Gadzooks!
April 15th, 2008
Tintin aficionados (such as your present scribe) have always had a certain nervousness with regards to putting the Belgian boy wonder on the big screen. Hergé’s creation is brilliant in the original comic books, acceptable in the 1990’s television cartoon version, but has produced only some thoroughly suspicious live-action film versions. (Namely, the 1961 “Tintin and the Golden Fleece” — not that Golden Fleece — and the 1964 “Tintin and the Blue Oranges”; neither of them based on books).
There was mention in the Economist some years ago of Spielberg doing a Tintin film and casting Leonardo diCaprio (!?!) in the lead role. I happened to cut it out of the Economist and so I have it somewhere amongst my clippings, but Hogarth claims his rheumatism and the current climate (”with respect, sir, wasn’t this humid before the war”) prevent him from classifying and filing my gigantic collection of clippings so I may have to wait until retirement to find it.
Word now comes, via the Guardian, that Herr Spielberg, fresh from his fourth and presumably final Indiana Jones adventure, is indeed to embark upon a Tintin film, and that he will cast the 17-year-old Briton Thomas Sangster as the heroic reporter. Cinephiles will recall Master Sangster from the 2003 Richard Curtis romantic-comedy “Love Actually” — which could have been a lovely, if typically sappy, film were it not for an entire subplot revolving around something rather lewd and not worthy of mention.
Unfortunately, my first reaction is that young Sangster is ill-suited for the role of Tintin. Firstly, he’s too young. I have always thought Tintin was permanently about 21, whereas Sangster will have just reach 18 when the film is in production. At a mere age of 18, can we really expect him to be undermining Bolshevism in the early Soviet Union? Or saving the ancient Syldavian monarchy from the threat of the dreaded Iron Guard? Or helping his pal General Alcazar regain the dictatorship of San Theodoros? I think not. But at 21, it seems much more possible.
(Of course, there are several more questions that any earnest Tintinophile feels compelled to ask. Will it be an adaptation or an original script? If an adaptation, of which book? Having a particular love of Scotland, I hope it’s The Black Island. Being a monarchist, I hope it’s the splendidly mitteleuropan King Ottokar’s Sceptre. But then perhaps, somewhat topically, they will choose Tintin in Tibet. And who will the rest of the cast be? Captain Haddock? Professor Calculus? Thompson and Thomson? Oh my…)
Well, we will just have to wait and see. After Herr Spielberg finishes his Tintin film, it appears that Peter Jackson (of “The Lord of the Rings” fame) will have a go at directing one himself. And there’s nothing to say he’ll use the same cast. Spielberg’s film is due in late 2009.
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The Late Great Bank of New York
April 15th, 2008
Doesn’t it often seem that as soon as something you actually like comes along, it’s only a short amount of time before it’s gone again? This is how I feel about the latest, and indeed last, logo and general visual identity of the Bank of New York. Readers are no doubt aware that the Bank of New York is the oldest bank in America (founded by Alexander Hamilton) and that its was the first share traded on the New York Stock Exchange when that great financial market was founded beneath a buttonwood tree in 1792.
In 2005, the Bank of New York finally dumped their 1980’s-feel, dated-but-traditional logo in favor of a new design put together by the New York brand house of Lippincott (then still known as Lippincott Mercer). The logo suggested an old stock or bank note but its polychromatic scheme gave it a modern vibrancy. The adjacent logotype was along similar lines: “Bank” and “New York” in a tasteful, restrained modern with “The” and “of” in a delightfully traditional fluid colonial script.
But on July 1, 2007, the ancient Bank of New York merged with a foreign interloper, the Mellon Financial Corporation of Pennsylvania and the disgusting hybrid child of the marriage is cumbersomely monikered: “The Bank of New York Mellon”. How awkward and ungainly! Along with the merger came a new logo, also designed by Lippincott, which you can see on the BNYM website. This pitiful modern arrowhead design says little, other than one might suffer bodily harm at its handling.
The 2005 Bank of New York logo evoked a sense of solidity. “I have deep roots and firm foundations,” it seemed to say, “but am nonetheless modern and adapting to change”. Think of the feel, the smell, of a worn bank note and then compare it to the dull, prickly arrowhead which threatens injury. The old logo you stick in you pocket and gain a sense of security from. The new logo you worry a ninja might hurl at you.
It was an error even to change the name, if you ask me. “The Bank of New York” has such a simplicity and a solidity to it, which the new name rather lacks. It is just like the old New York law firm of Dewey Ballantine, which suffered a takeover recently and is now known as “Dewey and LeBoeuf”. Rather sounds like a pair of huckster Louisiana lawyers hoping to make a few off the innocent inhabitants of the Bayou. So stick to the tried and the true, folks. It usually works.
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‘Rethinking Russia’
April 15th, 2008
‘Rethinking Russia’, by Andrew Cusack, insidecatholic.com, 20 March 2008.
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Spring hath duly sprung
April 15th, 2008
Herald Square, at the confluence of Broadway and the Avenue of the Americas.
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Welcome to cusack.norumbega.co.uk
April 15th, 2008
An introduction to our humble efforts
BIENVENUE CHEZ MOI, camarades. You have no doubt already taken note of Norumbega and now find yourself at Cusack’s little corner of Cusack’s bigger corner of the “world wide web”. Basically, the main fortnightly section of Norumbega is for those slightly larger, often quite visual, feature articles which have become the mainstay of andrewcusack.com. This (littler) corner allows for passing remarks of greater randomness — and perhaps even flippancy — in addition to the more deliberate material you can find on norumbega.co.uk.
Here I must confess I have no idea how successful our little Norumbega will be. It is, of course, an entirely amateur affair, and much of it depends solely on my amount of free time plus dedication. I am, lamentably, a working man, and this takes its toll, but I am also a man who enjoys his free time and does not wish to see it entirely consumed by something as utterly banal as the “world wide web”. But if you search the internet you will not find anything quite like Norumbega and indeed it is solely because of that lack that I find myself in the unenviable position of founding and editing this — what have we decided to call it? — feuilleton.
Regardless of these potential woes, we hope and pray that Norumbega will be a success, in whichever way would be best to measure its success. I beg that you tolerate whatever mishaps occur along the way, as we are but human beings, and liable to err from time to time. But I do hope you enjoy yourselves in our humble effort to bring just a little bit of civilization to the all-too-ephemeral realm of the internet.
