Read this travelogue from Guardian UK writer Douglas Rogers.

His experience is a perfect photograph of every experience I’ve had on an Amtrak train east of the Mississippi for the last two decades.  Right down to the bomb scare (mine was simply a large battery underneath the train catching fire at 2 a.m. in the middle of The Badlands, but hey, it was the ’90’s and Fear wasn’t in vogue yet).

Look how HARD he has to rationalize his account.  His train is stopped by a bomb scare – but it’s OK! It’s near a really quaint little town with a used bookshop! Really!  It’s alllll part of the allure of train travel in America!

Also, keep track of the number of times Doug mentions booze.  In fact, every time Doug mentions booze, take a drink because that’s how you keep face on an Amtrak trip: ANESTHETIZE!

Best part: Doug has to cut it short to FLY home because his wife goes into labor.

Oh, Doug.

Poor Doug rides trains like I ride trains: willing to take any level of bullshit because we are so enamored of old black and white pictures like this:

And it is not like that. At all.  If you think you are treated like Second Class Citizens on this nation’s domestic air flights, you have never enjoyed being a third class citizen on Amtrak. I mean,  they don’t even capitalize it, look!

Sad. Sad. Sad.

I WANT to love you, Amtrak.

[takes swig of teeny-tiny bottle of Amtrak merlot]

Why you got to make me hurt you like this?

[collapses into corner and begins sobbing]

Tags: Aesthetiophilia, I should probably go to bed, Pictoriphilia by Cash Money
No Comments »

<begin>

Earlier this year (well, actually as early I as supposed it’s possible to get as far as years go) I’d posted a roundup of animation to help get you through the Morning After (insert dramatic music here). I hadn’t realized it at the time but the director of tonight’s entertainment is the same one who also gave us that wonderfully animated and visceral version of Kafka’s Country Doctor, Koji Yamamura. Atama Yama, also known as Mt. Head, a short but visually stunning piece reflecting some of the more, shall we say, cyclical aspects of nature, both human and ecological. And our inability to really do much of anything about them.

It cropped up again recently, in one of my more inspired link wandering episodes, and for the longest time I couldn’t remember where I’d come across it before.

Then it hit me. I’d seen it late one evening while drinking wine years ago as part of an anthology, and interspersed with viewings of early David Lynch films (you know, for context. It was that kind of evening). I’d forgotten how much I’d loved the animation, particularly in the design of the background, and the narrative’s presentation as fable. It’s one of those works that will give you something new with every viewing, even if you don’t notice it at the time.

A fable of infinite regression. How enticingly ‘Meta’. I think I might actually be able to get behind that if my world looked this damned interesting.

Excuse me, I should probably open some wine.

</end>

Tags: Aesthetiophilia, Videophilia by Etruscan
No Comments »

Etruscan pointing me at this documentary, Manga Mad (fairly NSFW):

Ah, manga.

I suppose, after writing way too many posts about comics in a row, it may have been remiss of me not to mention it.
I’ve always viewed it a little nervously over my shoulder. Why? Because usually it’s what’s at my back when I’m trying to find a trade paperback. For several rows. Of coyly grinning lady-men reclined in draped repose. Lurid, big-eyed, cotton-candy-haired women with cat ears and maid’s outfits.
Why so much of it? Just ask former Waldenbook’s employee and thieving liability (and thank you for the spoils, SIR!), Franklin Mint: “Shit sells, son!”

[Read more →]

Tags: Aesthetiophilia, Pictoriphilia by Cash Money
No Comments »

School is in session. The kids have returned and now I do not have a parking space near my apartment.  My schedule has changed and I’m finally down to working one job!  I’ve gladly gotten back into my workout routine and now I find myself working on homework at night due to my wild idea of attending school. 

Spring is right around the corner, although it doesn’t seem like it should be. Where was summer, fall, and for that matter, winter? It was maybe cold for about two weeks and mostly mild for the rest. I am aware that winter isn’t over and we could get a cold-snap bringing us down into the single digits. But I digress…

The mood today is heavy.  I have a lot going on and sometimes metal is the best place for my mind to go when it’s crowded up there.  Buzzing in my ear, on the pod today…this little rocking song. It’s by a band that well, I think got put into the wrong catagory of rock music, but ah well.

So I had to find the song mashed up to a decent anime…Breaking Benjamin and FF for the win! Enjoy!

Tags: Audiophilia, Videophilia by Nekogirl
No Comments »

I just discovered this amazing video by Nicholaus Goossen.  Playing off of the assumption that fast food mascots must be consuming a lifestyle that is as tasteless, full of filler, and non-nourishing, which is equally represented in products that they peddle.   If Ronald McDonald really just wants to hang around the playground all day pied piping children to score some happy meals, do you really think he understands his 401k package?  No he’s going to blow all that hard money on drugs and loose women.  The same goes for the King and all the others.  Our consumer culture has successfully blown up to such mythical proportions that the myths are now capable of being allegorically deconstructed.  While shows like Jersey Shore have opened the dialogue for what is excessive and falsely glamorous.  Goossen has carried that discussion over to the alltaglichkeit that is representational of over marketed fast food franchises that have grown to litter downtown everywhere.  No wonder they think they own the town.

RAD OMEN – “Rad Anthem” from Nicholaus Goossen on Vimeo.

Check out his other videos on vimeo, also very funny.

Thanks, Coilhouse

Tags: Aesthetiophilia, Audiophilia, Videophilia by Gestalt
No Comments »

<begin>

15 years before the world ended (that would be 1985 for those of you keeping score) Mamoru Oshii gave the us this gem; his directorial debut, Angel’s Egg.

It’s minimalism rivals that of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, and ironically also like Beckett, when he was questioned as to what it was about, he replied “I don’t know”.  It’s my belief that Oshii chose to speak with the image rather than the word. Beckett, of course, was writing a play. Dialogue was something of a necessity. Oshii was under no such limitations however, and one of the true beauties of this film is that the lushness of the landscape, the haunting environment portrayed, speaks in greater volume than the characters would ever need to. As such, the dialog is minimal, serving primarily add appropriate counterpoint to the story already being played out.

In many ways it shares these aesthetic similarities with a much later (though indeed, truly excellent) film  Les triplettes de Belleville. While worlds apart in storyline the two both focus the viewer’s attention on the detail of the portrayed world by honing precisely in on those elements that will bring the most life to it. I find it disheartening that this is one frequently overlooked by fans of anime.

But the best part about all this of course?

It’s simply Art that Had to be Made.

(Warning: Veoh embed. You’ll need their silly player to view the whole thing, I wasn’t able to find a full copy elsewhere.)

</end>

Tags: Aesthetiophilia, Videophilia by Etruscan
No Comments »

Mint & Money’s Political Banalysis Season 7, Episode 09: ”Midterm Election ‘010,” filmed on set: 01.21.10

—

[set lights up]

Cash Money:  Good evening and thank you for joining us here on Mint & Money’s Political Banalysis.  I’d especially like to thank you for joining us on this, our 100th episode of the program.  With me as always is political commentator, playwright, and post-modern outlaw, Franklin Mint.

Franklin Mint:  [caught off guard, lighting a cigarette] Whoops! Good evening, Cash, and thanks for having me… again.   On this show. That we both do.  For the one-hundredth time! Wow!

CM: It seems like just yesterday I was rudely jarred awake at 7:30 a.m. to hear the mundane details of the Obama campaign and why you thought Hillary Clinton would lose the Democratic nomination. Every since then, we’ve been here to provide you with the latest political news and analysis.

FM: That’s right, Cash.  Each episode we approach the news in two ways: mine, with laboriously researched and carefully thought out introspection and yours, from the point of total and truly unconscionable ignorance.

CM: Ha, ha! I go with what works, ol’ buddy. Now then, this weeks topic.

FM: Yes. This week will be discussing the American Midterm Elections of this, the 2010th year of our lord, Jesus Christ.

[Read more →]

Tags: Politics by Cash Money
No Comments »