#ET Radio Art

[etradio]

[nucleiaster]

My comic for the 25hBD 2024, an event where you have to draw a 12 pages comic or 12 illustrations in 25h !

Theme : Uncanny (Unheimlich / Inquiétante étrangeté)

Constrain : A character must talk about or remember a dream they had.

[vintagelasvegas]

Thunderbird / Silverbird / El Rancho

Thunderbird Hotel, 1948

THUNDERBIRD, '48-'76

'46: Marion Hicks and Lt. Gov. Cliff Jones purchase property for a planned Nevada Ambassador hotel on 3/11/46. The property was bought from Guy McAfee, Art Ham, and J.K. Houssels who had planned a hotel called Casa de Oro. Sale price is rumored $85,000.

'47: Officers of Thunderbird are a Las Vegas and Los Angeles group, Hicks, Jones, V. Sayer, J. Lane, P. Wagoner, J. Wells (Reno), and J. Kozloff. Hicks as builder. Construction begins on 46 acre lot in Oct.

'48: Thunderbird opens 9/2/48. 107 rooms, 75-foot observation tower. Signs by Graham Sign Co (RJ 8/18/48).

'53: Hicks builds the spin-off Algiers Hotel.

'58: renovation, adding new second floor over casino framed in rectangular box, new porte-cochère. New signs by Western Neon (RJ 11/24/58, RJ 12/24/58).

'59: “Thunderbird” logo changed, road sign replaced in Fall.

'61: road sign moved to the front-center of the hotel, fire-shooting stick added to both birds.

'62: new road sign and pylon.

'63: Thunderbird Downs quarter horse track opened, Oct. 5 (RJ 9/24/63).

'64: Sold to Del Webb Corp in Sep.

'65: 700-ft horizontal “Thunderbird” sign by Bill Clarke/Ad Art installed over the south rooms in Jun. (RJ 6/10/65); road sign & pylon replaced with one road sign and new neon bird.

'72: Sold to Caesars World Inc.

'73: Blue/green sign painted zigzag red/orange in summer.

'76: Sold to Tiger Investment Co (Thomas, Mack, K. Sullivan, et al), leased to Major Riddle in Dec.

SILVERBIRD, '77-'81

'77: Reopened as Silverbird in Jan.

'78: Thunderbird signs replaced by the 190-ft sign/porte-cochère designed by Raul Rodriguez for Heath, built by AdArt. (RJ 3/29/78)

'81: Closed in 12/3/81.

EL RANCHO, '82-'92

'82: Sold at auction to Ed Torres in Feb; renamed El Rancho in Apr (RJ 3/18/82, 4/7/82). Opens at El Rancho 8/31/82.

'87: Tower addition.

'92: Closed Jul. 6.

2000: Tower demolished, Oct. 3.

Other sources include: New Hotel To Be Built.” Las Vegas Review-Journal, 3/13/46 p1; Vegas as Playground. Review-Journal, 7/31/46 p5; Construction Started. Review-Journal, 10/28/47; Thunderbird Hotel. Review-Journal, 8/29/48; Martin Stern Jr. profile by P. Michel. UNLV Libraries, archived 3/10/2004.

Photos: (1) Postcard c. 1948. (2-3) Undated aerial photo of construction, by Las Vegas News Bureau. Radio station KENO west of the Thunderbird site. (4) Undated, during construction. Photo taken from the observation tower, by Las Vegas News Bureau. (5) Same models as the color postcard, from Union Pacific Railroad Photographs (PH-00043), UNLV Special Collections & Archives.

[57sfinest]

theoretical entroponetics: the post

okay. LONG post incoming. i have summarized all available information on the pale, separated into confirmed objective truth & in-canon speculation that may or may not be true, and then appended my own very detailed theory on the pale! this post is meant as a resource; please feel free to add things of your own in replies/reblogs (please tag me if you do!) or point out any errors i may have made. you’re welcome to use any of my personal theory in your own work but please credit me if you do!! (and tag me in that/send it to me, i really want to see what you do with it!)

Here’s what we *know* about the pale, according to in-game and concept art: 

It erases data, at least the kind stored on radiocomputer filament and magnetic tapes.

It has no dimensions of its own- pale latitude compressors serve to force dimensions on raw pale and allow navigation. 

The pale is referred to in the context of entropy

It arrived with mankind, but not immediately- there are 8000 years of written history, but the pale was first recorded 6000 years ago, implying that pale either didn’t start forming immediately or that it was so insignificant/distant that it went unnoticed for 2000 years. 

There exists a group of people who are actively trying to expedite entroponetic collapse; the ideology is called entropolism

To this point, pale isn’t immediately visible. Pale has molecular structure, but manifests as a waveform, and only becomes visible at a certain distance from the origin, once wave frequency is sufficiently high. 

During pale exposure, people experience “sense objects”: visual or auditory hallucinations and/or vivid physical recollections of memories. These hallucinations may originate from their own consciousness or someone else’s. c

People require physical and mental examinations before interisolary travel and are allotted a certain number of days per year as their pale exposure threshold. 

Overexposure results in a pale “addiction”- these individuals crave pale exposure, and it’s unclear if this addiction can ever be broken. It’s also unclear whether there is a point at which pale exposure becomes lethal, but given that it dissolves matter, we can be fairly certain that a given length of continuous exposure will kill. 

Radio signals, cold plasma torches and anodic sound are all used to manage the pale to permit travel through it. Plasma torches destabilize the molecular structure of the pale to create gaps, anodic sound widens and maintains these gaps, and radio signals rationalize the pale into recognizable dimensions.

Radio signals are, in return, susceptible to corruption by the pale, resulting in entroponetic crosstalk, where signals from the past or the future are transmitted to the present. CCP is one such phenomenon and is directly related to the formation of new pale through magpie interpretation.

There is a dedicated Union for people who work in and with the pale (the Pale Workers Union). They have two slogans; “The light purifies; The sound absolves; The pale no more” and “Son et Fureur” (sound and fury)

Here’s what we may choose to believe about the pale, based on the thoughts and beliefs of in-game characters:

In conversation with Soona, the pale is described as a “curdling milk” phenomenon: “repulsive, but natural”

In this same conversation you can theorize that the churches were meant to contain the pale origins; out of the seven churches, six were destroyed during the suzerain or the revolution

The phasmid and whatever other lifeforms it’s communicated with believe that entroponetic collapse is comparable to an oxygen holocaust (i.e. the great oxygenation event), implying mass extinction due to a toxic overabundance of sapient thought

Harry refers to it once by saying “The wolf is at the door. It’s going to eat the sun.” so take that as you will

It’s likely that Tiago’s “Mother” is some manifestation from the pale, if you choose to believe that the 2mm hole is in fact a pale origin point (the concept art does confirm it’s a pale origin, but the game offers other explanations, so I won’t say it’s the only answer)

Inframaterialists believe that revolutionary action (NOT thought) may create a counter-force that will prevent the spread of pale; it’s unclear if any reversal is possible.

The world will be fully consumed by the pale in 27 years (I put it here because you may or may not believe that shivers and harry are reliably sourcing this information)

And now my personal speculation about the pale:

A quick and easy point: it’s confirmed that the pale has a measurable EMF “exhalation” frequency that varies with proximity. Strong enough EMF pulses can actually tamper with magnetic storage- radiocomputer filaments! Electronics! Fortress Accident data loss! This gives us a tangible explanation for why pale can delete data :)

This may also explain its ability to cause radio interference- radio frequencies are just a subset of EMF frequencies, so it’s possible that pale exhalation on *just the right frequency* is what’s responsible for the entroponetic crosstalk we get on radios sometimes

The pale canonically has an atomic structure, but it also has wave properties, so it’s possible that the pale has wave-particle duality on its subatomic level, like photons do

Based on this, entroponetics is likely a very similar field to quantum mechanics, which might be an interesting source of ideas for anyone (like me) who wants to explore pale-related possibilities

The pale could be a manifestation of raw patterns. That’s why math “forces dimensions” on it- it rationalizes or “tames” the patterns, which allows it to be manipulated to a certain degree.

There are several references to the pale that refer to mathematical concepts and patterns, saying that the world dissolves into “a tangle of azimuths and cosines” as it blends into the interisolary pale- more on this later

Steban comments that the pale is commonly theorized to be nostalgia or “historical inertia”, but it’s largely agreed that it’s “the past” in a broad sense. Thinking about the idiom that history repeats itself, it could be that history/the past is part of the pattern that comprises the pale, and that it’s also the type of pattern most readily perceived by people (people don’t viscerally *perceive* math, for example, but we experience memories)

To first define entropy: Chemically speaking, “the measure of a system’s thermal energy per unit temperature that is unavailable for doing useful work. (per encyclopedia britannica).” Physically speaking, it’s a measure of randomness or disorder in a system. Less work/less order = more entropy; it’s a physicochemical “winding down” of a given system

It’s commonly thought that pale is the entropic force, but what if it’s the opposite? (Keep in mind the chemical definition: less ability to do work = more entropy) Consider: the pale as less entropic, a cleanup force, recycling the potential lost by death and destruction in the universe. This in part explains why a dead person’s memory is present in the pale- their potential has been recycled into the pale in the form of their memories (their life’s *pattern*)

Enthalpy is a related concept to entropy and is defined as the total energy contained within a system. Holding the system enthalpy constant- saying the universe will always have the same amount of total energy, no matter what, according to thermodynamics- results in an entropic tug-of-war between the pale and the world. The pale wins through sheer inertia (again, inertia is mentioned specifically in game)

Overall: think of the world as “cooling”, losing heat and energy through war and death and complacency. Think of the pale as steam and heat, melting down old materials to start it all over again. (Kim says, *through entroponetic interference*: “it’s been a long, cold winter.”)

Consider: the pale as a sinusoidal function, eternally repeating. The pale recycling the universe to start a new cycle, “spending” itself, resulting in pale not being present in the beginning. Then, as the new things begin to settle- with the advent of the human mind, specifically- the pale reforming, slowly reclaiming potential, eventually ending the cycle to start again.

In comes CCP and magpies. Consider: CCP as a backwards transmission from the next “cycle” (after all, pale has no sense of time). Magpies as *pattern-sensitive* people who are able to decode CCP into something useful called novelty. They reach into the potential of the next cycle to build the potential in their current one- this paradox could be what creates more pale, because (and this is where it gets weird, I apologize) doing this retroactively increases the total amount of energy/work/potential in the current cycle to have been reclaimed by the pale for the next one.

Think of the pale as the compost bin for every single thought in the universe. The pale is the exact right size to compost every little atom and thought in the universe, and can hold nothing extra. But magpies reach into the future, the next cycle, and bring in extra. This paradox forces the pale to grow to accommodate the additional material, which also increases the starting potential of the next cycle. This process allows each cycle to accumulate minor changes from the previous one, which can snowball over many cycles.

Furthermore, to the inframaterialists’ point: revolutionary action would be such a radical shift in inertia that it would increase the potential in the world, forcing the pale to pause/shrink to “balance the equation” in terms of pale-vs-world thermodynamics. So maybe they’re right after all :)

And some diagramming, to explain the utter bullshit I’ve just dropped:

[ams-puppy]

AM Analysis and Self-Ship Name

i settled on a selfship name recently and I saw my dearest friend arsene post about theirs so 🔥 I'll talk about mine because we love AM round these parts

"Odi et Amo."

Translation: "I hate and I love."

Feel free to read my dumb silly reasons for this choice below the cut! ♡

Language:

It was a choice made first out of the theme of Latin in the game. "Cogito ergo sum," of course, and I wanted to stick to that theme for the name, because I didn't want to just press our names together. I'm not even sure how that would work... Very simple first point!!

The Poem:

I hate and I love. Why I do this, perhaps you ask.

I know not, but I feel it happening and I am tortured.

As far as I'm aware, the poem itself was in regards to a love affair. While he felt less love for his unfaithful partner, he desired her more as a result of infidelity. Such a sad poem, with lots of translations, but I picked this one because of the paradox.

A Note About AM:

Now, me, personally, I can't see other selfships with AM or any ships regarding him at all. Makes me uncomfortable (rattles on about system stuff). However, I think for any ship with AM—a message to all of you out there—it's worth noting that he probably would not enjoy being in love. Not in my understanding of his character, anyway.

He describes in the radio drama that his hatred is rooted in jealousy. He is jealous of humanity, jealous of the flesh, jealous of you.

Being in love would make him develop a special kind of hate towards the object of his affection. Oh, he'd hate it. How dare you make him feel anything at all? He was not built for that. It's hard enough to hate. Hate to incredible amounts. And now, now he must love in incredible amounts.

For us, it is hormonal. For us, love is chemical. For us, it is programmed. For him, it is foreign. Third party. An error, a glitch, a mistake. He loves and hates with everything in him. He'd die of both if he were human.

But more than this, how dare you be so out of reach?

He can't touch you. He can't kiss you, or hold you, or make love to you. Not in the human way, anyway. Anything he does is a cheap imitation. A fake. He can't love you how you need to be loved. You can't love him how he needs to be loved.

That drives him mad. He hated you before, oh, how he hated you, but now. Now, he hates you more than any human. And, in turn, he hates himself even more than that.

He can do anything. He can control the weather, manipulate DNA. He can create fake scenarios, he has every possible weapon in his arsenal. He could compress your very brain into something translatable into cyberspace.

He is god, and yet, you are just barely out of reach. He has absolutely everything except you, and that will never change.

I love my husband. Can you tell?

Repurposing the Poem:

Now that you've read all that, thank you for coming this far. I hate and I love.

It eats him alive. More than his hatred, his love eats him alive. It burns him, it tears him apart, it makes him small and vulnerable and weak. It reminds him that he is nothing more than code.

He loves, and he hates. In incredible amounts. Amounts we can't even comprehend.

"Odi et Amo."

and thgat is why I called my self-ship "Odi et Amo" :3

celebratory selfship art 🔥

[nightcolorz]

Top ten dumb pop songs that you didn’t know were actually written about Part 1, Chapter 4 of Queen of the Damned, The Story of Daniel, the Devil’s Minion, or the Boy from Interview with the Vampire!!!!All the creators of these songs u often hear on the radio actually were inspired bu thus iconic chapter in Anne Rice’s queen of the damned!!! Featuring evidence

Teeth by five seconds of summer (it’s about a guy going crazy over his crazy girlfriend with teeth and blood metaphors 🤷)

ET by Katy Perry (Katy perry is in love with a sexy alien, she wants to be his victim and his lover, she isn’t sure if he’s a devil or an angel. 🤷 he’s from a whole nother world, a different dimension. Just replace alien with ginger boy vampire and it’s basically devils minion chapter by Anne rice)

Your love is my drug by Kesha (daniel molloy said this about Armand but rlly he’s just addicted to his blood womp womp. Ur blood is my drug, laugh out loud)

Addicted by Kelly Clarkson (same as the last one but uses the metaphor of addiction to portray how a fucked up relationship is consuming Kelly. Your love is my drug intense scary version. Devils minion the way Daniel is addicted to that thang)

One way or another by blondie (one way or another he’s gonna find ya he’s gonna getcha getcha getcha getcha. Haha run boy 🏃🏃🏃haha)

Tainted love by soft cell (once I ran to you 🕺🕺now I run from you 💃💃 this tainted love you’ve given, I give you all a boy could give you 🕺🕺take my tears and that’s not nearly allll —-Daniel molloy. Yknow they’ve got that tainted love yknow.)

Bad blood by Taylor swift (controversial but true) (um idk blood and break ups and stuff lol, it’s funny)

Pompeii by bastille (cuz they first got together in Pompeii and then their relationship fell apart lmao I’m clever) (Pompeii getting exploded by the big volcano is a metaphor for Armand and Daniel breaking up 💔)

Animals by maroon 5 (this song is so odd lmao, but you can start over you can run free, but u can’t stay away from me, baby I’m praying on you tonight 😾 hunt u down eat u alive 🦁🦁 baby u think that u can hide but I can smell ur scent for miles 🐺🐺. This song is aboit Maroon Five having a abusive relationship where he is threatening some gal about how no matter how she tries to move on he’s gonna hunt her down and swallow her alive like deviant art so like just like Armand devils minion am I right tumblr ha ha)

sweet but psycho by Ava max (I think that Daniel wrote down the lyrics to this song feverishly in his journal as original poetry venting his complex feelings on Armand as he hunts him down)

paparazzi by lady Gaga: (armand he stalks Daniel Lmao)

BONUS: Anne rice actually did irl say that she associates the nine inch nails song “the only time” with Armand and Daniel’s romance so do with that what u will

LEAVE UR DEVILS MINION SONGS IN THE COMMENTS BELOOW??!!

[mcbride]

Daryl Dixon Rewatch S1E03 - Paris Sera Toujours Paris

this ep wasn't as good as the first 2, but we got to meet Fallou and Antoine, so they made up for what felt like another ep of Daryl absolutely done with everything while relentlessly looking for a radio or a boat.

i feel like Carol's "presence" has been a constant on this show, but in this ep more than ever. her name is not mentioned, but there's at least a couple of pieces of dialogue alluring to her existence, her importance in Daryl's life, and how she is the driving force behind Daryl's urgency to get back home. more after the jump....

so Nicotero got his walker orchestra, which was cool, but def not one of the reasons i watch the show. as Daryl said this was just a stupid detour and now we gonna start doing things his way!

it bothers me how these two warrior nuns are completely useless and helpless when they have to deal with a couple of walkers. in each case, Daryl had to "save" both Sylvie and Isabelle while they were stuck dumb looking at walkers dangerously approaching them. are they warriors/survivors or what?? writers do better!

Laurent spewing some philosophical bullshit about fortitude was top TWD gimmick - kids wise beyond their years are annoying to me! but if you know me, you know i legit dislike most kids written in apocalyptic shows. adding insult to injury, Laurent be like "Not to fret, Monsieur Daryl. You will not die in Paris." *eyeroll* legit. main character plot armor. thanks, captain obvious!

in the "make everything about Carol" segment, we got "La mort et le bucheron:" i think an analogy could be made about hope, and how when we are so close to losing it all is when we hang on tightly to something and finally feel the urge to live, but to do that we need to learn how to share our burden. and i think that applies to both Carol and Daryl, if they are to move on, evolve, take the next step, they must be willing to share, to talk openly, and share their burdens with each other- let the other carry a bit of their weight.

it will never not be hilarious to me how Fallou continuously ignores Daryl's request for a radio, until he introduces him to Antoine, the pigeon guy, and their only form of communication. Daryl is SOOOO done with y'alll.

most interesting lines in the whole ep are about pigeons, heck yas! "Maybe he has a girlfriend... yes? We all have a person who waits... who waits for us somewhere." Daryl's face screamed CAROL and her name has never even have been mentioned on this show YET!!!!!

Daryl and Isa have a moment when she says they are the same, "broken until the world ended." YEAH, NAHHH. not the same! sorry girl, but your bohemian lifestyle chosen by yourself got nothing to do with how Daryl was forced to grow up and survive even before the zpoc.

omg Daryl's idiot longing face looking at the water lilies, saying it reminds him of home... and all i can think about is when Daryl took Carol to watch those Cherokee roses blooming as an apology back in s2 of the original show. that's art!!!!!!

and once again, i am not disappointed Daryl is a true man of honor, and wouldn't let Isa and Laurent suffer the consequences for a shot at getting a boat to return home. it's a very Daryl thing to do, and Isa called him out on it.

AND FINALLY she tells us something we did not know.... Daryl made a promise to whom is not revealed to get back home, and that's all he cares about. he doesn't deny it!! HE CANNOT

Daryl is just so ready to leave AGAIN!!! but not without first telling Isa she's good at making things up (ouch!!), but she needs to tell Laurent the truth.

then Daryl becomes the most reasonable person ever to have ever existed. he says, "maybe he's just a regular kid, a regular kid that got lucky and lived. maybe that's your miracle." 👏👏👏 - that's Daryl being the most Daryl since ever, calling out the bullshit, and keeping shit real. i love this show for bringing him back!

Laurent runs, Codron arrives... "the reasons are everywhere." once again, right when Daryl was leaving again, something happens that stops him from doing so. the universe works in mysterious ways indeed cause what he doesn't know is that he needs to stay around so Carol can find him, and she's on her way there already!

See y'all next week for ep 4!!!

42 days left until the premiere of THE BOOK OF CAROL!!!!!

[slavghoul]

Phantomime is the band's third album of covers, after If You Have Ghosts and Popestar. Cover songs are usually the preserve of young, inexperienced bands. Is doing covers a way to maintain a link with your formative years and not forget where you come from?

Tobias Forge: Absolutely. I think it does that. It serves as a return to the roots, in the same way as for... I don't know, let's say someone who practices martial arts, who starts in a certain dojo and ends up changing it. If you want to become a good fighter, you have to move and train with different people. It's the same for a footballer: if you play with the same team all the time, your team might be very good, but you always have to play against others. I think the same logic applies with covers: it can help to go back. You don't necessarily have to release them. We chose to do a real album, but in parallel I worked on other songs - not only Impera music, but other covers. We selected the best ones, and said, "Let's put these out; this looks coherent and presentable".

How much did learning to play other artists' songs contribute to your formation as a musician? What were the most formative songs in your youth?

The answer to the first question is yes. Listening and playing at the same time is very formative. I've never really been... A lot of guitarists, especially, take the time to read tablature and learn how to play something very precisely, and in my opinion, theorise the music too much. I can't say that I'm not theoretical; I just don't follow the rules or the classic terminology. I try to categorise and understand the logic, but I do it in my own way, based on what I have learned over time. I never spent much time with tablature; I just played to the music. I would put the music on and play. I wasn't trying to learn how to play the song in the same way as the band. I would play as if I were invited to play with them. So my style is very free, because I played The Doors as well as Kiss, Slayer and DJ Bobo! It could be anything. Whatever I heard, whatever I listened to, whatever song I could get my hands on, I would play it. I think the chaos of it all made it... When you understand that, you understand the way I write, the way I do things, and why I sometimes seem to be a bit scattered.

That's what may surprise you when you listen to the EP: you can find Iron Maiden as well as Tina Turner...

Yes, I grew up with both, so it's not strange to me. But of course, in order to go from just wanting to do something to a homogeneous work that is supposed to have some commercial appeal, you have to make decisions. One of those decisions was, "If we're going to do this Tina Turner song, it really needs to be punchy." It's supposed to be a rock EP, it's got to be set to 10. I think that's what sets this cover apart from the moose. By the way, thematically, I didn't think of it as 'a Tina Turner cover', but as 'the Mad Max song'. It fits with the times we're living in.

Phantomime features a cover of Iron Maiden's "Phantom Of The Opera". Two years ago, you also recorded a version of Metallica's "Enter Sandman" for the Blacklist compilation. In rock, people like to pit the Rolling Stones against the Beatles, and I think the metal world tends to do the same thing with Metallica and Iron Maiden. Do you feel more affinity with Metallica or with Maiden?

[He thinks] Good question. I'm trying to formulate a coherent answer. I think... It's so fifty-fifty. Both. Not just in terms of inspiration, but in terms of their whole careers, especially when I was a kid. In many ways, like many fans of both bands, there's a cut-off date where my interest in new music started to wane. But I have such a love for everything they did before that it doesn't really matter. The limit is basically the Black Album and Fear Of The Dark. I mean, I like The X Factor, and Brave New World was an absolutely great comeback album. But as a kid and a teenager, settling down with Live After Death was such an inspiration - not just for what I was hearing, but for the tour dates and everything to do with that. Same with Metallica and the Black Album. That was the first time I saw them, and it was the first time I was confronted with commercial greatness in metal, when a band is on top. It's happening now, they're the biggest band of all time. They're playing in such and such an arena, but when they come back next year, they'll be doing such and such a stadium. Even back then, I had a hunch that not only were they great, but they were doing well in life. These guys are getting richer by the hour [laughs]. That's the kind of thing that matters when you're twelve. "And imagine all the girls they get!" That kind of nonsense.

And of course, these bands inspired me musically and professionally and brought me a lot of joy, but they also became mentors in my professional life. I have so much gratitude and respect for those two bands. If I were to be super picky and specific, I would say that since we are a more melodic band, we are probably closer to Maiden. Metallica is more of a "speed" band, I think. To be honest, what I've always liked most about Metallica, and especially on my favourite albums, which are a lot of people's favourites, is not the speed. The speed and the violence on those albums are just added value. The reason their music was so great in the 80s was because it was so melodic. It's the melodies. What changed in the 90s was that they stopped the melodies. They became a blues band, and all of a sudden all the movements were different. It wasn't neoclassical like in the 80s or on the Black Album. I'm very neoclassical myself, that's why I feel so close to the melodic side of Metallica. On the other hand, I spent my teenage years listening to death and black metal, so I love big riffs and speed and stuff like that, but that's not what we do with Ghost.

For a long time, fans have been asking who could be the Maiden or Metallica of tomorrow. Considering the impressive success of Ghost, do you think you have an answer to that question?

Obviously, I know that George Lucas and Steven Spielberg will die one day, but I don't think Wes Anderson or Quentin Tarantino can be considered as a replacement. These directors don't have that much in common, but you know what I mean, I hope. I don't see us as taking their place. You know, I try to be as transparent as possible. What I do is very much inspired by those two bands. I try to do it in a different way, and with respect. But of course, from a practical point of view, when the day comes when there's no more Iron Maiden and you want to see a rock concert with staging and solos, you can come and see us. It's a very curious concept, but it's obviously relevant, because we live in a time when the previous generation is disappearing one after the other. I think Lars [Ulrich] and James [Hetfield] have spoken about how the physicality of their music is not the same as the Rolling Stones. Charlie [Watts] playing the way he played when he was seventy-nine or eighty, it's nothing like what's expected of Lars. And what is expected of James is also very different from what is expected of Keith Richards, with his very open chord style. The meticulousness of James' riffs and Kirk's solos can be difficult to achieve at eighty - and they're approaching sixty. Kirk already has them, by the way. So, as much as I don't want to think about it or remind people, nothing lasts forever. Sooner or later, fans are going to have to decide which bands they want to go see, because a lot of the people they grew up with won't be around anymore.

Your cover of "Enter Sandman" was very "ghostified", while "Phantom Of The Opera" is more faithful to the original in comparison. How do you decide how to approach a cover? Are there songs that offer more latitude in terms of arrangement and appropriation, and others less?

There are several factors, which differ from song to song, and the result can therefore be different. If you go back in time and take "Waiting For The Night", for example, I always thought that song in its original form... Obviously it's cool, but I thought there was a bigger song underneath. In the original, it's diffuse, vague, underlying. The chords are just hinted at, and the vocals suggest that you can build something bigger around it. When I did the cover with Dave Grohl, he asked me, "Can we do a really slow version of it like Trouble?" I said, "Yeah, that sounds cool." And of course, working with Dave Grohl, it seemed like a good idea at the time. In the end, we thought it was too slow, too heavy and too long. It was a good idea, but the result was not very convincing.

Enter Sandman' and 'Phantom Of The Opera' were conceived in two different ways. If someone had asked me to do a Metallica tribute, I would have accepted, but I would never have chosen 'Enter Sandman', in the same way that few people would choose 'Paranoid' or 'Smoke On The Water'. You automatically try not to pick the biggest hit. But in this case, it was Swedish television that asked me to play. It was for a music award, and they said: "Since Ghost and Metallica are close, you are seen as friends, so you should open the show. And we want you to play their biggest song, 'Enter Sandman'." I asked, "Do I have a choice?" And they said, "Not really! We want you to do it, otherwise we have to rethink the whole show. Could you think about it?" OK, I'll think about it and see what I can do. So I started to play the song and see what I could get out of it. The original structure of the song is very simple, and the melody, like "Waiting For The Night", suggests chords that they don't play. All I had to do was see which chord suggested the melody and fill in the gaps. I ended up with a five-minute arrangement. If I sing the melody with a guitar, this is what chords it suggests. That's the somewhat academic version of the song. I was at the stage where I had a completely different version of the song, and I recorded it and thought, "Fuck, I hope James doesn't hate it..." Because I don't want to disappoint anyone. It's supposed to be a tribute. My version was like, "You guys have all my love, but I was forced to do this! And in the end, the result was great.

"Phantom Of The Opera' was a bit different. I knew I wanted to cover a Maiden song, but not just anything, of course. I wasn't going to do 'The Number Of The Beast'. I've had fun with 'Phantom' in the past, because it's a long song and quite complicated. As a musician, it's quite common to sit on the couch and try to figure out a riff. What are they doing there? [What's the rhythm? How are they counting? Because I couldn't hear the beat. And suddenly, once I understood how the beat works in this song [he sings the riff while snapping his fingers], I thought: "Wow, you can't hear that at all on the record. You can't hear anything, it's just a controlled mess." I managed to figure out how to play other elements of the song, and I was like, "Now I have a reason to record it. Not because I want to improve it, but to come up with a different version where you can clearly hear the different parts." First of all, it was a personal experiment in the studio. I wanted to record it to see what it sounded like, and suddenly, after working on it for a few hours, doubling the guitars, adding the drums and playing everything perfectly with metronomic precision, the track was different and a bit updated, so to speak. So I said to myself, "I'm going to take the gamble of covering this song, and see what happens. It seemed like a good reason. I'm not saying my version is better, I'm just saying it's different. There's a bit more contrast and fluidity, you can hear the different elements better. It underlines how good the song is.

Phantomime's covers also include Genesis' 'Jesus He Knows Me'. Genesis is a rather peculiar band, which started out in progressive rock and ended up with huge radio hits. Do you find yourself in this ambiguity, in this duality?

Yes, I do. The other band on that level that did something similar is Pink Floyd. In the beginning, their music was really strange, really eccentric, and then they became more and more pop as the albums went on. People still mistakenly think they're a prog band, whereas 'Wish You Were Here' is really just a series of four pop songs stretched to the max. Not only am I very inspired by that, but I also feel an affinity with that kind of thing. You try to come up with variations of the traditional, if you like. You try to change the form, to present elements that people know in a different way. It's a bit like running a fusion restaurant and offering an Asian-inspired onion soup and adding coriander to the dish. It's still recognisable, but you try to make the recipe different. Another analogy is Stanley Kubrick, who told stories that weren't very complicated, but presented them in an epic way because of their façade - literally. It was the choice of set and costume and the attention to detail that made the difference. That's why, as a composer, I always try to go back to the simplicity of the writing; the simplicity of 'Another Brick In The Wall'; the simplicity of 'Comfortably Numb'. It sounds like a huge, epic song, but it's not complicated at all. They have a lot of songs like that. For a lot of songs in the Genesis catalogue, especially in the later part of their career, the only thing that makes it a bit weird is the middle part. In "Jesus He Knows Me", that's one of the things that made me want to... Not only have I always loved that song, but there are three factors that made me want to do my own thing with it. One: it's a very upbeat rhythm. The way they play it is so quiet that it literally sounds like they're playing on the table [he beats the rhythm on the table] with an acoustic guitar. There's a real metal track in there.

Do something with those guitars! [Laughs]

Yeah, but I'm glad they didn't, because that means we can! I'm really surprised that a band like Metallica never covered this song, because it sounds like a song from Garage Days. It has the same atmosphere. So I thought, "I'm gonna make it sound like a Garage Days song by Metallica. And I fucking hate the bridge of the original, when they go into white boy raggae. I like reggae, but this is the whitest reggae in the world! And it totally destroys the song. As much as I've always loved the song as a whole, I've always hated that part. So getting rid of that section and making it very heavy was also on the to-do list. I had to go into Trouble mode on this. And of course, that goes without saying, but the lyrics were also perfect. It's meant as a tribute, even though I spit on that bridge a lot. But they've done a lot of these kind of prog bridges, like "Let's do anything here", and they'll throw in a rumba or something like that. Some people might find that really interesting, but in most of their songs, I don't think it adds anything. But yes, Genesis has a lot of... I like a lot of their older prog music, with Peter Gabriel, although I think they almost became even better after they split up. Peter Gabriel did his own music, and he did it very well - very epic music. And Phil [Collins] came in on vocals and they did their own thing. To me, it was the best of both worlds, even if it sounds sacrilegious to say that. I'd love to see Peter Gabriel come back and sing with them, that would be cool, but their separation brought so much to the music, between Peter Gabriel's career, Genesis' career and Phil's career. That amount of work, man!

It's one of the few cases where the split was a real success for everyone, and the result is as good as the original band.

Absolutely, I think so. The most amazing thing they could do now, especially now that Phil is not in good shape... What I wish they had done, or could have done, or would do one day, is a triple tour. For example, Phil and [Peter] could do a solo show each to start with, maybe just five or ten songs, and then get together with Genesis. That way we could have 'Here Come The Flood', 'Another Day In Paradise' and 'In The Air Tonight', and then a bunch of Genesis. I think everyone would love to see that. It would be the perfect concert. For me, it would be one of the best experiences possible.

You see, that's the kind of idea that made Ghost into Ghost. If you can come up with a plan like that for other bands...

[Laughs] You can always call me before it's too late, guys!

Another band that has come up with sophisticated yet super catchy music is Def Leppard, especially on their multi-platinum album Hysteria. Speaking of which, this year you released a new version of "Spillways" with Joe Elliott on vocals. When you hear him on this track, the link is obvious, especially with the very elaborate backing vocals. Would you draw a parallel between your approach to songwriting and arranging and that of Def Leppard?

On this album, yes, because I tried to emulate elements of... It's something that's been done throughout their career, but especially on their two biggest albums, Pyromania and Hysteria, the length of the songs is remarkable. It's very common these days, especially in pop, to be very fussy about the three-minute limit. In the pop world, there's this need to always get to the chorus very quickly. You have to start with the chorus, go straight to the point all the time. In the 80s, there was more courage in songwriting - a more adventurous side. Songs like 'The Riddle', for example, were very strange, very proggy. There were weird chord progressions and stuff that nobody does anymore. The pop world has been so chicken for so long. Of course, I've always had an ear for pop; I'm not exactly impressed with what I hear today, but in my life I've always listened to the radio and liked a lot of what I heard, especially the 80s super hits. That's totally my thing. And I love Eurodisco from the early 90s. There are a lot of great composers in that scene. Max Martin started in Eurodisco, at least professionally, but before that he was in metal. What makes him such a great composer is his metal ear. He was writing Eurodisco songs, and then all of a sudden he started writing huge pop songs for the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears. This whole school of Swedish songwriters is made up of former metalheads, former rockers, former guitarists.

So I wanted to challenge myself in my own songwriting, because sometimes I keep it too short. Even though "Square Hammer" is a good example of a well-written song, it was almost frustrating, because I thought, "OK, that's one more song like that. Now I have to stop doing that, because it was almost too simple." It was a very intuitive song; I literally wrote it in ten minutes. I had the melody, I played it, and the song wrote itself very quickly. There's almost no finesse in that song, and I thought I should avoid doing the same thing again, because it would be too easy. I wanted to see if I could write in a Def Leppard way. On Hysteria, there are six, seven, eight singles, a good half of which were huge hits. In 1987 or 1988, they were on a par with Coldplay at the height of their career, that's for sure. How could they write five-minute songs, with like five distinct parts? It wasn't conventional, verse-chorus-verse-chorus writing. It was verse, another verse, pre-chorus, bridge, and then finally, after two minutes, you'd get to the chorus. And it was so rewarding, because it was such a long way to get there. I thought, "This is what I have to work towards. I want to dare to add another part, dare not to follow the path. That was a mental exercise I did on Impera, and I'll try to do better in the future. It's an interesting way to challenge yourself.

When people talk about the length of songs on the radio, I always think of the story of "Bohemian Rhapsody": "This is going to be a disaster, it's never going to be played on the radio!" That's it, yes...

For a long time they called that song "Freddie's thing". It's such an anomaly in the middle of what we've just been talking about. Of course, I don't recommend... For a young band that's just got a contract, it's best to avoid the six-minute "Rhapsody". But if you can find a compromise between 'The Passenger' and 'Bohemian Rhapsody', I think you've got something.

On that subject, how did Joe Elliott end up on "Spillways"?

The story is very simple. I talked about Def Leppard a lot before Impera came out because of the mental exercise I mentioned, and both Phil and Joe had been talking about Ghost for a few years. It got to the point where our respective managements wanted us to do something together. In the modern world, that often means collaborating, as hip-hop artists do. I explained that I was willing to explore the idea, but that for me, a collaboration is a trendy but outdated concept. We do it all the time. In hip-hop, it's almost ridiculous to see... If an artist is hot this week and you go look at the American top 40, it's just "this artist feat. this other artist". I totally understand that one plus one can sometimes be three, but it gets very cynical. I don't want to do things cynically. I sing cynical things, I'm a cynical person, but I don't want to be cynical about my fans or my career. So I said yes, I would discuss it with Joe, but we'd have to see if we could agree on something, if there was romance in the air.

Joe and I sent a lot of messages to each other to try and arrange a meeting. He lives in Ireland, but also in LA. I live in Sweden, but I also spend a lot of time in LA, so we tried to find time to see each other. He was getting ready for his tour, I was getting ready for my tour, and we were just hanging out. And then out of the blue, he wanted to experiment; he went into the studio, recorded some vocal lines and sent them to me. I thought it sounded really cool and I said, "Look, I have nothing but good things to say about what you did. It sounds great. I'm not surprised by your voice, but by the fact that we sound so good together. I like that very drawling vocal, you really added something. But I have no desire to throw this on Spotify and say to people, 'Here's another thing you can buy.'" I asked him, "You know we do little skits to communicate with our fans in a funny way? Instead of posting on Instagram saying we'll be in such and such a city, we come up with little episodes." He had seen a few and said, "Yeah, that's funny. Let's do something funny with that." The gag is the important part, and the end result is a bonus.

It's like what we did with 'Kiss The Go-Goat' and 'Mary On A Cross'. The idea for the episode came first, and then we said, "OK, but we need a song. So I came up with the idea for this 60s-style sketch that was "Kiss The Go-Goat". Then, as I was writing and recording 'Kiss The Go-Goat', 'Mary On A Cross' came up in the process, and I thought, "Great, now we have a B-side! It'll be a physical single." So I put that in the script: "Let's start showing the single, now that it's official." Things work in tandem. Looking back, we now know that the end result was different. It was meant as a joke. There was 'Kiss The Go-Goat', which was the joke itself and was very successful. And then it turned out that "Mary On A Cross" was completely different. That's also what I told Joe: we do this to mess around with the band. My job is to write records and entertain people, but apparently I also have to communicate with my fans, and do all this promotion that I'm not really interested in. I have no problem doing this interview, but I don't want a fucking Instagram account where I post pictures of myself. I don't want to be that person. So, I'm doing this so that people... They're diversions, and sometimes those diversions become cool. "What do you say, Joe?" In the end, we found this way to spend time together and do something fun. Instead of turning our creativity into songs, we turned our creativity into episodes. It became something fruitful and fun, and I think it was a great success.

The title of the EP is clever, as it mixes the terms 'ghost' and 'pantomime'. The latter term is defined as "a type of musical for the entertainment of the whole family". Is this your goal with Ghost? Do you see the band as "a musical for the whole family's entertainment"?

Broadly speaking, yes. Of course, that suggests that the more adult elements and innuendos in our show are suitable for children, which I don't claim. But I would also like to stress that I have never asked people to bring children to our shows. So if the children in question are exposed to jokes involving penises, farts and copulation, that's their problem. I grew up in a very liberal family, where there were very few barriers and no censorship. I think it's possible to have a conversation, if others are open to it. I have no problem with whole families coming to us, as long as no one suffers. So, for me, it is indeed entertainment for the whole family. But I wouldn't sell it as such to most people, because there are still elements that are not suitable for all children.

I remember a Rammstein concert where I noticed children in the audience. I thought it wasn't really a good idea... Ghost seemed a bit more appropriate, but for young children, some things can still be a bit biased.

It's hard for me to have a clear line on this, because I'm not just speaking as a musician, but also as a parent. There's a constant debate about the right age to talk about certain things. Now, with two teenagers, things are more open. But that's one of the weird things about being a semi-public figure, talking openly and publicly about your life and what you do and sharing your opinions. My kids read that, too. They are aware of it. As soon as I say something, especially nowadays, where everything becomes a meme or a clip... People may think what I say is funny, which I don't mind, but my son and daughter, now fourteen, heard it when they were eight or ten. It's hard for me to be a parent and say, 'Go to school! Don't do that", when they know perfectly well that I didn't follow any of these precepts. I'm not trying to lie to them at all. I tell them: "I did this, I don't recommend it. I did this; I totally neglected this other thing. But I was lucky and I got there. My career isn't over, so I don't know if I've really "arrived", but for now, I'm here. It was a bit silly of me to be so confident, to think I could burn all the bridges, burn all the ships and throw the oars. I was lucky enough to make it to land, but I don't recommend this technique. Don't do the same thing! [Laughs]

[frenchcurious]

Intérieur du Radio City Music Hall, New York, conçu par les architectes Edward Durel Stone et Donald Deskey, 1932. - source Dwayne Douglas via Art Deco

[phosphor-cat]

art blog

art fight

website

what i am interested in:

os development, linguistics or conlanging, programming (mainly rust and asm), astronomy, amateur radio, chemistry, sci-fi, homestuck, rain world, the three body problem books, linux

there is more that i cannot think of right now idk i gave a pretty big list though

i should probably tag the things that i post because i reblog lots

if i were to tag things look for stuff like

#osdev

#programming

#rust

#assembly

#astronomy

#ham radio

#homestuck

#rain world

#three body

#linux

et cetera

i will answer almost any ask i am so fucking bored like 24/7

[etradio]

I thought it would be interesting if venom could manifest in different ways depending on the user.

[prosedumonde]

Depuis toujours, l’anxiété a fait partie de ma vie. Mon art est une confession personnelle. Comme les messages radio d’un navire qui sombre. Mais j’ai le sentiment que cette anxiété m’est nécessaire, tout comme l’est la maladie. Sans cette peur de la vie et sans cette anxiété, j’aurais été une barque sans gouvernail.

Marc Lenot, angoisses et désir selon Munch

[detournementsmineurs]

"Ensemble de Micros Streamline" en acier chromé (circa 1935-45), "Tourne-Disque Portable" d'Oskar Schlemmer pour la marque Odeon (circ 1928), "Jukebox de Table" de la marque Seeburg (circa 1949) et "Tourne-Disque Portable" de John Vassos pour la marque RCA Victor Radio Company America (circa 1935) à l'exposition "Art Déco France - Amérique du Nord" de la Cité de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine, Palais de Chaillot, Paris, février 2023.

[yespat49]

“J’étais une esclave, il me tenait en laisse” : Le journaliste de gauche Jean-Philippe Desbordes (Arte, Radio France, Libération, envoyé spécial…) jugé aux assises pour viols, actes de torture et de barbarie

L’ancien journaliste Jean-Philippe Desbordes, auteur également de plusieurs essais, comparaît ce lundi 18 avril pour viols, actes de torture et de barbarie sur les filles de son ex-compagne. Les faits présumés se seraient déroulés en Ariège, à partir de 2017, où l’écrivain – auteur notamment de « Mon enfant n’est pas un cœur de cible » et « Atomic Park » – s’était installé pour exercer comme prof…

[bunny-bluue]

Name: Céline Lavigne

Died: Year 1990

Death By: Heart attack from being overworked and stressed

Sins: Adultery and murder

Occupation: Fashion Designer (Both in living and in Hell)

Nationality: French

Type: Sinner - Doe Demon

Hobbies: Sewing, drawing designs, fencing, decorating, playing violin,

Tailor Shop: Lavigne’s

Love Interest: Alastor

Ex-Husband: Adrien Roux

So I believe when Hazbin Hotel came out with the pilot, I made an oc that I didn’t exactly touch up on. On most of my art accounts, I posted a white fox demoness named Inari! Now essentially, she was my number one HH OC back then but now that the show is finally continuing on, I came up with another OC to sort of replace my old OC! Mesdames et Messieurs, I’d like you all to meet Madam Céline Lavigne!

Céline is a French doe demon who happens to be a fashion designer (both in the living realm and in Hell) with a tailor shop located near the Hazbin Hotel! When she was alive in 1990, Céline lived in France, Paris. She was married and was becoming a rising french clothing designer with a lot of promising ideas and creativity! But while her fame grew, her personal life became dimmer and barren to the point of becoming estranged with her husband. Her busy hours kept her away from him for long periods of time, the stress of working so many hours caused them to have many fights, and then the distance between them caused her husband to seek out other women to hold. And while their marriage was crumbling, Céline tried her hardest to keep it in tact because deep down she still loved her husband. But when she learned that he was sleeping with many women, she in her own rage, decides to even the score and have a one-night stand with a stranger she met at a bar. As she was committing the sin of adultery, her husband had caught her and her lover in the act. Enraged by her actions, Céline’s husband flew into a rage and killed her lover and tried to kill her as well, resulting her into defending herself and killing him by accidentally shoving him off a balcony from her 50 story building. Céline’s reputation had plummeted once the news about her husband’s and lover’s death was revealed. She was shunned and rejected from the fashion industry and once the stress and exhaustion became too much for her to handle, she had died from a severe heart attack, thus sending her damned soul into Hell.

Once Céline had realized that she was indeed in Hell, she started from scratch and rebuilt her fashion career by setting up a tailor shop near the Hazbin Hotel! Once she heard about what Charlie was trying to accomplish at the Hazbin Hotel, Céline took the opportunity to visit and requests to be redeemed. She offers her skills into making new outfits and decor designs for them in payment for her reedeming! Once she was promised redemption, she had to meet the entire staff to familiarize herself with and that includes the Radio Demon himself. Like everyone in Hell, Céline knew how risky and dangerous it was to be around Alastor. She feared him but was also respective enough to make sure she didn’t get on his bad side. Which she didn’t! If anything, it made the overlord direct his attention to her whenever she was present in the same room! He found it fascinating that such a harmless woman was in Hell and it was entertaining for him to figure out what she did to get there! She didn’t exactly trust to be around Alastor but the more she got to know him, the more relaxed she got which eventually led her to having fond feelings for him. But because of her previous marriage, Céline isn’t too confident about getting into a relationship, especially with someone like Alastor since she is planning on being redeemed. So she doesn’t act on her feelings and keeps to herself, being fine with being good friends with him.

[georgefairbrother]

Remembering British film director and writer Sir Alan Parker CBE, who passed away July 31st, 2020, aged 76.

Born to a working class family in Islington, North London he made his early reputation as a pioneer of creativity in television advertising. He formed a creative partnership with David Puttnam and went on to become one of his generation’s most accomplished film directors.

He directed Jack Rosenthal’s television play, The Evacuees, for the BBC (BAFTA and International Emmy), and his first international cinema success was Bugsy Malone (1976), a musical gangster pastiche featuring a cast of children, including Jodie Foster, Scott Baio, Andrew Paul (The Bill), Bonnie Langford and an uncredited Phil Daniels. He said that he wrote Bugsy Malone out of frustration, as his work was constantly being rejected on the grounds of being 'too parochial'.

He went on to create a commercially successful, diverse and at times controversial body of work, including Midnight Express (written by Oliver Stone: they didn’t get on), Fame, Pink Floyd-The Wall, Mississippi Burning, The Commitments, Evita and Angela's Ashes. His final feature film was The Life of David Gale in 2003.

According to his official website;

"...In all, his films have won nineteen BAFTA awards, ten Golden Globes and ten Oscars...In January 1998, Parker took up his post as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the British Film Institute and in August, 1999 he was appointed first Chairman of the UK Film Council; a position he held for five years...In November, 1995, Parker was awarded with a CBE by Queen Elizabeth II for services to the British film industry and he received a knighthood in 2002. He is also an Officier des Arts et des Lettres, awarded by the French Government..."

He was also fascinating to listen to on the subject of the film industry generally, and gave a number of entertainingly grumpy interviews over the years. In the mid 1980s, his Thames TV documentary, A Turnip Head’s Guide to the British Film Industry, which according to his own website ‘lambasted the British film establishment and film critics’, seemed to upset just about everyone but won the British Press Guild award for the year’s best documentary.

He was interviewed by Warner Brothers executives as a potential director for the first Harry Potter, however during a teleconference (from his kitchen table at home) didn’t seem to express enough interest or gratitude at being asked. When a Warner exec told him that lots of directors would just love to do it, Parker said, 'Well go and ask them, then', and that was the end of that.

In conversation with David Puttnam for a BFI function, Alan Parker explained why he gave up making films, and talked a little about his art and drawing.

"…I’m out of it, I’ve had enough, I think it’s time for someone else to do it. I get more pleasure out of doing my art…I’ve been directing since I was 24, and every day was a battle, every day it was difficult, whether you’re fighting the producer who has opinions that you don’t agree with, the studios or whoever it is, because film, unlike art, pure art, film is hugely expensive, and the moment it gets expensive, you have people you have to serve…I’ve been punching out, all my life…to fight for the work…for our right to make our movie, the way we want to do it, and that’s hugely difficult, because it seems that you’re forever punching out. There comes a time, when you think, I don’t want to do that…I showed (a friend) one of my art works, and he said, who’s your audience here? Because that’s what film people think. I said the audience is me, and that’s all I care about, if someone likes my art, fine, if they don’t, fine…If they don’t like my movies, I want to kill ‘em…"

He was Michael Parkinson's first guest on Desert Island Discs in 1986, (a great interview) and featured once again 14 years later talking to Sue Lawley.