Coneycopia

coneycopia.

Beautiful time-lapse video of New York and Coney Island by Graham Elliott.

Pacific Ocean Park (Pt. 4) - Who Will Buy?!

I can´t believe that I never found this one before! Nancy Sinatra performing a song in the closed down Pacific Ocean Park! She even poses on the top of the "Sea Serpent"-coaster and the camera moves around with her in a great panning shot. Sometimes things just fall together...




I am not too wild about the song "Who will buy" from the musical "Oliver!" (it must be a musical if it´s got an exclamation mark) but everything is well when the hilarious dance break sends the "West Side Story"-ballet into wild dance routines inside the coaster´s wooden structure.

Here is the whole thing:

Rear Projection

Busy bee John Waters has just opened a new exhibition of his hilarious work at the Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles.



Brilliantly titled Rear Projection, John gathers another wild mix of his screen-shot collages and distortions (Children who smoke) and all new, giant pop-art sculptures of Ike Turner playing with a Tina marionette, leaking poppers-bottles (which he admits using not for sex but on rollercoasters only!) and ridiculously expensive Hollywood cosmetic.



Once more, Waters fiendishly turns his obsessions into an entertaining and acidic show of satire, art and consumerism that caters to film freaks, pop-art fans and hillbillies alike.



More pictures and details. ahd check out the private Tour below! It´s almost like being there...

Overlit Chrome

American photo- or hyperrealism was a very successful art form in Germany during the 1970s.

I think that these ultra-realistic paintings offered many non-Americans a much more comfortable grip and understanding of the "American Dream". For many left-leaning critics Pop-Art embraced consumerism and the banality of art a bit too friendly and carefree.



Photorealism, on the other hand baffled with spectacular painting techniques and a completely irony-free, piercing stare into the American landscape. The shiny, glaring surface on many paintings was either over saturated with colours or so overexposed, almost bleached by the sun, that you´d reach for your sunglasses instinctively.



Suburban scenes of people standing in front of their houses and cars, sunbathing inhabitants next to the countless backyard pools, details of cars, reflecting showrooms, diners, close-ups of candy and dripping jelly-cakes, fractures of baroque neon-signs by day and crashed limousines rotting in high grass. You almost feel like a voyeur.




Like failed attempts of the perfect advertisement, glimpses into a mostly empty world that is filled with useless and decorative place holders.

I think that photorealism is still amazing because it managed to transform a seemingly banal picture into something worth looking at by subjecting it to imaginary sunlight.

Today, Photoshop allows us to create pictures that are so hyper-perfect that the unreal effect is nearly the same. It also allows us to create a picture in "photorealistic style" with the help of a filter. It makes it much more interesting to see what they saw.



I always loved photorealism because it pictured (and suggested) exactly what I liked and what I missed growing up in rebuilt but still scarred Germany: The vast spaces, the tacky colours, the bizarre chrome, the humming of air-condition, lonely palm trees and kidney-shaped pools.



The Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin is currently hosting "Picturing America - Photorealism in the 1970s", which is the first extensive exhibition in Germany for 30 years, covering the most prominent works of Robert Bechtle, Charles Bell, Tom Blackwell, Chuck Close, Robert Cottingham, Don Eddy, Richard Estes, Audrey Flack, Franz Gertsch, Ralph Goings, Ron Kleeman, Richard McLean, Malcolm Morley, Stephen Posen, John Salt, Ben Schonzeit and Paul Staiger

My Other Voice

Confession: I love The Sparks in theory only!

I adore their style and image, the humour, the irony, their fantastic album covers (esp. "Propaganda" and "Indiscreet") and the influence they had on everything that was good in pop-music during the last (almost) 40 years!
But with the exception of a few songs I can´t really bring myself to listen to them. It bugs me, because I really want to like them, not only because of their hilarious, epic song-titles ("Rock n Roll people in a Disco world", "I thought I told you to wait in the car", "Angst in my pants", "Lighten up Morrissey) but the fact that they are most likely the coolest, most perfect R/Pop band ever!


But then there is "No. 1 in Heaven", the album that fused pop, rock and electronic disco like nothing that was ever done before. An epic in only six songs that explodes with the last song, the title track. My favourite song on the album, and probably my favourite Sparks song is the morbid and experimental "My other voice". This strange, slow and delirious song is placed between the hectic "Beat the clock" and "The No. 1 song in Heaven". It could be considered a bit of a downer and it is probably the strangest song on an already strange album.


I always saw "My other voice" as a sort of Overture for "The No 1 song in heaven". If the latter was the one you´d hear all over in paradise, "My other voice" was the sound you´d hear while dying on the dancefloor, going through a quick purgatory and presto: angel choirs!

Now listen to My Other Voice


There is a backwards hi-hat sequence running throughout the whole song, it dazzles the mind and plays with the listeners perception of time. Elements are added one after another: A clumsy bassline, fluttering, slowed down disco percussion, ethereal voices that grow into an otherworldly crescendo that aims to go higher and higher. Shortly before the voices evaporate into thin air there is something like a demented surf guitar which soon turns out to be a vocoderized voice "humming" a half-conscious melody.


At this point in this experimental flow of ascending sounds and descending melodies the humming voice, as if coming from far away instructs us to "Listen to my other voice". Only then does the relative darkness of the track open up to Russel Maels most angelic voice. But his sweet, yearning voice says words that are more of a threat than a consolation: "You´re so independent but that´s gonna change real soon. With my other voice I can destroy this room. I´ll wrap my voice around you and I drag you everywhere. My other voice."


He then yanks the vocoder back on and gets even more sinister and demonic: You think you´re romantic. Well, I´ll whisper in your ear. I´ll be all you hear for years and years and years. You may be deaf to everything, you wont be deaf to me: My other voice..
The last syllables are pitched so high that the voice drifts off into the atmosphere. Slowly, all instruments fade away until only the backwards hi-hat is all that is left.

I can only imagine the effect this must have had on a crowd of drugged up dancers in Studio 54...

The Amazing Helen Levitt. 1913 - 2009.

Helen Levitt´s photos are very "Now". Often grotesque and funny, sometimes sad. They are perfect for "re-blogging" and you could also print bold words over them. Of course, they are also displayed in museums.


Last year I read a short interview with the famous New Yorker street photographer that made me love her and her pictures even more. When she was asked how she so quickly learned to use colour-photography in 1959 she just answers: "Why? You take a colour film, you put it in your camera, you start to shoot!"


The quiet woman who refused to be photographed also claimed that she never showed any personal interest in her objects. "No, I never talked to anyone. I always walked on immediately", was her answer she gave to German magazine "Der Spiegel".


In the 1940s Levitt could not live from her work, so she became a cutter, worked with Luis Bunuel and later started to make her own influential and acclaimed short-films. She died yesterday, aged 95.

Lux Exterior

Lux Interior (Erick Lee Purkhiser) 1946 - 2009




At times The Cramps kept me sane, at times I forgot about them. There are not many bands that are so beloved by so many different sub-cultures over such a long time.

Who wouldn´t have loved to hang out with Lux and Ivy in their rumpus room, playing records while nibbling hot peanuts fresh from their "Liberace Hot Peanuts Dispenser"?!

For a far better and informative write up, link-parade and lots of exquisite videos head over to Media Funhouse!

Deep Thought (on black velvet)

I have to admit that I was a bit impressed by all the countless velvet Elvis paintings that littered the streets of Tijuana (some were even presented in bird cages, maybe to prevent theft??) when I was visiting for a few hours in 1990.

Little did I know that Tijuana, Mexico is indeed the velvet-art capital of the universe so it is even more of a mystery that I didn´t find my desired blue/black panther on velvet. The one that -as a poster- graced the walls of so many classy homes in 1970s Germany.

Anyway, my love and adoration for velvet art was just blazingly re-ignited when I saw the amazing galleries of the strictly limited editions of velvet paintings by the aptly titled "Indignico Inc." (!!!)

This is not the fake stuff! No! It´s American art made by true artists in Tijuana, Mexico! "Quality you can feel" is Indignico´s motto.

Their latest masterpiece is of "Republican Party deep thinker" Joe The Plumber (whose real name "Wurzelbacher" hints at German or Austrian ancestry) in a great posture that just screams "deep thinking". It´s exclusively available via e-bay and it is NOT being shipped outside of the USA. There goes my Joe!

Do yourself a favour and read the full text that just lulls you into a buying-frenzy with it´s endless repetitions and great analogies. It´s pure poetry:


The Patriot Portrait Collectibles
of Indignico Inc. Proudly Presents:

The Last of The Undecideds
Joe The Plumber
"A Republican Party Deep Thinker"
On Black Velvet
The American Tabloid Heroes Collectiontm
Modern American Media Martyrs
On Black Velvet (tm)

No American Citizen Should Be Without One.
Genuine Original Hand-Painted Authentic Mexican
Limited-Edition American Tabloid Heroestm on Black Velvettm
~ from Indignico Inc. ~

This painting of Republican Deep Thinker and Impromptu Party Spokesmodel: Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, AKA "Joe The Plumber" On Black Velvet is an authentic Mexican Black Velvet Painting from "The American Tabloid Heroes Collection ~ Modern American Media Martyrs (tm) on Black Velvet", a Limited-Edition series of museum-quality Tijuana black velvet paintings which was produced exclusively for The Patriot Portrait Collectiblestm by Indignico Inc.

This particular black velvet painting was hand-painted in Tijuana, Mexico in 2008 by the professional Mexican velvet Elvis artist "ARGO." It is called: "Joe The Plumber On Black Velvet" (Modern American Media Martyrtm #274/1000).


Each genuine Limited-Edition Tijuana black velvet portrait produced by Indignico Inc. for The American Tabloid Heroes Collectiontm comes complete with its very own match-numbered Certificate-Of-Authenticity. Printed on high quality parchment, this tamper-proof certificate--also produced by Indignico Inc.--guarantees that your black velvet portrait is an original work of authentic Mexican black velvet art which was painted entirely by hand in Tijuana, Mexico by a professional Mexican Velvet Elvis artist from Tijuana, Mexico exclusively for The Patriot Portrait Collectiblestm of Indignico Inc. . . . and ultimately it was all done entirely for you, The All-American American People.

And speaking of you, you will never find anything else like this anywhere else--ever: like Nature's own snowflake, no two Limited-Edition Modern American Media Martyrstm can ever be exactly alike, whether it's "Joe The Plumber On Black Velvet de ARGO #274/1000" or "Joe The Plumber On Black Velvet de ARGO #574/1000"... each one is a unique, hand-painted, one-of-a-kind, All-American Original.

And that's what makes your genuine Patriot Portrait Collectibletm Limited-Edition Modern American Media Martyrtm black velvet painting from Tijuana such a guaranteed investment, something sure to be handed down, father to son, for generations to come, quickly becoming a treasured family heirloom in absolutely no time at all--But only, that is, if you act now--right now.

Isn't it Time You Paid Your Respects?

Get Your Patriot Portrait Collectibletm Authentic Limited-Edition American Tabloid Herotm Tijuana black velvet painting today!

But you must act soon, move quickly. Buy it now. Supplies are strictly limited. Resources are dwindling. Life is very short.

Get your Limited-Edition Modern American Media Martyr Tijuana black velvet portrait from Indignico Inc. right now--before it's too late.

The Patriot Portrait Collectibles (tm) of Indignico Inc.
No American Citizen Should Be Without One.

...And that, my friends, is just the sort of patriotic product and pedal-to-the-metal All-American promotional zeal you can expect from the fine folks and patriotic Corporate-American executives of Indignico Inc., an All-American American company that can be counted on to do absolutely whatever it takes to smuggle, over the border and into your lives, just a little bit more All-American American Quality...

Phew!



Admittedly, there are a few giveaways of the satiric nature of the whole thing, but apparently these paintings exist and there are more, much more!

Who wouldn´t like to call a velvet portrait of Lynndie England, the famous Abu Ghraib warden, his own?! There is also one of Condoleezza Rice, which "pays respect" to the former secretary of state by spelling her name wrong!


The final hint at the true nature of this enterprise comes towards the end of the e-bay page. No, not the photo of ARGO, the artist! Read the Q&A section and you might get it. Why do I get the feeling that most of the customers who buy this stuff don´t get it? Or is it me getting it wrong?! The mind reels...

Out in the Streets of Shangri-La

He don´t hang around with the gang no more
He don´t do the wild things that he did before

Mary Weiss, the last surviving Shangri-La, doesn´t like the tag "girl-group" for her old band and all the other...erm, trios-with-girls-singing-songs-of-others.

Listening again and again to my favourite Shangri-La-song "Out in the streets" (after reading the great Interview with Mary Weiss I now know, it is her fave too) I understand what she meant.


"Out in the streets" is not just a perfect teenage-drama like so many others of their sad songs. It is much more a full-blown tragedy of love-gone-wrong for all the wrong reasons.
From "Out in the streets" to "deep in the suburbs", the singer laments that her once proud "leader of the pack" has turned into a lifeless couch-potato. Like a glimpse into an alternative future, she sees what would have happened if all the sad-ending Shangri-La songs ("Leader of the Pack", "Past, Present and Future", "Remember (Walking in the sand)", "I can never go home anymore") would - for once - have had a happy-ending.

The Shangri La´s - Out in the streets (1965)


In "Out in the streets" Mary finally got the "bad, but not evil"-boy with the wild spirit for herself. She soon finds out that she has domesticated a wild animal. The "dirty boots", the passionate kiss, and even his cute smile have gone, because "his heart is out in the streets". Because she loves him, she decides that she has to "set him free" and even wishes she had never met him.
Of course this is all too late!
Would he still find his way around the streets after he was domesticated? It´s the magic of "Out in the streets" that it also tells a story about things that are not even mentioned in the lyrics.
Writers Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry really knew what they were doing here!


The backing vocals of the late Ganser-twins were a perfect match for Mary, the good-girl-about-to-go-bad-siren.
The twins were not only providing a backing choir, they would give depths and gravitas to the drama Mary had to endure. Clearly not as beautiful as the singer, they were the voice of millions of girls who would also stand in the second row, because they were not pretty or fierce enough to hang out with the leader of the pack.

"Tell me more", they would plead constantly. Always hoping to live their lives through Mary, who -in return- would have all the thrill but also all the pain.

In "Out in the streets" the choir is playing a more complex role. Part gossiping neighbours, part mourning friends, they howl and wail like professional mourners or wolfs in the streets. Then - like a Greek choir - they foreshadow the sentiment of the heroine.


It´s simply heartbreaking and amazing in its simplicity. Although the beginning of the song is almost gothic in it´s slow pace, the following bridge comes crashing in like a burst of sun light and makes "Out in the streets" a memorable classic. The music changes from its funeral-tempo to a rolling be-bop number.
"He grew up on the sidewalks, he grew up running free, he grew up and then he met me!"
BANG!
There we have it: It is always HER fault that he turned into a limp couch potato!

After this short outbreak of life, the music returns to the slow march of the first verse, but this time all registers are pulled, doors to echo-champers are pushed open and a pizzicato string orchestra rips away at the strings for the final part of the song.


The fun with melodrama is the fact that there is banal truth behind it. The great triumph of "Out in the streets" is that it tells us truth we don´t want to hear. It tells a story of failed communication, unspoken desires and the inability to break out of gender expectations. "Out in the streets" also tells the story of the packaging and selling of myths! A society that shuts their venetian blinds to focus on a half-lit vision of themselves, while the wallflowers of suburbia continue their wailing.

Watch the wonderful, haunting clip of the Shangs performing on "Shindig". This version is recorded live for the show (and then lip-synched in the studio) so it sounds different from the record. As an extra, the stark b/w lighting makes the outfits of the girls look like latex.