Via i09, here are four 1993 Japanese commercials for Georgia canned coffee, featuring part of the Twin Peaks cast and directed by David Lynch. Several of the i09 comments were surprisingly negative, alleging Lynch debased his masterpiece for profit. I’m a huge Lynch fan — I know more about him and his work than anyone outside of film school ought to — and I think these commercials are totally consistent with the spirit of the series.
Think about it — these are Japanese commercials for canned coffee. The premise is both joke and punchline. It’s brilliant. I have to assume the Lynch purists missed the extremely dark, absurdist comedy that made Twin Peaks great. Lynch’s best work is always a mixture of comedy and horror. C’mon — Frank Booth! Who else could make a nitrous-huffing rapist/murderer simultaneously terrifying and hilarious? Well, Dennis Hopper also deserves a lot of credit. When you finally realize that Lynch’s version of Dune is really a comedy these commercials will make perfect sense.
The only valid criticism I can imagine is the gratuitous use of the Log Lady, whose character had become emblematic of the series (and therefore the brand), even though she was a relatively minor part of the story. It’s true!
I’m going to have to watch all of Lynch’s commercials, now. I had no idea he’d worked for Michael Jackson, Nissan, and Sony.
I saw these portraits at a neighborhood auction/estate sale. Although I desperately wanted them, I couldn’t stick around and wait for them to come up for bids. It’s obviously the house’s former owners rendered in full Japanese drag. There is some slight damage to the canvases and the frames are cheap, but the artist appears to have been fairly competent.
Wow, I really want one of these. This is the Crumpter, a physical predecessor of Auto-Tune. It’s a handmade matrix of metal mesh and tuning rods. When placed over a microphone, it corrects pitch and creates a chorus effect. I wonder how it would sound with cigar box instruments? I hope someone publishes the specs so I can make my own.
And just look at it. It’s a genuine objet d’art. Yet another find from Core 77.
From Modern Mechanix by way of Jalopnik, here’s a 1982 National Geographic story on the state of affairs in Silicon Valley at that moment in history. I’m a total nerd-history nerd, so this was a great read for me. Granted, I was ten years old in 1982, but I was a pretty hardcore BASIC programmer and video game aficionado, and I would have read any and all computer-related press at the time. Almost thirty years later it’s worth checking out for the pictures alone, especially the beard/perm/Perrier/hot tub shot.
The descriptions of Silicon Valley culture in 1982 are strongly reminiscent of Tracy Kidder’s 1981 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Soul of a New Machine. Especially this statement from Intel exec Bob Noyce:
With a certain wistfulness for the days of the individual breakthrough, he says, “Now it’s a team effort. In 1970 Federico Faggin designed the 4004 microprocessor chip by himself at Intel in nine months; our 32-bit microprocessor took 100 man-years!” [emphasis mine]
I was surprised by the experience of reading the article, itself. It’s been scanned, a page at a time, and posted in its correct order, but the original design was based around two opposing pages being visible to the reader at the same time. Seeing only one page at any given moment makes it slightly difficult to follow the text accompanying the images, since it frequently refers to an image on the opposite page, making images first appear out of context, then explaining them when they’re no longer visible. Most contemporary magazines are designed so that virtually every page is completely self-contained — all of the necessary context for the images appears on the same page.
This is a great example of how the very experience of reading has changed dramatically since internet-compatible publishing became the standard.
Via i09, a WWII-era image of a model demonstrating a plastic safety bra/breastplate designed to protect the female torso in hazardous factory situations. The vintage quality makes the image very compelling, somehow.
The first video is typical 1980’s-era futurism from Apple, featuring commentary from Steve Wozniak, Alvin Toffler, Ray Bradbury, etc. The focus is on educational applications, voice-activated interfaces, adult literacy, and a ginormous green pointing device. Oh yeah, don’t forget this was the product of the non-Steve Jobs era, so the fictional devices’ form factors trend towards taupe plastic cases with BIGASS hinges. The incidental music is the most annoying part — it has a smug, cloying quality reminiscent of Doogie Howser, MD.
The best part is when the fifth-grader gives his class a presentation on volcanoes utilizing a blackboard-sized HD-quality display. When he launches the eruption footage the class goes totally apeshit. This is the most predictive moment in the film — Michael Bay’s core audience really was in grade school in 1988. Discovered via Paleofuture:
The whole thing reminds me of an ancient bunch of nerd jokes about comparing different operating systems with a trip to the store. Apple began developing the Taligent OS in 1988, which was later abandoned. The joke, which pretty much sums up the video:
TALIGENT/PINK: You walk to the store with Ricardo Montalban who tells you how wonderful it will be when he can fly you to the store in his Learjet.
Next is a promotional video for Microsoft’s Windows 386, designed to market the product to software sellers, not prospective customers. This point is critical, so keep it in mind as you watch. Microsoft is well-known for advertising that’s so bad it’s uncomfortable to watch and this might be the worst thing they ever attempted. Here are some of the highlights:
It opens with a Mission Impossible-styled premise. The boss’s tape recording greets the hero, a blonde female executive with the requisite shoulder pads and giant glasses with the following statement: “I hope you came in at a reasonable hour and brought your brain cells with you.”
Look for the inexplicable 1950’s-style gas station pinup calendar, featuring what appears to be artwork by R. Crumb.
The IT guy who sees the hero’s amazing new operating system in action and says “Is that OS2? You’re not supposed to be running OS2.” And, later, “What else does it do besides look like OS2?”
At about the seven-minute mark the hero begins rapping about Windows 386. Then begins undressing. Then is transformed into a . . . horrible, horrible thing. She’s wearing wrap-around shades, dressed like Debbie Gibson, and has a pink streak in her hair, while rapping about Windows and attempting to seduce an accountant. It’s enough to cause a spit-take. Or the 1988 version of a spit-take, which I imagine would be bloody snot and cocaine shooting out of your nostrils.
Finally, after winning over her boss with her amazing presentation document, she’s off on a hot date — with her Microsoft Windows 386 salesman.
This is mainly a geeks-only post by Mark Pilgrim, a Google employee, lamenting the culture of “tinkering” that closed devices like the iPad discourage. Seriously, if you’re not interested in what a long-time Apple hacker thinks about the iPad, skip it. Otherwise, it’s a great read. For example, comparing likely iPad development to current iPhone development:
Now, I am aware that you will be able to develop your own programs for the iPad, the same way you can develop for the iPhone today. Anyone can develop! All you need is a Mac, XCode, an iPhone “simulator,” and $99 for an auto-expiring developer certificate. The “developer certificate” is really a cryptographic key that (temporarily) allows you (slightly) elevated access to… your own computer. And that’s fine — or at least workable — for the developers of today, because they already know that they’re developers. But the developers of tomorrow don’t know it yet. And without the freedom to tinker, some of them never will.
How geeky is this guy? Like I said, he works for Google. And the only graphic on the page is a view of the Mandlebrot set.
I love this. It’s a TV! With a CRT! And it has a retro form-factor, telescoping legs, and . . . KNOBS! Not only does it have knobs, they allow viewers to directly toggle between color, black-and-white, and sepia-toned modes! I’ve never heard of such a thing, but there must be some sort of market demand for the sepia-tone functionality. As far as I know, the device’s manufacturer (LG), is not known for the arbitrary additions of wonderful, pointless, borderline-dada-esque features to its products.
I’ve lived without a television for quite a while and I have no intention of buying another. This product, though, hits me the same way the iPad hits Apple fanboys — it’s a bunch of technological anachronisms mashed together and repackaged as something new and cool. Here, though, these features are truly old-school and are made cool through their very pointlessness. If I could also adjust the frame rate, clarity, vertical/horizontal-hold, and sound quality, I would watch modern television as though it was made a century ago.
If nothing else, this television qualifies as an objet d’art.
Happy anniversary to Dan Piraro for hitting the 25-year mark with his syndicated strip, Bizarro! Here’s to hoping there’s another quarter-century ahead. Cartooning’s a tough racket and I hope Bizarro outlives all of the zombie comics (Family Circus, Beetle Baily, Hagar the Horrible, Marmaduke, Ziggy, Cathy, etc.) it’s currently forced to compete with for space.
Here’s a link to Dan’s anniversary post, which provides a brief history of the strip and demonstrates how its style, technique, and humor has evolved over time.
