What’s the German for schadenfreude?

On the eve of the presidential election, Der Spiegel reported on the state of the American nation

This realization became only too apparent during and after Hurricane Sandy, the monster storm that ravaged America’s East Coast last week, its effects made all the more devastating by the fact that its winds were whipping across an already weakened country. The infrastructure in New York, New Jersey and New England was already in trouble long before the storm made landfall near Atlantic City. The power lines in Brooklyn and Queens, on Long Island and in New Jersey, in one of the world’s largest metropolitan areas, are not underground, but are still installed along a fragile and confusing above-ground network supported by utility poles, the way they are in developing countries.

Ouch.

Complete article does feature cameos by Tom Friedman and Aaron Sorkin, so take with a grain of salt.

Canto Ostinato



I’m not sure whether it’s a personal failure or a more general Dutch failing that we don’t know our best musical talents, but it took the obituary of Simeon ten Holt to hear his most famous composition, the Canto Ostinato, written in 1976 – 1979. As you notice after a few minutes listening, it “consists of small, entirely tonal cells which are repeated“, with the duration of any performance left to the performers. Usually played on two or four pianos, it has also been adapted to other instruments, like the harp.

It’s a beautiful piece of music and while firmly in the classical musical tradition, you could almost describe it as a post-punk composition: experimental, minimalist and stripped down to the bare essence but grounded in traditional virtues of musical craft nonetheless…

Prophet — Brandon Graham et all

Opening splash page of Prophet #21 by Simon Roy

That Rob Liefeld, back at Image and having somewhat rehabilitated himself this past decade, would attempt to restart his old nineties titles was expected. That he even would get back to Prophet wasn’t much of a suprise either, but that the new Prophet would become a cult success and a critical hit, that I never suspected. I don’t really remember the original Prophet, just another of Liefeld’s Cable clones, akk hip pouches and big guns, that got his fifteen minutes of fame thanks to Wizard hype with nothing to distinguish it from the dozens of other Liefeldian creations published back then.

Farel Dalrympie has a nice Bilal-like touch

The second time around Prophet has nothing of Liefeld in it anymore, with the only thing surviving from the original series being the title and John Prophet’s general appearance, sans hip pouches. Apart from that nothing connects the two series.

Sex with aliens? This must be Metal Hurlant

I don’t know the people behind the new series: Brandon Graham, the main writer and Simon Roy, Farel Dalrympie, Giannis Milonogiannis, the artists, with Brandon also lending a hand to the art for one chapter. Never heard of them before this, never read anything they’ve done, all I know is one thing. Somebody must’ve read a lot of French seventies science fiction comics.

Prophet as Arzach. Simon Roy does Moebius

It’s the art that you notice this first. It’s rare for artists working in American comics to be this influenced by European art rather than Japanese manga, especially in a science fiction series like this, but the names that come up to compare with are people like Enki Bilal, Philippe Druillet, Paul Gillon, J. C. Mezieres, Jean Claude Forest, and of course Moebius.The designs of the aliens, the vehicles, the flora and fauna of the far future Earth, the slightly trippy setting and matter of fact protagonist, it could’ve been a serial in mid-seventies Métal Hurlant.

Giannis Milonogiannis does have some manga influences

The story too is very Métal Hurlant like: Prophet awakes in an underground pod, on a far future Earth unfamiliar to him, a voice in his head urging him to travel East. The country he travels through is devoid of familiar live, taken over by various aliens, bearing the scars of long ago wars. Over the course of the first three chapters it turns out Prophet’s task is to restore the Earth Empire by activating the G.O.D. satellite. His task complete, we learn that he is but one of a legion of clone brothers, as John Prophets all over the galaxy awaken and the action shifts elsewhere.

Brandon Graham goes cosmic

In all, I’ve no idea how these people got their seventies French sci-fi romp wedged into a nineties Image superhero title, or why, but I’m glad they did. This is a brilliant, original series like nothing else being published and while I keep harping on about how much it reminds me of something like Exterminator 17 e.g., the thing is that this is not an exercise in nostalgia, but something modern, something new, something that hasn’t really been done before. This is actually a series you may want to read as it comes out, rather than wait for the trades.

We didn’t start the fire

No more mister nice guy

The London Review of Books looks at the context in which the new Israeli attack on Gaza is taken place:

Electoral considerations are likely to have played a role in Israeli decision-making, but hardly driven them. Both Netanyahu and his defence minister, Ehud Barak, had been smarting since March from a previous Egyptian-mediated ceasefire, according to which they informally agreed not only to stop attacking the Gaza Strip but also to discontinue assassinations. An Islamic Jihad leader I interviewed at the time reckoned this was a climbdown too far for Israel’s leaders and they were bound to renew hostilities sooner rather than later.

Pummelling Gaza yet again was intended to remind all concerned – not least the new Egypt – who makes the rules, though it would also reassure the Israeli electorate they need not fear the prospect of Obama punishing Israel for Netanyahu’s embrace of the Romney/Adelson ticket. As expected, the Obama White House has reiterated its commitment to Israel, and Congress has been busy passing unanimous resolutions supporting Israel’s right to self-defence in its colonial possessions. The positions of most European states have been only marginally less obscene.

One of the eternal failures of the news media is their ahistorical approach to the Israeli apartheid state: news coverage only begins when Israelis are victims and anything that comes before it is ignored.