Bülent Ecevit Osman Yusuf

In ‘Game of Thrones,’ a Language to Make the World Feel Real - NYTimes.com

People have made a career out of this?

“There’s been a sea change in Hollywood. They realize there’s a fan base out there that wants constructed languages,” said Matt Pearson, a linguistics professor at Reed College in Portland, Ore. He created Thhtmaa (pronounced tukhh-t’-mah), the language of termite-like aliens in the short-lived NBC series “Dark Skies.”

“Game of Thrones,” based on the best-selling series of novels “A Song of Ice and Fire” by George R. R. Martin, may be the biggest television showcase for an invented language. The books, which primarily follow feuding kingdoms in the fictional land of Westeros, had a scattering of Dothraki words, but the show’s executive producers wanted a fully formed language.

I remember from my school days, there was a kid who was learning to speak Klingon. Predictably, he came in for a lot of mockery. He’s probably consulting on one of these TV shows by now.

Book Review - 'Asterios Polyp,' Written and Illustrated by David Mazzucchelli - Review - NYTimes.com

Today I read this in a bookshop, curled up in an armchair. Feeling guilty, might have to stump up some cash and actually pay for the thing:

Enter “Asterios Polyp”: a big, proud, ambitious chunk of a graphic novel, with modernism on its mind and a perfectly geometrical chip on its shoulder. The tension between formalist rigor and emotional subtlety is not just the theme (and method) of the cartoonist David ­Mazzucchelli’s decade-in-the-making opus; it’s basically the plot. The book is a satirical comedy of remarriage, a treatise on aesthetics and design and ontology, a late-life Künstlerroman, a Novel of Ideas with two capital letters, and just about the most schematic work of fiction this side of that other big book that constantly alludes to the “Odyssey.”

Asterios Polyp himself is adorably dislikable, an egocentric, condescending, irritable “paper architect” and academic who sees everything in terms of dualities. (“Anything that is not functional is merely decorative,” he declares.) When Polyp’s father came to America, we’re told, “an exasperated Ellis Island official had cut the family name in half.” That name would have to have been Polyphemus, as in the Cyclops. Asterios himself is a metaphorical cyclops, lacking the ability to perceive emotional depth. Even his head is drawn as a two-dimensional construct: half a perfect circle, interrupted by two equally proportioned curves.

The artwork was beautiful, and a world away from Mazzucchelli’s previous scribblings on Daredevil and Batman comics. There are sequences in it that don’t immediately make sense, and then a couple of hours later the meaning becomes clear, sneaking up on you like a pickpocket. I liked it very much.

One Man, Two Guvnors, Adelphi Theatre, review - Telegraph

Laugh? I nearly died!

In the play’s greatest scene, one of the most hilarious I have ever seen in a theatre, he simultaneously serves dinner to his two guvnors while reserving large quantities of food for himself, aided and abetted by an ancient and doddery waiter (the sublimely comical Tom Edden) who keeps falling down the stairs, and a member of the audience who suffers no end of humiliations. If you don’t laugh at this scene it can only be because you have already expired with mirth at the show’s previous gags.

The reviews are entirely justified. This one sequence alone is comedy slapstick heaven, and the whole building was shaking with laughter.

Attack the Block – review | Film | The Guardian

Finally got round to seeing this. Think I avoided it because, despite having a great concept, I was worried it’d be a disappointment. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case:

As well as excitement and laughs, [Director Joe] Cornish provides some sharp social comment on the subject of aliens and alienation. Now, there are many who will feel they have consumed enough hand-wringing analysis from the concerned commentariat about aggressive youths in Broken Britain controlling their turf, and yet as scared as babies of moving anywhere beyond these “ends”. Cornish tackles the same idea but with a light touch and a cheerful, unfashionably optimistic belief in a happy outcome somewhere along the line. His sci-fi urban pastoral is also a satirical fantasy. What if enemies or opposing groups were suddenly confronted by a common foe? Might they not discover common ground that should have been cultivated anyway?

Some random observations:

1. The film was a financial flop, that much we already know. Did it fail because it dared to present social undesirables as heroic? Or was it because audiences couldn’t understand the street slang spoken by the cast?
2. Even though I didn’t quite catch everything they were saying (subtitles will be switched on for repeat viewings), the young cast were excellent, by turns fearsome and vulnerable. Funny, too.
3. Given that it’s set on Bonfire Night (4th November), why was it given a summer release in the cinemas? It’s just as well, because the social commentary (such as it is), uncannily prefigures the London Riots that took place shortly after.
4. Surprised to see that the Daily Mail gave it such a thoughtful and positive review. Again, this view might have changed post-riots.
5. The design of the monsters were clearly inspired by the creatures that adorned the sides of the Space Invaders arcade cabinets, way back in the eighties.
6. The soundtrack by Basement Jaxx is brilliant.
7. Finally, if this isn’t a tribute to the films of John Carpenter, I’m going to shred my blogger’s union card and sprinkle it over my cornflakes for breakfast.

Gerhard Richter: Panorama at Tate Modern - Art museums & institutions - Time Out London

This is an amazing show. Every room contains something to inspire and delight:

Richter didn’t so much resuscitate painting as submit it to prolonged interrogation - pulling it up by its lapels and demanding it take stock of itself. He was no less forgiving of himself or his family, painting his Nazi-sympathizing father and ‘Uncle Rudi’ (in full uniform) in the same year as his ‘Aunt Marianne’ (1965), who was sterilised and euthanised for being schizophrenic. Why should we not also scrutinise ourselves a bit more, asks Richter’s strange mirrored and glazed sculptures, which blur and distort pictures and viewers alike. The sense of meanings shifting, swelling and dropping away like waves is just as disorienting as the jumps between Richter’s abstract colour charts and his romantic landscapes. His pure, DayGlo abstracts are twenty-first century Jackson Pollocks, but he also makes beautiful portraits. Go figure.

My favourite is “Reader” from 1994, a photo-realistic portrait of Richter’s wife reading a newspaper, with light and shadow dancing reverentially around her features.

I first saw it about ten years ago at the MOMA in San Francisco (though my memory could be deceiving me). It was strikingly beautiful then, and it’s even more beautiful now.

Grayson Perry: The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman, British Museum, review - Telegraph

Using a word I wouldn’t normally associate with a trip to the British Museum, but this was fun:

Tombs, pots, craft, history, transvestites, what? If you have heard anything about the concept of the British Museum’s latest exhibition you will likely be feeling confused or sceptical. What has the Turner Prize-winning artist, mad potter, and celebrity transvestite been doing in one of Britain’s best-loved museums?

For two and a half years now he’s been raiding the bowels of the museum’s archives with a license to extract whatever treasure he wants from its academic context and present it to the public alongside the products of his own most recent creative outpourings. The result is a smorgasbord of world history, as seen through the eyes of the artist, or what he calls “a journey through my mind”. That, by the way, takes some serious confidence - both on his part and that of the exhibitions team at the British Museum.

Good on Grayson for opening the show with a retort to all his sceptics then. You are greeted at the entrance by a typically homebaked Perry-esque pot bearing some distinctive figures scrawled in his scruffily imperfect manner. It is called ‘You Are Here’ (2011) and depicts you, the museum-going public, explaining with speech bubbles why you went to see the show. It includes: “I liked the poster” and “I just wanted to satisfy myself that I am more clever than this celebrity charlatan.”

It’s my first exposure to the work of Grayson Perry, which seems to revolve around the twin-poles of teddy bears and cross-dressing. It was utterly insane, but gloriously so. Worth a visit for the gift shop alone.