I’m not in the habit of paying that much attention to Alex Jones, but from time to time, he does have the goods, even if his “conspiracy theorizing” often just takes matters too far for credibility. I could say the same thing for his frequent guest, investment advisor and precious metals advocate, Catherine Austin Fitts. Fitts was once the Assistant Secretary of Housing and Federal Housing Commissioner at the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development during the first Bush Administration, and she’s a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the holder of an MBA from the prestigious Wharton School. She’s a sophisticated, well-traveled, passionate and intelligent woman who also happens to be a 9/11 truther and has written of her overwrought theories that the purpose of the flu vaccine is depopulation.
Oh well, can’t have everything, can we? There’s obviously a reason she’s always on the Alex Jones radio show.
Should these far-out viewpoints eliminate her as someone to take seriously on the matter of how the global economy works? I don’t think so, which is why I’m linking to this fascinating interview that Catherine Austin Fitts gave to one of Alex Jones’ producers. It’s absolutely worth your time, even if a little bit too long. Watch at least the first 5 or 6 minutes. Consider the implications of the example she uses of the three women in Tennessee and what they each did with their money. It’s striking to hear it put this way, I think you’ll agree.
And if you do, then you should really consider watching this all the way through. I did and I got a lot out of it, even if the way she sees the world and my admittedly more, er, Trotskyite “orientation,” aren’t exactly coming from the same place. Her notion, expressed in the beginning of this video, that the American people could “shift the flow” of where capital gets invested by taking it AWAY from the big banks so Wall St. won’t have such easy access to it is a revolutionary idea and she explains it in a way that anyone could understand it. This is something that Ron Paul fanatics and Marxists could probably both get behind.
Could this be the worst celebrity guest star appearance in television history? Methinks so. Watch the cringe-worthy trailer below. Also, take note on how Boy George delivers his line “Totally awesome, Hannibal.” It’s sheer brilliance.
You can watch the entire episode titled “Cowboy George” over at Hulu. Thank God!
Yep! It’s a Stephen Colbert couch to liven up your living room by Etsy seller Matt Charlan. The couch is priced at $2,008.87 (for now). It might work nicely with the demon rug.
People will gravitate to the percise place in the room looking for where the face is most accurate. While you round them up make sure your finger is ready on the dead switch to the trap door to you basement where you keep all Colbert Couch huff puff nay sayers.
The price of the couch is automatically calculated using a sophisticated algorithm like Goldman used to inflate its assets (Way to drop $300 M on facebook, Goldman). The price is directly proportional to the number of people who look at this listing.
Take a moment to be utterly flabbergasted at how inappropriate and opportunistic Sarah Palin’s self-serving “blood libel” statement is regarding her supposed influence on the AZ shooter, Jared Loughner…
I know people are dumb, especially the vast majority of folks who call themselves Republicans, but they can’t be that dumb (or can they?) to think she’s doing anything more than “acting” statesmanlike or pretending to give a shit – especially when she’s such a bad fucking actor. The whole thing’s so amateurish. Her speech is just rambling nonsense. And they couldn’t even work out how to stop the teleprompter reflecting in her glasses. Whenever she even attempts empathy, she comes across like a glove puppet. An inarticulate glove puppet, at that.
She can’t even say “God bless America” as if she means it! Those three words are the cornerstone of her schtick!
If you live in or plan to be visiting New York over the coming weekend, this is the place to be on Sunday.
On the eve of what would have been her 49th birthday, there’s gonna be a party for the dearly missed Ari Up at the Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, NY, January 16.
The growing lineup of bands and musicians include:
original and current members of the Slits, including Tessa Pollitt, Hollie Cook, Neneh Cherry and AnnA Ozawa; Bruce Smith of PiL and the Slits; members of Brave New Girl; Band Droidz; legendary Beefheart guitarist Gary Lucas; Afrobeat superstar Wunmi Olaiya; Felice Rosser (Faith); Dee Pop (Bush Tetras, Radio I-Ching); Lizzi Bougatsis (Gang Gang Dance); Afro-Punk avatar Tamar-Kali, King Django; Honeychild Coleman; Barbara Gogan (The Passions); Sherleen Nubro; Lisa Samuels and many luminaries from the punk and reggae worlds backed by Ira Heaps and the True Warriors performing classic Slits hits, dancehall and previously unheard originals by Ari Up. Lyrical Readings and Remembrances by Michael Patrick McDonald, Greg Tate, Sara Marcus (Girls To The Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution) and Angela Jaeger (ex-Pigbag).
Ari talks about her friends, her peers and rivals in this short video filmed at the Brooklyn Museum’s “Who Shot Rock and Roll” exhibit (October 30, 2009–January 31, 2010).
The phrase “they don’t make movies like that anymore” is an apt description of Gaspar Noe’s psychedelic epic Enter The Void. When was the last time a movie directed by a major film maker was created with the sole intention of blowing your mind, not merely with special effects but with grand metaphysical aspirations? In attempting to replicate what he imagines as being the stages the soul passes through after bodily death, Noe has created a magnificent head trip that recalls the visual scope and poetry of 2001: A Space Odyssey and the pataphysical leaps of spiritual fantasy that infuse the similarly lysergic El Topo. The fact that Noe had cutting edge digital technology at his disposal and knows how to use it makes Enter The Void not only a provocative intellectual experience but a ravishingly visual one as well. But it must it must be seen on the big screen…uncut.
Noe has experimented with psychoactive substances since he was a teenager. More recently, he went to Peru to experiment with Ayahuasca. The psychedelic experience not only informs Enter The Void, it ISEnter The Void. The subject of the film is the film. Noe understands what few contemporary movie directors understand: film is a chemical with the potential of being alchemical. Of all forms of art, film can best approximate dreaming or visionary states of consciousness. Enter The Void aspires to nothing less than altering your brain chemistry. And as much as a movie can, it succeeds. I staggered out of a screening of Enter The Void like someone coming down from an extended DMT trip. It took me a few minutes to orient myself well enough to drive my car. And other than seeing the film, I hadn’t had anything stronger than one glass of wine. I noticed that groups of people leaving the film seemed likewise in a daze, many of them laughing giddily like stoned freaks.
Enter The Void is not perfect. It is repetitive at times and probably 20 minutes too long (though I was never bored). Noe claims 2001 as an influence and like that film the performances in Void are often stiff and unconvincing. But the acting is hardly the centerpiece of Noe’s film. Afterall, the main character is a disembodied spirit.
Noe goes for sensation over narrative rigor. He loves constructing lavish and lurid spectacles that are charged with sex and and shot from weirdly skewed perspectives. It’s not all tryptamine, there’s opium in there too. And like another one of his heroes, Kenneth Anger, Noe likes to play with the dark side. For all of its soulful yearning, the movie has scenes of transgression and horror (a gutwrenching car wreck) every bit as disturbing as Noe’s Irreversible and I Stand Alone - two films that on the surface are profane, but at heart deeply religious.
Enter The Void is haunted by the ghosts of the dead and the living dead. In its depiction of the afterlife as just another dimension of this life, the movie blurs the distinctions between living and dying. Throughout the film there are references to the “Tibetan Book Of The Dead” (almost comically so) and it seems that Noe is passing through his own Bardo planes as an artist, traveling through darkness to get to light. Noe explores the idea of the soul in transition like a man possessed. There is a sense of spiritual urgency in Enter The Void that recalls the beatitudes of a Carl Dreyer’s The Passion Of Joan Of Arc. Only this time it’s day-glo.
In my reverie over Enter The Void, I’ve failed to discuss the amazing technical accomplishments of the film. Put simply: the film is a visual marvel unlike anything I’ve ever seen…on a screen. The camera is in constant motion, following the action from every perspective imaginable, from heaven above to inside the womb. There’s a jawdropping shot of a penis from the point of view of the interior of a woman’s vagina. I laughed to myself imagining what it would have looked like in 3D. The wet neon of Tokyo at night is gorgeously shot by Benoît Debie. Color, lighting and set design blend in an orgy of eye candy that makes most Hollywood films look like they were shot a century ago using cameras powered by steam. With shuddering surround sound, the whole experience is like being immersed in a hot tub full of peyote tea.
Gaspar Noe wants to fuck you in the head until your brain cums and in Enter The Void he gets some long strokes in.
Enter The Void is being released on DVD and Blu-ray January 25. I strongly recommend you see it on the big screen. But if that’s not possible, you can buy it here. There are several cuts of the film that have been released. It appears that the DVD is the 160 minute version I saw. At this time, that’s the definitive version.
Update: The 160 minute cut of Enter The Void will have its first theatrical run in New York City at the IFC Center from January 14 through January 20. The film will also play at The Landmark Nuart Theater in Los Angeles on January 21 for a special midnight showing.
Dutch sibling filmmakers Thomas Roebers and Floris Leeuwenberg recently released Foli, an extremely well-crafted 11-minute short film that gives us an overview of the role of rhythm in the life of the rural Malinke village of Baro in central Guinea.
World-class djembe masters like Famoudou Konate hail from the area around Baro. Roebers and Leeuwenberg make this come alive through deft editing, killer sound, and their choice to not include any omniscient narration.
We have the knowledge—evil though it be—
To twist the mind to any lunacy we wish.
Through this Electro-Thought Machine, I’ll demonstrate exactly what I mean.
We’ll take the means of mass communication, use them for commercial exploitation,
Create the new 4-part phenomena: 4 simple minds with talent (little or none),
And through the latest fad of rock and roll, conduct experiments in mind control!
On an unsuspecting public they’ll be turned!
I’ll brainwash them, and they’ll brainwash the world!!!!
—Brian Auger in 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee
After they made Head, the four original Monkees completed one final project together, the 1969 NBC television special, 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee. Peter Tork, citing exhaustion, bought himself out of the final years of his Monkees contract immediately following production of the program.
Produced by Shindig! creator Jack Good and directed by Art Fisher (whose claim to fame is that he gave the Marx Brothers their names), 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee is basically, as Peter Tork called it “the TV Version of Head.” The “plot,” as such, centers on a fiendish plot hatched by a devilish duo, played by guest stars Julie Driscoll and Brian Auger, to control minds via the commercialization of pop music. The Monkees are stripped of their identities in giant test tubes and turned into “safe” doo-woppers. Along the way they wear monkey suits and there is something about Darwin, too, but I didn’t really understand that bit…
Musical guests on the show included Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger and the Trinity, Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino, Little Richard, The Clara Ward Singers, The Buddy Miles Express, Paul Arnold and The Moon Express, and We Three. The show’s big finale was an utterly cacophonous version of “Listen to the Band” that seemed to be wanting to evoke the Beatles’ “All You Need is Love” satellite performance and the final noisy ending of “A Day in the Life.” You might say, however, that the spotty 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee was really much more like the Pre-Fab Four’s own Magical Mystery Tour. The program marked the Monkees’ final appearance as a quartet until 1986.
It’s a Boy’s Own Adventure Story moment. You’re at a concert with your best pal, watching your favorite band, when the drummer collapses on stage. The call goes out, “Is there a drummer in the house?” Next thing you know, your buddy has pushed you into the spotlight and there you are playing the drums with your heroes.
Well this is kind of how it went for Scot Halpin when he turned up to see his favorite band The Who open their Quadrophenia tour at the 14,000 seater Cow Palace in Daly City, San Francisco, in November 1973. Halpin and his companion arrived 12 hours before the concert began to ensure they would have good seats. They found seats up near the front of the stage, which was fortuitous for both Halpin and the band, as an hour into the gig, drummer Keith Moon passed out and was carted off stage.
The house lights came up, and a thirty minute intermission followed, while Moon was revived backstage with “a cold shower”. The Who returned to the stage, and started performing, but once again Moon collapsed - this time for good. It later transpired that Moon the Loon had ingested massive quantities of animal tranquilizers, which he had washed down with his usual bottle or two of brandy. His three band mates, Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend and John Entwistle carried on, performing their next number “See Me, Feel Me”, with Daltrey filling-in for Keith’s drums on tambourine, before Townshend asked the audience:
“Can anybody play the drums? I mean someone good!”
It was at this moment Halpin’s companion started yelling at the stage crew that his friend could play. What he omitted to say, was that Halpin was slightly out of practice, as it was nearly a year since he had played. What happened next surprised both band and audience, and has become the stuff of legend, when concert promoter, Bill Graham approached Halpin and pulled him up onto the stage.
“Graham just looked at me and said, ‘Can you do it?’ And I said ‘Yes,“‘straight out. Townshend and Daltrey look around and they’re as surprised as I am, because Graham put me up there.”
A roadie then gave Halpin a shot of Moon’s brandy.
“Then I got really focused, and Townshend said to me, ‘I’m going to lead you. I’m going to cue you.’”
Townshend introduced him as “Scot”, and went straight into a couple of Blues standards, “Smoke Stack Lightning” and “Spoonful”. Halpin acquitted himself, kept good time and followed Townhend’s lead. Next up was The Who’s “Naked Eye”, which proved far more tricksy with its contrasting tempos. However, Halpin kept his cool and managed a steady beat throughout.
It was the band’s last number and Halpin deservedly then took his bow alongside Townshend, Daltrey and Entwistle. Backstage the band thanked:
...the skinny kid from the audience for stepping to the plate but didn’t hang around long after the show.
“They were very angry with Keith and sort of fighting among themselves,” Halpin said. “It was the opening date on their ‘Quadrophenia’ tour, and they were saying, ‘Why couldn’t he wait until after the show (if he wanted to get high)?”
Daltry, who’d begun drinking Jack Daniels from the bottle at that point, told the substitute they’d pay him $1,000 for his efforts, and a roadie gave him a tour jacket on the spot. “Then everyone split,” Halpin said. “My friend and I both had long drives ahead of us, so we loaded up on all the free food that was put out for the band, and we both headed for home.”
In the meantime, someone stole the tour jacket that Halpin had just received as a gift.
Halpin received favorable mention in the next day’s Chronicle review. He received a nice letter from the band but no money - not that it mattered.
However, the event was commemorated by Rolling Stone magazine, when they honored Halpin with “Pick-Up Player of the Year 1973.” Interviewed at the time, Halpin praised The Who’s stamina, saying:
“I only played three numbers and I was dead.”
Halpin went onto graduate from San Francisco University, and became composer-in-residence at the Headlands Centre for the Arts, in Sausalito, California. He also played with a number of bands including The Sponges, Funhouse, Folklore, Snake Doctor and Plank Road and also managed a punk rock nightclub before moving to Bloomington, Indiana, in 1995 to become a visual artist.
Halpin died in February 2008, less than a week after his birthday, he was 54.
More of Scot Halpin and The Who, plus bonus clip, after the jump…
With thanks to Heather Harris for suggesting this story!
“Geometry of Circles” is a series of unnumbered animation pieces created for Sesame Street in 1979 with music by Philip Glass.
The shorts consist of the movement of six circles (each with a different color of the rainbow) that are formed by and split up into various geometric patterns. Glass’s music underscores the animation in a style that closely resembles the “Dance” numbers and the North Star vignettes written during the same time period as his Einstein on the Beach opera.
More of the “Geometry of Circles” shorts after the jump…
“There will be milk deliveries unmade. Transportation services will be greatly impaired by the absence of Christian motormen… House work will be left undone by Christian maids going to a higher realm.”
Yup, “The Rapture” was imminent even back in 1941, when this short film was made. The film’s vintage makes a belief in the Rapture in 2011 seem especially silly. Because it is.
Quite a bit of this film appears in Diane Keaton’s fab Heaven documentary.
