Archive for January, 2013
« Older Entries | Newer Entries »Lol Creme & Kevin Godley’s Brilliant and Obscure Recording “Consequences”
[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 16, 2013 by admin in Music
Wednesday, January 16th, 2013One of the annoying things about brilliantly obscure and hard to find music is how brilliantly obscure and hard to find it is. From the liner notes: “In nature, there are neither rewards nor punishments – there are Consequences.” ~ R.G.Ingersoll, 1833-1899
 This promotional poster by Philip Chudy turned out to be disturbingly prescient |
The other day, I was transported to a surreal yet somehow comforting place I hadn’t been in years. No, I didn’t drop acid or hit the clubs on ecstasy, I borrowed a turntable from a friend so I could listen to their exceptionally rare vinyl copy of a brilliantly eccentic triple album released in 1977 called Consequences. Somewhere in the obscure soundscape between seventies art rock, the hallucinatory audio comedy and Joycean satire of Firesign Theatre, the silliness of Monty Python, the otherwise non-existent art form Jazz Opera, and Bubble Gum Pop lies the unique experience created on this album by Lol Creme and Kevin Godley. You’ll be forgiven for never having heard of it; although it is in a way a masterpiece of its era, in this case “its era” means the days of lush and meandering exploration of sound and story in the form of a rock opera. The term “rock opera” doesn’t really do it justice though; it is in fact often referred to by its die-hard fans as a “movie for the blind”. Aside from the relative obscurity of its creators (something I’ll get back to below) and its daring and experimental approach, the release was probably more doomed to obscurity by the timing of its release. One of the more popular sounds in 1977 was the dull thud of dinosaur rock finally stumbling to its death, a sound only subtly masked by the sound of aging white guys hitting the studios to churn out the year’s biggest hits like The Grand Illusion
All the same, I’ve never understood the obscurity of the duo that created Consequences; you would probably know them best from their time with the British pop group 10cc when they produced the band’s biggest hit I’m Not In Love
New Tuesday Column: The Missing Link
[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 15, 2013 by admin in Missing Links
Tuesday, January 15th, 2013Generally, we’re choosy mothers who don’t choose GIF’s. Unless of course they’re Spongebob GIF’s that demonstrate men and women’s perception of the other gender’s idea of foreplay. We’re starting a new weekly section to share the links we otherwise don’t feel are worth sharing. Enjoy the Youtubidity.
Running a site like Dissociated Press, I end up seeing dozens of links submitted by visitors almost every day. Usually, I’ve seen them myself already on Reddit or some other social sharing site, but by the end of the day (like it or not) I end up feeling like I’ve seen the entire internet. A friend mocks me about this by saying, in a dramatic, breathy voice: “The internet. I have seen it“. In any case, I end up with these unimagineably huge collections of bookmarks and animated GIF’s that serve almost no purpose whatsoever. I tried once before to find a way to unload them on you with collections of infographs and videos or pointless lists of lists, but quickly discovered it was almost as much work as creating actual original content. But we’re going to give this idea a reboot every Tuesday for a while anyway, so enjoy. Linky goodness complete with YouTubidity below. Read the rest of this entry »
Having a Bad Day? Put Things in Perspective with the “Overview Effect”
[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 14, 2013 by admin in Popular Media
Monday, January 14th, 2013If we could put everyone in orbit just once, the world would be a radically different place.
I could ramble about the impact of this idea for paragraphs, but the producers of The Overview Effect probably summarize it best: “The Overview Effect, first described by author Frank White in 1987, is an experience that transforms astronauts’ perspective of the planet and mankind’s place upon it. Common features of the experience are a feeling of awe for the planet, a profound understanding of the interconnection of all life, and a renewed sense of responsibility for taking care of the environment.” I personally was struck by Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell’s explanation of his search for how to describe his experience of seeing the Earth from space, which led him to discover Savikalpa Samadhi, which, as he puts it “means that you see things as you see them with your eyes, but you experience them emotionally and viscerally, as with ecstasy, and a sense of total unity and oneness.”
This video will totally be worth the 20 minutes it steals from your life, and might change your day. View it below, or better yet, right on Vimeo in fullscreen HD.
Why Rational Debate About Gun Legislation is Probably Impossible
[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 13, 2013 by admin in Editorial & Opinion, Lifestyle & Culture
Sunday, January 13th, 2013If gun enthusiasts’ assertions about guns don’t sound rational, it’s probably because they aren’t. They’re emotional. Gun owners have feelings TOO you know.
 Careful Kid, You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out |
In the end, do you know who is going to win a debate about guns? The person with a gun. Which is too bad, because there’s no intelligence test required for owning a gun. Nor is there typically any kind of personality test, and one thing the last decade or so has demonstrated is that a lot of people who are allowed to own guns are either ignorant, insane, or both. Before I go on, I’d like to point out that my choice to not own a gun doesn’t mean I want to take away yours. Unless of course YOU are stupid or crazy. Personally, I grew up in a time and place where there were a LOT of guns. My family owned a huge piece of property, and hunting and sport shooting were a small but integral part of family life. We had a half dozen rifles, several shotguns, and two handguns, and there were rituals attached to learning to responsibly handle this little arsenal which were imbued with both seriousness and humor. One classic piece of this training involved making a decision about when an overly-eager youngster was ready to shoot a shotgun for the first time, with a 50/50 chance of getting knocked on their ass. This may seem like a flip way to introduce a kid to shooting a shotgun, but with the supervision of a caring parent who was a proficient shooter, this was in fact an excellent way to instill a kid with an awareness of the incredible power they were wielding when they put a shell in the thing, pressed it into their shoulder, and pulled the trigger.
And that last little concept is something that is – in my opinion – key to understanding the gun debate. If you’ve never fired a gun, there’s a pretty good chance that most of what gun advocates say sounds insane. And although some of it is, that’s not the problem. The problem is that much of what they say is irrational. And by “irrational” I don’t mean insane, or even illogical. I mean not rational. If you’ve ever fired a gun, there was almost certainly a moment when you acquired a visceral awareness of Read the rest of this entry »
A Fan of “Googie” and Retro Design? Help Fund the Beer Depot Sign Restoration
[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 11, 2013 by admin in Editorial & Opinion
Friday, January 11th, 2013Why a decidedly unsentimental futurist and fan of progress (ME) supports the restoration of this vintage sign, and why you should too.
Over the last year and a half or so, I have somewhat quietly spearheaded a campaign to preserve a classic “Doo Wop” or “Googie” era sign in the town I live in; the iconic Beer Depot sign, which blew over in high winds in 2011. The project was in the homestretch recently when it hit another snag, something I’ll get to in a moment. But first, a little background on why I would use the platform of my pop media and satire site to plug the final phase fundraiser we just launched for the sign. When a friend learned of my little project the other day, they asked me why I was putting so much time into it, knowing fully well that as much as I appreciate vintage design, I’m as much about progress as preservation, depending on the scenario. I had to ponder their question for a moment to give an honest answer. Although I definitely have a fascination with twentieth century design, from the Art Deco era right up through the era of Googie Architecture, in the end I think my pursuit was as much about beating bureaucracy and making a stand against “unjust power”, which in this case took the form of an insurance company. My joy in challenging stale, lazy authority and arrogant institutions goes way back. When I was dropping out of high school, the juvenile court officer that the school had assigned to “process” me for my juvenile behavior – which consisted entirely of NOT doing something, i.e.: going to school – showed me what he was writing at the top of my report out of frustration at how the system seemed to have missed a beat with me. It said “I would agree with the school counselor’s simplistic assessment that Ian has authority issues, if it weren’t for the fact that he doesn’t seem to recognize any“. Then he signed my walking papers, and I was done with high school at sixteen.
So when a client of mine came to me almost two years ago asking if I could help tackle the city government – which was blocking the restoration of the sign even though it was on a property designated as historic by the local Historic District Commission – I guess part of the reason I said yes was simply for the joy of challenging authority. Little did I suspect that later this would lead to spending a bunch of time in court when the insurance company refused to pay on the policy for the sign. But to be honest, it was quite gratifying to beat them. I certainly make no secret about my feelings about the insurance industry.
So here in the homestretch, after all the tedious bureaucratic challenges with the city (in the end, the folks at the city were helpful by the way!), and after the tedium of watching an insurance company wiggle through the “we’re not gonna pay” dance in court, it’s a little disheartening that precisely because of that shortfall in funds, we’re doing a fundraiser to finish the sign.
If we had known about this issue with the insurance policy at the outset, we might have done a fundraiser much sooner, like maybe when we got the last round of press. About a dozen supporters of the sign suggested it early on, but my client felt it was sort of their conrtibution to local preservation to foot the bill themselves.
They’ll still fund this last 20% or so ONE way or another, but if you’d like to show your support and speed things up, you can donate via their Indiegogo campaign.
Below is the sign in its former (slightly in need of restoration) glory:
Photo by dwacphoto.com