Jan-Feb 2024 tincture notes
Mar. 16th, 2024 03:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eerietom
I got back from Japan about a month ago, and will eventually blog about some of my experiences, including the album I wrote and recorded there.
Because medical and recreational cannabis are illegal in Japan (though there are coffee vendors offering CBD shots), one of the first things I did upon my return was get stoned. Due to the fact I’ve also spent the last several weeks looking for a new apartment, moving stuff out of storage and into said apartment, dealing with lots of logistical issues, blah blah blah, I haven’t been posting to my blog regularly, hence the lateness of this entry.
After lunch, while back on the bus, there was a woman behind me talking on her cellphone. She had the speaker on, but the other person’s voice (my guess was it was the woman’s mother) was so distorted it sounded like it was being fed through both high pass and tremolo filters. This made her mother sound like a Dalek. In contrast to her mother’s voice, the woman was speaking in a very rich, musical tone, almost like she was singing opera. She tended to extend her vowels, and every sentence ended with a dramatic drop in pitch, almost like a cat meowing. I tried to guess what language she was speaking; it wasn’t Spanish, Portuguese, or Italian (a friend later suggested it might be Romanian). It was almost like Siouxsie Sioux singing flamenco, all dolorous cries and moans.
I went to the medical plaza lobby to have a coffee and just chill for a while. There was a man in front of me at the coffee bar who was telling the barista he had been “a cycling buff for a while”, but it sounded like he said he had been a psychopath. This of course sent me into a paroxysm of giggles. When I sat down, there was a man standing behind me talking to someone. I honestly couldn’t tell if he was speaking to a child or a dog. What he said was just vague enough that it could have been either. Finally at one point he said, “Emmett, do you want to put on your shoes?” And a little girl (her name must’ve been Emma, but Emmett is a great name for a dog!) gleefully said yes! Of course, my brain just decided Emmett the dog had suddenly learned to talk, which also brought on some giggles!
Curious Alice, dir. unknown, 1971
Invincible Obsessed Fighter, dirs. Jeong-yong Kim and Tomas Tang, 1982
Paranoid, Black Sabbath, 1970
My biggest laugh of the evening happened during Rocket. I somehow missed the caption saying a scene was taking place in Berlin. I couldn’t understand why half the cast was speaking like Elmer Fudd. Of course, they were supposed to have German accents, but it was funnier thinking the town was populated by relatives of Fudd.
At one point during the evening, I closed my eyes and listened to the traffic outside. I kept seeing Sailor Moon (with very short hair) dancing and skipping around, with multiple exposure, strobe, and kaleidoscopic effects at varying speeds, including at 10^10 frames per second. I also saw Asterix the Gaul, who seemed constantly enraged.
The Eraser, Thom Yorke, 2006
The Phantom Creeps (parts I-IV), dirs. Ford Beebe and Saul A. Goodkind, 1939
I have new respect for actor Frank Gorshin, who played Commissioner Bele in Battlefield. It’s not that I didn’t respect his acting before, but he was so intense in this episode. Just watch him even when he’s in the background; he’s not merely standing there waiting for his turn to speak. He stole every scene he was in.
I saw the Gammoth flying in space, with infinitely long wings, like an exaggerated moesode (as opposed to a furisode). As the Gammoth receded into the distance, the wings stretched out beyond it, undulating like a sine waveform.
I saw a giant flying building, like an old cube-shaped grain elevator, without windows, 50' in each dimension, equipped with windmill sails and airplane propellers.
I once compared Thom Yorke’s voice to that of an ironic choir boy. On The Eraser he is more like an angel who whispers into humanity’s collective ear to address injustice and hatred, especially on “Black Swan” and “Harrowdown Hill”. The angel then ascends into heaven on the climactic final track (“Cymbal Rush”).
Anima (Thom Yorke), dir. Paul Thomas Anderson, 2019
Gymnopêdies (1965) and Our Lady of the Sphere (1969), dir. Larry Jordan
Giants of All Sizes, Elbow, 2019
Voyage to the End of the Universe, dir. Jindřich Polák, 1963
As with the aforementioned Frank Gorshin, I have even more respect for actor Henry McGee, especially when he played the overly laudatory film critic, absolutely straight.
At one point in the evening, I suddenly envisioned I had awakened in the future in an ultra-modern apartment cube in a complex several dozen stories high (as were the surrounding buildings). The light from the city at night was so bright one needed blackout curtains to shut them out so one could sleep. Everyone was in futuristic technological body suits, all tied cybernetically to an information network. Advertising “billboards” were holograms projected around everyone as they walked. There was no need for physical billboards or signs or posters. Researchers had discovered people responded better to hologram ads than images projected into someone’s mind, because one is then compelled to walk around and “find the interesting ads” (not unlike playing Pokémon Go). Ads were customized to each person, so every pedestrian had a different experience.
Voyage sounded like some of the voices were dubbed by Paul Frees and Peter Fernandez, though imdb.com doesn’t list the film among their credits. I was expecting a cheesy sci-fi film, the kind MST3K would show, but the film looked like Ingmar Bergman or Fellini had made it—the dance scene especially looked like something out of Fellini. How is it, as obviously influential as this film was (particularly on Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey), I’d never heard of it? The scene after the “coma”, when someone speculates that a force of some kind intervened and saved them, reminded me of a few episodes from Season 1 of Space: 1999 (1975-76). The scene where one of the crew is climbing up the central core ventilation shaft made me think of The Andromeda Strain (1971, dir. Robert Wise).
Because medical and recreational cannabis are illegal in Japan (though there are coffee vendors offering CBD shots), one of the first things I did upon my return was get stoned. Due to the fact I’ve also spent the last several weeks looking for a new apartment, moving stuff out of storage and into said apartment, dealing with lots of logistical issues, blah blah blah, I haven’t been posting to my blog regularly, hence the lateness of this entry.
Jan 25, 2024
This was my first time trying cakeballs (usually I take tinctures). I ate one then hopped on the bus to my usual carousel sushi restaurant. There was a young Chinese woman working there, someone I hadn’t seen before, about 20 years old. She spoke in a very high pitched voice, kind of like Minnie Mouse. She had a heavy Chinese accent, but whether she was speaking Chinese or English, there was a rhythmic lilt to her speech which was quite alluring, almost like she was rapping. The album I recorded in Japan has quite a few samples of announcements and speech: I could have sampled her speaking for three minutes and made a song out of it!After lunch, while back on the bus, there was a woman behind me talking on her cellphone. She had the speaker on, but the other person’s voice (my guess was it was the woman’s mother) was so distorted it sounded like it was being fed through both high pass and tremolo filters. This made her mother sound like a Dalek. In contrast to her mother’s voice, the woman was speaking in a very rich, musical tone, almost like she was singing opera. She tended to extend her vowels, and every sentence ended with a dramatic drop in pitch, almost like a cat meowing. I tried to guess what language she was speaking; it wasn’t Spanish, Portuguese, or Italian (a friend later suggested it might be Romanian). It was almost like Siouxsie Sioux singing flamenco, all dolorous cries and moans.
| Random stoned thought: What an odd custom it was, to tip one’s hat when meeting someone, and so inconvenient, always having to have a free hand to tip one’s hat every time someone said hello to you! |
I went to the medical plaza lobby to have a coffee and just chill for a while. There was a man in front of me at the coffee bar who was telling the barista he had been “a cycling buff for a while”, but it sounded like he said he had been a psychopath. This of course sent me into a paroxysm of giggles. When I sat down, there was a man standing behind me talking to someone. I honestly couldn’t tell if he was speaking to a child or a dog. What he said was just vague enough that it could have been either. Finally at one point he said, “Emmett, do you want to put on your shoes?” And a little girl (her name must’ve been Emma, but Emmett is a great name for a dog!) gleefully said yes! Of course, my brain just decided Emmett the dog had suddenly learned to talk, which also brought on some giggles!
Jan 28, 2024
While re-watching my Digital Wonderland #5 video, it occurred to me that the racing courses in Mario Kart were like “hyperNature” and “hyperTokyo”, depicting outdoor settings of dreamlike hazy sunny days, or a futuristic Tokyo even cooler than it is now, with science fiction architecture, Möbius strip pathways, gravity defying zones, and huge entertainment complex space stations in geosynchronous orbit.Feb 4, 2024
Fellini Satyricon, dir. Federico Fellini, 1969Feb 8, 2024
The God of Cookery, dirs. Stephen Chow and Lee Lik-chi, 1996Feb 13, 2024
Split Soul, Jylz, 2005Curious Alice, dir. unknown, 1971
Feb 21, 2024
Rocket Attack U.S.A. (MST3K version), dir. Barry Mahon, 1958Invincible Obsessed Fighter, dirs. Jeong-yong Kim and Tomas Tang, 1982
Paranoid, Black Sabbath, 1970
My biggest laugh of the evening happened during Rocket. I somehow missed the caption saying a scene was taking place in Berlin. I couldn’t understand why half the cast was speaking like Elmer Fudd. Of course, they were supposed to have German accents, but it was funnier thinking the town was populated by relatives of Fudd.
At one point during the evening, I closed my eyes and listened to the traffic outside. I kept seeing Sailor Moon (with very short hair) dancing and skipping around, with multiple exposure, strobe, and kaleidoscopic effects at varying speeds, including at 10^10 frames per second. I also saw Asterix the Gaul, who seemed constantly enraged.
Feb 24, 2024
Star Trek, “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield”, dir. Jud Taylor, 1969The Eraser, Thom Yorke, 2006
The Phantom Creeps (parts I-IV), dirs. Ford Beebe and Saul A. Goodkind, 1939
I have new respect for actor Frank Gorshin, who played Commissioner Bele in Battlefield. It’s not that I didn’t respect his acting before, but he was so intense in this episode. Just watch him even when he’s in the background; he’s not merely standing there waiting for his turn to speak. He stole every scene he was in.
I saw the Gammoth flying in space, with infinitely long wings, like an exaggerated moesode (as opposed to a furisode). As the Gammoth receded into the distance, the wings stretched out beyond it, undulating like a sine waveform.
I saw a giant flying building, like an old cube-shaped grain elevator, without windows, 50' in each dimension, equipped with windmill sails and airplane propellers.
I once compared Thom Yorke’s voice to that of an ironic choir boy. On The Eraser he is more like an angel who whispers into humanity’s collective ear to address injustice and hatred, especially on “Black Swan” and “Harrowdown Hill”. The angel then ascends into heaven on the climactic final track (“Cymbal Rush”).
Feb 27, 2024
The Benny Hill Show, “Benny’s All-Star Finale”, dir. John Robins, 1972Anima (Thom Yorke), dir. Paul Thomas Anderson, 2019
Gymnopêdies (1965) and Our Lady of the Sphere (1969), dir. Larry Jordan
Giants of All Sizes, Elbow, 2019
Voyage to the End of the Universe, dir. Jindřich Polák, 1963
As with the aforementioned Frank Gorshin, I have even more respect for actor Henry McGee, especially when he played the overly laudatory film critic, absolutely straight.
At one point in the evening, I suddenly envisioned I had awakened in the future in an ultra-modern apartment cube in a complex several dozen stories high (as were the surrounding buildings). The light from the city at night was so bright one needed blackout curtains to shut them out so one could sleep. Everyone was in futuristic technological body suits, all tied cybernetically to an information network. Advertising “billboards” were holograms projected around everyone as they walked. There was no need for physical billboards or signs or posters. Researchers had discovered people responded better to hologram ads than images projected into someone’s mind, because one is then compelled to walk around and “find the interesting ads” (not unlike playing Pokémon Go). Ads were customized to each person, so every pedestrian had a different experience.
Voyage sounded like some of the voices were dubbed by Paul Frees and Peter Fernandez, though imdb.com doesn’t list the film among their credits. I was expecting a cheesy sci-fi film, the kind MST3K would show, but the film looked like Ingmar Bergman or Fellini had made it—the dance scene especially looked like something out of Fellini. How is it, as obviously influential as this film was (particularly on Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey), I’d never heard of it? The scene after the “coma”, when someone speculates that a force of some kind intervened and saved them, reminded me of a few episodes from Season 1 of Space: 1999 (1975-76). The scene where one of the crew is climbing up the central core ventilation shaft made me think of The Andromeda Strain (1971, dir. Robert Wise).
