Quelle Horrors - bigots are underfoot and bills are gettin signed, but yet some poor girl is attacked at a Samantha Ronson DJ gig here in S-town. Sad, mad and bad. I can't believe this shit is still happening. And here -- and with alarming frequency. Please tell me the apathy isn't suppressing this issue because i'm at a boiling point... And it has fuckall to do w/Lilo's ex. But - I am going to divert myself with this painting by Paul Cadmus. I love portraits from another time (*1932) that you can crawl into bed with. It's very familiar, like a lover who takes a brief moment to put down his banned book and pose for you (*and btw, Ulysses was still banned at the time of the painting, making this a very bold statement in more ways than one). And while we're on a coolness meme - another diversion - take it away Plugz (from New Wave Theatre Circa 82)...
Ok - my more successful doppelganger, Jarvis Cocker, was again highlighted on Big Stereo doing his usual moves: Playing to a crowd in Paris and going in his 70's monster-rock mode... Yes, we both have facial hair and over sized frames which looks odd on small heads, yes we both have fey-mannerisms (him because he's skinny and English. me because I'm skinny and well, just fey). Yes, we are both middle-aged art-damaged otters. But, he stole my look first. I've long been doing the over-sexed professor look - he only recently grow out his facial hair. I must say that I'm tempted to go back to the old Jarvis look (that I also sported in the 90's): Tight low cut disco shirts and slim fitting polyester trousers, and snide irony. Oh well. As far as comparisons go - I'll take this over John Hodgman (which I got quite a few years/pounds ago)...
Because I love all things twee and postpunk girl-power pop, i am still lovin' that the kids at BigStereo posted the Mo'Dettes video from the 80's... I love this video the same way I love my Ronettes, perfect pop hooks and arrangements, detached bassists, jangly twee handclapping arrangements and chroma-key effects to match your ensemble. This makes me want to dance in the spring rain in a cherry colored rain coat and bright yellow shoes (ala Jaques Demy).
With the new Star Trek out and eager anticipation of seeing the return of the 'campy, creepy sexy Kirk' (as opposed to the unsexy, militant one in the later series), Vice magazine reports on an interesting theory from AI theoris Hugo De Garis that we'll all soon be waging war on robots. Not quite like Terminator - it'll be newer nano-species that will be waging wars resulting in mass 'Giga-death'. The thought is interesting and fantastic, but the future is going to be alot more regressive and the needs more primitive. The fact that we can't seem to get around nationalism or religious fundamentalism still in the 21st century means that we're not going to be developing any amazing technologies that will present us with those moral dilemma's. (*As why we're not having flying cars or colonizing mars: Capitol and our own short-sighted needs for validation: Religion. Stem cells are still a sore subject with fundies means no cure for cancer, or the other diseases that take us down before we can even build and mass produce 'fusion' or hyperdrives.) Hate to kill the magic here - but our destruction is going to be ultimately banal and around the usual crap: Oil, Food, Water, Guns and God.
Saw Justin Bond do a small set at Comeback's 5th anniv on Friday. It was an interesting, yet incongruous set. I say incongruent because it was largely acoustic caberet for a post-electroclash set and bordered on freak-folkish. Bond seems to channel some Night-of-A-1000-Stevie Nick's balladeering, which probably would have worked in a different setting. Still - he mentioned something about being involved in the Rad Faeries and immediately I blushed and flashed back to living in Eugene and Ashland in the 90's... Pagans and freaks were the norm, thus nothing really shocks or unnerves me about people and their practices. I dated a Wiccan even, and it seemed to fit in Ashland - we were a small, rural town in a country-like setting - close to the earth and disconnected from big cities. Once i hit Seattle, I ditched the sensibilities and became urbane. I spent time online, in coffee shops and bars. I didn't hike. I didn't camp for the longest time (*I joked that "Blair Witch" was improbable because I would never go camping in the first place)... It seemed a million miles away. Fremont was even like an imitiation of the real thing -- you've not truly met hippies until you've been inside a gigantic hollowed out tree that serves as their quiet space... Yes, hippie's are truly the last punks because they're the last earnest types that cling to something not commodified and/or shoved into a particular identity. Bond's set was probably too advanced for the CMBK crowd - and gender fluidity is still suspect in the gay community (ask how many gays react to the 'pregnant man' and you start to see the dividing line still w/in the community), and thus, the true rebels are those who continue to defy interpretation. And yet - I still get impatient around Dead concerts and dreadlock stench is still one of the banes of my existence. Still, I would like to do some kind of 'Return to the Earth' thing when the weather is warmer. I'd like to get a ton of creative types to go into the woods and not necessarily bang on drums, but maybe do some interesting creative shtick. Maybe mate it with fauxpomo sensibilities and a few classical turns, maybe something along this at Fruit Farm that I was so lucky to be a part of last year:
The grey saturdday is more Dylancholia: Jason Yarmosky's take on Orpheus as Dylan. I have always been fascinated by the Orpheus myth, simply because it's probably the first tale of a rock-n-roll romance with the complete existential ending that only the greeks could think up: it doesn't always work out, no matter how hard you try. I love this series that Yarmosky does - incorporating Warsaw Jewish ghetto's with a smoky, lost quality. The idea that you can't escape history and in the end, you're like smoke. Relatedly - I am also digging this video here from Department of Eagles' music video "No One Does It Like You" as part of the MOMA's ongoing PopRally series:
Sad, sad Tomorrow is the last issue of the P.I. I can't tell if this is one of those moments when something in America truly dies, or if it just means the end of dominance of a media form. I'm sure this is like theater, or the novel - something that will persist, but probably has to move beyond the cuniform written in stone and in animal blood. Again, I opt for the online presence. Maybe the model of pulp and ink is like theater - meant for a small, select few willing to pay top price for admission/copies. Sigh. Oh well, in brighter news, I guess it's a good thing i never pursued j-school.
