Night Thief Confessional

Twelve of 11

2011-12-29T20:02:00.001-05:00

A list of my favorite tracks of 2011. No specific order and no claims of completeness, just the tracks I loved over the last year for reasons various and mostly subjective.

Ghostpoet – Survive It (Quest’s Guidance mix)
Clams Casino – Brainwash by London
Holy Other – Touch
Drake – Dreams Money Can buy
Dj Rum – Mountains, Parts 2 & 3
Floating Points – Myrtle Avenue
Falty DL – Mean Streets, Part 1
The Weeknd – Wicked Games.
Schlomo – Just Us
Rick Wilhite – Blame it on the Boogie (feat. Theo Parrish & Osunlade)
Julio Bashmore – Battle for Middle You
Jamie xx – Far Nearer

Ghostpoet – Survive It (Quest’s Guidance mix)

“I know, Times are hard, You're against the wall, and your head is down…” The weary, yet determined, optimism of Ghostpoet’s lyrics perfectly captures the dire resilience that colored 2011. And, Quest’s remix, haunted by both the dread weight of ’06 dubstep and the bittersweet swing of classic UKG amplifies that sense of struggle at the songs heart.

Clams Casino – Brainwash by London

Everything Clams Casino touched this year was gold. However, this smoked-out sub-base work out was a personal favorite for soundtracking late night subway rides. The shouty bit at 1:30 is a great reichian sing-along moment.

Holy Other – Touch

A long cold draft of liquid longing and desperation. The comparison to Burial is unavoidable but here all that late night hum is devoid of skittering beats or nostalgia. This is the best in a long list of excellent releases of dark electronics from Tri-Angle over the course of the year.

Drake – Dreams Money Can buy

The love/hate relationship with Drake continues. Yeah, his constant whinging over the melancholy of cars, money, women and fame should be grating, insulting or by this point tired but somehow you find yourself relating to the emotions even if the specifics are absurd. The touches of self-deprecation and the off-kilter, self-destructing beats certainly help.

Dj Rum – Mountains, Parts 2 & 3

Widescreen, moody, sub-laced atmospherics. This track should be too noodley, overly melodramatic, disjointed. Instead, it reclaims and repurposes the emphasis on bass and space that dubstep discarded on its way to mainstream dancefloors.

Floating Points – Myrtle Avenue

Brilliant in every way. This track is in a constant state of subtle flux, slowly writhing and contorting, the beats growing and tightening until they peek intensity and then, when you expect a huge synth flourish or massive drop, Floating Points simply places you down in new aural surroundings, not entirely unfamiliar but fresh and airy. Then the process begins again. The fact that that gorgeous vocal flourish (Fatima?) doesn’t appear until over 7 minutes in, is testament alone to the masterful amount of restraint at work here.

Falty DL – Mean Streets, Part 1

A number of Falty DL tunes from the past year could have made the cut (Hip Love. Lucky Luciano, Here We Go Again remix…). But this is perhaps the most unique and, pressed in a limited vinyl only run, the hardest to track down. Lagos by way of Brooklyn and Croydon, I do not understand how this wasn’t a huge anthem.

The Weeknd – Wicked Games

No one had a bigger year than The Weeknd. Doubling down on Drake’s emo-bling and taking the beats edgier and sparser, the result is an addictive brew of filthy late-night R&B from the edge of the abyss. This track came with an amazing, supposedly unsolicited video (NSFW).

Schlomo – Just Us

I’m on a dawn plane, unslept and hungover, reality lurching and pitching around me like I am out at sea instead stuck on the LGA tarmac. This song rises through a folder full of random odds and ends on my MP3 player, with no artist or track info, only the unhelpful cover art. Its frayed, skittering beats and haunted underwater carnival synths are the perfect complement to my state of mind. It takes more than a week before I track down the info.

Rick Wilhite – Blame it on the Boogie (feat. Theo Parrish & Osunlade)

"slick rick was in the house, turning it out, the girls were all singing lad di da di, I guess we were having a party…" The official Den of Iniquities party jam. More fun than a serious Detroit house track should be allowed to be.

Julio Bashmore – Battle for Middle You

The hands down dancefloor anthem of the year. Classic house and garage (Doomsnight Revisted?) are encoded in its DNA, yet it sounds like nothing else out there. The call to “stomp your feet and get down” is superfluous. Like you have any choice.

Jamie xx – Far Nearer

Oh, the steel drums!! I played this more times this year than all the other tracks on this list combined. If you stepped in my house or anywhere I was allowed control of the selection you heard it. In the winter it made you dream of beaches and sunshine. In the Spring and Summer it compelled you to sip cocktails in the sun and dance under open skies.

Bonus: Azealia Banks - 212

The most grin-inducing, joyously filthy thing I've heard in ages.

Halloween Playlist

2011-10-28T20:14:00.000-04:00

Contains 66% more heavy dub and surf guitar than standard Halloween playlists.

01) Screaming Lord Sutch & The Savages – Jack the Ripper

02) The Pandoras – Haunted Beach Party

03) Lee Perry & Devon Irons – Vampire

04) Los Johnny Jets – Dracula A Go Go

05) Skatalites – Lon Chaney

06) Hillbilly Hellcats – Dead Man’s Party

07) Jeff Richmond & Tracy Morgan – Werewolf Bar Mitzvah

08) Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet – Zombie Compromise

09) King Horror – Dracula Prince of Darkness

10) Kid Koala – Trick N’ Treats

11) Minus 9 – In the Spirit of Vampiros Lesbos (DJ Cam remix)

12) Geto Boys – My Mind is Playing Tricks on Me

A Rope Let Down From Heaven

2011-09-24T10:14:00.006-04:00

“I close my eyes and again try to run back the events of the previous night. Just as before, the images are crisp but where the names of people and places should be there is only confusion and noise. I must be nomenclature impaired I think. I laugh gently at the idea that I can remember a term like nomenclature but not my own name. Then I cringe at the reality of my situation. I do not remember my own name.”

My new story, A Rope Let Down From Heaven, is up at the mighty Rotten Leaves. It is my surreal twist on the classic pulp amnesia story. It is a bit steamy up front, more than a little disturbing on the back end and if, like me, your sense of humor runs dark and twisted there could be a few knowing snickers along the way. The original idea rose a rather arresting lucid dream and I am really interested to see how readers react to it.

If you have not visited Rotten Leaves since its relaunch a few months back, I highly recommend a look around. A number of extremely talented writers are breaking ground over there. In the current landscape, I cannot think of a better source for your fresh uncut fix of the dark stuff than RL.

Fiction Friday

2011-07-15T15:23:00.001-04:00

Quick links for a few quality pieces of fiction I have read and enjoyed recently:

"When Cornelio first served the woman she’d had been a girl of sixteen, as striking as the woman who sat before him now. A Criollo twice her age had put his hand on her thigh and when she spat to the dirt he laughed and called her ‘Indio.’ She shattered his nose with the bottle of tequila she was enjoying. As the man moaned on the floor, liquor and blood mixing with the dust his movements stirred, the girl pulled the knife strapped under her dress and removed his right ear with a slight motion. The Criollo never showed his crooked face again and Cornelio always kept enough añejo on hand. "
Incarnation by Chris Deal

Chris Deal crafts a smouldering, embers hot, piece of borderlands noir for the excellent Rotten Leaves zine.

"All the stuff you block out each day catches up with you in hotel rooms. Specters made of mental malaise stalk the corridors of every airport hotel and inner city stop over. All those thoughts you drown out with iPods, Ikea catalogues and foreign holidays. All those neuroses stifled with gym memberships, new wardrobes and cosmetic surgery. All the creeping paranoia. All of these things find you in hotel rooms. Sat there alone at two in the morning, having drained the mini bar, is it any wonder people commit suicide in hotel rooms?"

Sketched 002 by Den Patrick

Den Patrick conjurers a lovely ruminative piece of location based flash.

"I asked whether we could go inside and close the door. “There are no rules,” he said. “But—” I began. “Except that it stay empty,” he interrupted. “Can I eat in there?” I asked, a few days later. “There’s nothing you can’t do in there,” my father said, mysteriously. “Our family eats together at the table,” said my mother. Charlotte asked if it was my father’s room. “It doesn’t belong to any of us,” he said. “It’s just a part of the house. In the same way that Arfy lives with us but doesn’t belong to us.” On moving upstate we’d gained a puppy, to prove we had a backyard. “Is it Arfy’s room?” asked Charlotte, perhaps misunderstanding. “Arfy, too, is free to use the empty room,” said my father. “If Arfy poops in there, who has to clean it up?” I asked. We all glanced at my mother."

The Empty Room by Jonthan Lethem

Some of the raw electricity of Lethem's early work may have dissipated over time but what has taken its place is a mastery of tone that lures the readers in and then gently twists their perceptions into peculiar angles.

Maybe I will do this one Friday a month, maybe I will think better of it and never do it again. Only the blog gods know for sure.

Summer Mix

2011-06-29T01:02:00.001-04:00

A quick little 40min. mix of breezy, unapologetic, sub-laced House music. This one is custom built for the hazy twilight hours, sipping drinks w/ umbrellas, dancing under an open sky.

SMMR MIX (June 2011) by kelcey

1) Groove Theory - Tell Me (George Fitzgerald remix)
2) Photek - Rings Around Saturn (Breach remix)
3) The Martin Brothers - Steel Drums (Julio Bashmore remix)
4) Julio Bashmore - Battle for Middle You
(Maurice Donovan remix)
5) Boddika - Soul What
6) Ossie - Creepy Crawlies
7) Jamie xx - Far Nearer
8) Deadboy - Heartbreaker (Julio Bashmore remix)
9) Jacques Greene - Tell Me
10) ZZT - ZZafrika
11) Caribou - Sun (Midland re-edit)
12) Karizma - Good Morning (Kaytronik remix)

Summer Mix 2011 by Kelcey on Mixcloud

Ian Francis - New Desert of the Surreal

2011-03-31T21:43:00.000-04:00

Not to diminish the timelessness of the early surrealist masters but I doubt that the unconscious landscape of the 21C dreamer bares likeness to Dali's endless deserts or the marble columned corridors of De Chirico. I would suggest, instead, that if you took a snapshot of the contemporary unconscious the setting would resemble the brightly hued, leisure among the ruins of Chloe Early or the dark, deconstructed down to geometric grid, urban landscapes of Ian Francis.

Much of the work in Francis' New York solo debut, Fireland, inhabits an uneasy twilight areas between the unconscious and the urban street. In High Angle Deer Park (above), an urban park is stripped and flattened into a grid pattern forming an abstracted game board where a mysterious competition/ritual underway bathed with sexual tension and submerged violence.

In the striking Three People Lose Track of Time in the Financial District of San Francisco (below) the urban street is reduced to a series of streaked and tarnished geometric forms. What we can assume is a busy city street is depopulated leaving only the three narrative figures. The title places the scene in a specific location while the actual image is devoid of identifiable locative cues. Instead the figures inhabit a peculiar limbo, simultaneously in public and removed to a place of safety where internal life is free to manifest.

Again only a teasing suggestion of narrative is discernible. The viewer is positioned as an uninformed voyeur spying on a private emotional moment. The emotions are familiar but the specifics of the situation are a mystery. The figures appear familiar enough yet their forms are fantastic. They are more changeable composites than studied likenesses. Facial detail conveys raw emotion, the intimate confusion of the female figures, the anguish of the male figure carry a certain weight, however the figures are unstable, their faces extending in multiple, legs fading into the background. They are vaporous inhabitants of dreamspace where all things, even people, are shrouded in occult meaning but that meaning is fluid, uncertain and beyond concise explanation.

There is a connection to be made here between these urban landscapes, stripped down and re-mapped for unconscious exploration and the growing prevalence of augmented reality. However, I can not at this moment string the ideas together. It does seem, however, that there is insight to gleaned from the juxtaposition of the fantastic landscapes of Dali and De Chirico and these more contemporary abstracted urban scenes. Is it that the urban landscape has become so abstract, so removed from the "natural" world, so wiped clean through excess stimuli, that they are now the blank canvas for out waking dreams? On the other hand could it be that we have become so removed from any sense of uninfluenced imagination that our unconscious mind can no longer build the pristine deserts of surrealist fantasy? Instead we are left to simply augment the everyday world, creating just enough space to dream but perhaps not enough space to dream large.

Ian Francis: Fireland is up at Joshua Liner Gallery until April 2.

Our Pr0n Stars are not Your Porn Stars

2011-03-09T22:13:00.000-05:00

In 1995 superstar porn queen Traci Lords released 1000 Fires an album of disposable dance anthems. The LP's Juno Reactor produced high-gloss thump made a certain amount of sense as the backing track for Lords. There was a connection to be made between the bright lights in dark places hedonism or 90s dance floors and the over-lit trashy glamor of pornography from the same era. At the time both industries were seeing an influx of cash and begrudgingly ceded credibility. The two scenes were beginning to enter the wider culture, becoming household topics of conversations even if those conversations were still had in hushed tones.

Jump ahead fifteen years and you would be hard pressed to find two industries more drastically effected by the rise of technology and the accelerating effect it has had on pop culture than porno and pop music. Pornography is now omni-present and as acceptable a part of the larger culture as perhaps it is ever going to be. Its many starlets are not only wealthy but also pop icons. This money and visibility, along with advances in video technology, have lead to lavish production budgets for pornographic films that involve over the top plots, exotic locals and lavish sets.

However, our hyper-saturated media environment also allows easier access to mainstream porn's darkling sibling. Cheaply made films cast with skinny, tattooed twenty year olds (boys & girls, unlike mainstream pornography and hollywood's, massive age disparity) shot in grainy DV offer up a cracked mirror image to the bleach blond, and absurdly augmented starlets of mainstream smut. Where mainstream porn is increasingly hard to discern from major Hollywood movies, so-called alt porn is full of slap dash edits, cheap visual effects and at its most extreme, an Artuadian relationship to its audience. The hallmarks of the art/film school drop out cannot help appear absurd wrapped around what is still, at its gyrating heart, hardcore smut. However, this pretentious self awareness is no more bizarre than the glossy high budget aping of Hollywood the blockbuster found in more mainstream fair. Like most cultural forms, porn's cross-over into the larger culture comes at the expense of innovation and content. However, just like other cultural forms, a relational other forms to fill the subcultural void left in its wake.

Pop music is currently generating its own darkling other to mirror its very own high gloss stagnation. Signs of this growing dark-pop trend are most obvious in the blacker side of Lady Gaga's Night Porter meets Weimar Cabaret shtick. However, for the more adventurous listener a the peculiar sound has begun to coalesce around a number of insufficient names including Drag and Witchhouse. These new dark sounds often see pop sensibilities, R& B vocals, catchy synth melodies, submerged below a veneer of drone and feedback and merged with melodramatic analog synths that would be at home at the Bat Cave circa '95. The music often disseminates through word of net downloads or on strictly limited vinyl or cassette releases. A patina of the static and hiss of basement studio production sunk beneath lyrics laced with a dark sincerity is the final touch on obsidian mirror image to Bieber and Beyonce's glossy pop sheen.

One of the more respected forces enabling these new sounds germination, is Brooklyn's own Pendu label (d/l Pendu's Horror Scores for the Dance Floor). Along with White Ring and Chelsea Wolfe, Pendu also releases music by aTelicine, a band whose founding members include porn starlet Sasha Grey (see what I did there?). aTelecine's music is probably the most challenging of any act on the label or within the man/label's musical orbit. The songs are born of old-school tape loops and analog synths. They have a relationship to both the avant-drone metal of Sunn O))) and early 90s Industrial. On the Industrial side, aTelecine have a clearer connection to the early experimental sound of Throbbing Gristle or Current 93 than the grind and stomp of Ministry. Lyrics (by Ms. Grey?) are lost in layers of distortion sinking into to thick atmospheric haze that is constantly being chided and shifted by off kilter percussion. Hints and flashes of lullaby melody than work against the drone to create the gentlest sense of impending chaos, a timidly prodding unease.

The experiments don't always work, songs occasionally never manage to fully form but simply stagger on as stillborn noise for its own sake. However, more often the layers of dark blistering sound blend into something rich and fully formed. These songs lure you in while still managing to transcend mainstream pop's reflexive capitulation to sooth and comfort, to entertain. This is in the end not the music of large heaving breast, neatly tussled hair and well timed moans. It's more the music of sweat and spit. It slaps you around and bit and makes you feel dirty and just a bit uncomfortable. Which for some of us is exactly what we are looking for.

from aTelecine's A Cassette Tape Culture LP:

for the lulz:

Taking a Stand for Freedom

2011-02-10T23:10:00.002-05:00

"Let’s hope that as talk radio hosts find time for reflection, and commentators step back to take a deep breath, they will recall that one of the most hopeful aspects of the current conservative revival is its reclamation of the American constitutionalist tradition. That tradition is anchored even beyond the Constitution, of course, in the Declaration of Independence. And that document, let’s not forget, proclaims that, 'Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness], it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it.'

An American conservatism that looks back to 1776 cannot turn its back on the Egyptian people. We should wish them well—and we should work to help them achieve as good an outcome as possible."

from The Weekly Standard

The above was penned by Bill Kristol, a man I normally have very little time for. In fact, on more than one occasion, in the heat of intoxicated argument, I have demanded he be brought before the Hague and tried for war crimes (how is that for championing civil discourse?). However, a call to honor the commitment to liberty and the revolutionary courage of our forefathers, that I can get behind. It is bizarre that self proclaimed standard-bearers on both sides of our debilitating political discourse always take these calls for rhetorical consistency, for a return to core ideas and values, as acts of heresy.

I also have to show a little begrudging respect to the libertarian Republican house members who stood by their convictions and voted against the PATRIOT ACT renewal. There is a lot I do not like about the tea party movement, but if just a few of these men and women continue to vote their conscience the dynamic inside the beltway may be better for it. It will surely give their benefactors a shock to the system.

Did anyone look up from the chip bowl long enough before the supergame to witness this madness:

It was a very surreal experience. Not the heavy handed patriotism laced into our media/sporting events, <911 I have made my peace with that. It was the total strangeness of having soldiers and aged athletes perform a cold reading of what is essentially a revolutionary manifesto.

The Constitution is our founding document, it codifies basic rights and freedoms and puts in place protections for those rights and freedoms. It does not sound that odd when read aloud by school children. The Declaration of Independence is a document of a different stripe. Its lines call out an occupying power on its many grievances. The words "tyrant" and "despotism" appear to great effect. It demands certain rights with the explicit threat that if these rights are withheld they will be taken by force.

No matter how dryly one reads "it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security." from a teleprompter it will still carry a touch of menace, that goes double if one is surrounded by uniformed soldiers on the deck of an aircraft carrier.

Ray Caesar - A Gentle Kind of Cruelty

2011-02-09T00:41:00.003-05:00

Kingdom

Ray Caesar’s new show for Jonathan Levine, A Gentle Kind of Cruelty, is as unnerving and enchanting as fans of Caesar’s work expect. His unique female figures, with their unsettling combination of pale childlike innocence and stern, world-weary gazes are as alluring and as provocative as ever. Though the show definitely presents a singular unified experience, the work on display lends itself to a division into two aesthetic themes.

On one hand there are pieces that have taken on elements of what the press release calls a “more painterly approach”. There are more muted pallets and softer edges to the figures. Some of the pieces are treated with a layer of varnish that crackles at the surface allowing for the illusion of age and history and adding a wonderful textural element to the experience. Perhaps the most striking example of these new methods is Ancient Memory, a warm, gently lit portrait that could almost have been painted by an old Dutch master. Except, of course, that it couldn’t be. This nimble dance involving allusions to the past, the illusion of antiquity, novel subject matter and fresh technology is one of the main things that brings a unique vibrancy and engagement to Caesar's work.

Ancient Memory

In contrast, several of the pieces embrace and exaggerate the gloss and shine of the modern printing process, using highly stylized color pallets and maddeningly fine detail. Several of these pieces contain a lurid, hyper-gloss liquid lacquer from which organic forms emerge as if from the aether. This alien fluid also appeared in a group show piece from last year, Returns of the Day. In Gentle Kind Of Cruelty, the image takes on several different forms. In Impromptu the impossibly shimmering piano appear unstable. It’s spindly legs fluid and asymmetrical, defying basic physics. It is as if the strange glossy fluid of which the furniture is constructed has not yet fully set or cured, or perhaps something has caused it to be destabilized, it’s atomic structure regressing from a solid state to something looser and more chaotic.

Impromptu

In another piece, Kingdom, this use of liquid imagery is more obvious and more whimsical. Here we see another porcelain-pale female figure (though to my eyes she appears a year or two more mature than the standard Caesar figure). She lazily conjures a small city from a liquid floor so smooth it is mirror polished. Is this perhaps a subtle nod to the medium in which these work is created? Is this appearance of the hyper-gloss liquid god-stuff and it’s destabilizing effect on the reality of the scene similar in a way to the early impressionists’ employment of visible brush strokes in their paintings?

Unlike the paintings that Caser’s work allude to, these pieces are not made of oil or pigment of any kind. True there is the ink and canvas of the print hanging that hangs in the gallery, but these materials were not present at the work’s inception. The work of art was born of code, 1s and 0s, and at the visible level an astronomical number of colored pixels. Much like the figure in Kingdom, the artist conjurers the image from a seemingly unknowable and intangible substance. This peculiar liquid lacquer, this impossibly glossy god-stuff, then can be viewed as an allusion to the peculiar nature of the creative process in the digital age.

In both the hyper-modernized imagery of the lacquer pieces and the allusions to antiquity in the more painterly pieces one can see another layer of narrative being added to the Caesar’s already narratively rich work. In different way each of these experimentations in form and content opens a dialogue not only with the medium of the work but also with the post-modern, yet strangely ahistorical moment in which we find ourselves.

A Gentle Kind of Cruelty closes February 19th.

More Dick?

2011-02-04T18:57:00.000-05:00

Do you want more Dick? Sure we all do. The third and final Swingshift story arc soon come.

Conjurers' Dub - Vol. 2

2011-02-03T21:27:00.008-05:00

above a still from Maya Deren's Divine Horsemen

"The tracks succumb to apparitions, become porous, crackle like the celluloid burning up a the end of Persona. Degeneration = Regeneration. Sound susurrates into an electromagnetic nth world through which ghosts grow, effects superimpose and wraiths congregate."

- Kodwo Eshun: More Brilliant Than The Sun

A new bass heavy mix designed for those magical late-night/early-morning hours when spirits are summoned from obsidian and mad-beautiful ideas are conjured through key strokes. A sequel to last years Conjurers' Dub, to my ears this mix has a little more drive than its older sister but there is still enough bass and space to do the job.

My aim was an elastic mix of drag, doomjazz and dub-techno custom built for long winter nights spent trawling the abyss. Let me know what you think.

Conjurers Dub Vol 2 (mix) by kelcey

1.The Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation – Deadly Rehearsals
2.Forest Swords – Rattling Cage
3.Demdike Stare – Bardo Thodol
4.Water Borders – Akko (Petals remix)
5.Roman Lindau – Keppra
6.Fever Ray – Seven (Marcel Dettman remix)
7.Eliphino – I Just Can't
8.Raime – This Foundry
9.Badawi – The Axiom (Andy Stott remix)
10.L.B. Dub Corp. - It's What You Feel
11.Onmutu Mechanicks – Lupus Moon (Xdb remix)
12.Nick Hoppner – Isp
13.Mike Shannon – Under the Radar (Deadbeat remix)
14.Scuba – Tracers (Deadbeat remix)
15.Rhythm & Sound (feat. Tikiman) – Acting Crazy
16.Resoe – Minus & Plus (Sigha remix)
17.Lerosa and Donato Dozzy – Neon Snake
18.Alice Russell – Hurry On Now (Emika remix)
19.Echologist (feat. The Spaceape) – Mercy Beat (Mri vs. UES remix)
20.Bvdub – A Silent Reign
21.Forest Swords – Hjurt (Pariah remix)
22.oOoOO - Sedsumting

Babes of the Abyss Playlist

2010-12-16T00:02:00.007-05:00

As with I did with Dog Days' Nights, I am celebrating the conclusion of Babes of the Abyss by assembling an 8Tracks mix of music I either listened to while writing the story or that I associate in some other way with the series. It is a strange and varied collection of sounds with the only common thread being a gauzy layer of decay and reverb. Many of the songs share a raw and unmastered aesthetic that matches well with both the general vibe of the Swingshift worldview and the often chaotic creative process behind the stories.

There will be more Swingshift in 2011, and Cheer is still available for depraved holiday enjoyment. As always, thanks for all of your support.

01 cv313 - Subtraktive (King Midas Sound Dub)
she might be right

02 Gonasufi - My Only Friend (Hezus mix)
“Please, stay even though you know my reality”

03 Rolling Stones - Dancing with Mr. D (alternate take)
L-Girls theme - “A drink of Belldonna on a Toussaint night”

04 LA Vampires vs. Zola Jesus - No no no
strung out soundtrack to late nights at the club El Cambion

05 s. maharba - Tell a Lie
“millions of hearts have been broken, just because these words have been spoken...”

06 Demdike Stare - Bardo Thodol
several stories deep below Canal St.

07 The Stone Roses - Shoot You Down (lost demo version)
our man has big plans and a full moon swagger

08 Skeletons & Sobansa Mimanisa - Kiwembo / Unstuck
“Things are in motion ...Get out and get lost.”

Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss - Part VII

2010-12-09T22:56:00.006-05:00

"A patch of lightening rolls its way through the fog and across the water’s surface. The air pressure is dropping. My ears fill with echoing Latin. My knees buckle as gravity goes fluid for a brief moment. Best guess, this is the time. "

The damp and dramatic conclusion of Babes of the Abyss is live at T21.

Full moon, Saturday night. Dick crashes a Meridian orgone siphoning ritual and brings his own pyrotechnics. BJ plays the heavy, Jonesy drives the getaway car and the cat returns to life on the run. And, it all goes down with a swagger.

There is one more multi-chapter story in the Swingshift trilogy. It should kick off in January.

Thank you all for the support.

Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss - Part VII

Swingshift Archive

Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss - Part VI

2010-11-18T14:27:00.003-05:00

"Three flights down through narrow stairwells lit by flickering fluorescents. Then, we cross a dark empty sub-basement. The speed surges in my veins from the exercise. The immersive silence fills my ears with malicious insectiod whispers and twists my thoughts into intricate knots of paranoia."

Babes of the Abyss - Part VI is live at T21.

In the penultimate chapter of Babes of the Abyss, Swingshift proves the old adage that you can find anything in Chintown, including an orgone vacuum/bomb.

I once heard a member of the NYPD's Trademark Infringement Unit tell the story of chasing an old woman, and knock-off watch salesperson, through a labyrinth of basement tunnels several stories beneath Chinatown. Since then, I have had a fascination with Canal Street's bootleg culture and the secret architecture of Chinatown. On more than one occasion my curiosity has gotten me chewed out in Chinese by ladies like the older lady in this piece.

Next time: the suspense filled, soaking wet climax of Babes of the Abyss. (I wonder if that phrase will bump my google ranking.)

Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss - Part VI

Swingshift Archive

The Night of the Whore-hopper - 2010 edition

2010-11-02T20:09:00.000-04:00

"There are too many whores in politics these days, but the night of the whore-hopper is coming. Many will be called, and 9 out of 10 will be chosen-- to be herded down the long slippery ramp and into the bottomless sheep dip, where they will wallow and struggle helplessly (some of them drowning) until their bodies are disinfected by powerful acids, vapors, and the fumes of terrible lice medicines that will fry their brains like bacon left too long in the microwave....

The end will not come quickly, like it says in Revelations 22:7. First will come the shit-rain, then the sheep dip, and after that, the terrible night of the whore-hopper, which might last 1,000 years." - HST - Better Than Sex

Well it is going to be interesting at the very least. Quick, totally unfounded, predictions:

Republicans pick up 45-50 House seats and 9 Senate seats. Rand Paul becomes Mitch McConnell's worst nightmare. Joe Lieberman holds the Democratic caucus hostage for the next two years. Neither party learns a damn thing and double down on idealogical short sightedness. Discouraged, voter turn-out drops to 20% in 2012. Politicians rejoice as we continue our decent down the slippery ramp and into the dreaded sheep dip.

Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss - Part V

2010-10-21T14:41:00.001-04:00

"That sorted, I got down to work banging together a binding ritual to capture and incapacitate my girlfriend. It is not the sort of thing my old man touched on when he explained the birds & bees. However, I would be lying if I told you this was the first time it had come up. "

Part V of Babes of the Abyss is live at T21.

This chapter is a personal favorite. All the peculiar elements of the series, dark humor, occult elements, horror tropes, intoxicated shenanigans are all at work her in the service of some complex personal ideas and emotions. When I revisited this chapter for a last round of edits, I had one of those moments of estrangement from the text. The words felt new to me, as if they had been written by someone else. It is always a strange sensation and this is first time I experienced it writing this series.

Thanks, as always, for all of your support.

Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss - Part V

Swingshift Archive

Brandon Graham Comix

2010-10-06T13:49:00.002-04:00

Brandon Graham instinctively knows what comics (and the world) needs most - Frank Zapa and a girl eating a banana in the shower.

I love how, in Graham's stuff, sharp insight and emotional depth rise from surreal bits of wordplay and visual puns. That lobster in the last frame puts a melancholy smile on my face.

Brandon Graham's livejournal.

Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss - Part IV

2010-09-29T14:18:00.000-04:00

"I tilt my head in an attempt to keep the steady stream of blood from pooling in my eye sockets. I see BJ’s Glock lying amongst the pile of denim at his feet. I consider making a dive for it. I am not planning to pull it on anyone. I am planning to shoot myself in the head. Death may be the only way out of this wretched hallway. I wonder if I can get the gun into my mouth quick enough or whether I should just take a fast but dirty slug to the temple."

Part IV of Babes of the Abyss is live at T21.

This time out, Dick manages to infiltrate the mysterious club El Cambion only to spend most of teh night trapped in a maintenance corridor. He is rescued by the dashing Samael who then gives him a personal tour of the clubs exclusive grotto of love.

Swinghshift: Babes of the Abyss - Part IV

Swingshift Archive

What I Did On My Summer Vacation (part 2)

2010-09-28T16:07:00.000-04:00

(photo by Shaun Bloodworth)

For fans of forward thinking electronic music the end of summer was overshadowed by the announcement that Mary Anne Hobbs would be leaving her radio show on Radio 1 after 14 years. I could carry on endlessly about how important this show has been to me personally and to the music I love. In recent years the focus on Mary Anne has deservedly centered around her championing of the Dubstep scene. However, for me it was in the years leading up to Dubstep’s emergence into wider recognition in 2006 that MAH was her most vital. The electronic music landscape was pretty bleak circa 2004 - 2005 and after her hero John Peel passed away Mary Anne’s Breezeblock was one of the only places you could hear fresh new sounds on a regular basis.

The blow of Mary Anne’s departure was softened somewhat by the series of climatic headline mixes lovingly assembled by some of her favorite producer/DJs. In particular the mix by Shackleton and the final mix by Kode9 and Burial were outstanding. Both mixes manage to be challenging, uncompromising and yet extremely intimate. They were the absolute best examples of what made the show such a special institution all theses years. You can d/l the final shows at the excellent CoreNews mix archive.

Two particular club nights stand out from the past summer. The first was Demdike Stare at The Bunker. On a night that saw a disappointing, technical difficulty hampered , live set from the Caretaker and the Mike Huckabee playing amazing edits from a reel 2 reel, the Modern Love boys stole the show. Taking the crowd from fathoms deep beatless meditations to hard driving, big system techno and back again with a spattering of exotic percusion and Turkish Psych thrown in for good measure. At points, when the bass opened up, the sound rattled all of the club’s duct work adding a layer of accidental percussion to the proceedings. Brilliant.

The other big night out was the mighty Dub War’s 5th anniversary. 5 being a sacred number for any Joe Nice fan you knew the place was going to full to bursting the shouting and stomping masses. Mala DMZ was joined by “secret guest” Skream for an extended b2b set of bass-bin destroying bangers. If you have seen either selector before (and if you haven’t I advise remedying that quick like), there were few musical surprises. But for once, in a club night that prides it self on being ahead of the bass music curve, it was all about straight forward celebration. Even serious technical issues could not keep the vibes down as all had come to skank it up until dawn.

As far as home listening, the last year or more has seen a fertile ground develop along the margins of the UK’s various bass/urban music scenes. Making things even more interesting is that many of the new sounds have more in common with classic U.S. dance sounds than Dubstep or UK Garage. Case in point the Juke and B-more influenced Work Them by Ramadanman, close sibling to the unstoppable anthem Footcrab. Other housier summer vibes were provided by Jam City's wonderful Ecstasy (refix) and Space Dimension Controller’s epic The Love Quadrant.

One of the best showcases for these various developing sounds has to Kode9’s DJ Kicks contribution which came out at the Summer Sostice and has been a touchstone for me all season. Drawing from a wide pallet of cutting edge bass music, it’s Kode9’s attention to the essential low-end groove that unifies this mix, creating a whole that is far more than the sum of its tracklist. Other shining examples of a unified groove theory have been recent mixes from Oneman, Ben UFO and Ramadanman (who has to be the hardest working man in bass music at the moment)

What I Did On My Summer Vacation (part 1)

2010-09-23T16:11:00.001-04:00

Despite efforts, the blog has fallen into a classic summer lull. Oddly, the lull was not borne of my annual “I’m too drunk in the sun to type” excuse. The oppressive heat and lack of funds moderated my summer shenanigans somewhat this year. That doesn’t mean there weren’t great times and enlightening cultural experiences but these things were less frequent and more intimate then in summers past.

This being the first day of autumn, I thought I would play catch up and hash together a random list of cultural morsels that nourished me through the summer heat.

If summer 2010 had a recurring iconography it was cephalopodic in nature. The cultural interest in all things tentacled transcended the previous subcultural preoccupations with Tentacle Hentai (yeah, I’m unwilling to dig for link there) and Lovecraft's Great Old One Cthulhu into a quirk of the zeitgeist more abstract and harder to pin down.

Personally the main agent of this tentacular assault was China Mieville’s excellent novel Kraken. Kraken is an immersive work of urban fantastic. Set in modern day London, it’s plot centers around the theft of the preserved specimen of a giant squid from the British Museum an act that exposes a hidden culture of peculiar cults and practitioners of esoteric arts that thrives beneath the city’s surface. My absolute favorite moment in the novel is an argument that breaks out between an evil animate back tattoo and The Sea (minor spoilers: The Sea always wins). Appropriately, I read the novel on the beach and with plenty of The Kraken: Black Spiced Rum. Kraken Rum is tasty tar-flavored (in a good way I swear) liquor that awakens a peculiar form of nautical madness in he who dare partake of the sweet black liquid (also it makes a wicked Dark & Stormy).

I’m not usually one for summer movies, but I thought Inception was as good, if not better than, the hype. You couldn't say that about a lot of movies this year. I also really enjoyed The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I think both films re-purpose the classic big Hollywood thriller. Inception brings the metaphysical subtext to the forefront and uses CGI shock and awe to find new methods of insight into the internal life of its characters. Dragon Tattoo takes the exhausted 1990s suspense thriller (think cleverly titled Morgan Freeman / Ashley Judd vehicle based on novel by famous author) and scrubs it clean of cliche and patronizing sentimentality. The film actively works against your generic preconceptions, thereby knocking the viewer off guard and opening up space for her to be thrilled and terrified again.

On Netflix, I was recently hypnotized by The Red Riding Trilogy. The pace and texture are absolutely engrossing but it is so very bleak. I feel like I haven’t quite figured out what makes it such an enthralling experience yet. I’m trying to get up the bottle to watch it all again.

The best thing on television this summer has yet to come to the US. Moffat and Gattis Holmes for the 21st century, Sherlock, is one of the most intelligent and exhilarating pieces of television in recent memory There is a wonderful mix of original Holmes spirit and mythology with invigorating modern narrative and visual styles. The acting is first rate, you cannot take your yes off of Cumberbatch’s Holmes for fear of missing some lovely nuance and yet Martin Freeman, as an Afghanistan veteran Dr. Watson, more than holds his own, adding depth to a show that could easily become one dimensional and shticky. Sherlock premieres on PBS in the US end of October. I cannot recommend it enough.

I also love Brian Cox’s new science series Wonders of the Solar System. Cox’s excitement for science is wickedly contagious. The show does a amazing job of moving from the very small, personal and even mundane to the unfathomably large. Wonders is the perfect title for the series. When at it’s best, it instills in you a palpable feeling of wonder for the immensity of the universe that you may not have experienced since you were a child.

I don’t read many comics these days. The shelf space for non-super hero, original pulp comics has shrunk considerably but there are still a few wonderful gems to be discovered. Best of the lot as far as I’m concerned is Brandon Graham’s King City. Graham’s world building vision and attention to minute detail generate a thoroughly immersive alternate reality. There is an energy and a surreal flavor to KC that reminds me of classic Milligan and McCarthy books from the 80s. While the visual style re-purposes manga and European influences into something totally unique.

Ba and Moon’s Daytripper is personal favorite as well. Daytripper manages to be both narratively light and nimble and still pack a very powerful and personal emotional punch. I think this is the product of both the creators unique visual storytelling abilities and the ingenious narrative device that hinges the individual stories together (I’m not going to spoil it for you, you’re going to have to read it yourself)

The full color, Marvel published, return of Casanova has been a joy. If possible, i may love the book more now than the first time around. My friend J.B. Love’s Boondock Saints two-parter with BS’s creator Troy Duffy, In Nomini Patris is a filthy, fast paced, romp, that takes the condensed essence of what makes the films so much fun and adds a fine layer of depth to the Bros. MacManus mythos (the title returns with another limited series, The Head of the Snake,next month . Some serious grime and grit can also be found in Kody Chamberlain’s Sweets, an atmospheric crime procedural set in New Orleans. With two issues out so far Sweets lured me in with gorgeous art and a subtle narrative pace and then left me wanting more. Thankfully the next issue is due out in a few weeks.

[I’m going to put a pin in here and pick up tomorrow with the summers best music.]

Dog Days' Nights Playlist

2010-09-09T13:28:00.005-04:00

I have cobbled together a random playlist of tracks that I either listened to while writing Dog Days’ Nights or that have, in my mind, a connection to the story. I slapped the tunes into an 8Tracks mix for your enjoyment. It is interesting that these are very different sounds than my standard everyday soundtrack.

I will try to assemble another playlist at the end of Babes of the Abyss (Zola Jesus and The Rolling Stones will certainly make appearances).

00 RAW - Dog Days
intial inspiration for the title (among other grander things)

01 Thom Yorke - Feeling Pulled Apart By Horses
wake up on your feet vibes

02 The Whitefield Brothers (feat. Guilty Simpson) - American Nightmare
lock-up at the 6-0

03 Spoek Mathambo - Control
South African electro-house cover of Joy Division - perfect loft party joint

04 Gonjasufi - Duet
possible theme song for CSI: Bushwick 420

05 Cliff Edwards (aka Ukulele Ike) - I’ll See You In My Dreams
I’m still not sure why ukulele music is playing in the background

06 James Blake - CMYK
Dee's lament

07 The Kilimanjaro Dark Jazz Ensemble - Dark Night of the Soul
exactly what it says on the tin

08 Bei Bei & Shawn Lee - East
Rodriguez’s action theme

09 Oneohtrix Point Never (feat. Antony) - Returnal (christian fennesz remix)
“you've never left, you've been here the whole time”

Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss – Part III

2010-09-08T01:00:00.009-04:00

"As best I can tell, through the bad in browser translation, HandiMandi is a forum for Eastern European transsexuals who are also home improvement enthusiasts. Even by .ru standards, it seems a little too obscure to be for real. Judging by the jarring amount of unintelligible grammar in the posts, either the site is the world’s greatest spam-bot magnet or most of the traffic is shady bastards like me leaving obscured covert messages."

Part III of Babes of the Abyss is live at T21.

In this chapter, we venture to the dark backwaters of the internets where Dick flexes his best spam-bot impersonation. MacEndroe re-emerges at the end of the sordid paper trail surrounding the El Cambion nightclub. The cat steals a few more scenes and both Ed/Lou and the L-Girls make appearances.

My apologies for the spacing and formatting glitches. They should be sorted out shortly.

Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss – Part III

Swingshift Archive

Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss - Part II

2010-08-20T13:22:00.008-04:00

“Meeting a girl’s friends is a tricky tight rope act. A little flirting never hurts but too much flirting will yield you enemies for life. I quickly decide that my best strategy, as is often the case in awkward social situations, is to throw a ludicrous amount of charm and booze at the situation. By the time I order the third round of shots and run through my greatest hits of self-deprecating stories, it is as if we are all old friends.”

Part II of Babes of the Abyss is live at T21.

The Allied bennies come on cool and slow. We discover the reason behind Rodriguez’s surprise social call and the NYPD detective and the charmed feline form a sinister alliance.

Then Dick settles in to his new role as the boyfriend. He meets the lovely L-Girls and glimpses a well-chiseled shadow from Qarin’s past from across a crowded room.

I'm thinking of assembling a Swingshift playlist. Zola Jesus v. LA Vampires is definetly the soundtrack for this chapter.

Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss - Part II

Swingshift Archive

Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss

2010-07-28T13:52:00.006-04:00

"I wake to the familiar sensation of my brain trying to burst its way out of my skull. I manage to turn the AC to full blast and pull a sheet over my head to hold back the day a few more minutes. I close my eyes and let frantic images of the previous night’s debauchery scroll by. Glimpses of fevered copulations, teasing, taunting, bordering on violence and ending, as has become common, with me handcuffed to the headboard."

Babes of the Abyss a new storyline in the Swingshift series is live at T21.

The story picks up a few weeks after the events of Dog Days' Nights. It is built so that a reader could jump in to the series now with minimal confusion. However, it also fits within a larger narrative for the series.

Babes of the Abyss should be a little sexier and a touch more surreal than the previous story. It will see our man Dick operating out on his own in a bizarre underworld, pushing himself well beyond the break of sanity. I you enjoy it.

Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss - Part I

Swingshift Archive

Happy Birthday - Rose Sélavy

2010-07-28T13:39:00.005-04:00

“I have forced myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own taste.”

A happy 123rd Birthday to Marcel Duchamp the OG (original game-changer).

Unified Bass Theory Vol. 2

2010-07-10T14:19:00.004-04:00

A sequel to my original Unified Bass Theory mix, again I tried to draw from a broad spectrum of underground BASS sounds, mining the fertile margins at the edges of UK Funky, House, Dubstep and West Coast beats.

The mix has a serious summer vibe, custom built for both sun drenched afternoons and sweat soaked late nights.

Unified Bass Theory Vol. 2 by kelcey

1) Gil Scott Heron - New York is Killing Me
2) Eprom - Bubble
3) Free The Robots - Orion's Belt Buckle
4) The xx - Islands (Untold remix)
5) Jose James - Warrior (SBTRKT remix)
6) Grace Jones - Love You To Life (Digital Mystikz remix)
7) Ikonika - Yoshimitsu
8) Pariah - Orpheus
9) Ramadanman - Don't Change For Me
10) F- Energy Distortion (Untold remix)
11) DJ MA1 — High Definition (Deep Teknologi remix)
12) Hardhouse Banton - Rein (Roska remix)
13) MJ Cole - Phoenix Riddim
14) MJ Cole - AO (MJ's Open Your Gob dub)
15) Girl Unit - IRL (DVA's Hi Emotions remix)
16) Karizma - I.C.U.
17) A Made Up sound - Sun Touch
18) Zero 7 - Ghost sYMbOL (Julio Bashmore remix)
19) Altered Natives - Raaatid Einstein
20) Argy & DJ Gregory - Our Drums
21) DVA - Ganja
22) Hypno - Over the Top
23) Kentphonik - Hiya Kaya (Rocco Deep mix)
24) Roska - The Sheppard
25) Hot Chip - I Feel Better (Ill Blu remix)

Swingshift: Dog Days' Nights - Part VII

2010-07-08T14:18:00.003-04:00

“In my own sudden moment of action, I slam the study door shut and bolt the lock. This leaves me alone in the small room with a near catatonic Murzim, moaning and clutching his balls, and a massive, sinister demon dog. It is perhaps the dumbest decision I have ever made but I have an irrational faith in my secret weapon.”

Part VII of Dog Days’ Nights is live at T21. This is it, the frantic conclusion. This installment is a twisted riff on a classic mystery cliche, where all the players assemble in the study for the big reveal. Only here, the players include a demon, a pack of street dogs and an enchanted cat.

Dog Days’ Nights is the first of three interconnected story lines in the series. The next story, Babes of the Abyss, will go live in a couple weeks.

Swingshift: Dog Days' Nights - Part VII

Swingshift Archive

R.I.P. Rammellzee

2010-06-30T14:22:00.006-04:00

All humans are spectators to Art in the second dimension. We are only recording recepticles for energy’s knowledge for the build procedure.

[...]

Death is remanipulation only be electromagnetic knowledge energy leaving disease because of malfunction of inhabited diseaseculture, other deaths are only CHANGE. Electromagnetics’ knowledge disperses back into the course of the Van Allen Belt’s (in purity).

from the ICONIC TREATISE ON GOTHIC FUTURISM

I’m not sure how I originally came across Rammellzee’s Iconic Treatise on Gothic Futurism. The CCRU or Kodwo Eshun may have had something to do with it. The internet surely did. What I do know is that I was in no way prepared for the experience.

While Ramm’s music is excellent and truly foundational it was this pamphlet that really blew my mind. Reading it is one a unique experiences where even as you strain to make sense the text you are convinced the words and symbols are re-wiring your neurons without your consent.

Ramm:Ell:Zee >> Performer of the Equation >> Runner of the Transversus, may his eletomagnetic knowledge return to the Van Allen Belt.

video via @Hyperdub

Swingshift: Dog Days' Nights - Part VI

2010-06-17T13:49:00.004-04:00

Things are tense in the interrogation room. My story has run out of yarn but the promised revelations and actionable conclusions have not materialized. I am convinced there is something more, that the timeline is incomplete.

After a small delay, my bad, Part VI of Dog Days' Nights is live at T21. In this installment our battered hero commits the unpardonable sin of sobering up and getting some sleep. A respite he pays dearly for. Also, our story returns full circle to the beginning and we discover a little bit about what is up with the cat.

Swingshift: Dog Days' Nights - Part VI

Swingshft Archive

Swingshift: Dog Days' Nights - Part V

2010-05-18T10:36:00.003-04:00

The Loft turned out to be an old two-story warehouse. A massive open common area comprised the front half of the first floor. It was sparsely furnished with junk store relics and curbside cast offs. A number of strung out party people were sprawled around the room or wandering about with a lack of focus specific to afternoon intoxication. Somewhere, unseen, someone was playing Victrola era pop standards on a ukulele.

Part V of Dog Days' Nights is live at T21. Things are starting to come together. Swingshift gets a peek inside the Pop Magus study and re-affirms his distaste for rich men and automobiles. One more chapter before Part VII's high flying finally.

Swingshift: Dog Days' Nights - Part V

Swingshift Archive

Swingshift: Dog Days' Nights - Part IV

2010-05-06T11:09:00.008-04:00

“What do you think I’m running here, CSI Bushwick?”

Rube eked out the sarcastic barb through smoke filled lungs. He handed me the smoldering ends of a once massive spliff. I slid it between my fingers gingerly, careful not to drop ash into the cooler that took pride of place on the table between us. I had brought the spliff and a couple of out-sized coffees as gifts of conciliation for showing up at Rube’s door so early in the day with such grisly luggage in tow.

“I didn’t know what the fuck else to do. To be honest, I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly. I just knew it was evidence to something and that if The Heat got a hold of it I’d never know its secrets.”

“Well do you know its secrets now?”

“Well no. But that’s why I brought it to you. I thought you would Quincy this shit out for me.”

“OK, maybe I should clarify further. My apartment is not the morgue from the set of any forensic procedural on television now, or at any time in the history of the genre.”

Part IV of Dog Days' Nights is live at T21. It is the procedure heavy investigation portion of the story. However, since it's our man Swingshift he is mainly sitting around, drinking rye, getting stoned and generally shooting the shit with a cast of characters

It is my favorite episode of the story so far.

Swingshift: Dog Days' Nights - Part IV

Swingshift Archive

Carl Sanburg - The People Yes

2010-04-30T14:15:00.003-04:00

The people yes
The people will live on.
The learning and blundering people will live on.
They will be tricked and sold and again sold
And go back to the nourishing earth for rootholds,
The people so peculiar in renewal and comeback,
You can't laugh off their capacity to take it.
The mammoth rests between his cyclonic dramas.

The people so often sleepy, weary, enigmatic,
is a vast huddle with many units saying:
"I earn my living.
I make enough to get by
and it takes all my time.
If I had more time
I could do more for myself
and maybe for others.
I could read and study
and talk things over
and find out about things.
It takes time.
I wish I had the time."

The people is a tragic and comic two-face: hero and hoodlum:
phantom and gorilla twisting to moan with a gargoyle mouth:
"They buy me and sell me...it's a game...sometime I'll
break loose..."

from The People Yes by Carl Sanburg

Recently the word Socialism has been batted around by protesters and political pundits. Carl Sanburg's Socialism is not the perverted straw man of modern media shouting. It is instead something deeper, sharper and more meaningful. It is an acknowledgement of the glorious, primal drive or perseverance that human beings share at their most basic cores. It bears witness both the the glory of a modern world built from the brow sweat of resilient men and women and to the soul crushing hardships that the same world rends from their flesh.

Sanburg's words are terse, honed for maximum impact, not a syllable wasted. There are no victim's here, only those who have been done wrong, time and again, and who yet continue forward no matter how clumsy, mongrel and idiotic their stubborn progress may appear.

I had though about this poem since grade school. Then, in 2006, I was listening to n recording of Sci-fi author / futurist visionary Bruce Sterling's annual SXSW speech. 2006 was a pretty grim year and Sterling was bringing the The Fear™. Then, as a quasi-benediction, he closed by reading the above section from Sanburg's book length poem.

The conviction and emotion in his voice struck me like a cold slap across the face. A man for whom The Future was his stock and trade was read a poem from the depths of the Great Depression, the words resonanting as if they were crafted that very morning, was chilling. Since that moment this poem, sadly, becomes more prescient with ever passing year.

Buy The People Yes

Bruce Sterling reads from The People Yes at SXSW 06

Roger Robinson - Misuse of Magic

2010-04-28T00:44:00.010-04:00

"14. The magician destroys an object only to restore it back to its natural state"

Roger Robinson reading from his excellent book Suckle.

Of course Robinson is best know as the vocalist for the mighty King Midas Sound but don't sleep on his written poetry. It is full of warmth and spirit while still cutting clean through to the emotional bone.

Check a nice post by John Eden on all Robinson's books: here

Tristan Tzara - dada manifesto on feeble love and bitter love

2010-04-22T15:20:00.007-04:00

XIII

DADA is a virgin microbe
DADA is against the high cost of living
DADA
limited company for the exploitation of ideas
DADA has 391 different attitudes and colours according to the sex of the president
It changes ? affirms ? says the opposite at the same time ? no importance? shouts ?goes fishing.
Dada is the chameleon of rapid and self?interested change.
Dada is against the future. Dada is dead. Dada is absurd. Long live Dada.
Dada is not a literary school, howl

from dada manifesto on feeble love and bitter love
- Tristan Tzara

If I have ever been seduced or corrupted by a particular dogma or orthodoxy it was the anti-dogma of Dada and if Dada has an (un)holy scripture to rival the Psalms it is the poems and manifesto's of Tristan Tzara. The austere earnestness of Tzara's emphatic declarations coupled with the puckish absurdity of the wordplay yields a novel sensation of extreme emotion borne of intellectual discourse.

Tzara demands that you join him in zealotic commitment to a cheap joke and in so doing liberates the reader from the mundane and conscribes her in his plot of poetical terror.

dada manifesto on feeble love and bitter love

also check out: How To Make A Dadaist Poem

Swingshift: Dog Days' Nights - Part III

2010-04-21T14:53:00.006-04:00

"Rex steadied himself with one hand on the doorjamb, traced an intricate sigil in the grime above the dog’s head and muttered a short incantation that sounded like a Welshman learning Yiddish. It took him a few attempts to get his numbed tongue around the unforgiving syllables but eventually the door did not so much open as simply dissipate into the air. As we crossed the threshold, a rush of crowd heat, incense smoke and loud music enveloped us."

Part III of Dog Days' Nights is live at T21. It's a party/club scene. You knew there would be at least one. In this instalment we get the low down on Jimmy The Pop Magus, discover that our damsel in distress may not be so distressed and learn that The Muppet Show did in fact reach the shores of Norway.

This was the most difficult part of the story to write. There are a lot of moving parts and events in this section are essential to not only this story but those that follow. Keeping the action moving and the pace lively was a challenge. In the end I am pleased with the results.

Swingshift: Dog Days' Nights - Part III

Swingshift Archive

W.S. Merwin - Youth

2010-04-14T13:49:00.003-04:00

Youth

Through all of youth I was looking for you
without knowing what I was looking for

or what to call you I think I did not
even know I was looking how would I

have known you when I saw you as I did
time after time when you appeared to me

as you did naked offering yourself
entirely at that moment and you let

me breathe you touch you taste you knowing
no more than I did and only when I

began to think of losing you did I
recognize you when you were already

part memory part distance remaining
mine in the ways that I learn to miss you

from what we cannot hold the stars are made

from W.S. Merwin's collection The Shadow of Sirius.

For me, it is all about that final line; so full of insight that breeds wonder instead of complacency. The line is just on the verge of sounding cheap and clichéd. I wonder whether I would feel the same way about it if it had been written by the author in his twenties rather than his eighties? Either way, it lights my eyes every time I read it.

I'm a pretty young man but I feel I am on the cusp of the moment Merwin is invoking here; that place in one's lifetime where the adventures of youth become "part memory part distance".

There is a great Bill Moyers interview where Merwin, who has won Pulitzers in both 1971 and 2009, shares some wonderful insight into craft and process. This quote is a personal favorite:

"Poetry's really about what can't be said. And you address it when you can't find words for something. And the idea is, is that the poet probably finds words for things. But if you ask the poet, the poet will tell you, you can't find words for it. Nobody finds words for grief. Nobody finds words for love. Nobody finds words for lust. Nobody found — finds words for real anger. These are things that always escape words."

Youth and Good Night at Writer's Almanac

Buy The Shadow of Sirius

Interview with Bill Moyers

LBR8 in Popshot!

2010-04-09T11:36:00.007-04:00

I have a new poem, cleverly titled LBR8, in the new Liberate issue of Popshot magazine. Contrary to images the name conjures, Popshot is not a pornographers trade mag. It is a wonderfully designed zine determined to drag poetry away from the stuffy university presses and into the 21C.

Each issue, twenty five short poems on a theme are chosen and handed over to twenty five brilliant illustrators who give each piece a visual accomplice. My poem is coupled with a fittingly irreverent illustration by the excellent David Sparshott.

More Popshot info: here

Excellent interview with Popshot's Jacob Denno: here

Cyrus Cassells - Beautiful Signor

2010-04-07T10:48:00.002-04:00

Hear me when I say
our love’s not meant to be
an opiate;
helpmate,
you are the reachable mirror
that dares me to risk
the caravan back
to the apogee, the longed-for
arms of the Beloved—

from Cyrus Cassells - Beautiful Signor

There are two things in particular that I love about the work of Cyrus Cassells and this poem in particular. The first is the asymmetric lyrical quality of the verse. The rhythms are not straight forward, the line breaks and punctuation clip, join or contextualize thoughts and imagary with a seemingly free form liberty. Yet the words resonate with glorious lyricism. The lines undulate with a rhythmical freedom and a sensual richness of tone that perfectly accentuates the subject matter.

This lush sensuality in Cassells' poems is intertwined with a revelatory spirituality in a way that opens up both aspects to unique insight. At its best Cassells' work, especially in the book Beautiful Signor, melds the sensual and spiritual into one ecstatic sensation that is primal and familiar yet surprisingly revealing.

I got turned on to Cassells by artists/poet William Allen during a workshop he was teaching. At the time I was obsessed with the interaction between the spiritual and profane. However, unlike Cassells I was interested in smashing signifiers of both concepts together and documenting the shrapnel. By introducing me to Cassells' work I think Allen was trying to show me another way to get at the problem. I only sort of understood that at the time. It was one of those lessons I did not fully learn, or at least did not put in to practise, until years later.

In an effort to get both the blogging and poetical juices flowing, I'm going to try and share a few of my favorite poems over the next few weeks. There will be some canonical classics, some fresh unkowns and a few obscure artifacts but they will all be pieces that I have a personal affinity for.

Buy Beautiful Signor

also check out Cassells' Soul Make a Path Through Shouting

Swingshift: Dog Days' Nights - Part II

2010-03-31T13:49:00.007-04:00

"Monday lost to weekend residue, I arrived Tuesday afternoon just in time for happy hour at the Thirsty Serpent. I settled in at the bar hoping to nurse a few whiskeys and read the paper. My hopes were promptly dashed when Tracey the bartender brought me a line of trouble with my rye. "

Part II of Dog Days' Nights is up at T21.

In this episode our man Swingshift begins to lay the tale out from the beginning. We meet our girl Tracey the bartender. We also meet a self-named man called Rube and get a glimpse into a peculiarly feline byproduct of the real estate collapse.

Part III should be up in two weeks.

Swingshift: Dogs Days' Nights - Part II

Swingshift Archive

Ray Caesar - Returns of the Day

2010-03-30T14:00:00.005-04:00

Returns of the Day was one of the highlights of the recent Five Year Anniversary group show at Jonathan Levine gallery. I have been consistently having my head blown by Ray Caesar's work for some time now. However, this piece stands out as something new or at least unique in Caesar's catalog.

First there is all that lovely light and shadow play. The ornate molding, so quintessentially Caesar, whites out in the light flare on the left and is consumed by shadow on the right. Then there is the inclusion of motion and action. His previous work has often featured the posed or at least still figure. Here the composition is alive with the movement of the figure in to the frame and exquisitely the arc of the figures knife wielding arm slashing through the scene. The image is poised on the cusp of action, hung on the anticipation of violent menace (albeit violent menace perpetrated on a birthday cake).

However, the detail that really sucks me in to the piece is the peculiar spinal ridge that rises up out of, yet appears to be part of, the lovely lacquered table. So incongruous of the immaculate setting, so mysterious and oh so very shiny. Which leads me to one last observation. The luscious black of the lower half of this work, in all it's texture and fine detail, could this have been executed in another medium? The ability of Caesar's work to be as textural and lush as oil paint in a digital medium has always amazed. But could we now, in this piece, be seeing the high rez digital print outpace the storied medium of oil on canvas? It will be interesting to see what the artist does over this next year.

Swingshift: The Series

2010-03-11T16:23:00.010-05:00

The familiar double chime of the subway doors stirs me. My head enveloped in a chemical fog, my eyes refuse to focus. I lean in through the blurred surroundings trying to decipher the warbled string of syllables running from the overhead PA.

“Avenue X / McDonald, next stop”

So begins my new black humor occult-noir series, Swingshift, for T21. It is going to be a woozy rawkus ride with our man Dick Swingshift at the controls. Dick is an old school shamus, straight out of grainy black & white films and dusty pulp novels. Dick is also a practitioner of the arcane and the occult. The series follows Dick as he stumbles his way through a complicated twenty first century reality hyper-saturated in technicolor and pop magick.

The first episode, Dog Days' Nights - Part I, is now live and new instalments will follow every two weeks. I am essentially making it up as I go along. To that end any feedback will be greatly appreciated. Please drop your thoughts and reactions in the comments here or feel free to shoot me an e-mail if your too polite to slag me off in public.

Also, if you missed the early Swingshift story Cheer, T21 has re-posted it as a nice introduction to the series.

Swingshift: Dog Days' Nights - Part I

Swingshfift: Cheer

Swingshift Archive

Conjurers' Dub (mix)

2010-02-24T14:37:00.009-05:00

image via The Afflicted Yard

There is no silence in that Abyss: for all that men
call Silence is Its Speech.
- the book of lies

For some time now I've wanted to assemble a mix comprised of the deep, dark, dubby tunes that soundtrack my late night writing sessions and dark nights of soul. This mix rides a thick black night groove through headier Shackleton productions, stripped back dubstep and echo drenched, slow burn dub-techno. It's laced with a haunting Tikiman vocal and The Space Ape's hypnotic delivery and bookended by TKDE's glorious doomjazz.

It's built more for head-nodding meditation than peek time dancing. A sustaining anti-lullaby for babes of the abyss

Conjurers' Dub (mix) by kelcey

(00:00) Demdike Stare - Extwistle Hall
(01:40) The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble - Seneca
(05:35) Harmonia '76 - Sometimes In Autumn (Shackleton Remix)
(09:50) Shackleton - Asha In The Tabernacle
(15:35) Vindixatrix - Private Places (Shackleton & Mordant Music Version)
(20:50) Emika - Drop The Other (Scuba's Vulpine Remix)
(25:00) Pangaea - Dead Living
(29:20) CV313 - Subtraktive
(30:35) Rhythm and Sound feat. Tikiman - Na Fe Throw It
(38:00) STL - Checkmate (cv313 Remodel)
(39:35) Fever Ray - Seven (Marcel Dettmann remix)
(44:15) Martyn feat. Space Ape - Is This Insanity? (Ben Klock Remix)
(47:00) Red Shape - Dark & Sticky
(50:00) Pendle Coven -Uncivil Engineering (Calm Mix)
(52:05) Deadbeat - Teach The Devil's Son
(58:00) Beat Pharmacy feat. Space Ape - Ghostship (Deadbeat dub)
(62:00) Appleblim - Within
(65:15) The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble - Embers

The Daughters of Erzulie

2010-02-04T10:42:00.006-05:00

"I reach the corner of Washington Square Park and my feet freeze up short of the curb. My ears draw whispers from the bushes. My mind populates the shadows with darting figures. The small patch of artificial wild appears alive with menace. I gaze up at a towering elm with the moon nestled in its high branches. The Hangman’s Elm, as they call it on the walking tours."

My new story, The Daughters of Erzulie, is up at Troubadour 21. It's my contribution to the excellent T21 horror series and is paired with another cracking essay by Chris Deal. You can find the previous installments of the horror series here. I recommend each of them highly.

Erzulie is my take on the classic ghost story, set in my old Greenwich Village stomping grounds. It owes a debt to Pete Hamill's brilliant novel Forever for it's initial inspiration and to Carly's exhaustive research into paranormal NYC.

I hope it's as much fun to read as it was to write.

Some days you wake up and...

2010-02-01T13:52:00.003-05:00

During a rather dark and reclusive stretch of my life, this Jenny Holzer postcard always sat on my desk next to my laptop. I used it as a talisman (and judging by the drink rings also as a coaster), focusing my paranoid fancies onto something external and benign while I stared deep into the abyss. The casual, moderate voice normalized grand delusions into everyday occurrences.

To this day, when the days get short and the nights get cold, I wake to find myself repeating the phrase to myself. A mantra to get me through the morning dread.

End X 10

2010-01-17T11:45:00.010-05:00

I've started off the new decade by digitally recreating a 10 year old mixtape. Copies of the original tape were given to a few friends with an early version of Music For End Times.

Nearly all the tracks in the mix were released between '95 - '99. It starts out with a bit of Illbient and Asian Underground sounds easing in to a run of Metalheadz style Drum & Bass rollers and than rolling out through some banging warehouse techno and over the top trance. In the spirit of the original there are still a few dodgy mixes left in.

Some of tunes still sound fresh to my ears (Jamie Myerson, Source Direct). Other tunes make me question the effects of sustained ecstasy use on musical taste (Drop Bass Network, Binary Finary). In the end it's a fun survey of the underground electronic sounds of the late 90s.

END X 10 by kelcey

1) Toshiro Mayuzumi- The Creation of Eve (1966)
2) Mocean Worker – Detonator (1998) (palm pictures)
3) DJ Spooky – Sum Ill Shit (Clinton Street Dub) (1998) (asphodel)
4) Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan – Nothing Without You/Tery Bina (The Dhol Foundation & Fun-Da-Mental Remix) (1997)
5) Osmani Soundz – Spiritual Masterkey (1997) (mango)
6) Miles Davis – Bitches Brew (1970)
7) Ian Pooley - Vital One (1996) (mille plateaux)
8) Jamie Myerson - Music For The Lonely (remix) (1997) (sm:)e)
9) E-Z Rollers – Soundclash ('99 edit) (moving shadow)
10) Known / Unknown – Rollers Edit (1999) (moving shadow)
11) Adam F – Metropolis (1996) (metalheadz)
12) J Majik – Face II Face (1997) (infrared)
13) Source Direct – Black Domina (1996) (science)
14) Elijah - Chiming Fugue (1995) (home entertainment)
15) DJ Rolando - Shining Path (1997) (Underground Resistance)
16) Luke Slater – Love (loved) (1998) (novamute)
17) Neil Landstrumm – Praline Horse (I Ate The Whole Bag Remix) (1996) (tresor)
18) Goio - Basic Needs (1995) (drop bass network)
19) Speedy J - Pannik (1997) (plus 8)
20) Kai Tracid - Tiefenrausch (Oliver Lieb Remix) (1999) (tracid traxxx)
21) Binary Finary – 1999 (Matt Darey remix) (1999) (wiggle)

Audrey Kawaski - Radiant Allure

2010-01-13T14:32:00.007-05:00

One of the first things you notice in Audrey Kawasaki's paintings are the eyes of her gorgeous figures. These narrowed yet aloof eyes draw the viewer into the paintings seemingly against their will. Yet they give nothing away, no glimpse of emotion or psychology, just the gentle possibility of desire. For any sort of emotional theme or narrative the viewer must turn to body language of the figure or to the symbolic items, often animals, and often in silhouette, or the setting. Even than the curiosity which those enigmatic eyes have inflamed is only partially satiated.

Another striking feature of Kawasaki's work is the color pallet and texture. Using washes of oils on wood panels she is able to evoke a soft dreamlike tone. The grain of the wood rises gently through the thin paint at times flattening the image and drawing attention to the works superficiality. While in other places the play of wood grain and oil washes create a sense of depth and a complexity of textures.

I had not seen much of Kawasaki's work in person until very recently but personally the more recent pieces have an gained an attention to the use of light that has taken the work to another level. In the recent Jonathan Levine show, Hitorigoto was the first painting hung next to the door. It was the only piece in the show where the source of the soft melancholy glow, so essential to the allure and intrigue of all of the pieces on display, was made visible. What I find most interesting is that this soft light that emanates from below the image frame only touches the skin of the figures, never the setting or other imagery in the paintings.

In the striking Yuuwaku even the hairdressing remains unlit, flat and nearly silhouette while the warm lantern glow shimmers from the cheeks, shoulders and breast of the alluring figure. This contrast sets the figure apart from its surroundings and adds to dreamlike unbalance of the viewing experience. All of these techniques and details combine in the lush figurative painting of Audrey Kawasaki trapping you in that enchanted moment just after twilight when street lamps switch on, or here lanterns and candles are lit and the possibilities of a fresh night are yet to be exhausted.

Time-limited prints of two of Kawasaki's recent paintings go on sale for January 23rd at 3:00 pm PST. Check her shop for details.

Moon Dandies

2009-12-11T13:47:00.007-05:00

"Still others thrive , swaggering ex-pats of reality who work the export angle, crafting dreamland bric-a-brac for sale at a considerable mark-up. The oneiric carpet-baggers: artists, writers, sculptors, sorcerers.

Tycoons of fancy, speculating, long on made-up futures. Sauntering the silvery parades. A tall-tale aristocracy.

Moon Dandies with their pockets full of brushes, pens and fireflies. Plumes of imagery are kicked up from their spats at every step."

- from Alan Moore's Snakes & Ladders

Snakes & Ladders: Audio CD w/ Tim Perkins and Graphic Novel w/ Eddie Campbell

I also highly recomend the Disease of Language hardcover, collecting The Birth Caul, Snakes & Ladders and a fascinating interview of Moore by Campbell (edit: sadly it appears to be out of stock).

[actual bloggery will commence very soon I promise. I've been a bit distracted]

Cheer - Troubadour 21

2009-11-22T19:36:00.008-05:00

"The blistering sinus burn cuts briskly through the haze of afternoon cocktails. The new sense of clarity reconciles the sordid scene around me. A semi-posh men’s room, three lads wearing crumpled wool suits and inebriated expressions, all of us zipped up and jawing around the mirrors and inlaid marble. A horrific Lite FM version of The Most Wonderful Time of The Year wafts from the ceiling speakers, putting a tidy bow on the moment for me."

My new short story, Cheer, is live at the excellent Troubadour 21. It's a condensed slab of midnight black, holiday travel themed, humor. I think it's one of the funniest things I've ever written.

Rotten Leaves - Proud Music After The Storm

2009-11-02T10:22:00.009-05:00

"I surrender my eyesight to the darkness and the engulfing low end rush. As my focus fades my gaze is locked deep within one of the dark obsidian walls. All definition of the world around me dissipates and the ethereal beings beyond the dark glass gain detail and distinction. Eventually I can make out each digit on each hand and the subtlest nuance of each facial expression. A nervous energy runs through the crowd as the music reaches a physical and emotional peak and one by one the ethereal spirits glide across the dark glass plane and into the three dimensional world of flesh and stone."

Rotten Leaves, a new literary outlet for the darker side of fiction and poetry, launched over the weekend. Co-founder Christopher Dwyer refers to RL as "A place where the cold meets the dark meets the fantastic." and their first issue delivers. The quality and variety of work is impressive. I like that they are using "dark" as a rather fluid editorial yardstick allowing them to play fast and loose with genre definitions.

My story, Proud Music After The Storm, is part of the inaugural issue. It's a taught little piece of atmospheric occult-noir set in a haunted Brooklyn after a series of hurricanes. It began as a test drive for some of the stranger ideas I'm working with in the current novel in progress, but quickly developed it's own frostbitten late night reality.

I would love some feedback, so if you have any questions, insights or gut reactions please drop them in the comments over at Rotten Leaves or right here. And check out the rest of the issue. It is chock full of night black wonders.

Merry Crowleymas

2009-10-12T16:52:00.007-04:00

GOLD BRICKS
Teach us Your secret, Master! yap my Yahoos.
Then for the hardness of their hearts, and for the
softness of their heads, I taught them Magick.
But...alas!
Teach us Your real secret, Master! how to become
invisible, how to acquire love, and oh! beyond all,
how to make gold.
But how much gold will you give me for the Secret
of Infinite Riches?
Then said the foremost and most foolish; Master, it
is nothing; but here is an hundred thousand
pounds.
This did I deign to accept, and whispered in his ear
this secret:
A SUCKER IS BORN EVERY MINUTE

from The Book of Lies

Merry Crowleymas to you all! Though I'm not much of a Crowleyite or practicing Thelemist, I've always liked the idea of a holiday that celebrates the mad, deviant, paranoid and down right wicked aspects of our nature. I also like a bit of spooky Current 93 every now and again.

So lift a glass of Absinthe tonight for old wretched Al and maybe let those dark and devious demons that haunt the shadows of your psyche loose in the world if only for an evening.

Suggested Crowleymas reading – Liber Al Vel Legis (The Book of The Law) as well as Crowleymas 1974 from RAW's Cosmic Trigger.

"why does the gnosis always get busted? Every single time the energy is raised and large-scale group illuminations are occurring, the local branch of the Inquisition kills it dead. Why, why, why?"

from Crowleymas 1974

To quote Unkle Dick: "May your Crowlymass be filled with good strong wine, an opiate or three and some good old fashioned buggery!"

think-make-think

2009-10-07T16:59:00.004-04:00

Artist Clifton Burt's riff on a John Maeda blog haiku, its creation a direct extension of its message.

I'm going to take this as my mantra and statment of purpose through the dark months.

High End Contrast - Murakami and Anslem Reyles

2009-10-05T14:31:00.004-04:00

Gagosian's 24th street gallery is currently host to a striking contrast in contemporary art styles. The majority of the gallery contains a solo show titled Monochrome Generation by German artist Anselm Reyle. The show contains many over-sized, expensively fabricated sculptural elements made of shiny chrome and affixed with led lights. I'm sure are these destined for a life sparkling up the lobby of some faceless multi-national finance company.

The wall pieces created from found objects are slightly more inetersting but the selection of objects, bits of machinery, chain linkage, and bottle caps, is pretty uninspired and the homogenizing nature of the monochroming process removes any of their life and interest. The uninspired spectacle is capped off with a haphazard pile of hay bales constucted of silver tinsel that appear to have escaped from the Christmas party in Less Than Zero. Though Calrygirl and I did get a kick out of the lone bale found in a separate room under plexiglas as if it had to be quarantined from the others for anti-social behavior. Over all the collection yields little more than a cluttered gallery full of tired design objects whose only remarkable features are gloss and scale. The experience left me not only unengaged and uninspired but repulsed and in a strange way personally offended.

Tucked away the gallery's front room, in striking contrast, is Takashi Murakami's Picture of Fate: I Am But a Fisherman Who Angles In the Darkness of His Mind, a large enchanting mural based on the China-Lion mythology of Japanese Buddhism. Murakami is no stranger to audacious fabrications with big price tags. He is one of the most succesful artists in the world has over the top shows up in seemingly every major city at the moment. But in contrast to the pop and shine of Reyle's work this single painting, given a room of it's own to breathe, is intimate and inviting.

The layered detail work of the painting's background, the result of the melding of classical techniques with cutting edge technology, would be remarkable on it's own. The color pallet is soft but vibrant and closer inspection yields meticulus detail. The main image does what Murakami does best, entangling the adorable with darka nd severe. It teases our intimate reactions and desires until we are left pondering the sublime. The cartoon skulls, a hallmark of the Murakami visual lexicon, here in a massive pile carry both the weight and comical inevitability of our mortality. Their comedic/grim dicotomy as striking an image of death as the fierce/adorable lion cubs are symobls of youth and rebirth.

Double J Guest Post

2009-09-25T10:47:00.006-04:00

While most contemporary conceptual art has as much connection to the old masters as a Hannah Montana pop hit has to Beethoven, many of the young artists in the underground draw inspiration from the history of western figurative painting not simply in content but with the fine attention to detail and composition the arts establishment has typically rejected over the last few decades.

I have a guest post up at the fabulous Just Jen blog wherein I riff on underground art and the work of Simpkins, Early and James Roper.

If you are not reading Jen's blog on the regular I suggest you remedy that sharpish, especially if you, like me, enjoy a little smart discussion on art and culture but don't have the time for snobbery and ego stroking.

Diego Velazquez - Portrait of Pope Innocent X (Francis Bacon remix)

2009-09-24T12:28:00.009-04:00

"Bacon’s scream is the operation through which the entire body escapes through the mouth." -- Gilles Deleuze

Between 1949 and 1964 Francis Bacon created a series of some forty five paintings that remixed and versioned Velasquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X. Of these many variations on a theme, 1953's Study after Velasquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X is perhaps my personal favorite. It sits early enough in the series to channel the power of Velasquez's portrait yet far enough along to have as much connection with Bacon's earlier versions (Head VI in partuicular) as with the original.

Bacon claimed never to have seen the Velasquez in person and judging by the books in print at the time it is assumed that he may only have seen the painting in mono-types (supposedly this is how he mistakenly used purple for the pope's robes). As common practice Bacon would take photos or prints that he used as reference and tear, cut and paint on them. He used these modified copies as a more traditional artist would use preliminary sketches.

In electronic music a good remix is one that takes a small sound or moment of the original, a drum fill or synth hook, and draws it out, expanding it into a entirely new piece of music while often re-editing or dubbing out those features of the original that are most prominent. In Study after Velasquez Bacon takes some of the original paintings traits, most prominently the geometric composition of the chair, the sitting pope's posture and the remarkable use of light. He then blurs and removes, dubs out, the figure's engaging if cool gaze and expressively clenched hands. Even to a viewer who has never seen the Velasquez these omissions draw immediate attention. Traditional portraits not only have eyes and hands but they are normally the vehicle through which the painter presents the inner life of the subject. Here they are erased and the viewer is instead presented with a jarringly expressive mouth in full shriek.

This leads us to the often cited Deleuze quote above. What happens when a screaming mouth repalces the eyes as the entrance to intimate knowledge of a subject? (As an interesting aside the scream here is understood to be referenced from the nurse's primal scream in the film Battleship Potemkin an recurring image used by Bacon.) This replacement of organs results in a type of inversion to how the work is viewed. Through the eyes a viewer can glimpse the intellectual life of Velasquez's pope. She can see the wheels turning in his head as the cliche goes. This interacation draws the viewer in to the image, engages her. In Bacon's painting the eyes are blurred beyond recognition and instead the viewer is challenged by the bared teeth and impenetrable emptiness of the screaming mouth. Instead of being drawn in we are repulsed. Instead pondering the intellectual intricacies of the pope's conscious mind we are attacked by the primal nature of an extreme physicality. The eyes are instruments of removed perception, they do not physically effect the outside world. The mouth however is an instrument of consumption that can have a destructive effect on the world outside the body.

Through his act of erasure and reconstruction, Bacon takes the intellectual piety found in Valesquez's original and replaces it with a much more animalistic view of human nature. That the pope remains dressed in all his regalia makes this contrast all the more immediate. He further tranforms the orginal image by flattening the scene down in to only two dimensions. Where in the Velasquez the precision of perspective highlights the otherness of the subject, in Bacon's version all perspective is flattened and compressed. The background curtain, the foreground chair and the pope himself exist on the same plane. The hierarchy that places man above his surroundings, let alone pope above his subjects, is destroyed. Instead all things are portrayed as interconnected equals.

To return to my example of the remix in music, in dub reggae it is a common technique of the producer to load several distinct parts of a song on to a single channel on the mixing desk. The lead guitar, keyboard, bass, etc. are no longer kept separate in the mixdown. The result is an over-saturation of the sound. Paradoxically this technique does not leave the arrangement sounding crowded but instead opens up space within the song giving it extra dimension. In Bacon's Study after Velasquez, he takes the background and foreground components and compresses them on to a simgle plain. Instead of giving the painting a cluttered or crowded composition the technique opens up a dark void within the painting that is nowhere in Valsqeuz's original. In Study after Velasquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent Bacon fills this viod with an arresting primal scream.

End of Summer Mixdown

2009-09-05T13:16:00.002-04:00

Here's a little mix to soundtrack the final summer roll out. I tried to capture some of the fresh sounds that have been so exciting over the past months. UK Funky and House music with a emphasis on lively swung percussion and serious BASS weight.

End of Summer Mixdown (Sept 09) by kelcey

(00:01) Little Dragon - After The Rain (floating points remix)
(01:00) Karizma - Neccessarry Madness
(04:10) Rudenko - Everbody Everybody (fingaprint remix)
(07:30) Untold - Just For You (Roska Remix)
(10:00) Afefe Iku - Bodydrummin'
(13:20) Ill Blu (feat. Hoodzee) - Rider
(17:20) Martin Kemp - No Charisma
(20:20) Geeneus - Yellowtail (VIP)
(22:25) Eve/Benga/Salaam Remi - Me-n-My (Up In The Club)
(24:10) Cooly G - Oh Boy
(26:00) Cooly G - Him Da Biz
(28:45) Roska - Pyramids
(31:15) N.B. Funky - 2nd Strike (VIP)
(34:45) Loco Dice - Pimp Jackson Is Talkin' Now!!! (luciano remix)
(39:30) Hot City - Hot City Bass
(42:55) Felix Da Housecat - Kickdrum
(45:05) Basti Grub - El Gitarrro (M.in remix)
(48:45) Kode 9 - 2 Far Gone
(52:30) Sideshow (feat. Paul St Hilaire) - If Alone (appleblim and komonazmuk dub)
(55:11) End

From Twitter 09-03-2009

2009-09-04T03:01:00.001-04:00

10:35:23: Zomby – Digital Fauna ♫ http://blip.fm/~cru59
10:36:44: Day off of work, our hero has big plans but can he deliver. #fb
13:04:37: discovered Premier League soccer on TV - day off productivity may be threatened. #fb
14:12:27: watch out for Melanie Oudin, girl is a lot. #USOpenTennis

Tweets copied by twittinesis.com

From Twitter 09-02-2009

2009-09-03T03:01:00.001-04:00

10:39:44: ill blu (feat. princess nyah) - frontline #ukfunky ♫ http://blip.fm/~cpuld
10:41:25: just a few hours until a well deserved mini-vaction, the sprint is on #fb
13:26:11: Bonsey hotness: http://tinyurl.com/lz7cyw
16:07:17: Plastic Moment #7: Dark Humor at the Court House - http://tinyurl.com/l2u5q7

Tweets copied by twittinesis.com

Plastic Moment #7, September 2, 2009, 2:25:22PM

2009-09-02T16:02:00.003-04:00

United States Court House, New York, NY
(40.713758, -74.001392)

"please check your cellphone in at the security sir"

"of course", my weary tone implying my familiarity with this particular routine. I'm in post metal detector reassembly mode. Scooping up all of my personal effects from a gray tupperware bin and redistributing them to their proper place and pockets. As I finish up I pat myself gently on the thighs and smooth my slacks out in an exaggerated fashion. Then I head in to the security office. As I enter I can't help but eavesdrop a bit of peculiar conversation between security officers.

"...it's just that they could be transmitting from inside here, covertly broadcasting sensitive details of our operation, is all." Security Guy #1 explains nonchalantly.

As I reach the desk Security Guy #2 is trying hard not to give his colleague an "are you fuckin' kidding me?" look but it's pretty obvious that's what he's thinking. There is a lengthy uncomfortable pause as the two men search for a way to change subject while avoiding eye contact. But then they realize that I'm standing over them with my blackberry held extended in a surrendering fashion, and they take the opportunity to let the uncomfortable conversation die.

"you've turned it off sir?"

I nod affirmatively and contemplate what I'm going to do with all of the covert transmissions containing the essential details of their security operation. SG #2 takes my phone and turns to retrieve a numbered token in exchange. Just then a third Security Guy emerges from a back room coming around the desk toward the door.

"Jimmy remind me to take my gun home with me tonight.", SG #3 declares without looking at anyone or giving up a hint as to which of the two is Jimmy.

"What am I your fuckin' mother?", responds SG #1 (possibly Jimmy)

"What the hell you need your gun at home for man?", questions SG #2

"Yeah, you live in fuckin' suffolk county, nothing ever happens out there, what do you need it for to commit suicide or something?" Possibly Jimmy's gallows humor yields a sly chuckle out of SG #2 and a nervous smile from me. But just as he's about to reach the door out in to the corridor SG #3 turns slowly around and glares back at his mocking compatriots.

His eyes are dark and lifeless. I swear I see the abyss reflected in their clouded liquid sheen. His eyes have obviously not seen sleep for sometime. They have not rested as he's spent long cold nights awake planning and un-planning existential escape routes from some unknown personal situation. The air in the tiny security office goes cold and silent as each extended second passes with a cold deliberate tick. Each of us are trying to avoid the crushing twilight gaze of SG #3 that is locked on to some distant unseen point off in the distance. And then he simply shrugs, his shoulders rising slightly followed by his arms dropping like beef slabs at his sides. He wordlessly turns and walks out in to the corridor.

I turn and silently take the token for my phone from SG #2 and follow the third man out. As I emerge in to the cool marble corridor I can hear the two men returning again to their conversation as if nothing had ever happened.

From Twitter 09-01-2009

2009-09-02T03:00:00.001-04:00

09:22:08: Untold – Just For You (Roska Remix) ♫ http://blip.fm/~cnq2s
09:29:52: Well Hello September '09, by that look in your eye I can already tell you mean business. #fb
14:05:37: @COOLYG special link I need it!
22:26:58: @chinodeville - sounding real nice man, tuff yet smooth: http://tinyurl.com/mpazr5

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From Twitter 08-31-2009

2009-09-01T03:00:00.001-04:00

10:07:33: Donaeo – Riot Music - channeling a lil Marly and Fela here but with more BASS ♫ http://blip.fm/~clsl8
10:09:54: hitting the reset button this morning, pretending like last week never happened, things already rollin' #fb
10:23:28: RT @DrLoveMD just wrote a scene where a guy gets a clawhammer under the chin. Ah, Comics. You're my id's best friend.
12:13:26: @blognerd oh hell yeah,
http://bit.ly/170OgN
13:00:09: Tweaked my hip over the weekend – now sporting a laid back uneven strut a la Donald from Fat Albert #fb
14:58:38: RT @warrenellis PLANETARY #27: The Preview. http://bit.ly/2I5BPV
16:21:09: Isn't there a famous painting (dutch/flemish masters?) of a stilll life w/ rotten fruit and insects? Where's my art history crew at? #fb
17:39:24: Glen Beck and others are teaching me how insane I must have sounded at the height of the Bush administration. http://tinyurl.com/n58dax

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From Twitter 08-20-2009

2009-08-21T02:46:00.001-04:00

09:52:41: Ill Blu ft Hoodzee – Rider ♫ http://blip.fm/~c0f4c
10:03:15: It should not be 85 degrees & 100% humidity before I'm out of bed in the morning. Not in NY anyway. #fb
10:06:50: RT @andydiggle Free PDF of the 1st issue of THE LOSERS: http://bit.ly/C4nOF All 5 graphic novels on Amazon: http://bit.ly/2sEtI4
10:08:20: RT @doctorow My graphic novel for DSi, Android, iPhone: http://tinyurl.com/lsm9ob (highly recommended!)
10:18:33: LoudTwitter is back from the dead: http://tinyurl.com/kvg3xd
12:42:30: New Limited Edition from teh amazing Ray Caesar: http://tinyurl.com/my47mr
12:49:48: Fielding frantic requests for info from Partners co-workers and friends in several timezones - feelin' like Aleph on the Frequencey #fb
14:07:37: SkatePunk Playlist Vol. 1 - I Don't Wanna Live to be 34: http://bit.ly/186lnm

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From Twitter 08-19-2009

2009-08-20T02:02:00.001-04:00

10:15:24: Little Dragon: After the Rain (Floating Points Remix) ♫ http://blip.fm/~bygn6
10:19:28: RT @flyinglotus adult swim got this song early as heck.. It's for the next LP http://bit.ly/ORnJw
10:22:41: Party people we have to keep this thing going! #fb
14:14:31: Total Crisis Panic Button: http://tinyurl.com/4mv5ya
14:22:08: "...like trying to argue with a dining room table": http://bit.ly/5lDrP

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SkatePunk: I Don't Wanna Live to be 34

2009-08-19T19:24:00.021-04:00

SkatePunk was the first music growing up that I could truly call my own. Distributed through cheap Realistic Concertapes, via skateboard kick & push, peer to peer, hand to hand, it had fuck all to do with my hip parents record collections and even less in common with pop radio or a nascent Mtv. It was instead the product of a particular subculture of skateboarding in the late 80s. A time when the now multi-billion dollar international industry was not only a really fun hobby but a de facto statement of social defiance and in many small towns an act of civil disobedience. It was a strange experience as a young kid to have your favorite past time become a minor criminal act but it totally amped up your inherent youthful rebellion and the music kicked in hard and fast to soundtrack it all perfectly.

Unlike previous post-atomic decades, in the 80s we came to a peculiar acceptance with our own imminent nuclear annihilation. This rather mad respect for the world ending at any moment fed the aggression, urgency and uniquely perverse optimism of SkatePunk. If we didn't have long to live there was no time to learn more than a few chords, no time to wait for a record deal or spend a year in the studio honing your magnum opus. Hell there wasn't even time enough for me, as a listener, to sit through a drum or guitar solo. If you were going to fiddle about prog rock style on the guitar I was out of there. I had girls to snog, ramps to ride, curbs to grind, fights to start. And always there was the feeling that time was running out, that dark international forces were out there working hard against me seeing my 21st birthday. I sure as hell didn't have time for 12 minute songs or three hour concerts sets.

SkatePunk was political in that all powers of authority, institutional or otherwise, were to be rejected and should go fuck off! It was dystopian in that the total collapse of society was taken as a given and therefore we should live for today and for each other and the rest of the mess could go get lost. It was about love and loss in so far as those things consumed with such force that the only remedy was to found in a primal shout, a shower of guitar feedback and a good violent dance. But most of all SkatePunk, unlike Punk's first wave, was constantly in motion. There was no vamping it up on the high street in Vivian Westwood, or wasting time eating White Castle and scoping girls draped in heavy leather. We had something to do, skate, and we did it with the same urgency and abandoned with which we danced, loved, shouted at the night and ran from the cops. You can hear it in the music but the songs are only 2 minutes long so listen sharp.

SkatePunk Vol. 1: I Don't Wann Live to be 34

1. Dead Kennedys - Police Truck(1980)
"Dispatch calls are you doin something wicked?, No siree, jack, were just givin tickets"
2. Circle Jerks - Live Fast Die Young(1980)
"I don't wanna live to be 34, I don't wanna die in a nuclear war"
3. Dickies - Gigantor (1980)
"Quicker than quick, Stronger than strong, Ready to fight for right, against wrong"
4. Agent Orange - Bloood Stains (1981)
"Someday i'm gonna change my mind, Sometimes I'd rather kill"
5. Minor Threat - In My Eyes (1981)
"You tell me you want to be different, You just change for the same"
6. T.S.O.L. - Abolish Government/Silent Majority (1981)
"Wake up to the same old shit, Live your life to suit their fit"
7. Bad Brains - Big Takeover (1982)
"So understand when I say, there's no hope for this U.S.A"
8. The Faction - Skate and Destroy (1983)
"The cops are coming after me, their sons are BMXers, They always try to stop me but urethane is faster than boots"
9. Social Distortion - Mommy's Little Monster (1983)
"Her eyes are a deeper blue, she likes her hair that color too"
10. Suicidal Tendencies - Institutionalized (1983)
"All I wanted was a Pepsi, just one Pepsi, and she wouldn't give it to me."
11. Black Flag - Slip It In (1984)
"You're getting around, I'm not putting it down, It's just what it is, Getting it while it's around"
12. Butthole Surfers - Wichita Cathedral (1984)
"Wiped out wasted Wichita, Cathedrals on my mind, Last time I got wasted there, My poor dog just went blind"
13. JFA - Pipetruck (1984)
"dumdum dada dumdum"
14. Drunk Injuns - She's Gots A Gun (1985)
"Thoughts of tomorrow, Tear me apart, I think of the past, You’re the pain of my heart"
15. D.I. - Johnny Has A Problem (1985)
"Chippin' every day chipin' for the gipper, Chippin' on chippin' on down the line"
16. Toy Dolls - My Girlfriend's Dad's A Vicar (1985)
"He's a Vicar ya know, works in a church"
17. 7 Seconds - Walk Together Rock Together (live) (1987)
"Why don't I buy you a beer? Because I'm not old enough"
18. Dag Nasty - Excersise (1987)
"I'm irresponsible, I'm irrational, it's irreversible, what are you gonna do?"
19. Descendants - All-O-Gistics (live) (1987)
"Though shalt not partake of the dreaded decaf"
20. G.B.H. - Makin' Whips (1987)
"But you're going nowhere ya missing the whole damn point, lighten up, lighten up and we'll rip the joint."
21. McRad - Weakness (1987)
"My weakness is I can't say no, My weakness is I can't let go, So stay with me I'll let you know that love is something I can show"
22. McRad - McShred (1987)
"McSHRED!!"

I'm sure I've forgotten a bunch of great bands and tunes so drop your faves in the comments box. Vol. 2 will be up in a couple of weeks. I just need to track a few things down.

NJ crew - check out Randy Now's excellent collection of old school City Gardens photos & flyers here.

From Twitter 08-18-2009

2009-08-19T02:02:00.001-04:00

09:51:05: Jill Scott – My Love (Karizma Edit) ♫ http://blip.fm/~bwdne
09:56:43: head cold in this heat - I feel like a lover in a Magritte painting.
15:13:04: Marion Peck's new print for Sloan makes me giggle like a school boy: http://tinyurl.com/omon42

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From Twitter 08-17-2009

2009-08-18T02:02:00.001-04:00

10:31:01: Rudenko - Everybody (Fingaprint mix) - "everybody's doing it, you can feel it in the air" ♫ http://blip.fm/~bui8q
10:31:47: Absolutely determined to not succumb to this late summer cold! #fb
10:33:05: RT @COOLYG Vol 4 ep out now via pay pal digital DL - coolyg1@hotmail.com (I got mine on the weekend. iz hot!)
11:48:46: RT @jengrunwald Getting a count of atheists on twitter by hashtag! If you're an atheist, RT this whole message #atheist
12:02:17: The Grand Elixir meets Totem Pill http://bit.ly/hE7Xf
14:33:56: Just back from very nice lunch w/ the folks in Bryant Park. Perhaps ready for an at my desk siesta.
17:30:38: Plastic Moment #6 - In which our hero finds himself lost in his own shower without a compass: http://bit.ly/qaseF
22:11:55: RT @warrenellis Acid always lied to me. There is no white light, I am not in touch with the pulse of the Earth, and I am not The Pumaman.
22:16:14: My head is totally full of goo. I'm certain there are some ideas buried in there but for the most part goo. #fb

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Plastic Moment #6, August 17, 2009, 07:23:00AM

2009-08-17T17:17:00.003-04:00

Home, Brooklyn, NY 11211 (40.675234, -73.971043)

Years of habitual repetition carry my exhausted body forward. I stumble through the dark, windowless living room and into the harsh bathroom light. Door closes solid behind me the towel is hung firmly on a hook. I turn to face myself in the mirror and am greeted only by noise. A swirl of distorted images punctuated by the staccato echo of my alarm clock, shut off some time ago but still rattling around my head-space along with the swirling remains of abandoned dream time conversations. There is a Cronkitesque news caster's voice, and another that speaks the gibberish of imaginary Russian. Severed from context they are unintelligible now and left to battle the petulant shrieking of non-existent child. All these words and sounds are echos within a cavernous subconscious, all carrying on beyond their usefulness and refusing to be placed back in to the toy chest where they belong.

I rub violently at my sore eyes and stair out again towards the mirror. This time the visual flotsam and distortion has settled a bit. Looking back at me now, is the contorted and mangled flesh of Franicis Bacon portraiture. A slab of day old flank steak run through a cubist machine. Twisted and abstracted, the horrid pink of my skin under the fluorescents barely signify flesh while outlined grossly accentuated by cold gray stubble and blackened rot.

How to shave a face like this? How to shave in a state like this? Best to leave the sharp blades alone this morning. No great crime committed by wearing a bit of cheek shadow to the office. Turning away from the devious mirror, I summon just enough reason to get the knobs turning and the water flowing. I wrestle off the sweat drenched clothes and toss my body around the curtain and into the scalding shower. The sudden movement throws my balance and I end up slumped forward with my cheek pressed against the wall's cool white tile.

For a moment the tiles dance, fluttering across the wall in waves. Blown by an unseen oceanic breeze, they move with a dainty flutter that betrays their ceramic rigidity. The fiercely hot water brings a touch of sanity with it. The swirl of voices begins to coalesce, begins to sound familiar. Soap in hand I begin to scrub vigorously at my flesh. Beginning with the back of my neck and then proceeding over the skull and down around my ears. The thick viscous film of dream-stuff comes off my body in sheets. Making a loud slapping sound as it hits the shower floor, it begins to pool up around the drain in a swirl of luminous pink and blue. I blow long strings of plasma from my nose and tear ribbons of gelatinous matter from my eyes.

Soon my vision begins to clarify. The voices become singular and then the singular voice my own. I stand up and arch my back in an exaggerated stretch. I tip my head back and let the last of the soap suds slide off of me. The soapy bubbles join the remaining bits of the iridescent dream-stuff and together they disappear down the drain. I turn off the water and pull aside the curtain. I'm ready to begin another day.

From Twitter 08-15-2009

2009-08-16T02:02:00.001-04:00

01:00:49: @ karaoke bar in Red Hook w/ a known terrorist & 6'5" drag queen w/ an absolutely amazing voice. #fb
10:11:40: Totally forgot that Jeff Goldblum was in Buckaroo Banzai.
10:12:20: Name me one other movie where the likes of Goldblum is overshadowed by over the top turns by Lithgow, Weller & Lloyd, god damn!
15:07:06: It is absolutely beautiful out. Off to the Met w/ Carlygirl to check out the Francis Bacon exhibit before it closes. #fb

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Filmstrip Day

2009-08-12T10:01:00.006-04:00

My apologies for skiving off and forsaking my blogerating duties. I have some great posts in the pipeline but need to string together a few moments to tidy them up and that probably won't happen until the weekend.

Until then I'll make like a 2nd grade teacher with a hangover and post a film to keep the kiddies quiet while I try to nap it off in the back of the class.

Instead of Gus the Mule Who Kicks Field Goals, I'm playing the rave episode from Spaced which makes me laugh so hard that I fear bodily injury.

Watch Spaced - Epiphanies on Fanpop

Gonzo Shaman Kelcey

2009-08-05T12:21:00.003-04:00

by the wonderful RaeFox, go there now and bestow your praise and cash offerings on her.

Edit: Rachael has a piece in the finals of a Brookyln themed photo contest. It's neck and neck last I checked so go and VOTE (early and often as the saying goes).

From Twitter 08-04-2009

2009-08-05T02:02:00.001-04:00

09:43:24: Black Flag - Slip It In: Hadn't heard this in years, absolute classic &#266B; http://blip.fm/~b53c9
09:49:18: feeling kinda jazzed-up this morning, should have bagged work and tucked in under a shady tree with a laptop. #fb
11:16:36: RT @bremxjones Four page 2006 comic called "Horror" with @pauljholden: http://www.pauljholden.com/... Go comics existentialism! (nice!)
11:20:24: don't know if it's 'cause David Byrne makes it look good, or need for preemptive strike but I have a sudden desire to dye my hair gray #fb
15:07:16: just bought tix for Titanic exhibit, at $25 a pop I expect no less than a reach around from the risen spirit of molly brown. #fb
15:19:10: Street Art Interlude: The continuing saga of the Faile "Prayer Wheel": http://tinyurl.com/naoz64
16:41:21: Plastic Moment #5: the case of the misplaced unicursal hexagram http://bit.ly/3Sg9zu
19:30:04: Despite lack of ghostly groping, Titanic exhibit was awesome. Very immersive #fb

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From Twitter 08-03-2009

2009-08-04T02:02:00.001-04:00

09:42:18: Agent Orange - Blood Stains: I caught an awesome Agent Organge show last night. These old dudes still kick alo... &#266B; http://blip.fm/~b2wav
09:50:13: After excellent Agent Orange show last night gave hour lecturie on how it was backi n my day when we wore breetches and Adams was president
10:55:21: D.I. - Johnny's Got A Problem: old school punk all day today &#266B; http://blip.fm/~b30gx
11:35:39: McRad - Weakness: SkatePunk mahem monday continues &#266B; http://blip.fm/~b3320
14:18:17: I have it on authority that Zebus are big in Mexico, just so you know
14:29:53: Dag Nasty - Wig Out At Denko's: more SkatePunk mayhem monday #fb &#266B; http://blip.fm/~b3feu
15:01:35: @JFnK: "Ahhh Public Domain" &#266B; http://blip.fm/~b3hwd
15:09:10: Circle Jerks - Live Fast Die Young: #SkatePunkMayhemMonday &#266B; http://blip.fm/~b3ih6

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From Twitter 07-31-2009

2009-08-01T02:03:00.001-04:00

01:45:48: Big show, so battered but an awesome time was had.
10:11:46: RT @maryannehobbs 'Wild Angels' film http://vimeo.com/5846276
10:18:47: Ghostface /Meth / Red show last night was amazing but today I feel a bit beaten and battered. Having a Murtaugh moment, perhaps #fb
10:42:04: @raefox BROOKLYN PHOTO CONTEST! I am a finalist: http://bit.ly/bWWre - PLEASE VOTE FOR ME! (It's the blue sky, brick wall one)
10:58:52: Mickey Factz- Incredible - this cat opened the show w/ this last night and took the roof off the venue. &#266B; http://blip.fm/~ax8va
12:57:35: heavy D�j� vu today, weird! #fb
14:29:08: doubled down on coffee, consumed 1/2 gallon h2o, had foodstuffs, feeling like a human again. Murtaugh you are a punk. #FB

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From Twitter 07-30-2009

2009-07-31T02:05:00.001-04:00

10:03:38: ghostface killah - the splash &#266B; http://blip.fm/~auza5
10:07:25: RT @JesseNWells #failedchildrensbooktitles A Light In The Addict
10:10:55: Things are jumpin', shoutin' & cracklin' already this morning. #fb
10:13:45: RT @JesseNWells One of my new favorite sites to check daily for inspiration... http://butdoesitfloat.com/
13:50:00: Wu-Tang Lego: "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'": http://vimeo.com/5452385
17:28:09: @DrLoveMD sometimes (re)writing is the best part of the process, but sometimes it's like pulling your own teeth w/ a rusted soup spoon.
19:24:16: On our way to see ghostface / meth / red. #fb
21:51:44: Man if one more MC lectures me on real and/or classic hip-hop... #fb
23:15:21: Ok ok I will stand for a lecture from Prof. Stark (even if its like 5 min long) #fb

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Plastic Moment # 5 July 29, 2009 05:55:55PM

2009-07-30T17:55:00.002-04:00

Union Square Station, New York, NY
(40.7359796, -73.9893249)

My after work errands sorted with efficiency, I hit the stairs to the subway in the hope of getting home before the darkening sky opens. I've left home without my umbrella and now will need to to be quick and lucky to avoid getting soaked. On the last step I turn an ankle. Tripping awkwardly, I quickly find myself belly to pavement and my groceries and other items scattered across the grimy station floor. Shaking off the fall I begin to frantically scoop my belongings up off the pavement. As I do so I can't help but notice a peculiar foreign item among them. It is the size and shape of a standard promotional flyer, as would advertise a club, bar or website, but the paper and printing are of a distinctive quality.

One side of the card bears a peculiar geometric symbol consisting of a twisting unbroken line with many angles yielding six distinct points and having no discernible beginning or end. The symbol is etched deep into the paper and outlined with a metallic bronze ink. The other end of the card is filled with fine detailed calligraphy whose symbols are completely foreign to me. The item has a strange hypnotic pull to it and I find myself standing among the rush hour crowd idly pondering its origin and meaning. Then a huge crack of thunder echoes down the stairway from street level and the trance is broken. Remembering that I am in a hurry, I toss my found treasure in my front shirt pocket, gather up my bags and make for the turnstile.

At the turnstile my metro-card, the one I had used an hour earlier, does not work. No matter how frantically I swipe it through the reader the response it continually the same. "SEE AGENT". I spin around out of the turnstile area fighting my way through other impatient strap-hangers to the ticket booth. Sliding my busted card through the slot I state my case with as much urgency as I can muster. The clerk does not look up. He slides the card lazily through a reader of his own and taps a few keys on an ancient keyboard, mumbling incoherently as he does so. Not being able to construe whether the mumbling is directed at me I simply stand there tapping my fingers impatiently. When the ticket agent finally looks up from his keyboard however, his expression changes instantly. His eyes perk up and a polite smile forces its way across his tired jowls. "Well my apologies sir" he says crisply, his eyes not quite meeting mine through the thick glass. "We should be able to fix this up for you here and now but I'm afraid it will cost you six dollars" there is an odd nod and wink in his tone and I realize what he's staring at is the card peeking out of my front pocket, the peculiar geometric symbol on display like a badge. I consider protesting the fee, but my sense of urgency overcomes my thrift and I pull a twenty from my wallet and stuff it hastily into the slot.

The attendant then slides me a new card and my change. The card and bills feel oddly heavy and cool to the touch, as opposed to the usual wet heat of over-handled currency. In any event I jam the bills in my pocket and make for the turnstile which, with a reassuring thunk, finally allows me access. Once through I go to tuck the new metro-card into my wallet but end up examining it in detail. It looks like any other metro-card but it feels heavier and the logo across the front seems more detailed, the letters appear to be drawn at an odd perspective with hints of metallic fleck shimmering from the shading.

The rush hour crowd presses me forward and I shake off the odd feeling again and slide the card into my wallet. I take a right turn down a half flight of stairs onto the catwalk the runs above the 6 train platform, as per usual, but after a short time walking I realize something is odd. There is no second set of stairs down onto the platform. In fact as I look over I see another caged in catwalk running parallel to the one I'm on. This passageway is the one I should be on. I see the stairs descending to the platform and the train coming into the station but it is all on the other side of a wire mesh divider. I must have taken the wrong stairs. This hallway and catwalk must lead to another train, perhaps the uptown track. Not wanting to retrace my steps I keep walking forward. Its feels like quite a long way but I soon notice another platform and track to my right and eventually there are stairs leading to them.

As I reach the platform a sense of disorientation nearly overcomes me. Though I had been watching the platform to my right from the catwalk, here the platform ends just behind the stairwell and instead stretches out in front me far enough that I cannot make out the end. I take a few uneasy steps and then collapse onto an empty bench. The station seems deserted though I can here the distant sound of rhythmic drumming laced with the penitent cry of a subterranean saxophone. My head is beginning to swim with confusion. I pull the mystery card out of my front pocket and inspect it, making sure to turn it over gingerly and not focus on it for too long for fear of becoming entranced. There is still nothing I can decipher from the peculiar symbol and accompanying glyphs so I throw it back in my pocket for safe keeping.

I pull out the bills received as change from the attendant. Much like the peculiar metro-card, they looked nearly normal but yet a strange suspicion rise in me that they are not as they appear. There are Messieurs Hamilton and Washington certainly but the images seem to move into my view as if in 3-D and the finely detailed borders twinkle and glisten with light even though the station is dimly lit and the air thick with dust. In a moment of bizarre compulsion I lift the folded bills to my nose and sniff them as if they were fresh cut flowers. My nostrils fill with the heavy scent of incense. The smell of a downtown head shop and uptown's open market makes my head swim. My eye lids grow heavy and I nearly drift away until I'm suddenly stirred from my reverie by the rumble and rush of an incoming train.

My commuter's instinct takes over and I stumble to my feet leaning in against the torrent of air as the train enters the station. The train design is old, like the redbirds of my youth, but without the inches thick build of horrid crimson enamel. Instead the cars have a cool luminous metallic finish. the station is silent save the rhythmic slowing of the wheels. The brakes do not squeak or squeal as the train gently comes to a stop. A man pulls open the car doors by hand and emerges onto the platform. He is tall and sleek with dark skin and blue tinted glasses that seem to glow in the dim station light. He is dressed in a black high collared jacket, smartly buttoned and descending nearly to the floor. He has the peculiar appearance of both a priest and a body guard so it is not strange that when , with a silent open handed gesture, he bids me enter the train I follow his instructions.

Inside it is empty. The lighting is soft and the temperature is cool. I fall into an immaculately upholstered seat and try to acclimate to the strange yet familiar surroundings. The train effortlessly glides back up to speed leaving the station behind. As we depart the distant percussion fades but I can still hear the far away sound of the saxophone. I look around for a sign or direction and find the route marker above the window filled with obscure glyphs that I cannot decipher. I pull the mystery card from my front pocket and hold it up in comparison. The writing both on the train signage and the card appear to be of a similar type. Put the observation yields me little information. I put the card away and try to relax. The air is full of incense, the same fragrance as the bills in my pocket. I breath it in deep and let my eye lids again grow heavy. I give over to the knowledge that wherever the train is taking me there is little I can do to change it's course.

From Twitter 07-29-2009

2009-07-30T02:02:00.001-04:00

09:54:11: Digable Planets - Borough Check: "That's just how we do it baby, out here in Brooklyn, baby." &#266B; http://blip.fm/~astue
09:57:34: woke up to at least three internal monologues shouting over each other, meditation gets them to sing in a round but only for a moment #fb
17:23:17: #failedchildrensbooktitles "hopped-up pop"
17:24:20: #failedchildrensbooktitles "the little engine that couldn't be bothered"
17:31:32: #failedchildrensbooktitles "green eggs, sour milk and welfare cheese"
17:37:22: #failedchildrensbooktitles "Alice's Adventures in Wonderbras"
17:38:01: RT @boondockcomics Billy Connolly to Become Comic Character : "I like careering around murdering people" http://ow.ly/iwwt
19:57:30: RT @drewmagary: Frog And Toad Get Married In Vermont #failedchildrensbooktitles

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From Twitter 07-27-2009

2009-07-28T02:02:00.001-04:00

09:47:41: Pangaea - Momories - easin' in &#266B; http://blip.fm/~aoir0
10:00:56: having IDEAS, mad perhaps beautiful IDEAS. #fb
11:15:22: Liberate Wakanda: http://tinyurl.com/mxgzev (via mattfraction) #comic-con
12:37:11: Me on the horror comic Pixu out now from Dark Horse: http://bit.ly/9c6Xd
15:51:13: Jace Clayton explodes the tightly wound ball of string that is the H.L. Gates drama without typing a word. http://tinyurl.com/nvgucl

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From Twitter 07-24-2009

2009-07-25T02:02:00.001-04:00

10:03:56: Joy Orbison - Hyph Mngo - sound of the summer atm &#266B; http://blip.fm/~aiuyb
10:05:32: Shadetek f/ Jah Dan ߝ Gave You All My Dub &#266B; http://blip.fm/~aiv1f
10:09:32: get up to get get down! #fb
12:25:45: Startled by an odd noise, I just turned my head real quick to the left and in the process may have lost my grip on reality. #fb
13:36:01: Dead Town trailer: http://vimeo.com/5729307
14:14:26: New Guilty Simpson / Madlib colab will be called OJ Simpson, IP lawyers start your engines: http://tinyurl.com/mhmmd5 #fb
15:43:02: Art Interlude: mind blowing facade projections by 555 Kubik: http://vimeo.com/5595869
15:53:17: Lolz! Just saw the headline "Obama Speaks With Crowley" and assumed he was summoning The Great Beast in the WH basement. #93 #fb

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From Twitter 07-23-2009

2009-07-24T02:03:00.001-04:00

14:23:43: Rhythm & Sound - Ruff Way (afefe iku remix) - R&S Dub spliced with Yoruba soul - just gorgeous &#266B; http://blip.fm/~ah7g0
14:38:39: Conversation w/ Morrison and Barker on Wonder Woman and more: http://tinyurl.com/mbzahx
15:45:28: Well this day has certainly gotten away from me. #fb
16:46:11: Art interlude: Amy Sol & Greg Simkins' colab for Crazy for Cult group show: http://tinyurl.com/l67tlh

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Pixu: The Mark of Evil

2009-07-23T16:47:00.000-04:00

From the team that brought us the Eisner winning "5" (sans Rafael Grampá, whose Mesmo Delivery for Adhouse is an absolute must read) comes the captivating horror comic Pixu: The Mark of Evil. I fell in love with this book in its original two volume, self published format but I have to say the people at Dark Horse have done a wonderful job with the new hardcover collected edition. As an art object it is a thing to behold.

Pixu is set in an ageing apartment building that is infested/inhabited/possessed by a mysterious demonic force. Each of the four creators takes tells the tale of one set of tenants whose lives begin to weave together as the action progresses. As a work of horror Pixu is more in line with an atmospheric Asian horror film than a classic all American slasher. There are gore and guts here but they are abstracted and not the primary source of terror. Instead Pixu revels in the unseen. The "mark of evil" from the title is just that, a spreading amorphous void, an erasure, that creeps across walls and seeps through floors, an unintelligible abstraction that appears to both nurture and be nurtured by the dark secrets held by the buildings inhabitants.

The real strength here is a delightful lack of explanation. Pixu has no mad doctor to soliloquise about the specific details or archaic history of whatever demonic force is at large. There is no Rupert Giles, no recordings from Prof. Knowby. In the end it is only the confused and convincingly imperfect characters who drive the story. It is their downward spiral of frantic irrational behavior and horrific violent actions that gives the story its bite.

With all four creators primarily known as illustrators the visual storytelling on display is a cut above. Though each artist has their own distinctive style there is a very cohesive aesthetic sto the book as whole. A serious emphasis is placed on mystery and atmosphere in the the heavily shadowed and textured panels. This is heightened further by a very deliberate pacing that subtly builds suspense toward a nearly over the top climax. One of the best parts about Pixu is that though it is akin to some of the great Asian suspense and horror films one could not imagine it in any other form than comics. In that these young artists have done something a bit special in a time of comics for the sake of hollywood hysteria.

From Twitter 07-22-2009

2009-07-23T02:02:00.001-04:00

10:22:42: @DrLoveMD Your time brotha!
10:31:03: RT @boondockcomics Troy Duffy On The "Boondock Saints II" Comic - Comic Book Resources http://ow.ly/hQhz
10:34:22: Internets I am ignoring you today. It's not out of hate, it's out of love. I just think we could both use a little space right now. #fb
17:31:47: RT @processrecess http://twitpic.com/b8m2a - Cam unwrapping copies of Kindling, available this Mon. on processrecess.com (can't wait!)

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From Twitter 07-21-2009

2009-07-22T02:03:00.001-04:00

10:04:27: Geeneus ft. Katy B - As I: a bit of bittersweet vocal business &#266B; http://blip.fm/~accj6
10:05:35: Monsoon season returns to NYC #fb
10:29:43: RT @JimMahfood CARL Returns!!! In the pages of Heavy Metal Magazine Comic-Con Edition! Preview at: http://www.foodoneart.blogspot.com/
10:41:39: Brightened my day this: http://tinyurl.com/n77pwr
14:26:45: via Arthur Mag: PEOPLE WANNA DANCE - http://tinyurl.com/mc3jmb
16:15:31: Art Interlude: PopCultureZoo interviews Camilla d'Errico - http://tinyurl.com/mwu6pm

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Plastic Moments #4: July 4, 2009 09:53:17PM

2009-07-20T14:34:00.001-04:00

Asbury Park Boardwalk, Ocean Avenue, Asbury Park, NJ
(40.2191623, -74.0007582)

Gloriously blinding light, vibrant swathes of color layered over the black horizon, the ground quakes with the report of gunpowder, July the 4th and the pyrotechnic spectacle that is its ritual are spiraling upward toward a grand climax. From the outdoor lounge above the boardwalk the scene is laid out in dynamic tableau. The mass of spectators are silhouetted by the slashes of light and color that slice through the liquid black horizon above the sea. The gasp, awe and spontaneous applause of the crowd punctuates the performance with touches of reverence and nostalgia laced with the primal glee of destruction.

The Grand moment reaches its zenith as eyes shudder from frantically flickering light, ears ring with the cacophony of dozens of chaotic explosions and nasal passages fill with the thick aroma of black powder. The senses, pushed beyond their limits, begin to bleed the confusion taxes the mind of rationality and sends vibrant tremors of excitement through the body. The sensory overload reaches a pitch that is nearly unbearable.

And then it all abruptly ends. There is a moment of overwhelmed silence as thick smoke drifts back from the water's edge over the appreciative spectators standing along the boardwalk, eyes fixed up at the sky. A few small fires are seen burning themselves out along the beach. Applause erupts from the beach, the boardwalk and surrounding area. Somewhere beyond the smoke the unseen pyrotechnicians must be proud.

The applause and smoke dissipate as awe struck silence gives way to conversational chatter and the crowd begins to disperse. But peculiar outbursts begin to rise from those onlookers who have been caught staring listlessly out to sea. The orderly exit is cut short as individuals stop in their places and look about in confusion. The half dispersed crowd begins to ripple with a flurry of shouting, pointing and frantic gestures toward the sky.

Following outstretched fingers one finds an otherworldly sight emerging from the smoke. A massive vertical swathe of black sky has seemingly been torn away and in its place daylight shows through. While the rest of the heavens remain impenetrably black, between the uneven edges of this striking tear a sky of peculiar pink glows with the light of a violet sun and waters of luminous turquoise mingle with the ebony ocean. A flock of iridescent birds, feathers brushed with hues of crimson, bronze and violet, fly across the threshold of the bizarre day-lit dimension and into our night shrouded reality leaving trails of startling color across the horizon as they glide.

The initial panic of the crowd dies down quickly, settling into a peculiar peace that can o found only beyond shock and fear. Every single onlooker is still, neck craning, eyes straining, transfixed. Not knowing what else to do I go back to the bar for another round of drinks.

From Twitter 07-19-2009

2009-07-20T02:02:00.001-04:00

01:56:35: Snoop Dogg - My Medicine &#266B; http://blip.fm/~a7ir2
02:43:44: listening to "(Can't Live Without Your) Love and Affection - Nelson" &#266B; http://blip.fm/~a7kvt
11:21:40: Hello Brunch! #fb
15:23:13: Big summer weekend final phase: lee perry in the park. #fb
16:56:09: Dr. Perry has come to prescribe the proper medicine. #fb
17:59:22: Beautiful people dancing to dub and reggae in the gently setting sun - the perfect way to close out the weekend. #fb
23:21:02: Best weekend out in ages. Big thanks to all those who shared it with us. Now sleeps calls. #fb

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From Twitter 07-18-2009

2009-07-19T02:02:00.001-04:00

02:42:49: Dubwar is going off!
02:43:11: Dubwar is going off! #fb
12:28:43: Del La Soul - A Roller Skating Jam Called Saturday - Q-tip in the park today! #fb &#266B; http://blip.fm/~a666s
14:30:09: Sun is out and the sky is blue summerstage is on. #fb
17:28:38: Q-Tip killing it in the park right now. #fb
21:10:33: And now off to the Italian street fair to beat carly in whack a mole. #fb

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From Twitter 07-17-2009

2009-07-18T01:59:00.001-04:00

11:49:21: Re-up vs. Next Hype - 80s nintendo sounds meets 80s flat top sporting mc - unstoppable #fb &#266B; http://blip.fm/~a3tm9
11:51:29: Playin' hooky from work - out for MOMA, sunshine and perhaps some afternoon cocktails. #fb
11:52:37: RT @dqxt Dub War tnite! Gonna be sweaty
19:29:21: taking a moment to reset between MOMA & Bryant Park drinks and the big Dubwar throw down tonight. #fb

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From Twitter 07-16-2009

2009-07-17T01:59:00.001-04:00

09:29:33: Felix Da Housecat - Kick Drum - "big fat kick drum makes the girlies get numb, makes you wanna get some" #fb &#266B; http://blip.fm/~a19pw
09:32:41: 8 hours stand between me and super-giant-double-stacked-summer-party weekend. Lets go! #fb
09:39:50: RT @pulphope Saw hobo in Wmburg living under a stairwell on Wythe Ave-had a TV set plugged into the wall, watching a game show. Looked bored
12:20:48: There are 6+ can't miss concerts/parties going off this weekend and not one is indoors. Do not fuck this up for me Mother Nature! #fb
15:17:59: @JBLove: ""The bats are in the belfrey, the dew is on the moor..."" &#266B; http://blip.fm/~a1wvf
16:00:21: Street Art interlude: Freshness from WK Interact - http://tinyurl.com/ndvwdp

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From Twitter 07-15-2009

2009-07-16T01:59:00.001-04:00

09:46:59: Basti Grub - El Latino &#266B; http://blip.fm/~9yup0
09:51:37: Wednesday - nothing for it but to lock in and grind it out #fb
13:25:29: RT @DrLoveMD Hey, Everybody! Check out the trailer for an upcoming series of comedy webisodes by me and @amandaleak! http://bit.ly/rvbAR
14:01:45: I'm using Gmail/GChat/Calander/Maps/Chrome and now Docs daily - when the time comes please stop me downloading Google Genome Replicator #fb
16:46:29: Art Interlude: David Bray (aka Bonsey) - http://tinyurl.com/lahfax
16:53:39: RT @processrecess http://twitpic.com/agc9i - Nest prints for limited edition PR3-gold embossing courtesy of Pressure Printing (OMG!)
19:51:22: The world seems to have a third more people in today.
20:49:39: Evil Dead @ mccarren park = awesome. #fb

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From Twitter 07-08-2009

2009-07-09T02:00:00.001-04:00

10:19:35: L-Vis 1990 - Come Together - teh track dares you to try and stand still by the end &#266B; http://blip.fm/~9ker9
10:21:34: AC is busted - office is like the amazon - i fear lemurs are nesting in the eves #fb
13:19:11: Out to MOMA for a lunchtime art & sunshine recharge. #fb
15:34:43: Art interlude: James Ensor's Skeletons Trying to Warm Themsleves - http://tinyurl.com/nhvhfq - at MOMA thru 9/21
16:35:21: @JesseNWells Wired: 5 Question re: Chrome OS - http://tinyurl.com/nfmzor

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From Twitter 07-07-2009

2009-07-08T02:00:00.001-04:00

09:22:00: Fever Ray - When I Grow Up (Scuba Straight Down Remix) - Scuba with a work of art on the refix &#266B; http://blip.fm/~9icvl
09:28:36: arrived at the office to discover with horror that I forgot to pick up my morning cupa coffee. do over declared #fb
11:40:58: I like when partners come to me for internet research with the superstition and awe of Macbeth visiting the witches. #fb
14:49:53: I'm going to form a new religion based on these three pillars... http://tinyurl.com/pn438v
16:08:04: Art Interlude: The raw yet enchanted work of Catherine Brooks - http://tinyurl.com/lld36u
17:02:31: In honor of our newest senator: http://tinyurl.com/ksrswq

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Cory Doctorow's Makers to be serialized on tor.com

2009-07-07T16:46:00.006-04:00

"We’re not the only ones. Technology has challenged and killed businesses from every sector. Hell, IBM doesn’t make computers anymore! The very idea of a travel agent is inconceivably weird today! And the record labels, oy, the poor, crazy, suicidal, stupid record labels. Don’t get me started. "

“Capitalism is eating itself. The market works, and when it works, it commodities or obsoletes everything. That’s not to say that there’s no money out there to be had, but the money won’t come from a single, monolithic product line. The days of companies with names like ‘General Electric’ and ‘General Mills’ and ‘General Motors’ are over. The money on the table is like krill: a billion little entrepreneurial opportunities that can be discovered and exploited by smart, creative people.

from chapter one of Makers by Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow's next novel, Makers, is being serialized on Tor.com ahead of it's publication in October. The first of the novel's three originally appeared in serialized form on Salon in 2005 under the title Themepunks . Tor plans to re-post those chapters followed by the rest of the novel three days a week starting yesterday and continuing in to the fall. They have also added very cool illustrations to each chapter from the folks at Idiot Books that will combine in the end to form a giant mosaic.

I absolutely loved the novels first section when it was up at Salon and am looking forward to reading the rest of the book in this serialized format (and than most likely re-reading it as a novel). The novel, or at least the first section, follows a team of hardware hackers immersed in a sort of makers' revolution along with the journalist who finds herself caught up in the events. This post-industrial revolution is comprised of lone cells of entrepreneurs re-purposing the cast off remains of a waste heavy consumer society into new, wonderful and obscure inventions and possibly reigniting the innovation and manufacturing spirit of American society in the process. The driving engine for this change is a rogue CEO, Kettlewell, who delivers the quote above and is determined to retool global industry by micro-funding thousands of individual teams of inventors across the country.

In 2005 the themes and setting of the book were the product of squinting in to a desperate near future. In the current cultural and financial climate however, the story should read as reports from an optimistic version of the present. As always Doctorow shines in making tech/geek gibberish enjoyable to those less fluent in its vernacular. Here he manges again to create a fiction based on complex and serious serious ideas that has at its heart wonderful characters and their very real struggles and triumphs in an age where technology and its effects on daily life are in a maddening state of flux.

It will be interesting to see how the serialization of the book will go over. There have been a few flavors of this return to the dickensesque serial and to my knowledge none have met with massive success. However, the synergy between the themes in the work and the innovative way its being promoted and published make this a perfect candidate for this new twist on a very old format. It certainly doesn't hurt that its written by one of the pillars of the commons and the internet.

From Twitter 07-06-2009

2009-07-07T02:00:00.001-04:00

10:06:21: Guillaume & The Coutu Dumonts - Night In Kage - near perfect woozy late night house music #fb &#266B; http://blip.fm/~9gb36
10:45:39: I'm back at my desk but have retained the thousand yard, out over the horizon, stare of a weekend at the beach #fb
11:14:56: @blognerd: "a folk version of Baby Got Back. Now I've heard everything. And it's really, really good. " &#266B; http://blip.fm/~9gett
11:18:22: @blognerd Nina Gordon - Straight Outta Compton &#266B; http://blip.fm/~9gf14
12:58:34: A Softer World: "Every summer I get a bit romantic and kiss a frog..." - http://tinyurl.com/muuvlo
14:33:26: hmmm, internets is quiet, maybe too quiet.
15:57:02: Art Interlude: Juxtapoz interview w/ Stella Im Hultberg in advance of her Thinkspace show in LA this weekend: http://tinyurl.com/lbraj6

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Plastic Moments #3: July 2, 2009 08:17:00PM

2009-07-06T17:34:00.006-04:00

#6 Subway Train between 51st Street Station and Union Square
(40.6892344, -73.9373714 - 40.735845, -73.991732)

It's one of those trains just beyond rush hour, full of folks unable to escape the office by six or seven or even eight. The train car is full of young men and women shrouded in thin layers of weariness and exhaustion. They are just a touch unkempt, suits and skirts wrinkled from numerous wears, shadows of facial hair and hints of un-dyed roots the results of unforgiving work schedules that do not yield for spa appointments or dry cleaners' hours. They are nearly all of a type with the exception of one man. His posture is stern, his suite expensive and perfectly pressed and his hair is freshly shaven with military precision. In a train car littered with the frayed remnants of the cubicle class he is a tightly wound paradigm of confidence and composure.

But not entirely, something in the man's severe continence is amiss. A strange rhythmic anomaly becomes apparent on closer inspection. A subtle yet unnerving tick becomes obvious. A measured nod of the head, three times in succession, followed by a left to right head shake also in measured intervals of three, repeated with the rhythmic precision of a metronome and gently growing more pronounced with each sequence. Is it a physical ailment? Perhaps a muscular spasm, a nerve related condition or is it a psychological disturbance? The man's stern, steady countenance yields no clues but the subtle tick is growing quickly into a seizure. The doors close at Grand Central and without announcement goes express. His head is flailing about violently now. The hallow noise of his chin striking his chest with blunt force rouses the attention of even the drowsiest of commuters and a panic starts to bubble up among the passengers. Riders look around at each other in a shock as the severity of the constant motion exceeds the flexibility of his spine and neck. A sickening rhythm of grinding cartilage and bone gives way to the horrid gristly sound of tearing flesh. Each successive spin or nod hideously contorts the body beyond the realm of human motion. The passengers all begin to back away. A few gasp and a few whimper but for the most part they stand staring in stunned silence.

Then, just as the train lurches to a stop in Union Square the man's head jerks backward in one last inhuman flourish and tears clean from his shoulders. The disembodied skull hits the ground with a sickening thud. Instantly the air is filled with a deafening rustle and rush of air a thousand purple and crimson winged butterflies escape through the cavernous gape of the headless torsos throat. The train car is quickly overrun with winged creatures to the point that the passengers cannot breathe without their mouths filled with insects. They push and grope at the train doors until finally with a familiar bong and mechanical nonchalance the doors open and the butterflies escape in a writhing , twisting cloud of metallic violet and brilliant crimson out into the station.

As the swarm moves quickly down the platform you can hear in the distance the initial joy of weary commuters as they sigh and giggle instinctually conjuring memories of summer afternoons in flower dabbled meadows armed with delicate nets and perforated mason jars. But the nostalgic reveries and childish laughter quickly fades into a chorus of shrieks and screams.

Stray Thoughts: Dad Sold Crack Here

2009-07-02T16:13:00.009-04:00

The standard image of New York City is of a buzzing hive filled to bursting, sidewalks full of bustling humans and streets clogged to capacity with honking stop/start automobiles. These are, to honest, very genuine urban experiences but there are many others. There is a very special flavor of meditative solitude that comes from discovering a place or a moment that the city dwellers have abandoned or discarded even if momentarily. Walking an empty Brooklyn street alone near dawn can be a singular experience. A moment shared with the sleeping masses tucked away in the surrounding buildings but simultaneously yours alone. In these moments a trick of the light, an odd angle or viewpoint, an introspective state of mind, can unearth peculiar details and hidden treasures from the detritus of a landscape you may travel through every day. To me Rachael Noel Fox's photo book, Dad Sold Crack Here, captures these moments with a revelatory eye for their bittersweet beauty.

There are very few people in the photos Rachael's collected here and they are rarely the focus of the image. The people that do appear are often distracted, asleep while endlessly waiting or walking speedily out of the frame. Instead what is on display are the remains and resonance the city's inhabitants leave in their wake. Skillfully captured here they are perhaps more revealing than portraits could ever be. Here imperfect patterns rise from the faces of apartment buildings and strike out against the starkness of the sky. Worn brickwork, asphalt and concrete all track the movements of their inhabitants and the passage of time in delicately etched abstractions. Entrance ways for churches, hospitals and nightclubs stand un-entered, there haunting memories and kinetic potentials left intact. Common sights of industrial warnings, forgotten advertisements for phantom products, graffiti both intimate and magnificent all co-mingle across the landscape. Each is reshaped in equal measures by the ware and grind urban progress and reborn in equal glory by the gentle touch of the camera lens.

Some of my favorite images in the book are of alleyways, narrow crevices, forgotten corners and other abandoned spaces that have been reclaimed by a resilient natural element whether it be water, plants, flowers or of course cats. The various cats, along with one rather brazen pigeon, are the primary visible animal presence in this collection. This seems rather fitting to me, as I have always felt that city cats, particularly bodega cats and strays, are really the keepers of the forget places. They know of secret spaces and hidden treasures that, lost in the steam and noise of progress, may have gone untouched by humans for generations, at least until someone with an inquisitive eye and camera at the ready follows one down an alley and into the cities neglected heart bring them back for us all to see.

Buy Dad Sold Crack Here.

Also check out the Rae Fox tumblog for a daily fix.

daily residue:

2009-06-28T05:01:00.001-04:00

10:50 MJ - Rock With You (MAW remix) - yeah yeah yeah .... #fb ♫ blip.fm/~8z77n #
11:00 RT @mollycrabapple If I reach 4K followers, Little Brooklyn is down to pose as a sexy pigeon for Dr. Sketchy's Times Square #
11:00 Holy Shit it's the sun!! #fb #
13:42 Out out into the sunshine! Day prepare to be taken on. #fb #
16:06 hairs cut, scalped messaged, I'm primped pampered and ready for a spot on the cohabiting sig others of brooklyn #fb #
16:40 Charlatans UK - The Only One I Know - playing in the pub right now! ♫ blip.fm/~8zow6 #
16:45 sitting in open window @ the pub, pint/Wimbledon/wifi are all go, think I'll sit here and type until lazy/hungover friends re-emerge #fb #
17:02 Stone Roses - Fool's Gold - someone is conspiring to keep me at this pub ♫ blip.fm/~8zq3g #
17:23 The Verve - Lucky Man - no really eventually I need to leave this pub ♫ blip.fm/~8zr7d #
18:32 Oh noes downpour trapped in the pub #

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daily residue:

2009-06-25T21:02:00.001-04:00

00:15 We went see Rebirth of a Nation & Up. Up certainly the more enjoyable of the two. #fb #
09:58 Femi Kuti - Do Your Best (faze action remix) - hoping the weather holds up for the show tonight ♫ blip.fm/~8us4d #
10:00 humid summer morning... doing it pretty well aktually #fb #
10:02 @blognerd i agree the UP pacing was a bit odd but they had a mad amount of backstory to cover and kiddie attention spans to cope with #
11:00 could it be more plain? if you need to defend marriage start with your own; if you value family stop making yours a public spectacle #fb #
13:46 summer events calendar is shaping up nicely #summerinthecity #fb #
20:10 Off to check Femi Kuti in the park. #fb #

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Stray Thoughts on Rebirth of a Nation

2009-06-25T15:16:00.000-04:00

I finally manged to catch the theatrical version of Paul D. Miller / DJ Spooky's Rebirth of a Nation at MOMA last night and at the end of the day it seems like a missed opportunity for Miller. To be fair I'm going to assume that the performance piece is significantly more free and interesting then the stultified for dvd version we saw. The inane voice over and ham-fisted introduction and prologue sections really hurt the overall product. The narrator is either pointing out what is blatantly obvious or making intelligence generalities or overreaching inferences. The project was to remix the original silent film in order to draw out and deconstruct the racial supremacist imagery and ideology embedded in it. If you need to explain to the viewer what they are seeing, or draw out connections to the present day, then it project has failed and should have been taken back to the editing room. I'm not certain Miller's film isn't capable of standing on its own feet, it probably is, but in this presentation it's never given the chance.

Once you get through the intro and tune out the intermittent narration things get better. The score, the work of Spooky in collaboration with Kronos Quartet is pretty haunting and subtle. It works best when it is counteracting the action on the screen, creating moments of still anticipation where there would be dramatic builds and feelings of emotionless syncopated progression where the original film would have crescendos. That said, I really wanted there would be more slicing, dicing and re-contextualizing of the original film. I wanted further use of the digital effects which appear so sparingly and with such little conviction or courage as to render themselves ineffective. It's only in the climatic five or so minutes that the "DJ as Director" lets rip and begins using focusing and perspective effect in connection with the inserted digital graph lines to deconstruct the nuanced textures of race and power at play within the scenes. If the entire piece was worked over in this manner I think it would be much more provocative and insightful. Instead the film reads more like a paired down and re-scored version of the original than a insight fueling deconstruction.

What's most interesting to me about Griffith's original Birth of a Nation is that it's really the first American movie blockbuster. the film is encoded in to the very core DNA of the US Summer Blockbuster and main stream film as a whole. Griffith's stylistic tricks used to elicit extremes of emotion in large audiences are part of movie history and I don't believe you can separate those theatrical devices from the sexist, racist and classist ideologies that underpin the film. I wish I had and encyclopedic knowledge of film, because I'm certain one could trace many of the racially charged shots in Griffith's film throughout the history of movies. That idiotic/menacing black-faced grin repeated endlessly throughout Hollywood's cannon right up to the present day. I think that would be more telling, more informative to the present moment, than the timid deconstruction that has ended up on the Rebirth DVD.

daily residue:

2009-06-24T21:01:00.001-04:00

09:46 Dotstar - Stick Up - be careful this tune is very addictive #fb ♫ blip.fm/~8slwf #
09:48 Taking Care of Business is the order of the day - making Elvis proud #fb #
14:52 Art interlude: preview of upcoming WK Interact show - Motion Portrait tinyurl.com/l4hlha #

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daily residue:

2009-06-23T21:01:00.001-04:00

09:52 Decalaime (feat. flylo & GA Muldrow) - Keep It Moving - a lil' boom bap ♫ blip.fm/~8qfir #
09:58 RT @GreatDismal GreatDismalLayers Upon Layers Of Fail tinyurl.com/ln8eg8 Ta-Nehisi Coates #
10:01 no slight to brave Iranians, but it's odd to call it a revolution if its brought to you by the folks who brought you the last revolution #
10:03 is US media interest in the Iran struggle rooted in the knowledge that it couldn't happen here now? #
10:06 Civil War - perhaps, Secessionist movement (looking at you TX) possibbly but w/ no uprising after the last 8 years its gonna be a while #
16:05 Street Art Interlude - 3-D edition: the head twisting 3-D street painting of Edgar Mueller: tinyurl.com/o9q8wn thanx @DrLoveMD #
16:22 @blognerd lol it's funny 'cause it's true #
16:27 @coolyg It's working! no rain in NYC today for the first time in three weeks. powerful beats #
16:37 @blognerd it was the shakespeare tweet but you can apply my comment to just about anything #

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MoCCA Treasure: Sofia Falkenhem's Fågelhjärta

2009-06-23T14:45:00.001-04:00

So I originally intended to do a full write up on MoCCA Fest but I got distracted and now enough time has past that it seems unnecessary. However, I do want to throw up a quick post about my surprise favorite score of the show.

Swedish comics creator and illustrated Sofia Flakenhem is a new name to me. We were drawn to her table by a gorgeous postcard and on a delighted by the wonderfully crafted items there we also purchased a neat three fold comic that was tied in a handsome ribbon and gorgeous little mini-comic titled Fågelhjärta (which i believe translates to Big Heart). As you can see the postcard is gorgeous and the dark anthropomorphic three fold has a wonderful manga by way of Europe feel that really resonates for a piece so short. Conveying an atmosphere of unease and melancholy instantly, It leaves you seriously primed for more.

But it was the wordless mini Fågelhjärta that really blew me away. The seemingly simple story of a little girl who lives with a family of foxes is in the wood, it feels like a piece of folklore, and may well be. It appears to be a thematic continuation of two short comics on her website, Fox Spirit and Walk in The Woods but takes takes the story and imagery to the next level. The pacing, touch of macabre storytelling, and perfect use of thick black lines on an un-blemished white work to create an enchanting and mysterious tale. The silent presentation coupled with the stark pallet perfectly captures the sensation of being lost int he wood and the young foxes are endearingly adorable in the way that only illustrated critters that disarm while piquing ones suspicion can.

Now i just need to see if i can track down some more of this woman's amazing work. I'll report back on my finds.

daily residue:

2009-06-22T21:01:00.001-04:00

11:05 Cooly G - Love Dub - the sound of summer, maybe if I play loud enough and often enough the sun will break throu... ♫ blip.fm/~8obyx #
11:17 After surviving some foul plague that sidelined me for the entire weekend, I'm ready to be taken on by the work week, not vice versa. #fb #
14:42 stark harrowing beautiful, wow: tinyurl.com/n5sja5 #

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