Dreamlando

As far as I can think back, I was always fascinated with Japan, amusement parks and tacky, mass-produced kitsch.

All of these obsessions seem to have met at "Nara Dreamland", or "Nara Dorīmurando" as the Japanese would say it.


clicking on pics increases the magic!

"Nara Dreamland" opened in 1961, near the city of Nara. It is always said that the Japanese like to copy things, while making them better in the process. "Dreamland" on the other hand just copied "Disneyland", there was nothing better about it.


Some parts of "Dreamland", like the entrance and train-station look like a carbon copy of its Californian inspiration. The whole layout of the park, the castle and most of the rides are also copied.


The fact that the park opened just six years after Disneyland shows what an impact Disney´s ideas must have had worldwide. Upon closer inspection "Dreamland" might have taken the ideas but certainly not the imagination and devotion that made Disney parks such a lasting success.


Where Disney´s imagineers went all the way to create convincing and immersive worlds, "Dreamland" used cardboard, concrete and plastic. This makes it so much more interesting for me.


Through the years, the park must have lost it´s artificial magic as the owners jusr added random rides and coasters without integrating them into the faux-Disney-look. With the opening of the immensely popular Tokyo Disneyland in 1983 the naive 20 year old forerunner in Nara must have appeared like an embryonic version from a parallel universe.


Neglect and dwindling visitor numbers took its toll on "Dreamland". Throughout the late nineties and early 00s the park was almost looking abandoned. By the end of august 2006 the "Dreamland" closed its doors forever.


Here you can witness "Nara Dreamland" on opening day in 1961. The resemblance the park had to Disneyland in this early phase is uncanny and amazing. The second video is even longer and shows more of original rides like the "Jungle Cruise".


The last video shows bits of Dreamland in its later days, when the crowds have gone and only a handful of school-children are stumbling across the cracked concrete.


A bizarre photo-trip to Dreamland, shortly before it was closed can be enjoyed here.

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:

Project Level-D

I think I have read most of the JG Ballard obituaries, tributes, essays and reviews since yesterday. Thanks to Simon Sellars´ brilliant Ballardian-Twitter service and the Guardian collection, it was easy to almost overdose on the theme. Reading all this made me hyper-aware of the ballardian reality that surrounds us and the following is as ballardian as it gets.


For some time I am intrigued by the dubious, ever increasing interest in female dolls and figurines that cater to grown-up, mostly Japanese men. But the new, ultra-realistic silicon sex dolls that enjoy growing popularity are beyond creepy.


Generations away from your typical, cheap, blow-up-doll from yesterday, the creations from the Superior Structure Artistic Silicon Doll Team, or shorter: Project Level-D are looking amazingly real. Horribly real.

Look at the facial expressions and the suggestive, pseudo innocent poses in which the various models are presented. They either appear sad, melancholic or as if they just died, still inviting you to do whatever you like to their multi-joined latex bodies.


Meet the proud owner of a harem of Level-D models. This young man, who decided that he just could not get along with real women, paid ca. $6.000,- for every one of his "girls".

Will it be long before the next generation of "animated" models will invade the living- and bedrooms of these men?

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...

I-Joy Riders

This commercial for the iJoy Ride is...erm, strange and hilarious! I guess this caters to the women who are feeding Extenze to their husbands only to find out that it doesn´t work as advertised. But hey, it only simulates a gentle horse ride...

Mondo Pre-Teen

Pimping up kids to look like creepy adults seems to be a common ritual in Northern America and Papua New Guinea.

Logo Fail

I have no idea how old and well known these logos are. Especially the above logo for the Arlington Pediatric Center is an epic fail. Most of the others could actually be fully aware of their more or less subliminal, phallic associations.


Megaflicks or Megafucks?!




Czech Sausage

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.

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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...

It Came from Behind the Iron Curtain

Science-Fiction was always a common vehicle to transport political and social utopia (or dystopia), despite of the political system in which it was produced.


The movies loved Sci-Fi as a great way to sell fear, paranoia or subversive concepts with the use of exciting visuals.
Sci-Fi from the Eastern Block is either hailed as great art (Tarkovsky) or it is basically forgotten like these:

"Через тернии к звездам" - (aka. Per Aspera ad Astra or Humanoid Woman / To the Stars by Hard Ways) is a 1981 sci-fi film, directed by Richard Viktorov in the Soviet Union.

Here is a short scene set to a piece of the soundtrack by Alexey Rybnikov. I love the dominant moog bass, the eerie synths in the background and the anachronistic harpsichord on top of it. Together with the strange and dreary mood of the pictures it creates a very Chernobyl-esque atmosphere. I found the last images of people standing in submerged ruins especially impressive. Since gas-masks freak me out I will probably have nightmares tonight.



Enough of doom and gloom!


You have to watch the next clip! It´s bizarre, beautiful, funny and very relaxing (thanks to the wonderful Russian language). "Moscow-Kassiopea" was a sci-fi movie for children. Directed in 1972 by the same directer as the above, it directly rips off "2001" in a hilariously fantastic way - you know: for kids! Check the colourized landscapes and the monolith, which looks like a wooden door. The aliens look like the Pet Shop Boys, ca. 1993 and towards the 7 minute mark you won´t trust your eyes when a space ship corridor turns into a trippy night-club.



Speaking of DISCO:
Here is more of "Moskwa-Kassiopeja" set to great 70s communist disco music from East Germany. I can´t say enough how utterly amazing this is! Daft Punk had nothing on this!

See kosmonaut-twinks floating weightlessly through their space-ship to the totally tripped out Moroder-esque "In den Kosmos" (into space) by Stern Combo Meißen. This was recorded in 1978, one year after "I feel love"!


Hoch im All (up there in space) is so future-positive that you´d like to travel back in time to enlist for the Russian space program.

I want your Chocolaty Soul!

This ad for Cadbury chocolate is probably one of the fastest spreading clips on Youtube right now. A perfect combination of totally random stuff like two young kids with very special facial features and a classic electro/breakdance hit from 1984 ("Don´t stop the rock" by Freestyle) will probably reach more people than the new Vatican-channel by next Friday.

It´s the perfect da-da-campaign: Cheap, senseless, original and very effective!

If you haven´t seen it already, here it is:


Still, I felt strangely disturbed by the hilarious eyebrow-ballet of these two kids. There is something very sinister and unsettling lurking behind the surface that conceals a bizarre nightmare logic.


Screenshots of the clip are somehow revealing an almost subliminal vibe, halfway between "Village of the Damned", "The Omen/Exorcist", "Scanners" and "Come To Daddy!"