Hey Guy's

So, I don't know if I would be able to say this with a straight face anywhere else. . . .but, I've made a few updates to my blog from Paul's class. . . what do you guys think? I feel like I'm starting to understand the way to use labels on blogger.

New Link

Hey guys, I don't know if you've met Blue Clements, but she's super awesome. She's building something bigger than herself for our sculpture class and she's keeping a really great blog about the process. I've put a link to her blog in the "links."

This Is Real

Dragonfly Camera

Image Search Results for 'Teabagger'

Nate & Jonathan's A-List Podcast: Episode 3

This One's for the Gonz <-----click here!

Carmen Twillie & Lebo M. - The Circle of Life
Thelonius Moog - Powerhouse [Raymond Scott cover]
Charles Mingus - Better Git It In Your Soul
David Byrne - Ex-Guru [Fiery Furnaces cover]
Grizzly Bear & Michael McDonald - While You Wait for the Others
David Wise - Hot-Head Bop
Tyondai Braxton - J. City
Oneida - The Life You Preferred
The Scot Richard Case - I'm So Glad
Frank Zappa - Peaches En Regalia
Gene & the Esquires - Space Race
bd594 - Bohemian Rhapsody
Danny Burk & the Invaders - Ain't Goin' Nowhere
Os Mutantes - Baby

Cultural Revolutions (one potato chip at a time)

[ So I really dug Stephen's last post, and devoid of panic attacks (I'm sorry that happened to you man) and refreshing youtube responses as a form of therapy, here's a sort of indirect response... ]

You know it's amazing to think that a portion of our country (it would seem) is being irrevocably lost to Rupert Murdoch and Fox News. It could almost be forgivable if this new juggernaut of political theory were taking the form of a radical third party or some traditional religious belief system. We as a nation have seen those kinds of institutionally based 'insurgencies' before and we as a collective people know how to handle them (I think?). But this new objection to the status quo is different in root, form, and context.

What Fox is creating could possibly be a new evolution of television in the modern American household . Now it's hard to say how and why this is happening but I'm relatively certain that it is truly happening. This is a somewhat mass mobilized movement of couch potatoes. These people (devoid of their actual place in the proposed new tax structures and health care reforms) are the ones who voted republican and stuck with Fox News years ago less because Dubya was doing a great job in their eyes, but more because Larry King gets fucking boring and Bill O'Reily has kooky catchphrases. This is what that entertainment decision has turned into: a bible thumping, abortion bashing, Obama hating, semi-manufactured protest movement that is based mainly on the interests and desires of the anchors, producers, and owners of the Fox News Broadcasting Corporation.

I mean, now their saying they're not sure they even believe in the republican party anymore, and who can blame them right now? But that shouldn't be justification for the waving of signs that read "Beck For Prez!" or "Obama=Anti-Christ". This is what happens when television rots your brain. I never really believed those warnings my mother gave me until now. Maybe this is television's last grasp as a "technology" in our culture, maybe it's flame is burning a few degrees hotter in the waning moments of it's life. I don't know what meaning this holds in present tense, but I do know that this is not a genuine movement. Sure these people care, and sure they probably will be affected negatively by the proposed plans. I'm not so cold and naive to think differently, but this mass, almost anti-American, movement is no different than the left hype machine protests over the war during the Bush era (aside from being openly endorsed by a major corporation and "authority" in news media).

To be completely honest that's the main thing I find so detestable about all of this; the fact that everyone in this "movement" acts as if they have some righteous monopoly on validity, honestly, sincerity, and patriotism. But I guess it's really not their fault since they think how the tube thinks and the tube is the ultimate righteous gospel (thanks Network). These attitudes are not entirely born of the little light boxes in their homes, but at the very least they have been cultivated, nurtured, and empowered by the likes of Beck, Hannity, and O'Reily.

What would Thomas Jefferson think? I mean what we have now is a new ruling class, an external obtrusive force that asserts itself not with taxes, or physical militaristic force, but rather with flashy graphics, snippy commentators, and good ol' entertainment. We are all slaves to this new medium, it's just a disparaging level of self awareness that I think has created this new cultural niche that celebrates MILF's from Alaska and assholes from the gym (the rest of the Fox News cast). What I wonder the most is whether this small cultural revolution will reach a climactic pinnacle, or just simply deteriorate like the many potato chips consumed in it's early anti-matter phase.

Either way I think it's safe to say that Fox News (along with American Idol, of course) is now one of the most impressive cultural fascist on the American landscape. I tip my hat to them, job well done.

What Could Have Been...

Fed the Buzz

Hey guys Lexy just showed me these videos in this order and it was a good ride so I thought I'd share:

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

I'm not always the biggest fan of CNN but they're on point here.


This is the vibe of my anxiety attack monday. I feel (felt?) like I grew up around a lot of... or mostly these people. I think I know them pretty well. . . in peace and war.
I like the guy with the cross.


And then she helped "lighten the mood" (and boy do I need it after that) with these:





There are a couple more dancing babies at BuzzFeed. In fact, we watched all of these videos on BuzzFeed. I think I need to make better use of that site.

"A Soldier's Voice Rediscovered"

read this article in the NY Times today. I think its a great story.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/nyregion/18cantor.html?hp

on a side note, i checked out the Youtube vid they're talking about (which is a history channel style mini inspirational documentary) and I think its pretty interesting to notice the differences in format and the different feelings achieved by the formats.

Cross Kidz

Y'all Know Me

"The Souls of All Young Men: Podcast Episode 2" <------- click here!

Most Gigantic Lying Mouth - No Sex [Chris Rock cover]
The Swingin' Medallions - Double Shot (Of My Baby's Love)
The Apostles - Stranded in the Jungle
Judson Fountain - The Evil Portrait of Old Man Beni
Os Mutantes - El Justiciero
Crunchholdoh - The Return of Sean Taylor
Can - Halleluhwah
Shadden and the King Lears - All I Want Is You
Roky Erikson & The Aliens - I Walked with a Zombie
Iggy Pop - Pablo Picasso [Modern Lovers cover, live]
Johnny Greenwood - Prospector's Quartet
The Ventures - The Lonely Sea

The rest of this bag of hint-of-jalapeño Tostitos to whomever can name the tune that is playing while Jonathan reads from the Batman & Robin novelization.

Update: I ate those chips.

A couple Things:

DvD cover in progress for latest piece



Submission to "SLIDE SLAM" VMFA Undergraduate Art Event 13.5"x21" screenshot 72dpi.

Mindblow?

The Hazards of Love

Am I Gay or Is This Kind of Awesome?

Lady Gaga's performace at the VMAs. For a moment it made me feel so pre-9/11.

This Scary Me :S !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLXGS0J52co

HOLY SHIT DUDES

http://musicformaniacs.blogspot.com/2009/09/sound-of-evil.html

And I wanna say, as tight as he is for posting such crazy esoteric mp3s on a regular basis, I disagree with the blogger's main point here: these recordings, by themselves, are genuinely creepy even without context. The disconnect is definitely there. The recording quality, the reverb, the Danzig vocals... he sounds like Scott Walker or Nick Cave but without any intentional pretenses of being scary. In fact the reason it sounds scarier than any of those guys do is that the pretense is one of innocence. This combination conveys obvious sadness, delusion, and insanity.
Esp. the first sample in the second link

Variations on a Theme

Jonathan & Nate's A-List Podcast: Episode 1

"Podcast People" <---click here! (58.1MB)

******works best with firefox for the moment*******

David Foster Wallace - Introduction to "Consider the Lobster" Audiobook
Ronettes - Walking in the Rain
The Statler Brothers - How Great Thou Art [at Folsom Prison]
Dick Wagner & The Frost - Mystery Man
The Elastik Band - Spazz
Oingo Boingo - Heard Somebody Cry
Wizards - Testicle Mainframe
Roky Erikson & the Aliens - Creature with the Atom Brain
PDF Format - You Won't Get With Me Tonight [cover of unreleased Weezer song]
DJ Morgoth - Never Gonna Give Your Teen Spirit Up
Dizzy Gillespie - Swing Low, Sweet Cadillac
Brent Spiner feat. Patrick Stewart - It's A Sin to Tell A Lie
The Fiery Furnaces - The End Is Near
Bob Vaught & The Renegaids - Surfin' Tragedy

A Possible End To Social Darwinism...

Mee Yoww... (I've got a very bad feeling about this)

Modernist Assumptions

Where's Waldo..?

http://www.cbs12.com/news/robot-4720967-missing-coast.html

A letter to a friend...

Wonders of Technology (and other news)

HIGH SPEED ROBOT HAND


FIRST INTERNET ADDICTION FACILITY IN U.S. OPENS DOORS

"This photo taken Sept. 1 2009 shows reSTART Internet Addiction Recovery Program client Ben Alexander, 19, of Iowa City, Iowa walking up a path while holding puppy Dakota at the program's facilities in Fall City, Wash... Residents at the facility take turns caring for the various animals including cats, doves, chickens and goats. reSTART is the first residential treatment program of its kind in the United States." -AP (photo and caption)
Link To Story

PLUS:
CONDE NAST COVERS ASS IN ATTEMPT TO SAVE STATUS QUO; PROVES AFRAID OF REAL NEWS? PS GET SEPT ISSUE OF GQ

IKEA CHANGES FONT IN CATALOG, PUBLIC OVERREACTS

GLENN BECK PLAYS ART HISTORIAN TO HIS FLOCK

if you follow Tim Heidecker's Twitter you've probably seen this, but still...

also, in THIS New York Times article about the stimulus plan's shortcomings they briefly mention that there are buses in Chicago's public transit system that have enough miles on them to have driven to the Moon and back.