Archive for October, 2004
…is a STINK BLASTER! (warning: sound)
Normally I wouldn’t post obits on here, since I figure in the internet age, most people find out about this stuff at the same time as, or before, I do! But here’s one that might be obscure enough to slip under the radar (at least in the US). BBC disc-jockey John Peel died today at age 65. John had been with the BBC since it’s inception in 1967, and was still at the top of his game today. Always keen to expose new talent, his “Peel Sessions” series of live-in-studio recordings gave many unknown bands the opportunity to document their work in a way they would otherwise not have been able to, and a quick glance at some tracklistings from his most recent shows confirms that he had no plans of abandoning his search for new talent anytime soon. Like Creation’s Alan McGee, John Peel was in it for the music, from start to finish, and he reminds us all that getting older does not have to mean getting old.
UPDATE: Momus has spent a little bit longer on his Peel tribute than I did, and it’s worth a read…
Programming the radio stations in Grand Theft Auto! =) (And while I’m on the topic, Shaun Ryder is in the game, playing a character named Maccer, and he’s a member of The Episilon Program (warning: Sound!), played by Scientology =)
Kara’s been reading a script about pot growers that some friends of hers from school wrote and I’ve been taking a bit of it in (the script, that is =) over her shoulder on the El. There was a bit in there where one of the characters is going on about ecstasy, and how “it’s a Texas” thing or something like that. Anyway it reminded me of this other thing that David Berman, from The Silver Jews wrote about “The Summer Before The Night Ecstasy Became Illegal In The State Of Texas,” which would be on my recommended reading list, if I had one. (Also recommended is Berman’s “Self-portrait at 28″)
There’s something funny about the way things happen, I think. How there will be a cluster of points on the timeline that hang together in such a particular way that you’re like, “Wow. A cluster!” And the same can be said for people. Most of the time, there are just a bunch of individuals running around, and sometimes they’ll date, or go to school together or share an apartment or whatever. But once in a while, there’s a group that forms, and maybe you don’t even notice until after the fact, but the point is, one day you look around and you think, “Hey! It’s a cluster! (Or a crew, or gang, or whatever it is you call a cluster of people).
Another thing is, once a cluster of events or people like this gets started, it tends to accumulate more people and events to it, until eventually whatever coincidence of time and place and energy that led to the creation of the cluster winds itself down and finds another thing to do. Now I know that this is a really weird way to start off talking about a movie, but it’s a weird movie, so you’ll have to bear with me for a bit.
When I was in college, there was definetly some kind of clustering going on. I’m now going to bore you with the details. Some of us were “all into” Buddhism. Everyone was experimenting with various aspects of that, as well as certain other things that I’m not going to mention. We were visited frequently by avatars of as many schools of thought as can be imagined, and without naming anyone by name, I’ll say we knew hedonists, ascetics, nihilists, intellectuals, hipsters, weirdos, and etc. Radiohead put out “Kid A” and so that got played a bit. We watched “Mr. Show” and “The Big Lebowski” and even “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” We talked, at length, about philosophical matters. Mind vs. Body and stuff like that. This was the subject matter of the cluster.
Now I’m not at all trying to say that any bold new ideas were forged here, or that clusters like this don’t happen all over the place, all the time. That’s not the point. But what’s important is, when these things were happening, you could point at something like “Kid A” and say, “That’s part of the cluster!” (or words to that effect) and sure enough, it would be.
I guess there are terms for the kind of thing I’m talking about here. Maybe “zeitgeist” gets at it, maybe “collective unconscious” would work. I don’t know really, and if you check the name of my site, you’ll find that I’m not all that concerned with putting a label on it. But anyway, if I might finally get to the point of all this rambling, it’s this:
If I ♥ Huckabees had been released in 1999, I know a bunch of people who would have pointed at it and said, “That’s part of the cluster!!” And what’s more, this type of thinking is exactly what Huckabees is about. It’s literally about nihilism and coincidence and the collective unconscious and all that. So, I guess what I’m trying to say here is, “Isn’t that strange?” or perhaps, “Isn’t that awesome?” =) Anyway, I just think that everyone should see it. Maybe I read way too much into it, but that is how I am. Philosophy aside, it’s a lot of fun, and for that I am in it’s debt.
Ever heard that song where the guy is all, “You hear this? Drums… Swingin’ drums? And now I wanna hear some bass! Mmmmmman, that’s it!” and so on, as all the instruments come in? No!? Ok, well go ahead and download it (4 MB MP3) then. And after you’ve heard that, maybe you’ll be as amused as I was while checking out this video of a dorky guy demonstrating the “drum sounds” on a synthesizer keyboard. (Actually, even if you don’t download the MP3 first, I think you’ll still be pretty damn amused… =)
(Link via dashandthedot)
Every year, Neiman Marcus publishes a Christmas catalog with extravagant gifts and baubles. These are intended either as jokes, or to (and I’m conjecturing here) remind the ultra-rich that, “Yes, there are people with even more money than you.” Seriously, we’re talking about fucking Bentley-branded hovercrafts and Chocolate mansions staffed by 300 virginal sex-slaves here. So anyway, this year one of their “flights” of fancy is the lifetime American Airlines AAirpass, which will grant the bearer free, first-class passage on any American flight, forever. Neiman Marcus shoppers can slip this gift into their sweetie’s stocking for the low, low price of only $3,000,000.00 (or two, for $5,000,000.00!!). Cute, very cute. But here’s my question, since we (as taxpayers) are already contributing over $1,000,000,000.00 to United Airlines’ Christmas Club account, can we arrange some kind of similar perks on their flights? And finally, a caveat to anyone who might actually purchase the AAirpass: If $1.1 billion isn’t enough to keep United afloat (or a-flying… whatever), what makes you think that your $3 million investment will still be worth a crap in another 5 years?
