Favorites from Fuzzy Monster
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Songs of Pain
Daniel Johnston, singer/songwriter died of heart attack last night.
Johnston, recorded 17 full-length albums of original music. His trio of home-recorded tapes from the early 1980s, Songs of Pain,More Songs of Pain, Yip/Jump Music, and Hi, How Are You were incredibly influential in the indie-music and low-fi scene. His songs were covered by Yo La Tengo, Tom Waits and Pearl Jam to name a few. Kurt Cobain was a notable fan.
Johnston was also a visual artist who created murals, paintings, comic books and more.
Johnston had bipolar disorder and his life and struggles were explored in the 2005 documentary The Devil and Daniel Johnston. He was 58.
You're Gonna Miss Me
Roky Erickson, Lead singer and guitarist for legendary psych band The 13th Floor Elevator has died.
Roky Erickson was a difficult personality in that he had a peerless talent for the music he created, and was known for excesses in chemical intake. This second however, may have more to do with mental illness, than actual excess. Much like contemporary Syd Barrett, Roky lead a tumultuous life. I'm going to leave the links below the fold. Please enjoy the music and videos.
Kurt was really into those lilies. He had them all over the stage.
The best television episode of the 1990s starred a short, blond man and his band. On November 18, 1993, at Sony Music Studios in New York City, Nirvana took on MTV Unplugged. That night, the biggest group of the decade staged one of the most hypnotically intimate rock concerts ever captured on film.
I had this idea but didn’t know if I could keep it going for 11 minutes
"Casper had someone storyboard it up with classic sitcom moments, like accidentally roller-painting someone’s face. That one feels like a trope, but we couldn’t find it online."
An Oral History of 'Too Many Cooks'
Bang your head to this...
Cypress Hill spitting hard bars over a slinky Pearl Jam groove and dank Sonic Youth noise, Mudhoney and Sir Mix-A-Lot sharing a dirty Seattle scumbag sesh, Helmet’s taut riffs slowing down for steely-eyed House of Pain verses, Teenage Fanclub bummer jangle matching with De La Soul’s reflective rhymes... An oral history of the ‘Judgment Night’ soundtrack
RISO: people should not lose their ideals, then there would be no future
The RISO-Graph, a machine that duplicates like a mimeograph but dispels ink like a screen printer, turns 60 this year. The copier has come a long way from its humble 1958 beginnings in a small home in Tokyo, where it was a home-grown alternative to expensive emulsion ink imports, thriving until offset-laser-screen-printer hybrids came on the market in the late 1980s. Risographs have found a new, vibrant life as fast, inexpensive art production machines, documented on the Stencil site, a RISO wiki for artists, designers, and printers. With non-standard soy-based ink colors, the Atlas of Modern Risography includes details about which machines and inks each shop carries.
Deeper, deeper, deeper
68-year-old artist/musician Lonnie Holley has released the video for his new single, "I Woke Up In A Fucked-Up America."
RAMM:ΣLL:ZΣΣ
The Spectacular Personal Mythology of Rammellzee
by Hua Hsu is a fine introduction to the works of New York graffiti artist, sculptor, rapper, and painter Rammellzee, who passed away in 2010 at the age of 49. Known to hip hop afficionados for Beat Bop, his collaboration with Jean-Michel Basquiat and K-Rob, which was the subject of a Spin oral history. To get a feel for his aesthetic, this interview excerpted from the documentary Guerilla Art is a good place to start. If you want to know more, Alexxa Gotthardt wrote a good overview of his career and hip hop historian Dave Tompkins reminisced about Rammellzee and placed him in context.
A plethora of Sun Ra's four decades of baffling, dazzling, mystical jazz
A small, moonfaced man who spoke in enigmatic riddles, he fully inhabited the persona of a science fiction jazz Buddha. Sun Ra ... claimed he had been born on Saturn, and had come to Earth to offer a message of peace and salvation through music, as well as hope for a better life elsewhere in the universe. "I've been to a zone where there is no air, no light, no sound, no life, no death, nothing. There's five billion people on this planet, all out of tune. I've got to raise their consciousness, tell them about the wonderful potential to bypass death." With this introduction from The Believer Magazine, quoting Sun Ra himself, here is his music, on Bandcamp, from Sun Ra Music and Sun Ra via Strut. That's a lot of music, so here's a guide to Sun Ra's albums on Bandcamp.
The 100 Pages
To assemble our list of 100, we assembled a brain trust of comics professionals, critics, historians, and journalists. Our criteria were as follows: A page had to have either changed the way creators approach making comics, or it had to expertly distill a change that had just begun. In some cases, there were multiple pages that could be used to represent a particular innovation; we’ve noted those instances. We didn’t necessarily pick the 100 best pages — there are many amazing specimens we didn’t include because they didn’t have a significant influence on the craft of comics. The 100 [American] Pages That Shaped Comics. (A few pages are NSFW)
“The child is in me still and sometimes not so still”
On what would have been his 90th birthday, Focus Features has dropped the first official trailer for a new documentary about Fred Rogers’ life and legacy: Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
DIY or Die in 1994
So it's 1994 and you're punk as fuck and nobody's gonna do it for you, so you wanna put together a show and need to know what bands and venues are around. Or you're a band and you want to set up a tour, or find a label, or maybe you just want zines and tapes from places outside your town. The internet's barely there, so it's a good thing you've got your grimy hands on the 1994 edition of Book Your Own Fuckin' Life, a full copy of which is being kindly hosted by the Internet Archive.
Oh my God, I can’t wait to see his face.
Shanquis loves Charles. Charles loves Shanquis. Charles and Shanquis love wrestling. (SL Washington Post).
It wouldn't be a Caribbean Christmas without black cake, and more treats
Black cake is a rich, molasses-spiced cake filled with drunken dried fruits is a part of Christmas festivities throughout the Caribbean. NPR cites a recipe that includes "currants, raisins, cherries, prunes and the peels of oranges and lemons [that] are soaked in rum and wine for roughly six months in airtight jars, in order for the fruit to become properly saturated for the cake," while Chowhound says you only have to let the fruit macerate for 1 week before proceeding with the recipe, and the Washington Post allows for 2 days to a full year to soak the dark fruits. But the key ingredient in the black cake is burnt sugar syrup, which can be used in an Old Fashioned. More recipes below the break.
“Praise Jah, It’s Christmas.”
If you want a change from that great Christmas jazz from the 60s, or if you need a soundtrack for your Caribbean Christmas black cake party, Dev Sherlock has put together a 28-song “Vintage Jamaican Yuletide Mixtape” over at Aquarium Drunkard. It Includes island versions of traditional numbers like White Christmas (The Wailers) and Winter Wonderland (Joe Gibbs Family), plus songs adapted to local circumstances, like Santa Ketch Up Eena Mango Tree. “Why Santa always coming down a chimney? We don’t have chimneys in Jamaica!” composer/singer Faith D’Aguilar explains. “So we decided it should be a mango tree instead.”
In difficult times, lift up your voice and sing.
Earlier this year, Toronto's drop in singing event Choir!Choir!Choir! invited LA-based singer MILCK to sing her women's protest anthem "Quiet" with a crowd of 1300 choir members; all proceeds went to the American Civil Liberties Association. Established by Daveed Goldman and Nobu Adilman in 2011, Choir!Choir!Choir! meets twice weekly at Clinton's Tavern to build community and give people a place to sing without judgment, with a side of social activism.
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!”
First Look At The Batman Ninja Anime [Kotaku]
“When the Batman Ninja anime was first announced this October, a short clip was shown at New York Comic Con. Now, the animated feature’s first footage has been uploaded online, and it’s glorious. Story writer Kazuki Nakashima (Kill La Kill) and character designer Takashi Okazaki (Afro Samurai) have created a Batman unlike any we’ve seen previously. There are two teasers—one with English subtitles and one without. Batman Ninja will be released on DVD and Blu-ray next year.”
"i made visions on garageband"
"u should prob buy a mic/ interface and u might appreciate some instruments" A brief tutorial on music production by Claire Boucher, aka Grimes.
Breaching the limits of an instrument
Bendik Giske creates incredible solo performances with just himself and a saxophone. He states "By using a number of microphones on my instrument and body, I aim to create an augmented version of the instrument and my voice without any loopers or layers." The result is something unique, abrasive and wonderful.
Transcribing decades-old science fiction fanzines
The James L. "Rusty" Hevelin Collection
contains over ten thousand science fiction fanzines. The library of the University of Iowa is scanning them and has done more than 800 so far. It has set up a page on its DIY History site where people can transcribe old zines to make the computer searchable. For more about Rusty Hevelin, read his obituary, and for more about the collection read these two articles by Jacob Brogan from 2015 and 2017.
"I'm really surprised more people haven't done this; it's super-easy."
MeFi’s own rowdy-librarian-cum-privacy-activist Jessamyn West is suing Equifax in small claims court. You can follow her progress on Medium.
"So I kept referring to it as 'that swamp thing'..."
Len Wein, Co-Creator of Wolverine and Editor of Watchmen, Dies at 69. He leaves behind numerous comicbook creations such as Swamp Thing, Human Target as well as being responsible for the best known incarnation of the X-Men, his impact on comics and popular culture was incalculable.
Hey, You Got Your Jazz In My Math!
'Beginning at one, start counting upwards. When you reach seven, say, "Unh." When you reach ten, say "Woof." When you reach any number containing a seven, or any number into which seven can be divided, say, "Unh, unh." When you reach twenty, thirty, or any number up to seventy that ends with a zero, say, "Woof Woof." All right, boys – here we go!' —Mezz Mezzrow and his Swing Band, "I'se A Muggin Part 2" (1936). Milton "Mezz" Mezzrow was an adequate instrumentalist, but was better known for three things: he arranged some classic recording sessions; he was the jazz scene's main weed dealer back in the 1930's and 40's, so much that musicians and others referred to marijuana as 'Mezz'; and he crossed racial boundaries without effort and with pride in an age when it was dangerous to do so, calling himself a "voluntary negro". Here's a link to his autobiography, Really the Blues.
Mathematical Paintings of Crockett Johnson
From 1965 until his death in 1975 Crockett Johnson painted over 100 works relating to mathematics and mathematical physics. Of these paintings, eighty are found in the collections of the National Museum of American History. We present them here, with related diagrams from the artist’s library and papers.
Jupiter's Great Red Spot
The Great. Red. Spot.
"On July 11, 2017, at 00:55 UTC, the armored tank of a space probe Juno reached perijove, the closest point in its orbit over the mighty planet Jupiter. Screaming above the cloud tops at over 200,000 kilometers per hour — fast enough to cross the continental Unites States in a minute and a half — it took eleven minutes and 33 seconds to reach the Great Red Spot. Looking down from its height of a mere 9000 km above the clouds, what it saw was ... glorious."
"Don't let powerful men manipulate actions in secret."
"All right, it's time. 1 Like = 1 cool thing about the Star Wars prequels. Let's go." In a sprawling thread of 100+ tweets and counting, artist Glendon Mellow explores the mythology, politics, and design of the maligned Star Wars films.
“So what was he thinking?”
Editor quits amid outrage after call for ‘Appropriation Prize’ in writers’ magazine by Deborah Dundas [The Toronto Star]
“Hal Niedzviecki has resigned as editor of the Writers’ Union of Canada magazine after sparking outrage with an opinion piece titled “Winning the Appropriation Prize” in an issue devoted to indigenous writing. In it, he states that he doesn’t believe in “cultural appropriation.” “In my opinion, anyone, anywhere, should be encouraged to imagine other peoples, other cultures, other identities.” Niedzviecki, who has been the editor of Write for about five years, later wrote: “Set your sights on the big goal: Win the Appropriation Prize.” In the same editorial, Niedzviecki goes on to note that most Canadian literature is written by people who are “white and middle-class,” and exhorts those same white, middle-class writers to look outside of their own community and write about “what you don’t know” in an effort to “explore the lives of people who aren’t like you.””
Two modern chaotic beatmakers on Bandcamp
For your listening pleasure, here are two rather different producers of beat-driven music on Bandcamp: Mexico City-based, jungle/electronic master-mangler, priestess of chaotic drum & bass, formerly known as Smurphy [Soundcloud, NSFW header image], now Upgrayedd Smurphy. If that's too chaotic in a random sort of way, Canterbury-based sound-twister (Facebook video) an energetic beat manipulator making glitch-hop with appreciation of old IDM masters a la Four Tet or Aphex Twin.
Rebellion has its roots in government's indifference and incompetence.
The Big Deal this week is Neil Gorsuch's nomination hearings. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has trouble understanding why its revised immigration ban was blocked (it also has trouble distinguishing praise from satire).
Danielle Steel's Dark and Stormy Night
"She started her first book off “It was a gloriously sunny day and the call from Carson Advertising came at nine-fifteen.” She’s never looked back.
Nearly half her of introductions involve weather—mostly benign, positive weather (“perfect deliciously warm Saturday afternoons,” “perfect balmy May evening”, “absolutely perfect June day,” or simply: “The weather was magnificent.”)," from Danielle Steel Loves the Weather and Elmore Leonard Hates Exclamation Points: Literature by the Numbers, excerpts from Nabokov’s Favorite Word Is Mauve: And Other Experiments in Literature by Ben Blatt.
Did you see the politics? It made me angry.
The President and his party continued their path of destruction, announcing a new travel ban, suspending new visas for citizens of six majority-Muslim countries and all refugees, along with a poorly-received new health-care plan, amid a string of unforced errors, including the President's explosive no-evidence wiretapping tweets (which we shouldn't take too literally), his staff's scramble to try to defend their boss's latest mess, and the continuing efforts to investigate Russia's role in the campaign and Attorney General Jeff Sessions for providing false testimony.
Nothing is New: 500 year old economic theory works great for hedgefund
500 years ago, the School of Salamanca to the west of Madrid, reformulated the concept of natural law; stating that all humans have the same nature and the same rights to life and liberty. This was dismissed as a novelty (particularly in light of the views of Europeans towards the indigenous people of the Americas).
But this post is not about their take on ius gentium (rights of peoples). This post is about a 500 year old concept that a hedge fund in 2017 is using to achieve the best returns of it's peers.
What writers really do when they write
An artist works outside the realm of strict logic.
Simply knowing one’s intention and then executing it does not make good art. Artists know this. According to Donald Barthelme: “The writer is that person who, embarking upon her task, does not know what to do.”
Call me, Ishmael.
Station 51000, a buoy, came unmoored in 2013. It's still reporting, and some Eddystone Light-hearted genius has hybridized the data with Moby Dick.
( Or possibly it isn't lost at all? NOAA still lists it with lat-long. )
Leaves of Crass
"Readers who picked up The New York Times on March 13, 1852, might have seen a small advertisement on Page 3 for a serial tale set to begin the next day in a rival newspaper. “A RICH REVELATION,” the ad began, teasing a rollicking tale touching on “the Manners and Morals of Boarding Houses, some Scenes from Church History, Operations in Wall-st.,” and “graphic Sketches of Men and Women” (presented, fear not, with “explanations necessary to properly understand what it is all about”). It was a less than tantalizing brew, perhaps. The story, which was never reviewed or reprinted, appears to have sunk like a stone. But now comes another rich revelation: The anonymously published tale was nothing less than a complete novel by Walt Whitman.Grad student Zachary Turpin discovers a long lost Walt Whitman novel, about a year after he discovered a long lost Whitman self-help treatie.
Turnbuckles everywhere sigh in relief - RIP George "The Animal" Steele
Wrestling legend George "The Animal" Steele (real name Jim Myers) has died at the age of 79.
"Kellyanne, that makes no sense."
10 unanswered questions after Michael Flynn’s resignation: #1: What, if anything, did Trump authorize Flynn to tell the Russians before his inauguration?
Today is day 26 of the Trump presidency; this morning, Matt Lauer eviscerated Kellyanne Conway on the Today show regarding the resignation of General Michael Flynn, which Paul Ryan is now claiming President Trump asked for. The AP is reporting that the North Korea leader's brother, Kim Jong Nam, was slain at airport in Malaysia, and Fox News is reporting that a Russian spy ship is patrolling off the East Coast of Delaware.
Fighting Gerrymandering with Mathematics
A 5-day summer school will be offered at Tufts University from August 7-11, 2017, with the principal purpose of training mathematicians to be expert witnesses for court cases on redistricting and gerrymandering. How gerrymandered is your congressional district, anyway? You can use geometry as a proxy: compare the perimeter of your district to the perimeter of a circle with the same area. The Washington Post suggests what non-gerrymandered districts might look like.
Previouslies, especially compactness
oh no
Webcomic Name is a webcomic by Alex Norris that prominently features a certain running joke. Despite its formal limits, it is often topical, spiritual, and/or experimental.
Fight For Your Right... To Fight Back!
In recent days, the technology sector has responded to the so-called #MuslimBan in a variety of ways, from Jeff Bezos pledging legal action to Uber... well, being Uber. As the ACLU turns its massive uptick in donations into tech skills, 'artist-empowering' digital music service Bandcamp is putting its money to work in service of the cause. On Friday 3rd February, Bandcamp will donate 100% of their share of all purchases to the ACLU.