For three days in August, Japanese spirits of the dearly departed return to Earth to visit their ancestors during the Obon festival. There are dances and obeisances paid to lost loved ones, graves are visited and paper-lanterns are lit, the dead are made live again through the last bits of their essence in the waking world: our memories.
But what of those with no one left to remember? The beggars. The urchins. The isolated that left the world alone, and drift through the afterlife unfettered by the memory of their corporeal counterparts. Do they drift the streets as they did in life, searching for a glint of recognition in the eyes of passers-by? Do they long for an earthly anchor during this trifid necrolatry? I like to imagine the lost spirits of Japan, flowing through the bustling streets for three nights, finding solace in the remembrance of each other, and perhaps finally gaining a measure of peace.
That poor, bastard, sub-mariner didn’t know what he was doing when he leapt into the briny deep, armed with nothing but a rippling torso and a measly harpoon. Oh he’d seen his fair share of combat with giant octopi, and as the crab fisherman that roam Seattle are all too fond of informing me, “Those tentacley fuckers ain’t nothin’ but big ol’ bitches.”
But it’s not the giant tentacles you have to worry about, it’s the ageless hate bound to bubble up from the blackest depths of the ocean under the tentacles that should be your chief concern. At least he died with the honor of being the first slain as great Cthulhu rose to feast on the world.
Twelve years ago author and documentary filmmaker Jon Ronson received a call from a man named Tony. Tony was interested in obtaining a copy of a documentary Ronson did about the Holocaust for his employer, whose name he did not wish to reveal. After some cajoling Ronson finally extracted the gentleman’s name. Turns out it was Stanley Kubrick.
That was the last Ronson heard until a few years after the legendary director’s death when Tony called and asked if he would like to come poke around Kubrick’s mansion. What Ronson found there was a cinemaphile’s wet dream: thousands of boxes containing thousands of meticulously organized photos, memos, and letters, years of Kubrick’s career minutely categorized and filed. Ronson would spend five years sifting through them before they were carted off to their new home at the University of the Arts London.
Before you ask, yes, this is the Britney Spears song by the same name. But not exactly. This particular version of Toxic was done in an almost klezmer style by an electronic artist called Metronomy who clearly has excellent taste in music.
I’ve always had a not-so-secret shameful love for the original track by Spears. But Metronomy’s adaptation has turned my shame to unabashed, frantic glee; as evidenced by the mountain man, jug-band dancing that transpired in my apartment shortly after listening to this track for the first time, and its subsequent repetitions throughout the night.
Any claims I might make to possessing a natural predisposition to surfing are belied by my pale complexion and, at times, questionable equilibrium. This is probably for the best, as I have celebrated Shark Week long enough to know that those sea-bound carnivores despise the hobby; the wave enthusiasts perturbing them to the point that they oftentimes resort to physical intervention.
There are no sharks in the oceans of photographers Steve Gorrow and Dustin Humphrey. No, in their series for Dopamine — an art installation sponsored by Intrepid51 — the world beneath a surfer’s board is occupied by nude women astride motorcycles, submerged shanty-towns, and strange, Dr. Seuss inspired automobiles; and in contrast to our own, it appears to be a world blissfully unaware of the wave riders skimming the surface above their heads.
Be careful where you click if exposed, female breasts are frowned upon in your workplace.
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.
