tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE performs my Melody Poems

What is the better way to celebrate one's birthday than performing one's work? tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE did just that with my Melody Poems. I'm very thankful for that. It is a great honor.

If you want to check the original text - it was featured in The Otolith back in Issue 56. Here's the link https://the-otolith.blogspot.com/2019/12/volodymyr-bilyk.html

Here's what tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE says about the thing: "When I got to Volodymyr Bilyk's "Melody Poems" I thought it would be fun to play the pieces on the piano & to link to a movie of this as a part of the finished review. Since the "Melody Poems" basically just list note names without specifying octave or rhythm, etc, I decided that it would be fun to play them in ways that most people would find 'unmelodic'. This is the result. As you will no doubt notice, I also tweaked it a bit further. I made entirely too many mistakes & took some liberties so the result is probably a bit far off from Bilyk's imagining of the melodies but, hey!, I still went to the trouble of actually approaching the "Melody Poems" as a score. "

Sam Kinison - Homosexual Necrophilia

Spinning a stupid, obnoxious and annoying things is a lost art. It is one thing to write sonnets and paint landscapes - making a cohesive, comprehensible narrative out of one-note dead end braindead silly joke is an accomplishment worth including on your CV.

Sam Kinison was a master of doing such things. He could come up with a joke about dust particles in the air and turn it into an apocalyptic mayhem, a god's ultimate judgement Antonin Artaud style.

Just check out this routine.

In it Sam Kinison takes a stupid dead end premise and goes full-on "let me work it". He talks casual homophobia, institutional corruption, fear of death, life after death and other things while remaining in the pink part of outrage spectrum just to irritate everybody with the fact that he doesn't really go overboard.

There are so many ways you can botch this time of the joke and he manages to make it just right.




He starts by setting up the premise - a recount of how he read a story about homosexual perverts doing necrophiliac stuff. The story goes - homosexual necrophiliacs go to the morgues and mortuaries and pay money to managers in order to quality spend time with fresh corpses. Important to note - he recounts not the story itself, just how he read it and how initially reacted to it. This approach gives him a considerable distance from the subject matter. He can't take a hit for making this joke because he just shares his experiences. Neat.

After establishing the narrative - he bounces off the predictable audience reaction and takes off any responsibility for the outrageousness of the story by insisting that he only read about it in the paper and that in this case he is in the same position as the audience.

Then, instead of elaborating on the story, he starts to mock around the premise. At first he states his position on the subject matter in an extremely exaggerated matter. Then he starts to tear the thing apart as outrageous and obnoxious.

The joke culminates with Kinison reenacting the way this whole thing might have happened.

He lays down on the floor face down and pretends to be a corpse. He imitates its internal monologue and then switches the role to homosexual necrophiliac doing his dirty business while keeping the corpses internal monologue intact right when he starts to freak out because of the penetration. And it ends there.

As a result, you have a sentence spinned out into a routine.

Nitzer Ebb performs John Cage's seminal "4'33"

Here's a video of seminal British EBM band Nitzer Ebb performing John Cage's iconic conceptual art opus "4'33". The guys are doing their best with this classic piece. They give their all.

Among other things, this means I have a reason to talk about 4'33 and the trick it manages to pull off.

4'33 is one of those compositions that can't be really ruined. You can't do it wrong by design due to its inherent ambiguity. It works any way you turn it. Sideways, upside down, inside out, backwards - it persists and prospers. Even if you try hard to do mess it up - you will still get an interesting result. That's a testament of John Cage's ability to engage performers and listeners.

On the surface, the composition consists of the musician performing nothing, just sitting around not playing an instrument for a couple of movements.

Some interpret the composition as being silent. But it's not really correct. The thing is - the performance doesn't occur in the vacuum. There is a lot of stuff going on around the place. These things get into the spotlight due to lack of action in the foreground.

Unfortunately, the silence of the composition is perceived as a pretentious gimmick and it completely overshadowed an original intent of the piece.

On the other hand, 4'33 is the composition one needs to endure. And its not an easy thing to do. It is really hard to comprehend negative space, especially when it is superimposed in such manner. The situation generates mildly tickling cognitive dissonance that wreak havoc in the padded cell of the mind.

You get all sorts of thoughts passing through, you start to notice little things. Listening or performing 4'33 is really an eventful experience that is different each time. What is even more fascinating is to reminisce on the listening to 4'33. In this case you get even more zany experience as things blend and bleed through into something completely different.

What is Shelton Benjamin thinking?: SmackDown LIVE, July 2, 2019

Here's a little segment from WWE Smackdown Live from July 2, 2019. It features Shelton Benjamin, one of the company's performers, being asked about the chances of the championship changing hands at the upcoming pay-per-view event "Extreme Views".

Shelton doesn't give a traditional answer. Instead of providing a verbal reply, he does a little staring routine, rolling his eyes in different directions, intensely thinking while the camera zooms in on his face. He figures out something, makes a vicious smile, glances into the camera for a bit and walks off without saying a word. The whole thing takes about 30 seconds.

It is short and sweet vignette designed to highlight some sort of a plot development and character involvement. Except, it is not. It is a non-sequitir.

The thing is - WWE has a habit of doing throwaway things with no intention of ever really committing to something. Shelton Benjamin is a good example of this phenomenon. He's employed, but not really featured in a meaningful way. The last time he was spotlighted was prior to Wrestlemania when he fought championship contender Seth Rollins in a losing effort. It came out of nowhere and it went nowhere. This vignette is the same. It turned up for sole reason of padding an episode, added nothing to the narrative and was promptly forgotten afterwards.

But it is so different from WWE's usual throwaway stuff it sticks on memory.

As it is, it is rather curious performance piece. There can be a statement about non-verbal communication hidden deep inside. After all, a skilled actor can express a lot of things with his eyes and their movement. But since, the vignette is devoid of context and lacks any substance, it depicts a literal dead end void. It doesn't make sense and yet it persists. The thing is so pointless, it fascinates.

BSPH: Lou Reed - No Money Down

Sometimes I feel like there is something missing when it comes to discussing Lou Reed. Don't get me wrong - the man is got a well-rounded conversation on his body of work. However, there are few sorely missing spots. The usual conversation about Lou Reed usually revolves around his early years with Velvet Underground, his solo triumphs of Transformer and Berlin, the epic story of the Metal Machine Machine, his collaboration with John Cale and also his last project with Metallica. Everything else is basically swept under the rug or so it feels.

Case in point - this thing.


This is a music video for a song "No Money Down". It was released in 1986 on an album "Mistrial" also known as "You thought you've heard Lou Reed at his most misguided and pointless? Try this". It is mechanistic assembly line new wave cliche-ridden business-as-usual plastic death march to oblivion with trademark sprechstimme that populated much of Reed's oeuvre of the 1980s. But the video is what makes it really special.

The video depicts an animatronic recreation of Lou Reed's head lip-syncing the song on a black background. The head is actually quite well-designed and its artificially doesn't come into attention until a bit later on (almost immediately, actually, but you don't really think about until the things get weird). The movements are chunky but not really that noticeable. It is off, but not much to annoy. I mean - when you have to lip-sync such song - the head is going to move like that even if you are an actual living breathing creature - it is that kind of a torture.

So - Lou Reed is staring at the viewer from behind his cool and cheap sunglasses. There is an infinite blackness in the background. The look on his face begs for Judge Dredd's helmet because it is an atrocity. He looks tough as in "too tough to dance".

His head moves as if the neck got stiff and also numb. There is feign and shoddiness in the movements. The more he moves his head around - the more "uncanny valley" feeling you get. But there is nothing really going on - so there is also a growing tension of expecting something to happen.

The train of thought watching this is looking like this: "- fighting; the timid tune; soniferous; horrid 'n appallin' words - you speculate upon that feeling - in order to be dragged away to your adapted apparition...".

Right before the boredom gulp shifts from an intention to action, things start to happen. Lou Reed's uncanny valley head takes off the glasses and he does in style. And then, in an unexpected expected turn of events, things go in a slightly "Hellraiser" direction. The hands, which are definitely real human hands, start to tear off the skin from the head. For some reason, it is oddly satisfactory and even displeasedly beautiful.

Here's how this sequence looks like:

• The hands are tearing off the cheeks;
• show off the teeth;
• tear off the skin on the temples;
• tear off the tip of the nose ;
• tear off the hairpiece;
• tear away the rest of the nose ;
• then go the ears ;
• then go the brows;

What you are left to witness is the machinery of the head. Those eldritch eyebulbs and that rube goldberg face construction. It feel weird to look at it, even though there is nothing really appaling.

And then, as a finishing stroke the hands are ripping off the jaw and you now it looks even more like some retroactive Hellraiser tribute.

•  and fade out.

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: 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.

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.

The Beach Girls and The Monster - Uninspiring Beach Party

Here's one of the most unsettlingly pointless scenes ever conceived and put on film. Seriously. The scene makes so little sense in and out of its context it forces you to question the very foundations of reality cognition. Not really, but nevertheless. It is so null and void that after a while it seems like a glimpse into a parallel dimension. Your brain can't help but try to salvage wasted time and turn the thing into something at least remotely coherent and meaningful. And then it just gives up and accepts the ominous meaninglessness of the piece.

The scene originates from the 1965 film "The Beach Girls and The Monster". The film itself is a typical representative of a "beach party" film genre.

The scene goes like this: the first section is just a bunch of people dancing on the beach in the middle of the night. They are dancing away all the worries and woes. There is a kaleidoscope of little moments - random pairs of people dancing or enjoying the atmosphere, people playing music instruments, people being pranked with funny signs, slinker glasses and exploding tubes, women shaking hips, waving hands. Lots of lusty women shaking hips shots.

As the dawn approaches, the scene transitions into a more intimate setting. Two characters run away from the group and share a kiss. They find a desolate place to indulge themselves in passionate cuddling. That's when the creature starts slowly approaching them.

The creature looks like a man in the carnival suit and it would have been fine if it was like that in the film. Instead, this man in the suit is supposed to represent a mutant monster. We get another shot of the pair kissing but no monster to indicate the approaching threat.

Then the film cuts back to the party in the middle of the night right when the music stops and it seems like there is going to be an orgy. Except it is not and we get an acoustic number - a romantic ballad built on concrete cliches reinforced with saccharine rods.

Over this soundtrack we get more people kissing or preventing other people from kissing. No monster approaching though. After the song concludes, one of the character pulls out a lion mask and enacts a flirting exchange with one of the girls. It mentions a monster in a mocking fashion. It evolves into a singalong that describes what is going to happen when the monster comes around. And then everybody go surfing.

In the meantime, the pair that went away to cuddle joins them. But the girl forgot something in her bag and she asks her boyfriend to bring it back. That's when the monster attacks. The boy tries to fight the monster. It looks like the most awkward and unmenacing double arm wrestling bout.

At the same time, the man in the suit walks on the beach and sees what's happening. He cries for help but nobody reacts. Then monster continues to fight the boy until he finishes him off with a lethal blow. The monster moves on from the subtly mutilated body of a boy to continues his savage mayhem. The end.

Yes. I did this transcription.

"The Beach Girls and The Monster" came out right in the middle of the genre popularity in 1965.

It had all the right credentials. The surf footage was shot by Dale Davis of "Walk on the Wet Side" fame (who would go on to direct the ultimate surf film "The Golden Breed"). The theme song was written by Frank Sinatra Jr. The girls were pro Watusi dancers from Whiskey A Go Go.

But it also tried to broaded its appeal by implementing elements of the horror genre into a beach party film. If being 50s straightforward monster horror. So its logline would look like this: "people having a good time, looking good over a cool surf rock soundtrack. But this time there is a monster let loose and he wrecks havoc on the unsuspecting victims."

And it fails spectacularly. But it doesn't really matter.

Beach party films were not as much a narrative pieces as an ambient ones. They were all about the atmosphere, the vibe. The plot was there to reinforce the vibe, nothing else. It is about people enjoying life, overcoming the worries of the reality, experiencing a good time, looking good and being nice over a cool surf rock soundtrack.

Beach party films were throwaway disposable products designed to capitalize on the target audience segment by offering something relevant to their preferences. It was presented as an alternative to so-called "daddy's cinema". Despite its blatant cynicism and extreme vacuousness, for a while beach films were consistent money makers in the mid 60s and the genre helped to cement the status of surf rock in the popular conscioussness. "The Beach Girls and The Monster" is one of the few bizarre oddities of this era. It is a clueless cash grab so incompetent it becomes sublime in its clumsiness.

MFT: Austin McConnell - A Solid 10 minutes of useless information

This is Gregory Austin McConnell. He's doing videos on various topics on YouTube - basically anything that incites his interest. And that's what makes him so good - he is unpredictable. You can get a video about printer cartridges scamming consumers, you can get a storytime about his involvement with LonelyGirl17 franchise and so on. He's cool. Every time he releases a video - the world becomes a better place. You have to respect the man for making content that is interesting to him first and foremost. Anyway...

Not every member of his audience appreciates the effort and sometimes it results in some very disrespectful comments. One of them made Mr. McConnell so rigid that he made an entire video because of it. Mostly because it caught his interest.

The comment said "Sick of this channell being full of nothing but useless information". Yep. Seriously. What an entitlement. Oh boy. You don't say such things to a creative person. First of all, it is pointless. Secondly - it is like taunting a bear - you all know what's coming afterwards. So - Austin read this comment and he thought "you want to dance, huh?" and made a video that is exactly what the comment said - useless information - a solid ten minutes of useless information.

And you know what - it is majestic.

The thing is - it is just an arrangement of random facts presented in a machine gun tempo. It is peculiar, relentless and explosive. Basically it is borderline nonsensical stream of consciousness that goes nowhere with a sway and tilt. But because of that it becomes something else entrirely. Brion Gysin once said "Eliminate all rational thought". This video is just that.

I guess the whole sequence of facts is a result of an intense session of Wikipedia Random Article Crusade. This technique never gets old and always delivers some exquisite unintentional cognitive dissonance. On their own the facts make sense. But coupled together - they neuter one another and hoard on top of each other until the mind perceptive mechanisms give up and it all turns into a sophisticated form of informational noise. In addition to that, the whole thing is peppered with random remarks built on association.

In a way, it is a piece of conceptual writing. And a very good one at that. I think its scripts deserves to be published and performed.

MFT: Sesame Street - Big Bird - ABC-DEFGHI-JKLMNO-PQR-STUVW-XYZ

The original Sesame Street was jam-packed with an inventive stuff from top to bottom. It was daring, boundary pushing entity in so many ways. Sure, it was a children's program, but that was what let it to run away with so many subversive aesthetic concepts. The sketches were always two-fold. There was one simple thing on the surface and the other much more complex right underneath it. This wasn't always intentional - but it there was always more than just a setup and a punchline in every sketch. Case in point - this sketch.

This is a sketch from Sesame Street Season _ episode _. It features Big Bird as an overzealous student who just learned how to read. However, he is yet to comprehend the meaning of what he is reading. Because of that he comically misses the meaning of an Alphabet written on a fence and reads it as if it was one big word. You can't blame him - an alphabet sequence can be pronounced as a single word, there is just no point in doing that.

And so Big Bird was very happy (let's call it "profoundly satisfied") that he managed to read and memorize such a big word and so he was eager to share his progress with Lisa. And in return she points out that he was doing it wrong - it was an alphabet all along not a big word. It was a heartbreaking moment for Big Bird - he tried so hard and yet he missed the point and did it wrong. The drama lasted a moment more or so and since this is a children's program the resolution was a compromise. That thing was an alphabet and Big Bird was spelling it wrong but he made up his own way of pronouncing an alphabet and it got the right to exists too, because why not?

This sketch is a neat showcase of the flexibility of language. Within a simple setup it shows you what the language is all about. There are rules that exists to keep it accessible to the others, but there is also an incentive to try it differently - intentionally or not. After all - why bother if it all can be only one way - even a mistake can lead to something unexpected and inspired.

MFT: Wish You Were Here - Tell Me all the Swear Words you know scene (featuring Heathcote Williams)

This is a short scene from 1987 British quirky romantic melodrama "Wish you were here". It features _ as Lynda, the lead character of the film and Heathcote Williams as her psychiatrist.

The story goes Lynda went a little bit mental and acted quite a bit beyond the boundaries of decency. She showed her stockings, suspenders and knickers to everybody. Because of that she was sent for evaluation by the psychiatrist played by one and only Heathcote Williams, who somehow manages to chew scenery while retaining stone cold demeanor. The way he hams it up is simply impressive.

The scene starts with the psychiatrist attempting to determine what kind of help Lynda needs. In order to do that, he asks Lynda to go through the alphabet and recite all the swear words she knows. Lynda is a bit confused by the proposed exercise but is onboard with this kind of exercise and happily engages in the act.

The thing starts with "A" and "ass". Heathcote tries to confuse her by accentuating on the ridiculuousness of the situation, but Lynda is undeterred. There is nice back and forth with "ass...hole".

Then, on the later "B" Lynda blasts the whole barrage of words - "bloody bastard bugger bum". But she missed "balls" and points that out and Heathcote retorts with "so we did, nevermind".

Then, on the letter "C" she finally stumbles. She wants to say "cock" or "cunt" but stops herself, says she can't think of nothing. Heathcote asks her to say "something really filthy".  Instead she delivers "caca" while increasingly annoyed Heathcote catches her on that.

The next letter "D" rolls on smoothly with "damn". The letter is "E" is omitted due to the fact that there are no swear words starting with "E". Lynda tries to argue that but decides to go on.

When Heathcote transitions to letter "F" he suggests Lynda to use the "dirty, smutty" word everyone knows while Lynda tries to play stupid and says she doesn't know what he is talking about. Heathcote is trying to get it out of her while she denies she knows it. When he bluntly states that he wants to hear he saying that words, Lynda cuts him off with "dirty old bugger".

Heathcote gives up and goes away. I guess this is going to be a long day.

Heathcote Williams reads his poem 'Advertisement' in 1980

Today is Heathcote Williams' birthday. Happy Birthday, Heathcote! You are sorely missed. Let's celebrate this great man by watching him reading one of his poems.

Heathcote Williams is my favorite poet. There was just something that i could really identify with in his writings. The way he explored themes, the verbiage he used, the way he managed to make everything feel big and engrossing...

Here's the video of him reading the poem "Advertisement" from 1980. Heathcote reads this poem in a way that makes it the coolest thing in the world.

Part of the reason why this performance is so cool is because of delivery. Heathcote avoids that damned "poet's voice" and just reads the stuff in a semi-casual, deadpan dramatic manner. And it leaves lasting impression. There is this thousand mile chill in his voice. The way he slightly slides between the tones is nothing short of astounding.

There is not much happening on the screen. Heathcote just sits on a chair and reads the poem. Sometimes he looks at the camera, then his eyes move back to the sheet of paper with the text. Slowly but surely, the camera moves towards him. You can see his hands trembling a little, you start to see the details of his face. The camera gets closer and closer until it is a close-up. Heathcote stops reading and for a moment or so gives a piercing chilling glance straight into the camera.

MFT: Hulk Hogan vs Randy Savage - Breathing Match

Here's a little video that shows how transformation and recontextualization makes the case for a new concept forged out of an old thing in a completely unintentional manner. The video depicts a bizarre sighting - two acclaimed professional wrestlers Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage doing nothing but intensely breathing. Why? Because this video is an edit of a the pair of back to back promos following the break-up of their tag team Mega Powers prior to the feud culmination at Wrestlemania V in 1989.

It is strangely affectionate piece. Here's what is going on. First The Hulkster breathes hard as if his life depended on in (just don't think about it too hard). He breathes and breathes and breathes in leaps and bounds. He is red, he is sweaty, he is trembling. Then Randy Savage does the same thing and he breathes so intensely he takes off his glasses and breathes even harder, because he wants to come on top or something like that (just don't think too hard about it). His veins pop up, his eyes are bugged out huge - one thing for sure, this man is on the edge.

In the end - it is fair to say that Randy Savage had decisively outbreahed Hulk Hogan in a recontextualized promo standoff. Even though it doesn't really mean a thing - it is a feel good moment for whatever reason nevertheless (maybe because Hulk Hogan kinda sucks). Sure, if this thing was edited as back and forth - it would have been much more effective showcase. But even like that it is enough to establish the concept.

With all the words edited out - this segment is a completely different thing. While the video is loving mocking overly exaggerated promo delivery that was a dominant aesthetic of WWF in the late 80s - it also unintentionally presents a novel concept - a breathing match. The one where competitors should outbreath each other. And the more i think about it - the more i like it.

Just imagine how it might work - you have to outbreath your opponent. How to do it? What is counted as outbreathing? Probably, it depends on who is judging or physical condition of the opponent over the course of the match. Or stumbles and stutters in the breathing bouts. Either way - this video is one of those magical moments when the bliss of nonsense sparks excitement.

Accidental poetry of a game review

This is an unusual review of the newest videogame about Marvel Comics franchise player character Spiderman. It was released a couple of month on Sony Playstation 4. The review video was made by Mr. Sunday Movies and it is not your standard game review. On one hand, it is not what it is supposed to be, but on the other hand - it is more than one would expect.

Unlike any other Spiderman game reviews that flooded Youtube around the time the game was released - this one stands apart as being a thing of its own while retaining a semblance of a routine assessment commentary with a tongue firmly and tenaciously in cheek.

Part of the reason it is so lies in the very simple fact - this review blatantly omits every single trope of the traditional video game review. There are no background to speak of (except for the statement that the review copy was provided by the publisher), no technical context of the review is presented, there is no personal perspective in any manner, there are no comments regarding controls, no comments regarding the narrative structure or the pacing of the game. In a way, it gives little to no information about the game that might be helpful in the consideration process. And despite all this - it succeeds in making a lasting of what the game is about.

Instead of relying on info readalong and truism spattering - this review just lists bunch of stuff you can do in the game. There is a reason for that - an author admits he never really did a game review and has no idea how to put it together and make it stand apart from the rest. And so he does just the opposite. He makes a game review and makes distinct by not making it.

And since the game is made in the genre of a sandbox - this is probably the best way to show an audience what the game is about on a practical level.

The text of the video is something to behold. It is an unintentional piece of poetry. The that happened on accident despite lack of effort. Sometimes it happens that way, especially when the thing in question is clearly of throwaway nature. Since the text is built on the list structure - there is certain hypnotic, monotonous rhythm. It is what makes it work.

Here's a transcription in case if the video will ever go down:

Hello!
This is my review for Spiderman on a Playstation 4.
I have never reviewed a videograme before
So i'm going to list all the things you can do in the game.

Let's go.

You can run up the wall
You can climb in a vent
You can kick and kick
and web and punch and flip and kick
and jump and web and punch and kick
and kick and jump and jump on a web and then
WHOP!

You can be strangled
You can play a circuitbreaker minigame
You can play a different minigame (matching wavelengths)
You can run up a when
Then you can flip pver the building and it is beautiful sunset
And you are falling and you are falling
You think you need to grab a thing
and then you web and you go up in the air
and you do another flip
and then you are in free fall
and then you zip and you are on a little lamppost

You can have your Playstation 4 internal software catch a program glitch
so you are extremely limited by what you can show in your review

You can stealth
Look at me stealth
Dah - Knock on these boxes

You can stealth as Spiderman
and then injure a man beyond repair

You can stealth on a speeding vehicle
or die trying

You can run and run
and run and run
and run and run
and round and round
and run and run
and run and run
and run and run
and round and round

and run and run
and run and run
and round and round

round round...

You can swim - uh...

You can web three guys to a garbage truck and celebrate in front of them.

You can watch carrot chopping...

(awkward pause)

You can ice skate... you can't ice skate...

You can chase a pigeon

and then kill a pigeon.

And that's all the things you can do in Spiderman on Playstation 4.

MFT: Chappelle's Show - If The Internet Was a Real Place Sketch

"If The Internet Was a Real Place" is a sketch from Chappelle's Show. It is a part of 8th episode of 2nd season of the show. The sketch is a neat kaleidoscope of all stuff going on in the early-to-mid 2000s Internet. While it is rather simplistic view of the World Wide Web it also manage to adequately depict its essense - i.e. complete and absolute mess where you rather stumble upon stuff than find something.

In the sketch, the Internet is imagined as a giant mall with all sorts of "characters" bumbing onto Chappelle. In a way, if your pareidolia skills are high - you can interpret Kevin Smith's "Mallrats" as another elaboration on this concept albeit a retroactive one. Chappelle plays a man who is on his journey though the magical space of the web for the very first time. He is a straight man who just wants to explore what it is and if there is anything worthwhile in it.

There is general sense of lack of purpose lingering upon everything.

The sketch starts with that particular feeling of being lost in the vast seemingly endless sea of web that happens the first time you get online. Without further ado, things gets weird. The first character Chappelle bumps into is personification of a fishing scam - "make your penis extra-large" kind of spam. The ensuing conversation quickly devolves into pointless attempt at persuading to spend money on a suspicious scam.

Next go free mp3 downloading sites and the whole illegal music downloads affair that was all the rage back then. There is even a cameo by then-still clumsy legal music purchase venues. Things go in a familiar direction - Chappelle grabs whole lotta stuff, most of which he will probably never even listen.

Then things move to the main event - porn. Ron Jeremy plays pornography representative who invites Chappelle to watch Paris Hilton's night vision sex tape (remember that?), which he does two times to be sure it was she for real. And then some old man in a coat and not much else invite Chappell to watch goat play with a maid in a leather uniform, which is as weird as it sounds.

After that Chappelle stumble upon a pop-ad purgatory in which he moves in a loop for a bit. Getting into a pop-up loop was something of an initiation into the Internet back in the day and seeing it play out in live-action is really-really funny.

At last there is a section with chatroom where Chappelle finally settles on a semblance of calmness in the sea of pointlessness. He even hooks up with the girl who says all the right words before it turns out to be that fishing scam guy from the beginning. It is sad sadness.

"If The Internet Was a Real Place" is a fine example of how to make highly contrasting cognitive dissonance inducing exploration of a concept while also exposing its built-in ridiculousness and not making it an infernal travesty. The key is subtlety and easygoing tone. Nothing of it really makes sense but that is the point and that is somewhat endearing.

MFT: Robot Chicken - Alien Slapstick Comedy

It is a well-known fact that things unseen are the most effective imagination teasers.  That's how it works. In this clip from the recent episode of the "Robot Chicken" we can see what happened behind the closed doors during the climax of James Cameron's 1986 classic "Aliens".

The episode elaborates on a scene where Ripley and Hicks are trying to break through the hordes of aliens during the climax of the movie. As you know, once they get into the elevator - alien drone blocks the door and tries to get inside but Hicks shoots him and get injured by the alien's acid blood. That's what we see in the film. This episode explores fate of the alien drone. And it is a bit slapstick.

Since xenomorph's blood is acidic - this creates a problem for an injured creature. Instead of just retreating anywhere - its blood burns through the floor and the creature falls level down. Over and over again. It tries to avoid another fall by jumping on the box but it backfires and so xenomorph falls down and meets the box. Then, on another level, it tries to run away from the hole but instead alien gets a prolong falling session down to the depths of Hadley's Hope.

It turns out that underneath the Hadley's Hope was a xenomorph city. Because of course it was there all along. With the buildings, streetlights and sidewalks and other xenomorphs walking leisurely casually dressed. An unfortunate alien falls down and gets splashed on the ground. The passerby sees that and calls an ambulance. Xenomorph's body is taken away but since the blood is acidic - it damages an ambulance car and causes one final accident.

Moral of the story - don't spill acid blood when you bleed.

MFT: Nuclear Bomb Explosion Videos

The explosions of the nuclear bombs is probably one of the most mesmerizing and simultaneously terrifying things the man can see. Flashes, afterglows, mushroom clouds, craters - it is a thing to behold. It is a weird thing to claim considering the fact that these are weapons of mass destruction that are definitely one of the worst ideas that ever glimpsed into a human brain that still threatens the future of humanity in more than one way. But nevertheless there is something inherently artistic in the documentation of their morbid action. It is hard to explain, but there is something that grabs my attention the other way.

The weird thing about the documentation of the nuclear bomb tests is the way it often defamiliarizes the subjects. On the still images some of the explosions look like a pieces of abstract art bursting out of realistic landscape. You can't even tell if it is actually an explosion. If you look at some of the aerial tests photos - it might be like a slightly abstracter Turner thing.

This strange effect translates into motion too. While in motion the explosions are still a symphonies of destruction and absolutely abhorrent atrocity - it also feels bizarrely subdued, lacking the punch as if the moving images drained the explosion of its energy. It looks like a very big lab test from school. Which is a perplexing feeling.

It takes an effort to distance yourself from the fact that these things were designed to destroy. But once you go beyond that you start to notice the aesthetic qualities of the thing.

Case in point - this video:



This is a footage from an Operation Hardtack-1. This particular test was conducted on July 22, 1958. It is a 65 kiloton bomb. The footage starts with a blinding flash after which the white cloud occurs turns blue turns black and slowly dissipates revealing enormous black mushroom cloud going up in the sky.

The image burns into memory - this enthralling black void in a form of a mushroom cloud that hangs in the space like a thorn in the side.

***

Or here's Johnnie. This video presents a very different presentation. It is slowed down to a crawl and goes on for eight minutes. The explosion is filmed from a very large distance. Mushroom cloud slowly evolves, gradually disintegrates into nondescript whirl of smoke and dust. First straightens into a something of a pillar, then the upper part swells. It pretends to be a balloon for a moment before it starts to fold in two laying down on earth as a thick mist. Because of the chosen pace it is grueling.



***
And here's Danny! This is also a slowed down footage. It shows the underground explosion. The ground slowly swells and burst into a nondescript shambles before an abrupt cutoff. It is somewhat confusing but nonetheless rather disturbing if you think about it.


***
Turk 28100 is probably one of the most beautiful documentations of the atomic explosion ever. Seriously. The way the flash in the sky turns into a fiery bowl of energy that engulfs everything around is something to behold.

The explosion bubble from the very start looks more like a piece of abstract art than a weapon of mass destruction in action.


***
Here's another something-something. This one is from the Operation Dominic. It is a slowed down footage of a flash in the sky that turns into a large ball of nondescript matters that grows and grows and lights up all the surroundings until it is blinding white. The ball of light hangs in the sky and slowly dissipates into thin air.

The cloud nearby is the strangest thing in this video. It just hangs around and slowly moves from right to left.

This particular footage looks like of the abstract experimental films from the 50s from the guys like Stan Brakhage.



***
Kickappo is an explosion in the sky. It occurs in the middle of the pitch black darkness, burns itself out and dissolves in the blackness. What happens after that is probably beyond comprehension.


***
This one is a bit of a non-thing and it is also one of the weirdest. It is just a flash in the sky that stuck and pretends to be a part of the scenery.




***
Bighorn was another aerial test. It looks a symphonic poem. The thing starts with a flash that takes a moment to burst out to the full force. It hangs in the middle shining brighter and brighter while everything around goes darker and darker.

After a while the ball of light disintegrates, its lower part dissolves and its upper part pretends to a Cathedral.


***
Don't get me wrong, anyway you think about it - it is the thing that should not be. It is disgusting. But it doesn't mean that it doesn't look nice.

MFT: VanTassel2 - Schlocky Horror Movies Excerpts Without People

Low budget schlocky horror films of old are fascinating to watch. Not only it is a bizarre showcase of conspicuously poor visual effects, on the nose creative decisions and unintentionally experimental narrative choices - it is also a fine battleground for ironic overthinking. The amount of inconsistencies and oversights is reaching the point thinking about such things are more fruitful and satisfying experience than actually watching it. You just can't help but to try to connect the disjointed dots in a comprehensive way. (although watching them is still fun).

But how about taking things to the next level? I've found one thing that does exactly that.

MFT: Portal challenge chamber 14 speedruns

Oversights are tricky beasts. Usually, they lead to cumbersome bane and sullen exasperations. But sometimes oversights bring an unexpectedly inspiring element to the experience. Case in point - Challenge Chamber 14 in Portal.

Today, it is needless to say that "Portal" is one of the greatest video games ever made. Not a big revelation. It is one of a kind experience - mind-bending riff on the puzzle game combined with tenacious intensity of First Person Shooter of Doom's kin. But instead of massacring hordes of bastard demons - you are slaughtering the very fabric of reality by opening numerous portals and making the most nonsensical routing operation ever.

It is fun and engaging game that simply offers something completely different and absolutely else. I still remember how much of a surprise it was to play for the first time. Imagine Portal mechanics applied to Doom Wad The Sky May Be or just plain whitespace. That's going to a psych-out.

Among other things, "Portal" offers a reasonable variety of ways of completing the levels. Some are more elaborate while others are blunt and straightforward. But there is one level that has absolutely out of the box speedrun solution - "Challenge Chamber 14".

Here's how it goes. You need to get a cube and then put a pellet into the receiver in a minimal amount of portals. There are several combinations to pull this off neatly. But there is also one trick that allows you to skip the entire level. It wasn't a result of some ominous insight not it was a part of design, but rather an oversight that was left in the release and subsequently embraced.

And rightfully so - it impressively adds to the overall experience and offers a sleek opportunity to escalate things to utter Kafka-Escher abstract absurdity for a moment. You can watch endlessly the speedruns of this level. It is magnificent.