From a parallel universe full of everything bad for you
March 19, 2009 7:54 PM   Subscribe

 
Hey, this is a great gallery, fabulous vintage stuff. Bookmarked, for sure. Thanks for the heads up!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:07 PM on March 19, 2009


I thought of this when you said Drill pop
posted by Iron Rat at 8:37 PM on March 19, 2009


Cool stuff, but when I heard Drill pop, I was expecting some new genre of music crossing JPop and Drill N Bass. I don't know how it would work, I just know it would be awesome.
posted by formless at 8:50 PM on March 19, 2009


Is that Toshiro Mifune at bottom right?
posted by Bernt Pancreas at 9:13 PM on March 19, 2009


Fabulously tacky! The other site linked there - Blond Zombies [also NSFW] is great too.
posted by tellurian at 9:29 PM on March 19, 2009


We started selling the old civilizations first. Noone was really using them anymore, and the rest of the galaxy ate them up with a spoon. Roman antiquities and quaint latin phrases were obvious items- "Veritas odium pavit" funded a new island nation as I recall, and the Coliseum got us a cure for cancer. The polynesian navigation songs were very popular for a while, alongside most of the greek tragedies and the writings of Confucius.

Soon those were old and worn good, of course. Sure, you could still sell them to the mass market, but it was a commodity market by then and the margins were low. It was cliche and boring stuff to the far spiral arms within a decade or so, and a sign of low taste. Now the real money was to be made in more recent things - skulls and songs from the Pol Pot era were very hot; communist books and furniture; and of course anything to do with The Beatles.

Before too long, we caught up with ourselves and started having to sell options on culture. I made a nice little bundle on a group of students I found right out of college and got to sign a long term contract. One of them ended up a very famous suicidal artist - but I lost at least as much on the musical innovations I thought were sure to be a hit. I did really well on a prediction about punk rock dance forms inspired by the antebellum south, but it was short lived and I lost the rights.

Now everyone that has a new idea starts out thinking what the aliens will want to buy. Since the aliens seem to be most interested in what's most human, and the least influenced by galactic society, it feels like the well is running dry. We've got the fusion sources paid through next year, but fresh water is running low and they're not sending another ice-asteroid until we pay the last few bills. I write this with a pen because the computers have all disconnected themselves, and the aliens only come down to look at the goods once a month now.

Our only hope is to hold out long enough for the wheels of fashion and taste to come around again, and for human culture to break into the retro and kitsch markets. We're turning down the lights and lowering the birth rate to try and make it through, but I worry. It's a tired and stripped-down world we have left, and we turned most of the best parts of ourselves into product. The demand is getting low, and there's not much left to get by on.
posted by freebird at 9:35 PM on March 19, 2009 [12 favorites]


Name of the movie please.
posted by tellurian at 9:37 PM on March 19, 2009


That's great, but what's not safe for... OH HELLO BOOBIES.
posted by Artw at 9:40 PM on March 19, 2009 [1 favorite]


Name of the movie please.

movie?
posted by nanojath at 9:53 PM on March 19, 2009


tellurian, looks like it might be Destroy all Planets.
posted by Bernt Pancreas at 9:55 PM on March 19, 2009


Is that Toshiro Mifune at bottom right?

Looks nothing like Mifune. Shintaro Katsu, perhaps? And the old man looks like Takashi Shimura.
posted by cazoo at 9:57 PM on March 19, 2009 [2 favorites]


Thanks, cazoo. Allergies are making me misremember.
posted by Bernt Pancreas at 10:02 PM on March 19, 2009


Is that Toshiro Mifune at bottom right?

Cur! You're mistaking me for some two-bit Tanaka-san playing some cheap ninja's sidekick? Taste my blade!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 10:02 PM on March 19, 2009


Thanks Bernt Pancreas, but after reading that review I don't think I'll bother watching it.
posted by tellurian at 10:32 PM on March 19, 2009


Great post.
posted by KokuRyu at 10:32 PM on March 19, 2009


Geez, not really my intent, pts. Please, enjoy the cool links. I didn't mean to lessen this nice post in any way, it just got me thinking about the cycles and reuse of culture.
posted by freebird at 11:47 PM on March 19, 2009


eeeee eeeeeeee ee
posted by mattoxic at 12:24 AM on March 20, 2009


what was that freebird? justa rant ? Sounds like a treatment for a Cyberpunk film starting the next keanu Reaves ;)
posted by mary8nne at 6:07 AM on March 20, 2009


is this Duran Duran looking guy the same new-agey flute playing Ryuichi Sakamoto?
posted by kuujjuarapik at 6:12 AM on March 20, 2009


is this Duran Duran looking guy the same new-agey flute playing Ryuichi Sakamoto?

Yes. That's the same Ryuichi Sakamoto, and that photo is indeed embarrassing. However, it's not exactly fair to Sakamoto-san to characterize him simply as a "new-agey". He's actually had a long and very varied musical career. Yellow Magic Orchestra, for example, being but one phase of it.

I've never seen him playing the flute, though...
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:36 AM on March 20, 2009


> is this Duran Duran looking guy the same new-agey flute playing Ryuichi Sakamoto?

If you're thinking of Kitaro, the answer is "no".
posted by ardgedee at 6:44 AM on March 20, 2009


Oh, right. It was Kitaro I was thinking of. Sakamoto did the film scores. Apologies.

Still, that's a great hairdo.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 6:48 AM on March 20, 2009


suave samurai
posted by needled at 7:31 AM on March 20, 2009


Is that Toshiro Mifune at bottom right?
posted by Bernt Pancreas at 11:13 PM

It's Jo Shishido
posted by cinemafiend at 9:41 AM on March 20, 2009


Oh! Cookie Face
posted by Lex Tangible at 3:19 PM on March 20, 2009


looks like it might be Destroy all Planets.

I must find that movie.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 10:41 AM on March 21, 2009


I think the person (people?) behind this is the same person behind the equally cool Bikini Machines, Erotrash, and the aforementioned Blonde Zombies.
posted by vertigo25 at 10:51 AM on March 21, 2009


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