pruned and multiplied

Pruned just posted some interesting links, including a Subtopia post on the Green Belt created along the former East/West German border.

And if I understand correctly, Au carrefour étrange has a new sister blog, french book covers.

from JPL to the LSD

I found the sad news on The World Of Kane about the recent death of actor John Phillip Law.

From there I wandered to the Wikipedia entry on Skidoo, an "acid comedy" Law starred in. And found among the external links an intriguing article of Paul Krassner's, "My Acid Trip with Groucho".

Drawing from his encounters with folks like Groucho Marx and Squeeky Fromme, Krassner has plenty to say.

spring and springlike things

Spring is warming things up.

Concrete Beat demonstrates the further thawing of the NYC subway with vids of Baby Soda, quite a trad jazz ensemble of accordion, washboard percussion, trumpet, upright bass and acoustic guitar.

If you view such talent with the dolorous question "Gee, how can I ever play that well?", Failed Muso has found the answer in a suite of fantabulous fixer-upper modules. The Make Sound Like (MSL) unit, with the special feature of making one's music sound more or less like the Beatles, seems an absolute boon to the cause of pop band (non-)emulation.

Excuse me while I set mine to "Eno" and pump through 26 years of music. And look forward to some boutique offshoots like the Jad Fairinator or the Moe Tuckerizer.

On a more visual front, Noise Is Information posts a cool stop action animation vid.

And Au carrefore étrange makes its own sweet way to May '68.

It's About Time

I remember this show from when I was a preschool TV addict. Esp. Imogene Coca and Joe E. "Ooh! Ooh!" Ross.

phase three

Yes, these are sized down versions of three videos from a recent post. Shrunk to more easily fit together on a screen. Placed together to be played together all at once in a somewhat Steve Reich-ian fashion.

[Of course, the Standard Disclaimer applies: don't blame me if anything or anybody blows up. While trying to play three videos at once, your computer may crash or whatnot. Don't do this unless you're okay with that possibility from the outset. And if you're using someone else's computer, ask them first--or forget about it.]

On mine (an oldish iMac with a DSL connection), the images tend to shutter and the sounds will cutout & pop now and then. (Cool, huh?)

The middle video is only a minute long, but you can restart it. And the others can be stopped now and then for effect. The play/pause button won't start & stop on a dime, but some kind of control is there.

Have fun . . .

phasing in

I remember back 20-odd years ago reading a description of Steve Reich's Pendulum Music posted in a display case in Old Cabell Hall, the university Music Dept. building.

An art-damage post-punk garage pop troglodyte of sorts, I liked microphonic feedback (and still do). Dangling mikes swooping past amplifiers and creating yelps of feedback sounded like the coolest idea ever. And when I read how it all ended when the mikes had come to rest--by pulling the plug on the amplifiers--I knew I could trust this classical composer guy. When those mikes were at full screech, no one would want to get close enough to flick an off switch.

The above vid was just posted a week ago (thanks to angband621). And it's great, going the whole distance YouTube's 10 min. limit will allow. While I miss the plug-pulling coup de grace, with the gnarly reflections in that glass-walled room, a fade out may've been best for those closeby.

Here's a brief vid of another Pendulum Music performance (thanks to LiminalTube) done as part of Minimal at Liminal:



And here's an audiovisual version, Video Pendulum, done with two video cameras swinging over monitors (thanks to videoagogogo):

phased out & looping

Synthtopia posts about a cool speaker feedback array. Each of the five differently sized speakers are paired with a piezoelectric contact mike. An on/off switch and volume knob control each pair.

Anyhow, Synthtopia explains it well, talks about the gizmo's creator and has two performance videos, which I like playing (more or less) simultaneously.

Speaking of more or less simultaneously, Synthtopia also posted this video of one pianist playing Steve Reich's Piano Phase on two pianos.

And along similar lines of synchonization & feedback loops, a vid about porn Foley artists, which is either entirely for laughs or these Foley guys dabble in comedy as well.

a world of photos & such

FABULON goes wild with Ann-Margret while giving the nod to likes of Anne Baxter, Donna Reed and Geraldine. Along with celebs known far & wide, there's a cool post re fashion photographer Lillian Bassman.

Being entirely ignorant of Bassman's work, I did a Google search which pulled up a few more of her photos (I particularly dig #2 & #14 from the Crack Series) but no Wikipedia entry . . .

Meanwhile, The Boat Lullabies has posted a sampling of photos from Square America's new series, On the Limits of Memory.

And Swapatorium has some cool buttons, international erasers and such.

coming and going

I'm Learning To Share put up a great post on the recently deceased artist Robert Rauschenberg. Includes a link to the New York Times obit. As Rauschenberg said of Josef Albers, one will likely be saying of Rauschenberg: "Years later . . I'm still learning what he taught me."

Singer Eddy Arnold who sang "Make The World Go Away" also died recently. The London Times has a nice obit.

enduring and not so much

FABULON goes crazy on the voice and presence of Ann Wilson of Heart with two cool performance videos, one from back in the day and one recent. To the Wilson sisters and all that sail with them: Barracuda, indeed.

Having gone through a lot of old family stuff lately, I can appreciate Swapatorium's post of a cool old IBM ribbon box as well as the backstory.

With the many photos of funky retail items recently posted on uberkayness, I have to mention BrandlandUSA's latest post, When Will Richmond Bring Back Miller & Rhoads? M&R and its rival Thalheimer's were once the big stores in downtown Richmond long time ago.

everybody wiki wiki

An entry on Noise Is Information turned me onto this essay by Clay Shirky, "Gin, Television, and Social Surplus". Shirky has a book out, Here Comes Everybody. No, haven't read it, but the essay is cool.

All "looking for the mouse" aside, the first time I heard the word "wiki" was when spoken by Kono (played by Zulu) on Hawaii Five-0.

stuff old & new

Leggett Dept. Store stuff on uberkayness.

New song about the old on audiokayness.

Will Eisner maintains

Just pointing y'all to a cool Will Eisner item on the always eye-opening BibliOdyssey about his work for PS, The Preventive Maintenance Monthly.

mayday mayday and maying

Getting telegraphic with a live cover of Wire's "Dot Dash". (thanks to tveye666)

For a more lyrical distress call, definitely check out this vid on FABULON.

the flotsam that jets 'em

Before unterkayness goes into suspended animation:

uberkayness has yet more of various odd arcane stuff being posted.

Swapatorium has two great items up, Deltashine and Miss Fluffy.

FABULON has two cool clips, Music to Watch the Girls Go By and Drop That Name ("Lassie!").

On Generator.x, this clip bent my brain in a good way. It brought to mind an image seen here on The Woodring Monitor.

And while no doubt biased, I have to mention the painterly mad science of this.

Nodding off now, preparing for deep space . . .

step on through?

Who knows how long such portals can last before they close again, but here's one to a fave old Night Gallery episode, The Painted Mirror. Starring Zsa Zsa Gabor, Arthur O'Connell and Rosemary DeCamp.

the once & future Captain

In anticipation of a second childhood, thought I'd revisit the first via Captain Kangaroo. Had totally forgotten the little doors within the door and the big key ring. (Thanks to musicom67.)

There's even more of the early Captain here and a clip from Tom Terrific (thanks to shippingeverywhere).

Under the auspices of CatThatHasNoName, who also has clips up of Bunny Rabbit and Dancing Bear, here's a color vid of The Town Clown on percussion:



No sign of the shaggy haired sock puppet chanteuse, Miss Frog. Maybe sometime down the line . . .

Meanwhile, Bob Keeshan (aka the good Captain) can be sighted in a grand picture of CBS luminaries from 1978. Said photo is deservedly given a place of honor in FABULON and Deadlicious.

But, hey--no Miss Frog there either. Network politics for damn sure.

all about Saki

Saki, the writer known parenthetically as H. H. Munro, delivered his short stories quickly. Often in five printed pages or fewer. His work, being in the public domain, can be read online. Wikipedia lists several places to go.

If a book is preferred, check the local bookmobile for the Modern Library edition which is almost as compact as one of Saki's stories. It includes a biography by his sister which is not as brief as his stories but does start very promisingly:

My earliest recollection of Hector, my younger brother, was in the nursery at home, where, with my elder brother, Charlie, we had been left alone. Hector seized the long-handled hearth brush, plunged it into the fire, and chased Charlie and me round the table, shouting, "I'm God! I'm going to destroy the world!"

If those are Munro's first remembered words, his last ones were: "Put that damned cigarette out!" [supposedly said before his being dispatched by a German sniper in World War I]

In between are the stories he wrote as Saki. Darkly ironic ones like "The Interlopers" and "The Easter Egg" and funny ironic ones like "Shock Tactics" and "The Schartz-Metterklume Method".

Anyhow, when doing not doing something useful or necessary (like watching episodes of Kung Fu or Hawaii Five-0 on DVD), I'm reading these.

They go by fast.

on with the show, this is it . . .

the music of sound posts a funny link on the dos & don'ts of bringing up baby. Plus for any audio, film production or motorcycle geeks out there, an excellent in-depth post on catching some revs for the film World's Fastest Indian.

Meanwhile on FABULON there's cool showbiz arcana from Vegas 1960.

The Boat Lullabies presents a still from must have been quite a one woman production of Sister Act.

PCL LinkDump brings us the ultimate showdown 'twixt the bands of Perez Prado and Spike Jones.

And if your next battle of the bands involves you singing like the Cookie Monster, Music Thing has some good news.

videos young and old

Synthtopia just posted a cool generative video of Goldfrapp's "Lovely Head".

This monoglot can't recall having heard French sung in falsetto, but now I can thanks to Funky Junk Trunk's post of Michel Polnareff performing "Le Roi des Fourmis".

"Aujourd'hui . . . "

Gotta love his electrified 12-string acoustic and how the camera follows the slow windmill like arc of Michel's picking hand.