TRiPOD

In this week's edition of TRiPOD, we set ourselves the challenge to find three songs which contain soliloquies by Shakespearean actors. Not as difficult as you might think.

Prints of Darkness

We recently saw one of printmaker Martin Ridgwell's pieces at the Royal Acadmey Summer Exibition.This is what Twilight would look like if Ridgwell was given a budget and immunity from prosecution. Needless to say, Bella would not feature. Or at least, she would be played by Eddie Redmayne.

Imagine a collaboration between Ridgwell, Marko Mitanovski and Jonas Akerlund, in the Haus of Gaga. I think it would take inspiration from this. Possibly for the song 'Monster'...?

Conscience Off, Dick On?

Scenes of jubilation and delight at Fit Crit HQ this month as True Blood finally returns to our megavideos with its third series. Having packed Vampire Bill off to become mired in local politics, this one looks set to finally bring Eric to the fore. Behold Alexander Skarsgard, or The Point At Which The Human Race Reached Its Aesthetic Zenith.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: phwoar.

Glad to see the beyond fabulous, yahtzee-obsessed, taxman-hounded Queen making a return too, and more screentime for the gloriously catty lesbian vamp Pam too. Heck, I love pretty much every character in this, which is rare for a show with such a large ensemble, but the great writing gives us such gems as 'hell hath no fury as a vampire queen in debt' extends all the way down to the most minor of characters.

New style hero, obvs

That said, four episodes in to this new series and I do worry the show may be taking a turn for the torture porn, which seems a bit beneath it. Any idiot with a Hostel writing credit can pen ‘girl in underwear gets tied up/bitten/poked with something hot’- did we really need four instances of this in one episode? Bring back the biting social commentary! Last series they were pillorying the Religious Right, this time it seems to be “look- boobs!” A tad disappointing. But then they made Eric frickin' FLY, so conscience off, dick on, no?

Sparkle Vamp take note- this is the red-blooded woman / right-thinking man's slightly creepy nighttime visitation method of choice

Alexander Skarsgard Klaxon

1. Sheer

Terrifying Picture of Ian McKellan of the Day

Autistic Austen

I recently came across a book called So Odd a Mixture: Along the Autistic Spectrum in 'Pride and Prejudice' by Phyllis Ferguson Bottomer. (I know.)

I am usually quite suspicious of psychological pathologies, not only because of Foucault's Civilisation and Madness - which charts the category of madness in a similar way to queer theory's critique of the pathology of the homosexual in the nineteenth-century - but also because of Louis Theroux's documentary on America's Medicated Kids, where the first reaction on the part of parents and doctors was diagnosis and medication.