mai 27, 2004
crackerjoke (EDITED)
Spank me. Only a few posts after slagging people who are stuck in the past, I’m spouting childhood anecdotes. It’s as though I, too, am stuck in the past.
I was reading “Awakenings” recently, and it occurred to me that both the phenomenon of nostalgia and the topic of cry-laughing are reflected in the L-Dopa trials. After spending years as dribbling Endymions, the old grippers were given L-Dopa and became super-elated. Some of them did not adjust well and stayed stuck in the year of their affliction. A particularly articulate subject compared his frozen mind-state to that of Rilke’s Panther. I, along with all the women in their twenties who coquettishly dress Iike children – like all the business men, for that matter, who dress like children in customised suburban retreats – if I am a panther, I am the Pink Panther. The Rilke Dilke Panther. And yet I not only shun the scripted humour of the office worker, but I shun the irony and gallows humour of a student. So what do I deign to laugh at? My thoughts turn to Patrick Bossert. When I laugh at him, I’m laughing at myself: surely one of the healthiest forms of hilarity. The precocious child unwittingly making a tit of himself by trying to use his erudition to get friends. How I glowed when the big girls in drama class showed interest in repeated recitations of Jabberwocky! How they laughed with joy at my whimsy! “You Can Do The Cube” was a favoured subject of mockery between my brothers and me. My five year old brother looked at the back cover’s picture of Bossert shrugging smugly behind a dismantled Rubik's Cube, and gasped scandalously: "She's broken hers!". This simple phrase makes me piss myself laughing to this day.
Bossert got a haircut and went on to save the world from an apocalypse.
mai 23, 2004
Dear Dairy,
Harry (pictured, left, sharing a joke) and I spent most of our weekend playing Majora's Mask. On Sunday I went for a walk on the meadows with Steve (pictured, right, sharing a joke), and chatted to two or three of his split personalities. It was a lot like The Wonder Years. "And suddenly at that moment, I learned that a) sometimes we all wear masks, and b) Steve doesn't like it if you touch his bumbum".
mai 22, 2004
bustin' out
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space ghost
Space Ghost: Okay then, sing that song, sing that, "Shiny Shiny People" song.
Michael Stipe: No.
Space Ghost: So, Mr. Magno-Specs, your new album's called "Monster"? What's up with that?
Michael Stipe: The new record is, um, it's like, uh, it's a, it's a...
SG: (mocking, in unison) Uh, it's a, it's a ...
MS: ... it's a concept record.
SG: A concept record!
MS: It's a, it's a, it's like a layman's, it's like a layman's, it's like a layman's, like a layman's, a layman's, uh...
SG: It's a, ummmm, it's like a layman's, ummm, there's stuff on your lip, uh, layman's, uh, layman's, uh, layman's, uh...
MS: ... a laymen's dissertation on...
SG: on, on, tip of my tongue, on...
MS: ... the black hole phenomenon.
SG: ... on the black hole phenomenon! (pause)
SG: Okay then, sing that song, sing that, "Shiny Shiny People" song.
MS: No.
SG: I'll get you started. (sings) "Shiny shiny people, shiny shiny people..."
MS: I hate that song, Space Ghost.
SG: Oh, me too, Michael, me too. Say, Mike, do think I'm a shiny shiny person?
MS: I would say yes.
SG: Yes?
MS: Yes.
SG: You're sure?
MS: Yes, absolutely.
SG: You don't see some dark, horrible corner inside of me somewhere?
MS: No, none.
SG: Okay. You're sure?
MS: Yep.
Zorak: I have a question. Is that you in the corner?
MS: (looks down under glasses)
Zorak: (points) That way, in the corner! (picture of Zorak's band, with MS's face in lower right corner of screen, rubbing front teeth)
SG: Space Ghost would like to speak with Beck in the third person. Would Beck like that?
Beck: Yeah, that would be nice, yeah.
SG: Space Ghost is glad that Beck feels this way.
Beck: Third person is always a good way to, to approach the second and first persons...
SG: Oh, Space Ghost couldn't agree more.
Beck: The kind of menage thing is good, too.
SG: Citizen Beck, expound on your freak-like manner.
Beck: Well... (pauses)
SG: Well, what?
SG: Taco?
Beck: Oh, if you, if you have one, that would be nice.
SG: Moltar, release the taco.
Moltar: (pulls LUNCH lever) (Pop!)
Beck: (catches Taco Bell wrapped taco) Of course, Space Ghost would always have a taco. Oh, thanks for the extra cheese there. (smells it) That doesn't look too friendly, actually.
Moltar: Yeah, it's been sitting on my dashboard for a few days.
Beck: Yeah, I can smell it.
Moltar: (sighs) Man, Zorak used to love tacos.
Beck: Here, maybe Zorak would like that. Here you go!
SG: Zorak is dead, Beck.
Beck: (looks back silently)
SG: I exterminated him.
Beck: (looks back uncomfortably)
SG: Of course I found an excellent replacement. Haven't I, Moltar?
Moltar: Uh, I gotta go, fix the deal. (starts to walks away) (control room monitor: ?? THREAT OR MENACE?)
SG: Brainwave: what if you guys were to come up here, and be my new house band?
Beck: (long pause) (sighs)
SG: (sings) I got two turntables and my mommy's home.
Beck: Uh, well, we don't have turntables right now.
SG: Space Ghost would be down with Beck being his new band leader.
Beck: I am down with that. Me too.
SG: You don't bust up people's stuff for no apparent reason, do you?
Beck: No, I don't, I don't, I don't do that.
SG: Good.
Beck: I don't play that.
SG: Because I think that would be very old school of you.
Beck: It's old school.
SG: And Space Ghost would not play that.
Beck: Yeah, yeah, you don't play, play that.
SG: No, I don't. Space Ghost is not down with that.
Beck: That's old school. I'm not, I'm not down with that.
SG: And Space Ghost would have to dispose of you.
Beck: Right, right, right.
SG: Right.
Beck: Right.
SG: Uh, Beck, you have a tag.
Beck: How's that?
SG: You got a tag on your pants.
Beck: Oh, thanks. There we go. (cuts off tag with a pair of scissors) Thanks for bringing that to my attention there.
SG: You must be quite embarrassed.
Beck: Yeah.
SG: 'Cause you know, you had a tag.
Beck: Yeah, yeah.
SG: It just sorta made you look foolish.
(Lights start to flash on and off, with eerie music)
SG: What's goin' on?
Zorak: (eerie voice) Ooooooooh!
SG: (fearfully) Zorak! You're dead! I vaporized you!
Beck: Zorak, how ya doin'?
Zorak: (eerie voice) Fiiiine! (laughs)
SG: What do you want of me, O spectre?
Zorak: Toniiiight, you will be visited by threeee spirits! The first will.. mess with the lights! (flickflickflickflick) The next will screw with your monitor! (Beck disappears from monitor, Zorak takes his place) Hi, how's it goin'?
SG: Aaaaah! (Beck returns to monitor) Wh-wh-what about the third?
Zorak: Uh, the third, uh... He will also mess with the lights! (flickflickflickflickflickflickflickflick)
SG: Stop it, vile apparition! You're going to break the switch!
Zorak: Ooooooh! (flickflickflick--poof! click) Oops! (click...click) Must have blown a fuse.
SG: See?? Look what ya done now!
(Credits roll)
league of gentlemen
I was trying to remember the Profanisaurus term for the fan of porn one kneels before during a fapping session, but I couldn't. Then I tried to make an online, um, whatever you call it. It's more wipe clean than my real one ^_^
mai 21, 2004
old hat
This is why you are wearing a T-shirt saying “Barbie is a slut!” and looking for drug references in Hanna Barbera cartoons. You’re angry. You didn’t ask to fall from grace. You didn’t ask to go through puberty, and become ugly and hairy. You’re scared of secret, sweaty things in the dark.
Freud found that very young children who have experienced a separation trauma will often recreate the incident with “peepo” games, hiding objects and then revealing them, in order to reassure themselves that loss is not necessarily permanent. This is why you are wearing a T-shirt saying “Barbie is a slut!” and looking for drug references in Hanna Barbera cartoons. You’re angry. You didn’t ask to fall from grace. You didn’t ask to go through puberty, and become ugly and hairy. You’re scared of secret, sweaty things in the dark. You want to turn back the clock. Your childhood heroes never aged - they’re still innocent and smiling and fluffy. Bastards.
When you were six, you fell off your bike. You took your teddy to hospital with you, and pretended that he, too, had broken his arm. Now something far worse has happened. Your childhood has been stolen. And so, if you must become an obscene beast of debauchery, then so must your toys. Fred is shagging Daphne while Scoob smokes pot. If you must be besmirched with the trappings of free will, adult sexuality and vice, then so must they. But they still look so cute! Suddenly it all seems more acceptable.
But… guess what! You’re not attacking the out-dated values of Barbie and Ken, subverting the banality of Rainbow. You’re attacking your own values, your own banality. Zippy doesn’t want a joint. You do. Action Man doesn’t want to wear a dress and hump his eagle-eyed buddy. You do. You smoke the joint and wear the dress and hump your friend, all by yourself. Really, it’s okay.
Young children who are suspected to have been sexually abused are often given, by social workers, anatomically correct dolls with which to illustrate their ordeal. Research was done into whether this is actually a reliable way of confirming abuse has taken place. A mixture of abused and non-abused children were given these dolls by psychologist William Mclver, and a typical interview re-created.
Around half (58% non-abused and 40% abused) of the children made spontaneous comments about what the dolls did. Examples of these comments are "He did something naughty," "(He) jumped on his bed," "Daddy went poopy on my head," "He peed" (while holding the doll on the interviewer's head), "These guys throw each other around" (demonstrated by throwing dolls against the wall), "A rhinoceros stands on the Dad's head.” “... A car falls on my head..."
If you are a French advertising executive eager to hire one of these children as an “idea man”, or if you would like to make a donation towards our campaign to trace the evil rhinoceros who, as this experiment proved beyond doubt, trampled this child’s hapless father, please contact lunatic_rugrats@spoiltitisland.com
whatlike?
The more we exclaim how horrified we are by child molestation, the more we can permit ourselves to linger, in a way that's not far from lascivious, over images of childish bodies [...]
Da was once talking to me about cycles, and the way that society goes through phases of alternate prudery and promiscuity through the years. Victorian prudery went hand in hand with a love of mawkish sentimentality, penny dreadfuls, morbid fascination with the sordid. Then came the Land Girls of the war, followed by the prim moral codes of the 50s which were exploded by the liberated 60s and the feminist 80s. I didn't really believe Da when he said that society could well come full circle and become prudish again, but I think he's right. "Political correctness gone bonkers" is to the 2000s what sushi was to the 80s. I really think this fascination with child abuse is fairly recent, and indicative of a circuit completed.
Dead interesting article: http://slate.msn.com/id/3144/
Extract (James Kinkaid studies)
The more we exclaim how horrified we are by child molestation, the more we can permit ourselves to linger, in a way that's not far from lascivious, over images of childish bodies [...] Talking about abuse not only permits guiltless voyeurism - it also gives shape to inchoate feelings of childhood hurt, it tells us why we are the way we are and gives us someone to blame, and it deflects a sense of cultural or moral decline onto a group of particular individuals [...] "Eroticizing exists in symbiotic relation with sanitizing, and the veiling and the exposing exist in an encircling doublespeak."
"Flowers in the Attic" by Virginia Andrews
"The Little Matchgirl" by Hans Christian Andersen and Edward Gorey's "Hapless Child"
Margaret Keane & co, Big-Eyed Art
tennyson and tick
You say "Oenone", I say "Spoon!"
Though we are not now that strength which in old days moved Earth and Heaven,
that which we are, we are.
One equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will.
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
I am mighty! I have a glow you cannot see. I have a heart as big as the moon, as warm as bathwater. We're superheroes, man! We don't have time to be charming! The boots of evil were made for walking. We're watching the big picture, friend. We know the score.
Dear Kitty
It’s a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart. It's utterly impossible for me to build my life on a foundation of chaos, suffering and death.
It’s a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart. It's utterly impossible for me to build my life on a foundation of chaos, suffering and death. I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness, I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too, I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more" - Anne Frank, July 15, 1944
The three triad gangsters kidnapped, brutally tortured and beat a young woman for one month until she died. Then they dismembered and cooked the body, threw most of it out with the trash, fed legs and arms to stray dogs and hid the skull inside the head of a giant-sized Hello Kitty doll.
density's child
Oh, angel Crispy Wispy, you seemed so eligible... wit' love of Fassbinder, rats and medical equipment... wit' alleged Green/Kaufman style chatshow tomfoolery... wit' bold championing of "counter-culture" and "anti-theater"... wit' pals in Devo... wit' albums which have been compared to Zappa and Beefheart... wit' pinstriped martial arts skill...
wit' old-school romancin'...
wit' singular nez...
wit' healthy interest in military propaganda...
What is it? It's a shit film. You advocated equal rights for downie actors - wonderful! But you can't back it up, can you? In fact, it's really just a freak-show... isn't it, Crispy? Damn those anonymous corporate entities ... controlling our minds with their advertising campaigns ... nazis! Right on, Crispy! Time for a revolution, you say? Great! But wait ... this must be some new meaning of the word "revolution" I have not previously encountered ... we will bite them on the features ... we will scribble on some antique books ... and then, yea, we will shag Playboy bunnies.
Oh, Hellion, you are a sham! You are Vincent Gallo without the humility. Like Orson Welles, you are spirited, educated and talented, but you have nothing to say. Your fist-biting nervous breakdown on Letterman was not comedy terrorism. You're not Moore, you're sore - because Steven Spielberg didn't let you be on Back To The Future II.
I would still give you one, like. I'm just scared that I will turn out like you.
Related links:
Chapman Bros., mindlessly defacing their predecessors. I mean, using their black humour to force us to confront the nastier things in life. Cheers, Chappo! McDonalds sux!!!1!
Paolozzi. At least his take on pop art was aesthetic. Lichenstein and Warhol weren't entirely conceptually redundant but they came close. The Chappos aren't pop art, though! They're surrealists! No, they're fucking pop art.
art
This is the only decent art I have online.
http://www.geocities.com/cat_hips/gasp1.html
http://www.longelf.com/toptrumps/