So sayeth my old chum and fellow east bay resident, author Eli Brown, regarding this viral video of four phenomenally talented young guys TURF dancing in the rain at the corner of 90th Ave and MacArthur in East Oakland:
No Noize (red jacket), Man (black jacket), BJ (striped shirt), D Real (white shirt). Directed and edited by Yoram Savion.
TURF stands for “Taking Up Room on the Floor”. It’s a roughly decade-old form of street dancing that originated in Oaktown. This particular footage was shot a little under a year ago. Via the Bay Citizen:
In contrast to other street dances, TURF aims to tell a story. And so “Dancing in the Rain” is a memorial to dancer D Real’s (he’s in the white shirt) brother Rich, who was killed in a car accident on that corner.
The day after Rich died, D Real and a few dancers were gathered in YAK Films’ Yoram Savion’s office at Youth UpRising trying to think of a tribute that went beyond the standard R.I.P. T-shirt. Youth UpRising is a youth leadership center in Oakland with a professional dance studio.
Before his brother’s death, D Real had strayed from dancing and was beginning to dabble in music. In one of their last conversations, Rich told D Real to forget about music and focus on dancing, his real talent. So in memory of Rich, D Real and three friends who were willing to brave the pouring rain danced for this this video.
The aforementioned YAK Films production team has one seriously mind-blowing YouTube channel, and their mission statement brings joyful tears to my eyes:
Corporate patronage does not equal crappy art, even if said art is associated with a stupid campaign. That statement may be literally true in the case of this short film commissioned by Diesel:U:Music:
The concept for “Ritalin” (a Dancing Pigeons music video directed by Tomas Mankovsky) is based on Diesel’s theme for their spring jeans collection, Fire & Water.It’s easy to see how the gonzo style of the short dovetails nicely into Diesel’s recent, polarizing “Be Stupid” commercial campaign. Still, “Ritalin” stands on its own as a feisty, snarling gem of a short film.
We haven’t mentioned “punk rock mathematician” Tom Henderson here before, have we? Gotta fix that, pronto.
First, go here to read a fantastic interview at Technoccult to get a sense of Henderson’s deeply personal and accessible philosophy of mathematics. After that, if you find that your brainy bits are delightfully fizzy, go to the Mathpunk site to read MORE fizzmaking stuff, or listen to the Math For Primates podcast. And then, if you find Henderson to be just as badass, brilliant and MAXIMUMADORBZ as so many of us already do, head over to Kickstarter to watch his deeply endearing pitch video for the Punk Mathematics book project:
Punk Mathematics will be a series of mathematical stories. It is written for readers who are interested in having their minds expanded by the strange metaphors and implications of mathematics, even if they’re not always on friendly terms with equations. Better living through probability; the fractal dimension of cities and cancers; using orders of magnitude to detect bullshit; free will and quantum economics; and the mathematics of cooperation in a networked world on the brink of a No Future collapse.
It looks like Henderson’s more than reached his financial goal, but don’t let that dissuade you from tucking some more money into his punk-as-fuck fanny pack. Every little bit helps, and this book sounds unlike anything else that’s being published these days.
Pink Tentacle recently posted a glut of gorgeously creepy children’s book illustrations by Ishihara Gōjin (or Gōjin Ishihara). A prolific illustrator in post-WWII Tokyo, the man has been repeatedly referred to as “The Norman Rockwell of Japan”. Which, of course, in the context of drawings of shrieking children being terrorized by human-headed snakes and anus-gobbling demonic turtle men, is pretty goshdarn special.
The first several images in Pink Tentacle’s gallery of Ishihara Gōjin’s work “appeared in the Illustrated Book of Japanese Monsters (1972), which profiled supernatural creatures from Japanese legend. The other illustrations appeared in various educational and entertainment-oriented publications for children.” But wait, there’s more! Soooo much more.
Kiddie yokai and sci-fi are only the beginning. Delve a little deeper, and you’ll discover that in addition to creating monstrous children’s fare, Ishihara Gōjin adapted the story of famed samurai Yagyū Jūbēi, which this manga reviewer describes as “Norman Rockwell drawing a manga series…about a gay love affair between Abraham Lincoln and a lean-hipped, square-jawed cowboy”. He’s also the mastermind behind this utterly mind-rending, eye-melting, Joe Coleman-would-be-proud cover of issue 2 of The Seikimatsu Club manga:
Lessee now… Charlie Manson’s got Sharon Tate in a chokehold while rubbing elbows with members of the Klu Klux Klan, and there’s benevolent ol’ Jim Jones, and AUM Shinrikyō’s Asahara Shōko on the cross… Alex Sanders… Ya Ho Wha 13… Anton LaVey (and barnyard pals), Deguchi Onisaburo… Ruth Norman (speak of the Atlantian!), and last but not least… Aleister Crowley? Holy fucking shitballs.
Quivering brainmeats not yet liquified? Observe more embolism-inducing imagery after the jump. Apologies in advance for the lack of English titles and references– most of the scans were ganked from an incredibleJapanese language shrine to Ishihara Gojin. Also, sure to read the in-depth feature over at Comipress covering his visionary career.
The Unarius Academy of Science is a non-profit organization founded in in the mid 50s in California, with various cells still located throughout the United States as well as Canada, Japan, and Nigeria. Unarius is an acronym which stands for UNiversal ARticulate Interdimensional Understanding of Science. Founded by Ernest and Ruth Norman, Unarius espouses “a new interdimensional science of life based upon fourth dimensional physics principles.” Ernest Norman also believed that the Chinese “evolved from ancient interstellar migrants who began colonizing Mars a million years ago.” After being attacked by native humans, these interstellar migrants reportedly returned to Mars, where they now live in subterranean dwellings. In 2001, the Unarians were all supposed to fly away in a fleet of spaceships, but that doesn’t appear to have worked out so great for ’em. From Wiki:
From the period of 1954-1971, when Ernest Norman still controlled the organization, the organization defined “the mission” as the bringing in of the interdimensional science of life in the books channeled by Ernest Norman. In the period of 1972-1993, while Ruth Norman guided the organization, the organization experienced renewed growth and public awareness. “The mission” became bringing Unarius to the masses. Ruth Norman granted interviews, appeared on The Late Show […] and kept very up-to-date technologically with video productions and a studio built in the late 1970s when such equipment was still in its infancy. Unarius video productions began appearing on public access stations all over the United States…
…much to the delight of stoned and tripping teenagers nationwide. Watch their entire “educational” film, The Arrival, below.
Want to reach out and touch… um… something… the next time you call a beloved family member or friend? Meet the Telenoid R1, a communications android brought into existence by famed Japanese inventor Hiroshi Ishiguro, a man who has, in the words of Daily Mail UK, “made his life’s work coming up with increasingly creepy robots.”
Ishiguro has, in the past, tried to exactly replicate living humans and once developed an eerie robot replica of himself that he named Geminoid HI-1. He also came up with a terrifyingly lifelike female robot called the Geminoid F. But the new Telenoid is something of a departure for the eccentric inventor.
Ishiguro designed the Telenoid R1 to be a robot that could appear like many different ages and that is easily transportable. It is intended to be used as a communication device so that people can ‘chat’ from long distances: the robot is supposed to be able to “transmit the presence” of a person from a distant place.
In this hilarious Sunsweet commercial from 1967, stylish space mod people frolic through a seri3z ov to0bz, and an indignant Ray Bradbury finds himself hawking The Prunes of Tomorrow. (Tomorrow being the year 2001, natch.) Prune fart-powered jet-packs are not envisioned in this scenario BUT THEY SHOULD BE, DAMN IT.
No doubt, if you are Brazilian, have kin from Brazil, or you’re just generally fascinated by the brief, impassioned revolution of Tropicália/post-Tropicálismos, you’re already familiar with Secos & Molhados. Otherwise, all you really need to know before you chug your morning smoothie is this: S&M were a scrumptiously plumed and glittering glam-rock trio fronted by a sexy sopraniño beast named Ney Matogrosso, and they were fuhhuhHIERCE. Enjoy a sampling of their performances –and a few of Matogrosso’s solo clips– below:
Bear in mind, those trio clips are all pre-Rocky Horror, pre-KISS, and pre-Nomi.
