A Bridgestone advertisement, chronicling a dog’s attempt to end his own life after witnessing his bitch’s infidelity, leads to an Ectomite brainstorming session, not regarding the sale of rubber radials, but intead selling the act itself:
I can see it now, The scene opens on a suburban housewife in a black and white kitchen, frantically chopping away at ( and missing) a tomato. The baritone male voice over begins over the scene. “Every day tasks are such a bother. Why not just kill yourself?” The woman turns to the camera, smiles, and then turns the knife quickly on herself.
I believe at some point in the past you and several other ectomites requested the Pope, a Gorilla and an explosion, I have done my best to make this so. So without further ado, if you take a look at the photobucket link above, I’m hoping you’ll be at least moderately amused.
Ironically, I keep hearing a newscast along the lines of “And in Vatican City today, Archbishop Bobo and the Pope celebrate the first successful test of the “Holy Hand Grenade” series of tactical nuclear weapons….”
Now that’s just over-the-top awesome. A lion in a sidecar in a wall-of-death act? That’d be like the Pope high-fiving a gorilla as explosions go off in the background.
One of my favorite things about Ectomo is the ability of its constituency (that’s you, you grabby little perverts) to self-regulate. Every time I’m tempted to rebuff one of you with a biting retort, I am one-upped:
Oh come on people, this is way longer and more repetitive than it had to be. Just because its popular on youtube at the moment does not make it worth mentioning.
Are you all just that nostalgic for a Disney movie? If so, maybe it would pay to remember that they can be rented and watched at will.
And why has noone brought up the Avalanches? Frontier Psychiatrist has a terrific video, and last I checked they were the obvious kings of [good] sampling.
Even Aphex Twin’s (under some other name I think) R2D2 is alot more fun than this.
SHAME
Comment by The angriest duncan in the world — July 11, 2008 @ 2:12 pm
I agree with the angry guy. Stop enjoying the video! It’s already mainstream (youtube) and it’s made from mainstream parts, therefore not cool!
And almost 3 minutes? Come on, nobody can sit still for that long!
Now excuse me while I drink my coffee and exercise my perfect musical taste.
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.
All I know is that its highly unlikely that a normal (i.e., not related to Lady Deathstrike) human being could, over time, scratch a hole into their brain cavity using their fingernails (which, again, even over time, would be worn down to nubs in the face of bone) and cause inexplicably green brain matter to leak out. Especially since in order to leak out, it would have to be either melting from high fever, or under pressure due to internal swelling, and either way she’d likely be unconscious, if not dead. Again, the wound probably just got badly infected (with staph or similar) and pustulent, which is a perfectly good reason to send someone to the hospital, especially if they have HIV. Its even possible that between the infection, the external damage, and the HIV, the virus managed to make it to her brain, or trigger a heavy fever, causing the apparent brain damage.
M was probably just misunderstanding or misremembering the incident, which is understandable given the stress she was probably under at the time. Unless I see a medical chart with notes saying “perforation of the skull”, or perhaps a particularly impressive episode of Mythbusters, I’m not buying it.
Comment by Joe Shadows — June 25, 2008 @ 8:17 pm
While Mr. Shadows and I may have our differences — for example: he thinks me a gullible fool and I am fairly certain that he is a Communist — we can both agree that the only way to settle this is to get the Mythbusters on this conundrum post-haste. Hopefully they can construct an itch scratching machine, comprised of a hand made from ballistics jelly and bone connecting to a large motor, designed for the specific purpose of creating a perforation in a severed pig’s head.
I think some credits are in order to James Turner, Creator of Beaver and Steve where that image is from.
Comment by Ben — June 24, 2008 @ 3:29 am
I had heard of Beaver and Steve but never read it, until clicking Ben’s link; and I’m glad I did as it is pure, insane brilliance. Make sure to click the image to see the full comic. Oh Weevil Kneevil, you are sorely missed.
See also Phineas’ most recent print, the Octophant. This is the third iteration of this particular idea, and he keeps tweaking and improving it each time.
Krazmo attempts to dispel any attempt to discern an over-arching narrative for Don’t Cry sweet potatoes:
I don’t think the theme of the label really has much to do with the type of produce inside. As evidence, I cite the following gallery full of such lovely, obsolete art.
Comment by Krazmo — May 1, 2008 @ 12:55 pm
However, based on the image above it would seem that not all produce imagery is without cohesive thematic intentions. Less can be said for the likes of, say, Gay Johnny Texas Vegetables.
Yesterday we posted a story about one Aliza Shvarts, a story that simply tore through the ether of the blogosphere like a hot coat hanger through a fetus something that tears through something else very quickly. Ectomite Mordred pointed out this Associated Press article detailing that Yale University is claiming the whole thing to be an elaborate piece of performance art:
“The entire project is an art piece, a creative fiction designed to draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman’s body,” said Yale spokeswoman Helaine Klasky.
Shvarts’ “performance art” included visual representations, a news release and other narrative materials, Klasky said. When confronted by three senior Yale officials, including two deans, Shvarts acknowledged that she did not seek any abortions.
The Yale Daily News however, in what is quickly becoming a he-said-she-said-eh-who-cares saga has published an article in which Miss Shvarts stood by the veracity of her exhibition:
[…]Shvarts reiterated Thursday that she repeatedly use a needleless syringe to insert semen into herself. At the end of her menstrual cycle, she took abortifacient herbs to induce bleeding, she said. She said she does not know whether or not she was ever pregnant.
“No one can say with 100-percent certainty that anything in the piece did or did not happen,” Shvarts said, “because the nature of the piece is that it did not consist of certainties.”
This afternoon, Shvarts showed the News footage from tapes she plans to play at the exhibit. The tapes depict Shvarts — sometimes naked, sometimes clothed — alone in a shower stall bleeding into a cup.
So, in summation: The whole thing is a hoax. Ah, but can you prove it’s a hoax?
Yesterday I called into question the effectiveness of illustrator Rowena Morrill in capturing the likeness of Wilbur Whateley for the cover of the paperback edition of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Dunwich Horror. However, ectomite Nick Herold was having none of my shenanigans and, strapping on his neck-beard, brought the pain, pointing out that the fault did not lay with Morrill or her editor but with Lovecraft and my own, preconceived notions:
That’s actually pretty accurate to Lovecraft’s description of Wilbur Whateley. If I may quote:
“Above the waist it was semi-anthropomorphic; though its chest, where the dog’s rending paws still rested watchfully, had the leathery, reticulated hide of a crocodile or alligator. The back was piebald with yellow and black, and dimly suggested the squamous covering of certain snakes. Below the waist, though, it was the worst; for here all human resemblance left off and sheer phantasy began. The skin was thickly covered with coarse black fur, and from the abdomen a score of long greenish-grey tentacles with red sucking mouths protruded limply.
Their arrangement was odd, and seemed to follow the symmetries of some cosmic geometry unknown to earth or the solar system. On each of the hips, deep set in a kind of pinkish, ciliated orbit, was what seemed to be a rudimentary eye; whilst in lieu of a tail there depended a kind of trunk or feeler with purple annular markings, and with many evidences of being an undeveloped mouth or throat. The limbs, save for their black fur, roughly resembled the hind legs of prehistoric earth’s giant saurians, and terminated in ridgy-veined pads that were neither hooves nor claws. When the thing breathed, its tail and tentacles rhythmically changed colour, as if from some circulatory cause normal to the non-human greenish tinge, whilst in the tail it was manifest as a yellowish appearance which alternated with a sickly grayish-white in the spaces between the purple rings. Of genuine blood there was none; only the foetid greenish-yellow ichor which trickled along the painted floor beyond the radius of the stickiness, and left a curious discoloration behind it. “
You smell that? That’s the burning smell of emasculating pwnage!
If you want clothes to stylishly ride out the Apocalypse in, you can get no more glorious than the works of ERNTE.
Skingraft is nice, but ERNTE blows me away with consumerist lust.
Comment by Saturnine — January 17, 2008 @ 8:01 am
An expedition to the frozen north introduced me to ERNTE by way of a particularly friendly frostbitten denizen several months ago. Upon my return and subsequent brain thawing I had forgotten the name of the designer and said fiend had long since gone AWOL. Intrepid obiternaut Saturnine, I am forever in your debt.
V. Blame piped up with this comment regarding one of Ectomo’s favorite bands…
I’m awful slow on this comment, but nobody’s mentioned yet that They Might Be Giants will be providing the songs for this wondrous picture show. And they will. The song “Careful What You Pack” from their most recent album is in fact a discarded Coraline song.
Comment by V. Blame — January 4, 2008 @ 2:00 pm
Keep em’ coming Ectomites, our far reaching tentacles only extend so far, thus we rely on you for the precious tidbits we miss.
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.
