my.bicycle

Good grief, the man is a keen observer. From Stross’ observations on the causes of the decline in readership of speculative fiction: Firstly, let me tackle the reason for the decline in the SF/F readership over time as a proportion of written fiction. I don't have quantitative data to hand, but I believe we can attribute it to the fact that the civilization we live in is changing so rapidly that we’re all exposed to rapid technological change all the time. SF as a genre evolved during a period of industrialization and standardization and rapid linear progress. It was both an escapist literature and a didactic form that lent its readers some exposure to new ideas about how they might live in future. But things have gone non-linear, and a lot of the future has arrived today, albeit in bastardized form. Want to go live on Mars? Tough, you can’t — but you can download travel albums from the red planet til you're blue in the face. Want to go live on an alien world? Go visit...

I just can’t get past the eye-catching title, “ Scarlett Johansson Wanted to Expose Her Boobs ,” even though it’s just an article detailing a moment of actress-versus-director. In this case, one more reason to dislike Michael Bay . The Island was utter tripe, Bad Boys II was utterly formulaic explosion-pr0n, and we should get some pre-emptive tut-tutting in on the upcoming live-action and CG fest, Transformers movie, because it won’t be on the screen long enough to take its fair share.

So happy to have an iPod that tells me what the fook I’m listening to; my iPod shuffle had no screen, so trying to figure out the currently-playing near-random internet-download was an exercise in creative frustration. Just now though a fantastic track called Sex and Mayhem by Australian band “Devastations” played. They’re carried by indie music label Brassland ; the song’s a 6MB free download at the link. It’s somewhere between David Bowie, David Silvian, and Love and Rockets. I’ll be buying the whole album once my Mac gets back from the shop...

Knights Who Say “Ni” hat at Wonderland

Unless you are into The Kitties from Brazil -style conspiracy theories, look no further than the subject line for an explanation.

Via Thomas Dolby’s blog footage from his Canal Room concert offered as a music video of “I Live in a Suitcase.” He’ll be releasing a full-fledged DVD of that concert next month.

Haunted When It Rains : Naturally posed pictures of deceased people, lying supine, seated, or held as though they are at rest. Frequently posed with people who are significantly less dead, presumably surviving family members. Morbid, grotesque, and heartbreakingly sad, particularly where the babies are concerned. ( boingboing )

Check in to a hotel. Go to your room. Jump on the bed. Take pictures of it. Upload. There are websites out there for just about anything . (thanks, TimK)

A mess of cool covers of songs you know by bands you don’t over at TheSquareLife.com . I used my real name and email to access the download page, but that doesn’t mean you have to. ( coverville )

PAGE FOURTEEN Pic 1 CUT TO: in a small room with one small porthole in its curving steel wall, we discover LIGHTNING BOWMAN sitting on a chamberpot, wearing only a long-sleeved velour t-shirt type thing with a lightning bolt embroidered on the front, totally naked from the waist down. Straining. Lightning Bowman used to be an athlete, tall, bronzed, blond. His hair is still blond, but, when we see him move, he’s stooped, and he’s not lean any more, just thin. He doesn’t fit his own skin. He’s coming up hard on fifty, and not looking good on it. LIGHTNING is a major character. I think we can introduce him with a page-wide shot, squatting on his chamberpot. The floor, by the way, will either be steel or wood, and have a DIY, home-made kind of finish. We’ll see why later. BOWMAN Hnng. (full excerpt here ) The Lone Ranger is to Deadwood as Flash Gordon is to Ignition City .

And not just Beatles; don’t worry, this isn’t some Grey Album strokefest, despite the props due to Ob-La-Teeth (Beatles vs. Obie Trice). And it’s not all rap-mash, either. Check out Comfortable Holiday (Scissor Sisters vs. Madonna) for a complete pop music mental breakdown; at BASS 211 DOT COM & DJ Tripp: 99 Boots But A Bitch Ain’t One! (thanks, sean , who recommends She Wants Animals : Ace of Base vs. NIN)

I must see this movie: Mitsuo and Fujio - Japanese cult icons Tadanobu Asano and Sho Aikawa - are a pair of zero ambition slackers employed in a fire extinguisher factory whose only goal in life is the perfection of their jiujitsu wrestling skills. When a confrontation with their boss leaves the nagging executive dead they opt, of course, to take the easy way out and dispose of the body on the slopes of Black Fuji, a monstrous heap of garbage rising in the midst of Tokyo. But whether by the influence of toxic chemicals, black magic, karma or a mixture of all three, the muck of Black Fuji brings their boss back to roam the earth as a voracious zombie, unleashing an undead apocalypse upon the world. Before long the surviving humans are forced to live in a walled city where Fujio makes a living entertaining the upper classes using his jiujitsu skills in human versus zombie cage fights. Toronto After Dark Film Festival