Tag Archives: John Lennon

Yes/No/As Above/So Be Low.

Posted by Marco Sparks on

Seeing the invisible.

Space shuttle docked at Space Station looks like a tattoo on the sun.

The ghost cinema of Norwich.

What else is on during Shark Week?

Can Pluto become a planet again?

As above, so below. As within, s0 without.

The mystery of 10:10.

Charles Manson wants to work with Phil Spector.

The three biggest reasons music magazines are dying.

Chemtrails and weather warfare.

When is it okay for kids to run around naked?

from here.

Canadian doughnut chain enters NYC donut wars.

The “Wide-open” future of journalism, according to Ira Glass.

Genes, memes, and the third replicator.

Greatest headline ever: Call for debate on Killer Robots.

A challenge to the comet extinction theory.

We should build a wall to stop the spread of deserts, and also that giant fucking sandworms from Dune.

Hanzo The Razor: “The Snare” and “Sword Of Justice.”

PLAYBOY: Let’s start at the beginning. Tell us the story of how the wondrous mystic prince and the exotic Oriental dragon lady met.

LENNON: It was in 1966 in England. I’d been told about this “event” — this Japanese avant-garde artist coming from America. I was looking around the gallery and I saw this ladder and climbed up and got a look in this spyglass on the top of the ladder — you feel like a fool — and it just said, Yes. Now, at the time, all the avant-garde was smash the piano with a hammer and break the sculpture and anti-, anti-, anti-, anti-, anti. It was all boring negative crap, you know. And just that Yes made me stay in a gallery full of apples and nails. There was a sign that said, Hammer A Nail In, so I said, “Can I hammer a nail in?” But Yoko said no, because the show wasn’t opening until the next day. But the owner came up and whispered to her, “Let him hammer a nail in. You know, he’s a millionaire. He might buy it.” And so there was this little conference, and finally she said, “OK, you can hammer a nail in for five shillings.” So smartass says, “Well, I’ll give you an imaginary five shillings and hammer an imaginary nail in.” And that’s when we really met. That’s when we locked eyes and she got it and I got it and, as they say in all the interviews we do, the rest is history.

PLAYBOY: What happened next?

Good question, from here.

from here.

Women are getting more beautiful. The men? Not so much.

A real heart of darkness.

“Owner Of A Lonely Heart.”

“No No No.”

Hobos, robots, Mark Twain, jungle princesses, and Michael Kupperman.

Here come the men in black.

Fucking, Austria.

It’s not a fucking joke.

And sex laws.

Were wars and plagues the key to Europe’s dominance?

Three held for “sacrifice” of a girl.

Handerpants.

Sacramentan buys old 45s, finds out they belonged to his mom.

Emails from the dead.

You are here.

from here.

Yes and no.

Cartoon lovers.

Rorschach cheat sheet? Hint: It’s not all vaginas.

Raymond Carver and “cutting everything down to the marrow, not just to the bone.”

The Repulsion of Roman Polanski.

The Inherent Vice of Thomas Pynchon.

Pynchon’s guide to LA.

A Serious Man and The Big Lebowski.

In The Aeroplane Over The Sea on ukulele.

Do Something Real.

We’ll slide down the surface of things…

The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.

Posted by Marco Sparks on

Some facts about our friendly little satellite up there:

It’s the belief of science that the moon was created via something called the Big Whack, which sounds like a mafia-themed porno. The gist of it: About 4.6 billion years, not long after our solar system was born, an object the size of Mars probably hit the Earth and large chunks of it split off from the rest of the planet. Some of those chunks mixed with other space junk and started to coalesce into a smaller, larger body, and when cooled, was formed together in the shape of our lovely moon.

The Crescent Earth, from here and here.

That lovely shape, by the way, is not round. It’s more egg-ish. When looking up at the moon, you’re seeing one of the ends pointing at you. That’s what the moonface is. Just like Earth, the moon gets fatter in it’s middle.

“One of these days… POW! Right to the MOON!”

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) launched on June 18 to begin mapping the surface of the moon from orbit with a never been seen clarity of detail. The technology is so fucking good now that it’ll be taking gorgeous pictures of the tracks left in the moon by lunar rovers, and even imaging the Apollo equipment left behind up there. Oh, in case I didn’t mention it, the LRO is a robot, part of the Lunar Precursor Robotic Program. What a lovely sci fi type of name.

And then in a few months time, we’ll have the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), which is part of the LPRP, and is intended to crash into Shackleton Crater, on the moon’s south pole. The purpose of that is to kick up dust that’s just been sitting there dormant for something in the neighborhood of 2 billion years and study it. Then, shortly after, they’ll crash another probe into a different spot on the moon and study that.

The above is one of my absolute favorite images of comic art ever. It’s by the wonderfully talent and incredibly tragic Wally Wood. No matter how many accolades he got, for me, it was never enough.

There is actually no dark side of the moon. Well, there will always be The Dark Side of The Moon, cause that’s just a classic, wonderful album, but as far as the actual moon goes: No dark side. There’s the side we can see, and the other side, the far side, which is usually illuminated by the sun. We can’t see it though and we tend to think that things are only lit up by us, but no, it’s there.

But there is more than one of The Far Side out there:

Under the category of things everyone knows: gravity is a lot less on the moon.

The moon is about 27% the size of the Earth and it’s gravity is about 1/6 of ours. If you weigh 300 pounds here on your home planet, you’ll only weigh about 50 up there. Nice, right?

from here.

A slight digression from the moon to… Rockets! For a lot of people, celebrating things like Apollo 11 isn’t so much about going to the moon and back, but about rockets. Seriously, just take a google image search at hits for “rocket porn.” Fun stuff.

Dr. Wernher von Braun in his office, from here and here.

And I should add to that digression, one of the fathers of the space going rocket: Werner von Braun.  Just look at his office up above. How cool is that? von Braun has always fascinated me, not just because he helped make being a rocket scientist look cool, but his background is still so interesting and full of intrigued. He was one of the many scientists snatched away from the Nazis at the end of World War II and was a prominent name on the Osenberg list and in Operation Paperclip. And thanks to him, we escaped Earth’s gravity and finally went to space and to the moon.

Speaking of which…

from here.

There’s moonquakes! The Apollo 11 and following missions left some seismographic equipment on the moon that monitored until the 70s when it was shut off, but showed that the moon does do a little shake, rattling, and rolling. Good thing to keep in mind for when we start building moon bases.

As things tend to always go in my life, the moon is leaving us. But slowly. It drifts away from the Earth about 3.8 cm a year.

from here.

The drift into space is actually caused by the Earth’s tides, which the moon itself regulates. High tides, spring tides, I’m not going to pretend to fully understand all of it, nor be able to explain it properly, but here’s how it works. And the moon does steal a bit of our rotational energy, slowly the spinning of the Earth down about a milisecond every year. Story of my life.

At some point, we’re going to go back to the moon (and mind you, we haven’t been back there since the 70s, so it could have reverted back to being made of cheese!), but in a big way, possibly setting up the aforementioned moonbases and having astronauts living up there for months at a time. It’s a notion that gets a lot of criticism since it would be beyond extremely costly and we’re living in harsh economic times, but on the other hand, we seem to have gently drifted into the beginnings of another space race with the Russians and the Chinese. And everyone wants to knock the moon notch off their belts once more before heading to Mars.

Mars would be cool, to sound like a geeky little kid (which, honestly, is what I really, really am). But Luna? I still love ya. And not just because you gave us the setting for this excellent book:

And RIP Walter Cronkite, the most trusted man in America:

Mad Moon Linkage:

NASA lost the moon landing footage, but Hollywood can restore it.

Who owns the moon?

Space law is kind of fascinating (to me, anyway).

Is the Apollo 11 moon landing flag still standing?

How the Earth, the moon, and the sun work together.

Pick your favorite moon god or lunar deity.

Maria on the moon.

Walking On The Moon.

Strange things to do happen at each Full Moon.

List of artificial objects on the moon.

Don’t forget: Snoopy went to the moon too.

Sacrifices in the pyramid of the moon.

Well, we all shine on! Like the moon, the stars, and the sun…

Nobody wants flowers when they’re dead.

Posted by Marco Sparks on

“What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn’t happen much, though.”

-from chapter 3 of Catcher In The Rye.

I’ll resume howling at the moon tomorrow probably, but today I just wanted to share a chuckle with you not only that someone is attempting a “sequel” to J. D. Salinger’s Catcher In The Rye, but that Salinger himself is coming out of his intense decades long seclusion to try and fight it.

Here’s the description of the sequel from Gawker:

60 Years Later, by a mysterious guy living in Sweden (!) named John David California, imagines Holden Caufield as a 76-year-old escapee from a retirement home wandering the streets of New York City. Salinger’s lawyers argue that “the sequel is not a parody and it does not comment upon or criticise the original. It is a ripoff pure and simple.”

Wow. That sounds like a very special kind of bad. Way to go, John David California. Also, your nom de plume is a bad “homage” to Jerome David, but also sounds like the lamest porn name ever. But it leaves me amazed, thinking about it, that someone hasn’t crossed that uncrossable line and bastardized a movie version of the classic book. I guess I’m pleased that some things are still sacred?

All I want for Christmas is your two front teeth.

Posted by Marco Sparks on

You think I’m joking, don’t you?

Most likely… I’m not.

NORAD Tracks Santa. You know, they’ll probably think he’s a terrorist and shoot him down or something. Maybe that’s just what I’m hoping for. Maybe.

Robot Christmas!

I am Saint Nick!

Do I Wish You A Merry Christmas?

A very special episode of Alf, “Alf’s Special Christmas.”

Anti-Christmas movies.

This is totally where my head is at now:

from here.

The Robot Chicken Christmas special.

Aimee Mann’s Christmas Carol.

Christmas music videos you totally need right now:

Wham! “Last Christmas“

Band Aid “Do They Know It’s Christmas?“

John Lennon “Happy Christmas (War Is Over)” (Man, I wish that war was over, John.)

Sufjan Stevens “Put The Lights On The Tree“

Bowie meets Bing. This still freaks me out a bit.

Santa Sutra: 9 Holiday Sex Positions That Will Stuff Your Stocking.

Oh, and immaculate conception? Give me a fucking break.

You know, I really like It’s A Wonderful Life. Sadly, one of the few rituals I used to have in a year was watching that movie whenever they’d air it on network TV around this time. I don’t own it, and I’d only watch it when it was played on TV. Appointment television at it’s finest. That movie is a classic for a reason. And you know what happens at the end of watching it? I fucking cry. I do. I really do. Well, no, I don’t. Maybe I do. None of your fucking business, alright? And Mr. Potter might have been right after all. Also, Donna Reed was hot.

It should be pointed out that Counterforce does not solely endorse Christmas as the ultimate end of the year holiday. In fact, other than the tame Santa stuff, we’re all pretty either atheists or agnostics or something far more narcissistic. But we do party like Catholic school girls. Oh yes.

“…there you are, reading your blog, enjoying your comic spread, and then there’s the Family fucking Circus in the bottom right corner just waiting to suck…”

Good night, Santa. Good night, Mrs. Santa’s sister.

All of my nights, why did my lover have to pick last night to get down?

Posted by Marco Sparks on

I’ll be painfully brief: I had a bad weekend. Mondays are bullshit. I feel like reading. Monday, links, let’s do this:

File this under completely unsurprising: The nutjob with the samurai sword who attacked the Scientology “church” was a member. Shocking, I know.

The past and the future of a city as viewed through the park made out it’s trash.

Find out why women go wild on the night before their wedding.

Now! That’s what I call Pedophile Pop Music!

The rain falls mostly on the plains of the solar-powered cemeteries in Spain.

The Strange family and their haunted sofa.

Is urban loneliness a myth?

Now there’s a nap soundtrack generator. Brilliant. Thanks for pointing that out to me, Lollipop.

Yet another confirmation on the inevitable Arrested Development movie, this one from Ron Howard.

Neal Stephenson interview with the Onion AV Club.

The AV Club interviews Malcolm Gladwell as well.

From White People to Douchebags, 27 websites that eventually became books. Tremble in fear of the eventual political erotica/straw man argument about global warming/lit crit wankery that will be the eventual Counterforce book.

D. B. Cooper, just cause.

The Criterion 40% off sale ends today. Good luck on whatever is left. The article I just linked to, by Alex Carnevale, links to a very interesting post on Criterion’s blog about their restoration of Wong Kar-wai’s Chungking Express. Fascinating stuff.

Also from Carnevale, The funny, sexy guys that would save the economy.

Hey, look at that: 30 days until Christmas. I’m excited to see what my fellow Counterforcers want this year. (But I’ll give you advanced warning: Benjamin Light’s handing out bath towels and Lollipop Gomez is giving everyone condoms. Expired condoms. Just remember, it’s the thought that counts.)

The Vatican forgives John Lennon for the Jesus remark.

Cory Doctow on copyrights and copyfighting.

A guide to Obama’s national security transition team.

The Terminal 2: Armageddon.

Ideology vs. pragmatism: is one more important than the other?

For your consideration… It’s Oscar time, it’s nomination time.

Science fiction is the only literature that people care enough about to steal online.

Proof of a correlation between Myspace usage and illiteracy.

Talking shop with The Bangles.

Farting will get you arrested.

This just in: Stephanie, the middle sister from Full House, is not only newly single, but also fucking hot. I’m just sayin’.

Ambrose Bierce, just cause.

You’ve heard me mention him before, but now it appears that Richey from the Manics is officially “presumed dead.”

No glove, no love? Not always.

Nudists vs. Swingers!

I should point out that I stole just about all of these pictures from various people online. Check out the Counterforce tumblr and you’ll find the original credits and what have you. Or don’t. Or:

This is me right now.

Counterforce After Dark: While my blog gently weeps.

Posted by Marco Sparks on

Britpop week continues with a hard, nasty vengeance!

Lollipop and I’ve talked a little bit about Britpop and British pop with you in our previous two installments, but tonight, let’s chat a little about the inspirations of Britpop…

And who better to start with than the original Oasis vs. Blur battle?

“Real Love” by The Beatles.

The John Lennon demo that was jumped upon by the three (then) surviving Beatles as part of the Beatles Anthology back in 1995. This is probably a horrible example of the essence of the videos, but at the same time, I think you could make an argument about it getting to the very core of what the Beatles were, a certain kind of gentleness, a simple sense of love, and a fun atmosphere, all of which were easily swept up into Britpop. That, and it’s just a really nice tune when you sit down and enjoy it.

Here’s the boys from Liverpool with the radiant Dusty Springfield, whom I’ll talk about in Friday’s post and here’s Dusty performing on her own.

And on the flip side of that, we have:

“Sympathy For The Devil (Neptunes remix)” by The Rolling Stones.

Honestly, what can you say about this song that hasn’t been said before? It originally appeared on the Stones’ classic 1968 Beggars Banquet album, while it’s primarily a Mick Jagger composition (and not a wholly original one in places, drawing ideas from Baudelaire and The Master and Margarita) but you can’t dispute it’s place in history. Of course there’s Altamont, and of course, “American Pie.” And then there’s the covers of it (GNR!).

Here’s the trailer to Godard’s 1968 film Sympathy For The Devil (originally entitled One Plus One by the director). Oh, and here’s the Stones playing the song at Altamont. Oh, and if you’re wondering why I used the Neptunes remix of the song here, it’s because, well, I just happen to like it. Suck it.

A brief interlude: Yesterday Lollipop posted my favorite Blur video, “Coffee and TV,” and since I just talked about the original Oasis and Blur’s, two bands that were inspired by old American Bluesmen, I thought I’d share this excellent clip about the Oasis vs. Blur war:

I swear to God that Noel Gallagher should be a spokesperson for political candidates. When asked about whether the Blur vs. Oasis conflict was really about middle class vs. working class, he said, “Not to say that the dirt under your fingernails is some sort of badge of honor, you know, it’s not. It’s just a fact. They never had a paper route, you know. I had a milk route and stuff like that. I worked on building sites. That fundamentally makes my soul a lot purer than theirs.” Brilliant.

I should say one more quick thing about Blur here, in particular one of their influences being a 60′s mod group called Small Faces, witnessed in the song “Lazy Sunday.” Continuing on…

“For Your Love” by The Yardbirds.

It amazes me how much when we don’t talk about The Yardbirds when we talk about influential British groups from the 60′s. Especially when we talk about it’s place in history as the launching pad for three of England and rock in general’s most prominent guitar players: Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page. Also, when The Yardbirds broke up, there was still some touring commitments in other parts of Europe and since Jimmy Page was the only member left, his manager and he put together a new band, originally called The New Yardbirds, but who then evolved into a little known band called Led Zeppelin.

Here’s The Yardbirds doing a cameo in one of my favorite movies, Antonioni’s masterpiece, Blow-Up.

Moving onto my final song and band for today, I’ll go back again to Blur. In 1993, Damon Albarn was asked if Blur was an “anti-grunge” band and he replied, “If punk was about getting rid of hippies, then I’m getting rid of grunge.” But from grunge, Britpop then started going after grunge’s cousin on methaqualone: shoegaze.

It wasn’t long before shoegaze bands like Ride and Slowdive and Spitfire were being attacked by Britpop artists in the press along with the American grunge groups, with the exception of Oasis. Not only did Noel Gallagher eventually bring Andy Bell from Ride into Oasis, Noel said in 1996 that Kurt Cobain was the only songwriter from the last ten years that he had any respect for and that their music was similar enough that Cobain probably could’ve written “Wonderwall.” Lush and The Stone Roses also got somewhat of a free pass as well, as did our last artist for the night…

“Sometimes” by My Bloody Valentine.

I could probably go on forever about MBV, so I’ll have to restrain myself a bit, only to say that thankfully they’re back together now (in some form) and just as loud. This is easily their best known song and using the clip from Lost In Translation has to buy me intense hipster cred, yeah? Regardless, if you don’t have their classic album Loveless, then go get it now. It’s essential. Here’s a link to MBV doing one of my favorite songs, Louis Armstrong’s “We Have All The Time In The World.”

Lollipop will be back tomorrow with even more sweet tunes for you, so I’ll leave you with this quite frankly hideous photo of Dusty Springfield that she’s demanded I use: