Paul Westerberg’s latest album – available only on Amazon for 49 cents – contained the following liner notes:
WARNING: DO NOT LISTEN WHILE OPERATING A MOTOR VEHICLE
THIS PRODUCT IS NOT FAULTY – ALL SOUNDS ARE INTENTIONAL AND VALID AS A WORK OF ART
It’s like Springsteen’s Nebraska, it’s like cruising an old radio dial on a starry country road, it’s like feeling humidity against a sweating beer can, it’s like anything you’d dream Paul Westerberg would ever do … and it’s no longer available to purchase (a digital mp3 for 49 cents!!!!) so here it is, to accompany you with windows down, wherever you may be, rounding out the last summer of the first decade of the 21st century.
JJ Abrams has a resume that reads like a laundry list of all things we hold essential and dear to us in the worlds of science-fiction, mytery thrillers, adventure, monster-movies, etc, etc.
In the current spotlight, he has three projects all deeply entangled in time-travel (Fringe, Star Trek XI, and Lost), but what I am asking of you is – why is it so?
We live in an age where science-fiction of the past has become our own modern science-reality. The hay-days of 60’s Star Trek, Outer Limits, Twilight Zone, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, etc. have prepared us for the world we live in now, with milk from cloned cows, preparation and projected dates for colonization on both the Moon, and Mars, and worldwide communication and travel in a supremely advanced, and effortless state… In our world, our current dimesion, if you will, of technological civilizations that have been advancing in a rapidly sharpening point, much like the increasingly narrow folds of the Fibonacci sequence, how far from “the truth” are shows like Fringe, or Lost? Could it be less than another half-century?
Why do you think JJ Abrams is so attracted to time-travel as a central plot device? (Is he from the future?)
Why are we so enthralled with watching his productions that deal with time travel? (Subliminal mind control?)
Why did JJ Abrams write Gone Fishin’ and how deeply does the underlying narrative take precedence in today’s “Post-Racial America”?
So I’ve been wanting to do a monthly BORIS/Boris column for a while and seeing as there’s no shortage of topics pertaining to these modern messiahs, I think it’s high time to pull the trigger.
For our inaugural installment, I present to you a series of videos created, presumably, by director(s?) fangsanalsatan – the same name given to the band’s personal label (I know) – and Ryuta Murayama:
I can’t help being reminded of certain ubiquitous, avant-garde films (*cough* Fly *cough*), yet fangs /and(?) Murayama have quite a different aesthetic framework to play around with when collaborating with Boris. Whereas Yoko Ono had the stringent melodies and structures of her late husband’s songwriting to deconstruct or rebel against, Murayama and co (I think I’ll stick with this moniker even though it’s really fun to type fangsanalsatan) have the burden of creating visual accompaniments to some of the 21st century’s most pummeling and puzzling interpretations of RocknRoll – and sound in general.
Rather than merely accompany Boris’ music with redundant visual cacophony, Murayama instead presents guitarist Wata standing silently, spread across multiple frames like tracks on an album (I’m partial to number five, although small feet usually scare me). These are the pieces of a rock god. If you look between the cracks, you can almost see the ichor. I can’t imagine a better foil to the band’s usual grating roar than cold, sepia-toned femininity made bearable only by its fractured presentation.
Then again, these could just be a screen test to see how the band would look cast in this color palette, but I’m high and Wata is gorgeous. No (April) foolin.
Y’all might’ve already seen this, but it sure is darn funny! Wish I woke up today and could’ve turned it on…
Oh, I guess in order to turn this into a slightly more worthwhile post, what did everyone think of the movie? I couldn’t get over how annoying the stylized action and even worse the ridiculous 300-esque horror-violence was (Zack Snyder really burns my grits!), but I did think that for the most part the movie was a lot better than I had expected. The first third (especially the funeral scene) was just about as perfect as a true-to-the-source adaptation could have been. Nevertheless, the part where Dan and Laurie are fighting punks while Jon is being interviewed was just so off for me. I mean, I just never figured they were the sort of characters who would really get their kicks out of like needlesly brutalizing people, plus I’m pretty sure, even if one has extensive training as a fake super hero, it’s not that easy to like twist heads off people and kick arms into like 1080 degree pretzles. In slow motion.
“I wish I were the Moon” is a little Flash game by a fellow named Daniel Benmergui that is about telling a story by changing the placement of objects. Your cursor is a sort of camera that you can use to cut out something in the picture, paste it somewhere else–and then see what happens! There are I think eight endings (one of them very secret) that you can get, most of them very sad and cute. Sad in a cute way. Or cute in a sad way? Anyway, I like that this game is about love and the moon. Maybe it will make you think of the moon in a whole new way! Give it a quick whirl.
“The Majesty of Colors” is I guess based on a dream this guy had about being a Lovecraft-ian tentacle. Anyway, that’s what you are. Through your actions as the tentacle, you can push the dream in different directions. It’s not as fun to experiment with as the previous game, but it’s definitely interesting to see what ending you get first, ’cause that’s when the game is most like a dream, when you are still “alien” to yourself.
“Don’t Look Back” is a short but (bitter)sweet platformer by Terry Cavanagh based on the story of some dude named Orpheus who wanted to like save his girlfriend from hell but he couldn’t like look back at her or else she would turn into a corpse and eat him or something. This one is pretty tough, but hopefully its simple color scheme and swooning musical score will win you over. It doesn’t experiment with “interactive” storytelling like the previous two games, but it does have a nice “twist” and a similar aesthetic. On this guy’s website is another game called “Pathways” that is basically a choose-your-own-adventure that makes you very aware of your agency (or lack of…?); kinda hard to call it a game, but it has an interesting effect if you go through it to the end.
I’ve had this playlist sitting around for awhile in my music library, and I finally wittled it down to something more organized and focused. Most of these are new songs I’ve really been enjoying for the past six months and that I’ve been meaning to share in some capacity… for the most part, these all fit under a large umbrella of psychedelia, be it wobbly guitar noodling or warm synthesizer buzzes. I’d also like to mention the selection of songs has less to do with the dark, burn-out side of psychedelia and more to do with the abstract, but celebratory aspects of it like heartbreak, dancing or the light of the sun.
Either way, you’ll find plenty of warm textures, hypnotic melodies and lively rhythms to feed your soul in preparation for the coming of spring…
TRACK LISTING: Combination of the Two / Yuya Uchida & The Flowers Satt Att Se / Dungen Louisiana Blues / Flower Travellin’ Band Sunglasses After Dark / The Cramps Summer Fun / Tammar Pictures (Leave Your Body Behind) / The 13th Floor Elevators 900 Million People Daily Makin’ Love / The Seeds So Paranoid / The Warlocks Eye-Shaking King / Amon Duul II
Immer Lustig / Guru Guru Beyond the Fields We Know / Dead Meadow Fingerbib (Demo Version) / Aphex Twin 96 Tears (Unreleased Version) / Question Mark & The Mysterians I Have Known Love / Silver Apples Stars / The Brian Jonestown Massacre Looking At You / MC5 Lesson No. 1 / Glenn Branca
There is no greater pleasure in life than watching painting a tv! Have you ever seen Let’s Paint TV? There is painting, and live mixing, of drinks, and music and creative thinking. It’s all about creativity!
It began as a show on the world, with public access, on California in at first then, in 2001 started publishing clips to You Tube .
Have you ever tried acid?
John Kilduff was on mushrooms was in a leafy yard and had a bad trip.John kilduff may seem insane, or screwed in the head, but he is in fact a multi-tasking brilliant. his energy is forth from his efforst, he knows life is hard, and its a struggle, angelic creative action. Bueaitiful. Have you eveJUST GO WITH ITr seen a pting ing? We’re TAKING CALLS live now! Your board is up! He is in fact a smar Elvis
His guests seem to be in the joke, too. Or maybe he’s on the same trip. I guess the beautiy of the show is the output of everyhting including voices, thoughts, geuets, drinks mixing, painting, excercize, beaethinbg, saving, helping, talking, conversational, working out, caclulating and playing cvhess. TIs the beautiy fo the show that is the flow of forward, its. never stopping, its always moving forwrad, as a pen falls down a page
It’s brilliance radiates through the waves.
Look to the tubes for inspiration. The truth of the public. Lies with you. Cascading sheets of rayon energy. luminating your circuits
