More About Hemmingway

I got all inspired by our reCAPTCHA Poetry post, and started wondering what other types of media we could mess with in some new way to create other works derived from the same media. I entered a discovery phase.

At CVS, I saw Hemmingway's "The Sun Also Rises" on audiobook, as read by William Hurt. I grabbed it, figured what the hell. As I walked home, I wondered what to do with it...maybe put it on random and record that, and release that as art, so it would be these three-minute blocks of Hemmingway out of context and with no relation to what came before or after. Or maybe I could get several audio books, and combine tracks at random, or maybe just audio books read by William Hurt, or...

And then I listened to it, and I got all off track. Because William Hurt, Academy Award-winning actor, reads the entire book like this: "The followING DAY...the FIesTA...explODEd. There is no...other WAY...to DEscribe it." Like he's reading it on a boat in rough seas, and inflecting his voice along with the waves, completely irrespective of the contents of the sentences or their punctuation. It's hella disorienting, and as if Hemmingway wasn't choppy enough already...

This got me thinking about William Hurt -- who used to like to punch deaf girls while drunk -- and wondering...is this is what it sounds like in his head when he reads? And if it is, how could he have ever possibly enjoyed reading anything? Or is he somehow channelling Shatner (my next audiobook purchase)?

Vince out.

Collected Twitter, 10.14.08 - 04.20.09

Let's keep talking about Twitter. The thing with it is that it moves so damn fast. You blink and you'll miss a gem- most likely a gem from us. So what we're going to do is present some of our choice tweets here in the only-slightly-more-permanent blog form, starting with our first tweet all the way up until yesterday:

Now we Twitter...

Knock knock. Who's there? Twitter. Twitter who? Twitter dot com. Did you confuse my door with your internet browser again? Yes... del,del...

I guess it's for the best you can't Twitter while you sleep, how many posts do you need that just say "zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz"?

I have nothing to say right now- and with Twitter I am able to express that.

It's a different year now. Is everyone okay? Did everybody survive the calender conversion process?

The sun will be coming up in New York in three hours. I'm in LA. If I can move fast enough, I will stop it. I've been drinking. - Vince

We didn't twitter a single line about the inauguration today because it wasn't surreal- well, other than Aretha Franklin's hat.

Sort of disappointing that Will.I.Am is the unofficial musician for this Inauguration. We would have picked John Zorn, but whatev. #inaug09

Our tweet about the Clintons is now on a list of "Tweets about Hilary Clinton or Clinton" - http://tinyurl.com/akf3f5

The purpose of that last post was to get that list to list my post about their list listing our post, because I think that would be awesome!

Tonight's NBC programming is in 3-D... if you have glasses, if you don't it's just sort of blurry. Just like real-life!

Say what you will about (Michael) Phelps (after the "bong photo" surfaced), but he is a superhero so we don't want him on our bad side- especially when the underwater zombies show up.

I just made a TinyUrl link that take you to TinyUrl.com- I beat the system! Check it out - http://tinyurl.com/u

have found chocolate-flavored Pez. And we find them creepy.

#thishashtagindicatesthattheonlytextinthispostISthehashtagwhichmakessensesinceitsareallonghastag Please everybody, start using that #hashtag

Damn it! We totally forgot to Tweet during the time-change! It would have been like we were tweeting from 1 hour in the future.

BTW, one hour in the future (where we are right now) everyone is totally over Twitter. The new social networking site? PooPictures.com

BTW, I didn't bother to check if poopictures.com is actually a real website (and I won't), it was for comedy only, visit at your own risk.

For future reference, Customers don't like it when you replace the soy milk in their coffee with a muffin... even if you say "#AprilFools!"

IMPORTANT: There's a big difference between an ice pick and a frozen water pick. #advice

This year, Miss USA will have a new "environmentally-friendly" crown. The old crown was made out of styrofoam and precious metals.

If I'm a journalist and I tell your story, your story becomes "my story," plus I've got my own story... Journalists = Story-collectors

If someone died in your arms in the wild west, you would probably be responsible for burying them.

So, hope that wasn't too self-indulgent... or at least not more self-indulgent than having a blog or being on Twitter. Not greater then the sum of its parts in self-indulgence-ness is what I'm saying...

Anyway, as you can see our misc. thoughts are as good as or better than Hemingway's so you should totally be following us on Twitter- because Hemingway isn't on Twitter. He's dead. Sorry to break it to you this way.

Dan

Failed #Hashtags

So, we're on Twitter. Duh. Everybody's on Twitter. (Even our boss- even your Mom, which doesn't come as much of a surprise since, according to the kids in the neighborhood, she's sort of a early-adopter of social networking websites- if you catch my drift.)

Anyway, #hashtags are the cool thing on Twitter- basically they're little subject headings for your little posts so people can search for results based on what you're talking about. Anyway, the really cool ones become memes, and, as everyone knows, memes make you money, and, as our readers know, we need money. So, we've been trying (poorly) to start some #hashtag memes. Here is a gallery of our failure.

1. #twittervandalism
Inspired by our series of blogs about Wikipedia Vandalism, we figured we should apply the same treatment to the micro-blog. Twitter-hijacking is surprisingly common- though the recent Tila Tequila thing may kind of put a damper on it- or at least put a damper on it being "funny" or "art."

2. #knockknock
We thought by posting the hashtag #knockknock, people would respond with #whosthere, then we'd say #bananas, then they'd say #bananaswho, then we'd say #orangeyougladididntsaybanana, then they'd says #lolwot. We thought that would be funny. Apparently it wasn't. Sorry, we wasted your time.

3. #onlyats
Okay, now this one I genuinely thought people would dig. It's a game, spell out a sentence by only using valid Twitter user-names. It has yet to take off... Which is really too bad, because unlike those other ones- I really, really believed that #onlyats was going to be the meme-money-train straight to our door.

You know who drives the meme-money train? Rick Astley. True story.

Sorry for all our failures. I guess that's why we're working where we're working...

Dan

Surrealism Around the World: Naked in Paris

This is...well, borderline surreal, I guess. But it's from Paris, where surrealism is also from, and where that little girl told the story about Winnie the Pooh and the crocodile killing the witch in the forest, so I figured we needed to give it a shout out.



French pole vaulting champion Romain Mesnil lost his sponsorship deal with Nike, so he made the symbolic gesture of running through Paris totally naked, apart from his two poles. One of them has a black box over it in this video.

I don't know. I guess it's surreal. But we haven't highlighted any Surrealism Aroudn the World in a while, so it'll do.

Vince out.

ART WE LIKE: Ori Gersht

Here's what Ori Gersht does:
1) he creates still lives, like so many artists before him, then
2) he sets up a camera, like so many artists before him, then
3) blows the shit out of the still lives, and finally
4) records the destruction on a high-speed camera

His video Pomegranate is literally just him shooting a pomegranate with a gun in extrememely slow motion. Enjoy.

Reader E-mail: "Call to confirm !!!"

We've been talking a lot about how we're struggling to make money while making art- and we're not asking for charity, we're just telling you what's what. And we are accepting charity when it becomes available. Like today, when one reader (who wished to remain anonymous) forwarded us basically one million euros in the form of this note:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Mrs. Roselyn Gomez. <bristolwestb55@aol.com>
Date: 2009/4/15
Subject: Call to confirm !!!
To:


MICRO WORD.COM CORPORATIONS,
CUSTOMER SERVICE:
MADRID SPAIN/ESPANA.
APARTADO DE CORREOS 48, 28230 las Rozas,

REFERENCE NO: MSFT-0200-X74-RS
BATCH NO: MSFT-2009- GM-0221

OFFICIAL WINNING NOTIFICATION.

Welcome to Micro word.com Corporation annual promotions, We are
pleased to inform you of the released results of Sweepstakes Promotion
organized by Micro word.com Corporations, in conjunction with the
foundation for the Promotion of software products, held this April 2nd
2009, here in Madrid-Spain.

Your email address emerged as one of the on-line Winning emails, in the
1st category and therefore You have been approved for a cash award
1,000,000.00; MILLION Euros (ONE MILLION EUROS) this is from a total cash
prize of TEN MILLION EUROS Shared among the ten International winners in
the 1st category.

To begin your claim, do file for the release of your winning by contacting
our Accredited agent: Foreign Transfer Manager MICRO WORD.COM CORPORATIONS.

Mr. Andy Phillips Cole.
Tel: +34-634-105-922
Email: andyphillipsc@aol.com

NOTE: All the members of Spanish MSFT Word Resource Consortium Software Promotion Companies.

Remember your winning must be claimed not later than two weeks of notification after this
date funds might be returned to the MICRO WORD RESOURCE MADRID, this Internet E-mail draw is held periodically,

And is organized to encourage the use of the Internet users, And to
promote computer literacy worldwide.

Congratulations!!!

Sincerely,
Mrs. Roselyn Gomez.
Promotions Manager.

Og boy! Here's our reply:

Roz,

A friend sent us this e-mail and we are so down. We need the money- Can you buy shoes with Euros? We've got a plan for an art project we can do with our "1,000,000.00; MILLION Euros (ONE MILLION EUROS)," but we're going to need a lot of shoes. A. Lot. Of. Shoes. In fact, forget the money, just go ahead and send us the shoes. Or perhaps it would be in the interest of microword.com to stop producing software and start producing shoes. Seriously- we're going to need that many.

Jesus! You have made our day, here we sit, at work, almost completely shoe-less (we currently have a total of 4- orders from corporate), and tomorrow we will literally be able to swim in shoes. Shoes! Shoes! Shoes!

I've just been talking about us this whole time, tell me about you Roz, we're going to be friends now, after all you did give us 1,000,000.00; MILLION Euros (ONE MILLION EUROS) for shoes- do you like shoes? Really? What kind of shoes?

It's crazy the way things worked out, judging by the amount of extraneous exclamation points in your subject heading I didn't think we were going to get along. I was so naive.

Dan

We'll keep you posted!

Dan

reCAPTCHA poetry

For those of you who don't remember, Tristan Tzara, one of the founders of Dada, used to cut up Shakespeare's sonnets one word at a time, put the words in a hat, select them at random, and reassemble them into Dadaist poetry.

Well, now it's the 21st century, and Dan and Vince are bringing you the play-at-home version. reCAPTCHA, which you've probably all done, is using internet security to digitize books and old issues of the New York Times. So everytime you solve a reCAPTCH to buy tickets to some Miley Cyrus concert or to tell your dumb friends on Facebook what color your poo was, you're helping preserve knowledge! But, if you keep a running tab, you're also creating Dadaist poetry.

Here's one I just made:

60 reply Euston 34
Rader Gatling net Schuman which Reeves Belzner;
Market price result clear-cut
Wassily success
heart hated two

Beautiful! It's like cutting up sonnets, except the interwebs are your scissors, and the whole of printed, English-language knowledge is your construction paper. Create art my friends...create art. Do it yourself here:

http://recaptcha.net/learnmore.html

Vince out.

No Blewg!

So, here we sit, Dan and Vince, literally the former highest-respected art bloggers in the world, now reduced to forgetting to blog, making fraps for far less-deserving bloggers.

We're sorry you have to see us like this.

Here's a random thing that I didn't watch...



Seriously, I didn't watch that. Don't know what it is. Don't care. Just trying to blog.

Dan

Talking Bear

Okay, so... we've been working. Not on art, we've been working for money, which is very different, it's less fun but more "good for society."

Whatever.

Anyway, I'm conflicted about it, because on the one hand it gives me a lot of time to think about stuff- art stuff. Blogs. Installations. Movies. Basically, I like to think that Starbucks isn't paying me to make coffee, they're paying me to think and come up with crazy art.

Like today, for example, I came up with this idea for a blog post. Something about a talking bear... Was it a funny story about a talking bear? Some new meme involving a talking bear? Perhaps I had a dream about a talking bear?

I have no idea.

And that's the bad part of having a job. I come up with a lot of stuff- but I forgot almost as much stuff. Probably about 98% of the thoughts I have in a given day I end up forgetting... And frankly after our first verbal warning, I just can't take the risk of blogging while on the clock.

So, "talking bears"! Anyone know what that's referring to? I tried googling it but all I found was the image at the top of the page there. I suppose it is lost to the ether.

Sorry everyone.

Dan

"I hope today's blog is better than yesterdays..."

Uh- what? You didn't like the video, I thought-

"I thought you said that every Thursday you would publish an 'Art We Like' column."

Well, yeah, but dude... I'm trying...

"No you're not, you're just throwing some crap in this little window, trying to get together what can barely be considered a blog so that I'll leave you alone!"

Okay fine, voice that haunt me every time I open up blogspot, I'll try harder. I will I swear.

"Good. Now how's the job?"

It's going alright. I just wish people weren't so dumb though, you know?

"Yeah... I know... I used to wait tables and-"

Oh, see I didn't even know that about you. Wow. But, yeah, you know, it's like 'for the last time a berry chai infusion doesn't have milk in it, we're infusing berries and chai- can't you read'?

"No milk? Weird..."

Yeah, I guess maybe it's not that obvious...

"I don't know, maybe it is, I'd have to see the sign."

It's just a chalk drawing actually...

"So, we'll get a better blog tomorrow?"

Yeah, you will. I'm sorry.

Dan

Crispin Glover is for the Children!

I've got nothing to say about this- plus, I've got fraps to make. Gotta go!

Dan

The Magic of YouTube, Lying... (Actual Post)

So, weird thing... that last post? I apparently typed what I was supposed to be saying out loud, also, apparently, I said out loud what I was supposed to be typing here. HTML code and all. No wonder that guy looked at me so weird... Anyway, after he spoke to Sarah the Hun (aka, our manager) and I got my (actually, our) first verbal warning, I am now back on my laptop, fixing my mistake.

Here's what I meant to say:

YouTube is a magical place, magical because of stuff like this:

Now before I post this, I have to tell you this is supposed to be a TV commercial featuring Kerry King and other thrash metal guys. Sounds cool, huh? Well not as cool as this:



Congratulation YouTube user HalfEatenDimSim, you have left us completely dumbstruck.

Other videos in this dada/metal/prankster's cannon include...

How to play Slayer's Dead Skin Mask:



I'm sensing some sort of resentment for Kerry King here...

But Megadeth get some of the same baffling treatment:



And then an optical illusion:



And then some original songs... you can look at those on your own time and not "Starbucks' time" or at least that's what my manager says.

Dan

The Magic of YouTube, Lying...

Yeah, there's an extra charge for the soy milk... it's worth it though... yeah, it's what I always get.

Dan

Not Just Gibberish, Libelous Gibberish

We, Dan and Vince, respect Courtney Love.

Not for her music, or her acting, or her"rock star antics". We love her for her absurd online rants. They are absolute works of art- or at least that's what we think- but not what some other people think.

What?

Corks is getting sued for some of these rants. Check out the deets here. It sucks that none of Corks' earlier, crappier "art" never got her sued, it's only now that she has discovered the medium that works best for her (MySpace, Twitter, and apparently the comments section at Etsy.com), people get all litigious. Not fair! You can't stop art!

But on the plus side, it turns out Corks has a twitter page- fans of stream-of-consciousness-rock-star-dada click here and then rejoice!

Dan

Our Impact is Apparent...

Now we've been talking a lot about Unintentional Surrealism in Film and Television, basically we're for it.

Anyway, our push has appeared to have an impact.

We present an actual trailer for an actual movie, it's called After Last Season:



I am sooooo God Damned Excited!

Check out the film's official site here.

Bellyaching About Work is Better Than Bellyaching About No Work

You know who sucks? Customers.

Vince: Yeah?
Dumb Customer: Mmm...yeah. Hang on.
Vince: It's cool. Not like anybody's waiting. Here at this Starbucks. At 7:30 in the morning.
(annoyed look from customer)
Dumb Customer: Then I'll just have some tea.
Vince: You're in a Starbucks. We sell coffee. What kind of coffee would you like?
Dumb Customer: You also sell tea.
Vince: Who works here? You, or me? We sell coffee.
Dumb Customer: And tea. Like that stuff right there.
(customer points behind me)
Vince: Not falling for that.
Dumb Customer: You have boxes, and boxes of tea just to the left of your head.
Vince: And my shoe's untied. I know.
(Sarah Walpole, aka Sarah the Hun, aka our new manager, walks up as the line of waiting customers threatens to queue up out the door and onto the sidewalk)
Sarah the Hun: Vincent? Turn your head to the left and sell the woman some tea.
(I turn my head to the left. I see boxes of tea.)
Vince: Well...tea is for women.

I've been asked that Dan take the shift tomorrow. All because of that Dumb Customer.

Vince out.

APRIL FOOLS!

I think there's a thin line between "pranks" and "lies," but 'tis the season so whatever.

Anyway, the BBC have a history of pulling April Fools' Day Pranks, like this one:



The best part?

"Huge numbers of viewers were taken in. Many called the BBC wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti tree. To this the BBC diplomatically replied, 'place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best.'"

Check out a list of other April Fools' Day Pranks at the Huffington Post.

In related news, if you swing by the Starbucks we work at, Free Americanos, all day, any size, seriously.

Dan