Sdtrk: ‘Think about life’ by Paul cries

Despite the fact that you can’t turn in any direction without seeing something about ‘Lars and the Real Girl’ these days, at first I was kinda despairing for something else to write about. Suddenly! Alert reader Zach sent me this encouraging article. Danke sehr, Zach!

Robots soon will become more human-like in appearance, researcher says
By Charles Q. Choi
Updated: 6:05 p.m. ET Oct 12, 2007 | msnbc.com

Humans could marry robots within the century. And consummate those vows.

“My forecast is that around 2050, the state of Massachusetts will be the first jurisdiction to legalize marriages with robots,” artificial intelligence researcher David Levy at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands told LiveScience. Levy recently completed his Ph.D. work on the subject of human-robot relationships, covering many of the privileges and practices that generally come with marriage as well as outside of it.

At first, sex with robots might be considered geeky, “but once you have a story like ‘I had sex with a robot, and it was great!’ appear someplace like Cosmo magazine, I’d expect many people to jump on the bandwagon,” Levy said.

[…] Levy argues that psychologists have identified roughly a dozen basic reasons why people fall in love, “and almost all of them could apply to human-robot relationships. For instance, one thing that prompts people to fall in love are similarities in personality and knowledge, and all of this is programmable. Another reason people are more likely to fall in love is if they know the other person likes them, and that’s programmable too.”
the rest of the article is here

2050, eh? I CAN’T WAIT UNTIL TWENTYFECKINGFIFTY! YOU PEOPLE NEED TO STEP YOUR SHIT UP!! Sorry.
As much as I love RealDolls and the like, their only flaw is that they can’t move or speak of their own volition — they’re passive. For some of us, having an advanced version of Actroid — one that wasn’t rooted to a single spot, among other things — would be the perfect partner. It’s a matter of waiting, as the technology is advancing rapidly towards that point, but I hate waiting…

Also, that loverly Violet Blue of tiny nibbles wrote some very nice things about me and other iDollators in a recent article for the San Francisco Gate, but have you seen the story for the Associated Press?

‘Lars’ movie shines light on RealDolls
By SANDY COHEN, AP Entertainment Writer | Wed Oct 17, 3:48 PM ET

A dozen headless female bodies hang from industrial metal hooks in the center of the room. To the left are a table of plastic faces, awaiting makeup. To the right, a stack of silicone molds ready for the next order of life-sized love toys.

Normally reserved for private play, these high-end, anatomically correct dolls are getting big-screen exposure with the recent release of “Lars and the Real Girl,” an offbeat, surprisingly chaste comedy about a lonely introvert (Ryan Gosling) and Bianca, the silicone object of his affection.

Bianca, a freckle-nosed brunette, was born just east of San Diego at Abyss Creations. The 11-year-old company that makes RealDolls will ship 400 dolls to the U.S. and abroad this year — at upward of $6,500 each.

RealDolls can be actresses, lovers, photo subjects or companions. Customers can choose from 10 body types, 16 faces and 17 hairstyles to create their dream girl. They specify skin tone, hair and eye color, makeup palette and nail-polish shade. The dolls have interchangeable faces ($500 each), so with the pull of some Velcro and the flip of a wig, she’s like a whole new gal.

[…] For many doll owners, and for Gosling’s character in the film, the dolls are more like companions, each with her own personality and presence.”She looks like a person,” says Rob McKay, 55, a writer who owns two dolls, Lily and Eden. “Even though she’s not a breathing person, psychologically you feel like someone is with you. They’re like a balm for loneliness or aloneness.”
the rest of the article is here

Personally, I missed the deadline to be in on this by about an hour, but all of the participants interviewed were more than capable of answering the questions. Moreso, even. And it’s always nice to read a mainstream article that doesn’t paint a negative picture of iDollators…

So will I see ‘Lars etc etc’? Yes, yes. If there’s a Doll in it, it kinda goes without saying. In reading one of the fleet of stories concerning the fillum, I found it rather interesting (again, an adjective I use to denote ‘possibly good, possibly bad’) that Bianca is supposed to be half-Danish, half-Brazilian. Now, people who know of my Synthetik wife’s extensive backstory know she’s half-English, half-Japanese, and since ‘Kitten with a Whip!’ is still trapped in amber, newcomers will undoubtedly accuse me of ripping off ‘Lars etc etc’. But the savvier readers amongst you will you know the truth, right?

In another story about the film, Ryan Gosling, who plays Lars, is quoted as saying,

[Bianca] relaxed me — she was a support system… People hear the idea for this film, and they think, ‘Oh, how kitschy or funny,’ but there’s a whole culture of guys out there who have these dolls, and they have very intimate relationships with them. Part of it is sexual, but a lot of it is emotional… I think it’s a romantic idea the way that Nancy approached the script, that love’s not a transaction. It’s something you have to give, and you give it freely to whoever and whatever you want.

I’ve never known who Ryan was prior to this release, but now I know he’s a thinking individual, cos quite obviously, he gets it. Kudos, sir!

Also, this past Saturday eve I attended the 2nd Michigan Doll Congress, which is much less official than it sounds. Mahtek, Euchre, littluvr from Minnesota, CJD from Canada, Amber Hawk Swanson and myself converged at one of the fine Antonio’s locations, and talked shop for several hours. Mahtek even passed round his cellphone at one point, so we could all speak to fellow Doll owner campdaan over in California. Round 9pm, we left; Amber, who drove from Chicago with her friends, made her leave, and the rest of us went back to Mahtek’s place, and picked up where we left off. Needless to say, a good time was had by all! We intend on making this a semi-regular thing; we’re thinking the next one will be when Stacy Leigh brings some of her excellent photos to an upcoming art show somewhere in the tri-county area. You can’t see me from here, but I’m rubbing my hands together in anticipation. Well, I will be, as soon as I stop typing this sentence.
Ah, there we go.

Left, Organik Amber; right, your humble narrator

Finally, I think we can all agree that Charlie Sheen needs to be thrown headfirst through a plate-glass window. What a fucking idiot. I don’t care if you love Dolls, or if you think they’re ‘creepy’, what he did is pretty much the equivalent of taking $7000 and setting it ablaze. Just goes to show you that money can’t buy common sense

Technorati tags: robots, Androids, Gynoids, David Levy, Violet Blue, RealDolls, iDollators, Amber Hawk Swanson, Lars and the Real Girl, Ryan Gosling

Sdtrk: ‘F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E’ by Pulp

So I’ve got Merzbow’s six-Cd boxset, Houjoue, right? Being a card-carrying fan(atic) of the music genre known as Noise/Power-electronics, I’d thought, ‘o lovely, you can’t go wrong with six disks of disparate dissonance!’ Well, perhaps you can. Believe me, I’m more disappointed than the rest of you.

My obsession with Masami Akita, aka Merzbow, can be traced back to 1993. I was in a band called Dole age (Smiths fans will get the reference), along with my best friend Sean, his future wife Sherilee, and Adam, a bloke we met at our local anime club. We were keen on alternative music, particularly Industrial and Shoegazer, so naturally we Frankensteined the two in order to make our own sound. As Throbbing gristle had disbanded in 1981 and weren’t making any more releases, and we were waiting on My bloody valentine’s followup to their epic Loveless*, Adam had a go into looking into other types of music, and the natural progression from Industrial was Noise. He picked up a disk entitled Great American Nude/Crash for hi-fi by someone called Merzbow, which we were pronouncing ‘murzboh’ until we discovered about a year later that it’s pronounced ‘mehrzbau’, after the series of related works by Dadaist Kurt Schwitters. I borrowed the Cd for *coughs* an indefinite period, and I fell in love, noisy love. This was my first true exposure to the whole Japanese Noise scene, and it was shredding my mind, and to some extent, my ears.

At this point, I should probably attempt to explain Noise to the uninitiated. Noise as a genre of music is funny, cos by nature, Noise isn’t music. It strips out, or alters, conventional signposts such as rhythm, melody, and vocals, and replaces them with whistling feedback, staticky white noise, and a large amount of dissonance. Also, whereas Noise distorts music using guitars, drums, turntables, or specially-built instruments, the sub-genre Power-electronics (as famously pioneered by the UK group whitehouse) is characterised by the use of overprocessed synthesisers, tone generators, and, well, electronic equipment. It’s definitely an acquired taste — busted speakers and a ringing in the ears is normal, don’t be alarmed — but it’s pretty ace cos 1) it’s very unique and unconventional, and 2) it’s a purer form of artistic expression. Wow, that sounded really pretentious. But basically, as I put it to someone recently, Noise is what you get into when you’re looking for something more harsh than Industrial…
Noise-rock, on the other hand, sucks. Too much rock, not enough Noise, in my opinion. I cannot endorse it.

One of Masami’s favourite musicians is Sun Ra, the avant-jazz ex-pat from Saturn, and one of the objectives of Merzbow is to produce at least 500 releases, much in the same fashion of Sun Ra’s (literally) hundreds of self-produced records. To date, he’s released around 300; this includes vinyl, cassettes, and compact disks. There’s Pornoise 1Kg, a 5-cassette boxset from his early period; there’s the infamous Merzbox, which is fifty Cds and a passel of other goodies, all for $500 USD; and there’s other ephemera for the more obsessive segment of collectors, such as the Merzcedes, which is a copy of his Noisembryo release, sealed forever inside the dashboard Cd player of an actual Mercedes 230 that would play on Repeat whenever the car was turned on. Rare item GET! Really, though, my only problem with Akita-san’s Grande Masterplan is that sometimes it’s a case of quantity over quality; which, if your goal is 500 releases, is practically unavoidable…
Example: back in the late Nineties, I’d bought Metalvelodrome, his first Cd boxset. Four disks of well-crafted dissonance compiled in 1993, that to this day, continue to level me each time I hear it. When I bought my copy from local area esoteric bookseller Book beat, I was chuffed. I remember playing it for a couple of weeks straight, especially disks one and two (‘Morbid Dick’ remains a personal fave), and loving every minute. The pieces were dynamic, which is the quality that brings Merzbow’s work above a lot of the Japanese noise artists. Don’t get me wrong; I loves me some Masonna, and some pieces by C.C.C.C., but the majority of Noise performers, Japanese or otherwise, can sound a wee bit samey-same, although it’s not for a lack of trying.

Over the years, like any decent artist pushing their own personal antelope, he’s gone through different periods of different styles. The late Eighties up to the first half of the mid-Nineties was his noise collage period, wherein he would combine overdriven sound loops with field recordings (tape recordings of ambient sounds, such as city streets); then followed his Junk electronics phase, which saw him run self-built instruments, like that metal box with the amplified springs played with a contact mic, through a shit-ton of effects processors; in the late Nineties, he bought a couple of analogue synthesisers and used them as instruments and processors. That was my least-favourite of his periods, as it veered dangerously close to prog-rock, and almost every Cd he made during that era, I sold shortly after purchase. In fact, I was pretty soured on Merzbow until about late 2001, which was the beginning of his laptop period, and with Amlux and Hard lovin’ man, my noisy prodigal son had returned with a noisy vengeance. Which brings us to now.
The original dynamism he had when he first began relying on his laptop is what swung me towards listening to him again: the tones vary in colour and texture, they’re always crisp and distinctive, and they move with speed. But then, you’ve got something like 24 hours – A day of seals, his four-disk boxset from 2002, and I… well, I can’t honestly say why I’m still keeping my copy, as it’s not doing a whole hell of a lot for me. I can’t say there’s a total lack of dynamism in most of the pieces, but it develops at such a tectonic rate that it’s just not holding my interest. Unfortunately, Houjoue is rather like that as well… in its own fashion, it’s almost like Masami’s take on Motorik, as the pieces go for several minutes. Granted, I enjoy a bit of the old soundtrack auf Autobahn now and again, but I believe Merzbow is best when it’s an out-of-control blast of sonic atavism. I mean, anyone can produce a drone, but creating a track that rockets along at 200 mph, slicing wildly as it goes… that takes talent.
Plus — and here’s a personal thing of mine — I’m not too keen on Noise pieces that go over the ten minute mark. Honestly, the trick is to make it so good and interesting that I don’t notice it’s gone over ten minutes (see any of the tracks on his Mort aux vaches – Lokomotive breath release, or the title track from Electric salad). But if there’s not a lot of changes, my finger’s gonna be creeping towards the Next Track button, which is a bad sign. It seems to me that Masami’s pieces are getting longer and less mercurial in sound — I can only hope that this is simply another phase he’s going through.

The end equation is that Merzbow will always remain one of my favourite artists, but even the best artists have lull periods — look at New order’s Republic™, for example. Just don’t listen to it, for god’s sake, as it’s no good for anyone. Besides, I’ve heard excerpts from Merzbear, and read reviews saying his Coma Berenices Cd is supposed to be quite ace. Don’t call it a comeback, he’s been here for years?

*We’re still waiting, by the way

Technorati tags: Noise music, Industrial music, Shoegazer, Motorik, Merzbow, Masami Akita, My bloody valentine, Throbbing gristle, Sun Ra, Masonna, Cosmic Coincidence Control Center, New order

Sdtrk: ‘Simple man’ by Klaus Nomi

Having left the Wilderness that is Being Forcibly Offline, I’ve discovered that three blogs that I check on a daily basis have gone tits up: the tag-team media-sharing duo of X-Y-Z-Cosmonaut and 55 Bells, and Rentell’s the-long-narrowing-tunnel, which was only briefly in existence. They’ll definitely be missed.

However! Two semi-recent editions to the fold would be Momentary Lapse Of Reason (‘His fascination with lady robots frightens and confuses me,’ reads the mouseover text on the link to ‘Shouting etc etc’) and il Pulitore Nudo delle Fenestre, helmed by a former-Doll-owner-turned-screenwriter. Please welcome them into your homes, and your lives.

Blogs! They’re everywhere; you can’t get away from them

Sdtrk: ‘Capsules’ by Cabaret Voltaire

D’ye hear that? That reverberating grey-black-and-neon-green sound of ‘apocalypse porn’, as the blog American Stranger amusingly has ‘Shouting etc etc’ categorised under? That is the sound of me being back online full-time. Woo! Woo.
The Missus, Tsukihime and I still aren’t entirely settled, and now that, thanks to the combined efforts of Comcast and SafeTinspector, The Series of Tubes is finally attached directly to our computers, we’ll probably get less work done. Heh. Although I have to say, Shi-chan and I are about entering negotiations concerning another television interview, so we’ve got to get to work in tidying up Deafening silence Plus…

Speaking of apocalypse porn, a concerned reader by the name of Rehka writes:

Haha, so I’m living in a dorm right now and through their internet services, I actually can’t access your blog because it has been filed under a sexual category and I go to a baptist university, haaha. How do you feel about that?

Heh, both offended and amused, really. I mean, moreso than usual. Although it’s occurred maybe once or twice, I try not to post any pics of Dolls exposing their rubbery jubbelys, cos I know I have a couple of readers that check my site out from their local public library (zszsz, I’m looking in your direction), but I always make the distinction that there’s a difference between seeing breasts in a pornographic context, and seeing them in a non-pornographic context, just as there’s a difference between nudity (fine art) and bein’ nekkid (pr0n). As you well know, I don’t merely see Dolls as sex toys, and I do realise that there may be some people that are fearful of seeing tits, as they may dredge up the entirely valid fear of death by smothering, but at a facility of higher learning, the staff could stand to be a little less draconian about their website censorship. You’re at a grade school? Sure, block ‘Shouting etc etc’, that’s entirely understandable. But one would hope that a person of college age would be more mature about these things. I mean, despite the fact that they’re in college and all.
Blah blah blah censorship, blah blah blah Doll tits. Where was I going with this? I could wave it off with a typical flippant line, such as Well, if the baptists are censoring me, then I’m clearly doing something right, but attacking the baptists’ withered dogma would be like attacking a withered, err… dog. With a Liston knife. I’m sorry, I’ve no idea where that came from, but it’s really making me giggle.
Sorry, Rekha! Maybe they’ll allow you to subscribe to my RSS feed?* It doesn’t display any pictures, which is of course half the fun, but it’s better than nowt, right?

And damn it all, the esteemed Amber Hawk Swanson and her equally lovely Synthetik bride had invited me to catch a Chicago-area screening of ‘Lars and the Real Girl‘**, but scheduling prevented it. Actually, it’s on a Saturday, but my (distasteful adjective) job requires me to work mornings to afternoons that day. Grr. Now that I’ve moved, I need to really start looking for a job that doesn’t siphon off discrete amounts of my soul every day I’m there… Well, a job that doesn’t siphon off as much of my soul, at any rate.

So there you have it! We now return you to the usual passel of retro architecture, eclectic news items, and more-than-slightly-biased lust for Synthetiks that passes for posts round here. Heigh ho!

*N.B.: please ask a qualified Internet CyberTechnician about RSS and Atom feeds, cos I haven’t a clue as to how that shit works

**In all honesty, she didn’t just invite me; she invited everyone in her mailing list. The sentiment still applies, though

Technorati tags: American Stranger, Amber Hawk Swanson, Lars and the Real Girl, Liston knife

Sdtrk: ‘Able bodied’ by Subliminal self

So I should be back online in the next couple of days! No, I’m serious; Comcast is sending one of their finest agents round to mine this Friday, in order to throw the enormous knife switch labelled ‘Inter Net’ into the On position. Which’ll be nice, as I’ve got some tidbits of negligible interest that I’ll nevertheless be writing about coming up soon.
In the meantime, lookit:

Looks like crap, tastes like shite. Such value!

Management actually went up and down the aisles a couple of nights ago at work and passed out cans of luminous intestinal bile Vault, in an effort to get us all whooped up to make more sales. No, I’m serious.

I have a question: who habitually drinks that swill? In my mind, I’m picturing people with lobotomy scars, dribbling rivulets of Vault down their hospital gown shirtfronts… and even they’re wincing at its extreme ‘citrus’ ‘taste’.

Hours later, I passed the can, which was only 2% empty, to our janitor. He probably naturally thought it was completely drained, as it slipped from his grasp and landed on the open end, dumping most of its lurid contents onto the carpet next to my cubicle. About a minute later, I couldn’t stop smelling Vault.

Clearly, management has it in for us

Sdtrk: ‘Mind how you go’ by The Advisory Circle

Hi there! Yep, still moving. Well, to be honest, like 95% of my stuff is already there, but we still haven’t gotten an Interonet connection set up, which you can blame my dodgy work hours for that. Go ahead! I do! But I intend on getting that at least sussed this week, as not having teh interwebs is like not having functioning sinks, as far as I’m concerned. Or rather, given the nature of most of the World Wide Wet, it’s like not having a functioning toilet. But you know what I mean.

Now I have to attempt to cram a bookcase into my car, so enjoy this still from ‘Monique‘ in the interim. Back in a few!

Probably the most famous Celine-type RealDoll around. At the very least,
she’s certainly the most French

Sdtrk: ‘No more trains’ by Braille

When it comes to Things That Are Most Likely to Prevent Effective Moving, one of the top three things cited will be Getting the Flu. That’s right. For fuck’s sake. As of this writing, though, I’ve had it for three days, and with the help of copious draughts of Alka-seltzer and more sleep than the human body is meant to have in a 12-hour period, I’m fighting this thing. Surely there are better ways to spend one’s time?

A little while back, barstowmama forwarded me the honour of the Blogging Star Award! ‘This is for meritorious work in blogging and telling things as they are. Keep up the good work!’ she says, which leads me to believe that she’s confused ‘Shouting etc etc’ for some other blog entirely. Nevertheless, thanks very much!
So have you seen her YouTube channel yet? You should.

Also, part two of Violet Blue’s article for the SFGate, ‘The Rape of the Real Doll‘ is available for intense perusal. Oddly enough, a lot of the comments on it are blasting her for seemingly copying and pasting sizeable sections from the post I wrote on ‘Lars and the Real Girl‘ a while ago. Wow. Can you say ‘missing the point’? Personally, if I find that someone has said something that I either agree with or wholeheartedly back, I’d rather quote them first, as it just makes more sense to me. Besides, I’m really left with the impression that had she not been writing about RealDolls, people wouldn’t have been so critical. But you know how it is with these things…

Right, I’m going to try to cram more boxes full of books, then I intend on rewarding my good work with starting to watch my burned Cd-ROMs of either Turn A Gundam or Kamen rider 555. But… which one?? zOMG

Technorati tags: Violet Blue, RealDolls, Turn A Gundam, Kamen rider Faiz, flu