In the name of art.

This is the website of a pair of artists who

have transformed themselves into two highly loveable and mischievous cartoon characters, The Little Artists, who exist in the realm of Merchandise - the crossover between the aggressively marketed children's culture (represented by Pokemon) and the current commodification of High Art (illustrated best by the gift shop at Tate Modern).

They play contemporary artists at Pictionary and redo famous contemporary pieces in Lego. Pictured - Damien Hirst's Shark Tank.

You were warned.

Huh?

The Comic Strip, Interlude - My Hero!

When I started going through the DVD boxset, I was sort of shocked at the lack of commentary that I could find about it. No longer. Here's a guy who's gone off and done the whole thing up in one big post.

It's a good, thoughtful, impressive job, and a fine blog in general. Go have a look, and be sure to check out the most impressive sidebar ever (the explanation of the sidebar goes on for longer than I've posted some months).

Alfonso Iannelli

Here's a nice overview of Alfonso Iannelli's Orpheum Posters, which are some of the loveliest things ever made.

Going in for backup

Off to your right you can see that I have a link to The Comics Curmudgeon, perhaps the most consistently amusing blog that I follow regularly. Yesterday, Josh (the proprietor) announced he was going to be off on a week long vacation, meaning that today there was a comic strip that was calling out for his commentary. See if you can catch what I'm talking about:

It's a field trip, Charlie Brown!

Harry McCracken has posted an astonishingly detailed and fascinating comic about the newspaper industry that was put out by The Des Moines Register and Tribune in 1957. To add a touch of the surreal, the strip begins with Charlie Brown and Lucy jumping out of a hole in a Peanuts comic strip and hooking up with the unidentified blue-suited management guy.

Subscription justification time!

Mojo covermount - The Who Covered

The Jam - "Disguises"
Honest, I've always wanted to like The Jam. For some reason they've always bored me. I keep trying. Here they are again. They still bore me. I wish I knew why.

The Flaming Lips - "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere"
For a group as creative as The Flaming Lips, you'd think they might have done something different and interesting. But they have a lot of fun, which is fine.

The Bards - "My Generation"
One of the Great things about The Who is how amazingly talented they were as instrumentalists. As this track starts out, the bass player is trying to match the original John Entwistle bassline. About 19 seconds in, you can start to hear the notes falling over each other, and the beat begins to drag a bit. At 44 seconds, the bass player has given up and switched over to straight quarter notes.

Snuff - "I Can't Explain"
An excellent high speed late 80's speedpunk romp.

Fastball - "The Real Me"
A mediocre high speed late 90's speedpunk romp.

The Greenhornes - "Mary Anne with the Shaky Hand"
A live track. The band is having a great time, and so is the crowd.

The Litter - "Substitute"
This is how I got that yam thing started. You will be surprised to hear that I have stopped listening to this track before I could develop an opinion.

Doleful Lions - "Heinz Baked Beans"
Recorded especially for this compilation. How charming.

Pat Dinizio - "Behind Blue Eyes"
I have to give credit to anyone who can sing this without sounding like an enormous prat. Cudos.

Tommy Keene - "Tattoo"
This is one of those artists who I keep reading about and thinking "I have to get something by him." I see why now.

Richard Thompson - "Legal Matter"
Off the "1000 years of Popular Music" album. Astonishingly good.

Waco Brothers - "Baba O'Riley"
An alt-country version that teeters on the edge of being gimmicky. Which is pretty good for a song that's square in the middle of being gimmicky.

Lord Sitar - "I Can See For Miles"
Lord Sitar seems to have been some session musician playing over a pack of happy big band horns. The liner notes claim that people actually believed that this was George Harrison having a Bunbury. Shame on them. Never has the sitar sounded more caucasian.

Sandy Nelson - "Pinball Wizard"
Countless high school football teams must have cruised to victory after the pep band used this arrangement in their half-time show.

Petra Haden - "Armenia City in the Sky"
About a split second after I saw what the theme of this disk was, I knew that there was going to be something from Petra Hayden. This is cool stuff, and good on Mojo for picking this lovely yet comparably obscure track, but I can't listen to it without thinking of all the fourth rate acapella groups who are going to be "inspired" by this. Petra, you are going to have much to answer for.

The color of progress

Longtime visitors will know my love of poking around the Google Satellite Maps. One of the most interesting things I've noticed is the way the sunlight refracts off of the British Museum's great court, turning it blue. At right is an image from Google Sightseeing

The other day, Google had a massive update of their satellite imagery (You can zoom in closer now!) The views of London are particularly fine, especially as the older images were taken from a low angle so it sort of felt like you were hanging upside down when you looked at it. Now look at The British Museum here.

Loaded comment of the month

"This is almost as good as being an Oprah book."

--author William Blum on the skyrocketing sales of his books after one of them was referenced in the latest Osama Bin Laden audiotape.

A glimpse into my tangled mind

For the last few days, I've had "Substitute" by The Who running in my head non-stop. As far as having a song stuck in your head, not a bad choice.

The thing is this: I've had the whole song running in my head, not just a few lines over and over as sometimes happens, and all of the lyrics are present and correct. Except for one.

Instead of the line "I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth," I have the line "I was born with a plastic yam in my mouth."

I have no idea what that means, but I find it amusing. Which reinforces it.

I googled the phrase "I was born with a plastic yam in my mouth." Astonishingly, there were no hits. A search for just the term "plastic yam," led me to information about a project where recycled soda bottles are re-formed into sticks. The sticks are then used as yam trellises in third world countries. Isn't that cool? Good for my brain to lead me to that bit of information.

The Comic Strip, Part 18 - The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Lemmy from Motörhead

"Eat the Rich" - Feature Film 1987

There is one thing that immediately separates this one from all of the other Comic Strips I've run into so far. IT IS NOT IN THE BOX!

Go to epguides.com and look at the episode list. There it is. Wikipedia lists it too. ARRRGH! How can I watch them all if they are not all in the box that is labeled "Complete Set," hmmmm?

You drop $7.00 at Amazon.com, that's how.

And that's what I did.

Check out that ugly cover. I spent $7.00 to purchase something that looks like that. Apart from the fact that the faces on the cover all somewhat resemble actors that appear in the film, the cover has nothing to do with the film.

And what is the deal with the film? Is it a Comic Strip Presents film or not? It is a Richardson/Richens script, directed by Richardson, and not only are the core Comic Strip performers all on hand, but they are credited like this:


Ah hah.

These folks are on hand for glorified cameos. Along with a sizeable number of, well everybody. Paul McCartney wanders through for a line. Bill Wyman is credited as "Toilet Victim." There is a ton of people that went right past me without even registering who they were - although I have to admit that even though I know who, for example, Koo Stark and Sandie Shaw are, I wouldn't put money on my getting them picked out of a line-up. The real interest for the (and I am afraid that I am now a) Comic Strip aficionado is that all of the folks who have starring roles in this film are the ones who have been hiding in the background in all of the television episodes: designated thugs Nosher Powell and Ron Tarr, imposing soap actor Ronald Allen, former fifties pinup starlet Sandra Dorne and taking the lead -- you guessed it -- Lanah Pellay!


This movie plays like the scripts for Repo Man and some hack Frederick Forsythe imitation were shuffled together and then directed by John Waters. About 15 minutes in, the British Home Secretary, Nosher Powell (not just played by Nosher Powell, the script has Nosher Powell, the individual, actually becoming the Home secretary. For those going "Huh," I offer the wikipedia entry on Nosher Powell here.) foils a terrorist attack by swinging through a plate glass window and kicking the snot out of everyone. He finishes off by intimidating the Palestinian terrorist played by Shane MacGowan from The Pogues so much that they make peace with Israel. At least I think that's what happens. Neither Powell nor MacGowan are much for enunciation.

And then once the first third is over the whole thing sort of slows down. It is a piece of casting brilliance to have someone like Lanah Pellay as Alex, the down on his luck waiter who has no choice but to speak out and ends up leading a small ragtag band of insurgents to try to fight against a corrupt system. This is not because it turns out that Pellay is actually charismatic enough to carry a picture, it is because the character is so fucking dull that if he weren't played by someone who is so over the top, the whole movie could go by without the audience even noticing him.

I feel bad being harsh on this movie, because I think that it is a good one. There have been a number of films that I've been bored with the first time through and then grown to like with repeat viewings, and after a while, I've come to recognize them when I am having the bad first time through. This feels like one of those.

One of the things that I enjoy about doing this is that each one makes me broaden my horizons just a bit more. This one made me want to go out and find a Motörhead album. They did the soundtrack. I liked it. There. I admitted it. Happy now?

Lab notes

The Pinot Noir has been all bottled up. It is actually rather drinkable now, but I expect that it will be quite excellent around late spring/summertime. Raspberry with a touch of leather.

In the meantime, the last of the Super Tuscan was opened last night and will most likely be gone before Monday.

Gorilla!

Finally I get advance notice of a goofy holiday that I can blow off properly, rather than find out about it at 11PM on the day or two days after the fact. In honor of Mad Magazine's Don Martin, January 31st has been designated "National Gorilla Suit Day." While I have no gorilla suit of my own, nor do I have any intention of getting one in the next week or so, I am looking forward to being on the lookout for random celebrating Gorilla-clad Martinheads.

Perhaps one will be young Theo Epstein, famed off-again on-again Red Sox brain trust who famously left Fenway Park on the last day of his most recently completed stint disguised as a gorilla.

UPDATE: I am reminded that Young Theo has sold his gorilla suit on e-bay for charity (news report here). But he can certainly afford another one.

ADDENDUM: I must draw your attention to the sound effects in the second panel to the left. The zippers on the suits make "zoot" noises. Get it? Zoot suit! That Don Martin was a genius.

Putting the "a-hem" back into mayhem

I'd like to take a moment away from the busy business that has filled my life to have a quick mention of some books that I've cleared off the "to read" pile. Both were reccomended by folks I trust and are by authors that I haven't read before (but will probably read more of).

First up - Gun with Occasional Music by Jonathan Lethem. This is one of those books where the author decides to conflate two genres, thus eliminating the need for originality by the sheer effort of shoehorning two sets of cliches on top of each other. Except that this time it's really well done. Granted, the idea of blending hardboiled crime with cyberpunk is in itself not a terribly new idea, this one strikes the balance quite well. It's sort of like Jasper Fforde with the beastliest hang-over of all time.

Next is Having Wonderful Crime by Craig Rice. This one is vintage 1943 and seems to be out of print at the moment. Rice seems to have been referred to as "The Dorothy Parker of detective fiction." Meaning there is a lot of drinking - like early Elliot Paul mysteries where swirls of amusing drunkards cascade in and out of the action like tumbleweeds. There is also one of those tricks where two women are decapitated and get their heads swapped, as in about twenty novels by Harry Stephen Keeler. This is better constructed than Paul or Keeler - Rice has three detective-y heroes; a sort of Nick and Nora couple and their gruff drunken lawyer friend, and the three of them are all going off on their own, not telling each other what they are up to. The result is that they all are discovering their own subset of clues and not putting it together until the end, but the reader can see all the information (and where each of them might be going wrong with their assumptions) but the resolution is still clever enough to be a surprise.

As I was reading this, I kept thinking to myself that this would make a really fun movie. So I looked. It was. It starred Carole Landis as Helene Justus (the sort of Nora character). Landis, who the studio publicity department decided was best nicknamed "The Ping Girl," would later commit suicide as a consequence of an affair that she was having with Rex Harrison. This suicide caused enough of a publicity blowback for Harrison that it is credited as the cause of the failure of Preston Sturges' Unfaithfully Yours, the Criterion DVD of which includes an essay by Jonathan Lethem.

Honestly, when I started writing this post the other day, I had yet to make that connection. It's that creaky loom of destiny at work.

Useless internet argument of the day

How do you abbreviate Death Cab for Cutie?

1) DCFC

2) DC4C

two from WFMU

Two great posts on WFMU's Beware of the Blog:

First, someone went and took a sound file of Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven," made it play backward, chopped it up into (they claim) 666 little hunks and then re-ordered the hunks so that even though they are each playing backwards, they are in the right order. It makes me feel like I'm underwater somehow. The mp3 is here.

Second, they have a great post on a band called Schlong. (oh boy. I'll be getting the interesting Google search hits now.) Ages ago, I picked up their "drunk punk" version of West Side Story - a piece of pure demented brilliance.

The Comic Strip, Interlude - I'm not much of a man by the light of day, but at night I'm one hell of an extra

It is interesting seeing these episodes go by and watching the various bit players popping up here and there. Of the faces that keep popping up, none is more easily recognizable than Alan Pellay (aka Lana Pellay aka Lannah Pellay aka Alana Pellay and so on). Pellay seems to have been a drag performer who also had a few singles out as a solo act. So far, I've been able to find a picture of her on stage posted here, scant evidence of some of her songs appearing in long lists of songs, and a bit of discussion on a web-forum regarding her appearance in a recording by The Fall.

Here's the rundown so far

In "Susie," Alan Pellay plays "Ray"


In "Geno," Alan Pellay is credited as himself:


In "The Bullshitters," Alana Pellay is credited as herself:


In The Supergrass, Lana Pellay plays "Mary"


These are all pretty small parts - "Mary" in The Supergrass clocks in at about 50 seconds of screen time and adds precisely nothing to the plot. Which is sort of a pity. I say that it's about time that she gets a lead in one of these...

For he's a jolly good fellow

To commemorate Benjamin Franklin's 300th birthday, industrious homebrewers across America are brewing up a nice big batch of "Poor Richard's Ale" to toast the big man with. The beer is a style typical of the Revolutionary era, and is not derived from any actual industrious homebrewing that Franklin may have done. (There are records of beers that Washington and Jefferson made - or at least had made on their estates, but that is a project for another holiday.)

I, as a non-industrious homebrewer, have not made any. If you want to try some, the Poor Richard's Ale page can guide you to brewpubs that might have some on tap.

In a similar vein, ten days from now I will celebrate Mozart's 250th birthday by not making fortified claret.

The Comic Strip, Part 17 - Look at them yo-yos, that's the way you do it

"Private Enterprise" - January 2nd, 1986

I should start by pointing out that this is the last of the Comic Strip episodes that made it to MTV. And that this is a very appropriate way to end the run.

Keith (Peter Richardson) is an ex-con who has a job delivering toilet paper. One day he wanders into a recording studio and steals the latest demo tape from a new wave band fronted by Ali Kitson (Rik Mayall). The next day the band has split up. Keith and his former accomplice, Brian (Ade Edmonson) pose as the management of a fictional band and use the stolen demo to try and con their way into getting a record contract so they can skip town with the advance. To keep the ruse up Keith and Brian have to disguise themselves as the band (leading to the sort of scene where people keep saying things like "Oh, you want to see Gerald? He's in the other room" and then jumping into a closet to change into Gerald while nobody notices.) Throw in a suspicious parole agent and the disgruntled Kitson and we have ourselves the kind of glorious runaround that The Supergrass should have been.

This episode and Consuela make up a two episode series that aired on consecutive days, and the two of them taken together make up the best that The Comic Strip has to offer. Both are well written and well made, with amazing attention to detail. Consuela is a surrealistic send-up and Private Enterprise is a straight ahead caper. I am going to miss the feeling of rediscovery that I've gotten seeing these episodes and remembering just how much I've enjoyed them, but considering the trajectory that we are on, I'm anticipating some excellent things to come.

And it's about time.

The new Doctor Who episodes have been sold to American television.

Another ordinary glow-in-the-dark pig

By supplementing pig embryos with DNA from jellyfish, scientists at Taiwan National University have bred three pigs that glow green in the dark when exposed to small amounts of light.

"Taiwan is not claiming a world first. Others have bred partially fluorescent pigs before. But the researchers insist the three pigs they have produced are better."

From the BBC

Another ordinary candidate

Tomorrow (Friday the 13th, natch), Jonathon "The Impaler" Sharkey, a "Satanic Dark Priest, Sanguinarian Vampyre and Hecate Witch," will officially announce his candidacy for the Governorship of Minnesota. In addition to his spiritual life, Sharkey is an Army vet, has boxed and wrestled professionally, is qualified to race in NASCAR and has served on the public policy board of MADD.

He is planning to only serve the first two years of his term, after which he intends to be elected President.

Here is his website, and here is a news article about him.

Another ordinary day.

A few years ago I was a happy and constant reader of The Arcata Eye Police Log, but I somehow got out of the habit. A dinnertime discussion of small town police blotters caused me to go look it up and see if it was still as much fun.

It not only is, but there are now a couple of books collecting them.

Have a taste:

Tuesday, November 23 9:55 a.m. He meant well, that man in brown who quietly opened a G Street back door slightly to slip a shipping receipt inside. Then the burglar alarm went RRRRIIIIINNNNNGGGG!!!!!
1:13 p.m. The gentleman was clad in black leather, the lady in a green dress with black leggings. Thus they suavily spelunked in trash cans on Chestnut Place till a husband asked them to leave.
4:51 p.m. A man in military garb and adorned with a kitty cat on his back was too bothersome to passersby to remain at an F Street shopping center.
5:38 p.m. A baggy-panted man strode out of an I Street cooperative supermarket with foamy goodness he hadn't exactly paid for.
9:24 p.m. Another dumpster delver, couture unspecified, was advised to change careers in Valley West.

A t-shirt steeped in coffee history

Japundit frequently posts examples of mangled English, which sometimes can be interesting. I like to try to figure out what the quote should have been, and how it went wrong.

Here's the latest:


Am I alone in thinking that Babelfish had a hand in this?

Now turn to page 17

John August's screenwriting blog has a quick response to a query about the existence of a trick that script writers do to prove that they are "in." Apparently, you show yourself to be in on the joke by always putting sex and/or nudity on page 17 of a script, no matter what is going on in the scene. Sort of like a secret handshake. Then, presumably, once the script is greenlighted the sex and/or nudity can be removed if it makes no sense whatsoever.

August's reply summarized: "Ha ha. No."

But it put me in mind for a little experiment. Taking down my trusty Preston Sturges script reprint books, I look to see what is on page 17.

The Great McGinty - McGinty is illegally registering the deceased to vote.
Sex and/or nudity? - No.

Christmas in July - Jimmy is arguing with Betty about getting married without having money saved up.
Sex and/or nudity? - No.

The Lady Eve - Charles is meeting Col. Harrington and Jean for a game of cards.
Sex and/or nudity? - No, but Jean has just changed - we missed potential nudity by one page.

Sullivan's Travels - The studio brass are agreeing to Sullivan's plan - but with their own spin.
Sex and/or nudity? - No.
Hail the Conquering Hero - The marines are trying to get Woodrow on the train.
Sex and/or nudity? - No.

The Palm Beach Story - Tom is finding out from the doorman that his wife has paid off the back rent with money that she has received from "the Wienie King."
Sex and/or nudity? - No.

The Great Moment - Morton and his wife are talking about the benefits of letting others use his discovery (Morton was the Boston dentist who first used ether as an anesthetic)
Sex and/or nudity? - No.

The Miracle of Morgan's Creek - Norval gets a phone call from Trudy: She can go to the movies with him.
Sex and/or nudity? - No.

Unfaithfully Yours - Sir Alfred and Tony are going over Sir Alfred's phone messages.
Sex and/or nudity? - No.

The Power and the Glory - Little Henry is worried that Tom may have drowned.
Sex and/or nudity? - No.

Easy Living - Mary is trying to return the fur coat that was dropped on her head.
Sex and/or nudity? - No.

Remember the Night - The defense rests.
Sex and/or nudity? - No.

The Comic Strip, Part 16 - Last night I dreamed I went to Aylesbury again

"Consuela, or, The New Mrs Saunders" - January 1, 1986
Although each had written an episode on their own, this is the first Comic Strip written by French and Saunders together, and it seems a dry run for their own television show, which would premiere the following year.

This, to put it bluntly, is a rehash of Hitchcock's Rebecca. And they make it work thrillingly well. There are moments in this episode that are genuinely creepy -- and the attention to detail that has been apparent throughout the series is put to excellent use here.

In the last installment, I was concerned that Ade Edmonson and Jennifer Saunders were playing it a trifle too bland. Here, they are both playing parts that are meant to be bland and manage to be completely engaging, particularly Edmonson's husband, who starts off normal and then gradually descends into one on the contestants on "Upper-class Twit of the Year."


Finally, notice the difference between the original and the reference - both have a "poisoned" glass of milk standing out via a concealed lightbulb, but the Comic Strip version is set up so you can see the glow underneath and the strange big napkin used to conceal the extension cord. It's these little things that keep me going.
















.

This is precisely why they invented the internet

The British Cheese Board's website is chock full of fascinating and detailed information and resources relating to British Cheese. ("Coloured cheeses like Red Leicester, Double Gloucester and coloured Cheddar and Cheshire get their red colouring from Annatto, a flavourless vegetable extract from the seed of a South American tree.")

Of particular (okay, peculiar) interest is the Download selection, including "Education Packs" and high resolution images of British cheese, like stilton (pictured - click on it for some big cheese).

Blammo

The current header tag ("We're all fine down here. How are you?") should be a sign to some readers that my New Year's Day was spent with the Star Wars trilogy playing in the semi-background.

Inspired by various details in the film that (to some small extent) screamed out for an explanation, I went to wikipedia and clicked around the myriad articles that they have up about the Star Wars universe.

I was particularly taken with this article, about what seems to be referred to as "The Endorian Holocaust." This is an event which some Star Wars scholars posit will have occurred immediately after the conclusion of The Return of the Jedi. Specifically, the logic goes, the explosion of the second Death Star would create such environmental mayhem on the nearby moon of Endor, that the adorable Ewoks would almost certainly have been wiped out.

The article, in typical wikipedian fashion, tries to keep a balance between the Pro-EH factions ("even a non-scientist like Lucas can hardly have thought blowing the Death Star right next to the forest moon of Endor in a manner that clearly produced a fragmentation pattern, could possibly be good for it"), and anti ("it would be uncharacteristic for the Rebel characters to callously celebrate amid a friendly population doomed by their actions") without considering the obvious: That the pro-Endorian Holocaust folks only came up with it because they don't like Ewoks and find the idea of wiping them out amusing.

Come away with me, Mabel, in my merry picnic table

It seems that whenever I have a post of this sort (like the balcony spatula), I try to frame it in terms of "Let us suppose that you are x and you want to do y."

I am stymied.

It's a picnic table tricked out using riding motorcycle and lawnmower bits. The fellow on the right front (blue shirt and sunglasses) seems to be driving with a steering wheel under the table, and everyone else seems to be displaying a surprising lack of enthusiasm.

"Mr Macdonald [the inventor] said if there was any public interest, he might patent the invention and turn out a few more."

The Comic Strip, Addendum - Starting the year with an opportunity for renewal

Up until now, the Comic Strip has begun with a simple animation of a bomb dropping on a map of what looks like the English countryside. I've tried to figure out where the map is of. No luck so far (a bit too blurry):


"The Supergrass" begins with a much cleaner, idealized animated countryside,


that they get to keep for the next television episode.