The Null Device
Posts matching tags 'osama bin laden'
2004/6/9
Someone calling themself octobersurprise.net is running this poll:
Currently "Osama bin Laden captured" is the clear leader, with more than twice the votes of the second-most-popular option, "spectacular terrorist attack on US soil". (via jwz)
2004/6/5
This evening, I caught a train to North Coburg, getting off at Batman station (yes, to the Americans in the audience, we do name our railway stations after superheroes here, because we Australians are weird), and walking through darkened streets, with the occasional desultory-looking art-decoish bungalow that has seen much better days, looking for an art gallery located at 8 Lyon St. After considerable walking through this wasteland, I started wondering "what sort of art gallery would set up here?". Eventually, I found it, in a former factory/mechanic's shop/similar, across the road from the only other sign of life in the neighbourhood, a bikie clubhouse (the Foolish Few Motorcycle Club, I believe), some of whose members mingled with the hip young artists and miscellaneous troublemakers.
The art varied; it was mostly "underground" art of various sorts (think "ooh, am I OFFENDING your BOURGEOIS SENSIBILITIES? Good. *Fuck* *you*, SUBURBAN YUPPIE PIG!"). A lot of stencil art (some very intricate), done on old car doors, some of that homie graf/stencil/sticker hybrid stuff that's going up all over the city (there was one piece by "Monkey" and someone else, depicting a fantastic world, with their tags all over everything; got to love the hip-hop culture's tendency towards self-mythologisation), underground comics from members of Silent Army, someone's set of nude drawings of female artists (done as a set of postcards, yours for $10), and underworld hitman-turned-artistic cause celebre Chopper Read's own paintings, showing crude figures of big-breasted women with Ned Kelly helmets (alas, I'm not sufficiently well-versed in contemporary art to tell whether Chopper's art is a work of postmodern genre-crossing genius, a curiosity of "outsider art" notable more for who made it than its own virtues, or a publicity stunt). Chopper didn't seem to be there, though there were quite a few bikies with short-cropped hair, tattoos, big bushy beards and, in one case, Nazi patches. Which, I suppose, made the whole thing a lot more edgy and hardcore and "keeping it real". Oh, and Cameron Potts was there, in his "Osama Bin Laden World Hero" T-shirt. Meanwhile, a band (consisting of members of Jihad Against America and/or The Eggs, I'm told) made noises with distorted guitars and a theremin.
Many of the artworks had prices that wouldn't leave much change from a grand. I wonder whether many well-heeled collectors will trek out in their BMWs to the industrial wasteland to pick up a stencilled car door for their open-plan loft in St Kilda or wherever.
2003/3/18
The latest aspiring pop starlet in London is Osama bin Laden's niece. Waffa bin Laden, 26, has been described as a "Natalie Imbruglia lookalike" and has been working with producer Nellee Hooper. She is a US lawyer by training. (via Rocknerd)
Simon Cowell, the Pop Idol judged renowned for his put-downs said: 'There's only one worse surname you could have to launch a pop career - and that's Hitler.'
Actually, didn't one of Mussolini's granddaughters have some sort of celebrity career a while ago?
2003/2/13
A Valentine's Day card has caused a homeland security alert in Pittsburgh; the man who bought the card for his daughter noticed that it contained the word "Jihad", and the message "It's Time To Be Mine". Could Osama bin Laden be using Valentine's Day cards to communicate with his sleeper agents?
2002/12/8
The most popular toy in Pakistan these days: the Osama Bin Laden action figure, which comes with military jeep and bodyguards.
"As you know, Osama is very popular in the whole world," said Imran, a young boy eyeing up the goods on offer at a Karachi toy store. "The same thing is happening in Pakistan.
Bin Laden, it seems, has become a sort of Islamic Che Guevara in that part of the world. I wonder how long until overpriced OBL-themed fashion accessories (sewn by child labour in the third world) show up in the ritzy boutiques of the West.
2001/12/30
According to media curmudgeon Julie Burchill, two figures dominated 2001: Osama Bin Laden and Kylie Minogue.
2001/10/12
The owners of children's TV show Sesame Street are "outraged" over the appearance of Sesame Street character Bert on an Osama Bin Laden poster in Bangladesh and are considering legal action. (They can probably thank their lucky stars that the archaic legal doctrine of "fair use" does not apply to electronic media.) Meanwhile, the "Bert is Evil" website, where the image came from, has been taken down by its creator.