Ryan Catcher

I'm Moved!

2010-05-20T11:59:00.000-04:00

I'm Moved!

http://chodge.tumblr.com/

-Chris

May Hiatus

2010-04-29T09:09:00.000-04:00

I'm moving, so I'm going to be putting this blog on hiatus until I get settled into my new apartment, hopefully by early June. We'll see...

-Chris

Selections from Jack Corn's Documerica (1974)

2010-04-23T17:45:00.000-04:00

Robert Johnson, 18, and Lanny Green, 21, Outside a Beer Joint in Clothier, West Virginia, near Madison. They Had Been Drinking Beer and Visiting with Friends Inside. Johnson Has Passed a Job Physical and Is Waiting to Go to Work in the Mines. Green Has Not Worked in the Mines and Isn't Interested, But Has Not Located a Job. He Would Like to Work for the Railroad 04/1974.

Four Young Men Gather in a Beer Joint in Clothier, West Virginia, near Madison. They Are Left to Right--Michael Doss, 18; Lanny Green, 21; Junior Jeffory, 20; and Robert Johnson, 18. All Their Parents Work Or Have Worked in the Mine. Jeffory Is a Mining Foreman after Two Years, But Does Not Like It and Wants to Join the Navy. Green Can't Find a Job But Would Like to Work for the Railroad Doss Isn't Working, But Is Waiting for a Job in the Mines 04/1974.

Robert Johnson, 18, Sits on a Pool Table in a Beer Joint in Clothier, West Virginia, near Madison. He Has Passed a Job Physical and Is Waiting to Go to Work in the Mines. Many of the Young Men Like to Get Together in the Taverns and Drink Beer and Talk. There Is Little Else to Do in the Small Mining Towns 04/1974.

The DOCUMERICA Project (1971-1977) was the Environmental Protection Agency's program to document subjects of environmental concern. These included everything from National Parks, Junkyards, and Coal Mines. To document this, the EPA hired over 70 well renowned freelance photographers, including Jack Corn.

For his DOCUMERICA assignment, Jack Corn focused his camera on the American Coal Miner. These photographs allow us to see the Coal Miner fully formed, from the young man waiting his chance to go down into the mines to the families touched by mining. These photographs stand in drastic contrast to the helpless caricatures others had focused on.

It's interesting to note that these photographs were taken just two short years after the disastrous Buffalo Creek Flood.

Cultural Effects of The Year Without a Summer

2010-04-21T08:59:00.002-04:00

High levels of ash in the atmosphere led to unusually spectacular sunsets during this period, a feature celebrated in the paintings of J. M. W. Turner. It has been theorised that it was this that gave rise to the yellow tinge that is predominant in his paintings such as Chichester Canal circa 1828. A similar phenomenon was observed after the 1883 Krakatoa eruption, and on the West Coast of the United States following the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines.
The lack of oats to feed horses may have inspired the German inventor Karl Drais Draisine or velocipede. This was the ancestor of the modern bicycle and a step towards mechanized personal transport.^[16] to research new ways of horseless transportation, which led to the invention of the
The crop failures of the “Year without Summer” forced the family of Joseph Smith^[17], precipitating a series of events culminating in the publication of the Book of Mormon and the founding of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.^[18] to move from Sharon, Vermont to Palmyra, New York
In July 1816 "incessant rainfall" during that "wet, ungenial summer" forced Mary Shelley, John William Polidori and their friends to stay indoors for much of their Swiss holiday. They decided to have a contest, seeing who could write the scariest story, leading Shelley to write Frankenstein, or The Modern PrometheusThe Vampyre.^[19] and Polidori to write
The Year without a Summer also inspired Lord Byron to write his 1816 poem Darkness.
The chemist Justus von Liebig, who had experienced the famine as a child in Darmstadt, later studied the nutrition of plants and introduced mineral fertilizers.

via en.wikipedia.org

Posted via web from some interesting wikipedia articles...

Flyer for GARAJE SÓNICO by Marina Molares (2008)

2010-04-16T08:06:00.000-04:00

Flyer for GARAJE SÓNICO by Marina Molares,

originally uploaded by jueves sónicos via flickr.

Starting this week, every Friday I'm going to post interesting photos and art I've discovered via Flickr. You can view the gallery here.

John Holstrom

2010-04-15T23:11:00.000-04:00

John Holstrom, Cartoon from Punk Magazine #7 (1977)

"I found that most humor comes from degrading people, humiliating them. Most of it is based on pain. The funniest cartoons I do are the ones where I inflict the most pain on my characters. That's just what life is about. I base my cartoons on my life. Whatever horrible things happen to me, I turn into a cartoon."
- John Holmstrom

Visit John Holmstrom's blog here.

Ship of Theseus

2010-04-14T07:02:00.002-04:00

The Ship of Theseus, also known as Theseus' paradox, or various variants, notably grandfather's axe (US) and Trigger's Broom (UK) is a paradox that raises the question of whether an object which has had all its component parts replaced remains fundamentally the same object.

According to Greek legend as reported by Plutarch,
The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned [from Crete] had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their place, insomuch that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same.
—Plutarch, Theseus^[1]
Plutarch thus questions whether the ship would remain the same if it were entirely replaced, piece by piece. Centuries later, the philosopher Thomas Hobbes^[2] introduced a further puzzle, wondering: what would happen if the original planks were gathered up after they were replaced, and used to build a second ship. Which ship, if either, is the original Ship of Theseus?

via en.wikipedia.org

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John & Yoko - Jamaica Dyer (2010)

2010-04-12T09:00:00.000-04:00

John & Yoko by Jamaica Dyer (2010).

I'll been following Jamaica Dyer's surreal webcomic Weird Fishes for a-while now. It's a story about growing up that bends and breaks the lines between imagination and hallucination and I enthusiastically suggest it to any fans of Nate Powell's Swallow Me Whole.

The above image is from her online journal / sketchbook. Here's a quote about it:

I recently saw the interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono on the Dick Cavett Show and I loved it so much, the way they both looked and the way they interacted that I realized I had to do a painting. So here’s my little painting from a youtube still. This makes me want to do more re-interpretations of low-quality internet stills and camera photos as paintings.

And a page from her sketchbook:

Weird Fishes was recently published by Slave Labor Graphics and you can get it (for $9.95!) here or here. Or you could read it online here.

Side Thought: How perfect would it be if Diablo Cody was contracted to write a script for Weird Fishes? Can you imagine it? DAMN! Talk about a perfect fit. Also, if this ever was adapted into a moive that Diablo Cody wrote I would hope that whoever picks the music would be heads up enough to pick Radiohead's Weird Fishes / Apreggi in the trailer / closing credits.

Neophile

2010-04-07T18:04:00.002-04:00

Neophile or Neophiliac is a term used by counterculture cult writer Robert Anton Wilson to describe a particular type of personality. A neophile or neophiliac can be defined as a personality type characterized by a strong affinity for novelty. Neophiles/Neophiliacs have the following basic characteristics:
The ability to adapt rapidly to extreme change
A distaste or downright loathing of tradition, repetition, and routine
A tendency to become bored quickly with old things
A desire, bordering on obsession in some cases, to experience novelty
A corresponding and related desire to create novelty by creating or achieving something and/or by stirring social or other forms of unrest.
A neophile/neophiliac is distinct from a revolutionary in that anyone might become a revolutionary if pushed far enough by the reigning authorities or social norms, whereas neophiles/neophiliacs are revolutionaries by nature. Their intellectual abhorrence of tradition and repetition usually bemoans a deeper emotional need for constant novelty and change. The meaning of neophile/neophiliac approaches and is not mutually exclusive to the term visionary, but differs in that a neophile actively seeks first-hand experience of novelty rather than merely pontificating about it.

via en.wikipedia.org

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Malvina Reynolds - No Hole in My Head (1967)

2010-04-05T20:39:00.000-04:00

From: Pete Seeger's Rainbow Quest, 1967.

The Birth of Altermodern - Micah White (2010)

2010-04-02T08:54:00.000-04:00

I received a crash course in postmodern thought during my first semester at Swarthmore College. In a lesson that was to be repeated throughout my undergraduate education, the professor opened the class by admonishing us to reject binary thinking. As the class was staring at her dumbfounded, she divided the chalkboard in two with a thick vertical line and asked us to name the dualisms that structure our world. After she provided a few examples to get us started – male/female, white/black – we jumped into the game, calling out binaries one after another: rich/poor, smart/stupid, human/animal, cool/lame, skinny/fat … The game went on until the board was full and the air saturated with chalk dust. Pausing a moment, our comparative literature professor asked us if we noticed anything odd about the list we had constructed.

(Read More via MicahMWhite.com)

Harriet Taylor Mill

2010-04-01T10:05:00.001-04:00

(Harriet Mill, Artist and Date Unknown)

A haunting, uncredited painting of Harriet Taylor Mill (October 8 1807 – November 1858). Harriet was a philosopher, early suffragist, and an influence on her second husband John Stuart Mill.

You can read her essay, The Enfranchisement of Women (1851) here.

Glass Delusion

2010-03-31T08:14:00.001-04:00

The glass delusion was an external manifestation of a psychiatric disorder recorded in Europe in the late Middle Ages (15th to 17th centuries). People feared that they were made of glass "and therefore likely to shatter into pieces". One famous early sufferer was King Charles VI of France who refused to allow people to touch him, and wore reinforced clothing to protect himself from accidental "shattering".

via en.wikipedia.org

Posted via web from some interesting wikipedia articles...

Nate Harrison - Can I Get An Amen? (2004)

2010-03-29T11:52:00.000-04:00

Nate Harrison

Can I Get An Amen? (2004)
Recording on Acetate, Turntable, PA System, Paper Documents
Dimensions Variable
Total Run Time 17 minutes, 46 seconds

Can I Get An Amen? is an audio installation that unfolds a critical perspective of perhaps the most sampled drum beat in the history of recorded music, the Amen Break. It begins with the pop track Amen Brother by 60's soul band The Winstons, and traces the transformation of their drum solo from its original context as part of a 'B' side vinyl single into its use as a key aural ingredient in contemporary cultural expression. The work attempts to bring into scrutiny the techno-utopian notion that 'information wants to be free'- it questions its effectiveness as a democratizing agent. This as well as other issues are foregrounded through a history of the Amen Break and its peculiar relationship to current copyright law.

Listen to: Can I Get An Amen?

Youtube mirror: Here.

Christian Communism & Acts 4:32-35

2010-03-26T15:45:00.004-04:00

In Christian Communism, the hammer is (ironically?) replaced by the cross.

Christian communism is a form of religious communism based on Christianity. It is a theological and political theory based upon the view that the teachings of Jesus Christ compel Christians to support communism as the ideal social system. Although there is no universal agreement on the exact date when Christian communism was founded, many Christian communists assert that evidence from the Bible suggests that the first Christians, including the Apostles, created their own small communist society in the years following Jesus' death and resurrection. As such, many advocates of Christian communism argue that it was taught by Jesus and practiced by the Apostles themselves.

via en.wikipedia.org

And here's probably the most pertinent and often quoted passages from the New Testament concerning Christian Communism:

The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common. ³³With great power the apostles bore witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great favor was accorded them all. ³⁴There was no needy person among them, for those who owned property or houses would sell them, bring the proceeds of the sale, ³⁵and put them at the feet of the apostles, and they were distributed to each according to need. - Acts 4:32-35, New American Bible.

What made me think of this: Glenn Beck's recent tirade against Social Justice, where he urged his listeners/viewers to leave their churches if they preached/participated in Social Justice. He's just ridiculous. Here's a quote:

"If you have a priest that is pushing social justice, go find another parish," he said. "Go alert your bishop and tell them, 'Excuse me, are you down with this whole social justice thing?' If it's my church, I'm alerting the church authorities: 'Excuse me, what's this social justice thing?' And if they say, 'Yeah, we're all in on this social justice thing,' I am in the wrong place." - Glenn Beck, via ABC News.

I'm not a biblical scholar or anything like that, but I've always considered Christianity, and certain portions of the New Testament as key foundations of socialism. I mean, if your church doesn't preach social justice, then you need to GTFO!

Hikikomori

2010-03-24T08:57:00.001-04:00

Hikikomori (ひきこもり or 引き籠もり, Hikikomori^?, literally "pulling away, being confined", i.e., "acute social withdrawal") is a Japanese term to refer to the phenomenon of reclusive people who have chosen to withdraw from social life, often seeking extreme degrees of isolation and confinement because of various personal and social factors in their lives. The term hikikomori refers to both the sociological phenomenon in general as well as to people belonging to this societal group.

via en.wikipedia.org

Posted via web from some interesting wikipedia articles...

UPDATE: Alexa Meade - Natura Morta (2009)

2010-03-23T11:42:00.005-04:00

Natura Mora

Live installation: Acrylic paint on found objects, walls, and flesh.
Alexa Meade, 2009.

(Natura Morta, Alexa Meade, 2009)

Alexa Meade is a 23-year-old mixed media artist based in the Washington, DC area. She is a graduate of Vassar College and her next upcoming show is on Friday, April 2nd 2010, from 6 to 8pm at the Postmasters Gallery in New York City. You can view her latest work on her flickr page or visit her portfolio.

UPDATE: The Washington Post did a write up on Alexa. Check it out here.

Destination Earth (1956)

2010-03-22T15:00:00.001-04:00

(From: Destination Earth, a 1956 American Petroleum Institute Propaganda Film)

"On a distant planet, in a land controlled by an evil totalitarian despot, a lone astronaut is sent to an alien world to acquire valuable technology, but instead discovers the mechanism for toppling a totalitarian regime and bringing revolution to his people. His name is Colonel Cosmic."

I would watch that. And I could easily imagine it as some late 70's early 80's b-movie sci-fi kitsch that is perfect (and probably available) to watch instantly on Netflix.

But it's not.

Instead, this is my loosely translated plot-line of an interesting pro-capitalist / pro-oil propaganda cartoon commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute in 1956 called Destination Earth. I don't know the history of the major players (animators, directors, music, etc) but the animation is that cute futurism tinged Hanna-Barbera-esque style that I've always loved since I use to watch Cartoon Network back when it literally was nothing but old Hanna-Barbera-esque cartoons. @ archive.org

Download / View: Destination Earth (1956) via The Prelinger Archives @ archive.org

Ever Dream This Man? (2009)

2010-03-18T10:53:00.001-04:00

Have you ever dreamed of this man?

"In January 2006 in New York, the patient of a well-known psychiatrist draws the face of a man that has been repeatedly appearing in her dreams. In more than one occasion that man has given her advice on her private life. The woman swears she has never met the man in her life.

That portrait lies forgotten on the psychiatrist's desk for a few days until one day another patient recognizes that face and says that the man has often visited him in his dreams. He also claims he has never seen that man in his waking life.

The psychiatrist decides to send the portrait to some of his colleagues that have patients with recurrent dreams. Within a few months, four patients recognize the man as a frequent presence in their own dreams. All the patients refer to him as THIS MAN."

This would make a great story. And I wish I would have thought of it.

But I didn't.

And calling it a hoax is too strong of a word, and also a disservice. Instead, I like to imagine THIS MAN as viral-mythology, where story-telling and story-tellers are open source, and everyone can be part of this modern Homeric Odyssey with a few keystrokes.

The website itself offers some interesting theories.

Visit: http://www.thisman.org for more information.

Acoustic Kitty

2010-03-17T08:24:00.003-04:00

Acoustic Kitty was a CIA project launched by the Directorate of Science & Technology in the 1960s attempting to use cats in spy missions. A battery and a microphone were implanted into a cat and an antenna into its tail. Due to problems with distraction, the cat's sense of hunger had to be addressed in another operation. Surgical and training expenses are thought to have amounted to over $20 million.

The first cat mission was eavesdropping on two men in a park outside the Soviet compound on Wisconsin Avenue in Washington, D.C. The cat was released nearby, but was hit and killed by a taxi almost immediately. Shortly thereafter the project was considered a failure and declared to be a total loss.

via en.wikipedia.org

Posted via web from some interesting wikipedia articles...

Starting this week, the random / interesting wikipedia entries that I irregularly post are gonna be posted every Wednesday, part of what I'm calling: "Wikipedia Wednesday".

These Wikipedia entries are also mirrored on their own blog which you can visit at: http://wikipedia.posterous.com.

Also, feel free to email me interesting wikipedias. I will be sure to credit you.

Carol - So Low (1981)

2010-03-16T10:20:00.007-04:00

Download: Carol - So Low (1981) via Mediafire (128kps)

This is one of those incredibly sad, but in a way uplifting songs that I can't help but love. I like to imagine it as an update to Petula Clark's Downtown, except instead of New York, it takes place in Suburban Virginia circa the Regan Eighties and instead of the city lifting your spirits, it's the suburbs tearing your heart out.

Just imagine a wealthy 17 year old girl with a bowl cut smoking her mother's cigarettes at a tennis court in February. Yeah. It's kinda like that.

Ryō Hanmura - Cardboard Box (1974)

2010-03-15T11:46:00.003-04:00

“Contemplated in allegory is the fate of ordinary working people.”

A box is for putting things in. It is in having things put into them that boxes find pleasure in life. When things are packed in lightly, a box's body can shiver with insurmountable gratification.

Yet people make boxes just to put tangerines in, and once that duty is finished, even if a box can still be used, they abandon it without a care.

I really really dug this story. And it was so good, I didn't read any of the other stories in this collection for fear that they might even be better than Cardboard Box. I don't know why, I just sometimes do stuff like that.

Read / Download: Ryō Hanmura - Cardboard Box (1974) from The Best Japanese Science Fiction Stories (1989?)

UPDATE: Walt Whitman and Anachronistic Homosexuality

2010-03-14T11:24:00.009-04:00

"To find satisfactory language with which to discuss Whitman's love poetry is difficult: one would like to avoid both the squeamishness of euphemisms and the inaccuracy of anachronism. In "Whitman's 'Live Oak with Moss'" (an essay reproduced on this site) Alan Helms talks about Whitman as a man who had "come out as America's first self-identified 'homosexual.'" He then suggests that we ought to "at last begin where Whitman himself began," implying that he will be sensitive to Whitman's historical context. Although Helms puts the term homosexual in quotation marks, suggesting that he uses the word advisedly, he doesn't explicitly talk about the paradox (not to say anachronistic impossibility) of Whitman becoming a "self-identified 'homosexual'" a decade before the word homosexual was coined by the German-Hungarian journalist Karl Maria Kertbeny in a letter written to the sexologist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs. (The earliest known usage of homosexual in a U.S. text was in the Chicago Medical Recorder, May 1892). Nor does Helms comment on the problems of thinking of "coming out" as a transhistorical phenomenon and not as something that is very much culturally and temporally conditioned. In many ways Whitman's culture was not like that of the modern day U.S. His culture was far more accepting of open displays of same-sex affection. Moreover, male-male love, though not encouraged, had not been pathologized as it would be later in the nineteenth century."

From the Introduction to: Sex, Politics and "Live Oak, With Moss" by Kenneth M Price, Ph.D (2001?)

Edit: I forgot to add that I really want to read this book. And that earlier when I linked to Parachronism, I had this topic in mind, because although the term Homosexual and Homosexuality are indeed anachronisms when dealing with Walt Whitman's Calamus and Live Oak Moss and most likely Whitman himself, I believe this is only the case in word alone. In actuality, homosexuality, or rather the acceptable and/or tolerated relationships between men in the 19th century are actually Parachronisms that concurrently vanished with the rise of Freud and the rise of the ego and the boxing in and sectioning off of gender and sexuality. I can't help but think that this is no coincidence. It seems that (although I haven't done research) discrimination based on sexuality is sadly the result neologisms. :(

Pogrom

2010-03-12T09:08:00.001-05:00

A pogrom is a form of riot directed against a particular group, whether ethnic, religious, or other, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes, businesses, and religious centers. The term was originally used to denote extensive violence against Jews – either spontaneous or premeditated – but in English it is also applied to similar incidents against other minority groups.

via en.wikipedia.org

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Warp Speed Will Kill You by Jeremy Hsu (2010)

2010-03-11T09:08:00.001-05:00

Spock (Leonard Nimoy) and Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner)

(Originally Posted on Space.com)

Captain Kirk might want to avoid taking the starship Enterprise to warp speed, unless he's ready to shrug off interstellar hydrogen atoms that would deliver a lethal radiation blast to both ship and crew.

There are just two hydrogen atoms per cubic centimeter on average in space, which poses no threat to spaceships traveling at low speeds. But those same lone atoms would transform into deadly galactic space mines for a spaceship that runs into them at near-light speed, according to calculations based on Einstein's special theory of relativity.

The original crew of "Star Trek" featured as unfortunate examples at a presentation by William Edelstein, a physicist at Johns Hopkins University, at the American Physical Society conference in Washington, D.C. on Feb. 13. The physicist showed a video clip of Kirk telling engineer Scotty to go to warp speed.

"Well, they're all dead," Edelstein recalled saying. His words caused a stir among the audience.

Edelstein's personal interest in this thought experiment began 20 years ago, when his son Arthur asked him if there was friction in space. The father responded that yes, there would be hydrogen bumping off a spaceship. But he soon realized that the stray atoms of hydrogen gas would actually go right through the ship traveling close to light speed, and irradiate both crew and electronics in the process.

More recently, the physicist and his now-grown son calculated the scenario of a spaceship trying to travel halfway across our Milky Way galaxy in just 10 years. That's doable in theory, because special relativity states that time slows down and distances shrink for travelers approaching light speed.

Edelstein's work showed that a starship traveling at just 99 percent of the speed of light would get a radiation dose from hydrogen of 61 sieverts per second, when just one tenth of that number of sieverts would deliver a fatal dose for humans. And that's not even the 99.999998 percent of light-speed necessary to make the journey to the center of the Milky Way in 10 years

At the higher speed, the human crew of a starship would experience something like getting struck by the high-energy proton beam from the Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. On top of killing the crew, such powerful levels of energy would also likely destroy the starship electronics.

"I'm not claiming this is a brilliant new discovery or anything," Edelstein told SPACE.com. "I'm just saying that it's interesting."

Some audience members at the American Physical Society event protested that Kirk, Spock and the "Star Trek" crew would all still live because of the starship Enterprise having shields. But Edelstein noted some of the existing difficulties with creating an electromagnetic shield with any resemblance to "Star Trek" technology.

Solid shields seem even more hopeless. A starship might need anywhere from a 4.4 -meter to 4,400-meter thickness of lead shielding to deflect the hydrogen radiation — added mass that would make travel at near-light speed even more impractical.

The physicist concluded by suggesting that extraterrestrials might not have visited Earth because of all the problems in traveling at near-light speeds, including how to deal with deadly hydrogen space mines. But for the record, he does believe that alien life exists.

"Getting between stars is a huge problem unless we think of something really, really different," Edelstein said. "I'm not saying that we know everything and that it's impossible. I'm saying it's kind of impossible based on what we know right now."

from: Ward Speed Will Kill You (March 2010) by Jeremy Hsu via Space.com.

The Bechdel Rule (1985)

2010-03-10T08:31:00.004-05:00

("The Rule" by Alison Bechdel, from Dykes to Watch Out For, 1985.)

In 1985, Alison Bechdel wrote "The Rule*" (above) as part of her ongoing strip Dykes to Watch Out For. Since then it has become a sort of litmus test concerning the portrayal of women not only in movies, but in other media as well.

To satisfy the rule, a work must:

1. Have at least two females characters...

2. Who talk to each-other...

3. About something other then men (or about a man in particular)...

The Rule doesn't aim to check for feminine or feminists values, but instead checks to see that women are represented as living breathing human beings and not idealized stewards of masculinity or hyper-real caricatures or stereotypes. Because of this, even works with feminist intent might fall sort of satisfying the Bechdel Rule, and like-wise works traditionally not associated with feminism could qualify / satisfy the Bechdel Rule.

Interestingly enough, either by design or perhaps by coincidence, Bechdel's Dykes to Watch Out For, a slice of slice comic strip concerning the lives and trials of women perfectly encapsulates the Bechdel Rule.

Remarkably (or perhaps not) this rule is still relevant 25 years later, and there's even a blog dedicated to screening recent films to see if they pass "The Bechdel Test**".

* I don't have any information about her, but Bechdel credits the rule to her friend Liz Wallace.

**The Bechdel Rule is also sometimes refereed to as The Bechdel Test or The Bechdel-Wallace Test.

Darwin among the Machines

2010-03-09T22:36:00.001-05:00

"Darwin among the Machines" appeared as the heading of an article published in The Press newspaper on 13 June 1863 in Christchurch, New Zealand. Signed Cellarius but written by Samuel Butler, the article raised the possibility that machines could evolve "mechanical consciousness" by means of Darwinian natural selection.

via en.wikipedia.org

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AQUAAEROBIKA (Moscow)

2010-03-09T11:36:00.002-05:00

(AquaAerobika by Katya Bryskina, Date Unknown - 2009?)

"Aquaaerobika is a project synthesizing art-performance and electronic music. It's founder is Moscow based artist - Sasha Frolova. She presents herself in the show in animated style image of silicone blonde, universal superwoman from the future with ultra-abilities. The plot of the show is endless computer game in which the main character travels through parallel worlds of future and talks about it's feelings, dreams, love and hope of finding it. Electro-pop, 8bit, disco-house and avant-garde sometimes quite abstract texts are mixed with a vivid spectacular performance based on images of postmodernism."

via myspace: http://www.myspace.com/aquaaerobika

VINCENT GALLO: evenings, weekends escort. $50,000.00

2010-03-08T11:30:00.002-05:00

(Vincent Gallo, Photographer and Year Unknown)

"I, Vincent Gallo, star of such classics as Buffalo 66 and The Brown Bunny have decided to make myself available to all women. All women who can afford me, that is. For the modest fee of $50,000 plus expenses, I can fulfill the wish, dream, or fantasy of any naturally born female. The fee covers one evening with Vincent Gallo. For those who wish to enjoy my company for a weekend, the fee is increased to a mere $100,000. Heavy set, older, red heads and even black chicks can have me if they can pay the bill. No real female will be refused. However, I highly frown upon any male having even the slightest momentary thought or wish that they could ever become my client. No way Jose. However, female couples of the lesbian persuasion can enjoy a Vincent Gallo evening together for $100,000. $200,000 buys the lesbos a weekend. A weekend that will have them second-guessing."
"I am willing to travel worldwide to accommodate clients. However, travel days are billed at $50,000 per plus all premium flight fees. Scanning for STD's is required as is bathing and grooming prior to our encounter. Detailed photos of potential clients also required prior. An extra fee for security to protect me is charged on top of the fantasy fee. Security fees will vary depending on the details of an encounter and how much security I will need."

"Potential clients are advised to screen the controversial scene from The Brown Bunny to be sure for themselves that they can fully accommodate all of me. Clients who have doubt may want to test themselves with an unusually thick and large prosthetic prior to meeting me. You may be surprised just how much you can handle and how good it feels."

via: Vincent Gallo Merchandise, Personal Services.

Andy Warhol - Hammer and Sickles (1977) via Warhol Stars

2010-03-07T16:50:00.001-05:00

Andy Warhol - Hammer and Sickles (1977)

"Andy's most successful show in 1977 was of his least obviously commercial series, the Hammer & Sickles, at the Daniel Templon Gallery in Paris... The show sold out, despite - or perhaps because of - the opening's being invaded by three hundred Parisian punks in leather, rubber, chains, and razors. Templon served raspberry sorbet and a dry Chablis. The punks used the former to scrawl 'Hate' and 'War' on the gallery walls and chugged the latter so rapidly that they were soon vomiting all over the gallery floor. Andy hid out in an inner office, and when a couple of young nihilists began peeing pink sherbet and white wine in the vicinity of her bejeweled shoes, Sao Schlumberger coolly said, 'I think I'd better get going to my dinner at Versailles'. When I told Andy, still in his hiding place, he laughed a little and then said, as if noting a new look at the couture collection, 'Pee is getting big, Bob' " - Bob Colacello

The idea for the Hammer and Sickle paintings originated from a trip to Italy that Andy Warhol took for the opening of his Ladies and Gentlemen paintings (aka the Drag Queen series).

Left wing Italian journalists embraced the Ladies and Gentlemen series, "writing that Andy Warhol had exposed the cruel racism inherent in the American capitalist system, which left poor black and Hispanic boys no choice but to prostitute themselves as transvestites."

At the press conference for the Drag Queen paintings, a reporter asked Warhol if he was a Communist. Andy asked Bob Colacello who was also at the press conference if he [Warhol] was a Communist and Bob Colacello answered, "you just painted Willy Brandt's portrait, but you're trying to get Imelda Marcos."

Later at the hotel, Andy said to Bob, "Maybe I should do real Communist paintings next. They would sell a lot in Italy."

According to Andy Warhol's painting assistant, Ronnie Cutrone, the idea for the Hammer and Sickle came from the graffiti that Andy noticed during his trip to Italy. Cutrone searched communist bookstores in New York for an image they could use, but none of the symbols were appropriate - too "flat, stenciled". So Ronnie went down to Canal Street and bought an actual hammer and sickle and photographed them with side lighting to cast a shadow. Like Andy Warhol's Skull series, the Hammer and Sickle paintings had sponge-mopped backgrounds.

Halston's boyfriend, Victor Hugo, was given the original hammer and sickle, which he had Andy sign, and placed them crisscross under a Plexiglas box.

from: Andy Warhol's Hammer and Sickles via Warhol Stars.

Danny Casolaro

2010-03-07T16:40:00.002-05:00

Joseph Daniel Casolaro (June 16, 1947–August 10, 1991) was an American freelance writer who came to public attention in 1991 when he was found dead in a bathtub in room 517 of the Sheraton Hotel in Martinsburg, West Virginia, his wrists slashed 10–12 times. A note was found, and the medical examiner ruled the death a suicide.^[1]

His death became controversial because his notes suggested he was in Martinsburg to meet a source about a story he called "the Octopus." This centered around a sprawling conspiracy theory involving an international cabal, and primarily featuring a number of stories familiar to journalists who worked in and near Washington, D.C. in the 1980's—the Inslaw case, about a software manufacturer whose owner accused the Justice Department of stealing its work product; the October Surprise theory that during the Iran hostage crisis, Iran deliberately held back American hostages to help Ronald Reagan win the 1980 presidential election; the collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International; and Iran-Contra.^[2]
Casolaro's family argued that he had been murdered; Before he left for Martinsburg, he had apparently told his brother that he had been frequently receiving harassing phone calls late at night, some of them threatening; And that if something were to happen to him while in Martinsburg, it would not be an accident. They also cited his well-known Squeamishness and fear of blood tests, and stated they found it incomprehensible that if he were going to commit suicide, he would do so by cutting his wrists a dozen times ^[3] A number of law-enforcement officials also argued that his death deserved further scrutiny, and his notes were passed by his family to ABC News and Time Magazine, both of which investigated the case, but no evidence of murder was ever found.^[4]^[5] Casolaro's death and "the Octopus" have since entered conspiracy-theory folklore.

via en.wikipedia.org

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The Child's Day (1912) via Project Gutenberg

2010-03-07T12:10:00.003-05:00

(EYES PROTECT THEMSELVES AGAINST THE LIGHT)

The iris, or color-ring, acts like a curtain, like the ring-shutter of a camera, and closes up the hole, or pupil, when the light is too bright and would dazzle or burn the inside of the eye; but when the light is dim, the iris opens again, so as to let in light enough with which to see. Look at the little window in your kitten’s eyes. It is not the same shape as yours; but when you carry her to the light, you see how the iris closes in and leaves just a little black slit or line.

You remember the blind children? Isn’t it wonderful how they can play games and study, too, even though they are blind! They have to make their senses of touch and hearing tell them many things that you learn through your sense of sight. Many of these children need not have been blind, if the nurse who first took care of them when they were born had known enough to wash their eyes properly, not with soap and water, of course, but with just one or two drops of a kind of medicine—an antiseptic, as we call it—that makes the eye perfectly clean.

But you children who have good eyes that can see, do you really see things when you look at them? You can train your eyes just as you can train your ears. You can teach them to read quickly down a page, and to find things in pictures, and, better still, to see things out of doors, in the garden and the woods and on the seashore. We hear a great deal about “sharp eyes,” but most of us see very little of all we might see. Our eyes are on the lookout, too, to protect us from dangers that may come; with our skin and nose and ears, they are constantly on the watch; so the better we see the safer we are.
Even if your eyes are perfect now, you will need to take good care of them to keep them strong. Don’t let any story, no matter how interesting it is, tempt you to read in a dim light or a light that is too strong. And if you can’t see the blackboard easily, or can’t read big print, like the school calendar, across the room, tell your mother or your teacher, so that she can ask the doctor to find out what the matter is.

A snippet from: THE CHILD’S DAY by WOODS HUTCHINSON (1912) via Project Gutenberg.

War Plan Red

2010-03-06T14:56:00.002-05:00

War Plan Red, also known as the Atlantic Strategic War Plan, was a plan for the United States to make war with Great Britain (the "Red" forces). It was developed by the United States Army during the mid 1920s, approved in May 1930 by the Secretary of War and the Secretary of Navy, updated in 1934-35, and officially withdrawn in 1939, following the outbreak of the Second World War, when it and others like it were replaced by the five "Rainbow" plans created to deal with the Axis threat. However, it was not declassified until 1974.

The war was intended to be a continental war, waged primarily on North American territory between the United States and the British Empire. The assumption was that Canada would represent the ideal geographic forum through which the United States could wage war against the British.

via en.wikipedia.org

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Disumbrationism

2010-03-06T12:32:00.003-05:00

Disumbrationism was a hoax masquerading as an art movement that was launched in 1924 by Paul Jordan-Smith, a novelist, Latin scholar, and authority on Robert Burton from Los Angeles, California.

Annoyed at the cold reception his wife's realistic still lifes had received from an art exhibition jury, Jordan-Smith sought revenge by styling himself as "Pavel Jerdanowitch" (Cyrillic: Па́вел Йердaновић), a variation on his own name, and entering a blurry, badly painted picture of a Pacific islander woman brandishing a banana skin, under the title "Exaltation". He made a suitably dark and brooding photograph of himself as Jerdanowitch, and submitted the work to the same group of critics as representative of the new school, "Disumbrationism." He explained "Exaltation" as a symbol of "breaking the shackles of womanhood."[1] To his dismay, if not to his surprise, the Disumbrationist daub won praise from the critics who had belittled his wife's realistic painting.

More Disumbrationist paintings followed: a composition of zig-zag lines and eyeballs he called "Illumination"; a garish picture of a black woman doing laundry which he called "Aspiration", and which a critic praised as "a delightful jumble of Gauguin, Pop Hart and Negro minstrelsy, with a lot of Jerdanowitch individuality." "Gination" was an ugly, lopsided portrait; and a painting named "Adoration", of a woman worshipping an immense phallic idol, was exhibited in 1927.

The same year, Jordan-Smith confessed to the Los Angeles Times that the Disumbrationist paintings were meant as a spoof.

via en.wikipedia.org

Posted via web from some interesting wikipedia articles...

Superman #1 As Designed by Tom Muller

2010-03-06T12:09:00.003-05:00

(Superman #1 as Designed by Tom Muller, 2010.)

Comics writer and notable trans-humanist Warren Ellis has been hosting a design challenge called REMAKE/REMODEL for sometime now. He usually employs characters in the public domain, but this week he brought out the big gun, perhaps the biggest gun in all of comics - Superman.

The response so far has been tremendous. Seemingly, everyone wants to take a crack at the big blue boyscout, and with good reason, everyone knows who Superman is, even if they have or never will pick up a comic book.

In my opinion, the best explanation, study and examination of the Superman phenomenon comes from Steven T. Seagle and Teddy Kristiansen's It's A Bird... (Vertigo, 2004), which doesn't feature Superman at all and is instead a very personal autobiography of writer Steven T. Seagle dealing with the assignment every writer dreams of (writing Superman) while simultaneously dealing with illness, and thus he finds he cannot relate to an indestructible man of steel.

This brings us to Tom Muller's simple and elegant design (above). While not the traditional image of Superman, Muller's take on the comic icon is powerful and resonating. Is the man of steel an astronaut in danger? An explorer discovering new worlds? Or an alien invader?

Maybe he's all three.

Everything 2

2010-03-06T08:43:00.000-05:00

Some very interesting and entertaining articles via Everything 2.

Malt Shop by Jonathan Hoffman

2010-03-05T22:12:00.005-05:00

Malt Shop by Jonathan Hoffman (2010).

Jonathan Hoffman has been getting a lot of attention recently from his piece called "Down for The Count" which was featured on Boing Boing. Personally, I think his piece Malt Shop (above) is more visually striking and iconic, but that might be because his painting confirms my long held suspicions.

Jonathan is available for commissions and posters of his work are available via Zazzle .

Pareidolia

2010-03-05T21:47:00.002-05:00

Pareidolia (pronounced /pærɪˈdoʊliə/) is a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant. Common examples include seeing images of animals or faces in clouds, the man in the moon, and hearing hidden messages on records played in reverse. The word comes from the Greek para- ("beside", "with", or "alongside"—meaning, in this context, something faulty or wrong (as in paraphasia, disordered speech)) and eidolon ("image"; the diminutive of eidos ("image", "form", "shape")). Pareidolia is a type of apophenia.

via en.wikipedia.org

Posted via web from some interesting wikipedia articles...

Victim Of Time: Elton Motello & Daniel Faraday

2010-03-05T15:17:00.002-05:00

(Elton Motello's Victim of Time Album, 1978)

About a year ago, while researching the controversy between Elton Motello's Jet Boy, Jet Girl and Plastic Bertand's Ca Plan Pour Moi, I couldn't help but notice the similarities between Elton Motello and LOST's Daniel Faraday (played by Jeremy Davies). The cover above from Motello's 1978 album Victim of Time bares the most similarities between the two - given LOST's plot and especially Daniel Faraday's plot, it seemed fitting that this wouldn't be a coincidence, but providence.

(LOST's Daniel Faraday, played by Jeremy Davies)

So here we are, a year later and I seem to the only person (at least in internet-land) that has noticed the similarities. I think I've been secretly hoping that somehow the LOST writers would stumble upon this connection and implement it, and considering the series' prominent use of music and creation of DRIVESHAFT, I dunno, maybe it could've happened?

Also: For those of you who have no idea who Elton Motello is, this is probably the best introduction you could hope for:

Che Guevara sipping espresso (via Ryan Kelly's Funrama)

2010-03-05T12:49:00.001-05:00

Che Guevara sipping espresso. Photo by Raùl Corrales, 1959.

For Want of a Nail

2010-03-05T09:53:00.002-05:00

This proverb has been around in many forms for centuries (see history below), and describes a situation where permitting some small undesirable situation will allow gradual and inexorable worsening. The rhyme is thus a good illustration of the "The butterfly effect", and ideas presented in chaos theory, involving sensitive dependence on initial conditions; the initial condition being the presence or absence of the horseshoe nail.^[1]
An important thing to note is that these chains of causality are only seen in hindsight. Nobody ever lamented, upon seeing his unshod horse, that the kingdom would eventually fall because of it.^[1]
A somewhat similar idea is referred to in the metaphor known as The Camel's nose.

via en.wikipedia.org

Posted via web from some interesting wikipedia articles...

L'esprit de l'escalier (Staircase Wit)

2010-03-04T07:44:00.002-05:00

L’esprit de l’escalier or esprit d'escalier (staircase wit) is thinking of a clever comeback when it is too late. The phrase can be used to describe a riposte to an insult or any witty remark that comes to mind too late to be useful—after one has left the scene of the encounter. The phenomenon is usually accompanied by a feeling of regret at not having thought of it when it was most needed or suitable.
The German word Treppenwitz and the Yiddish word trepverter are used to express the same idea.

via en.wikipedia.org

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Katzenklavier (The Cat Piano)

2010-03-03T21:09:00.002-05:00

A cat piano or Katzenklavier (German) is a musical instrument with polyphonic aftertouch described by Athanasius Kircher. It consists of a line of cats fixed in place with their tails stretched out underneath a keyboard. Tails would be placed under the keys, causing the cats to cry out in pain when a key was pressed. The cats would be arranged according to the natural tone of their voices.
The instrument was described by German physician Johann Christian Reil (1759-1813) for the purpose of treating patients who had lost the ability to focus their attention. Reil believed that if they were forced to see and listen to this instrument, it would inevitably capture their attention and they would be cured (Richards, 1998).

via en.wikipedia.org

Posted via web from some interesting wikipedia articles...

Parachronism

2010-03-02T09:51:00.001-05:00

Parachronisms are usually seen as objects or ideas which were once common, but are now considered rare or inappropriate. They often take the form of obsolete technology or outdated fashion. This is different from an anachronism, in which the object or idea in question had not yet been invented when the situation takes place, and is therefore impossible to have existed at that time. Thus a suburban housewife in the United States around 1960 would not ordinarily use a washboard for laundry after washing machines became the norm, and few teenagers of that time would be listening to ragtime music.

via en.wikipedia.org

Posted via web from some interesting wikipedia articles...

Chester 5000 XYV by Jess Fink

2009-08-02T12:07:00.001-04:00

(Originally Posted on CrownDozen.com)

I'm at a loss for words. Not that words matter. Or are even necessary...

I really wish I could put into words what exactly Chester 5000 XYV by Jess Fink exactly is about and why you should care, but I can't. It's just that good.

Okay. I'll try...

Chester 5000 XYV is an ongoing erotic Steampunk webcomic set in ye olde' Victorian Times about Pricilla, a recently married woman with an insatiable appetite for flesh, and Chester 5000 XYV an erotic robot created by her work-a-holic husband (most often referred to as "The Scientist") to service Pricilla while The Scientist attends to more serious matters.

Needless to say, this is a huge mistake. Chester 5000 and Pricilla fall madly in love and The Scientist and his creation quickly find themselves in opposition. But it's deeper than that, and I'll let you find out.....

Oh. And there are no words.

That means no dialogue and except for a sparse use of sound effects this entire fluid beautiful story is told with a constant flow of breathtaking images that make an engrossing and quick read.

And this is what makes Chester 5000 XYV so fuckin' amazing. I could go on and on and on with my analysis of this and that, but this comic is filled with such depth (in characterization, plot, and SUPER SEXY SCENES) that my blathering on about it doesn't seem necessary.

After all, who needs words?

Read Chester 5000 XYV (from the begining)

(Originally Posted on CrownDozen.com)

Chemical Brothers - Hey Boy Hey Girl (Soulwax Remix)

2008-08-22T11:11:00.003-04:00

(Originally Posted on CrownDozen.com)

Hey Boy Hey Girl! 2 MANY DJS - HERE YOU GO! (link expired)

Not much to say except that this is another HUGE remix by Soulwax / 2 Many DJs. It updates the original without stomping it into oblivion and is one of the most exciting things I've heard from Soulwax since their Gossip remix.

Can you believe it's almost been a decade since the Chemical Brothers original came out? Remember the video? It's one of those late 90's videos that I always was glad to be able to watch when I was up all night for no reason except to be up all night.

Also: The Chemical Brothers have a new album coming out on in a couple weeks. It's a compilation of greatest hits (including the original Hey Boy Hey Girl) and all of the electronic battle weapons. It's called Brotherhood. Pre-order here: Amazon.com

NiggyTardust!

2008-08-20T21:18:00.004-04:00

(Originally Posted on CrownDozen.com)

Just do it.
Buy/Download/Read anything by Saul Williams. It's well worth it. He's one of those artists that belong in a timeless renaissance - a struggle always weighed down by inevitability and availability. His words and ideas and musings reach much further than the artist he echoes, but is also lost in the void of saturation. This modern conundrum is confusing and the apparent struggle of such is...
What I'm sayin, is SAUL WILLIAMS IS MY SHIT!!!
Here's his latest video:
Saul Williams - Convict Colony
------------

You may have also heard his song List of Demands used in a Nike commercial. This took me by surprise when I first heard it. List of the Demands is one of the most honest and raw songs I've ever heard and hearing it used to sell sneakers confused me. The 9TH Grader in me wanted to scream: SELL OUT! - but the NOW me accepted as what it is - the dance of duality that must be done.

But I'll allow Saul to speak for himself:

I see no glory in 'preaching to the converted'. Furthermore, I believe fully in the power of music and have branded my work with it's own conscientious stamp and stomp of attitude fueled to steal the show in the face of the nonsensical. Quite simply, it was clear to me that people would not be rushing to the store to buy Nikes after seeing that commercial, but rather rushing to youtube or itunes to hear or download the song. - Saul Williams

List of Demands (320) (link expired)

Read it for Free: GIRLS #1 by the Luna Brothers

2008-08-20T11:04:00.005-04:00

(Originally Posted on CrownDozen.com)

This comic is great and free, so there's no reason not to check it out. It's about a small town boy that finds a mysterious naked woman in the middle of the street and then some crazy shit happens. And I mean some seriously crazy fucked up shit...

So if you like naked girls and weird shit, check out GIRLS. There's a total of 24 issues paced perfectly to build suspense and keep you coming back issue after issue. I couldn't stop myself, I read all 24 without stopping. It was like some crazy naked crack.

I suggest this for fans of LOST, if only because GIRLS has all the mystery and suspense offered by LOST, but is a lot more assessable and less time consuming and frustrating. So don't sit around pining for the next season of LOST, read GIRLS.

READ ISSUE #1 FOR FREE (COURTESY OF IMAGE COMICS)

Slept On Sounds: Pelican City

2008-07-23T12:49:00.012-04:00

(Originally Posted on CrownDozen.com)

First: There's candy if you get into this car, I promise.
Second: But it's that hard Grandparent candy that's hard to swallow.
DOWNLOAD: Pelican City "Sesame Street" (updated link 2/27/10: mediafire, 320kbps)
AND GET IN THE DAMNED CAR ---------- >

Listen: Pelican City is wicked. Hear that. That's a big beat my friend. I miss those, and this one is like a caged wild animal that might make Billy Squier's wiener shrivel. It's the type of beat that makes my body listen. So I'm already sold on this song instantly. And I hope you are too.
But there's more...
This track crawls and creeps until your nodding your noggin and asking for more, and when you start surrendering your body to the guitars - they taunt and tease and build that crescendo baby until it winds down with a piano searching for solace with each stroke but falling . . . short
. . .and then it becomes something completely different - like a little addendum that bookends some quiet frenzy with a novelty car horn. AWOOGA!
But it's good.
And that fuckin' guitar. Seriously. Back to the guitar. I haf'ta tell you what I see when I hear that guitar wail, because it's kinda fucked up and doesn't make any sense.
This track comes from an album called Rhode Island, but instead of the intended Pelicans and harbor and sea sounds - I see a silent and ghastly New York City. I'm surrounded by the tourist New York I went to on an Eighth Grade school trip. It's of course not the real New York that I imagine exists, but the one that my pop-imagination has replaced it with -- the only thing baring a close resemblance to this is the New York is from a comic, DMZ.
I guess I like my New York un-Giulianied Dirty. Gritty. And dead. (Go read the first issue of DMZ here, it's free and legal and encouraged).
Dead New York: I look up. I'm in the midst of nothing. Just cold lonely air, staring up at mammoth buildings that'd dwarf my mountains back home - I know the names of some of them, but I can't recall them. They're not real. They're all like giant adults and I'm a house cat who can't find a leg to rub on.
And then I hear that beat. The one that could neuter Billy Squier, and I hear a guitar amp crackle and I know I'm in some serious shit.
And it starts. Crazy dead fuckers start chasing me. And I run.
And the song plays.
And it's way more chilled out than the quicken twitch of the God Speed! You Black Emperor song used famously in the WTF? EMPTY LONDON OMG! scene of 28 Days Later, but Pelican City fills my imagination and I roll with it. It's got the same intensity and immersion necessary to keep my feet moving in this marathon so I go go go with it.
There's too fucking many empty cars and locked buildings in this dead alive town...
My heart slams thru my chest, and I want some water. And I run. And all that silly word verbiage I used above like "taunt and tease" and "searching for solace" really pisses me off now.
This becomes life and death. I'm going to get ripped apart. I'm going to. Get. Ripped. Apart.
DEATH, it's gonna happen. And whatever my reward is when my legs give out and I hit the pavement and the scraped knee and nausea are the least of my worries - this song is here.

And the piano searching for solace, and it's there. A pulse. A rhythm. A religion. It's there. This song. It's me. Me.
.
.
.
.
.
I don't know dude, that's just how I see the song.
It's a beautiful soulful song, but I see almost-corpses chasing me in a very panicked way. And usually when I run I imagine I'm Renton and I got Iggy beating me senseless, but there's more than a lust for life, there's a lust for sound, something that gets antiqued by the quick pace of shit today - Where an album is out a couple months before it's out and the next big thing is already boring and drained of life.
So maybe the panic, the running, and the zombie story weren't really pointless, eh? Maybe metaphors for today's music.
Gawdd. I hope so. If not this whole thing be laaaaame.
Anyways. Back to business: I found this track lurking in one of those old CMJs. The ones that came in paper you could cut out and put in a jewel-case. I've been sorting thru a couple dozen of these, going all nostalgia on some, but mostly feeling I slept on some greatness. I got a couple tracks I'm going to share with the lot of you in the hope of shedding some light on some slept on sounds. Shit that just DOES IT and does it RIGHT.
But there's also another agenda, and another rant if you wanna follow me:
I think the blogs are clogged with too much of this razor bass smash and grab stuff. Call it Electro-House, or Neu Rave or whatever you want, but it's really starting to get played out.
At first THE BLOGS were great for finding new music, but now it seems the over exposure has helped homogenize it. They went from tastemakers to school lunch ladies - serving the same scheduled shit. And sometimes you get pizza or the taco salad boats - but more often it's steamed broccoli and cheese or "mystery meat".
((I really considered killing this addendum - this damn novelty car horn going too loud at the end of all of this non-sense, but it needs to be said. I think about it a lot.))
Now I ain't talkin' shit just to talk shit. I love this type of music. This music seems solely constructed to make me shake my ass. These evil europeans nerds and laptop mixing messiahs know exactly how to make a track JUMP. JUMP. JUMP THE FUCK UP. But sometimes I need to chill. And not Iron and Wine chill, but something different - something not sadly (yeah I used sadly?! WHAT?!) - I need something smooth, that makes me see Zombies.
I need tracks like this. I need Pelican City.
Anyways. Check it: 2 surprises on this one, but you gotta promise that you'll download and listen first so as not to ruin it.
After you've come back highlight the spoiler text below:

Welcome back compadre. As promised, below are two surprises, way hyped up now and I hope was worth your time.
1. You know that change up at the end was fuckin' tight. Sunny Days, everything A-OK! Novelty Carhorn or perfect ending? Hard to decide...
2. PELICAN CITY is an alias used by DJ DANGERMOUSE when he recorded two downtempo albums and one EP during 1999-2002. He actually did a lot of cool shit before the grey album, check it out sometime.

(Originally Posted on CrownDozen.com)