Criminal Associate

CRIMINAL ASSOCIATE: ARE YOU WEARING A FRICKIN’ WIRE?

ME: I prefer to think of it as “very targeted, unobtrusive podcasting.”

—

CRIMINAL ASSOCIATE: Are you live-tweeting us murdering you, you snitch?

ME: No. [drops phone in wet concrete around feet]

—

TRIVIA (continuity error): Character “ME” drops phone but without phone, tweet wouldn’t exist. [ Like | Report ]

Untitled

One of my earliest Bandcamp purchases and still one of my favorites, as proved by the fact that every time I remember to look and they STILL haven’t released any new music, I want to find a mailing address to pre-pay for their next effort.

Their sound: Smart, punky, fun.

Favorite song from this album (which made it into The Signal: EP090!): Birthday

Sample lyrics: “I lit a candle and got wax on my hand but the novelty factor made it worth it for me / Then I drank my coffee and listened to records and when I say records, I mean mp3s”

You could have the album for the cost of “whatever you want” from free to “your children will never know warmth.”

Dolph

A SKETCH

Swedish action hero Dolph Lundgren walks into the human-sized entrance on the side of a large machine. There’s a rumbling sound, then a dolphin flops out the egress on the opposite side of the machine.

Camera zooms in on a label on the side of the machine that reads: De-Lundgr-Izer

Wandering the Aisles

In little-traveled corners of Bandcamp, you can find musicians carving out a musical niche that is dedicated to creating weird soundscapes under the banner “mallsoft” or “vaporwave”. The aesthetic choices of these artists seem to explore the alienation of shopping— and capitalism, by extension— of large and empty mall spaces, of terrible music forced on you as part of the cost of traversing those spaces and a love of carving cracks into that facade with glitched imagery, echo effects, stuttering and distant.

This album from 식료품groceries was my introduction, starting as it does with a synth cover of a Cyndi Lauper song, then in track 2 (지하철Morning Commute), you hear the rumbling of a train and a soft jazz saxophone that somehow keeps pace with the train’s motion. There’s distant cymbal crashing from some other music source that has nothing to do with the saxophone, and automated voices reading announcements that just flicker at the edge of awareness.

Before you know it: You’re at the mall. Track 3. You Are Here.

Enjoy exploring the aisles.

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Categorized as Webloggery

Playing the Role of Jonah… a BART Train

street art image of a train driving into the mouth of a giant fish

A mural on the back side of a “gas & food station” that’s visible from the windows of BART trains approaching or leaving the West Oakland station in California.

For those riding a San Francisco-bound train, it’s a nod to the fact that their train is about to go underwater via the transbay tube… though it’s unlikely to meet the swallowed-by-a-giant-fish fate pictured here.

The Usual Savant

a photo of an apple, a mug reading Donut Savant, and some sunglasses
Product Placement

On the way into work this morning, I picked up some donuts from Donut Savant for my colleagues in the office. I also decided to treat myself to a mug, because I liked the shape and heft of it and the brand had won me over with their consistently amazing deep-fried and sugared product line.

While preparing some coffee in the office’s kitchen, a work colleague asked if I was the one who had brought in the donuts. “That depends,” I said, “on your feelings about the donuts. If you’re happy they’re here, then yes, I take credit. If you’re going to say ‘Oh, I’m on a diet, why did you bring them’ then I don’t know anything about it.”

And then, I attempted a joke that completely failed.

I turned to my colleague, mug in hand, and said “Of course, there’s always the chance you could Keyser Soze out the situation” and gave the mug a little waggle.

A small reference to the conclusion of The Usual Suspects. You understand.

I didn’t see any comprehension of the joke. Maybe he didn’t see the mug. I waggled it again. Nothing. The conversation moves on.

Hours pass.

And I realize that my new mug has a logo only on the side that was facing me. So he’d have no idea why I was waggling my mug and indicating that a proper detective might be able to figure out who brought the donuts.

I explained this to him later, as I was interested in the joke’s failure and my eventually solving of the reason why it failed, and he told me that it wouldn’t have helped, as his brain was refusing to serve up who “Keyser Soze” was, and he was trying to recall if he knew a politician by that name, so…

Failure after failure.

I dunno. I found it interesting.