surreal kitsch: splendors of ancient Egipt.

Today I invite you to look at the bizarre works of Estonian commercial director Harry Egipt. In the early 80s, high on consumerism and sex appeal, Egipt cranked out a whole slew of strange, lurid, sometimes nightmarish Soviet ads for such mundane things as kitchenware and meat. Here's one that I think is for shoe polish:


A statue man is "polished" and brought to life by three eager blonde girls, one of them briefly topless, in the middle of an empty urban lot. Could this be a analogy for rigid times of communism giving way to the perverse charms of capitalism? And note the empowering new-wave song, complete with an oddly placed Beatles sample. In the end, this commercial seems to be selling the sexual as much as the material; the statue man doesn't appear to give a shit for his shiny new boots, as he is too busy embracing his young, beaming savior.

And here, if you can stomach it, is a disturbing ad for chicken:


This one skips any attempt at narrative or concept and goes straight for the message: carnivorous consumption is glamorous. Here is a chicken, here is that chicken's meat, here are some lovely women eating that chicken's meat. The music is industrial avant-garde with some woman repeating (so I've read) the words "chicken" and "beef". It's hard to imagine that Egipt wasn't leaning towards the macabre in this ad, and maybe he was.

"Producing a TV commercial is an obstinate process. And the course of action has to be controlled by one man only. Until the very end. Though a good result is guaranteed if the makers are having fun while producing the film." -Harry Egipt, from an interview.

Recently several clips from his commercials were seen by the masses during the end sequence of the Borat movie. To see the original ads in their zany entirety, just search for Harry Egipt on YouTube.


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ironies of a divine banana.

atheist's nightmare?


Ironic that God, in all His supposed power and supremacy, would send proof of His existence to Earth in the form of a fruit that not everybody likes. Would it be blasphemy for a Christian to think bananas taste terrible?

Ironic that God's fruit also happens to be the treat of choice for chimpanzees. Those little guys can enjoy a banana on as many levels as a human can; the ergonomic shape, the "tab", etc. But evolution is, of course, a ridiculous concept. Of course.

Ironic that God would make his perfect fruit so undeniably phallic, as if to taunt man and his repressed, shunned sexuality. It's like teaching your kids all about how terrible the Nazis were and then baking them a bunch of swastika-shaped cookies.

Ironic that God wouldn't standardize his flawless fruit. Here's a wild banana, and it doesn't look quite as appetizing:


Ironic that God would also create the world's deadliest spider to hide among banana bunches and bite unsuspecting Brazilian farmers.

Ironic still that for thousands of years native peoples happily ate bananas while worshipping their own deities. ...That is, up until foreign conquistadors came and slaughtered them in the name of God. I guess they really wanted those bananas.


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sex vs. art?

what people are watching:

Beyonce & Shakira, Beautiful Liar, directed by Jake Nava

what people should be watching:

Subtle, The Mercury Craze, directed by SSSR

Which took more time? Which took more ideas? Which took more talent?
Most of all, which is more interesting?
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thoughts on cute
or just what is it that makes today's cute so different, so appealing?


Sugary Sensation 2, by Hikoro

Since signing up with DeviantArt, I have observed several artists working in the area of what we call cute, or more specifically the Japanese style of cuteness, kawaii. Recently one of my favorite cute practitioners, Cait Leslie (screen-named firstfear), posted that she was dismayed by her reputation as 'only drawing cute things', and understandably annoyed with people leaving single-word comments on her works labeling them as such. Since I wear my art history degree like a badge, I felt it my duty to remind her that this style of cute, while many would dismiss it as simply charming, is nonetheless a form of expressive modernism. Of course, with modernism I am pointing to avant-garde art movements of the 20th century, or as Christopher Witcombe puts it, "modern art as concerned primarily with essential qualities of colour and flatness and as exhibiting over time a reduction of interest in subject matter."



So Pleased, vector, by firstfear

Leslie's pixel designs (I guess you could call them drawings), adhering to the Japanese example, deal with the simplification of form; physical elements are reduced to bolder shapes, lines are thick, and overall form is round and smooth. Color, when applied, also plays a big part in modern cuteness- there must be a harmony between tones, and a soft, pastel quality is preferred to intensity. Finally, balance and composition are extremely important to such design; the more minimal your art is, the more obvious it is when visual elements are arranged in an awkward manner.



This Japanese style of cute is distinctly formalist, though not necessarily in the classic Clement Greenberg-ian sense. As Momus describes in his essay Cute Formalism, "Formalism for us [Greenberg followers] is intellectual, masculine, dry, adult, hard, macho, unsentimental, avant garde. Cute on the other hand is silly, feminine, wet, childish, soft, effete, sentimental and kitsch." Essentially, kawaii art is avant-garde ideals presented as friendly and accessible; sugarcoated, if you will. Like the Sanrio characters, or the even happier, more minimal San-X characters.



Cuteness is more widely present in Japan than over here, I suppose because in their society it is taken as it should be: harmless, aesthetically pleasing design. Here in America cute is associated with things like babies, women, and young animals...in other words, WEAK. And there is no room for feminine, childish weakness in the good ol' USA. Too bad. I guess we're not quite modern enough.



But kawaii doesn't have to be childish. It can be subversive too, or scary, or bizarre, or downright mean. For instance, some of the contributors to Kawaii Noir, or artist Mori Chack, or hell, my own comics.


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brett joins Deviant Art.



Cartoons need to happen again. Recently I realized that the only real reason my cartoon factory stopped production was because I lost my audience when I stopped contributing to the Daily Barometer. Well, thanks to the internet the anonymous masses are just a click away. So I have staked a claim over at the amateur artist web community Deviant Art.


Pisang Raja by Kuroneko

I like Deviant Art because it thrives on artists reaching out to other artists. I can browse the daily deviations and find someone who sparks my interest, such as psychedelic-surrealist Kuroneko, and add them to my watch list, keeping an eye on whatever works they submit to their page. True, the contributors to DA are many, and there are more than enough amateur manga fan artists, but I've managed to find a handful of diamonds in the rough. Come, observe some of my favorites:


Proprio No by Introvertevent


Whatisthis by Reitx


Romantic by A+ Failing's own baroness Thea B


no TV by Salatick


??? by Firstfear (she didn't title it, but isn't this a great composition?)
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courtesy of Perry Bible Fellowship.



More.
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funk to funky.

Today I bring you David Bowie's 1979/80 promo video for "Ashes to Ashes". Here he's appearing in his Martian Marrionette or Synth Pierrot persona which, for obvious reasons, didn't last long.



In a related link, here is a clip of Bowie on The Dinah Shore show proving that there was once a time when pop stars were intelligent, insightful and interesting.
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Ebrett & the Movies

Kairo (Pulse), 2001


Are there any ghosts in the Japanese film Kairo? It's hard to say. The truth is, there are several shadowy figures in the movie that appear and then disappear, silent and lonely as they wander the Earth searching for something that may not exist. However, these people aren't even dead yet.

Kairo, which translates to "Pulse," was directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, who also wrote the novel. This film was treated to the Hollywood remake machine in 2006, and while I haven't seen the American Pulse, I have good reason not to. From what I hear, the American version is about a computer virus that has breached the boundary between life and death, allowing scary malevolent spirits to jump out of people's computer screens and attack blonde girls. As I watched the original Japanese film, I was surprised that Hollywood would even think of remaking it, considering they basically scrapped every element that makes Kairo so effective (including a pretty non-blonde actress like Kumiko Aso).



Admittedly, like some other Japanese horror films, Kairo is a bit hard to follow. The parallel storylines and lack of explanation may discourage viewers expecting some straightforward, scary ghosts. But this movie isn't about evil spirits jumping out at you or dramatic music bursts, and maybe that's why I like it so much. There are no quick cuts or narrow escapes, and even the assumed premise of good vs. evil/living vs. dead dissolves as the story unfolds. You may not find an explanation for everything that happens in this movie, but Kairo does leave you with some interesting questions:
What if the metaphysical space we call the afterlife had reached its maximum capacity, causing spirits to leak back into our realm through certain man-made portals?
What if death, instead of being a grand journey towards meaning, was merely a continuation of our lonely existence on Earth?
What if human beings, confronted with the fact that they will never be more than social atoms, simply gave up and disappeared, leaving nothing but a shadow-like mark on the wall? Once everyone you know had vanished, how long would you keep living before you opted to join them?

Perhaps, for the characters in Kairo, seeing a ghost is terrifying due to the fact that they might be doomed to become one. The existence of ghosts confirms everything they hoped wasn't true, the possibility that instead of resting in peace you end up walking in place, like the figure in a video Kawashima finds looping over and over on a laptop screen.



Several shadowy figures appear in webcam videos throughout the film. Are they ghosts? Or are they just lonely shut-ins, dead to the world but not actually dead? The internet plays an important role in this movie, both to illustrate Kurosawa's theme of a socially disconnected society and also as the most puzzling story element. In any case, the long shots of grainy dark webcam feeds, framed by the edges of the computer monitor, are one example of the director using simple techniques to make some genuinely creepy scenes. Kairo doesn't go for any quick, intense scares. The film is slow, but the feeling of dread gradually increases, and elements that were creepy at the beginning only continue to get creepier. Kurosawa constructs an uncomfortable atmosphere thanks in large part to the objective quality of the camerawork. Some scenes unfold as though we are watching through a security camera, and other times we seem to be looking through a character's eyes, fixed and unblinking, trying to figure out if there is something standing right there in the shadows. And sometimes there is. The scenes involving ghosts are surreal in a David Lynch kind of way, when the camerawork and the audio transcend the traditional movie feel and create a nightmarish sense of unease. There is one scene in particular, near the end, that gave me honest-to-goodness goosebumbs, partially because I loved how it was shot but also because I was just plain freaked the freak out.



While Kairo is slow-paced, a bit confusing, and altogether strange, I would like to see more movies like it. It's refreshing to see a director leave the textbook horror movie cliches behind and start from scratch. When you think about it, scaring people isn't very difficult, and it's about time filmmakers bring a different approach to doing so.
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happy stadium mud buggies day!




Super rad custom SMB controller overlay.

I understand that most of the world celebrates Stadium Mud Buggies day in a different fashion that we do here at the Radiogram. Instead of playing Stadium Mud Buggies, talking about Mud Buggies, or thinking about how much Mud Buggies rock, I hear that other people have what they call 'Valentine's Day', I guess in reference to Rudolph Valentino. From what I gather, you can celebrate Valentino Day in a variety of ways, such as:

-buy your girlfriend some flowers.
-buy your girlfriend some chocolates.
-buy your girlfriend some jewelry.
-buy your girlfriend dinner (note: you could make her dinner at home, but keep in mind that it won't mean as much to her, because you did not spend money).
-buy your girlfriend some lingerie.
-buy your girlfriend a car.
-buy your girlfriend one of the Cayman Islands.
-buy your girlfriend nice card (note: you could make a nice card for her, but keep in mind that it won't mean as much to her, because you did not spend money).
-OR, buy her an Intellivision and Stadium Mud Buggies, then when she asks you 'what the hell is this?', launch into an explosive rant about how Stadium Mud Buggies rock the guts out of little kids and make you yell "AWESO-" (you don't even finish the word because your head explodes).

And apparently girls can celebrate Valentine's Day in this fashion:
-wait for your boyfriend to buy you something. Then act grateful.
-if he does not buy you something, give him the cold shoulder for the following week, and then when he asks why you are upset, yell at him. Enjoy.

Have a good one!

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my alarm clock is a bomb.


A paranoid Boston officer uses a stick to remove a light-up Err while peeing his pants.

Campaign Triggers Boston Bomb Scare.

Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis called it "unconscionable" that the marketing campaign was executed in a post 9/11 era. "It's a foolish prank on the part of Turner Broadcasting," he said. "In the environment nowadays ... we really have to look at the motivation of the company here and why this happened."


Ignigknok and Err, looking like bombs. "On the moon, we have advanced beyond rules and manners."

"It had a very sinister appearance. It had a battery behind it, and wires." -Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley


Let me present a little story problem:
1. Say there is a guy who really likes Pokemon, and just as a silly joke one day he places a little Pokemon toy on top of his neighbor's car. The neighbor comes out to go to work and finds the toy on his car. He's never heard of Pokemon, in spite of their popularity with his own children, because he spends all his time watching the terror alerts on Fox News. He could just drive to work, but he sees that the toy has wires and a battery, and he remembers that terrorists are everywhere in this post-9/11 world, waiting to destroy America, and we must all live in fear of them to be good citizens. So instead of going in to work, he calls the police and the bomb squad, and his whole neighborhood is evacuated, and his place of work cannot function without him being there, and his whole district of town is essentially shut down until the Pokemon fan is detained and he explains that it is just a damn toy.
A. Who can be blamed for the widespread panic?
B. Who cares?

Extra Credit: List 10 things found in your own home that Boston authorities would think are bombs. You can list more than 10, but be aware that you are a threat to national security.
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strange/beautiful.


Yozhik v tumane (Hedgehog in the Fog), 1975

Lately I've been watching Russian cartoons on YouTube. The Soviet Union produced a lot of strange, avant-garde animation during the 20th century. Some of the shorts were based on fairy tales or aimed at children like the beautiful Hedgehog in the Fog, and some of them were more abstract and flat out weird like the repetitive Bolero:



"Every director works as an artist for other directors, who have totally different manners and tastes, in between the shoots of his own films. This gives Russian animators greater flexibility and more varied skills. Russian animation is also very "handmade"--unusual techniques and textures are discovered overcoming technical difficulties. The result, which cannot be recreated on the state-of-the art equipment, often bewilders animators at international festivals."
-This is an excerpt from this article, which discusses Russian animation at length.



There seems to be something a little off about Soviet cartoons, which is what makes them so interesting. They aren't as comfortable as Western animation, with our Mickey Mouses and Betty Boops. Russian cartoons seem to always whisper an underlying lesson, and they are whimsical but at the same time rather creepy, like each cartoon is a dream that borders on a nightmare. In any case, that little Hedgehog movie blows me away. If you haven't watched it yet, do so now!!
(It's in Russian, but the story is thus: The hedgehog is going to meet his friend the bear cub so they can count stars, and he's taking some marmalade with him. Along the way he sees a horse in the fog, and wonders if it would choke on the fog if it fell asleep. The hedgehog then decides to investigate the fog, and adventure ensues.)
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first post of 2007: playful modernism.

I didn't do much to ring in the new year. 12:00 came and went, and I was about to fall asleep watching Grand Hotel when Octavio came in and rousted me. So we left to play drums with some hippies and get drunk at a bar. Then I woke up in the afternoon and watched All Quiet on the Western Front. And blew my nose a lot.

On a completely different note, there is a place in California called The Nut Tree. It began as a roadside fruit stand in Vacaville in the 1920s, and over the years it grew into a sort of mini theme park, complete with an airport, giftshop, restaurant, and even a little train to ride around in. In the 1980s the place closed down, but the signs and buildings remained, and we would frequently drive by them during family visits California.



What made the Nut Tree stand out was its incredible retro style. In 1952 the owners hired former art museum curator Don Birrell as design director, and over the next 10 years he and his design team fashioned the park into the whimsically modern wonderland that most people remember today.



The Nut Tree was like a museum itself, a gorgeous exhibition of modernist trends in design during the 1950s. The atmosphere was playful and elegantly sophisticated at the same time. Bright primary colors illuminated toybox-like architecture, and the glass walls and open areas created a space in harmony with the outdoors. Even the restaurant menus had a cool woodcut-style cover. An article outlining the site's history talks more about the importance of design:

'Excellent design became a hallmark of the dining room. Dansk silverware graced the tables, dishware was specially designed for specific dishes, and guests enjoyed their meal while lounging in stylish Charles Eames chairs. Every dish was presented based on a visual template developed by Don.'

'Don and his coworkers traveled around the world, bringing back new ideas. The Nut Tree Plaza of 1961 featured an ice cream pavilion with its fluted roof and twinkling lights, an idea adapted from similar pavilions in the famous Tivoli Gardens of Copenhagen, Denmark.' -Sabine Goerke-Shrode, The Reporter

In 2006 the park was re-made, re-modeled and re-opened. But the Nut Tree for a new generation retains none of the original's stylistic charm. Don Birrell's Nut Tree featured a color coordinated toystore with playful figurative typography spelling out "TOYS" with animals, and vertically arranged boxes displaying chic Eames chairs. Good design side-by-side with implements of play. The new Nut Tree looks like this:



That's right, folks; it's a shiny new outlet mall. The saddest part is that Vacaville's real factory outlet stores are located directly across the freeway. So if Old Navy is closed, you can drive right over to The Gap in the Nut Tree and not miss a beat. Who needs a beautifully constructed ice cream pavilion when you can go to a Cold Stone, plugged in between a Banana Republic and Victoria's Secret? All this while you enjoy dull "Mediterranean colors" and "wide walkways" that lead you back to your store-front parking space, so you can drive your SUV over to the bathrooms.

In all fairness, I'm sure the new Nut Tree Village is a nice place to shop. But it saddens me to see a place so lauded for it's design reborn as something so bland. The original site seemed like its own self-contained world; the look and structure of the place transcended its function as a fruit stand/airport, so that visitors felt excited and relaxed by the unique surroundings alone. The new Nut Tree, in contrast, reminds you of the world you live in, the job you work at, and the products you need. The design is purely functional, a means to an end, that end being your dollar.
...Alright, class dismissed.

firefox has cancer.

Recently my internet browser has been experiencing problems. I've been using Mozilla Firefox, and it has been working splendidly for the longest time, but just within the past week or so it seems to have become slightly brain damaged.



Two of my most visited websites are Myspace and YouTube. Really, as long as I can connect with people and watch funny videos, the internet serves me well. But suddenly Firefox began having seizures, freezing up when trying to play a YouTube video or visiting certain Myspace pages. And I became all too familiar with a pop-up screen telling me that Shockwave Flash "has performed an illegal operation" and that I am "strongly advised to restart Firefox."



I've always hated the term illegal operation. It's another one of the many vague, nonsensical computer terms that nobody can define but computers love to use. What, did Shockwave Flash rob a bank or something? Why isn't this perpetrator plug-in being arrested? Maybe then it wouldn't continue its illegal activity every fucking time I use the internet.

So I turned to Google to try and find a solution to this problem, and discovered that several people are experiencing the same thing. But sadly, forum after forum after forum, nobody could offer a definite way to remedy Firefox's retardation. I tried everything suggested in these forums, and just like the others I was unsuccessful. Some users had been trying to fix the problem for months, to no avail. Several others eventually gave up and reverted back to Internet Explorer, somewhat reliable but still inferior. Still others opted to download newer browsers and start from scratch. Needless to say, it is frustrating and sad to find out that several people have the same problem with Firefox but all are powerless to fix it. Firefox can't be cured. Firefox has cancer of the Flash.

So until I find a cure, I must use IE for my networking and video needs. It works okay, but it's a step backwards.


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a political moment.

Last weekend I went with my family down to Arcata California, where I had a pleasant Thanksgiving with relatives. During the car ride down from Oregon we passed through a lot of 'God's country', and I saw several campaign signs and bumper stickers promoting the political right-wing. You know, stuff like this:



So, being a mindless follower like them, I decided to join in and make some of my very own republican bumper stickers. Print them out, put some adhesive on the back and slap 'em on your car (click for larger size):










































And my own personal favorite...

sickpatch dispatch.













I've been a bit ill lately. Cold season and all that. I'm drinking lots of tea and juice and eating soup, but the coughing and sniffling continues. Anyway, here are some news bits from the last couple weeks.

"Kevin Costner's Field of Knives," the latest show from Renob Control, is over'n done with. The show officially ended with our appearance in Miz Kittyz Parlour, a (very vaudevillian) variety show thing at the Imbibe. We went on after a jazz guitarist. No joke. Aaron, Danielle, Chad, Emerson and I did the best we possibly could considering we had no time to tech, no backstage or sidestage, and virtually no lighting control. But although we performed three of our strongest sketches, the clientel of the restaurant (mostly 40+), for the most part, just didn't seem to get it. Personally I'm not sore; those people are probably more attuned to the comedy of Bob Saget and The Golden Girls, so I wouldn't want them laughing at us anyway.

My birthday came and went, and my family blessed me with a POD and a new camera. My camera has an interesting setting that isolates single color tones, so I can take crazy pictures like this one:

My eyes aren't even green. Wacky!

One Wednesday, Joanie and I ventured to Eugene to catch a show by Little Girl, Big Spoon. The name is the alias of a tiny 17-year old named Michelle, who plays acoustic folk songs on a guitar almost bigger than herself. These days it's hard to throw a rock without hitting some high schooler playing dreadful emo songs on his or her acoustic guitar, but Michelle's music trascends all the wanna-be folk music and rises to a level of real, no-shit folk music. Her guitar playing is simple, hypnotic at times, and her use of a high-placed capo helps give her songs a distinct sound. Her voice has a tone that harmonizes with the guitar almost like a seventh string. The lyrics reflect on the kind of romantic troubles that all young people face, but they're written with a sense of clear-headed wisdom that you wouldn't expect her to have until years down the road. Whatever the formula, Little Girl Big Spoon's songs are effective, beautiful, and downright moving. Caws Pobi even covered one, but he did it more like an operatic sea-shanty, so it isn't beautiful or moving ("Lost Ships").

This little kid was dancing up a storm at the show. It didn't matter that she was playing sad songs on a guitar- this kid was hearing ABBA.

Caws's new album The Manticore is now finished. Contact me if you want one; Octavio and I even designed a little paper sleeve for it to go in, complete with track listing and liner notes.


And here is my rundown of some movies I've rented or seen lately:
-V for Vendetta - A rather idealistic, 1984-meets-Batman story featuring a London controlled by evil conservatives and a freedom fighter/terrorist who looks like a big puppet and talks like a douche. "Ah, the Count of Monte Cristo. My favourite film. Have you ever seen it?" Gay!
-Annie Hall - Woody Allen's first movie to have him playing Woody Allen. If you're one of those people who just wants to punch him in the face, don't see it. Otherwise, it's funny, cleverly written, and nicely acted.
-Return to Oz - Hey! Let's make a sequel to one of the greatest fantasy movies of all time, but let's make Dorothy younger, use shitty special effects, and throw in as many creepy, nightmarish creatures as we can think of! Because nothing says family film like a terrifying stop-motion stone man who will swallow your soul.
-The Wicker Man - A modern classic. Gets better every time you see it. Unless you're a devout Christian, in which case this is the worst movie ever. Filth!
-The Warriors - "First we start with a miracle. We've got The Saracens sitting next to the Jones Street Boys. We've got The Moonrunners right by the Vancourtland Rangers. ...Can you dig it?"