You are not alone

Your obsession makes you interesting.

Actor Alan Cumming has started a website documenting people’s obsessions. On www.itsasickness.com you can join existing obsession groups (Shakespeare, sloths, Buffy, etc) and add your own, then upload photos, videos and articles.

Itsasickness is an obsession network honoring sicknesses; the objects of our obsession. We believe that no one is ever more interesting than when they talk about what they love. To do your sickness justice is to own it.”

Here’s Alan talking about the project on the Joy Behar show.

While it’s painfully obvious what I have been obsessed with for the last 20 years, this project made me think about past obsessions. I have dreadfully bad memory, but here’s what I was able to dig up:

  • James Bond movies
  • Paul Newman
  • AFN/BFBS Radio
  • Film posters
  • Joao Gilberto / Brazilian music
  • Sports (tennis & baseball) and sports clothes (Adidas)
  • Field recording gear
  • U2 live concert tapes
  • Ireland
  • Robbie Robertson
  • Eddie Izzard

via meg

The return of Pantscat

Eleven years ago, I saw British comedian Eddie Izzard perform a show in Amsterdam. Not long after, I set up a website about him, which ran in various incarnations from ’95 to ‘2000. It was my most succesful website, at least until we set up Whedonesque.com.

I hooked up an old HD to my computer yesterday, and found the most recent backup of the site, made just before I took the site off line in 2000. Among the files were two original pieces I wrote. They are a review and an interview, both of which I’d like to share with you again, starting with the review.

I’ve also put part of the site back online, not originally created by me, but given to me to host. It gives me great pleasure to present: Pantscat!, an early Izzard creation.

The review follows after the break. I haven’t followed Izzard’s career the past five years. I stopped ‘believing’ and thought he was a bit too calculating, too eager in the quest for fame. Not a lot of soul. Then I just lost interest. But this was written at the height of my comparatively brief obsession with the man who said ‘Jam!’

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My uncle’s ‘book without a title’

Last year my uncle featured in a TV show about ‘miracles’. He told the story of how he found a photograph of himself in a book he picked up from an antique shop, while on holiday in England. It’s a true story. This month the show is letting viewers decide which stories should be repeated in a clip show to introduce the new series.

Do me and my kin a favour and vote for ‘De foto’ on the ‘Wonderen bestaan’ website. You’ll find the poll on the right hand side and ‘De foto’ is the last option in the poll (which doesn’t give it much of a chance of winning!).

It’s a great story and my uncle, who is an author and lyricist, does a great job of telling it (well, duh, he does readings and theater shows for a living). In short: About 20 years ago he was on holiday with his girlfriend L. and another couple. It was a miserable day and he hadn’t even wanted to go to England anyway. When they stopped for lunch, they came across an antique shop.

My uncle had a thing about ‘a book without a title’. He had been talking about this obsession during the trip, of wanting to find this ‘book without a title’. His friends had said books without titles didn’t exist.

Looking through the books on the shelves in the antique shop, he didn’t find anything he wanted. But there was one more book, sitting on a table. Picking it up he saw the book’s cover didn’t have any marking or lettering. It was a book without a title! And when he opened it, he found a picture of himself taken when he was a young man.

Cue theme of the Twilight Zone. Vote now. Vote often.

Comfort shoes

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Like a lot of women, I have a thing for shoes. But strange as it may sound, I think I inherited this particular obsession from my father.

Growing up in WWII he did not have any shoes, so he developed a fetish in later life. My parents would, and I believe they still do, fly down to Lisbon for the weekend to buy shoes. Shoes are cheaper in Portugal.

Ever few weeks my father, a rather conservative man with 15+ pair of shoes — can you imagine? — will line up his collection and he will clean and polish them all. I never did pick up that part of his habit.

There are 30+ pairs of shoes in my closet right now. A few years ago, I threw out a lot of older ones, but kept enough so as not to make me nervous. I’ve stopped buying new pairs regularly, mainly because most of my money goes on computer stuff and music. But lately I’ve felt the old itch coming back.

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Catch up with Caroline

Things I’ve done over the last couple of days.

  • Came home sick on Wednesday. Some kind of throat infection. Strep throat? Ugh.
  • Watched 23 episodes of the Sopranos. Still not sure whether I like it or not.
  • Tried to do DVD > VCD for someone. Failed. Grr.
  • Cancelled a lot of appointments. Still unsure what to do about the one I have today.
  • Was interviewed by The Guardian. Didn’t have a lot of interesting things to say (I had another, related subject on my mind and regrettably focussed on that in my answers), still got quoted. Whedonesque.com is not a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fansite. It is a community weblog about the work of writer, director Joss Whedon. Still, good job, Bobbie.
  • Felt disconnected from the sites I run, especially U2log.com.
  • Realised once again that having no new extra-curricular projects to pursue is not good for my well being. What, you thought this recent obsession with all things wireless and mobile is just a healthy interest in technology?

    Sorry, no time to get all introspective. The UPS man was at my door just now with my new Dell Axim. That’s at least 4 days sooner than expected. Weeeeeeeeeeeee!