I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: THE FLAMING LIPS AND HEADY FWENDS-“Children of the Moon” (2012).

2012 saw the release of this very strange collaborative album.  Whether The Flaming Lips had entered the mainstream or if people who’d always liked them were now big stars or maybe they all just liked doing acid.  Whatever the case, The Lips worked with a vast array of famous (and less famous) people for this bizarre album.  Here it is 8 years later. Time to check in.

Lately, Jim James has been going in a more mellow direction after the pretty heavy psychedelia of Circuital in 2011.  But this song stays in that heavy psychedelic vein with a big distorted guitar riff and distorted vocals from James (and Coyne, I assume).

It’s that weird mix of creepy and catchy that the Lips do so well.  You can clearly hear James on the lead vocals, but who knows who is contributing vocals to the rest (the oh oh ohs).  The guitar solo is all distorted and reversed–a noisy explosion of sound.

This song is barely four minutes and it’s followed by another noisy short one before the album segues back into quieter terrain.

[READ: August 1, 2019] Strangers in Paradise XXV #6

Katchoo was given coordinates to meet Stephanie.  The coordinates put her way off the grid in Colombia.  As she waits, a guy on a moped drives up and a monkey hops off and delivers a package (that’s pretty adorable, honestly).

Katchoo can only assume things are bad since Stephanie didn’t show.  She can’t imagine what is in the satchel (she hopes it’s not Francine’s head).

But no, it is a tube and in the tube is an ancient piece of papyrus–Cleopatra’s mathematical ideas.

Katchoo is pretty intrigued to actually touch such a document, but she knows better than to take it out.

Then she see the phone, on which there is a note.  The note asks Katchoo to take the papyrus to Jet and the phone shows a gunman at Katchoo’s house.

Francine hasn’t been in this series much (boo).

We get a nice flash over to her home life.  Kactoo and Francine’s girls, Ashley and Koo, are rambunctious and fun (with Koo being a lot like Kacthoo–spirited and troublesome). They are going to visit Fancine’s mom in the hospital. She is very ill.

But Francine makes her promise she’ll come to the girl’s grandparent’s day…next year.  Her mom doesn’t think it’s possible, but she does promise.

Cut back to Katchoo speeding through the jungle in her Range Rover. She is so furious, there’s even a two page spread that has two  tiny cars in the bottom of the page and giant letters KILL STEPHANIE!

The second car is chasing Katchoo and then starts shooting at her.  Katchoo jumps out of the car and heads for a cliff–hoping to god that there’s water at the bottom of it.  She’s had some bad luck with cliffs lately.

This book ends not so much with a cliff hanger as a cliff jumper.