paulcarvill.compaulcarvill.comFacts and opinion from the life and work of Paul Carvill, web designer, UK Articles
The Piano Sings
2008-06-10 11:43:00 It must be cheating, in some way. What Michael Nyman does, I mean. His music is so direct, it takes a shortcut to the emotional core of your being. It's not fair on all the other composers. He bypasses all the extraneous stuff and just twangs the big string in your heart called "feeling". This is not to say his music is without nuance. His minimalist compositions, endlessly cycling and repeating, are in constant flux, fluid. Their emphases change, the tension builds up, something like a wave, then releases in a huge gush as the core theme is revisited. To my ears he is from the same school as Philip Glass, although Nyman's music is not as dense. Where Glass's music can sometimes feel austere or even heartless, Nyman's is instead a full on rush of emotion. It is more accessible. It's no surprise he has made so many film soundtracks. But the constant assault on your senses can get wearying. I saw him at Cadogan Hall, off Sloane Square, playing music from his soundtra... More About: Music , Piano , Sings
The Future of the Internet (part 1)
2008-06-06 11:59:00 Just got back from an entertaining and informative talk with Jonathan Zittrain as part of the Guardian's series of internal lectures "The Future of Journalism". To encapsulate the two-hour presentation, Zittrain fears that as a result of the security and privacy issues we face the internet will become increasingly "locked-down". This will result in the disappearance of the character that makes the itnernet itself so productive of new ideas - generativity. He is interested in averting this grim future, and explores ways we can encourage the internet and its user group to govern itself in a more sensible fashion. At times he is worrying in his pinpoint description of the ramshackle and idealistic generation-old infrastructure we have built our modern system of communication and thus commerce on. He is hilariously irreverent in his view of the power, and powers, of technology. His retrospective of the invention of the internet and the personal computer industry, and the hardware... More About: Internet , The Future , Part , The Internet
C'mon girls!
2008-06-06 09:49:00 I braved the chattering hoards to see Sex & The City. As we walked in Kate wondered aloud if people might think she was my beard - the audience was 95% chicks, whiling away the time until the chick-flick started by gossiping loudly through the trailers and adverts. Whole rows were filled instantly when parties of 20 turned up. Their anticipation was palpable. Never likely to be the most cinematic offering - it's basically an extended episode of the TV show - it was, however, probably the most communal experience I've had at the cinema since nerds came out of their sweaty bedrooms in their masses for The Phantom Menace, many years ago. That the film turned out to be rather more melancholy than expected is not necessarily a bad thing. And although it didn't produce uncontrollable shrill hysterics among the more-than-willing audience, it does have a couple of killer jokes and enough chuckles to keep the whole thing rolling along. And, gratifyingly, there are no concessions to... More About: Girls , Film
Isn't Anything?
2008-06-04 02:03:00 I thought I was going to see some shoegazer bands at The Boileroom. Shoegazing's back, isn't it? "It's been and gone. You missed it." my friend Ivan says. I go along anyway. In the end the band I see are Moscow Flyer, a rambunctious, charging, unclassifiable 5-piece whose maturity and confidence belies their bumfluff. Intense vocals are tempered with the sweet swooning of a violin or cello, the whole buffeted by Arcade Fire/Killers-style doom-laden retro-synth stabs. They kept the audience engaged, and have a nice line in between-song gags. Having been away for a while, I can confirm that the Boileroom now has crystal clear sound, more tables and pulls a pretty good pint of Guinness. Unfortunately hunger got the better of me and I left before the rest of the bill could bring memories of the very early Nineties flooding back. Still, My Bloody Valentine are playing a lengthy series of gigs this summer, which will surely herald the return of the shoegazing scene in some fo...
I'm back!
2008-06-03 15:19:00 I'm back, so look forward to more activity on this website very soon... More About: Back
"I love you, but I'm going to mace you in the face!"
2007-11-25 22:47:00 This one has got a heart. Hard to pinpoint, perhaps, but it's in there - the three brothers played by Wes Anderson regulars Owen Wilson and Jason Schwartzman and new guy Adrian Brody are looking for it too. Coming from a typically Andersonian broken home, they are on a quest to rescue their mother from a convent in the Himalayas. Wes Anderson has acquired a reputation of being a stark technician, a Kubrickian perfectionist aloofly observing his dysfunctional subjects and chronicling the minutiae of their circumstances. But this is not quite accurate. His has a sincere empathy for the very real emotions felt by this most privileged of demographic sectors. The passion is there in the detail. The nerdy obsessiveness and outrageous whimsy are the articulation of his affection for these broken American children. His characters are moneyed, educated WASPS, yet suffer the bleak, empty melancholy only these advantages bring. Anderson's camera never mocks or belittles them - we ar... More About: Film , Love , Face , I Love You , Mace
Mac OS X 10.4: How to prevent .DS_Store file creation over network connecti
2007-11-23 12:40:00 Prevent your Mac creating .DS_Store files on your Windows box More About: File , Links , Network , Creation
Microsoft drops IE's 'click to activate' nag
2007-11-22 14:17:00 Microsoft finally sort out the ridiculous "click here to activate this content" message on embedded Flash objects in IE7. The fix is due to go live in an update to IE7 "next month" (December). Detail of the original issue, from March 2006. Something to do with intellectual property behind the way ActiveX works, and non-payment of royalties, I think. More About: Microsoft , Click , Links , Activate , Activa
Like gonzo journalism on acid
2007-11-21 22:57:00 Shrooms is described by a Zoo magazine hack as "Blair Witch on acid". Sounds like she's missed the point somewhat. Lazy journalism, hackneyed cliches and meaningless soundbites, on top of all the cheap and tawdry shots of naked soap stars - doesn't really add up to an attractive package does it, Zoo? More About: Film , Journalism , Acid , Gonzo
Do You Like Rock Music?
2007-11-21 01:09:00 In his latest Newboost, British Sea Power's Secretary has detailed a list of items and proclaimed them Rock and Non-Rock. This is to herald the imminent arrival of BSP's new album 'Do You Like Rock Music ?', and the Secretary enourages you to join in the fun: ROCK MUSIC: Brian Clough, Iggy Pop, Little Richard, Tommy The Buzzard, second-hand bicycles, Charles Francis, Johnny Kingdom, Jose Mourinho, sweet chestnuts, Jamelia, having enough food to eat, Bob Nastanovich Of Pavement, Winston Churchill, Wayne Coyne, affordable cider, Roy Keane, The Who, Jordan, Thin Lizzy, Big Daddy, Arthur Brown, James Brown, Ian Brown, Pamela Brown, The Brown Bottle, Hedy Lamarr, dominoes, cherry wood, Bill Clinton, soap, Nick Cave, good manners, Ol' Dirty Bastard. NON-ROCK MUSIC: U2, Hitler, Royal rat Prince Harry shooting hen harriers (allegedly), the Red Hot Chili Peppers, continental lager made in Britain, malnutrition, being the bassist in a Red Hot Chili Peppers tribute band, George Bush, Ke... More About: Rock Music
Five days / five heatmaps
2007-11-20 12:32:00 Five days / five heatmaps Some fascinating work on end-user heatmaps using some major uK ecommerce sites as examples More About: Links , Days , Five Days
Give a little love
2007-11-20 10:51:00 Has Jenny Lewis of LA power-pop and chugging-rock 4-piece Rilo Kiley got a belter of a voice that belies her frail and tiny frame? Hell yeah! Their gig at the Shepherd's Bush Empire last night goes straight into my gigs of the year 2007 (see also Arcade Fire's St. John's/Porchester Hall appearance in Jan/Feb). The harmonies soar, the riffs chug and they've got the funk, which normally spells doom for any band but here really should propel them into the mainstream. It's slick and sheeny, and they look like they're enjoying themselves, which is halfway to everyone else enjoying themselves anyway. All this and a ukelele interlude. Sweet. Related links: Khoi Vinh of Subtraction.com thinks "this band are so boring I almost fell asleep typing out their name" More About: Love , Give
Run-Riot
2007-11-18 23:21:00 Run-Riot an '...eclectic listing of counter culture events in London...' More About: Links
Walter Sickert's Camden Town Nudes
2007-11-18 23:06:00 Walter Sickert's Camden Town Nudes at the Courtauld Institute. More About: Digest , Walter
The Clive James Show at Slate.com
2007-11-18 22:49:00 The Clive James Show at Slate .com A series of interviews with creative types, made at Clive James's own house More About: Links
Walter Sickert - The Camden Town Nudes
2007-11-18 12:07:00 Walter Sickert's "Camden Town Nudes" are being displayed together at The Courtault Institute, within Somerset House. This short series of gloomy, ambiguous paintings displays a remarkable atmosphere of listlessness, exhausted prostitutes in dull, grubby rooms. I had thought they were influenced directly by the report of a murder of a prostitute in 1907. However, Sickert had already painted and sketched some, with airily innocent titles such as "A Summer Afternoon" and "What Shall We Do About THe Rent?", the latter of a naked, prone woman on a bed, a clothed man, arms folded, looming over her, as if in resigned conversation. Given the alternative title Sickert later applied to it, "Camden Town Murder 1", the opportunity for reappraising and rereading are clear. I think it is this provocative, playful ambiguity that is the real strength of the series. One sketch, although otherwise the same as the finished painting, is entirely altered by replacing the standing man with a woman... More About: Walter
Georg Baselitz
2007-11-18 11:36:00 Georg Baselitz likes drawing dicks, doesn't he? Men with their dicks out. Brendan Behan with his big dick out. Brendan Behan with his little dick out. An unidentified pervert with his dick. A scrawled, but identifiable, Hitler with his dick out. Lots of dicks, then. His show at the RA contains all these dicks, and much else besides. He's from East Germany, and the communist opression of his early years might account for the welter of flagrant sexuality, disability and exhibitionism on display, all classed as perverse under the post-war regime. His career breaks down into remarkably strong themes, and Baselitz explored and developed each in great detail. Here we have groupings of pandemonium, inversions, fragmentation. There are also common threads through all his work - alienation, mutation, and the horror of war. Also, a minor point, nearly all his frames for the first twenty years of his career are exactly the same size. A uniformity enforced, perhaps, by the auste...
Camp Delta (Guantanamo Bay) Standard Operating Procedure
2007-11-16 15:43:00 Camp Delta (Guantanamo Bay ) Standard Operating Procedure Official document leaked from the White House More About: Camp
A load of old Poliakoff
2007-11-14 23:59:00 Or....What's It All About, Steve? I won't pretend to know a great deal about Stephen Poliakoff. I'm writing this with the Stephen Poliakoff entry in Wikipedia open but unread, trying to capture some original thoughts before I start accumulating the conventional wisdom. Over the past week I've watched three of the writer/diretor's TV specials - Joe's Palace, A Real Summer and Capturing Mary. And previously I've watched Friends and Crocodiles and Gideon's Daughter. All these dramas are highly, no extremely, watchable. The dialogue draws you in with its natural rhythm. It's one of the few things left completely unstylized. Everything else, though, I would expect to be called hyperreal, or stagey. Magnifient sets, invariably featuring a rambling, expensive house, ultra modern office architecture or the kind of upper ehelon, under-populated London streets usually featured in Richard Curtis films. The music is Michael Nyman-esque insistent strings and swells of orchestr... More About: Load
My Boy Herbert
2007-11-13 01:29:00 Any similarity between Kipling's tragic son Jack (played here by Harry Potter) and everybody's favourite Accounts Receivable Supervisor, Herbert Kornfeld?
Spam One-liners - a photoset on Flickr
2007-11-13 00:23:00 Spam one-liners posters More About: Spam , Links , Flickr , Liners , Flick
I'm Too Sexy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
2007-11-10 11:35:00 In case you didn't know what "I'm Too Sexy " was about "...the song's lyrics express confidence that [the singer's] personal level of sexiness makes him too sexy for numerous things..." More About: Free , Links , Wikipedia , Encyclopedia
HEMA - online winkelen
2007-11-09 14:07:00 Bonkers Dutch e-commerce site Whimsical use of flash undermines boring old e-commerce expectations... More About: Links , Online , Kele , Elen
A Short Walk in the Hindu Crush by AA Gill
2007-11-09 13:59:00 A Short Walk in the Hindu Crush by AA Gill An illuminating and witty article from the ever-reliable AA Gill More About: Links
Lending money the Islamic way
2007-11-07 19:11:00 Lending money the Islamic way Sharia law prohibits the payment of interest, as well as imposing other strictures against businesses linked to alcohol, gambling and investment in enterprises with high debt. Is sukuk a viable alternative? More About: Money , Links , Lending
Foot in mouth
More articles from this author:2007-11-07 14:11:00 David Cameron's recent comments regarding arts funding highlight imporant facets of the Conservative agenda. The sequence of quiet tutting that followed them reveals more about Britain and its media than the comments themselves. Comment has focused on the anger of the Lithuanian community, apparently personally affronted by Cameron's characterisation of them as a circus act. This misses the point entirely. David Cameron did not mean to target a particular section of the European community as deserving our mockery. His speech reveals the Tories' contempt for diversity, for multiculturalism, especially in the arts. It showed the Tories' fear of the fringes and desperation to inhabit and control the middle ground and, by extension, Middle England. His plea for "a grown-up argument" was undermined by his juvenile stereotyping of non-mainstream arts as freakish or laughable. This is xenophobia in the extreme, an element that is at the heart of the Tory party's makeup and alw... More About: Politics , Mouth , Foot 1, 2, 3, 4 |
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