A girl’s first horrific demon-beast is a thing of beauty and splendor, marking the beginning of her transition into womanhood. Though their temperament generally results in an unnaturally short lifespan, any and all subsequent freakish monstrosities are but mere shadows of the first, who holds a place of honor in the heart of its post-adolescent darling.
I am surprised its taken you so long to come across this clip. Originally released here in Australia in 2006, its a song that has always stopped the world. I work as a professional baker, and when ever dig radio or JJJ played it, the world would stop. My dough making or hand moulding would slow to the rhythm of the music, the sound of the voice. The sounds of the bakery would mix with the sad but beautiful harmony, and I would feel the loss and the mess of the world and all the failed love in the world.
While a child of the 80s I was never much of a mix tape guy incidentally. My tastes being so broad that most of my muso and baking friends were basically scandalised that I could listen to everything from Bach to Gotye. the album is good to and the other clips, better put them on the site……
Comment by David Finnis — June 27, 2008
Your wish is my command, David. Coming so highly recommended from one of our own how could I not have procured Gotye’s album Like Drawing Blood? Having spent the last four years in call center Hell I found this track resonated with me particularly. Even with such a seemingly ridiculous topic, the song is an ear worm of the utmost tenacity.
This anti-pornography film from the 1960s left me with one very obvious, and troubling, conclusion: I am deeply envious of the wordsmithery of morally conservative propagandists. From his terse, esoteric pronunciation of bestiality, to his description of a “flood-tide of filth” — a description that calls to mind great, towering waves of briny genitalia — in terms of oratorical outrage, George Putnam is equal parts Shakespeare and Don King. Listening to his ode to a young, female sex toy, he paints a picture of sleazy, corrupted innocence that far exceeds any photograph. His insights are pointed, “[...]very few blind people join the nudist colonies,” he notes; his logic flawless. It was only when he described the irreversible effects of pornography that I realized why man-on-top missionary style sex did not excite me and why I insisted that my girlfriend participate in elaborate, 80s themed cos-play. Suddenly forcing her to dress like Jem or one of the My Little Ponies made perfect, if horrible, sense.
Yet, Putnam remains humble throughout. “In this ad, the titles of the magazines and their table of contents speak more eloquently than I about the tremendous problem here presented,” he says, before uttering the words “Sexual sadism. Strange flagellation cults” with a gravitas that would drive Morgan Freeman mad with jealousy. Oh George, you sell yourself short. Who else could speak of homosexuals as an evil “species” without coming off as a completely ignorant, hateful bigot? Who else could retain their composure while narrating over scores of photographs of female breasts covered by bars so large that one would think these women were in possession of the most freakishly huge areolas to be found on this planet, Earth? Not I!
Towards the end of the clip he quotes Pitirim A. Sorokin — the famed sociologist and author of, among other works, the hysterical and reactionary The American Sex Revolution — as saying that the newsstands of the time
[...] depict the world as a sort of human zoo, inhabited by raped, mutilated, and murdered females and by he-males, outmatching in bestiality, cavemen and out-lusting the lustiest of animals. Male and female alike are hardened in cynical contempt for human life and values.
Part of me wishes these two gentleman had been able to see some of the more interesting corners of the internet, if only to have been able to see their brains leak out their ears. In fact, Putnam is still alive and has, at the very least, changed his opinion on homosexuals. Someone should sit him down in front of 4chan before it’s too late.
This particular anthropomorphized dessert treat strikes me as decidedly untrustworthy. There is something about his shifty look, his leering lean, and his perverse, lecherous moustache that is off-putting. Needless to say, I would not trust the cone around my children, unless I was hoping to be rid of them, in which case he seems like an ideal candidate for a babysitter.
As a friend aptly pointed out, this is the primordial musical ooze from which all mix-tape life is born. The doleful susurrations of the long-limbed, globe-trotter intermingling with a plodding beat, so effectively evoke a response that to assume the song was crafted in a lab by starchy scientists as some kind of musical weapon of mass destruction would not be unreasonable.
But I will never appreciate this song through the mix-tape tinted glasses of my associate. I come from a time beyond mix-tapes, where the act of handing off a plastic cassette packed with intimate confessions previously unvocalized is an antiquated act. No, I will never experience the mix-tape, and for this I feel robbed. Robbed of disclosing unspeakable intent. Robbed of the singular humiliation of exposure and unrequited aural affection, and the subsequent sobbing phone calls with a lesbian confidante.
You could argue that to burn a CD is just as effective, but really it’s not the same. The only real options are the trading of songs over vast distances or passing a thumb-drive — a self-effacing affront on one’s manhood you’d do well to avoid. Thankfully, the music is still wondrous.
Dran is a street artist and illustrator with a deliciously perverse sense of humor that brings to mind Bill Plympton at times. Note: if you visit the site be aware that there is music accompanying it and that it can be a bit loud.
In sheer defiance of the World Wide Web Consortium's will, Ectomo was designed using a non-web-standard font. Luckily, it is included in the excellent font pack released by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, which can be freely downloaded in Mac and PC formats here. Ectomo should still look fine without it, though.
