My Head Comes Off. . .

Paula Poundstone is to blame.

In one of her routines she talked about having to babysit, and to entertain the kids told them that her head came off. The (perhaps too) credulous children quizzed her about the manner in which her head came off, etc.

At Disclave one year, this was seized upon. A friend posed the question "Yes, but what does your head do after it comes off?" Various permutations followed, including:

My head comes off and it's full of candy.

A few years later, this was translated into Swedish by another friend as:

Mitt huvud trillar av och det är fullt av godis.

Imagine my shock and surprise when I found this very phrase -- a phrase which I thought for sure had no currency outside a very small circle of friends from college -- in Omniglot.com (look under 'Swedish').

When I read this, my head came off.

When It Came

"When It Came" is a 12 minute drone piece by Dino Pacifici which I heard on (surprise) SomaFM and found on the (Excellent) Drone Download Project Year 1 compilation. At the very end of the piece is a processed vocal sample:

"When the effect came, it was almost unnoticed because it happened to such a small insignificant form of life."

Mildly creepy, absent any other context. A little digging found the source, a film called Phase IV about a takeover by ants -- but not the giant mutant radioactive kind (oh *Them*), regular-sized ants that -- for reasons never really made clear -- start acting in a distinctly un-ant-like way.

"Phase IV" is the only feature film by Saul Bass, otherwise known (or unknown) as a title designer. It was given the MST3K treatment, which I haven't seen, and -- no disrespect to Mike, Joel and the Bots I think I might just prefer to leave it that way. There's something about this film. . .

I literally* flew out the door when I heard it was playing at The Castro Theatre (cue Wurlitzer), and to my delight it's been released on DVD. I don't think I could really do the film justice, so I'll just throw links at the problem and hope that one or more of them will stick and interest you in seeking out this film for yourself:

• Not Coming To A Theater Near You (review)


• Dot Dot #11 (via Google Books)
  With excerpts from screenplay


• SF360 Profile on Saul Bass (director)


• GoofButton ( many stills)

First, the Bees and Wasps. And now the ants. For my next trick, I will turn into a giant centipede.

---

*not literally

The Bees and Wasps of Eternity

I was afraid I'd lost this bit of text forever. It wasn't in any of my digital archives, and the Internet Archive/Wayback Machine failed me -- I remembered it had been on one incarnation of my web pages ages ago.

Then this evening, by an amazing coincidence, I found the hard copy that used to adorn the door of my monk's cell -- er, dorm room -- in graduate school.
Originally emailed to me by my friend Joe, forwarded from another party, presumably the author. (Adddresses and other PI removed below save for Brent for the sake of due attribution). I'll attempt to reproduce it as it appeared on my web page out of an overdeveloped, obsessive sense of nostalgia.

---

Barbarella is a Talking Lava Lamp

This came to me by way of my good friend Joe while I was a gradual student in Physics at XXX. I've left it in its original format. Brent Palmer, if you're out there man, you rule. This poem has stayed with me for years. woobee woobee. ikka ikka.

---

Date: Tue, 8 Jun 93 10:03:09 EDT
From: XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
To: (me)
Subject: thot ya'd like this...

Date: Tue, 8 Jun 1993 13:32:36 -0500
From: 00bcpalmer%BSUVAX1.BITNET@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu
Subject: Barbarella is a Talking Lava Lamp

Wooobeeee Wooobeeee ikka ikka.
I am god of the bees.
Sting me goaheadantryit.
I am f---ing wondergod of the bees
ikka ikka

The *hive* is *big*       *spaciousness*
*spa-*         *cious-*           *ness*

I like the way your lips move when you say that.

*spa-*         *cious-*           *ness*

I am goddess of the wasps
I am landing on the moon on your shoulder

The Seventies are back
*omigod* The Seventies are Back

Look carefully for the sun.

Where am I?
The land of Shadows.
Who are you?

*the* bees *and* wasps of eternity

00bcpalmer@bsuvc.bsu.edu "Brent"
[watch the Gergen and Barney Show!]

Here Come The Planes / Lathe of Smallville

Last night I dreamed myself in a locale that crops up a lot in my dreams; it's an amalgam of a couple of college campuses I've been to -- lots of buildings, some in the woods. This time there'd been some kind of attack or natural disaster; many buildings were damaged and on the verge of collapse. For some reason I was wandering around inside; not with any particular sense of urgency.

Later in the dream I was in a conference room discussing continuity-of-business plans with my co-workers. One of them, referring to the disaster, spouted some pretty noxious conspiracy theories about this attack and 9/11 that I won't reproduce here.

Then I wake this morning to find out someone crashed their plane into the IRS building in Austin, TX apparently (though we're still getting details) as a form of protest.

No, I don't necessarily believe in prescience, but it is kind of interesting (to me, which for my purposes is really all that matters).

On a considerably lighter note, for those of you who watch the (deliciously ridiculous) "Smallville": upon seeing Pam Grier as Checkmate agent (director?) Amanda Waller I quipped to My Associate "what's next? Maxwell Lord?" - And Then. . .

"Save me, would you?"

My Associate and I have a particular love for a scene* in this episode of "The West Wing". Mrs. Bartlett has just given a speech at a Democratic fundraiser and retires to the garden with Amy Gardner (who hilariously interrupts the speech with a bit of physical comedy involving a candle, fire and a water glass). In the garden, the First Lady exhorts Amy to save her when she sees smarmy columnist Alana Moiron on approach to gloat about an op-ed piece chastising her for not supporting Fair Pay legislation. The scene builds to a great verbal bitch slap delivered by Amy. Flash forward, MLP was also in the redux of "Red Dragon" as Molly Graham, wife of FBI agent Will Graham (Ed Norton) who (OMGSPOILER) gets to (well, has to, really) deliver a bitch slap of the decidedly more than verbal variety.

From those two items, this followed pretty much inevitably.





*search in the transcript page for 'Zatz' and you'll find the scene I'm talking about.

Stars of the Lid

Thanks to Rusty at SomaFM's DroneZone (You should listen. You should give them money. Do it now. I'll wait.) as I write I am listening to Stars of the Lid ("Articulate Silences Part 1" from "And Their Refinement of the Decline", Kranky 2007).

You can find out as much or as little about the band as you like for yourself; I won't attempt to summarize them except to say that they are a two guys who produce some really beautiful instrumental music. But I felt compelled to give a shout (As the kids say).

I was lucky enough to catch them when they performed in my city in 2007. It was a day after I'd received some pretty life-changing news, so that concert and therefore that album will probably always be associated in my mind with that time and what was - and I suppose still is - happening. But (As the kids insist on saying) "It's All Good". I did say it was beautiful music, after all, and on this occasion the usual pair were joined by a string trio so it was all the more sublime.

A clip from that tour, though not from that show:

Stars of the Lid from Timothy Boyd on Vimeo.

I first heard SotL on (surprise) SomaFM -- that occasion it was "The Atomium Part 3" from "Avec Laudenum" and it grabbed me enough that I had to hear everything else. SotL also seem have a thing for Twin Peaks (as shown by song titles and samples used). So that's funny too.

And that's all I called about.

Gods and Monsters

I dreamed I was in a large arena with various deities from the world's mythoi.
We were all thrown in together haphazardly through the roof of the Colosseum.
Indra, Poseidon and Gaia were in the middle and told everyone to form a circle
in the order of Sky-Sea-Earth. Then I told all the Earth gods to move one partner to the left and
all the Sea gods to move one to the right. This put me between a guy in Nazi regalia and another in Imperial Japanese circa 1945 uniform.