Weirdo oddness found by accident (weird album cover)

I am constantly amazed and reminded of the seemingly Eternal and infinite amount of recorded media throughout the ages. I recall a couple years ago, not that long, when I was going through a seller's list of available items to add to an order for my wife, and I was astounded and the sheer amount of music having been released out there in physical format which I have never even heard of, nor had any idea that it existed. This of course made me realize that there is an almost infimite amount of "stuff" available ouot there, although in today's age of "straming is the future" and the nostalgia for everything, pricing on what was once worthless items has multipled exponentially.


In today's little improvised post, I stumbled across this by accident, and thought it would be a good place to start this voyage of madness, as we look into some of the weirder and unknown stuff having been put forth into this world throughout the ages... And alas, I can offer no additional information on this...

anyone remember Kimberly Patton? I thought so...

Kimberly Patton was an actress once. She also went under the stage name of Kim McKamy. She has appeared in low-budget horro films in the mid-late 80s such as Evil Laugh, Creepozoids, and Dreamaniac. In the 90s she appeared on such TV shows as The X Files and Millelium, for example. However most will remember her as an adult film performer under the name of Ashlyn Gere, where she appeared in hundreds of productions starting from 1990 until about 2002-2003. After that she has literally dropped off the face of the earth, and has lived a rather quiet life away from the internet and social media. In 2003 she popped up in a small role in the remake of "Willard", the man who has a certain connection with rats. Anyway, I just wanted to remember her here on this blog at this time because like so many other things out there which happened before the internet, these things existed and there is some merit and value even though there is no online trail.

great album covers: Lebenserinnerungen Eines Lepidopterologen (Christoph Heeman & Andreas martin)

Album: Lebenserinnerungen Eines Lepidopterologen                                    
Artists: Andreas Martin and Christoph Heemann
Album art: Christoph Heeman

A long time ago I used to say that Christoph Heemann was "god" - what I was expressing is that everything he touched in terms of music was simply incredible, and he could do no wrong. Of course musical tastes can change, but my respect and admiration for Heemann's work continues. While at times his material may proove to be a bit on the tediouos side, it more often than not remains quite interesting to say the least. Mr Heemann isn't just a great music Producer but also does very wonderful artwork as well, and many of his visual arrangements for album covers are exceptionally evocative, and in attempting to try to pick just one seems this side of impossible, so I decided to focus on the collaboration (one of many) he did with his guitarist brother Andreas Martin. While rather minimal in concept, this album cover is also quite effective in its's own right and hence why I decided to include it here as a great album cover. So this means, of course, that there will probably be more featured from this visual artist!

STEINZEIT (1992) a quick thought-review

For a while I always "labelled" the STEINZEIT album as F.M. Einheit's second solo album. It was not until a subsequent album from "Stein" (the band) that I realized that "Stein" here was in fact a band, and not in relation to F.M.'s debut solo album "Stein" (confused yet?). I decided to review this little release before the first F.M. solo album "Stein" because this is "Stein" (the band) 's debut album. Confused yet?

I first heard this record upon it's release (or maybe around 1993-1994) and I was highly impressed by the general non-musical or rather non-industrial/musical approach to the compositions. Yes there are a couple of "songs", and in most case, you can easily make out a "structure", but these are by no means easy radio-friendly jingles that your 19 year old "auntie" co-worker could get behind. If anything, Steinzeit sounds partially like a sound/noise exorcism, partially like a nightmare, and most deffinately like some kind of art performance and soundtrack album.

It came at a time when I was veering away (slowly) from the typical industrial of the time (Nine Inch Nails' "The Downward Spiral" was pretty much the final straw) and instead I found more interest in both the techno and the noise-drone-experimental "scènes". I did keep an eye out for Einstuerzende Neubauten material because for me they weren't stereotypical industrial, but much more experimental in their... well their experiments!

Perhaps the most representative of the entire album would be the introductory piece "Für Elfriede" which starts off with a bang and keeps you clinging on until the second movement "Claws", which borrows almost completely from an old Hammer Films soundtrack of a Christopher Lee Dracula film. It was in fact by sheer accident years later that I listened to a Hammers Films soundtrack album and discovered that "CLaws" was almost a complete reproduction of one of the pièces off the soundtrack.

Most of the pièces from the album mix percussive industrial sensibilities with a horror film atmosphere, something which actually works at a great effect, but may proove slightly old school and cliche in today's world of over-sampling for the same of not having the imagination of... ah, no, I won't ramble on about the state of modern music for the moment.

Anomally number one comes in the form of a Nina Simone cover song of a Kurt Weil piece called "Mr Smith", which is a very simple and stripped-down version which obviously does not fit in with the general thematic of what the rest of the album was (so far), but also doesn't feel out of place either. The second anomally comes later during the long final piece "Anna Fierling Gennant Courage" in the segment which I think may be "Wenn Solche Schneewind Wehen", but I can not confirm this as all the segments are glued together as one piece. This one feels much like "Mr Smith" although it is a shorter rendition lasting about a minute or so before we are brought back into the world of clanging stones and rattling metallic objects...

In general, "Steinzeit" may be judged as a dated album, something which when viewed Under the scrutiny of the modern age may not be up to the standards of the cleaner-than-thou digital recordings of today, and even the compositions may sound primitive compared to the works of laptop musicians. But "Steinzeit" is a unique album which is worthwhile in its uniqueness and should be taken out once in a while to be reminded that there was a time, not that long ago, when artists were still left to their own devices without too much studio meddling, and could come up with something completelly off the beaten path. Needless to say I highly recommend it!

They don't make videogames for males, right? (heavy sarcastica)

I have had many "feminist" discussions, mainly with my wife, about how even in 2019, after the post modern feminism movement has been soiled and tampered with by the media manipulation of the late 90s / early Y2K, and the subsequent seemingly "all-out" new-NEW (new neo? Neo new?) feminist movement of the 2010+ era (let's not get into that one just yet), there is still rather questionnable imagery being pushed forward in our media and images which seem to objectify women at every turn, and of course continuing the fakeness and low-brow cliches of what is considered "sexy" by the standards being imposed upon us by the culture industry (for décades upon décades). It is quite surprising that no one has ever questioned why so many seem to beleive that "cheapness" is sexy, that vulgary is beauty, etc., and that these images were in fact carefully manufactured in order to ensure maximum "exposure" (oh that's a doubled-pun) and influence the minds of those being exposed to it.

There is no need to objectify and sexualize everything involving what is considered Entertainment for the masses. However, look at the principal demographic that some of these media devices actually is, and you will understand why they keep on manufacturing these images and whatnot. It is indeed a vicious cycle and it has been going on for far too long, and it seems that no amount of public awareness or sensitivity campagning will change things anytime soon. And so I humbly ask you all simply to always remember that these images here are in fact like propaganga and are designed not just to capture your eye but also to manipulate you into thinking that this is what is considered "sexy". Just keep that in mind everytime you see an image being thrown at you.

Gilbert Hernandez' "Garden Of The Flesh" (a short thought & review)

OK so first off, I had already mentionned this one in a few earlier posts, and even made a detailed review on my other blog site (the one I can't really talk about!) so this here "review" (of sorts) won't bring anything new that hasn't already been talked about before, but I felt I needed to nail the point firmly across to make sure I have correctly, adequately, and extensively manifested my disapointment in the one-shot stand-alone "Garden Of The Flesh" by Gilbert "Beto" Hernandez, released by Fantagraphic Books.

First off, the basics. This is Beto's re-interpretation of some key stories/moments in the Old Testament of the catholic Bible, mainly Adam and Eve, then Cain and Abel, and then Noah. The basic premises of the stories remain tru to the stories as we recall them, but he intermixes sex in the stories. As opposed to many cartoon artists who do graphic depictions of sexual acts in comic books, Beto has made a more "loving" approach to the carnal activities, in the sense that the people engaging in these acts love each other, enjoy each others' company, and aren't taking advantage of each other... except for one seen involving the devil in the garden of Eden, but even then it does come off as forceful or unwanted on the part of Eve's receptive ends...


"Garden of the Flesh" was something I had been waiting for well over two décades, after Beto's first and only forray in explicit sexual représentations in comics in the form of the mid-90s "Birdland" miniseries (and later slapped with a fourth "epilogue" issue and then expanded in the complete graphic novel version). Now I am sure that it is somewhat well documented that "Birdland" has remained my all-time favorite adults-only comic book, and it is what really opened my eyes to the Hernandez Brothers (Los Bros Hernandez) works, past and subsequent. There has been tons of comics before and after "Birdland" which all had their own ups and downs, but Nothing felt as compelling and engaging as "Birdland". I was slightly saddened that Beto had no aspirations of ever revisiting the adults-only form as, with "Birdland", he had "exorcised the demons" that needed to be expelled. He had expressed what he felt was needed and decided to move along forward.

Now "Garden of Flesh", as you can imagine, had some serious expectations attached to it, on my part at least (even though I am always trying to curb and restrain expectations at all costs, for these create disapointments). I thought that after well over 20 years away from the "format", Beto would have enjoyed re-licking his chops and getting back in the nitty and gritty of the adults-only format, but... well I was severly dissapointed. I knew there was no way and nothing could ever match what "Birdland" had accomplished back in the 90s, for I myself was a different person and had different sensibilities to the world at the time. It's been almost a half life since "Birdland" and so I knew that "Garden" simply could not fill the shoes of it's predecessor.


But what I ended up with was... well I can only say that I felt cheated, and that Beto was lazy and took quick shortcuts to do this little book. Since the late 90s or early Y2K or so, Beto's art has taken a less polished, more minimalist turn for the most part, and only rarely were we trated to the lush-ier and more "full" art he had explored in his earlier works such as "Love And Rockets" and the "Palomar" story arcs. It seemed as time progressed, Beto was spending less time on his drawing, possibly due to needing to release more quantity under stricter deadlines, and we got "more" Beto out there which just looked increasingly more like there was a "ghost drawer/artist" trying to imitate the Beto style.

And this is what "Garden" ultimately feels like: rushed, stripped down, and lazy. I feel as though Beto was offered a good amount of money from Fantagraphics to do a dirty sleezy comic book again, and he rushed through the panels as fast as possible in order to get his paycheque. Things feel incredibly two-dimentional artistic wise and even less in terms of characters, and the result is almost forgettable, or not an insult to a customer like myself. In "Birdland", you got a sense of depth and gravity, almost three-dimentional in terms of how he would showcase the acts his characters were engaged in, whereas "Garden" looks like a hastely done storyboard what was colorized but never refined.


And so I was very disapointed. I can see how fans of modern Beto work who "grew up" with his more minimalist work may find this book rather "revelatory", but it pales in comparison with his own earlier style. Plus let us not forget that in 2016-2017, most of the younger people following the comics trend have been exposed to adults-only sites on the internet and so Nothing in "Garden" will seem new or shocking in any way. In fact, some reviewers have mentioned the fact that anyone can get these types of kicks online at any time, so basically "Garden" feels more redundant than anything else. As for me well I tried to get as much data in before I ordered the book but maybe my enthusiasm prevented me from being able to foresee that it wasn't a work of carefully and lovingly crafted art. Being a fan of Beto and for the sheer fact that it is an adults-only offering, I would rate it a 3 stars out of 5, but that is being very generous.

Yep, another Hollywood crush: Kelly Hu

Most people discovered her thanks to 90s star vehicle The Scorpion King which was mostly a The Rock serving vehicle made to help him establish his Hollywood career. I am sure there wasn't one dry seat in any theater when Kelly Hu appeared in that film, wearing very revealing outfits and looking absolutely stunning (that goes without saying). However she was already moderately active in the circuit, mainly in Samo Hung's TV series "Martial Art", as well as guest starring in numerous other american TV series and appearing in such films as "Strange Days", "The Doors", and "Craddle 2 The Grave", amongst others. She is not just an absolutely stunning woman but is a decent actor in her own right, landing a recuring role in the unfortunately cancelled "Warehouse 13" TV series, easily one of the best offerings for TV format ever produced. Anyway, I just wanted to stop by and give this lady a little spot on my blog here just for kicks' sake!

Top Ten Films (a list made a while back)

A while ago I was "nominated" by a friend on a social media site to countdown (in no particular order) my top 10 films in random order without any explanation. I thought it would be fun to re-produce what I came up with there on this blog here, in order to showcase where my head was at during that time, and how some of these still stand to this day. Enjoy!


In no particular order, of course:

euh... WTF is Body Horror?

I myself was first intruduced to the term by a description that my brother gave one of my earlier paintings. From then on, I discovered it was a modern term birthed in the Y2K internet age to describe a horror genre. I find it kind of funny that people will actually set ouot to create material Under this horror genre specifically for the labelling of it. People have mentionned than Canadian film-maker David Cronenberg pretty much invented the genre in the movies, Something he himself finds quite funny to contemplate as he only did what he wanted to do reguardless of what terminology would be associated with it later on. It's like saying my first solo album from 30 years ago was "Electro-Clash" ;  the term did not exist 30 years ago and thus it would be kind of weid and unrelated to label it in such a way (which it isn't by the way, but I needed an example just for sheer example's sake).

But seriously, what is body horror except for horror which seems to be centered / focused on horror involving the human body? Wikipédia says this:

Body horror or biological horror is a subgenre of horror which intentionally showcases graphic or psychologically disturbing violations of the human body. These violations may manifest through aberrant sex, mutations, mutilation, zombification, gratuitous violence, disease, or unnatural movements of the body. Body horror was a description originally applied to an emerging subgenre of American horror films, but has roots in early Gothic literature and has expanded to include other media.

But is this enough to describe what some people believe is the ultimate in horror?

I myself sort of enjoyed another way wikipedia described it:

Body horror falls into one of three "gross" genres or "genres of excess" which also includes pornography and melodrama. According to film scholar Linda Williams, the success of these body genres "is often measured by the degree to which the audience sensation mimics what is seen on the screen". For example, an audience may experience feelings of terror through horror, sympathy through melodrama, or sexual arousal through pornography. Body horror specifically focuses on the limits and transformative capabilities of the human body.

Body horror often overlaps with, but is distinct from, other horror subgenres. For example, while elements of mutilation may be present in body horror, other similar subgenres such as slasher, splatter, or monster horror may also share this trope, but differ in message and intent. A common difference in the body horror genre is that violations or distortions of the body are rarely the result of immediate or initial violence. Instead, they are generally marked by a loss of conscious control over the body through mutation, disease, or other tropes involving uncontrolled transformation. The genre can invoke intense feelings of physical and psychological disgust, or squick, and play upon anxieties of physical vulnerability. In addition to common tropes used within the broader horror genre, some tropes specific to the body horror subgenre may include invasion, contagion, mutation, transformation, disease, mutilation, or other unnatural or violent distortions of the human body.

In any case, it is most definatelly not for the squeemish nor for everyone as it seems to be quite intense in it's Delivery, especially in movies with substantial budget, and not limited by CGI. I do believe this genre works best when effects are more mechanical than computer-rendered, but then again, I am old school like that!

Another Hollywood crush: Maggie Grace

Maggie Grace, well everyone knows who she is by now since she made quite a splash on recent-ish big time Hollywood franchises, but it is in her less-known work that her acting chops are really put to the test. She carries her characters quite well and can easily stand her own during scènes, which is why she is a decent actress whorth more than what she has been cast in so far, at least in my opinion. I am sure that if she continues in the path she has started, great things will indeed open themselves to her.

Is it just me or are we constantly bombarded by sounds/noises?

I do believe that more than ever before (except maybe during times of unrest and war), our modern western society(ies) is getting much louder. Between the impossibly over-loud station announcements in the métros (subways) to the blarring of floors/levels in elevators, it seems everywhere we go, we are constantly assaulted by noises and sounds, something which a mere 10-15 years ago wasn't as intense (although the metro/Subway example has been going on for over 2 décades, the new AZUR métros PA levels are absolutely maddening loud). Maybe this is something most humans don't notice due to most humans not being as sensitive to their senses as I am (a design flaw, especially in today's day and age, and Something I did not have any say in during my inception), and perhaps people are more easily subdued to being slowly compliant by the noise pressures/pollutants, but I noticed this obvious elevation in sound level allienation (much like I am old enough to have seen the world change between the pre-internet age to the post Y2K censorship loving internet), Anyway....

I think for me it all started décades ago when I noticed I could easily hear my neighbours due to the newer sound systems becoming increasingly bass-loudness heavy, while the sound insulation in apartment walls was far from adequate to sheild us from other's music, stompings, construction work, talking, etc. When I realized my hearing seemed much more sensitive/developped than anyone I ever known or communicated with, I knew I would have to take steps to try to drown out the increasing levels of noises around me. Then of course I noticed that society decided to bombard us everywhere we went. It wasn't just forced music in public places, but now we had automated voice announcements everywhere we went: we are greated by robot voices when we go to the super market, robot voices blurt out announcement on PA systems almost everywhere, robot voices in elevators, robot voices in public transit, etc... Soon enough, I noticed you simply could not go anywhere at all for some peace and quiet! No quiet at home (neighbours, city contruction, traffic, etc.), no quiet outside (obviously), no quiet in the métros (obviously, but the STM do have a not-so-secret agenda to allianate their users, as I explained elsewhere on this blog), no quiet in retail stores, etc... The only real peace and quiet I noticed I was getting was when I leave for work before 05h30am in the morning... And even then, I have noticed over the last couple of years that ever since I started getting to work early, more and more people seem to be doing similarly.

And yes, add to this all those fucking iphones and shit, where people these days not only scream into their cell phones on speaker phone, but also force others to listen to their so-called music on these portal phone devices. We're back to the old days of teens walking with their ghetto blasters in the Streets, only now it's the kids with their iPhone listening to that rap crap. So yeah, call me an old fart or an ancient geezer if you will, but just because it's 2019 and you've never known a world without the internet or cell phones doesn't mean that the world hasn't become louder. I do however doubt that many other people of my or older générations will remember that there was a time when elevators and the metro (Subway) didn't scream at you two time per minute.

review: "The Black Hole" (1979)

First off, yes this movie was made to cash in on the Star Wars craze, and yes it doesn’t quite live up to the standards like all too many other sci-fi attempts of the late 70s/early 80s. And yes (again), the merchandising could have been handled better, but this was Disney’s attempt at making a science fiction film for the families (family-friendly, younger audience oriented), and they were indeed trying to cash in as much as they could in the wake of Star Wars.

 

“The Black Hole”, while flawed on many points (especially the “science”) does have a certain charm. At times it feels more like one of those 1950s space-oriented films, at others it is firmly planted in the 70s – the casting was surely done to attract the adults into the theaters (Anthony Perkins, Yvette Mimieux, Ernest Borgnine and Maximilian Schell) as they weren’t the fresh faces for the target audience (and obviously long before the Hollywood youth culture obsession set in).

 

In terms of failings, we might point out the wire work during the weightless scenes and hovering robots (my DVD copy shows quite a bit of those), the obvious mime work for the sentry robots, the all-too cerebral aspects of the themes explored (more on that at another date), the “hero”/”rescue” theme which not only drags on for too long in one scene, but actually repeats it’s motifs to make sure it’s being hammered away properly. Surely there are others but these are those that pop up to mind immediately.

 

However there are good points in this film. Uncredited Roddy McDowell voicing V.I.N.Cent was one of the main reasons I purchased this film on DVD, and the overall acting by everyone is at the very least decent, if not above average (granted, one needs to remember what the actors were left to work with). Ernest Borgnine is always a great character to watch at work even though I feel he did not have much to do here. Anthony Perkins is wonderful, turning up a very sober performance as an intrigued scientist, something to pull him out of the obvious typecasting he may have had to deal with around that era of his career. Robert Forster manages to pull of a convincing space ship captain, and Yvette Mimieux is interestingly more “multi” dimentional than most of her co-stars. Again, one must remember the script they had to work with.

 

However it is in Maximilian Schell’s rather stunning performance as the “mad scientist” of the story who truly delivers a screen presence. He manages to evoke a sense of grandeur beyond his character, and is at times both oddly charming and restrained menacing. I did not realize it at the time but when I saw this film in the theaters back in 1979, he was my first exposure to a “demented” mad scientist in a film, something which I grew to enjoy in such films in terms of characters that actors seem to enjoy “chewing” through.

 

Another great aspect of the movie is it’s highly evocative soundtrack by John Barry (except for the aforementioned “hero”/”rescue” theme which was obviously done to emulate Star Wars). From the opening sinister waltz main title theme to the ending “inferno” journey into the hole, Barry’s soundtrack creates in itself a unique atmosphere which creates so much of the film’s tone that one simply can not imagine the movie with another soundtrack. In itself, the score stands up quite well, and I would even venture to claiming that I find this may be Barry’s best soundtrack work even put to use. While many will categorically label it as this or that, parodying it and mocking it for it’s use of repeating themes and somewhat melancholic progression, I find it to being the most (and I am quoting the character of Dr Hans Reinhadt here) “romantic” of his scores.

 

In terms of special effects, we must situate ourselves that this was an era before CGI (this was about 3 years before the original Tron was out) and when models and matte paintings, superimposed images (blue/green screens et al) and such were the height of special effects technology. While some effects will seem dated, the fact that, for the most part, actors were placed on real sets with real props meant a more realistic interaction with their environments, which held solidify the film’s somewhat “realism” in it’s own created world. Both ships (the Palomino and the Cygnus) have a weight to them and appear well used, as opposed to many science fiction films presenting us with a much too clean technology. Buttons, levers, and other manual controls also add a weight to the overall production design which is quite impressive.

 

And of course, as some may have already mentioned it or seen it/heard it somewhere in this interweb online world, the best robot death scene ever – considering one is basically watching puppets voiced after the fact in ADR and with Barry’s score added to thicken the sauce. I am sure many will laugh and cheapen the scene in question but if you happened to pay attention to the interaction and the discussions between said robots in the film up to that point, the scene is quite touching, actually tapping on the whole sentient / artificial consciousness theme.

 

In terms of the more “adult” themes of the film, we won’t touch the completely “wrong” “science” aspect of the film’s title “character”: what we know of black holes today will make one cringe and wince at how they are explained and theorized in this movie. However the film does touch aspects of the continual search for knowledge (and that even beyond human comprehension/understanding), mortality, and how far we are willing to go to explore the depths of the unknown and our own inner selves. There’s an obvious Frankenstein reference as well which seems all too flat-out exposed for today’s audiences, but was all-too-subtle for my pre-internet 8 years old self back in 1979.

 

In closing, I will say the film is quite dated considering what is being churned out by CGI Hollywood since the Y2K, and with the average attention span of tablet/cell phone addicts. But “The Black Hole” doesn’t pretend to be anything else than what it is, which is post-Star Wars family-friendly sci-ci firmly planted in the 70s with a slight 50s flavor.

The common thread...

Because even after years, it is still unbearable!

While we're on it: "SAD GIRL" (Beto, New Stories vol. 2)

Well while I was talking about Beto (Gilbert Hernandez) and his contributions to the second volume of "New Stories", I thought I should also mention his "other" mini story in that book: "Sad Girl". Contrary to his "Hypnotwist" story, this one seems much more firmly grounded in a form of reality, which character interactions and exchanges. It feels a bit like what Beto did after his had finished writing about his Palomar characters, where they were now planted in the USA (or some such area), and are living the everyday modern existance. This little story centers around a female character the guys refer to as "Killer", or "Sad Girl", since she seems very preoccupied by her ex-boyfriend and his new love interest (although we never see them in this segment). She talks about having a role in a Hollywood film, a remake of an old art-house film which took 10 years to complete, but thsi modern remake seems to have been put on hold due to a lack of budget. She complains about just running in front of a green screen, while everyone else around her think she did nudity, or even an adult feature! "Killer" works as a belly dancer in a restorant, goes to school, and seems to know everyone in her immediate surroundings. The story is interesting in the sense that Nothing really happens; it is as though we are exposed to a mere snapshot of a random part of someone's life, with no beginning and no end, and Nothing really of any consequence happening. As usual it is drawn in the now popular post Y2K Beto style which is less detailed and less lush / dense than his 80s or 90s work, but again is far better than some of his really "lazy" works (such as the disapointing "The Garden Of Flesh" which I had so much high hopes for...)

P.S. Come to think about it, and I did think about this prior to writing up this little post but I sort of forgot as I was writing it (good thing I save them as drafts before sending them out into the interweb world!), "Killer" might very well be Fritz's daughter (or one of her daughters), for she shares numerous physical characteristics as her pale skinned counterpart. She is also a belly dancer, and Fritz was known to have these incredibly strong pelvis muscles, able to crack walnuts with her belly muscles, and "Killer" also has aspirations as a film performer, much like Fritz became a B-movie actress. I'll need to look deeper into this!

Beto's Hypnotwist story (Love & Rockets, New Stories vol. 2)

I decided I was to bring with me smaller-sized Hernandez brothers books at work for when I take my breaks (i.e. go to the toilet!) and not kill my phone's battery playing games or rummaging around the internet. I decided to bring a smaller-sized paperback book collecting four stories from the Brothers Hernandez (Jamie and Gilbert), and Beto,s second story in the book is a Strange wordless one called "Hypnotwist". It is nicely drawn, although it does border on the post Y2K Beto art of seemingly being a bit more "minimal" and "simplistic", almost "lazy" in a way (not meant to offend anyone at all, of course!) - although this brand of "minimalism" is nothing near the poor quality levels of his "Garden Of The Flesh" stand-alone mini-book (what a disapointment that one was!). Anyway, "Hypnotwist" feels very abstract but plays out like a nightmare of sorts, but one simply can not stop "reading" it. While there are a few hints here and there of reality for our main protaginist, what she goes through and encounters seem straight out of something akin to a madman's hallucinations. Anyway, I thought it was quite a Strange and strong offering from Beto, and even though I finished the story as confused and dumbfounded as when I entered, I found it quite pleasing and worth a quickie mention here on my blog.

Lego Killing Joke - Requiem

OK so you seriously have to give whoever did this one major props, for not only did he/she do a Lego music video, but it is also on a Killing Joke song! Need I say anything more, seriously?

Yet another Hollywood crush: Kathleen Robertson

Here's another one of my infamous Hollywood crushes.... In fact she is of anadian origin, which makes it much better, and she is also in my age range (although many online internet tongues are saying she has had plastic surgery as to not show her mid-40s (as of 2019) age on screen. But who can blame the performers living deep in the american Hollywood machine, who now has, as of the Y2K internet age of course, glorified and worship-ied (!!??!?!) Young to the point that 30-40 year olds are now considered old! Heck, when you see a film or a TV show and the doctor or lawyer is barely 20 years old, you know Hollywood's agenda is to youth-a-lize the public image of what is hot and cool and hip and now and... Ah, you get it, right? Anyway, we are deviating from the nature of this post which is simply to pay homage to this lovely canadian actress and producer who has managed to turn heads left and right and land quite a few choice roles over the years. Make sure you give her a thumbs up on my behalf when you see her!

Great album covers: Manufacture "Terror Vision"

Another one from the famed Stephen R. Gilmore artist who made a boat load of excellent and unforgettable album covers for the Netwerk label back in the 80s, including another one which I consider as iconic as others I have shared here on this blog: Manufacture's debut full length album "Terrorvision"

Not only is this cover signature Gilmore material but each track has it's own little image lifted from various screens of a TV set, long before the days of the internet, long before the days of screenshots and vidcaps (does anyone still use those terms?). I think it was that aspect that grabbed me - the fact that each song seemed to have a mini movie captured in one image, 5 on the front and 5 on the back (to signify side A and B, obviously!). Anyway, it's another great album design and one which I myself still own today!