Month: February 2020

Putin

I’m guessing this is by “Bad History” which is Andrei Brovcenco. Or maybe this is bad history about Putin. I dunno. It’s kinda cute, and yes, Trump makes an appearance. How could he not?

This was done by a Romanian studio, FrameBreed. They mostly do commercials, some music videos and special order special effects for films. Most of their work doesn’t seem very interesting to me, but you can find their Vimeo channel HERE.

Third Stone from the Sun

I don’t obsess over the biographies of rock stars, dead or alive, so it is no surprise that I did not know Jimi Hendrix was something of a science fiction fan. Frank Hudson’s Parlando Project re-imagines Hendrix as a “pioneering 20th Century Afro-Futurist” and speculates what might have been had he played the electric typewriter rather than guitar:

The above is a slideshow of might-have-been book covers. I recommend full screen and headphones. Note the blurb from Robert Christgau on the “Third Stone from the Sun” cover. Christgau is a rock critic who gave Hendrix’s Monterey Pop Festival performance four thumbs down.

While I’m at it: If you have an interest in poetry and music, let me recommend to you the Parlando Project blog. To quote from the premier post back in 2015, the blog is about this:

One of my favorite attempts to define poetry is to call it “Words that want to break into song”.

What is it that poetry wants to do by striving to sing? I think it wants to include the pure pleasure of sound and rhythm to words. It wants that like a lover wants their beloved. It’s not a clever plan. Poetry’s desire here is not some technique, some tactic to dress up words in a fancy way. It just wants it.

And what about music? Well, it’s got its drives, its desires too. It wants to find its logic, its pattern. It’s always speaking to time, saying to time that it knows better than time itself how time sounds and moves. Music is always explaining to time what it contains.

I’m not a musician. I’m not a poet. And, yes, that does make a difference in one’s appreciation of poetry and of music. So it’s mildly odd that this should be among my favorite blogs. Even so, I’ve done what rarely happens with blogs: I’ve read every post. Even when Hudson goes in directions I’m disinclined to follow or falls short of his goal, the post that accompanies his performance always teaches me something new. Can’t beat that, even without mentioning the frequently wry graphics. I don’t even suggest that you do as I did and read it all, but if you have an interest in poetry then this is a blog worth following.

Sty Sight*

Here’s pig in your eye!

The swine qua non of the rural county fair: greased pig wrestling. Really, now, isn’t the prospect of becoming bacon enough? ‘Tis insult on injury, methinks, even if all of us, not just pigs, live to be eaten.

anon-001
Photo by ?.

I don’t recall who took the photo except it was not me. Nor do I know where it was taken. It was given to me back in college days by a friend, a student at the Institute of Design; it could have been any of several chums. This was not long after the time the Yippies proposed running an actual pig for President of the United States (prescient, eh?). I think I acquired the print with propaganda in mind.

It’s not a very good photo, in my humble opinion. Why, then, is it inflicted upon you? It’s just an excuse for some almost clever word play. If the play doesn’t bring at least a twitch of a grin to your face then it is truly a total waste of your time. You are not entitled to a refund nor will you receive an apology; this is not the first time today that you’ve totally wasted your time. Go forth, my friend, and sin some more:

If pigs could fly, there’d be a sty in your eye quicker than bacon grease for fried potatoes and eggs! But soft! Those arterial plaques await you; their time is your time: that tightened chest, that breathless breath! The plaques explode like land mines, scattering clots of careless shrapnel across the body. Will it be idiocy, this time, or drowning or a fatal lack of heart? Sit down, old friend, and gain some minutes to stare old Death in the eye sockets. Oh? The brow ridges that grace these orbits? Yea, verily, Death is of an ancient lineage that even Yorick fails to amuse — to Yorick’s cost, I should add. Death bears witness… or bares witnesses, as the case may be, and stands in judgement: Will this be a fossil? Or will time dissolve it all? Be glad it is not your duty to watch an endless reprise to the end of the universe. The tragedy grows numb after an aeon. It grows to an eternity with the full weight of time, an infinite weight that leaves one unable to grab that pork pie hat (remember the pigs? this is about pigs.) and leave. There is no balm for boar-dom. Squealing does no good. Not even Yorick will laugh; only – perhaps – those waiting to feed will be amused.

Sick transit glorious Monday:
The CTA train don’t come.

* Blind sight is a condition wherein the eyes function well enough, but the neural connections that bring the information to conscious consideration are damaged. Other connections remain, so while persons with this condition are indeed blind, they may nonetheless be able to negotiate the obstacles in a path or to grab an object. They won’t know why. Sty sight is a condition wherein the eyes function well enough but the subject is unable to perceive the pigs or what they wallow in. And they wonder why.