Blog Archives
Arcade Anthems
Last Thursday night Antonia and I were watching the video for Lana Del Rey’s “Video Games.” Antonia pointed out that it was one of the first earnest video game songs she could recall — as most songs about arcade attractions are parody’s or novelty songs; campy cantos to clanging coins. So, we Googled “video game [...]
Revolutionary Art
On this day, 25 years ago, art students in Beijing, China erected the Goddess of Democracy statue at the protests in Tiananmen Square. In the days that followed government forces destroyed the statue and imprisoned protesters, leading up to the infamous June 4 massacre. Here is an excerpt from the official statement by the artists [...]
Unabomber!
Today marks the birthday of environmentalist/philosopher/mathematician/Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski. While not exactly a day for celebration, it is a day to look back at a time before the internet, before Katrina, before Wikileaks, when a new digital environment was being created even as the actual, natural environment continued to become even more embattled. People argued about [...]
Remembering Gilda
Insomnia loves Gilda Radner not only for being a proud daughter of Detroit, Michigan, but also for being a counterculture hero as one of the best original members of the Not Ready for Prime Time Players when Saturday Night Live debuted in 1975. Radner played outrageous characters like Roseanne Roseannadanna and even did spot-on impressions [...]
Borders: Starring Robert Anton Wilson
25 years ago, Robert Anton Wilson starred in this experimental, made for television film, Borders. The movie combines interviews and commentary by luminaries like Wilson and physicist Michio Kaku with early computer animation and a dramatized storyline about an idealistic scientist trying to do honest research in the belly of the defense industry beast. This [...]
10 Years of Insomnia
This month, Joe Nolan’s Insomnia is celebrating an important anniversary. In May of 2004, I opened up a Blogger account and started writing this illuminated scroll. Blogging was just becoming mainstream at that time and everybody was doing it. I didn’t really have a subject in mind for Insomnia, I just wanted to share thoughts [...]
Loch Ness Monster on Apple Maps
Given the multimedia mediation of our experience of the space around us, it was only a matter of time before this kind of speculation became a part of our virtual dialog. Did internet users spot the Loch Ness Monster on Apple Maps or is this just a trick of light and shadow? The important point [...]
