We are fucked, my friends
What did I say? WHAT DID I SAY?
I said, “We’re all fucked.”
We just got 25% more fucked.
Orcas can fly. Cougars can swim. Meerkats can operate AK-47’s. Raccoons have taken up swordfighting. And now, sharks can walk.
Good luck trying to get back to sleep tonight. THAT is in the ocean off the Moluccas. I swam in that water. That’s what’s down there. And you wonder why I don’t go in the ocean anymore.
Keep Calm and Hail Cthulhu
Uh-oh.
Orca Flight
Yep, we’re all fucked, ladies and gentlemen. This image (stolen from Facebook) clearly shows that British Columbian killer whales have learned how to fly. And oh, you smug land-going krill? You’re not safe either, as this footage of a flying humpback demonstrates. Being heavier, it’s harder for them to achieve and maintain the airborne state, but once they master this, no life-form is safe.
THEY ARE COMING
William S Burroughs is on target!
Who knows why founding Beat poet and professional reprobate William S. Burroughs chose to fixate on the minor Mayan death god Ah Puch (which he spelled “Ah Pook” probably because it sounds like a dirty phrase in his native Midwestern dialect), but once he did, Ah Pook was resurrected from his sojourn in Limbo and elevated to the Pantheon of immortals, thanks to this bizarre prose poem, now immortalized as an unforgettable, gruesome, beautiful, award-winning animated film.
Ladies and gentlemen, brace yourselves. Ah Pook is here.
AH POOK IS HERE – This 1994 stop-frame interpretation of recordings by the late William S. Burroughs, was crafted around a selection of tracks from the album “Dead City Radio” produced by Hal Willner & Nelson Lyon – and featuring music by John Cale.
AH POOK received Ten international film awards, was archived in the Goethe institute, and was part of the Burroughs retrospective PORTS OF ENTRY. AH POOK was also voted ‘BEST OF THE BEST’ at the 2010 Stuttgart International Trickfilm festival.
The Guardian review:
“Phillip Hunt’s gorgeous, grisly animation mates William Burroughs’s gravelly narration of Ah Pook The Destroyer’s death-dealing parable with music by John Cale at his creepiest. Hunt’s deliberate and disgusting illustrations of Burrough’s monsters of the mind are a revelation; delicately articulated puppets riddled with revolting detail. Turn down the lights, get out the headphones, and give yourself over to The Master’s ghastly visions and sonorous warnings (“The world cannot be controlled, except by accident”) for six gut-churning minutes.”
-Kate Stables / The GuardianDirector Philip Hunt
Producer Eddel Beck
Music Hal Wilner & John Cale
Produced at the Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg
Distributor BFI & The British CouncilPS (still reading? eh?)
You might like the following story ( spoiler alert!):
The final scene of the film is an unbroken take wherein Pook puts the gun in his mouth and we pull back until we hear a gunshot and see a red flash, cutting back into the stars… and the spirit of Pook intoning ‘falling in Love again’ among the Heavens…
The original intention was to pull the camera all the way back a good respectful distance and show Pook’s body flinch backward etc.. But we had a small problem while shooting. Now, back in the day (‘94) we did this part on film and in-camera without video assist etc. and the entire sequence was one continuous camera track made frame by frame …all adjusted incrementally by hand.
When we were nearing the end of the shot we realised the focus had messed up & we were shooting blur. We had no way of knowing how long we had been shooting blur either.. The simple shot had taken us all day to shoot due to the awkward nature of the set up and we despondently wrapped for the day and sent the film off for processing ( a 2 day turnaround due to the location we shot in at that time). Now, the films audio was pre edited, the master mix already had the gunshot set as part of the audio track. So, after 2 days we got the processed rushes back & synched them up to the audio and played out to see how much of the animation had been captured before the accidental focus pull screwed it all up…
By some bizarre co-incidence.. The moment of blur synched up EXACTLY with the gunshot.. And so that’s how we left it.
Still freaks me out even now…
From nearby in the blogosphere comes news that the stars are nigh unto aligned and the glorious new era is upon the threshold. From news sources and historians comes evidence that the allies are preparing, making smooth the way for the return of the Great Old Ones.
From Olde Strasbourg:
This was during the Krakatoa eruption, when Rlyeh briefly surfaced
Yes, the allies from the kings of the jungle even unto the smallest vermin that crawls, unseen yet lathesomely felt, through the teeming maze of our urban decayscapes, have begun to unite in expectation of The Great Rising!
Why is it always Germany? Are their rats particularly activist?
Science shows that, in at lesat some cases, rat kings/crowns have been formed while the attached rats were still alive and growing, indicating strongly that these rats were holy, set apart, and that servant rat classes brought them food and attended to their every sordid bodily need while they awaited the glorious Return of the Great Old Ones.
Evidence (you KNOW we’re all about the evidence around these parts):
rat crown xray is all sciency and irrefutable, so there!
As well-documented in the manuscript known as The Call of Cthulhu, such a pivotal time affects not only the lower orders, but also the sensitives among us, from the most Strindbergian slam poet to the dandies of the Royal Portrait Gallery.
Rat King, the watercolour. Somewhat Twomblyesque, non?
Even innocent embroiderers have had hideous glimpses of the godless Gordian knot:
And in another age, these would have been daisies!
Truly a motif for our time. We can only shudder and whisper horror-struck guesses at the unspeakable, Transformer-like superpowers to be unlocked by a successful unification!
Rat King sculpture, RATTENKONIG! COWER, MORTALS!
Rat King Perfection ACHIEVED unlocking superpowers now
Soon, very soon, Cthulhu will rise again.
Okay, whose job was it to bring the vaseline?
Just as soon as we get this situation straightened out.
raincoaster 