Elsewhere, 10/20
Who needs Flash for image slideshows, indeed. The Cycle plugin is a very cool jQuery plugin for handling image slideshows and transitions.
Brett McCracken on Christianity as an adjective: “Long ago, Christians decided that rather than trying to influence mass culture from within, they’d take the more passive route and define themselves as a ‘subculture.’ One more subculture among many. There are many reasons why they did this: 1) it’s easier, 2) niche markets make more money faster, and 3) modernity gave rise to the combative, defensive posture of ‘us vs. them’ — an attitude that has defined pop-Christianity ever since.”
New York Magazine on Sufjan Stevens’ upcoming orchestral suite: “Stevens sees his classical sojourn as an exercise, not a long-term career goal. ‘I have a suspicion against new-music personalities,’ he says. ‘There’s a certain kind of pretension. And I cannot pretend to be part of that environment, because I don’t have the experience, the skills, or the abilities. My music — even this kind of chamber music — is still very much based on pop idioms. It’s not based on new-music theory. But I enjoy pretending to be a composer. I’m sort of a hack at it. It’s fun to indulge in that.’ ” I love the bit about the research Sufjan did for the project.
Game Informer gives BioWare’s Mass Effect a 9.75: “Not since Star Wars made its theatrical debut in 1977 has there been a universe so full of wonder and awe. Mass Effect is science fiction tale so galvanizing it makes you question the very existence of humanity, how moral choices affect a person, and whether or not there’s a holy entity watching over us.” You can see a scan of the review here. Via
The next version of Apple’s OS X — 10.5 (aka “Leopard”) — comes out on October 26. In order to work the faithful masses into even more of a lather, Apple has posted a guided tour spotlighting some of Leopard’s more impressive changes.
Apple has just posted a trailer for Control, the Ian Curtis biopic that’s been garnering a healthy amount of buzz. You can find another trailer on the film’s official website.
Doug Cummings on the “final” cut of Blade Runner: “It’s unfortunate that Warner Brothers is only distributing the film in Los Angeles and New York (at this point), because it’s truly a film made to be seen on the big screen: a massive, sprawling vision that remains centered around crucial human questions, making it an endless source of fascination.”
Scott Stevenson offers a preview of Delicious Library 2, the new Leopard-only version of the one the most beautiful Mac apps around.
Shoegazers unite! Swervedriver (remember them?) are planning to reunite next year and do a world tour.