#spike field

[yeahperdonenkamehameha]

[allegrabanner]

research for creative nonfiction is so weird sometimes bc what do you MEAN I’m citing papers on the distinction between Seoul and Jeju Korean and then the fucking Ray Cat Solution in the same breath, then turning around and dropping the fact that the CIA pretended to be vampires in the Philippines with an official CIA citation as a side tangent that I will Not Be Elaborating On

[de-wanderer-art]

a homework sheet i got carried away with as an honoree for my radioactive robo boy pluto :]. i went all out because i thought it was going to be displayed?? i hope so. either way if it is or won’t be, i want to share it!!

ft my trefoil pin mom got me for christmas :] ☢️💛

[huntthemouse]

Nuclear Mickey

33/365 #hunt the mouse

this place is not a place of honor… no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here… nothing valued is here.

I am making 365 new versions of Mickey Mouse for the public domain and releasing them under public domain all year long.

You can join the initiative to #hunt the mouse or suggest a theme yourself via my ask box.

[radioactive-mustard]

top 20 tourist destinations

[eyepool]

This place is not a place of honor.

No highly esteemed deed is commemorated here.

Nothing valued is here.

This place is a message and part of a system of messages.

Pay attention to it!

Sending this message was important to us.

We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture.

Consider a wanderer 10,000 years in the future discovering a strange construction of granite thorns in the New Mexico desert, their points weathered by centuries, their shadows stretching at sinister angles. The wailing figure from Edvard Munch’s painting “The Scream,” itself long ago turned to dust, appears on sporadic signs near these totems. It’s unclear for what this site was intended, or who created its menacing forms. …

Would this vision strike fear into the visitor and keep them away, or would it spark curiosity? Would they start to dig and unearth barrel upon barrel of toxic nuclear waste, wrecking havoc on whatever civilization exists in this coming world?

The “Spike Field” and its ominous elements are from a 1992 report by Sandia National Laboratories for the US Department of Energy for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). The concepts are just part of ongoing semiotic studies to communicate across thousands of years that we in the 21st century have interred the hazardous byproducts of our nuclear power deep in the Earth.

[dustedmagazine]

Maria BC — Spike Field (Sacred Bones)

A spike field is an attempt to communicate across time and language: an assemblage of granite “thorns” laid out across a nuclear waste site to denote its uninhabitability. Such a vivid image of desolation also speaks to our attempts to protect future generations from the mistakes of the past. How do we move forward when our predecessors have caused such devastation? It’s a fittingly bleak image and basis for reflection prior to hearing Maria BC’s new album, their first for New York label Sacred Bones.

Over the course of Spike Field’s 50 minutes, the songs’ prevalent mood can prove hypnotic if you’re receptive to its atmosphere. MBC is certainly adept at conjuring and sustaining a melancholy, nocturnal scene. The insistently strummed or plucked acoustic guitar figures, close mic’d and drenched in reverb, suggest the music may be building towards a climax, but the songs rarely offer the cathartic release of a crescendo, more often than not shimmering and fading into a shadowy afterglow. The main exception is the album’s potent opening one-two of “Amber” and “Watcher.” On the former, glitchy and distorted swells dapple the song’s central guitar arpeggios, while the latter features the album’s most exultant moment, as ascending harmonized voices strive towards transcendence from the gloom.

The discordance of the guitars on “Tied” suggests the atmospherics of Sonic Youth at their most eerie and subdued, while the fragments of lyrics that rise up out of the murk, such as “with blistered hands,” present images that are left to hang uncomfortably. This approach is most memorable on “Amber,” as the line “Your scent is on me now” is repeated, yet it’s unclear if MBC is luxuriating in or repelled by the prospect. “Haruspex” introduces some more variety to the arrangements with its prominent shuffling drums, while the instrumental title track traces out its desolate theme on wavering piano.

Overall, Spike Field’s closest recent cousin is probably last year’s Skullcrusher album, Quiet the Room. While Helen Ballentine’s debut felt intimate and haunted, Maria BC conjures a more dread-filled atmosphere, in which moments of beauty are barely able to banish the persistent shadows.

Tim Clarke

[iamthecrime]