crude futures

Imposs-aroo!: Quisp

woah, i just stumbled across Quisp for the first time. born in 1966, Quisp is "a baked paste of corn meal and syrup, identical in overall taste and texture to its sister brand Cap'n Crunch but shaped like flying saucers"...originally billed as "the Qwazy energy cereal from Outer Space", it later went on to become the "first Internet cereal"!?!? oh, and it came to be amidst a Manichean marketing struggle with Quake???

Rocky & Bullwinkle dude Jay Ward created Quisp, an alien (and this is his eponymous cereal).
NB: dude also created Cap'n Crunch, who also has a cereal named after him

so...does Quisp rise above typical 60s kitsch crapesthic? meh...i will leave THAT to the historians and this sorta stuff to bedazzled...nexttime or something.

ninja sneak, ninja toss

CLICK SAMO FOR NINJA TOSS:

"gritty spraypaint" look vs. "trapped condensation" look

I'm a "trapped condensation" man, hands down, all the way.

TIRED: The "gritty spraypaint" look.
AWAKE: The "trapped condensation" look.

HEY: The "trapped condensation" look is accidental, unexpected, and without prescribed meaning.
WHEREAS: The "gritty spraypaint" look is calculated, cloying, and done.

LOOK: The trapped condensation literally eats the gritty spraypaint. (See photos.)

"Trapped condensation" is wild and strong: a hungry monster.
"Gritty spraypaint" is fodder.

Trapped condensation:
the official aesthetic of Crude Futures Summer 2007

Aesthetic talisman #1: Shrinkwrap Vent



META: passive vent vs solar vent, beautiful diamond-shaped ULINE marine shrink vent, "vents help eliminate moisture during storage", push-in "stealth" vent, Stick-On Vents to control heat buildup, Stick-On Vents to prevent rust & mildew, "space-age design and technology", roof eves, truck tonneau covers

Crude Futures announces partnership with discarded DVD's photographs

On my walk home from work last night I spotted an unmarked DVD in a pristine jewelcase sitting atop a lidded, closed trash can. I took the DVD, figuring it might be blank. It's not blank; it contains 1,174 prosumer-quality snapshots of a large family gathering. Most of the photos are posed and kinda humdrum, but five photos—all featuring a distracted, tough-looking guy in a Williams-Sonoma apron—really stuck out.

Here are some self-promotional jpegs made from cropped, color-corrected versions of my three favorite photos on the DVD:

"If you were to open a place like Barcade, what would you name it?"

As I was tucking Katie into bed just now, she asked me, "If you were to open a place like Barcade, what would you name it?"

That's a tough question. Barcade is a perfect name for what Barcade is: a full-service bar with a couple dozen arcade video games. (All games are from the 1980s and all cost 25¢ to play. Barcade used to have Smash TV—it was their newest game (1990)—but it was removed last fall. The less-addictive (and frankly lamer) Crystal Castles stands where Smash TV once stood.)

Is it possible to top (or even match) the name Barcade?

Here are some stabby answers to Katie's idle & difficult question.

• Hun's Video Game Bar
• Video Drink
• The Little Brown Joystick
• Q-Beert
• Super Mario Brews
• Donkey Keg
• Tokens
• Tokens'
• Token's
• (The) Tap-N-Token
• Dubbel Dragon
• Space Alcohol
• The Thirsty Coinslot
• Ms. Pac-Pub
• Blip's
• Mojito Kombat
• Vs.
• Vs. Beverages
• The Numb Thumb
• Gin & 'Tronics

What would you name your Barcade-like establishment?

SOME FUN 1980s ARCADE GAMES NOT FOUND AT BARCADE: Double Dragon (1987), NARC (1988), Shinobi (1987), Kung-Fu Master (1984), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1989), Karate Champ (1984), Bad Dudes (1988), Pac-Land (1984), Joust (1982), Hogan's Alley (1984), Commando (1985), Rastan (1987), Final Fight (1989), Renegade (1986), Rygar (1986), Operation Wolf (1987), Splatterhouse (1988), Vigilante (1988), Altered Beast (1988), Karnov (1987), Spy Hunter (1983), Burgertime (1982), Cameltry (1989), Golden Axe (1989), Strider (1989)

OTHER FUN GAMES NOT FOUND AT BARCADE THAT COULD AUGMENT THE JOINT WITHOUT SCREWING UP THE 25¢ VIBE: Pit-Fighter (1990), Rampart (1990), Moonwalker (1990; feat. dance magic), Guardians of the Hood (1992)

I drew this after breakfast while Katie played Revenge of Shinobi, my favorite Sega Genesis game

META: eye loaf you, eyes in bread loaf delivered to you (fondly), sculpture, dough-based sculptural edition (w/edible signature, non-indelible), sculpture sketch (Bic), sketch for bakeable sculpture, loaf sculpture (w/eyes), sculptural mostly edible loaves (w/glass eyes), whole wheat eye loaves, rye eye loaf, giftwrapped loaf or loaves, "who loaves you baby", cinnamon raisin eyes, Princess Leia cinnamon-bun hair, half-digested coffee, "extracted half-digested coffee" sculpture: a liquid sculpture in a pyrex beaker, yuck, yukk, yuckk, "eye loaf you sticker" + "eye loaf you stationery" w/stationary eyes: the eyes that follow you wherever you go even though you move and they don't, olive oil prosciutto eyeloaf, a potato's eyes, recipes calling for a potato's eyes, recipes calling for old wrinkled potatoes w/stuff growing out of their eyes, an old potato's "eye growths" as an old potato's "antlers", a potato with "antlers" hanging on a wall instead of a deer's head. "Vegetable taxidermy", "vegan taxidermist (of vegetables)". Potato museum. A killed vegetable. Today for breakfast we shared: five (5) scrambled eggs cooked in a skillet with a couple tablespoons of milk, some olive oil, one (1) large yellow onion, and three (3) little wrinkly potatoes, "Katie and I are now out of onions and potatoes." Slaws, laws, and dads d'craw. ALSO: I finally won Revenge of Shinobi last week after never having won as an adolescent. Compared to most Genesis games, Revenge of Shinobi is extremely well-wrought, with excellent graphics, creative level designs, and great music. The game's intro screen features a 16-bit Sonny Chiba:



Some of the level bosses are humorously & illegally based on The Terminator & The Incredible Hulk (Level 4), Spider-Man & Batman (Level 6), and Godzilla (Level 7). Oh, and the game is EXTREMELY DIFFICULT TO WIN, which made it very satisfying to win, finally. Until a couple weeks ago I hadn't played Genesis in over twelve years. Most of the games haven't aged well, but Revenge of Shinobi is still one of the best (most engrossing, replayable, challenging, and fun) side-scrolling console games ever made. (My favorite all-time side-scroller is still arcade Rolling Thunder, which inspired the Shinobi series and also features great music. Barcade has a Rolling Thunder machine.)

Me and Bobby inside the Point Reyes lighthouse, California

Katie shot this photo in late December during our scuffin-y California trip:



Scuffins on Yelp: "Try a scuffin [at Doctor Insomnia's in Novato, CA], it's definitely the best coffee house pastry around...my fav is the blueberry/strawberry!!! slurp"

requiem for dumbass ultraviolent solipsism

By now it's probably common knowledge that the Virginia Tech murderer took a break from his killing spree to mail an uncreative self-promotional video (and photos and an essay) to NBC's New York City headquarters.... (I'm reminded of this disturbing Davidito video.)

Was it not enormously tacky of NBC to double-brand the VA video & photos prior to TV broadcast and prior to AP's acquisition of them?

(All images appearing on nytimes.com—including the top photo below—feature a peacock watermark and an embedded NBC News graphic. Has anyone seen unbranded stills or video? Did competing networks' news programs get to air the video too?)

What if the murderer had posted his video to YouTube instead of sending it to NBC? Would we be looking at YouTube indicia on AP-distributed video stills?

CINEMA REPORT: without box of Dots!

tonight i went to the Walter Reade Theater for the 2nd time in my life, to see my 1st Carlos Saura movie: Peppermint Frappé. i figgered the frappés would be blended (a la Frappuccino!), but they seemed to just be Nyquil-like creme de menthe over crushed ice.

...movie starred Geraldine Chaplin, who if you only know from Talk to Her or Nashville (or i guess The Wedding [or Noroit?!]) can be alarming/pleasing. i am not feeling insightful, but it's delightful to be rhyming n' scrollin with youOOHoohWOOH...REWARDING (?!) to see a warm n' scratchy print of a very excellent movie of a New-2-U Director in a not-crowded theatre (albeit amidst the disorienting architectural hell of LINCOLN CENTER!).

THE MOVIE FEATURED A: SELF-PLEASED DOCTOR, RADIOLOGIST'S RECORDS (& RECORD PLAYER), AESTHETICALLY-PLEASING ~'66 X-RAY EQUIPMENT, REOCCURRING [AS WELL AS POSSIBLY 'SUPERNATURAL' OR AT LEAST 'SUPERTEMPORAL'?] BLISTERS-FROM-DRUMMING, 'VINTAGE' ROWING MACHINE, DEAD LEAVES, SPAIN, EARLY 60s Elle etc SCRAPBOOK, CHILDHOOD/CURRENT WEEKEND RETREAT cum DILAPIDATED CURATIVE SPA/HOME, '62 ('61?) CORVETTE, FAKE EYELASHES, SEVERAL AWESOME ICE-CRUSHING SCENES, HEALTHY AMOUNT OF CREME DE MENTHE!

audio study for "What things do" (11:44)

11:44 mp3