Maybe Lance Armstrong Isn’t A Bad Guy – Maybe He’s Just A Psychopath
[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 17, 2013 by admin in Health & Wellness
Maybe we’re so desperate for heroes these days that we’re willing to overlook the obvious signs of mental illness.
As you may know, last year research confirmed something that most of us had deduced by way of common sense years ago – that Wall Street is full of psychopaths. I mean, that was kind of the whole point behind the film American Psycho
Lol Creme & Kevin Godley’s Brilliant and Obscure Recording “Consequences”
[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 16, 2013 by admin in Music
One 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
Generally, 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
If 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
If 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 »