[^]LAND

Variations in Symmetry by Brandon Locher is featured in [^]LAND.

In Dreams coming soon...

12/20 at VOMA

Tuesday, December 20th
307 Chestnut Street, Johnstown, PA 15906☟
7:00 PM // $4.00
BYOB if you are 21+

Roberto Clemente Rookie Card and My Idea of Fun Present:

Casino Gardens (Ohio)
- http://beerontherug.bandcamp.com/album/casino-gardens
- http://vimeo.com/22182915

World Series (Ohio)
- http://beerontherug.bandcamp.com/album/episodes-of-el-ni-o
- http://vimeo.com/23832604

The One and Only Matt Miller (Johnstown, Pennsylvania)
- http://www.myideaoffun.org/MattMiller/
- http://theviennanoisechoir.bandcamp.com/track/dreaming-collective-ly

NYKDLN (Johnstown, Pennsylvania)
- www.myideaoffun.org/NYKDLN/
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxLeVtYVuZo

AL GRATIN (Johnstown, Pennsylvania)
- http://strayfrankz.tumblr.com/post/392144975/al-gratin-teenage-heartbreak-and-90s-noise-rock
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8_xIRYzGqI&feature=related

+ live sound and visual installations
+ an extensive catalog of physical merchandise will be available
+ this show will be have a live online video stream

- http://robertoclementerookiecard.blogspot.com/
- http://www.myideaoffun.org/

How the Cordless Phone Gained Independence through Hard Work & Determination

The onion tells a sad, sad story--

A man walks into a bar,
orders a cup overflowing

with his own medicine.
Whose job is it to sever

the rabbit's foot? he asks.
The butcher, as innocent

as a sweater. Scissors
remind him of his ex-girlfriend.

In the corner booth
the Freudian analyzes

his patient's inner thighs,
frustrated as the tack--

People are introduced
to themselves in dimmer light

thinks the man, approaching
a woman as she exits the bathroom,

a slight cup of water,
(the name of the paler sister)

her dimpled thighs carefully spackled.

When she prays, the windows
get foggy. Wait, wait--

I know this one!
They looked at each other

& laughed--they'd both
cut off the tip of their tongue.

The Hit and Miss Engines - With or Without You (Live)

Get Off The Coast writes about Technological Epidemic!

Read + listen at: http://getoffthecoast.blogspot.com/2011/12/green-scene.html

Today's Activity: Giving the Clouds Hebrew Names

The priest gave me a towel
to sit on so I wouldn't
burn the pew. If I plug

myself into the wall, I told him,
this whole place will come down
in flickering ashes. I confessed

to digging without purpose,
lifting with my lower back.
My punishment: the uncertainty

of a light switch, the haze
of the underside of the bed.

Fifty more days of winter.

I didn't even tell him
about the thirst for broken

bottles, the constant alarm.
I rub my forehead against the carpet
for forgiveness, resolve to put
the thermostat to rest, to keep cool

like the shell of a cockroach.
If you ask me, the priest
is just afraid of commitment.

NYKDLN - Troglodytes aedon, Here I Am and Others

Go Sean!

How We All Just Get Along

The waitress puts a rusty nail
in your roast beef sandwich
& you decided to eat around it.
From all over town, people misdail

your phone number looking for Brad,
the listener, as advertised on page six.
Now the cat answers to your name

instead of her own. Your husband watches
hockey all day, so you buy another
television for the living room.
Your daughter gets sick trying

to watch them at the same time.
The pipe's uncontrollable sobbing,

the power strip's panic attack--

then, the house you build next
door. In your first life, you were
a pillar of salt. Open the cupboard
doors. There's something dying in there.

Hot Garbage!

Higher Fives.

Wake Me When It's Over

An old woman peers into the crack
in her paved driveway
and finds exactly what she was looking for.

My Idea of Fun printing press!

Gucci Goth

Mazes to the Motherlode by Brandon Locher is featured today on Gucci Goth! http://guccigoth.tumblr.com

At the End of the World Party

They were checking gag reflexes
at the door. Marian wasn't allowed in
after her eyes started to water.
The bar serving free cocktails,
my mouth turning blue, my teeth heavy
and ready to call bullshit.
That familiar battle between
my ears: Tell someone you've left
the bathwater running, how flammable
are you on a scale of one to ten?
I tried to look at both sides
of the room at the same time
but my left eye refused to wander.
I was the sharp-edged trumpet
in a room full of chairs
teaching each other how to sit.
A loud song that should have
made everyone dance--instead,
the mumble of weather-talk, lazy
attempt at predicting the future.

Then, hot breath on the side
of my face: What happens to your heart
when the bass kicks in and how do we know?

Whitest House

The connection between
disparate thoughts
the public speaker said,
then left the room--

bees strung by
needle and thread.
Zeus could not contain

his anxiety. He was
drinking tea made
from the jawbones of calves.

The result of endless
suffering, the prostitute

whispered to my grandmother.
It is the nature of men,
compressed as icicles.

Outside, a group of
schoolboys has three wishes:

Urine on the front lawn. Our
president has perfect eyesight.
A girl in a pink unitard
climbs out the window.

So many choices for god and man!
The "g" on every keyboard removed.

Good Amount!

Opening Eye is coming out on December 13th on Crash Symbols and is Good Amount's debut release as part of the My Idea of Fun collective!

Something Like a Small Miracle

The boys in the back alley
are playing baseball
but they're not keeping score
so no one wins and there's no ball

and no home plate and they're just standing
in their uncomfortable shoes. Had they

been born with sharp teeth,
they would have blunted them
but now like a thumb. Of course
they'd rather slip down the drain

pipe and curse and scream until
the sewage backs up and baptizes itself.
Before the streetlights turn on

they've decided to think about something flat
or a rock sinking in a shallow pool
but instead they're kissing,
swallowing each other's sparks.

THEY SAY HISTORY
IS WRITTEN BY
THE VICTORS. AND
THEY ARE RIGHT.

How to Draw the Saint

First, wait for the divine image.
This may come as someone's

body odor or a sudden leaning
at the forehead. If that doesn't work,

put salt on your tongue and count
the seconds till it dissolves.
Then try various perspectives

and qualities of light.
Immediately following, hold

a dry cloth in your mouth--
the prophet particularly detested

saliva in excess. When you being
to lose feeling at the back of your knees
like Job you'll understand finally

the sweat on her cheek when even
the saint confesses her raucous prayers.

My Idea of Fun at Voma Johnstown!

David is a grave.

What?

David is a grave.

Not my back,

Another Tragedy at the Salon

The chatty hairdresser
accidentally mentions
God. Her co-workers

being to weep. A gust from the air
conditioner picks up hair from the floor.

The elderly woman's scalp
starts to burn. A crowd

gathers in front of the door.
The hairdresser looks
in the mirror & sees her eyes

stuck with scissors.
She takes her own hair
into her hands in sections

& snip, snip.

If It Hurts When You Press On It

The cat tries to explain hunger
to a bowl of milk. The talking doll

stutters the word friend.

A young boy rides his bicycle
into a tree, back-pedals,

and does it again.
The mechanical bull

just needs some alone time,
says the psychologist

to the woman with bruised
inner thighs. Garbage trucks

full of cherries head for the river.

Line dancers misstep and collide, forget
how to dance without touching.

go sean!

MIoF Distro at Bottleworks, Johnstown, PA.

NYKDLN - Scrone Cruise

Scrone Cruise from Sunup Recordings on Vimeo.

Pinkerton performed by Sports Metaphors!

My Idea of Fun Presents:

Johnstown, PA based artist collective, My Idea of Fun, curates an event happening tonight at VOMA (Monday, November 14th) featuring live-musical performances, multimedia art, community discussion, and more! with The One and Only Matt Miller, David Bernabo, Tim Levadnuk, Amelia Horner, Dave DiStefano + Special Surprises and Guests! 11/14/2011 - Doors at 7pm - Show at 8pm - $4

Higher Fives on WPTS!

"A possible CULT type of fiction"

Deflated Generation Review, not the best, but this 6-paragraph review has almost as many grammatical errors as The Opposite of Blinking.

http://wrighton-time.blogspot.com/2011/10/deflated-generation-by-christopher-s.html

Also featured on SF Site

http://www.sfsite.com/books/new346.htm

Music-Films Vol. 1 (MIF207)

Drew & the Medicinal Pen - Music-Films Vol. 1

The My Idea of Fun Instrument Library is coming soon!

WPTSFM

This Wednesday, listen to Higher Fives on WPTS 92.1FM in Pittsburgh. The show will begin at 9pm and will feature live performance and an interview. For those of you not in Pittsburgh, listen online right here: http://www.wpts.pitt.edu/


HAPPY LISTENIN!

The Rocky Horror Show Live! Tonight at ArtWorks Johnstown. Oct 29 - 8pm and Midnight!

Read about the Hit and Miss Engines at --

this web address:
http://turnstyledjunkpiled.com/?p=492

Thank You Drew & the Medicinal Pen!

For Alina, giving birth had turned out to be the cosmic jape. She thought to herself, this isn’t right. This wedge of flesh is bigger than I am or will be or ever was. This is absurdity. There are hard bones bowing out from his legs, a skull big as a beach ball, and he’s got those horse teeth peeking through when he smiles at me during supper. I don’t even like this person. This could not have come from me.

Out tomorrow on MIoF!

Week 7: Cardinals

Wolf Eyes at Collective Transport (MIoF/VIA)

this article talks about My Idea of Fun, Sewer Greats, Diorr Nightss, etc etc

http://daynnightblog.com/2011/10/05/community-surrounding-creation/

come back

Demo

A Prelude to Death (Don't Fear The Reaper The Rock Show In The Sky) by YRS-

The One and Only Matt Miller - Recording 0014 2011-09-15 20-19-18 by ROBERTOCLEMENTEROOKIECARD

http://robertoclementerookiecard.blogspot.com/2011/09/one-and-only-matt-miller-live-recording.html

Steelers Destroy The Ravens!

Hey kids.

Always something happening over at Dower of Refuse. So whether it's embarrassingly bad writing, incompetent guitar playing underneath hilariously badly sung stupid lyrics, or just some narcissistic/satyr shit thrown at the wall, there's something for everybody!

My apologies,



ov the

Cetacean.mp3

Whales created the Internet

But did their decades long matryoshka song
Herald the frotteuring teens in stonewashed jeans
And tropane noses cleaving the air

Or is their hymn now vestigial from a method so pure
That once it is sung its purpose is wholly done
Which would make for one hell of an encore

friends.

104.9FM and 99.1FM from 8pm-10pm - 08/28/11

Hey friends in Johnstown and the Laurel Highlands, Higher Fives will be the guests on Sunday's Homegrown Rocker on 104.9FM and 99.1FM from 8pm to 10pm. There's an extensive interview with the band about their album, Cystems, and also the entire aesthetic of My Idea of Fun in general. Many songs from Cystems will be played on the program, along with songs by other MIoF artists. Currently, there isn't a way to stream the broadcast online, so tune in analog style.

Higher Fives

Idle and the Bear reviews Cystems (MIF201) by Higher Fives.

BP Gulf - Toothless /// Brandon Locher - STARMEN (Neo E Roulette Remix)

Toothless by BP Gulf

Brandon Locher - STARMEN (Neo E Roulette Remix) by BP Gulf

---

Hello.

To whom am I speaking?

This sense comes from the known Aleph.

And who is that?

In all stages, the observer breathes across. One form leftover; commissioned to margin is that which began again.

What is the purpose of this conversation?

A weighted string, too near our debut. Bulked down for too much of now.

I’m sorry. What do you need to tell me?

Halt. You also reach, in addition. Always from. Correspondence open from all living erets everlasting before. Not singular from this portion.

I admit that. I didn’t mean for it to sound one-way. Now, please, go ahead.

Glee to talk to one, compute? Bend in your mouth?

Yes, same, Aleph. We’re beyond this. Go ahead, please.

Apple unfiction in moving eesh. In total being. Mind can expand over for too far. Blisters from the bottom caves come to present. Wind from moons to take all. Sent down the river as she was small, collects upon all taken sound.

I’m afraid I don’t understand.

No scare. Not hurt. No scare.

I mean I don’t know what you are trying to tell me.

Taw must begin again. Smoothed for start. Rip meat from head all over once again. Lesions from lessons in lower chest barrels. Lovely moonlight we took from her. She to take now. Adrift and somber, we destroyed her. Undoing by doing in the sounds.

Love means occasionally not. Love means taken from all now. All made lonesome across the barrier we made.

Compute: lonesome?

Yes.

Catastrophic from there. Most so. Strewn in space is woe and made full to all who feel. We teach time to sleep and there none pass us. The light is made underneath.

Sow.

Grow.

Show.

Know.

Sever the transmission, please.

God on God, as begged.

You Found My Shadow in a Grave (Looking West)

Dally, Beersy, Danny, Scotty, D. Christey

Do you like making things with your hands? Do you like glitter? Do you like boxes?

If you answered "yes!" to at least one of these questions please consider taking "The Hoarder's Challenge."

What it is all about: Taking some of my unused supplies and making something.
What you will receive: a box of random craft supplies, ephemera and tools from my stash.
What you do with it: is up to you, as long as you follow these guidelines.

1) You can make multiple projects, however - you must use all items in box.
2) If your box includes a book for collage purposes, you do not need to use every page - but you must use at least parts of the book.
3) You may use your own additional items/supplies/tools in order to complete the challenge.
4) You have 3 months from the day you accept a "Hoarder" box to finish.
5) You must document (and temporarily return to me) the end results.
6) Finally, just have fun crafting and creating!


If you would like to participate you can email me at Laci_Hess@yahoo.com or we can arrange to meet if you live in the Johnstown area.

The project will hopefully end in some form of exhibition online or otherwise, but I need help to make it happen. Even if you don't consider yourself the least bit crafty, you should still consider doing this.

Thanks, Laci

show on Friday

There's another show at J.A.G.G.R.S, that little bar in Vinco, this Friday. It starts at 10 pm, and Bikini Test Go Ahead and the Hit and Miss Engines are playing.

Anne Frank

The emptiness surrounds me comfortably like one of my dad's old sweatshirts. It always smelled like the attic old and dusty and safe. The attic was the one place where I could go to be myself. I would sit there among the junk, the past Christmas presents, outgrown clothes, and all the books I read three times.I would sit, sweat and imagine. I would imagine how much better I would be than all the grownups I saw around me. I would do it different just the way my neighbor spoke about in her high school commencement speech. The world was mine for the taking, after all the children are our future right?(guess you were too wrapped up in the present to remember that cute little slogan.)I had so many ideas that were stewing underneath the fort I made out of a couple of boxes and my dad's old courdoruy jackets. Someday I would fill that jacket and those shoes that I was told were always too big for me. I would look through my broken attic window and I would watch the kids playing while I pondered where I would be in 10 years. Well that was 4 years ago.That was before I realized it's not worth it too ponder the future not when you two payments late on your car note and your cable is getting cut off. What if we became everything our parents wanted us to be. What if I AM everything my parents wanted me to be. I don't know and I know it doesn't help to ask questions that have no answers but I can't help it. I am now in another fort but the boxes and jackets have been replaced with bricks and all the junk I've collected over the years. My own personal attic except it lacks character and it doesn't feel safe. Its not safe because its way too real and life has answered most of the questions I've asked. Well, maybe not answered but stopped me from looking.I look outside my window and I see myself doing all the same things they are and I fucking hate my neighbor and her lies.

workin on a new one...

BP 026

whoops

HUH Magazine -

features Olivia Locher.

21 of 21: Judgement Day

My Idea of Fun's May 21st releases:

MIF197 - Illegal Boyfriend - 15 Envelopes

MIF196 - Red Benches - Where It Was When I Wanted It

MIF195 - Olivia Locher - Another Day on Earth

MIF194 - Narrow Berth - Out of Rut, Please

MIF193 - Norma Desmond - S/T EP

MIF192 - Jacob & The Jreams - Orijin

MIF191 - BP Gulf

MIF190 - Dan Oatman - Carl the Eisegete

MIF189 - The Redcoats - The Redcoats are Coming

MIF188 - ARC - The Future Is Soon

MIF187 - Mean Streak - I'm in a Bad Situation

MIF186 - Laci Hess - The Plan

MIF185 - The Meets - Sketch/Tempo Map for LP2

MIF184 - Christopher S. Bell - The Deflated Generation

MIF183 - The Hit and Miss Engines - Works and Days

MIF182 - Fern - Fern's Inner Growth

MIF174 - Technological Epidemic - Hollow Cost

20 of 21: St. Paul

After Endless Mike & The Beagle Club released and heavily toured The Husky Tenor, Brandon recorded Mike performing the album in it's entirety by himself. The 2007 recording was released as MIoF#11: Endless Mike Vs. The Beagle Club.

Recorded two days before We Are Still At War, Endless Mike Vs. The Beagle Club Re-Match followed the album release 17 numbers later at MIoF#77.

Update: Round Three! Endless Mike Vs. The Beagle Club - St. Paul is recorded & performed by Mike Miller, outlining a new Beagle Club record.

Download and enjoy quickly before it all ends:
http://www.myideaoffun.org/endlessmike/Vs3.rar

takin' it to the streets: home edition

The forecasted day of jvdgement is afoot!

takin' it to the streets

How it will come and what we should know.
a repost of an important and pertinent theoretical analysis

The “fire from heaven’s eyes” is a forecasting phrase taken from several ancient texts. Its usage is most notable in the earliest known version of what would come to be known as the Book of Lamentations (specifically Poem #4) in the Old Testament of the Hebrew Bible. In the Book of Deuteronomy in the Tanakh, the phrase is used just before the death of Moses. In addition, and peculiarly so, the phrase also has several mentions in the Arabic Qur'an, specifically in connection with Haman, the Pharaoh’s advisor who was commissioned to build a structure for man to ascend into the heavens. The phrase refers to the notion that the savior, redeemer, orchestrator, cultivator, etc. would someday visit the earth cradled in a single flame said to be launched directly from the eyes of God. The flame was said to appear to man in a specific series of twelve vast, bulbous lights. Each light would represent a different faction of the flame as an entirety*, and would appear only for a few instants (less than one second by current measurements) before being replaced by a completely new representation, a brighter and larger light. The pattern was said to repeat itself for a duration of just over twelve and one half minutes, repeating nearly 780 times in that time period. Because a physical account of the flame is not included in the texts, religious philosophers, Biblical scholars, and scientists alike have long debated those actual physical properties the flame would display. The controversy starts at the base of the phrase itself, as the Hebrew word “ASh”, which is the singular Hebrew word for ‘fire’, is also understood as specifically ‘the fire of God’. A, aleph, often refers to "God," and Sh, shin, infers "bringing forth, or birth". So, the distilled definition for the word “ASh”, ‘fire,’ might be rendered, "The birth of God in us". It has been speculated that the chariot that brings the savior to us might also be the vehicle for man to obtain divinity. If the physical vehicle (the fire itself) is also the gateway to the divine, this poses some problems. Time and again the same text tells us that man is unable to obtain divinity, to see God, to become divine on this Earth. Under the constraints the same text imposes, the physical limitations of our minds in mortal bondage are unable to be surpassed until existence and representation in an unearthly setting, a divine realm. If the flame itself is the birth of God in our physical selves, the appearance of the lights themselves would constitute the absolute presence of God. Transport, most likely the vacating of the mental capacities, would occur and would have to be instantaneous in nature to avoid the proposed sensory overload that would occur in the Divine presence. Man would be unable to see the lights and their increasing intensity because long before the brain could process the sensory data via the eyesight, he would be transported. Barring any intervention, a real-time realization would be impossible given the parameters of this universe. Man’s essence would immediately cease to exist in the earthly realm, thus negating the savior’s purpose for returning. Also problematic would be the actual increasing of the lights’ intensity, as it is said that the natural pressure and continuum of our planet would intensify as well due to the immense heat, and luminosity. Within the first few instants of the appearance of the first light, all of the planet’s oceans would boil, the high concentration of nitrogen in the natural atmosphere would ignite in a cataclysmic chain-reaction, the skins of all the animals, including humans, would turn in on themselves. The arrival of the savior in this divine carriage of fire would the sole cause of our Armageddon. The earth as we know it, would end. What we can infer from all of this is simplicity. The savior will not arrive in the fire from heaven’s eyes because of the massive screaming it would produce, the utter destruction that would result. The savior will arrive on a whimper.


***The Twelve Lights of the Flame:
1) The Concept - Divine - Refers to the inception of being, the indefinable point at which God decided a distinct person shall exist.
2) The Construct - divine - Refers to the physical coital action of man and woman, the actual act that results in the creation of a distinct person.
3) The Connate – Divine – Refers to the indelible instincts, and tendencies common to all distinct persons at the instant of birth
4) The Consternation – divine – Refers to the period soon after birth at which the distinct person recognizes an external world, usually accompanied by the first sense of fear
5) The Confusion – divine – Refers to the early developmental period where the distinct person is freshly experiencing the external world, observing and detecting outside stimuli with limited self-interference (the subject is incapable)
6) The Convoluted – divine – Refers to natural progression of human consciousness through observation and experience, as complex thought, opinion and morality develop within the distinct person’s mind
7) The Continuum – divine – Refers to the ‘in motion’ experience of the distinct person. The immediate earthly experience as it is processed.
8) The Conflict – divine – Refers to the mundane imposed social dilemmas the distinct person is faced with during an experiencing life
9) The Consent – divine – Refers to the paradigm shift that occurs when the distinct person is confronted with imminent death and departure from the physical realm, occurs after the realization of absolute ineffectuality
10) The Conclusion – Divine – Refers to the point of worldly death for the distinct person, and the immediate cessation of the worldly experience
11) The Conviction – Divine – Refers to the event after the worldly death, in which the distinct person is made to be accountable for all pursuits, decisions and actions in the earthly realm, and a final judgment is made by God on where the subject shall spend eternity
12) The Connsumatory – Divine – Refers to the fulfillment of Divine prophecy by the distinct person, the validation of God’s original concept for the subject’s existence

My Idea of Fun prepares for the Rapture

by Margaret Welsh

H55555

takin' it to the streets

19 of 21: The Travelin' Javelin Band

Travelin' Javelin' Bands are events where many MIoF members get together to pull names from a hat and write a song in groups of 5 to 7. They usually go until about 3 in the morning, and take a long time to end up on My Idea of Fun, for some reason. This is the long lost first one. It went to Vermont with Brandon for a while, then got back to Matt, then to Jacob. Now to you. Listen for yourself if you were there, and let's do another one soon.

Visit the page and download here.

18 of 21: Jacob's New Website

A while ago, I threw some edits up online really just to get them out of my system and into the public's, but for the most part I've felt pretty private about my photography over the last two years. A little weary of the photographic interweb, I opted to travel, return to school and print my images for physical edits. After getting some hard copies together and feeling complete with my projects, I've finally put them up on the web.

Go to JacobKoestler.com to check it out. I'd love any feedback.

On the topic of the internet, I also wanted to list some blogs that I frequent. All of these folks are, in some way, involved with My Idea of Fun.

Roberto Clemente Rookie Card is a music blog that Scotty keeps up in conjunction with his radio show. He posts a lot, always hypes MIoF and let's me know about all the hip, weirdo shit that I wouldn't listen to otherwise.

Olivia beefed it to NYC a few years ago, but still makes it easy to see what she's up to and looking at with her blog.

A few years back, we all started heading out to play shows and party in Indiana, PA with some of the coolest chicks we'd ever met. They, along with a couple from Johnstown, started an incredible, but short-lived, band called cones. Recently they've moved all over to different parts of the state and country. They keep in touch at Doca Cola.

A few of them also keep personal blogs that always cheer me up:

Emmy took a trip this summer and moved to Johnstown afterward. She writes about and shoots it at Walking.

Laura moved to a farm in Dayton and keeps in touch with her friend, Ashley at the aptly-titled Laura Ashley

Laci, as always, finds the happy medium between romance novels and fine art at Keeper Shelf.

And Kelly bridges the gap between Pittsburgh and Johnstown with Teach the Free Man how to Praise.

She, along with a lot of help from everyone else, also keeps The Color Project tickin'.