If you’re in San Jose, tonight you have the opportunity to see some of comics genius and Coilhouse contributor Andy Ristaino’s hyper-detailed masterpieces in person. His new comic book, The Babysitter, is out now – you can get it here, courtesy of SLG. You can also find some artwork and an interview with Andy in Coilhouse Issue 02. A brief description of The Babysitterfrom the SLG site:
By night Setsuko Kagaku is the world’s leading babysitter. Equipped with her trusty rocket pack, she jetsets all around the globe keeping the world’s greatest resource (the children, silly) safe. But by day she is just another teenager dealing with the same problems that any other Japanese schoolgirl faces: giant robots, big angry kaiju bakumono (monsters), crazy science experiments gone awry, weird tentacled beasties, global conspiracies, alien invaders, not to mention good grades, plenty of teen angst, and boys! Join Setsuko as she tries to deal with the panic and claustrophobia of living in a depiction of modern Japan that only a completely uninformed and rather stupid American could make.
Ristaino’s images truly send you on a trip unlike any other. Everyone sees something different in them. For example, when I showed Issue 02 to the nice Korean lady I buy lunch from, she looked at the picture below and said, completely unexpectedly (in, imagine, the thickest “Margaret Cho’s mom” accent ever): “some people may look at this picture and see GROUP SEX, but I see a revolution. Yes. Revolution.”
Don’t miss your chance to see this intricate spazzfest in the flesh! If you’re not lucky enough to be in San Jose tonight, definitely pick up a copy of The Babysitter when you get the chance! Here are the details, taken from Andy’s blog:
When – Friday February 6th
Time – 7:00 PM until Late
Where: SLG Art Boutiki & Gallery
577 S. Market Street
San Jose, CA 95113
The Bloop is the name given to an ultra-low frequency underwater sound detected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration several times during the summer of 1997. The source of the sound remains unknown. The sound, traced to somewhere around 50° S 100° W (South American southwest coast), was detected repeatedly by the Equatorial Pacific Ocean autonomous hydrophone array, which uses U.S. Navy equipment originally designed to detect Soviet submarines. According to the NOAA description, it “rises rapidly in frequency over about one minute and was of sufficient amplitude to be heard on multiple sensors, at a range of over 5,000 km.” According to scientists who have studied the phenomenon, it matches the audio profile of a living creature but there is no known animal that could have produced the sound. If it is an animal, it would have to be, reportedly, much larger than even a Blue Whale, the largest known animal on the earth.
OMG, R’YLEH?! But seriously. That is some mind-rending, scary-ass, dont-think-about-it-too-hard-or-you’ll-shit-a-squid kinda stuff, people! Forget about alien invasion from outer space. Our destruction shall come from the depths. I’m telling you.
Some kooky Thelemite going by the humble title of Frater Tanranin Uhcheek Gozaknee, 222 has composed the following “Cthulhu Meditation” using original Bloop sound files (as well as what sounds suspiciously like a human left-cheeky-sneaky thrown in for lulz) and put it on YouTube. Quite mesmerizing, actually! I recommend popping some ‘luudes and listening to it in the bathtub. With the lights on.
It’s Lewis Carroll’s birthday, so don’t just do something – stand there! The author who opened and bent our young brains before science fiction had its turn would be turning 177 today. This is also the man who singlehandedly affected my entire life by inspiring my mother to name her only child after his Alice. It’s a long story, but I think she knew what fate awaited me as a result. To commemorate this special day, a somewhat unsettling clip from the very first stop-motion Alice In Wonderland. Made in 1951 by puppeteer and animation magician Lou Bunin, this one precedes the Jan Švankmajer version.
Coilhouse takes pride in not being yet another lazy link-dumping blog, but y’know, this is one of those times where the less said, the better. Just… just click the image below. It links to a very special place. Once you’re there, scroll all the way down to the bottom.
[EDIT 01/23/09: Hooo WEE! That one went viral so fast, it knocked the Gamu Toys website on its ass. Luckily, some smart fella over at wickedglee.com captured the site as a PDF before it disappeared. Here ya go.]
Gather round, loves. One of our favorite longtime readers, Renaissance man and gentleman pervert Jerem Morrow, is finally dipping his toes into our fetid staff jacuzzi with this fond review of one of the most depraved Australasian cult films east of Bad Boy Bubby. Lets give him a warm round of nervous laughter and stifled coughing, shall we? The subject matter calls for nothing less!
‘Decade or more ago, I frequented an antiquated video store. Kinda place that still had VHS tapes. Crappy paintings of giant monsters, gangsters and vixens adorned the walls. It was called Video Adventures. The proprietor, Brian, was a true film aficionado, someone you never got tired of listening to ramble. That wonderful place saved me from whatever blockbuster atrocities the theaters were pumping out at the time.
Still, I wanted more. Something beyond the Evil Deads, Rocky Horrors and Blade Runners. Love them though I did (and do), I needed more boundary-pushing. My friends and I began an experiment: Proprietor Brian compiled a list of his 100 Least Rented Movies, and we endeavored to watch each and every one. Now, in my twilight years, my brainmeats aren’t what they used to be, but something tells me we didn’t make it quite so far. Still, a few gems passed before our cinephile eyes.
Pre-LoTR Peter Jackson at his most outrageous. It’d be theBraindead/Bad Taste creator channeling Weird TV, had WTV happened first. It’s manic. It’s horrid. It’s brilliant trash cinema. Sweet transvestites find a kindred spirit in this fox puppet crooning a song entitled “Sodomy”. (Five words. Giant. Golden. Glitter. Splooging. Penises.)
Before I saw Bakshi‘s film version of Crumb‘s Fritz the Cat, I was traumatized by walrus-on-literal-sex-kitten soft-core. How about a journalist fly on the wall, mouth full of shit and wee insect heart full o’ spite? Check. Bunnies doing what bunnies do best, but with terrible, terrible consequences? Check. Strung out frog/lizard thingies languishing in a P.O.W. camp? Check. Lovesick singing hedgehogs? Check. Cow-on-cockroach fetish video? Hoo boy, check. And that ain’t the half of it.
Yes, Jackson and crew made me spew “WTFOMGODZILLA” before most anyone else. Maybe Richard O’Brien popped my cherry, but Rocky felt like home, whereas Meet The Feebles was outright alien territory. I was utterly unprepared for the brainpan dervish that played out before me, wracking me with I’MNOTREADY joy.
I can say, with absolute certainty, that renting it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
I thought I’d ease you guys into this post with a picture of a fluffy kitten, because I’m about to post the wrongest shit ever. Think of this intro image as a reverse unicorn chaser, because I’m sadistic like that.
So the image above and the images below come from a cozy little LiveJournal community called thrifthorror. The concept behind this community is simple:
Some things you can’t even give away … except to the church’s thrift store. Saw an abomination unto taste at the Salvation Army? Encountered pure terror – or Junior’s faintly suggestive third grade clay pot marked at $7.99- at Goodwill? Send a picture, tell the story. Maybe through our combined efforts, that pot can find a home.
Most of the images posted speak for themselves, but they get ten times better with contributors’ colorful commentary. Some select favorites, with comments from the journal, below:
Top Row
1. Leave the Wright brothers alone!! [source]
2. This is what happens when you scramble duck eggs that were nearly ready to hatch. Imagine standing over the stove, compulsively poking at your eggs with a spatula, when a little yellow head pops up from the congealing mass of rapidly denaturing proteins. Then another little head. Then another. [source]
3. Santa wants you to bend over now. [source]
Middle Row
1. Choking the Chicken? (I know, it’s a goose) [source]
2. I think, think, it’s supposed to be a humorous cover for a tissue box. [source]
3. No trip to the thrift store is complete without a pig orgy. [source]
Bottom Row
1. Take a picture, it lasts longer. [source]
2. Actually, I know where all those scuffs are from. I mean, it’s pretty obvious. This kid got beaten up. A lot. [source]
3. Everyone needs some thrift shop douche! [source]
What you hold in your hands is more than a book. If we are lucky, it is a revolution.
—
It is “steam engine time” for the writers of speculative fiction. The millennium is at hand. We are what’s happening.
-Harlan Ellison, from the Introduction to Dangerous Visions
They are two volumes: old by now and a little yellow around the edges, imposing both in size and scope. Seventy-nine stories by as many authors. The overloaded dynamite clump of an era.
The world had never seen anything like 1967’sDangerous Visionsor its 1972 follow-up,Again, Dangerous Visions. Enfant terrible Harlan Ellison bought together sci-fi’s old masters and a grand array of new talent to unleash a wave of stories sexy, violent and far enough out there that they’ll still shock the living hell out of you today. Attacking “the constricting narrowness of mind” that ran sci-fi, Ellison urged the authors: “Pull out all the stops, no holds barred, get it said!” They did.
If “All Tomorrows” is your informal classroom on the glories of the Deviant Age, consider these the fucking primers. They personify everything great and terrible about this time. Here, in paper form, are seventy-nine utterly genius minds cutting loose.
Here too, is the trilogy that was never finished. It is thirty-six years later, and The Last Dangerous Visions, the long-touted finale, is lost as the holy grail. Like its era, the Dangerous Visions series broke the old into tiny pieces and screamed towards the future — only to fall sickeningly short in a mix of bile-ridden hubris.
More on one of the greatest triumphs and tragedies science fiction has ever seen, after the jump.
The spectacle above was The Pointy Shoe Factory – a Texan ensemble whose turbulent sound I fell in love with 7 years ago, while working a shpooky retail gig. I discovered them behind the shop stereo on a scratched-up, home-made CD. Dramatic and dirty, the album felt almost like a film score. If in his 20s Angelo Badalamenti himself had a doom band that played in smoky Lynchean lounges it would sound like this. I looked for more, but the band had broken up for all the classic reasons: money, women, drugs and backstabbing. Daron Beck – TPSF vocalist and, as it turned out, the one who abandoned that CD at my old job – had apparently lost his mind. He was busying himself with a stint on American Idol, sitting in with various bands and playing strangely affected solo shows under the name “The Passion Of Daron Beck”.
The Great Tyrant 7″ album art by the talented David D’Andrea
This unseemly behavior halted when The Great Tyrant was formed. The band has now been together for three years, with Beck as crooner, wailer and keyboardist, Jon Teague on drums and Tommy Atkins on bass. Both Teague and Atkins are formerly of Yeti – a space-prog band TPSF performed with regularly. The three site a long and erratic list of influences, among them Scott Walker, Il Baletto di Bronzo and Swans. While this configuration is smaller than The Pointy Shoe Factory, the sound is not. Still thoroughly theatrical and doomy, The Great Tyrant drowns the senses in expert noise and takes the brain for a stroll along the edge of pandemonium. Have listen to Candy Canes, the A side of TGT’s 7? while you watch the video, made for the band by Nouvelle Mode Films.
A seemingly sane Daron reports that being part of The Great Tyrant has been a tremendous learning experience, and that playing with Jon and Tommy is everything he could wish for in a band. Feel the love! They have finished their first full length album and are looking for a label to put it out on vinyl – any takers? There is a plan for a West Coast tour in the fall [wheee!] and a split 12? with Human Anomaly [ex-Noothgrush] that should be out by early fall. As we wait for hard copies of an album to become available [or an official website, for that matter], I suggest you keep a close eye on The Great Tyrant myspace page. And if you’re in Dallas, you can see them live on December 28, 9pm at Double Wide.
When the controversy regarding Amanda Palmer’s belly first hit, I was confused. Amanda Palmer’s record label, metal powerhouse Roadrunner, had told her they wanted to cut shots from her new music video that focused on what they deemed to be the singer’s offensively large belly. I watched this video, and I kept waiting for that one shot. I was waiting to see a jiggling closeup, or a spray of sweat flying from a glistening roll of flesh – just something that would make me say, “well, at least I can see where these A&R dudes were coming from, even if I don’t agree with them.” I waited, and waited, and waited, bopping my head to the tune. And then the video was over. There was nothing sinister; just a soft, healthy belly underneath a sexy open shirt that’s mostly obscured by the microphone stand, as can be seen below:
So yeah. Some dude from the label was like, “I’m a guy, Amanda. I understand what people like.” Uh-huh. What’s brilliant about this is the fact that the video and story are now huge, fueling the success of Amanda’s new solo album, which Roadrunner had deemed a commercial failure. The controversy (“Bellygate”) was featured everywhere from Pitchfork to Bitch Magazine to The freakin’ Guardian, and a fan-made Rebellyon rages on.
Mer, left, and Amanda Palmer, right, performing together at “Fuck the Back Row” in Brooklyn
But this post isn’t just about Amanda Palmer and her belly. It’s also to let you guys know that those of you who live in the Bay Area have a unique opportunity to see our dear Mer perform on stage with Amanda Palmer tonight (December 15th) at Bimbo’s. Mer will be playing both violin and theremin, making me want to drop everything and fly to San Francisco right now. For those of you who are going: enjoy the show, you lucky bastards.
But seriously, this new Hello Kitty maternity hospital that just opened in Taiwan is the place to be.According to Reuters:
Newborns get everything Hello Kitty but a set of whiskers, including pink or blue receiving blankets, nurses dressed in pink uniforms with cat-themed aprons, cot linen and room decor. In the lobby, a Hello Kitty statue in a doctor’s uniform greets patients, and twice a year people in feline costumes visit mothers and children. The cat’s likeness even shows up on birth certificate covers.
