Nov 11: “Be My Baby.

Here’s an odd question that occurred to me tonight, and I’m turning comments back on for it:

If this blog was part of a network of blogs that you might consider fellow-travellers and associated persons — what blogs would those be?

November 2007: people are shocked to learn of the existence of Jenkem. Instant cause celebre.

August 2007: you heard all about it here first. I am proud to keep you on the bleeding edge of the culture. Keep reading: stay equipped for life in the 21C.

This is an interesting approach: if the sf/horror magazine Apex Digest can raise 500 new subscriptions, they can increase their payment rates to professional levels.

A female comedy writer’s view on the WGA strike:

I was going to join a picket line yesterday, but I drove by and they already had one woman.

The 4am is a mixtape file containing nothing but music donated directly by new and/or unsigned acts. The 4am is of no set length and is released on no set schedule. The 4am is mixed down to 128 of the kbps. The 4am is offended by the concept of sleep. The 4am is time’s combine harvester.

The podcast feed for The 4am is: http://warrenellis.com/?feed=podcast

6: Nothing Was Ever Solved By Not Hitting Things Hard Enough

Opening with “My Crooked Toe” by Regular John, because, as Lou Reed once said, sometimes nothing beats two guitars, bass and drums. Plain old dirty guitar-pop, complete with Pixies-ish string torture and a false ending. Palate-cleansing, you know. This is off their new EP, which is called I HATE IT HERE, funnily enough. (If you never read my TRANSMETROPOLITAN, you won’t get it. Move along.)

New one by The Hungry Ghost. Features the sound of piano strings being struck by the legbone of your dead girlfriend in Hell. (Okay, it doesn’t. But that should be the explanation.)

I can offer no explanation for why I’m playing a track by The Urinal Mints. Obviously I should be stopped before they send me any more. But this, as clearly retarded as it is, is also glorious. My god, they even go acoustic around the 1.30 mark and turn it into a mass singalong. Brings tears to your eyes, it does.

I’m still kind of digesting “Shadow Codex.” It’s one of those musics that suggests an entire space and environment to me. There’s a few moments in there that seem to answer the age-old question, “what if Michael Nyman was forced to make a glitch album?” Okay, it might have only been me asking that. It’s from an upcoming compilation entitled EMERGING ORGANISMS on Tympanik Audio.

I swear, at the top of the second minute of “Cities Of The Red Night,” I can hear Show No Mercy actually travelling back in time. Seriously, by the end of it, Jimmy Page is crushing chords with a bit of mammoth tusk while a monkey waves his bits at a huge black monolith. This is from their new album DEATH IS MY RELIGION. It is, of course, a collection of chirpy pop ballads.

 

 The 4am: 6 - Nothing Was Ever Solved By Not Hitting Things Hard Enough [15:46m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (8370)

Regular John – “My Crooked Toe” (2:49)

The Hungry Ghost – “This Cold Abyss” (4:38)

The Urinal Mints – “I Wanna Smoke Crack With You” (2:05)

Phylum Sinter – “Shadow Codex” (4:10)

Show No Mercy – “Cities Of The Red Night” (2:01)

The 4am needs music: If you want your music to be played on The 4am, email your 128kbps-plus mp3 files directly to warrenellis@gmail.com.

If you enjoyed The 4am, please spread the word, linking back to this post.

Dash Shaw just sent me the link to the prelude of his webcomic BodyWorld.

It’s fascinating stuff. You really need to go and read this. Here’s a piece of it:

1964 French documentary on Bunuel, subtitled in English. Featured interviews with friends and collaborators, including Max Ernst:

Mike’s on fine form with this ill-tempered short history of everything related to books, libraries, fiction and culture since 1960. Notable in regard to recent thoughts here:

In my view we should not merely be seeking new markets for existing forms of fiction, such as the short story. We should be seeking personal forms of expression taking risks equal to those of electronic publishers who present us with the means of reaching a growing popular public. It would make sense that among the first publications to achieve this revolution, and seriously threaten the power of the bookselling and publishing corporations, should be those with their roots in the genre which got its first start as an independent form when Hugo Gernsback, using his own money and the cheap and popular medium of the pulp magazine, launched AMAZING STORIES some eighty years ago.

Target Corp, known for its innovative marketing, is staging a “model-less” fashion show in Manhattan next week that will feature holograms strutting down a runway in its merchandise instead of size-zero models.

Susannah Breslin:

In this post-feminist era, some sex pundits have promoted the idea that “porn is good,” but what some pro-porn post-feminists have failed to do is discern between porn the product and porn the industry. As long time readers of this blog know, I have spent some time around the adult movie industry. A decade ago, I entered that world with the same assumptions as the pro-porn post-feminists. Over the years, my attitude changed. Eventually, I began referring to the porn industry as a meat grinder for the human condition. In my opinion, it is a lot to ask someone to get fucked in the ass for a living. Shalom Auslander has put it thusly: “I have never had a day as bad as a woman named ‘Cloey’ had the day they shot the video that appeared on that [Web] page — that is to say, I have never had a day where someone wrote the word ‘Cockwhore’ on my forehead with lipstick, tried to shove their entire fist down my throat and then ‘choke-fucked’ me with their penis until I barfed on their testicles.”

“A German businessman plans to launch the country’s first television channel dedicated to funerals and mourning, complete with death announcements and documentaries about cemeteries. The channel, which will be called Etos TV, is meant to inform people about funeral practices and act as a counter to a growing trend in Germany to be buried anonymously…”

Just a reminder — all site commentary has been moved over to http://telepho.ning.com/.

Emusic has it, Bleep will have it:

“The “Hot Carl,” apparently, is where a mentally ill man loosely stretches cellophane across the open mouth of a mentally ill woman and then –”

In October 2007, 61027 unique visitors arrived at warrenellis.com 359670 times, calling up 876648 pages to generate 3,766,813 individual hits.

“Still Alive”: Found via Rogers, this is apparently the song that plays over the end credits of the new videogame PORTAL. Ignore the visuals: listen to the words. By Jonathan Coulton:

Well, I’ll be damned:

While demonstrating in support of a referendum to study Chavez’ new reforms, which include the abolition of term limits for the presidency.