Empire is a 1964 black-and-white silent art film by Andy Warhol. When projected according to Warhol's specifications, it consists of eight hours and five minutes of slow motion footage of an unchanging view of the Empire State Building. The film does not have conventional narrative or characters, and largely reduces the experience of cinema to the passing of time. In 2004, Empire was included in the annual selection of 25 motion pictures added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and recommended for preservation. This video of Empire 1964 is 5 minutes and 15 seconds shorter than the original. As far as I know it is a slightly abbreviated version of the 1964 film.
Please can I have a man who wears corduroy. Please can I have a man who knows the names of 100 different roses; who doesn’t mind my absent-minded rabbits wandering in and out as if they own the place, who makes me creamy curries from fresh lemon-grass, who walks like Belmondo in A Bout de Souffle; who sticks all my carefully-selected postcards – sent from exotic cities he doesn’t expect to come with me to, but would if I asked, which I will do – with nobody else’s, up on his bedroom wall, starting with Ivy, the Famous Diving Pig, whose picture, in action, I bought ten copies of; who talks like Belmondo too, with lips as smooth and tightly-packed as chocolate-coated (melting chocolate) peony buds; who knows that piling himself stubbornly on top of me like a duvet stuffed with library books and shopping-bags is all too easy: please can I have a man who is not prepared to do that. Who is not prepared to say I’m ‘pretty’ either. Who, when I come trotting in from the bathroom like a squealing freshly-scrubbed piglet that likes nothing better than a binge of being affectionate and undisciplined and uncomplicated, opens his arms like a trough for me to dive into.
Hot Chip are very pleased to release a brand new single ‘Losing My Head’ (Superpitcher Dub).
All profits from the track – on sale via Bandcamp only – will be donated to climate emergency action group EarthPercent.
‘Despite the challenges that our industry faces in modifying its working methods in order to limit damage to the climate we feel that it’s incredibly important to face up to those changes. The scientific consensus on the impending climate emergency is irrefutable and we all need to recognise our responsibilities in attempting to avert it. In all honesty it should be our number one priority at this moment. Our government continually fails in making it so but we need to come together to set a better example.’ – Hot Chip
released October 13, 2021 2021, Domino Recording Co Ltd
Written and performed by Hot Chip Additional vocals and lyrics by Fimber Bravo Produced by superpitcher Arrangement & additional instrumentation by superpitcher Mixed by superpitcher
violence begets more / violence / or so I’ve been told / but all of this country’s skyscrapers / are still standing / despite the blood / that builds a boat underneath the tongue / after speaking its name / violence begets / more photo opportunities / at the feet of a burning / temple / I show up to the resistance / and someone hands me a rose / the color of surrender / violence begets thirst / a new thing in need / of clean water / once / towards the black / and spotted sky / I raised a fist / inside of a glove / sewn in a country / torn apart by our bombs / I purchased the gloves in a store / after midnight / from a cashier who wore a picture / of her daughter on her chest / and looked as though she might have been crying / before I arrived / violence begets a hunger for warmth / at all costs / I sit in a running car / and count all of the things / yet to be swallowed / by the horned ghosts of empire / If you make your own prison / you can find your own map / to freedom / the smoke from all our engines / is beckoning the sun / close / the oceans are rising / to the height of a child / sitting on a mother’s shoulders / pointing to the horizon with a single / trembling / finger
says the man with a cart of empty bottles at the corner of church and lincoln while I stare into my phone and I say I know oh I know while trying to find the specific filter that will make the sun’s near-flawless descent look
the way I might describe it in a poem and the man says the moment is already right in front of you and I say I know but everyone I love is not here and I mean here like on this street corner with me while I turn
the sky a darker shade of red on my phone and I mean here like everyone I love who I can still touch and not pass my fingers through like the wind in a dream but I look up at the man and he is a kaleidoscope
of shadows I mean his shadows have shadows and they are small and trailing behind him and I know then that everyone he loves is also not here and the man doesn’t ask but I still say hey man I’ve got nothing I’ve got nothing even though I have plenty
to go home to and the sun is still hot even in its endless flirt with submission and the man’s palm has a small river inside I mean he has taken my hand now and here we are tethered and unmoving and the man says what color are you making
the sky and I say what I might say in a poem I say all surrender ends in blood and he says what color are you making the sky and I say something bright enough to make people wish they were here and he squints towards the dancing shrapnel of dying
light along a rooftop and he says I love things only as they are and I’m sure I did once too but I can’t prove it to anyone these days and he says the end isn’t always about what dies and I know I know or I knew once and now I write about beautiful things
like I will never touch a beautiful thing again and the man looks me in the eyes and he points to the blue-orange vault over heaven’s gates and he says the face of everyone you miss is up there and I know I know I can’t see them but I know
and he turns my face to the horizon and he says we don’t have much time left and I get that he means the time before the sun is finally through with its daily work or I think I get that but I still can’t stop trembling and I close
my eyes and I am sobbing on the corner of church and lincoln and when I open my eyes the sun is plucking everyone who has chosen to love me from the clouds and carrying them into the light-drunk horizon and I am seeing this and I know I am seeing this the girl who kissed me as a boy in the dairy aisle
of meijer while our parents shopped and the older boy on the basketball team who taught me how to make a good fist and swing it into the jaw of a bully and the friends who crawled to my porch
in the summer of any year I have been alive they were all there I saw their faces and it was like I was given the eyes of a newborn again and once you know what it is to be lonely it is hard to unsee that which serves as a reminder that you were not always
empty and I am gasping into the now-dark air and I pull my shirt up to wipe whatever tears are left and I see the man walking in the other direction and I chase him down and tap his arm and I say did you see it did you see it like I did and he turns and leans into the
glow of a streetlamp and he is anchored by a single shadow now and he sneers and he says have we met and he scoffs and pushes his cart off into the night and I can hear the glass rattling even as I watch him become small and vanish and I look down at my
phone and the sky on the screen is still blood red.
Portuguese singer Gisela João delivers a magical and refreshing take on her previously released single ‘Louca’, a highlight from her latest album ‘AuRora’