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The humorously horrible, nauseatingly positive and cheerfully grotesque art of Rachel Maclean
12.09.2013
08:02 pm
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I was flipping through a recent issue of DAZED and my interest was piqued by an article about the shortlist for the Film London Jarman Award, something that’s been given out for the past five years in the name of the late artist and filmmaker Derek Jarman to experimental artist filmmakers working well outside of the mainstream. The £10,000 award was bestowed last month upon artist/filmmaker John Smith.

The image that really caught my eye though, was a small still (top) from Scottish artist Rachel Maclean‘s short film “Lolcats.” It sent me straight to Google to investigate further.
 

 
Maclean describes her work as “artificially saturated visions that are both nauseatingly positive and cheerfully grotesque.” She says her inspiration comes from the notion of unifying “the aesthetic of The Dollar Store, YouTube, Manga, Hieronymus Bosch and High Renaissance painting with MTV style green screen and channel changing cuts.” I’d add to that a hefty dollop of Lisa Frank, Mike Kelley, Pierre et Gilles, Leigh Bowery, Pee-wee’s Playhouse, Niki de Saint Phalle, The Mighty Boosh, and even Cindy Sherman, as Maclean portrays all of the characters in her freaky hallucinogenic menagerie herself. I suspect that Tom Rubnitz’s infamous “Strawberry Shortcut” (which became a viral video decades after his death) was another thing that inspired her singular aesthetic. Maclean’s work feels very fresh to me. She’s got a truly 21st century aesthetic.

Why would anyone want to sit through a boring four hour Matthew Barney movie when they could get stoned and watch Rachel Maclean’s “Lolcats” on YouTube instead? You know I’m right. She makes all the props and the costumes. She even designs the make-up herself. Matthew Barney farms that stuff out. I can think of all kinds of reasons why I prefer her work to his. I like how personal her vision is. Does he play all the roles in his films? Nope.

Look at the rich detail in this still (a larger version can be seen here). This sort of work would take an absolutely heroic effort to realize.
 

 
She’s really young, born in in 1987. If Maclean’s art is this fully-developed at the age of 26, and she’s willing to work as hard as she (clearly) does, she’s got an incredibly bright future ahead of her. If I was going to do a “top ten of 2013” thing, I think Maclean’s work would be at the top of the list. I’ve been waiting for something “new” like this to come along, I just didn’t know it. Maybe you have, too?

Rachel Maclean, you are my new favorite artist.
 

 

“The narrative centres on a young female protagonist, presenting her in moments of intrigue, fear, metamorphosis and decay. Journeying through this erratic environment she encounters a bejewelled Katy Perry discussing dental hygiene with an aristocratic cat, stumbles upon an army of hostile feline cyborgs and is surgically dissected by a gothic physician.”

 

“Germs” a three-minute short for Channel 4’s “Random Acts.” Dissects and distorts advertising aimed at women.
 

“Inspired by the Technicolor utopias of children’s television, “Over The Rainbow” (2013) invites the viewer into a shape-shifting world inhabited by cuddly monsters, faceless clones and gruesome pop divas. Shot entirely using green-screen the film presents a computer generated environment, which explores a dark, comedic parody of the fairytale, video game and horror movie genres.” (This is a short edit of a 40 minute piece)

 

“I Dreamed A Dream”: Susan Boyle gets a death metal make-over in this truly bonkers piece. This earlier video is somewhat cruder than Maclean’s later work and you can see the clear leap forward in quality when she was able to get funding, move into better working situations and find her collaborators.
 

The Skinny talks to Rachel Maclean about her art and you get to see her in action.

Posted by Richard Metzger
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12.09.2013
08:02 pm
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‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’-themed killer rabbit slippers
12.09.2013
05:32 pm
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Tim: Well, that’s no ordinary rabbit.
King Arthur: Ohh.
Tim: That’s the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on!

If I bought these Monty Python and the Holy Grail rabbit slippers, they’d probably just end up being extra expensive Monty Python dog toys. My dogs are like that. Assholes.

The Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog slippers are available through Firebox for $40.89.

Update: Some less expensive ones can be found here.
 

 
Via Laughing Squid

Posted by Tara McGinley
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12.09.2013
05:32 pm
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Ingmar Bergman’s soap commercials
12.09.2013
05:28 pm
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Ingmar Bergman for Bris
 
In 1951 the Swedish film industry went on strike to protest high taxes in the entertainment sector, and Ingmar Bergman, who at 33 had already directed a handful of movies and had also overseen the Gothenburg city theater for three years, signed on to do a series of commercials for Bris soap, in part to support his already teeming brood (two ex-wives and five children, with a sixth on the way). The commercials are playful, fascinating, and utterly Bergmanesque—in the best possible way.
 
Ingmar Bergman for Bris
 
What I don’t mean by “Bergmanesque” is that they’re brooding or depressing or austere—as Bergman’s popular image would dictate. No, they are loose and original and supremely confident in the form of cinema. Bergman has had the misfortune to be identified with a couple of not overly representative movies—Persona (1966) and above all, The Seventh Seal (1957)—and his true nature as a restless and protean prober of human nature somehow got a little lost in the mix. Bergman was nothing if not a relentlessly theatrical director, and few were more confident in exploring the limits of narrative in the medium. The parodies don’t quite suffice to encapsulate the director of the masterpieces Fanny and Alexander or Scenes from a Marriage.

Dana Stevens of Slate does a good job of pointing out some of Bergman’s trademark tropes in the video at the bottom of this page. She helpfully notes that the only limitation imposed on Bergman by the soap company was that one of two clunky phrases about soap and bacteria had to be included at some point. There are eight of the Bris commercials, they are all black-and-white, and the visual quality leaves something to be desired by the standards of 2013, but to Bergman’s credit, they are all wildly different and memorable and convey some succinct point about the nature of cinema as well as delivering the promised virtues of the soap.
 
Ingmar Bergman for Bris
 
One of the advertisements makes fun of the 3-D trend that Bergman had elsewhere disparaged; one of them is essentially a rebus (and is, apparently, so titled), which presents the same lengthy mix of images twice in succession; two of them feature an unmistakable battle between “good” Bris and “evil” bakterier, or bacteria (the first of those is certainly reminiscent of The Seventh Seal, as Stevens points out). Two of them feature characters from the distant, courtly past dressed in foppish wigs and ... giving off the general visual appearance of hankering after a snootful of snuff, or the like. One of the ads is “meta” insofar as we see a spokeswoman tout the soap’s advantages reflected in a camera lens, after which director and actress engage in a lengthy bit of what is apparently romantic dialogue. There’s a vitality of editing and montage here; a few of the ads use Georges Meliès-type effects, and the phrase “magic lantern show,” already strongly associated with Bergman (his autobiography, for instance), may waft into your head at various junctures.

To a surprising extent, the commercials showcase “Bergman in microcosm,” if such a thing is even thinkable, and they also may have provided a necessary experimental interlude just four scant years before his breakthrough, Smiles of a Summer Night, made him an international superstar.

Viewers will also learn that the traditional Swedish way of signaling the end of a narrative—“The End”—is, amusingly, “Slut.”
 
Ingmar Bergman for Bris
 
“Jabón Bris 1”

 
After the jump, seven more of Bergman’s delightful Bris commercials as well as an informative video by Slate’s Dana Stevens…..

READ ON
Posted by Martin Schneider
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12.09.2013
05:28 pm
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The Ted Cruz coloring book for young Republicans
12.09.2013
03:46 pm
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Hours and hours of fun can be had with you and your little one this holiday season with the educational Ted Cruz to the Future™ - Comic Coloring Activity Book. I’m just full of great gift ideas today, aren’t I?

The Cruz to the Future™ coloring book is suitable for any student desk in America, as millions of people across the country admire, respect and portray Mr. Cruz as a positive role model for children, stated publisher Wayne Bell. Parents have told our company they enjoy modern day heroes and positive role models in children’s literature and Mr. Cruz as a sitting U.S. Senator certainly meets the criteria,” continued Bell.

RBCB created this comic coloring and activity book not as an endorsement of Sen. Ted Cruz but rather as an educational tool to be used in schools and perhaps as a handout for groups, clubs and organizations.

It’s reasonably priced at only $4.99. I guarantee you’ll have hours and hours of enjoyment defacing the fuck out of this not trying to color outside the strict Republican lines.


 

 
Via Christian Nightmares

Posted by Tara McGinley
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12.09.2013
03:46 pm
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Tim Heidecker channels his inner rock star in Dangerous Minds Q&A
12.09.2013
03:28 pm
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As longtime DM readers are by now probably pretty well-aware, I’m a huge Tim and Eric fan. I’ve seen ‘em live, I bought all the DVDs (even the early material sold on their website) and apparently I’m one of the few people who thought Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie was piss-yourself funny (Everyone knows that you can’t trust the tastes of the general public, even if Netflix stars do tend to mostly be correct, but I digress…)

When the publicist for Some Things Never Stay The Same, the sophomore effort from Tim Heidecker and Davin Wood, contacted me about the album, I said “Yes, please” and then I thought “Hey, wait a minute, Tim Heidecker has a serious band??” Like most of you, for me, the idea of a comic doing music brings to mind not necessarily the great “Weird Al” Yankovic, or even Steve Martin, but Eddie Murphy’s hack 80s shit like “My Girl Wants to Party All the Time.”

My fears were completely unfounded. Some Things Never Stay The Same is a really, really good album. It completely won me over. The songs are as catchy as anything heard on 70s AM radio. Hear them one time and you’ll be humming them to yourself soon afterwards. With the assistance of guests like Aimee Mann, Eric Johnson (The Shins, Fruit Bats) and others, Heidecker & Wood have, um, “seriously” managed to put together one of the most fun albums of 2013. I said “fun” not “funny.” There’s a difference, but I’ll let Tim explain exactly what they’re up to.

Richard Metzger: In the press materials, it says that you and Davin Wood wanted to record an homage to 70s singer/songwriters like Warren Zevon and Harry Nilsson. “Cocaine,” the lead-off track refers to just the sort of creative fuel rock stars liked to ingest back then. Did you guys snort up a massive amount of blow before you wrote that song? I ask because I can’t imagine that you were inspired to write that by eating a lot of pancakes, because otherwise you’d have just written a paean to flapjacks. Am I off base here?

Tim Heidecker: You are off base. Really off base. It’s disappointing that this is your first question. a dreaded JOKE question. I really admire this blog and visit it daily, so it was really dispiriting to to find the first question so corny and LOUSY! My gosh what a way to get things started….. Boy.

Anyway, I’ve never done cocaine in my life - for real. Never had the interest and frankly the anti-cocaine propaganda surrounding me in the ‘80s really frightened me into staying away from it. the song idea popped into my head as songs normally do—out of thin air—the words and melody fitting together nicely… me playing around with the chords from “Werewolves of London” playing them backwards… Then I thought it’d be funny to write a really positive song about cocaine—no down side—almost from the perspective of someone in their honeymoon period with the drug before the dark side of it shows up.  Even the bridge, which is usually a good place to go “but there’s another side to this story,” keeps things positive.

RM: Hey, calm down, that was a totally legit question. I think you’re just being overly sensitive about being a comic making “serious” music, Tim. Just go with it. You’re among friends here. I’d imagine that a lot of our readers probably, you know, love cocaine.

But speaking of serious music, how did you rope in Aimee Mann for the project? I respect her so much as a musician that I actually buy her CDs, I don’t even download ‘em. Really.

Tim Heidecker: Fine! I’m COOL! Let’s try and steer this thing back on track… Aimee and I go way back. Not really. Is six years way back? I became friends with her through my wife, which was nice. She didn’t start out as a “SHOW BIZ FRIEND”—just a nice person that my wife would go feed squirrels with. She didn’t know my work, and frankly I think a lot of it grosses her out!  I don’t blame her! But we’re good buds and we’re always looking for stuff to do together. I had the idea for her to sing on a few songs and called her up—she was over in my garage that afternoon and there you go.

RM: I remember when she was on Awesome Show! Is Aimee Mann herself a “serious” musician who wants to be funny?

Tim Heidecker: I find a lot of musicians gravitate towards comedy and vice versa—I think it has more to do with the stuff in our brains that made us get into “show business” than how we neatly fit into our categories we’ve lined up into. I’ve been thinking about this a lot actually as I understand it can be confusing or “bad business” to jump in and out of comedy/music/drama/ballet or whatever it may be, but I bet a lot of people didn’t start out knowing exactly where they’d fit and just went with the first thing that really clicked and paid the bills. Hence, Russell Crowe’s band and all the rest.

RM: Davin Wood and you did most of the music for Awesome Show! together, right?

Tim Heidecker: Yes sir that’s right. Eric of course also throws in his ideas and little jingle ideas as well—I made a lot of the music for “Casey and His Brother” and David Liebe Hart’s songs—a lot of the low fi/super crappy stuff as I taught myself home recording… One I’m proud of is a little song called “Live with my Dad”—the MIDI horns are just… yuck.

All the GOOD sounding stuff came from either us singing Davin a little melody or sending him a little demo and giving him a genre to work in or giving him the idea and letting him build the song—revisions and notes, etc… It’s weird—he lives in Echo Park but we’re on different schedules so almost all our work on the show was done over email and phone calls.

RM: It’s quite a leap from the Casiotone, vocoder and keytar sound of the Tim and Eric soundtrack to the “analog” Laurel Canyon sound on the album. You do a great Bob Dylan, a pretty good Warren Zevon, there’s that ditty boosting Scientology in the style of The Kinks that you did and there’s the music from the show which is all over the place… You’re like the Rich Little of alt comedy and it seems like you could probably mimic practically any musical style you wanted to, so at what point did you and Davin think, “Hey, let’s do this...” and commit to the Canyon sound?

Tim Heidecker: No one wants to be the Rich Little of ANYTHING, but thank you nonetheless.  I think we want the songs to work together as albums and it’s stronger to keep the style somewhat consistent.  That said, I think we kind of branched out into a few different styles on this record: “Sunday Man” and “On Your Own” are kind of Pink Floyd-style space rockers.
 

 
RM: I really like “Getaway Man.” The lyrics to that one are straight up Randy Newman, who I love. It’s wonderfully silly, but well-played, and so affectionate, I must say. You do Randy Newman as well as he does. What inspired that story? A bank robbery? A clingy girlfriend? Both?

Tim Heidecker: Oh man, I don’t remember. Maybe having just seen Drive? I adore Randy Newman and got a bit obsessed a few years ago. If you’re reading this and saying “Whaaaa?” I suggest you go back and check out Sail Away and Good Old Boys two records that I could listen to every day of the week. Anyways, I think the song gets a little silly in the second verse and was pretty happy with the line “Evening Sun,” which sounds like something but really isn’t! I like when that happens—fun word play that sounds right in the song but upon further investigation is nonsense. The song gets a lot of Springsteen comparisons, too, and thats because we did the trick of playing a high piano note coupled with the glockenspiel. It’s a recipe for insta-Boss.

RM: I like the soulful horns on that one, too. Production value! Sounds expensive.

Tim Heidecker: Yea! We brought in real live human beings to play on this record!  Davin really is the master of dialing in the MIDI to sound really great but we had new some players who were game so we had them over to my garage and built those parts.

RM: Okay, last question: What’s the next musical genre you two will take on with the next Heidecker & Wood project?

Tim Heidecker: Who knows? I have piles of songs in various stages of completion. Some country flavored (but I think Ween already cornered that idea). Probably more of the same. Hopefully we get better. I think a priority would be to do the next record a little more “live in the studio” with some really good players - I was listening to the reissue of Moondance and it was striking to hear that although the songs are all different there’s a consistent arrangement to each of them—it’s really just some guys in a room playing these songs. I think that’d be fun to do.

Some Things Never Stay The Same is out now via Little Record Company. Below, a high-spirited performance of “Cocaine” at Largo in Los Angeles on April 27, 2011.
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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12.09.2013
03:28 pm
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This dental practice training calendar is THE must-have 2014 calendar
12.09.2013
01:15 pm
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Okay, so these images are from the FrasacoUSA! 2013 calendar, but there has to be one for 2014, right?! I mean, I don’t think I can live without one now that I know of its existence. It’s a “good Lord, WTF am I looking at!” work of art.

Sadly, I can’t seem to locate a 2014 calendar on the FransacoUSA! site, but here’ a link to where you can contact them. Maybe if enough people demand ‘em, they’ll make ‘em? They.Just.Have.To.


 
More after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Tara McGinley
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12.09.2013
01:15 pm
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Nick Cave on physics and Miley Cyrus in new ‘Higgs Boson Blues’ video
12.09.2013
01:01 pm
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A powerful live version of the epic “Higgs Boson Blues,” from Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds’ stellar Push the Sky Away album, is the group’s latest video. Shot at London’s 3 Mills Studios by Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, Cave is joined by a stripped down unit consisting of Warren Ellis, Jim Sclavunos, Barry Adamson and Martyn Casey.

This soars like a motherfucker. Might even be better than the album version.

Forsyth and Pollard’s semi-fictional documentary of 24 hours in the life of Nick Cave, 20,000 Days On Earth will be unveiled next month at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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12.09.2013
01:01 pm
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Taxidermied mice chess set
12.09.2013
12:15 pm
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Don’t worry, I’ve got your holiday gift ideas covered this year: What about this delightful handmade taxidermy mice chess set by Etsy shop TheCurious13? There’s only one available and it’s retailing for $550.00.

According to the write-up on Etsy:

The set includes 16 light colored mice and 16 dark mice, in various sizes, pawns being the smallest. Set comes complete with wooden hand painted chess board, and storage case (not pictured).

Now I’m curious what the chess board and storage case look like.


 

 

 
With thanks to Gail Potocki!

 

Posted by Tara McGinley
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12.09.2013
12:15 pm
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Rockstars wearing t-shirts of bands who, um, ‘influenced’ them
12.09.2013
11:16 am
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While I don’t agree with all of the comparisons—I’d expect to see Tom Petty or Lou Reed-circa Loaded sporting a Strokes tee more than the Lizard King—these spoof images by Billy Butcher are damned amusing. I wished he would have taken this a lot further…

This is a series that reverses the natural course of pop culture hierarchy - the influencer will sport the shirt of the influenced - completely messing with space time continuum and rising the question:

Bands and musicians that became hugely influential in music history - would they, when alive or in an early stage of their careers, support the new acts that came decades after inspired by their own legacy?

See more at Butcher’s website.
 

 

 

 

 
Via Nerdcore

Posted by Tara McGinley
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12.09.2013
11:16 am
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I grew up eating off of radioactive dinnerware (and you can, too!)
12.09.2013
10:45 am
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fiestaware
Want a radioactive gravy boat for $70? You can get one!

Growing up with a young single mom, we had had neither the money nor the time to assemble any sort of “aesthetic” theme to our home. Our little two-person family always had a cozy hodge-podge of housewares, compiled almost entirely of hand-me-downs; when a relative had a mixing bowl or a few plates they didn’t need anymore, we were happy to add them to our eclectic little collection. One of the more memorable second-hand gifts came from my grandpa, when he brought 13-year-old me a single plate. He had taken it from the inventory of antiques he scouted and sold to collectors.

It was art deco-ish, with a sort of bold, reddish-orange that stood out in our otherwise reserved midwestern cabinet. Before handing me the plate, my grandfather asked with a squint, “Do you know what Fiestaware is?” When I replied that I didn’t, he mumbled something about it being an antique from the 40s that he couldn’t seem to get rid of. A few months ago, during a “I want some kitschy kitchen shit” moment, I remembered the bright plates, and I looked up Fiestaware. It turns out the company has been around forever, and is actually just called, “Fiesta.”

It also turns out a sizable portion of their product line, including the plate I grew up eating off of, used to be radioactive.

The glaze of older Fiesta dinnerware contains a measurable amount of uranium oxide. The highest levels of uranium were used in the red glaze, which actually owes the vibrancy of its hue to the radioactive material. (Other companies produced dishes with uranium, but none were so widely sold as Fiesta’s.) The exact amount varies, but the uranium ratio was often as high as 14%. This was sizable enough for the federal government to seize Fiesta’s uranium stocks during World War 2 for the development of the atomic bomb. By 1959, Fiesta relaunched their red product line using depleted radiation (a slight improvement, I guess), and they didn’t stop using that until 1972.

At this point, I think it’s important that you know my grandpa is very knowledgeable about the antiques he dealt, and that he absolutely knew these plates contained uranium. He’s just the sort of guy who doesn’t see what the big deal is. He still believes DDT is fine, and he thinks everyone concerned about hydrofracking is a liberal “Chicken Little.” But I digress.

Now, while my grandpa couldn’t unload his radioactive Fiesta plate, there are collectors who actually seek out pieces with the uranium glaze. And why wouldn’t they? In addition to the fantastic art deco design of the plates (Andy Warhol actually collected Fiesta!), you could possess the sort of radioactive novelty conversation piece that can be used to frighten away overly-comfortable dinner guests! And, you can do fun experiments with a Geiger counter like the video below, teaching your whole family science as you slowly poison them to death!
 

Posted by Amber Frost
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12.09.2013
10:45 am
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