Peter Wyngarde was a wildly successful British actor who also happens to have made, at the height of his fame, the most unhinged and insane celebrity cash-in LP of all time. I’m sure Richard could more thoroughly elaborate on the man’s voluminous screen resume (The Avengers, The Saint, etc.), not to mention his childhood acquaintance with J.G.Ballard, but I’m here to say that the below uh, tune entitled “Rape” is spectacularly wrong and offensive on every level. Debauched libertine madness a go-go. Probably NSFW. I apologize in advance.
 

 
Special bonus : The opening sequence and a scene from his series “Jason King”

 
Fuckin’ a right it is. (Signing the HCR bill into law that is.)

 
Photorealistic David Lynch head by contemporary sculptor Jamie Salmon. From the artist:

I like to use the human form as a way of exploring the nature of what we consider to be “real” and how we react when our visual perceptions of this reality are challenged. In our modern society we have become obsessed with our outward appearance, and now with modern technology we are able to alter this in almost anyway we desire. How does this outward change affect us and how we are perceived by others?

(via Nerdcore)

 
Today marks the first time The T.A.M.I. Show has seen a proper release since it was in theaters over 40 years ago, although bootlegs have been easy to come by since the late 80s. James Brown’s inspired performance—perhaps the finest moment of his entire career—will knock your socks off.

Filmed at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, October 29, 1964, the performers also included Chuck Berry, Gerry And The Pacemakers, Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, Marvin Gaye, Lesley Gore, Jan & Dean, Billy J. Kramer & The Dakotas, The Supremes, The Barbarians and The Rolling Stones. The DVD, put out by the mighty Shout Factory contains restored footage of the Beach Boys performance which was cut from the theatrical release.
 

New Weird author Jeff VanderMeer unleashed a long-forgotten pile of shlock on his blog… TENTACLES, an Italian rip-off of Jaws featuring, yep, a giant octopus. This seems ripe for a comeback. Disturbingly, I actually remember this movie.

Yesterday, while doing our taxes, we followed up Pandorum, Dune, Moon, and Alien with a movie on cable…Tentacles. From 1977, clear rip-off of Jaws.

I have a feeling that everyone else already knows about this D-movie, but we were just aghast, watching winters, Huston, and others do their best impression of stink-o-rama. In one scene a killer whale trainer embarks on a long monologue aimed at convincing the whale to fight the killer giant octopus.

Here’s more of it, for masochists…

More clips at the original link.

(Jeff VanderMeer: Tentacles!)

(Empire of the Ants/Tentacles)

(Jeff VanderMeer: City of Saints and Madmen)

 
Still time to catch this show if you haven’t seen it yet and are lucky enough to live in Los Angeles. The exhibit runs until April 3, 2010. How I wish the above piece, Bad Feng Shui Cake by Scott Hove was mine!

The show also features work by Mark Ryden, Shag, Kris Kuksi, Jonathan Viner, Martin Witfooth, Candice Tripp, Jesse Hazelip, Lori Earley, Chris Mars, Jeff Soto, Kevin Cyr, Thomas Doyle, Scott Musgrove, Victor Castillo, Amy Sol, Audrey Kawasaki, Brendan Danielsson, Brian Dettmer, Greg “Craola” Simkins, Harma Heikens, Attaboy, Alex Pardee, Sas Christian, Colin Christian, Yoko D’Holbachie, Travis Lampe, Junko Mizuno, Brandt Peters, Mia, Chet Zar, Kathie Olivas, Johnny “KMNDZ” Rodriguez, Sam Gibbons, Annie Owens, Yosuke Ueno, Skinner, Ewelina Ferruso, and Mike Shine

Copro Gallery, Bergamot Station, 2525 Michigan Ave , Unit T5, Santa Monica , CA 90404

 
Lady Gaga costume cookies (via Craft)

 
Considering all of the ridiculous hyperbole from the Right—have any of you been watching Fox News?—David Frum, former speechwriter to President George W. Bush is the one character on either side who really nailed the political significance of what happened on Sunday: The Republican Party is toast!

Conservatives and Republicans today suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s.

It’s hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the disaster. Conservatives may cheer themselves that they’ll compensate for today’s expected vote with a big win in the November 2010 elections. [...]

No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the “doughnut hole” and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents’ insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there – would President Obama sign such a repeal?

We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat. [...]

So today’s defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, it’s mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, it’s Waterloo all right: ours.

 
Waterloo (Frum Forum)

 
Hear the upcoming—due out April 13—MGMT album, Congratulations, streaming from their website. Apparently there is a poor-sounding version already making the bot torrent rounds and the band would prefer that their fans hear a version with higher fidelity. I’ve had a promo copy of this for a few weeks now, and I must say that I think it’s absolutely magnificent. At first I didn’t hear anything that grabbed me like Kids and The Youth did. But allow this one some time and it will indeed grab you. It’s more subtle than Oracular Spectacular, but it’s a fine follow-up to that classic debut. With songs titles like Song For Dan Treacy and the playful Brian Eno, you can see where their heads are at. These guys are on fire. Highly, highly recommended. So far it’s my favorite album of the year.

Below a rare video of the Television Personalities featuring Dan Treacy (Grant Morrison loves him also). It’s obvious to hear his influence on the MGMT sound. Let’s hope they start a Dan Treacy revival. About time!
 

New Scientist reports on the universe-as-quantum-computer:

WHAT is the universe made of? Matter or energy? Particles or strings? According to physicist Vlatko Vedral’s appealing new book, it is made, at bottom, of information.

In other words, if you break the universe into smaller and smaller pieces, the smallest pieces are, in fact, bits.

With this theme in mind, Vedral embarks on an exuberant romp through physics, biology, philosophy, religion and even personal finance. By turns irreverent, erudite and funny, Decoding Reality is - by the standard of books that require their readers to know what a logarithm is - a ripping good read.

A bit is the tiniest unit of information. It represents the distinction between two possibilities: yes or no, true or false, zero or one. The word “bit” also refers to the physical system representing that information: in your computer’s hard drive, for example, a bit is registered by a minuscule magnet whose north pole can point up or down.

Any system that has two distinct states can act as a bit - even an individual elementary particle: “electron over here” represents zero, “electron over there” represents one. When the electron goes from here to there, the bit flips.

At this smallest of scales, however, the universe is governed by the famously weird laws of quantum mechanics.

(New Scientist: The Universe is a Quantum Computer)

(Decoding Reality: The Universe as Quantum Information)