Thousands of people hold their breath as they watch a gleaming white spacecraft descend. It touches down in a cloud of steam and the door drops to reveal a beautiful shiny humanoid, chrome helmet and armor. He emerges, reserved, as the screaming swells all around him. Is this the Second Coming? Holy fuck-christ, is it Xenu!?
No, little ones. Look on in awe as rows of marching helmeted men line up all around. Look and know that you’re about to let Michael Jackson rock your very asses. And know that you’re lucky, because there will never be another tour in the history of music like the Dangerous tour.
To be more creative is to get closer to childhood.
-Sarah Moon
“Impressionist photographer” Sarah Moon has spent her entire career dancing down the high-wire tension line strung between fine-art and fashion photography. To my knowledge, she has yet to falter or repeat herself.
Her phantasmagoric vision, though often imitated, would be impossible to duplicate. Most anyone with the time and resources can become a darkroom wizard, and Moon certainly is, using capricious techniques like sepia coloring on matte paper, toned silver gelatin printing, solarization, monochrome Polaroid pack, etc. Much of the trendy work made through these means can seem a bit stale or derivative, lacking a certain sense of playfulness, don’t you think? The mischievous gut level allegory found in Moon’s most memorable compositions sets her apart.
Take a stroll through her dreamy fairy tale world beyond the cut.
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.
While these days everything Disney isn’t exactly perceived as cutting edge, things were different back in the day. Just think of gloriously creepy Fantasia and Pinocchio, both the fruit of Disney’s collaboration with Bauhaus painter Oskar Fischinger.
Disney intended to continue bringing in artists to further expand his studio’s horizons, and Destino was meant to be his next step in that direction. Salvador Dali thought very highly of Disney and cherished the project, completing for it 2 paintings at 135 sketches. A surrealist love story conceived and subsequently shelved in the 40s, Destino was finally unearthed, finished and released in 2003 on orders of Walt Disney’s nephew.
Update! If you’re in LA, you can see Destino for yourselves at LACMA through January 6. Thanks for the tip, 5000!
Though personally I would have preferred Dali traveled in time and worked with Peter Chung, this remains a fine testament to both Dali and Disney’s former glory. One more video beyond the jump.
A beautiful morning to you all, search from our other tentacled friends in the Mediterranean sea. They may not have brains but this one seems to have a heart on display.
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 nineties cultural vacuum had barely kicked off when Eerie, Indiana adopted the corn-fed TV formula of the day and injected it with a healthy dose of DARQUE. What resulted was something along the lines of Blossom meets Twilight Zone.
This television artifact was first aired in 1991, and quickly won its place in cult history, despite it’s brief life on the air. For an example of what you’re in for look no further than the first episode, featuring man-size Tupperware put to unnatural use:
A piece from Yoshitaka Amano‘s book “Hiten” serves as a reminder of seasons, while comrade Nadya and I are being scorched by heinous 80 degree November heat here in Angel City. Ah yes, I vaguely recall something about death and rebirth, changes in temperature, nature’s mystery and its cycles changing gears – that sort of thing. It’s fuzzy, like a long-lost dream, really. Until weather takes mercy on us I’ll indulge in all things that remind me of what Autumn and Winter are meant to feel like. At times like these I really miss Moscow. Here’s hoping that today few of us are frying like gutted fish on yellow California pavement and for a swift arrival of rain, too.
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.
