Monday, September 28, 2009

Roaratorio, An Irish Circus On Finnegans Wake


"Roaratorio, John Cage's 1979 composition, is a work of staggering complexity. To put it simply, it involves several elements all working together at once to create a soundscape of Finnegans Wake." (Read More)


Sunday, September 27, 2009

James Joyce Reads From Finnegans Wake


James Joyce reading from the Anna Livia Plurabelle section of Finnegans Wake in 1929.






Thursday, September 10, 2009

Back online for The Fall


We didn't really take a break, just got busy with some other stuff which might amuse you.

In the UK, Derren Brown predicts the lottery numbers live on tv, and the first number that comes up (in the 'real' lottery) - Yup, 23. And the announcer even mentions then that the Lottery has raised £23 million for good causes.

On Friday, Derren promises to explain how he did it, but you can watch the clip here.

His blog (All your minds are belong to us) has closed for a while, due to the amount of traffic.

Speculation (the great viral buzz) revolves around a split-screen arrangement, or special ink on the balls (activated remotely), or something else...

Or maybe he just uses magic? :-)

Follow atheist, entertainer and arch-debunker Derren Brown through Twitter, or Facebook. He uses a combination of misdirection, suggestion, psychological reading, sleight-of-hand and (probably) high-tech gizmos to achieve the effects he goes for. Persuasion, perceptual illusions, probability, he explores them all.

It seems amusing that the technical magical term of 'Misdirection' seems to have entered the common language now, even if people may not entirely understand some of the subtleties - and many people attribute his odd 'powers' to NLP, whereas that probably remains a misleading part of his patter, rather than an explanation. He retains his ambiguity about it all - while emphasising that he does not believe in psychic powers, gods and demons, etc. In fact, although he has worked as a hypnotist, he doesn't really 'believe' in hypnosis either. He claims partial inspiration for his style of performance from Martin S Taylor and his 'Hypnotism without hypnosis' show - and (although he plays down his connection to conjurors now) can handle a deck of cards expertly.

Note: he only shares initials with David Blaine by chance. He appears far more witty and urbane to me.

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