Volkswagen have launched a left-field marketing campaign through a Swedish agency dedicated, they say, "to the thought that something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the better."
The two videos released for it so far are very original and have gone viral.
Alongside them they're launching a competition about "finding fun ways to change behaviour".
Fun Theory is the field of knowledge that deals in questions such as "How much fun is there in the universe?", "Will we ever run out of fun?", "Are we having fun yet?" and "Could we be having more fun?"
Fun Theory is serious business. The prospect of endless boredom is routinely fielded by conservatives as a knockdown argument against research on lifespan extension, against cryonics, against all transhumanism, and occasionally against the entire Enlightenment ideal of a better future.
Many critics (including George Orwell) have commented on the inability of authors to imagine Utopias where anyone would actually want to live. If no one can imagine a Future where anyone would want to live, that may drain off motivation to work on the project. But there are some quite understandable biases that get in the way of such visualization.
Fun Theory is also the fully general reply to religious theodicy (attempts to justify why God permits evil). Our present world has flaws even from the standpoint of such eudaimonic considerations as freedom, personal responsibility, and self-reliance. Fun Theory tries to describe the dimensions along which a benevolently designed world can and should be optimized, and our present world is clearly not the result of such optimization - there is room for improvement. Fun Theory also highlights the flaws of any particular religion's perfect afterlife - you wouldn't want to go to their Heaven.
Being Paul Morley it's hyper-intellectual but all three of his panelists pick up on one DJ trick which I recall being the mark of a great DJ - finding that obscure, forgotten track which you made your own.
I was too young for disco in the 70s except on the radio but by the time I'd started DJing in 1987 in Sydney I'd also started rummaging through Sydney's great second-hand record shops for obscure disco classics to play first on my Saturday night radio show 'Move On Up' and then later in parties, bars and clubs.
Raw Silk: Just in time and space
From New York's consistently brilliant West End Records. The best version of this is the trip-out dub, which I found on YouTube. Yay! :]
That's exactly the sort of track which would find a home at Paradise Garage, the legendary New York club which the best of my contemporaries in Sydney had been blown away at and then started Sydney's dance party scene in homage to, especially the incredible Black Party which ran for years and only ended when two of its three founders died. (It was named after the notoriously sleazy party held at NYC's Saint club but in Sydney people came mainly for the dancefloor not any sleaze).
Kervorkian produced many left-field dancefloor hits like his remix of U2's New Years Day that my favorite Sydney DJ the brilliant, technically and creatively, Stephen Allkins would drop in a set because on a dancefloor they worked, especially late late when everyone was well mashed.
The last session was always the one where experimental DJs like Allkins came alive - not only were you not playing to a crowd which just wanted what was then in the charts but you could also throw in the left-field, slower and funkier tracks. The highlight of my DJing career was the 5-9am at a New Year's Eve Rat Party held at the RAS Showgrounds (now Fox Studios) where the decks were directly on the floor so on my favorite long, funky mid-tempo tracks I could nip out and boogie around with mates and several thousand others.
This was the sort of track you could play during the 'last shift', if you were Allkins or Black Party's late, great Ron Oram.
Taana Gardner: Heartbeat (Larry Levan mix)
That's on West End Records. Salsoul is another label from which you'd buy a track just 'cos it was on it and you knew it'd be good.
There is a Larry Levan mix of this Salsoul track but I couldn't find it on YouTube.
Skyy: First Time Around
You'd buy records on the Sleeping Bag label and be guaranteed a great track too.
Dinosaur L: Go Bang! #5 (François Kevorkian Mix)
More Salsoul and a Shep Pettibone mix (there's also a Frankie Knuckles one). This is a classic (classy) gay club track 'cos it's got fantastic female vocals and listen out for some of the most used samples ever.
First Choice: Let No Man Put Asunder
Last - must stop before the page download grinds to a halt - one of the all-time best dancefloor fillers and another track from which a zillion samples have been taken. Hamilton Bohannon: Let's Start To Dance
Check out my music tagged posts for a heck of a lot more Dissssssssscoooooooooooo ...
This is a joyous, wonderful video of Kevin Hines and Jill Peterson's fantastic 'dancing' wedding.
Most of the 'dudes' don't get the beat though. And we know what that means ...
NOTE: Ari Herzog reminds me to note:
FYI, Paul, something you failed to mention in your post is the possibility that the video may be yanked in the coming days due to a licensing issue Seth Simonds mentions.
Foolish music corps strike again. A viral like this is BOUND to increase sales of that track. Doh!
Strawberry Fair is a festival of music, entertainments, arts and crafts, held in Cambridge for the last 30 years on Midsummer Common.
It used to be a lot more 'hippy' than it is now but it still has a Wiccan corner and lots of other interesting stalls like the 'Interknit' one, the Freecycle clothes line, lots of non-profits and things like anarchist book stalls. The best for me though is the amazing herb stall, every variety under the sun.
My video of it was recorded with a Flip camera and - hopefully - I'm getting better at editing :p
John Hodgman speaks after Barack Obama at the Radio and Television Correspondents Association dinner in DC and discusses the central question of our age: "how we can heal the great and shameful division that has plagued our nation for so long — the age old conflict between jocks and nerds" and ask Obama: 'Are you now, or have you ever been, a nerd?'"
New York's fabulous new High Line park has finally opened, well a section. It's up in the sky along an abandoned elevated railway which runs 22 blocks to the Hudson River.
This is an absolutely brilliant mock BNP advert - the title refers to how they were found out for using stock photos of Americans for their so-called 'doctor', 'housewife' on the leaflet dropping through everyone's letterboxes.
I just love David Mitchell. Not only is he a brilliant comedian who can do slapstick as well as satire but he's a great writer whose columns never fail to hit the spot. He's smart, witty and not shy of being political. He hosts The Unbelievable Truth on Radio Four expertly. His appearance on Question Time saw him displaying all these talents with no script writer.
I'd vote for him.
I've discovered he has a YouTube channel where he delivers some excellent monologues like this one on TV rudeness:
I've never understood the appeal of shows like Dragon's Den either. I guess I like my wit more on the Gore Vidal level than the Ballantyne.
All his skills make him, IMO, just about the only candidate to do a UK version of the Daily Show or, even better, Real Time with Bill Maher. That is, world class political satire. Maher just had Gore Vidal on his show and, rare for Vidal, more than held his own with him. Similarly ranty Marcus Brigstock once tried the Daily Show format and failed miserably.
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