Author: davekeeshan

I missed this video when it was released at home, but due to the miracle of the intertubes I found it on YouTube.

Based on the original recordings taken by Peig Cunningham in Dublin schoolrooms from the 1960’s, (subsequently re-discovered and released by EMI record) this film dramatises the event as a TV crew arrive to record the children and we are treated to the story of John the Baptist told as only children can. It received an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Short at the 2001 Oscars.Give Up Yer Aul Sins has screened in almost 50 film festivals, including The Galway Film Fleadh (where it won Best Animation), Cork Film Festival (Best Irish and Best International Animation), Cartoons on Bay (Special Award for Original Idea), New York Comedy Festival, Boston Irish Film Festival, Aspen Film Festival and Cannes Film Festival.

If you can believe it, many years ago I probably sounded a lot like the kid taking in the video and ye think I have a funny accent now?

I recently started doing a bit on stage about William Shatner and how I don’t think he acts, but people create this world around him, like the Truman show, and just film his response.  I must have tapped into the zeitgeist as there is a big write up on “The Shat” in the New York Times and on page 3:

“Denny was a wun-der-ful role. There’s a little bit of every actor in a role. The sadness of the character was very close to my consciousness. It’s hard to play an old fool, non sequiturs, which is all Denny was. Then I realized he thought his life was a TV show. That helped me.” It helped because Shatner’s life seems at times to be a TV show lived in public, a benign “Truman Show.”

Is there nothing “The Shat” can’t do!

DragonCON 2009, originally uploaded by Annissë.

This is an absolutely class fan produced Silk Spectre II costume (did I say it was class)

This proved to be a popular way to spend a friday afternoon.

[via the bite]

update

Here are some possible answers:

1. Star Wars
2. Blade Runner
3. Gears of War
4. Clockwork Orange
5. Battlestar Galactica
6. Tron
7. Terminator
8. Quantum Leap
9. Predators
10. Planet of the Apes
11. Resident Evil
12. Avatar
13. Matrix
14. Transformers
15. Halo
16. Hellboy
17. Star Trek
18. Wolverine
19. Thundercats
20. Jurassic Park
21. Independence Day
22. Metal Gear Solid
23. Futurama
24. QUAKE
25. TMNT
26. Stargate Atlantis
27. Voltron
28. Metropolis
29. Buckaroo Bonzai
30. Airwolf
31. E.T.
32. Robocop
33. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
34. Pac-Man
35. Buffy
36. Serenity

I still think 29 is the subscript Back to the Future ‘B’

There is about 5 things going on here. Cool though!

I graduated with a degree in engineering.  I was presented with the offer of doing a masters straight after, this was during the dot com bubble, so I was keen to get out there and earn some mhulla!  I have thought about going back and doing a masters in any thing but engineering.  If given a choice I would love to have a masters in comedy. Alas I have yet to find the university that does that course.  However there is some hope. Here is a link to a paper that tries to find out why people find immoral behavior (sic) funny.

I think I can summarise the paper though.  We laugh at other peoples misfortune because deep down we know that it could be us and this time at least it isn’t.

Synthesizing seemingly disparate ideas into three jointly necessary and sufficient conditions (appraisal as a violation, appraisal as a benign situation, and simultaneity), we suggest that humor is a positive and adaptive response to benign violations. Humor provides a healthy and socially beneficial way to react to hypothetical threats, remote concerns, minor setbacks, social faux pas, cultural misunderstandings, and other benign violations people encounter on a regular basis. Humor also serves a valuable communicative function.  Laughter and amusement signal to the world that a violation is indeed okay.

That’s what I said!

Any way if you are student of humour check it out.

[via io9]

There was an interesting article in the Sydney Morning Herald about shock comedy around Sydney.  It turns out that Jim Jefferies got himself in a bit of bovver at the Comedy Store when he picked on the audience and instead of rallying the room ended up killing it a bit.

‘‘Some comedy draws on societal taboos as a way to generate laughter and indeed, this is part of the appeal. Laughing at something that is inappropriate. This is why comedians often walk a very fine line”

I find the whole piece interesting. I am currently playing in the open mic space and it is educational to see how many people are going for the shock value of comedy.  It reminds me of that line from “The Incredibles” – “When every body is special, no-one is!”