The dream log to follow really isn’t all that suprising to me. I’ve been re-reading The Dark Tower series (Stephen King, I’m on The Waste Lands) and quite frankly I’m probably crazy. The majority is unfortunately already disappearing into the fog of the waking world. A lot of what I do remember is NSFW in nature. That said, a handy cut tag will be employed for those more sensative of my gentle readers.
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A short film about a young man who likes to draw. In the quivery, rich, hand-drawn art I see shades of Bill Plympton and Don Hertzfeldt, and Gerald Scarfe.
Yet the twin animators, Joy and Noelle, do exude a lot of unique character. The music fits like a well-oiled glove, and the voices are at once genuine and caricature of their intended characters.
If you enjoy this dilly of a pickle, and also maintain (for whatever reason) a MySpace account, I recommend popping by their MySpace Video spot and let them know how much you enjoyed it!
Jay Is Games tipped me off yesterday that Haluz 2 is out. If you enjoy “casual gaming” at all, and you don’t have JIG bookmarked, then shame on you. But I digress.
Haluz and Haluz 2 are two gorgeous point-and-click puzzle solving games. (See also: Samarost and its sequel, Samarost 2 from the fine folks at Amanita Design.)
Haluz 2 shows improvments from the first incarnation very early on, with the introduction of “level codes”. Right now I’ve got 3 of them on a sticky note next to my desk so I can pick up after I leave work. The puzzles in the early stages I’ve played so far were simple, but Haluz 2 is a game of two parts. One is free online, and the other is a download which costs $9.99(us). Or for a couple more bucks - $12.99(us) - you can get the full version and the soundtrack. Given the lush soundscapes that match with the rich environment design, I would argue that the extra few dollars for the soundtrack is well worth it.
Visit haluz.eu to play the free online versions of both games. The option to purchase and download all of Haluz 2 is also there. Also check out the links section where the games’ creator pays homage to its inspiration, Samarost, and also provides links to a few other p&c games and the games’ music creator.
Clocking in at 11 minutes, this alternate take of the title track from the rerelease of Televison’s 1977 album Marquee Moon is a sweeping soundscape of what translates to near pure bliss for this listener.
“Eleven minutes?!” one may be inclined to exclaim, “Why that’s much longer than 3! and far longer than the limited attention span which may even permit 5 minutes of one song!” Yes it’s true. Still I urge you, gentle readers, to set aside the urge for mere bite-size culture bits take this time to absorb the crash of the drums, the sinuous progression of the guitar, the underlying call of the bass, the lyrical journey.
From Al Handa’s review in the Perfect Sound Forever online magazine review of Marquee Moon:
Next comes “Marquee Moon,” a nine minute encapsulation of the group sound; a great Lloyd chord opening, looping riffs out of left field by Verlaine, and a funky, rocking bass and drum part that lead into the song. It then builds and builds, and Verlaine begins to solo up into the upper neck of the guitar. More than a few times you wonder if even he knows where it’s all going. It finally resolves into a Stones-like chord burst (actually not unlike a good Dead jam number), then settles into a lyrical, atmospheric section. Smith and Ficca then lead us back into a reprise of the main melody.
Had a very lucid-feeling dream in which I was able to speak to my recently deceased father. The reason I claim lucidty is because I physically felt the struggle to stay asleep upon realizing that I was dreaming. It was near a pool. I only spoke with him briefly. Told him it was pretty lame that this was the only way we could talk, etc. It was a natural conversation, and I wouldn’t share the details even if I remembered every last one.
I went to bed rather early because I got up early and was a lot more active than normal.
At first I dreamt I was in a field and the stars over my head shone with a brilliance I have never seen before (not even in NM and the stars there were intense). At some point it became a stadium-like concert hall with a peculiar pattern of open roof. I sat down in a chair and continued to relax and look at the stars. I was there for a little while when I saw people coming in and sitting down. Then I realized that someone was setting up the stage area below. I thought to myself that since I was already here and no one stopped me before that I may as well stick around. At some point during all of this, I had company on either side of me, my father and a mystery person. As it turns out, the people setting up on stage were The Flaming Lips. They started to play (and it really was familiar songs, I was stunned almost in-dream by the accuracy) and it was really great but I got a little nervous because I didn’t know if I was allowed to be here or not. I turned around and looked, and there was a familiar looking young man. I asked if we’d gone to school together and he said yes. That was pretty much the end of that conversation. There were some fancy effects, one of which went wrong.
It had to do with a pattern of lasers over the crowd that would present the optical illusion represented above, and then had another image overlaid on that. (Looked sort of like J.R. “Bob” Dobbs if I recall correctly.) Of course to do all that, they needed smoke in the air. However, they couldn’t figure out how to keep the smoke from rising too quickly to the top and out of the open dome. I looked upward and saw that they attempted to “close” the dome but there was no fully closed setting and even still the ceiling was very high, causing the smoke to drift well out of laser range. I peeked through holes at the stars and longed for the way it was before. Though I was grateful to be sitting with my dad and grateful to be seeing the band perform. The nervousness of being discovered for my ignorant seat theft and the pang of longing for the peace field I had started out in were pretty overwhelming. I had gotten caught for my apparent trespass (despite having been there first) and was frantically trying to come up with some way to redeem myself. I stammered a suggestion to the large man towering above me that if they had linen sheets, lots of them, they could use it to create a canopy to blow the smoke under and contain it. I fled from the building, on a determined mission to find linen sheets. The open country had gone from field to urban while I wasn’t looking and there were a variety of stores, most of which were closed. I started out moving along by car but for some reason decided that was not the most efficient way to manage so I left the car in some parking lot and ran.
I wasn’t able to find linen sheets, so many places were closed and I returned to admit my defeat after the concert, despite the fact that I could have just run as my gut tried to tell me to. I lose the thread of the dream there. I may have woken up.
Later on, I dreamt of a video game. I believe it was called “Purple Valve: The Assisted Suicide Game”. Not sure why they called it that, other than it was remarkably easy to die. Player 1 was on a moving platform that was going down with a few other figures, but the idea was you needed to leap of and get power ups and hop from small block to small block to get the rest of the way down. After falling to my doom over and over again, I finally figured out how to grab power ups that made the fall less fatal, and finished level one. Some of those symbols made no sense. I don’t know why grabbing the baseball and then the baseball glove made an angel come and wing me part of the way down. Perhaps a manifestation of Saint Duh, the patron saint of obvious pattern recognition?
As level two began the whole dream pulled away from that. I was faced with something that was like a low budget cross between Transformers and John Carpenter’s Price of Darkness. There were these “symbiote” creatures created of wire that looked remarkably like CAT5. They informed us of their superiority and started taking people over one at a time. They did so by jabbing one of these wires down the throats of human victims. There was a lot of cautious reasoning with these monsters, trying to perhaps trick them into admitting a weakness while trying to establish the worth of the human race. This dream gets a bit hazy but I suspect that the humans did not survive. Incidentally I think Alec Baldwin was in that dream, portraying some manner of general.
And I wonder why I wake up tired.
This gorgeous display of sand art drawings, created and destroyed from one moment to the next is truly captivating.
It’s so wonderous to see the images almost seem to come alive from the shadowy hands which gently sift, place, and sweep away sand from atop the lighted podium.
Nine minutes may seem like a long time in this attention-span depraved landscape of internet one-shots, but I assure you this is fascinating to the absolute last gesture.
This has undoubtedly already done the rounds in and about the video sites and the blogosphere, since it was from the 2003 SICAF, but it really does get more interesting every time I see it. Does anyone happen to know what the music playing in the background is for this performance?
O Gentle Readers, I would be truly remiss if I did not make it a point to express my elation and sorrow. Sorrow for the loss of Table of Malcontents, and elation that when ToM was slain a glorious monstrosity arose from its fetid corpse to continue to disseminate only the finest cthuloid steampunk propaganda porn available, among other gruesome oddities and fascinating delights.
Be sure to stop by Ectoplasmosis (or “ectomo” for short) and tell them I sent you. ;)
If you’re interested in contributing, they have a twitter account which you can “at” message to send links of interest. (i.e. @ectomo russian steampunk explorer vessel art http://urltea.com/blablablabla)
Help with the layout would also be welcome, as they’re wriggling deparately inside their first carapace, begging to molt into the glorious octobee they know they’re capable of being.
During these days of Table of Malcontents‘ last stand, every post is to be latched onto and ferverantly shaken like a favorite chew toy. From the incendiary, delightful Ms. Eliza Gauger comes a Noise Du Jour post sure to knock your socks off.
Meet Captian Ahab (no not that one):
Imagine, gentle readers, if Tenacious D played synth instead of guitar, partied hard with Mindless Self Indulgence every weekend, and only performed songs written by Lindsey Lohan. This is Captain Ahab.
- From Noise Du Jour: Captain Ahab
The video on tap at ToM is for the song “U Want Me”. I don’t know what to say about the music itself that Eliza didn’t already capture in her very-on-point description. As far as the video goes, it’s safe to say this duo has no qualms about taking some of the most revered and oft-used symbolic gestures for “seriousness” and “artistry” and making it some of the most ridiculous shit imaginable. Running on the beach, wind effects shown in reverse so as to appear “ethereal”, suicide (in a bubble bath, no less) and the rescue from it. (Note: I am not saying suicide is trivial, I am saying that it has already been trivialized and this only goes to illustrate that to the Nth degree.)
The following video is for Captain Ahab’s musical contribution to 2006’s Snakes on a Plane. Entitled Snakes on the Brain, this tune and accompanying video have a look and feel ripped off from the headier, more music-oriented days of MTV. Expect a lot of booty shaking, lyrics that don’t necessarily make sense, and of course, snakes.
http://www.azuli.com/full-details/?s=67135c9d2024662c695090f3c6be4697&id=537&category=1
This compliation is to die for. It opens with some pleasantly ethereal Bjork. In contrast to the Filter review, this song’s album of origin is not one I assumed I must own. Point of fact, I myself only like Bjork’s material in small doses. (They mentioned a few others I didn’t necessarily classify as flat-out essential. At least, not until I heard this compilation.) This happens to be a particularly pungent and heady dose, a good kickoff to the tone and caliber of this album overall.
The album is sprinkled throughout with the deep, heartwarming and bizzare mix of sonic encounters one has come to expect from a group like the Flaming Lips. Although, ironically enough the track I found least intriguing was the one contrbuted by the band responsible for putting together this otherwise stellar mix of sound. They procure a cover of the White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army, cheekily titled “Harry Potter and George Bush’s Severed Head Mix”. The listenablility factor is somewhat qwestionerball, what with the heavy presence of siren sounds and the like. However, if one like’s Faust’s odd buzzy tone in the chorus of their contribution (It’s a Bit of a Pain, track 4), then one is apt to enjoy this cover. The other track liable to raise a few eyebrows is the last. It’s part of a series, and not part of the Lips’ picks at all. Worth a listen for the beat poetical value, but definitely not for everyone.
The booklet is highly edifying in this audio journey, and provides a really candid glimpse into the band that is the Flaming Lips - more than worth a look in my opinion.
In these busy days of iPods and burnt discs cobbled together from oddball MP3s, it’s nice to be able to pop down to the record store, and get a total education on music from a single disc. Skim the tracklist, if you don’t know half the artists, and are a Flaming Lips fan, then I implore you to trust their judgement. I picked it up in a Virgin MegaStore, but you can find it online here.
On a one to ten scale, I give this disc an overall of 9.7. Would have scored a perfect if it wasn’t for the two slightly awkward tracks and the realization that I have a lot of albums to buy. (Sebadoh’s Harmacy down… a whole bunch more to go.)
If you like:
Techno -
07 - Flim Aphex Twin
11 - Playground for a Wedgeless Firm Chemical Brothers
Pretty Rock -
03 - Speed of Sound Chris Bell
06 - People Alfie
16 - On Fire Sebadoh
Utterly Unique -
09 - Up The Down Escalator The Chameleons
10 - Seven Nation Army Flaming Lips
Instrumental -
08 - Galileo Mice Parade
02 - My Ship Miles Davis
12 - Saudade Love and Rockets
Old Skoolish -
14 - Sleep Comes Down Psychedelic Furs
18 - I’m Not In Love 10cc
Dreamy -
13 - Monochrome Lush
15 - River Man Nick Drake
17 - Pyramid Song Radiohead
Some kids play in the sandbox. We play in the.... litterbox??? The RKNet staff is pleased that you decided to stop by. Currently this is a multi-author project, with a rotating cast of totally kooky characters. Contact giania [at symbol] gmail [dot] com if you'd like to play here too.
Author's Page: Giania
