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captain piss
11:19 / 16.01.05
This was on UK terrestrial last night - dunno if anyone saw it. It was a TV dramatisation of a short story about a guy who gets up one day and decides to never leave the house again. This is the central condition of an “experiment” he will conduct on himself.

Don’t really want to describe the content or anything – it might spoil it for people, and I couldn’t do justice to it. But safe to say this is one the most brilliant things I think I’ve seen on telly for a while, but so deeply unpleasant to watch it has also left me feeling quite creeped out..

Certainly visceral, surreal, a pretty interesting attempt to depict psychosis – maybe a ring of familiarity to anyone who's shut themself in the house for a few days and started to go a bit funny (especially if chemicals involved)

Or maybe lots of people on here thought it was rubbish..
 
 
Alex's Grandma
12:59 / 16.01.05
Well I thought it was great. Excellent performance from Anthony Sher, as exactly the Forty-something professional ( as opposed to arts undergrad, ) who, in his deranged state, would attempt something like this. Even if you don't like the style of writing, JG Ballard's stuff always films pretty well I think. And yes, I'm including Empire Of The Sun when I say that.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
21:46 / 16.01.05
Jesus! Why didn't I know anything about this?
I love that story... isn't it called "The Enormous Area" or something?
 
 
Alex's Grandma
04:38 / 17.01.05
Not sure, chief.

I was going to look it up, but just staring at the contents page of The Complete Works is such sweet, sweet poetry in itself. Insofar as you've got

The Waiting Grounds
Now: Zero
The Sound-Sweep
Zone Of Terror
Chronopolis
The Voices Of Time
The Last Words Of Mr Goddard
Studio 5, The Stars...

I mean that's it, y'know ? That is ( takes big drag on spliff ) the human condition, I think.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
09:12 / 17.01.05
As far as I remember, it was in War Fever (so if the Complete Short Stories is chronological, it'll be fairly near the end).
 
 
captain piss
09:58 / 17.01.05
The story was called The Enormous Space, I believe. There's a bit about this telly programme here.
 
 
_Boboss
10:39 / 17.01.05
ah, the shits. i'd normally give the v's to any number of friends-in-the-pub to watch this, but it was particularly good and seldom-seen friends on saturday so i missed it.

so many of his stories, the little one-set / one-act jobs, would be poifict for TV adaptation, and he's the kinda writer hep enough to let folk have a bit of a go without being precious.

i imagine the bbc will wait until he's dead before realising that though.
 
 
captain piss
11:57 / 17.01.05
I taped it actually, so could pass it on to you, oh gumbitch. Same goes for you stoats, although that's obviously a slighty longer-distance endeavour.
 
 
captain piss
12:01 / 17.01.05
he's the kinda writer hep enough to let folk have a bit of a go without being precious.

Doesn’t sound like it, according to the interview with the director of this (see link above), where he says: It's very difficult to get films of Ballard's works off the ground … he's suspicious, quite often, of people, because the world and his film student quite often knock on his door trying to make adaptations, and he's quite protective of his work. So getting the opportunity to do it was blessing enough and subsequently he's been very supportive of the film.
 
 
_Boboss
13:26 / 17.01.05
yeh, i made that statement with no supporting evidence whatsoever, other than that he looks sort of cuddly in photos. would love to get a look at that vid cheers hed-vort
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
13:31 / 17.01.05
A friend of mine used to do a zine called "The Unlimited Dream Company"- as far as I remember, when he found himself in Shepperton he flicked through the phone book in a phone box (when they used to have them) on the off-chance, found Mr Ballard actually listed in it and called him to ask if it would be okay to use the name. Mr B said OK. How cool is that, especially in light of those last couple of posts?

(Some of you may know of him, actually- he went on to do a zine called "Towards 2012", which I know Illmatic at least is familiar with).
 
 
_Boboss
13:53 / 17.01.05
if by 'know him' you can mean 'bought his mag off him at an undie publishing convention thing', then yes. he's local, used to be THE guy to talk to to get small-press comics published, pretty sure he's knocked that on the head though.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
18:18 / 17.01.05
undie publishing

That sounds WAY smuttier than it should.

Tho' yeah, that sounds like the guy.

(Are you in Leeds, by any chance? I only ask...)
 
 
A beautiful tunnel of ghosts
21:47 / 17.01.05
I remember both The Unlimited Dream Company and Towards 2012. I'd been collecting the latter since 1998 and only obtained the last issue last year in Atlantis Bookshop in London. Towards 2012 was consistently informative and thought-provoking and is a magazine to which I continually return for inspiration and elucidation. Please pass on my thanks and regards to your friend, Stoatie.
 
 
_Boboss
07:41 / 18.01.05
i'm in brighton. i kind of assumed you meant the slab-o-concrete guy? could be we're talking about different folk after all, the chap i met might have been down for the day or involved with towards 2012 in a different capacity. good mag actually, very easy to make a mess of the undie*/occult zine thing, but it was a proper treasure-trove.

*always handy as a reminder - most self-professedly 'underground' stuff, in whatever medium, is a bit pants.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
07:59 / 18.01.05
I imagine there were probably a few of 'em working on 2012- the production values were well-impressive. I'll ask him.
 
  
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