Comments on: There are no windows in the painting.

There are no windows in the painting.

mintcake! — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 10:09:09 -0800

The Dork Report is posting fairly in-depth album by album (frame by frame?) analyses of King Crimson's design and typography in a series called The Young Person's Guide to King Crimson Album Art.

Tackled so far: In The Wake of Poseidon Lizard Islands Starless and Bible Black Red Beat Three of a Perfect Pair THRAK The ConstruKction of Light

By: Slack-a-gogo

Slack-a-gogo — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 10:28:23 -0800

This looks insanely excessive and unnecessary . Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

By: omnidrew

omnidrew — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 10:35:38 -0800

Thanks for the link! An aptly-named blog.

By: Sticherbeast

Sticherbeast — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 10:38:10 -0800

For you, I play a 14/8 theme of gratitude on my Chapman Stick.

By: supermedusa

supermedusa — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 10:38:53 -0800

was planning to get some work done today...

By: LionIndex

LionIndex — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 10:57:47 -0800

This looks insanely excessive and unnecessary Indeed. I bet it takes discipline.

By: migurski

migurski — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 11:06:13 -0800

Just wanted to point out that The Dork Report wraps its ampersands in a special HTML tag, so that they can be in Baskerville, Goudy Old Style, Palatino, Book Antiqua or Warnock Pro instead of the surrounding sans-serif font. Eponysterical.

By: erniepan

erniepan — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 11:58:04 -0800

I do remember one thing. It took hours and hours but By the time I was done with it I was so involved I didn't know what to think. I carried it around with me for days and days Playing little games Like not looking at it for a whole day And then looking at it To see if I still liked it. I did!

By: Sys Rq

Sys Rq — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 11:58:39 -0800

Okay, so it's not technically a King Crimson album, and the titular duo were only in King Crimson for a very short while, but I'm still a bit disappointed by the omission of McDonald and Giles from the canon.

By: sourwookie

sourwookie — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 12:13:19 -0800

For you, I play a 14/8 theme of gratitude on my Chapman Stick. Do you really have one? Um...can I...touch it?

By: Sebmojo

Sebmojo — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 12:13:23 -0800

||: I REPEAT MYSELF WHEN UNDER STRESS I REPEAT MYSELF WHEN UNDER STRESS :||

By: davebush

davebush — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 12:16:08 -0800

As a guy who still cares deeply about the album format and album artwork, I offer a very sincere thank you for this post.

By: davebush

davebush — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 12:27:53 -0800

I've posted the link here before, but this is a good opportunity to revisit this awesome performance of "Elephant Talk". Belew is so good he actually causes Fripp to smile.

By: thelonius

thelonius — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 12:47:21 -0800

That clip, which was from the short-lived ABC competitor to SNL, "Fridays", comprehensively blew my mind when it aired. I guess I was 13. I didn't know who Belew was; I had the new album, but I figured he was basically just the singer, and that all the up-front guitar was Fripp. I also thought the credit of "Stick" was just a joke of some kind and that all the bass sounds were bass guitar.

By: Grangousier

Grangousier — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 13:09:24 -0800

Belew is so good he actually causes Fripp to smile. I don't want to seem humourless myself, here, but may I point out that Robert Fripp is actually a very funny man who laughs a lot. Not so much onstage, but then I suspect Iggy Pop doesn't walk around naked swallowing microphones when he's off-duty. It's just the way it needs to go in performance.

By: mintcake!

mintcake! — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 15:59:52 -0800

They don't call him 'Chuckles Fripp' for nothing.

By: sourwookie

sourwookie — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 16:42:06 -0800

Belew is so good he actually causes Fripp to smile. Well, he tried anyway. I'm afraid a rictus was the best he could do.

By: thelonius

thelonius — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 19:07:49 -0800

It took a little effort, but I managed to find my copy of this delightful pic, which seems to belong in this thread.

By: TheDorkReport

TheDorkReport — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 11:20:06 -0800

Wow. Hi everyone, I'm the person behind The Dork Report, and I wanted to thank mintcake for linking to my series on King Crimson album art. I will definitely take "insanely excessive and unnecessary" as a compliment! This positive feedback (and spike in site traffic, to be honest) came just in the nick of time, for I had been seriously thinking about calling the whole thing off. I had recently been informed about an error in the THRAK piece, in which I misidentified Gill Sans as Helvetica. That was embarrassing, but worse, I had also just read the following excoriation in Fripp's online diary:

00.13 An alert took me to a chattering-site for various Crimson-related witterings. Uninformed declarations regarding my actions, thinking, decision-making processes, even feelings, usually in rude and dismissive terms, continue to astonish. Ah yes! This is what-it-was when I greatly engaged with the Opinionating Public Of A Crimson Hue. A folder - Kicking The Wasps' Nest - holds various exchanges and interactions with posters, mainly from ET and the DGM Guestbook; this part of a liberal education in better-knowing the mechanics of a fallen world; eg the public display of dopey, witless pratterings from persons with confidence in the value of unreflective opinions. Who recalls Mr. Hurt Brat, he with the Social Gland, proclaiming that Zen works! before becoming indignant when his dopey postings attracted my responses? It is not possible to discuss the weather with a person whose head is placed where sunshine never falls, and yet who feels themselves to be a climate expert.

It's entirely possible (I hope) that Fripp was rolling his eyes over somebody else's excessive Crimson chatterings and witterings. But if he was taking offense at The Dork Report, I was close to stopping the Crimson project and going back to the site's original remit of occasional movie reviews. In my insanely excessive manner, I had been trying to be clear throughout about what was researched fact and what was mere musing and supposition on my part. I went particularly afield in the introduction to the whole series, but stuck more to the facts when writing about the individual albums. I think I can finish this writing project if I remember that I'm certainly not writing it for the band members or Fripp in particular — I've been a Crimson fan long enough to know he doesn't suffer fools. I'm writing it for others like me, interested in the same things. But anyway, long story short: thanks again for the attention and feedback. I'm the slowest writer in the world, but you can look forward to analyses of In the Court of the Crimson King and Discipline going up in the near(ish) future.

By: mintcake!

mintcake! — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 12:52:58 -0800

Hey! It's a really neat project and I'm super happy that you're going to carry on. Cheers.