Skronker

I realized today that I know hardly anything about North Korea. Fortunately there’s this National Geographic documentary in 8 parts on YouTube. People say it’s the strangest place on Earth and they might be right. So very strange. And scary. Very scary. 

Have to wonder about the education system. According to this site  in the 1980s the literacy rate was measured at 99%. And they apparently take math and music very seriously, as well as their political education, of course, which consists of learning about the lives of the Great Leader and Great Leader sr. as well as about how great they are. But how much do they actually learn about the rest of the world and is EVERYTHING they read or listen to North Korean? It’s so isolated. And when you know that the slightest perceived misword (which is actually a non-word, apparently) or misdeed can get you and your whole extended family thrown into a concentration camp, what do you have to talk about on a day to day basis? In the documentary it looks like they just go around praising the great leader all day.

And you know we have to go here from there right? America! Fuck Yeah!

Another thing is, of course, those mass games. I always thought they were just a North Korea thing, but, while North Korea is now the only place that holds them regularly, they’re really more of a communist thing. Wikipedia says they’ve also been held in Romania and Yugoslavia and by the Czech Sokol movement — though a subsequent search did not confirm this information with a more credible source, I’m inclined to believe it. It sounds probably true.

And holy cow. I can’t help but be WILDLY impressed with this whole operation. The card turning in the back! Insane. That changing mural is made up of thousands of kids holding up coloured cards! (OK Maybe YOU already knew that but I didn’t know that until today. It’s worth watching this short clip). The logistics of that are staggering. Here’s some more of the games.

Turns out the official name of North Korea is The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, which is when I realized I don’t actually know what a republic is. I mean, I’m not retarded (you’ll have to suspend your disbelief here) I have an idea but if you asked me to write down the definition I’d have to create a distraction then jump out the window.

The Encarta Encyclopaedia has this to say.

Republic (government) (Latin res publica, literally “the public thing”), form of state based on the concept that sovereignty resides in the people, who delegate the power to rule in their behalf to elected representatives and officials. In practice, however, this concept has been variously stretched, distorted, and corrupted, making any precise definition of the term republic difficult…Republic has, in fact, come to signify any form of state headed by a president or some similarly titled figure, and not a monarch

And did you know that there’s a movement dedicated to the secession of Alberta from Canada? Or maybe just a guy dedicated to the secession of Alberta from Canada? Found The Republic of Alberta while looking up Republic. Hm. Does this mean it’ll take less time to get from Toronto to Whistler? Ha! God I’m funny.  

Here you go. The best Rihanna video EVER. The best part is at 2:50. Listen real close.

OH! Yeah! Wasn’t that awe-SOME??? No, but seriously.Yikes. Ouch. Your ears. Are they bleeding? Granted that was a couple of years ago but you don’t outgrow tone-deafness. It’s not acne. Or bedwetting.

But just because she can’t sing doesn’t mean Rihanna sucks. This is a good video and a decent song. Granted, it’s insane how much effect they have on her voice. But lots of famous musicians can’t sing. Iggy Pop Can’t sing. Lou Reed can’t sing. In fact there’s a doc show out there somewhere, maybe a Behind the Music, in which Iggy is talking about his start in the biz, watching Lou Reed and saying “He can’t sing! I can’t sing! Let’s sing!”

And Rihanna isn’t nearly as bad as Whatsherboobs from the Cardigans. Nina…Nina Persson. Everybody liked Lovefool. That was a finely crafted pop song. Then there was Erase/Rewind and a pretty good cover of Ironman (I like it, though as a general rule I’m not a fan of the Sweet Voiced Girl Cover of the Classic Rock Track). But I saw that band live once and OH MY LORD she is horrendous in person. Couldn’t carry a tune if it were in some sort of carrying device, a bucket perhaps, with a handle. Not even if it were to save her life. She carries a tune about as well as I come up with metaphors. And she had zero stage presence. Just sort of stood there awkwardly holding the microphone looking like if she moved more than two inches in either direction she was going to crash to the ground. But not, I think, in a substance induced kind of way. I was shocked. It wasn’t at all what I was expecting.

But put some decent effects on her vocals and she sounds fine. Good actually. Hurray for producers. The unsung heroes of the music industry.

On October 1 2008, German artist, Natascha Stellmach announced plans to smoke Kurt Cobain’s ashes as part of an art exhibit. Gross right? And reprehensible. And probably bull.

The ashes were reportedly taken from Courtney Love’s Los Angeles home earlier this year, along with thousands of dollars’ worth of jewellery.

Courtney claimed to be “suicidal” over the loss of the remains and said, “I can’t believe anyone would take Kurt’s ashes from me. They were all I had left of my husband. Now it feels like I have lost him all over again.”

Then Stellmach popped up claiming to have ”acquired” them.

The Guardian reports that the installation is part of ‘I Just Wanted You to Love Me,’ a group exhibition at Berlin’s Galerie Wagner + Partner.

” Stellmach’s ‘Set Me Free’ is a “death cycle” in five parts, examining themes of suicide and desecration,” says The Guardian and the Kurt smoking part is “the pièce de resistance: an antique cigarette case holding a joint made up of hash and the remains of the former Nirvana lead singer.

“When the exhibition closes on October 11, the Australian-born artist intends to take the spliff to a secret location in Berlin and… smoke it. This will, Stellmach explained airily to Art World Magazine, release Cobain ‘into the ether from the media circus.’”

OK. If that were true it would be SO MEAN. What a narcissistic cow. Courtney’s had enough trouble over the years. Give her back her husband. But it sounds sort of ridiculous, doesn’t it?

And now, according to the San Francisco Gate, Courtney’s publicist says the remains were never stolen in the first place.

Alan Nierob has retracted previous comments, claiming Cobain’s remains “were never taken” and that the story of the burglary had been “erroneously reported.”

How strange. Why would someone lie about that? Did Courtney need some attention? OR is she retracting her statement to undermine whatever little credibility Stellmach might have had and make her look like a fool? Which he/she clearly is one way or the other. (I searched and searched but CANNOT figure out whether this is a man or a woman)

I’m baffled by the whole idea of smoking someone’s ashes. Marilyn Manson wrote, or rather, Neil Strauss wrote, in his book as told by Marilyn, The Long Hard Road out of Hell, about smoking human bones. But these aren’t really things that are made to be smoked right? Ashes are what happens AFTER you smoke something. I had to wonder whether smoking human remains has any historical precedence. Like, maybe ancient tribes used to cremate their relatives then smoke the ashes in a peace pipe with some raw tobacco or something. But I can’t find any reference to such a practice, so far.

Anthropologists say people used to eat their dead. In an article found here, Rachael Bell writes

“the consumption of members within one’s own culture, group or tribe is called endocannibalism, which is often associated with ritual burial ceremonies and has been controversially referred to on occasion as ‘compassionate cannibalism.’ Mortuary cannibalism has been considered to be the most widely practiced form of endocannibalism…

“For example, according to anthropologist Beth Conklin in article by Ellie Shick mortuary cannibalism amongst the Wari tribe of the Amazon rainforest had a ’socially integrative dimension.’ Upon consumption of the deceased group member, the spirit of the dead was believed to be absorbed by the entire tribe and was considered by them to be one of ‘the most respectful ways to treat a human body.’”

And, of course, there’s exocannibalism.

“defined as a culture, group or tribe’s consumption of another culture, group or tribe. This form of cannibalism has been associated with tribal power, murder and aggression and has been used in an effort to scare off possible invading enemies, to get rid of captured enemies of war and slaves. Many cannibalistic tribes believed that consuming one’s enemy would allow them to obtain and absorb the spirit and skills of the victim.”

There’s a truly wonderful documentary out there called Keep the River on Your Right, about Tobias Schneebaum and based on his memoir of the same name.

Schneebaum, who died in 2005, set off in 1955 for the Peruvian Amazon in search of utopia. After stopping at a mission outpost and receiving the direction “Keep the River on Your Right,” he wandered for two weeks, alone, until he found a The Amarakaire, who welcomed him. He lived with them for seven months, took a male lover and learned their rituals. One night he was awakened and taken off into the night by his newfound friends, who attacked a nearby rival tribe, slaughtered them all and ate their remains.

At the urging of his hosts, Scheebaum also took part in the eating of human flesh. Unsurpisingly, he left soon afterwards. He also lived with the Asmat in Borneo – my memory is hazy here as to the chronology – and had another male lover.

45 years later he set out to find the Amarakaire and the Asmat again and see his long lost friends. When he does, the cultural changes he finds among these remote tribes is fascinating. The reunion with his Asmat lover is bizarre, and beautiful in a still, quiet, kind of way.

Here’s a review from Popmatters.  

So, I was on Fark.com this morning and wound up watching this really really NOT NEWS story about a bear that almost entered a hospital in Lake Tahoe. It didn’t even enter the hospital, just walked through one entrance, got spooked by the second automatic door and decided to leave. Also, Tahoe is apparently full of bears so a sighting is nothing to get into a tizzy about. Bears there are like racoons in Toronto, or something. But I’m guessing not a whole hell of a lot happens in Tahoe and IHOP is overstaffed so the local news anchors have to keep their jobs somehow, which might explain why they got 2 minutes and 17 seconds out of the incident.

The bear itself, a black bear, looked awfully small set against the glass doors so I looked up the American Black Bear. Wikipedia (I hate to use Wikipedia. You can’t trust it. But it’s just so readily available), after first showing me a page that looks like this – Look carefully, it says “shit terd”…

Informed me that the American Black bear is usually between five and six feet tall and walks on all fours with a “pacing gait. Unlike many quadrupeds, the legs on one side move together instead of alternating, much like a pacer horse.” Tried to envision what this meant so went to YouTube, typed in “Pacing Gait,” wound up watching this AIBO and OK, I got it now but that led to more AIBOs and I know these little guys have been around for ten years or so but they still freak me out. This video at Tekkotsu Robotics  (that disappeared from YouTube after I watched it and before I tried to post it which is why it’s not embedded) is sad and disturbing, I think. Or perhaps I am crazy. But the little puppy is sad. Because he expects a reward and doesn’t get one. The AIBOs on YouTube led to this Japanese Robowoman and then NASA’s Eva. I understand that this clip is from 2006. Wonder if she got a body yet. Particularly interesting is the amount of vitriol spewed in the comments section. Clearly this little lady’s severed head makes people very uncomfortable. Have to notice, though, that there appears to be a neck in neck race for most lifelike woman between the Blow-up doll industry and and Robotics industry.

The two concepts meet with one David Levy, Artificial Intelligence researcher and author of Love and Sex with Robots: The evolution of human robot relationships. Levy believes that one day we will indeed have sexual relations with robots, a possibility (or inevitability) both fascinating and repellant that raises a lot of good questions. From an interview at Lavalife’s Click Magazine:

DL: I am most often asked about cheating — is sex with a robot cheating? I think not, just as I believe that using a vibrator is not cheating.

LL: In your opinion, might niche desires that are otherwise untenable in polite and law-abiding society be addressed by this new technology and is that a plus or minus?

DL: Yes, they will be. And I believe it is a good thing. If the niche desires are not illegal when practiced with humans, no problem at all when they are practiced with robots. And if they are illegal with humans, the same argument that I use for pedophilia holds — robots might be successful in curing at least some pedophiles, through therapy, otherwise it is better for pedophiles to use robot children than to hunt for human children.

See the entire interview here.