Happy New Year

I’m behind (and lazy) on two upcoming blog items and, it being New Year’s Eve, it’s party time anyway. So let’s call it quits for the year with more 1970s psychedelia from Vince Collins: “A star-driven spiralling machine of hallucinatory wonder!” No CGI here, mind you.

Freezer Burn

Let this be a warning to all young trees who stay up long past bedtime in the Autumn!

Photo by Roman.

Smells Like Teen Spirit

As T Bone Burnett opines: “Capitalism is very resilient.”

(The graphic above is scanned from a t-shirt I own. It’s no longer wearable, especially at my weight.)

The Light

Photo by Roman

Amputee

Photo by Roman

Seasonal

Christmas, 2018, Glenwood Avenue in Rogers Park. Photo by Roman.

Christmas, 2018, Glenwood Avenue in Rogers Park. Photo by Roman.

 

Santa Is a Psychedelic Mushroom

Says Matthew Salton… (I’ve saved them all for today…)

Now that you’ve digested the above, time for some Hollyweird:

Hedgehog’s Home

“An animated Film by Eva Cvijanović based on the classic story by Branko Ćopić.” Or: “There’s no place like home.” Or: maybe a rather darker, Brothers Grimm, version of “The Wind in the Willows.” This is a really wonderful example of stop-motion filmmaking.

Chains and Fences

Fences seem to make some people feel secure. Property management people certainly seem to think so; so many buildings in Rogers Park are in one way or another fenced from the street. Perhaps they feel it gives the impression that chaos and entropy are kept at bay, that all of the people who live by the rules (including the people who rob others using a pen) can be reassured that here their scrupulous efforts will be rewarded as they should be.

I don’t know. It doesn’t do that for me. I see fences and it says, instead, these people are frightened. And maybe there is something to be frightened of? And if not? And how does that fear, justified or not, creep into other parts of their lives? In fencing people out, you are also fencing yourself in.

I can’t say fences have no use, should not exist. But pus is useful too, and ubiquitous fencing seems to me like an infected wound. Oh, America! Get well soon.

Photo by Roman.

Photo by Roman.

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Gaming Addiction

I don’t know if video game addiction in Sweden in any way resembles the opioid epidemic here in the states, but Jonas Odell had the idea to interview recovering video game addicts and have them speak, for themselves, as characters in video games. It’s a delicious idea: the invulnerable and powerful suddenly vulnerable and helpless. It’s definitely worth watching in full screen mode.

Like so much of human culture, we repeat ourselves. Here’s Emmylou Harris’ take on an earlier manifestation of the phenomenon:

I’m really into klondike solitaire, myself.