Chris Marker‘s Bestiaire, three short video haiku:
Bestiaire 1. Chat écoutant la musique
Bestiaire 2. An owl is An owl is an owl
Bestiaire 3. Zoo Piece
Simple meditations that reveal a more intimate side to the enigmatic director, best known for La jetée (1962) (which later inspired Terry Gilliam’s Twelve Monkeys) and Sans Soleil (1983). Marker has said of his work:
‘The process of making films in communion with oneself, the way a painter works or a writer, need not now be solely experimental. Contrary to what people say, using the first-person in films tends to be a sign of humility: All I have to offer is myself.’
Now in his nineties, Marker the “mercurial international man of semiotic mystery” continues to work, details of which can be found here.
More animal haiku, plus bonus documentary, after the jump…
This really has to happen - it would be a match made in Disco Heaven! From a recent Nile Rodgers interview on the Culture Map Houston website:
Since receiving his cancer diagnosis in fall 2010, Rodgers has committed himself to an impressive array of new projects — ranging from production work for Adam Lambert’s sophomore effort Trespassing to finishing up his bestselling memoirs Le Freak.
Upon his return to New York, he said he would be meeting with the acclaimed French electronic music duo Daft Punk to discuss their long-awaited fourth album, rumored by fans to be drawing upon the group’s R&B influences.
The mind boggles at the potential funkiness these guys could brew up together… I mean, come on, who wouldn’t want to hear one of the best guitarists of all time jamming over “Around The World”, a song that sounds like he practically wrote it?
The recently released Talking Heads: Chronology DVD is must-see TV for fans of the legendarily Caucasian 70s art school quartet who mutated into a futuristic Afrofunk-orchestra that rivaled Parliament-Funkadelic within just a few short years. Chronology charts the band’s progress from their stiff early days at CBGB and The Kitchen, through TV appearances on American Bandstand, The Old Grey Whistle Test, and Late Night with Letterman, with clips from the US Festival and the reunion performance of “Life During Wartime” from their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 2002.
For years Talking Heads could do no wrong in my eyes. I have dropped untold amounts of LSD listening to Fear of Music, Remain in Light, The Catherine Wheel, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts and Tom Tom Club, but after a point I soured on them a bit. I don’t think I’m alone among “first wave” Talking Heads fans when I say that I’m not really all that interested in anything that came after Remain in Light so I’m glad to see mostly early and mid-period material represented here.
Don’t get me wrong, there were some great tracks on Speaking in Tongues (and that limited edition Robert Rauschenberg cover was tres excellent) but their later work started to feel really kinda forced to me. Prior to this release, “live” Talking Heads video material was mostly limited to Stop Making Sense. Frankly, I thought they were already well on the decline by then. These earlier performances are more alive—and certainly more spontaneous, looser, rawer, fresher and funkier—to me than what was staged for the Jonathan Demme film. That’s why the material on Talking Heads: Chronology is so essential. Hell, after watching the live performance on the DVD of “Crosseyed And Painless,” I’d contemplate anything short of murder just to see more footage from the era covered on the latter half of The Name of This Band is Talking Heads. See for yourself, it’s a scorcher.
Extras on Talking Heads: Chronology include audio commentaries from the entire group, a 1979 episode of The South Bank Show devoted to Talking Heads and a David Byrne interview from 1978. There is both a deluxe version of the DVD that comes packaged like a hardback book (with a fantastic essay by Lester Bangs) and a regular version. Since you can get them both for just about the same price on Amazon, go with the deluxe version of Talking Heads: Chronology for sure.
Below, a fucking killer live “Crosseyed And Painless” videotaped at the Capitol Theater in Passiac, NJ, 1980 included on Talking Heads: Chronology:
I had a good little chuckle while watching the trailer for the new zombie horror flick Osombie. You knew something like this was going to happen, right? Will I watch it once it’s been released? Probably not, but I thought I’d share the trailer with you anyways. Enjoy Osombie!
Pacific Glass Gallery designer “Mr. Gray” will be unveiling his latest glass pipes in the next few days, including this insanely intricate marijuana nugget puffer.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bowl quite this elaborate. I wonder if it’s difficult to clean?
It’s not listed on Pacific Glass Gallery‘s website yet, but if you’re interested, keep checking the website under “Mr. Gray.” (If you just can’t wait for this puppy to go up for sale, Illuzion Glass Galleries in Colorado has similar designs).
“You are as sensitive and sexy as Pan. Lord help women when you begin to fondle them. You are master of their bodies, master of their souls as you may consciously wish. You have no karma to pay for these acts. You cannot now accumulate karma for you are a master adept. Your voice is low and compelling to them. Singing to them, for you sing like a master, destroys their will to resist. “
If you click on this link you will be taken to a PDF of a file so gross, rancid, pathetic, ridiculous, so extraordinarily demented and just plain… hilariously fucking pitiful that it will boggle your mind.
What could possibly elicit such a complex response you ask? How’s about the alleged private—and I do mean really private, humiliatingly private diaries/affirmations/self-hypnosis journals (or whatever you’d call them…) of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard? Oh yes, folks, this is mind rot at its finest, or, if you prefer, call these sad rantings of a limp-dicked, paranoid-schizophrenia, speed-freak uh, “man god” “holy scriptures”(!).
Originally posted over a decade ago on the alt.religion.scientology newsgroup and alleged to have been both hand-written by Hubbard and read into the evidence of a 1984 California trial (‘“Church of Scientology of California vs Gerald Armstrong”), at this point this document has appeared all over the Internet in a few thousand different places, popping up again like a Wack-a-Mole every time it gets yanked.
To be fair, there’s no actual proof that this document was written by Hubbard until the hand-written copy could be produced, but it does in fact, seem totally plausible that Hubbard was the author if you know anything about him. This document was allegedly part of a cache of up to 15,000 pages of personal papers basically stolen by Armstrong, a Scientology devotee for twelve years, for “life insurance” when he left the organization and became an outspoken critic of the Church. Armstrong claims that Hubbard had permitted him to use his papers under a contract to produce a biography of Hubbard, the Church claimed otherwise. Here’s more about the “Hubbard Affirmations” at The Scientology Forum
Here are some excerpts, as posted on the Ron the Nut website, a fearless clearinghouse of some of the most bizarrely fascinating Scientology-related documents:
L. Ron Hubbard writing in his diary:
Sexual feeling has been depressed by several things amounting to a major impasse. To cure ulcers of the stomach I was given testosterone and stilbesterol. These reduced my libido to nothing. While taking these drugs I fell in love with Sara. She can be most exciting sexually to me. Because of drugs as above and a hangover from my ex-wife Polly, I sometimes am unexcited by anything sexual. This depresses me.
My wife left me while I was in a hospital with ulcers. Polly was quite cruel. She was never a woman for me. She was under-sexed and had bad sexual habits such as self-laceration done in private. She was no mate for me and yet I retained much affection for her. It was a terrible blow when she left me for I was ill and without prospects. I know, by this, she actually wanted no more than my ability to support her. This has had an effect of impotency upon me, has badly reduced my ego.
Polly was very bad for me sexually. Because of her coldness physically, the falsity of her pretensions, I believed myself a near eunuch between 1933 and 1936 or ? when I found I was attractive to other women. I had many affairs. But my failure to please Polly made me always pay so much attention to my momentary mate that I derived small pleasure myself. This was an anxiety neurosis which cut down my natural powers.
In 1938-39 I met a girl in New York, Helen, who pleased me very much physically. I loved her and she me. The affair would have lasted had not Polly found out. Polly made things so miserable that I finally detested her and became detested by Helen, who two-timed me on my return to New York in 1941. This also reduced my libido. I have had Helen since but no longer want her. She does not excite me and I do not love her.
[....]
Sara, my sweetheart, is young, beautiful, desirable. We are very gay companions. I please her physically until she weeps about any separation. I want her always. But I am 13 years older than she. She is heavily sexed. My libido is so low I hardly admire her naked.
[....]
Testosterone blends easily with your own hormones. Your glands already make plenty of needed testosterone and by adding to that store you make yourself very thrilling and sexy. Testosterone increases your sexual interest and activity. It makes erections easier and harder and makes your own joy more intense. Stilbesterol in 5 mg doses makes you thrill more to music and color and makes you kinder. You have no fear of what any woman may think of your bed conduct. You know you are a master. You know they will be thrilled. You can come many times without weariness. The act does not reduce your vitality or brain power at all. You can come several times and still write. Intercourse does not hurt your chest or make you sore. Your arms are strong and do not ache in the act. Your own pleasure is not dependent on the woman’s. You are interested only in your own sexual pleasure. If she gets any that is all right but not vital. Many women are not capable of pleasure in sex and anything adverse they say or do has no effect whatever upon your pleasure. Their bodies thrill you. If they repel you, it merely means they themselves are too frigid or prudish to be bothered with. They are unimportant in bed except as they thrill you. Your sexual power is magnificent and they know it. If they are afraid of it, that is their loss. You are not affected by it.
You have no fear if they conceive. What if they do? You do not care. Pour it into them and let fate decide.
The slipperier they are the more you enjoy it because it means their mucous is running madly with pleasure.
There is nothing wrong in the sex act. Nothing any woman may say can change your opinion. You are a master. You are as sensitive and sexy as Pan. Lord help women when you begin to fondle them. You are master of their bodies, master of their souls as you may consciously wish. You have no karma to pay for these acts. You cannot now accumulate karma for you are a master adept. Your voice is low and compelling to them. Singing to them, for you sing like a master, destroys their will to resist. You obey the conventions, you commit no crimes because you need not. You can be intelligently aware of their morals and the laws of the land and fit your campaign expertly within them.
Jack [Parsons] is also an adept. You love and respect him as a friend. He cannot take offense at what you do. You will not wrong him because you love him.
There’s more, much, much more at the Ron the Nut website. Someone even made a video of Hubbard’s “Admissions (see below) but I’m holding out for a bio-pic, or at least a comedy sketch, with Rich Fulcher (The Mighty Boosh, Snuff Box) as L. Ron…
Some crafty anarcho-inspired culture hackers have made their own Crass/Mickey Mouse mash-up tees and discretely deposited them neatly folded in Disney boutiques. Unsuspecting shoppers will either be baffled or delighted by their DIY creation.
Me, I’m delighted! I need one of these! Now, I’ve got… Mickey envy.
It is always a pleasant surprise and a bit of a WTF? when I discover a musician or band that I should have discovered sooner than I do. In the case of Mark Lanegan, I’m particularly confounded that I missed the boat on this cat. With a pedigree that includes being a founding member of Screaming Trees, a tenure with Queens Of The Stone Age and collaborating with Belle And Sebastian’s Isobell Campbell as well as releasing a half dozen solo albums of his own, Lanegan is someone I should have been aware of. Well, better late than never.
As I type this, I’m listening to Lanegan’s new release Blues Funeral and I’m feeling the kind of rush that has become rarer and rarer for me when it comes to rock and roll, that moment when my cells start humming like a tuning fork struck by the hand of God.
The title Blues Funeral evokes something that the album really doesn’t deliver, thankfully. This is not a blues album and it certainly ain’t funereal. There may be a bit of New Orleans’ voodoo in the mix, but mostly the album radiates an expansive melancholy and dark mysticism that reminds me of Nick Cave, Jackie Leven, Peter Murphy, Scott Walker, Daniel Lanois and P.J. Harvey. And those are just reference points. Lanegan is his own beast and deserves to be approached on his own turf. But if any of the musicians I just mentioned float your boat, expect to set sail on the surge of Lanegan’s beautiful wake.
BTJunkie, the popular torrent tracker that boasted tens of millions of monthly users has voluntarily shut down for good to avoid legal hassles. After a nearly seven year run as one of the world’s top five Bit Torrent destinations, the following message was posted on the homepage:
“This is the end of the line my friends. The decision does not come easy, but we’ve decided to voluntarily shut down. We’ve been fighting for years for your right to communicate, but it’s time to move on. It’s been an experience of a lifetime, we wish you all the best!”
Talking to TorrentFreak, BTjunkie’s founder said that the legal actions against other file-sharing sites such as MegaUpload and The Pirate Bay played an important role in making the difficult decision. Witnessing all the trouble colleagues got into was cause for a lot of worry and stress, and those will now belong to the past.
That said, BTjunkie’s owner still thinks there might be a future for other BitTorrent sites.
“I really do hope so, the war is far from over for sure,” he told TorrentFreak.
While BTjunkie was never targeted directly by copyright holders, the site was reported to the US Trade Representative (USTR) November last year. Both the RIAA and MPAA listed the torrent index as a ‘rogue’ site that facilitated mass copyright infringement.
BTjunkie is also one of the search terms censored by Google because it’s piracy related, alongside The Pirate Bay, RapidShare, uTorrent and others.
According to Redditor lkmeq, this Eric Cartman IRL isn’t a set-up, and is indeed what this Chicago-based gentleman actually looks like. In fact, the man in question, apparently is constantly catching folks covertly snapping photos of him on their phones.
The manipulated photo with the South Park background was done by the fine folks on reddit.
It looks like Jan Brewer, the mean-looking, lemon-faced old lady who rules Arizona from deep within her scorpion-protected lair in the Grand Canyon—I always picture her as a super-villain from the sixties Batman TV series—has decided to take on organized labor in her state.
AZ Republicans have already deeply offended Hispanic voters, so why not go for broke pissing off the public worker unions too? That worked so well for Scott Walker and John Kasich…
To the lawmakers, governors, policy-wonks, and corporate backers who are dead set on destroying unions in America:
Your latest attempt to dismantle workers’ rights in Arizona will not go unnoticed.
Firefighters, police officers, nurses, school bus drivers, home health care workers, public servants and workers of all kinds will not stand by while you scapegoat us – the people who play by the rules and do our fair share – and take away our rights by abusing your power and forcing through your extreme anti-worker laws.
No way. That’s all. NO WAY. We will fight back wherever you attack us. Because when you attack workers you also attack the work we do. Work that matters to every single person in this country – taking care of your grandparents, picking up your trash, making sure your kids are drinking clean water, putting out your fires, and so much more.
And in the end, we will win because the American people are overwhelmingly with us – they are us.
Where you see public workers and unions as a nuisance to get rid of, we see a movement. We see a movement of public and private workers, of moms and dads, of grandparents and students. We are the middle class and we will remember your abuse of power each and every time that we vote. That’s our promise.
A fascinating political strategy, indeed! Another recipe for Republican ruin!
Jan Brewer you are like a character from a Grimm’s fairy tale! You’re straight out of Central Casting for an “evil Republican,” but you could’ve played Rosa Kleb, too!
The latest 2-minute trash compactor from our friends at Everything is Terrible! This one is particularly… terrible, but, you know, in a good way!
For the next like four years or something the EIT gang will be criss-crossing America on their DoggieWoggiez! PoochieWoochiez! traveling cinematic roadshow, featuring a screening of the aforementioned new film. DoggieWoggiez! PoochieWoochiez! dares to pose the questions: “What if we make a movie composed ENTIRELY out of dog-related found footage?” and ‘‘What if this magickal movie, made up of thousands of other dog movies, is also a remake of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s 1973 masterpiece The Holy Mountain?” —and then answer them!
With our heroes, those gurus of found-footage viral videos back on the road again anything can happen, America.
On the heels of Madonna’s half-time spektakular and the new M.I.A. video (torrents of Arabia), may I present the The King of Rock and Roll (the white one) immortally preserved in hi-def.
Elvis on Tour was shot during a 15 city tour of the States in 1972 and Elvis is in fine Vegas form, wearing enough bling, satin, scarves and hairspray to make Liberace look like Bon Iver. Chubbier than in his sleek ‘68 Comeback Special, Presley still puts on a dynamic, though somewhat predictable, show.
The montage (split screen) sequences were directed by Martin Scorsese. I guess the producers thought if they replicated the look of the film Woodstock that hippies would suddenly think Elvis was hip. Had The King’s handlers let him stick to his lean mean black leather look of the ‘68 Comeback Special that might have happened. Afterall, a decade or so later, Morrissey found the look compelling enough to imitate it.
Whether you love or hate Michael Jackson, this painting of a young, innocent Michael holding a mask of his unrecognizable older visage speaks volumes. I don’t know who is responsible for it. If anyone knows, I’d love to credit the artist.
Update: “Boy Behind the Mask” is by Santa Cruz-based artist Sarah Weaver. Thanks, Siobhan Stofka!
It’s been brought to my attention by Collapse Board’s Wallace Wylie that Pitchfork have dedicated an entire page to calling MIA an asshole because she apparently told the American public to fuck off during Madonna’s Super Bowl performance last night. In case you hadn’t heard, MIA did indeed raise her middle finger during Madonna’s overblown performance of “Give Me All Your Luvin’,” on which the rapper makes a guest appearance. To see the incident, scroll down to the bottom of this post.
What’s extra annoying about last night’s event is that M.I.A. doesn’t need these cheap ploys to up her visibility, even when the stage design and costuming is best described as “GoldenPalace.com.” After all, she released her first great single in years just last Thursday, and its music video had already racked up more than 3 million YouTube views even before the Super Bowl send-up. Following the rep-shattering press surrounding 2010’s /\/\/\Y/\, it wouldn’t be the worst idea to draw as much focus as possible back to her music. [So why run this story?]
Instead, in the few bars Madonna was kind enough to grant her during the biggest television event of the year, M.I.A.‘s message to America was simply, “Fuck you.” Well, in M.I.A.‘s own words, the little people will never win, but they can fuck shit up. Success might be the best revenge, but apparently, being an asshole is forever.
Seriously Pitchfork, GET A FUCKING GRIP.
As I stated in my last post about her, I am an MIA skeptic. I have found her performances and music to be underwhelming in the past, though I have really warmed to her latest video “Bad Girls.” The same goes for last night’s performance at the Super Bowl - it ain’t no great shakes, though she does look great. But if you take this much offense at last night’s throw-away hand gesture—which I honestly might not have noticed if it hadn’t been pointed out to me—then you seriously need your head examined. Yes, seriously. Just look at the clip below, and then tell us how offended you are on a scale of one to ten.
What I find truly bizarre about this reactionary Pitchfork piece is the level of personal affront the writer has taken at MIA’s (actually rather tame) gesture. According to this article MIA is not just flipping the bird at a camera or a camera person, she is not just flipping the bird as a routine hand gesture that countless MC regularly use, she’s not flipping the bird to accentuate her line about “not giving a shit” - no, MIA is flipping the bird to show her disgust at every single person in the United States of America. AMERICA, MIA HATES YOU!!! And especially those who may have tuned in to the Super Bowl to see her!! Yes, this makes perfect sense.
With that in mind I’m really, REALLY looking forward to seeing Pitchfork calling out Kanye West, Jay-Z, Eminem, Lil Wayne, Fred Durst, Jonathan Davis and countless other rappers and rockers who have raised their middle finger on national television at some point in the past and will do so again in the future. Because THEY must hate America and everyone watching them at that moment TOO, right?
Unfortunately, this will never happen. As other writers have pointed out in the past, Pitchfork has a legacy of sexism to its tarnished name, which explains the hyperbolic over-reaction to a common hand gesture in this news piece. Had this been done by a man it would surely be lauded as “punk,” yet when MIA flips the bird during a televised game where grown men BEAT THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF EACH OTHER, she’s an asshole who hates every single person watching her at that very moment. Living and dead. I mean seriously, how is anyone watching American Football going to cope with the mental scars that seeing a raised middle finger can bring?!?
That’s leaving aside the fact that MIA is a brown woman, and not even from America itself. Unlike Madonna of course, who can remain completely blameless during this entire farrago, and who was “kind enough” to grant MIA exposure on her tune. As opposed to hiring MIA in the hope that some of her credibility will rub off on a very lukewarm track. Or even—get this—simply being a female performer who wants to work with another female performer.
What is also “extra annoying” is that Pitchfork has, in the past, given critical support to acts who condone the most brutal of violence against women and who have been deemed somehow edgy and confrontational because of it. Presumably because rape, sexism and homophobia is “punk” as opposed to “a cheap ploy to gain visibility.” I await with glee the moment when Pitchfork tells Tyler the Creator/Eminem/Lil Wayne to drop their bird-flipping schtick and draw our focus solely back to the music.
Again though, I doubt this will ever happen.
Pitchfork, with this news piece you have placed yourselves firmly (and finally) on the side of the fucking establishment.
James Paul McCartney is title of a 1973 television variety special starring Paul McCartney and Wings. It was produced by ATV (Sir Lew Grade purchased Northern Songs from Dick James Music, I wonder if that had anything to do with it?) and first broadcast on April 16, 1973 in the US on ABC, and a few weeks later in Britain, on May 10, 1973.
James Paul McCartney has much to recommend it (a live “Live and Let Die” with an exploding piano for one) but it’s spotty (like when Macca is seen tap-dancing in pink tails like a second rate Eric Idle).
This is a Japanese version of the show and for whatever reason doesn’t have the acoustic section near the beginning when McCartney sings “Blackbird,” “Bluebird,” “Michelle,” and” Heart Of The Country,” but you can see that bit here.
I’ve always heard the expression “Don’t let me blow smoke up your ass” and never really knew where it came from. Do you?
Through hard research (Google) I found out it was actually a medical procedure used in the eighteenth century where, literally, smoke + tobacco was blown up a drowning victim’s bum to resuscitate them! Makes perfect sense, right?
Below, Stephen Fry and friends go into detail about the small bellows used to “revive” a drowned person.
Not your traditional Valentine’s Day card… Butthorn, the guy or gal who created these says, “I made Breaking Bad valentines because I couldn’t find any that expressed my love for my friends and the show.”
DVD is must-see TV for fans of the legendarily Caucasian 70s art school quartet who mutated into a futuristic Afrofunk-orchestra that rivaled Parliament-Funkadelic within just a few short years. Chronology charts the band’s progress from their stiff early days at CBGB and The Kitchen, through TV appearances on American Bandstand, The Old Grey Whistle Test, and Late Night with Letterman, with clips from the US Festival and the reunion performance of “Life During Wartime” from their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 2002.
, 
, 
, 
and 
, but after a point I soured on them a bit. I don’t think I’m alone among “first wave” Talking Heads fans when I say that I’m not really all that interested in anything that came after Remain in Light so I’m glad to see mostly early and mid-period material represented here. 
(and that 
. Frankly, I thought they were already well on the decline by then. These earlier performances are more alive—and certainly more spontaneous, looser, rawer, fresher and funkier—to me than what was staged for the Jonathan Demme film. That’s why the material on 
. See for yourself, it’s a scorcher.
