1172 NASA Pictures

Monday, July 12th, 2010

A few years ago, Jens gave me a CD that had a folder on it with over 1000 old-school NASA photos. He says he has no idea where he got them, but that doesn’t matter: all the photos are amazing.

I uploaded them to Flickr here, and while you’re looking at them here’s some music to get you into the orbital mood:

Miami Horror - Moon Theory (Sam La More Remix)

(via)

Crystal Castles - Celestica (The Sonixx Remix)

Monarchy - The Phoenix Alive (Disco Bloodbath Vocal Radio Edit)

“Love you, Cat Mother”

Wednesday, May 12th, 2010

panthermoderns

The Panther Moderns were a sort of youth terrorism organization in the book Neuromancer by William Gibson:

“Panther Moderns,” he said to the Hosaka, removing the trodes. “Five minute precis.”

“Ready,” the computer said.

It wasn’t a name he knew. Something new, something that had come in since he’d
been in Chiba. Fads swept the youth of the Sprawl at the speed of light; entire subcultures
could rise overnight, thrive for a dozen weeks, and then vanish utterly. “Go,” he said. The
Hosaka had accessed its array of libraries, journals, and news services.

The precis began with a long hold on a color still that Case at first assumed was a
collage of some kind, a boy’s face snipped from another image and glued to a photograph
of a paint-scrawled wall. Dark eyes, epicanthic folds obviously the result of surgery, an
angry dusting of acne across pale narrow cheeks. The Hosaka released the freeze; the boy
moved, flowing with the sinister grace of a mime pretending to be a jungle predator. His
body was nearly invisible, an abstract pattern approximating the scribbled brickwork
sliding smoothly across his tight one piece. Mimetic polycarbon.

Cut to Dr. Virginia Rambali, Sociology, NYU, her name, faculty, and school pulsing
across the screen in pink alphanumerics.

“Given their penchant for these random acts of surreal violence,” someone said, “it

may be difficult for our viewers to understand why you continue to insist  that  this

phenomenon isn’t a form of terrorism.”

Dr.  Rambali  smiled.  “There is always  a point  at  which the terrorist  ceases  to
manipulate the media gestalt. A point at which the violence may well escalate, but beyond
which the terrorist has become symptomatic of the media gestalt itself. Terrorism as we
ordinarily understand it is inately media-related. The Panther Moderns differ from other
terrorists precisely in their degree of self-consciousness, in their awareness of the extent
to which media divorce the act of terrorism from the original sociopolitical intent….”

In the book, the “random acts of surreal violence” described above take the form of the Panther Moderns facilitating a raid on an office building by hacking into the building’s computer network to basically hypnotize everyone inside into thinking they’ve been poisoned. At the same time, some of the Moderns called the police to tell them that:

“an obscure sub sect of militant Christian fundamentalists had just taken credit for having introduced clinical levels of an outlawed psychoactive agent known as Blue Nine into the ventilation system of the Sense/Net Pyramid. Blue Nine, known in California as Grievous Angel, had been shown to produce acute paranoia and homicidal psychosis in eighty-five percent of experimental subjects.”

Throughout the raid, the Panther Moderns refer to themselves as ‘Brood’ and another character as Cat Mother.

Since Neuromancer is pretty 80s, here are some synthed-out tracks to get you thinking about the original cyberpunks:

Crystal Castles - Untrust Us (Alex zelenka Remix)

Ghostland Observatory - Sad, Sad City (Pretty Girls & Lasers Remix)

Valery Gore - Shoes of Glass (TEEN Remix)

Streetlab - Rat Racer (TEEN Remix)

(get more music from TEEN on her Myspace)

Part of me wants to think that those tracks are what the Panther Moderns would be jamming to if they were actually around today. A bigger part of me knows that they’d probably be fucking around on 4chan instead.

If you like this playlist, you might also like the Space Dub playlist I put together (smiliarly inspired by Neuromancer), or the mix I think Thanos would have given Death.

Crystal From The Persian

Friday, November 14th, 2008

The Persian Prince sent me this Crystal Castles track a little while ago, but he emailed it to an address that I rarely check anymore.

He writes:

Here is another song for the blog. It is a remix with The Little Ones by Crystal Castles. Crystal castles are on most blogs, but this is reasonable obscure (and is a dope remix NOT from palmsout).  More indie rock and less indie electronic, but it still has video game-esque sounds…

I”ll send a write up shortly….

Crystal Castles vs The Little Ones - Lovers Who Uncover (Crystal Castles Remix)

You know, he never did send me that write up.

Red Hot T-Dot

Thursday, July 3rd, 2008

This weekend is going to be huge for Toronto.

On Friday, those Curb Crawlers bitches are going to be hosting a party at Levack Block with the UK’s Scott Cooper. If their promises and multiple Facebook messages about the event are anything to go by, this is going to be the party of the century.

If it’s not, there is always the free Crystal Castles (we posted about them here) and Thunderheist show on Saturday night at the Harbourfront Center.

Here’s some tracks to get you going:

Crystal Castles - Untrust Us

Download

Thunderheist - Jerk It (Jokers of the Scene Remix)

Download

South Rakkas Crew - Mad Again (Scott Coop Boot)

Download