Somehow, my lab baymate, Jon, was directed to Villain Supply.com: a lot of obvious pieces with some hidden gems, especially in the "Traps and Tortures" and "Misc. Evil" sections. Some day, I hope to see misc. replace miscellaneous as the correct spelling, much the way Mrs. has.

Well, the Andromedans, or Greys, have confirmed my whole Hollow-Earth-as-surrogate-anus theory by finally communicating directly with us through Joseph Smith... er... I mean... Alex Collier. He has made their teachings available in the unabridged online version of Defending Sacred Ground. Apparently, the Hollow Earth is not unique; in fact, all celestial bodies are hollow and filled with colonies of scrawny, hairless aliens. Mmmmm...

I've finally found the source/clearinghouse of all of those humorous and bizarre flash videos circulating around everyone's e-mail: Albino Blacksheep. While going through their older archives, I found a link to How to Dance Properly, which made me laugh. Meanwhile, dad sent me a couple of flashes that I didn't see at the site: Ja Da and Spin. The former is just silly, while the latter animation is quite Plymptonesque.

It was lawn mowing day this morning, and I finally got my tape player working so that I could listen to music during the hour-long task. I dug through my now decades old tape collection, and came up with two favorites: Commercial Suicide by Colin Newman, and The Shivering Man by Bruce Gilbert. Both Newman and Gilbert were members of Wire, one of the most influential bands in the art rock movement. Wire went on hiatus during the early 80's so that the members could persue their own solo interests, including the collaborations of Bruce Gilbert and Graham Lewis as Dome. I find myself drawn more to these interim projects than to the works of the band as a whole. Perhaps it is was simply the timing of my introduction to the band, but I prefer to think that the disparate styles of the members was somehow lost in the whole, and that those qualities I love in these albums are watered down or missing from the Wire albums that came after. Commercial Suicide is OOP (out of print), but can still be found lurking about the backwaters of E-Bay; The Shivering Man has been re-released.

I am a big fan of Laurie Anderson. It has, however, been a long time since I've bought one of her albums or gone to one of her shows, so when I received the upcoming Edison Theatre program guide and read that Laurie Anderson would be doing a show, I was at first leary: not quite knowing what to expect after all these years from her or from me. My friend Mat e-mailed me to tell me she was coming and to ask whether I'd be going to the performance, so I decided to try catching up by visiting her website, LaurieAnderson.com. It was like hearing from an old friend. Her site is at once cerebral and familiar; I read through her synopsis of her "Moby Dick" project, looked through the photo album, and didn't know whether I was more drawn to reread the book or to see her perform it. Although this is not the show that she is bringing to Edison, I'm now sure I will enjoy the performance immensely.