Sarah Palin's Stream of Consciousness

A lot of people know Republican Vice Presidential Nominee Sarah Palin as a staunch conservative, a hockey mom, or perhaps the woman who said "thanks but no thanks (but actually, thanks)" to the brilliant bridge to nowhere. But did you know she is also an amazing stream of consciousness poet?

Here's one of her most recent works, I think it's Untitled, or it's called Bailout:

That's why I say, I, like every American I'm speaking with were ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bailout. But ultimately what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the healthcare reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Helping the "o". It's got to be all about job creation too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So healthcare reform, and reducing taxes, and reighning in spending has got to accompany tax reduction and tax relief for Americans and trade, we've got to see trade as opportunity, not as competitive, scary thing, but 1 in 5 jobs being created in the trade sector today. We've got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation.

It's got to be the best piece of stream of consciousness poetry I've read since this or maybe this...

And it makes her a serious contender for the White House in our eyes...

Dan

Our Third Post in a Row About David Blaine...

I don't really want to rag on the guy... but did you see that thing?!?

I think my problem with the guy stems mainly from his wasted potential. The guy hung upside down for portions of 60 hours (he took breaks once an hour...) and I guess that's impressive- if not physically, certainly in its ability to generate publicity... but here's the thing- THE DUDE CAN FLY!!!

David Blaine's thing used to be walking up to strangers and inflicting his magic on them, it was the most transgressive form of magic imaginable. It was as if he was saying "I don't care what you've got planned for today, right now, you're going to watch me fly, then you're going to go back home to your family- and you know what, they'll be a whole lot less interesting... You've been Blained!" Well maybe he didn't say all of that, but he was thinking it...

Now, instead of honing the power of flight, and trying to get higher than 6 inches off the ground, he's just stopped flying all together. Focusing instead on what can only be called "endurance art." ... and I'm not talking about his physical endurance, I'm talking about us, the audience having to endure the closest thing we've had to a real, live Superman squander his abilities while sitting in a box, lying in a block of ice, or peeing upside down.

Actually... now that I put it that way- I guess it is the sort of thing we should support.

Dan

Also, this clip I linked to above:



... he's at the grassy knoll ...doing magic... at the grassy knoll... Last time someone did magic there it ended poorly. Too soon, Blaine- too soon!

More on the Un-Surreal Non-Magic...

Here's the finale of David Blaine's "magic show":



So... you see... it's magic...

I feel bad for the poor announcer, struggling so hard to try and make any of this the least bit interesting. I remember when I was a kid, I used to watch David Copperfield specials, and yes they sucked, and yes they were cheesy, but at least they were magic. Not- whatever the hell this was...

In related news, I haven't had a bowel movement in 3 days- ABC if you're interested in putting together a television special about it, including the "live poop finale"- please let me know.

Dan

Not Magic. Not Surreal.

We've gotten a few e-mails about this. And the answer is no. No, it's not magic, and no it's not surreal.

Dan

The Digital (Eagle) Eye in the Sky

You probably haven't heard, but there's a movie coming out called Eagle Eye with Mutt from Indiana Jones and the girl who had half her face cut off in the Maid of Honor billboards, directed by the guy who accidentially remade Rear Window without realizing it.

Eagle Eye is about this all-seeing, all-knowing, tech-savvy shadow organization that controls people by ruining their lives. Or so the trailers tell me. To promote the film, all over LA they've put up digital billboards near big intersections that say things like "La Brea and Olympic: If you want to live, you will obey. Eagle Eye." and "Overland and Venice: If you want to live, you will obey. Eagle Eye." And so on. I have no strong feelings about the ads, but those digital billbaords are cool and they've given Dan and me a great idea for public-installation art.

Here's what we'd like to do: Buy some ad space on digital billboards, and set up traffic cameras by them so we can see the cars sitting in traffic near the signs. We'll get a license plate number of some car sitting in traffic, and somebody with a computer hooked up to the billboard will feed that license number into a message saying something like "Red Chevy Malibu, License Number 5VRU946. Your lights are on." Or "Black Ford Ranger, License Number 3FGW553. You are getting a parking ticket." These would be lies, of course, and hopefully very confusing to the drivers in question. We could also tap into the California DMV database to get the names of the people the cars are registered to, and get their names worked in. "Dan Knight, yes, you in the BMW 325i, your boss is trying to reach you." Or, "Chris Henderson, yes, you in the Prius, your wife Nancy just left your house with the pool boy." Things like that.

The real coup de grace, though, would be creating fake AMBER Alerts, things that read "Child Abduction In Progress...(insert make, model, and license number of the car directly in front of you)." If one purpose of art is to make people uncomfortable (and it sure can be!), then we think this is just the trick. I know it's not nice, but hey, we're Surrealists, not a couple of guys going around handing out Girl Scout Cookies.

So we're looking for funding for that. We're looking at you, NEA.

Vince out.

PS. We do recognize there would be a certain degree of Surreality in Dan and I -- two adult men with rapidly-evolving facial hair and a talent for non sequitur -- randomly handing out Girl Scout Cookies, but we feel the point remains valid.

The Unintenional Surrealism of Bad Movies

The way we see it any person making art is a good person- well, with a few exceptions, but for the most part, even if the art isn't necessarily good, the world is in some way a better place because it exists. So, we really hate to pick on anyone for trying and failing BUT it is hard to ignore the unintentional surrealism of certain bad movies. Ed Wood's Glen or Glenda is perhaps the ultimate example of the formula "bad movie" = "incredible surrealist art".

That being said, we would love to find a contemporary Ed Wood, someone who, without even the slightest bit of self-awareness, is creating incredible, accidental pieces of art. I think we found him, in fact we've even written about him before, but it wasn't until recently that we bothered to YouTube him.

Sam Mraovich, writer/producer/director/star/cinematographer/editor/composer/casting director of the second worst film of all time (according to the IMDB), Ben & Arthur may be an unintentional genius. Here's a trailer:



Is it satire- is it a satire of satire? Is it camp? Is it a satire of camp? A campy satire of satire or maybe camp? Just a bad movie? It's like it's either a really bad 'gay-interest' film or a parody of 'gay interest' films so savage it is downright homophobic.

Anyway, Sam we support you. Keep doing what you do- and we'll watch it- and enjoy it, though not necessarily in the way you intended us to.

(One last note, just to clarify, while the film looks like it was shot with camcorders in a weekend- it actually got distribution, hence opening it up for study and/or ridicule and/or jealousy.)

Dan

Never Steal from a Samurai Master

It came out last week that the Sheldon Abend Revocable Trust (I know...those friggin' guys again!) has filed suit against Universal Studios and DreamWorks Pictures for making Disturbia without getting the rights to remake Rear Window.* If you're not familiar with the backstory here, it's this -- Disturbia is Rear Window. Everybody knew it, when the reviews came out, everybody mentioned it, but nobody did anything about it...UNTIL NOW!

It might seem that filing suit in September of 2008 about a film that came out on April 13, 2007 is a bit, well, poorly timed. But Dan and I totally understand. We're big Hitchcock fans, or, we're big fans of that part in Vertigo where Jimmy Stewart's head floats in front of a psychadelic background, at least, and we remember the hard time we had trying to find Rear Window on video way back in the day when we were only junior Surrealists. Turns out Rear Window has been at the center of rights confusion ever since it came out, which kept it off of video and TV for a long time. So we can see how it could've taken 18 months to figure out who had the right to sue Universal and DreamWorks in the first place.

But as recent victims of intellectual property theft, Dan and I are backing this suit all the way. We're also backing the estate of Akira Kurosawa, who announced today that they're filing suit against everybody in Hollywood. George Lucas for his unauthorized remake of The Hidden Fortress, what's left of New Line Cinema for their remake of Yojimbo, Alejandro Gonzalez Innarritu, Guillermo Arriaga, and Tony Gilroy for everything they've ever done without crediting Rashomon, Ron Howard for his abysmal take on High and Low, and the list just goes on and on. They've even named the Catholic Church in the suit for their continued depiction of St. Sebastian as being martyred in a way that's eerily reminiscent of Toshiro Mifune's undoing in Throne of Blood. That last one's a bit of a stretch, but we really do like Kurosawa, so we'll cut his people some slack.

We'd also like to suggest options for some other potentially litigious and way-too-late souls out there. May we suggest to the living descendants of the Donner Party** that they might pursue some recourse against the producers of Soylent Green, or to the surving members of The Doors (if they can stop bickering amongst themselves -- face it, Eddie Vedder isn't going to join your band) that they should drop the hammer on Smashmouth for blatantly ripping off the opening of "Soul Kitchen" for their song "Walking on the Sun."

You're welcome. Anything we can do to help.

Vince out.

*Notice in this article that the main perpetrator behind Disturbia, director D.J. Caruso, is quoted as saying that "you can't remake Rear Window." Well, have we got some news for him...

** Dan and I would like to illuminate the person who wrote "Although [cannibalism] has become synonymous with the Donner Party in the popular imagination, it was actually a minor part of the episode" on the Wikipedia entry. To wit, in Western civilization, cannibalism is always a major component of any event where it occurs. For example, if Dan and I were to invite 87 people over one night (the number of people in the Donner Party, originally), and cannibalize 7 of them, when the authorities came around, we would no doubt get very little mileage out of the "Officers, it was only seven people out of 90, it was really only a small part of the episode" defense.

Field Recordings - Remixed

I'm going to admit that we're a little disappointed that the Capatcha Field Recordings we posted last week never really took off. I wasn't expecting [Insert name of successful field recording artist], but at least a few comments.

Anyway, it is in rejection that the artist can truly take time to reflect on his or her art. We have done so, and we've realized that the reason our earlier recordings didn't take off is because, when it comes to music, you can be as avant-garde as you like, but people just won't listen to something they can't dance too.

So, we present (in co-operation with morecowbell.dj) our very first re-mix!

Check it out HERE!

	Make your own at MoreCowbell.dj

Enjoy!

Dan

Video Buffet/A Clicking Thing: We're Big in Austria!

Our re-mix of Oliver Laric's Touch My Body (Green Screen Version) was recently featured on Austrian (I think) website derStandard.

You can check out the article here, of course, the site isn't in English so you probably won't be able to understand any of it- however, thanks to the magic of the internet we were able to translate it- sort of.

Dauerlooping at the Videobuffet The video platform YouTube does not only stand for desperate self-manifestations, pixelige Handy camera pictures and bad dance performances - a clicking thing One the numerous Videoresponses on the green interpretation of the Carey video, comes from the YouTubern Dan & Vince. By their Remix and the collage of the different floats and movement modes Mariah Careys they strengthen Larics statement, which " itself in the text line; If it' s A camera UP into here, then I best emergency catch this repair on YouTube… " consolidated.

Brilliant. Thanks guys!

Dan

An Open Invitation

Our thoughts go out to everyone affected by Hurricane Ike. We would also like to thank all the Police/Firefighter/EMT/National Guardsmen/Red Cross people and all the other emergency workers for helping out.

And, we'd like to thank this guy (or gal) who seemed to know that, with the storm approaching, people could probably use a laugh...



To you, sir (or ma'am), we would like to extend an open invitation to join the Professional Surrealists Union of America. We'll waive the fees. You are a true American Hero.

(h/t: Wonkette, for reminding us...)

Dan

Nice Try Nader!

We've never stated this before, but Vince and I hate Ralph Nader. He ruined everything! We curse his name everyday while trying to drive behind the confines of our now-state-required seatbelts. Damn you Nader!

Anyway, he apparently read our post about looking for the surreal candidate in the 2008 election and is now pandering to the surrealist vote...



Nice try Nader, but no dice!

However if you make a sequel to this video (where you dress up like a panda, go to the zoo, impregnate an actual panda, and then wait as it gives birth to some panda/social activist hybrid) then we'll talk.

(h/t: Wonkette)

Dan

Lou Lumenick is an Ass

Here's an article.

Lou Lumenick is an ass.

Seriously, have you ever sat behind someone with no regard for whether or not you can see the movie? I bet he even showed up late, talked all the way to his seat, then fumbled with his candy wrappers and checked the time on his cellphone for the rest of the film.

What an ass.

Dan

Surrealism in '08!

We've written a fair amount about the forthcoming election, but PSUA has yet to formally endorse any particular candidate- not that we haven't been thinking about it... Mainly we've been paying attention to campaign ads, of course they don't really count as surreal- more like not real, or at least not true, yet without any sort of artistic intent, except for one candidate, and let me tell you he was an early forerunner for our endorsement.

Ladies and gentlemen, we present the dadaist short films of Mike Gravel:





Sigh. We miss him. Is a union allowed to endorse a write-in candidate?

Anyway, the political ad landscape returned to it's boring old self after Gravel dropped out- until it got a big old technicolor stab to the eyeball with the release of this Boy George video endorsing Obama. Featuring the animated visages of Boy George, Barack Obama, David Bowie, Divine, and Amy Winehouse, it's no surprise that it's not officially endorsed by the Obama camp. But it is crazy. So here it is.



However, Obama didn't have anything to do with it, so he doesn't get the credit and we're still without a candidate. But what of all the third party candidates? True, they must be living in some sort of subconscious dream-world if they think they stand any chance in this election, but we can't in good conscience tell you to throw your vote away.

It was looking pretty bleak. Until the emergence of Sarah Palin. While she modestly calls herself a "hockey mom," she is actually one of the architects (not literally) of one of the greatest pieces of surrealist art of the last 50 years. The bridge to nowhere.

Of course, she now denies she had anything to do with it, which is disappointing, but she doesn't actually apologize for it, she just flat out denies she had anything to do with it. Which kind of seems like the sort of thing Andre Breton could get behind. Like if Salvador Dali started insisting that not only did he not paint his paintings he did everything within his power to prevent them from being painted.

Hmph.

Well we're just going to have to keep thinking about this.

Dan

NEW PROJECT: Field Recordings

After a long hard day of work, who doesn't like to sit back, pour themselves a scotch and listen to some nice field recordings? It's what Vince and I do to cap off every day of surrealing.

But I must admit that sometimes when listening to something that sounds like a train in the distance on a windy day or someone in tap-shoes walking through an airport, I sometimes think 'I could do this...'

But I never have. Simply because I don't want to join the long list of people who have tried and failed to enter the highly profitable field of experimental field recording. Because unlike traditional music making all the cheap stuff like talent and practice don't amount to anything in the world of field recording, the one thing you need is the expensive recording equipment. Until now.

My friends, what would you say if I told you I had discovered a way to create field recordings inside of the series of tubes commonly referred to as the interwebs?

How, you say. One word. Capatcha.

I'll get into specifics in a later post, but until then please enjoy three tracks from our forthcoming album Dan and Vince - Field Recordings, Vol. 1







Dan

Lucid Writing Part 1

Vince and I are surrealists and we're very interested in the subconscious, so it probably comes as no surprise that we've been experimenting with lucid writing- for the past 7 years.

For the past 7 years, we've both been trying, notebooks next to the bed, ready to go, jotting down our last thoughts before falling asleep and our first thoughts when we get up. We've dedicated ourselves to it and we make sure we write every night and every morning. And you know what we have to show for it? Nothing. Well, not nothing, just nothing good.

Jokes with no punchlines, disturbing fantasies, and warped memories of high school. That's it. Well, that and 56 straight pages of "Buy Soup Mix."

Let me give you an example, here's what I wrote this morning. I'm only sharing because it seemed to take the form of a blog entry.

09.04.08

We see a lot of famous people/locations here in LA, because it's where all the famous people/things are, there's no point in bragging. If I told you I saw Natalie Portman at the store buying soup, you'd say you saw John Dillinger or Matthew McConaughey eating soup once. Everyone always has a better story. Until now. Today, while riding the bus, I looked down at the street beneath me and I saw the wheels on the bus... they were going round and round. That's right, I was on the bus made famous in the classic song. The bus with the wheels that go round and round, and I know it was the bus because everyone on it was (note to self: look up what the people on the bus were doing according to the song). Anyone can see an artist, today I saw a muse.

See what I mean? Crap!

Dan