Wise Words from Robert Crumb and With This I Bid You Adieu.

"The America that I missed died in about 1935. That’s why I have all this old stuff, all these old 78 records from that era. It was the golden age of recorded music, before the music business poisoned the people’s music, the same way that ‘agribusiness’ poisoned the very soil of the earth. In the old days, music was produced by common people, the music they produced to entertain themselves. The record industry took it and resold it, repackaged and killed it, spewed it out in a bland, artificial, ersatz version of itself. This goes along with the rise of the mass media, the spread of radio. My mother, born in the 1920s, remembered walking in the street in the summertime in Philadelphia, and in every other house, people were playing some kind of live music. Her parents played music and sang together. In her generation, her brothers didn’t want to play an instrument anymore. It was the swing era and all they wanted to do was to listen to Benny Goodman on the radio. The takeover of radio happened much later. In places like Africa, you can still find great recorded music from the ’50s. I have many 78s from Africa at that time that sound like some great rural music from America in the ’20s. In the U.S at that time there were thousands and thousands of bands, dance halls, ballrooms in hotels, restaurants had dance floors, school auditoriums, clubs in small towns. A small town of 10,000 would have a least a hundred bands. In the mid 30’s radio spread very fast in America and the depression killed a lot of the venues where live music was performed. You could go to the movies for 10 cents. Then in the 50’s TV finished it all off. Mass media makes you stay home, passive. In the 20’s there was live music everywhere in the States. I talked to old musicians who played in dance bands. This old musician bandleader Jack Coackley in San Francisco told me that in 1928 when you went downtown in the evening on the trolley car to play at a ballroom, the streets were full of musicians going to work, carrying instruments in cases. Same thing happened in France with the death of musette, the popular dance music of the working classes. There hasn’t been a decent popular music in America for a long time. The current pop music in the Western world is just plain god-awful. America is long gone. The ’80s killed it for me. The Reagan era, AIDS. It was an awful decade.”

How Synthesizers Work

At one time in my life I was a studio synthesist, traveling from recording studio to recording studio, producing music and sound effects using my modular synthesizers. From time to time, people would ask me how they operated. I usually explained things like oscillators, filters, voltage controlled amplifiers and envelope generators while their eyes glazed over.

Here's a link to an excellent explanation by Meg Neal that I found on Gizmodo.

Enigma: A Steampunk Cafe Filled with Kinetic Sculptures

Travel Photo of the Week

Fukushima, Japan

Rever 3D Printer for Kids On Kickstarter

From 3ders.org...

"3D printing firm Qubea, which has been active since mid-2012, has developed a new 3D printer for kids. The Rever 3D printer, marketed as an 'affordable 3D printer for kids', is the subject of a Kickstarter campaign, through which Qubea hopes to raise $150,000."

The Book of Genesis, Illustrated by Robert Crumb

Robert Crumb Gets It Out of His System

A splendid interview from Observer.com....

“Oh, I hate men much more than women,” Mr. Crumb said, “They are just horrible. It’s men who do all the raping and pillaging, the mass killing. Fame also exposed me to a very seedy, sleazy side of humanity I wasn’t aware of before. I was just a naïve, 26-year-old schlub with a boss working for a greeting card company. I was just a worker drawing these cards. After I started doing these comics, suddenly a lot of very carefully coiffed men in leather trench coats and open shirts with gold chains wanted to talk to me and make deals.”

The rest is even better.

Fun Time! Terry Gilliam's Deleted Animations from Monty Python & The Holy Grail!

Anila Quayyum Agha’s ‘Intersections’

Anila Quayyum Agha: Intersections

For more information, go to Agha's website.

kontenerART: A Micro City Made of Shipping Containers

From DesignBoom...

"Every year, on the first days of May, kontenerART opens its doors to the public. Located in Poznan, Poland, and designed by Adam Wiercinski Architekt, the project is an initiative of independent artists to create a place for meeting new people, relax and take part of a whole creative process that includes workshops, concerts and exhibitions. small and independent spaces are available for associations, foundations or individual artists and they can be used freely until the end of August."

Travel Photo of the Week

Chernobyl

Yayoi Kusama's 'Infinity' Rooms Are the Most Disorienting Places in the World

More HERE.

Ronnie Burkett and The Daisy Theatre

Cheryl and I were so blessed to be able to see Ronnie Burkett's final NYC performance of his wonderful variety show, The Daisy Theatre, Saturday night. This brilliant and insightful man gave us two and a half hours of nonstop, side-splittingly hilarious puppetry exploring the funnier aspects of the human condition. A masterpiece! Thank you for an exceptional evening Ronnie!

Here's a little taste............

Too Busy!

Sorry, no post today.

Fun Time! Boxwars: Combatants Battle Armed and Armored With Only Cardboard!

Can This Portable Tiny Apartment Transform City Housing?

This tiny apartment promises a solution to the problem of housing for cash-strapped, modern city dwellers: take your apartment with you when you move. Designed by Jeff Wilson, a professor of environmental science at Huston-Tillotson University in Austin, Texas, the experimental housing system, called "Kasita," was inspired by Wilson's time living in a 33-square-foot dumpster.

Archidirectors: The Imaginary Homes of Movie Directors

Preview of archidirectors by Federico Babina

Travel Photo of the Week

Bora Bora

What Fabien Cousteau Learned From Spending 31 Days Underwater

Floatin' Down South - Dutch/‌American Artists on an Art Boat

Floatin' Down South

More information HERE.

Project Apollo Archive

High definition. Just released. More (over 10,000 photos) HERE.

Fun Time! Amazing Hulkbuster Costume Stands Nine Feet Tall and Shoots Actual Laser Beams From Its Eyes!

Some people really know how to have fun.

Are You a Pessimist or an Optomist? Find Out Why Here.

Hand-Sculpted Clay Portraits and Illustrations by Irma Gruenholz

Madrid-based artist Irma Gruenholz creates portraits and still-lifes that could easily be mistaken for 2D images found in storybooks. Found on Colossal.