Sdtrk: ‘An American in Paris’ by Severed heads

When accumulating info/pics/facts/crap for my world-famous ‘This was the Future’ series, now and again, I’ll run across some neat bit of architectural or design anachronism, but it’s simply too modern to feature as a segment of that series. However, noteworthiness always deserves recognition, which is why they stuck stars to kids’ foreheads back in gradeschool. So here’s a couple of retro-future things that have a wee bit more emphasis on the future than the retro.

First off, the ‘“Oneself” Bathroom for Person who Lives Itself‘. I couldn’t have put it better myself, honestly.

Our world packed sewer, packed barriers. The Oneself project – a bathroom for person who lives itself. For it each wall spare and him necessary each square metre for selfrealization. There is no bathroom, there is simply wall.

And there is no Dana, only Zuul, for that matter. For those of you who don’t speak fractured English, basically it’s the component parts of a bathroom, secretly integrated into the wall of the bedroom. That bog in particular kinda reminds me of Mal Reynolds’ toilet onboard the Serenity. When your business is done, you just slide it back into the wall. Quite efficient!

Next up, the apartment building known as Suite Vollard, located in Curitiba, Brazil. Upon first glance, it seems like a regular, if somewhat chi-chi, resort hotel. But it has a secret feature — all of the 11 apartments of the building rotate. It’s as if someone saw Marina City, and decided to strap engines to its infrastructure.

Does whimsical pipe-organ music play when the flats are in
motion? It had better

From the interior of the Suite Vollard building, no landscape is fixed. With the mere pressing of a button, residents of each of the 11 apartments can have 360º panoramic view of the city.

Each apartment has its own independent engine system, which can be engaged with a remote control. A complete clockwise or counterclockwise 360º turn takes one hour and the system is equipped with a programming timer.

The apartments have 2885 ft and are surrounded by 323 ft of glass balconies that give access to all rooms through the doors, placed at every 90º. The central area of the apartment does not move in which the kitchen, bathrooms, maid bedroom, laundry area, and barbecue grill are located.
text taken from this site

All that, plus a bedroom for the maid, eh? Huh. Well, I suppose that if you’re living in a high-rise penthouse in Brazil that rotates, then having a maid is merely part and parcel.

When I was younger, I thought my ideal situation would be to buy an RV and live in it. I’d simply drive it to the lot of whatever workplace I was at and park it there for an extended period of time, and have a Vespa or a Lambretta to tool about the local roads on. As I grew older, a couple of realisations occured:
1) I began buying more and more space-consuming things
2) Having your home on the same lot as your workplace isn’t really conducive to skiving off work — not that I ever do that sort of thing, you understand
3) Riding a scooter during the Winter is probably not the best idea a person could have
Despite all of that, I might readopt my plan if I could afford one of these — a refitted London double decker bus that you can live in, courtesy of Double Decker Living. How fab is that?

Of course I’d paint a Union Jack on mine somewhere

On the outside it looks like an ordinary London double decker bus. But take a step inside and you will find a kitchen, shower, sitting room and five beds.

A fleet of Leyland Olympian buses that were retired from service two years ago have been given a new lease of life as the latest solution to the capital’s housing crisis.

A company called Double Decker Living has converted eight buses with private sleeping areas upstairs and living space downstairs.

[…] There are solar panels on the roof and recycling bins to make the buses as environmentally friendly as possible.

Kinda reminds me of one of comedian Steven Wright’s hoary Surrealist joke chestnuts: ‘I put my car key in my door lock by mistake, and when I turned it, the whole building started up.’ *pauses for added comic effect* ‘So I took it for a drive. A police officer stopped me and asked, “Where do you live?” I said, “Right here.”‘

And finally, two week-ends ago, Detroit was host once again to the North American International Auto Show; or as we just call it round here in the tri-county area, the Auto show. Every couple of years I try to catch it, as I like wandering round the Volkswagen and the MINI exhibits, even though the last couple of times, I haven’t been able to climb into a MINI, as there are too many damned people milling round. And it’s around that time that I remember why I hate crowds. Anyway, I missed the 2007 one, as I was skint — my paycheque was laughable, due to missing four out of five days because of the grippe — but I would’ve been there in a heartbeat had I known the Aero X by Saab was to be displayed there. Have you seen this thing? It… it is magnificent.

It also transforms into Flight Mode

Now I, much like any aesthete, love the concept of gull-wing car doors. But the Aero X features an entire canopy that lifts open to admit occupants. It also boasts an economically-friendly engine, the ability to go 0 – 60 mpg in 4.9 seconds, and some other bollocks, but I’m looking at those pics, and all I see is ‘sexatronic perspex green-illuminated dashboard’ and ‘opening fecking canopy that’s so awesome it’s awesomn‘. This is the result of European engineering that also develops aircraft in its spare time. Well done, Sweden!

Modern design: it’s not all rubbish!
Well, I think I’ve gotten that out of my system

Sdtrk: ‘Pan’s garden’ by Belbury Poly

FYI: three new video clips have been uploaded to Shi-chan’s Dailymotion page; some pervy, some not so much. But I regret not locating a really good karakuri video for her to post this month. As we start running out of Synthetiks clips, however, that might well change…

And I’m rather cranky that I still haven’t been able to procure a single video of the new and improved EveR-2 Muse. (This one doesn’t count, as that’s the old new and improved EveR-2 Muse.) *narrows eyes to flinty slits* Hangul, your angle-and-oval-based characters vex me.
In some aspects, life should be like a Flinstones cartoon; strike someone on the back of the head with a rolling pin, and suddenly, they know a foreign language, like Portuguese.

In the meantime, enjoy the videos! But I leave you with a sordid reminder of what we’re missing out on. Happy 23rd!

She still sings horrible pop shite, but she’s a Gynoid, so it’s more palatable

Sdtrk: ‘Franz Ferdinand might be from Glasgow and that’s alright but their music is a pile of pussy fucking shite and then christ destroys us’ by Jansky noise

It’s entirely reassuring to know that there are still a number of people alive in Japan, that still know how to construct karakuri. Even more reassuring is the fact that they’ve made the knowledge available to others, ensuring it’ll never be lost to obscurity. So you’ll be pleased to learn that the company Karakuriya, who specialise in building karakuri dolls to the original Edo-era (1603 to 1867) specs, have a number of models on offer. Get those wallets ready though, as the average price runs about — brace yourself — $8000 USD.

Left: in work clothes. Right: off the clock

Karakuri dolls were the first automata in Japan.
Their movements are caused by the power of springs, mercury and sand. You can build them and take them apart easily without ever using metallic screws or nails. […] Karakuri dolls are a representative of the highest technology in the Edo period.
It was difficult to pass the tradition down from generation to generation, because their production required not only the knowledge, but also a high level of craftsmanship.
It is called as a treasure trove since few original designs from those days still exist, and complete ones are even more rare.

If I had a choice between purchasing one of these and, say, a MyPartyDoll, the answer’s embarrassingly clear-cut. But you definitely have to admire the dedication of the craftsmanship behind each karakuri ningyou. Two different types of wood, silk fabrics and gold brocade for the clothes, and special clay used to sculpt the hand-painted head. And each one is made-to-order, as they take 20 – 40 days to carve, paint, and assemble.
And remember, if you don’t exactly have the dosh on hand to splash out for the more ‘luxury’ version, there’s always the more reasonably-priced version; a snip at $170 USD. Hmmm. *stroking chin*

I’m sure you’ll be able to find out a shedload more information about karakuri at nippon-karakuri.com, but as of this writing, they’re still working on their English page. Nevertheless!
Also, I’ll have Sidore post a karakuri video or two to her Dailymotion.com page on the usual update date of the 23rd — if I can find the clip, that is. It’s around here somewhere

Sdtrk: ‘memory one’ by The caretaker

The only fab thing about being employed again? The money. Or, as Winnie the Pooh might have it, the munny.

Over the course of the past three days, I’ve purchased
+ an airsoft MP40, courtesy of the Bay of e, so I can pretend I’m with the Wehrmacht. With the exception of the highly-coveted P90, my airsoft collection is complete

+ volume 2 of Ultraman, in conjunction with a $10 BestBuy giftcard that I received on Christmas. Initially my plan was to either buy the Prisoner thinpack, or the ‘Doctor Who: The beginning’ box set, but I forgot I was at BestBuy. ‘If it’s not brand new, or a hot item popular with the masses, we ain’t got it.’ Fuckers. O well, I wasn’t even really looking for Ultraman v2, so it all worked out

+ Borders had Emailed me, saying I had until 31 Jan to use up my Holiday rewards savings (a grand total of $7.63), so I hit the location near my work and grabbed volume 2 of Monster, and an Audrey Hepburn calendar for 2007. Not my ideal choice for a calendar, but 1) they were 50% off, and 2) that was the best they had left out of their remaining selection. Thankfully, I’ve always found Audrey hot, so it’s okay. But at the register, I was informed that I’d need a hardcopy of that Email I got, in order to use my savings, as they start tallying savings for 2007 after 01 Jan. Ergh. So I guess I’ll be using my $7.63 to buy Monster v3

+ Also within the same quarter mile as BestBuy and Borders was a GameStop, where I used some trade-in credit dating back to 2005 to get $20 off Samurai warriors 2 finally. The trade-in receipts were yellow and fading, much to the register biscuit’s astonishment. ‘Dude… were these printed on the Declaration of Independence?’ he’d asked. I chuckled

+ My hex key set that I’d ordered through the corporate gift catalogues issued to us at work arrived through the post! From now on, if I ever have a hex placed upon me, I can unlock it with no trouble whatsoever

+ Finally, be witness unto my New Cellphone.

No idea why the pic is blurry — more than likely, it’s due to Shi-chan’s complete inability to hold still — but yes, those are gaily-decorated human skulls as my wallpaper. (If you’re fully intrigued, you can download a copy for yourself from here.) But it’s a Treo Smartphone by Palm, which means that unlike my old Kyocera 7135, it’s smaller, lighter, has a faster processor, a built-in QWERTY keyboard, a 1.3 MP camera, a camcorder, and won’t crash like three times a week. Summation: it is a sexay machine.

So yeah! Stuff Week, or as the Germans might have it, Stüfwoch. O wait — now what the hell is this??

Sdtrk: ‘Der Rauber und der Prinz’ by DAF

Not so much earlier than right now, I had the vague stirrings of an altogether different post in mind, but then I saw the following clip of Delia Derbyshire, the doyenne of musique concrète during the BBC Radiophonic Workshop’s heyday, posted to YouTube and decided, ‘well, that other post is gonna have to wait a wee bit longer.’

Delia Derbyshire is one of the earliest and most influential electronic sound synthesists in history. She was musically active from 1962 until the mid seventies, then briefly again for a few years before she died in 2001 at the age of 64.

Although her revolutionary sounds are familiar to over a hundred million people through the theme to the television series “Doctor Who” and the seminal album of 1969 “An Electric Storm” she was hardly ever credited and her name is almost unknown. The bulk of her musical production and atmospheric sound for television and radio programmes is on tape in the BBC Sound Archives. Her own personal collection of tapes was also consigned to the archive on her death and since then only three new tracks have been released on compilation albums with music from other composers. Most will probably never be heard again. A catalogue was made of the Archives, but it has not been published.
taken from this site

Gods, she’s so hot, both physically and creatively. And keep in mind that she and the other premiere members of the Radiophonic workshop, namely John Baker and David Cain, were creating things such as loops and sequencing with analogue equipment. No fancy ProTools or laptop magick here, which makes what they did all the more astounding. I recall seeing another interview with her on the recent DVD for ‘An unearthly child’, the first ever Doctor Who episode, and she was saying that sometimes they would make tapeloops that would literally run the length of a hallway. And naturally, everything was hand-spliced back then. Hand-spliced. Can you imagine?
And yes, I absolutely melted when I heard the way she pronounced ‘punctuating’.

Would you like to learn more about Delia Derbyshire, the woman who helped revolutionise 20th century music? Yes, yes you would. Why not stop round the appropriately-named delia-derbyshire.org, and kill an hour or two?

Technorati tags: Delia Derbyshire, BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Musique concrète

Sdtrk: ‘Wattwurm’ by Liliental

Looks like Juergen Specht wasn’t the first to have an Organik lass portray a Synthetik in a photoshoot. Hardly surprising, but still. But it looks like Italian artist Mario A. beat him to it seven years ago, with his ‘ma poupée japonaise’ series.

Mario A.’s ‘ma poupée japonaise’

Slightly NSFW, but then it depends on where you work, of course… Mario A., if I had a glass nearby, I would raise it to you

Sdtrk: ‘Kenickie folks’ by Hideki Kaji

Right right; now I see why there’s been a metric ton of people over the course of the past few days, hitting ‘Shouting etc etc’ by looking for Ronald A. Dotson. I’m peering at my stats, going ‘WTF??’ Not ‘what the fuck??’, mind you, but making a perplexed sound that resembles ‘wittif’.

Mannequin fetishist could get life
Associated Press | Mon Jan 1, 5:33 PM ET

FERNDALE, Mich. – A man who has a history of smashing windows to indulge his fetish for female mannequins could draw a long prison term for his latest arrest. Ronald A. Dotson, 39, of Detroit faces up to life in prison if convicted of a charge of attempted breaking and entering at a cleaning-supply company in the Detroit suburb of Ferndale.

The potential life sentence is because prosecutors charged him as a habitual offender. Authorities say he has at least six convictions for breaking and entering and a stint in state prison over the last 13 years.

Ferndale District Judge Joseph Longo ordered Dotson to stand trial following a preliminary examination on Thursday, The Daily Tribune of Royal Oak reported. The judge ordered him jailed unless he posts a $15,000 bond.

Dotson was arrested Oct. 9 after police say he smashed a window at a cleaning-supply company to get at a female mannequin dressed in a black and white French maid’s uniform. He had been out of prison for less than a week.

Dotson was arrested in Ferndale in July 2000 and later convicted for breaking and entering at a women’s clothing shop to get at a mannequin in a pink dress with bobbed hair.

Ferndale police also arrested Dotson in 1993 after finding him in an alley behind a woman’s store with three lingerie-clad mannequins. He also has similar convictions in Detroit and suburban Oak Park.
___

Information from: The Daily Tribune, http://www.dailytribune.com

Oddly enough, the Trib doesn’t actually have this story on its website. What does that say about the Tribune? *coughfishwrapcough*

Now, I know exactly where that shop that he broke into is — I pass by it at least once a week when I’m Out and About — and I’ve seen that Mannequin. She’s cute, but definitely not worth risking a prison sentence.
And I have to go even further by saying that yes, our Ronald certainly isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but I think a long-term conviction is quite literally a waste of taxpayer’s money. Don’t you think it’d just be cheaper to get that tosser a couple of Mannequins, and let him go crazy? Honestly, they’re not that expensive, especially if you buy used. Now if his problem isn’t based on wanting to have it off with a Mannequin, but is actually centred on simply breaking and entering/theft, then by all means, get him some psychiatric treatment. But throwing that silly tosser in prison simply cos he doesn’t have access to Mannequins is, well, silly. Sure, it’s not as if he couldn’t buy one, but it’s been proven that he’s just not that clever. He’s an idiot, but ultimately, he’s a harmless idiot — it’s not as if he’s knifing people in the streets or whatever. There are worse individuals out there that deserve harsher punishment.

You gotta love ‘Shouting to hear the echoes’. The execution of Saddam Hussein? Not a jot, not a single syllable. Some story about some local loony who attempted to make sexy time love explosion with a Mannequin? Well, he gets not one, but two posts written about him! Our priorities are different here