FT
5 February 2013
guess my theory: none more gracile dept
pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør in FT • 1 Comment
31 January 2013
Lost Property Office: 2-3: A Dirty Great Crease
Hello Losers! Hmm, not sure if I should call regular listeners to The Lost Property Office Losers, you are all of course winners of a brand spanking new podcast. And this week I have one of the original Lollards for you, a man who by his own confession rarely loses, but rarely finds stuff either. And is always getting lost, and the approbation it might summon up. This intrepid Lost Properteer is of course Tim Hopkins.
In our little chat we broach upon parental disapproval, the Police Benevolent Fund, why anyone would need a calculator, the theory of mix CD’s, and we learn via book and flexi-disc how to play guitar. Unfortunately we do not have guitar in the studio to prove that we have completely learned how to play it. There is also some music which may or may not be by Michael Jackson, and as is often the way we seem to talk about the GOOD OLD DAYS. Oh and I sign not once but twice (Gordon Lightfoot and Miguel…) Download here, or on iTunes and enjoy.
lost property 2-3
Pete Baran in FT /Lost Property Podcast • 1 Comment
It Was Fifty Years Ago Today Sgt Loki Taught The Band To Play
Another in our series of posts on Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie’s Young Avengers comic.
The Ronettes’ “Be My Baby” came out in August 1963, started building radio play, then hit the Billboard Top 10 by the end of September. A kid hearing it on the radio that month, walking around Ronnie Spector’s New York City with the drums in their head, passing a newsstand, might have pushed aside the Uncle Scrooge and Superman and found something different – one of those new mags Marvel Comics were putting out, and good value too. Three of their blocky, dynamic, aggressively weird heroes – plus two ant-size ones – against some guy in a horned helmet. “The Avengers”.
It’s a coincidence, maybe, that the song Noh-Varr dances to in space is a voice from the very time and place the idea of “Avengers” was born. But coincidences are there to have fun with. 1963 is the year Marvel Comics really started to motor. Going into that summer they were still just about bet-hedging, running romance and Western comics and squeezing new heroes into two-for-one books still called stuff like Tales To Astonish. By the end of the year they had Spider-Man, they had the Avengers, they had a universe taking some kind of shape, and maybe – maybe – they had the first inkling that their comics weren’t being bought by kids. They’d broken through into teens, and college-age readers. Their comics were part of something far vaster, something pop.
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Tom in FT • 13 Comments
30 January 2013
I Love It
I see from my Twitter feed (Lena Dunham Panopticon Division) that the song “I Love It” by Icona Pop is “happening” now. That’s fine by me, I like that song. One reason I like it is because of its fiendish lyrical meta-trap viz.
SHOUTY ICONA POP WOMAN: “You’re from the seventies! And I’m a nineties bitch!”
POP CRITIC OF A CERTAIN AGE (THINKS): “You certainly are, you sound exactly like Shampoo.”
SHOUTY ICONA POP FANS: “Hahaha GRANDAD that PROVES YOU’RE OLD”
Devilish cunning. Anyway I wish them all the best and it will be interesting to see how actual young people take to the record.
Tom in FT • 10 Comments
29 January 2013
Modally young ancient vengeance
Young Avengers #1 is here and with it, duly, coverage. Of some sort. Don’t say we’re not up-to-the-minute. This is one of two ENORMOUS CLUNKING WORD-VOMITS I’m going to retch up about specific panels from Issue #1. And you’re in luck, because if the metaphor hasn’t already become wholly unpalatable, this bellyful has mystic sausages.
By now you may well know some of the facts about the reaction to Young Avengers #1: it’s got words and pictures in and the words and the pictures and the way that the words go with the pictures has been widely and rightly praised. It’s witty, it’s dramatic, it’s a little bit sad in places and it’s romantic in others. It’s done good, is what I’m saying. Really good.
And the Young Avengers? They’re a nice bunch of kids. Apart from, of course, the maggot in the orchard. Who might be on one of his less berserkedly, cacklingly, taking-over-the-world-with-fire-and-brimstone, bringing-about-Ragnarok, more reservedly scheming swings but neverless, is neither nice nor, appearances aside, a kid.
I speak, of course, of Loki.
Loki! He does what he wants!
Serrure! Except when he doesn’t.
LOKI!!! That fucker destroyed Asgard
THIS GUY! He’s not always a guy.
FOR ALL THE GODS’ SAKES! He destroyed Asgard AGAIN!
It’s a bird! No, literally.
Hel-with-one-’l'! He’s had his name written out of every debtor’s book. And when he found one he couldn’t, he ate himself.
…Wait, what? Yes, it is time to delve into the pits of NORSE CRISIS ANALYSIS, of GUESS WHICH FUCKER DESTROYED ASGARD NO REALLY GUESS YOU HAVE ONE GUESS AND IT’S RIGHT, of why everyone, even and especially Asgard’s golden son can’t resist the trickster because without Loki life isn’t quiet but there’s a risk that when the pain comes, it might be blunter but also never as funny, of what the hel-with-one-’l’ this ten-thousand-year-old dude is doing in a kid’s body, of, most crucially, LOKICEPTION.
WARNING: This will be the last time I do a big discussion of this in the Young Avengers write ups but this is COVERED IN SPOILERS for how Loki came to be where he is in #1, so Thor by J Michael Straczynski, The Mighty Thor by Matt Fraction, Siege by absolutely everyone (including Gillen and McKelvie) and Journey into Mystery 622-645. You don’t need to know all this to think about Young Avengers, in fact, I would be super excited to hear the thoughts of someone who doesn’t and is reading it. But this follows some threads of my own thoughts. And by that I mean ‘three and a half thousand words about Loki.’
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Hazel in FT • 15 Comments
24 January 2013
You conduct yourself like one drunk or asleep, belching out between your snores, “Yes, No.”
From The Bondage of the Will, pg. 113 of Luther’s Works, Vol. 33
For more in like vein, check the Martin Luther Insult Generator
pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør in FT • 2 Comments
23 January 2013
Guess My Theory – Sherlock Undercover Edition
One of my favourite things about the most modern incarnations of Sherlock Holmes* is how they deal with Sherlock’s apparent mastery of disguise. Visual Media is wary of masters of disguise** because the medium in itself is playing exactly the same trick on the audience. Robert Downey Jr is NOT really Sherlock Holmes, but we have to believe he is. But if he is Sherlock Holmes in disguise, the audience should be able to spot the disguise, else we aren’t in on the game. Hence RDJ dragging up appallingly in a Game Of Shadows amongst others. So obviously then I saw this picture I thought it was Benidct Cumberbatch in some sort of lousy Sherlock disguise.
(Note, Gollum is not in the original picture – that is my theory.) more »
Pete Baran in FT • No Comments
22 January 2013
Rent-A-Mob Switch-A-Chant
Do you find it difficult putting together a political rally? Do you find that your poorly performing football club is losing fans by the thousands and it is hard for you to maintain a general sense of hub-bub in the stands? Do you really like the Spanish word “Olé” poorly enunciated but loudly projected over and over again to what, everyone in my office agreed, was the Olé Olé Olé tune? Well salvation is at hand for you:
I must admit I have always wondered who was singing the Olé Olé Olé tune at many football grounds. more »
Pete Baran in FT • 3 Comments
rah rah ragnarok*
Beyond the hills the far horizon/In the purple evening sky/
You’ll find the Valley of Valhalla/There when you die
^^^Actual Young Avengers/Old Boney M fanfic crossover aka ‘By the Rivers of Piflheim’
*Post title courtesy piratemoggy
pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør in FT • 1 Comment
16 January 2013
Young and vengeful
Exactly a week from now, Tumblr is going to have a sort of collective aneurysm. Well, bits of Tumblr, anyway. The reason? Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie’s new series of Young Avengers starts. Eight years since the start of the first Young Avengers volume (although time hasn’t passed so fast for the characters) and in the wake of a Marvel explosion, it’s time to bring back everyone’s favourite teenage sort-of-good-at-saving-the-world, only-slightly-Dr-Doom-enabling, probably-no-longer-dicking-around-in-the-timestream-at-least teenage heroes!
Does Billy and Teddy having an argument in some of the preview panels mean they’re breaking up? (probably not)
Is Loki evil again now? (statistically, yes)
Does Miss America know? (possibly, she might just like kicking him)
Has Kate Bishop totally forgotten Eli in favour of banging Marvel Boy? (well, she is the Tony Stark of the equation)
Where the fuck is Speed? (TOO FAST TO SEE!)
What’s Thor going to do when he finds out his (these days) much littler brother is horsing around between dimensions putting together a superhero team? (tell their mums) (or well, Captain America; same thing)
Tom Ewing will be bringing the reasoned analysis, Pete Baran the puns and I the emotional mental breakdown when I remember that The Vision and Cassie are dead (‘FUUUUUUUUU-’ Feels Editor) as we bring you some sort of coverage of each issue as it happens. In the meantime and if you’re just joining us, why not catch up quickly with my comprehensive and not-at-all biased summary below?
WARNING: spoilers for Journey into Mystery 622-645, some of The Mighty Thor, everything that’s gone before in Young Avengers.
more »
Hazel in FT • 25 Comments
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