Sorayama and Mac. Two great tastes that taste great together! Before you get too excited, these aren’t actual ads, just some design concepts like by Leif Olson – you can see the rest here. But how awesome would it be? Especially if all the ads were directed by Chris Cunningham, in the same style as this video? If I saw that, I bet even I would buy a Mac (full discloure: almost every friend I have, including the Coil-staff, loves the Mac. I love the PC. Too much Oregon Trail in elementary school).
It happened well over a decade ago, but the memory is crystal: my best bud Gooby Herms, fellow purveyor of All That Is Wackadoo, leaped up from the threadbare couch bellowing “holy crap, you’ve never seen the Billy Nayer Show?!” With a table top drum roll, he popped his scuzzy bootleg of The Ketchup and Mustard Man into the VCR and pressed play. My jaw hit the floor… repeatedly. I’ve been an idolator at the shrine of BNS ever since.
When bandleader Cory McAbee and company released The American Astronaut in 2001, I knew the world was in for it:
Space travel has become a dirty way of life dominated by derelicts, grease monkeys, and hard-boiled interplanetary traders such as Samuel Curtis… this sci-fi, musical-western uses flinty black and white photography, rugged Lo-Fi sets and the spirit of the final frontier. We follow Curtis on his Homeric journey to provide the all-female planet of Venus with a suitable male, while pursued by an enigmatic killer, Professor Hess. The film features music by The Billy Nayer Show and some of the most original rock n’ roll scenes ever committed to film.
EnglishRussia always knows what I need. And what I need, generic apparently, pharmacy is an electric bodybuilder. Few things are as helpful here in the 21st century as a shiny robotic companion. While some might be using their model for heavy lifting and dubious pleasure activities, I would use my Russian meat machine primarily for kitchen duties, such as greasing skillets. Be sure to have the sound on when watching.
Breaking news! I realize this is very last minute and only applies to our brethren in Northern California, but tonight Jesse Hawthorne Ficks is hosting a “Disco Extravaganza” at the gorgeous Castro Theater in SF. They’ll be showing prints of The Wiz, Staying Alive, and best of all, everyone’s favorite futuristic spiritual disco rock opera cult classic,The Apple.
Wait, what’s that you say? You’ve never seen The Apple before?
Mister Boogalow disapproves.
The Apple is a steaming Midas turd of a film baked in massive amounts of tin foil. It’s a glitter-encrusted, mylar-ensconced acid trip. It’s Jem and the Holograms’ flea market jamboree. It’s… it’s…. oh I have no idea what on earth these people were thinking, but the result is utter crackpot genius.
The Einstein Robot isn’t new – a creation of Hanson Robotics, he was revealed at the 2006 NextFest, has been on the cover of Wired, etc. He’s downright famous. While some might find this little guy creepy, I happen to love him. But not without a bittersweetness – it makes me sincerely sad to know that in Einstein’s time we didn’t have the technology to preserve his head [+ brain] and stick it on a robot. And maybe make him fly, while we’re at it. He’d be powerful, zoom around, invent, solve. It just isn’t fair!
Oh, irony.
Click below for a video of Einstein-bot in action.
As you settle in for the night, dear reader, why not instead be whisked away into the FUTURE! Watch, as visionary artists from the 1930s predict what fashion might have been like seven years ago.
I could do with that first number, actually. Zip-off sleeves? Yes. Not entirely sure about the skirt elimination, but I know I’ve got the big hair and questionable footwear well covered. Ooh, swish!
Hey guys, it’s the future! Motorola uses the image above to announce their new RAZR2 phone, partying like it’s cybergoth circa 1999 and brandishing a phone that looks it doubles as a light saber dildo. There’s a kind of sadness to this campaign, an aching desperation to make you feel the cutting edge of what’s basically just another souped-up fliphone, aged forever by the likes of OpenMoko and the iPhone.
Apparently, in Motorola’s perfect future, ladies will have disproportionate mutant man-hands. Or maybe it’s just an old trick for making cell phones in pictures appear more sleek and thin. In the future, the clothes get shinier, the cheap tactics stay the same.
By the way of Mister Kris Ether, a collection of jaw-dropping Yakov Chernikov drawings. Doesn’t this one resemble a rocket, ready for takeoff? Yes, this is my future, tovarish Chernikov. Thank you.
From the funny writeup on Dark Roasted Blend: “Only too appropriate for the “Evil Empire”, the colossal palaces and Pantheons would dominate the city, squash the last vestiges of soul, and yet strangely excite in their surreal dark presence.“
On the morning of Sunday 7th May the little girl giant woke up at Horseguards Parade in London, took a shower from the time-traveling elephant and wandered off to play in the park…
Watching this immense puppet filled me with all the awe that watching the awkward rubbery Japanese androids never could. She is absolutely alive, curious and..hungry. What’s interesting is that both the Little Girl Giant and the skinjobs are essentially human-operated, though the robots are programmed beforehand. Wearing pseudo futuristic outfits, some of them even eerily emulate human expressions with facial “muscles”, while the little girl can only blink and open her huge accordion mouth. To me it’s almost disappointing – I want amazing robots! I want technology sophisticated enough to impress me with its humanoids! I know the day this happens can’t be too far off [right?], but until then this Little Girl Giant PWNS.
