From the Everything Old is New Again Department: All this talk of the fall of the Berlin Wall is making many in the Eastern Bloc nostalgic for bygone days and simpler tastes. Although the idea of Soviet chocolate does sound kinda exotic, I’d imagine that it would be kind of bitter?

Once the butt of jokes the world over, Communist-era East European goods from sweets, to rustic washing machines and clunky cars are all the rage again.

As the world prepares to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, souvenirs such as portraits of Romanian leader Nicolae Ceausescu are now avidly sought at markets. In Belgrade, cafes are named after Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito or even the Soviet KGB secret police.

Two decades on, many who then welcomed change now want to turn the clock back by eating Szerencsi chocolate, driving Trabant two-stroke cars or using Frania washing machines to wash carrots.

Nothing is too tacky, the quality never too questionable. For older people there is the nostalgia of the bad old days. Among younger people there is a curiosity to find out how their parents lived.

Many food brands have made a comeback on supermarket shelves using the same packaging that made them look so old fashioned and unwanted between 1945 and 1990.

Read the entire article here
 

 
Self-proclaimed “expert” on whatever, Ken Ham, the Australian-born founder of The Creation Museum has announced on his Answers in Genesis blog that Charlie and Trike are coming!

You see, Ken’s coming out with a new childrens book that will teach kids blind adherence to a book written 2000 years ago and that critical thinking is very, very BAD. And God doesn’t like it. So don’t do it!

What better way to insure your child will grow up ignorant, than to feed their heads with this non-scientific, anti-intellectual garbage? Go Ken go! There’ll be no future Republicans to laugh at without you!

Kids are going to love a new series of books that will be produced soon, centered around two characters, Charlie and Trike. They will also meet Charlie and Trike at the Creation Museum (early in the new year). The first book is called Charlie and Trike’s Grand Canyon Adventure-the Green Notebook Series…

With Charlie, he usually has his tail in the shape of a question mark! Kids will have fun as Charlie and Trike lead them through the Grand Canyon (and many other adventures to come in other books in the series).

Here’s what the first page says:

Charlie started the hike back home with a question for Trike. “So how do you know the Bible is true?” Trike stopped to look at Charlie. “We have to trust the One Who gave it to us,” he replied.

‘Nuff said!

Via the Jaywalk blog

 
Once again, time for another guest post from Dangerous Minds pal, main Medicine man, and one of my dear childhood friends, Mr. Brad Laner:

Airway, the “noise orchestra” led by Joe Potts are one of the original mainstay bands of the fabled Los Angeles Free Music Society.  Issuing a string of self-released and very homemade-feeling LPs which had a broad effect upon the world of experimental music, the LAFMS emerged out of the suburban haze of California’s San Gabriel Valley in the mid-‘70’s.

Being huge influences on the likes of Nurse With Wound, Keiji Haino (who evidently traveled to L.A. in the early ‘80’s with the sole purpose of finding and playing with Airway) and, most certainly, yours truly (plus, really, anybody who’s made improvisational noise music since the mid-‘70’s), it’s a bit amazing to report that Airway will be making their first ever appearance outside of L.A. this month as part of a nice-sounding hoedown called A FANTASTIC WORLD SUPERIMPOSED ON REALITY: A SELECT HISTORY OF EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC, a “Mini-Festival to Present an Exciting Line-Up of Key Musicians and Artists Who Developed the Dynamic Trajectory of Experimental Noise Music.”

The whole thing is curated by artist Mike Kelly, who will also be performing with LAFMS/Airway alumni Tom Recchion, Fredrik Nilsen, Joe Potts and visionary genius Paul McCarthy as Extended Organ (see them below playing at L.A.‘s Schindler House).

 
Bonus amusement: Attention, Joe Potts!  Some punk kids have stolen your rad, emo-ready band name.  Time to lawyer up!

 
Those vigilant, um, veil-puller-awayers from Pseudo-Occult Media are back with some startling news about British pop star Robbie Williams: He may—or wait—may not, be deliberately seeding his music and videos with MK-Ultra mind-control sneakiness. 

POM’s recent dispatch by Benjamin Singleton, Robbie Williams In Wonderland, attempts to (once again) weave a rich, suggestive tapestry out of such disparate elements as Alice In Wonderland, The Eye Of Horus, and that old “hypnotic induction technique,” the Three Blind Mice Song.  Is it persuasive?  Not really.  Especially since Singleton himself remains totally unpersuaded:

I am undecided as to whether Robbie Williams is a mind controlled corporate slave or is just playing along or is an unwitting pawn (obviously you can never be 100% certain, I can just present what I’ve found and make conclusions where I feel they are warranted, it doesn’t mean they are set in stone by any means).  His interest in conspiracy theories might make you think he was a free-thinker but I’m not sure.

Well, Benjamin, I’m not sure either, but I’m willing to cut the possibly occult-minded Williams some slack.  Watch below as he raises a bushy eyebrow at Swine Flu and compares his own tabloid gossip to The Bible’s depiction of Jesus as “a load of made up shit.””

Howard Hallis, the artist behind the awe-inspiring Picture of Everything, is selling a full-sized Keyboard Cat costume. It’s a big piece of foam core cat with a (working!) keyboard attached. Having seen this thing in action out at clubs in Los Angeles, I have to say it’s a hilarious, incredible piece of art and costuming.

Howard says:

Well, Halloween is over and I have an awesome keyboard Cat costume up for auction! Keyboard Cat is the internet phenomenon from the website “Play Him Off Keyboard Cat!” (Google it if you haven’t seen it or do a search on You Tube. Funny stuff!) The costume comes with the following:

1. A CAT MASCOT SUIT! I ordered this from China via E-Bay and it looks fantastic. The head is extremely lightweight but very hard to see out of. (I have to warn folks about this… navigation is difficult with the head on.) The body suit is an XL and will fit most people around 5"7 to 6"2. It comes with mittens and booties. The bottom of the booties are a bit dirty, but that’s really the only thing about the suit that isn’t in great condition. It was only worn twice: Once at a karaoke bar the Monday before Halloween and on Halloween proper. When I ordered the suit via eBay, it took almost a month to arrive, so if you’re looking for a mascot suit asap, this is the one to get.

2. AN XXL BLUE SHIRT! Keyboard Cat wears a blue shirt. This one easily goes over the mascot body suit.

3. A WORKING ROLL OUT KEYBOARD MOUNTED TO A WEARABLE PIECE OF FOAM CORE! Yes, you can actually play the keyboard. The roll-out piano is removable from the foam core (it’s attached securely by velcro strips). This prop was made by a professional prop maker who’s a good friend of mine. There’s a reinforced string you wear around your neck that allows Keyboard Cat to take the instrument anywhere.

Check out the eBay auction here.

And the Keyboard Cat site here.

Tanooki. The mysterious animal suit you get at the higher levels of Super Mario Bros. 3 aka the greatest video game ever made. It lets you fly. It lets you turn into a statue. It is inscrutably Japanese. And, apparently, it’s REAL. Oh yes. The tanooki is real.

Also known as the Raccoon Dog, the Tanooki is endangered. Check out info here.

Domestic dogs and raccoon dogs are killed in brutal ways for their fur in China. The raccoon dog is a wild member of the dog (Canidae) family with markings resembling those of a raccoon. They are known to be skinned alive for their fur in China, where they are caged and killed in large numbers. Clothing with fur trim from Raccoon dogs has shown up in U.S. stores.

The Humane Society of the United States filed a legal petition with the Federal Trade Commission seeking to enforce the Fur Products Labeling Act against 14 major retailers and designers concerning false advertising and false labeling of fur garments.

(Raccoon Dog: Protect It)

(And… New Super Mario Bros for Wii!!!)

 
The New Yorker‘s great Alex Ross (The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century) alerts us to the first major museum exhibition in years devoted to “arch-magus of the musical avant-garde,” John Cage.  Unfortunately, though, it’s happening not in America (nor is it scheduled to), but in Barcelona at its Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA).

The Anarchy of Silence?

Continuing on from yesterdays’ Lucifer’s Friend post, why it’s, it’s… the greatest folk album of the 1970s! Why has nobody heard of this one? Is it the tremendously unexciting cover art? The lack of any kind of pandering to any audience or demographic? The, um, name of the album? Regardless, there’s no good reason why this album remains buried, lost in the annals of history. It’s like an hour of Johnny Appleseed blowing up your head with the sheer awesomeness of his guitar magic, then planting a tree in your head cavity that immediately grows into a 80 foot tall cedar that unleashes 17 red doves from its branches that fly off to establish 200 years of peace in the world.

Uh, Wikipedia has this to say:

Stormcock is a 1971 album by English folk/rock singer-songwriter Roy Harper, commonly acknowledged to be his “best record”.

What? That’s it? That’s like saying that the existence of the universe is god’s “best idea.”

Witness the miracle below.

(Roy Harper: Stormcock)

Via Arthur Magazine, it’s Ensign Smurf, a running comic by Stanley Lieber that they’ve been serializing on the blog. Stanley’s comic and video work, seen at his blog, is original, excellent stuff. Why they don’t stock stuff like this anywhere outside of ?ɬ

 
Is photosynthesis possible on Mars?  Scientists at the German Center for Aeronautics and Space Research (DLR) seem to think so.  They’re rigged up a hermetically sealed steel chest consisting of 95% carbon dioxide, set the thermostat to ?