Bootleg Browser--numerous booties from a variety of bands... 

It/ll be better tomorrow--site for a forthcoming documentary about Hubert Selby Jr. 

novelist Jonathan Coe's search for the uncut Wilder masterpiece Private Life of Sherlock Holmes

"Of course I have a copy of The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes on video, but I don't watch it very often. I even have, on tape now, the audio and video versions of those missing scenes. But it comforts me to know that they are still incomplete, and that there remain other scenes from the film which are lost, perhaps irretrievably. This is how it should be. After all, I have not really been searching for the complete film all these years. I have been searching for something even more unreachable: trying to recapture, somehow, the sense of wonder, of security, of happiness I felt when I first saw the film on that Sunday evening, when it made me forget, for two blissful hours, my fear of returning to school the next day. It is that young self I have been trying to bring back to life. " 

in a fun piece on the UK election, Simon Schama remembers Supermac--

"(Many years on, I'd seen The Enemy close up. Tripping over a rug in the Christ's College senior common room, I rose to find myself face to face with Harold Macmillan's whiskers. 'There there,' Supermac drawled, not missing a beat, 'gratitude understandable; prostration quite unnecessary.') "

Washingtonians wise to keep an eye on B.C.'s election--a solid primer from the Seattle P-I...

"B.C. voters have experienced both activist government and sharp cutbacks as they search for the right combination. In order to solve major problems in the years ahead, Washington voters may need to consider options British Columbia has tried. This election is a referendum on a radical change in course that may help define a future confluence of the two approaches. "

Green Outreach

"The Greens aren’t just using creationism to reach out to Christian voters. John Hof’s Family Life Committee, a pro-life activism group, has been stunned by the early results of their election abortion survey. Three Green candidates have already identified themselves as pro-life: Chris Aikman (Comox Valley), Don Roberts (Prince George-Mount Robson), and Kathleen Stephany (Langley).

“It is my proposal that elective abortions not be paid for by the system,” said Stephany. “My proposal is also to work strongly to reduce the number of elective abortions by offering all women who are faced with an unexpected pregnancy, counseling, and emotional support.”"

arcane critical reference of the week invokes Jennifer Aniston's crap job in Office Space in a review of the new New Order album...

"It's the aural equivalent of 15 pieces of flair--flashy and notable, but the minimum allowed." 

nothing in the mail, almost but not quite muggy, a bit of blue, a little breeze, a book I don't really want to read and the Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings turned up past the point of hearing the phone, or myself thinking, or the cats hurling them against the windowframe... 

Springsteen Without Tears

"Does it derogate Springsteen to claim that he is, in essence, a white minstrel act? Not at all. Only by peeling back all the layers of awful heartland authenticity and rediscovering the old Jersey bullshitter underneath can we begin to grasp the actual charms of the man and his music. " 

review and an interview with my buddy Pete and the team behind short film Bad Blood (starring Alan Cumming) at Tribeca...  

Billy Bragg, Blair's Poodle

"Yeah. That's it, that's what's on offer. You either get that or the Tories. You think the Tories won't privatize, etc.? These are the choices you have to make. They are the only parties that can win the election. I think you have to, unfortunately, hold your nose and do what you can to stop things sliding back."

lessons for BC voters in the sublime Kung Fu Hustle??--

"It's easy to be blown away by the pure visual style of Stephen Chow's film, but it's the subtler messages that have more impact. The most interesting part of the film, is not the road runner antics, or the different schools of martial arts beating each other silly: it's the message that even the poorest of the poor can fight back. For some reason, it made me think about Chile, when ordinary average people took to the street with pots and pans to dispose a despot. (Which is something I'd like to see happen in British Columbia before May 17th, since there is already a large number of people living on Vancouver streets according to a recent report from the Social Planning and Resource Council. There is also a local Beast that needs taking down. Where is the One when you really need him?)"

Oscar Wilde--The soul of man under Socialism

"High hopes were once formed of democracy; but democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people. It has been found out. I must say that it was high time, for all authority is quite degrading. It degrades those who exercise it, and degrades those over whom it is exercised. When it is violently, grossly, and cruelly used, it produces a good effect by creating, or at any rate bringing out, the spirit of revolt and individualism that is to kill it. When it is used with a certain amount of kindness, and accompanied by prizes and rewards, it is dreadfully demoralising. People, in that case, are less conscious of the horrible pressure that is being put on them, and so go through their lives in a sort of coarse comfort, like petted animals, without ever realising that they are probably thinking other people's thoughts, living by other people's standards, wearing practically what one may call other people's second-hand clothes, and never being themselves for a single moment. 'He who would be free,' says a fine thinker, 'must not conform.' And authority, by bribing people to conform, produces a very gross kind of overfed barbarism amongst us."

fine May Day roundup at Daily Bleed

"Those who have by an unrighteous power made merchandise of the earth, giving all to some, & none to others, declare themselves tyranicall & usurping."