the timboucher experience

10 Comments

1. prunes
   Posted September 11, 2006 at 5:42 pm | Permalink

   If it were re-released today, 2001 would be diminished by the multiplex not just because of the smaller screen and poor acoustics, but because the very setting would implicitly subvert the film’s subversive vision. Even if it were brought back to some quaint old movie palace, however, 2001 still could not exert its original satiric impact because the mediated ‘future’ it envisions is now ‘our’ present, and therefore unremarkable: a development not merely architectural but ideological. The world of Doctor Floyd (like the new dorm, mall or hospital) is a world absolutely managed — the force controlling it discreetly advertised by the US flag with which the scientist often shares the frame throughout his ‘excellent speech’ at Clavius and also by the corporate logos — ‘Hilton’, ‘Howard Johnson’, ‘Bell’ — that appear throughout the space station. In 1968, the prospect of such total management seemed sinister — a patent circumvention of democracy. Today, within the ever-growing ‘private’ sphere the movie adumbrates, that ‘prospect’ seems completely natural.

   Whereas audiences back then would often giggle (uneasily, perhaps) at the sight of, say, ‘Howard Johnson’ up there in the heavens, today’s viewers would fail to see the joke, or any problem, now that the corporate logo appears en masse not just wherever films might show, but also in the films themselves, whose atmosphere nowadays is peculiarity hospitable to the costly ensign of the big brand name.

   from

2. Darok
   Posted September 11, 2006 at 5:53 pm | Permalink

   Aaack!

   This corporate branding and training of legions of consumers drives me nutters … It’s all such utter bollocks and even if one is aware of this sort of thing one isn’t yet totally immune. It’s already pervasive (and has been for years) in our culture - they’re just getting a bit more up front about the whole thing, I suppose. Few people, even if theydo notice, even seem to mind it or even question the whole idea of this sort of thing, they’re so conditioned …

   Our brains have been satured with cream rinse. Honestly … Nice, soft, manageable, pliable brains that you can style in any way you choose.

   Just fabby.

3. Jenn
   Posted September 11, 2006 at 8:20 pm | Permalink

   When everything on tv and in the movies is an ad, I’m gutting my toob and turning it into a fish tank.

   luckely the internet makes it possible for people to create and share their own entertainment. Here information is theoretically still free.

4. alistair
   Posted September 11, 2006 at 10:06 pm | Permalink

   makes perfect (ad)sense to me.

5. whatacharacter
   Posted September 12, 2006 at 10:18 am | Permalink

   don’t get me started on the use of classic rock tunes. It hits me and suddenly I’m rocking out with air drums before I realize it’s a commercial for a car I’ll never afford …

   Curse those crass manipulators of fine culture, and their must-watch Superbowl spots!!

6. alistair
   Posted September 12, 2006 at 12:41 pm | Permalink

   i laugh when i imagine the ad guys thinking that cadillac buyers are still listening to led zeppelin. i have owned seven cadillacs and plan to buy another one this spring, but not because of the juxtaposition with rock and roll…….. the average cadillac driver is listening to van morrison, ry cooder, barbra striesand and dylan, springsteen and johhny cash, just like they were told to as kids. why do i know this? because when i was a kid listening to led zeppelin most of my friends weren`t. they were listening to what was on the radio…………

   i am forty-five. i see the other drivers on the road my age and i know they don`t own any zeppelin. they also don`t run or lift weights or say fuck out loud or laugh much or plot revenge or aspire to greatness or play guitar loud enough for the neigbours to hear.

   like thier life they want thier music to be soft and light and unobtrusive.

7. Darok
   Posted September 12, 2006 at 2:55 pm | Permalink

   I still lurve Zeppelin … and you can be sure I’m blasting it loud and often - especially whilst driving …

   I also lift weights, say ‘fuck’ out loud, laugh a loud, braying laugh, and aspire (but fail, alas) to greatness. Just don’t play the guitar. I’m 44 and can’t relate to most people my age - I get on better with the younguns, who mistake me for them until I mention, “Back in the seventies …” and then I’m ‘outed’.

8. Jenn
   Posted September 12, 2006 at 3:33 pm | Permalink

   Don’t get me started on Zeppelin. I loooove Zeppelin. I wrote a beginner’s guide to Zeppelin on noofficialcapacity.net in the features section!
   I saw Robert Plant live in Toronto last year and had a blast, and I’m 24! Age matters not!

9. alistair
   Posted September 12, 2006 at 10:22 pm | Permalink

   age matters not. zeppelin transcends age. my friend`s daughter is 24 and i infected her with jimmy page when she was 14………..i can remember hearing zeppelin coming out of the outdoor speakers on the patio in the rain when i was 11 years old………….it was 1972, and i was transfixed. that moment seemed like yesterday………and a minute seems like a lifetime, when i feel this way.

   i will now self-medicate with tea for one, achilles last stand and the wanton song…………..

10. whatacharacter
    Posted September 14, 2006 at 4:27 pm | Permalink

    fine … I’m buyin’ a caddy now. You guys are in cahoots, must be, and yet somehow I relate to you. Tea 4 1 is the best riffin’ blues ever!

    Funny how I didnt mention specifics, but in any language rock + air drums + expensive car = Rock and Roll