June 27, 2009

(Same-sex) Slug Love with David Attenborough.

So lovely. Watching it made me feel teary.

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June 26, 2009
Michael Jackson with Squirrel in his Hair
‘There’s a tale from Gary, Indiana that when visiting relatives in 1973 young Michael was suprised (sic) to find that a squirrel had lept (sic) from a tree into his hair.“There’s a squirrel in my hair!” he exclaimed softly. Jermaine batted the squirrel away with the sleeve of his jacket and the family later went on a picnic of bologna sandwiches & Tab cola.’

Michael Jackson with Squirrel in his Hair

‘There’s a tale from Gary, Indiana that when visiting relatives in 1973 young Michael was suprised (sic) to find that a squirrel had lept (sic) from a tree into his hair.
“There’s a squirrel in my hair!” he exclaimed softly. Jermaine batted the squirrel away with the sleeve of his jacket and the family later went on a picnic of bologna sandwiches & Tab cola.’

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June 25, 2009

The Eternal Return

“Foucault’s experience in Iran contributed to a turning point in his thought. In the late 1970s, he was moving from a preoccupation with technologies of domination to a new interest in what he termed the technologies of the self, as the foundation for a new form of spirituality and resistance to power. We argue that the Iranian Revolution had a lasting impact on his late writing in several ways. In his Iran writings, Foucault emphasized the deployment of certain instruments of modernity as means of resistance. He called attention to the innovative uses Islamists made of overseas radio broadcasts and cassettes. This blending of more traditional religious discourses with modern means of communication had helped to galvanize the revolutionary movement and ultimately paralyzed the modern and authoritarian Pahlavi regime.”

- from Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the Seductions of Islamism (Afrary and Anderson, 2005)

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June 23, 2009
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Götenburg post-punk//Love is All//Sea Sick
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June 21, 2009

Tony Oursler's Synesthesia: Alan Vega and Genesis P-Orridge

ubuweb:

Two portraits by Tony Oursler of two fascinating cultural figures. I can’t stress how riveting and hypnotic these pieces are: by doing so little, Tony is doing so much. The camera simply is focused on the interviewee’s head and they talk for an hour and a half, candidly and openly about how they got to be who they are. Occasionally off screen Oursler and friends are heard asking just the right questions at the right time. Full of digression, humour and passion, these portraits get to the heart of the creative process, deeply exploring what it means to be an artist today. And it just shows what a brilliant and sensitive auteur Oursler is: whatever he touches bears the mark of his vision.

Genesis P-Orridge, performance artist and vocalist for the iconoclastic English industrial band Throbbing Gristle in the late 1970s, pioneered industrial music. P-Orridge, who went on to form the experimental band Psychic TV, continues to work in music, art, and performance in New York, and is undertaking a long-term “Pandrogeny” project involving a radical identity transformation.



Alan Vega, one half of the influential pre-punk synthesizer/drum machine duo Suicide (with Martin Rev), helped pioneer electronic music in the early 1970s. Vega, who began his career in New York as an artist known for light sculptures, also ran an art space that was a meeting ground for some of the most important artists in the underground New York art and music scenes.

Ourlser will be presenting Synesthesia in person at Issue in Brooklyn on June 1:

http://issueprojectroom.org/2009/05/08/tony-ourslers-synesthesia/

Tony Oursler on UbuWeb:

http://ubu.com/film/oursler.html


EVOL (1984)

Sucker (1987)

Synesthesia: Genesis P-Orridge (1997-2001)

Synesthesia: Alan Vega (1997-2001)

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[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

Here is some spacey dub, circa 1976.

dennis bovell - “harmoniser dub”

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timothypetersen:
Handball player, photographed by John Balsom.

timothypetersen:

Handball player, photographed by John Balsom.
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June 17, 2009
Wednesday
Wednesday
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Every desk is an island.
Every desk is an island.
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words wholly unrelated*

ragbag:

genius & ingenious

the former from gignere (to be born). the latter from ingenium (clever (and also where the word engine comes from)).

previously.

*etymologically speaking, duh.

Here, I will join in the fun and refer to a post I made, in a similar spirit:

Wysteries of the World

The word ‘obsequies’ (from the Latin obsequiae meaning ‘funeral rites’) has only a tenuous — it is etymologically and temporally distant — relation to the word ‘obsequious’ (which derives from the Latin sequi ‘follow’) and means ‘sycophantic.’
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