Waffle

The next Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan comic will almost certainly be delayed. There's nothing scripted or drawn, and a lot of other, more urgent stuff to do.
I will have some art up on the various locations on Wednesday, but if people are interested in doing a quickie guest comic... yes please!
The schedule may remain shaky for the next two weeks. After that, normal service should be resumed.

Friday, I went to see Nosferatu *), at the Lutherse Kerk in Groningen, with live accompaniment from the church organ. Nosferatu is a silent classic made in 1922, and for the most part has stood the test of time.
As with most silent movies, there are some elements that now look vaguely silly: the acting is straight out of the stage melodrama, the make-up artists also seemed to think they were working for the stage, and some special effects fall flat (the best example being the use of a spotted hyena traipsing through the Westfalian rocks to represent a werewolf). But it has great (if slightly slow) pacing, beautiful romantic/Gothic imagery (shot, largely, on location in Westphalia) and best of all, one of the best, most convincing movie spooks ever. The title character, first shown in the shadows of castle Orlog, a tall, gaunt, bald creature standing in a stiff, upright pose with his hands folded like the claws of a predatory monster at rest, is genuinely scary even with the over-the-top make-up. I wonder if Max Schreck, the name of the actor who played his, was a pseudonym - it was certainly aptly chosen.

I have had the DVD of this movie in my house for some months without ever getting around to watching it. The booklet notes mention that the problems I had with the acting were addressed by the director, F.W. Murnau, in later movies, in which he tried to get rid of holdovers from stage drama. Bully for him, and for all I know, his later movies may be even better than this one.

At this screening, music was provided by Joost Langeveld, a reputed improviser on the organ. He worked well with the pacing and suspense of the movie, using prepared themes for the characters and for certain key moments. The church organ at the lutheran church is a mighty instrument which Langeveld often seemed to treat as a synthesizer or sequencer. A wholly appropriate backing for a great horror movie (not everyone I spoke to afterwards agreed, though). However, I would have preferred to hear music based on the original score, which is said to be pseudo-Wagnerian (the DVD doesn't have it either).

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Loxie and Zoot artist Stephen Crowley writes:

If you've ever even remotely thought about purchasing the book you've got until October 31 2004 to make your order... after that there will be no more books to be had... buy it now, don't let the following (hypothetical) scenario happen to you!

It's probably none of my business, but I get a bit uneasy about this sort of thing. From Stephen's comments over time, I didn't get the impression that the book was selling out, and I don't think it's POD (I have it). So what's he going to do with the unsold books? As someone who reveres books (they may get a bit battered in my hands, but I hang on to them through thick and thin), I don't like the idea of them getting pulped like what happened to Inigo Kelleigh's old small press books.
Stephen's LiveJournal, which he uses in lieu of a forum, doesn't mention the reasons for the October 31 deadline, and I can't just go in and ask.

I got a mix CD in the mail the other day, from my brother. The best tracks on it are three by TV Eyes who sound more like an eighties pop group than any eighties pop group ever did.
Two of the members were part of Jellyfish, which also spawned The Moog Cookbook. These guys can, and eventually will, play anything.

Singer Andre Hazes, one of the Netherlands best-loved singers of popular song, died today aged 53. I was never much into his style of music but over the years I've learned to respect him for his professionalism and the care and enthusiasm he put into his work. He was easily the best at what he did. About a year ago I saw part of a TV broadcast of one of his gala concerts, and was impressed by how perfect everything was. At the time, the singer was suffering from hearing problems, and his phrasing had become jerky as a result, but the (huge) band was dead on and the crowd was nuts throughout the 3 or 4 songs that I saw.

From Expatica:

Hazes, 53, was rushed home from holiday in Spain in a serious condition. He was admitted to intensive care suffering from a high fever and pneumonia. He died of a heart attack at about 9.30am on Thursday, his family confirmed.

Hazes was a diabetic and battled with alcoholism for several years. He was born in the Pijp district of Amsterdam in 1951.

The popular singer was discovered by a television presenter some eight years after his birth when he was singing at the city's Albert Cuyp market to earn money to buy his mother a present. Hazes' family was very poor as a child.

He had several hits in the 1970s and 1980s and despite a turbulent career — due in part to his alcohol addiction — he has always been much loved by the Dutch public.

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Howard Tayler reports that God has told him to quit his job!

Let me start this way: there are numerous reasons why one MIGHT choose to leave a lucrative position as a visionary with a leading technology company, and most of them have little or nothing to do with what really happened in my case. What it really boiled down to was the simple fact that God told me it was time to quit.

God did not say why. He also did not offer me any specific bits of encouragement, like saying "Schlock Mercenary will be netting you a high five-figure income by the end of 2005" (which revelation I would have greeted with all kinds of jubilant praise, yessirree, halle-LOO-ya.) No, for all I know the spiritual experience I've had in conjunction with this decision is leading me on a path that involves poverty, desperation, abject humility, and then a return to Novell as someone hungry enough to really get down to business.

The truly spiritual person doesn't care about the destination in cases like this. For saints, it's enough to know that the decision is the right one, and that God's ways are not necessarily understandable to mortals.

I'm no saint. I'm scared spitless. But I've had this kind of spiritual prompting in my life on three other occasions, and I know that for all my fears, things will work out okay. I just don't have a specific value for "okay" yet.

The Keenspot people had better upgrade their update system, because Howard managed 7 updates a week even while he was working as a visionary with a leading technology company. He'll have a one-year buffer in no time, and then he'll be looking at updating twice daily.

No, this isn't about the latest innovations in making electronic book reading more pleasurable. Instead, John Quiggin at Crooked Timber is giving an honest, personal appraisal of how today's state of the art in e-books stacks up, overall, against printed books:

I've read about fifty pages so far, and my feeling is that, with a large flat-screen monitor, reading a good-quality PDF is comparable to reading a medium-quality printed book. Given the limitations, particularly the need to sit in one spot, I can’t see this become my preferred mode for a while. Still, there are a lot of advantages to consider, and in many cases, these will outweigh the negatives for me.

First, it means instant cheap access to new books published overseas. This is important for Australians... who often have to wait a long time for ‘colonial’ releases of books published in the metropolitan countries.

Second, there’s essentially no storage problem. Iron Council is 1.7 MB, so I could store about 20,000 similar volumes on an iPod...

Third, I can see big advantages for book reviewing of which I do a fair bit. I’ll easily be able to search for bits of text, cut and paste quotes...

We went into Germany! It looked much the same as the Netherlands, except for the signs in Gothic script and the Lederhosen.

Seriously, on Sunday, Sidsel and I took the advice we were given in early August and went to the Dutch-German border area to look at the old smuggling route through De Lethe. We neglected to bring any butter to smuggle, but we did bring plenty of bananas. Those Germans are starved for them.

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Yarr, ye salty dogs! In honour of International Talk Like a Pirate Day, there's a special version of the latest Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan comic at ROCR.net, and only there (semi-permanent URL until I clean the archives out again: http://www.rocr.net/d/20040919.html).
Stephen Dann keeps a clearinghouse of pirate themed comics for the day.

I used an English to Pirate translator to get a basic text for the comic, but refined its output quite a bit.

Other pirate links, courtesy of Boing Boing:

pirate info
pirate bath 1
pirates and pivateers
capn crimson
which pirate are you?
spooneye! the card game
pirate bath 2
pirates of the bahamas
pirate flags
pirates of penzance
pirate supplies
yar! pirate zen 2003
and for a limited time...
david byrne's pirates (this will disappear on 09.20.04)

Adam alerted me that Bite Me has ended, which should be a good occasion for me to go through the archive. If it is half as funny as artist Dylan Meconis?s parting message, it should be a gem?

The best compliment I ever inadvertently got was when somebody commented that the comic read like a Bugs Bunny short. If so, I have in some measure succeeded. If vampires were vulnerable to falling anvils, believe me. There would've been one.