88. A biting obsession
This Sunday, it’s time to catch our breath after seeing Fontaines D.C. yesterday at AFAS Live. What a load of hits those lads have written in just a few years. They’ll undoubtedly be headlining festival posters next year. And here’s the thing: they’ve more than earned it.
I.
Netflix went all out with the boxing match between Jake Paul (27) and Mike Tyson (58). In the run-up to the big night, a mini-series was released in which we follow the heavyweights during their training camp and get a glimpse into their personal lives. Clever, of course, just like the staged circus at press conferences, because boxing is largely about the characters in the ring and the stories they bring with them.
Although there was a lot of criticism of the story both men came to tell in the exhibition fight. According to Regilio Tuur, Paul doesn’t realise what he’s doing. “He’s showing the world that as a white lad, you can just step into the ring with the best fighter ever,” he tells the AD. “What Tyson achieved in the past as a black man, some YouTube kid is trying to undo with a single fight. That’s not the message this world needs.”
And Tyson? He wanted to show that, at 58, he hasn’t been written off as a boxer just yet. But critics say he’s throwing away his past achievements by taking part in this (for millions). After the match, Tyson didn’t rule out stepping back into the ring.
In a way, I quite like this event. I love the big talk and the hype. We hardly ever see fights that the whole world looks forward to anymore. The last one was Floyd Mayweather versus Conor McGregor in 2017, another stunt like this.
Not that this turned out to be a proper fight. Jake Paul was boxing against an old man, the shadow of the baddest man on the planet. The raw aggression of Tyson in his younger years, who showed no mercy, was nowhere to be seen. He shuffled around the ring, was even briefly knocked off balance. He still bites his gloves (“I have a biting fixation,” he joked afterwards). A single hard punch early on brought a brief spark of life, but he ultimately lost, deservedly so, to the YouTube kid – who even seemed to be holding back. In short: it was a let-down. That, too, is nothing new in the world of boxing.
Paul does have a flair for showmanship. He boxes in a glittering outfit worth a fortune. He arrives in a bright green lowrider. Tyson walked out in a simple black robe. That difference is telling. Paul beat an old man. “Find someone your own age,” you’d say. You can fantasise about what might have happened if Paul had fought a young Tyson. Former kickboxer Remy Bonjasky has an idea: “Then Mike would have been arrested for murder after the fight.”
II.
Timothée Chalamet spoke for almost an hour about Bob Dylan, and that reassures me somewhat about the upcoming film A Complete Unknown, in which he plays the singer. The interview with Apple Music reveals that Chalamet only discovered Dylan a few years ago. But as is often the case, his music struck him like a bolt of lightning, and the actor is now a humble disciple in the Church of Bob. For me, it started with Mr. Tambourine Man, for Chalamet, it all began with Ballad of a Thin Man.
Chalamet is humble about it. He explains that he isn’t trying to copy Dylan in the film. It is an interpretation. “I was less concerned about how Bob would eat a bagel,” he says. “The most important thing was that I captured the essence. If you want to see the real Dylan, just watch footage of him.”
The film is about Bob Dylan arriving in New York in the early 1960s. It tells the story of how his career took off, whilst also painting a portrait of the artistic community in Greenwich Village; the birthplace of folk music. “We’re not trying to unravel the mystery of Bob Dylan,” Chalamet urges the viewer. “The film’s title isn’t A Complete Unknown for nothing.”
Dylan never met Chalamet. He didn’t even write a note. “That would be the least Bob-like thing ever if he did,” says the actor. Dylan did, however, approve the script. In fact, he made changes to the text.
Director James Mangold approached Dylan somewhat nervously, Chalamet explains, when he wanted to shorten one of his songs for the film. “I love that he went up to Bob so nervously and that he immediately said something like: ‘Cut the third, sixth and seventh verses, you don’t really need them.’”
---III.
Noema Magazine features an article in which the writer supposedly asks a language model to sketch a vision of the future regarding the influence of AI on the art world. The non-existent language model replies that by 2028, it will turn out that “75 per cent of the most popular AI-generated music on Spotify is by Spotify itself”. In this story, the music service is promoting its AI music so it doesn’t have to pay human artists as much.
The author describes his article as speculative fiction, but it is not that far-fetched. Spotify is, in fact, already inundated with AI songs. Sometimes they are uploaded by creators under existing artists’ names, so they can piggyback on their success (and earn some money in the process). Spotify and music publishers have their hands full with this ‘ensloppification’.
PS.
I know how bizarre it sounds, but there was some good news from The Hague this week. The VAT increase on culture, media and sport has been scrapped. Although, the increase has been approved, with a promise to reverse it later. The measure is therefore up in the air, but has not yet been completely scrapped.
The masters of data visualisation at Pudding.cool investigated a pressing question: is the love song dying out?
I’m really into this YouTube channel called Video Game Weather ASMR. It features hours of videos with footage of rainy and stormy weather in games, perfect for playing in the background.
---Cassette tapes are back in fashion, but Sony’s Walkman hasn’t been made for years. There are new alternatives that – it has to be said – look stunning, such as those from We Are Rewind, but they’re a fair bit bulkier than the devices we used to slip into our baggy trouser pockets twenty years ago. The Verge investigated why that is.
---Disney+ just keeps churning out new films about The Beatles, and you won’t hear me complaining. On 29 November, Beatles ’64 by director David Tedeschi and producer Martin Scorsese will be released. The documentary is about The Beatles’ first visit to the United States. It features restored footage from that era and new interviews with Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney.
---10,946 is a stop-motion film by Daren Jannace consisting entirely of drawings on Post-it notes. He made thirty a day for a year, which adds up to (roughly) 10,946 images. The sound comes from audio that Jannace recorded on his phone throughout the year.
---Elon Musk, Twitter’s nemesis and ardent Trump supporter, has secured a position within the US government. Or just outside it. In any case, he has been tasked with meticulously identifying where cuts can be made to the government budget. He reckons he can save 2 trillion (that’s a figure with twelve zeros, a third of the federal budget).
Meanwhile, yet another exodus is underway at X. The best alternative is Bluesky, and I’ve noticed that service is benefiting greatly from it. Here’s a starter pack of Dutch journalists to follow.
Half-Life 2 is twenty years old (!) and developer Valve is celebrating with a two-hour documentary, in which former developers talk about the game’s creation.
---Thanks for reading! Are you already a subscriber?