"This blog is so good it makes me want to dump a whole box of Mr. T cereal all over it then jump up and down laughing maniacally." - Rich Awn

Igmar Bergman's Office

"Write the whole plot on a postcard. We do the rest."  Buster Keaton

"You can sweat out beer and you can sweat out whiskey but you can't sweat out women." Sam Langford

"Dressing, like painting, should have a residual stability, plus punctuation and surprise." Richard Merkin

"If I could say it in words, there'd be no reason to paint." Edward Hopper

She loves me. I can tell that through her screaming. Barrymore & Lombard in 20th Century

"If I ever bore you it will be with a knife." Louise Brooks

"Blondes make the best victims." Alfred Hitchcock

See anything you like? The Lady Eve

"It's not true I had nothing on. I had the radio on." Marilyn Monroe

If an actor asks, "What's my motivation?" I say, "Your salary." Alfred Hitchcock

"A good detective never gets married." Raymond Chandler

OTHER POINTS OF INTEREST

Pull up a chair. Sit down. Smoke a cigar. Enjoy Exit Lines

From Bookhound:

Honey West was a female private eye that invaded the hardboiled detective scene of the 1950s and muscled over some of the big boys. Created by G. G. Fickling (the pseudonym of husband and wife team, Gloria and Forest Fickling), Honey West starred in eleven novels before cashing out in 1971.

The 1950s were the heyday of the paperback novel. Men returning from World War II wanted something to read that was different from the relatively tame pulps they’d read prior to the war. Mickey Spillane was one of the first to offer the edgy kind of entertainment those men (and some women) wanted when he created his two-fisted private eye, Mike Hammer.

Honey West was the feminine version of the time. Before women’s lib, women depended on sexual allure and wiles to get what they were after. Honey oozed sex and wile, and frequently ended up in situations where clothing was not exactly optional, but she ended up underdressed all the same, usually through no fault of her own. She carries a .22 revolver holstered on her garter and is forever reaching up under her skirt/mini-dress to pull it out.

Godard, who was also a fan of American detective fiction, once said, "All you need to make a good movie is a girl and a gun". Whether or not that holds true to books is debatable. Though the American covers got better with time, the Europeans are far more convincing.

Chappaqua is a 1966 cult film written, directed by and starring Conrad Rooks. It is based on Rooks' experiences with drug addiction. It includes cameo appearances by a host of famous names of the 1960s: author William S. Burroughs, guru Swami Satchidananda, beat poets Allen Ginsberg and Moondog, and Ravi Shankar, who co-wrote the score with Philip Glass. Rooks had commissioned jazz artist Ornette Coleman to compose music for the film, but his score, which has become known as the Chappaqua Suite was ultimately not used. Coleman too makes a cameo appearance in the film.

The film briefly depicts its namesake, Chappaqua, New York, a sleepy hamlet in Westchester County, in a few minutes of wintry panoramas. The hamlet is an overt symbol of drug-free, suburban childhood innocence, and is also one of the film's many nods to Native American culture. The northern Westchester area had been heavily inhabited by Native Americans; the word chappaqua itself derives from the Wappinger (a nation of the Algonquin tribe) word for 'laurel swamp'.

 CAST & CREW

Conrad Rooks, Ravi Shankar, Ornette Coleman, The Fugs, Allan Ginsberg, Phillip Glass, William S. Burroughs, Moondog, Jean-Louis Barrault, Guru Swami & More...

THE AMAZING TRAILER
 

Chris Alker has been throwing monthly at Le Poisson Rouge for some time now and he's been digging up some of New York's No Wave and Post Punk legends to help him out. A couple months back he had Sal P of Liquid Liquid on the decks and this month he's giving you Stuart Argabright of the seminal No Wave band, Ike Yard. It should be a good one. He's got quite the bio which you should read below.

Stuart Argabright is a Producer and Director who has been working in music and multimedia in NYC since 1978. Between 1979 -1989 Stuart formed The Futants, Ike Yard, Dominatrix, DCC aka Death Comet Crew, The Voodooists, black rain.

In addition, Stuart has been working in Music Video, and with Artists such as Gretchen Bender, Robert Longo, Bill T Jones, and author William Gibson, including the 1994 "Neuromancer" Audio Book and "Hip Tech High Lit" in 1987 with Judy Nylon and Sean Young. Stuart and Co.'s music appear as soundtracks on movies by Directors Nicholas Roeg, Johnathan Demme and others.

"The Dominatrix Sleeps Tonight" music video (directed by Beth B) appeared in MOMA's

"Music Part 2" show in 2009 and resides in MOMA's permanent Collection.

Stuart and co composer Chuck Hammer recieved Emmy nomination in 2001 for their Sdtk work for NY Times TV's popular Cable TV series "Trauma: Life In The ER" on TLC.

In 2005, Stuart formed new group Dystopians and in 2008 Outpost was formed with Mark C from Live Skull.

Argabright also producing The Rammellzee's "Bi Conicals Of The Rammellzee" Album for the Munich indie Gomma and remixed DFA's LCD SoundSystem ( unreleased) and Tussle (SF) for Troubleman 2006 and is currently preparing to work on a remix with Scott R of SF's early electro group the UNITS, as well as a collaboration with Mirror Mirror for Rving. Int. 2010.

and also now running his new label REC ( Rapid Expansion Corp )

Ike Yard:

Although IKE YARD dissolved by the beginning of 1983, the band reformed as a three piece unit with original members Stuart Argabright, Kenneth Compton, and Michael Diekmann in 2007.

In NYC Spring 1980 Stuart Argabright, founder/drummer/vocalist of the FUTANTS, began sessions with Kenneth Compton on bass/vocals at Kristian Hoffman's rehearsal Studio on the edge of Chinatown. The group was completed when Fred Szymanski (synthesizers/ programming /treatments) and Michael Diekmann (guitar, synthesizer), with their interest in experimental electronic music and techniques, joined in August 1980.

Although NO WAVE as a musical aesthetic had just peaked in NYC before the formation of IKE YARD, the initial influences were more European: British post-punk and Krautrock. Soon after, non-rock genres such as funk, nascent hip-hop, and experimental electronic were evident in the stylistic approach to composition.

IKE YARD began with a lineup that included guitar, synthesizer, bass, drums and percussion. The additional percussion was often ‘found’ scrap metal: brake drums, sheet metal, and other debris from the streets and vacant lots of the Lower East Side. During 1982, with the guitar and finally bass being replaced fully by a four-piece synthesizer set up, IKE YARD’s sound transformed into a music bleached of flesh, reduced to a glistening skeleton – the music of machines haunted by ghosts.

The band’s modular analog synthesizer set up included gear by Korg (MS-20, MS-50, SQ-10, VC-10), Roland (TR-909, TR-606, TR 808, TB-303, MC-202, CSQ-600), Arp (Solus, Axxe), the EMS Synthi-AKS, and the Buchla Modular 112 keyboard controller. IKE YARD's stark soundscapes were engendered through a combination of the unique contributions of the band members and the availability of new music-making instruments and emerging technologies of that time.

In Spring 1981, IKE YARD recorded an EP for Belgium’s Crepuscule records (which was named single of the week in Melody Maker upon its release in November 1981). IKE YARD was the first US group to record for the Manchester UK’s prestigious Factory label; an album “A FACT A SECOND” was released on Factory America in September 1982. The band performed with NEW ORDER at Ukrainian National Home, SECTION 25 at Peppermint Lounge & Maxwell’s, SUICIDE and 13:13 (w/Lydia Lunch) at Chase Park, and with the DEL BZYZENTEENS (w/Jim Jarmusch) at CBGB’s and the Music for Millions festival. In addition, the band played at Danceteria, the Mudd Club, the Pyramid Club and Tier 3.

Dean Ween of the band Ween is an avid fisherman, with his own fishing club Brownie Troop 666.  He also has his own internet fishing TV show that takes him all around New Jersey looking for fish.  Below are two clips. In the first one he's in Trenton looking for stripped bass and drugs. In the second he takes the Butthole Surfers fishing in Manasquan. Below that is my favorite Ween song. I'm hoping he'll eventually take "The Situation" and "Snookie" from Jersey Shore fishing in Seaside Heights.

There was another great fishing show, Fishing With John, in which John Lurie of The Lounge Lizards took his friends, like Jim Jarmusch, Tom Waits, Dennis Hopper, Willem Dafoe & Matt Dillon fishing around the world. Below are the Jim Jarmusch and Tom Waits episodes. Respect the theme song.

If Pamela Courson had a blog. It might have looked like this. Visit Sun in Scorpio.

You Have Been Here Sometime Before is the Los Angeles based blog of David John, a student of interior architecture at UCLA.  His blog is a great source of inspiration for all things design, art, architecture and furniture related.

Jeremy Dean is an artist and designer based in Philadelphia. He designs the hardcore / skate looking fonts you've been looking at above. You might be thinking....hmmmm.... I've seen these before and you have. He worked as the art director for Urban Outfitters, so yeah, if you've been in there, you've seen this look a whole bunch. He also did some work for House Industries - a cool little design boutique I bought these blocks from.

He runs the hardcore blog THE HARDCORE ARCHEOLOGIST and below are some images from that.

Arnold Raving

Then This: