#synthstr

Magma are about as deep as prog gets and drummer/leader Christian Vander's bizarre sci fi cantata, equal parts Carl Orff and John Coltrane, sung in the entirely made-up language of Kobaian and spread across 12 albums (so far) must rank as one of the strangest works of art of the last 500 years. #magma #zeuhl

So they asked m to explain his position and then censored his response. In other words, they wanted to make a show of censoring him so you'd know he's not to be taken seriously. This is next level totalitarianism.

This is from a very good article on the current state of the art world and deepish dive into the historical circumstances which led to this point. However, I strongly disagree with the author's frankly ridiculous statement that the art market is not to blame for the situation when everything he carelessly describes as "art" only exists within the narrow and corrupt confines of the elite galleries and institutions. It's like claiming the shitcoin market had nothing to do with the rise of FTX. There is a lot of great art being bought and sold in the four and low-five figure range by honest and passionate people. What the public is sold as the "art world" has nothing at all to do with this and most people intuitively understand that what they're selling is not art, no matter how hard the media tries to gaslight them into accepting it.

Damn, Barry Humphries died. I wish I could find a good live clip of him as Sir Les Patterson in all his glory but sadly there are only TV appearances, which were incredibly tame by camparison. You'll just have to take my word for it that he was incredible.

Do people overseas actually like Bluey or is that yet another psy-op dumped on the Australian public to make us feel like we're cultural players on the world stage?

#progstr

It's been 20 years since I read JG Ballard's "Millenium People" but I find myself thinking about it a lot these days. Upon its release it seemed vaguely out of step with the times - while everyone was concerned with Islamic terrorism and the "clash of civilizations", Ballard was predicting the re-emergence of a radical and violent strain of politics which would come from the upper middle classes, most likely out of sheer boredom. It was a great read and, two decades later, it seems incredibly prescient. He followed it up with the similarly-themed, and also excellent, "Kingdom Come" then, sadly, went and died on us. I've been meaning to re-read both for a while but I never seem to get around to it. If anyone's read either recently I'd be interested to hear if they stand up as well as I remember. #bookstr

The New York Times said it had identified a “trail of digital evidence” leading to a young air national guardsman as both the leader of the group and the leaker, although they made clear he has not been officially identified as a suspect." How long until the whistleblower comes out as trans? It's his only hope at this stage.

Insider Paper

Biden says US leak probe 'getting close' as details on source emerge

The investigation into the leak of a cache of sensitive US documents is "getting close," President Joe Biden said Thursday, as US media honed in on a

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This shit is as tiresome as the UFO nonsense the MSM has been pushing.

AI bot, ChaosGPT tweet plans to 'destroy humanity' after being tasked

I thought it was perfectly normal to not watch TV these days, but some people still recoil like you're some sort of psycho when you tell them.

Some day I hope to accumulate enough zaps that I can buy Twitter and ban all the sass-talking brand accounts. You know the ones.

Having worked for a corporation and within the government bureaucracy what struck me most was how they are identical in structure, with both following the old Soviet model of a hierarchy of committees. This is partly why the idea of "get woke, go broke" is a fallacy. The people who work for corporations are less interested in company profits than personal power, and aggressive leftist politics is the easiest shortcut to jump from one level in the hierarchy to the next.

The absolute state of American culture in 2023.

@xàhl posted some Vangelis earlier which reminded me of this heavy prog gem he recorded shortly after the demise of Aphrodite's Child. It was only released years later (with an awesome cover) to cash in on his fame as a composer of soundtracks. The big man disowned it, which is a shame because it's a killer track even if it sounds nothing at all like the work rightly he's famous for. #spergfm #progstr

It was adorable seeing a koala in the yard this morning but pretty soon I'm going to have to try to get to sleep with that thing growling outside my bedroom window all night. For those who've never lived around them, they make hideous noises at night.