BigWords

I've been strongly anti-censorship for years, so to even suggest it means that I'm seriously annoyed at how casually it is perceived in areas where I would expect some level of even-handedness. One idea with which I am quite taken is the concept of an "in context" foreword to reprints of books, especially some of the pulpier material which is coming back into fashion again. If essays by prominent thinkers were placed before the work to frame it in the correct reading of the text - say, a historian of literature prefacing Tarzan Of The Apes with an understanding of the social and political dynamics of the era when the book was published - I would be more forgiving.

I blogged about the problem of racism in relation specifically to The Airlords Of Han novella (and the other books of the era were mentioned) but I think that it is still necessary to concern ourselves with the way other races are treated in fiction. There are still books being published which concern me as being (if not openly racist) questionable in their depiction of other cultures. To say that this problem has gone away is ludicrous - even this year there have been manga which offer attacks on Japan's neighbors, and I'm certain that the proliferation of e-books with no editorial supervision will continue to offer an outlet for the themes and ideas which supporters of outmoded views will use. Should racist literature be red-flagged for content? Should racist literature be removed from the net? (and from someone who doesn't believe in censorship, I'm slowly coming around to the viewpoint that it would be easier to remove it to somewhere it can't be readily placed in the hands of people who take joy in the suffering of others) Should racist literature be prosecuted? I want to hear views on this before I start shouting off about racism again.

For other adaptations of The Wizard Of Oz characters and story (in film primarily) check out this handy overview. It covers up until 2008, and concentrates on film rather than other media, but it is an excellent resource.

Welcome to the BCF. The whole debate about gender ratio here is interesting mainly because of the scarcity of women posting on... Well, certain forums which will not be mentioned in respectable company. The games and comics fora around the internet (and there are lots of them) seem to be dominated by fourteen year old boys from the US - a fact borne out by the level of crudity and inanity which passes for conversation. You'll like it here.

Welcome to the BCF. You can get reinforcements done to ceilings by having a steel bar (an I-bar normally) placed across the ceilings beneath the room with the weight. A friend had to do this to accommodate a collection of vinyl records - I'm sure it was in the region of two thousand pounds for the work to be completed though, so it is only a last resort.

Welcome back. I delete stuff I have put up on the net very rarely (even if I am told that I should) because I need a reminder not to be such an idiot again.

Seeing as how the others have picked modern titles... H.P. Lovecraft. No specific book, just start reading his work from the early stuff through chronologically. There's a book I'm not sure of the title, but the female character (the only character if I remember it correctly) goes slowly insane - The Yellow Wallpaper (?). Margaret Oliphant's horror output is also good, though not in the same "keep you awake at night" league

I haven't picked up the series yet, but I have managed to find The Dark Tower adaptation, and... it isn't what I expected. It isn't bad, per se, but it is entirely unnecessary. The text lifts chunks of the book and simply adds pictures, which isn't my definition of an adaptation (where, y'know - someone bothers to actually adapt the book). There have been a few speculative murmers about other adaptations that I'm losing interest in even before they have been properly announced.

Find one of the Pound Stores (or whatever they're named in your area - there's a whole bunch of them) and rake around to see if they stock any books. I picked up Autumn Of The Moguls by Michael Wolff and Creating The Digital Future by Albert Yu for

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Maximum Overdrive, on a scale of quality, is probably the worst (tho a couple of the Children Of The Corn films nudge pretty close on the lame-o-meter), but either Shawshank or The Green Mile is probably the best. For those of you with a well-developed sense of the absurd I suggest watching Creepshow - though just the once. No need to do something crazy, like buy the DVD or anything...

I love the cover to The Stand, but the limited edition's price tag is a bit steep. It was advertised, back when it came out, on the back of an issue of Skeleton Crew magazine, and I debated whether to buy it or not. I'm kicking myself that I didn't spend the money back then...

When I saw the 'full retard' speech in full for the first time I had to go back to the start of the chapter and watch it again to make sure I heard it correctly. Apparently political correctness hasn't reached certain parts of Hollywood yet. It isn't as bad as some of the reviews make it out to be. Give the film another chance.

It isn't just a question of privately held vs. public domain, because trademark also comes into play - a book can be in the public domain whilst elements are still under trademark. Creative Commons is also a way to open the work into a nearly public domain status, but it has its' drawbacks as far as using the material later on... There have been several "I'm granting this to the public domain" acts by various authors over the years, and sometimes publishers step in to inform the author that, no, sorry, you can't do that. It really is an entirely labyrinthine issue, which only becomes more complex the deeper you delve into it. The laws which govern copyright were never designed for the portability of electronic documents, and so the way in which we read books today is - pretty much - an entirely new field of law. There are laws being propped up by assumed rights, unrelated legislature being co-opted to provide framework for untested media, and many other quirks which have slipped into the current intellectual property protection. Even a simplified list of what you can, can't and might be able to do contradicts itself an ungodly number of times.

The Shining may have been an (arguably) inferior adaptation of the Stephen King novel of the same name, but the film is also an adaptation of a very similar novel from some years earlier, which Kubrick incorporated into his script. It's 40% King, 40% the other novel (I can't remember which title he adapted though) and the remaining 20% is pure Kubrick. He uses the iconography he built through repetition and experimentation (the upwards camera angles, tightly controlled dollies, and fluid tracking shots) whenever the art of pure adaptation doesn't suit his needs, so it is easy to cite him as a partial "author" of the film. The Dark Tower covers most of the alternate science-fantasy tropes, so I've always considered it simply SF - irrespective of the way everyone else uses the term. It has a lot of great stuff in between the shoehorning in of his existing characters - I like the idea of mechanical bears, and stuff which would seem ludicrous in any of the other books.

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I'm not sure if it was the casting, the camerawork or the script, but the Rebus series never quite hit its' stride - though I have yet to see the very last episode. From the Hannah episodes I got the impression it was meant to 'open the series out' in the same way that the DCI Tennyson series for the BBC altered and adapted the character for its' own needs. It was (arguably) either too soft an adaptation for the hardcore fans, or too restrictive for the casual viewing audience. There were so many things it completely fell down on (the cinematography was abysmal, for one) that it became a real slog to watch - and I love the character in print, so it isn't that there is a preexisting prejudice there at all. I simply couldn't get the point of the show... The Wallander series is, as everyone seems to agree, beautifully made.

It's all glass (well... a fair proportion of it is glass) in the remake. The original is not the one with the glass. Actually, I'd say 99% of horror remakes are less scary than the originals, which kinda defeats the purpose of remaking them. On that note, please don't read reviews of The Wolfman...

There's a brilliant stand-up routine (though the comedian who performed it doesn't come to mind at the moment) who gave a five-minute long portion over to those adverts hawking medical products to the public. "Tired? We've got something for that. Too alert? We've got something for that. Feeling bloated? We've got something for that. Feeling too thin? We've got something for that. It doesn't matter what you may or may not be suffering from, we've got drugs which will make your life better." The most worrying thing was the fact that the routine wasn't as ludicrous as some of the claims that the actual companies make on their adverts. They really do create drugs on the off chance that there might be a condition which requires that specific drug. If there isn't an existing condition they'll make one up. Seriously... Some companies make me wonder if "medical ethics committees" actually give a damn about ethics.

Yup, that's the one. (and thank you for the link) There's also a story about a Muslim bus driver who stopped mid-route and locked the passengers in while he knelt down to pray for five minutes - prompting fears from the passengers that he was going to blow up the bus. Whilst the reaction is understandable (given the London bombings a few years ago) the assumption that he was a terrorist was racist (IMHO); the bus driver should have known better, however... I'm not picking on bus drivers here, just in case anyone gets that impression, it just seems to be the season for news reports on them.

Don't you dare laugh... I went to see The Exorcist in an art-cinema with my brother when I was fourteen or fifteen, and for the next three or four days was completely spooked. The sky was really bright blue when we went in, but by the time we had left the cinema it had started raining - still with a bright blue sky, and spooky enough to scare the living daylights out of me. For a more recent film (relatively speaking) I guess Jacob's Ladder, or Them (a French film with a young couple terrorized in their - very large - home) would be up there with the best. As long as the writing is clever and the scares are genuine I'm happy.

I'm watching the Japanese import of Battle Royale II at the moment, and it's still as bad as I remember it being. It does, however, have better extras than the UK edition of the DVD, so I'm considering it three quid well spent.

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Welcome to the BCF. Don't worry about how fast you can read. I would read more if I didn't have to work... Actually, I sometimes read while I'm meant to be working, but that's frowned upon for some reason.

Welcome to the BCF. Type "free books" into the search engine of your choice and you will discover many public domain titles which are free to download. Don't, under any circumstances, try torrents unless you know the books are a) public domain and from a reputable seeder. There are too many viruses out there to stay safe in this particular area of reading.