Recent Trawl

The exquisite specimens above are the result of a recent expedition by recreational trawler Jesse England. A long-time advocate of Metaphortean Space, England donated these living fossils for further research. The coelacanth of cassettes is most certainly a dinosaur, making such Mesozoic (or ‘middle animals’) as a data cassette and a sound “filmstrip” particularly relevant to current pursuits of Metaphorteana. There are many suspected inlets to the Super Sargasso Sea across the Pacific Northwest, and this recent trawl points again to that nucleus of damned data and lost miscellany.

The data cassette, defiantly boasting itself as “leader less,” “certified,” and issued by Radio Shack as a “computer product” was marked also with a fictographical ruse in the form of the hand-scrawled statement “blank.” Devoid of aural activities it cleary was not, whether the emanating damned data can suffice as “computer product” is unknown, but its sonic soliloquy was at once strange and arguably electronic. The other tape, marked with striking green and black colorations, issued by Coronet in 1974, and identified as “instructional media” seems to be a variant in the symbiotic scheme witnessed with other species of the genus magnetic. Intended to accompany a filmstrip of images, the Coronet tape is entitled “Our Changing Earth: HOW WE STUDY IT.” Indeed the content comprises a nearly thirteen minute audio-tome on Earth Science, complete with iconic bells, wind sounds, a curious and intermittent bassline.

Endless Coelacanth

Our coelacanth, the Metaphortean variant and/or a sea creature akin to an endless cassette  is already evidenced, at least speculatively, swimming around in the global brain. I’ll sum it up with a poem by Ogden Nash ( as sighted in Samantha Weinberg’s A Fish Caught in Time):

Consider now the Coelacanth,
Our only living fossil,
Persistent as the amaranth,
And status quo apostle.
It jeers at fish unfossilized
As intellectual snobs elite;
Old Coelacanth, so unrevised
It doesn’t know it’s obsolete.

Technocultural Turn Signals

Indicator species provide a character sketch of an ecosystem’s overall bill of health. An acute demonstration of key characteristics at play in the environment at hand.

Within the media environment a species from the genus magnetic, namely mixtapes, are one such example. The ability to mix, to customize and personalize a sonic trajectory derived from mass media fragments with consumer electronics speaks volumes for the possibilities of this technosphere as a whole.

“I have found that you could make all kinds of great noises with just your tape recorder and the buttons on it” reports one informant in Don Stacy’s audio-cultural exploration All Mixed Up. The informant continues, “right when it gets to that…guitar crescendo, you could press the pause button, and you get this ‘EEEERWEB!” And it totally ends the song”

Canaries in coal mines, indicator species from the genus magnetic seem to be pointing towards impending extinction. With the rise of mp3s and other invasive species, there is a perceived obsolescence of cassette technologies. The diminishing call of the mixtape—the garbles, the clicks, the presence of blank space—gives weight to the theory that forced migration is in effect.

Research now suggests that this is, at least potentially, an adaptive camouflage. Rather than a plunge into sedentarization, the exodus of analog is more likely a nomadic impulse or oppositional gesture. Competing with new media buzz, staking a claim in overlooked locales, the tape deck and its songs still exist. Much like many insects that have had to shift frequencies so as to elude the electronic smog of ringtones and sonic emissions, evidence of vernacular technoculture may require a conscious shift in attention.

In many cases, a permanent vacation from imposed cycles and the lemming-like misinformation surrounding the fate of technologies is recommended.

Sounding Fishy

Sounding fishy, like a data tape played back through speakers, like a VHS tape on the fritz, the coelacanths are my current call sign for curious cassette activity.  A living fossil from the genus magnetic.  If logic follows from Monster on the Campus,  a coelacanth exposed to gamma rays will reverse-engineer the evolution of those who imbibe its blood.  Highly speculative, but perhaps in the parallel dementia of Metaphortean space this damned data could be cast as the reversal of an over-heated medium.  That McLuhan endorsed moment when a medium pushed to its extremes collapses.  Revealing in this implosion a previously imperceptible purpose, direction, and/or possibility space.  The rise of cassette jockeying, for example.

Strange Survivals

“I picked away at the layers of slime to reveal the most beautiful fish I had ever seen,” exclaimed Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer on December 23rd 1938.

There was a time when the slimy shimmering coelacanth populated portions of the world unbeknownst to mainstream zoologists, and (amongst other reasons) was thus considered to be some 80 million years extinct. Lauded as a living fossil upon its discovery  in 1938, it has retained a certain subterranean cred.

“Coelacanths are certainly not as rare as we first thought…rather they’re living in a part of the world, a habitat that is so very difficult to sample…if you were lucky enough to hook one, you probably wouldn’t be able to bring it to the surface.” (Dr. John McCosker, Senior Scientist and Chair, Aquatic Biology)

Likewise audio cassettes are difficult to dredge up in the main streams.  Second-hand habitats are essential places to look, such as the legendary “Bins” on the outskirts of Portland proper.  Here you can cast a wide net, with yields of marvelous electronic has-beens, schools of eclectic cassettes and an active junk culture.  Like fish, your finds are sold to you by the pound!  Still others, like McCosker, make the case that  “The best way to sample for coelacanths now is not to fish for them but to talk to native fishermen…they say ‘oh I know that fish,’ they’ve caught them.” For many Indonesian fishing communities, the coelacanth was never really a fossil.

Never really an obsolete form.  Many in DIY music communities have never perceived a break in the cassette continuum, including younger generations who have “grown up digital,” yet turned out as advocates of an allegedly outmoded format.  Issues of access, opposition, Fortean logic?

Onto the more curious audio-life forms, the species of tape that reveal the potential of all tapes, of all tech, that lurks at the interface of malfunction.  Mix tapes act as sort of indicator species for an ecosystem of curious cassette activity.  As much was suggested in recent conversation with G.Lucas Crane about mixtapes as a sort of first glimpse at the hands-on potentialities encrypted in these consumer forms.

New Probe

Generating the Invisible

Crypto-bloggers were abuzz about abominable claims this last week, follow-ups on inflammatory hype over interdimensional bi-pedals.  While elsewhere research no doubt continues on by a Dr. Robert Hanlon who,  in recent years, has found that “by manipulating millions of tiny pigment-filled organs in their skin, cephalopods are able to disguise themselves in nearly any situation. ” (Ransford, Matt Case of the Disapearing Octopus)

There are others attributing the camouflage common amongst cuttlefish, octopi and squids to the perceived absence of physical sasquatches.  Conclusive evidence remains hidden from view, but perhaps the bigfeet have in fact upped the ante into post-blobsquatch modes of crypto-logistics.

Meanwhile I am happy to have search engineered the “invisible generation” chapter of Burrough’s Ticket That Exploded.  This as an accoutrement, a supplement to probes awaiting departure. In cahoots, of course, with my research into living and transitional fossils. Teetering on the edges of an audio-cultural vortex, I’m already lost in a swirl of associated thought-forms.

Relatedly, I’m looking forward to the accompanying audio-visuals for Don Stacy’s  All Mixed Up: A Cultural Exploration of Mixed Tapes and CDs

Cro-Magnetic Field Research

Plans for the future, Blueprints in Motion, Cro-Magnetic Field Research is a percolating probe to be launched into the realms of cassette culture and living fossils. No longer sights set on such hot topic hominids as the notorious b.i.g.f.o.o.t., but instead following the footsteps of such former fossils found alive and well, such as the intrepid coelencanth. Sticklers will note that this cold-blooded, prehistoric fish has no feet, nor footage so Fortean in what will shortly be counted as its 41st year! But resolve, perseverance, potential. I wonder if wandering outside of the most sensational sorts of cryptid critters will afford a new dimension of research as I make haste towards magnetic curiosities. Not to mention grey markets, shadow exchanges and all the associational detritus to be kicked up there. Keeping it bi-pedal, the cro-mag is (perhaps) an acceptable, if highly speculative, specimen. Not so much missing link, just displaced, outmoded, unsung.