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Charles and Ray Eames: Mystical toys
10.11.2011
04:11 pm
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The fun and beauty of toys is they exist purely for pleasure… but within the most wonderful of toys there is poetry and secret teachings.

“Toys are not really as innocent as they look. Toys and games are preludes to serious ideas.”  - Charles Eames.

Charles and Ray Eames made over 100 short films. Many of them had toys as their subject. In Tops (1969) and the solar powered Do-Nothing Machine (1957), the Eames celebrate design and movement for their own sake as well as their potential to open doors of perception. 

The Do-Nothing Machine was created by the Eames to do exactly what its name says - nothing. In the 1950s, when progress was our most important product, a machine that did nothing, other than dazzle the eye and compel one to meditate upon the beauty of form, sunlight and gravity, was a radical statement. Eames’ machine could be seen as a precursor to the psychedelic experience: a device to tickle the senses and bring us into the NOW. Add the fact that it is solar-powered and we have something that is positively visionary in all senses of the word.

In our goal-oriented society, a toy is a respite from getting things done. A toy is like the Buddha nature, it need not justify itself. It just is, of the moment, no results required, no function necessary other than in the delight of being. But within the playful nature of a toy, there are things to be learned if you so choose to discover them.

A top is perfect, profound in its simplicity, offering up a multitude of possible teachings. Truly alive when it is in balance, the top, spinning like a prayer wheel with a sense of humor, in accordance with natural law, is a symbol of the Dharma as it spins upon its invisible axis. The spine of the top is charged like some kind of tantric machine. With each new spin it is reborn.

Watch in wonder.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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10.11.2011
04:11 pm
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Money: New, super-deluxe Pink Floyd ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ box set, a review
10.11.2011
03:29 pm
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This is a perplexing product to get your head around. It really is. I like it, or at least I like parts of it, quite a lot. Other aspects of the set I could do without completely. Some of it’s just plain useless.

What am I talking about? The newly released Pink Floyd “Immersion” box set of Dark Side of the Moon, contains the following:

  • One CD of the original album, newly remastered in 2011
  • One CD of DSOTM performed live all the way through at Wembley Arena in 1974
  • A DVD-A of the 2003 5.1 surround mix, Alan Parson’s original quadraphonic mix from 1973 in 4.0 surround, a LPCM version of the 2011 stereo remaster, and 640 kbps versions of both surround mixes
  • A regular DVD that has two live numbers filmed in Brighton, 1972, an EPK from 2003 and the films that were projected behind the band onstage during British, French and North American tours in 1974/1975 synched to the same 5.1 audio heard on the previous disc.
  • A Blu-ray with uncompressed, high resolution versions of the stereo mix, the quad Parsons mix, the 2003 5.1 surround mix, the concert films, the live clips from Brighton, the EPK and the original 1973 stereo mix.
  • A CD of an earlier DSOTM mix from 1972 by Alan Parsons, a demo of “Us and Them” by Rick Wright, a demo of “Money” by Waters on an acoustic guitar, some unreleased live audio from the Brighton show, a studio rarity and—praise the gods—“The Hard Way,” one of the two completed tracks from the aborted follow-up to DSOTM known as Household Objects, an album that was to be recorded using only, you guessed it, household items as instruments (This is pretty fucking cool, I must admit).

Also included in the slick, glossy box designed by Storm Thorgerson’s StormStudios: Two books, one of tour photographs and ephemera, one with lyrics; “cards” and other supposedly “collectible” ephemera such as an art print of the album cover as rendered either by, or in the style of (it doesn’t say), Roy Lichtenstein; some DSOTM marbles (wha?); some DSOTM drink coasters (trade ‘em with your friends!) and some other stuff that I don’t think there was a single Pink Floyd fan on planet Earth clamoring for.

The worst item that comes with the set—and it’s really and truly groan-worthy—is the DSOTM scarf. Tom Baker’s incarnation of Doctor Who would be ashamed to wear it… WHAT were they thinking? (Then again Pink Floyd did license their DSOTM trademark to Target for pajamas, didn’t they?).

The main problem with this box set is that it doesn’t know who it’s supposed to be for. Obviously it’s for the Pink Floyd super-fan and/or for someone who has a deep emotional connection to the music of Dark Side of the Moon, but my question is, why would this theoretical Pink Floyd super-fan, who presumably has not just one, but several different versions of DSOTM in their collection, already, need a Blu-ray, a DVD, a DVDA disc, and three CDs (plus all the pointless collectibles crap) when all of it would have fit on just the Blu-ray? If you’ve got the Blu-ray, then why would you want to own the regular CD version that is markedly inferior to the Blu-ray version?

Obviously this is probably the very, very last time that Pink Floyd’s albums are ever going to be released on any sort of disc, but had they split this set up along the lines of formats, instead of forcing the public to shell out over $100 for multiple formats/versions of the same material, in the end, I think EMI would have maxed out on sales, perhaps several times over. Most people would be happy with just the Blu-ray, a 2 DVD version or a 3 CD set or whatever, but WHO would want, or need all of them? No one, that’s who. EMI’s super ultra mega deluxe box sets like this one and the one for David Bowie’s Station to Station album try to be all things to all people and don’t really succeed in satisfying anyone, I’m afraid. (The biggest missed opportunity here, and one that fans would have actually cared about, is they didn’t reproduce the iconic posters that came with the original album! I’d have gladly traded the marbles, drink coasters and the hideous scarf for the poster of the green pyramids, but alas they didn’t even reproduce either poster in the booklets! Why not?)

Even if it is mostly marketing and accounting personnel who are running the major labels these days, I still can’t help but to think that if they’d have come out with separate versions in CD, DVD and Blu-ray editions, and catered to what the public who still buy discs actually want, they’ve have far sold more copies in the end. I’m guessing they’ll sell 20,000 copies of this set. Even if the sell all of them at $108 a pop, this approach seems shortsighted to me, when sales figures for the 2003 James Guthrie mixed 5.1 surround version of DSOTM on SACD—a nearly dead format now—sold north of 800,000 units.

Let me be clear, though: The music, as heard here, is superb. The extras are great, especially “The Hard Way” and the absolutely incredible 1972 live show that comprises disc two. Having said that, I’d have been happier with just a Blu-ray of everything, price point of $35, tops (I already own the 2003 5.1 surround version on SACD, and a regular stereo CD version for that matter).

At least they didn’t include vinyl. Find me the guy who wants both the record and the Blu-ray (I use the male gender here because what woman is stupid enough to care about such things?) and I will show you a music nerd who should have been strangled in the bloody crib!

Below, Pink Floyd, live at Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands (Radio Hilversum: September 17, 1969). This has been bootlegged for 40 years under various names like “The Massed Gadgets of Auximenies” or “The Man and The Journey”—this will be one of the best Pink Floyd shows you’ll ever hear or your money back!
 

 
Below, “Careful With That Axe, Eugene,” live in Brighton, 1972:
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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10.11.2011
03:29 pm
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John Waters on coming out
10.11.2011
03:27 pm
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It’s National Coming Out Day and to celebrate, here is John Waters - a man who knew he was gay as a child, from the moment he saw Elvis Presley on television - explaining in his inimitable style, what he thinks about coming out, and why people have rarely asked him about his sexuality, because “They were afraid to hear the answer.”
 

 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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10.11.2011
03:27 pm
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WorldWide Carpets: Area rugs printed with Google Earth images
10.11.2011
02:16 pm
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Clever area rugs printed with images from Google Earth by David Hanauer. According to his website, you can also turn it into wall-to-wall carpeting. I want a bird’s eye view rug of Occupy Wall Street in NYC. Make it happen David!

The project shows different patterns for a carpet / carpeted floor. It is about identity, new patterns, google, architecture. It reflects a new identity of products as well as humans and the interaction between them.


 

 
(via Public School)

Posted by Tara McGinley
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10.11.2011
02:16 pm
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Occupy Wall Street: One of the 1% in solidarity with the 99%
10.11.2011
01:37 pm
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Some idiots will no doubt think this young woman is a “class traitor” but history will make fools of them.

Thank you, Glen E. Friedman!

Posted by Tara McGinley
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10.11.2011
01:37 pm
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Human-animal hybrid x-rays by Benedetta Bonichi
10.11.2011
12:20 pm
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The Metamorphosis - 2007

 
Throughout the years I’ve seen these creepy, but amazing images on Tumblrs and various blogs but I never knew who the artist was. Coilhouse recently did a post on these human-animal hybrid x-rays and they’re by Italian artist Benedetta Bonichi

Check out the rest of Benedetta Bonichi’s work on her website To See in the Dark.
 

La Collana Di Perle - 2002
 

La Sirena - 2001
 
(via Coilhouse)

Posted by Tara McGinley
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10.11.2011
12:20 pm
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Chilling video: Police get aggressive with veterans at Occupy Boston
10.11.2011
11:17 am
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I’m not anti-cop and I never have been, but there’s quite something disturbing about what happens in this video.

Via Joan Walsh at Salon, who calls this the “worst” moment of Occupy Wall Street so far:

On Monday night, Boston police broke up the Occupy Boston protest, and in the process, they tore down an American flag and knocked down at least one American military veteran.

A group of Veterans for Peace stood in a line in front of the Occupy Boston protesters, and after the police warned the entire group to disperse, a line of cops marched out of the darkness and seemed to move on the veterans first.

John Nilles, a 74-year-old Vietnam veteran, told the Boston Globe he was knocked down during the arrests. “I have absolutely no use for police anymore,” he said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.” You can hear protesters on the video screaming over and over, “We are veterans of the United States of America.” It’s chilling.

The video is dark, so it’s hard to see exactly what’s happening, but when the American flag starts to totter, it’s like the Iwo Jima moment in reverse.

What compelling reason was there for this eviction to occur in the first place? These folks weren’t hurting anyone, they were just being good citizens. They’re standing up for themselves.

This is an extraordinary time in American history. The police officers who were involved with this action need to ponder which side they’re on.
 

 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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10.11.2011
11:17 am
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RSJ ‘Collectively We Are Tall’: Metalcore’s best promo ever?
10.10.2011
07:37 pm
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Journalist, author and legendary singer with punk rock band Goldblade, John Robb has posted this rather superb promo of Metalcore band RSJ, over at his excellent blog site Louder than War. As John explains this fine promo is for RSJ’s new single, “Collectively We Are Tall”,  in which York’s finest destroy “the crappy dance video from 2004 for Eric Prydz’s Call On Me”.

“All the dance moves we do in our version are the same as the original but they’ve been choreographed to fit our music,” said guitarist Vaughn Thomas. “We liked the idea of the contrast between how serious our music is to how silly the visuals are. It’s different and entertaining, so people want to watch it and share it with friends.”

The idea for the video came from the band themselves, and was directed, edited and filmed by Matt Huxford.
 

 
With thanks to John Robb, via Louder than War

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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10.10.2011
07:37 pm
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Blasphemous teenager sez ‘Religion is bullshit’
10.10.2011
04:49 pm
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Like a mini-George Carlin or Richard Dawkins, YouTuber Kellen lets the Holy Ghost have it right in the keister…

If I’d have made a video like this when I was his age, and my parents saw it, I’d be dead now.
 

 
Via reddit

Posted by Richard Metzger
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10.10.2011
04:49 pm
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Glenn Beck warns of the coming of the ‘violent left’


 
At the ultra-conservative Values Voter Summit over the weekend, Glenn Beck, eager to demonstrate his old skool soothsayer prowess, claims he foretold of the “violent left” coming two years ago, but only succeeds in looking like a man on the wrong side of history…
 

 
UPDATE: Here’s Beck from his show today saying that the Occupy Wall Street protesters will “kill everybody”!
 

 
Via Right Wing Watch

Posted by Richard Metzger
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10.10.2011
04:26 pm
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Crooked teeth, the latest Japanese beauty fad?
10.10.2011
03:42 pm
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Is this a reaction to the “perfection” of plastic surgery? Are we so inured to freakish “perfection” that the pendulum is finally swinging in the other direction?

Then again, this, too, is artificial. I’m confused!?!

Dental Salon Plaisir says its Tsuke-yaeba—or Stick-on Crooked Teeth—will impart that desirable “imperfect” look to men and women alike, making them more attractive to the opposite sex.

The theory behind that slightly odd approach is that classic beauty tends to scare away timid suitors, whereas a more down-home look is easily approachable.

Similarly, some Japanese women have been reported to favor men wearing glasses, as the physical flaw has a comparable aphrodisiac effect.

Anyone seeking Tsuke-yaeba will need to fork out upwards of ¥30,000 ($390) and undergo a short procedure as a Plaisir dentist applies the plastic gnashers with glue. Naturally, they’re color-matched to your real teeth.

Read more: Tokyo dental fad? Make your teeth look worse
 
(via Neatorama)

 

 

Posted by Tara McGinley
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10.10.2011
03:42 pm
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Snuff Box: Rich Fulcher loose in New York City
10.10.2011
02:52 pm
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Zany Rich Fulcher will be signing DVDs of Snuff Box tomorrow night, October 11th, at 6:30pm in New York City at Kim’s Video. There’s going to be an event later that night at the Upright Citizen’s Brigade East Village at 11:30 pm, with a screening of a Snuff Box episode followed by a Q&A with Rich. He’ll be on The Jimmy Fallonl Show tonight.

Snuff Box is out on DVD tomorrow from Severin Films.
 

 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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10.10.2011
02:52 pm
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New Rapture date predicted, just 11 days away!
10.10.2011
02:08 pm
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Failed endtimes “prophet” Harold Camping just won’t quit. He’s the Energizer bunny of doomsday seers. Despite getting getting his predictions for the date of the Rapture wrong several times, the 90-year-old coot is still promising that Christians are going to get snatched up into Heaven. The revised Rapture date is just eleven days away! Oh noes!

Camping, who was in a nursing home following a stroke in June, is now recovering at home. He recently recorded an audio message for the Family Radio network’s website, the text, via Beliefnet, is below:

Hello, this is Harold Camping with a few ideas or a few statements so that you can know where I am in this whole picture. I am very, very glad that God has been with me. I’m slowly getting healed, although I still have a long ways to go. There’s been one big change, and that is that I have been able to leave the hospital and now I am able to live with my dear wife at home and that has been very, very comforting and very happy for me. I’m still a long way away from being healed but there is progress being made and at times it looks like it’s very substantial progress, although I still have along way to go. I am particularly grateful when I hear about your prayers and your concerns for my health and well-being and I’m glad that God is answering those prayers.

I do believe that we’re getting very near the very end. We [could not] have known… we’ve learned that there’s a lot of things that we didn’t have quite right and that’s God’s good provision. If he had not kept us from knowing everything that we didn’t know, we would not have been able to be used of Him to bring about the tremendous event that occurred on May 21 of this year, and which probably will be finished out on October 21, that’s coming very shortly. That looks like it will be at this point, it looks like it will be the final end of everything. It also looks like that as God is developing the details for us we are learning from the Bible, God’s details of the end. We find that God is not a respecter of persons. He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, some of them most wicked in the world, like the son of David who rebelled against David and David cried out: ‘I wish that you were me rather than he.’ That was Absalom, of whom we read quite a bit about in the Bible, and it encourages us to believe that all of our unsaved loved ones will not receive special vengeance of God at all. God says ‘vengeance is mine,’ and that means that He’s going to apply the vengeance that He wants to apply. And when we study the historical record of his application of vengeance, taking for example the prime illustration – the son of David who rebelled and wanted to take the throne and then saw David weeping and wailing over him. We must believe that probably there will be no pain suffered by anyone because of their rebellion against God. This is very comforting to all of us, because we all have children, and have loved ones that are dear to us that we know are not saved; and yet we know that they’ll quietly die. We can be more and more sure that they will quietly die and that will be the end of their story.

Whereas the true believers will quietly receive the new heaven and the new earth. I really am beginning to think as I restudied these matters that there’s going to be no big display of any kind. The end is going to come very, very quietly probably within the next month. It will happen, that is, by October 21.

In the meanwhile, oh my, it’s been so good to hear about those who are continuing to be faithful. They, undoubtedly, are the elect of God, and we know absolutely that the elect will be saved. There is no question at all about that. And we know that there are in the Family Radio many who have been so faithful and are remaining faithful right to the end. Praise God for that.

And so we’re continuing on. By God’s mercy I’m able to do a little bit more in the movement, because I’m no longer in a hospital. But I’m still limited, but on the other hand, there is growth and things are getting better as we go along and maybe God will keep me till the end also so that together we can go to be with Him forever more, and I am very convinced that all of the elect will definitely end up with the Lord Jesus Christ in a very, very few weeks. Thank you so much for allowing me to speak to you. I am so grateful and I wish that I were well, but on the other hand, I know my work has been done and I can wait on the Lord knowing that He will complete it through others as He is so doing right now. Goodbye and may God bless each one of you.”

Why doesn’t this chap just fuck the fuck off, anyway?

Via Christian Nightmares

Posted by Richard Metzger
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10.10.2011
02:08 pm
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Massive Attack vs Burial ‘Four Walls’
10.10.2011
01:42 pm
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Neither of these acts need an introduction, so let’s just let the music speak for itself (a Burial remix of a track from Massive Attack’s forthcoming album):

Massive Attack vs Burial ‘Four Walls’
 

Posted by Niall O'Conghaile
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10.10.2011
01:42 pm
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Who will be ‘the Bob Dylan of Occupy Wall Street’?
10.10.2011
01:23 pm
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Yesterday on NPR, there was a segment where Los Angeles Times music critic Ann Powers was asked if a “new Bob Dylan”—or at least a new “name” singer/songwriter—had stepped forward with a song that really crystalized what the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations are all about. Powers answered that, no, it hadn’t really happened because of the leaderless, un-amplified nature of the movement’s setting, and she was was right, but I’m guessing that she hasn’t heard the music of 23-year-old London-based soul singer Michael Kiwanuka... yet.

Why should we expect that the “Blowin’ In The Wind” of 2011 was actually going to come from Zuccotti Park, anyway? For me, Michael Kiwanuka’s new song, “I’m Getting Ready” could be the song that best sums up the historical moment we’re in. It’s not as if he’s addressing “revolution” or Occupy Wall Street or any other specific location or uprising around the globe with the song’s simple lyrics. There are no grievances aired, no complaints or demands made. But what he has done is compose and perform an “anthem” level song—it’s gorgeous and uplifting, almost a hymn—that makes the case for standing up for yourself. It’s beautifully of the moment.

I haven’t been this knocked out by a new talent since I got hip to Laura Marling. With “I’m Getting Ready,” Kiwanuka takes the whole Nick Drake/Nico’s Chelsea Girl thing and really makes it his own. His voice is strong—Bill Withers-level strong—and he’s a cool-looking motherfucker, too. Dig his Tappa Zukie fashion sense! I have a feeling Michael Kiwanuka is going to become a very big star in the coming months.

If anyone is organizing a benefit concert for Occupy Wall Street, Michael Kiwanuka would be an absolute must for that bill.

See what you think:
 

 
After the jump, “Tell Me A Tell,” which is a much different sounding song altogether than “I’m Getting Ready,” but equally gorgeous!

READ ON
Posted by Richard Metzger
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10.10.2011
01:23 pm
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