Cream of Nowhere

[Photo from here.]

I'm a bit behind on the news with this one, Lux Interior, front-man for The Cramps died recently, aged 62. I remember sitting in the lounge room of my first share-house listening to 'Garbage Man' over and over with my housemates. However, this isn't the track I've chosen to post today.

I've been waiting for a worthy reason to share this incredible track, one of my favourite Cramps songs from the soundtrack [buy] of one of my favourite films, The Return of the Living Dead.

The Cramps - Surfin' Dead [3.9MB mp3 file]

If you're dead, you wanna be SURFIN' DEAD.

GIVE

I couldn't not post about the disastrous fires people that have been tearing through the Victorian bush recently. This is an horrific occurrence and even with the media swarming over and over-sensationalising it, the gravity of the situation is undeniable with 128 dead (with more expected) and shitloads of damage.

You can donate to the Red Cross, give blood and help the wildlife. Among other things.

Mandala

"Windows are almost always depicted as two-dimensional objects (like papers or books) arranged on a desktop. Most windows can be resized, moved, hidden, restored, and closed at will. When two overlap, one is on top of the other, with the covered part of the lower window not visible."

[Wikipedia page on Window (computing)].

Suggestions:

Google's auto-fill for the term "tu".

Something I learnt:

From IMDB's trivia page on David Lynch's Dune:

Cameo: [Michael Bolton] One of the drummers shown during Paul and Feyd's duel.

Michael Bolton has a cameo in Dune. I was hitherto unaware of this fact.

The image above is of the Bolton Meteorite and aside from its name, is unrelated to Michael Bolton.

Sabbath Sabbath Sabbath

Recently while on a nostalgia trip I was listening to some Black Sabbath [DISCLAIMER: Old Black Sabbath, OLD BLACK SABBATH!] and I noticed that they were the only band I could think of that have a song title, album title and band name that are ALL THE SAME. Granted, their are many self-titled albums, but none I can think of that also include a track named after the band.

Who are you listening to?

Black Sabbath.

Which album?

Black Sabbath.

What track?

Black Sabbath.

And as a bonus, in the Metallic theme: diamonddave, a site that justifies both the use of Flash and perhaps, the very Internet itself.

Heat waive

It's been so hot lately people have literally been throwing their heaters out onto the street, as if items that simply represent the notion of heat or warmth are too much for them to bear. Toasters have been banished, kettles shunned, fireplaces stopped up, ovens forsaken and hot-water bottles exiled.

I found this heater discarded on the street - I guess the owners tossed it out the window a day or so ago when the historic heat-wave was at its hottest.
The heater boasts:

• Patented SCHWARZ heating element heats faster than conventional screened elements
• Greater heat transfer = more efficient
• Silent convection heat
• Electonmechanical thermostat maintains the desired temperature level
• Wall mountable
• Overheat protection
• Silent convection heat

And they just couldn't take having these features in their house any more.

Are you sure?

Currently dialogue-boxing...

Disassociated at delivery

This Durex commercial:


And the digital component of my final year folio in Sculpture:

It's called Doggie Format and I created in the now-defunct Alias Sketch in NINETEEN. NINETY. SIX.

Those were different times.

Google says "Kayak"

I was fooling around with Google Maps on my phone recently and out of curiosity asked for directions from my house to Shibya Station in Tokyo. The result was a very specific set of directions across Australia ending with:

The Kayak. Google's choice.

Ol' red-eyes is back

'Tis a perfect day for sinus-based maladies here in Melbourne towne.

The "Eyes" have it

From Frank Herbert's The Eyes of Heisenberg.

I live my life by this idea. In some respects.

#### — ?

I was going through some of my books over the weekend, and found a catalogue from a Dada exhibition called 'The Avant Garde Book: 1900-1945', My favourite image in it is by El Lizzitsky from a book called Die Kunstismen. Lissistzky collaborated on this book with Jean Arp.


And, the updated version for today:


It's interesting to think about how different perspectives on the future were in 1925 compared to today. Granted the image suggests an indefinite future - it could be 1926 or on the other hand, the year 2525 - but I read a sense of wonder and optimism and yet a weary dubiousness of the inevitability of what is to come. I was talking to a friend about Boccioni's Unique Forms of Continuity in Space (1913) and we were saying that (as the work is all about speed) to us it doesn't seem to be moving all that fast. In fact, it's kinda trudging.

Postcards before Batteries

Over the last couple of weeks I was cleaning out some boxes and found a bunch of some postcards I'd collected and never sent. These are some of them:

There was something appealing about the image below, a waterfall in Lavers Hill, Victoria (pop 208). The photo's not great, but it seemed to have a certain quality.


A crocodile that may or may not have something in its mouth:


And the ubiquitous comedic koala postcards. There are people in the world who may find this stuff hilarious. Personally, I find the first one a little grim, like the koala is heading to see a loved one in the hospital.


The font used is Dom Casual. It's the kind of font that says, "Hey there! I'm informal, yet not too crazy! I can get the message across, yet not interfere with your message, which is, in this case, a fabrication of what a koala may be thinking if it somehow managed to get onto a surfboard, paddle out to a wave, ride it and then come to the shocking realisation that it has no idea how to get off it! The koala will be anxious and perhaps use a mild form of expletive!"

Moment... Um

So here we are - six days into twenty-oh-nine. The hitherto (well... there was that one time) ceaseless procession of time has led us to this moment. I have been relatively idle and am slowly resuming the busy.

Some consideration for the year 2009:
It's the International Year of Reconciliation, Astronomy and Natural Fibres.
Some countries will cease broadcasting analogue TV signals.
Numerically it looks a little bit like the word "zoog" (as long as the font has a single story lower-case 'g').
The longest lasting total solar eclipse of the 21st century will occur.
It seems, and potentially will be, more futuristic than 2008.

Happy zoog!