“They say the Occupy movement has no leaders. They are wrong. YOU are the leaders! The rest of us are your followers! What you do here shows us what we can do out there.”
A history lesson about a 500-year old operating program that’s cramping our style in the 21st century delivered at Zuccotti Park today in downtown Manhattan by media theorist Douglas Rushkoff.
“If you can sleep under tarps, the rest of us can tell your story to our children at bedtime…”
Beautiful. I love it. Please spread this message far and wide. Shot by Janine Saunders.
Nat Roe of WFMU has uploaded 10 seconds of every hit song from the ‘70s on SoundCloud. Holy cow, Nat! That’s a lot of hard work and serious dedication. He says he’s going to tackle the ‘80s in the next few weeks. I can’t wait for that one!
Go to WFMU to hear every hit from the 50s and 60s.
The Dove (De Düva) is an Academy Award-nominated short parody of Ingmar Bergman’s films, made in 1968. They used to show this a lot in the early days of HBO. The short lampoons elements of Bergman’s Wild Strawberries, The Seventh Seal, The Silence and Smiles of a Summer Night.
Professor Viktor Sundqvist (co-director George Coe) is being chauffeured to a lecture at a university, when a dove shits on the car’s windshield. He decides to make a visit to his childhood home ala Wild Strawberries .
In a flashback, Viktor and his sister challenge Death (screenwriter Sid Davis) to a game of badminton in exchange for Death sparing her life. A dove shits on Death and he loses the game.
The ridiculous fake Swedish is a mix of English, Yiddish and adding “ska” to certain words, as in “It will take a momentska” or “sooner or lateska.”
The Dove (De Düva) is notable for being the first appearance of the great comedienne Madeline Kahn.
There is something quite charming about these short Pathé News Films from the 1950s.
In the first, model Carol Archer visits a boutique in Soho, London, where she tries on a variety of novelty ear-rings, including miniature champagne bottles, cuckoo clocks, and hands.
Michele Bachmann came to Charleston to give her foreign policy vision, but she was interrupted by more than a dozen protestors with the Occupy movement.
Roughly 10 minutes into her speech, in front of roughly 60 supporters and media, the occupy group sitting amongst the crowd stood at their seats at the call from their leader, “Mic check!”
The group then began a call and response message similar to speeches at Occupy rallies throughout the country.
“You capitalize on dividing Americans, claiming people that disagree with you are unpatriotic socialists.”
It looks like the only people to show up for Bachmann’s speech were the protesters.
The Monster Brains blog recently posted some delightful high-resolution scans of Dark Shadows comic book covers based on the 60s gothic soap opera. I really like the top one from 1970.
Visit Monster Brains to view the rest of the collection.
Above, Brian Ferry’s then-girlfriend, transsexual model/pop star Amanda Lear poses for the second Roxy Music album cover with a panther.
Short documentary film about the making of those iconic and sexy Roxy Music album covers. This was made for a recent event honoring Bryan Ferry in France.
Redditor burt_flaxton posted the above photo and said, “Friend’s father died—they found these after. He must have handed them out to the womens at bars.” Apparently these joke buisness cards were passed around in the 60s and 70s for a laugh.
They all seem to promise “revolution” and arms smuggling. One saucy detail I noticed that all three of these cards have in common: orgies.
These two clips from 1967 episodes of teen dance show Shebang!, hosted by Casey Kasem, are candy-colored time capsules featuring some ultra-cool Sixties artifacts, an era when even writing utensils were on acid.
Ops n’ Pops psychedelic ballpoint pens, a Vox amp,Super Meteor guitar, Radiocorder and Honda mopeds!
Kasem talks to proto-hipster/radio deejay Dick Moreland about his trip to the Monterey Pop Festival.
Good times.
The Shebang! Dancers get their groove on to The Seeds’ “A Thousand Shadows.”
This commercial ran three times during Wednesday night’s episode of The O’Reilly Factor. It’s also aired on Bloomberg, ESPN, the History Channel and elsewhere
If you’d like to chip in to buy more national media time for this Occupy Wall Street ad and others, you can do so via Loudsauce.
Original Beats is a short documentary film by Francois Bernadi on Gregory Corso and Herbert Huncke.
Huncke was the original Beat. He coined the term, lived the life and was on the road long before Kerouac. Here he talks about his life as petty criminal, drug user and Beat writer.
Corso believed the poet and his life are inseparable. It was a belief he held true, otherwise the poet couldn’t write like a lion, write truthfully.
This is a fascinating and informative portrait on the eldest and the youngest of the original Beats, filmed shortly before Huncke’s death in 1996.
Yet another reason why I love the City of… Angels(!) so very, very much…
MOCA presents Kenneth Anger: ICONS, a showcase of the films, archives, and vision of one of the most original filmmakers of American cinema, on view at MOCA Grand Avenue from November 13, 2011, through February 27, 2012. A defining presence of underground art and culture and a major influence on generations of filmmakers, musicians, and artists, Anger’s films evoke the power of spells or incantations, combining experimental technique with popular song, rich color, and subject matter drawn equally from personal obsession, myth, and the occult.
MOCA’s exhibition centers on Anger’s Magick Lantern Cycle of films—Fireworks (1947), Puce Moment (1949), Rabbit’s Moon (1950/1979), Eaux d’artifice (1953), Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954/66), Scorpio Rising (1963), Kustom Kar Kommandos (1965), Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969), and Lucifer Rising (1970-81)—presenting the work across multiple projections in a unique gallery installation of red vinyl, designed in close consultation with Anger.
Complementing the films is an archive of photographs, scrapbooks, and memorabilia from Anger’s personal collection that illustrates the filmmaker’s unique vision of Hollywood’s golden era. The inspiration and source material for the filmmaker’s infamous celebrity “gossip” books Hollywood Babylon, (1975) and Hollywood Babylon II (1984), the collection centers on stars such as Rudolph Valentino and Greta Garbo, as well as now lesser-known icons like silent-film actress Billie Dove. Anger grew up in Hollywood. His grandmother was a costume mistress, and he is claimed to have appeared as a child actor in the Warner Brothers production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935). The world of the classic studios and the mystique of its major figures radiates throughout the photographs, press clippings, letters, and memorabilia on display, which Anger has gathered across many decades.
Technicolor Skull, a multimedia collaboration featuring Kenneth Anger on Theremin and Los Angeles artist Brian Butler on guitar and electronic instruments, will perform for the first time in Los Angeles at the exhibition opening on November 19. Technicolor Skull is a magick ritual of light and sound in the context of a live performance. The project premiered at Donaufestival in Austria, in April 2008, and has subsequently toured throughout Europe, performing at the National Museum of Art, Copenhagen, and the Serralves Museum, Portugal, and recently at the Hiro Ballroom, New York, for the Anthology Film Archives benefit.
Opening: Saturday, November 19, 7–10pm, Technicolor Skull will perform at 8pm.
Those with an interest in writers following on from the Beat tradition may like Spencer Kansa‘s first novel Zoning. The story is about zoning - traveling without moving - and the strange interactions between teenage occultist, Astral Boy and Skyrise Kid, a young budding porn star. We’re in familiar territory here, and Kansa is a fan of William Burroughs, who said of Spencer’s book:
“Zoning reads like an urban Celine.”
It’s the first imprint from Beatdom Books, a small independent publisher, set up by a young Scot, David S Wills, in 2007. Willis also publishes a non-profit literary journal dedicated to the study of the Beat Generation, publishing Beat inspired poetry and prose. He has also issued Beatdom’s second book The Dog Farm - based on Wills’ experiences of living and working in South Korea.
Beatdom is well worth checking out and you can find details of Spencer’s novel Zoning and Willis’s The Dog Farmhere.
