what I didn't know about poinsettia

Plenty.

shifting allegiances

No greater a sea change than the one between Nixon '68 and McGovern '72 . . .

(simulcast on uberkayness)

cheery-colored funk

Heck, I forget where I read about Pathway To Unknown Worlds, but expect to experience lost time and the like.

Esp. as it points you toward The Old, Weird America, a blog exploring the music of the Anthology of American Folk Music. Or to a cool collection of pre World War II Japanese music recordings.

Meanwhile, Deviant Synth grooves on Eric Archer's altered Seeburg Select-A-Rhythm.

And Synthtopia enlists The Human Aftertaste [bevare bevare: savage muso-humorists that'll make you laugh or hurl or both] to make a point about the almost total uncoolness of males playing keytar.

pinned down

Even when it wasn't cool to wear one's heart on a sleeve, such as these [from the likes of Rough Trade Records] could be worn on the lapels of a thrift store jacket.

Folks used to call them influences.

vanishing point

A few dispatches from Afton Mountain, an old tourist stop near Skyline Drive:

Recent images of the abandoned HoJo's.

Earlier images of the abandoned Skyline Parkway Motel (now demolished) and the HoJo's.

And oh, yeah, even more recent images.

(Kind of an uberkayness thing as well, so simu-posting there . . .)

rockin' in the park

Thanks to mugsford, here's a clip of the Cashmere Jungle Lords playing one of my favorite tunes of theirs, "Not the Hurtin' Kind".

an orbit tracing inner space

Thom Ayers, who has brightened the interweb with the wit and invention of FABULON, is getting back to his music.

Along with his earlier collaboration, Arcanta, Ayers is now performing on his own. His song currently in rotation, The Only Lament, is reportedly a "work-in-progress", but it already travels the dramatic arc that only a human voice can carry.

singing out of doors

Now that New England autumn is slipping away into cold bare trees, the troubadour duo that is Aunt Mimi arrives just in time with a YouTube channel & not one but two new videos.

And ever popular is their first video.

ain't nobody's fool

Good ol' Dolly back in the days of the Porter Wagoner Show. Courtesy bwr15.

Wandered across this video after viewing this item at PCL LinkDump.

And if Ms. Pardon ain't bringin' enough 'tude for you, here's a Diana moment from FABULON.

holding on to Halloween

Here's a jaunty Halloween tune from the Boat Lullabies.

One can venture into the Bridgewater Triangle . . .



Or hang with Spiderman and such.

assaulted, a-peppered and a-roasted

Here's a bit of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (courtesy spazchop), a TV movie circa 1980 starring Jeff Goldblum as Ichabod Crane, Meg Foster as Katrina Van Tassel, the very cool Laura Campbell as the self-possessed Thelma, and John Sylvester White as the exceedingly loopy Fritz Vanderhoof.

Indeed, the best thing about this adaptation is the cast of off-kilter characters. Worth catching the other segments.

Here's a later one featuring Thelma and Katrina joining forces and a visitation by the late Winthrop Palmer ("They killed me, you fool . . ." @ 8:12):

from Bjork to Karlheinz to Daphne

Synthtopia posts about a Bjork article on Stockhausen.

Following that up I run across cool pics of British music pioneer Daphne Oram.

And from there go on to find this fascinating page about her early wartime years at the BBC.

weasel urine for the people?

Huh . . .*

Oh, I was just thinking of mentioning the poet James Tate when Poem of the Week obliged by posting one of his poems.

While locked inside a Barnes & Noble earlier this month, I had time to wander and saw two recent books by poets I'd seen read way back in my long ago student days.

One is The Ghost Soldiers by the aforementioned Mr. Tate. Great book full of nutty/spooky/beautiful prose poems. Contemporary fables, if you will, or won't. (*Perhaps not--see page 29).

Two is The Great Enigma: New Collected Poems by the poet Tomas Tranströmer. Also worth your glance--here's some online T. to prime the pump.

Much like International Talk Like A Pirate Day (which I leave to Alan Tudyk and other experts, but all the same . . ), I hope there is some worldwide observance/emulation/whatever of these two writers.

These books should help us prepare.

star wipe constellation

More Videos

Purist wags will no doubt wonder if PiL ever used so many star wipes in a video. Who can say . . .

Would like to see a vid for "Sister Europe", but this seemingly post-reunion clip of "Pretty In Pink" will work.

More Videos

inner city sanctums & lone prairies

Pruned posts about Articles of Faith, a series of photos Dave Jordano took of small storefront churches in Chicago.

Also worth viewing are Jordano's other photo series like Prairieland
(one favorite image here and another) and Chanute Air Force Base.

if I were a Partridge, and you were a lady

Brandland USA the website posts about NBC plans to revive the Partridge Family.

Good fan-minded suggestions there as to family dynamics, who should pimp whom.

My only ideas so far: have Danny Bonaduce play the new Reuben Kincaid.

Or perhaps have him play the grown Danny Partridge who will now function as the beleaguered agent to a younger, even wilier Partridge. Get Shirley Jones as Grandma P. and go all multigenerational.

Meanwhile, aside from the small auxiliary concerns like what kind of music would a 21st century Partridge play, the producers should give care to what hip guest stars they can enlist to give the P. Fam. some street cred while only slightly subverting their family-friendly premise.

If Richard Pryor guested in the old series (view epi here), who might do it now?

half melted candy corn for the ears

Halloween selections vol.1 and vol.2 at audiokayness.

Where ghosts bustle or lounge about, drink 'shine & play Misty for us.

Or where things are too goofy, too loopy or unhinged not to wear a foil hat.

the gnarly Civil War

File under "puppy dog tails":

Saw this on PCL LinkDump, a set of Topps Civil War cards.

No close perusal on my part, but the card titles alone ("The Angry Man", "Bridge of Doom", "Charging the Bullets") are amazing, much less the actual illustrations.

See y'all at the Antietam ComicCon . . .

God bless the Colonel

Does this album cover prefigure the Taco Colonel?

Think on that while I take a bucket of the Original Recipe into suspended animation.

past the point of comprehension and good sense

A friend and a friend of the friend mentioned 2 cool blogs that will prob. break my brain. Yours as well, perhaps.

Being a recovering thrift store record shopper, I really liked this particular blog and this particular entry of 3 young ladies (or simulacra thereof) ready to serve. I'm set free to find a new illusion . . .

As for #2, I'll just say Paco Camino.

Oh, and adventure . . .

And, um, cheap cassettes (which I remember well).