July 28, 2011

Love Song For The Inner Larry

Who are you?

Why, I'm me.

No, you're not
You're the Inner Larry!

We're all a part
Of the Inner Larry!

The Inner Larry
Is WE!

July 26, 2011

Planet of the Apes Party Fun Time





"Planet of the Apes Party Fun Time” by Brad Hasse, remixed to Benny Benassi Presents the Biz.

July 25, 2011

Feta Cheese Mustache

He takes off his hat
as a gesture
showing himself to be
a polite
upstanding
gentleman
in this moment of solemn
seriousness
and reveals a
slightly smaller
hat,
there,
underneath.

July 24, 2011

Cheap Thrills - ALTER EGO #2

Random Pulls from the Bargain Bin
Author's Note: This article originally appeared on Comics Bulletin

In these economic times, finding inexpensive entertainment is difficult. Thank goodness for my local comic shop and a slew of comics nobody cares about anymore! Each week I randomly grab a comic from the bargain bin (for 50 cents) to see what kind of bang I can get for my two-bits. These are those tales.

July 20, 2011 – paid 50 cents for:
ALTER EGO #2
Published by First Comics
Written by: Roy Thomas
Art by: Ron Harris


HOW CAN I SIT HERE EATING THIS CAFETERIA CRAP – WHEN I THINK I MUST BE GOING CRAZY!?

The summer of 1986, July specifically, seems to have been a time of torpidity. I mean really, what happened then? Sure, the reopened the Statue of Liberty after spending all that time making it all safe and shiny and shit, but that’s about it.

Some of the biggest releases in music then were Music from the Edge of Heaven from Wham! and Flaunt It by Sigue Sigue Sputnik.

Hell, in July, 1986 Lindsay Lohan was born!

Into this thick miasma of lifelessness, First Comics snuck a weird little gem into comic shops in the form of Alter Ego #2. This event should be noted because this comic is either a brilliant subversive missive promulgating a Gay Rights manifesto, a work of metafiction akin to Morrison’s run on Animal Man, or an incoherent slop-fest of tumid mouth breathing inanity. Maybe by the end of this week’s column I will finally decide which it is, and thereby be the better man for the journey.


July 22, 2011

SEE THIS MOVIE! Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould

Sometimes the most universal truths can be found in the smallest slices of life.  That’s what makes independent documentaries so powerful, engaging, and entertaining. Not only do they show you little worlds to which you’ve never had access, but they oftentimes also tell the larger story of what it means to be human. Armed with this intellectual conceit, a bag of Funyuns, and a couple of Miller beers, I curl up in front of the TV and delve deep into the bowels of Netflix Documentaries to find out a little bit more about all of us.

Today I found 2009’s Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould.


Glenn Gould has been described (at least in the Genius Within Press Release) as “an enigmatic musical poet (and) world-renowned pianist (who) continues to captivate international audiences years after his untimely death.” Glenn Gould was a musician, an artist, an innovator, an iconoclast, an eccentric, and a legend. What people tend to forget, though, was that even though he was all of these things, he was first and foremost a man who could express his humanity on a fundamental level through his genius and classical music.

The directors of this documentary, Michele Hozer and Peter Raymont, made it their focus to push aside much of what other biographies of Gould dwell upon (specifically his idiosyncrasies and eccentricities), and focus their film on trying to provide a more complete understanding of Glenn Gould as a man and what it was that he was trying to create in his rather erratic career.

July 21, 2011

Hi-Fi by Bante


Hi-Fi from bante on Vimeo
.

This motion graphics video brings to life vintage album covers from the catalog Blue Note Records.

Produced in 2009, the video is a promo for Bellavista Social Pub in Siena, Italy.

July 20, 2011

Ruminations on Expressionist Art

This kind of contemporary Expressionist art, in order to be any good, seems like it needs to avoid two pitfalls. The first is a self-consciousness of form where everything gets very mannered and refers cutely to itself. The second pitfall, more complicated, might be called “terminal idiosyncrasy” or “antiempathetic solipsism” or something: here the artist’s own perceptions and moods and impressions and obsessions come off as just too particular to him alone. Art, after all, is supposed to be a kind of communication, and “personal expression” is cinematically interesting only to the extent that what’s expressed finds and strikes chords within the viewer. The difference between experiencing art that succeeds as communication and art that doesn’t is rather like the difference between being sexually intimate with a person and watching that person masturbate. In terms of literature, richly communicative Expressionism is epitomized by Kafka, bad and onanistic Expressionism by the average Graduate Writing Program avant-garde story.
                      --David Foster Wallace from an essay entitled “David Lynch Keeps His Head” as published in his collection of essays called A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again published by Little, Brown and Company 1997.




July 18, 2011

Cheap Thrills - ALL STAR COMICS #63

CHEAP THRILLS
Random Pulls from the Bargain Bin

In these economic times, finding inexpensive entertainment is difficult. Thank goodness for my local comic shop and a slew of comics nobody cares about anymore! Each week I randomly grab a comic from the bargain bin (for 50 cents) to see what kind of bang I can get for my two-bits. These are those tales.

July 13, 2011 – paid 25 cents for:
ALL STAR COMICS #63
Published by DC Comics
Written by: Paul Levitz
Art by: Keith Giffen and Wally Wood


CAT HAS MADE GRUNDY MAD!

I cheated this week, and I am man enough to admit it.

Normally for this column I randomly pull comics from my Local Comic Shop’s bargain bin, but this week I happened upon a garage sale run by this truly twisted tweeker couple. Amongst the rusted lawn mowers and torn baby clothes, I inadvertently found a torn-to-shit comic book among the stacks of old coverless magazines they had piled in the dirt.

That comic? Why it was All Star Comics (with the Super Squad) #63 from December, 1976.

You remember December, 1976, don’t you?

Samoa joined the United Nations, Richard Daley, the Mayor of Chicago, died, and Jimmy Carter was girding his loins to take on the mantle of our 39th President (and then later sinned in his heart).

Also, The Sex Pistols spewed profanity on the BBC, Bob Marley got shot in a failed assassination attempt, The Eagles released their album Hotel California, and, in the movie theaters, a very sexy Jessica Lange got scooped up by a giant monkey (not Jeff Bridges, but the bigger one).

All this created a veritable stew upon which to stew. The added spice to the meal, though, had to be the publication of All Star Comics #63.

The tall toothless tweeker wanted seventy-five cents for the comic. I distracted him with something shiny and gave him twenty-five cents. He seemed happy with this.

For a solid quarter we are really talking Cheap Thrills.

But on to the book at hand.

July 15, 2011

July 13, 2011

Get Your Action Packed by Mike Campeau's KRIMZON KAINE!

Author's Note: The article originally ran on FORCES OF GEEK!


Mike Campeau is a Canadian. He seems, for all extents and purposes, to be one of the nicest people I have ever met. He also creates comics – crazy, action-packed comics. He has just recently released the first issue of his new series, Krimzon Kaine.

Krimzon Kaine is Mike Campeau’s first full length comic series and he’s darn proud of it. He describes the book as “a high impact, heart-pounding, action story” that’s got it all “including action, politics, crime, love, fast cars, and street wars.” It is set in a near future, but contains “a dab of distant science fiction.” Campeau rubs his hands together and says the “story is always running the red line to keep the reader pushed back in his or her seat by throwing endless twists and featuring action-packed characters. It’s action to give any action lover a fill-up.”

Apparently the key word for Campeau when talking about Krimzon Kaine is “action.”


July 11, 2011

Cheap Thrills - RAI AND THE FUTURE FORCE #15

Author's Note: This Column Originally Appeared on Comics Bulletin

CHEAP THRILLS
Random Pulls from the Bargain Bin

In these economic times, finding inexpensive entertainment is difficult. Thank goodness for my local comic shop and a slew of comics nobody cares about anymore! Each week I randomly grab a comic from the bargain bin (for 50 cents) to see what kind of bang I can get for my two-bits. These are those tales.

June 29, 2011 – paid 50 cents for:
RAI AND THE FUTURE FORCE #15
Published by Valiant Comics
Written by: John Ostrander
Art by: Sean Chen


YOU FLOOKIN’ DIRTBAGGERS THINK YOU GO WALKING, THINK SOME MORE.

For some reason November of 1993 seemed like it was an important moment in American history. Was it that The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed into reality? Was it the deaths of H. R. Haldeman or Bill Bixby?

Was it the release of Wu-Tang Clan’s Enter the Wu-Tang? Was it that Robocop 3 or Ernest Rides Again opened in movie theaters across America?

Or was it that Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, and Christina Aguilera joined the cast of The New Mickey Mouse Club?

While all these events certainly contributed, I don’t think any of these events really made November of 1993 stand out.

So what was it about November of 1993 that distinguished itself from all the other Novembers that preceded it?

I just paid fifty cents for Valiant Comic’s Rai and the Future Force #15, published in November of 1993, and I think I finally figured it out. Valiant Comic’s Rai and the Future Force #15 made November of 1993 important because Valiant Comic’s Rai and the Future Force #15 is transcendent.

And when I say transcendent, I’m talking on multiple levels. And maybe even levels within levels. Maybe even levels within levels within levels (within levels - ooooooh).

Then again, I had such low expectations for this comic that I could be misreading this whole thing entirely.


July 8, 2011

A Documentary about Democratization -- PLEASE VOTE FOR ME

Sometimes the most universal truths can be found in the smallest slices of life. That’s what makes independent documentaries so powerful, engaging, and entertaining. Not only do they show you little worlds to which you’ve never had access, but they oftentimes also tell the larger story of what it means to be human.Armed with this intellectual conceit, a bag of Funyuns, and a couple of Miller beers, I curl up in front of the TV and delve deep into the bowels of Netflix Documentaries to find out a little bit more about all of us.

Today I found 2007’s Please Vote for Me directed by Weijun Chen.



Please Vote for Me asks two fundamental questions. 1) Is democracy a universal value that suits human nature? 2) Do elections inevitably lead to manipulation?


July 7, 2011

Milking the Goat

A man spent days with the movements of goats. Painstakingly imitating, mirroring -- subtleties defined, generalities embraced. He had had enough of the tight smiled brush offs and the turned head giggles. He had had enough of being a dog nobody wished to collar. Loneliness had crept over him like the dull film on a smoker’s windshield; solitude was a thud, hollow in his ears.

So he had turned to the goats for companionship. He longed to be among them and be one of the herd, admiring their nonchalance when dealing with society. He watched the goats eat. He watched how they slept. He watched how they would shake the flies off and stare into nothing as if they were trying to figure out why the world turned as it did.

 For days and for days, the man learned. For days and for days, the man practiced goat.

After the time it takes to do such things, the man had mastered his craft. He was so good at goat that hardly an expert could distinguish him from a full blood. Every nuance of goat he executed with deft certainty. He nibbled on corn cobs and nuzzled udders and ears. He had become one of them and he walked among them with a full goat swagger. The goats of the herd embraced him and he felt a companionship like never before.
So he stayed with the goats and began a contented part of his life.

But like all happiness, this one, too, was fleeting. As is a goat’s lot in life, one day he was herded up with the rest and taken to Billfordstown to auction.

After a fierce bidding war, the man was separated from his herd and sold solo to a large pink man with thick pink hands and well-scrubbed pink cheeks. A man who, it turns out, had given up his banking job in Billfordstown and had bought a hobby farm. A man who wanted to get back to the land. A man who wanted to teach his two teenage daughters the fine Christian values of work and family. A man in need of a fine milking goat.

July 4, 2011

Another Poem(?) - Fishbag and The Notion of Shoes

Glassy-eyed, Fishbag screams into the heavens that it’s the Notion of Shoes that has ceased our forward progress into an age of possibilities where the sun shines on the ideas of the truly touched and gleams off the downy blonde hair of lovers embraced while the fires burn dictionary red and persimmon orange in the background.

July 2, 2011

Another Poem(?)?

Though recovering
being nursed
putting things
back together
semantics spin
and leap forth
and creation
intertwines
hot pack
lower back
icing knees
elevated


and though prone
still dance
with this
indeed

July 1, 2011

CHOICE - Renata Salecl is a Chicken Enemy.

In this new RSAnimate, Professor Renata Salecl explores the paralysing anxiety and dissatisfaction surrounding limitless choice. Does the freedom to be the architects of our own lives actually hinder rather than help us? Does our preoccupation with choosing and consuming actually obstruct social change?