painters pointers gleaners

Time for yet more special mentions/E for Excellent Blog Award recipients.

Dennis Hopper in one of his typically manic effusions quoted Duchamp while talking about Warhol. He said something like: the artist of the future will just point. As in the context of Warhol, the Campbell's soup can, the images of Marilyn, Jackie--that's art asserting their value. Or past a '60s pop purview, the idea is simply to point out or gather up wonders for others to see.

Artists, pointers, gleaners or all of the above, there really are a lot of people out there gathering up the pieces. And what shiny things they bring.

Having long wielded a spray can, Catherine Carter's been breathing easier with less airborne media for her gestural, calligraphic approach and using more collage. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, there's her desire to get the resulting paintings out into the world. All on view in Catherine Carter's Art Blog.

John Borowicz favors the 000 brush. But as you can see in
son of the forest, most anything from post-mod allegory to closely rendered portraiture issues forth.

ConcreteBeat takes a video camera into the NYC streets & subways to appreciate/document/help promote public performers. Many but not all are musicians like Melissa the Loud playing the Hurdy-Gurdy. There are performance videos, interviews and info on club dates.

The Boat Lullabies and Swapatorium are giving us & numerous old found photos a chance to get acquainted. In a world where continuity is hard to come by and a blurry forgetfulness is legion, this is very good indeed.

In like fashion, the Roadside Architecture blog brings us along for the ride with new photos of old signs, old places.

In service of sonic dispersion, Awesome Tapes from Africa, Boot Sale Sounds and different waters all bring the knowledge & good vibes. And tho' my aging computer/OS won't do rar files, I visit A Closet of Curiosities just to see what crazy, cool records will show up next.

the music of sound gathers some vibes of its own.

Paleo-Future is ever sifting & digging deep into what was once imagined as the shape of things to come. And Pruned deals what being imagined in landscape architecture.

Other pointer/gleaner blogs of distinction would be The World of Kane, PCL LinkDump, BibliOdyssey and MusicThing. All of them are so good at what they do that surely they've gotten the Excellent Blog Award ten times over. Well, here's their eleventh . . .

All the above blogs get the E for Excellent awards with special mention. (And if some blog slipped my mind, remember what I said . . .)

sick in a good way

Not to milk a recent honor or weasel out of my previous "power to the people"/meme chose for all awarding of the E for Excellent blog award, but as an amplification I'd like to give special mention to a blog or two.

Well, for the time being, one blog in particular:

That Mall's Sick And That Store's Dead!

On her way to work, school and Lane Bryant, Anita Rose has been keeping tabs on dead & dying retail in the Hampton Roads area and thereabouts. The now long gone Coliseum Mall and Mercury Plaza. The pretty much totally repurposed Newmarket North/Newmarket Fair mall. The extant time machine to '89 that is Southpark Mall.

Beyond southeastern Virginia, the Sickmalls blog has links to other retail blogs and sites dedicated to once ubiquitous chains like Caldor and Ames. And Anita also has a hand in Deadmalls.com.

But shunting over to the big grid experience, you'll miss some cool details and such.

So go see for yourself why That Mall's Sick And That Store's Dead! wins with special recommendation the E for Excellent blog award.

uncurb your enthusiasm

In a vast web of begetting and begotting, four blogs within my field of vision got the E for Excellent blog award:

I'm Learning To Share!

FABULON

Schadenfreudian Therapy

Deadlicious

Congratulations to them all. And I'd add or amend it: E for Enthusiasm.

Which may sound like some bass-ackwards version of "nice try", but it's nowhere near that.

These blogs (and other blogs, persons & non-bloglike entities) are cool because of the sparks they throw off over the things that thrill them. Or make them widen their eyes, tap their feet, laugh their asses off, whatever.

I'd like to thank them for sharing those things & throwing those sparks around for the rest of us to marvel at.

And thanks be to FABULON for passing its second meme this week to this humble mirror in the vast online funhouse:



I went to where the award was begun, ProjectMommy (now The Mommy Project--ah, these evershifting domains), and skimmed the rules. Ten nominations are the minimum but not the max, and any blog rewarded can be re-rewarded.

Meaning I don't gotta fuss over this. Just as baikinange at Schadenfreudian Therapy did, I can just point to the links column and say: yep, they all get the E for Excellent award. Heck, them and all those blogs mentioned here but not yet linked.

But I'm just in a hyperinflationary frame of mind. To (very broadly & inexactly) quote my fave TV show: If you can be a slayer, you are a slayer.

And Blogger and WordPress accounts be damned. Your qualifications are being alive.

If you're reading this entry, congratulations. You just won.

Harp on Mouth Sextet

As this humble blog was kindly honored, it seemed past time to post something "strange and wonderful".

Luckily, my friend Mike just wrote me about the group Harp on Mouth Sextet, their combination of electronica with traditional Japanese gagaku, and anonymous hat-and-veil stage presence.



Both vids are courtesy rruubbyyoorrllaa.

forces of nature

We'll skip "which of these is not like the other":

Not so natural but funny is a video PCL LinkDump posts that combines two great geeky pop culture talismans, Star Trek The Original Series and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Made my damn day . . .

Making her 33rd day on the road, Debra Jane Seltzer aka agilitynut has thus far driven through a big swath of the American South and Southwest with her four dogs and her camera taking many pictures and blogging along the way. She's just finishing up a whirlwind photo session through Los Angeles. Images of cool old signs, giant faux critters and interesting architecture are left in her wake. More will be showing up at her Roadside Architecture website.

The man behind FABULON is yet another in perpetual motion, creating the music of Arcanta. There's a recent podcast and all that good stuff. Plus in a 60s pop vein, a clip of Mama Cass on The Hollywood Palace (introduced by none other than Sammy Davis Jr.).

Not your thing? Well, I'm Learning To Share! does homage to Lawrence Welk. Great photo of him in a then new '56 convertible with a record player in the dash. And an drawing of him as a punk rocker.

groundhog & WeaslThrum

WeaslThrum on audiokayness: yr garden variety pinging, spronging, buzzing, humming in 4/4 time.

groundhog!!! on uberkayness: goofy grayed out pics of the indomitable Chucky, now arisen from her winter torpor. Skunk cabbage and something resembling warmth to follow for sure.

love the droid you're with

Noise Is Information posts video of a mechanical pack mule being developed. And an article on a flying observation drone for police.

Paleo-Future unearths a 1997 article on robots as paramours.

Far spookier perhaps are those human simulacra animated solely by the user's imagination, as is the case in the documentary Guys And Dolls.

Far funnier definitely is a clip FABULON posts of high fashion models clad in sheet metal. From the movie Who Are You, Polly Magoo?

Before obsolescence of the flesh is achieved, PCL LinkDump writes of Project Prostitute, a collection of people's drawings of their notion of a prostitute.

Wonder what The Pop Group would say?

on audiokayness: Kitchen Improv

Kitchen Improv--fun banging lids and sloshing water.

Want something far less clunky? Somewhat more rockin'?

do the robot

'Fore it does you?

Noise Is Information brings us the Onion's slow-dance version of Judgment Day.

FABULON presents Klaus Nomi, the late cabaret performer who gave it his heart and servos.

Paleo-Future posts Nirvana Draws Nearer, some 1959 musings on the housewife untethered from domestic labor by robotics.

Should I even mention Robot Angels?

Wither thou, Bender . . .

End program.

maybe for sure

At this point, I should've long outgrown the impractical notion of a pop music transcendent.

Well, too bad--check this out:



Not since Ann-Margret have I seen these kind of sparks. The fact that the video is fun & knowing and has even more to bank on visually than the foxy Emma Bunton makes it all worth watching many times over. And the music is great, with a chorus that turns all the right corners.

Thanks be to FABULON and beyond for sharing the good vibes.

Also fun, the scatter shot semiotics in Emma's vid, "Downtown":

media event horizon

It's not just the Second Battle of Bull Run being reenacted.

Noise Is Information posts a funny & hyperreal re-creation on Japanese TV of the We Are The World video. Participants portray the likes of Stevie Wonder, Lionel Richie, Bruce Springsteen and Diana Ross.

Now in the guise of the late George W. S. Trow: Remember the '80s? Remember remembering the '80s?

'Kay, back to the show . . .

sound from Bali

the music of sound posts more about a recent trip to Bali. Included are good stories, great photos, and excellent Zoom H2 recordings of natural sound, Balinese Gamelan, cool street music etc.

Once saw the MIT based Gamelan Galak Tika perform some years ago at Roger Williams University. Great show with a hands on session afterward for interested audience members.

The matched but subtly detuned pairs of instruments give the music its shimmer.

out of this world & down to earth

The World of Kane posts about a Joe Meek documentary. Very much looking forward to seeing this film about the man behind "Telstar".

Congrats to FABULON on its 1st anniversary. Life on Earth has been much livelier thanks to this conduit of wit & style.

Here on the ground, Pruned posts about Defiant Gardens.

And levitating slightly, the music of sound speaks of playing Balinese Gamelan.

in search of strange instruments

the music of sound has gathered some fun cool vids found on YouTube under "strange instrument". The bowed clothes drying rack video brings to mind its low rent cousin, the ebowed toaster oven.

Also posted there is a cool video of Table Music, a piece for 3 musicians and, yep, 3 tables.

freakin' S&H Green Stamps

Many thanks to agilitynut for finding & photographing this S&H Green Stamp sign. Just one of the cool new pics posted daily from her ongoing roadtrip.

Likewise there are some great comments re this photo with yet more S&H photos referenced.

Speaking of green, check out her page of Sinclair Oil dinosaurs . . .

whose hands are these? (or: Blog Moses)

Black Velvet Moses--just an unearthed bit of thrift store arcana on uberkayness.

Speaking of invoking blogs & icons, FABULON posts Diablo Cody apologia and June Lockhart in space.

between, throughout & amongst

In lieu of stylistic or thematic coherence, strings of prepositions do my bidding on uberkayness:

out up & over--black & white & grey all over pics of barnyard and backstreet past, Taunton River recent

inside & out--light of hand and statuary

Absolut Quartet

Cool music machine vid. (Evidently a promo for Absolut, meh . . .)

Thanks to LiebermanPaluska.

And to Steev for forwarding the link.

let Shawn, heads & good times role

I'm Learning To Share! just put up a great post on Dick Shawn.

It includes a clip from Shawn performing on the Dinah Shore variety show. His closing bit is like a twisted codex of show biz.

We are as yet unable to realize Simpsons/Futurama scenarios with the living disembodied heads of Richard Nixon, Kitty Carlisle and other luminaries. But FABULON has gathered evidence that special guest stars of some kind are possible. Esp. on the exceedingly funny Playing With Dolls.

At this moment, agilitynut is blogging 'cross Texas in Roadside Architecture. And posting yet more cool stuff on Flickr.

Cashmere Jungle Lords video passes 1250 mark

That's a lot of viewings in my media grand duchy.

Meanwhile, Aunt Mimi's front yard video has passed the 650 mark. The Loved Ones' cover of "Public Bath" is around 389, the ebowed toaster oven is at 326, and the homebrew "Egypt Lane" video is past 300.