Sdtrk: ‘The obsidian pyramid’ by Eric Zann

Okay, can I just point out how feckin’ hard it is to find information about the Andy Warhol Android? I mean, egad. I remember reading about him in People magazine back in the early Eighties; Andy was having an Android duplicate of himself made, initially for a stage show based on his book ‘THE Philosophy of Andy Warhol’, but Andy eventually pointed out that he wanted the Android to take his place during television shows and interviews, like a kagemusha. Which is a pretty damn good idea, when you think about it. Always an innovator, our Andy.
But yeah, since I was fascinated with Synthetiks back then, I recall cutting that article out of the magazine and saving it for years. Somehow or another, it disappeared, and now, I am sad. One of these days, I will actually make good on my promise to make my pilgrimage to the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, and I fully intend on grabbing the nearest staffer by their lapels and asking (loudly) as to where I could get information about the Warhol Android. Internet, you disappoint me.

So you like that Ricky Gervais, then? Of course you do! Then you need to partake in The Ricky Gervais Show, sponsored by the Guardian Unlimited website, and download yourself some episodes. It’s Ricky and Steve Merchant, mostly taking the piss out of their mate Karl, and discussing various things. Usually, it simply degenerates into taking the piss out of Karl, though. Lovely stuff..

Lastly, for all of you Zeta Gundam fanatics, someone has made a torrent of the subtitled Zeta Gundam first theatrical release from last year, ‘Heirs to the stars‘. Hit up your favourite anime torrent site provider and give their search engine a whirl for it. I’m bringing my bandwidth to an absolute crawl by getting a copy; why not you?

O, right, I knew I forgot something.

ANDY WARHOL ROBOT IN LIVERPOOL (from Warholstars)
The Andy Warhol robot is on display at the Tate Museum in Liverpool through May 2004 as part of the Mike Kelley: The Uncanny exhibition.

The robot was designed by Alvaro Villa shortly before Warhol’s death for use in a stage show titled Andy Warhol: A No Man Show based on Warhol’s books, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again) and Exposures. The production was to be produced for Broadway by Lewis Allen of Annie fame, but the project was cancelled after Warhol’s death. (Mr. Allen passed away in December of last year).

Bob Colacello: “… there was a big project that Fred [Hughes] killed after Andy died. Lewis Allen, who was the producer of Annie and of Tru, the Truman Capote one-man show, had taken an option on the Philosophy of Andy Warhol and Exposures and had this wonderful idea to make the two books into something called Andy Warhol: A No Man Show. It was going to be a robot of Andy sitting on stage just gossiping and philosophizing based on the text of those two books. Peter Sellars was going to direct it. But the technology kept moving so quickly that every time Lew thought he had a robot, they’d find they could make an even more advanced robot, which would have eleven hand movements instead of three hand movements. And so he’d actually invest more money to get a better robot and then that would put the whole project back a year or two.

Andy loved this idea; he loved the fact that there was going to be this Andy Warhol robot that he could send on lecture tours. It could do talk shows for him. The idea was that the show, if it was successful in New York, could then also simultaneously be running in London, Los Angeles, Tokyo with cloned robots. And people would actually be able to ask questions of the robot, which would be programmed with a variety of answers. The whole thing was so Warholian and so perfect.

But when Andy died, Fred refused to renew the option. I owned fifty percent of Philosophy and Exposures, and Andy owned fifty percent after he died. In any case, the deal was killed. I think that Fred didn’t want this Warhol robot haunting his existence. It’s a shame. It really would have been the greatest thing that could have happened for Andy. It would have almost been like coming back from the dead. And he really loved the project. He sat for hours at some high-tech place in the San Fernando Valley where thy made a mold of his face and his hands… there’s a whole photo session of it.

Sorry the photo’s crap; it’s the only one I could find. Like I said: Internet, you have been a disappointment

Sdtrk: ‘Uluk constitution’ by Merzbow

ACHTUNG, PEOPLE OF GERMANY — also non-Germans with access to good bookstores — Go hit those bookshops and pick up the January ’06 issue of Maxi magazine, as it contains a stunning new article concerning ‘Still Lovers‘. Writer Annett Heide conducted some brief interviews with Elena Dorfman, as well as a few iDollators, such as Gordon Griggs, PB Shelley, Everhard, and myself, of course. 😉

This would be the cover:

If you hit Maxi’s website, it currently displays the cover for the December ’05 issue. On second thought, don’t hit Maxi’s website, cos quite frankly, it’s pretty damned useless. You say you’ve already clicked on the link? O, sorry.

Yes, the article’s entirely in German, as is the whole magazine, but don’t let that stop you. Plus, that issue comes mit einem grosse Astro-Tabelle, for all of your German Zodiacal needs for the new year! Such a deal!

Sdtrk: ‘Fallin’ in love’ by American spring

See, Veach? See what you’ve started??

Go handcraft your own magazine cover! Like you’re doing anything else with your time.
By the way, Veach; I’m looking at those questions you asked me last month, concerning Synthetiks and whatnot. Those’ll be answered in a week or so, as final exams are looming ominously on the horizon..

*I recall reading an article in a magazine somewhere a number of years ago, where the author mentioned that they were writing an article on MS Word. They had typed in the name ‘Condé Nast’, and the spellchecker had suggested ‘nasty condo’. I laughed

Sdtrk: ‘Eleanor put your boots on’ by Franz Ferdinand

Yes, the title’s a pathetic grasp at something or other, you’ll have to excuse me.

Remember my mention of 4woods’ new A.I.NEO series? Well, the esteemed Ta-bo-san of ‘Ta-bo’s Kisekae dataroom’ has a new report up. Actually he’s got several reports on her up. The man certainly goes the distance. 🙂
Remember; if you can’t read Japanese, break out that Babelfish, and savvy Firefox users will already know about the lovely Translation panel extension..

And as I’ve just now sussed how to effectively use YouSendIt to my own twisted ends, I now present to you a brief .avi file of the Robot station MC version of Actroid-chan waving to her adoring crowds. The file will be up for seven days, so grab it immediatement. Hooray for YouSendIt!
DOWNLOAD: Actroid-chan waving (link has expired)

And on a completely unrelated note, I bought new pillows last night. It’s amazing what wonders the humble pillow can do for one’s sleeping

Sdtrk: ‘Ashes to ashes’ by David Bowie

Just a brief notice to inform all and sundry that Sidore-chan’s Flickr account has had two new photoshoots uploaded, ‘Velveteen bodice’, and ‘Skirt & crop’.
We’ve already run into a bottleneck with Flickr; if you have the basic account, it’ll only allow you to create three sets. You can upload as many pics as you wish, but you can only group them into three sets, which is just ridiculous. You get what you pay for, I suppose, but we do apologise for the inconvenience..
This just fills me with more of a burning fervor to start working on redesigning ‘Kitten with a Whip!’ Well, not so much burning, really; it’s more of a smoulder. But it’s a pretty damn hot smoulder.

Nevertheless, enjoy the photos! Leave a tasteful and/or witty comment, as Shi-chan loves receiving tasteful and/or witty comments

Sdtrk: ‘Deep down’ by Christy

I just feel that I have to step in here and add, without any trace of self-aggrandising whatsoever, that ‘Shouting etc etc’ began covering this, y’know, months ago. Just so you know.
This blog truly is ‘slicing edge’, as the kids say! Or is it ‘chopping edge’? I’ve no idea.

Robot or Human? Here’s ACTROID (link to article on Akihabara News)

Roger that, and drooling now

Sdtrk: ‘Crash for Hi-fi’ by Merzbow

Now, if you’ll throw a sidelong glance towards the lefthand sidebar, you’ll notice something new beneath the hit counter. Shi-chan has a Flickr account of her own!
I’ll commence work on rebuilding ‘Kitten with a Whip!’ when I can scrape up some spare time, but for now, Sidore has an effective way to display her photos. It seems that Flickr has a limit on how much bandwidth (there’s that word again) per month that you can use when you upload pics, and I’m already at the halfway point, so you can expect a monthly upload of about two photoshoots; of course, you’ll be notified when the new ones are up. Currently, we’ve got the ‘Short black hair’ and ‘Red is the new purple’ shoots uploaded, so for the six or seven of you who’ve never seen the Missus before, do give them a look..
We might even throw in some never-before-seen material as well! Who can say?