Talk to the hand

Tony has some notes on the performances in this advertisement, Mrs Torrance.

Maybe one day somebody will explain why the people in tech advertising– especially white people in ads for east Asian companies– always seem to be deliberately portrayed as affectless, malfunctioning animatronic mannequins with a limited grasp of their own language (example 1, example 2). Surely the ideal user likes to see themselves as more human than their phone or gadget, not less? In this latest effort by what must be a Taiwanese company, judging by the surtitles and the reference to Taipei 101, an insane lady called Pretty Woman Smart Living talks to her finger like Danny from The Shining and never misses an opportunity to humiliate her boyfriend for his inability to do mostly pointless things with his phone. He should also stop cutting his own hair, or at least try looking in a mirror while he’s doing it.

(UPDATE: Damn, I killed it again. They’ve made the video private now.)

Amy Pretty Woman Smart Living can put on the blue light by conspiring with the palm of her hand (but doesn’t put on the red light, because that is a different thing and also an unwelcome, random reference to the lyrics of a song by The Police which would be distracting.) She can instruct her finger that she wants to watch Furious 7, which proves once and for all that she is mental. Not the finger thing, I mean voluntarily watching Furious 7. She can make a note to buy Coke via her hand because they’ve run out of Coke! It might have all been freebased and smoked by the person who signed off this ad for public release. I’ll assume they’re referring to Coca Cola but a cocaine comedown would explain the strange demeanour of these two. Her finger can find out that the nearest metro station for Taipei 101 is Taipei 101 metro station. Even if I was Siri or Cortana or something I don’t think I’d be able to answer the question “Where is the nearest metro station to Taipei 101?” without shouting “Obviously it’s called Taipei 101 station, shithead. Anyway, you live in Taipei, how do you not know this already?”

Oh, I jest about her being insane. Although she is clearly not the full shilling and her partner seems too stupid to work a doorknob, PWSL owes her lifestyle prowess not to incipient schizophrenia but instead to a special high tech (?) ring. The ring is called Aring. It’s not called a ring, although it is also a ring. Aring. A ring called Aring.

Where’s my Aring? Your herring? No, Aring. What do you mean, where’s a ring? No, Aring. I’m looking for Aring. I get that you’re looking for a ring. Stop saying that. Yes, Aring. I know, but I can’t help you unless you tell me which ring. Aring. Fuuuuuuuuu–

You may enjoy this badvertising even more when you know that in Britain, “ring” or “ringpiece” is slang for an anus. Of course there’s also this Ring, something that a sensible person would probably consider before naming a product involving communication with invisible forces:

Pretty Woman, Smart Living.

 

Lives of the Necromancers: Put Your Hand Inside the Puppet Head

More from Lives of the Necromancers (1834) by William Godwin. See Orpheus for an introduction to Godwin and the book.

Alexander the Paphlagonian

“At about the same time with Apuleius (note: the Numidian writer in Latin, circa 124 – 170 AD) lived Alexander the Paphlagonian, of whom so extraordinary an account is transmitted to us by Lucian (note: also alive during the events he recorded, circa 125 – 180 AD). He was a native of an obscure town, called Abanotica, but was endowed with all that ingenuity and cunning which enables men most effectually to impose upon their fellow-creatures. He was tall of stature, of an impressive aspect, a fair complexion, eyes that sparkled with an awe-commanding fire as if informed by some divinity, and a voice to the last degree powerful and melodious. To these he added the graces of carriage and attire. Being born to none of the goods of fortune, he considered with himself how to turn these advantages to the greatest account; and the plan he fixed upon was that of instituting an oracle entirely under his own direction. He began at Chalcedon on the Thracian Bosphorus; but, continuing but a short time there, he used it principally as an opportunity for publishing that Aesculapius, with Apollo, his father, would in no long time fix his residence at Abanotica…

… coming to Pella in Macedon, [he] found that the environs of this city were distinguished from perhaps all other parts of the world, by a breed of serpents of extraordinary size and beauty. Our author (Lucian) adds that these serpents were so tame, that they inhabited the houses of the province, and slept in bed with the children. If you trod upon them, they did not turn again, or shew tokens of anger, and they sucked the breasts of the women to whom it might be of service to draw off their milk. Lucian says, it was probably one of these serpents, that was found in the bed of Olympias, and gave occasion to the tale that Alexander the Great was begotten by Jupiter under the form of a serpent.

The prophet bought the largest and finest serpent he could find, and conveyed it secretly with him into Asia. When he came to Abonotica, he found the temple that was built surrounded with a moat; and he took an opportunity privately of sinking a goose-egg, which he had first emptied of its contents, inserting instead a young serpent just hatched, and closing it again with great care. He then told his fellow-citizens that the God was arrived, and hastening to the moat, scooped up the egg in an egg-cup in presence of the whole assembly. He next broke the shell, and shewed the young serpent that twisted about his fingers in presence of the admiring multitude. After this he suffered several days to elapse, and then, collecting crowds from every part of Paphlagonia, he exhibited himself, as he had previously announced he should do, with the fine serpent he had brought from Macedon twisted in coils about the prophet’s neck, and its head hid under his arm-pit, while a head artfully formed with linen, and bearing some resemblance to a human face, protruded itself, and passed for the head of the reptile. The spectators were beyond measure astonished to see a little embryo serpent, grown in a few days to so magnificent a size, and exhibiting the features of a human countenance.

Contemporary (2nd century AD) statue of Alexander’s snake-god-puppet Glycon. From the National History and Archaeology Museum, Constanţa, Romania.

Lives of the Necromancers: Silly cow

More from Lives of the Necromancers (1834) by William Godwin. See Orpheus for an introduction to Godwin and the book.

John Fian

Although this anecdote is ridiculous, it comes from the late 16th century witch hunt period so it has a predictably brutal ending. John Fian was a young schoolmaster from Tranent, near Edinburgh. He was one of a number of unfortunate people tortured over accusations of witchcraft. Godwin writes that Fian was “tortured by means of a rope strongly twisted around his head, and by the boots.” The boots were actually cruder than they sound, usually just a kind of vice designed to crush the feet and lower legs. Even people who survived the torture were usually crippled.

“He told of a young girl, the sister of one of his scholars, with whom he had been deeply enamoured. He had proposed to the boy to bring him three hairs from the most secret part of his sister’s body, possessing which he should be enabled by certain incantations to procure himself the love of the girl. The boy at his mother’s instigation brought to Fian three hairs from a virgin heifer instead; and, applying his conjuration to them, the consequence had been that the heifer forced her way into his school, leaped upon him in amorous fashion, and would not be restrained from following him about the neighbourhood.”

The night after delivering his stupid cow sex story, and confessing to other things such as being the Devil’s clerk and playing a part in trying to sink King James’ ship with magic, Fian escaped from prison. By the time he was recaptured he had apparently resolved never to have another false word coerced from him. Although he was tortured again, he continued to deny all his former confessions until the king ordered him to be strangled and his body burned. As Godwin notes, “multitudes of unhappy men and women perished in this cruel persecution,” which is one of the most shameful episodes of mass hysteria in British history.

Lives of the Necromancers: Orpheus

William Godwin.

Some interesting stuff from Lives of the Necromancers (1834) by William Godwin, the proto-anarchist and father of Mary “Frankenstein” Shelley, nee Godwin. Well, interesting if you’re into necromancers anyway. And who isn’t interested in necromancers? Nobody I want to hang out with, is the answer.

William Godwin also wrote a novel called St. Leon (1799), about a man who artificially attains immortality. Without taking anything away from Mary– she was undoubtedly the most talented of the famous four who played at writing stories near Lake Geneva in 1816, not to mention being only eighteen years old at the time– it’s obvious that her super cool father with his love of fringe science and radical politics was a big influence on her. Godwin’s wife and Mary’s mother was the feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, though Mary senior sadly died of septicaemia shortly after giving birth and so never knew her daughter. Oh, to be a dinner guest at that household…

Orpheus

But anyway: Orpheus. Having screwed up a rescue of his late wife Eurydice from the underworld, according to many stories he henceforth restricted himself to male company. The Maenads– female followers of the ecstatic god Dionysus, whose name literally means “the raving ones” or “ravers”– decided to get crunk with Orpheus whether he liked it or not:

As has been said, he fell a sacrifice to the resentment and fury of the women of his native soil. They are affirmed to have torn him limb from limb. His head, divided from his body, floated down the waters of the Hebrus, and miraculously, as it passed along to the sea, it was still heard to exclaim in mournful accents, Eurydice, Eurydice! At length it was carried ashore on the island of Lesbos. Here, by some extraordinary concurrence of circumstances, it found a resting-place in a fissure of a rock over-arched by a cave, and, thus domiciliated, is said to have retained the power of speech, and to have uttered oracles. Not only the people of Lesbos resorted to it for guidance in difficult questions, but also the Asiatic Greeks from Ionia and Aetolia; and its fame and character for predicting future events even extended to Babylon.

More necromancers to come…

NFJ (Normal for Japan)

Play all of the videos at once for a reasonably accurate simulation of losing your mind and/or the DTs.

 

“Good-bye, dead-wide Dick!”

The Hotspur, October 1944. “GOOD-BYE, DEAD-WIDE DICK!”

Two accidental forays into surrealism by British boys’ paper The Hotspur, which amazingly lasted until 1981. I say amazingly, although on the other hand there were lots of British colonial era things that inexplicably carried on into the 1980s and beyond. Not to mention that The Hotspur‘s first issue had on its cover a plane-sized eagle attacking an actual aeroplane, and came with a free “Black Cloth mask” for no immediately apparent reason, so they definitely started as they meant to go on.

The cover above is almost certainly not referring to the fact that this football player has a feature likely to make him popular with the ladies and about 10% of the gentlemen, but instead that he scores goals by kicking unexpectedly wide. As for how and why somebody decided to counter this tactic by installing a gung ho bipedal elephant in football kit… I’ve got nothing. Dick’s certainly surprised, as you would be.

Perhaps it was the same genius who decided to deploy their centre-forward on the roof of a nearby building instead of on the pitch?

The Hotspur, January 1943. THE ROOF-TOP CENTRE-FORWARD.

Say KO.NICHI.WA. to your secret

I think a lot of the time weird Japan is weird, weird Japan knows it is weird and weird Japan is laughing about it, e.g.

“We know. It’s OK, go ahead and laugh. We know.”

But sometimes Japan apparently has no idea it’s peculiar and creepy to invent an AI talkbot bear called (I think) Himitsuno Kumachan– Secret Bear?– then have it introduced in a stilted, badly dubbed video by the 100 Yen Shop version of David Duchovny. Remarkably, even I can tell that the Japanese is even more stiff and unnatural than the English.

“Mr J” also visits a coffee shop to have a little chat with his bear, which isn’t a strange and awkward thing for a grown man to do, no, not at all.

Children are presumably the actual intended users for the product, as opposed to 100 Yen Shop David Duchovny. Here we see a genuine human child who is somewhat interested for a good forty seconds before looking around for something else to do. SUPAA FUN!!!

More information here, though like most of these sites it’s quite baffling even if you do read Japanese. Or if you’d like to immediately and decisively cut off the development of your child’s social skills and render them unable as adults to ever look at fake fur or shiny black buttons without an involuntary shudder, you can buy one for ￥10,778 (about €79 / £56 / $88)

Your chocolate is in my banana

If you search your heart you will recognise that your life has in truth been a sad and pitiful travesty because you’ve never found any way to conveniently inject bananas with chocolate sauce. Luckily Sonna! Chocobana-na is here to fill your bananas and to plug the aching abyss of your soul hole. そんな！チョコバナ～ナ: Sonna translates as “like that” or something similar, although I’m guessing they mean something more like “Such/So Chocobanana!”. You can also insert cream into your banana if you’re in the mood for even more symbolically charged fruit consumption than that which will ensue from the chocobana-na. You could try some jamu, or other gelatinous substances, but we need to face the fact that this product is called Sonna! Chocobana-na so I’m afraid you’ll just have to accept that chocolate is the orthodox choice. One thing to be said in the ad’s favour is that it’s relentlessly innocent, which is just as well considering it features two little girls, but at the same time I don’t think there’s any way to advertise bananas or banana-related products that doesn’t bring other things to an adult’s mind.

On the subject of smut, you must also click on the auto-generated English subtitles to experience YouTube’s simultaneously poetic and wholly inappropriate introduction of Don the Bottom, gender ambiguity and YOUR MOM to this already sexually fraught chocolate banana injection scenario:

The bottom Don

From the bottom comment on

July double by now your mom

MM-hmm little bit your mom got that

But cast I had lost it

Segal he’s big meet up

Google past II doubled and I your mom

Little bit moans little bit mom dude

Home movie him home yeah

On many people here then we’ll see you

Go bad now

II duck

All a bit James Joyce, isn’t it?

Obligatory and inevitable Chocolate Disco postscript: The only thing better than a chocobana-na would be a chocobana-na disco. Read about Chocolate Disco, as previously discussed on this blog, or see how the ladies of Perfume faired once they escaped from the Laser Prism Valentine’s Hell Dimension only to find themselves locked in a room, knocking on a door that never opens and practising small acts of telekinesis.

All publicity is Vlad publicity

Fishing for compliments. #fatherofthenationbod

During Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Russia this May, enjoy this honest and unbiased video in which ORDINARY CHINESE PEOPLE have DEFINITELY NOT BEEN COACHED OR COERCED into giving their opinions of Russia and particularly of its “handsome leader, like President Xi”: Vladimir Putin. Show solidarity to COMPLETELY UNPROBLEMATIC COMRADES WHO ARE IN FULL COMPLIANCE WITH INTERNATIONAL LAWS AND TREATIES by eating bread, consuming dairy products, admiring Putin’s “big muscles” (not shown in these pictures), and repeatedly, SINCERELY expressing your desire to marry him. But REMEMBER to appreciate Putin’s big muscles only in a HETEROSEXUAL MANNER because he strictly forbids any reception upon his person of HOMOSEXUAL EYE BEAMS. Pity all countries which do not have handsome, shirtless, DEFINITELY HETEROSEXUAL leaders with big muscles. Presumably photos of Xi Jinping in his budgie smugglers are to follow shortly. You will ENJOY THEM and praise the MANLINESS of President Xi and announce SPONTANEOUSLY and VOLUNTARILY that you would like to marry him.

His Little Pony.

Good tight, sleep night

I’m sure there have been no end of articles and blog posts about ゼンタイ zentai: skin tight, faceless body suits. Originally they’re from Japan, of course, like many other cross-cultural mutations. The term is an abbreviation of 全身タイツ zenshin taitsu, “full body tights”. It’s also a safe bet that most of these articles fall into the categories of a) LOL weirdos b) LOL perverts or c) both of the aforementioned. Frankly, I would advise against uncontrolled internet searching on the subject unless you’re broad-minded because some of the people who are into it are absolute FREAKS and you might well see some obscure corners of the porn world that you’d really rather not. Also beware of YouTube’s “up next” autoplay…

Being an absolute freak is fine by me, actually (just wash your hands and probably have a shower too, before you do anything else) but perhaps especially for those who are creeped out by the whole thing, it’s worth watching the completely non-pervy and un-LOLZ-seeking Singaporean short film embedded here– Zentai Walk Documentation. Its participants, zentai-wearers all, have some very intelligent and insightful things to say about the suit’s erasure of racial and national signifiers, their reasons for enjoying zentai, the political and social implications of masks, and the paradoxical, simultaneous attention-seeking narcissism and humility or lack of ego that are required to step out in public wearing a peculiar costume. I have some experience of these issues as a performer, although fortunately for the public’s poor, blameless eyes I’ve never yet done any zentai.

The video relates to a zentai festival taking place in Singapore this April and May. This year’s public zentai walk takes place on the 23rd May. Check out the site for some more relatively wholesome information about zentai.

I was left with one burning question after watching the film, however. We see several of the people buying food, drink, or other items. So apart from the lady in the black suit and pink wig, who very sensibly has a backpack, where are all the others keeping their wallets and money?

On reflection it’s probably best not to think about it too much, unless you’re into that kind of thing.