Kaibo Zonshinzu | Anatomy Scrolls
The Kaibo Zonshinzu anatomy scrolls, painted in 1819 by Kyoto-area physician Yasukazu Minagaki (1784-1825), consist of beautifully realistic, if not gruesome, depictions of scientific human dissection.
Unlike European anatomical drawings of the time, which tended to depict the corpse as a living thing devoid of pain (and often in some sort of Greek pose), these realistic illustrations show blood and other fluids leaking from subjects with ghastly facial expressions.
The fact that the bodies used in scientific autopsies in Edo-period Japan generally belonged to heinous criminals executed by decapitation adds to the grisly nature of the illustrations.
From | Pink Tentacle
Dokkebi Q | Hardcore Cherry BonBon
Japanese Death-Dub.
That’s pretty much all I need to say.
But I’ll say more anyway because I like to hear myself type. Dokkebi means “Monster, Ghost, or Goblin” in Korean. If a dub band was fronted by a very convinving Korean/Japanese chanteuse and backed by a band of goblins (or a totally badass DJ) this is what they would sound like.
Dokkebi Q is one of the coolest sounding bands I’ve heard in a really long time.
Go to their Myspace page and listen to more of them. Especially “Gook Dub”. It’s a super dope track.
Pecha-Kucha Night Indy | Wabi Sabi
I’m back from SXSW- lots of posts regarding that to come- but upon getting back Kristian was cool enough to courier over a DVD of my portion of Pecha-Kucha Night in Indianapolis. Now YouTubed for some of ya’lls enjoyment!
So here’s me talking about an obscure aesthetic that is predicated on nothingness.
Tokyo in High Dynamic Range
For the love of everything amazing in this world, someone please buy me an HDR camera…
I’ve been at the Sundance Film Festival for the past few days. Sound glamorous. Is not. I’m here promoting the national launch of my company, ChaCha’s, new text service. It’s actually fairly useful and I would urge you to try it if I didn’t already know that everyone that reads my blog already has or has helped develop it.
Anyway, I’m holed up in a condo in Park City, UT for 16 hours a day aggregating content, buzz, and communicating with our Guides to help provide good answers. Super tedious, hair-pull-outting work that’s slowly driving me insane. For instance, imagine if in The Shining, rather than being snowed it Jack slowly went crazy while there were celebrities, parties, phenomenal skiing, and half alcohol content beer outside. It’s almost unnecessarily evil.
What am I getting at here… OH. It’s the weirdest thing but I’ve been almost literally addicted to every one of my social networks. I NEVER check my Myspace but I have my Firefox ReloadEvery refreshing the page every minute. Facebook: check. Last.fm: Check. Twitter: Check. Smaller Indiana: Check Flickr: Double Chickity-Check. Which brings me to my point…
I’ve recently become obsessed with HDR photos. They’re almost invariably stunning. And both of you already know how crazy-go-nuts I am for Japan.
Well check this out, San Diego: Incredibly beautiful HDR photos of Japan. They’re so freaking awesome that I may actually go blind.
Click that beautiful picture for the Flickr SERP for +HDR + Tokyo.
Chu Enoki
Seriously. Chu Enoki is freaking amazing. I don’t know a whole lot about him because his biography is entirely Japanese. Except for the numbers, those are entirely in American. Jokes aside, Enoki practices my favorite kind of art. Art that meets the basic aesthetic requirements to be pleasing to the eye, but has the majority of its creator’s effort based in thought or thinking about what the piece is. So not necessarily paints or even surfaces. They may be photographically based art (capital A) or they may simply be cheap photographs on disposable cameras to document a moment in all time that the artist created.
I love the piece to the right, called 2.3.7.8 TCDD Propagation Dioxin a lot. Only slightly more than RPM 1200 (above it), even though RPM 1200 is clearly a labor of love. It’s basically comprised of a bunch of scrap metal, drill bits, discs, all polished and shined (and I’m thinking painted?) and turned into a cityscape. Ridiculously cool. He makes my brain smile.
Envy Envy
I used to have two consecutive classes in the same room in college. There was an hour between the classes and I would take this time to crack open my mac and stream whatever Pitchfork was playing at the time. Usually (and I may be a philistine for saying this) Pitchfork’s playlists are invariably uneventful, droll indie rock that is indistinguishable within the genre. Luckily, this set stage to make mid-drowse exceptions exceptionally exceptional.
Envy came on. This song came on. I didn’t understand a word they were saying (come to find out it’s because it was in Japanese)but the stark contrast between Guitars overdriven to the risk of melting tubes and quiet, compressed picking against a vocalist whose only settings are “Spoken Word” and “Crush/Rend” woke me up in a way that I imagine someone coming out of a coma would- simultaneous reassuring warmth and startling realism – this ended up being my takeaway from, A Dead Sinking Story.
After taking the time (not to mention the trips to Amoeba Records in San Francisco) to find their previous releases and complete the catalogue they became my favorite contemporary rock band. This band leaks seethes passion, endless emotion, and enough swelling motion and tidal explosion to make Neptune blush.
I ordered their new EP as well as reissues of all their previous work (ON VINYL!) for Christmas. I’ve also got a Mono DVD coming as well. Reviews on this later… like, after christmas.
If you’re not too old for loud music, download the below now.
+Envy: A Warm Room
+Envy: Distress of Ignorance
Kataude Mashin Gâru
Japan gets it right again. I don’t know what’s up with American cinema that causes them to either be constipated by the undigested regurgitation of every other movie ever, but I’m glad that Japan is okay with getting creative. Not that this doesn’t have similar elements to Army of Darkness and that Grindhouse movie I didn’t want to see. And not that the idea of revenge isn’t as familiar as forbidden love or hyperpatriotism (which are the only premises on which an action film can be built, mind you). But that they won’t pull any punches while doing it and will commit to film for perpetuity the image of a woman with a drill bra hugging another girl while blood and sinew spray festively about as ninjas and yakuza draw still more blood. Thanks for not taking yourself too serious and, at the same time, taking it way too far, Japan. The world is totally sweet now, thanks to you. Boosh!
Hope & Anchor 