Mark Leyner: My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist (part 4/4) (42.8MB, mp3.zip, MF)

via: i was an infinitely hot and dense dot
(mc,mg: pt.1/pt.2/pt.3)

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Mark Leyner: My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist (part 2/4) (42.8MB, mp3.zip, MF)

via: i was an infinitely hot and dense dot
(mc,mg: pt.1)

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I first read the name Mark Leyner while pouring through the pages of Mondo 2000(*), a short-lived and decidedly poignant introduction to the emerging cultural phenomena of networked computer systems, psychology, psychedelics and art. It was also my introduction to the personally life-altering thoughts of many personas of that era including Terence McKenna, Anne and Alexander Shulgin, Robert Anton Wilson and Jaron Lanier, just to name a few.

M2K was in publication during the early years of the internet era. During the transition from BBS to the web. A time when web browsers (Mosaic anyone?) were first able to display images inline, when the term cyberspace was not only used sans tongue-in-cheek, but heralded the clarion call for the social, cultural and human evolution that the internet seemed to promise. William Gibson’s science fiction made manifest, Terence McKenna’s visual ingression of linguistic intent and Timothy Leary’s final playground. Leyner’s book My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist was published in the fertile hotbed of this era and into the literary epoch of cyberpunk, reflecting it’s hyperactive and hyperlinked hyperreality.

The World Wide Web of 1993 was a dangerous and beautiful place. Remeniscent of Gutenberg’s printing press in terms of it’s disruptive effectiveness as a tool of the cognescenti and commonfolk alike. The information flowing through it allowed and demanded the very freedom that echoed and fueled it’s democratizing intent.

Leyner’s work was as dystopian as that of his cyberpunk brethren, but it came with a twist; it was fucking hilarious. A bonfire in which no form of thinking (eschatological or otherwise) was left unscathed. Where the hedonistic, self-indulgent and ego-driven herd of star culture icons lived on to ridiculously preserved, medically plausable ends. Where the soup of the day was primordial soup, “ammonia and methane mixed with ocean water in the presence of lightning”.

Instead of everyman cyborgs with military weapondry on-board (ala Gibson, Jeter etc.) Leyner’s characters were mesomorphic cyborgs that whipped out 35 pound phalli made of corrosion resistant nickel-based alloy and a metal oxide membrane for absolute sub-micron pebnetration of petrochemical fluids. Where mono zygotic replicants could avoid transgressing the incest taboo via a miniature shotgun blast of gene fragments, altering their genetic matricies so that they would longer be mono zygotic replicants. Where secreted couples could meet in dreams and apocalyptic deformation bombs could disfigure everything within blast radius in the same chapter that referenced TV Guide digests of wonderfully absurd shows starring the likes of Brian Keith, Buddy Ebsen, Nipsey Russell, and Lesley Ann Warren.

My Cousin, My Gastoenterologist is classic Leyner, and I feel, his establishing tome. An amphetamine overdriven run-on thought train, slicing through a scatter shot pop culture landscape with the urgency of a pedal riveted to the floor.

Thinking now back on the time it was written, a time when I took M2K’s manifestos SO seriously, believing in the inherent evolutionary change agency of the web. Even then I couldn’t keep from laughing with Leyner, whose sci-fi scenarios seem far more relevant and in full fruition than Gibson’s hard-browed visions. Especially now that the web has primarily devolved into a vehicle for mass marketing, branding and porn.

Thanks to Leyner, I can laugh with the absurdity — welcoming every bent doctrine and obliterated principle as everything unfurls in the stark blue sheen of prime time, and still revel in the sub-experiential, subversive carrier tone that rings at the heart of it all.

Thanks finally to my good friend, Brian Knapp who picked up the cassette version of the audiobook at Powell’s in the 99 cent bin back in 1999, and the tech that has made it relatively easier to pass along.

I’ll be uploading each part over the course of the next few days.

Here’s the first:

Mark Leyner: My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist (part 1/4) (42.7MB, mp3.zip, MF)

related: Salon / Follow for Now / Links / Petition to Force Mark Leyner to Write Another Novel, (thanks Sampsell)

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Here’s a re-up of David Lynch’s Ghost of Love from the Inland Empire soundtrack and a older post, with props for the curious folks that let me know that the previous link was dead. Communication is always welcome and appreciated. Well, almost always, I suppose (although some spam is ridiculous enough to actually enjoy). Said exceptions aside, notification of the need for re-ups are never filed under that category, so thanks again.

And a funny thing happened on the way to this re-up…

While in the process of digging for a new header/gallery link image, I was reminded of a scene in Inland Empire that reminded me of one from another film. The film, Meshes of the Afternoon by Maya Deren had such an impact on me as a young film student (preparing to drop out of art school to work at a skateboarding magazine) that I named my daughter after the woman who made it.

I wonder if Lynch intended the shot as an homage? It wouldn’t surprise me at all considering Deren was as much of a risk-taking, visual-narrative driven, abstract filmmaker as Lynch. She hasn’t been referred to as the High Priestess of Experimental Cinema for nothing. Plus, Meshes of the Afternoon deals with transitive states of consciousness shot in a nearly seamless linear flow, leaving a more obscure line for the viewer to strain their mind in their attempt to follow. Classic Lynch, classical Deren…

Although I’ve got a more focused post about Deren in the works, in the spirit of serendipity, homage and the Silver Jews’ Open Field nod I’m about to post about, I thought I’d upload the scenes from both for your own comparison, edification and amusement.

Screens via the image above, Ghost of Love re-up below.

David Lynch: Ghost of Love (9.2mb, mp3.zip, MF)

Previous, link-laden s|b posts:
strange what love does
strange what love does (redux)

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Rad Fangorian guerilla art from The Decapitator, a UK-based street artist/culture-jammer known for graphically severing the heads displayed on major advertising media and reducing them to bloody, bony stumps.

His latest efforts include a foray into newsprint, having hijacked the London Paper’s back page Motorola ad and distributing it both by hand and via the distributor’s supply. The event was even documented for prosperity, here.

Originally found on either cpluv or ffffound, it’s seems the East London Decapitator’s work has been getting around.

From Wired:

The mutation of art into other forms of art is always fascinating — even if the recipients aren’t always willing, as was in the case with New York-based graffiti defacer, known as the Splasher. Splasher became infamous this summer for tossing paint onto the work of well-known street artists like Shepard Fairy and Momo, citing controversial claims that their work was gentrified, banal and irreparably appropriated and commodified.

the decapitator: flickr
via cpluv / ffffound / notcot / wired

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Graphic Design on the Radio was a series of one-hour radio shows broadcast in the summer of 2007 on Resonance FM. The programmes featured interviews with leading graphic designers who talked about their work and played music that inspired or influenced them.

Presented by Adrian Shaugnessy, those interviewed included:

Jonathan Barnbrook / Neville Brody / Malcolm Garrett / Michael C Place / Fred Deakin / Vaughn Oliver / Rick Poynor / Angus Hyland

Tune in.

via: cpluv™(build) / Resonance FM / Build / Studio Tonne

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One of the first posts here was centered around David Lynch’s latest and most impactful movies to date, Inland Empire. I have yet to set my thoughts and interpretations to keyboard (which means I probably won’t) but suffice it to say, Inland Empire inspired plenty. As if the novel process by which it was “written” and the fact that it was shot entirely in low res digital weren’t inspiring enough…

“Film, at least for me, is dead. I never want to go back. Even thinking about it now makes me feel weak and sick.” —David Lynch, AE

I’ve been looking forward to the DVD release of Inland Empire not only because it offered a third of many more viewings to come, but because it suggested that the soundtrack would become available too. More specifically, it meant that I’d finally get my hands on a full-length version of Ghost of Love, one of Lynch’s own additions to the score. Initially heard on the first trailer, it has haunted me ever since.

Toward the exorcism of such ghosts and as a completion to this thread, Ghost of Love can be found below. I’ve also included links to several interviews with Lynch covering topics related to Inland Empire ranging from influences, process, digital cinematography and transcendental meditation.

David Lynch: Ghost of Love (9.2MB, mp3.zip, mediafire)

Inland Empire: DVD (Limited Edition) / Soundtrack
Interviews: AE / Salon / RS / Brattle Theatre (intro /q&a) via: Bradley’s Almanac

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I originally stumbled upon Michael Durham’s Business Reply Pamphlet at WFMU’s Beware of the Blog. The link from there led to Centennial Society, Durham’s biting, and perhaps intentionally navigationally crap site. It required the work necessary to get the goods. Much like the infodesign-articulated situations in his work, where skyscraper molotovs and a 15 story xerox drops end in break room orgies, board room campfires and sprouting sunflowers in urinals.

Durham’s work charts the path of idyllic creation through joyous destruction. Ontological-anarchic propaganda that would make anyone in their right mind want to smash the state and bow-hunt squirrels in the bowels of corporate towers.

Once I actually found the work at his site, I was further amazed to find that he actually disseminated Business Reply Pamphlet just as that: his own reply to corporate culture, stuffed into random pre-paid business reply envelopes.

This wasn’t the only type of guerilla warfare Durham was engaged in. Documented onslaughts of Walgreen’s coupons, bible disclaimers, terror alert, billboard and on-shelf product alteration hacking, his Fallen Rappers Pez dispenser project (submitted to Pez with resulting communiqué). Every project surges with the same urgency that kept a Fight Club quote resounding in my head:

“Imagine, stalking elk past department store windows and stinking racks of beautiful rotting dresses and tuxedos on hangers; you’ll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life, and you’ll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Tower. Jack and the beanstalk, you’ll climb up through the dripping forest canopy and the air will be so clean you’ll see tiny figures pounding corn and laying strips of venison to dry in the empty car pool lane of an abandoned superhighway stretching eight-lanes-wide and August-hot for a thousand miles.” —Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, Chapter 16

Michael Durham is a change agent, monkey-wrenching controls on the elusive rails of Freedom.

view: Business Reply Pamphlet / Welcome to Geneva! / A Day At The Mall / Fallen Rappers
via: Centennial Society / Michael Durham / WFMU

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Since posting that Chris Cunningham ad, something kept striking me as elusively familiar about it. I’d seen similar effects before. The smeariness I mean, not the bullet time pans. I was wandering down countless memories of smearing things in unison with xerox lamps when it hit me. Ira Cohen. Specifically, his photos of Hakim Bey in the CD booklet for the spoken word version of TAZ, using his signature technique of capturing reflected images in the bent liquidity of flexible mylar mirrors.

With roots firmly planted in the beat and acid generations, Ira Cohen has spent a lifetime creating and collaborating in the avant and exploratory circles of cognescenti. Thurston Moore, Sunburned Hand of the Man and DJ Spooky to name a recent few.

While digging up some mylar examples, I stumbled upon a portrait of Jimi I hadn’t seen before, and a long excerpt from his 1968 short film, The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda. I’d never seen his brilliantly trippy analog tech in motion. Now that Arthur Magazine has reissued it on DVD I plan to look closer. Especially considering it includes such extras as new works (Brain Damage), the amazing original Angus Maclise score, plus two alternate tracks by Sunburned Hand of the Man and Acid Mothers Temple!

The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda: excerpt (16.7MB, mov.zip) via The Wire
Angus Maclise: Soundtrack (80MB, mp3.rar) / via Mutant Sounds
DVD available at Arthur Magazine

Collection of photography at Cynthia Broan Gallery
Various performances and readings: s|b tube

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When taking a photograph, make sure your subject is ready.
And that they’re arranged in a suitable formal manner.
This can be difficult with members of the animal kingdom.
Avoid blurring by keeping movement to a minimum.

I have no idea how i missed this: Orange (QT,mov) / at s|b_tube

via: director-file: cunningham

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