68. The Art of Disappearing
A wonderful episode of the podcast In the fifth row by Cesar Majorana, in which he sets out to find the lost soundtrack for the film Spoorloos (1988) by director George Sluizer.
After years with Doe Maar, Henny Vrienten had had enough of ska. For Spoorloos, he dug a synthesiser out of the cupboard and created a half-hour soundtrack that took the thriller to a whole new level. It is almost inevitable that the music contributed to Stanley Kubrick’s opinion of the film. It is no secret that he called Spoorloos the scariest film he had ever seen.
But the soundtrack for this classic film isn’t available on any music streaming service. You’ll find just one track on YouTube. The music hasn’t been released on CD or vinyl. Most Dutch soundtracks, certainly those from older films, have simply been lost. Majorana tries to find out whether there might still be recordings of Spoorloos somewhere after all, resulting in a delightful podcast. With lovely anecdotes about the film itself, about Sluizer and about Vrienten.
Incidentally, a restored version of Spoorloos is still showing (for a very short while) in the better arthouse cinemas. Make the most of it. It is a rock-solid film, based on Tim Krabbé’s book Het Gouden Ei, about good and evil and the desperate need to know which side you’re on.
---II.
A nice tip from the comic book shop owner: Luchtwegen, a book by Étienne Davodeau, Joub and Christophe Hermenier. It’s about Yvan, who has turned fifty and, to make matters worse, loses his parents and his job.
So he decides to spend some time brooding in the snow-covered Jura mountains, where he is allowed to stay at an old friend’s house. Yvan’s other friends and his children are far away, their lives well on track. In the snow, Yvan wallows a little in self-pity whilst longing for the carefree days of his youth.
Simply following the days of a man who muses and lives through the tragedy of everyday life. That doesn’t sound very exciting, and it isn’t, but all sorts of things happen between the lines. A semi-autobiographical comic just the way I like it.
III.
Here’s my idea for a Black Mirror episode, based on a post I read on X. Dave Maasland from cybersecurity firm ESET shared ChatGPT predictions for the first round of matches at the European Championship. The computer got it completely wrong. But, I suddenly thought, what if AI suddenly turns out to be hyper-accurate at predicting matches?
Welcome to the year 2036. Another European Championship is underway. A ChatGPT-like programme has predicted the results of the first round of matches. In the past, that honour fell to octopuses, guinea pigs and elephants, but the animals lost their jobs to AI. And now it turns out: the computer not only predicts the matches correctly, but also names the goalscorers.
We follow the player who, according to the prediction, will score the winning goal in the 2036 European Championship final, and the goalkeeper who lets the ball in. Throughout the tournament, the world is increasingly astonished by the bizarre predictions. The game of football is changing as a result. Some players constantly receive the ball because they are the designated goal scorers. Managers field substitutes if the AI predicts they will score. Losing teams stand no chance from the outset. So are we living in a Matrix-style simulation after all? Or are we dealing with a form of manifestation and mind games? How this plays out in the European Championship final is as surprising as it is shocking… in Black Mirror: Computer Says Goal.
PS.
These are the first images from Nosferatu, the Dracula adaptation by director Robert Eggers. I have high hopes for it; his previous films The Witch and The Lighthouse are brilliant.
---I’m fascinated by the website One Million Checkboxes, created by Nolen Royalty. “I make weird things for the internet,” he writes on his site. In this case, that strange thing is a page with a million boxes. You can tick and untick them with a click of the mouse. Others can untick boxes you’ve previously ticked, and vice versa. Half a million people have already thrown themselves into the battle between Team Tick and Team Don’t Tick.
Elizabeth Lopatto from The Verge makes no secret of her opinion on Perplexity. Perplexity is a model that searches for answers to all your questions for you. This means you don’t have to click through to other sites, as is (still) the case with Google. Lopatto calls this ‘vampire behaviour’: Perplexity sucks the work out of others and runs off with it. “In AI, it’s seeing just how much unethical shit you can get away with.”
Why didn’t anyone think of a virtual reality conducting game before? It makes perfect sense. Maestro is, to my knowledge, the first.
---The Search Engine podcast series ends the season with a fantastic two-part episode on the Berlin club Berghain. Why didn’t Americans Chris and Dan get past the strict door policy?
The Dutch podcast Een Geanimeerd Gesprek spoke to Melise de Winter, the voice actress behind Shin Chan. She reckons the series simply wouldn’t fly these days.
A lovely little online pixel game: Woodworm. You play a woodworm that gnaws away at pieces of wood to create a figure.
The trailer for Heretic, a horror thriller from A24. Directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods (A Quiet Place). Two girls preach the word of God at people’s doors, until they step inside the home of the utterly terrifying Hugh Grant.
---Great tracks this week! Bad Cameo is the new album by James Blake, featuring Lil Yachty. The tracks In Gray, Bad Cameo and Missing Man are my favourites so far.
And a new EP from Wilco. Hot Sun Cool Shroud features six new tracks. On Livid, there’s a minute of proper rocking out – you don’t often hear them do that. Otherwise, it’s another chance to sink back into that classic Wilco Americana sound.
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