TagAndy Warhol

Mutation Vectors: All That Could Have Been Edition

amigandy

Status Update

A few weeks ago I decided to try out working from a standing desk. I gave up this week.

Surprisingly, the issue wasn’t my legs getting tired or back getting sore. The problem is that I couldn’t find a way to type while standing up that didn’t make my wrists hurt almost immediately upon beginning to type. I tried adjusting the height of the keyboard again and again, but never found a level that seemed to work. I don’t really think it was the keyboard height anyway. I mean, I work at various sub-optimal heights all the time and it doesn’t make me immediately sore.

Browsing

This week I wrote a short thing about the Amiga and how it was never was able to capture the bohemian demographic from Apple.

That sent me down a rabbit hole, including reading Jeremy Reimer’s epic history of the Amiga and watching this episode of The Computer Chronicles about the launch of the Amiga 3000.

I’ve never used an Amiga. But it really seemed to be something special that the technology industry hasn’t seen since. I really wonder what could have been if Commodore hadn’t mismanaged it into the ground.

Elsewhere:

John Herrman wraps up what’s wrong with online journalism today in a nice tight package that actually doubles as exactly what it critiques (in a good way). Hats off.

And speaking of journalism: Amy Westervelt writes about her experience in the “content” industry — ie, being a ghost writer for all those “thought leaders” on sites like Forbes.com, and why journalists shouldn’t take those gigs. I have to admit that my first thought was “Oh, thank god all those CEOs aren’t writing their own posts,” because that meant that at least writers are getting paid for that crap somehow. And who knows, if my career goes south I might have to resort to writing that stuff too. But seriously, these gigs suck.

And, finally, I’ve been thinking a lot about Tim Maly’s piece “What We Talk About When We Talk About What We Talk About When We Talk About Making,” and so should you.

Watching

ian-curtis

I’ve been on a big post-punk kick recently, so I rewatched Control and 24 Hour Party People this week. I’d say both are still worth watching, though as always these sorts films need to be taken with a grain of salt.

I really need to read Rip It Up and Start Again.

Listening

Spaceape died this week, and the world is a poorer place for it. At least he and Kode9 finished a new EP first. A cold comfort, really, though. We’ll never know a voice like his again.

Watching 24 Hour Party People made me want to listen to the Happy Mondays, who I’d never really listened to before, and listening to them made me want to listen to Pop Will Eat Itself, who I’d listened to a lot. Plus Ministry, Cabaret Voltaire and a bunch of other stuff.

William S. Burroughs and David Bowie in conversation

In 1974 William S. Burroughs and David Bowie got together for a little chat, documented by Rolling Stone. Here’s a particularly weird part where Burroughs and Bowie talk about the alien and reptilian nature of Andy Warhol:

Burroughs: Have you ever met Warhol?

Bowie: Yes, about two years ago I was invited up to The Factory. We got in the lift and went up and when it opened there was a brick wall in front of us. We rapped on the wall and they didn’t believe who we were. So we went back down and back up again till finally they opened the wall and everybody was peering around at each other. That was shortly after the gun incident. I met this man who was the living dead. Yellow in complexion, a wig on that was the wrong colour, little glasses. I extended my hand and the guy retired, so I thought, ‘The guy doesn’t like flesh, obviously he’s reptilian.’ He produced a camera and took a picture of me. And I tried to make small talk with him, and it wasn’t getting anywhere.

But then he saw my shoes. I was wearing a pair of gold-and-yellow shoes, and he says, ‘I adore those shoes, tell me where you got those shoes.’ He then started a whole rap about shoe design and that broke the ice. My yellow shoes broke the ice with Andy Warhol.

I adore what he was doing. I think his importance was very heavy, it’s becoming a big thing to like him now. But Warhol wanted to be clichi, he wanted to be available in Woolworth’s, and be talked about in that glib type of manner. I hear he wants to make real films now, which is very sad because the films he was making were the things that should be happening. I left knowing as little about him as a person as when I went in.

Burroughs: I don’t think that there is any person there. It’s a very alien thing, completely and totally unemotional. He’s really a science fiction character. He’s got a strange green colour.

Bowie: That’s what struck me. He’s the wrong colour, this man is the wrong colour to be a human being. Especially under the stark neon lighting in The Factory. Apparently it is a real experience to behold him in the daylight.

Burroughs: I’ve seen him in all light and still have no idea as to what is going on, except that it is something quite purposeful. It’s not energetic, but quite insidious, completely asexual. His films will be the late-night movies of the future.

Full Story: Teenage Wildlife.

(via Waking the Midnight Sun).

See also: Williams S. Burroughs interviews Jimmy Page.

Foolish People video from esoZone plus interview

Platoons of the latest replicas of Banksy roam the landscape, led by General Clone Banksy, a talentless nobody who once found a sample of Banksy DNA on an empty spray can. A rowdy gang of Tracey Ermin’s wrestle half a dozen dazed Andy Warhol’s to the ground. It is the future and all forms of art are free, perfect replicas exist of every masterpiece ever created, copyright and ownership are meaningless, ideas are cheap and replicated ad infinitum. Artists have realised that their own identity is the only thing they can own or control, so fans become clones of artists in order to spread their art/identity. One final piece of uncorrupted art remains, yet to be copied: a living story told by Neonate Muses.

Full Story: Alterati.

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