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.
I love the time like this. When walking through the city you pierce some unseen veil that separates you from the bustling crowds and become invisible. Steps fall in a rhythm counted out by the metronome heart of the city and you suddenly discover the ability to slink through the heaving morass of bodies with cat-like grace. During these quiet moments, when your heart beats in time with the rhythm of the city and suddenly you can move at double speed, even the most introverted among us can’t help but enjoy the cascading, frantic beat of a busy street.
You’ll excuse me for a moment if this post seems a bit gushy. In my last year of attendance at the School of Visual Arts I was lucky enough to have a class taught by Gary Panter — perhaps best known for designing the sets for PeeWee’s Playhouse — and it remains one of the stand-out classes of my entire tenure in art school. The course was a typical, vague art school course, the purpose of which was ostensibly to help one compile a portfolio but which was really just three hours of conversation and drawing and Gary was probably the perfect person to teach such a class.
Each class would start out with 45 minutes or so of Gary just meandering his way through a lecture of sorts about his career and art in general and the rest of the time he would sit up front and let us do our thing. You could bring your work up to discuss with him or sometimes he would just roam around the room, stopping to talk to the students.
This all sounds pretty standard, on the face of it, but Gary had one, particular trait that made the class work as well as it did: unequivocal enthusiasm. Gary just loved art. He loved making it and he loved to see other people make it and it always seemed to me, that as long as someone was being an artist, Gary Panter would be a happy man, which in many ways was what kids who were going to be thrust into a cutthroat art world needed; someone to remind them that they should always enjoy themselves.
Vice has a five part interview with Panter meandering in his hippie tinged drawl about his career on VBS.TV. Part one is above; hit the jump for part two and a link to the last three.
Presented here, another casualty of the practice of circuit bending. Considered by many to be a lovable, if perhaps slightly hyperactive lightning mouse, this creature has been gutted and run through, his visage now resembling the offspring of an unholy tryst between Pinhead and a member of the Borg. After finally being sodomized with an amplifier cord, the poor creature is finally ready to perform; his modified and truncated cries becoming music for his sadistic torturer. Surely, even this rat, annoying as he can be, deserves a better end than this.
YouTube has been alive with the murmurings of Muppets recently, and I’m not just speaking of the fan-made variety. Just about two weeks ago this clip of Beaker performing Beethoven’s “Ode To Joy” hit, and I was thrilled to see the inclusion of everyone’s favorite curmudgeonly critics, Statler and Waldorf. Now they have appeared in four, very short clips all featuring internet-centric one liners, the best of them easily being “Meh”, in which the dysfunctional duo find a place they can call home. To be honest, I’m not sure if these are old or not, but whatever the case I hope there is more.
Now here is an excellent idea for those of us with the inability to adorn our upper lip with a hirsute accessory: a silver, prosthetic moustache. Think of it as a moustache monocle in the style of Tycho Brahe’s famed faux proboscis. Better still, I imagine combining this with an actual monocle, thereby increasing tenfold my ability to look shocked as both my eyepiece and moustache fall from my face when I gasp.
Edit:There appears to be an issue with youtube playlists playing correctly when embedded. The playlist can be viewed here.
Drygioni: While technically this should be a Noise du Jour this video by Paul Rayment is just strange enough, and the song behind it is just incomprehensible enough, that it definitely qualifies as cartoons in the world of Ectomo.
Alien vs. Alien: If professional wrestling featured hulking behemoths going up against 98 pound weaklings with an ace up their respective sleeves I might stop mocking it at every opportunity. Actually, that’s probably not true.
Ah Pook: It took nine years for William S. Burroughs and Malcom McNeill to have their short story, Ah Pook is Here, published. Now you can watch a close approximation in six minutes. Ain’t the future grande?
Pica Tower: Three short films by Marc Craste and Studio AKA that act as a sort of prequel to JoJo In The Stars.
Olympics: Jamie Hewlett’s animated BBC spot for the upcoming Olympics.
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.
