Hello True Believers!

Welcome back to The Good News! 

We've got another show coming up! Tickets are here:

https://dice.fm/event/eorqry-zealottwin-archer-28th-mar-skylark-lounge-denver-tickets?pid=3b6c903d

Something fun to get lost in this week:

The Rest is Science

I've personally been listening to too much politically-minded content, and when I get into a rut like that I find myself burdened, weighed down, uninspired. I've recently started getting back into 99% Invisible and Radiolab, which I also recommend, but a newer one you've maybe not heard of is The Rest is Science. I earnestly don't know much about its provenance, but I do know one of the hosts, Michael Stevens, from his work with Vsauce and Mindfield, and anything with him in it has a good chance of being right up my alley. Maybe his stuff is for you too! 

A nice thing to listen to this week:

Prinzhorn Dance School - Prinzhorn Dance School (2007)

Back in '07 Pitchfork's Andy Battaglia said "Only 70% or so of Prinzhorn Dance School's debut album is made up of music. The rest is...well, it's hard to say." This has, obviously, stuck with me since then, because it's such a solid hit. There's relatively very little music on this album. The tension between each potentially missing next beat is palpable. The almost religious dedication to sparseness invites you to recognize yourself in the act of listening, holding up a mirror to the very act of listening to music. Even beyond such heady silliness, there are some really catchy little tunes in there. The rest are ponderous and oblique, but enjoyable in an alien way. Truly nothing quite like this record. Shame they didn't really do too much after, but, I suppose, what else could they do?

Terrific thing to watch:

Pierrot Le Fou (1965)

I love movies. Obviously. I've seen thousands at this point, and had gotten quite a few under my belt before college. But nothing had prepared me for Pierrot Le Fou. Not the most notorious Godard film, I'd argue that'd be Breathless, but if you've dipped your toes into French New Wave, you'd probably recognize the poster. Randomly picked from shelves of the uni library, this acid trip melted young Luke's mind. I found it so confounding that it felt more like random images arranged with no seeming order, flipping past at varying rates (I had a similar experience with another film I'll be talking about in another Good News). After a few more viewings, I became accustomed to its bizarre cadence and form, and fell in love with how wrongly it was getting everything about how you're supposed to make a movie. It wasn't even a middle finger to the concept of film, it was a celebration of breaking the rules of cinema. A cynic might roll their eyes watching this film "break" "rules" that, in the past 20 years, have been broken harder and in weirder ways than anything in this film, but if you think of its context, and maybe consider how this would have melted the mind of a younger version of yourself, I think you'll have a time unlike any you've had watching a film. As a side note, Godard put out a film using 3D filmmaking tech, and if you ever have a chance to see it in theaters, please do so. He never really stopped breaking the rules.

A good read:

The Adventures of Dr. McNinja - Chris Hastings and Anthony "Nedroid" Clark

Ahhh yes, back to Web Comics. What can I say, There was a golden age of them at a certain point! Hell maybe there is now too, but it's all on Instagram... Anyway! Dr. McNinja is only accessible via a fan archive or increasingly rare physical copies, you know, like all good webcomics from a decade and a half ago. It starts as a silly exploration of all the zeitgeist-y things from the late 2000's, ninja's, dinos, ... Irish people I guess? And iiiittttt soooorta never really expands beyond that idea ... but in sticking to such a silly conceit for an incredibly long run, Hastings and Clark, by necessity, create these surprising, thrilling years-long story arcs that remain unpredictable throughout. The stories are as thin as the paper they're printed on, but as an exercise in absurdity painted with a fairly artistic brush, it's a good mindless read. I'd known about it, but hadn't really considered reading it until I saw this page, and its pure-nonsense-ridden ridiculousness immediately turned me into a lifelong devotee.  

And finally, our weekly pic of the pup, Apollo:

Be nice to each other, and we'll see you next week!

Best,

Luke