Christmas Vacation...

We're surrealists but we still celebrate Christmas and all that stuff- of course we do it upside down and backwards.

What?

I don't know- that doesn't actually make sense, which brings me to the point of this post. With the holidays and all that we're just too damn busy for this thing right now. So... This is the last post of 2008 (our most post-tastic year this far!), but we'll resume all this in 2009.

Thanks for reading the past (whatever) and have some happy holidays!

Dan and Vince

P.S. This video at the top is the first thing that came up on YouTube when I typed in "Surreal" and "Christmas". I didn't even bother to watch it to be totally honest. "Enjoy"...

P.P.S. We will post again next year- please come back...

Zzzz-Mail

Since you follow our Twitter feed (which you can find here) this will probably be old news to you- but whatever, let's pretend you aren't following our Twitter feed (which you can find here).

A while ago we complained about the fact that Twitter has yet to develop a way to "tweet" while sleeping. (See our original post here)

Then Twitterer yurigoul replied that he thinks Sleep Twittering would be Followed by Sleep Second Lifing. (See original post here)

Then we said "They'd call it Second Life of the Mind"- which we thought was pretty damn clever. (See original post here)

And then- and this is sort of the point of this article. He directed us to this article about a woman sending out an e-mail while sleeping. It's pretty weird check it out...

That's all I got.

Oh and thanks for following our Twitter feed (which you can find here).

Dan

We're Fans of Our Fans!

We've already discussed the fact that we've got tons of fans on "the twitter."

But who are these people? Are they important.

Dude, yeah, you could say they're important...



Thanks Mr. Elliott- we'll keep the tweets to a respectful mimimum...

Dan

ART WE LIKE: Walt Disney

Before they were producing awful straight-to-video sequels, terrible tween sitcoms, and the 80 minute long pieces of crap that they try to pass off as family-friendly feature-films, Disney did some pretty cool- and pretty surreal stuff.

For example, Destino, the 58-years-in-production collaboration between Salvador Dali and Walt Disney. Here it is in super bootleg-o-vision (the way Disney intended it be to seen- really!)



But of course, Disney didn't need to collaborate with noted surrealists to produce crazy crap. Take for example this Donald Duck cartoon entitled Duck Pimples:



And then they made Wall-E... uh... and then that's about it...

Dan

We're Number 1! (Almost)

According to Twitterholic.com, we are the 615th most followed Twitter feed in the Los Angeles area. (And we've actually gained a few followers since they compiled the list and we should actually be in the 570s by now...).

Anyway, we just felt like bragging. And it's almost the holidays and we've still got shopping to do and don't really have a lot of time to blog. So there.

Follow on us Twitter by clicking on this link right...

...

...

...

..HERE!

Thanks,

Dan

Kaufmans. PSUA.

Vince extended an invitation for Charlie Kaufman to join PSUA. I agree with that, and would like to extend it even further to Charlie's even more elusive brother Donald (co-writer of Adaptation).

And should the brothers decide to join, the Kaufman family will have a huge stake in our union- with 3 members, all brothers- Charlie, Donald, and Andy.

Dan

At the Beach, Keepin' it (Sur)Real

We don't usually go to the beach. We've got a lot of reasons for this- the main one rhymes with "bird bipple"... Anyway, we've just sort of assumed that the people at the beach aren't anything like us- But then we saw this dude.

He's a possible PSUA member, adding a little bit of surrealism to the lives of everyone on the beach that day.

Thanks dude, well done. And as a tribute I'm going to set my desktop to a beach scene and drag my mouse around- it looks exactly the same!

Dan

Welcome, Charlie Kaufman

Charlie Kaufman has just been named a lifetime honorary member of the Practicing Surrealists Union of America, thanks to his film Synecdoche, New York. A lot of you might be thinking "Crap, shouldn't he have already been in there for, like, that movie about the puppet and the actor who played that jewel thief? Or that one where Francis Coppola's nephew tried to steal some orchids? Or, hey, what about that one where Ace Ventura and that naked girl from Titanic gave their brains to Mary Jane Watson?"

No. Because Being John Malkovich, Adaptation., and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind may have all been odd, but on some very fundamental level, they all made sense. People did and said and felt things that exhibited some continuity within the narrative space of the films.

Not so with Synecdoche, New York. Among other things, Samantha Morton's character moves into a house that's constantly on fire because she's thirty-six and thought she'd be married and have a family by now. To say anything else about this film would be spoiling it for you.

So we say congratulations, Charlie, and offer you dues-free lifetime membership in the PSUA. For those of you who haven't seen the movie (which is all of you, probably), here's what Charlie Kaufman did in the space of two hours and four minutes:

1) make the highst-profile, most expensive, and unabashedly Surreal feature film since That Obscure Object of Desire, and
2) win all the bets he made that "After this, nobody will ever let me direct a film again."

We don't even need to ask if it was worth it. It was. We know it was. Charlie, thank you.

Vince out.

ART WE LIKE: They Might Be Giants

Now, Dan and I don't have kids, and I don't know anybody who thinks that's a bad thing, but a friend of ours with a kid gave us a copy of the HERE COME THE ABCs CD/DVD release from They Might Be Giants, and I have to tell you, these guys have more than earned their place in our library, largely because of this song:



Unfortunately, this is just a video somebody made on YouTube, but you can appreciate the genius of the song. The real video TMBG made and put on their DVD includes a bear sitting at the mixing board during a live in-studio performance of the song, and then the bear comes out to sing duet in the "George Washington's head" segment.

Here's the best part: This is for kids!!! HERE COME THE ABCs is the second of three children's albums TMBG has released to date, and Dan and I are pretty sure that a lack of exposure to Surrealism is one of the root causes for all the trouble people seem to be having with kids these days. Let it be so no longer. If you have children, you should pull a CLOCKWORK ORANGE on them and make them watch these videos.

Of course, TMBG has been on our radar for a long time. We've been fans pretty much since they did this:



Vince out.

Kids Can be So Surreal...

Ever listen to a kid tell you a rambling, improvised, stream-of-consciousness "story?"

It's this random series of events, so genuine in its randomness that you know that you, as a sane adult, could never recreate it.

Someone should really capture that- oh wait! Somebody just did!


Once upon a time... from Capucha on Vimeo.

Copyright laws will prevent this little girl's story from ever getting published (and more importantly, optioned...) but it's still pretty good- it deserves to be published!. Let's say she's culture jamming ("oh, she's commenting on Winnie the Pooh and how [insert pretentious crap here]") then that makes this totally legit. Just like how Vince and I are going to start selling re-dubbed DVDs of the 1990 Stuart Gordon film Robot Jox as Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen on Ebay sometime before next summer...

It's okay Mr. Copyright Law- it's art...

Dan

Artful Global Warming Protest...

Sometimes art doesn't mean anything. (See everything we've ever done).

But sometimes it does- and that's cool, I guess... sort of takes the fun out of it, but I'd rather these people (i.e. people with beliefs, who like, care about stuff...) express themselves this way instead of picketing, writing letters, voting, etc...

This at least looks cool.

And it certainly does make the world a little more surreal for the people who pass by- which, now that I think about it, is the one cause that we support.

So we agree with this protest, however, ideologically we believe it's much more surreal to think that global warming is some sort of conspiracy made up by a team of radical environmentalists who want to... um... like... pass laws to make the world better... or something... Oh! And deregulate trees, and then the trees can take over. If they have their way, this time next year we'll all be married to trees... Or something, right? Could someone clear this up for me?

Dan

Surrealism Hijacked 2! Empire 2!

INT. SOME TRENDY BAR IN NEW YORK CITY - NIGHT

Surrealists Dan and Vince bust through the door and begin flipping over tables.

Poe! Amos Poe! Is Amos Poe in here? Where is he? Somebody bring me that No Wave motherfucker! He's on my list! And not my Christmas list- my other list- my shit list! It's right here. It says:

1. LA Times
2. Amos Poe

End of list. Anyway we're here to talk to Poe about his 2007 film Empire 2. The trailer's embedded at the top of the page, give it a watch, we'll wait...

When I watched that trailer I felt like I had already seen it before- but, c'mon a sequel to Andy Warhol's Empire- I know I haven't seen that before- unless... I saw it inside my own brain!!!

I present EXHIBIT A in the trial of Dan and Vince vs. Amos Poe. Here is a clip from an interview I did in 2001...



You think you dada, Poe? You ain't dada! You ain't nothin'! This ain't over Poe!

Dan

ART WE LIKE: Trent Harris' The Beaver Trilogy

The Beaver Trilogy is a movie. Crispin Glover is in it. We like him.

So it starts with this dude in a parking lot being filmed by this other dude. The one dude does some impressions and stuff. Then the two dudes split up... Then the one dude writes to the other dude and tells him that he's doing a show and he's going to dress up as Olivia Newton John and the dude (the camera dude) should film it. Then we see this talent show, which ends with this dude singing like Olivia Newton John.

(Pretend this paragraph is in black and white.) Then we see these two new dudes in the parking lot. One is holding a camera and the other is Sean Penn and he is doing impressions. Then they split, and it turns out the one dude (Sean Penn) is putting on a talent show. The camera dude goes to film it, and film it. Eventually Sean Penn dresses up like Olivia Newton John and sings. Then the camera dude leaves. Then Sean Penn calls the camera dude and goes 'hey dude, I don't want that to be on TV,' but the camera dude says 'no' or whatever...

(Now we're in color again, and we look like a movie.) There's this dude who like Olivia Newton John (like we said, Crispin Glover). He goes to a restaurant and Dottie is there. People make fun of him, but he will be on TV, he says. The he goes to a parking lot and runs into this camera dude. He does some impressions... etc... talent show... etc...
[SPOILERS]
dresses like Olivia Newton John...
[END SPOILERS]

So as you can tell from my synopsis, the movie is awesome! It is a documentary, a narrative, and an experimental film. It is case-study in obsession, hind-sight, and regret. No amount of thesis papers on the re-enactments in The Thin Blue Line will tell you as much about the objectivity (or the lack there of) in cinema as The Beaver Trilogy.

Check out the official site HERE.

Dan

Deneuve

If we somehow justified that Kate Winslet pretending to be Catherine Deneuve counts as surrealism news, then clearly Catherine Deneuve being herself would also count, no?

To promote her forthcoming (not all that surreal) movie A Christmas Tale Ms. Deneuve has given a few career spanning interviews. The first with Film Comment...

Read it here.

And another, shorter article from the LA Times...

Read it here.

Dan

Inanities, Part 4

Things I've written on my typewriter:

I saw this movie once with Ronald Reagan. But the thing was, he wasn’t president yet. So I kept watching this thing going "Man, that guy’s going to be president someday." It was nuts. You can now do two things you couldn't do before you read the preceding:

1. I've been in movies, too, just like Ronald Regan. So now you can watch me in a movie and think "Man, that guy's going to be president someday."

2. This Ronald Regan movie I mentioned, I forgot the title, Patricia Neal was in it, too. I think it was her first movie, as a matter of fact. So if that helps you any, now you can go watch that movie and sit there thinking the same thing I did (Ronald Regan + President = One Day). Then, if you ever read in the news about me doing something really awful and somebody tells you that you shouldn’t judge somebody until you’ve walked in their shoes or known what it was like to be them, you can say: ‘I know. But I have, and that guy's nuts."

We've been Typealyzed

This nifty new website called Typealyzer will analyze a blog and then tell you about the writers. We tried it with our site and expected it to come back with something like:

Damn, yo! These guys are honest to God surrealists. There is no limit to their surrealing!

Instead we got the following:

The entertaining and friendly type. They are especially attuned to pleasure and beauty and like to fill their surroundings with soft fabrics, bright colors and sweet smells. They live in the present moment and don´t like to plan ahead - they are always in risk of exhausting themselves.

The enjoy work that makes them able to help other people in a concrete and visible way. They tend to avoid conflicts and rarely initiate confrontation - qualities that can make it hard for them in management positions.

Sort of right on... sort of. I'm not sure about the "pleasure and beauty" thing, we like some ugly art- maybe we've blogged a little bit too much about Catherine Deneuve as of late... also the "soft fabrics, bright colors and sweet smells" thing- makes it sound like we live in some sort of Sears commercial. And we don't. Our cramped L'apartment de surrealism is not too fancy...

But then the site offers something interesting, a chart of which part of our collective brains are being used when we write- in other words, the part of the brain that surrealism comes from.



Apparently it's the practical part.

Go figure.

Dan

Surrealism in the Real World

Cracked.com has a very cool list of "Images you won't believed aren't photoshopped." It includes the image above (a fake facade draped over a building that's under construction, as well as the sculpture seen below...



Also, you've got floating faucets and levitation... basically it's far more surreal than anything we're going to come up with today... so that's it then. My job's done. You can also check out Cracked's first list of the kind here.

Dan

ART WE LIKE: Roger Corman

What can you say about Roger Corman? Whatever it is, it's stuff we like. He makes his own rules (like us), works outside the mainstream (like us), and discovered Jack Nicholson (like us...wait...um, no. That wasn't us. That was Roger Corman.).

Not only did he give us movies with titles like NAKED PARADISE, THE BEAST WITH A MILLION EYES, and THE SAGA OF THE VIKING WOMEN AND THEIR VOYAGE TO THE WATERS OF THE GREAT SEA SERPENT, but he also gave us A BUCKET OF BLOOD, about a lonely guy who kills people and covers them in clay because he wants to be liked by a bunch of beatniks. Whenever Dan gets sick, I load him down with DayQuil and Orange Juice, then plop him on the couch to watch A BUCKET OF BLOOD. It always makes him feel better...right before he passes out.



Vince out.

Um...

Man we really dig the idea of performance art. The idea of performance art... unfortunately most performance art ends up somewhere between "well that happened..." "wait, what just happened?"

Like this:



The act itself (fellatio on a microphone) probably means something... I guess, I don't know. To be honest watching the video makes me a little uncomfortable. I do sort of dig listening to it though. I think if you added in Brian Chipendale on drums I could listen to this.

Dan

Mr. Oizo d'Andalou

We've never been big fans of electronic music, but we do remember liking Mr. Oizo. He was in a few Levis commercials...



Oh yeah, he's a puppet. Which I guess makes this pretty surreal. Surrealer still, and the real reason I'm bringing this up is the cover of his (I assume... if I'm wrong, I apologize... ma'am...) new album Lamb's Anger features this very cool, Buñuel-inspired cover:



Along with a very cool commercial:



That cover is so cool, it earns him free promotion. The album came out- uh, "dropped" on November 17th, so go get it!

Check out Mr. Oizo's MySpace for more info...

Dan

Joaquin: Chapter 3

A reader named Anonymous (which I must admit is a pretty surreal user-name, he's making a self-aware statement about the anonymity of the internet and the- oh wait, it's just someone who commented anonymously. Nevermind.) responded to our last post about Joaquin Phoenix, Surrealist? with this interesting tidbit about Joaquin showing up at a club to debut his music career- his music of choice is rap, by the way.

Casey Affleck was once again on hand, videotaping the action for a documentary about Joaquin's music career.

Damn it this is getting exciting!

Dan

OPEN CALL: Reader Submitted Surrealism

We need your help.

We (Dan and Vince) are trying to make the world a more surreal place, we personally contribute through our own surrealing, but that's tiring and we can't expect the same level of commitment from everyone.

But here's what you can do. You can tell us when you see surrealism (intentional or otherwise) in your everyday life.

Let me give you an example.

While driving out of a parking lot, I saw a retirement age couple walking through the parking lot. They were walking close together and talking, dressed in that old-person-casual style that favors comfort and color over all else. The woman was holding a leash that was behind her. Due to my interest in seeing cute puppies I followed the leash with my eyes. I was disappointed. She wasn't walking a dog, she was walking a tire. A tire, on its side so it was being dragged and not rolled, with a dog leash clipped on it, being 'walked' by a nice couple through a parking lot.

I don't know why they were taking their tire for a walk. The only stores in the strip mall were a liquor store, a salon, and a deli. No tire stores. No auto part stores. Nothing that could make the couple's actions logical.

Surrealism in real life.

Now it's your turn. Send us your stories.

Dan

Dracula 2

They're making a sequel to Dracula! Dracula: the book! Sequels, remakes, relaunches, and 're-imaginings' are out of control!

Whatever happened to coming up with some characters (new characters) and then having them do something (preferably something people hadn't really done before)?

Anyway- Dracula- Not surprisingly, they've already adapted the new book into a screenplay. In addition, two more sequels will follow (in book form, then most likely movies...).

So is this really necessary? I'll let you decide. Come, let's chart Dracula over the years.

1897 - Bram Stoker writes the novel Dracula.
1922 - F. W. Murnau makes his unauthorized film version, Nosferatu
1924 - Dracula is staged as a play starring Bela Lugosi
1927 - The play hits Broadway
1931 - The stage play is adapted into Tod Browning's film for Universal Studios
1931 - George Melford remakes Dracula, shooting at night on the same sets for the Spanish-language market
1936 - Universal Studios' Dracula 2 - Dracula's Daughter
1943 - Universal Studios' Dracula 3 - Son of Dracula
1944 - Return of the Vampire, starring Bela Lugosi, often considered an unofficial sequel to Universal Studios' original film Dracula
1944 - Universal Studios' Dracula 4 - House of Frankenstein
1945 - Universal Studios' Dracula 5 - House of Dracula
1948 - Universal Studios' Dracula 6 - Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein
1953 - Turkey adapts the book as Dracula Istanbul'da
1957 - The Blood of Dracula - visits the character during his teenage years
1958 - The Return of Dracula - an unofficial sequel to the novel
1958 - Hammer Films makes Dracula starring Christopher Lee (aka Horror of Dracula)
1960 - Hammer Dracula 2 - The Brides of Dracula
1966 - Hammer Dracula 3 - Dracula: Prince of Darkness
1966 - Billy the Kid vs. Dracula - an anachronistic take on the character
1968 - Hammer Dracula 4 - Dracula Has Risen from the Grave
1969 - Hammer Dracula 5 - Taste the Blood of Dracula
1969 - Al Adamson's Blood of Dracula's Castle has the character living to America
1970 - Hammer Dracula 6 - Scars of Dracula
1970 - Jesus Franco's Count Dracula - a Franco-ish take on the novel
1970 - Al Adamson's Dracula vs. Frankenstein
1972 - Hammer Dracula 7 - Dracula A.D. 1972
1972 - Dracula's Great Love, with Paul Naschy

1972 - American International Pictures' Blacula, starring Shakespearean actor William Marshall

1973 - Hammer Dracula 8 - The Satanic Rites of Dracula
1973 - TV movie starring Jack Palance adapts the novel

1973 - American International Pictures Blacula 2 - Scream Blacula Scream

1974 - Paul Morrisey and Andy Warhol present Blood for Dracula
1974 - Hammer releases The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires

I'm going to stop right here. 1974. 24 years ago. And we've already created all the adaptations listed in this big block of text that you probably didn't bother to read...

So what's my point? My point is if the original has inspired this much derivation, think about what a sequel will do. Like when you make a copy of a copy... or does that metaphor no longer work on the MP3, bit-torrent generation?

We simply don't have enough time left on this planet to deal with any other forms of this story. We're sick of it. Any sane rational person would have realized we reached our limit somewhere long before 1974. So let's stop bull-shitting each other.

I know Twilight is coming out today and it will make millions, but that's not Dracula. It's a new story. Just like the similar / superior Let the Right One in (trailer way up at the top there). These are films that take the mythology developed in the Dracula novel and build upon it. That's cool. We've got no problem with that. By building on the established horror conventions of vampires, zombies, and werewolves we may actually see some truly unique horror films in our lifetime.

Maybe.

Probably not though.

Dan

Thanks but No Thanks...

Chicagoan Penny Pritzker has withdrawn her name from consideration for the position of Commerce Secretary in President Obama's cabinet.

We'd like to take this opportunity, in this open forum, to inform President Elect Obama's people that we also do not want to serve as Commerce Secretary.

It's not political, and we appreciate the (surely forthcoming) offer but we've simply got too much surrealing to do.

Everyone serves our country in their own way. We do it by surrealing.

Dan

ART WE LIKE: Emmanuel Guibert Draws with Water

Next time you see a painting you like ask the artist how he painted it.

He'll probably say "with paint."

Then you go "Pffft. Whatever. Loser."

This may sound harsh- but after watching this video, I think you'll agree.

Here we see artist Emmanuel Guibert demonstrating the technique he used on his new graphic novel Alan's War.



The dude is drawing with water! The bar has been raised!

Dan

Joaquin, Surrealist (Continued)

Earlier we wrote about Joaquin Phoenix quitting acting, or more likely staging some sort of weird surrealist piece of performance art, the details of which have yet to be revealed...

But then he showed up at a film festival in Los Angeles with the above message written across his fingers.

"Bye! Good"

Hmmm. Well, what does that mean? I've got a few theories:

1. Joaquin thinks that there is nothing wrong with a good enthusiastic good-bye
2. Joaquin is trying to help out the economy by telling us to simply "Buy Goods." Of course, his spelling is all off and the extraneous punctuation makes this a little unbelievable (but only a little...)
3. Joaquin meant to say "Good-bye!" but he's holding his hands out the wrong way- or he wrote on them while looking in the mirror, and if there's one thing that the 2008 election taught us it's that you shouldn't write on yourself while looking in the mirror.

Anyway, this whole thing is weird to me, and I'm a weird dude, I'm also easily duped, but not by this.

We'll keep you posted.

Dan

Update: Surrealist Magnum Opus

A while back, I invited everybody to contribute lines to the First Ever Dan and Vince and the Whole World's Surrealist Magnum Opus...Print Edition. Well, it's not proceeding quite at the pace I envisioned, but it is progressing, so I wanted to give everybody an update.

Here's what we've got so far:

A fish popsicle, trying to breathe, trying to prove to a Zambian expat that, if you put your mind to it, anything is possible. Je suis une main. Ma poubelle est pourpre.
“Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” I said, “is actually a communist propaganda song. Have you heard the other verses?” The ingredients of water are as follows: water. Certain trees -- some deciduous, some coniferous, some man-eating – have been known to hazard the arduous trek between Grand Rapids and St. Louis. Which is in Michigan. Stay clear of them. They wish not to be seen.
“My pants! What have they done to my pants!” MTV has stolen my children.
Coolidge, Jennifer M. 310.953.8513
Coolidge, Jennifer Y. 323.232.9001
Coolidge, Xerxes S. 310.496.3481
Coolkamp, P.P. 213.898.3344
The PA crackled again. “Please report to the principal’s office.” I wept. The sun hit Raymond Chandler’s grave at 7:14 am, PDT, this morning. Is this for real? Are you guys really doing this? Ok, then here’s my contribution: “You guys are dumb. Art is gay.” If I don’t receive your rent check by 8:00 a.m. on the 12th of this month, I’d better see a moving van out front or I’m calling the cops. I’m tired of telling you two.
De förväntades un utföra icke-verbala förtrollningar, inte bara i försvar mot svartkonster utan också i trollformellära och förvandlingskonst. Regularly adding funds to your account can help you achieve your financial goals. Unluckily for Dr. Matthews, there is not the slightest sign that the novelists and newspaper men on the two sides of the ocean will ever bring themselves to such eschewing. On the contrary, they apparently delight in the use of the “localisms” he denounces, and the result is a growing difficulty of intercommunication.
Her bodice torn, the duchess stumbled into the hall, fell to her knees, and pronounced for all to hear, “At long last, behold! I am a woman, truly.”
“You want to go get some tacos?”
“I don’t know. They still on sale?”
“Oh yeah. That goes through the end of the month.”
“Then hells yeah. Tacos is tasty.”
I saw a girl wearing a shirt that said “Make awkward sexual advances, not war,” so I went up and asked her if she’d like to play hide the salami sometime, but I stuttered a little while I asked. I thought it was what she wanted. But then she slapped me, so I booked a plane to Cambodia, and the villagers there never knew what hit them.

Good work, Whole World. Keep the submissions coming.

Vince out.

Inanities, Part 3

Things I've written on my typewriter:

1. "Something happens to me when I drink caffeine."
"You get the shakes?"
"No. I lose my segues."

2. A while ago, there was this guy that I was all chummy with. He looked at me one time with nothing but porridge in his eye and said: "Chum…" I brightened up at this. "I’m glad I never ate any of that." He was right to be glad, too. Chum’s not fit for human consumption. It does a hell of a job catching sharks, though. Everything in its right place.

3. If you have a common name, you should try searching online for obituaries of people with the same name as you. It would be like jumping in a time machine.

Thanks, Crispin

I met Crispin Glover the other day at the La Brea Tar Pits. It was an accident. He was dressed quite nattily, and we discussed his movies -- the trailers for which we included in our last post -- and then exchanged pleasantries. It was very cordial. He's a great guy.

Here's what you may be asking: "That's it? Two Surrealists meet each other on the street and they exchange pleasantries, go their separate ways, and that's all? There were no monkeys? No giraffes? No string quartets perched in the trees overhead?"

Right. Exactly. Because if two Surrealists met randomly in the street and all kinds of crazy stuff started happening, it wouldn't be that surprising, would it? As a matter of fact, you'd kind of expect it, right? So the Surreal thing would be for nothing out of the ordinary to happen at all. Which is what did happen.

It was Surreal.

And then, it rained. In Los Angeles. We parted ways, and the sky opened. It never rains in Los Angeles, especially not this year. It was as though the heavens nodded slightly to us, appreciating our restraint.

It was art.

Vince out.

ART WE LIKE: Crsipin Glover

It might seem weird to pick someone who works in the traditional art-form of "acting" in what are mostly "narrative feature-length motion pictures" as an artist we admire. But watch the above clip from the film River's Edge...

Crispin Glover is not traditional, even when doing traditional actor things, like going on a talk show...



Or making a guest appearance on a sit-com...



Or a playing a small role in a slasher film...



Or releasing an album...



Or directing his own films...





Crispin Glover is awesome.

Dan

Forrest J. Ackerman

It's no secret Vince and I like classic monster movies so we were very saddened to hear about the ailing health of Famous Monsters of Filmland publisher Forrest J. Ackerman.

Aint it Cool News has the story, as well as contact info if you would like to write to Forry. Our thoughts are with him and his family...

Dan

Winslet as Deneuve...

Surrealist films don't get a lot of attention from the general public, so we've lowered our expectations as to what qualifies as press for surrealists films. Case in point, Kate Winslet's Belle de Jour-inspired photoshoot for Vanity Fair.

See the rest of the article at Vanity Fair's website (or see a picture of Kate Winslet's butt here.)

While this is very cool, it's nothing new. Diora Baird channeled Catherine Deneuve in Playboy a while back... It's NSFW, but we'll link to it here.

Dan

Three Salvador Dali Biopics?!?!

We jsut heard that Antonio Banderas is in final negotiations to play Salvador Dali in a biopic to be directed by the guy who directed CON AIR. No, we're not making that up.

But it gets weirder. This is the THIRD Dali biopic that will supposedly see the light of day in the next two years...another starring Al Pacino (DALI + I: THE SURREALIST STORY) and one staring the kid who got killed at the end of the fourth Harry Potter movie by Lord Voldemort (LITTLE ASHES).

We don't know how to feel about this. On the one hand, yay, Surrealist-themed movies! But on the other hand, Dali was the most commercial and accessible of the Surrealists, so much so that he was even ostracized for embracing classicist painting techniques.

But despite his presence on every wall in every college dorm in the country, we still like Dali. And I know that's what counts. I suppose we'll simply have to remain conflicted about the biopics.

Vince out.

ART WE LIKE: Suspects and Fugitives

I'm a little worried that we're being too negative. We are, after all, artists. And we are artists because we, for the most part, like art. So we thought that it would be cool if we started to share some art that we actually like. (This may be a weekly thing, but forgive us if it isn't...)

First up is Suspects and Fugitives- a series of portraits made from found (usually food-based) products. The piece above is called Edgar Allen Poe-tato Flakes. This appeals to us as artists, and also as lovers of puns...

This one is called Eggshell Getty...

This one. Burt Reynold's Wrap.

Anyway, I won't post every single picture here (though I could), but you can check them all out on their flickr page, or at their blog.

Dan

Inanities, Part 2

Things I've written on my typewriter:

1. Logical conclusions are a thing of the past!

2. Failure is a near certainty!

3. Words! They're silly!

Vote Today!

Vote Today- and vote twice.

First, you've got our much-anticipated Presidential Endorsement, so do that...

Then, do what you (apparently) didn't do last time we asked you to and vote in GQ's 25 Sexiest Women Poll. Ms. Catherine Surrealism Deneuve (it's her middle name- blah!) is sitting at 1% which is a travesty. Equally travese (traveste?) to our film geek hearts is that Ms. Anna Godard Karina (Godard is her middle name- wait- no...) is sitting at 0%. ZERO PERCENT! Have none of you bastards ever seen Alphaville?



You guys better do something about this or we are no longer on speaking terms...

Dan

A Little Late...

We just found this in our inbox today...

Too bad, we didn't get this a week ago. It might have influenced us if you know what I mean... but we didn't get it a week ago. We got it today. After we endorsed Brian Moore for Preident.

Nice try guys, and we were really pushing for you too. This really would have helped. Oh well... Thanks anyway...

Dan

Happy Halloween! (VIOLENCE!)

Patton Oswalt on Halloween (Skip to about the 3 minute mark...):



Halloween is a time for "normal" people to dress in terrifying costume and decorate their usually nice houses with horrific scenes of violence and death. Which, you know, we support. And so in that spirit, we'd like to share some ridiculous, over-the-top, dare-we-say surreal, cinematic violence. Consider it candy- for your eyes... Gross candy. Like that rogue whopper that manages to find its way into every box. It's sort of hollow and just doesn't taste right. This post is like a whole box of those...















This is the worst post ever.

I am so sorry.

Oh, and Happy Halloween!

Dan

POSSILBE SURREALISM IN PROGRESS - Joaquin Phoenix 'Quits' Acting

This has been big news the past few days (as the mainstream media filled time waiting for our Presidential endorsement), apparently Joaquin Phoenix has quit acting.

I'm not really a big fan of any of the movies he's been in, but the dude can act and actually seems to take the craft pretty seriously, which we respect. So, it would sort of bum us out if he stopped- mainly because his future roles would probably be given to those creepy d-bags from The Hills*.

But watch the above video... there is something weird afoot. Why is that camera following Joaquin down the red carpet? He alludes that Casey Affleck is to take over the throne of Method Actor-dom. I mean Casey Affleck is a good actor- but seriously?

This is all so weird.

Is this some sort of Andy Kaufman-esque prank? Maybe Phoenix is making some sort of Borat-ish Hollywood satire? I don't know, but he sort of seems a little too serious for something like that. But then again, maybe I only think that because he's such a good actor. Or maybe he is a closeted surrealist and he takes his surrealing seriously. If that's it Joaquin, let the PSUA know so you become eligible for our benefits (which you'll no longer get from SAG...).

Dan

* Not to be confused with The Hillz- which is technically very surreal.

Finally, Our Presidential Endorsement

Many of you have been holding your collective breath to see who (whom?) the Practicing Surrealists Union of America (PSUA) will endorse for President. You can exhale. And then you'll need to take another deep breath, becasue we're about to lay on you more history than you can possibly handle. Boom.

First, immediately before Surrealism's inception in the early 1920s, Eugene V. Debs was the Socialist Party's perennial nominee for President of the United States (1900-1920). He never made much of a showing at the polls, but when the Great Depression hit, Debs was dead and gone, FDR was in office, and a lot of the things Debs had consistently run on found their way into the New Deal.

Next, it stands to reason that as the lights dim and we settle into our seats for The Great Depression, Part II, whoever (whomever?) is the Socialist Party candidate will actually dictate our nation's future policy, no matter who's actually elected.

Next, Kurt Vonnegut, who has unassailable Surrealist street cred (he wrote himself into the novel Breakfast of Champions as the author of the book, sitting at a table in a hotel lounge with a curiously proportioned penis -- go check it out for yourself if you don't believe us), was fond of quoting this line of Debs': "While there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free."

Next, the Socialist Party candidate for President of the United States in 2008 is on the ballot in only eight states, and California, where the PSUA is based, isn't one of them.

Therefore, we, Dan and Vince, Surrealists, of the PSUA, officially endorse Brian Moore, of the Socialist Party of the United States of America, as our candidate for President.

Because really, we know Sarah Palin's really made a run for our vote, but at the end of the day, what's more Surreal than endorsing a guy you can't even vote for?

Vince out.

Reader E-mail: "Hello!"

We got a MySpace mesage from Lindy, she wants us to date her Mom. Can you blame her?

Hi! They call her "milk", 'cause she does a body good ;-)

I'm talking about my mother. She's single and would want to date a handsome guy like you She's a busy woman, she works and volunteers at an animal shelter once in a while. She plays the piano, reads books and loves to cook. She uses recipes she finds on the net. She is open-minded, laid-back, romantic and patient. She is also energetic and fun to hang around with � she's not negative and enjoys life's simple pleasures. I hope you'll write back! dont reply hear though; this is my account, she doesn't have one. Send your reply to her email address a mariestutsman@gmail.

Have fun!

Well, well... Now as saucy as this is, let me add in this detail- judging by her profile picture, Lindy looks like a model, so if the apple doesn't fall far from the tree... well, you can imagine...

Anyway, we had to respond:

Lindy,

So glad you wrote. Vince and I were just saying how we should take our surrealing to the dating-world... Your mom sound cool, I like that she's not negative, and that she, also, apparently likes to do a lot of stuff (and does do it, she doesn't just like it, she actually does it).

But, dear Lindy, I worry... Does your Mom really have the time to date, not one, but two practicing surrealists? Can she stand the constant 24/7X2 phone calls and professions of love...

"Milk, I would run through a forest of feet for you!"

"Milk, farmers wouldn't have to grow potatoes if they knew what grew in my heart for you."

"Milk, A forest of feet (shoed or unshoed) is no match for the love I have for you."

"Milk, were you at the store last week? Someone was there, they looked like you."

"Milk, the reason I was late for our date (which I forgot to tell you about) was because I tried to take a short cut through the forest of feet again- this proved to be a bad idea, because while the feet (planted in the ground ankle-first) are only about 8 inches high, my vision was obscured by the thought of you..."

Consider all of this; scheduling, surrealing and feet forests and get back to me...

Look forward to hearing from you soon,

Dan

We'll keep you posted!

Dan

Dash Snow is a Bee-yatch

As you may have noticed, we recently picked a fight with film director D.J. Caruso.

Now we're picking one with Dash Snow. Because he's a bitch, and he's everything that's wrong with art.

For example, in his collage called "F*** the Police," here's what he did: He took newspaper clippings about police, and he masturbated on them. Then he put them in frames. Then he sold them for millions of dollars.

You think that's hard? Try spending thirty days in the can for pissing on the LA Times building.

Jerking it on newspapers isn't art (and believe me, we found out the hard way...), taking pictures of your idiot friends doing blow isn't art (it's tabloid fodder, at best), and having a long beard isn't art (unless you're in Z.Z. Top). We know the word gets thrown around a lot, but do you guys know what Surrealism really is? It's putting two things next to each other that don't belong. But you can't put any two things next to each other, they have to be the right things. And Dan and I have to figure this crap out before we walk out the door in the morning, because we can't just walk down the street, we have to walk down the street and make people think, dammit. This is our life.

Where's our millions of dollars?

Vince out!

Inanities, Part 1

Several Christmases ago, I got a pork pie hat as a gift. Then, a few birthdays later, I got several very nice silk handkerchiefs. I felt bad, staring at those things just sitting in my closet after a while, so I went out and bought a three-piece suit, and then put everything together. I looked good. I looked like Tom Waits. But then I didn't have many occasions to get all dudded up, and I felt bad about the three-piece suit purchase. So I went and bought an old Remington upright typewriter from the 1930s. I got re-dudded up, sat down at the old word grinder, and I kid you not, this came out:

"And so beauty disappeared, and color followed with it. And the ocean lost its wonder while retaining its scale, transmogrified from the captivating, flowing silk of a rippling parachute into the midnight, gaping wound of a 1940s detective movie. And trees were stripped of their power to lend life to a sidewalk, a courtyard, a public square, becoming nothing but explosions of steel wool atop light poles. All was lost, and the world retreated to gray."

And I thought "HOLY CRAP!! THIS TYPEWRITER'S MAGIC!!" But then this came out next:

"‘I would like some pie,’ is what the circle told the rhomboid, or so the story goes. Just like a circle, never wants to share with anybody. It already had pi."

And I knew that I'd broken the magic typewriter.

However, since I'd sunk all this money into my suit, this antique typewriter, and a roll-top desk (yeah, I got a little carried away), I figured I should keep using the stuff. So now, every Thursday, you can catch me at an old roll-top desk in my three-piece suit, my pork pie, with a silk hankie in my pocket, banging away at a typewriter of the approximate vitage of Surrealism itself. And I've got nothing to do with the stuff that comes out of that thing but post it here.

Lucky you!

The Press Follow Our Lead... (Again...)

We've been talking about the surrealist tendencies of the McCain/Palin campaign for a while now- and it looks like the media has finally picked up on it...



Rachael Maddow makes some good points (in terms of this being dada)- but, let's be honest if you're going to vote based solely on who's more dada, you've got to go with Mike Gravel...

Dan the Surrealist

Creative Control in the Window Display of a Comic Shop

I had this dream last night. Now I am going to tell you about it.

I was in charge of designing and setting up the window display at the local comic store. (I'm not sure how I ended up in this position, there's nothing on my resume that makes me particularly qualified- in the dream, in real life I'm quite qualified...) Even curiouser, not only was I hired to do this, but I was apparently given absolute creative control to do whatever I like. My idea for this week (apparently I do this weekly) was to make the window display look as if the store was completely empty. No racks of new comics, no boxes of back issues, no action figures, nothing. If you walked by and looked in the window it would appear as if the store had gone out of business and moved out over night. The owner of the store was upset about this, for obvious reasons, which were then only compounded by the fact that I was using his staff to set up the elaborate series of mirrors, projectors, and holograms necessary to pull off this incredible, business-ruining display. But it didn't bother me that he was mad, not for a second, because I was working for his boss, who apparently thought I was brilliant.

Whatever...

Dan

The Most Important Vote of Your Life!

We've finally got an endorsement for you. We're endorsing Deneuve.

I'm not talking about the President-making-thing (the election), I'm talking about GQ's 25 Sexiest Women in Film- of All Time List... I know that magazines Maxim, FHM, and Bubes for Dudes (I made that last one up) release a list like this every other day but this one is different- the publishers of GQ are literate- and don't mind reading subtitles, therefore they've included some of the beautiful foreign film stars that we nerd out over... including:



Ms. Surrealism herself, Catherine Deneuve.

Which is great, except- she is currently riding at around 2% (despite our repeated attempts at voter fraud. This simply can not stand- so go and vote by clicking here!

Thanks (to you and Democracy),

Dan

Sure, Why Not...

When you really think about it, it's stupid to NOT attach explosive bananas to your face... I mean, you know, when you really think about it...

Dan

Sad- But Also Inspiring? Or Maybe Just Really Depressing...

Incredible auteur Rainer Werner Fassbinder wrote and directed 41 films in his lifetime.

He died less than two weeks after his 37th birthday.

When his body was discovered, an unfinished screenplay was lying next to him...

How old are you and what have you done?

Dan

Twitter Just Got Surreal-er

We are now on Twitter. We like the challenge of trying to cram our surrealism into 160 characters or less.

Visit us here:

https://twitter.com/danandvince

Dan

Flann O'Brien

Here's why we like Flann O'Brien:
- He's Irish, from the land that brought us Guinness
- He never existed (being a pseydonym)
- And he wrote a book called At Swim-Two-Birds, which, honest to god, Andre Breton probably kept under his pillow at night.

Let me see how I can best summarize this book: A lazy university student is writing a book about a man who runs a hotel and is writing a book whose characters conspire against him and drug him to the point of a narcotic coma so they no longer have to do what he wishes to write, and can instead live their lives the way they please.

The university student has a theory, also, that enough literary characters have been created, and all books should now be populated with characters created in other, earlier works, because this will save the writer and reader the trouble of having to get to know a whole new crop of people every time a new book is opened. So, for instance, Anna Karenina and Emma Bovary walk into a bar, etc. etc. etc. As such, the characters in the book he is writing --the drugged author and all of his "creations" -- have all been lifted from other works or from mythology. This idea opens the doors to myrid Surrealistic possibilities.

And finally, we would like the book were none of the above true, as long as it still contained this passage: "We must invert our conception of repose and activity...We should not sleep to recover the energy expended when awake, but rather wake occasionally to defecate the unwanted energy that sleep engenders. This might be done quickly - a five-mile race at full tilt around the town and then back to bed and the kingdom of the shadows."

Vince out.

Isn't it Ironic (How Wrong You Are?)

Alanis Morissette's song 'Ironic' often comes under fire from jaded, over-analytical hipsters determined to put their Bachelor's degree in English to good use and claim that the situations listed in the song are not actually ironic.

Now, I'm not going to go through the song line by line since some of them are sort of questionable, but I do want to defend the commonly called-out chorus:

It's like Ray-eyyyain on your wedding day...

For some reason people like to point to this line as something that is not ironic, but they are wrong. Or at least simply not well-versed in traditional American wedding superstitions.

If it rains on your wedding day- congratulations, that's considered good luck. The superstition tells us that your marriage will be very successful. Of course, if you're so lucky, why are you and all your friends and family standing around in suits in the rain.

Rain + Wedding Day = Good Luck? Sounds kind of ironic. A little too ironic? Well, no, not really, since it was probably thought up to help calm down distraught, wet bride, but, yeah, ironic.

So now back to our smart ass friend who is dominating the happy hour conversation by calling out Ms. Morissette for not knowing the definitoon of a pretty simple word. He is, in fact, the dumbass, and by making said 'call out' he has done nothing but draw attention to his own stupidity.

Now isn't it ironic... and yes I really do think.

Dan

D.J. Caruso...Friend or Foe?

For those of you who haven't been keeping up, there's this guy out there directing movies named D.J. Caruso. We've written about him a couple of times now, which got me thinking -- how do we feel about this guy? We want Sam Mraovich to keep making movies, but what about the man behind, most recently, Eagle Eye and Disturbia?

Here's the skinny on those films: They're Hitchcock films. The people behind Disturbia are currently being sued for creating an unauthorized remake of Rear Window, and check out what Boston.com has to say about Eagle Eye:

"Eagle Eye," [like Disturbia], is a movie only a copyright lawyer could love. It strip-mines at least three Hitchcock classics - "North by Northwest," "The Wrong Man," and "The Man Who Knew Too Much" - then commits unlawful assault on Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" just for the heck of it...Is it any fun? For an act of pillage, it's pretty entertaining. Bring earplugs and Dramamine, though, and keep "Vertigo" cued up on the DVD player for when you get home.

Now, The Deej, as I'll be referring to him from now on, is 43 years old. This is important, because if he was 25 and had just gotten out of film school, he might not know any better than to steal outright entire pieces of classic films. But as someone who's been directing films since 1995, he should know better, which means he probably does, but that knowledge is not deterring his quick fingers (intellectual property-wise). So what does it all mean?

1) The Deej could simply be a talentless hack who has built his career by aping luminaries who came before him, trusting that audiences/studio executives will be either so ignorant or so blase about his thievery that they'll let him continue unimpeded (which, if this is the case, it's worked according to plan - go Deej).

2) The Deej is someone who watched Hitchcock's catalogue and thought "Man, I wish I would've made those movies," and now is trying to do just that because no one's stopping him. I can understand this to a certain extent. After Back to the Future came out, I wanted a DeLorean. I'd still take one if somebody left it in my driveway.

3) The Deej, could, in fact, be a kindred spirit, and welcome invitee to the PSUA, who harbors the dream of one day creating a sort of arch-pastiche, a film constructed entirely of recycled pieces, a sort of mainstream cineplex-and-popcorn found-art experience. This we could get behind. So which is it? Well, I've had kind of a bad day, so unless The Deej contacts us and lets us in on the joke, at which point he will immediately inducted into the Practicing Surrealists Union of America, all dues waived, I'm guessing he's (1).

D.J Caruso, I propose you are a toolbox.* And yes, that is my gauntlet at your feet.

Vince out.

*Definition from UrbanDictionary.com: The term "toolbox" refers to someone who is such a tool that his supreme stupidity is on the level of what you'd expect from a collaboration of several tools.

Sesame Street Dada

Here is a vintage clip of not-dead actor James Earl Jones on Sesame Street. If this doesn't prove that that show is (or at least, was) the best way for a kid to learn, I'll eat my shoe...



Dan

Palin for the Win?

The election is less than a month away and we still haven't endorsed a presidential candidate... however, it's not for lack of trying.

We've acknowledged an interest in Alaska Governor/Republican Vice Presidential Nominee/Poet Sarah Palin, and I have to say that since then, she's only gotten better and better.

First there was the Vice Presidential debate, where she answered questions as only a surrealist could- by not answering them!

And then, there was this web ad that her campaign ran the next day...

"She killed. It was her evening. She was the star."
- Famous Person 10/2/08

My God! It's brilliant. Is it a post-modern comment on America's obsession with celebrity for celebrity's sake instead of celebrity earned through talent and hard work? Or is it a self-aware, self-deprecating jab at the lack of Hollywood support for the GOP? Perhaps a subtle attack of Barack Obama and his unending supply of movie star supporters? Whatever it is, do we love it? You betcha!

Keep up the good work Sarah!

Dan

(h/t: Wonkette)

Pamela Anderson for President?

Yeah, I know it doesn't really make any sense, but follow me on this...

A few days after we lamented at the lack of surrealism in the current Presidential race, Ralph Nader made a public plea for the surrealist vote. We were not impressed. But then on the other side of the pond, at a fashion show in England, actress/playmate Pamela Anderson ever so subtly threw her hat into the race, not with actions or speeches or any of those 'presidential' things- She- well- just take a look for yourself...

Um... Is that a robot? Do we have robots yet? Is it an alien? A ghost? Whatever it is it's damn weird- More interesting than anything David Blaine has done in the last few years- I'd even say it's surreal.

So, Pam Anderson did something surreal. Why does this mean she should receive PSUA's endorsement for the highest office in the country? Well think about it, Barb Wire is, in its own way, a surrealist film, so she's been in the surrealing game for a while. Plus she's got more experience than Sarah Palin- though admittedly not the kind of experience people look for in their future leaders... sexy experience...

In conclusion, we're not ready to endorse anyone yet- but this is an interesting turn of events...

Dan

Great Moments in Wikipedia Vandalism, Part 4

We haven't done one of these in a while... but someone (specifically someone at the IP address 158.64.118.154) added the following information to the Surrealism page on Wikipedia- and I'll be honest, I checked with Vince, and neither of us knew this. But it's on wikipedia (or it was...) so it must be true...

Surrealism was made in victorian britain by Jack Bauer.

Fascinating... However our friend, who we'll call 158 for short, has also been doing some exhaustive research on Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page. Of Page's time with the Yardbirds he writes

I like pIE

And saves his biggest bombshell for the section on Page's formative years, where he pronounces

Jimmy Page is gAy

Wow!

Dan

The Unintenional Surrealism of Bad Movies (Part 2)

Earlier we discussed the connection between "bad films" and surrealism.

We need to make a clarification and a correction.

First the correction: Sam Mraovich's Ben & Arthur is no longer the second worst film of all time (according to the IMDB). It is now the fourth worst. The new number two is called Fat Slags - which leads us to our clarification...

Not all bad films are surreal. Case in point, Fat Slags. The film is based on a comic strip from British humor magazine Viz, which we can assume is like a British version of Mad or maybe a less funny version of the awesome British magazine Acne (which we wrote about here). The film stars Jerry O'Connell, Sexy Spicy Geri Halliwell, Naomi Campbell, and most-importantly actor-turned-auteur Dolph Lundgren. Check out the scene below:



Not surreal.

But the ball breaks when the not-even-all-that-fat-woman sits on it, then there's a mild earthquake. Not surreal, it's exagerration at best.

But the scale talks. Not surreal, you can buy those at Target.

But you should list three things about this clip... it's just good writing. I agree, I am a bad writer.

Anyway, this film works on the premise that fat people are funny- and while it's true sometimes; W.C. Fields, Chris Farley, Jon Belushi- it's really overly generous, and frankly unfair to us, the skinny, to simply assume that all overweight people are funny. Think about it Steve Martin, Kate Moss, the mummified remain of King Tutankhamun- all skinny and hilarious.

In summary:
1. Sam Mraovich made the fourth worst film of all time.
2. Sometimes bad movies are just plain bad.
3. Don't hog the comedy spotlight, fatty, us skinny/attractive people could use a break every once in a while...

Dan