Dash Snow, R.I.P.

Gawker is reporting that our one-time rival Dash Snow has passed away from a heroine overdose. I think they summed it up best:

Whether you liked his art or not, you have to admire the fact that he was a unique dude. R.I.P.

Dan

Surreal Storytelling...

So, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland... that's surreal, right? It's got to be, because why else would we be compelled to post this video of Mary Louise Parker, in her underwear, reading from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland?

What's that you say? Because of the "Mary Louise Parker in her underwear part?" Hey, listen buddy, I don't know what kind of blog you think we run here- but if we were only interested in posting videos of women in their underwear, this blog would be a whole lot easier to write- Not that we're above posting videos of women in their underwear (see below), they just have to be doing something surreal... but not, like, freaky or weird or anything...

So, anyway here's something:




Dan

Watch it While You Can!

We got a note from YouTube.

danandvince,

Something Something Something...

YouTube

I don't know what it said actually, I deleted it. Anyway, long story short, our video 'Touch My Body (dnv Vidya Remix)' might not be on there forever. So, kids, watch it while you can...



Dan

Another Weird Guest for Letterman...

So we've talked about David Letterman's 'misfortune' when it comes to surreal guests. But something really surreal happened last night. Sasha Baron Cohen went on- as himself.



Traditionally, this wouldn't be weird, like if Jack Hanna or Rosie Perez did it (way to pick examples, Dan) but Cohen will traditionally stay in character when promoting a movie, like he did on Conan a while back:



Cohen is funny, and his characters are funny, and so his appearances in character are usually also funny- however, the whole going-on-a-talk-show-in-character thing kind of rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it's because Andy Kaufman did it well, or because Andy Dick does it so poorly. Either way I just don't like the concept of going on a talk-show in character, even though I normally like seeing Cohen do it. (I hate the concept of the piece, but like the art itself, similar to Britney Spears' 'Toxic') So seeing the artist instead of the character was actually nice, especially when Cohen is one of the most interesting artists working in Hollywood today.

Third most interesting, after us.

Anyway, poor Dave- the dude can not catch a break!

Dan

Unintentional Surrealism in Book Form

Damn! Blogging... I remember this. This was fun.

Anyway, we've been away from the blog for a while, but we're still us, we're still living the la vida surreal- just not as much, and we haven't really been about to talk about it. At least not here, on this blog.

Anyway, enough about us- let's talk about this book, Moon People- because damn this book looks awesome!

Here's an excerpt:


I am so happy this book exists. So ridiculously happy. I just ordered a copy, I'll keep you posted on the awesome-ness that is inside!

Dan

[h/t Buzzfeed]

ART WE LIKE: Regina Spektor Surrealist Videos

ART WE LIKE is a sometimes column where we, Dan and Vince, present art that doesn't suck.

To our knoweldge, only one such video exists, and that's this one. But it effectively riffs on Escher, Magritte, and probably some others, but I honestly only watched the first minute-thirty before I thought "Crap, I should blog this. This is cool." I'll watch the rest in a second.

Maybe you've heard of Regina Spektor, maybe not. We really hadn't, but apparently she made some waves with her last album because it was pop...but it wasn't. Which may be appropriately Surreal, and we shall investigate.

It has also come to my attention that Regina Spektor is friends with Amanda Palmer, who I maintain I do not have a crush on. And not only because Neil Gaiman is cooler than me and already dating her.

Vince out.

Michael Jackson, King of Pop Surrealism

It's been two months since we've blogged, and right now I'm hiding in the freezer at Starbucks with my manager's iPhone that I swiped from her purse to try to blog this out. So here goes:

Michael Jackson died today.

In all the insanity (practised surrealism?) of his later years, what gets lost is that this guy was a force of nature. There have been better albums written, to be sure, but in a lot of ways Thriller was *the* high water mark for the album as art form. The album was a phenomenon that remains completely unrivaled in music. It's the highest-selling album of all time, Vincent Price narrated the music video, Eddie Van Halen performed the solo on Beat It, Paul McCartney appeared on The Girl is Mine, and Weird Al Yankovic owes the fact that anybody ever heard of him to Michael Jackson's popularity. When I was six years old, I had a 3D View-Master reel of the Thriller video. The album -- an album! -- spun off merchandising that rivaled what Pixar has done with its most successful films. Plus, that shot of Jackson with the cat's eyes at the end of the Beat It video creeped the shit out of me for years.

Look, he was an odd man in a lot of pain and who never really inhabited the world the rest of us live in. But he raised the bar both for pop music and doing weird crap in public that makes everybody scratch their heads...which, as practicing Surrealists, we can do nothing but endorse.

We'll see you around, Michael. And wherever you are, may the sidewalks light up when you step on them.

Vince out.