February 24, 2011
Takashi Miike (b. 1960) is a highly prolific and controversial Japanese filmmaker. He has directed over seventy theatrical, video, and television productions since his debut in 1991. In the years 2001 and 2002 alone, Miike is credited with directing fifteen productions.
His films range from violent and bizarre to dramatic and family-friendly. He gained international fame in 2000 when his romantic horror film Audition (1999) played at international film festivals. He has since gained a strong cult following in the West that is growing with the increase in DVD releases of his works.
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February 24, 2011
Cibo Matto (meaning ‘crazy food’ in Italian) was a New York City-based band formed by two Japanese women, Yuka Honda and Miho Hatori, in 1994. The lyrics in their songs are primarily concerned with food and their sound has been described as a combination of Jazz, Hip-Hop, Brazilian music, African Drumming, and Disco samples. While the two founding members of the group are Japanese expatriates, they are not especially popular in Japan; the group did not gain nearly as large a following in Japan as it did in the United States.
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February 24, 2011
The Go! Team are an English sextet. They combine indie rock and garage rock with a mixture of blaxploitation and Bollywood soundtracks, double dutch chants, old school hip hop and distorted guitars similar to the style of Sonic Youth. Their songs are a mix of live instrumentation and samples from various sources. The band’s vocals vary between performances: while live vocals are handled mostly by Ninja (with Tsuchida and Fukami-Taylor also singing some solos), vocals on record consist of sampled and guest voices, not just Ninja’s.
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February 24, 2011
Miike Snow are a Swedish indie pop band formed in 2007. The band consists of producing team Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg, also known as Bloodshy & Avant. The name ‘Miike Snow’ is said to have come from one of their friends called Mike Snow, with the spelling of ‘Miike’ coming from the Japanese film director Takashi Miike.
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February 24, 2011
Vinyl emulation software allows the user to physically manipulate the playback of digital audio files on a computer using the turntables as an interface. Vinyl emulation normally uses special vinyl records which are played on conventional turntables. The result is digital audio playback that feels like it can be manipulated like a vinyl record.
However, there is always a short delay between the needle’s reading of the time code and the software’s playback of the audio. This delay is usually between 6 and 30 milliseconds. The delay is treated as a figure of merit for vinyl emulation products. A shorter delay allows the DJ to have better response and control of the music. In some countries, including the United Kingdom and Finland, a digital DJ license is required to legally play copyrighted music with vinyl emulation software.
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February 24, 2011
Gadsby: A Story of Over 50,000 Words Without Using the Letter ‘E’ is a 1939 novel by Ernest Vincent Wright. The plot revolves around the dying fictional city of Branton Hills, which is revitalized thanks to the efforts of protagonist John Gadsby and a youth group he organizes. The novel is written as a lipogram: a constrained writing or word game consisting of writing paragraphs or longer works in which a particular letter or group of letters is avoided. Though self-published and little-noticed in its time, the book is a favorite of fans of constrained writing and is a sought-after rarity among some book collectors.
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February 24, 2011
Retroactive continuity (often shortened to retcon) refers to the alteration of previously established facts in a literary work. Retcons may be carried out for a variety of reasons, such as to accommodate sequels or further derivative works in the same series, to reintroduce popular characters, to resolve chronological issues, to reboot a familiar series for modern audiences, or to simplify an excessively complex continuity structure.
Retcons are common in pulp fiction, especially comic books published by long-established houses such as DC, Marvel and leading manga publishers. The long history of popular titles and the plurality of writers who contribute stories can often create situations that demand clarification or revision of exposition. Retcons appear as well in soap operas, serial drama, movie sequels, professional wrestling, video games, radio series, and other kinds of serial fiction.
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February 24, 2011
Green Lantern is the name of several fictional characters, superheroes appearing in comic books published by DC Comics. The first (Alan Scott) was created by writer Bill Finger and artist Martin Nodell in All-American Comics #16 (July 1940). Each Green Lantern possesses a power ring and power lantern that gives the user great control over the physical world as long as the wielder has sufficient willpower and strength to wield it. The power ring can generate a variety of effects, sustained purely by the ring wearer’s imagination and strength of will. The greater the user’s willpower, the more effective the ring.
Stories in 2006 retconned the ring’s long-established ineffectiveness on yellow objects, stating that the ring-wielder need only feel fear, understand it and overcome it in order to affect yellow objects (however, it is a learned and practiced ability, making it a weakness to some Green Lanterns), giving retroactive credence to the explanation of the ring’s real but surmountable weakness to yellow.
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February 24, 2011
The Turnip Prize is a spoof UK award that satirises the Tate Gallery’s Turner Prize by rewarding deliberately bad modern art. It was started mainly as a joke in 1999, but has gained national media attention and inspired other similar prizes. Credit is given for entries that have bad puns as titles, display ‘lack of effort’ and pass the crucial test of ‘is it shit?’; conversely, entries which show ‘too much effort’ or are ‘not shit enough’ are disqualified. The first prize is a turnip nailed to a block of wood.
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February 24, 2011
Ken Butler (b. 1948) is an artist and musician, as well as an experimental musical instrument builder. His Hybrid musical instruments and other artworks explore the interaction and transformation of common and uncommon objects, altered images, sounds and silence. The idea of bricolage, essentially using whatever is ‘at hand,’ is at the center of his art, encompassing a wide range of practice that combines live music, instrument design, performance art, theater, sculpture, installation, photography, film/video, graphic design, drawing, and collage.
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February 24, 2011
Yuri Landman (b. 1973) is a Dutch luthier (someone who makes or repairs stringed instruments) who has made several experimental electric string instruments for a list of artists including Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth, Liars, Jad Fair of Half Japanese and Liam Finn. He has also been active as a comic book creator, musician, and singer.
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February 23, 2011
The Moodswinger is a twelve string electric zither with an additional third bridge designed by Dutch luthier Yuri Landman. The rod which functions as the third bridge divides the strings into two sections to cause an overtone multiphonic sound. In 2006 Landman was contacted by the noise band Liars to make an instrument for them. Although it closely resembles an electric guitar, it is actually a zither, as it has neither frets nor a proper neck. The pickup and electronics are built into the neck instead of in the body like usual electric guitars.
After Liars received their Moodswinger, they started recording their fourth album ‘Liars.’ The song ‘Leather Prowler’ is played with the Moodswinger, in many reviews confused with a piano. In 2008 the Moodswinger II was released as a serial product. Jessie Stein of The Luyas owns a copy. In 2009 Landman created a derivative version of the instrument called the Home Swinger, for workshops at festivals, where participants built their own copy within four hours.
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