MMMNNGGHPH. Browns, why must you insist upon torturing a grubby, low-rent gal like me with that ridiculous price tag?!
Related anecdote: A snarky acquaintance of mine back in NYC used to enjoy cornering club-going trustifarians who dared to don the “Unknown Pleasures” tee and making them squirm by demanding that they explain the image they were wearing. If their answer wasn’t knowledgeable enough to his liking, he’d trap them against the DJ booth and deliver lengthy lectures on pulsar theory, the film Stroszeck, or cocaine-in-a-condom drug mule death statistics.
Cherie Priest is one seriously inventive fiction/alternate history/sci-fi author who pens books about witches and voodoo and airships and sea monsters and zombies and ghosts and werewolf-hunting nuns. Needless to say, me likes her lots! She has a new novel out today, called Boneshaker, which BoingBoing just aptly described as a “zombie steampunk mad-science dungeon crawl family adventure novel” and which I cannot wait to get my grubby hands on. A brief description from Publisher’s Weekly:
Maternal love faces formidable challenges in this stellar steampunk tale. In an alternate 1880s America, mad inventor Leviticus Blue is blamed for destroying Civil War–era Seattle. When Zeke Wilkes, Blue’s son, goes into the walled wreck of a city to clear his father’s name, Zeke’s mother, Briar Wilkes, follows him in an airship, determined to rescue her son from the toxic gas that turns people into zombies (called rotters and described in gut-churning detail). When Briar learns that Seattle still has a mad inventor, Dr. Minnericht, who eerily resembles her dead husband, a simple rescue quickly turns into a thrilling race to save Zeke from the man who may be his father. Intelligent, exceptionally well written and showcasing a phenomenal strong female protagonist who embodies the complexities inherent in motherhood, this yarn is a must-read for the discerning steampunk fan.
Popularized by singer/actor Kishore Kumar, “Eena Meena Deeka” is a highly addictive, nonsensical tune written for the 1957 film Aasha. It is noteworthy for being one of Hindi cinema’s very first rock n’ roll numbers. If something about the lyrics reminds you of the childhood limerick “Eeny, Meeny, Miney, Moe”, it’s with good reason: the words of the song were inspired by kids playing outside composer C. Ramchandra’s music room. Via Wiki:
Ramchandra and his assistant John Gomes were inspired to create first line of the song, “Eena Meena Deeka, De Dai Damanika”. Gomes, a Goan, added the words “Maka naka” (Konkani for “I don’t want”), and they kept on adding more nonsense rhymes till they ended with “Rum pum po!”
I’d never heard this alternate, feminine version until the lovely Mme Darla Teagarden posted it on her Facebook. It’s just as faboo as the Kumar version:
The Compagnie Philippe Genty is widely regarded to be one of the most accomplished and gutsy performing arts troupes currently working on the world stage. Their elaborate productions defy easy categorization, using a mixture of puppetry, mime and dance in conjunction with elaborate costuming and props. The narratives and meanings behind their productions are even more difficult to nail down; usually there’s no coherent, linear plot. Surreal, sometimes nightmarish vignettes play out like Freudian wet dreams:
Translating roughly from the French on their website, Philippe Gentry calls their story-building process one of free association.”The company is intent on exploring a visual language that reveals and plays upon conflicting aspects of human nature. When a scene takes place in the subconscious, following neither linear narrative nor the psychology of traditional characters, there are no hard and fast laws of causality. Instead, the performances resonate with our inner landscapes, provoking the emergence of these unspoken and insane hopes, these fears, these shames and desires… these shared, unlimited spaces.”
All that deep and somber explication aside, sometimes the troupe’s output is just downright hilarious:
Check out the silver fox with a poetic streak at 1:28: “Who so binds to himself a joy, doth its winged life destroy.” Poignant and all-too-often true, no? Love will die if held too tightly, love will fly if held to lightly, and pal, love will most definitely elude you if you insist on bringing up that sponge ball incident EVER AGAIN.
Director Andrzej Zulawski’s 1981 arthouse horror film, Possession, is a fail-safe litmus test. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, you’ll drop this movie’s name in casual conversation only to be met with a sunny, uncomprehending stare, or “oh, you mean that Gwyneth Paltrow movie?” Far fewer and further between will be those times when you watch a slow-dawning, complex expression of kinship and mental anguish creep over a person’s face: “oh my god, the subway scene,” they’ll murmur, or “that poor ballerina…” or “remember the squid baby?”
While Zulawski’s vision of hysterical woman-as-monster isn’t quite on par with [edit: or rather, I should clarify, isn’t quite as coherent as] those put forward by Cronenberg, Polanski, or Lynch, some of the scenes are absolutely mind-blowing. This is an experimental film where a young woman’s intense anxiety and hormonal imbalance causes her –literally– to give birth to a Lovecraftian lover (designed by the dude who crafted E.T. ), with dire consequences. Demonizing like that just doesn’t happen every day! (Apparently, the film was inspired by Zulawski’s recent divorce. Go fig.)
Isabelle Adjani and Sam Neill
In particular, spooky boho art school chicks really seem to bond over Possession. It’s like our Thelma & Louise. I’m pretty sure our fascination has to something to do with all of the unrestrained freakouts, blood, and tentacle sex. There’s just something strangely comforting about watching a cool, porcelain beauty break through the fourth wall and then break down, howling, in a puddle of bodily excretions. It’s like, no matter how “psycho” I get when I’m “ragging out”, I know I haven’t hit rock bottom.
Rock bottom is Isabelle Adjani in that subway tunnel in Possession.
Kishka is a Slavic word, meaning gut or intestine.
Eastern European kishka is a blood sausage made with pig’s blood and barley or buckwheat, with pork intestines used as casing. Ashkenazi kishke, on the other hand, is traditionally made from kosher beef intestinal links stuffed with matzo meal, schmaltz, paprika and other spices.
For no readily apparent reason, the trials and tribs of this venerated dish seem to have inspired a YouTube trend: scores of youngsters (and the occasional strong-armed adult) are shooting homemade music videos (of varying degrees of complexity) for versions of the classic polka tune, “Who Stole the Kishka?” It’s inexplicable, ridiculous, and totally friggin’ adorable. As of this moment, some of the videos are even stealthily linked to (hurr hurr… link… geddit?) on the kishka Wikipedia page.
There’s just something about golden era Kaiju that sends me, I’m not sure why. Other girls may swoon over a kitten in a teacup, or a ginchy pair of boots, but for me, happiness is a wonky rubber suit monster that goes “RAWR” and breathes fire.
RStevens showed me a random image last week that made my innards all floopy:
“Family reunions were always tense after cousin Toshiro married an illegal alien.” (Via Neatorama.)
He had no idea where it came from, and neither did I. Oddly compelling, innit? Without context, it looks like an old snapshot of an intergalactic exchange student taken for Mom & Pop Kaijin back home. Our friend Ariana used her formidable web-sleuthing abilities to try to track down its origins. This was as far as she got. But I had to know more… MORE… MOOAARR! I sent out a mass email to all of my most knowledgeable, righteously nerdy friends, imploring them to share any info they might have concerning this mysterious beast. Within 24 hours, Gooby had an answer, bless him:
Mystery solved! Captain Ultra was a short-lived, much-loved tokusatsu program that aired on the Tokyo Broadcasting System in 1967. It’s an invigorating world of primary-colors, rubber suit monsters, brave jetpack-wearing/raygun-wielding heroes, scrappy robots and beautiful space cadets. YouTube user Tokusatsugod26 has uploaded scores of clips from the show to his channel for our enjoyment. Click on Ghostler’s face to get there:
Quickly, in honor of International Talk Like A Pirate Day, here’s George Harrison on the BBC’s beloved Rutland Weekend Television show back in 1975, demonstrating why he’s my favorite Beatle:
OK, it’s official. For the first time since relocating my base of operations to the southern hemisphere, I’m homesick:
Right now just about all of my talented fabricator/maker/builder chums back in California are gearing up (hurr hurr) for the second annual Santa Rosa Handcar Regatta, which takes place Sept 27th. That’s exactly a week from now. From the Handcar Regatta’s “Philosophy” page:
The railcar races at the center of the Regatta highlights Innovation and Human-Powered Ingenuity to devise cheaper, viable, and hitherto undreamed of methods for bizarre transport beyond the standard notions of today. Additionally, commuter rail transport is highlighted in our era of rising fuel costs. Together with an emphasis on biking, the Regatta provides a platform for playfulness and sustainable concerns within the realm of human-powered alternative transportation.
Tinkerers, artists, and eccentrics both young and old are invited to participate in Artistic and Mechanical Innovation upon a playful and inspired mixture of fond remembrance for a stylized industrial railroad past remixed with progressive styles and technologies of today.
The elegantly feisty Hennepin Crawler, winner of the Erasmus P. Kitty Honorary Award at the 2008 Handcar Regatta.
If you live in the area and appreciate thoughtful, gonzo DIY fun on a massive scale, you will not want to miss this. Indie vendors, circus and dance performances, yummy foodstuffs, live music and multiple geekgasms await you. More info here. Have fun at the races, comrades.
