:: July 31, 2002
Dolly Parton's first publicity photograph, another shot from her early days, and streaming audio of her first single, "Puppy Love," that she recorded in 1960 when she was all of 13 years old. That's only the beginnings of the treasures on University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill's Southern Folklife Collection site dedicated to Goldband Records, an influential cajun-zydeco-blues-country-rock label out of mid-century Louisiana. ::
:: July 30, 2002
Fontomas Those Germans sure can make some mean fonts. This is one of the best free font sites out there, and it's undergone a nice redesign since I last saw it. There are currently 10 free fonts available, and soon you'll be able to buy all their older creations on a CD, with the proceeds going to poor children the world over. ::
:: July 28, 2002
From TVParty.com: a Brief History of the Tabloids, on the occasion of the National Enquirer's 50th birthday. ::
Here's some Saturday morning nostalgia brought to you on a Sunday morning. The ABC Health and Nutrition commercials of the late 70s have been somewhat eclipsed over the decades by its cousin Schoolhouse Rock -- the latter having been celebrated with an anniversary DVD and a CD featuring indie rock stars covering the songs. However, if you're hovering near the age of 30, their anti-condiment, pro-cheese philosophy is probably burrowed somewhere deep in the recesses of your subconscious. The star of these Saturday morning public service announcements was Timer, who originally led a neice and nephew on an edu-delic journey into the innards of their lard-ass uncle in 1973's The Incredible, Indelible Physical Mystery Trip. Timer was the blob who "Hanker[ed] for a Hunk of Cheese" and persuaded sugar-crazed kids into enjoy frozen juice cubes instead (this page has the "Sunshine on a Stick" commercial in realaudio).
Also by the team of David DePatie and Fritz Freleng (who also created the Pink Panther cartoons and a number of other big-name series together) was "Yuck Mouth," who did not brush; "Beans and Rice" (is nice, once or twice or even thrice); "Don't Drown Your Food"; "Exercise Your Choppers"; "Watch Out for the Munchies" ("soon you're not just bored, YOU'RE FAT!"); "Have a Quickfast," and maybe others? I also recall "Have a Saturdae," which imparted the recipe for a healthy yet pornographic sundae alternative involving a banana, a pineapple ring, and yogurt, but I'm not sure it was part of this series.
Sidebar: McSweeney's popped up again during my research. From the list archives: "Honest-to-God Trivia Questions From "TV Guide's TV Game," a Board Game Manufactured in 1984." ::
:: July 27, 2002
My fascination with the grocery clerk profession has been trumped by McSweeney's, those bastards. If I pursue the "ask the grocery clerk" column idea that I have been entertaining for a long time, it will be seen as mere imitation. ::
Dirty Origami ::
:: July 26, 2002
At the Illuminated Donkey: It's Skee-Ball Week! ::
"Will this work on people who are on drugs?" TV Heaven reviews ridiculous infomercials. ::
Sharpeworld TV (that's in the left-hand column, turkey). Rappin Christian Pirate Puppet, anthropomorphized chimps, 1940s banjo hotfootin', treadmill infomercials, and more! Doing it to you on your desktop, yaaaow! ::
Some pitfalls to avoid when taking your band photo: brick walls, railroad tracks ("the Other Brick Wall®"), the fish-eye lens, sunglasses at night, poses, shirtlessness, eyeliner or see-thru shirts (that's Vallejo, by the way, who epitomizes all that is wrong with Austin music), scariness, floating heads, irony, being German. (via Metafilter and Boingboing) ::
:: July 25, 2002
"I dreamt that Celine was in my living room and she was ironing snakes. I know it seems weird but in my dream it was like a perfectly normal thing for somebody to do. It was my job to catch the snakes and pass them to her so she could iron them. They were really difficult to catch and I remember being terrified that one of them would bite me. At one point in the dream Celine shouted at me for not catching them quickly enough and I got upset."
From Celinedreams.com, a site dedicated to dreams by and about Celine Dion. ::
In case you don't ever read the comments: In response to the One Thousand Blank White Cards post, Chrisboy shares another game in the exquisite corpse (<--warning: scary monkey pictures) family called Eat Poop You Cat. It's Pictionary and Telephone rolled into one! Here are one two other pages on it, again, with some excellent works of art to be enjoyed. This one has potential to be played on the web, perhaps on this very site! How about it, huh? ::
:: July 24, 2002
Among The Imaginary World's amazing collection of old childhood ephemera is a scanned-in catalog of playground equipment from the 1970s. Compare to today's playground ... oh, the sacrifices we make. And for what? Safety? Kids, you ain't lived until you've fallen smack on your head from the 18-foot-high bell bouys. (via Pop Culture Junk Mail) ::
:: July 22, 2002
Via Lots of Co.: The freeform card game called One Thousand Blank White Cards. It was written up in Games Magazine recently (that's a link to people talking about it being written up in Games Magazine -- Games Magazine has no web site). It seems that the only way to really get it is to play it, but here are the rules nonetheless. The card galleries that people are posting online (the above from Lots of Co.'s deck) are mighty enjoyable. ::
:: July 19, 2002
Harrison Ford is a dick. Interviewing stars sucks more often than not. This one sucked more than most. (Via Romenesko's Medianews) ::
:: July 18, 2002
Whatever happened to Phranc, the 80s lesbian folksinger? Well, I'll tell you. She's a Tupperware Lady! Honest! I think that's just terrific, don't you? ::
Someone has finally written a biography of the late great Carter Family: Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone?: The Carter Family and Their Legacy in American Music. Actually, two someones, Mark Zwonitzer and Charles Hirshberg. Here's the related NPR story that aired this week. ::
:: July 16, 2002
Ooh, this is going to be good: Fuckedcompany.com owner Phil Kaplan is launching Internalmemos.com next month, kind of a Smoking Gun dedicated to corporate communications. (Via Poynter E-media) ::
:: July 15, 2002
Geocaching and Letterboxing. Anyone ever done this? I've never heard of it till now. (via Metafilter) ::
:: July 12, 2002
My second story for PopCult is now online. It's an interview with the oft-mentioned Charles Phoenix of God Bless Americana and musings on the found photography movement-if-you-want-to-call-it-that.
In other other people's slides news, These slides of a dead man in a coffin prompted my first submission to Whowouldbuythat.com. It's even weirder that the weird dude who's selling them (BUYING AND SELLING IS MY HOBBY. SHOW BUSINESS IS MY LIFE! JUST WHO IS JACK SWERSIE???) is charging so much for them. ::
In case you had any doubt to the excesses of the wedding-industrial complex: Exact Miniature Replicas of Your Wedding Gown. When you get to the part about them being "precious little miracles," put on your best evil hand-wringing toady voice. ::
:: July 11, 2002
Happy 7-11. It has nothing to do with convenience stores or free Slurpees, but the Mothra Song is quite enjoyable, as is the site that offers it. It sure makes you think. ::
:: July 10, 2002
When Glu paid us a visit a few months back, he brought the Sky Mall catalog from his seat-back pocket to show us the above photo (see the whole page courtesy Google Catalogs). I was surprised to find that nobody has noticed yet ... the picture is in this season's catalog too. I mean, of all the times in the day that you could use. Coincidence? Duuuuuuuude, I totally think not. ::
:: July 8, 2002
Do read Metafizix, not because he has the Excitement Machine listed as one of merely three "hipsites," but because it's the weblog of a guy who works on Major Motion Pictures, currently the third installment of the Terminator series. ::
:: July 2, 2002
Despite growing up near L.A., I never spent much time in the city. The suburbs taught us to avoid it. When I moved to Northern California, you were required to shiver and spit at the mere mention of any place south of Santa Barbara (hating Santa Barbara itself was optional). I was impressionable. Whatever. It's very weird to visit now after being a resident of other states for nearly a decade. It feels foreign and yet part of the cliched fabric of my very being.
And I'm completely starstruck by Los Angeles. I want to live on a hill in a mission-style apartment building with a pool and become blase about celebrity sightings. I want to believe that living in 80-degree weather year-round is worth the smog and the impossible freeways.
My family and I drove out to Hollywood from the Inland Empire two days in a row to see Charles Phoenix's God Bless Americana (my choice) and The Lion King (mom's choice). In between, my brother and I paid respects to Bob Eubanks' star on the Walk of Fame. Because April Winchell once mentioned it, I had to drag everyone to Clifton's Cafeteria, which I highly recommend. It's a fossil of pre-white flight urban L.A. that it now sits in an almost exclusively Latino part of town. It feels almost exactly the same as the old photos, except that all the customers and employees are brown and you can load your tray with horchata, flan, and menudo in addition to all the American classics. My family wasn't as enamoured as I was, but they did agree that the food was delicious. ::
THE UNIVERSAL PHYSICAL RESPONSE
+ Driving a car through heavy traffic has the effect of eliminating the pollen, thus providing crucial assistance in a child’s struggle with illness.
+ Sometimes the responses are very much exaggerated, and take infinitely varied forms.
+ For your reference, see Natural Habitat in the Age of the Biological Robot: The Effects of Previous Challenges to Health (From the Perspectives of Allergens and Bacteria) by Putnam and Rhora.
+ They may even discover pollen on the common radio.
+ Fever victims, for example, arbitrarily play mind games in dealing with the charts in medical waiting rooms and have been known to be financiers of the covert operation known only as Sweat.
+ - "the color of the face. Every responding physician took turns influencing the emotional compartments of each patient on an individual basis. The gasps of horror, the panting of the conditioned crowd, the intensity of the effects roused conscious meanings from deep within even my very self, meanings previously assigned to only my nose, stomach, or urinary tract. The significance of this to the unconscious mind, and to war and all its tributaries, is enormous and viewed by a select few as perversely threatening."
+ Working at a frustrating job, watching life from the inside of your body without knowing it. With some people the stress is over-rated.
+ Stuffed noses go their own way. The family quarrel has symbolic meaning in this situation only because it makes others resentful and often begs physical response. (Sometimes the pollen can be perceived as being the person. However, the whole person (both body and molded mind) figures into the actual evidentiary pollen count and consequent stress on the subject’s “life.”)
+ 'Everyone here has recognized at least a handful of the patients. The upshot is that they’ll grow up to be real easy-going.'
+ Early childhood is only the beginning of a manufactured pattern of outside stimuli sent bent on wreaking havoc and programming brilliant minds to be clay targets for *demons in pinstripes.
Sneeze if sufficient plant pollen or coin.
Note: This experience has been deemed real and bait.
(2002 ChrisWeigeInCahoots
chrisweige
austin. Born: 1.27.02.
548pm ::
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