Photo by Ben McCormick

Singer-songwriter Vic Chesnutt intentionally overdosed on muscle relaxers, lapsed into a coma and died Christmas morning, aged 45, in his hometown of Athens, Georgia. A memorial service was held for him today.

Many are devastated, some are angry, few seem surprised. In addition to his physical impediments (he’d been wheelchair bound since 1983 when a drunk-driving accident left him paralyzed from the waist down with limited use of his hands and arms), Chesnutt struggled his entire adult life with crippling depression. He channeled this anguish into writing raw, unflinching songs that tackle the pain of the human condition head on, often with a wicked sense of humor.

His scrappy authenticity garnered the love and respect of a wide variety of fellow musicians, from Jeff Mangum to Michael Stipe to Patti Smith. His band lineups over the years included members of Fugazi, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Elf Power, Throwing Muses, and more.

In 1996, Garbage, Smashing Pumpkins, REM, Sparklehorse, the Indigo Girls and others covered Mr. Chesnutt’s songs for Sweet Relief II: The Gravity of the Situation, a tribute album benefiting a foundation that raises funds to help pay the medical bills of uninsured musicians.

(via)

It was, needless to say, a cause close to the decedent’s heart. There can be no doubt that Chesnutt’s ongoing struggle to pay off Sisyphean medical costs contributed to his despair. He’d recently been served with a lawsuit filed by a Georgia hospital after accruing surgery bills totaling over $70,000. He couldn’t afford more than hospitalization insurance, and was no longer able to keep up with the payments. From an interview with the LA Times earlier this month:

I really have no idea what I’m going to do. It seems absurd they can charge this much. When I think about all this, it gets me so furious. I could die tomorrow because of other operations I need that I can’t afford. I could die any day now, but I don’t want to pay them another nickel.

What a nightmare. Now is not the time to get into a political discussion about health care reform in the United States (actually, no, strike that– it’s probably the perfect time… I just don’t personally have the stomach for one at the moment) but it’s worth at least acknowledging that the horrific plight of the uninsurable is one faced by untold millions of far less luminary –and conflicted– Americans than Vic Chesnutt.

Chesnutt’s good friend Kristin Hersh has set up a tribute page accepting donations. 100% of that money will go to his family.

RIP.

Chances are good you’ve already heard tell of Mike from Milwaukee and his 70 minute long YouTube video review of The Phantom Menace. But have you actually taken the time to sit down and watch this vitriolic magnum opus?! I’m not gonna say “you haven’t lived” or anything, but this has got to be one of the funniest, most devastating blockbuster smackdowns in the history of cinema, let alone the internet.

Post-holiday depression can be a bitch. Let heathenish laughter cure what ails you, and pass the pizza rolls.

Soon enough I will have made Coilhouse a repository for the Complete Works of John Carpenter. Certainly this was not the intention when I started the FAM, but it seems to have turned out that way. In this case, however, it is with great sadness that I post his cult favorite, Dark Star.

As Mer detailed below, Dan O’Bannon, one of the creative forces behind one of the greatest science fiction/horror movies in all of cinema, died yesterday. Alien is almost a mythical movie at this point, a landmark piece of film of which thousands of words have been written and which has been numerated on countless lists. It is, by dint of its prestige, almost completely absent from the internet, swept away by the watchful eye of Twentieth Century Fox.

What we are left with, then, is Dark Star and here I must make a confession: I hate this movie. Well, hate may be a strong word. I have seen this movie exactly once. It was rented, long ago in the days of my long forgotten youth, under the impression that, like the box proclaimed, it was a laugh out loud comedy, a rollicking good time. It was, in my memory, none of these things and by the time the credits rolled my parents, brother, and I felt that we had surely been tricked; the victims of a cruel bait-and-switch.

Watching it now I find myself appreciating it more for what it represents rather than what it is. Since that day so long ago my taste for irony and absurdist humor has matured, but even so I find few parts of Dark Star to be funny with the exception of O’Bannon’s rightfully lauded turn as Sgt. Pinback/Bill Froog. No, as a comedy it fails, at least for me. What it does do is foreshadow the arc of O’Bannon’s career and hint at just what he was capable of conjuring up from the depths of his brain. Dark Star is the seed from which Alien sprang and, regardless of whether you love it or hate it, for that reason alone it is priceless.

The Coilhouse crew makes no bones about being paper fetishists. (Mmm… the texture of pulp against thumb, the perfume of ink and fresh card stock, the printed tome as art object. Purr.) Because of this bias, I’m skeptical when discussing the ability of e-tablet technology to bridge more tactile, primal gaps between my print and digital reading experiences. However. The London-based BERG design consultancy is blowing my puny mind with their Mag+ prototype:

This could be a readable art object in its own right.

Unlike previous e-tablets I’ve seen, the Mag+ technology would run articles in scrolls rather than as “flipped” pages (an abhorrent digital gimmick, if you ask me), and placed side-to-side in what BERG is calling “mountain range” format. It’s a far less literal translation. More organic. Readers page through by shifting focus, tapping pictures on the left of the screen to peruse content, then tapping text on the right to hone in. Magazines are still presented as compartmentalized issues, without that sense of incompleteness created by an infinite webfeed. It’s… cozy, somehow. BERG says:

It is, we hope, like stepping into a space for quiet reading. It’s pleasant to have an uncluttered space. Let the Web be the Web. But you can heat up the words and pics to share, comment, and to dig into supplementary material.

The design has an eye to how paper magazines can re-use their editorial work without having to drastically change their workflow or add new teams. Maybe if the form is clear enough, then every mag, no matter how niche, can look gorgeous [and] be super easy to understand.

Watch the demo; it’s fascinating. I’m eager to see where they go with this. There’s a discussion board over at Bonnier R&D Beta Lab, if you want to give them direct feedback.

Student team’s CG “Wall of Knowledge” design proposal for the Stockholm Library. (via)

On a related note, the press is saying 2010 will be “The Year of the E-Reader”. We’ve never really discussed e-books here, have we? What has your experience been –if any– with portable tablets like Kindle, Nook or the Sony Reader? So far, bibliophiles I know have had really strong and varied reactions to them. My more tech savvy  (also, dare I say, somewhat more jet-setty and affluent) friends have embraced the digital format as a new and freeing medium. Other, more traditional bookworms reel in horror from the concept of spending yet more time staring at a pixelated screen. [edit: although, as Mark Cook just pointed out in comments, ideally, an e-book screen does not look pixelated.]

GQ link via Tertiary, thanks.

If you read any rant today, make sure it’s “The Bitch Is Back”. (Be warned: should you happen to think Objectivism is nifty, you may not appreciate it quite as much.) Andrew Corsello’s essay for GQ concerning author/philosopher Ayn Rand’s followers and her work’s lingering influence over global economics and politics is a raw, rambunctious, damning piece of work. Here’s a choice excerpt:

In the end, it’s not the books but the smug, evangelical certainty of Ayn Rand Assholes that causes me to loathe Ayn Rand in a personal way. The thing I liked most about college was being around so many young people who were as earnest as they were dauntingly smart. People who didn’t (yet) feel the need to own every room they walked into. People who knew how to ask questions. That was it. All that elevated question-asking, and the pliancy of temperament it entailed.

We were children. Then came Rand, “the Rosa Klebb of letters,” as entertainment journalist Gary Susman calls her, to body-snatch some of the best of them. Rhetorical question: Is there anything more irritating than a 20-year-old incapable of uttering the words “I don’t know”?

Actually, there is: an 82-year-old Alan Greenspan admitting in October 2008—at least ten years too late—that he’d found “a flaw in the model that I perceived as the critical functioning structure that defines how the world works.”

WORD. Wish I still had the email address for this kid in my high school econ class who used to carry Rand’s photo around in his wallet and habitually referred to people as “subnormals”, just so I could send him the final, frothing paragraphs of Corsello’s essay.

See also:

• Hilarious Posts From Ayn Rand Dating Site
• Colbert’s “Going Galt” segment
• How to Succeed as an Ayn Rand Character
• “Will everyone please stop freaking out over Ayn Rand?!“
  

Coilhouse is pleased to introduce a new project by Jeff Wengrofsky (Agent Double Oh No). Jeff explains: “The Syndicate of Human Image Traffickers (SHIT) is an independent film production nexus whose mission is to provide exposure to art, cialis artists, movements, events, and organizations that we believe are unusual, timely, and provoking. Our current project is a series of short (10 minute) documentary films that examine the politics and aporias of creativity. “The Gospel According to Reverend Billy” is the first in this series. It is being published on the Coilhouse blog and is very much an extension of my work for you folks. We hope to web publish a little film once a month until the close of 2010.”

“Man is born free, but he is everywhere in chains.” – Rousseau

Film courtesy of the Syndicate of Human Image Traffickers.

The prime, often countervailing logics of 21^st century America – capitalism and democracy – seem dangerously out of balance today. Meanwhile, vestigial factors, like Puritanism, sometimes affect public life in surprising ways. Since the Giuliani years, America’s largest city – New York – has seen lower crime, infrastructural investments, an infusion of capital, a proliferation of chain stores, a vast profusion of surveillance devices and, perhaps, the general evisceration of democracy. Just recently, Mayor Michael Bloomberg ignored widespread opposition to the construction of two billion dollar stadiums and the much-maligned Atlantic Yards construction project. More egregiously, he bullied our City Council into overturning a term limits law that had been passed fifteen years earlier by public referendum. Now running for his third term, Bloomberg’s campaign war chest has intimidated all prominent Democratic challengers.

As politics appears as (yet another) massively-financed spectacle of buzzwords, scandals, outsized personas and deep psychology, is it possible to enter the political fray without selling your soul? Can you get the attention of the public eye by taking on an identity at once striking and also familiar to our public culture? Fifteen years ago, William Talen began the process of becoming a New Yorker and re-inventing himself as “Reverend Billy.” Today, armed with this identity, he enters churches of consumption – like the Disney store in Times Square – to project a powerful message opposing corporate retail, a culture of consumerism, and the encroachment of our public spaces.

Reverend Billy’s charisma, energy, and smarts have gathered him a gospel choir, the attention of CNN, a documentary film by Morgan Spurlock, and now the nomination of New York’s Green Party for the 2009 mayoral race. Reverend Billy combines a Nixonian charm with the overly stylized tropes of a preacher, and, perhaps as prime mover, a rich Calvinist heritage. America has a long history of Calvinist preachers – you may know them as “Puritans” – who rail against impure desires, “the moneychangers,” and fret mightily for the souls of their congregants.

All photos by Tina Zimmer.

COILHOUSE: Words like “community” and “neighborhood” have a special resonance for your choir. Are you a New Yorker?
REVEREND BILLY: I grew up in Watertown, South Dakota and Rochester, Minnesota, and I always dreamed of being a New Yorker, the way you can dream of New York on the prairie. When the satellites would go up across the night sky, I used to think they were New York City flying through space. I first moved here in 1974, stayed a couple of years. Moved back again in the early 80s and, for a longer period of time, in the late 80s. I was like a hitchhiker, I would come and crash in the Lower East Side. In March of 1994, I don’t know why exactly, my commitment became permanent.

Do you feel like a New Yorker?
I do now because I perform in so many neighborhoods. I marry, baptize and bury New Yorkers in so many different boroughs. We – me and Savitri and the choir – some of us were born here and many of us are immigrants, we like the idea of a homemade spirituality that does not necessarily come from an organized religion. That idea became a New York idea after 9-11. Many of us gathered in rooms. The Reverend Billy idea of a different God or Goddess every day with another name, staying out of trouble with deities that cause us to kill each other, that kind of fellowship, I needed it, too.

[Interview continues after the jump.]

Various works by sculptor John T. Unger.

John T. Unger is a fabulously inventive artist, environmentalist, writer, small business owner and the creator of copyrighted sculptural Artisanal Firebowls. He crafts his wares with primarily recycled or re-used materials, designing for permanency and functionality. His work has been featured on Etsy, BoingBoing, Neatorama, and by Craft Magazine, Variety and VenusZine, to name only a few.

Right now Unger’s mired in what he has dryly referred to as “an unwanted education in copyright law” and boy, does it sound like FUN!  Unger, who obtained legal copyright a while back to protect his original sculptures from piracy, says a man by the name of Rick Wittrig, owner of FirePitArt.com, has not only begun manufacturing and selling products which are extremely similar to Unger’s, but has even gone so far as to bring a federal lawsuit against Unger to have the copyrights for Unger’s own original artwork overturned.

Repeating for emphasis: Unger is being copyright-sued by a guy who makes knockoffs of his own work. Wooo!

Fire bowl, mask, and “fire imp” figurines by John T. Unger.

Attempts at settlement have failed. Unger, who has already spent $50,000 fighting against Wittrig, says that “seeking a judicial ruling in federal court will cost more than any artist or small business can afford on its own”, yet the lawsuit continues to move forward. Apparently, Wittrig has money to burn, so to speak. Unger isn’t taking it lying down:

A life in the arts is all I have ever really wanted. After more than 20 years of working towards that goal I have achieved success… It isn’t easy to make it as an artist and I didn’t have a lot of initial support. When I started my art business as a full time occupation I was homeless, $20,000 in debt, and had few tools but a laptop. I joke that “I did it with nothing, because nothing is free,” but there’s truth in this… I built what I have now from the ground up because I was passionate enough to keep doing the work no matter what else happened.

I don’t understand why a person would fight as hard as Mr. Wittrig has to profit from the work of another. It baffles me because I have devoted my life to making things which are unique and to marketing them as unique items crafted from a detailed personal philosophy. I don’t view original artwork as a commodity. I have no interest in imitation. If he had spent the time, energy and money that has gone into this lawsuit on designing original work, with its own story and its own unique appeal there would be plenty of room for both of us to succeed on our own merits.

Guys, I realize it’s important to pick one’s battles carefully in life. This might seem like an oddly piddling skirmish for me to throw in on, but honestly, supporting an artist like Unger is at the heart of why I got involved in an online community like Coilhouse in the first place.

If Wittrig wins by outspending, Unger could lose everything. Not just the rights to his own designs, but his house and his studio as well… basically everything he’s been working toward for roughly a decade. But at the heart of it, this is not about financial loss or gain. This is about not letting a bully with a big wallet ruin a truly creative person’s reputation and credibility. When basic protections like these are overturned, it weakens the law for all artists.

We can help: spread the word and if you can afford to, donate a buck or two to Unger’s defense fund. If you have a bit more spending money on hand, check out his incredible, lovingly made fire pits or other pieces– the integrity and beauty of Unger’s work speaks for him better than any press release ever could.

Christ, again? Seriously, you knew your boss was crazy but this is just getting ridiculous. I mean, how many pictures of fucking Spiderman does one man need, really? They never publish more than two or three anyway. Bet the bastard probably jerks off to ’em at home. Asshole. Well screw him, you’ve got better things to do than indulge his weird fetishes. It’s time for the FAM.

For your enjoyment we present M – Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder or simply M as it was known here, Fritz Lang’s story of a murderer terrorizing Berlin. Considered by Lang to be his finest film (a sentiment I echo; Metropolis being a masterpiece of design but a mess of everything else) it helped to launch the career of Peter Lorre, previously known as a comedic actor, who would go on to be typecast as a villain for years afterwards. Many have suggested that the film was inspired by the case of Peter Kürten, “The Vampire of Düsseldorf” the serial killer and rapist who preyed on the citizens of Düsseldorf from February to November of 1929, a claim that Lang steadfastly denied.

This is a movie that always comes up when I discuss the current resurgence of so-called “torture porn”, films created by hacks with no idea how to direct a film. The opening scene of M is a tour de force of subtlety, the image of a balloon, entangled in telephone lines infinitely more effective than anything seen in the tenth installment of Saw or anything even remotely related to Eli Roth. They really don’t make them like this anymore.

On a purely philosophical level I have never been down with the title of “Better Than Coffee”, for coffee holds a wondrous and special place in my heart; and anything that might replace coffee as a superior means of jolting me into stubborn wakefulness strikes me as decidedly unpleasant like a cattle prod to the groin, or opening your eyes to a dozen clowns surrounding your bed, leaning over to peer down at you, or looking in the mirror and discovering that sometime, while you slept, you had turned into Ann Coulter. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. We are here, so to speak, so we should get this show on the road. Your usual host has come down with gnomes, which is unsurprising considering her current locale. We all warned her that, unlike chicken pox, you don’t get gnomes once and that’s it. Your body develops no tolerance to gnomes. Poor girl didn’t listen.

5 Second Films is a brilliant idea that harks back to the likes of Earnest Hemingway and his famous, six word story “For Sale: Baby Shoes – never used.” born from a society whose attention span has diminished to almost nothing. At a time of the day where my ability to concentrate is on par with my Jack Russell Terrier this sort of delivery is ideal and functions, in a way, to mirror my own creative process, in which I will oftentimes write short, nonsensical stories of no more than a sentence or two for random photographs I find on the internet in order to jump start my brain.

There are a few clunkers here, to be sure, but the ones that work, like “Never Switch a Switcher” are a testament to both brevity, and the hammy overacting that only helps to carry the story. Check out a few more after the jump.

This is one of the worst things I’ve ever seen. This may seem like hyperbole, especially when one considers my posting history on these internets, but I assure you it is not. This may be due to the fact that I am old enough to remember when the news that Kurt Cobain had committed suicide was A Big Deal. I knew some people who may have shed a tear or more upon hearing this proclamation. Those people will, no doubt, deny the veracity of that statement, but we both know it to be true. Maybe, on the other hand, it is simply due to my curmudgeonly nature, that wizened, frowning, disapproving aspect of my personality given to bemoaning the state of modern music and remonstrating youths for loitering on my well manicured lawn.

Whatever the reason, Chilean singer Abigail’s version of the Nirvana classic Smells Like Teen Spirit remains a stupendous atrocity; a pop-techno re-imagining devoid of irony but instead recorded with what seems to be a complete lack of understanding. I’m no great fan of the band but, really, I think they deserve better than this. Of course, I could be completely wrong. This could, in actuality, be an exquisitely orchestrated trolling a thoughtful deconstruction of Grunge; ruthlessly exposing its teen existential angst as petulant whinging and bubblegum philosophy.

Only Abigail knows for sure.