phantom limbs

El Tortuga Resort Spa at Stranded!

2009-09-28T13:23:00.004-04:00

I helped build Jeanne Angel's spa installation at Winkle & Baltic's Stranded! party on September 5th. This piece included a video projection gateway, a garden with fountain for rinsing drink cups, a bike-powered spin art activity, tea service, yoga instruction, massage tent, chilled towel service and wading pool with sound therapy. I worked mainly on the pool, which seated up to 12 people, and was full of luminescence river stones collected in Maryland and upstate NY, using Luminova pigment. Jeremy Slater and Tamara Yadao created the audio installation which married perfectly with the installation. This was one of the most well-received art projects I've been involved in!

Urban farms and such

2009-08-25T00:37:00.003-04:00

Jeanne and I are starting work on a pilot for a tv show on sustainability with these folks as an initial subject:
www.thewaterpod.org

Really got started thinking about this after watching Food Inc. and thinking about how the production and design creates an optimistic mood.
www.foodincmovie.com

and remembered to make a post about this stuff after reading this oped in the Times today
www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/opinion/24Despommier.html

I've got a subsidized year to work on this, so more soon...

Genesis P-Orridge and Thee Majesty at the Centre Pompidou

2009-04-17T13:51:00.005-04:00

Here are a few grabs from the pieces Jeanne Angel and I made for the performance at the Centre Pompidou with Genesis P-Orridge and Thee Majesty.

Jeanne has posted a great video from the opening of the show on Facebook

Thanks to Gen for the invitation, and to Eddie and Marie and to Delphine and Fabrice at Pompidou for all of the arrangements.

Thee Majesty at Centre Pompidou

2009-03-13T18:22:00.003-04:00

Jeanne Angel and I are working on video for the Genesis P-Orridge performance at Centre Pompidou on April 4

A little bit about this project:
90% "JUNK DNA" when analysed many ways proves to be a LANGUAGE! a FALLEN ANGELIC SCRIPT hidden in our DNA driving us to homogeneity and the creation of a global brain that will allow these faLLEN ANGEls TO CO-OPT TOTAL CONTROL OF HUMANS AS SLAVES, ORBIODRIVES OF THEIR SUPERCOMPOUTER. tHE 1 AND 0 BINARY CODE ARE A MEANS OF separation =DEATH )DAATH) AND OF COURSE THE NEED FOR THE one TO enter THE zero (YONI) TO replicate BUT ALWAYS A SPLIT BEING. tHE angelic RESISTANCE ARE THE pandrogynes..tHE pandrogyne IS THE oCROSSED BY THE 1. oR ANOTHER WAY TWO ZERO'S MERGE TO CREATE A LARGER SINGLE CELL ETC. a VERY DIFFERENT FORM OF ANGELIC BIOCOMPUTER...

Monkey Town at Scope New York 2009

2009-03-12T10:23:00.005-04:00

Big thanks to Lilah and Alexis at Scope for inviting me to show 6 hours (!) of video on Saturday, March 7 from noon to 6pm.

scope-art.com/Index.php/new_york/programs/

It was a bit much to take on by myself, so Genesis P-Orridge kindly shared from her collection for the first program.

Program 1
12pm–4pm
Regeneration Hex- You Are Your Own Screen
Curated by Genesis Breyer P-Orridge.
Rare films exploring the CUT-UP revelational process, including works by William S. Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Anthony Balch, BREYER P-ORRIDGE, Scott Treleaven, Hermann Nitsch, Marie Losier, Sam Zimmerman and Derek Jarman. The screening will include a supplemental program of cut-up pieces by Nate Boyce, John Michael Bolig, Davy Force, Yoshi Sodeoka and Antoine Catala.

Program 2
4pm–6pm
You Can Rebuild You
Curated by Sam Zimmerman.
Assorted investigations into the future of the body: remodeled, reimagined, realized. Artists include Adam Zaretsky, Micah Moses, Geoffrey Pugen, Julia Reodica, Caz McIntee, William R. Skullmaster, Boryana Dragoeva, Marie Losier, Marianna Ellenberg and C-TRL. Includes biofeedback analysis by the Metasynergistics Evaluative Media Experience.

Thanks to the artists for sharing their work and to everyone who came by to visit!

Bacchanale in Vienna

2009-02-11T17:17:00.008-05:00

Bacchanale is screening in in Vienna on Saturday, February 14th at Symposion Pornonom: www.sympornonom.com

Thanks to Sabine Sonnenschein for including the film in this event!

Bacchanale in Amsterdam

2009-02-02T20:54:00.004-05:00

Big thanks to Jennifer Lyon Bell and the folks at Rated X for including Bacchanale in the Amsterdam Alternative Erotica Film Festival, Jan. 15-18 2009!

Honey Bunny V2

2008-12-29T18:18:00.004-05:00

Thanks to everyone who attended the premiere of Honey Bunny V2! This 2-channel mashup splices Margie Schnibbe's original art-porn feature with new pieces by:

Jeanne Angel
Bengala
Elle Burchill
Andrew Erdos
Lilah Freedland
Chris Garneau
Lauren Lavitt
Caralee McElroy
A. Ash Miller
Alexander Reyna
Joshua Sandler
Zach Sandler
Irina Sarnetskaya
Fay Serafica
ShiZaru_Zoe
Yoshi Sodeoka
William Skullmaster
Skye Thorstenson
Lee Wells
Grant Worth
Sam Zimmerman

Thanks to all these people for their gracious participation in this project! And to Leisure Muffin for his original music, and to Margie for entrusting us with her movie.

Encore screening at Monkey Town on January 20th @ 8pm, hopefully followed by screenings on the west coast and beyond. Happy new year everybunny!

Bacchanale in Berlin

2008-10-25T17:12:00.009-04:00

Many thanks to the Pornfilmfestival Berlin 2008 for screening Bacchanale as a feature selection on Oct. 24:

http://www.pornfilmfestivalberlin.de/08e-filme.html

Here's their kind words from the program notes:

"To pay homage to this underground cult film, 57 audio artists set themselves at the behest of the New York Art Collective Monkey Town to re-interpret it and sew a new sonic garment on its entire body. The result is amazing: Not only does it boost the intoxicating character of "Bacchanale" to an immense degree, but also through the various themes of the musical background, there emerges a collection of 57 short, totally different miniatures, that in the end make a whole. Bacchanale 2006 - it is more than a film, it is an experience!"

Honey Bunny

2008-09-09T15:36:00.002-04:00

This summer I collaborated with Vena Virago on her new dvd, Honey Bunny, a XXX fantasia concerning rabbits and art that ships next week.

Vena's alter ego, Margie Schnibbe, is an artist based in L.A. who has written and directed three porn features. Margie infuses her films with her own visual art - paintings, sculptures, comic books, textiles, etc. - blurring the boundaries between personal expression and crass commercial product. Honey Bunny takes the theme several steps further, mixing autobiographical sketches into the script, and setting the movie in an installation exhibit of Margie's work at the Circus Gallery.

In 2006, I produced a 4-screen mashup of Margie's films for Monkey Town, for which I invited Motomichi Nakamura and Adam Kendall to create motion pieces based on Margie's art. When Margie told me about this new project - a movie explicitly about art - I proposed inviting a number of video artists to rework images from the film to include in the release itself. Margie and Vivid Alt got behind the idea, so the movie now includes pieces by Skye Thortensen, Zander Reyna, Yoshi Sodeoka, William Skullmaster and Jeanne Angel, and great new music by Leisure Muffin written for the film.

Looking forward to hosting a megamix program of all of this material at Monkey Town this December...

fantastic ice cream brand

2008-03-15T00:33:00.003-04:00

I just returned from Chang Mai, Thailand, where I saw this amazing ice cream shop, iberry.

Here's the view from the street:

By the door:

The side of the building:

The counter:

A flight of 5 mini cones:

It's an amazing brand - immaculately art directed, but extremely comfortable and laid back. Just perfect.

Superamas Big 3rd Episode

2008-01-14T19:24:00.001-05:00

Superamas Big 3rd Episode is a musical play that is very stripped down in its staging, but extremely complex in its production. The minimalistic process is very exposed: the control booth is on one side of the stage, the dressing room on the other, and, aside from two songs, the characters lip sync throughout, pacing repeatedly through two mechanically spliced and diced scenes - the men at band rehearsal and the ladies changing for dance class. The story is fleshed out with a rock anthem (mimed), a disco scene (with a girls-only battle), a light design car crash, and video vignettes that deliver the backstory (with cameos from Peter Sellers, Peter O'Toole, Jacques Derrida, Claude Wampler and Cake).

Everything is very squeaky clean, and the process is fairly nerdy, but the with much campy gossip about the characters' tawdry sex lives, and the undressing of the ladies set on infinite loop, there is enough fizz to weather the de- and re- and deconstructions. Chewy ideas cleverly guised as polite naughty fluff.

UPDATE: A video report by OC-TV.net about Superamas Big 3rd Episode is available here: http://www.oc-tv.net/superamas,big-3rd-episode.htm

Monkey Town does Mago

2008-01-12T11:46:00.000-05:00

Following up on our 2006 project, Bacchanale, Monkey Town has assembled a team of 50 audio artists to re-imagine the sound for Mago (2002).

Mago, from Korean director Kang Hyeon-Il and writer Jang Kyung-Ki is one of the largest-ever Korean film productions, though few souls outside of that country have experienced its unique charms. Described alternately as "dazzling and daring, mind-blowing and surreal, beautiful and horrifying" or "pretentious, vulgar, unbelievable, mind numbing, and appallingly hypocritical," the film is most notable for the acreage of epidermis employed in telling its tale. Although the Korean government is very conservative about nudity and sexuality depicted in mainstream movies, Mago escaped the ban by relentlessly and with grim precision neutralizing sex with anti-sex for the duration of the film - a monumental and alchemical artistic feat with dubious and discomfiting results.

Purportedly depicting the zen story of creation, beginning with paradise and progressing into man's destruction, Mago is a mashup of nostalgic pre-Christian Korean creation mythology and critical vignettes from this misguided modern world we call home. The visceral implication: our hospitals, cyber cafes, discos and subways are a very poor substitute for a world where 825 care-and-clothing-free elemental goddesses spend their days frolicking or in benign appreciation of the air and nakedness.

Is it art caught in the culture gap or heartless exploitation fare? As with all misfit masterworks, opinions run the gamut:

"although I don't know much about Zen or the YinYang symbol, I found the film to be unique and a very moving experience. It's like nothing I've ever seen in American cinema! 10/10"

"It's quite beautiful and surprisingly wholesome, proving that the unclothed human body is a work of art and nothing to be ashamed of."

"yet more proof that Korean cinema is a force to be reckoned with."

or

"Mago's incoherence is only outstripped by its pretentiousness. It’s like the Cremaster cycle with a dub track by Greenpeace."

"ends up feeling like being locked in a room with a snotty teenage zealot who beats you with a stick"

"One of the biggest "HUH?" movies ever made."

For this exclusive remixed presentation, Monkey Town distributed short silent clips from the film to 50 audio artists. The artists composed a new soundtrack for their clip, and the film was reassembled as a 65 minute feature. Additional edits by Sam Zimmerman. Inserts by Shu Lea Cheang.

Screenings at Monkey Town in December 2007 were feature recommendations in Time Out, Village Voice, and Flavorpill.

Semiennial 4

2007-12-04T21:34:00.000-05:00

Twice a year at Monkey Town we put together a group program of great video art - a semiennial - of the stuff that made an impression on us in the past six months. The curatorial criteria is no more complicated than this is the best new stuff we've seen.

For this program we teamed up with Gretchen Hogue out in Portland, who hooked us up with some psuper psychedelic pselections, and Don Carroll who always has some art damaged deviants on tap. The artists in the program included:

Guy Benfield
Ondrej Brody
DisneyNASABorg
Marianna Ellenberg
Jesse England
Andrew Erdos and Organ Celebration!
Liz Haley
Michelle Handelman
Gretchen Hogue
Hooliganship
Seth Kirby
Karl Klomp
Mack MacFarland
Shana Moulton
Takeshi Murata
Melody Owen
Michael Robinson
Margie Schnibbe
Grant Worth
Jemima Wyman

The goal of this series is to present challenging video art in a format that draws an audience and holds their attention for an extended program. This is essential for art that requires *time* to be fully appreciated. The gallery format - where people walk in, crane their head around, do the rat-run around the perimeter, and walk out - is biasing video toward flat, non-narrative, every-moment-is-equal directions. We're looking to counter that by putting on a show with a DJ mindset. Art should rock! Art should turn you on! Art should put on a lampshade and make a fool of itself too.

Circus movies

2007-08-15T12:53:00.000-04:00

I've been putting together a midnight circus show with video and live acts, finding all of the circus-, carnival-, and sideshow-themed movies easily accessible in the IMDB/Netflix age. Here's a partial list:

3 Ring Circus (1954)
Alien 51 (2004)
Angel de Fuego (1992)
At the Circus (1939)
Barnum (1986)
Berserk (1967)
Big Fish (2003)
Big Top Pee Wee (1988)
Bigger Than Barnum's (1926)
Billy Rose's Jumbo (1962)
Chad Hanna (1940)
Chapiteau (1984)
Charlie Chan at the Circus (1936)
Circus Days (1923)
Circus Maximus (1980)
Circus of Fear (1966)
Circus of Horrors (1960)
Circus Palestina (1998)
Circus Palestina (1998)
Circus World (1964)
Clown House (1988)
Colossal Sensation! (2004)
Dangerous Curves (1929)
Devil's Circus (1926)
Dual Alibi (1947)
Duffy's Irish Circus (2006)
Fifi la Plume (1965)
First International Circus Arts Festival in Budapest (2000)
Freaky Circus Guy (2005)
Geliebte Bestie (1959)
Hero of the Circus (1928)
Krrish (2006)
La Strada (1954)
Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928)
Life Is a Circus (1960)
Mazeppa (1993)
Merry Andrew (1958)
MirrorMask (2005)
Most Astounding Circus Acts of All Time (1989)
Octopussy (1983)
Parade (1974)
Peck's Bad Boy with the Circus (1938)
Roselyne et les Lions (1989)
Santa Sangre (1989)
Sawdust and Tinsel (1953)
Starkiss: Circus Girls in India (2003)
Stoney Knows How (1982)
The Big Cage (1933)
The Big Circus (1959)
The Circus (1928)
The Clowns (1970)
The Freakmaker (1974)
The Great Wallendas (1978)
The Greatest Show on Earth (1952)
The Most Death-Defying Circus Acts of All Time (1987)
The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus (1996)
The Secret World of... Circuses & Sideshows (1998)
The Unknown (1927)
Trapeze (1956)
Vampire Circus (1972)
Viva Lo Imposible (1958)
Viva Maria! (1965)
When Night Is Falling (VHS - 1995)
You Can't Cheat an Honest Man (1939)

Bacchanale in Chicago

2007-08-15T12:45:00.001-04:00

Making it's third festival appearance, the Monkey Town remix of Bacchanale is screening at the Chicago Underground Film Festival on August 18th, 2007. For details, visit www.cuff.org

Too(L) much video

2007-07-20T23:39:00.000-04:00

So I went to see the end of the big Tool tour at PNC Arts Center. Where I saw Tool in '99 open for Ozzy. Which really slayed actually, the crowd was completely on board as much as they were for Ozzy. Super solid performance, lots of long abstract segues, just great.

This time around, they're sporting a stadium lightshow that completely overshadows the performers. Maynard sings the whole show unlit at the back of the stage, siloutted against a video wall. The stage is mainly dark, so the audience attention is dragged in to the screens and lights and lazers like moths to that stuff moths like. But why? The show rocks on it's own merits. No one needs to be sold on it, everyone there is already converted. Why not let the audience see you work out - it adds emotional impact. I'm guessing that the reason is the band is bored and the whistles and bells keep their interest up slogging through one of these tours.

But for me, too much video made the show pretty flat.

3rd Monkey Town Semiennial

2007-06-10T20:59:00.000-04:00

At Monkey Town we offer a twice-yearly video art program - a semiennial - of the high water marks, the standouts, the stuff that made an impression. The immersive video equivalent of "come hang out a my place and listen to some records."

The curatorial criteria is no more complicated than this is the best new stuff we've seen. We've continue to be turned on to great work and we're just itching to pass it along. But we can offer up a few rough rules for what appeals to us:

video that loves its content more than its technology
video that doesn't mistake a technique for an idea
video that is in conversation with contemporary art as a whole
video that doesn't take itself too seriously
video that sells itself
video that rocks la casa

The next installment is June 15 and 16, seatings at 7:30 and 10:00 both nights. Featured artists include:
Josh Atlas
Lew Baldwin
Michael Bell-Smith & Aa
Josephin Böttger
John Michael Boling
Raul Vincent Enriquez
Wesley Heiss
Daniel Joseph
Kent Lambert
Ellen Lake
Mary Magsamen & Stephen Hillerbrand
Jillian McDonald
Marisa Olson
Open Arms
Zachariah Rockhill
Kelly Sears
Daveed Shwartz
Ray Sweeten
Skye Thorstenson & Xiu Xiu
Ryan Trecartin
Jemima Wyman

Curated by Montgomery Knott, Nick Hallett, Sam Zimmerman, and Christopher Borkowski, with Andrea Grover, Shoshana Brand and Don Carroll

Special thanks to:
Perpetual Art Machine
Venturous Vanguard Video Festival
Jack The Pelican Presents
Aurora Picture Show

Bacchanale in San Francisco

2007-06-03T14:22:00.001-04:00

Bacchanale screened at ATA in San Francisco on May 11, 2007 as a selection in the Mission Creek Music/Film Festival:

http://www.atasite.org/calendar/?x=2288

Bacchanale

2007-04-01T15:11:00.001-04:00

The Monkey Town revival/remix of Bacchanale (1970, dir. John and Lem Amero) was included in the New York Underground Film Festival:

nyuff.com

Bacchanale is an inspired adult arthouse film from the tail end of the "grindhouse" era. I discovered the film four years ago while exploring the community of self-appointed librarians of lost exploitation and porn films. Bacchanale is currently not available commercially - in fact we are working to track down any surviving prints.

This remix project involved cutting the original film into its individual scenes which were passed out to 50 artists to create entirely new audio for the visuals in their clip. The clips were reassmbled back into the feature length film, which debuted at Monkey Town in December 2006.

At the NYUFF screening were participating artists Luke Dubois, Bradley Eros, Nick Hallett and Zach Layton. Nick has been corresponding with John Amero, who was unable to attend but gave his approval to our reappropriation of his film.

Thanks to Mo Johnson and everyone at NYUFF!

Scraps!

2007-02-18T19:34:00.000-05:00

After two months of gestation in Lewis Canfield's loft, and with a big assist from Abby Bender, I'm pleased to announce the opening of "Nest" by Saviour Scraps, a large-scale installation composed of recycled fabric that has overtaken the front room of Monkey Town:

If you are in the neighborhood, please come by to check it out - this is by far the largest work that I've ever commissioned, and we're kinda excited about it!

Porn Week recap

2007-01-15T04:13:00.000-05:00

A quick smattering of the reviews, previews, photos and chats about Monkey Town's 3rd Annual Porn Week:

in Adult Video News

in The Reeler

consumating.com

on flickr

in Flavorpill

gridskipper.com

Vena Virago came to the debut of her mega-mashup with Margie Schnibbe and posted this video clip to her site:
venavirago.com

Many thanks to Margie, David Burns, Bruce Yonemoto, and all of the participating artists. Special thanks to Adam Kendall and Motomichi Nakamura who made animation pieces especially for this event. And also to the audiences who came to see this material in a public space - you rock!

If you missed your chance to see Bacchanale or the Margie Schnibbe-Vena Virago mashup, there are two encore screenings on January 24th and 26th, at 7:30 and 10:00 respectively.

3rd Annual Porn Week

2006-12-12T00:37:00.000-05:00

I'm about to leave the country for three weeks and I'm cramming to finish the third installment of Monkey Town's Porn Week. The challenge is to rekindle that moment before the VCR in the early 70s when going to a theater to see sexually explicit fare was a socialially acceptable and even refined experience. If you haven't tried it, this is your big chance (we supply the futons and libations).

This year, in the spirit of biting off more than you can chew, we're attempting three separate programs wherein artists from the 60s to the present exploring their ickiest, stickiest urges in unflinchingly explicit detail. Below are some of the details.

--------------

ARTSLUT VIDEOS: 1975 to 2006
The ARTSLUT program is a rare collection of vintage homemade fetish videos curated by David Burns and Bruce Yonemoto featuring 21 Los Angeles-based artists. For this screening, Monkey Town has selected complementary pieces from our favorite video artists for a bi-coastal sexplicit summit.

Featured kinks: bananas, body paint, body builders, body hair, action figures, anuses, enemas, ejaculate, polaroids, socks, feet, dogs and roaches.

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Monkeytown Mashup: Margie Schnibbe + Vena Virago
Monkey Town presents a 4-screen megamix of works by two directors on the razors edge of art and commerce. Margie Schnibbe is a NYC artist and former Disco 2000 club kid transplanted to L.A., working in paint, sculpture, video, and comic illustration. Vena Virago is "in the biz", part of the new Alt Porn wave. They happen to be the same person.

This (very explicit) program turns porn films inside-out, simultaneously revealing front and back of camera, makeup on and off, the art before the action. Featuring Silverlake scenesters, porn star pets, bondage bunnies, op-art, 'zines and behind-the-scenes.

2-channel immersion curated and edited by Sam Zimmerman.

Includes new animations by Adam Kendall, Motomichi Nakamura and Sam Zimmerman based on original designs by Margie Schnibbe and Tom Bliss.

Pornstar Pets appears courtesy of Brink Film and Music Video Distributors.

Silverlake Scenesters appears courtesy of VCA/Hustler/LFP Video.

Eastside Story appears courtesy of Vivid Alt.

--------------

Bacchanale
Bacchanale is a "lost" adult arthouse film from 1970, released towards the end of the grindhouse era and at the dawn of XXX.

The (surprisingly enlightened) sex in this film is overwhelmed by a script chock full of low-budget surrealistic pretensions. This creative tact was originally designed to provide enough of a veneer of artistic merit to keep the censorship boards at bay. With the passage of time, it now can be seen as a piece in full dialog with the cinematic trends of the day, maybe a grimy Seventh Seal, a gutter-dwelling Satiricon or outsider artist Rosemary's Baby. Too kind? You be the judge. Shot in several (but not all) colors, and concerning fashion, dreams, death, discos, calliopes, spiral staircases, water, war, hell, and, of course, sex.

For this screening, Monkey Town has taken the liberty of inviting 50 audio artists to reinterpret the film (which is currently out of commercial release). The resulting experience is an era-bending megamix of illicit thrills.

Directed by John and Lem Amero, starring Uta Erickson, inserts by Harry Reems and Tina Russell.

New audio curated by Sam Zimmerman, Nick Hallett, Christy Karakas and Montgomery Knott. Additional film edits by Sam Zimmerman.

Can art love sports?

2006-08-18T19:10:00.000-04:00

Who is making art about sports? Does this ever happen? Do artists keep nursing that high school chip on the shoulder? It's such an oil and water subject, I just dare you to name three newish art pieces you've seen about about sports.

OK, I've seen one recently: Brock Enright and Ivan Hürzeler’s "Forest", a jockart Midsummer Nights Dream produced by Cynthia Broan. It's rad, but it's very much about the social thing - how arty jocks play, how they drink, how they fight, how they mate, etc. - and not fully about sport itself.

Poking around on Google a bit I see sports-themed art falling into a few buckets:

1. Sports used to make disaffected political points. I think the theory is: I'm an artist, politics alienates me, sports alienates me, sports imagery describes my alienation from politcs.

2. Sports as ironic sexuality. Lots of wrestling work here.

3. Sports as color and motion studies. Heavy on auto sports and stadium crowds.

So where's the art about teamwork? reaching your personal apex? destroying your opponent? worshiping demigods among us? Here's a guy on flickr wrestling with these very thorny issues.

So to move the ball forward (ahem) on this topic, Zack Davis and I are putting together a program of video art about sports which will show at Monkeytown on September 30. Who's got pieces?

Boredoms in NYC July 2, 2006

2006-07-03T11:23:00.001-04:00

Went to see the Boredoms at Webster Hall last night. I saw many many shows in this venue back in the 80s when it was The Ritz. Boy have they crapped up the décor. Blech! But the sound is still fantastic, and the stage is huge, so it’s still a great room to see a show.

I last saw the Boredoms in 1994 at Threadwaxing Space, and their style then was full-bore Dada Punk. Nothing to latch on to, starting up great riffs only to drop them two or three bars later. Really great vision artistically, but very frustrating to the audience who really wanted to throw down.

Fast forward to 2006 and they’ve grown into a sound 180 degrees away from that. Now it’s long mesmerizing percussion grooves, almost as if they’ve gone hippie in their mature years. And who could blame them?