Instead of creating a slideshow with all the pictures I talked about last time, I went ahead and created Meine kleine Gummizelle, the video.
It's a combination of about 50 stills, basically all my favourites. But why are you still reading this? Go check out my naked butt in all its 1080p hi-def glory (Oh yeah it's slightly NSFW).
Last week we spent some time in the shallow, dried out bed of the Wienfluss and took some promo-shots for my soon(*) to be released full-length album.
I'll upload some more pictures this weekend, including the CD-booklet created by Thomas Fischer. The pictures were taken by Eva Vasari. The scrawny looking white guy is moi.
(*) soon as in "when it's ready". In the meantime, listen to Gummizelle again and again and again.
MP3 Michael Maurer - Du bist meine kleine Gummizelle
OGG Michael Maurer - Du bist meine kleine Gummizelle
Wie immer Feedback & Kritik ins Forum oder direkt an web@michaelmaurer.net.
English: This new song translates to "You are my little padded cell". It's more of a hip-hop/Electronica-thing, unlike Wir gehen im Herbst spazieren with its Polka/Folk-feel.
MP3 Michael Maurer - Wir gehen im Herbst spazieren
geladen werden.Mit den journalistischen Einträgen hier hat es vorerst ein Ende, widme meine freie Zeit jetzt dem Songwriting. Wer Feedback oder Kritik senden will, einfach ins Forum oder direkt an web@michaelmaurer.net schreiben.
English: No more of my journalistic blogging stuff for now, instead I will post new songs on a regular basis. They're pretty heavy on lyrics, and german ones to boot, but I actually met some non-german speakers that like them. Check it out, just follow the link above for "We're taking a walk in autumn".
I'm busy watching Michael Jackson's funeral, so I'll keep it short. passive-aggresive notes is a collection of, well, passive-aggressive notes. Duh. Most of the notes seem to originate from shared apartments, and more specifically, shared bathrooms, fridges, and pantries.
Not too surprising. As a former casualty of flat-sharing myself, I can relate to the pain a missing yogurt or a decomposing can of dog-food can generate. On the other hand, I never wrote lenghty letters of accusation like this three-part Ladies Room Notice. Or this crazy door cum pin board full of legal threats and rants against smoking.
Jesus. Trash as narrative art, please try not to leave hair in the bathroom, get a new bed or make your boyfriend lose weight - the list goes on and on. Stick to "Greatest Hits" and "Most Popular" to the right of the page, these are the funnier ones. Or go buy the book.
July 1 marked the 25th anniversary of William Gibson's cyberpunk novel Neuromancer. Cyberspace, the world wide web, simstim, rogue AI's - some of its technological predictions have already become ubiquitous.
Jack Womack even believes that Gibson's ideas came to life in a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy: Serving as a blue-print for engineers cum readers, shaping their understanding of the inner workings of the web. Well, why not. If you're trying to fill a void with metaphors, you'll probably use the ones you're most familiar with.
For an extensive look at yesterday's cyber-future today, go read Mark Sullivan's Neuromancer turns 25: What it got right, what it got wrong. Oh, and this: 8 Bits vs. Spring features art & music inspired by Neuromancer.
French website Télérama was lucky enough to get a bunch of sample pages from Robert Crumb's upcoming Book of Genesis. And there's more to come. Check their website each sunday until August 19 for additional panels full of original sin. Like those hips.
Couple of interesting things concerning MJ's life and death floating around:
1. The unauthorized interview of Michael Jackson (1983)
See him talk about life and art on his Neverland Ranch, one year after the release of Thriller (109 million copies sold). He comes over as a very fragile, childlike kind of person. The second part shows him imitating his favourite musical scenes, for no particular reason at all. He just starts to sing and tilt his head like Julie Andrews. Weird. And sad, in a disconnected kind of way. The fountain makes some questions hard to understand, apparently it was his favourite place. At least he had a favourite place.
2. Michael Jackson goes shopping - private home video
All he ever wanted was a normal life. So they closed down a shopping mall, dressed up his relatives as "normal people" and sent him shopping. Surreal. "It's my dream to be in a supermarket, walk around and put things in a basket." Cue Pulp's common people.
3. Quincy Jones remembers Michael
Quincy Jones, producer of such hit records as Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad, shares his fondest memories:
Q: I've heard you say that you wanted Michael to sing "She's Out of My Life,"
the great pop ballad from Off the Wall, in part because you felt like he had to
deal with reality.
A: I just wanted to hear him deal with a romantic relationship with a human
being rather than a rat. I'm saying that facetiously, but it's true. I saw him
at the Oscars very emotional about "Ben." I wanted to hear him get in touch
with a real human relationship. "She's Out of My Life" was written by Tommy
Bahler from a very bad ending to a marriage. So it was very real. I was saving
it for Sinatra. But I gave it to Michael. And Michael cried during every take,
and I left the tears in.
The Polynomial is a trippy space shooter by Dmytry Lavrov, pitting you against mathematically generated fractal scenery and models for the sake of reaching the best high score. Or, as Dmytry puts it, "you fly around, shoot some stuff, collect some other stuff, and dodge enemy bullets".
Yes, but the flying around is the fun bit. Diving through multi-colored star nebulas, shooting at jellyfish that explode in bright flashes that generate more stars... ahhh. That's really beautiful. And meaningless. But beautiful.
The Polynomial doesn't come with a soundtrack, but firing up your own MP3-player beforehand shouldn't be much of a problem. I recommend some Froese, maybe Aqua from 1974? Eh, maybe I should try some Philip Glass, that could work as well. Anyways, go download a free preview of The Polynomial, available for Mac OS X, Linux and Windows.
Picture your social world as a large, well-lit closet / a tunnel extending through society from birth to death / a cave of shadows artificially illuminated / a populous boat adrift in a sea beyond meaning. The sea is an image of the world, a whole world; there is a universe beyond the widest reach of human perception. I do not yet know it / do you?
After someone posted the link to Persepolis 2.0 on Metafilter, it was quickly pointed out that recycling comics for political means is old hat. The Situationist International advocated subversion or détournement of pop culture's fake reality, in order to show the underlying capitalist degradation of human life.
Bureaucratic Comix (1971), Terry and the Situationists (1981) or Dagwood on Détournement (1981) are crude examples of how one's subversive scalpel can be used to cut an open space just large enough for revolution to pass through. For a more thorough examination of critical and situationist theory, download Guy Debord's The Society of the Spectacle and his User’s Guide to Détournement.