Monthly Archives: July 2009

One Year Later.

Posted by Marco Sparks on

So, on this day in history, about 62 years ago, the US Air Force shot down and captured what was either a weather balloon or some kind of “flying disk” in Roswell, New Mexico.

Perhaps related or not so related, just over a year ago, Benjamin Light mentioned something outlandishly foolish to me. I really thought he was off his meds, no joke. But he had that kind of dangerous, scary clarity that only a nutcase can have. The kind where you don’t turn your back on them, are afraid to look them in the eye, and you pretty much agree with whatever the fuck they say just so you can get out of the room with her genitalia intact. He said to me, “I think I want to start a blog.”

And I – always the level headed one – said, “What? You’re fucking crazy.”

And he said, “No, no, trust me, it’ll be good.”

And then crazy psychotic history was made…

So here we are.

What a long strange trip it’s been, right?

We’ve talked about post peak oil, we’ve talked about Lost (like, a lot), we’ve talked about politics and the news in general. And general weirdness. We’ve talked about being cool with yourself, not so cool with yourself, and how to get laid either way. We’ve barely give you a chance to get a word in edgewise, because we’ve been talking about cats (and more cats), and things that are in bad taste, and the moon.We’ve talked about film, music, and literature at times, and everything in between. Including the stuff that’s just bullshit. We’ve talked about ourselves just a little, both with words and in video, and we’ve even talked to people we love (other than ourselves)(though this site is filthy with onanism, to be sure). Hell, we’ve even talked about talking (but mostly about ourselves, again with the onanism)!

Look at all that talk talk talking. It’s like we’ve found the nexus of the fucking universe and we’re mapping it for you.

Michael Jackson is dead and we’re still alive.

And not to brag too much, but we’ve seen a few faces and we’ve rocked them all!

Sometimes we’ve felt like we’re a bit alien ourselves, or maybe we’re transmitting to you from outer space, but we do it anyway. We do it because, no joke, there is something very seriously wrong with us and we love it.

This Recording already used the blog as a spaceship metaphor that I would love to use here, but rather than appropriate it here, I’m just gonna outright steal it. But rather than a proper spaceship, Counterforce is the fucked up. The weird one. The one that the prisoners took over and started running their own way. Like Spock and Nero and all of those pointy eared fuckers, we’re bursting through your black holes and disrupting your time stream and hopefully reality as well. Hello there, we’re from the future. We’re in your here and now and you’re our living sexy museum and we’re yours. Don’t take us to your leader, because we only care about you.

Not that we haven’t made some mistakes. Sometimes we’ve been really on our games and sometimes… well, really off them. That’s usually on me though, I’m not gonna lie. As blogonauts, we’re still learning out here in space. There’s a few less rings on Saturn because, well, we crashed into them just a little. Same with the Big Dipper. We did something inappropriate with a black hole for the same people climb Everest. Also, we found life on Mars and then accidentally blogged it out of existence. And Halley’s comet won’t make it’s way back to this solar system for a few more years than it was already scheduled to because we saw it, liked it’s style, were in kind of a naughty bad place, and now, long story short, it won’t look our way, won’t return our phone calls, and wants to take a break with the Earth. Our bad, kids.

That said, we’re still here, and even though we’re sometimes the blogging equivalent of the chaos cloud that will someday end all life on Earth, we’re also hopefully going to only get better. Help us? Tell us what you think. Tell us how much we rock, or how hard we suck. Tell us what you want to see and maybe, just maybe, we won’t poke your eyes out.

We’ve been proud so far that with us, you’ve gotten basically 6+ different blogs, some that overlap, and some that are drastically different. We’ve enjoyed it and hope you have too. My co-bloggers all wanted to be more involved in our very special 1 year birthday here, but most were busy with jobs and living sexy lives of danger and adventure. Benjamin Light has been off the grid and we eagerly await his return, and his shocked disgust at how I’ve trainwrecked this beast in his absence. And Occam’s probably not speaking to me since he realized that I stole some CDs from his house during a Lost party. And Lollipop especially wanted to remind you of how much greater the blog has gotten since she first commented and then joined us (and she’s more right than she’s wrong about that) and August Bravo wants to let you know that he’s giving up Heroes due to relentless scrutiny. Bravo, August Bravo.

This is where I wrap it up. If it was just me closing this up, I’d say something like: We’ll see you out there, space cowboys and cowgirls. But instead I found someone to put it even better than I can…

And now a special word from the desk of Peanut St. Cosmo:

hello readers! funny to think we’ve been in existence on this “series of tubes” for a year now! it feels kinda like the first rocky year of a marriage and if you make it, you figure you’ve got about six more years before the itch comes on and you’re both fucking the pool boy/baby sitter and filing for divorce. you get the idea, i give us six more years until you call it quits on us, but you’ll never find a better lay! i promise you, i’m the best you ever had!!!

but in all seriousness, i do appreciate the two of you who like my infrequent posts. thanks for stopping by :)

The Unhappy Art.

Posted by Marco Sparks on

Andrei Tarkovsky on the cinema:

His Solaris, the second one (there’s been three adaptations), based on the novel by Stanislaw Lem, is very interesting, though I won’t lie, I prefer the Steven Soderbergh remake starring George Clooney. You download and read Arkady and Boris Strugatsky’s Roadside Picnic, the novel that Tarkovsky’s classic film Stalker is based on here. Someday they’ll put out a decent release of Stalker and I’ll be very, very happy.

The dark side comes in any colour you like.

Posted by Marco Sparks on

I’m fascinated by human perception, especially of art, as the human eye takes two separate things and combines them, giving them new special meaning. Sometimes it’s on purpose, a mashup, like adbusting or The Grey Album, but sometimes it’s not, like the accidental synchronicity of combining The Wizard Of Oz with Pink Floyd’s classic The Dark Side Of The Moon.

I love the idea that human beings live somewhere in the meaty subspace between synchronicity and apophenia.

But the question of just what’s going on as you play the Pink Floyd album along with the film and the way things line up eerily has been around since the 90s, with hundreds of examples of odd connections noted by people. At one point, Turner Classic Movies, which owns the broadcast rights to the film, even aired Wizard Of Oz with Dark Side as the alternate soundtrack.

Engineer Alan Parsons mixing the album in great big quadrophonic sound.

“It was an American radio guy who pointed it out to me. It’s such a non-starter, a complete load of eyewash. I tried it for the first time about two years ago. One of my fiancee’s kids had a copy of the video, and I thought I had see what it was all about. I was very disappointed. The only thing I noticed was that the line “balanced on the biggest wave” came up when Dorothy was kind of tightrope walking along a fence. One of the things any audio professional will tell you is that the scope for the drift between the video and the record is enormous; it could be anything up to twenty seconds by the time the record’s finished. And anyway, if you play any record with the sound turned down on the TV, you will find things that work.”

-Alan Parsons, the engineer on Dark Side, about the supposed synchronicity.

No matter the coincidence versus the intent, I like the way our brains work, either looking for or creating connections in things, giving added contextual meaning, trying to make the universe more special to us. Sometimes it goes horribly wrong, but sometimes we do find things, little bits of weird magic to call our own. And let’s face it, this bit of film/music weird is so much more cheery than the urban legend about the munchkin hanging himself in the background of The Wizard Of Oz, right?

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to see the Wizard – the wonderful Wizard – on the dark side of the moon…

“Sex alleviates tension. Love causes it.”

Posted by Marco Sparks on

“I feel sex is a beautiful thing between two people. Between five, it’s fantastic.”

-Woody Allen

If you haven’t noticed already, This Recording is doing their Woody Allen week this past week, and I was lucky enough to have a small entry in it, reviewing one of my favorite of the films in the Allen catalog, Manhattan Murder Mystery. If you haven’t yet, then la dee da, please give it a read?

I especially want to thank Alex at This Recording for letting me write for them and risking the quality of his site on me :) Now if I can just talk them into letting me do it again…

And, for the record, Diane Keaton is quite possibly my dream woman. No joke.

I’m glad she survived her recent injury, now categorized as just a bump on the head.

I really like this song, “Fall From A Height,” by the Honeydrips, which samples Annie Hall in what has to be an interesting way by it’s very nature:

“The Whores Of Mensa,” a short story by Woody Allen.

Woody Allen on The Magus.

The lovely Julie Klausner on Hannah and Her Sisters.

“Even as a kid I always went for the wrong women. When we went to see Snow White, everyone fell in love with Snow White and I immediately fell for the Wicked Queen.”

-Woody Allen


Plato’s Cave vs. The Holodeck.

Posted by Marco Sparks on

So I mentioned my desire to see it, and waited for a while for it to find it’s way onto Hulu, and when it did, I finally got around to watching Virtuality, the backdoor pilot/TV movie from Ronald D. Moore, of Battlestar Galactica fame, and Michael Taylor.

Actually, let me put it this way: In the week since it’s made it’s way onto Hulu, I’ve now watched it three times. Well, three and a half (it’s on in the background as I type this). The first time was because I was a curious sci fi dork. The second time because I wanted to write this very review for you lovely people. And the third time, because I was a fan.

The plot, as short and succinct as I can: Set roughly 30 or so years in the future, we find 12 astronauts are 6 months into a ten year mission (five years there, five years back) aboard the space vessel Phaeton to the nearest star to Earth, Epsilon Eridani, in the hopes of finding intelligent life or the possibly of planets that can sustain human life there.

But space travel is not cheap, and to help alleviate the costs, the astronauts are filmed every single moment and the footage is packaged as a reality show entitled “Edge Of Never” back home for viewers to follow the drama of confinement in space for years on end. There’s even confessionals, true reality show style. On top of that, there’s different corporate sponsors, which dictates which logo the crew wears on different days. Big Brother in space! Only, you can’t be voted off (seemingly).And on top of that, and adding a little extra flair to the title, the ship is equipped with virtual reality modules, meant originally as a means to keep well trained, but the system is so advanced that the astronauts can basically enter any environment they want and play out any scenario. Think: the holodeck of the mind.

But there’s some problems. For starters, the crew is coming up on the Go/No Go decision, where they’ll have to decide to continue on with their mission towards Epsilon Eridani (of which there’ll be no turning back) or to slingshot their way back to Earth. It’s complicated because since they left it’s been discovered that the environmental problems the Earth is facing have gotten even more serious and scientists have determined that the planet will be uninhabitable within 100 years. This mission could very well mean the survival of the human race. Talk about an inconvenient truth.

One nice touch: The make up of the crew. If you think about it, a reality show about actual astronauts in space would be cool, and of course it’d be marketed to ratchet up the petty drama. There’s a few couples within the crew, including a gay couple and an interracial couple, which makes a lot of sense both in an international space mission and a reality show.

Another nice touch: One of the characters is having an affair with another person within the virtual reality modules. The man doesn’t consider it an affair since it’s not “real,” that it’s just a “fantasy,” but the woman playfully suggests, “Then you wouldn’t mind telling my husband, would you?”

Ah, but I did say holodeck, right? As with every holodeck story, there’s something wrong with the virtual reality system. There appears to be a man in the VR world, omnipotent and malicious, who’s job it seems to be is to terrify the crew trying to relax in their virtual fantasies. He breaks into a few of their simulations and “kills” them (if you die in the VR world, you don’t die in real life, but it’s not a pleasurable experience to wake up from), but to one character he commits a violent sexual assault.

The assault leads to a fascinating scene as the crew discusses whether or not to shut down the VR modules to get to the bottom of the glitch. The drama in the scene comes from the fundamental misunderstanding of rape (and of a selfishness and non-desire to lose their fantasy escape): if it happened in the world of virtual reality, it’s not real, right? But isn’t all rape really rape of the mind?

Here’s the most shocking thing I can say about the pilot: It was directed by Peter Berg and it’s actually really good. Granted, it’s pretty much all script and strong performances from the cast, but still, Berg does a surprisingly competent job (but we still hate him here at Counterforce). The VR scenes were apparently all shot in blue screen to add to the slightly off feel of them and apparently portions of the pilot were improvised (I’m assuming the stuff with the characters in their various confessional moments).

The purpose of any good pilot is to get you excited about further adventures within a show, to suggest various plotlines, and leave you hungry for more. This two hour episode certainly did that for me. I’d watch the hell out of this show. God forbid the hoi polloi is allowed to chance to watch smart television that can provoke thought and passionate interest within it. It’s not too shocking to reveal that of course the characters decide to “go” on Go/No Go, but after they’ve gone past the point of turning back (and I forgot to mention that one of the characters also is diagnosed with a deadly serious disease), someone is killed. Added to all the other excellent elements this show is balancing: a murder mystery. But, of course, not everything is as it seems…

As of right now, FOX hasn’t picked up the show for series production, which isn’t all that shocking knowing FOX’s almost date rape-esque history with science fiction programming. The fact that it not only aired a full season (well, mostly) of Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse, let alone picked it up for a second season, is still mind blowing. Of course, Dollhouse has to be radically cheaper than this show would be, and will apparently be coming back with an even lower budget for it’s second season.

Remember Danny Boyle’s Sunshine? Remember how good you wanted it to be? Then remember how bad it actually was in comparison? Yeah, I do. But man, it had some lovely visuals. But this show has lovely everything else, but in an interesting sci fi curio kind of way just brimming with hyperreality. And it doesn’t get tripped up where other previous ventures into virtual reality like Virtuosity or VR-5 got lost.

Even Clea DuVall, whom I can never stand, is good at what she does here. And the actress who plays the computer expert/reality show host looks just like she could be Leighton Meester’s big sister. And her fantasy of being a Japanese rock star/Alias-type super spy is just excellent.

Also, it’s nice to see the lovely Sienna Guillory get a nice role to play, and to see her freed from Paul W.S. Anderson type bullshit. Come on, people, she was Helen of Troy after all!

Anyway, from the face that launched a thousand ships to sinking ships… in space, I give this show my full endorsement. I hope it sticks around on Hulu for a while. I hope it gets picked up for a series. I hope that they at least have to sense to eventually release it on DVD at some point before mankind leaves this solar system behind.

Fireworks and the Full Court Press.

Posted by Marco Sparks on

To recap: Republican Governors are having affairs (which is hardly new or news, really)(and I love the word “dalliances,” because it sounds like “alliance,” but, you know, means sex) and Franken won his Senate seat. Again. Eight months after he won it the first time. And also…

Wow, so Sarah Palin announced her upcoming resignation as Governor of Alaska yesterday… Didn’t see that coming. I mean, I’m not that upset, but as far as “making room” for a run in 2012 goes, this seems like a pretty useless move. But this sudden quitting of her post just feels rush and oh so mysterious, right?

It didn’t work for Romney, right? It didn’t work Bob Dole way back when, or Edwards. Running for President as the Governor of Alaska is one thing, but as the former Governor? Congrats. That may be the one thing that actually means less than being the Governor of Alaska. Plus, it kind of seems like her party has moved onto an even more cartoon version of itself than she can muster, but even still, this resignation most likely doesn’t mean that she plans on going away.

Also, it was nice to see all 8 of the residents of Alaska turned out for the speech.

Also, I’m not much of a sports guy, but I think I tend to get most of the bad sports metaphors people want to use when they’re talking, but beyond the “full court press” meanderings, I think I spent half of her speech wondering what the hell she was talking about. She seemed incredibly nervous and razzled. She seemed like she was on a few pills.

I’d be curious to see what the take of the people who actually honestly support further political endeavors from Palin think of all of this. She’d probably be better off getting a show on FOX, right? The more and more I’m exposed to her, the more and more I can’t stand her, but I’d still take her over Glenn Beck any day of the week. Seriously. Also, for the people who claimed that they’d boycott CBS until Letterman was fired, do they no longer watch bullshit like CSI and whatever the fuck else CBS airs? What else does CBS air?

I really don’t miss the election 2008 bullshit at all. Though we did have some fun back then, didn’t we? Anway, go have yourself a great 4th of July, everybody, and here’s to hoping you make some nice fireworks of your own…

Post Blog.

Posted by Marco Sparks on

A writer lives to see his words in print, they told us when we were young.

Then we hear that print is dead. Newspapers are dying. Books are supposed to follow along shortly after, and things like the Kindle – while still seeming like gateway technology – are threatened to be the future.

Many would make the argument that the book will never die. The tactile sensation alone will keep it alive for us. The feel, the smell, the taste, the creation of memory from all of those senses… I’m not going to argue that because the idea of holding an actual book in my hands will always be me, and what I do, but…

I’d rather do a bit of bargaining in this season of death: If I were to fully embrace electronic reading – a kindle, or a handheld whatever the fuck that comes down the line  – then here’s what I want: A jet pack, a hover car, and a holodeck. In short, the future. Give me that and I’ll laze about reading my shit on a datapad, all Star Trek-esque.

The blog is the new thing, the thing that’s sticking around, they tell us.

But bloggers are universally looked down upon, by myself included. A couple of jackasses with too much money and too many stupid opinions – worst episode evar! – and given too much exposure by the unwashed retard masses. Crowdsourcing gone wild, those unwashed retard masses weaponized and turned upon the very public that created them.

Simple example: Perez Hilton.

And yet, not all bloggers are bad. The ones that transcend their simple or maybe not so simple beginnings and become the real deal. Some can write extremely well, or, even better, some think extremely well, and in the best possible way: Critically. When the going gets weird, as Hunter Thompson said, the weird turn pro. The best blogs to me aren’t the ones talking about “Why can’t my ex see that I’m a person here dammit and take me back and love me and dump the other guy because I want to cut his head off and do some weird Conan shit there and win her over and conquer an army for her love” or whatever, but become a real website, a real thing.

Hyperlinked hyperreality.

Clearly, this is just me rambling. These thoughts are just half formed. Ask me about any of this tomorrow and I may have a different take on it altogether. I contain multitudes.

Also, put simply: I don’t know what the future of journalism is. I don’t want know the future of the internet, of online writing, or the way that human beings connect and rub up against each other, be in online or in the real world, is. And I’m not qualified enough to even venture a guess.

But every once in a while I’m smart/dumb/brave/cowardly enough to not let that stop me.

Every day it seems that I’m reading about more and more blogs that are getting gifted with book deals, dropping onto them like manna from Heaven. Print is dead and we’re turning blogs into books. A small sampling:

Stuff White People Like.

Stuff Black People Hate, I think?

This Is Why You’re Fat.

BLDGBLOG.

FML.

Look At This Fucking Hipster will soon be a book. (A shame, since I’d like to have seen Look At This Hipster Fucking beat it to print, but oh well.

Garfield Minus Garfield.

Texts From Last Night.

Postcards From Yo Momma.

Twitter Wit.

Fancy Fast Food.

Even Boner Party have been threatening to shit out a book version of themselves, which is scary, especially when denying claims of sexism and objectification.

GIF Party. I’m just joking about that, a joke that several others have made before me, but dammit, I believe in you, GIF Party! But I’d also love to see Fan Secrets, Fantasy Art, and Text Messes get more recognition too, if you sense a common theme there.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, these blogs bursting out of their electronic cocoons into the real world. That’s not what I’m trying to say. Some of these are really interesting and funny and nice distracting blogs. They’ll make cute little books and lovely gifts for friends and house warmings for people you work with. And some of them will be just plain good and interesting and I’m rooting for them.

But, let’s not forget that we live and breathe in a world where a nine year old boy wrote a book on relationships and Lauren Conrad has a three book deal. The saddest part? People are going to buy the shit out of both of those properties. Also don’t forget that Pitchfork even has a book out there and as much as we all like/don’t like (at times), they’re essentially just a blog.

I respect the people who write for free. “The real people?” Maybe. But there’s plenty of people out there who are real and paid to be as awesome as they are. And they probably deserve more money, definitely. But that’s why I respect the people who do their song and dance online for free, for the pure thrill and craft of it. But maybe they’re not weird enough, and haven’t turned pro enough. Maybe their moment in the spotlight is right around the corner. Maybe they can afford to do it while they live off an advance on a book deal.

I mean, hell, give Counterforce a book deal and we will bend over backwards to give you the sexiest, weirdest, most amazing little trinket of a book you’ve ever seen. All the blogs listed above have a very specific and hardened niche and so do we: being awesome. The book would be so good you’d have an orgasm from it. You’d lose weight reading it, food will taste better after it comes into your life, and the next day, I don’t want to spoil too much, but you’ll probably get a raise at your job.

But that’s just a given, right? Not speaking for the rest of my cohorts here, but would I like to go on to a different kind of success based on Counterforce? Fuck yeah. Offer me a job. I’m yours. I’m a wreck with a keyboard, but hey, I’m cheap and easy.

A dorky interlude: In my perfect fantasy world, a Counterforce book would be much like the Primer from Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age.

Of course, we don’t have the weird niche that some of those above listed blogs/books have. Or do we?

But this blog – to me, at least – started from a slightly more pure beginning. I think originally we were against something. Something undefined out there in the world, especially in the world wild web. We saw something, Benjamin Light and myself, and we were against it. Maybe it was a way of thinking, a way the world works, I don’t know, and I really don’t because obviously I’m just talking out my gorgeous ass here. But we saw something and we thought, Hey, we could do that, but more than that, we thought, Perhaps we could do that better.

I think originally we were counter to something, and slowly, very slowly, I’ve started to feel that I’m for something. Maybe not the same old thing, or perhaps a new way at looking at the same old thing. Internal or external, I don’t know. I’m very proud of this blog, some times more so than others, and I love where it’s been, I kinda like where it is, and I’m very excited about wherever it goes.

Which is really my way of saying that I’m happy to be doing this fucking thing with the people I do it with. I just hope they’ve been having a little bit of fun along the way. And I especially say this as I spy that the one year anniversary of this beast is approaching. It seems just like yesterday and it seems like it’s been years.

If you have any worries about print dying, then Dave Eggers would personally like to tell you to “buck up!”

Turn your blog into a printable zine or book!

Also, it’s NaNoWriMo month, or National Blog Posting Month. Wow, a whole month!

Anyway. Enough of this semi pomo blog post. I don’t know what’s modern anymore, let alone postmodern, let alone postpostmodern. And I especially don’t know what’s postblog.

Attract females and growl threateningly to ward off rivals.

Posted by Marco Sparks on

Researchers suggested that homosexuality in men may be an evolutionary advantage if it is caused by a set of “feminizing” genes and if men who carry sub-critical numbers of these genes are rendered more sensitive and therefore less likely to kill their own offspring. Gays and lesbians were found to have the most masculine and feminine voices among men and women, respectively, and people with sexy voices were found to have more symmetrical, attractive features. Biologists dated the emergence of vocal sounds to 400 million years ago by studying the gruntings of male toadfish and midshipmanfish, both of which hum deeply to attract females and growl threateningly to ward off rivals. Scientists discovered a sexually deceptive orchid so convincing that male wasps will mate with it to the point of ejaculation. Because unfertilized female wasps can produce sons but not daughters, the orchids on which the wasps waste their sperm will eventually create a larger population of male wasps to pollinate them. It was determined that male bees prefer sex with Ophrys orchids to sex with female bees, that straight men with attractive partners have more sex not because the partners are attractive but to discourage infidelity, and that men who are deceitful, narcissistic thrill-seekers also have more sex.

An Australian zoologist revealed that applying estrogen to the penis induces the skin’s proteins to thicken, thereby creating a barrier against HIV infection, and 90 percent of Africans were found to carry a gene variation that evolved to protect them from malaria but that increases their chances of being infected with HIV; the gene also prolongs their life expectancy if they contract the virus. Scientists discovered that watermelon rinds possess a Viagra-like chemical and were hoping to breed a race of aphrodisiac super-melons wherein the flesh, too, will possess the chemical. Brazilian researchers may have created human sperm cells by injecting pulp from the teeth of human babies into the testicles of mice, and sensory analysts created the perfect cheese sandwich. Computers are now better than people at air hockey.

The passages above are from the “Findings” section of in the September 2008 issue of Harper’s and were written by Rafil Kroll-Zaidi. The pictures are from one of my favorite new sites, Something Intellectual.

And for more Harper’s goodness, I highly recommend to you one of my favorite articles from the magazine, about magical penis thieves.

The lunatic is on the grass.

Posted by Marco Sparks on

More soon.