Wed Mar 1 15:53:51 CST 2017

I love the ideas behind vaporwave and it meshes very well with Bleeding
Edge. Even though it's kind of self-parodic and self-negating (proponents
claiming it was over before it really begain) the idea of dead technologies
retooled to create a utopic internet-road-not-taken very much has the same
melancholy for what's been lost with the internet we've ended up with. Plus
there's that aching-to-the-point-of-agony nostalgia for what the world was
like just before 9/11 - 'innocent' but perhaps facile, blinkered,
unserious. It feels like a movement for a world on Xanax.
Can't recall if I've posted this terrific, terrific piece here before but
it's well worth a read. Looks at how last year's official Pantone Colour of
the Year (Rose Quartz/Serenity) is a cooptation of vaporwave and
specifically a subversive aesthetic in which 'softness' is deployed as a
weapon and political tool:
https://www.lokidesign.net/journal/2016/2/22/the-propaganda-of-pantone-colour-and-subcultural-sublimation

On Thu, Mar 2, 2017 at 7:36 AM, Keith Davis <kbob42 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hey, that's my line!
>
> Www.innergroovemusic.com
>
> On Mar 1, 2017, at 3:04 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Nice phrase.
>
> It meshes well with a bumper sticker I just saw: "Don't believe
> *everything* you think."
>
> David Morris
>
> On Wed, Mar 1, 2017 at 1:40 PM, Keith Davis <kbob42 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Things Never Were What They Used To Be
>>
>> On Wed, Mar 1, 2017 at 12:18 PM, Bruno <bruno.laze at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> ST starts well and the quality drops towards the end, getting
>>> inconsistent. That opening is very intense, it reminds me of those old
>>> horror books (the font is the same used for Stephen King's old novels) and
>>> being a kid watching shitty movies.
>>>
>>> Regarding nostalgia, has anyone heard about vaporwave? It's a music and
>>> art genre focused on 80's and 90's nostalgia. At least aesthetically it's
>>> very original. In some youtube videos like this one, people comment stuff
>>> like "God, I miss so much the 80's. And I was born in 1995".
>>> However, one major difference between the vaporwave and the ST revival
>>> of the 80's is that vaporwave is extremely kitsch so people usually don't
>>> take it seriously. It's pretty big nowadays to be seen as just a joke.
>>> There are many layers inside it: the manufacturing of nostalgia, consumer
>>> culture, post-modernism...
>>>
>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtN2V6tg94o
>>>
>>> 2017-03-01 10:54 GMT-06:00 Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com>:
>>>
>>>> So I guess it's probably too late to insist that Betamax was better?
>>>> Whatever... as long as we can all agree that iron oxide and cobalt
>>>> particles on mylar deliver a warmth and richness of reproduction that no
>>>> soulless pits on a DVD can ever match.
>>>>
>>>> Also, blue lasers give you cancer.
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Mar 1, 2017 at 9:33 AM, Jamie McKittrick <jamiemckit at gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxNMR5t820s
>>>>>
>>>>> I mean, look at these. Beautiful things. Sight and sound. It's the
>>>>> future of yesterday... today!
>>>>>
>>>>> On Wed, Mar 1, 2017 at 1:29 PM, Jesse Gooch <jlgooch at hotmail.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> My favorite thing about ST were the intro graphics.  Something about
>>>>>> the red lines and music was very nice.  Reminded me of a lot of VHS rentals
>>>>>> in the early 90s.  The show itself was good but that’s the only intro to a
>>>>>> show I’ve paid attention to every time I watched it since I was a kid
>>>>>> watching The Simpsons.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Can’t wait to see T2.  Read some criticisms of it that said it’s
>>>>>> great, but is mostly great because of how well it brings you back into the
>>>>>> moments of the original – therefore falling into the “gimmicky nostalgia”
>>>>>> area of The Force Awakens, LaLa Land, and (some say) Stranger Things.
>>>>>> Either way, I really enjoyed Porno, the book that came after Trainspotting,
>>>>>> and even though it doesn’t sound like it’s based very much on that book, I
>>>>>> am eager for it’s American release.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> *From: *<owner-pynchon-l at waste.org> on behalf of John Bailey <
>>>>>> sundayjb at gmail.com>
>>>>>> *Date: *Wednesday, March 1, 2017 at 3:42 AM
>>>>>> *To: *David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
>>>>>> *Cc: *Kai Frederik Lorentzen <lorentzen at hotmail.de>, Pynchon Mailing
>>>>>> List <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>>>>>> *Subject: *<no subject>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I really enjoyed Stranger Things on initial viewing but in hindsight
>>>>>> it's a show I dug because of the familiar beats it hits, rather than one
>>>>>> that dragged me into its own weird world. I was sad to hear that the next
>>>>>> season continues the same story instead of treating each season as a new
>>>>>> chapter in a shared universe. But I reckon it also found fans who aren't
>>>>>> already interested in the stuff it revives (and there are some great
>>>>>> performances and scenes and everything, I'm not dissing the show).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> But nostalgia always feels better first time around*
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The most Pynchonesque of TV at the moment I reckon is Mr Robot.
>>>>>> Paranoia so pervasive it alters the ontological reality of the diegetic
>>>>>> frame, multiply unreliable narrators, the invocation of the audience as
>>>>>> co-conspirator from the opening line, hyper-capitalism as both succubus and
>>>>>> incubus, ones and zeroes falling apart then reforming new logics, the sense
>>>>>> that anything can happen at any point and we'll just have to deal with
>>>>>> it... Recommended.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> * The Trainspotting sequel T2 is a rare exception. Never seen a
>>>>>> sequel with such a profound relationship with the original (and it's
>>>>>> original fans).
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Wed, Mar 1, 2017 at 12:53 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> My biggest objection about Stranger Things is that the government bad
>>>>>> guys at the beginning become the good guys at the end.  And the Monster
>>>>>> story line is so tangential that it barely exists.  This show feels as if
>>>>>> it were written by an improv group, with no plan.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> David Morris
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Tue, Feb 28, 2017 at 3:31 AM Kai Frederik Lorentzen <
>>>>>> lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "The Montauk Project is every horrible suspicion you've ever had
>>>>>> since World War II, all the paranoid production values, a vast underground
>>>>>> facility, exotic weapons, space aliens, time travel, other dimensions,
>>>>>> shall I go on?" (Bleeding Edge, p. 117)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In *Bleeding Edge*, the Montauk Project is a significant element
>>>>>> whose ontological status remains unclear; considering the novel's
>>>>>> architecture, there seems to be a mutual reflecting of 9/11 and Montauk
>>>>>> Project.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In *Stranger Things*, the Montauk Project is explicitly linked to MK
>>>>>> Ultra, which as such was real. The serial's way of telling the story, with
>>>>>> its many Spielbergian references to the 1980s, makes the narration more
>>>>>> fantasy-like and less political than Pynchon's novel, though.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Eleven kills the Monster:
>>>>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4dzQ4_MI3s
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://www.businessinsider.de/what-inspired-stranger-things-
>>>>>> montauk-project-2016-9?r=US&IR=T
>>>>>>
>>>>>> > ... We've had fun naming all the movies that "Stranger Things" is
>>>>>> paying homage to, but it's equally fascinating to see how it's playing with
>>>>>> decades-old government conspiracy theories ... <
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Do the Duffer brothers read Pynchon?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> www.innergroovemusic.com
>>
>>
>
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