:beer: Hermano!

And how about Captain Ambient, the Very Quiet and Relaxed Adventurer? ;)

:) For a moment I envisioned a hero-gone-evil episode in the far-off future where in my old age, I lose touch with reality; (it's a stretch but bear with me). I would become so obsessed with my desire for a very quiet world that I develop a substance called "nitrowhisperin" to rid the planet of noise forever.

Then I remembered - Get Smart did that already.

http://i.imgur.com/ftfVJfNl.jpg

Sometimes I wonder if I'm a bit strange.

Sometimes I worry I'm not.

The Final Countdown
 

I'm so very excited! In all of my musical lit travels, there has been one rare great white which has always evaded me. There haven't been any documented copies surfacing in the US in the 30-year history of the text, and copies worldwide seldom appear on the resale market at an affordable price.

It's a book that everyone simply assumes I own, given my fascination with milestones of music culture. I've been stalking the rare book market for about 6 months in preparation for this purchase and was going to wait until June for my birthday, but I didn't want to get stuck buying the $800+ copies if they were all that were left by the time I got around to it.

Tonight I set myself to the task, and quickly located a second (final) edition at a fair price but was dishearted to discover that the second edition was printed as a tiny pocket book while the first (and rarest) edition was famously a larger-than-life oversize text with anarchistic proclamations printed boldly across the cover.

It took a little hunting, but I was able to track down a first edition tonight. The entire sales entry was in German, which is likely the reason it hadn't been snatched up yet. I didn't hesitate for a second and bought it on the spot. 25-45 days for international shipping, but man, when it arrives I'm going to be one happy duck.

I'll omit the title to send the forum into a massive upset of anticipation because you have nothing better to do than watch me buy sh*t that no one remembers. :)

Gold-plated no-prize to anyone who can guess what I'm on about.

http://i.imgur.com/SO4kCuZl.gif

The Voynich manuscript?

Oh, an excellent guess! Not the current title, however. Interestingly, The Voynich Manuscript has been published in various forms and languages with and without annotation for years, and is readily available from most used book markets for about $12.

Interestingly, the NSA offers an e-book version of The Voynich Manuscript; An Elegant Enigma (1978) for $5.

This beast was a steal at just over $200, especially for the holy grail first edItion.

There IS a free ebook edition (as well as a web edition) of the mystery book I've procured, but seriously... do I look like an ebook guy to you? :)

I'd just like to say that annotations can be a double-edged sword. I have a heavily annotated version of Dracula and it takes me forever to read it because of the vast amounts of side notes that may or may not be interesting. I get off on reading all the random info, but I'd still like a regular version I can read without all of the information that doesn't make the actual story any better.

Well, I'm at a loss, but have you read "Bumping Into a Chair While Humming"? It's Cageian philosophy explained almost better than Cage did himself.

Roger on the annotations, Bat. I've had the same difficulty with a few titles, particularly with a John Hopkins University Press hardcover titled, Annotations to Finnegans Wake (just try to image how impenetrable that text is), and with a massively oversize single-volume edition first printing hardcover-in-slipcase copy of The Annotated Sherlock Holmes.

When there's more annotations then there is source text, I get a bit dizzy.

I hadn't heard of it - thank you very much! I've watched the author's Kickstarter promo video and download a PDF copy to try it out. If it's nearly as good as it sounds, I'll order a copy straight away.

I love the feedback I get in this forum - wonderful stuff.

That sounds like a ****in doozy. You could write a whole book exclusively about the first page.

Oh no - the real doozy is my copy of Singmaster's Notes on Rukbik's Magic Cube. The text was typewritten and published in 1981.

Scientific American hailed the text as "The Definitive Treatise" of Rubik solutions.

I haven't read it... because I don't have an engineering degree.

I clearly remember wanting a Rubik's cube for Christmas as a kid. Thank god I never got one because it would have been the most disappointing gift I never used for more than ten minutes ever.

Something Special for Close Personal Friends of Al
 

I'm really upset with Pledgemusic because they know so very well that every few months, they shoot me an email saying, "Hey! Remember that thing you love? From way back in the day? Well, check this sh*t out!"

Pledgemusic is a direct-to-fan music platform, and their sole focus is raising funds for musicians. They don't get their grubby hands into ownership or rights over the content, they encourage artists to contribute to charities as part of their projects, work with artists to offer all sorts of exclusive content to pledgers, and is accessible internationally to unite fans worldwide toward the creation of wonderful and unique musical items for the most rabid of a band's fanatical followers.

Presently en route to my home is the Orb's Further Adventures Live 2016 25th Anniversary DVD+3LP box set, which was my first encounter with Pledgemusic. But today, they popped up in my email saying... "Psssssst! Look at the thing!"

Now available for pre-order is something special for Close Personal Friends of Al Yankovic. Having grown up with every Al album from his self-titled debut to the present, my nerdcore childhood would never have been the same without him. And to celebrate his discography and 34 years of mandatory fun, Pledge has pulled out all the stops and created the ultimate Al treasure.

SQUEEZE BOX, as it is titled, contains all 14 studio albums plus a bonus Medium Rarities album of demos and rare tracks. All albums have been remastered and pressed on 150-gram vinyl. The set also includes a 100-page collector’s book of rare photos and memorabilia.

It is available in multiple levels of insanity, the highest of which includes a signed test pressing of your choice of any one of the original 14 studio albums, a Zoetrope-animated turntable mat, retro-style "WEIRD Al" pennant, a magnetic build-your-own-Al, Commemorative t-shirt, and a CUSTOM PAIR OF WEIRD AL SOCKS!

And for $1500 they'll ship you a signed test press of every one of the albums in the collection... though all 27 copies quickly sold out.

And, oh yeah, the entire set is packaged in a custom-created replica of Al’s signature accordion!

Shut up and take my money.

http://i.imgur.com/k4ahjTp.jpg

I'll wait for the Pauline Oliveros edition.

.

This is a great read.

:clap:

Do you have the 12-disc Reverberations: Tape & Electronic Music 1961-1970 box set?

Wonderful! She had not written any short-form essays or manifestos that I've encountered, and I'd wondered why she was missing from The Rest Is Noise and Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music.

I'll have to look that book up. Thanks!

I don't have it but I've listened to it quite a few times. It's really excellent.

Time is Running In
 

On January 5th, a mysterious poster appeared in London, the same day as its website, K2 PLANT HIRE Ltd Poster One.

http://i.imgur.com/1NfcYvCl.jpg

The poster announced the end of the 23-year hiatus, (the number 23 having played a critical role in many of the KLF's works as they relate to the 23-enigma of the Illuminati). This postponement of the K-Foundation was ceremoniously implemented by the duo signing an infamous contract in gold pen across the windscreen of a Nissan Bluebird November 5th, 1995 and the deal was sealed with the act of pushing the Bluebird off a 120-foot cliff at Cape Wrath. 23 years was intended to 'provide opportunity of sufficient length for an accurate and appropriately executed response to their burning of a million quid'.

Further investigation into this exciting new announcement led me to an even more mysterious YouTube account, user WGU 18G, which has been posting cryptic new KLF content since January 1st, when they uploaded a 46-minute video puzzle dubbed, "KLF 01 01 2017 WTF FOUND VHS." Tiny video fragments were posted in the first 23 days of 2017, each a mash up of pop culture film footage recut to speak words like, "KLF" and "Justified Ancients" and "MuMu". Mixed in are footage of Robert Anton Wilson, the Kennedy assassination, other Illuminati symbology, BBC educational film reels, and fraction-of-a-second long superimposed elements intended to reveal pieces of the puzzle... or to lead the viewer entirely off the scent.

And on January 7th, Instagram user @followersofmu uploaded this addition to the mystery:

http://i.imgur.com/NUb8oVBl.png

And today - the 23rd of January brings all of this news serendipitously to my attention on the very day my copy of my literary white whale - The KLF's THE MANUAL arrived at my door from Germany.

http://i.imgur.com/nTnF0qKl.jpg

A week ago I decided that it would be foolish to let any more months pass, permitting the few remaining copies of this massive text listed for sale to be snatched up by other collectors. I quickly purchased a copy of the second (and final) edition but was disappointed to see that the giant oversize MANUAL had been reduced to a minute handbook for its reprint and that the author and title were changed to a less-impressive re-wording, (see below).

http://i.imgur.com/LN965Ngl.jpg

Within moments, I located a first edition copy in outstanding condition for only $30 more, which made my decision a no-brainer. In minutes, I'd canceled my order and secured an original for my library.

For those unfamiliar with THE MANUAL, it was published in 1988 and dubbed, "THE MAJESTIC INSIDE STORY OF HOW TO MANIPULATE THE POP MUSIC WORLD." The book instructs the reader to quit whatever band they'll in, sell all their gear, buy the top pop singles of the day, sample them, have a number 1 hit, and be forgotten by lunchtime. The book promises that if you've followed their instructions and don't make it to number one, that they'll refund your purchase.

The first printing of the book is credited to The Timelords, as Cauty and Drummond had just successfully implemented their guide and made it to number one under that moniker with the ridiculous hit, "Doctorin' the Tardis." And they were right - just as THE MANUAL instructs, the track liberally samples the theme music from Doctor Who, Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll (Part Two)", sections from "Blockbuster!" by Sweet and "Let's Get Together Tonite" by Steve Walsh, and neither member of the duo played a single note on the track. Critics hated it. The song was ****e. But it made it to number one.

In the years since the abandonment of the K Foundation, Drummond and Cauty have done some fantastic work. Bill Drummond created The 17 and published a book of its collected writings. Graffiti appeared in Derby with messages like this:

http://i.imgur.com/BIeu7lWl.jpg

And soon thereafter, a series of posters were created to convey the concept of The 17.

http://i.imgur.com/bTPAHyDl.png

Meanwhile, Cauty continued his anarchistic art, most recently with a touring art installation dubbed The Aftermath Dislocation Principle (ADP) Riot Tour. ADP is a massive graffiti-covered shipping container with small lenses positioned around its perimeter which grant observers a glimpse into a post-riot dystopian miniature city contained within. Spectators can see flashing lights, police blockades, and the remains of a city torn asunder accompanied by the faint sound of police radio signals from inside the container. The installation toured in from April to December of 2016 and was featured as part of Banksy’s Dismaland. ADP Riot was a larger scale implementation of the theme Cauty explored in 2011 with A Riot in a Jam Jar.

http://i.imgur.com/zUT4m9al.jpg

But all of this - the zenarchistic mythos of the KLF, the Manual, the burning of a million pounds at Jura, their art and music... and 23 years of contractual silence... has led to their return in 2017.

Time is running in.

http://i.imgur.com/VwBl3jAl.jpg

UPDATE 01-24-17: Information from some additional sources appear to dispell the cryptic rumours outlined above. First, on January 5th, The Guardian published an article titled, The KLF are back (sort of) – and it’s exactly what 2017 needs containing the following statement:

Cauty tweeted confirmation of this new material shortly thereafter.

And on 01-17-17, KLF.de posted the following notice:

So for now, we're just Waiting.

http://i.imgur.com/z7AopeB.jpg

New Territory.
 

My future co-host was playing a show an underground gutterpunk show last night so I dropped in to support him and get a taste of the scene.

I was only able to stay for the first two of the three bands, but his post-indie trio was up first. American Homes comprises my buddy on keyboard with a rack of analog modules, his bandmate beating the hell out of a floor tom, and a bassist with some impressive overdrive effects likely borrowed from Electric Wizard and well-suited for doom/drone/noise instrumental music. There was certainly some heavy influence from the stoner drone scene as well as some electronic minimalist oscillations a la Stereolab-gone-post-rock. It was great stuff. Between tracks a newcomer in the crowd asked, “Do you guys like Sunn O)))?” The band's present name is American Homes, but they're thinkin' about changing it.

http://i.imgur.com/tUo7bOW.jpg

The other band I got to check out was Red Ground. The Buffalo-born duo consists of a bassist and drummer, with the bassist controlling various sound beds via laptop. Their web content is tagged with keywords like, “experimental”, “ambient”, “post-rock”, and “protest”, the last of which is evident from their use of field recordings captured from various regional Native American protest events archived on YouTube. Their site reveals the origins of some of these recordings, such as a 2013 protest staged by the Mi'kmaq nation of Elsipogtog against an energy company that was attempting to conduct fracking operations on and near their territory.

Their musical formula holds true to standard but effective post-rock tropes like dark, atmospheric intros, building to deafening crescendos of bass and drums, and then a return to the field recording material from the introduction. What Red Ground excels at is their fusing of elements from both ambient and metal genres, such as the minimal flute drones which open “We're Still Here” coupled with machine-gun-like attacks of a double bass drum in the live version from last night's show. They closed their set with an improve piece - all of it top notch. Check out their music here on Bandcamp.

Despite my enjoyment of the music, I admit that I felt like an outsider at a gutterpunk show. (Judging from the 8 other bearded members of the audience, I was seriously lacking in the threadbare unwashed flannel department.) Cassettes were available for purchase, befitting of the ultra low-fi DIY culture of the event, but I’ll hold out for the 180g virgin vinyl Mo-Fi pressing to come out. Still, I’m definitely glad I attended. It was an eye-opener for sure, and I’m looking forward to the next show in February.

http://i.imgur.com/uR6f84jl.png

Question: is any of Basinski's Disintegration Loops available on vinyl that isn't a 1000 dollar boxset?

You can buy a nearly-unplayed copy of the complete 9LP+5CD+DVD+Book box set on ebay now for $390. The package has a few creases from shipment.

There's also a mint sealed copy for $450.

While some of the later loops were pressed individually, trust me - this is the set to own. The book is breathtaking, and the set also contains the two live performances of dlp 1.1 - Wordless Music Orchestra conducted by Ryan McAdams Live At The Metropolitan Museum Of Art, September 11, 2011, and Alter Ego Ensemble Live At The 54th Venice Music Biennale, October 18, 2008. These recordings are exclusive to this release.

I probably paid $350 with shipping when I preordered upon announcement of the original release. The mint sealed for $450 is really a fair price for 9LPs, 5CDs, a DVD of the film, and the oversize photo book.

Do it. Do it now.

Hey Innerspaceboy, have you ever played Killer7? If so, I'd love to hear your interpretation of what it's about.

I'm tight on cash now but later in life this is something I'll definitely do.

:nono:Definitely an interesting game. My console gaming experience is limited to the 8-bit NES, a few Genesis titles, and PC shareware from the MS-DOS era. (AlphaWaves, Nebulous, Commander Keen, and The Neverhood are fond favorites.

From what I've read on Wiki, the storyline is fairly well understood. Are there elements of the plot left open to interpretation?

A wiser investment might be getting your own magnetic tape setup for performing your own disintegration loops.

Yes, the whole plot is completely open to interpretation. Suda51 intentionally made it so that each individual player has to decide for themselves what is real and what is symbolic in every scene. Is it the story of two immortals fighting endlessly throughout time? Is it about an assassin that is brainwashed by the government, and Harman and Kun Lan (as well as everyone else) are just elements implanted in him to control him? Is it about an old man going crazy as he sits alone waiting to die, and the whole story is a mixture of his memories and what he sees on his TV? Or is it all just a metaphor for the futility of politics and war?

There are also a whole bunch of unanswered questions throughout the game, and everyone who plays the game has to fill in the blanks for themselves. For example:



If you ever get the chance to play the game, I'd love to hear your thoughts. If you go hunting for a copy (or a ROM), I would recommend the version developed for the Gamecube. It's the original, and features several graphical differences from the PS2 version, as well as shorter loading times.

Sounds fascinating! Thanks for the scoop!

You're welcome. :thumb:

So, you've played a few Genesis games? Are there any you still play now and then?

If you don't want to risk spending money on a system and games that you'll end up not even liking then there's always Youtube Let's Plays, where you can watch personalities play video games in much the same format as a podcast. There's a delightful and very insightful one by the name of Pewdiepie who I think you would find very interesting.

I do, indeed. (Rocket Knight Adventures was a lot of fun.) There's was a nice package circulating the web back in 2013 called the 6666-in-1 RETRO_LEGENDS ROM Pack, which comprises over 6,000 North American and Japanese titles for the NES, SNES, NeoGeo, GBA, Sega Genesis, Master System, Atari, N64, TurboGrafX, and the ZX Spectrum, as well as 534 popular arcade titles for MAME. I imagine there are larger libraries which incorporate later system today.

I picked up several retro USB game controllers and enjoy kicking back on a Saturday for some head-to-head Marvel vs Capcom or Mario Kart against my wife.

Retroarch supports an insane number of system cores and lets you navigate and load any title via its corresponding core from any device - desktop, Android phone, whatever. The one feature I haven't explored yet is NetPlay so that I can kick the a**es of my friends overseas as well.

The other retro pleasure I partake in is a server I dubbed RetroBox which I loaded with 100 complete tv series archives of my favorite 80s and 90s cartoons and live action shows, including a few I never got around to as a kid, like Batman: The Animated Series. I'm thinking about downloading a few 8-hour commercial archives from the same decades and configuring the server to play through the episode library at random with commercials inserted every 15 minutes or so. The plan would be to port the server's video output to a woody Zenith CRT telvision (you know, with honkin' UHF and VHF knobs), stick it on a 1980s microwave cart and wheel it into the bedroom for Saturday morning cartoons. (Cap'n Crunch sold seperately.)

Thanks, Bat. I've enjoyed a few Let's Plays in the past, but had never heard of this guy before, (nor have I seen a vlog if that is what I'm witnessing). May I speak frankly? I'm hoping you guys can help me understand this phenomenon.

I clicked through Pew... (no, screw it, the name is absurd. Why the hell would anyone adopt such a moniker?) ...I clicked through several of his videos and stomached as many minutes as I could stand in an effort to develop some sort of understanding of why anyone on this planet would watch this a**hat.

Why did he spend eight full minutes exploring the subtle nuances and philosophy of the phrase, "Pen Pineapple Apple Pen?"

I respect a few of the socio-cultural positions he appears to take on various trivial matters, (though I try to frame his arguments in the grander context of social impact, free speech, etc. rather than on the inconsequential happenings of other teenage dolts filming themselves on the web.)

But his humor and language are elementary, his attire and set design are juvenile at best and would end a critical conversation with a potential peer long before he'd had the opportunity to open his mouth.

Please, please pardon my woeful ignorance here - you must understand that I've had conversations with, at most, 7 or 8 persons under the age of 30 "IRL" as they say between 2010 and the present. In my day-to-day routine, I encounter two coworkers (aged 65 or older) and one CEO of 50-odd years. Apart from the briefest of exchanges with the occasional client picking up an order, I really don't ever speak to anyone, so I'm a bit in the dark with regard to what people look like or sound like these days.

Do ladies and gents actually conduct themselves like this Pewdiepie fellow? If so, how do they receive any respect or acknowledgment from those around them?

I ask this genuinely, as I am perplexed by what I've seen this evening.

Ha ha, over 6,000? That's a ton of games! I remember playing Mario Kart on the SNES with my sisters. The AI racers were such cheating assholes, especially Peach. :laughing:

I see that you're a man who takes his saturday morning cartoons very seriously. I can respect that. Every now and then, I'm known to grab a bowl of cereal and throw on TMNT. Just a few months ago, I watched all of Space Adventure Cobra for the hell of it, watching an episode every morning while I ate breakfast.

Is there a reason you don't play games from the PS2/Gamecube/Xbox era? Personally, it's my favorite generation.

Tricking ISB into watching Pewdiepie is now my favorite thing.


http://i.imgur.com/iB1ObCG.gif

And to answer your question, no, nobody acts or talks like Pewdiepie. I have a certain place in my heart for his ludicrous antics, but he is reviled by many as an incredibly annoying twat who just puts on an act to entertain dumb 12-year-olds. He does have the highest number of subscribers on all of Youtube though, so take that for what you will.

One of my greatest faults is that I am so quick to dismiss cultures after my "time". (It's called being old.) After the whole living-in-asylums for the majority of the 90s, by the time I got out the world was entirely foreign to me.

Just think - when I went in, there were no cell phones and the web was just graduating from BBS-era dial up. The NES was the only system that mattered, grunge was a new concept, and Comedy Central hadn't been born yet.

When they let me out, mobile phones were the norm, Kurt was dead, and f***ing Friends happened. My experience was quite similar to Brooks' in Shawshank. Thankfully, instead of taking my own life, I just erased the rest of the world around me.

TL;DR I'm a cranky old coot who doesn't understand video games with more than 4 buttons.

Hey, I can kind of understand. Growing up, after a certain point, I pretty much isolated myself from the rest of the world. I hated just about everyone and couldn't relate to them. Since I associated modern culture with the worst times of my life, I just sort of dove into retro things, especially movies and music. I despised the pop hits of my time, and didn't give a shit about Facebook or texting. Just like everyone else in the world, I had shit thrown at me that I had to learn to deal with. Never went to an asylum, though. Can't imagine what that must have been like.

I still tend to listen to retro music and watch older movies, but I like to think that I'm not so lost in yesterday that I'd miss the chance to experience things well worth experiencing, just because of their manufacturing date. Then again, it's our preferences and peculiarities that keep us happy, and who am I to tell someone what ought to make them happy.

tl;dr I'm an old coot too, man. You do whatever makes you happy. But if you ever wanna get into Ps2/Gamecube games and need somes recs, I'm on that shit.

One From the Vault
 

After reading about James Joyce's last words, (deeply saddening), I wanted to revisit his final interview, published in Time Magazine, issue #19, May 9, 1939.

Unfortunately, my copy is archivally framed and I was too much of a dumbass to think to scan the interview pages before encapsulating it forever in its final fate. As I've never really had any interest in magazines, I am not a member of any of the major closed magazine trackers, and their public brethren are overrun with porn zines and offer little in the way of 1930s print.

So, against all my better judgment, I signed up for a one-time access pass to the Vault section of Time Magazine's website for $2.50 and went to work. Whoever was in charge of scanning these archival issues did a terrible job, leaving many pages askew or missing as much as half of the page. And Time doesn't exactly go out of its way to make it easy for users to save any of this content.

For a few minutes, I started logging the image source URLs for the 86-page issue and in about 30-seconds' time I successfully executed a command line script which automatically scraped all of the high-res page scans of the entire issue from the Vault, compiled them in the proper sequence, and exported the resulting file to a PDF.

There were a few hiccups, as I placed a wildcard one branch too early and inadvertently initiated a media scrape of the entire history of Time Magazine.

With the task complete, I took a moment to also extract the interview article's text and export to Google Doc, ODT, plaintext, and epub for optimal accessibility.

Flipping through the entire issue was indeed eye-opening - there was the latest news from Hitler, adverts from Martin Aircraft, "World's Standard of Skyway Supremacy", Camel ads targeting young women, adverts for the Studebaker and the Pontiac Eight, the new technology of aluminum foil, the latest foxtrot hits, and this gem from Monsanto Corporation:

http://i.imgur.com/CX0a7U4l.jpg

Settling in presently to read the interview which set me on this little project.

http://i.imgur.com/nGJg28Pl.jpg

I'm honestly curious about what 1939 thought was everyday Hitler news.