Ratatat - Tacobel Canon


I recently followed a rabbit down its hole. Digging through the roots and dirt I realized that this rabbit was not what I originally thought. This "rabbit" soon revealed to me that it was in fact a space worm burrowing through the fabric of space and time, stranding me at last at its final destination 500 thousand light years away from the tree in the park by my house on the lake. The hyper energetic galactic core is a series of black holes dumping into white holes in a super-dense massive cluster generating the gravitational force necessary to keep all the galaxy's stars orbiting as one coherent structure, except of course the 0.03% chance of collision with another galaxy. Anyways, as I was being compressed to the size of a golf ball and decomressed back at the speed of light every nanosecond, I slowly became aware of my surroundings. Through the strobe light effect of not being able to see every other nanosecond a videogame was starting up. It was like when you were playing asteroids back in the day and your computer couldn't handle the processing and would glitch up flashing in and out. The stobe was cool, but I think the disco ball was a little too much. There was a motorcycle chase level, and the obligitory underwater level where everything moved super slowly. And finally in the end when I beat the game and saved the princess, we went to taco bell, and fanfare played while the credits scrolled down the screen.

Almodovar

Pedro Almodovar has a new movie coming out this November. Fucking awesome. You can watch the Preview for it here. It’s exciting when he makes new movies, because he’s an undisputed master at the zenith of his career. Unlike other once radical film vets who have more or less settled into a cozy style that makes you feel they could be directing in their sleep, Almodovar is still vibrant and dangerous. He could go anywhere with his movies, and it seems certain that he isn’t done breaking new ground. I absolutely love his early films, chaotic and beautiful. Brilliant works of pop cultural excess with revolutionary potential like Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls on the Heap, Labyrinth of Passion, and What Have I Done To Deserve This which are some of his all-time greatest. Trashy on an almost transcendental level. He most recent films though have been the best of his career (All About My Mother and Talk To Her being unprecedented achievements). What I love about them is that he took the same gritty animalism and desire along with the druggie, whore, and transsexual characters of his early punk narratives and put them into these glossy, vibrant and consummately crafted Douglas Sirk-esq melodramas. But rather than being meant as ironic transplants, this new form legitimized these baser subjects’ depth and humanity and transformed the clash of the wonderfully garish neon fashion pastiche of the 80’s Madrid punk scene into a neat and polished technicolor still life which retained their vibrance and decadence.

Yet, in this transformation to these mature, elegant and expertly crafted perverse melodramas which he’s become known for in recent years, his films lost the snarling rough edges and chaotic explosiveness of a La Movida coke fueled fuck fest that they used to have. They’re still confrontational and unapologetic, but not as gritty and destructive. This is why I dug his last one, Bad Education, so much. It was a return to his filthy excessiveness and chaotic world-order, but from a mature and nostalgic (and generally more pessimistic) perspective.
His new one, Volver (“Coming Back,” scheduled for U.S. release Nov. 3rd), is an even more exciting prospect. According to his official website, it’s a return to the lower-class realism and naturalism he briefly explored with What Have I Done To Deserve This. In his fourth movie, a director who had made a name for himself in Spain’s La Movida punk/art movement for excess and decadence decided to make a film referencing the bleak styles of Italian Neo-Realism and literary Naturalism. Because of this film’s self-conscious drab and coarse look, its excessive urges were channeled into more latent and concentrated reservoirs, resulting in a sweetly strange, singular and almost magical film. It’s been reported that his new film is meant to revisit this “surrealist naturalism.” The untapped potentials of this underused vein of filmmaking along with the masterful understanding of subtly and focus Almodovar has achieved since his early years should make for a really fucking good movie, in all respects. Along with this stylistic return, it’s interesting to note that it will star Carmen Maura (the leading lady of most of his early films, including What Have I Done...) and Penelope Cruz (his more recent leading lady), a mix of old and new.

There certainly exists this often negative phenomena, which Almodovar is courting (especially by naming his film “Coming Back”), of older directors who cut their chops in experimental Youth Cinema movements, self-consciously revisiting their old style and producing empty or forced regressions. We’ll have to wait and see if these upcoming films are fresh and useful reexaminations or just the cinematic slumming of memory. The man is so faithful and committed to his odd visions and stories though that reagardless they should be swarming with life and sincere passion. What an awesome old gay drug addict.

Oh my God it's the Future XÄÅ89261 and so on

I am so scared. I am 93 years old and I haven't left my apartment in years. I don't know how many, because the robot bastard won't tell me. Maybe I'm not asking right. Everybody speaks different now. He's probably programmed to understand them, and not me. Everybody speaks like they do in the middle section of that horrible book Cloud Atlas that I read when I was young ( and extremely beautiful). It was so unbelievebly annoying to read that part, about the future, in a time after The Fall. Where everybody spoke like retards. Well. We're here now. Not the Fall, but people do say things like "ooo, I sense her with my spesh powers". That is one of the reasons I don't go out. The other is those flying android monkeys, that swoop down and pull poeples hair and scream obscenities. Something went horribly wrong with an experiment on an island somewhere by New Zeeland, and now those monkeys are just everywhere. It's awful, I can't even go out on my porch anymore without hearing the word cocksucker. Horrible. I do enjoy shooting them with my little lazer gun that I got from my great grandson Jurvo( what ever happend to biblical names? Oj oj, I think they are illegal now. Yes they said, eloquent as always " No uns gonnuh be name'd the'm name-os no mo're, tis because, well, peoples beened name'd the'm names too multi times in th'non-future".) One considerably disturbing fact is that Jurvo is just 5 years old. Kids all play with leathal weapons now, all different colored lazers. I can see them from my window at dusk and it's quite a spectacle, all those colores clashing, glowing in the dark. But eventually one of the kids gets killed, and mommy has to run out, annoyed, and give him one red pill, one yellow pill, and one pink pill. They kind of look like jellybeans actually, except they also give you life. ( Where were they when my husband died 2 years ago? I'm just saying). That's one of the better inventions they've come up with in the past year. Unlike those flying monkeys, who are, right now, as I'm dictating this into my floating iSphere - computer, sitting on my window sill, in a neat little row, all of them flipping me off. They think it's hilarious.

Ahhhh, where was I? Right, the life beans. Sometimes kids steal them and feed them into different objects ( by metling them and dripping them onto the object). The other day I saw a kid with a pet stapler, hopping along by his side. Catching sticks and rolling around in puddles. Yeah, we don't have dogs anymore. They all left when they learned how to think and talk. They said they didn't love us anymore, and that they had to move on to something better. They didn't fly off into space like in Hitchikers guide to blah, if that's what youre thinking. I think they just drove off in cars. Dog heads sticking out from all the windows, tongues flapping so much they could hardy talk to eachother. I was happy for them. Most people just threw stuff at their passing caravan. People these days...what are you going to do? I don't know. In a few days, they are going to take my dead husband out of the big thermos our son insisted we put him in when he passed away. " Leave him be Skitto, he's been through enough already" , I told him, "I don't think anyones going to be able to bring back the dead anytime soon", I said. Yeah. I was wrong. For the first time in my life no less! So, yeah, I'm expecting him back by breakfast the day after tomorrow. He can help me curse at the monekeys with his hoarse old man voice, that always tends to scare them more then my shrieking.

I have to go now, because the robot is giving me my sleeping pills. There's nothing I can do about it. I also think that he can read my mind. Good night

These pictures are NASA's future vision for humans on Mars

Check this article out about colonizing Mars. Sounds like a great idea to me. It will be just like a movie, kind of like Star Wars, except everytime you have to leave you're "human-filled mini-apartment building with parking spots for martian cars and spaceships" you have to put on a big heavy suit to protect you from radiation and other various things in the toxic atmosphere that will make your head explode. I couldn't imagine enjoying a day of my life in that environment. It's one thing for a person to move from Alaska to Brazil, or from Antarctica to Venice. Although it does take a special breed of person who can get used to a dramatically different environment. However could even the most adaptable humans get used to life on Mars, there's plenty of people who never leave the city they're born in. Will evolution keep the people alive on Mars who can adapt to anything? If that's true than there's no way we're not going to try to find somewhere better. But that's many years in the future so let's get back to topic. We know that the only people going to mars after we destroy earth are going to be the ruling elite and their families. I personally think that these are not the people that are going to get used to deserting all the comforts they took for granted on earth, like ice cream, I know I wouldn't want to live in a world without ice cream, and not that nasty astronaut Ice cream I remember form science class. So they'll all die. Of course they will need to bring scientests and engineers and people to do manual labor with them, so these are the people I believe who will thrive. So will we evolve into space travelers in another 2 thousand years or before the sun explodes, whenever that is. Now I'm opening a can of worms I didn't want to tamper with. If anyone is interested in further exploring this issue, this is the dicussion where I found the link to the NASA article.

For some reason this picture reminds me of Africa

Every week I will be featuring music from a different part of the world. Today is Western Africa Except that it won't be every week, it will be when ever the hell my lazy ass gets around to it. Today I feel like shit, it feels like my lungs are going to come out of my body in liquid and solid form everytime I sneeze. My house is a mess, there is plant and earth debris everywhere, but there is an end in sight. I'll never see one of my friends again god willing. Today I have homework to do but instead I'm doing this. It shouldn't take that long though.

The first track I'm posting is by Manu Dibangu, from Cameroon. There's not much I can say about this track other than that it kicks ass. If you have a set of bongos laying around than pick 'em up.

Manu Dibango-New Bell

Next will be a track by the senegalese Youssou N'Dour. This isn't one of his more traditional or poppy songs so that's why I like it actually. Senegalese pop music is known as Mbalax in the Wolof language. N'dour demonstrates the beauty of that language in this track, assuming that is the language he's singing in in this track. I encourage everyone to listen to the language in this song.

Youssou N'Dour-Xale

Future Post 3030

It's the year 2106, unestimated changes have occured in the last century. weaponry has advanced as well as genetic endowment. Many thought that changing your childs eye color is playing god and opening Pandora's box. Well there must not be a name for the box that has been opened by the government. They stole the top genenticists in the world and now give carbon-subsidies for those who volenteer their children to be genetically endowed as basically the perfect human. . Sign under the dotted line and you're eternally enslaved as a gubernatorial fighting machine. Optic diodes can now be placed behind a citizens eyes to show everything they see on cctv. Basically using you're eyes as lenses. This is only if the person is cohersed into volenteering for such a thing. But now since life legally begins at conception a parent can submits to their child having diodes placed. After a diode is implanted the only way to have privacy of sight is to look crookedly at everything so the diode thinks you're looking straight. Unfortunately now scientists are making the diodes directionally sensitive. The internet has turned into a raging, non-sensicle, narcissustic hell hole, with governmental supervision up so high, degeneration is also at an all-time high. When you do a search on the internet 98% of it comes up as sex, bloody rape, animal sex, people being shot, people being eaten by lions, people cutting off their own extremeties, and so on. About two percent of the population still craves knowledge, but there simply dying off.

We are now in the 2pacalyptic reign of the all powerful United States. It seems as though 2pac has risen from the dead and been elected president. Anyone with half a brain knows that it's just a governmental figurehead tarnishing his name in order to mobilize all the gangsters and wanna be gangsters into holocaustic angst. It's only allowable these days to play gangster rap in public. It's the only way they knew how to deal with the overwhelming problem of thugs roaming the streets in anarchy looking for violence. Make them fight for us. If you can't beat 'em them join 'em. Such an abrasive force needs to be on our team. Well not my team, their team...my enemy. As if that wasn't enough they made viniscular petrol half price for those who Join their team. Viniscular Petrol is another fossil fuel (hybrid of petrol) they managed to invent purely for the purpose of exploitation. In the midst of the worst fuel crisis in history that is the only way anyone can get around by not walking or biking. They made the electric bike almost impossible to get, The quadrangle moped is still being horded by big business and only sold at extortionist prices.

What angers the idiom underground the most is that they still try to pass this off as a democracy. It's what they call a cogitational democracy, basically they rigged the election so only the ruling elite or those directly involved with the military's vote is counted. The one bright spot is that the idiom underground's cult leader is The Great Deltron 3030. The former underground rapstar's prophetic holding body has now transformed into a powerful neuromancer. The great scientist of the 36th decade discovered celluloidal phenomena which can allow the host body to undertake physical landscape sculpting for those lucky enough to have been blessed by his work . Deltron and the great scientest are select members of the quasi-demensoinal guild where decades are measured as centuries with even enough information to fit a millenniums work into ten year periods because of the morph in the intra-dementional space time shift. The host body's mind can operate at a thousand times the power and effeciency than that of those with ordinary cerebral output. The quasi-dimensional guild want to take out the 2pacylptic party as soon as possible before Mother Nature takes care of all the common people. The Quasi-dimentional guid wants the coup achieved mostly with the mind, but also with body-morphine infiltration skills. They want it done cleanly and correctly. Hit them at the core. Washington. Only politicians die. Their still a patron to their own bureaucracy that they methodically crafted around. They haven't even have to implemint martial law. That was done cleanly and correctly and artistically, you have to give them credit for that. And here I sit, in the basement of the Quasi-dimentional's headquarters in a cave in an appalachian cliff, working as there scribe and bookeeper. Alone and paranoid and on drugs. They don't realize I have to be on amphetemines to keep up with brains that function exponentially faster than my measely post-human cranium.

Here's a track from our great future leader

Deltron 3030-3030

"The Society Had Been All But Destroyed By The Robot Rebellion Of '33"

The other night me and two friends bought a six pack and a bottle of cheap wine and went to the local video store to rent a movie. After making our way through the many aisles, we had only three options as I saw it: Cannibal Holocaust, Robot Holocaust, and Zombie Holocaust. I mean, choosing between one of those is no easy task, but at least we no longer had to worry about the thousands of other inferior titles. My friends somehow failed to see it this way. Not only weren’t they excited about all three apocalyptic movies, but they didn’t even want to get one. I mean, you don’t want to watch Cannibal Holocaust, fine. But Robot Holocaust? Are you in a Coma?! Why did we even come to the video store?

Anyway, we ended up renting Kim Ki-Duk’s The Isle (2000). Ki-Duk, I think, is one of the earliest members of the Korean New Wave which is still going strong, as it seems likes Korean films are finding wider international distribution and attention than ever before. I’m sad to say I know nothing about Korean cinema, but if you’re interested This Site has pretty much everything you could want to know. I loved Ki-Duk’s Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring, a really complex and beautiful movie, but I wasn’t super crazy about The Isle. It was really well made and acted though, and really disturbing, so I guess that’s a plus. Ki-Duk (at least in the few films I’ve seen) has this real classical elegance of composition and pacing, but yet all these really fucked up things happen, so they happen in this ultra serious and artful manner. It doesn’t always work, but when it does it’s awesome.

It was good. But it was no apocalyptic distopia. That night at the video store destiny was knocking, but we just walked away. At least later on in the night we got into a long discussion about which of the pretend-holocai would be the best to die in (feel free to post any thoughts on the matter). With a Zombie holocaust, you know what you’re gonna get. Big numbers, slow moving, you can take out a bunch but eventually they’ll overpower you and rip your guts out as you lay screaming on the concrete. The Cannibal holocaust we figured would probably be the worst, or at least the biggest risk, because a Cannibal holocaust could mean anything. Yeah, you know they’re gonna eat you, but surely that can’t be enough for them. There has to be some reason to make people eat other people at holocaustic levels; general Sadism and/or Satanism, extreme survival, mass mindcontrol? Yikes. We decided the Robot holocaust would be the easiest, because Robots would do things quickly. Yet, it could also be the most boring. There’s no unpredictable grab-bag of gore like with the other two. There's also no guarentee that they won't be wise-cracking robots. Alas, it was a hung jury. Either way, it would suck hard. I say, ‘no thanks.’

This Is Not a Jackalope

One thing I like to do is dig through 7inchpunk's massive database and look for non-punk thats been incedentally accidentally posted. Amidst all the heaps and heaps of international hard-core punk and proto-noise there are some really intresting post punk or new waveish things that no one could possibly know about. Theyre a solitary out of print 45 or EP that one of the curators picked up that had enough quality for them to have hung on to since the 70's or 80's. If you like these check out the other tracks at 7inch.

The Freeze - Psychodalek Nightmares

This one was probably originally bought because of a same named american hard-core band. These guys are scottish and it sounds like it probably came from the same, or a similar scene as Josef K, Orange Juice, and the Fire Engines. Its got this v-v-v-v-v-v fuzzed out delayed guitar in the background the whole time. The song might be about puberty or something but theres a great atmosphere to this one.

Viscious Visions - Beat You

Dare I call this one Cyber-Punk Rock? Its got a drum machine and electronic sounds but its definetly not New Wave considering the songs about how theyre going to kick someones ass. I've never really heard anything like this except for maybe Chrome.

Metal Urbain - Lady Coca Cola

This is french, so its utterly pretentious. That said I think I still like it. Its a little bit of a DIY Brian Eno meets Kraftwerk. I think the fact that theyre trying so hard and that its a crappy recording actually makes it pretty funny.

The Great Falsetto Mystery- why do I love it when men sing like women?

In the next few posts I am going to try to disect my taste in music. I am going to go through what I’m inexplicably and inevitably drawn to. There are some elements to music that I have always appreciated ever since I was a little kid, the one I am about to start with, the Falsetto is not really one of them. I had mixed feelings about it as a kid, after I sort of found out what it was. I loved it in the Platters and Elton John I didn´t like it in Prince ( listening to ” The Most Beautiful Girl in the World” I remember thinking he should just sing with his normal voice, it sounded good enough. Yeah, I wasn’t a huge Prince fan back then, but all that has changed now), I was fascinated by the Bee Gees. Fascinated and happy that something like that is even possible in this world where men are men and women are women. Or at least seem to be, to a kid.
So, I found out what falsetto actually is. It’s pretty much when you only use the edges of your vocal cords to speak or sing in a higher pitch than your normal range. Apparently you use ¼ of them when you speak with you ”head voice” and even more when you use your ”chest voice”. Yes, isn’t Wikipedia a wonderful thing. What I don’t understand about it though, is if it's considered falsetto when women do it. Wikipedia does mention that Megan Mullally uses falsetto for her role in Will& Grace. ( I did not KNOW that, wow). Still, I can’t help wondering why no women are listed on their alfabetical guide to falsetto singers. This is truely a mystery, and I will get to the bottom of it some other day.

So, I´m going to post 8 falsetto-favorites, enjoy.

Papalina Lahilahi- Joe Keawe

To start this off right, I had to go with the Hawaiian falsetto. It's been very popular there for quite some time. This song is totally fascinating, and probably something Irwin Chusid ( the smug idiot) would make fun of in his book Songs in the Key of Z. I can only assume that he knows his musical history well enough not to. I can't bitch about his "Song in the Key of Z" 2 CD compilation though, since it's wonderful.

Devil got my woman- Skip James

What can I say about this song? Nothing, because we all know it's incredible. I'm just happy that my hunch was right, and Wikipedia does infact list him as a falsetto singer. Pheeww. What? I don't know all your little rules of music-writing!

Starry Eyes- Roky Erickson

This song is not a "pure" falsetto song, but I had to include it because dear crazy Roky starts out with his normal voice, then goes into a otherwordly, incredibly beautiful falsetto, after which he returns to the normal voice again. I love how falsetto brings out qualities his voice normally lacks, in my opinion. How is that even possible though? With just the fucking edges of your vocal chords!? So confusing...

You Make me Feel like Dancing- Leo Sayer

This is the song that made me want to write this post. Because I just realized that the person singing is a man. And it blew my mind, like this phenomena always does. Why can't I just be cool about things? Oh well, moving on.

When you were mine- PRINCE

Hah, what can I say. I realized I could pick any Prince song really. So I just picked a good one. One intresting little dork-fact about Prince and his famously high-pitched voice was that he actually planned on making an entire album as his female alter-ego Camille. Ooooh. That didn't happen because, it was too crazy for Warner.

Stockholm Syndrome- Yo La Tengo

Ok, some very Neil Youngish indie-falsetto. Damn fine name for a song too.

Winners- Bobby Conn

Jesus Christ. I don't know what to write about this one. It's really good though.

Freedom of '76- Ween

People love singing this one. It's irresistible. I do it when I'm bored, and only the people who truely love me let me finish the whole song. Ohmygodimmike does it in my elevator at 4 o'clock in the morning, at the top of his lungs, drunk as and eagle. Every floor in my building was graced by the beautiful, just slightly off singing of ohmgodimmike as the elevator ascended to the 5th floor. And that, my friends, concludes this monster of a post.

Todd A-O

The other night, me and my friend Gail went to IFS (the CU campus film series) to see Todd Solondz breakthrough flick, Welcome to the Dollhouse. Here’s the sweet-ass original title track from the movie:

Welcome to the Dollhouse - The Quadratics

This was the third time I’d seen it (but my first time on 35mm) and I loved it more than ever. I’m a huge Solondz fan and I think all his movies are fantastic, but for whatever reason Dollhouse was always one of my least favorites. However, it’d been a few years since I’d seen it and as I was watching it this time it seemed to me that in terms of tone, structure and balance, this may be one of the most perfectly crafted American films of the last 10 years. I know that sounds like a complete exaggeration, but it truly is such a beautiful, clever, and sophisticated work. It has this tightly oppressive structure of expression and mood which keeps the characters and the audience trapped in this suffocating institutional nightmare. But at the same time, this rigid atmosphere is spun to be just flexible (even fragile) enough that it allows its doomed characters small momentary but no less meaningful acts of rebellion and escape. Little beautiful moments of hope that make the rest of existence just bearable. It’s this highly sophisticated tonal balance of hopelessness and transcendence, exaggeration and penetrating truth, and humor and pain, all contained within this uniform structure that I think makes the film (and all his films, really) such a high achievement.

Anyway, my buddy Dave was taking tickets that night, and he told me that Solondz, after having invested his life savings into his most recent film, Palindromes (because no studio would touch it) had gone bankrupt. That really freaked me out. I personally think Solondz is one of the overall best, most unique and most important recent filmmakers anywhere. Most living directors are nowhere near his level of wit and deep observation, and everything he makes has a tangible and lasting impact on the face of modern filmmaking. How could we allow such an important artist to go under? Well, I did a little research on the intra-net and found out that in fact, no, Todd Solondz managed to recoup his initial investment due to the film's relative success on the foreign market and is currently at work on another project (scheduled to be released in 2008). Thank god for open-minded foreigners like Laz. I think it’s funny though that the most political and topical film (dealing unblinkingly with abortion and the U.S. ‘culture wars’) of a quintessentially American director would only be able to make any money in Europe. What the fuck.

What I love about his movies is that nothing comes easy. These are bleak portraits of flawed and often cruel characters, but there are no cheap shots. The films’ moralities are so complex and ambiguous that every moment of pain, laughter, and identification you feel is a total mindfuck that forces you to reexamine yourself and your culture. Although Solondz’ lack of narrational moral guidance is a huge part of his films’ power, it’s still great to hear him explain the motivations behind his movies. Here’s a really great interview I found with him from this online magazine called The Believer. It’s the transcription of three conversations between Solondz and a novelist friend as they walk aimlessly through New York City. Laz told me she saw Solondz speak after a showing of Palindromes at a film fest in Stockholm, and I am eternally jealous. I need to move to a new town.

Music:
Ive been pretty psyched about this new song from Boredoms affiliate OOIOO. Its basically just drums and girls chanting. Its like the pogo-girl punk equivalent of japanese noise, and it's awesome.

OOIOO - UMA


Sci-fi:
In the vein of Laz's last post I think I should write a little more about science fiction, which is my supposed topic. And not the sci-fi-esque crap I normally do. Speaking of sci-fi-esque crap, I should mention that I feel there are a lot of sci-fi books and short stories which are totally disappointing. It has to do with the nature or this genre of para-literature as the actual literary community calls it, or litterature as I've begun to call it recently. Being a genre of ideas, the best writers are not masters of prose or character development or similar things which are normally the main focus in fiction. The point in science fiction is to establish a future as close to as what the reader can imagine to be realistic. If not that, then to create a setting for a totally forein situation or conflict. Some books can be dense highlighted with a few or one long really incredible, mindblowing passages.

Take The Demolished Man, by Alfred Bester, not to be confused with the movie Demolition Man starring Wesley Snipes and Sly Stallone. Although I think there is a vague influence on the latter involving the setup of the near perfect crime. Anyway, in the book the writing is only so-so. Not to say that it's juvenille but it can move pretty slowly at times. Throughout the book there is constant reference to Demolition. "Count down to Demolition," "This was the beginning of Demolition," etc... I wont say exactly what "Demolition" is, but the second to last passage, the one leading up to it is a stunningly well written, gripping section requiring every bit of your imagination to follow. It's difficult to explain this phenomenon. Maybe its the hooker with a heart of gold, if a heart of gold can mean less disembodied from its hooker body. Or maybe the section could easily stand alone without any context in all its vaguery. Laz recently said about Neuromancer, which recently convinced her to read, that some parts could be considered prose poetry. The difference here is that with stand alone poetry, so much is left to interpretation, where in The Demolished Man and Neuromancer everything is elaborately set up and everything explained or at least can be understood from the context of the rest of the book. Asimov once said that he loved puzzle stories. You'll often hear scientists and mathematicians talk about the beauty of a certain equation or process. It is this kind of beauty that these science fiction stories come closer to than a purely aesthetic one. Its the beauty of the the future worlds setting coming to the final conclusion that the writer was going towards where everything is explained. All the time gone into setting up is so that the parts, now established can unfold naturally creating these certain heart of gold passages. It's almost like a + b = c. It's beautiful because of the order it creates and the sense it makes.

Misaki Kawai

I just realized that I'm supposed to write about art, i haven't really done that at all. About a year ago one of my favourite artists Misaki Kawai exhibited her work at a very good galley here in Stockholm called Loyal. Right now they are showing Matt Leines' watercolor paintings, which I find extremely beautiful and inspiring. I especially like the fact that he's a pro-wrestlilng fan and brings the aesthetics of the wrestling masks and costumes into his art that at the same time reminds me both of orthodox icons and comics ( both avant-garde and regular ones).

Back to Misaki Kawai though, whose fantastic collages you can see here to the left. Her art is both beautiful and funny and I love everything about it. You can and should check out her webpage here. I especially like her fart drawings in which she has completely captured the embarrassment of farting so forcefully that your pants actually rip. ( Has that ever actually happend in real life? Let me know.) Kawai doesn't only do brilliant collages, she aslo does extremely detailed and unreal skulptures and installations. Many of them involve airplanes and surfing.

Not much is going on here in Stockholm. Today at work a very interesting-looking couple bought books from me. The womans' eyes were extremely far apart, and the mans' eyes were very very close together. I thought about that if you were to superimpose their faces, his eyes would fit right in between hers. Also a man who looked like Salvador Dalí bought a book about Salvado Dalí. Ahh, the joys of the bookstore clerk.

Reasons I can't stop listening to this song:

- The xylophone.
- The slide guitar.
- The erratic handclaps.
- The xylophone, slide guitar, and erratic candclaps all at the same time.
- A normally quite annoyingly voiced singer who hits everything perfectly only on this one song.
- Distorted spaceship sounds building to the chorus.
- The Nirvanaesque pop structure - verse, verse and then hit the chorus in a mad dash. Theres no closure, they never go back to the verse so if you want to hear it again you have to start the song over.
- On top of that I think I love the oo-oohs in the end possibly most of all.

I just saw these guys last night opening up for Gay Beast and Awesome Car Funmaker with barely anyone showed up yet. The sound balance was off, and the raccoon shirted guitarist who would sometimes play the drums at the same time with just his feet had no ears and would bash away at the drums drowning out everything else. It was totally what I forgot a good indie show might be. I knew the awesomeness was there but it was buried under all the lo-fi-ness of it all.

Your Loving Tiger - In Heat (Foreign Eyes)

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Not too far from where I live

This newspaper article is a great example of the quality individuals we breed in the great state of Wisconsin.

Wow, these guys just aren't that bright. If they wouldn't have said anything no one ever would have found out that they were planning on fucking the corpse. And you'd think they could have found a body that wasn't just mutilated in a motorcycle accident.

I couldn't find any songs directly about necrophelia on my computer so I decided I would post a Beck song from his bootleg album Fresh Meat and Old Slabs. Unfortunately the cd is scratched and this is the only track that plays all the way through. Every time I play Beck on my computer, realplayer tells me that his mom formed a drag-punk band called Black Fag ...and of course it turned out to be true. Although in the interview I linked I coulnd't find any mention of how she helped form the band. After doing some research Bibbe Hansen (Beck's mom) turned out to have a pretty fucking fascinating life, she was the youngest member of the Andy Warhol entourage and was in a few movies as well. One being directed by Vaginal Davis, who I had to mention purely because of her name. Bibbe was also was in a band that had one recording in the 60s called The Whippets, with Jack Keruac's daughter of all people. Who wasn't raised by the beat writer and will forever live (even though she's dead) in a shadow of obscurity and her fathers' fame. You can download two Whippits tracks here. It seems like everyone wanted to rip off the Beatles. Adding to Becks fascinating family history is his father Al Hansen, Pioneer of the Fluxus art movement.

Guess what, DJ came through with a True Sounds of Liberty song about necrophelia.

Love and Merzbow

Doors Open at 8 am - Merzbow

None of us have posted in a while, so I figured I should to appease our 3 or 4 readers (who might very well not actually be reading anything, but just downloading our Killer Tunes, which is totally cool). Because we love you.

Anyway, in my last post I put up a song by Merzbow, the amazing Japanese avant garde noise composer. Here’s another one. There is no one else in the world who sounds like him. And if there is, they are ripping him off. More than just a messy noise novelty, his work has a coherance and a maturity of scope and depth which both his out-there and “normal” musician peers often lack. His stuff functions and delights on so many levels, as social commentary, musical discourse, and as just pure sonic textural experience, that it always sounds fresh. But don’t play him at a party, or everyone will leave (unless you have really crazy friends, or everyone is on peyote). Here’s an interview with him that I stumbled across awhile ago. It’s from this online music magazine called Perfect Sound Forever, which I dig because they have lots of interviews with strange, progressive, or just generally more interesting pop musicians (like Jad Fair or Shonen Knife for example). They also have each person they interview list their favorite bands and musicians. I haven’t actually read any of their reviews or articles though, so don’t blame me if they suck.

Future Post *50110100x0x0

With the advent of the critical tenets of hypersolipsism, the Free York cinema scene has become a bore, one unparalleled since the height of glam-fascism 30 years ago with it’s strict requirements of the socialist-whore-realist framework. At first glance this return to the slow trainwreck filmmaking ethos of unmediated organic rot which has been sweeping the 4 coasts and post-fire South for the last several months seemed fresh, or at least a fresh regurgitation. But by now the discerning flesh and post-human art communities have discovered it’s crude core to be nothing more than a mute inversion of the principles of the all to familiar Android Pain genre, (or the wider tech-tistic phenomena of robot existentialism of which it is a product). When the post-cameras were turned from the all-white transcendental landscapes, Bleeding Christian narratives, and Particle-Level Realism of the original movement (with such canonical examples as “Three Hours of Orphan Tears: A Meditation” and “Hitler Robot Staring Contest”) which allowed us to contemplate the spiritual architecture inherent in obsessive counting and nuclear flagellation, to the unblinking cybotic documentation of personal acts of cinematic blood letting, something was lost from the medium. How many times do I need to watch 8 hours of a hipster with blood-tattoos vomiting in a badly lit closet? I’ve seen it, a lot. Simply aiming the bottomless red eye of a telephono lens at a mirror while you cut yourself with a piece of metal doesn’t automatically guarantee the documentation of true feeling. When the experience is cybernetically inauthentic the programmed sentiment is as well. The New Human Cinema simply cannot handle the bloated weight of these decadent platitudes. I long for a return to the dreams of hyperstructuralism, like the early Binary “on/off” Movement or the Robot Scream-Siren cycle. Days when early cybot poets could stand in a sterile room with a full platter of film, describing the contents of each frame in exact detail as they spooled it onto the floor. Back when film meant something.

Here are some archival recordings finally reexamined by the Academic Machine due to their inclusion in “FaceDisplace”, the first of the midnight Hammerslam films. As if this over sexed genre hadn’t received enough visibility already, a retrospective is scheduled for next Smarch at MOMA.

Torture Garden - John Zorn & Naked City

I Lead You Towards Glorious Times - Merzbow

Republicans up to their old bag of tricks

Progress for America political ad

With House and senate elections approaching republicans are more desperate than ever. They were pretty desperate in the last presidential election which is why I thought they would lose, but they managed to scare people into voting for Bush. How much longer are Americans going to fall for this same tactic. As long as it's not Jeb becoming the most powerful man in the world in 2008. If that happens I'm officially applying for citizenship anywhere I can get it. Even if it's Lebenon.

It is interesting to note that in this obviouly partisan ad, they don't use the words republican or democrat. Refering to democrats as "they."

A picture of perfect untarnished beauty, as requested. Us looking HOT, soaking up the Awesome at the “lake of the devil,” as Ohmygodimmike called it in his first post. In honor of our hard bods, here’s a song we all dig by a band we all dig: Screamin’ Cyn Cyn and the Pons, one of the best bands in Madison. Word to the wise, they’re headlining the back stage at this year’s Willy Street Fair, (Sept. 17th), so bring lube.

Just Friends - Screamin’ Cyn Cyn and the Pons

The 24-year old or just...the One

Mazur, this one is for you. It's not the right picture of him, seeing I'm not as skilled as he is with computers, this was the best I could do. Man I feel bad about polluting our very tasteful blog with these horrific images. The next one to post must put in a picture of perfect untarnished beauty to make up for all of this.

Now it´s time for me to post a song for Pluto. First I thought about posting a song that had something to do with, um space. I decided that's not for me. Pluto has always been special to me as a planet. When asked what your favorite planet was in fisrt grade, the cool boys would be like " Oh your´s is Venus? Well mine's PLUTO". Nothing could beat that. Pluto was the ace of planets. Anyways, the song I'm posting is the song Pluto would sing if it only could open its' frozen mouth. The only human who could sing like that is the one and only Human Horn, Shooby Taylor.

I do stupid things, but I'm very ambitious

Jesus Christ, I guess I have to post. Even Ohmygodimmike posted (how are you doing by the way?) so it is obviously all on me now. Ok, there's an election here in my country in exactly 11 days. I have no idea what to vote for. Unlike you guys I have a few more options.
( Which is weird since you live in a country where you can choose between something like 3 5948 brands of cereal, but only two presidents.) One political party hacked into the socialdemocrats' intranet. It's called a SPY SCANDAL. Yes, we have Spy scandals here in Sweden, it is a very very exciting country. Of course the "Spy-party" are all blaming it on the "24-year old" as they call the guy. The kid did it. Goddamn kids and their crazy technology. They would never refer to the SPY as the "56-year old" if he were that old, now would they?
Either way, what was this kid thinking? Obvioulsy he thought he was an awesome hacker, I can almost picture it. Him breaking in to the governments database ( which didn´t require much skill, since he found the password somewhere. Not somewhere in a computer, but in the real world. Like on a table or something), him trying to find what their secret plans are or whatever, coffee by the computer, sweaty upper lip. He must have felt soooo smart. He thought he was Neo. He's not though. He's also pretty offensive to look at, but maybe that's because the news keep showing this horrible picture of him in a pink shirt and a bad tan. It's very entertaining. It makes me smile every day. It distracts me from the fact that I don't know what to vote for still. I tried to have a conversation about it with my dad today on the walk up from the subway. I said " So I don't know what to vote for", " Me neither" said my dad.
"I was thinking of voting for whoever wants to give more money to students", I told him. " They´re all liars", he told me. He's probably right. I'm not just saying that because he's my dad. Ok maybe a little.

So, I made some unintentionally political art last week. Inspired by the ugliness of a man who just so happens to be a conservative swedish politician. I think he's retired. I didn't really relflect much upon it, since I was just struck with ugliness. I felt like I wanted to taunt him in the most childish way possible, so I did. But now, looking back on it, I don't know if it was worth making a 9-color silkscreen print of a him with a hotdog on his head..

I´ll leave you with a song that contains all my hopes for the future. The only thing that could save our planet, perfectly phrased by Jim O'rourke

Android vs. Zombie, or the Cyborg Dilemma

I've been thinking a lot about the internet recently. I do a lot, but it's been a lot more recently, partly due to this awesome post-modernist (oh shit, did he just say post-modernst?!!) post by some guy I've never met but it a friend of a friend, supposedly. Yes the internet has done a lot for me, for example, I no longer have to think or have opinions. I click on few links, and I know what I am and what I think. I know more than anyone has ever known, I just check out Wikipedia and I can know that Jimi Hendrix played his last show ever exactly 36 years ago to the day, as only a small trivia point as opposed to having to have studied and memorized thousands of other musically significant dates. This piece of information is totally taken out of context and isolated for my own personal consumption. In fact, this is now my new memory, although faulty it is at times like my own. My brain is part computer, meaning that I am a cyborg, post-human (ohhh shit, did he just say post human!!??) if you will. In fact, you too, by reading this page are also a cyborg, although I would call you more of an android, the more advanced arguably less cool descendent of the 20th century's zombie.
Now don't get excited, there is a long way to go, although you should enjoy your newly awakened cybo-consciousnes. It is a difficult understanding to master. In order to help you out in attaining this balance between flesh and metal, I have prepared a few songs for you. Both happen to be cover songs done by less (the first track) or equally (the second) famous artists. It is mostly a coincidence that they are both covers, but I might as well say I planned it that way and that they show a certain artistic interpretation of older, semi-classics by younger more technologically reliant artists, so I will. Listen equally with microphones and ears.

Freiland - Hot Love (T-Rex Cover)

My Bloody Valentine - Mapref (Wire Cover)

Songs for Pluto

The year 2006 is more than half over and Pluto is no longer a planet. Pluto was my favorite planet, a little sphere of ice doing its own thing way the fuck out there, but the news last month didn’t make me sad. Rather it made me feel empowered, like I was perched on the edge of a cultural precipice with the weight of historical significance at my back, staring into an unwritten era. 2006 is the future, we are living in the future right now. People should just start wearing space helmets all the time. It’s the turn of the century, the first chapter in future history books, and we should fucking act like it! Granted we don’t have robot bartenders or laser boots yet, but we do have those stupid Japanese robot dogs and laser eye surgery, and cell phones that can play pornography. Scientists also grew an ear on the back of a mouse, and that wasn’t even recently.

Pluto’s a rebel who the old scientists and their rules COULDN’T handle. It did what it damn well pleased. And if an incorrect assumption that multiple generations held as an objective fact their entire lives isn’t true, then a whole bunch of other things are probably bullshit too. So let’s reevaluate everything, tear some shit up. We can write our own ticket now, start something hot like a hot pocket, like naming future children ‘Sodium’ or ‘Pen,’ voting libertarian, or letting a hamburger have YOU for lunch. Dig your hands deep into the cultural goop and smear it all over the place, get yourself real dirty. Pluto it still there, kickin’ ass, but the puny rules and values of humanity have changed. Thank you Pluto for setting us free. Here are a couple of songs dedicated both to Pluto and the future, which again is right now. Set phasers on kill.

Interstellar Overdrive (original version) - Pink Floyd

The version of Interstellar Overdrive above is the first recording Pink Floyd ever made. It’s off the soundtrack to Peter Whitehead 1967 experimental documentary Tonite Let’s All Make Love in London which was rereleased in the late 80s. It’s hard to live in a world without Syd Barrett, but let’s try to make him proud.

Livin’ Astro - Kool Keith

Kool Keith is one of the sweetest rappers of all time. A true eccentric genius, out there on the cutting edge of insanity yet far too talented and clever to drop off. This ever evolving legend is the perfect prophet to lead us over the cratered surface of the new millennium. This track is off 1999’s Black Elvis/Lost in Space. He’s got a new one out called Nogacto Rd. (which is his former alias Dr. Octagon spelled backwards), and the 4 or so tracks I’ve heard off it were all really good.

Wouldn't it be sweet

http://newsbusters.org/node/7305

Here's a link to a blog dedicated to debunking the liberal media bias in American news.

This post is about a film that will be featured in the Toronto film festival. As you can see it's about the hypothetical assasination of the pres. of the U.S. I won't give my hypothetical opinion for fear of our blog being monitored by the CIA. I will say that this movie is probably going to be awesome. Mazur I apologize for encroaching on your movie critiqueing. By the way your mom needs to make sure this movie is in the Madison film fest.

Anyway these bloggers honestly believe that CNN, NBC and MSNBC are liberal spies and that Fox news is a legitamite news source. That would mean they believe Bill O'reilly hosts an unbiased news show. They implied that Tucker Carlson is a FAKE conservative (liberal media spy) because he didn't support Bush in the 2004 election. Even though Bush was the first republican president in the history of the United States that wasn't endorsed by the log cabin republicans. We all know George Bush is anything but a real conservative when it comes to his spending. I'm seriously considering becoming a member of this blog. I think they will really appreciate my comments.

Best Movie of the Summer?

I saw 7 movies in the theater this summer, and they were all good. Except Snakes on a Plane, which was a whole new kind of bad; a self-aware, highly cultivated badness. Here’s what I saw; An Inconvenient Truth, A Prairie Home Companion, A Scanner Darkly, Strangers With Candy, Snakes on a Plane, The King, and Little Miss Sunshine. It’s funny, because we’re at a time where Hollywood is losing repeatedly at the box office during all the usual big seasons, and summers are now characterized by a scatter shot of moderate successes recycled from age old material (honestly, when was the last time we were so consistently fed remakes, look at the long unending string of redone 70’s cult hits, asian horror films, and luke-wilson-being-stupid-again movies?) instead of by a few run away smashes which used to characterized Hollywood summers. However, despite this grim overview of the general hollywood product, each of the films I saw this summer, while all made in America during the same period, expressed a distinct outlook both on current culture and cinema, and exercised different techniques in narrative, photographic and structural from. The films certainly all had a lot of similarities, and taken together I think they would provide some rather coherent and unified commentary on the contemporary American experience, but they all focused on different elements of it and all played with the general cinematic form, showing that it is still malleable after more than a century. Even Snakes on a Plane, which again was not good and only worth it if you are drunk, attacked it’s ridiculous material from a rather fresh and almost analytic angle, infusing at least some interest into the stale action genre.

I’m not saying that any of these films possessed anything particularly radical. In fact, most of them in form and content were quite derivative on the prevailing American indie film trends. But they had an energy, sincere curiosity, and general faith in the cinema which is certainly lacking from the eleventeenth superhero flick, or the remake of a film which already had 4 sequels in the 70s.

Despite the indie world’s good intentions though, and some mainstream similarities, this is certainly not the hod bed of reckless experimentation and truly new creation that was 1960s and 70s U.S. film culture. I think it’s very fitting that so many 1970s B movies are being remade as glossy studio teen-bait, because it’s Hollywood trying to create and cash in on a nonexistent nostalgia for the wild independent days of the 70s (which they, through their obstinance helped spawn, and then crush) by completely going against the economic and production ideals of that time. The only similarity between that film world and ours is that the studios once again seem to be far removed from the pulse of the country, and that we are again baing fed slushy mass distraction during a time of unpopular war. But whereas in the 70s this Hollywood uselessness opened the door for underground experimentation, small time American filmmakers now seem to be involved in a process of refinement, revisiting and fortifying low budget film trends established in the early 90s rather than forging new ground. As a result, we seem to have an indie culture that is becoming foundationally stronger and displaying a more mature product, but narrower in breadth and risk. One content to play it safe. But what do I know. Nothing.

Oh yeah, best movie of the summer? Little Miss Sunshine I think. Cleaver and satisfying. A fresh take on the now very established dysfunctional family flick. Really fantastic, but I think if I saw it again I would like it less.