I recently picked up a marvelous collection of Roman Kachanov's Cheburashka adventures, and the glowing, Rembrandt-like collected works of Yuri Norstein, both from russiananimation.


To top it off, I just finished re-watching Stanislav Sokolov's The Miracle Maker (an Easter tradition at my house... and when his Shema Israel [at right] gets distributed stateside, I'll jump on that too).
Yeah, I was feeling pretty good, cause I pretty much, y'know, figured I'd seen all the Russian animation ever made. Yep.


Then - BEHOLD! - a searchable database with a billion Russian animated movies on it. It never stops!!! Check it out!!!!

Easter Greetings from Das Brick! 

I have given up on finding one of my all-time favorite songs, namely "Cachita" by Lucho Azcarraga, online.

Taking matters into my own hands, I have uploaded it myself from my mom's autographed LP copy of Bailando en Panama.

Here it is, kids!

I remember, the last time I saw Alien, thinking to myself "...yes, yes... very good. If only this were a musical, though! And if only, instead of Sigourney Weaver as Ripley, they had cast Michael Jackson and some hideous rubber puppets. And you know, the movie would be wicked mint if, instead of a scary monster, they had Anjelica Huston. A-and, instead of the monster bursting out of people's solar plexus and then eating them, everybody could just dance around like in Billie Jean!

And what do you know, Francis Ford Coppola and George "Howard the Duck" Lucas took my suggestions and made Captain EO. Yay!! The only reason it seems horrible is cause it's supposed to be in 3D and they don't have 3D YouTube yet. YET!!

The Tale of How is what? singing and cartoons from South Africa. I don't know, I can't explain it. Just go look at it.

Cheers! and thanks to cartoon brew.

Like Paul Reubens, I am in peril of screwing up my career by watching something that I probably should not be watching, and enjoying myself too much. In my case, tho, it's just Pee-Wee's Playhouse! Ha HA!

No, really, it's fun! I remembered the Gary Panter set design, the Mark Mothersbaugh music, and the Larry Fishburne and Phil Hartman contributions. All top-notch, 20 years later.










I did not realize til now, tho, that Nick "Wallace and Gromit" Park was responsible for Penny, the plasticine girl! Gadzooks! Add amazing Fleischer-era toon offerings from the King of Cartoons that only look more inspiring, all these years of gawdawful CG films later. Add piles of interstitial shadow-puppet animation, sand animation, and the cavorting frozen food in the frigidaire, and this show is an unstoppable primer on how fun animation can be.

Hike yer pants up, gel yer hair, and go watch PWP today!!

Why should you read the Squid blog? Because it is delightful.

New for 2006! The most adorable killing machine ever!! Watch its irresistably endearing antics as it slowly, inexorably, bumbles its way into your sleeping bag and assassinates you! Whee!!

Thanks again WFMU.











Plus, while we're here in Luddite territory, check out the Secret Robot Army site, and of course this quantum dot manufacturer's site:

"As quantum dust, they perform as an innovative security taggant, adhering invisibly to trespassers while emitting an infrared signal giving law enforcement the edge."

Spray these microscopic particles on your customers and WHAM! instant, invisible radio collars!

Finally, gnash your teeth in fear of Pentagon plans to drop exploding cats (and bats) over your next cookout:

"Attach a bomb to a cat and drop it from a dive-bomber on to Nazi ships. The cat, hating water, will "wrangle" itself on to enemy ship's deck. In tests cats became unconscious in mid-air."

You have been warned.

I had to work all last night, drifting in and out of consciousness at my desk. It was horrible. When I got home, I discovered that I had sent an email to myself with a link to le dernier cri. This French online comics dealer is amazing, as you will see, a-and sort of scawy. You will not deny that it is colorful, whatever else it is. One of the perpetrators has a flickr collection too.

There seem to be great artists involved, but I get the impression they are being held captive in an abandoned salt mine somewhere, working for scraps of bread. Is it a French answer to paperrad? Je ne sais pas. I was asleep when I found it.

I keep getting these

agitated emails,

along the lines of

"Geez, Das, don't you ever listen to

Japanese indie music from the 80s?"

Sure I do!

Check out all this great stuff:

(1) My all-time fave compilation,

Drive to Heaven, Welcome to Chaos;

(2) The very entertaining

(not to be watched

on a full stomach tho)

Tetsuo: The Iron Man;

(3) The impossible Plastics;

(4) Tenko, the irritable mother-in-law of 80s Japanese avant-garde;

(5) After Dinner, the beautiful girl who went to art school, and you snickered because she's so pretentious, but she actually made really great music;

(6) The incorrigible Scylla and Charybdis of undanceable pop: Syzygys

(which is Scylla plus Charybdis, innit??)

AND

(7) the one that got away - Gyakufunsha Kazoku! I have not seen it!
but I have seen the actress Youki Kudoh in Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train,

which is a GREAT 1980s film!

How do you hear punk bands from Myanmar, rural Russia, Iran and Hong Kong? By quitting your job and staying in rat-infested drug dens around the world, following the local strung-out teens to their teen lairs? Sure! Or, just check out this link from WFMU... Tien An Men 89 has done the footwork for you.

Is this a great time to be alive or what, people??

In case you missed it... Marc Craste, creator of the most lovely piece of animation in the past 5 years (namely, Jojo in the Stars) has a brandy-new short, The Big Win, that you can see for free!

Thanks to cartoonbrew for the APB.

These are cheery times for my home, called Boston. Not only has the Charles thawed out, and one of my heroes (namely Michel Gondry) is returning to MIT to be an artist-in-residence, but none other than Mark Mothersbaugh is coming to Mass Art THIS FRIDAY to show off his postcards.







If you make it to Mark, go check out my boyz in Neptune afterwards at the Midway Cafe. Dang, tho!!