Alan Moore‘s bi-monthly ‘zine, Dodgem Logic, launches this month and you can read a typically engrossing interview with Moore (yes, Watchmen and Vendetta, but Tom Strong, too!) here. Hoping to “resurrect a spirit of the ‘60s underground papers,” Dodgem Logic is just one of the new projects on Moore’s always-crowded plate (see also this).
Living up to his ‘zine’s tagline, “colliding ideas to see what happens,” Moore’s also composing the libretto for the currently untitled opera masterminded by the Gorillaz’ Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewitt. Those two, incidentally, “curate” a few pages in Dodgem Logic #2. Moore’s ‘zine will soon be available for sale in the US via Top Shelf comix. Some animation from the prior Albarn-Hewitt opera, Monkey: Journey To The West, follows below:
(via Pitchfork)
Here’s a humorous skateboarding saftey video from the 1970s. It was produced for Pro / Am Skateboard Association and features Santa Cruz Boards.
Meet the Cheech & Chong action figures as seen in their film Up In Smoke. Entertainment Earth is selling these awesome guys for $27.99 a set which includes “smokin” clothing and “appropriate” accessories.
(via Nerdcore)
After a session of “mind-blowing” sex with her husband, a 59-year old woman temporarily lost several years worth of her memories. Now I know why my wife is so forgetful!
(runs far, far away)
As they lay in bed, Scott (the couple asked that their last name not be used) flicked on the television, which was showing the Olympics. This perplexed Alice. “Is there an Olympics?” she asked. This was during the Michael Phelps mania, when the swimmer seemed to be everywhere.
“Are you sure there is an Olympics?” Alice asked again.
Scott recalled, “I saw that something was wrong, so I asked her, ‘OK what day is it?’ “
Alice appeared even more perplexed.
“Who’s our president?” he quizzed.
“Bill Clinton,” she answered. This was 2008.
Scott darted out of bed and called 911. The paramedics suspected a stroke and rushed the befuddled Alice to the emergency room.
For decades, doctors described cases of a rare neurological condition that usually occurred in patients over age 50. Neurologists noted that patients knew their identities, but couldn’t retain recent memory, where they were and how they got there. They showed no other symptoms.
Sex is one of the major triggers for the baffling medical condition called transient global amnesia in which patients lose their ability to retain immediate memory.
Read the whole story (it’s kind of funny) at CNN
Thank you Paul Gallagher!
Super blog Pink Tentacle has a delightful collection of classic Japanese movie monsters painted on black velvet. The paintings are by artist Bruce White and can be viewed here.
(via Pink Tentacle)
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!
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.””