this (for instance you’ll be pleased to know that brainwashing, or thought reform, is not used within Freemasonry). Being over 300 years old, it makes sense that it’s the ancient imagery they use they ties them in with the idea of cults and other more sinister secret societies. The set square and the compass not only refer to the origins of Freemasonry as stone masons and architects but also are used in various rituals and to symbolise ideals such as the instruction to members to ’square their actions by the square of virtue’ and to learn to ‘circumscribe their desires and keep their passions within due bounds toward all mankind’.
Steven Gregor from Gym Class Magazine[gymclassmagazine.com] reports ‘live and exclusively’ on the Publish & Be Damned independent publishing Fair for 2009 [publishandbedamned.org] held in Bethnal Green’s Oxford House in September. To see pics from the event, mosey on over to Fever Zine’s Flickr page for all the day’s action [flickr/feverzine].
The design of America’s various dollar bills have been set in stone since the 2$ bill was conceived in 1929. Other international currencies have updated their look and feel on a semi-regular basis yet the US $ bills stubbornly refuse to change. The upside to this is that we get to see some of the ancient symbology that used to be associated with money and accumulation of wealth. The Eye of Providence is the most intriguing of these, it is said to present God’s Eye watching over the ascension of mankind. This is emphasised on the dollar bill by the addition of a pyramid comprising of 13 steps, drawn to match the number of states under US rule at the time of the design’s deployment. Image via [oldbookillustrations.com]
A couple of months ago the City of Melbourne held it’s now annual State of Design festival [stateofdesign.com.au]. This is the first time I’ve been able to attend and was a little shocked at how poorly Graphic Design was represented compared to the other design disciplines featured. There were only a handful of Graphic Design events, one of which was only accessible to existing AGDA members [agda.com.au] which made no sense what-so-ever. Iron Designer was crazy fun [irondesigner.studiobinocular.com] but, again the architects muscled in on the show (surely they deserve a festival of their own, these guys aren’t very good at sharing the limelight) with their ‘wacky antics’. It could have just been a bad year, I guess.
Stephen Banham[letterbox.net.au] and friends have pulled together a mini programme of graphic and typographic gems in the past under the banner of Character[character.rmit.edu.au] but seemed to be too busy this year. Instead he presented, with the help of a cast of design bods from RMIT University, a modest but well designed A5 booklet containing a guided tour of one city block and the items of interest contained within. In this video I follow the route detailed in this booklet and share my discoveries on a weirdly hectic Sunday afternoon in olde Melbourne Town.
First published: October 8th, 2009
Filed under: lineout 1 Comment
First up, let me say ‘Hey!’ to the many loyal disciples of Linefeed, who kept dropping by even while the blog posts got thinner and thinner on the ground. I did promise Linefeed was not gone for good but hibernating and it looks like I now have a smidge more time to dedicate to creating more original content in the form of vid, podcasts etc.
Coming up on the blog we have Mr Gregor of Gym Class Magazine fame [gymclassmagazine.com] helping us out with his report from the recent Publish & Be Damned Fair in London’s East End [publishandbedamned.org], as well as more journeys into the cult-ish and the occult in prep for All Hallow’s Eve plus more information about the project that’s been occupying most of my brainspace at the moment, going by the slightly clumsy title of ‘Disconnect then Fracture’ (I made meself a tshirt to aid self-motivavtion – what do you reckon?)…
There’s news too regarding the next edition of LineRead. I’ve been researching cults and cultish iconography in preparation. It’s going to be heaps different to the first issue but will hopefully make a nice companion piece. I’ll be uploading some sneak previews here real soon. Meantime, Issue one is still available to readers in the UK, US and Canada by visiting [magcloud.com]. Here’s a preview…
I’ve been busy elsewhere too. Aside from my regular column for Grafik magazine [grafikmagazine.co.uk], you can also join the discussion, ‘Why Graphic Design?’ over at It’s Nice That[itsnicethat.com]. And I think that’s it for now. I’m not sure. Is there more? Most probably. As per, thanks a boiling tun for stopping by.
— The Management
Okay, running with a theme here (and listening to Witch Cults of the Radio Age[warp.net] while I type), here’s some recommended viewing for the curious… and the damned! Call em supernatural, call em paranormal or just call em downright spooky, movie makers have always known that you don’t need shock and gore to put the wind up an audience (although a light smattering can help sometimes). Avoiding obvious inclusions such as The Wicker Man, Poltergeist and The Orphanage, here’s a few you might what to investigate… in the dark. Far from town. No one will come. In the dark…
Houses are homes to all sorts of things
The Legend of Hell House[iMDB]
Those in the know regard The Legend of Hell House as one of the best and definitely most spooky of all the paranormal ‘haunted house’ movies. The spartan soundtrack certainly helps set the mood for the film, as does the character’s casual acceptance of the paranormal activities that go on within. Little B-Grade ticks like the stuffed toy black cat seek to give the game away but if you allow yourself to succumb to the creepy atmosphere of this film you will be rewarded by the end.
Whiny heroines are fortunately doomed
The Haunting[iMDB]
It’s amazing how effective a creaky door, some slightly odd camera angles and a few well places statues can be. This is another classic ‘haunted house’ story with yet another demonic presence at play. This time there are some deliciously eerie set pieces and loads of in camera effects to bring the creep. You might even forget that our heroine is an annoyingly whiney old spinster who seems to be constantly harassed by her own mere existence of the planet, let alone by the cantankerous spirits within Hill House (even the name is similar, huh). Remade in 1999 with Lili Taylor in a career ending performance playing the whiney spinster with similarly annoying aplomb.
Posh Red-heads + English witch cults = dodgy fungus
Puffball[iMDB]
A frightfully posh young girly architect was never going to be easy character to sympathise with, luckily there is much to be distracted by in this claustrophobic redressing of the English countryside and the witchy goings on that could possibly happen there. Throw in some raunchy bits on a muddy rock combined with images of someone’s internal workings and you’ve got yourself something awkward and eerie and hard to love but intensely curious at the same time. Still not a patch on Donald Cammell’s The Demon Seed though.
To be continued…
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