Button Day

Coraline's out. It's in 3D, as is the new fashion. I won't be seeing it – I don't like movie theaters – but I'm jealous of those who will be. It's about, among other things, a hidden world where everyone has buttons for eyes. A little girl finds the entrance to the world and meets her "other mother".

Here's Neil Gaiman with a creepy little piece on koumpounophobia - fear of buttons - and Coraline.



He doesn't discuss the hardest button to button (the family member who does not fit in). We have the White Stripes to thank for that concept.



Excellent video – when I first saw it a few years ago I'd never heard of the White Stripes and it just floored me. (In truth, I'd never heard of the White Stripes until fa few months ago, despite the video. My mind is quite capable of compartmentalizing something into a class, like a video, and not realizing it exists outside that boundary.)

The drumkit-on-the-stairs sequence (starts around 23 seconds) was reminiscent of Marcel Duchamp's lovely futurist Nu Descendant Un Escalier

- except Duchamp's nude is an attempt to show a period of time in a single frame and the video appears to be an attempt to retain history in a series of frames already simulating a period of time as they move on beyond the initial image. If that's the case, it's a shame the director had to use 32 drumkits to simulate the retention rather than it just happening in some cool unexplained way. It must have been one of the most annoying and arduous videos to film ever.

Edit: for more on nudes, staircases, Duchamp and apparent motion, see a post based around a comment received below here.

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