Castaways/Prunes

The Castaways, "Liar, Liar":


Electric Prunes, "I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night":

I miss warehouse working

Y'all So AMAZING!

There is a new Devin Flynn piece of incredibleness here:

Who is Bozo Texino?

"It is a mystery."

photobucket archeology

It's been a long time since I rapped at ya because I'm negligent and terrible at this, so here's a quick visit to the back pages of my photobucket account:
Elliot Gould and the Killer Bees.

Billy, do you like movies about gladiators?

Box-cutter cut

Marxists

I don't know

Raccoon attack

Bubbles I got from Amy in a Valentine's postcard exchange

Shayna's chart (I don't remember why)

Spirit animal

Creepy Dallas Green likeness

Beware Koko B Ware

mr. ballbeam

Hiroshi Sugimoto

I've just started reading Garrett Stewart's Framed Time and in his introduction he mentions Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto's Theatres project.

From my limited research: Sugimoto studied politics and sociology before becoming an art student at the Art Center College of Art and Design in Los Angeles. He typically shoots with a large-format camera (8" x 10") and was the winner of the Hasselblad Honour in 2001. He's influenced by Duchamp and the Dadaists and Surrealists, and known as much for his great technical skill as he is for the philosophical and conceptual aspects of his work.

For Theatres, Sugimoto takes long exposure photographs in disused theatres and drive-ins, allowing the camera to capture an entire film. The light of the films in all cases ends up filling the rectangle of the screen so that no traces of individual frames remain on the screen, instead leaving an almost eerie luminescence. At the same time the 8" x 10" format allows for incredible detail to be capture in the surrounding environment - decorative flourishes in the theatres, old seatbacks, the speakerposts at the drive-ins, the arcs of stars passing overhead during the viewing... All in all these works are pretty breathtaking and spur meditation on film's history, our (changing) viewing and exhibition practices, the nature of film and its relationship to light, and I guess, especially in Stewart's case, the relation of film to films as the physical role of film itself in "films" is challenged and mutated and augmented by digital processes.

Here are a couple examples from this series (click on the pictures to take you to some more Sugimoto information):

I'm thinking about moving here:

(William Hogarth's Beer Street [detail] 1751)

Beer, happy Produce of our Isle

Can sinewy Strength impart,

And wearied with Fatigue and Toil

Can cheer each manly Heart.

Labour and Art upheld by Thee

Successfully advance,

We quaff Thy balmy Juice with Glee

And Water leave to France.

Genius of Health, thy grateful Taste

Rivals the Cup of Jove,

And warms each English generous Breast

With Liberty and Love!

But I'll probably end up here:

(William Hogarth's Gin Lane [detail] 1751)

These are new shoes that I got

I got these new shoes here:



They are, uh, Nike Blazer mid Tech Packs in green and that is a subtle "ice blue" colouring you see on the toe.

I wore them for a lot of walking yesterday and now have twin blisters on my "baby" toes.

zune in, zune on to a tune that's live

Late last week I received a Zune in the mail.

In case you don't know, and I didn't know until I received a comment on a post a couple weeks back, Zune is Microsoft's own mp3 player. June 13th was the release of the product in Canada, however, they've been around in the States for a while now. Anyway, following up on the comment, I'm trying out a Zune to see how it works with the promise that I'd report on how it goes and who I talk to about it - I guess this is pretty anonymous, reader-wise...

So: so far... Well basically immediately there was a snag. During the phone interview prior to them sending me the player I was asked about being able to run Windows despite having a Mac in order to use the Zune software, and I said I could, because, you know, Parallels. But the version of Parallels I have isn't updated for the 2.0 USB necessary to use the Zune... So I need to find some sort of workaround. Interestingly (typically?) Microsoft has decided to go with a necessary program which will not work for Macs - like the one I've been using for a couple of years now and has all my music on it. Apple had done the same thing with the original iPod, I believe, and it wasn't until they opened iTunes up to PC users that iPods really took off. In terms of brand loyalty, I use a Mac because I like the operating system more than Windows, find that add-ons are better and programs crash with much lower frequency. But Apple is also just a big company without much invested in me in particular, and that's fine, but it means that if someone else had a better/cheaper mp3 player that worked in conjunction with my music/my computer, I would think about switching teams. And while that might be an atypical attitude, I doubt I'm completely alone in feeling that way.

So, for now I will work on figuring out how to get this thing working and installed. I would really like to get this unit working. The display seems to be better than that of the iPod from what I've read online and the Zune also includes an FM radio and syncs wirelessly via computer, Xbox, or to other Zunes in order to share songs - all features unavailable on iPods.

Otherwise I am really enjoying the sound quality on the "Premium Headphones" (earbuds) that they sent along with the unit - the sound quality is way better than anything similar I've tried before.

Got an A from Moe Dee for sticking to themes

One of my goals this summer was to learn how to make animated gifs and...



and apparently this one doesn't want to work...

Hey guys...

...what's up?

Lady Pantz

I just stole this video from Street Boners and TV Carnage, the new(ish) site from Gavin, the guy who was funny from Vice Magazine (b4 they got serious 4realz):



I think I'd actually listen to this song if I could download it.

i got a haircut

Now I'm reading for summer/scaring myself.

think about it...

eaglez

Eagle Stalks, Grabs and Eats Goat - Watch more free videos
(!!!)


(this awkward video uses Mr. Flash's "Eagle Eyez")

I like this new format for big pictures

...so I'm just going to exploit my photobucket account a little bit!


(a black hole diagram)


(Mordecai)


(Jack Whitman)

Fuck you, pay me.

Okayokayokayokayokay,
One more paper for MA coursework, just some Mean Streets, Goodfellas, Casino, and The Departed, and then some Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, Royal Tenenbaums, and The Darjeeling Limited and some Rolling Stones and some auteur theory and some Randall Poster...

(Henry and Jimmy - Goodfellas)
and then soon:

Niggy Tardust!

Saul Williams' The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust! has been out for a while but I only just recently got it... It had some press around the time of its release as it was available for free download online, akin to Radiohead's latest album. I guess the main difference here is that I still find Saul Williams' album interesting to listen to (oops, sorry Radiohead fans). Trent Reznor, who'd had Williams open for him on multiple tours already, produced the album and it sounds really great, tighter than his last two. He's still working in that weird postrock/rap fusion sort of area - that's much more prominent than his spoken word stuff on this album - and with Reznor's production it's closer in tone to El-P's last album. Oh, and there is a U2 cover:

Danny Glover

Black Music (w/Blood)

These are some things I've been listening to lately (along with the new Re-Up Gang mixtape and some Lightspeed Champion things:

Black Kids Wizard of Ahhhs

Black Mountain In The Future
Black Lips Good Bad Not Evil

Blood on the Wall Liferz (I can't find a picture for some reason, so you get this instead)

no mustache love

So after an experimental phase, I've decided to incorporate the mustache back in to the beard structure that everyone is familiar with. In retrospect maybe it was too soon or people were too small-minded to really appreciate the mustache. I think it's kind of sad that in our culture people do not appreciate a mustache as a thing of beauty. It really is the pinnacle of facial hair - almost any man can grow a passable-if-patchy beard, but to be able to foster a thick, healthy mustache? That's an accomplishment that far fewer may lay claim to. A couple of people understand though. Walking down the street, after getting used to the double-takes of passers-by, I'd become accustomed to meeting the eyes of those few men "in the know" about what the mustache truly means. And I even benefited with material (mainly anyway) gain: while at a screening of Caged Women, during the pre-show trivia contest, I answered the question correctly at the exact same time as a gentleman behind me. However, the prize went to "That guy. The guy with the mustache." Me. The Drunken Master (the host of the evening), he knew. He knows. So while the mustache might not be a facial bachelor anymore, I rest comfortably, knowing that it's always there, getting in my soup and making it hard to drink fancy coffees with foam on the top. Before I go I'd like to list just a couple of men who also knew:
Frank Zappa
Mr. Belvedere
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (a.k.a. Mark Twain)
Kurt Vonnegut
Edgar Allan Poe
Friedrich Nietzsche
Rollie Fingers
Salvador Dali
Nikola Tesla
John Oates

mustache rides, 5¢

let's do a couple music videos!!!

Liars: "Plaster Casts of Everything"


Fiery Furnaces: "Duplexes of the Dead"


Liars: "Houseclouds"


Black Lips: "Veni, Vedi, Vici"


Black Kids: "I'm Not Going to Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance"


Violent Femmes: "Kiss Off (live)"


Ultramagnetic MCs: "Traveling At the Speed of Thought"

Winter shorts!

Don't do it! (unless you're a cute girl at the library or on the bus!)

matches

I went home for Christmas! But I think I'm going to spare you the details.

In other news I discovered that I can do the weird matches-lighting thing that Jason Schwartzman does in The Darjeeling Limited (I had some matches in my pocket and was walking home drunk after class). Here is a picture: