the dotmatrix project

Modern day art by YouTube user, blimvisible:

They made a statue of us
And it put it on a mountain top
Now tourists come and stare at us
Blow bubbles with their gum
Take photographs for fun, for fun

They’ll name a city after us
And later say it’s all our fault
Then they’ll give us a talking to
Then they’ll give us a talking to
Because they’ve got years of experience
We’re living in a den of thieves
Rummaging for answers in the pages
We’re living in a den of thieves
And it’s contagious
And it’s contagious
And it’s contagious
And it’s contagious

We wear our scarves just like a noose
But not ’cause we want eternal sleep
And though our parts are slightly used
New ones are slave labor you can keep

We’re living in a den of thieves
Rummaging for answers in the pages
We’re living in a den of thieves
And it’s contagious
And it’s contagious
And it’s contagious
And it’s contagious

They made a statue of us
They made a statue of us
The tourists come and stare at us
The sculptor’s marble sends regards
They made a statue of us
They made a statue of us
Our noses have begun to rust
We’re living in a den of thieves
Rummaging for answers in the pages
Were living in a den of thieves

And it’s contagious
And it’s contagious
And it’s contagious
And it’s contagious
And it’s contagious
And it’s contagious
And it’s contagious
And it’s contagious

The Meltdown

VirusWithShoes understands the man:

Every night, a naked Bill O’Reilly sits hunched over in a dark and airless closet surrounded by untold numbers of boxes of women’s shoes. He opens up a pair of sling-backs, and sniffs them until he almost passes out. When his face is red enough he carefully boxes them away, childlike in his movements, already missing the feel of the leather against his face. Quickly, he then takes a rapidly softening whole cucumber and forces it down his throat, fighting the gag reflex while wanting even more. With tears streaming from his eyes, and his body shaking from the exertion, he mumbles a mantra of self-hatred inaudibly into the darkness and onto the cucumber. After 30 minutes of Bill’s Special Alone Time he slowly pulls it out, enjoying the sensation of it moving from his throat, past his tongue and into the dank air of the closet, the smell of the vegetable and his fevered saliva reminding him of the time he fell out the sycamore tree when he was 6 and bumped his head on a rock - the exact moment in his life when everything began to make sense to him.

His voice is reborn.

He stands slowly, awkwardly, his body stiff from holding the same position for too long, though to him — always not long enough. He reaches out to the shoe boxes to help him steady himself. Salty beads of sweat run down his chest, trickles from the pools in his armpits and under his breasts, cooling as rapidly as his innate anger is warming. His penis — an object of disgust to him for so long now — is as hard as it’s going to get without chemical help. His toes clench and unclench with a staccato rhythm of their own. He opens the closet door, and looks at the poster of John Wayne hanging on the inside — the man he always wanted to be, but never could be, no matter how much he screams into footwear or chokes himself on cucumbers. Wayne looks back with his dead eyes — a two-dimensional construct of a dream that never was.

Bill’s chest hitches, and he starts sobbing. Snot runs down his nose, his mouth opens wide and green stains frame this most silent of screams. He cries for all men, for all America. But mostly, almost exclusively, for himself.

Spent, empty, Bill steps into the shower. Runs it as warm as possible. Until it burns. His tears mix with the water.

His fear, his hatred, his shame — his anger. They all fall down the drain.

The Remix

UPDATE: Footage of the Inside Edition producer O’Reilly was yelling at has leaked:

Or as the site, Garfield Minus Garfield, puts it:

Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolor disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness in a quiet American suburb.

(originally uploaded by twm1340)

Trent Reznor has been in a fight with the copyright team at Universal over putting up a remix site for his fans to mashup his tunes. Universal’s greatest fear is that people will mix in songs from other artists (and other labels) and that they’d be held liable.

Well, up until last night, the legal monkeys had held him at bay. Today, on his blog, Reznor simply writes:

Sometimes you just have to say… “fuck it.” The remix site is UP! Have fun.

remix.nin.com

This will be interesting.

I wonder if we’ll ever recognize how lucky we are to have someone as level-headed and pragmatic like Larry Lessig to champion the read/write culture of our internet. How he thrives against the backdrop of continuous salvo’s fired from both corporations and individuals alike, I’ll never know.