The Null Device

In Kazakhstan, the police are cracking down hard on decadent, "bohemian" lifestyles that threaten common decency; the offenders have included the usual crowd: alternative artists, gays and lesbians, members of religious sects, and Tolkien reenactors. That's right, people are being tortured for dressing up as hobbits on their weekends. (via Lev)

¶ 0

Tonight I went to the film festival and saw Late Night Shopping, a comedy about a group of twentysomethings in Glasgow who work night-shift McJobs and, in their spare time, hang out in a café watching life go by for want of anything better to do. One of them is a serial pick-up artist who has a rule against sleeping with the same woman more than three times; another hasn't seen his live-in girlfriend (who keeps different hours) for three weeks, and has taken to measuring the soap to determine whether she still lives with him. It was very enjoyable; visually dynamic and full of amusing moments and one-line insights into modern-day life, in a Douglas Coupland-meets-Human Traffic sort of way. If there is any justice, it should get general release, or at least a season in a not-quite-dead-mainstream cinema and a DVD.

¶ 0