January 8, 2013
Anamanaguchi is a chiptune indie rock or ‘chip-punk’ band from New York City that ‘makes loud, fast music with a NES from 1985.’ The band has four members: lead songwriter Peter Berkman, bassist James DeVito, guitarist Ary Warnaar and drummer Luke Silas. Like other chiptune artists, Anamanaguchi creates music using synthesizers. However, unlike most chiptune bands, they use video game hardware from the mid-to-late 1980s: namely an NES and a Game Boy.
Berkman has stated that their music isn’t just based around video game music and that much of it is inspired by ‘[s]imple pop stuff, like Weezer and the Beach Boys.’ The band composed music for the videogame adaptation of the ‘Scott Pilgrim’ graphic novels, ‘Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game.’ In 2010 it was announced that Anamanaguchi would appear in the popular music video game ‘Rock Band’ with the track ‘Airbrushed.’ The band’s song ‘Jetpack Blues, Sunset Hues’ is the current theme to Chris Hardwick’s ‘The Nerdist Podcast.’
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January 8, 2013
The decline effect may occur when scientific claims receive decreasing support over time. The term was first described by parapsychologist Joseph Banks Rhine in the 1930s to describe the disappearing of extrasensory perception (ESP) of psychic experiments conducted by Rhine over the course of study or time. The term was once again used in a 2010 article by Jonah Lehrer published in ‘The New Yorker.’
In his article, Lehrer gives several examples where the decline effect is allegedly showing. In the first example, the development of second generation anti-psychotic drugs, reveals that the first tests had demonstrated a dramatic decrease in the subjects’ psychiatric symptoms. However, after repeating tests this effect declined and in the end it was not possible to document that these drugs had any better effect than the first generation anti-psychotics.
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January 8, 2013
Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72 is a collection of articles covering the 1972 presidential campaign written by Hunter S. Thompson and illustrated by Ralph Steadman. The articles were first serialized in ‘Rolling Stone’ magazine throughout 1972 and later released as a book in early 1973. The book focuses almost exclusively on the Democratic Party’s primaries and the breakdown of the party as it splits between the different candidates.
Of particular focus is the manic maneuvering of the George McGovern campaign during the Miami convention as they sought to ensure the Democratic nomination despite attempts by the Hubert Humphrey campaign and other candidates to block McGovern. Thompson began his coverage of the campaign in December 1971, just as the race toward the primaries was beginning, from a rented apartment in Washington, DC (a situation he compared to ‘living in an armed camp, a condition of constant fear’). Over the next 12 months, in voluminous detail, he covered every aspect of the campaign, from the smallest rally to the raucous conventions.
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January 8, 2013
Robert Ingersoll (1833 – 1899) was a Civil War veteran, American political leader, and orator during the Golden Age of Freethought, noted for his broad range of culture and his defense of agnosticism. He was nicknamed ‘The Great Agnostic.’ He was born in upstate New York.
His father, John, was an abolitionist-leaning Congregationalist preacher, whose radical views forced his family to move frequently. For a time, Rev. Ingersoll filled the pulpit for American revivalist Charles G. Finney while Finney was on a tour of Europe. Upon Finney’s return, Rev. Ingersoll remained for a few months as co-pastor/associate pastor under Finney.
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January 8, 2013
Mottainai is a Japanese term meaning ‘a sense of regret concerning waste when the intrinsic value of an object or resource is not properly utilized.’
The expression can be uttered alone as an exclamation when something useful, such as food or time, is wasted, meaning roughly ‘Oh, what a waste!’ In addition to its primary sense of ‘wasteful,’ the word is also used to mean ‘impious; irreverent’ or ‘more than one deserves.’
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January 8, 2013
The Story of Stuff is a 2007 short polemical animated documentary about the lifecycle of material goods. The documentary is critical of excessive consumerism and promotes sustainability. Filmmaker Annie Leonard wrote and narrated the film, which was funded by Tides Foundation, Funders Workgroup for Sustainable Production and Consumption, Free Range Studios and other foundations.
The video divides up the materials economy into a system composed of extraction, production, distribution, consumption, and disposal. To articulate the problems in the system, Leonard adds people, the government, and corporations. Leonard’s thesis, ‘you cannot run a linear system on a finite planet indefinitely’ is supported throughout the video by statistical data.
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January 8, 2013
Philosophy of futility is a phrase coined by Columbia University marketing professor Paul Nystrom to describe the disposition caused by the monotony of the new industrial age.
Nystrom observed the natural effect of this malaise was seeking gratification found in frivolous things, such as fashionable apparel and goods. This tendency, he theorized, could be used to increase consumption of fashionable goods and services, resulting in a vicious circle of dissatisfaction and the desire for new consumer goods.
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January 8, 2013
Conspicuous consumption refers to monies spent and goods and services acquired to publicly display economic power—either the buyer’s income or the buyer’s accumulated wealth.
Sociologically, to the conspicuous consumer, such a public display of discretionary economic power is a means either of attaining or of maintaining a given social status. Moreover, ‘invidious consumption,’ a more specialized sociological term, denotes the deliberate conspicuous consumption of goods and services intended to provoke the envy of other people, as a means of displaying the buyer’s superior socio-economic status.
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January 8, 2013
Packard Jennings (b. 1970) is an American artist who appropriates pop culture symbols and references to create new meaning using a variety of media including printmaking, sculpture, animation, video, and pamphleteering.
In his early career he modified billboards, a common practice of culture jammers. Jennings’s work often deals with the philosophy of anarchism, how it’s represented in the media, and the representation of a naive utopia primarily through primitivism, not to be confused with anarchism or anarchy.
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