alienated.net

We all know it but someone has to say it: zombies are the new vampires.

Vampires had a lovely sort of fin-de-siècle decadence about them that perfectly suited the mood of the late 20th century. Rising gas prices, the resurgence of Christian fundamentalism, neo-liberal pundits running the world markets into the ground with all of their dot-com bullshit about a "weightless economy," 9/11 looming on the horizon, boy bands ... the party was coming to an end, and, deep down inside, everyone knew it. So why not emulate the monster most likely to eat the other guests (and do so with a modicum of style, at that)?

Style exacts a stiff price, though, even among the undead. Pancake makeup takes a long-ass time to apply smoothly, and all of that black leather, velvet and lace is expensive, heavy and difficult to launder. This is the real reason that the only people interested in dating vampires and their gloomy kissing cousins, the goths, were other vampires and goths: vampires are the ultimate in high-maintenance girlfriends. By the time the beautiful and spooky actually finish dressing and are ready for a night on the town, most of us are pretty much looking for breakfast.

Enter the zombie: the ultimate low-maintenance monster. Crumbling, shambling, moaning, driven only by the neverending search for more brains to consume, the zombie has become the cultural mascot of the early 21st century.

Il faut epater le bourgeois.
-- Charles Baudelaire

Rebellion isn't what it used to be.

At the beginning of the previous century, becoming an artist was a relatively straightforward process. All you had to do was figure out what everyone living in or near the centre of your culture -- people that, for reasons which have become unclear over time, even the non-French call "the bourgeoisie" -- was doing, and then simply not do that, as actively and aggressively as possible.

If you and some of your friends decided to not do something that everyone else was doing in the same way, you could start an ism, and plenty of people did. Before too long, the zone that ringed the cultural centre was thriving with new isms. It was a heady time, with throngs of people running around epater-ing the bourgeoisie with all of the things that they weren't doing in the same way as everyone else.

low highlights on a musical timeline

March 1935: "I got nipples on my titties big as the end of my thumb / I got something 'tween my legs'll make a dead man come" – Lucille Bogan's definitive version of "Shave 'em Dry".

October 1956: In-between teaching Jerry Lee Lewis to play piano and co-writing Elvis' first number one hit, Charlie Feathers releases "Can't Hardly Stand It," the blueprint for greasy, deceptively sloppy-sounding rockabilly songs about gettin' drunk and cheatin' from here until the Cramps. Thom Jurek on Feathers: "like a flood on a suburban street – the sewer blocks up and all sorts of crazy shit pours out into the gutter".

"Get your dancing partner and take her over to Four Apostles."

Those are the first words that I hear most mornings from Arnold the foreman during the summer of 1988. I’m working at the Chapel Lawn Memorial Gardens Cemetery Crematorium & Funeral Home, just outside Winnipeg. Four Apostles is one of half-a-dozen football field-sized burial gardens, almost all with bland, inoffensive Biblical names: Good Samaritan, Last Supper, Resurrection. (Almost all. Right inside the gates, always, inexplicably, there’s Babyland.)

Star Trek was born in the same year that I was. Some time in the past thirty-nine years, I believe, it replaced Christianity as the major religion of North America.

My theories about the intricacies of this transformation are fairly convoluted, but to keep this article rolling along, I have thoughtfully prepared a concise little chart:

• Star Trek: The Original Series = Roman Catholic (moribund, baroque, and hokey, but nevertheless inspires worldwide fanaticism)

Air Jet (3)
Anal (4)
Anal Dildos (10)
Anal Fingers (9)
Anal Food (5)
Anal Objects (14)
At Work (3)
At Work (4)
Athletic Clothes (4)
Autofellatio (10)
Balloons (4)
Balls (5)
Banana (8)
Bath Tub (6)
Bedding (5)
Boxers (5)
Briefs (6)
Camera (3)
Candle (7)
Cardboard (3)
Cars (8)
Caught by Mom (27)
Cell Phone (3)
Clit - Hitting (5)
Clit - Pressing (3)
Clit - Rubbing (21)
Clit - Tweaking (3)
Cock Rings (7)
College (3)
Condoms (2)
Couch (7)
Couples (8)
Cum on Self (4)
Cum w/ Friend (3)
Curling Iron (25)
Cybersex (3)
Cybersex (3)
Dildos (7)
DP (6)
Ejac. Control (8)

We all have our price. What's yours?

Bill Drummond knows. And he ought to: on August 23, 1994, he burned a million pounds of the hard-earned money that you paid for the albums he produced as one half of the KLF, aka The Jamms, aka The Timelords, aka The Justified Ancients of Muu Muu. It took about an hour, and, by all accounts (okay, only one: that of journalist Jim Reid, the sole witness), it was kind of boring.

In 1912, a young journalist for the New York Evening Sun named Don Marquis began writing his own daily column, "The Sun Dial". Producing a daily column is arduous work that requires patience and discipline. Though he was a creative and prolific individual, Marquis was neither patient nor disciplined, and, as a result often found himself pressed for material.[1] In 1916, he hit upon a brilliant solution: get an insect to do it. Or (more abject still) a poet insect.

Marquis comes into his office early one morning only to find, to his considerable surprise, "a giant cockroach jumping about on the keys":

WOTWU is a five-point digital publishing antifesto that originally appeared in the September/October 2003 issue of THIS magazine. It was published under a Creative Commons Canada license, and, thanks to THIS, is available here as a PDF of its original layout.