Wanderland.
This beautifully animated slice of psychedelia gets progressively weirder and weirder right up to its sardonic Twilight Zone-meets-Hitchcock twist ending.
Music by Hermanos Ingleosos featuring MeMe.
Directed by Kristof Luyckx & Michèle Vanparys.
In the 1970s, it seemed as if most literate, well-informed Americans who read books could agree that Kurt Vonnegut was probably the most important American author since Mark Twain. Vonnegut, when you think about it, was really the last author who nearly everybody who read books, read. You could gauge his popularity when I was a kid by looking at all the copies of his novels on offer at garage sales. Jethro Tull, Allman Brothers and Cheech and Chong albums along with dog-eared copies of Jaws, The Godfather, The Exorcist and one, if not several, Vonnegut paperbacks were jumble sale staples of the late 1970s. Despite the fact that Kurt Vonnegut himself seems to think that writers were over the hill at the age 55, this never seemed the case to me where his writing was concerned and I was always excited to sit down with a new book from him. Watching this video I started to wonder who would replace Vonnegut as he himself took over from Mark Twain to a great extent. No one I can see on the horizon, I’m afraid.
Vonnegut is seen here giving a speech in 2002 at Albion College, where he received an honorary doctorate. The lecture’s title is How to Get Job Like Mine.
Click through to YouTube for the rest of the speech.
Bonus: Fox News did an entirely disrespectful obit of Vonnegut the day after he died. Something tells me the author would have found this screamingly funny.
Via Fishbowl LA
The undeniable universal groove of Can. It’s got a groovy beat and you can dance to it.
Japanese robot mouth provides the narration for a rubber baby maker.
A product of Plasticity
A product of Plasticity
Plastic people, plastic people
You are your foot, your hair
Your nose, your arms
You suck, you love, you are
Your being is you’re plastic
Blah, blah, blah, blah
Plastic peoples - Zappa
Klaus Nomi died 27 years ago today.
I met Klaus in the fall of 1977 in the lobby of the Cinema Village after a midnight screening of Eraserhead. We struck up a conversation about the movie and immediately hit it off. Wearing a black leather jacket, black jeans, black lipstick, black eye shadow and jet black, slicked back, widow-peaked hair, Klaus looked like an elegant punk vampire. But, despite his dramatic appearance, Klaus was low-key and somewhat shy. I don’t know why we hit it off, but we did. He invited my girlfriend and I over to his apartment for the following night. He told us he was a pastry chef and wanted us to taste his creations. We readily accepted.
The next night when we arrived at Klaus’s apartment on St. Mark’s Place, he greeted us at the door wearing a chef’s apron. The smell of fresh baked pastry filled his small but impeccably neat home. We ate his delicacies and swooned. They were delicious. And while I felt comfortable in his presence, I also felt as if Klaus was not of this planet. There was something strange and alien about him, but benignly so. Klaus was an unusual being…which he would soon confirm.
While my girlfriend and I sipped wine, Klaus excused himself and disappeared into his bedroom. After about 15 minutes or so, he reappeared with a theatrical flourish in semi-drag, looking like a diminutive Diva: face made-up and wearing a red satin robe. He walked over to his stereo equipment, put a record on the turntable and started singing to an instrumental backing track, some kind of opera. He was stunning. His voice was sublime. I was witnessing something very special. His performance also explained why there were so many photos and paintings of Maria Callas in his apartment.
Later that night I told Klaus that I wanted to help him develop as a performer. I encouraged him to take the next step. The first thing I suggested was that he get a guitar and learn some basic chords. Singing to backing tracks was fine, but he needed to write original material and try to bridge the gap between high culture and rock and roll. I really believed he had the potential to be a star. I invited him to come to some of my band’s rehearsals and try his hand at singing with a rock group. It wasn’t a good fit, but it did loosen him up and point him in a direction that he would later follow.
One day Klaus called me and asked me to help pick out an electric guitar. I was thrilled. He was going for it. We went to Manhattan’s music district and after several hours of shopping around, Klaus settled on a dark blue Fender Jaguar. He bought it and we went back to his pad and I showed him some basic chords. It didn’t take Klaus long to get the hang of E,A and D. When I left, he was already humming the beginnings of a song.
I never heard from Klaus again. No phone calls, nothing. I made a few attempts to contact him, but with no success. The next and last time I saw him was on Saturday Night Live singing back-up with Joey Arias behind David Bowie. Klaus was on his way to brief stardom. I felt sad to have lost my connection to him, but happy that I had managed to contribute in some way to his development as an artist.
Klaus died of Aids five years after I met him. He was the first person that I knew to die of the disease. Tragically, the first of many.
A few months ago I asked Joey Arias about the blue Fender Jaguar. Was it still around? Joey told me it had been sold after Klaus’s death. I was disappointed. I would have liked to have bought it myself as an Earthly memento of a friend who seemed to be visiting from another world, a world that perhaps he’s returned to.
Cold Song is a powerful live performance filmed after Klaus was well into his illness. The second video is Klaus and Joey at work and play at Fiorucci in 1979.
Klaus at Fiorucci after the jump
If you appreciate intelligent political humor, especially when delivered by Brits, you’ll pee your pants for The Bugle, the free weekly Times Online comedy podcast. Daily Show correspondent/writer John Oliver calling in from New York City and fellow Brit comedian Andy Zaltzman in London deliver an excellent 40-minute fake news show, replete with grandiose trumpet fanfare, horribly stretched-out puns, and a lot of schoolgirl-style giggling. Plus zingers like these:
Bush admitted that standing under a banner that read “Mission Accomplished” was a mistake—which is like apologizing for spelling someone’s name wrong on the birthday cake you made them out of shit.
Here’s some highlights from the audio newspaper for a visual world:
After the jump, the Bugle asks an American…
(August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987)
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
When Andy Warhol Died
The Warhol Diet : A Bottle Of Dom Perignon And A Bowl Of Campbell’s Tomato Soup
A pair of interesting Andy Warhol-related items
Dennis Hopper’s screen test for Andy Warhol
Questions for John Waters (and on Andy Warhol’s TV)
Nico (Fashion) Icon
Andy Warhol Pinata Head
Andy Warhol at Fiorucci, Valentine’s Day 1986
Andy Warhol’s TV
Warhol Polaroids of Sports Legends
Andy Warhol: Gift-Giver, Braniff-Flyer
Factory Photographer Nat Finkelstein Dies
Warhol & Basquiat Interview
Long Lost Footage of Musical Play by John Phillips, Produced by Andy Warhol (1975)
The Velvet Undergound Live: Symphony in Sound
The Disappearing Warhol
Thnx William Meehan!
In celebration of their 50th anniversary, Dr. Martens has been commissioning musicians to cover songs by other artists. I’ve seen a bunch of the videos for the project and this one released today by N.A.S.A (deejays Squeeky Clean and Zegon) is at the top of the class. They do justice to the Max Romeo reggae classic Chase The Devil. Legendary musician and videographer Don Letts directed the video.
