Sdtrk: ‘Day out’ by Daisies

You don’t need a calendar anymore! Phoenix Studios would like to point out that it’s now May. Ladies and gentlemen, start your credit cards! Or your overactive fantasies, one or the other.

insert obvious ‘My, what big… eyes… you have’ line here

Apart from maybe Cinco de Mayo, I’ve no idea what possible event Miss May could be celebrating, apart from the Joy of Living. Well, whatever it is, she’s doing a remarkable job. Miss April’s still may favourite so far, though…

Next up: not just one, but two alert readers — Maisie Sedgwick Deely, who’s tipped me off before, as well as the lovely Rayschro aka Princessrachel — have clued me into a rather enticing new exhibit opening up at the bitforms gallery in New York City:

Ahh, the ‘GAH ALRIGHT ALREADY I’M AWAKE’ look

Lynn Hershman Leeson returns to bitforms gallery in NY with the first showing of a new series, Found Objects, April 26 – May 31.

Including the premiere of the sex doll installation, “Olympia: Fictive Projections and the Myth of the Real Woman,” a provocative and updated version of Edouard Manet’s notorious painting, “Olympia”.

February 2008, New York, NY – San Francisco-based artist and filmmaker Lynn Hershman Leeson returns to bitforms gallery in New York for a new solo exhibition, Found Objects, running April 26-May 31. With a body of work that spans over 35 years and ranges from early conceptual and performance pieces to artificial intelligence robotic works and films, Hershman Leeson is one of the most influential artists working in new media today. Updating the notion of “readymade” introduced by Marcel Duchamp, Found Objects is a new series that features assembly-line produced female sex dolls to examine issues of projected fantasies and the mythology of artificial women. With the installation, “Olympia: Fictive Projections and the Myth of the Real Woman,” Hershman Leeson restages Edouard Manet’s “Olympia,” projecting images of the painting on a doll to offer a provocative, updated version of the notorious artwork. Also on display are several digital prints in which the dolls appear to be emotionally involved in their predestined situations.
taken from this site

In looking over her website, it appears that over the years, she’s done some interesting work with Mannequins and window displays, as well assembling quite a few installation pieces that involve either surveillance cameras, or artificial intelligence programmes. Huh! Might have to keep an eye on her, no pun intended…
So who wants to fly me and the Missus out to New Yawk for this? I mean, how else would we give the show a proper assessment and review? Don’t all volunteer at once, now.

As an aside, last night, my friend Mari mentioned that since she sees so many pictures of Synthetik women whenever she’s round Deafening silence Plus, she’s more or less conditioned to the point where, if she sees a somewhat blurry or otherwise unclear photo of a lass in her day to day affairs, she thinks it’s a Doll until proven otherwise. That’s… that’s pretty fantastic.

Finally, I found what may be the best review for ‘Lars and the Real Girl’ in existence. If you’re spoiler-averse, stay away from it, but gods, it’s a riot, as it’s written by someone carelessly wielding Babelfish, or perhaps a student of the book ‘English as She is Spoke‘.

Gosling stars as Lars, a quiet, anomaly teen Negro in a far Midwestern municipality who lives in his brother Gus’ (Paul Schneider) garage and avoids some ethnic interaction whatsoever, including unsure advances from his tall co-worker Margot (Kelli Garner). For a patch we’re not rattling trusty what’s up with Lars—is he depressed? sociopathic?—but every the customary bets are soured when Bianca arrives at his door. Bianca is a Real Girl, a life-size stimulate chick sequential soured the Internet. Lars gets the intent from his ruttish co-worker, but when Bianca arrives it’s country he’s not into her for her anatomically precise parts—Lars has institute love.

O, the unintentional humour, it kills me again and again

Technorati tags: Phoenix Studios, Boy Toy Dolls, bitforms gallery, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Found Objects, Lars and the Real Girl, English as She is Spoke

Sdtrk: ‘Empire state human’ by the Human League

As no-one tells me anything anymore, I learned that BBC America aired Nick Holt’s ‘Guys and Dolls‘ yet again a week or so ago. That particular documentary is like the equivalent of Soft cell’s Tainted love for Sidore and I, or perhaps like Blue Monday by New order — it’s the vehicle that’s brought us to the most peoples’ attention, as most don’t know we’ve done other interviews previously. But I have to say, when we get round to putting in another appearance on telly or film, if nothing else, we can show that we’ve not been living at my parents since last year. Man.
So guess which media juggernaut contacted me recently?

from: Donnelly, Christine
to: pulsedemon [at] gmail [dot] com
date: Mon, Apr 21, 2008 at 4:17 PM
subject: Interview Request – from Alan Colmes

Hi Davecat,

I’m with Alan Colmes’ national radio show.

Last night, I happened to see the BBC America documentary featuring you and Sidore.

We’d love to have you on the show. Both Alan and our audience find this topic very interesting; we had David Levy on the show a few months ago.

What about a phone interview at midnight on Thursday night? Well, technically, that’s Friday, but you know what I mean, right?

It’d be about 20 minutes or so.

If so, at what landline (and backup – like a cell) can you be reached?

Look forward to hearing from you and hope we can arrange.

Best,
Christine

Christine Donnelly
Booker, The Alan Colmes Show

Durr — what? Colmes, of the FAUX News pseudo-pundits Colmes and Hannity? What??
I’d mentioned this invite to New Internet Bestest Friend Forevar, the lovely Gina Banina, during an IM conversation, and she thought it was pretty ace. At that point, I’d asked her if Colmes wasn’t a berserk frothing neo-con, and she replied she didn’t know. I don’t keep up with politics, and I’d only heard tell of Colmes’ and Hannity’s television programme: one representing the left wing agenda, the other plumping for right-wingers, dancing round each other for an hour in an enclosed ring and slicing at the other with homemade prison shanks, their left wrists bound together with a length of rough twine. I hadn’t a clue as to which one was which; however, a quick spin on the Wikipedia wheel set us straight — Colmes was the liberal one. With that news, I began to think that perhaps 20 minutes over the phone wouldn’t be altogether bad… after all, David Levy was once a guest…
I was beginning to consider saying yes, when a crucial factor came to my attention. So I wrote Christine back:

from: Dave Kuroneko
to: “Donnelly, Christine”
date: Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 6:01 PM

Hello there –
Thanks for posing an enquiry, however, I’m afraid I’ll have to respectfully decline. Basically, I work a staggered shift, which has me getting off at midnight Wednesday through Friday, so I probably won’t be able to do the phone interview. Thanks very much for the opportunity, though!

Cheers,
Davecat, with valued assistance from Sidore

That’s that affair put to bed, right? Wrong. She wrote back almost immediately — literally, like almost half an hour later:

from: Donnelly, Christine
to: Dave Kuroneko
date: Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 6:25 PM

Dave,

Thanks so much for replying.

Not trying to be a pain here but…we would love to have you on the show! If 12:30am on Thursday (after you get out of work) would work, that’d be great. Or midnight next Monday or Tuesday?

Best,

Christine

One half of my mind’s going ‘well, what’s the harm in it?’ and the other half is shouting ‘your segments in “Guys and Dolls” were misrepresented on Jay Leno and Talk Soup, for fuck’s sake’. Sometimes, bad press is better than no press at all, but that’s only sometimes. With a subject such as being an iDollator, caution when dealing with the media is extremely important. Plus, all told, FAUX News equals high-RPM spin doctoring in my mind.
So days later — which I kinda feel guilty about, as leaving any booking agent hanging is pretty unprofessional — I finally responded:

from: Dave Kuroneko
to: “Donnelly, Christine”
date: Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 1:17 PM

Hey Christine –

Sorry it’s taken so long to get back to you; both my work and my personal life have been in a state of flux over the past few days…

Unfortunately, I think I’ll have to respectfully decline your invite to be on Alan Colmes chat show. To be completely honest, I’m rather distrustful of the way that media, American media in particular, has a habit of spinning topics to serve their own ends, especially in the instance of something as ‘out there’ as being an iDollator. I wanted to have a listen to the interview you say he’d conducted with David Levy, to see how that went, but I was unable to locate it. Besides, the past couple of days at work have been rubbish, and I’m sure that would inadvertently affect my demeanour and circumspection on-air. I’m sure you understand.

Once again, sorry for the delay, and thanks for the opportunity!

Cheers,
Davecat

And that seems to have done it. Sigh.
It’s crazy: the venues that I’d want to be interviewed by don’t seem to have any interest in the topic, and the venues I wouldn’t touch with a barge pole are all over me! This, then, is Irony

EDIT (03 May): So I went ahead and made a ‘Circus Minimus’ category, cos this sort of thing is happening more often than I would’ve ever thought possible. Who knew?

Technorati tags: Guys and Dolls, Nick Holt, Alan Colmes, RealDolls, iDollators, David Levy

Sdtrk: ‘A get together to tear it apart’ by the Hives

*mops brow* Some of you may have noticed that not only is ‘Shouting etc etc’ kinda… different-looking… but it was down since 2.30am Monday morning. The reason? I tried to upgrade to the latest latest version, apparently deleted something crucial, and freaked out. There was failure on a massive scale, needless to say. Thanks to the staunch efforts of SafeTinspector, though, this blog’s been upgraded and restored. I owe you a case of Coffee Crisp, sir!

Do bear with me as I reinstall everything and tweak colours/layout/etc for the next couple of months. Also, don’t ever have me upgrade your blog, as I will inadvertently bring ruination to your efforts

Sdtrk: ‘Old man’ by Andrew WK

from the ‘Work is a four-letter word’ Files:

MRS BESMERTNIK: [I can’t turn my donation in,] I’m just getting deeper and deeper in debt. Do you remember that song?
ME: Yes! ‘Another day older and deeper in debt / St Peter don’t you call me cos I can’t go / I owe my soul to the company store.’ Tennessee Ernie Ford, ‘Sixteen Tons’.
MRS BESMERTNIK: That’s me, that’s where I’m at. So yes, you’re…
ME (interrupting): ‘One fist of iron, the other of steel / If the right one don’t getcha then the left one will’! Actually, thanks for bringing that up, I have to see if I can hunt down a copy of that for my .mp3 player! Great song.
MRS BESMERTNIK: You should! That’s a good song! But that’s like how I am, I can’t go until I’ve paid my debts…
ME (interrupting): Have you got one fist of iron, the other of steel?
MRS BESMERTNIK: Well, I don’t know about all that…
ME: Perhaps you should look into that, that’d be pretty impressive.

Sdtrk: the soundtrack to Tadanori Yokoo’s ‘Tokuten eizou anthology No. 1’

IT IS DONE. Last night, I finally upgraded ‘Shouting etc etc’ to the latest version of WordPress available (now with go-faster stripes), thanks to the expert help of Zip Gun. No more pr0n spam wankery makes me a happy lad! Frankly, it took a lot less effort than I thought it would, and I’m embarrassed that it took me so long to get it overwith. Procrastination would be my middle name, but ‘Davecat’ is only one word.
Not only is there that, but I’ve added a new plugin that allows people to preview what they’re about to post. Truly, an Idea Whose Time Has Come. Thanks again, ZG and Bloke who came up with that comments preview plugin!

Now that I know the coast is clear, expect more posts relatively soon, as well as the glorious return of the Technorati tags! Cos I know you lot have really been waiting for that. In the meantime, why not look at what I’m listening to right this minute?

Happy 23rd!

Sdtrk: ‘Keeps on burning’ by The burning bush

Stolen from one of my friends, via Myspace. Ignoring the fact that I’m reduced to mining Myspace for content, this one actually presents a bit of a challenge, for reasons that will quickly become apparent…

***
You have to use 3 words to answer each question. No more, no less.
***

1. Where is your cell phone?:
In my hand

3. Your hair?
Straightened last Sunday

4. Where is your father?:
Probably at home

5. Cheesecake?
Not too keen

6. Your favorite things to do?
Writing, sleeping, daydreaming

7. Your dream last night?
Ah heh heh

8. Your favorite drink?:
Dr pepper, duh

9. Your dream car?:
New BMW MINI

10. The room you’re in?
Could use vacuuming

11. George Bush?:
Atrocity on legs

12. Your fears?:
Obscurity, conformity, speechlessness

13. Nipple rings?
Lovely on lasses

14. Who did you hang out with last night?
The usual suspects

15. What you’re not good at?
Punctuality, brevity, math

16. Your best friends?
Are extraordinarily tolerant

17. One of your wish list items?
Obviously silicone-based

18. Where did you grow up?:..
Detroit. Believe it

19. The last thing you did?:
More Warriors Orochi

20. What are you wearing?
Air of scepticism

21. Tattoo on the lower back?
Tramp stamp? Ugh

22. Ketchup?
I prefer ‘catsup’

23. Your computer?:
Needs more RAM

24. Your life?
Needs more spare time

25. Your mood?
Sleepy yet saucy

26. Missing?
My youthful idealism

27. What are you thinking about right now?
Horde of tossers

28. Your car?:
Eh, it runs

29. Your work?:
Hideous, hideous, hideous

30. Your summer?
Hopefully not hot

31. Your favorite color(s):
Black, white, grey

32. When is the last time you laughed?
An hour ago

33. Last time you cried?
Can’t remember now

***

Naturally, the usual meme rules apply: if you’d like to be tagged, let me know, as I don’t pass these things on to people. And if you’re willing to overlook the discrepancy of No.24, I’m willing to overlook the fact that there’s no No.2

Sdtrk: ‘I want to be old’ by the Cure

Well, this is certainly innaresting, as Uncle Bill used to say. It seems robotics manufacturing firm Kokoro Co. Ltd haven’t been resting on their laurels at all, cos hot on the heels of Simroid-chan would be their latest charming Gynoid, Holon.

Rain and snow just roll right off her head!

Now, there’s a reason for her anime-styled face: Holon-chan is a character in an upcoming anime series by Production I.G entitled ‘Real Drive‘, another one of those cyberpunk-styled series that Masamune Shirow is responsible for. In the series, she plays a secretary. Which is an interesting coincidence, as the real-life Holon-chan will ideally be put to use as… a secretary.

Her legs are designed to attract Robert Crumb

Personally, I’m not too keen on her plastic hair — what, the Kokoro staffers couldn’t cut a wig to look like the anime version’s hair? Plus her anime face will invite comparisons such as Holon is to Actroid, as a CandyGirl is to a RealDoll. But upon reflection, that’s okay. Cos not only are Kokoro and Production I.G embarking hand-in-hand on a pretty impressive marketing ploy, but I’ve always said that there’s a niche for Synthetiks with less-realistic appearances, as they bridge the gap between lifelike Gynoids like Actroid and the EveR series, and more machinelike robots, such as Wakamaru and the Tamanoi Vinegar Robot, and therefore make it easier for the not-quite-ready-for-Synthetiks portion of the population to get used to artificial lifeforms being in society over the next couple of decades.
Oddly enough, Kokoro doesn’t have any info on Holon-chan or Simroid-chan on their Japanese pages, so as soon as I track down and firmly grip any additional details, you’ll be the first to know. Well, second. Err, you’ll be in the top ten. In the interim, you can watch her introducing herself here, and here, and English information about ‘Real Drive’ would be found on the Production I.G site here.

Also, just so you know, ‘Lars and the Real Girl‘ is due out on DVD in the States 15 April