MFT: One Minute of Anime Gasp Noises

These days Justin Whang is making rounds as an Internet folk historian with "Tales from the Internet Series". But back in the day, he was into supercuts. See me writing a couple of hundred words about one of them.



This is a one minute supercut of Anime Gasp Noises crudely culled together from different series in a relentless breakneck pace assortment that is as pointless as it is utterly hilarious. Just like Randy Savage vs Hulk Hogan breathing match - it is the thing that exists more in your mind than in reality. It is a form of a mental exercise to stretch the perception muscles and make them more capable in detecting something completely different within the fickle thickness of the mundane.

The thing is - our brain is looking for patterns to make sense of - all the time. It is a natural cognitive process. Its casual mode is subtle and unassuming dot connection. But sometimes, when the brain encounters something a little more dense and unusual it goes a bit haywire in order to digest the thing just for sake of digesting it. If done intentionally, it is a fine brain teaser that might result in some unexpected assumptions and conclusions.

This is why supercuts works so well. As a form of curiosity cataloguing - it takes certain things out of its original context and groups them together based on a unifying features. The resulting collection is quite discordant in its nature - a little bit of this and a little bit of that and also that thing because it is also like that. But by the mere fact of being crammed together, they start to merge together into something else while being perceived as a singular whole.

In other words - it is unintentional overcomplication of a throughaway jest.

Anime Gasp Noises supercut leaves out the inciting of the gasping while retaining the gasping itself. It comes with the fool in the air in the middle of the step and that is very disorienting. It bounces off the opaque into the vague and that does not bode well with the perception as there is a natural need to eliminate the unknown. However, there is no way the unknown would become known in the supercut and that leaves mild irritation that solidifies the impression of the video.

Since there is a throughline feature in all elements - it serves as a backbone for the makeshift narrative while bits and pieces of the original context provide dissociated breadcrumbs non-sequitir narrative. 

That's a very long and winding way of saying that this thing is really funny.

MFT: Two Black Holes Merge into One

This is beautiful. In this video you can witness a simulation of two black holes merging together. Such thing is fun to think about in your spare time and even more entertaining to watch once in a while.

The video depicts the process of two black holes colliding into the space of one another, circling around each other, warping the stars around them due to its extremely strong gravity, gradually locking up and colliding and then coalesce into one big black hole.

The simulation was generated by Simulating Extreme Spacetimes project based on an event detected by Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory. The story goes - there were gravitational waves in space and time - it happened approximately 1,3 billion years ago. The simulation shows how this event would look like through human eyes.

What it makes this video so special is that it is an approximate imagining of how this thing turned out as no one actually witnessed it.

And since this is only a modeling based on an Einstein's theory - this makes this video and the concept behind it a fine example of an extreme abstract conceptual art - so much beyond our experiental reach it is stuck in the realm of speculative fact-based imagination.

But that is that if you know what it is supposed to represent.

If you are watching this short video out of context for whatever reason - it seems like a very different thing.

• For once, it looks like nostrils juggling before transforming into a singual cyclopian nostril. 
• Or it can be a macabre variation of cue sports with gravitional shenanigans where two cue balls that are initially solid gain momentum and gradually turn into a jelly-like singular substance. 
• Or it can be a cheap and unimaginitive black light show.

MFT: Looney Tunes: Back In Action Louevre Scene

This is a scene from a 2003 live-action / animated hybrid feature film "Looney Toones: Back In Action" directed by Joe Dante. In it you can see the antagonist Elmer Fudd and the protagonists Buggs Bunny and Duffy Duck messing around in the Louevre museum trying to one up each other in the classic Looney Toons "in you face" cerebral surreal mayhem. They are running around the hallways, jumping from one painting to another, taunting the aggressor and otherwise passing time in a creatively fulfilling fashion. It is a fine showcase of what Looney Toones is about in a nutshell.

I'm going to retell the episode because it is one of those things that are really fun to write out.

The story goes - the band is ambushed by one and only Elmer Fudd. However, Buggs Bunny is no slouch and he starts to talk to Fudd. He starts a dispute regarding the nature of good and evil. That makes Fudd to hesitate for a moment, but he momentarily snaps back and threatens to finish them off. But Bunny starts to play a guessing game with playing cards to distract Fudd. He makes a series of incorrect guesses while Fudd tries to explain which card he meant. By the end of the routine, Fudd is all covered in playing cards like a sticky ribbon with flies near the rotten meat. 

In the meantime - the dynamic duo escapes through the hallways of Louevre. They jump into Salvador Dali's Persistence of Time. Fudd follows, tries to shoot, but his gun melts just like the clocks. Buggs and Duffy run away. At first it seems like a simple change of scenery. But the environment of the painting affects the characters. As they escape, time cathes up with them and starts to drag. Fudd yells at them and the words he spits out turn into an abstract rebus floating in the sky. He tries to shoot again, but melts into a nondescript blob similar to one from "I have no mouth but I must scream" (really).

After that - the boys go through the wall like Freddy K. straight into Edward Munch "Scream". They run from deep background right into the foreground stumbling into the protagonist causing him to scream. Fudd follows and so Buggs stomps on his foot and Fudd makes his own 'scream' impresssion, while the dynamic duo escapes. 

The next stop is Toulouse-Lautrec Moulin Rouge poster. Fudd gets really awkward in this kind of environment. He is approached by two ladies who turn out to be crossdressing Buggs and Duffy. They proceed to kick him around a bit until the pace switches into overdrive and they just start to jump around from painting to painting as if it was musical chairs thing. 

Finally, they go into Georges Seurat's A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte - the pointilist painting. Fudd enters his huntere mode and looks through the passerbys. He stops by disguised Duffy and finds Buggs who pretends to be a toddler. Fudd doesn't get the ruse and tries to play with the toddler until he realizes the trick and continues the chase. He tries to shoot two but they manage to slip away. Fudd leaves splashes of erasure on the canvas.

Duffy and Buggs manage to jump out of the painting to the hallway. Fudd follows. But before he can readapt from the painting, Buggs approaches him and reads him an explanation of the concept of pointilism. Fudd realizes he is in trouble. At the same time, Buggs gets his portable fan, turns it on and disintegrates Fudd as if he was just a hoard of dust. In the meantime - Duffy tries to reconstruct himself by connecting the dots. 

Outside context - this scene is a fine showcase of the Looney Toones freewheeling, anything goes mentality. It is very lettrist-situationist in its approach to already existing material. Joe Dante uses it for the purposes of slapstick gags and at the same time he manages to make a distinct homages to the source style and string together a cohesive surreal narrative building upon the existing blocks.

How to waste time and make it count while reading Slash Magazine?

Slash Magazine was one of the cornerstones of LA punk scene. If you wanted to know a thing or two about what is going on there - you need to read that thing. It is a treasure trove of gems - starting from clumsy record reviews and gig reports and ending with messy interviews where everyone tried to be more thoughtful than they really are resulting in some cognitive dissonance macabre. Then there adverts which show the american punk aesthetic in all its DIY glory. Just looking at them makes you feel better and brighter - they are so vibrant, so standoffish. 

So, the story goes. I have stumbled upon a big selection of Slash Magazine issues. And since I'm a kind of person who can't just skim over stuff like that - i've spend a good couple of hours devouring the thing as if it was the most important finding in the world. 

During that time, nothing in the world mattered more for me. It was as if I've encountered a Holy Grail. The one with mediocre writing, nonexistent journalism standards, shameless plug-ins and pointless meandering between the lines. But that's part of Slash's charm - it wasn't made by cynical pro's - it was made by the folks who cared about all this and wanted to make difference - not just spectate the developments of the scene as some pro's would do.

While reading it - i've noticed how many interesting typographic choices there is in the layout. It brimmed with creativity. Every now and then there was a thing i wanted to cut-out because it was jumping out of the page like a Jack Kirby superhero - it was radiating with energy. 

And so - i started to cut-out those things with a screen grabbing tool (my tool of choice is Jing, I endorse it). After a while i had a pile of bits and pieces from different issues. However, on its own - those cool bits and pieces does not seemed to be that great. They were just a bunch of stuff and that was really frustrating. Imagine that - you've spent like seven hours dissecting page by page looking for that kind of stuff and in the end - it is basically a whole bunch of nil. I had a long, dubious stare into nowhere after realizing what i have done. 

And that it came to me - i'm gonna bury them all in one place.

That's how this piece came to be: 

While the original intention of this thing was nothing more but a morbid relief - in the end it turned out to be the complete opposite. While i was thoughtlessly slapping bits and pieces onto the canvas it seemed to me like i was trying to justify an immense waste of time i was clearly guilty of. After a while it felt like pinning butterflies with the needles - some savage stuff. Cue Jack the Ripper from Doom Patrol.

And then I was distracted by the phone call. Since my ring tone is Merzbow's "Pulse Demon" i was subjected to the blast of harsh noise augmented by substandard phone speaker. But it was enough to snap me out of frustration and let me look at the thing with the clear eyes. And for some reason - it wasn't just a dumping ground for the aftermath of the waste of time - it was an accidental impressionistic collage narrative.

The resulting piece is a blast of barely eligible elements thrown together seeming at random. But the more you look at it - the more it comes together in the fluid non-committal manner. It suggests certain notions but never really goes anywhere. It is like glimpses of glimmer that comes from the deep to the surface as borderline abstract entities.

It was very unexpected and satisfying conclusion to my encounter with Slash magazine.

Lowell Northop - Have You Seen Axl Rose?

"Have you seen Axl Rose?" is a short form documentary directed by Lowell Northrop. It was released in 2003 and screened on numerous festivals. Over the years it gained a cult status in the G'n'R community due to its loving tongue in cheek treatment of the subject.

The short is a concise recount of encounters different people had with Guns'n'Roses frontman Axl Rose during his so-called "Wilderness Years" when he fully went out of spotlight and became a recluse minding his own business. This period started after early 90s band's extreme overexposure and burn-out and lasted up until early 2000s when Axl embarked on seemingly neverending quest to finish the "Chinese Democracy" album.

Axl Rose impersonation in the film is top notch. He is shown barely in focus and all you can see is his movement. And it totally sells the impression as legit - you get this small, hulking figure in a baggy cloth awkwardly bumbling through space like a panda bear - it seems out of place and that's what makes it tick.

The film treats Axl Rose like a Big Foot. The film aesthetic emulates the way Big Foot sighting footage are presented. The thing with Big Foot footage is that it is evocative. There is not really much to talk about, but there is sure something worthwhile. It amps up the mystery factor and sparkles an intrigue.

You get a talking head voice over recounting the experience combined with the footage that is borderline nondescript, fly on the wall, not really comprehensive. You can definitely spot Axl Rose somewhere doing something close to what is described but it does not really mean anything substantial.

The stories have similar structure. The protagonist was doing something else and then Axl went by and that somewhat disrupted the flow, but made no significant impact but left that odd feeling of something something warbled once and gone.

One story is about how the spectator thought Axl was taller, and Axl overheard it and bumped into his shoulder menacingly and then went on and the spectator's cigarette had burned his shirt. That's the most action-packed episode.

Then there is Hard Rock Cafe episode where Axl just wanted to eat his meal when "Paradise City" came on the playlist and everyone turned their heads on him causing him to intensely eyeroll.

Or Santa Monica story - where Axl was spotted late at night in spacesuit-like orange jumpsuit looking at the stars being quite lonely.

The funniest bit is when one of the narrator's says that he had never seen Axl, but have seen Slash in the strip club. That bit cracks me up every time.

This short is a charming document of fan appreciation turning into a creative act. It tackles the subject matter lovingly and tries to describe its certain aspects. At the same time, the big foot footage styling keeps the mystery surrounding the character intact. But due to cognitive dissonance between the presentation and the well-known subject - the things turns out really funny.

MFT: Black Slabs from Burroughs/Gale Book of Breathing

I still can't get over the sad hibernation of Collected Black Panels. Tumblr is no good for it and i don't want to do it here. I guess I'll be waiting for another solution to come some day. That doesn't mean I can't post selections of Black Panels found in different books. Case in point - this post.

The story goes - i was going through my ebooks lately, doing some clean-up, writing down the notes and reorganizing the folder. One of the books at the very bottom was William Burroughs and Robert Gales' "Book of Breeething".

The book's content is an essay about language, the way Egyptian hieroglyphics interpret it, how it affects the perception of the concepts represented by the words, how it shapes the comprehension of being. There are also some fun things about language causing altered states of mind and creative being in general. The text is accompanied by Robert Gales illustrations that don't do much to expand the narrative but spice up the background just fine.

The most interesting visual in the book are buffer pages that are mere slabs of black sliced by a white-ish stripe in a second lower third of the page. In the context of the book these blackouts serve as a mind wiper before the next section. It works in the same manner as when you are smelling the perfumes and in-between you have to smell that coffee thing so that the smells of the perfumes would not mix up.