James Bell Central

Author: James Bell

  • Recommendation: Anna Akana

    Recommendation: Anna Akana

    Okay, first recommendation of this month…

    I have no idea when I first discovered Anna Akana. I think I’ve always been watching her YouTube videos, in much the same way that Mr Grady from The Shining has always been the caretaker of the Overlook hotel.

    Actress, comedian, novelist, vlogger, musician, Mother of Cats, honest discussant of mental health problems. Daniel Radcliffe fan. Dreamer of sex dreams with people she doesn’t like. The videos are funny, insightful, compassionate and she’s definitely a talent to watch out for…

    Current Favourite Thing:
    I mean, it’s probably this…

  • Eulogize This: Hank and John Green

    Eulogize This: Hank and John Green

    Don’t Forget To Be Awesome

    There are internet cults. And there is ‘Nerdfighteria’.

    On 1 January 2007 Hank and John Green, two brothers in their late 20s who weren’t particularly close, started a year-long project of posting video messages to each other on YouTube — a project that they called Brotherhood 2.0. During that time they didn’t text, or email, or use any other kind of messaging service: it was their only way of communicating with each other (other than in person). Perhaps more by accident than by design, when the end of the year came around they had 40,000 subscribers. And they announced that, although that project was going to come to an end, they were going to keep posting 4 minute videos for each other. And they have been doing it now for just over a decade. (more…)

  • Recommendation: Transgender Dysphoria Blues by Against Me!

    Recommendation: Transgender Dysphoria Blues by Against Me!

    A song I happened upon on Spotify. I thought the title looked good, and started the track, and thought… okay… kind of generic opening… and then a kind of generic riff… and then… one of the finest examples of songwriting I’ve heard in a very long time.

    Not everyone has the same tastes in songwriting, and the thing I’ve always responded most to is to be able to cram a huge amount of emotional information into as few words as possible. And this, like the best punk rock, just nails in such a simple way the heartbreak of wanting others to see you the way you see yourself, but knowing that instead they see something they find deeply troubling.

    You can also find more about the context behind the song below:

    Not for the faint of soul…

    Current Favourite Thing:
    “The ragged ends of your summer dress…”

  • Apropos of Nothing: Photoshopping Classical Art into Urban Settings

    Apropos of Nothing: Photoshopping Classical Art into Urban Settings

    I mean… there’s a Ukrainian artist called Alexey Kondakov who cuts up figures from classical paintings and photoshops them into modern urban settings.

    That’s it, really.

    But it’s also wonderful.

    You can find Alexey Kondakov on Instagram.

    (more…)

  • Recommendations: Dredd

    Recommendations: Dredd

    The comic 2000 AD was ubiquitous when I was a child. Its principle character was Judge Dredd, an almost ridiculously exaggerated version of the Hollywood action man that was so popular in the 1980s: muscular, militaristic, ultra-macho to the point of sadism, humourless (apart from the occasional sub-James Bond pun). I found him a deeply unlikeable character, and although I had friends who loved the comic I don’t remember reading one of this stories all the way through. (more…)

  • Follow Your Gut

    Follow Your Gut

    [Long read…]

    I haven’t been feeling well recently. An ongoing fatigue illness. Which, as I mentioned last month, has meant I have had to temporarily stop putting new music on this site (because all my music-making has to be focused on making money, which is not what this site is about).

    This led me to spend a lot of time researching what the health problem might be: talking with my GP, reading books, reading scientific papers, watching lectures on YouTube. And after a bit of trial and error, I think I’ve located the problem and have felt back to normal for a couple of weeks now. (more…)