moog indigo

French electronic music pioneer of the mid- to late-60s and avid early-adopter of the synthesizer Jean-Jacques Perrey passed away in Lausanne late last week.
An aspiring physician in the 1930s, Perrey immediately rethought his vocational-calling after his first encounter with an electronic keyboard and embarked on a literal studio career, experimenting with remixing and splicing techniques. Many of us might recognise Perrey’s “Baroque Hoedown” as the rather arresting theme for Disney resorts’ Main Street Electrical Parades but there are dozens of others in his discography that might ignite memories. It’s well worth the research to get a sample of some of this well sampled repertoire.

umami or hot-pot

Bringing to mind the idiom stewing in one’s own juices, apparently it is the done thing in Japan at the moment to bathe in a scented preparation that wafts of the broth of ramen noodles. Coming in a wide variety of flavours, as My Modern Met informs, easing into such a steaming cauldron makes me think of hapless explorers with pith helmets lured into the clutches of cannibals.  Would you be able to properly unwind smelling of dinner, dispensing with the more traditional bath-time fragrances?

revue, redux

Via the always marvelous Everlasting Blört, we are given to a bit of nostalgia with a retrospective look at this quite interminable campaign season through the lens of some of the best political cartoons and memes that documented the entire bizarre and self-mocking careening career of the 2016 election.
Of course we are not nostalgic over wanting to relive or particularly revisit any part of it—rather I think it’s coming to terms with the fact that this ideological war does not end once the votes are counted, even if there are no disputed precincts and there’s no ties. Neither party could claim a victory, much less a mandate, and I fear the division will only continue and no reconciliation is forthcoming. What do you think? What sort of coda is going to be pinned on what already seems like the longest, most contested election in history?

wendell wilkie or prospect park

Every four years during the US election season a Brooklyn artist decorates her lawn not signs for the pugilists of the day but rather spares a thought for those defeated in past battles. Apolitically, the artist is inviting passers-by to imagine how history and our present direction would have been different if elections had gone the other way.