One of the coolest fake bands in TV history. From ‘Get Smart’.

The Sacred Cows were session musicians Jerry Scheff (bass) John Greek (guitar) & Ben Benay (guitar) They played the band and recorded the music. John Greek also recorded with real band The Beautiful Daze; played guitar on The Seeds’ 45 ‘Wind Blows Your Hair’ and played on four cuts on the Uni Lollipop Shoppe LP.

Don’t just stand there being placid
Get into some psychopathic acid
I’ll take you to a place that’s purple and paisley
There’s no problem everybody is crazy
Come on get rid of your frustration
Get into our hate generation
If you are ready…...

Get Smart season 3 episode 15. Larry Storch plays the Groovy Guru.
 

 
The refreshing scent of democracy.
 
Via copyranter

 
A very happy birthday to artist, musician, model and feminist icon, Cosey Fanni Tutti, who was born Christine Newby on this day in 1951. You can visit her website to read about current museum exhibits, live performances and to see online archival materials from her four decade career with COUM Transmissions, Throbbing Gristle, Chris & Cosey and now Carter Tutti.
 

 
Read an excerpt about the infamous “Prostitution” exhibit at London’s ICA in 1976 from John A. Walker’s book, Art and Outrage: Cosey Fanni Tutti & Genesis P-Orridge in 1976:Media frenzy, Prostitution-style (Art Design Cafe)

From her “Time to Tell” box set, an interview with Cosey about her time in the sex trade.

Below, Cosey demonstrates the Tutti Box:
 

 
This is pretty wonderful. Pogo composed ‘Wishery’ using “vocal syllables, musical chords and sound effects recorded from the 1937 Disney classic Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs.”

Pogo is an electronic music producer currently living in Perth, Western Australia. He is known for his work recording small sounds from a single film or scene and sequencing them to form a new piece of music.

 
Via Have you seen this?!

 
Well, this one clever way to roundup cows. Here’s an awesome version of “Get Along Little Doggies” played on an accordion. The cows seem to really enjoy it, too.

(via Everlasting Blort)

 
Last week an email blast went out about a special LA screening at Cinefamily of British satirist Chris Morris’s new, uh, “terrorist comedy”—for what else could you call it?—Four Lions. The director would be present, a rare appearance indeed, by Morris on these shores. I’d already seen the film, but getting to hear Morris talk about his work in person was not an event I was going to miss.

I attended the packed and enthusiastic screening with my good friend, Xeni Jardin, who conducted a terrific interview with Chris Morris that she posted today on Boing Boing:

Xeni Jardin: When I first heard about this film I thought: Chris Morris has spun a comedy from of a sad and serious subject. After seeing the film, and now hearing you talk, it seems that the comedy was all there—it’s just not politically correct to bring it to light.

Chris Morris: I suppose, in a way. Look, the cartridges that were bombs, that were intercepted in the FedEx parcel bombing attempt last week—the guy who made those bombs turned his brother into a bottle rocket last year. That whole group are basically displaced Saudis in Yemen. They don’t like the Saudis. This guy wanted to blow up a Saudi prince. And he persuaded his brother to use a suppository bomb. The suppository bomber turns up at the Saudi prince’s place, says hello to the Saudi prince, pulls out a trigger, fires off the bomb, then blasts himself vertically, straight through the ceiling. The Saudi prince picks himself up and says, “Right, now then, where was I?” And that’s the end of that. It’s a perfect sight gag. For everyone other than the guy’s mother, it’s a funny story.

Four Lions opens tomorrow in selected American cities.

Four Lions: Finding the Lulz in Jihad(Boing Boing)
 

 
Warning: This is definitely NSFW

I’m starting to think this is a really, really bad trip and not alcohol induced. Oh my!

(via KMFW)

 
Described by Milos Forman as “Disney + Bunuel,” stop-motion animator Jan Švankmajer is one of the few artists to truly translate the spirit of early-20th century surrealism for the present. Folks like Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam cite Švankmajer’s late-‘80s and early-‘90s feature films like Alice and Faust as classics in the art form.

But most of all, Burton and Gilliam point to Švankmajer’s early short films from the ‘60s through the early ‘80s. One of these, the 10-minute Kostnice from 1970—known as Ossuary—isn’t stop-motion at all. Instead, it’s a beautifully stylized study of the decoratively laid-out bones of 70,000 people in the Cemetery Church in suburban Sedlec in the Czech Republic.

Shot during the dire couple of years after the Prague Spring liberation of 1968 collapsed under an invasion by Warsaw Pact troops, Svankmajer made Ossuary a grim reminder of human fallibility.

As Jan Uhde wrote in his piece on the film for KinoEye:

Film-makers, particularly those of the “Czech New Wave,” were among the most severely persecuted. The fact that a non-conformist like Švankmajer was allowed to shoot in this atmosphere at all was in part due to the fact that he was working in the relatively obscure and inexpensive domain of short film production; this may have saved him from the crackdown that struck his more exposed colleagues in the feature film studios during the 1970s.

Moreover, Švankmajer’s remarkable tenacity and creative thinking enabled him to sometimes outwit the regime’s ideological watchdogs[…] The film was commissioned as a “cultural documentary,” a form popular with the authorities and considered relatively safe politically. But the subject Švankmajer chose must have been a surprise for the apparatchiks: on the one hand, the Sedlec Ossuary was a first-rate historical site which, at first glance, suited the official didactic demand. On the other hand, there was the uncomfortable subject of decay and death as well as religion, reflecting a subtle yet defiant opposition to the loud secular optimism of the communist officialdom.

 
Get: Jan Švankmajer - The Ossuary and Other Tales [DVD]

 
Dangerous Minds pal, Chris Campion writes:

“Two of the most unlikely names ever to be mentioned in the same breath, now united.”

Oddly, it kinda works!

 
Since Perseus escaped the gorgons with his helm of invisibility, the idea of a cap or cloak of invisibility has been a fixture of myth and fairy tale. A helmet of invisibility appears in Norse mythology, and the first mention of an invisibility cloak occurs in Welsh folklore, with the story of Caswallawn (the historical Cassivellaunus), who used one to murder Caradog ap Bran and his fellow chieftains. From then via H. G. Wells’ The Invisible Man through Jack the Giant Killer, via science-fiction to Harry Potter, invisibility has been the stuff of fantasy.

Now scientists at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland maybe about to change all that, as they have created a material which could be used to create an invisibility cloak. The material, called Metaflex, may provide a way to manipulate light to render objects invisible.

Metamaterials have already been developed, which bend and channel light to render objects invisible at longer wavelengths, but visible light poses a greater challenge because its short wavelength means the metamaterial atoms have to be very small. So far such small light-bending atoms have only been produced on flat, hard surfaces unsuitable for use in clothing.

In 2006, a group of US/UK scientists announced they had devised a way of cloaking that made solid objects disappear from sight.   At the time, Sir John Pendry, the theoretical physicist at Imperial College London, who developed the idea, said cloaking devices to hide vehicles from radar were only a matter of years away, but as Pendry explained, “Our device is more an invisibility shed than an invisibility cloak.”

Today newspapers report scientists at St Andrews believe they may have overcome this problem, as:

They have produced flexible metamaterial “membranes” using a new technique that frees the meta-atoms from the hard surface they are constructed on. Metaflex can operate at wavelengths of around 620 nanometres, within the visible light region.

Stacking the membranes together could produce a flexible “smart fabric” that may provide the basis of an invisibility cloak, the scientists believe. Other applications could include “superlenses” that are far more efficient than conventional lenses.

Describing their work in the New Journal of Physics, the researchers write: “Arguably, one of the most exciting applications of Metaflex is to fabricate three-dimensional flexible MMs (metamaterials) in the optical range, which can be achieved by stacking several Metaflex membranes on top of one another…

“These results confirm that it is possible to realise MMs on flexible substrates and operating in the visible regime, which we believe are ideal building blocks for future generations of three-dimensional flexible MMs at optical wavelengths.”

Lead scientist Dr Andrea Di Falco said: “Metamaterials give us the ultimate handle on manipulating the behaviour of light.”

The full report from the New Journal of Physics can be read here.
 

 
R. Couri Hay talks with Divine, John Waters, Mink Stole and David Lochary at Anton Perich Studio, formerly ‘The Factory’, in 1975. This must be a promo outing for Female Trouble. The video quality leaves a lot to be desired, but this is 58 minutes of pop culture history and well-worth watching. Waters is amusing as always, Divine looks Garboesque, and it’s rare to see see David Lochary and Mink Stole being interviewed. Rich kid R. Couri Hay was a contributor to Warhol’s Interview magazine and gossip columnist for The National Inquirer in the mid-to-late 1970’s.
 

 
Returning once again to revamp the Batman trademark, Grant Morrison, unsurprisingly, manages to infuse his new take on the subject with his signature surreal counterculture concerns, in Batman, Inc. From Wired:

“Batman, Inc. is the idea that we can all be Batman, if we want to,” the acclaimed Scotland-born comics writer told Wired.com by phone. “Batman travels the world recruiting new Bat-men and stamping them with his seal of approval.”

Given the superhero’s straight-edge persona, indefatigable work ethic and bottomless billions, his new Bat-capitalists should be light-years away from the corporate egotists heavily stroked in films like Iron Man 2, whose Tony Stark is a self-obsessed screw-up compared to Bruce Wayne’s solemn justice-seeker.

But you get what you pay for, said Morrison, whose Batman, Inc. debuts Nov. 17. “It’s a natural development, and just shows what we’re into nowadays,” he said. “Playboys who can do anything they want.”

Morrison’s storied run on comics’ timeless human superhero has dragged Batman through the apocalyptic depths of space and time. He killed and rebooted him in Batman R.I.P. and Final Crisis. In Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne, he tasked the Dark Knight with Herculean challenges usually reserved for immortals like Superman.

Patrick Meany’s documentary about the writer, Grant Morrison: Talking With Gods (which I am in), is out now on DVD.
 

 
Read more: Grant Morrison’s Batman, Inc. Births Comics’ First Zen Billionaire (Wired)

 
Dick Flash of ‘Pork’ magazine interviews Brian Eno on the release of Eno’s new recording ‘Small Craft on a Milk Sea’. Flash and Eno, convergence of one great mind.

“I used to love that Ian Dury, great voice, amazing limp.”
 

 
Surely I’m not the only one who found Obama’s “concession” speech today nauseating, am I? What the fuck was up with that? The time for civility has long ago passed, Mr. President and it’s depressing to hear you speak of working together with Republicans and all that bipartisan bullshit. Are you for fucking real? Unless your shit gets real bare-knuckled—and soon—you can kiss your historical moment goodbye, pal. If you’re delusional enough to think that this crew of Republicans has any intention of working with you on anything, you are tragically mistaken. They want you and your agenda, dead, dude.

“xyzpdq,” a commenter on Gawker cut straight to the heart of the matter:

Here’s what Obama needed to say:

“Look, you ignorant, Fox News-watching rednecks….I have heard your illogical cries to ‘cut government spending’ and will do just that — starting immediately.

“I’m implementing a 20 percent cut to ALL federal programs, starting with the three federal programs that consume the majority of our tax dollars: Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security and Defense.

“Don’t whine to me about how you ‘need’ your government-subsidized Medicare or Medicaid…you want cuts to government spending; you’ll get cuts to government spending.

“Don’t bitch about how you can’t afford to have your Social Security check cut. You’ve made it clear that federal budget cuts are your priority.

“And just in case you think we need MORE defense spending, let me fill you in — the US military budget is larger than the military budgets of China, Britain, France, Russia, Germany, Japan, Saudia Arabia, Italy, South Korea, Brazil, Canada, and Australia combined.

“YOU may want to piss our tax dollars away in unwinnable wars, but since you’ve demanded cuts to federal spending, I’ll be lopping 20 percent off the the defense budget.

“In short, fuck you brain-dead idiots. Ask for cuts to federal spending and you’ll get cuts to federal spending. Please direct any whining to the Republicans you voted into office, because I’m done with you inbred asshole teabaggers.”

That’s exactly what Obama should have said today. But he didn’t.

Comment of the Day: What Obama Should Have Said (Gawker)

 
What?