michael lambe

SCROTUM
I was reading Neil Gaiman’s journal today. You come across interesting things when you read Neil Gaiman’s journal. For instance, today he talked about how librarians up and down America were refusing to stock an award-winning children’s book that made mention of (HORROR OF HORRORS!) a dog’s scrotum. Quite rightly, Neil Gaiman was dismayed by this. I am too. I mean, what are we doing? Pretending dogs have no balls? Like kids don’t know? Recently I found myself bowdlerizing “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen so I could use it in the classroom. I actually changed the words “sex machine” to “six machine”. Ridiculous right? But I didn’t do this because I wanted to protect the innocent wards in my care. I know they know sex exists, they talk about it and think about it all time (they’re 14 - that’s probably all they think about). It was the adults I was worried about; the parents and the teachers who can’t handle the idea of being honest and forthright about this kind of thing in front of children (which is far healthier to my mind) and would probably give me a very hard time about it. Seems pretty immature to me to be honest, but as a foreigner, on a one-year part-time contract, I’m in no position to buck the system. Once a student asked me to use Avril Lavigne’s “Don’t Tell Me” in class. I’m not a big fan of Lavigne’s (let me assure you), but “whatever works”, you know. If the students like it they will learn. Anyway, the song is basically about a girl who is telling her boyfriend to clear off because all he wants to do is get in her pants (so you know, probably a good message, right? “Girls be strong! Be assertive! Don’t be pressured into doing that-kind-o’-thing before you’re ready!”- type of message, right?). I thought I would have a crack at translating it, but when I asked a Japanese teacher to check my translation he seemed perturbed.

What does “it” refer to in this sentence? he asked me

I’m guessing sex. I said. But before I had a chance to explain futher:

Sex!? No! No! Not sex! Not sex to junior high school students! No way! etc…

The mere mention of sex (never explicitly mentioned in the song) had him in paroxysms! I mean, I can understand my aged Irish-Catholic parents having weird puritanical attitudes, but you know, they are from a different era. We live in the 21st century now. Why can’t we just be honest and take all the mystery (and the associated sniggering and the misinformation and the hang-ups, and the FEAR) away? Then kids would have a more mature understanding of things… And I think we would too.

ANYWAY:
Here’s something else I found on Neil Gaiman’s super site. It’s art that you can play with. Basically collages of old 19th century prints, that you can click and effect weird changes upon. If you click on it in the right sequence you discover the next tableaux: CLICK TO ENJOY!

WHALES:
Here’s this week’s “Whale-Love” video. This week, Yuki and the token foreigner meet up with Mr. Nagaoka who was a whale harpoonist back in the 50s and who looks fantastic for his age. (Must be all that whale meat keeping him young…)

FINALLY:
It’s official. Youtube has gone over to the dark side. Since Google took over I’ve been reading about these insidious changes going on. About the major record companies demanding that youtube remove copyrighted material etc. But it didn’t hit home until I realised today that over half the music videos I’ve posted on this blog are no longer available. Including one I posted but 11 days ago! Tell me what harm does it do to have say a “TalkTalk” video from 1986, that can no longer be seen anywhere else, freely available on the internet where people can find it and might possibly think: “Ooh, I like that. Maybe I’ll click over to amazon and buy the record…” Hmm? STOOPID! My good friend Rik Abel recently wrote on his blog about Youtube plans to give video makers a share of ad-revenue: “w00t! Revver has been offering ad revenue share for quite a while, but this is exciting news cos like YouTube is obviously the 800lb gorilla and it’s high time they decided to ‘reward creativity’. “

I beg to differ Rik! It’s another sign of the crass commercialization that has irrevocably swallowed up the sweet naivete of the original youtube ideal! There was a place for that - it was Revver. Youtube was a place free from that, that horrible money-stuff. Ach! No more! No more!

But all things must pass.

Sheesh.