I Love Shit Like This

I’ve been a David Shrigley fan for a while. In fact, I’m drinking coffee out of this as I type. Anyway, a few years ago he embarked on a new project that I found both hilarious and brilliant.

In 2017, a charity bookshop in Swansea, UK made headline news as a result of exhibiting several hundred copies of Dan Brown’s 2003 novel ‘The Da Vinci Code’ in its window with a sign requesting that no more copies of the book be donated as they had more than they could sell.

‘Pulped Fiction’ is a project by visual artist David Shrigley, who has produced a limited run of 1,250 copies of George Orwell’s dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ made entirely from the pulped remains of unwanted copies of ‘The Da Vinci Code’.

In 2023, Pulped Fiction was launched at the very charity shop in Swansea that started it all. 250 copies were available to buy at an exclusive price. After selling out within the first hour, and making headline news, the remaining copies are now available to buy.

Throughout the journey David and his studio team were documented by filmmaker Jay Bartlett. Telling the story of how the project came to be and the numerous hurdles faced along the way, the documentary can now be seen online for the first time here.

And if you’re interested in picking up one of the few copies left, it’ll set you back £1095. Cheap!

Wynton on Beethoven

YouTube’s algorithm has presented me with another opportunity to highbrow troll this blargh.  Here’s Wynton Marsalis on his transition from reverse snobbery to Beethoven fan.  If you want to explore the nine symphonies, there are many great recordings and as many boring ones.  To make it simple, check out George Szell’s cycle with the Cleveland Orchestra.  No weak links, and should be available for streaming everywhere.  It’s been in print since the 60’s, and for good reason. 

A.V. Undercover Is Back!

And so is GWAR. They’ve done Undercover eight times now, which must be a record. Below is my favorite AVU performance of theirs, Kansas’s “Carry On My Wayward Son.”

A.V. Undercover archives are up now too. Right here.

Cello!

I watched Tár this week. The featured musical pieces include Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 and Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E Minor (above). The subtleties are lost on my underdeveloped musical perceiving apparatus, but I rather enjoyed the passages from Elgar.

Also, and independently, I learned that the lyric from “A Quick One While He’s Away” is not

cello cello cello cello cello cello cello

but

jerrald jerrald jerrald jerrald jerrald jerrald jerrald

Blinding Me With Science

Between Chat GPT, Midjouney AI image creation, and now these robots, it’s only a matter of time before all these computers start talking with each other and take us all over. This is cool technology for sure, but no doubt will be used to do bad stuff. Do you think we will be living in the prequel for The Matrix?