Boring!

An excerpt from the wikipedia article on Found Poetry:

"---An example of found poetry appeared in William Whewell's "An Elementary Treatise on Mechanics":

"Hence no force, however great,
can stretch a cord, however fine,
into a horizontal line
which is accurately straight."

though when it was pointed out to him, an unamused Whewell changed the wording in the next edition.---"

I mean really! If I'd accidentally written a poem into my textbook and someone spotted it I would jolly well pretend it was deliberate! If engineers (and their cousins the mathematicians, physicists etc.) are ever going to lose the stereotype of being a bunch of boring old pedants they're going to have to start showing a little spirit.

Although... this gives me an idea. I'm going to try and turn some of my recent lecture notes into verses. I should probably study them instead, but then what I said above would become the pinnacle of hypocrisy, wouldn't it?

That's Just Not Cricket

Just got back from my first proper training session with University of Manchester Cricket Club. It was absolutely brilliant, couldn't hope for a better set of people to play a sport with, some proper coaching, loads of other Physics students (or at least it felt like there were,) and some good exercise without completely killing me.
Now I'm blasting some Future of the Left, as my neighbours were drunkenly singing Wonderwall and I needed to block it out. Luckily they seem to have stopped now.
It's been another week of lengthy derivations and working on problems that have been cracked a thousand times over. But, I comfort myself (ha!) with the knowledge that come second year, hell, probably even second semester, I will look back on this material fondly, as a dip of the proverbial toe into the (again, proverbial) edge of an ocean; too shallow for the sharks to rip my leg off.
Big smiles,
Jmalk x.

The Mancunian Way

A little place I like to call home.

Only physicists would even pretend to find this name funny.





I think this is the Turing building... I really should know. Anyway, it's cool to be at a university where Turing once did some hacking.

My friend's house.

Dave Gorman Live

Having seen Gorman on the booktour for America Unchained a year or two ago I was pretty confident I was in for an amusing and uplifting night when I saw him yesterday in Stoke. My confidence was not misplaced.

Now that I'm trying to blog about anything remotely interesting I do, there's a little sub-routine in my mind writing this stuff wherever I am. Whilst watching the show I was composing a review in the background. It was brilliantly written, elegantly typeset, and managed to be both hilarious and poignant. Sort of... Anyway, towards the end of the show Mr. Gorman asked us not to go home and facebook, tweet, blog etc. about the show as there were certain surprises he feels that people should experience that would be ruined by us telling the internet-users of the world. In my mind huge swathes of imaginary text were being deleted and replaced with blank screen.

The show was good.
Dave was funny.
There were some exciting twists and turns.

Oh and he's doing this cycling thing you should definately check out because it's a lot cooler than what I'm doing (laying in bed blogging). Gorman's Blog

Sorry Turing

The Prime Minister has (in response to a petition) made a public apology for the way Dr. Alan Mathison Turing was treated after WWII. [see this bbc article for details - link.] While it could perhaps be taken as an empty gesture (we can't change the way homosexuals were treated in the past, only the present and the future,) it is good to see recognition of our own mistakes as a nation, and also another reminder of one of the "great" war's great men.

Turing was a key player in the development of computers as we know them, and even more importantly in the making of the machine that cracked the infamous German Enigma code. Without him back then, the likelihood of us all speaking Deutsch and heiling Hitler's successor here in 2009 is considerably higher. May his contribution be remembered for centuries to come.

The Resistance; My First Listen

Uprising kicks the album off with a jumping sing-along of a tune, and that infamous wondering Doctor Who melody. I for one can't wait to hear/see/jump-to it live.

I love floor toms. For this reason - not only this reason, but mainly - I love Resistance. Very danceable.

Undisclosed Desires is Depeche Mode. It's gorgeous but, like a lot of Muse's work, not actually ground-breaking. Let me elaborate: the stuff they do is often new and unusual in the context of their back catalogue, but is a pastiche of existing work. The thing that makes them good is not so much originality as flexibility; their ability to take all of what's gone before and filter it through their own particular lens.

United States of Eurasia makes it impossible to deny that I'm a fan of my generation's Queen-equivalent. My favourite parts of the song are the fast eigth-note piano bits in the verse, and the Lawrence of Arabia bits; the Queen stuff I could've done without.

AHHH one of the melodies in Guiding Light is reminiscent of Glasvegas. YUK. But apart from that it's shaping up to be stadium epic in the same vein as Invincible. Wow this track is... loud? I like the plodding bass beat.

Now I'm hearing Nickelback. Which is downright madness. Unnatural Selection is rifftacular as promised. Ooh and more of those "hey"s on the backbeat, I'm always a fan of that. Slow bit: take the distortion out! Just the vox, drums, bass combo would be ample. Now we're into a nice guitar section though, that's cool. That track developed in much the same way as those Origin of Symmetry 6-7 minute beasts. Top notch.

After that MK Ultra is sounding a little average, but I think it's more the classic hard-act-to-follow problem than anything amiss with MK Ultra. Good breakdown after the first chorus. BIG outro riff.

Hello Maroon 5, how are you? And now we're at a carnival. Jazz Club... Or something? I Belong To You. You see now I'm just impatient to hear the symphony. Something funky going on with the bass. Bonjour!

Symphonic Monster. They love their arpeggios, and my word, more musicians need to do projects like this. Seriously, if you're in an orchestra, get an electric guitarist involved (and vice-versa).

District 9

I went to see District 9 with Max and Dill today, thoroughly enjoyable! Let me start by singing the Savoy's praises: If you live in Nottingham, don't muck about with Cineworld or Showcase, go to the Savoy! It's cheap as chips, relaxed and doesn't have a disorientingly loud sound system.

District 9 offers hard hitting political messages, a compelling story (both character-driven and plot-driven aspects kept me hooked) and is immersive to say the least. By the end I was starting to worry what we were going to do about the alien 'situation' in South Africa and had to remind myself IT'S FICTION.

It left me with the same feeling I had after finishing Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, as the film focuses so intensely on many of humanity's flaws. It's hard not to get bogged down in depression if you think about this kind of thing for too long, but there is hope.

Jmalk x.

Leeds Festival 2009

The following is a patchy account of how I spent the weekend based on what my strained brain could dredge out of the memory banks.

Thursday's bonus band were Blood Red Shoes. I only found out they were playing about two days before the festival; I adore their debut album Box of Secrets and they didn't dissapoint live. The sound was dodgy to say the least during the first song though.

I went to see The Computers at midday Friday, but they really weren't my thing - no melody. I switched to the mainstage, and Mariachi El Bronx made a quirky, relaxed start to the day but nothing special. Kate Tempest's ten minute monologue was turgid (much like this blog) but nonetheless displayed the "lyrical maturity" promised in the programme. I just wish she'd delivered it without acting out borderline hysteria. The Petebox was incredible, an expert entertainer. It's a good job they closed the tent to adjust the poles after his set as whoever followed him would surely have been ignored at best. The Eagles of Death Metal did little to impress me, but maybe that's because I was napping during the set. Enter Shikari displayed moments of brilliance and utter dross in equal measure. The Courteeners sounded pretty good. The Maccabees followed by White Lies was one of the weekend's high points, both bands were brilliant. The McAbbey with Fries is a tasty meal, much better consumed in the dark of a tent than they were in the open air at Glastonbury. White Lies are one of my current favourites, and I was especially impressed by the frontman's black and silver Nike trainers. Call me shallow; I am. I then made like an egg and scrambled because it was Glasvegas on next; why people were walking IN to the tent I have no idea. Arctic Monkeys played what was in my opinion a good mixture of a set, but with gaps between songs that seriously need cutting and some bad stage banter from Turner, he seemed a bit lost up there.

Saturday was my most difficult day, I was suffering from festival eyes, sleep deprivation and, during Radiohead's set, the dreaded festival stomach. Tim Minchin's intelligently written comedy songs provided a perfect pick-me-up followed by Frontiers; my biggest criticism of their set was that the treble of frontman Alex Noble's guitar was too penetrating but that is of course a mix problem not a flaw in the performance. All I remember after that is seeing a hypnotist and his dog instead of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I'd seen them at Glasto so it was no big deal missing them. I caught their last couple of songs. Bloc Party were a band I had completely average expectations of; I quite like their music, have never bought anything of theirs, and have never seen them live, so it [my fan-ness] was all to play for. They won me over with an absolutely stunning set mixing rocky riffs, dance beats, heartfelt singing, and a bit of good banter (take note Turner) and were in no way overshadowed by what was to come. Still, Radiohead were mindblowingly good. A mix of well known crowd pleasers and more experimental stuff was a perfectly balanced setlist, their sound quality and mix was flawless, they can reproduce the seemingly improvised noises and gurgles from their albums impeccably while still sounding fresh AND their light show and visuals are stunning. Utter brilliance.

On Sunday I witnessed Deftones laying down some good riff-based tracks, although the baggy shorts and seriously OTT bass was a bit much by daylight. Florence and the Machine absolutely packed the Radio 1 tent, an effect that was then magnified when it started to rain and people annoyingly started trying to shove their way inside. I thought she was extremely good, a bit feminine for my mood at the time, but a grand show nonetheless. The drummer got rained on thanks to a leak in the tent and had to put his kagool on - he must've been sweating under that! I then shifted over to the Lock-up Stage to see Alexisonfire. They were good and Dallas Green can really hold those notes in the choruses. I saw the end of what I gather was (by all accounts) a helluva set from the Kaiser Chiefs. They looked to be really giving it some (in a pop way obviously.) Kings of Leon seem to be going through some emotional turmoil at the moment. On the footage from Reading I was disgusted to hear some of the things they were saying to the crowd. At Leeds we were in their good books, and got a rollercoaster of a set, covering the old and the new. I got quite choked up during Cold Desert. FINALLY...

Future Of The Left in the small hours of Monday morning. I can not sing their praises highly enough. They are a fantastic rock band, who can really pull it off on stage. I bought a copy of their latest album Travels With Myself And Another shortly after the festival and have listened to it at least once a day since.

All things considered, the line up was worth the ticket price and I had a lot of good experiences. That said, it is not even half the event Glastonbury is as far as the festival itself is concerned.

Absolution T-shirt

I made this last week using a cheap H&M tee, and a black fabric marker (which are only a couple of quid, very good! Iron to dry or leave for 24 hours and it's good to go; they do fade gradually from washing.)


Excuse my face.

Sunday, Bloody Sunday

Mum, her husband, and I went to see U2 in Cardiff last night. After a mishap with the hotel booking was resolved I ended up sleeping on the floor (!!!) but that is irrelevant. Irrelevant I tell you! What's important is how brilliant U2 were, and their new "360" stage, which I thought was going to rotate but didn't.

Now when I say U2 were brilliant, it might make you assume that I'm a big U2 fan, but no, prior to last night they were one of those "yeah I'll give them a listen once in a while, more my parents' favourite than mine though..." kind of bands. Post-last-night's show however, it was a different story.

By daylight


In action


The screen descended


Central column incandescent


Jmalk x.

Act 1 Scene 1

A man walks down a grey pavement, dressed in black t-shirt, black trousers, black boots, even his spectacles are black. The sky is overcast, and a particularly dark cloud hangs, centred on our protagonist. The soundtrack to our scene is Death by White Lies.

This sounds like the worst movie opening ever, but no, it was just my walk home from work, and as I was strolling along it struck me what a big cliche the whole shabang was.

Eurasia

Muse are beginning the hype-up ready for their new album. Their website is currently this picture and a countdown to 1100 tomorrow. I am eagerly anticipating...

Person Three

The walk takes him about twenty minutes. The suburban streets are just hot enough to stir up some pollen and irritate his eyes, but not to a level where it is unbearable. He walks through the side door to his house, stepping over the tube that vents the tumble dryer. The fact that the door is open would suggest that either someone is already home or that his residence is being burgled by someone both skillful enough to pick the lock, and sloppy/well armed enough to leave it wide open. After dumping his rucksack in the living room he backtracks to the fridge and picks out a mini can of Coke. The decompression as it opens is music to the young man's ears and the first sip is like the elixir of life itself.
This is surely the power of branding at work; during the final steps of his walk he had been pondering the differences between Microsoft and Coca-Cola as companies. Both are basically in the same league of creating a world dominating brand, but for some reason he feels much less dislike for Coca-Cola. He thinks that maybe this is because he feels trapped in his Microsoft bubble, and wishes he had made the time to learn how to use MacOS, Linux and whatnot [note to self: is whatnot a good name for an OS? It'll probably sound worse when I read this back later.] CC on the other hand? Well there's always Pepsi... with their puny three colour advertising, inferior to the minimalism of Coke's Red and White. (Microsoft = Four. FOUR! The brutes.) Not to mention the variety of other beverages he consumes on a regular basis, both soft and alcoholic, ranging from the ales of local micro-breweries to mass-produced pop.
And so it was a combination of the heat and this train of thought that inevitably led to the selection of the drink. Now there's about three-quarters of an hour to use (he tries to avoid thinking of it as "killing" time) before going out.

Street Art: Nottingham

I have no idea who to give the credit to, but this is on the side of Ohmygosh Records on Mansfield Road:


I love these little ninjas on the drips:

Remake

I hate remakes of good movies, don't you? If it ain't broke the chances are you're only going to **** it up. But today I read about a remarkable exception. Two boys from Mississippi spent a considerable chunk of their childhood (over a period of about 7 or 8 years,) making their own version of Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark. Spielberg LOVES it and the first ten minutes are available for our viewing pleasure on Youtube: Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation

Block

I'm in the process of designing a typeface based on a little challenge I set myself a while back. The idea was to take a rectangle and see how little could be taken away from it to make it recognisable as a letter. This was inspired by the chunky type used in Susology magazine which is a FREE magazine (www.suso.co.uk) and surprisingly high on worthwhile content for a freeby.

The typeface (working title Block) is included in my final major project, might see use as my band logo, will be sent to at least one other band to see if they're interested and I'm planning to incorporate it into a design for my entry to the Glastonbury t-shirt design competition being run by Q - first prize is £1000 and two tickets to the festival. I should probably be a good designer and be more selective with its use. Oh well.

J-Malk.

Official Secrets Act at the Social

Went to see Frontiers (www.myspace.com/frontiersofficial) last night, supporting Official Secrets Act. They put on a good solid set, their new material's evolved since last time I saw them (at Rescue Rooms not so very long ago) and their frontman's falcetto really was top notch in the one section of a song that made prolonged use of it. I think their performance is currently too music orientated though - could do with more showiness, but there's a fine line between that and looking like arrogant something-or-others...

The headliners, Official Secrets Act (www.myspace.com/officialsecretsact) were more showy - fairly camp if they don't mind me saying, and fairly entertaining because of it. Their quirky dancing made me more inclined to hear out a set of synthy dance-rock falling somewhere in the Franz Ferdinand / We Are Scientists ball park. But sort of different. Haha don't listen to me, listen to them.

J-Malk.

Glastonbury: Hopes and Predictions

Franz Ferdinand are already confirmed - should be good. All of the following are unashamedly tinged by bias and very little research or listening to rumours. It's pretty much a wishlist.

It's been announced that there'll be two US acts and two from the ol' U of K headlining Glastonbury this year. My bet for US is Green Day and Bruce Springsteen - both easily have the muscle for the headline slot; Bruce's album is sitting at #1 in the charts, and Green Day's is scheduled for release in the month before the festival; so they have stuff to promote. UK? Blur perhaps, and since that would make it three old established acts we'd need a surprise, so someone young and punky. Non-headliners I'm hoping for = The Subways, White Lies, Elbow (I think Elbow are as good as confirmed anyway). I'll add more as and when I feel like it.

Multitasking

Bottom left: "fear and panic in the air" a page of my typography sketchpad. Typornography cos I google it so much.
Left: My pencil case, an All Saints box.
Top left through to bottom: Drawings for my current project, a character design of Y.T. from Snow Crash.
Top right: My printmaking sketchpad open on top of some other pads.
Bottom right: Letraset and a Muse biography. Two essential tools of the trade. (What trade? I have no idea... the Muse-obsessed typographer?)

J-Malk.

Happy New Year

That one special day of the year we make promises to ourselves that we probably won't be able to keep instead of the far more common making of promises to other people that we probably won't be able to keep! It's a good job I don't work for a greetings card company with catchy phrases like that for the holiday.

My New Year's Resolution is pretty much always be better, work harder, get fitter... and so on all rolled into one Everest of a challenge. This year I feel it's best summed up by "Stop Procrastinating (you lazy ****)!" which incorporates all of those things for me. In that spirit; today was the first day of applying for uni accomodation, so I got right on the website and filled out the form. It's both scary and exciting. I'm also doing some college work on a mask made out of a pack of playing cards (cutting up playing cards is anathema to me,) so I'll post a picture when it's done.

J-Malk.