Archives: 2007 December

  • various things, plus a sundry thing or two

    December 28th, 2007

    here’s a bunch of stuff I’ve been digesting over the past week:

    I was so excited when I found this online

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    http://www.tinyvices.com/The_Hobbit

    Around the time the Lord of the Rings movies were coming out, Marc Bell and Peter Thompson made a series of mini-comics about Tolkien’s tales, one for each book in the original trilogy and eventually this one for the Hobbit. They’re so awesome, I didn’t expect to find anything else from the series other than the excerpts in Nog a Dod, but someone was nice enough to scan them and put them online so you should check them out!

    hobbitt.jpg

    Also I got this DVD a few days ago: DEMONS WITH ZAC DAVIS - LIVE AT THE PANIC IN HAMTRAMCK

    Demons rule, Zac Davis from Lambsbread totally rules, and the abstract laser visuals rule

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    I watched half of it, then it broke my dad’s dvd player, it won’t read discs anymore, that’s how hard this dvd rules

    Speaking of buying music, I want to highly recommend Tomentosa Records because I ordered some tapes and they got here super fast, and damn look at the list of labels they sell… oh man, between buying gifts for people and just being bored at my parents’ house I somehow spent $200+ on records in like 48 hours last week, I guess that’s ok since I haven’t spent much recently but oh man I’m reading through Tomentosa’s catalog and there’s so much cool stuff…

    In non-noise news, the So Cosmic mix from Cut Copy is pretty nice spacey / krauty / dancey music. Over the last year or so, I listened to their Fabriclive disc and the T5 Soul Sessions so much I can’t listen to them anymore. Ok, that’s not true, I thought it was but I just listened to the Fabriclive mix a few hours ago and it’s still really good.

    I got this book for Christmas, I love Dennett: Consciousness Explained

    All we need suppose must happen for an otherwise normal perceptual system to be thrown into a hallucinatory mode is for the hypothesis-generation side of the cycle (the expectation-driven side) to operate normally, while the data-driven side of the cycle (the confirmation side) goes into a disordered or random or arbitrary round of confirmation and disconfirmation. In other words, if noise in the data channel is arbitrarily amplified into “confirmations” and “disconfirmations,” the current expectations, concerns, obsessions, and worries of the victim will lead to framing questions or hypotheses whose content is guaranteed to reflect those interests, and so a “story” will unfold in the perceptual system without an author. We don’t have to suppose the story is written in advance; we don’t have to suppose that information is stored or composed in the illusionist part of the brain. All we suppose is that the illusionist goes into an arbitrary confirmation mode and the victim provides the content by asking the questions.

    That’s just from the first chapter, I’m still in the middle of it so I can’t say anything critical or profound yet but it’s really interesting so far. I love how the brain’s model of reality uses a lot of assumptions and shorthand and glossing over, and how it’s set up to be useful rather than completely true or accurate.

    Finally, [nevermind you have to register to see it, fuck the NYT]

    ccw.jpg

    that’s all for now I think

    stopmakingsteve Posted incomics and books, diy, music, saying swears | No Comments »

  • I ironically racked up tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt

    December 24th, 2007

    They kept sending me me all these credit card applications and I’d be like “oh yeah, I’m totally going to buy a bunch of crap I don’t need and can’t afford” as I filled out the applications and mailed them in, then when I got the cards I’d go to stores and roll my eyes and scoff at all the luxury consumer goods I was piling in my cart, and I’d get to the checkout and go “haha yeah, look at me, I’m a typical American living outside of his means because I’m brainwashed by constant adverstisement into a state of mindless consumerism, haha.”

    “Give me some ipods,” I would shout, “I need some ipods.”

    Sitting in my condo surrounded by gadgets and electronics and lame cheap mass-produced faux-modernist furniture, I’d take ironic comfort in the social status my stuff afforded me, sarcastically pretending to quell my body’s desire for human interaction and intimacy with high definition and surround sound. It was pretty funny and ironic, you should have seen it.

    Then the bank was all calling me all the time, I tried to explain how I was just doing it ironically and I don’t actually have any money, but they didn’t get it. They tried to foreclose on the Hummer H2 that is my home/office, so I drove it across some mountains and a desert (yeah, you can drive across mountains and deserts in a Hummer H2, no biggie) and now I live on a neo-utopian postgender hunting/gathering commune in the woods of the Pacific Northwest, subsisting on nuts and berries and giving experimental haircuts to beautiful shoeless children in the backseat of my Hummer H2.

    stopmakingsteve Posted insaying swears | 1 Comment »

  • Comics, HOO-AH.

    December 21st, 2007

    http://brokenpants.com/comics/

    I just added ten new ones, everything from ‘guy talkin’ on up is new, damn that’s so much content, damn.

    Merry Christmas from broknepans.cum

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    stopmakingsteve Posted incomics and books, saying swears | No Comments »

  • feels good man

    December 20th, 2007

    oh yeah that show I said I was going to play last time didn’t happen

    but I saw some bands the next night, and Killer Whales are really cool and funky, like Liquid Liquid or Tussle or whoever but with wacky falsetto vocals

    http://www.myspace.com/killerwhalesmusic

    also these comics are awesome:

    snap.gif

    http://blog.myspace.com/mattfurie

    http://mattfurie.betternonsequitur.com/index.php

    stopmakingsteve Posted incomics and books, music, saying swears | No Comments »

  • fuck a nine to five I got a nine and a fo-five

    December 15th, 2007

    Hey, I forgot to mention this earlier, but BLOOD WATERFALL is playing an impromtu show Saturday night, like tomorrow Saturday!! Excitement! My bandmates all have better things to do, so it’s going to be a Steve-only solo set, I hope I remember how to make all the noise as opposed to just a fraction of the noise, because I will need to bring all the noise. It’s at a friend’s apartment party in Chicago, should be a fun time, check it out if you like a guy on the floor tapping guitar pedals and touching circuit boards with licked fingers and chattering gibberish with a piece of metal in his mouth.

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    stopmakingsteve Posted inmusic, saying swears | No Comments »

  • this is cool

    December 12th, 2007

    qwvHLBdKHzg

    http://circuitbent.wikispaces.com/TV+Oscilloscope
    http://experimentalistsanonymous.com/board/viewtopic.php?p=8065

    A whole bunch of old monitors bent like this would be an awesome stage setup, that or wrapping yourself in christmas lights hooked up to a color organ so the different strands go off for different frequencies.

    stopmakingsteve Posted indiy, music | 1 Comment »

  • ツ some blood waterfall songs ツ

    December 10th, 2007

    http://brokenpants.com/bloodwaterfall/mp3s/120507-simba.mp3

    http://brokenpants.com/bloodwaterfall/mp3s/120507-nala.mp3

    Here are some hot new tracks featuring bw as a three piece (drums!). Adam described the former as a samba so it’s called “Simba,” which meant the other had to be “Nala.” It just makes sense.

    They start kind of quiet, so you may have to crank it, but they’re concise and short - around three minutes long - so they’ll fit conveniently into today’s fast-paced world of technology and the internet. Highly recommended for fans of mumbling and bleeping and drums!

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    stopmakingsteve Posted insaying swears | 1 Comment »

  • have you ever googled “doritos”

    December 10th, 2007

    http://www.snackstrongproductions.com/

    this site makes no god damn sense

    stopmakingsteve Posted insaying swears | No Comments »

  • oh the media monkeys and their junket junkies will invite you to their plastic pantomime

    December 5th, 2007

    Brian Chippendale’s Galactikrap #2

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    is really awesome. The silkscreened double cover is damn gorgeous and the humor and action are more accessible than ever, with a layout that’s more laid back and not as frenzied and clasutrophobic - it’s still composed entirely of slashed lines and blobs and crosshatchings that somehow coalesce beautifully, but there’s room to breathe. Ninja was brilliant but intimidatingly dense (and huge), and to tell the truth I flipped through Maggots but haven’t had the heart to do much more than that so far, but Galactikrap #2 is quick and fun.

    Here are two reviews: here and here. That Comics Comics blog is cool, I just found it, but I guess one of the contributors is Dan Nadel from Picturebox Inc, the guys that published Galactikrap #2 and about a million other great comics and books.

    In other news…

    girltalk.jpg

    no not that Girl Talk

    Baltimore’s Girl Talk isn’t the Girl Talk of Gregg Gillis, mash-up artist and sample thief extraordinaire. The evidence–the cassette-only release Honor Among Thieves is ambiguously credited–points to this being the work of Rjyan Kidwell, aka Cex. Gillis is probably the one with the bigger lawyer, but Kidwell’s got nothing to fear: Until the day comes that Gillis can make amends with every artist he’s ripped off, he’s defenseless. Kidwell just can’t help being vague.

    The statement Kidwell makes with Thieves is no exception. The tape’s liner note is a screen-shot of CNN’s Paula Zahn looking fierce and concerned, albeit plenty ditzy, while the words hip-hop art or poison? float above her head. Kidwell’s tape could’ve been Zahn’s “exhibit A” for the latter. Obviously, he doesn’t believe that–recall Cex’s Maryland Mansions and Tall, Dark, and Handcuffed rapping phase–and his sampling work is so deft it couldn’t come from anything less than affection, but damned if he didn’t dig up some serious vitriol. He leads with clipped lines from Ice Cube’s “Horny Little Devil,” which he eventually reduces to “don’t like white men” set on a loop. A mash between a pair of unabashedly anti-Semitic, anti-queer, and anti-white 1995 Menace Clan tracks is right on Cube’s heels. Things get a little better–the cuts get more politically and socially aware–as the tape goes on, but the “fuck whitey” vibe of Kidwell’s mix doesn’t flag.

    We’d like to think Kidwell is calling out Gregg Gillis’ pussy-footed rap fetishizing with Thieves. Gillis’ biggest crime as Girl Talk doesn’t reduce to licensing or money. It’s that he strips the black anger from rap. How uncomfortable would it be if Gillis dropped a Menace Clan cut into a party mash-up? This isn’t to give a pass to Menace Clan, but Gillis puts his own safe, sanitized interpretation of rap onto his laptop pedestal–he’s made it white in a way no number of ironic mash-ups could ever do, or no number of lawyers could ever undo. We’re glad Kidwell was trailing behind, picking up the scraps. Someone had to do it.

    http://www.citypaper.com/music/review.asp?rid=12311

    It’s pretty funny, the whole name-stealing, calling-out thing, I am definitely pro-antagonistic, dada/Culturecide type hyjinks. I haven’t listened to (Gillis) Girl Talk enough to know the extent of the criticisms, I just remember being annoyed by the contextless black-people-shouting granules mixed in with indie rock and whatever… I listen to a ton of mash ups, but Girl Talk has always turned me off, not to mention every enthusiatic Girl Talk fan. Besides, black anger is awesome, I mean who’d ever pick Big Willie Style over Public Enemy? Personally I spend my nights listening to five Geto Boys records at the same time in my underground apartment lit by 1369 incandescent bulbs, trying not to disappear, and frankly I can’t imagine it any other way.

    someone has it hosted here if you wanna check it out: here, no idea if the link’ll stay up

    Finally, I want to say that PCR2 is in the pipes, in the works? perhaps closer geographically speaking in the timepipes that make up the chronosphere than any of us would dare imagine… I’ve got a whole bunch of comics half-done, some more scanned, and maybe a couple yet to be committed to paper. I started the cover today, and I’m shooting for a release the end of the month. Stay tuned!

    http://brokenpants.com/comics

    PS All that screenprinting on the Chippendale comic really got me thinking, I found this guide that makes it look a little complex but not impossible, not implausible, not impassable. Probably not this time, but at some point I want to start screenprinting… something. One thing bugs me, though: that emulsion, it’s just like the etchant for diy PCBs, where the author has to invent some magic chemical out of nowhere to further the process… it’s a little too deus ex machina for my tastes.

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    until next time, brokenpants.com-bot #46 signing out, beep boop

    stopmakingsteve Posted incomics and books, diy, music, saying swears | No Comments »

  • a story about a cat and a story about a dog

    December 3rd, 2007

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    ————————————–
    *~~INTERMISSION~~*
    ————————————–

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    stopmakingsteve Posted inpictures of animals | No Comments »