Need words to Water Colored Ponies
chewing on everything
stevia
No Subject
Star Wars Arcade Cabinet
The arcade game machine I remember most fondly from my youth has to be the 1983 Atari release Star Wars which challenged you to take on Luke’s final challenge in the cockpit of Red Five and destroy the Deathstar.
There was a stand up version of this machine but the one I played on was a mock cockpit which you sat in complete with X-Wing controls and a large picture of Darth Vader on the outside.
Graphically speaking it was a simple wireframe affair in 3D colour. The game started with a dogfight against Darth and some tie fighters, then you had to shoot towers as you sped along the surface of the Deathstar and finally it was down into the trench to fire your proton torpedo into the exhaust pipe and blow the whole thing up.
The sound was all authentic music and voices from the movie, or at least ropy digitised samples of them but the cockpit was the best thing about it. You felt as though you were really sitting in an X-wing and the controls with the two thumb triggers added to the illusion.
The game was actually ported for all the home systems of the day but the arcade game was easily the best and it was hugely popular in the arcade, in fact you usually had to wait to get onto it.
Apparently in 2005 a guy called Brandon Erickson set the world record for playing it by going a staggering 54 hours on a single credit. It was one of those games that just repeated if you completed it but each time you went again the challenge was slightly more difficult.
You can pick up refurbished versions of these cabinets nowadays but they aren’t cheap and your wife may not fancy having a Star Wars arcade machine in the corner of the living room.
Jeffrey Lewis: Cartoonist, Joker, Musician
There are those of us that are given to political commentary and social examinations of history. Some become professors, some authors and still there are some that become performers and artists.
Jeffrey Lewis falls into the latter categories. As a performer, he’s come to light within the last year for an album of covers that he created. 12 Crass Songs, Lewis’ follow up to City and Eastern Songs, is just what the title says – 12 covers of the UK anarcho-punk band Crass.
I stumbled upon Lewis playing one evening as was able to hear him perform “Do They Owe Us a Living?” Unfortunately, the crowd wasn’t necessarily familiar with that song and I found myself singing along with one or two others in the crowd. Regardless of that, Lewis, amidst his performances tends to break out giant booklets of comics that he’s penned. Each comic tells some story, whether it’s about economics or how Europeans commit genocide on a regular basis.
To mark the holiday season as well as the consumerism that goes along with it, Lewis gave a UK news outlet, the Guardian, a present. And it’s a comic strip.
A quick read of the strip and there isn’t anything all too revolutionary being related, but this is just another example of a musician/artist attempting promotion through means that traditional folks wouldn’t go through. R.E.M. hasn’t sent me a present in years, for example. But it also points out the fact that Lewis creates because he must, not because he should. And whether or not he was going to send that strip off to the UK or not, it was going to be drawn, illustrated and completed.
Upcoming Performance: 12.20.08 – The Knitting Factory - NYC