sun ra singles

a selection from at of mirror eye featuring off-kilter
doo-wop and jump-blues shamanism.

"introducing children to guns, freedom, and responsibility"

via boing boing

downbeat

downbeat
Originally uploaded by ppad.

props to me

My New Favorite Place

People, the Mary Pickford Theater at the Library of Congress rules. They show all types of crazy shit at 7PM every weeknight: film, TV, whatever. But this has to be the most insane bit on the current schedule, screening the Friday after Thanksgiving:

The Loneliest Runner (NBC, 1976) Dir Michael Landon. With Brian Keith, Melissa Sue Anderson. (75 min, 16mm) Writer-director-producer Landon shows us his dirty laundry in this painfully autobiographical teledrama. Lance Kerwin (James at 15) plays the young eneuretic track star whose mother's corrective regimen involves hanging stained sheets out his bedroom window. Shown with an encore presentation of How to Drownproof Your Child.

programmed by me, props via pearly gates

the scent of peel

the home truths tribute to john peel traces the evolution of mr. peel's penchant for pet sniffers, introducing to the nation "a heretofore furtive pastime." as one sultry-voiced bird purrs, "the smell of warm dalmation ... is wonderfully biscuitty".

the art of jack kevorkian.
he would have fit right in at artomatic.

music to watch troubled teens by

audiophile: music pretty is a site deidicated to music featured on the hit tv series the gilmore girls. I've never seen it, but now I - and you, the reader - can listen to the soundtrack of tender gilmore girl moments: find love with the free design; straddle the age of consent with big star; I don't know what these kids did to the gentle strains of john coltrane, but I'm sure it was real, real tender. maybe they shot heroin.

said the gramophone has put up the magnetic fields' strange powers, which is heard on the great soundtrack to the beautiful, iMovie-generated autobiographical documentary Tarnation. filmmaker jonathan caouette documents a troubled childhood not likely to jump-start a hit tv series about growing up - but if it did, the series would have great music. [note to self: find mp3 of wichita lineman]

not enigmatic enough

I just bought Anonymous: Enigmatic Images from Unknown Photographers. This is a handsomely produced tome with some wonderful pictures. But sorting out images by theme robs the viewer of an element of surprise - the start one gets when discovering an oddly arresting image at a flea market, or tucked away in an old paperback. A more successful collection of such elusive images is Other Pictures, put out by Twin Palms. It is one of my favorite photography books, period; serendipitous, like the best street photography; mysterious; totally unexpected. It totally rocks.

the olympus XA, from the product design database

via foreword

an interview with alec soth
(buy the book here)

If looked at in a certain light, nearly anyone can be beautiful. I learned this last August on a hot Monday afternoon while in the company of Minneapolis artist Alec Soth at a bar in the dingiest hinterlands of Northeast Minneapolis...

...[Soth is] not just some photographer. He's actually an open-faced, warmly smiling, 33-year-old confidence-man operator/artist who works his way into unusual situations and then works the situation to get exactly what he wants. This includes a Memphis prostitute's room, the Angola State prison, an aging Southern matron's bedroom, and numerous other situations. He simply enters into these people’s lives momentarily and pries surprising elements of beauty from them.

via gallery hopper

"ramona," by johnny bombay and the reactions.

a lost dc power pop plassic. get it from the Schoenborns. Oh isn't its pedigree a curious delight to you of all ages and lands and creeds. Greg S., who put up these and other historical recordings, played bass; and one Abaad Behramr (maybe I wasn't kidding about creeds) played guitar. and get this, Mr. Behramr would later - or was that before? - play in the Razz, who gave us ... Tommy Keene! can you believe that? damn. I remembered it fondly from 'hfs, and I beheld unto the original ep on ebay - change it for 2o ducats and read more on who begat whom, here. I don't remember it 20 duxworth of fondly, but free and fondly is peaches.

jesper just: the man who strayed, a deadpan mini-opera.

see also:
santa on the loose.

neither as good as "bliss in heaven," now at perry rubenstein but not online.

Laughing & Crying Records

via rummage through the crevices

waterplanet
k records meets syd barrett. download "heedless/headless." (reg. req.)
via press night at artomatic

from the flea market at 26th & 6th, ny, ny

props to kittytext, an mp3 blog specializing in Thin Lizzy Thursdays. kittytext is responsible for sundry referrals to this humble abode - traffic is approaching double-digit figures.

the real toy story

In the spring of 2004, I returned to the United States, rented a van and traveled throughout California, visiting all the second hand shops along the way and hitting the flea markets at the weekends. My criteria: that each toy must have a face, and had to have been "made in China"...

Parallel to the process of preparing the toys for the installation, I visited five toy factories in China where I photographed the workers producing the toys. These portraits are embedded in the installation, and add another level of meaning to the project.

via conscientious

Craving progress

So all you kids in the red states, and the slower blue-state kids too, note well this site, from which The Bloggy, Bloggy Dew was referred at by Blogger's random next-blog sequentomatonator. The lesson being: if you study Real Science, you too might meet somebody who looks Just Like This. Creation Schmeation. Whose God are you going to listen to, the God of Hate and Ignorance or the God of Hot Intelligent Blondes? I thought so.

what we're up against

a letter to the editor of the journal and courier, lafayette-west-lafayette, IN

'I've earned capital,' said President Bush on Thursday in his press conference. He said he plans on spending it, and I sincerely hope he will. Forget trying to appease those he just soundly defeated. They lost, therefore their concerns should be his last.

The loser, John Kerry, told the president it was up to him to unify the country. Let Kerry contact the Michael Moore types and talk about unification on the loser's side, because the president has work to do. Bush received more than 50 percent of the popular vote, a feat even Bill Clinton never achieved, although he always claimed a mandate. So W must have a super mandate.

The majority of voters spoke, and they liked W's ideas. It's time to implement them. Partial reform of Social Security, tax reforms (cuts), a continued commitment to the war on terror.

This time, forget the 'new tone.' Having the Kennedys over for more popcorn and movies? Forget it. Get the short list of Supreme Court judges dusted off and check their phone numbers for accuracy, it's time to overturn Roe v. Wade, so God can bless America again.

Tony Lee, Oxford

via a blue Indianan

nitrada.com input output system

audio loops loaded at random. probably un-american. instant soundtrack for your godless lounge or gallery. works real well with these unamerican whales, too.

tout va bien au web zen

looptracks

hallway, schoormans' gallery

hallway, schoormans' gallery
by pat padua.

from my new flickr account

Veiled Conceit

A glimpse into that haven of superficial, pretentious, pseudo-aristocratic vanity: The NY Times' Wedding & Celebration Announcements.

via weird curves

the picture is dead quartet

Flowers are nice but teaching little kids to kill ants is nicer.

colorama

The main concourse of Grand Central is New York’s great indoor room. When it opened in 1913, architects Warren & Wetmore's building was hailed as an engineering marvel and a "temple to transportation." But by 1984 it was dark, dirty, and marred with advertising. Sticky trash was stuck in every corner. Homeless people slept in its subterranean passages. And looming above it all, blocking the main hall’s east windows, presiding over its tumult no less than West Egg’s Eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg, was the Colorama, the massive backlit billboard that its creator, Eastman Kodak, trumpeted as the World’s Largest Color Photograph.

via design observer