Morphine syrup, asthma cigarettes and cocaine toothache drops. // Red wine powder. // Milky vodka. // Moscow Cat Theatre. (h/t, Coudal) // Search Flickr by colour. // Sixty Symbols. // Geometric sculptures. // The bulbdial clock. // Apocalypse porn. // Mars, seen from orbit. // Robots of yore. // Deco-Gundam fights crime, looks fabulous. // Synaesthesia. // On maths and jellyfish. // Plotline similarities. // The politics of intelligence. // And, via The Thin Man, it’s Ms Liz Brady.

A Boy and his Tuba is a series of improbable cover versions. As the name suggests, all parts of each song are performed with a tuba, with assorted loops, grunts and distortions manipulated live. Here’s New Order’s Blue Monday. Stay with it, it may surprise you.

Hardware enthusiasts may want to watch this behind-the-scenes clip, which explains the mysteries of envelope filters and the importance of gaffer tape.

Via Coudal. 

Poking about in the archives, I unearthed the second episode of Vanessa Engle’s excellent documentary series, Lefties. Titled Angry Wimmin, the film traces the rise of radical feminism in a grim Britain of the 1970s. As a record of social history it’s interesting stuff. The revolutionary politics of shoes, for instance, is quaintly entertaining, and the subsequent, post-revolutionary fear of being caught shaving armpits or wearing lipstick may also amuse.

Around 6 minutes in, there’s a section on “political lesbianism,” i.e. lesbianism as an ideological duty, irrespective of desire. One of the figures interviewed is Julie Bindel, a Guardian commentator whose subtleties of mind include a belief that “[get] men off the streets” is “a fabulous slogan” and “all women know that if we have not been raped, we are lucky.” In the first clip below, Ms Bindel airs the following reminiscence:

What’s striking is Bindel’s adamance. It’s not even open to debate. This, presumably, is how she still sees the world. Sexuality simply is a social construct – it’s a fact – and all human beings can reconfigure their desires in accord with ideology. Though the basis for this claim remains somewhat mysterious. Former activist Lisa Power recalls her own, rather different, experience of sexuality by decree:

Here’s part 1:

Watch Angry Wimmin Part One in News  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Further to this post on the alleged political subtexts of zombie films, it seems the debate refuses to die.

In The American Prospect, Paul Waldman argues:

[A]t heart, the genre is a progressive one. It’s true that fighting off the zombie horde requires plentiful firearms, no doubt pleasing Second Amendment advocates. And in a zombie movie, government tends to be either ineffectual or completely absent. On the other hand, when the zombie apocalypse comes, capitalism breaks down, too – people aren’t going to be exchanging money for goods and services; they’re just going to break into the hardware store and grab what they need…

But most important, what ensures survival in a zombie story are the progressive ideals of common cause and collective action. A small group of people from varying backgrounds are thrust together and find that they can transcend their differences of age, race, and gender (the typical band of survivors is a veritable United Nations of cultural diversity). They come to understand that if they’re going to get out of this with their brains kept securely housed in their skulls and not travelling down some zombie’s gullet, they’ve got to act as though they’re all in it together. Surviving the tide of zombies requires community and mutual responsibility. What could be more progressive than that?

Over at Ace, Mætenloch takes a different view:

Despite that local spot of bother, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad still finds time to share his thoughts on more elevated matters. Press TV, the state-sponsored purveyor of “24/7 truth,” quotes approvingly:

In the democracy of the West, the exalted values and the people are ignored, [whereas] the aspiration and origins of the Islamic Revolution are different from those of other revolutions. Because, in the Islamic Republic that rose from the revolution, the object is the realization of Divine aspirations and the commands of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), and, consequently, the perfection of humanity.

Those with the stomach for it can witness the ongoing perfecting of humanity here, here and here. Apparently, the process is more stick than carrot.