Tiger's performance

"I was unfaithful. I had affairs. I cheated. What I did was not acceptable," said Woods, looking composed and speaking in a steady voice. His wife, Elin, was not with him. (full story)

Tiger Woods has taken a break from his golfing career to perform a solo version of Forced Entertainment's landmark 1994 piece Speak Bitterness, in which the guilty take turns to take the blame for everything. Ok, so even if this isn't the actual intention (lord knows its hard to find and speak in one's own voice as an artist), Woods' performance is best read as a homage. Its all there: from the queasy, duplicitious exploration of sincerity, motives, justifications and the need to confess, right down to the garish blue background. The desire of the performer to tactically humble himself gives a stong element of ritual to this type of theatre. Look at the faces of the audience, playing the game with him, fully illuminated and there to be spoken to directly.

As for coming back to the PGA Tour, the planet's best golfer said: "I do plan to return to golf one day. I just don't know when that day will be. I don't rule out it will be this year."

Great dissection of what on earth is going on here (and with MPs in NZ, and guilty celebrities everywhere) in the New Yorker.

Fantastic. I love stuff polls, even the more sensible ones like the one shown above. Who needs boring old Radio New Zealand when we've got this calibre of news info-tainment and logical mind of Michael Laws at our fingertips. (Oh god I'm so ashamed.)
-Ralph