Sdtrk: ‘Live at Brixton Academy 1999’ by Atari teenage riot

For decades, I’ve been considering myself to be an introvert — or, at the very least, an ambivert with the needle deep into the introvert end of the scale — and one of the characteristics that introverts like myself are defined as having is an interest in deep experience, whereas your bog-standard extravert is more keen on broad experience. So although I can’t live without music, I only really gravitate towards a handful of genres, relatively speaking; everything outside of those is ultimately grist for the mill. I enjoy the DiY immediacy of punk; the moroseness of post-punk; the austerity of synthpop; the artifice of new wave; the aesthetics of New Romantics, industrial, and Goth; the continental Sixties fun of yé-yé; the innovativeness of shoegaze; the technological nostalgia of radiophonics; the insidious cultural nostalgia of hauntology; the renegade attitude of electroclash; the consistency of Motorik; the danceability of electro and techno; the dynamism of noise, and the aggressiveness of power-electronics.
All I can say that I like about prog rock is the equipment they used, and even then, it’s like ehhh.

There is no way I can take this seriously

Until I moved out of my parents’ house for the first time back in the late Nineties and relocated to my mate Steve’s three-bedroom townhouse, aka the original Deafening silence, I never knowingly heard any prog. Steve was mates with Mike (of Vulne pro fame), Tim, and Wolfgang, and prog rock is the one music genre that all of ’em really dug, and still dig. Peter Gabriel-era Genesis, Yes, King Crimson, Rush, Pink Floyd, and maybe a few more besides? As stated, I’d never been exposed to prog — up until that point in my life, it was a direct line from classic alternative (i.e The Smiths, New order, The Cure, &c.) to classic industrial (nearly anything on Mute’s sub-label The Grey Area) to noise (Merzbow, Violent onsengeisha, C.C.C.C, &c.), with a detour into shoegaze (My bloody valentine, Lush, Slowdive, &c.).
I’m sure during the first couple of months of living with Steve, I’d expressed this to him, so he had me listen to his Cd copy of Nursery cryme, an album by Genesis, and I can honestly say that it did nothing positive for me. I can’t even remember how any of the songs sounded — which, in a way, is a bad thing; as an artist, one of your goals should be to leave some sort of impression on your audience, as apathy is no reaction at all. I do recall that like most prog, it’s a concept album, so I had to look up just now what the premise of it is on Wikipedia, and it sounds frankly tiresome.

“The Musical Box” was a lengthy piece that described a macabre story placed in Victorian Britain. A young boy, Henry, is accidentally decapitated by his friend Cynthia while playing croquet. Returning to the house, Cynthia plays Henry’s old musical box, which unleashes the spirit of Henry as an old man. Henry has become sexually frustrated and attempts to seduce Cynthia. The nurse enters the room and hurls the musical box at the wall, destroying both it and Henry.

And that’s just one song! Fuckin’ ‘ell. When I hear the words ‘concept album’, I reach for my gun.

There’s exceptions to every rule no matter what the subject is, but one of the reasons progressive rock bounces immediately off me is that the musicians involved all strike me as musos, to a man. It’s obvious that they’re classically trained and have a backlog of virtuosity, but it comes across less as being passionate about what they’re playing, and more like them showing off; a very ‘Look what I can do’ sort of attitude permeates the prog I’ve heard of.
Add to that the level of being up one’s own arse that seems to be a pillar of that genre, and that doesn’t help, either. I believe that if a person is artistically inclined, that some level of pretension is okay, whether it’s in one’s work or even in day-to-day living — as mentioned, I dig classic New Romantic, and I’m a semi-lapsed Goth — but prog strikes me as ALL PRETENSION, ALL THE TIME. The level of SERIOUSNESS as they majestically SING these overwrought LYRICS having to do with FANTASY WORLDS and VICTORIAN ENGLAND over RAMBLING TWENTY-MINUTE SYNTHESISER SOLOS goes beyond escapism for me, and into the realms of you have a very elitist attitude for someone with far too much LSD coursing through your veins. It’s not just unrelatable, it’s also treated as if it’s the Highest Possible Art. Again, music made by blokes who possess a lot of technical know-how, but just aren’t conveying a sense of fun, either in performing their work, or imparting that feeling to their listeners. But then, college rock bands and Weird Al have been called ‘fun’ and they strike me as being unbearably corny, and there are also individuals out there who thoroughly enjoy working with spreadsheets, so what do I know of ‘fun’?

Returning briefly to The Musical Box, there’s a Québec-based band of that name that is a tribute act to early-Seventies-era Genesis, and they perform the same songs, in the same costumes (replicas, I would assume), with the same light and slideshow that Genesis employed. Steve invited me to go with him to see them when they were at the Motor city Casino back in 2018, along with Wolfgang, Mike, and Tim. As I have zero reference points, it all looked to me like they knew what they were doing! It struck me as very theatrical. All I can really say is that the other lads absolutely got more out of it than I did!…
My ticket was free, I should add.

There is no way I can take this seriously

Many detractors of progressive mention that one of the reasons they dislike it is cos the songs go on far, far longer than they should. They’re not entirely wrong, but I can’t completely agree with that complaint as some of the music I enjoy can have long tracks, too. Like Askern’s lamp by Golau Glau (25min 48sec), or Video 586 by New order (23min 23sec), or even Hard lovin’ man by Merzbow (41min 49sec). Obviously those are from some of my favourite genres, but with a lengthy song, it should capture and hold my attention through interesting lyrics, musical dynamism, or both. If you’re singing about some silly prog faff, then my finger is going to inevitably creep towards the Next Track button.
Length, though, is an issue, particularly when you’re being subjected to a song that you’re already somewhat averse to to begin with. I kinda look at it the same way I look at the works of Stephen King, whose catalogue I have zero interest in, as my attitude towards both him and prog is basically ‘this really could have been shorter’.

I will state that at one point I actually purchased a prog album: Burning stone, a 1992 release by the Japanese group Ruins. It was marketed as prog crossed with noise, and I figured for me that’d be the musical equivalent of giving your dog a pill wrapped in bacon. To my chagrin, Ruins usually performs prog crossed with improvisational jazz; two genres that make me wince. The two points in their favour was 1) the fact that they sang in Kobaïan, which is the fictional language created by Christian Vander, the supermuso and possibly racist founder of French prog rock band Magma, and 2) Ruins, at least for that album, consisted of a drummer and a bassist, which is a combo I admire. Much like Death from above 1979, who I loved until I found out they were also problematic! But DFA79 isn’t prog, so they’ve at least got that going for them.
Also, I did go out of my way to get a *coughbackupcough* copy of the BBC Four documentary Prog Rock Britannia: An Observation in Three Movements years ago. The Britannia series, or whatever it’s called, was a cluster of documentaries that BBC Four released back in the early 2000s, with several excellent programmes like Synth Britannia, Punk Britannia, and many others. As ambivalent as I am about psychedelia, I found that even the Psychedelic Britannia film was fact-filled, well-directed, and incredible. I’m the sort of person who, even if I dislike something, I try to learn a bit about it, so I can have a more solid basis for my dislike…

That’s another thing: prog contains quite a few elements that, taken separately, I either don’t mind or I genuinely like! Analogue synthesisers! An appreciation for the literary arts! Seventies England! Being too artistic to be practical! But much in the same way that I would not take eel sushi, some potato chips, mint chocolate, and bacon, dump them all into a blender, and drink the chunky and uneven slurry that resulted, the combination of things which result in prog rock makes me want to lie down in the grass until the earth reclaims me. By its nature, music shouldn’t bore or irritate a listener, but with me, prog hits both of those goals exceptionally well.

I shouldn’t be entirely harsh; after all, it took me two albums each to get into both Throbbing gristle and Merzbow, so perhaps all I need to do is listen to a couple of releases by The Mars Volta or Dream theatre and it all may well click with me! Maybe then I’ll not only gain an appreciation and understanding of the musical aesthetics of progressive rock, finally being able to grasp its intrinsic beauty, but I’ll also be eager to devour more!
Nah, I honestly don’t see that happening. Life’s too short for constant 20min keyboard solos, mate

Sex pistol Steve Jones and his infamous/inspirational ‘I HATE PINK FLOYD’ shirt

Sdtrk: ‘Spiritual cramp’ by Christian death

Some of you may be vaguely aware that I had a brief but memorable stint as a technical director/telly personality on the self-described ‘infotainment show’ known as Half mask, courtesy of the public access class I took at Barden Cablevision Detroit during the early Nineties. Surprisingly, our programme even won third place for the network’s Best of the Best awards in 1993, and first place the very next year, but that’s neither here nor there right now. But I will still brag about it.
Anyway, I was asked along with the main host and one other person to attend the awards ceremonies to represent the show, but I decided that I’d paint my nails before doing so. However, instead of sensibly purchasing a bottle of Wet ‘n’ Wild #735A (‘Power Outage’) as I would begin doing on a regular basis later in life, I not only bought a pot of black model paint, but I’d completely overlooked the fact that it was matte black. Although I applied it to my nails regardless, it looked rather unusual… it put me in mind of Transformer-era Lou Reed, which is an act I had no problem following whatsoever.

You would’ve thought Angus MacLise would’ve been the first Velvet Underground member with painted nails

Then and there I’d come to the conclusion: gloss nailvarnish is the only proper choice for me, which is a statement I stand by to this day. Flash-forward to 2021, when Ursula Clarke, aka Dragonfly, aka Undead Barbie, finally saved up the appropriate funds to move into Deafening silence Plus. Much like everyone here except for our Dyanne, Ursula’s sartorial sense is Goth, but the specific flavour of Goth fashion she indulges in would be Nu Goth, and that sub-subculture really brought dull gloss black nails to the forefront. To be honest, I had no idea that dull gloss nailvarnish was even a thing until she told me all about it, and it’s a unique thing amongst unique things!

All of us here think of these as black candy

Gloss black presents a lovely reflective surface, whereas matte, by its very nature, absorbs light. The former is evocative of automobiles or PVC clothing, but the latter is the darkness of deep space in miniature. Which, all told, is one of the reasons Ursula paints her nails in dull gloss black. ‘It’s Ｔｈｅ Ｖｏｉｄ, but fashion !’ she once commented. All three finishes have their uses, however.

There’s an internationally-acclaimed artist out there who lives and works in London, England, by the name of Anish Kapoor. If you’re at all familiar with that name and were wondering what exactly I was leading up to with my tale of nailvarnish errors, you can now take this opportunity to point at your computer’s monitor and go aahhh, but for the rest, I should probably explain.
Back around 2016, several news outlets, blogs, and sundry YouTubers discussed a Bold New Development in The World of Paint known as Vantablack, developed by the English company Surrey NanoSystems. Apart from being an amazing name for a roller derby contestant, Vantablack is, according to Wikipedia, ‘a class of super-black coatings with total hemispherical reflectances (THR) below 1% in the visible spectrum […] composed of a forest of vertical carbon nanotubes “grown” on a substrate using a modified chemical vapor deposition process. When light strikes Vantablack, instead of bouncing off, it becomes trapped and continually deflected amongst the tubes, absorbed, and eventually dissipated as heat.’ Which is crazy.

It’s… actually a wee bit terrifying. It’s like an ACME Portable Hole

As riveting and totally mind-boggling the concept of Vantablack is, I’m going to pause here and talk a bit about Kapoor, to create narrative tension. Born in 1954 in Mumbai, India; relocated to England in 1973, and has been there ever since; originally in Liverpool, then with a move to London shortly after. He’s developed numerous architectural projects, as well as created stage sets for a few operas, on top of creating four decades’ worth of sculptures and installation pieces, plus being awarded the Turner Prize in 1991, but if you’re an American, especially one who’s familiar with downtown Chicago, Illinois, you’ll possibly have seen one of his more recent works either on telly or in person.

Your Humble Narrator and Euchre at Cloud gate, circa 2014. His head is normally that blurry, as his surname is Seurat

Cloud gate, or as too many people have dubbed it, ‘the Bean’, was completed in 2006, from 168 stainless steel plates that were welded together, and is 33 x 66 x 42ft (10 x 20 x 13m), weighing in at a tidy 100 tons. That’s the thing about Kapoor: a lot of his work consists of massive intimidating sculptures, and a fascination with reflective surfaces, bold colours, and voids. He is, as I understand him, a maximalist. Apart from being the polar opposite of minimalism, of course, maximalism is an expression of excess. More ornamentation than usual, larger proportions, overstatement rather than understatement, ‘more is more’. You know — like your average American. ZING.
Two excellent examples of maximalist architects would be Étienne-Louis Boullée, who I learnt of via the 1987 Peter Greenaway film ‘The belly of an architect’, and Albert Speer, who was famous for other, awful reasons. But if you look at either of their works, they’re characterised by a gigantic sense of scale; examples of two of Boullée’s would be here and here, and one of Speer’s is here. Even though both men had their sponsors, most of their proposals didn’t get far past the blueprint stage, as you can imagine, as they were just too feckin’ big.
On the other hand, Kapoor’s catalogue consists of these beauties, amongst others:

Untitled, 1995

Spire, 2014

Sectional body preparing for monadic singularity (love that title), 2015

Leviathan, 2009

Honestly, a lot of his work strikes me as being really cool! The first, second, and fourth pieces remind me of the covers of Coil’s two album set, A guide for beginners: A silver voice and A guide for finishers: A golden hair. Unfortunately, though, Kapoor himself strikes me as really petty.
Around 2014, Vantablack S-VIS, which is the sprayable version of the paint, was exclusively licenced to Kapoor’s studio, meaning only he was allowed to access and use it. Understandably, many people in the art world were upset with this course of action, resulting in petitions and public complaints from other artists, to no avail. Kapoor dismissed all concerns with an attitude that’s very much ‘this is mine now, sucks to be you’. In response to his being a covetous shitfridge, competing artist Stuart Semple developed his own unique shade of paint. This is where we’re at now — response paint. The whole scenario is like a rap beef! Not wrapped beef, though; that’s mostly different.

So what’s the deal with Stuart Semple? A Dorset lad born in 1980, Semple’s dabbled in sculpture, paintings, and performance art, but more significantly, he has a much more egalitarian view towards democratising the tools that artists need. What that translates to is that he’ll make free (or significantly cheaper) versions of trademarked colours that would otherwise only have exclusive use by certain artists or companies. There’s International Klein Blue, the extremely rich shade of blue pigment developed and patented by Yves Klein in 1960; Semple’s made Incredibly Kleinish Blue. The corporation Mattel has trademark protection on Pantone 219 C, otherwise known as Barbie Pink; Stuart Semple offers you Pinkie. So far, I like this Stuart Semple chap! Plus, one of his hairstyles is just a sweeping wave of fringe, much like 1982-era Phil Oakey. Looks a bit like the musician and artist Momus, too, but Stuart has the use of both of his eyes.

Prior to Pinkie, however, the wrapped beef began when Semple learnt of Kapoor’s monopoly on Vantablack. In 2016, Semple released PINK, which he claims is ‘the “pinkest pink” paint available’, and in an effort to curtail Kapoor’s avariciousness, buyers of PINK had to sign a legal document when purchasing it which not only specifically excluded Anish Kapoor from buying some, but any of Kapoor’s associates as well. Things escalated, however, when not only did Kapoor obtain a jar of PINK in December of that same year, he followed up with a post on Instagram that underlined his level of mental maturity and classiness:

(Fear not, it’s only a screenshot, as I will never link to Instagram)

Yep. After that, Semple released the pigments BLACK 2.0 and BLACK 3.0, which are again, affordable paints… at least, I assume they’re affordable, as I’ve not bought paint since the Best of the Best Barden Cablevision awards ceremony, but I’m sure they’re much less expensive than Vantablack. Since then, Semple’s expanded his oeuvre to include other colours, plus he’s up to BLACK 4.0 these days, if you’re keeping score. Overall, though, the most amusing thing that’s resulted from Kapoor’s juvenile stupidity would be Semple developing a pigment called Diamond Dust, which is ‘an extremely reflective glitter made of crushed glass shards that are designed to hurt Kapoor if he dipped his finger in it,’ which is both fantastically petty, and entirely justifiable.
Now all of this Bay of Pig(ment)s-level (sorry) brinksmanship is a fascinating carcrash for those of us standing outside of it. However, the unfortunate thing is that Kapoor still has the exclusive rights to Vantablack, when all’s said and done, and I’m sure this decade-long feud only has him digging his heels in further.

One of Surrey NanoSystems’ competitors, Nanolab, headquartered in Massachusetts, have their own supermegaultra black paint, named Singularity Black, who I could’ve sworn was the lead singer of the Pixies. Originally created for NASA, Nanolab are being the better people in that not only have they made Singularity Black available for everyone, but for any artist who’s really interested in how to effectively use the paint, Nanolab are more than willing to share info and advice with them. Much like Semple’s BLACK series, a person can buy an artist’s sample — however large that is — for only USD$30. That’s nothing money! Which is appropriate, as you’re buying Nothingness.
Artist Jason Chase, who worked with Nanolab to basically exhibit Singularity Black, was quoted as saying,

‘It is important to create access so artists can use it,’ said Chase. ‘Artists are always the ones who take new materials and push them to new limits. Singularity Black is the perfect new medium to foster such experimentation and development across a global community. This super black paint and its possibilities have been stunted by not being available to experiment with. (emphasis mine) Starting with my work, those days are over.

I imagine Jason slamming his fist onto the podium with that last word, there. But it should go without saying that he’s right: some arsehole gains exclusivity to something new, innovative, and helpful, and progress in that field grinds to a halt. Thankfully in this case, it didn’t, as Nanolabs took over where Surrey NanoSystems failed. So while Singularity Black apparently isn’t quite as dark as Vantablack, it’s still as near as damnit, which means that ultimately, Kapoor’s just paid for the name. Hope it’s worth it, bunky.

I’m one of those people who believes that the words and actions that a person says or does are intrinsically tied to whoever said/made them, whether if it’s blatant, or if they try to spin it like ‘I just said those things cos I was angry; I don’t actually think like that‘. If you’re a venal, hateful human being, but you’ve created something that I previously enjoyed, eight times out of ten, I’ll stop enjoying what you’ve done, as I don’t want to tacitly approve of you being a fuckwit (e.g: Morrissey, Ricky Gervais, John Lydon, Terry Gilliam, and others). I’m painfully aware that Organik humans aren’t morally black & white; some say the ambiguity makes humans interesting, but ‘interesting’ to me means ‘either good or bad’. It’d be nice if people were more cut-and-dried with their thoughts and personalities, as that’d make things astonishingly easier for everyone.
But my point, really, is that sometimes I have to wincingly separate the art from the artist with someone toxic such as Kapoor, much like how I dig the work of Gilbert & George, even though they’re pro-Brexit monarchists, and every time, it’s a struggle. Thankfully I don’t have the attachment to Kapoor’s work as I do with other artists whose work I’m keen on, but need to be shoved into traffic due to their morals. It’s some small solace to know that there are millions of people in the same quandary as myself; however, that doesn’t solve the root of the problem.

As much of a twat Kapoor is, one of the only decent thing I’ve known him to do was file a lawsuit against the NRA back in 2018, as the organisation apparently used footage of Cloud gate as part of one of their pro-gun adverts, so that’s something. Again with the Organik human ambiguity: sues a hateful group of psychopaths for unauthorised use of his work in a pro-psychopath campaign one day; prohibits the use of what could be a boon to thousands of artists due to his greed the other. Ugh.

And that, dear readers, is a sterling example of how the modern art world is far too concerned about the monetary value of various works and the return on investment various artists are believed to have. Art should be viewed as a mode of expression first, a decoration second, and an investment never.
That statement really only peripherally applies to this post, but I still stand by it, and frankly, I couldn’t think of any other way to end this! You’re welcome

Told you it was affordable

Sdtrk: ‘Title theme from Bombay talkie’ by Shankar Jaikishan

Pretty much all the medications out there have some unhinged super-chemical name, right? So why are the brand names just as alien? ‘The average person won’t remember the name Guanfacine, so let’s call it something normal like Intuniv’. Wait, what?
I know, I know, it’s brand names, it’s marketing, it’s annoying. Someone should make an online quiz, though: Medication Brand Name or Random Cluster of Syllables?

‘Ask your doctor about Rolopropophal® (quivexonine) today.’
STREET NAME: Hard carpet. Sure, why not.

Great, now Rolopropophal is in my phone’s autosuggestions

Sdtrk: ‘Heaven sent’ by Josef K

A couple of nights ago, I’d dreamt I was at a Doll Parliament* in upper Ontario, where the hosts had two Rottweilers. At some point I was leaving the livingroom to step outside for a smoke — a Djarum, naturally — and the dogs, as they tend to do, got startled, and they each leapt at me and clamped onto my ears. Both of the hosts had to remove them (one host per dog), but unfortunately I lost my ears… I remember seeing one of them, neatly removed and unmangled, lying face-up on the blue pile carpeting. It’s almost as if they detached, which really was the most amusing thing under the circumstances.

There aren’t a lot of people who will dig this post, but I have a confession: overall, I’m not really keen on dogs. They’re fine from a great distance away, but I am not a dog person. I don’t really like how dogs possess an unending torrent of nervous, excitable, and unpredictable energy. To be fair, I prefer to not be around humans who are like that for long periods of time, either, but at least if you tell a person ‘hey, let’s… bring it down a notch,’ they’ll understand you, which is more than I can say for dogs. But as someone who prefers his environs to be quiet 95% of the time, having to put up with the sounds of running, or jumping, or scampering, let alone barking, is not my idea of a good time.

More pressing of a dislike for me is that dogs tend to be filthy most of the time. It’s understandable; these are creatures that glean a lot of information through what they can smell, but to those of us who are semi-recovering germophobes, they’re frankly kinda disgusting. Constantly rolling around in dirt and mud, all that shedding, rooting through rubbish face-first — and then licking your face — all that peeing and pooping, sticking their noses up other dogs’ bums, the leg-humping… I don’t need to go on; you’ve encountered a dog or two, I’m sure, so you’re familiar with their work. Their behaviour puts me in mind of that blurb The Onion ran a few years ago, ‘Area Dog’s Rock Bottom Same As His Peak‘. That’s not satire, that’s fact. To me, outside stops at our front door (well, the foyer), whereas to a dog, the world is their room, and those differences between us are irreconcilable.

Now I understand that genetically speaking, dogs are territorial, and when humans domesticated them, trained them to be protective of their owners’ territory, but all I’m saying is that they don’t have to be aggressive and in a constant state of high alert at all times, especially if whatever dog has seen you several times previously; it’s not as if you’re a stranger. I mean, I was raised christian, for example, and during the late Eighties, I became an atheist, which I still am to this day. All I’m saying to dogs is that they can change if they want to. Consider being less aggressive and loud, dogs. Give it some thought.

Although I know it’s largely steeped in nonsense, I think there’s a bit of something to the line of thinking that ‘dogs and dog people are extraverts, while cats and cat people are introverts’. Yeah, it’s a broad brush, and you don’t have to take much time to poke numerous holes in that theory, but despite the fact that there are calm dogs and excitable cats, I broadly see it applying. Generally speaking, dogs are eager to please (except when you tell them to stop barking), whereas cats do what they bloody well like when they bloody well like it. I’m reminded of a joke: a person with a dog and a cat has a stick, and they throw it into the distance and tell the dog to fetch it, which the dog does. The person does this a few more times with the same result. At some point, they throw the stick and tell the cat to go fetch, at which the cat responds ‘If you want the stick so badly, why do you keep throwing it away in the first place?’
But dogs are more open in their behaviour and presentation — again, generally speaking — while cats are more enigmatic and furtive in theirs, instances of zoomies aside. Apropos of nothing, much like a strikingly high number of people of his generation and demographic growing up in the Southern US, my father hated cats, as he didn’t trust them. He wasn’t keen on their inscrutable and complex nature, much as he wasn’t too keen on people that he didn’t view as straightforward and easy-to-understand. That’ll be yet another reason why he and I ultimately didn’t get on very often!
It’s funny: before mum had me, she and my father had a chow for a number of years. Are they called chows, or chow-chows?? Nevertheless, I didn’t ask them too much about said chow, due to the fact that it was a dog and not an animal I was more interested in, but I always thought it was really jarring for my father to have had this obedient animal for years, then to have a wilful son who fell far short of his ludicrous expectations. I think there’s a lesson there for all of us.

I should stress here that I don’t hate dogs! They’re animals, so they should be protected and deserve love, as in their own loud and graceless way, they constantly show unconditional love to the humans they live with. I just feel that dogs are too much for someone like me to deal with, as they’re walking embodiments of overstimulation. Which is fine! For dog aficionados, not me, that is.
In fact, as I don’t want to end this entry on a downer, allow me to list my favourite makes and models of dog:

the Corgi: a wee shoebox with a head and li’l legs

the Husky: admittedly I’m probably drawn to huskies due to their monochromatic colour scheme

the Pomeranian: they always seem very happy to be wherever they’re at, plus they’re great for dusting surfaces

the Shiba Inu: I liked ’em long before Doge was a thing

the Scottish terrier: remarkable eyebrow, moustache, and beard combo

and the AIBO ERS-220: designed by legendary mecha designer Shouji Kawamori, very friendly, sleek, and futuristic

Finally, in the interest of full disclosure, we actually have a dog here at Deafening silence Towers! She came with the place when we moved in, but Tsukihime renamed her Salty, as in ‘she’s a salty bitch’. Zero shedding and doesn’t bark! As far as dogs go, you’re doin’ alright, Salty

I told her ‘Stay!’ once back in September of 2023, and she hasn’t moved since.
Good girl!

*In case you’re unfamiliar with the term: I used to get together with a couple of other local area iDollators in informal gatherings that we referred to as Doll Congresses, like during the second Michigan Doll Congress, for example. Whenever we got together round at a fellow iDollators home in Ontario, Canada, we called it a Doll Parliament, obviously

Sdtrk: ‘Carpet rash’ by Total control

This is something I’ve been spending far too much time thinking about: Here are two completely unsolicited observations concerning the popular American Sixties sitcom Bewitched, that originally aired on broadcast telly from 1964 to 1972, and has been enjoying multiple reruns via syndication and streaming services to this day. If you’re not familiar with the premise of the programme, it is a lighthearted look at the life of Samantha and Darrin Stephens, a married couple living in suburbia. The conceit is that Darrin is a human man whose spouse Samantha is a witch, and eight series of wacky occult/spooky hijinks ensued.

Now the part of Samantha’s goofball doofus bellend dipshit of a husband, Darrin Stephens, was portrayed by Dick York for six years, and then he was played by Dick Sargent for the rest of the show’s run when York’s longstanding back injury got too much for him to mitigate. Now although the actors look somewhat similar, if you stare at them long enough, you’ll eventually notice that they’re actually two different blokes. As continuity was barely a thing in Sixties television, no explanation was given to the audience as to why Berenstain Darrin was suddenly replaced with Berenstein Darrin until years later.
My question is: given the loathing that Samantha’s mother Endora had for her human son-in-law, why didn’t they write an episode where Darrin simply went too far in pushing Endora’s buttons, leading her to cast a spell on him to change his face? Subsequent scripts could’ve gone one of two ways with it — either for a couple of series into the programme, Darrin could’ve been repeatedly convincing everyone who knew him that he was the same Darrin, to varying degrees of success, OR, York could’ve become Sargent, and none of the other characters would’ve noticed, except for maybe one person. Probably that nosey Mrs Kravitz. Yes, I’m well aware that I’m expecting too much out of an American sitcom made in the mid-Sixties, but come on.

Incidentally, I always found it to be a weird coincidence, especially when I was younger, that the two actors playing Darrin were both named Dick. To be honest, it was confusing for years, and it still trips me up on the occasions that I find myself thinking about Bewitched (not often, really) to this day. ‘Was Sargent the first one, or was it York??’ You know.
It reminds me of how I used to believe that Roger, John, and Andy Taylor in Duran Duran were all related. They aren’t! Even the band’s keyboardist and style icon Nick Rhodes jokingly admitted in a video interview one time that he has no idea how that happened! A surplus of Taylors, a bellyful of Dicks.

One of the more memorable aspects of Bewitched is that whenever Samantha cast a spell, she wiggled her nose, which was accompanied by a specific musical sting that was probably played on a xylophone. It’s pretty damned cute. My other question is: when the producers were casting the actress who would eventually be Samantha, were they looking to cast a woman who could twitch her nose, or did they cast Elizabeth Montgomery, find out later that she could twitch her nose, and worked that into Samantha’s character traits? Cos what are the odds, really?

Yup! That’s all I got. As an aside, Bewitched was popular in multiple countries, particularly Japan, where the show was renamed 奥さまは魔女 (Okusama wa majou, or My wife is a witch), and in 1967, shoujo mangaka Masako Watanabe drew a manga adaptation for the publication Weekly Margaret that lasted nine chapters. You can check out a scanlation version of one of those chapters right here!

I suppose I could draw a line under this post and say Samantha was a delight, but ultimately I’m more drawn to her sassy brunette cousin, Serena, as portrayed by Pandora Spocks.
Whatever happened to Pandora, anyway? Tarantino should revitalise her career by casting her in something. And what were the odds of her looking almost exactly like Elizabeth Montgomery?? (see below)

Sdtrk: ‘The world spins’ by Julee Cruise

David Lynch, the maverick American director who sustained a successful mainstream career while also probing the bizarre, the radical and the experimental, has died aged 78.

So I know for a fact that the first thing I ever saw directed by David Lynch was his unique take on Dune, in the theatre back in 1983. I’d never read any of the series apart from the one Dune book I’d gotten on a whim from the Science Fiction Book Club — starting the series from the fourth book wasn’t the best idea — but it was a scifi film, which was all that mattered to me back then. I had no idea that it was a fast and loose adaptation of Herbert’s book, which loads of critics savaged, but I remember it being capital W Weird, and anything that helped reinforce that Star wars and Star trek are bland scifi franchises is something that’ll pique my interest.

As I wasn’t as director-aware back then as I am now, the next Lynch thing I saw would’ve been Twin peaks. To this day, I’m still astonished that such a bold, insidious, and on many levels, straight-up terrifying programme like that was aired on broadcast television. On ABC! When I think of ABC, I think of anodyne shite like Family matters and Perfect strangers! My best friend Sean and our mutual friend Tammy and I were obsessed with that series; Tammy and I would often watch the week’s episode while on the phone together, like a pre-Netflix watch party. It’s been about three decades and I still recall our shock and astonishment of watching S02 E14, where a major character was murdered; between the character being killed, and the brutal and relentless way the scene was executed, we couldn’t believe what we were seeing. During a telly show on ABC! But from the first episodes of Twin peaks onward, Lynch had a hold on me to the point of wanting to become a film director myself. Clearly that… didn’t pan out, but he made me more mindful of directors overall; prior to that, films were just something I looked at.

After becoming fully invested in the best soap opera ever made (apart from Invitation to Love, of course), I started looking into his previous work. I’ve seen all of his feature films, with the exception of ‘The elephant man’ and ‘The straight story’, and in the interest of full disclosure, I’d have to say that although I love and admire his distinctive cinematic vision, Twin peaks resonated with me the most of all. I think the reason for that is because of its subversive quality; I’m drawn to things that have the surface appearance of normality, but are actually something different and/or perverse. This should come as a surprise to no-one. Regardless, these days, everyone knows what the deal is with Twin peaks — it’s synonymous with bizarre — but when all is said and done, it’s a soap opera, which is a very American invention, but it’s a subversion of a bog-standard soap opera. I mean, I gather that soap opera storylines tend to get more unhinged the longer they air, but even then, anything they could come up with would be a pale comparison to anything Lynch could’ve devised.

Another huge part of his appeal was that he was naturally eccentric as a person. Eccentricity is something I will always champion, as it’s the weirdos and those who are proudly left-of-centre who are cultural pioneers and innovators. Not in a capitalist context, but in literary and artistic modes, as Wilde (an infamous eccentric himself) would say; modes which I think are the better arbiters of culture. I recall reading an interview with Lynch in the Nineties, where he’d stated that he always buttoned up his shirt collars as he didn’t like the feeling of wind on his collarbone; I’d read that thinking ‘no, I totally get that.’ And then, of course, there’s the soured relationship he had with his former boys Chucko, Buster, Pete, Bob, and Dan, but that’s an entirely different anecdote. He was relentlessly true to himself and the visions he fostered, and that’s something to be proud of.

David Lynch was an artist, first and foremost, and often the lines between his artistic endeavours and his ‘normal’ existence blurred, which was another indicator that he was the genuine article. And any director… no, any level-headed human being… who has the presence of mind to make the statement he did about watching feature films on a mobile phone will always have my admiration; he was absolutely right to have said so.

Happy Twin peaks day, David. Please be sure to tell Bowie we all say Hi

Lynch was a saint cloaked as a transgressor in a world full of transgressors cloaked as saints.

— Phil Hester (@philhester.bsky.social) January 16, 2025 at 1:37 PM

Sdtrk: ‘All stitched up’ by The hearing trumpet

Sitting comfortably in the top twenty section of my Favourite Films List would be both ‘Blade runner’ — the Final Cut version, if I’m being specific — and ‘Blade runner 2049’. I’d actually seen the 1982 theatrical release when it came out, and am one of the thousands of individuals who loved it from the off. Really, what’s not to like? Beautifully shot and directed, worldbuilding that immediately draws you in through its visual and sound design, the clothes, the tech *fans self* and most of all, a story that’s centred round artificial humans with the overall question being ‘is there truly a difference between Organik humans and Synthetik ones?’ When word got out close to thirty years later that there would be a sequel, my reaction was similar to thousands of individuals thinking this was a mistake, and the film would be shite from start to finish.

Truth in advertising

‘Blade runner 2049’ has the distinction of being the only film I’ve ever seen in the theatre that I saw in the theatre a second time two or three days later. Maybe it helped that I was considerably older than I was in 1982, as well as being much, much more enthusiastic about the idea of Synthetik humans — no guesses as to why — but the tale of K trying to learn who he was in the face of all that he had been told as a Replicant police officer affected me even more than the story of a man ostensibly being sent out to retire ‘rogue’ Replicants.
For me, it’s not a case of ‘which do you like more, the original or 2049’, as I’m simply unable to choose. They’re both excellent films in differing and similar ways, and you can’t make me choose, so there.

Slight spoilers ahead if you, for some bizarre reason, haven’t already seen the film, but there’s loads of things from ‘2049’ that I get a kick out of… the updated spinner designs, especially K’s Peugeot spinner that included a drone, the ruins of Las Vegas, Luv remotely using flechette-based satellite weaponry, the Baseline test, that fucking incredible soundtrack — fun fact: when Jaro Asikainen & Turkka Korkiamäki filmed the Missus and I for Finnish telly back in 2018, one of the many things we bonded over was how cool the soundtrack was, and we listened to it throughout much of our stint in San Marcos — I could go on, but I’m trying my damnedest to rein myself in, here. But even with everything about ‘2049’ being exceptional, this exchange between K (Ryan Gosling) and Mariette (Mackenzie Davis) makes me smile every time I watch it.
For context — again, go watch the film in its entirety, but ONLY! After you finish reading this post — KD6-3.7 is a Nexus-9 series Replicant, whose duty is to hunt down and retire any remaining Replicants from the preceding Nexus series. Mariette is a Nexus-8 Replicant who’s a sexworker. K has a wife in the form of Joi, a hologram made by the Wallace corporation, and that musical sting you’ll hear at 2.57, which are the first few notes of Prokofiev’s Peter and the wolf, is both a notification from Joi, and the company jingle. Skip ahead to the 1.26 mark, if you like:

I dunno; really this is more of a personal observation than anything else, but the fact that Replicants — bio-engineered, vat-grown, lab-created humans — are considered to be ‘real’ whereas intangible hologram companions are not, made me grin from ear to ear. Hopefully this isn’t seen as me being disparaging in the slightest towards any Organiks who prefer or have virtual partners, such as Akihiko Kondo or anyone with a companion through the Replika platform, but I just think it’s amusingly ironic. In the Blade runner universe, the goalposts have shifted somewhat, and even though there are many people in society who don’t like or trust Replicants, they’ve earned the status of being ‘real’.
Is there truly a difference between Organik humans and Synthetik ones?