Category Archives: Neon

Robert Stark talks about his trip to the San Francisco Bay Area

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Robert Stark, joined with Rabbit, and Alex von Goldstein talk about his recent trip to the SF Bay Area

Topics include:

Robert’s departing point Santa Barbara, which is a nice laid back coastal town, but under the cultural influence of LA
Robert Stark’s podcast with Bay Area Guy about his last trip to SF
Robert met up with Bay Area Guy and Anatoly Karlin in Berkeley
How like Robert, Alex, and Rabbit, Bay Area Guy and Anatoly Karlin exist on the periphery of the Alt-Right(ex.The Radical CenterAlt Left)
The Cultural Leftist legacy of Berkeley, and how Anatoly Karlin spoke at Richard Spencer’s event at UC Berkeley
How places that are politically correct often produce interesting dissident thinkers
How Berkeley is on a scale similar to European cities(ex. small, compact, dense and walkable)
How transplants often adopt the stereotypes of cities
Demographic trends in the Bay Area, how the traditional white middle class is being pushed out, but also working class Blacks and Hispanics are being priced out through gentrification
Asian culture and immigration in the Bay Area, and Asian Majority Cities, including Daly City, where Robert stayed
The seedy Tenderloin District, urban grittiness, and how it reminded Robert of the film Taxi Driver
The film Dirty Harry
The BART(Bay Area Rapid Transit) System, which has a 70’s futurist aesthetic, and has had issue with crime
The film Fruitvale Station about a Police incident on BART in Oakland
The 70’s futurist Embarcadero Center, designed by architect John Portman, and the importance of having urban oasis’s
How the Silicon Valley is a bland suburban region, which demonstrates that technology has limitation without culture and aesthetics
The Shortage Of Women In Silicon Valley
How the area where the tech elite lives has wilderness preserves, in contrast with their support for mass immigration
How the Bay Area has done a better job at Wilderness Conservation than Southern California
Robert’s observation’s about where to build in the Bay Area in response to his interview with Laura Foote Clark of Grow SF
How San Francisco has it’s own unique Aesthetic, and is the most scenic American City
How San Francisco is on a high level aesthetically, but the dominant culture is consumerism mixed in with some cultural leftist views
Robert stayed in Walnut Creek, which is a mid-century car oriented suburb in the process of being retrofited into a walkablle New Urbanist community
Walnut Creek aslo has BART access, and owns more open space per capita than any other community in California
80’s Vaporwave Architecture in Walnut Creek, how historic preservation has neglected 80’s Kitsch, and the occultist origins of Kek in California 80’s culture
Nearby Lafayette, which is an idyllic semi rural town, with quick BART access to the city(the best of both worlds for those who can afford it)
The San Francisco Bay Area Renters’ Federation lawsuit against Lafayette, and the debate regarding development and diversity
Whether the Bay Area should be it’s own separate country, state, or broken up into a bunch of small independent city states

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Robert Stark, Rabbit, & Alex von Goldstein discuss Retro Futurism

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Topics include:

The concept of Retro Futurism as how the past envisioned the future
How in the 20th Century society was undergoing rapid change and technological progress
How people today are either pessimistic about the future, or view the present as the future(The Current Year)
Whether Retro Futurism is pure fantasy, an alternative universe, or a blueprint for the future
The Future portrayed in film from utopia to dystopia
The 1927 film Metropolis, which was the first major future film, and inspired by Italian Futurism
How Art Deco was the first major futurist movement in Architecture, and perfectly combines Futurism and Tradition
How Neon Lighting has symbolized the future from the Art Deco era to the 80’s Cyberbunk aesthetic
The Synthwave/New Retro Wave Genre in music that emerged in the mid 2000’s, inspired by  80’s New Wave(ex. FM Attack, Robots with Rayguns, Electric YouthCollegeKavinsky)
How 80’s music was much more future oriented than today’s music
Greg Johnson reviews New Order’s Music 
The Euro-centric and deconstructionist elements to Electronic Music
Rabbit’s involvement in the early 90’s rave scene, and how it started out as futuristic but fizzled out into trashy pop culture
The revival of the 60’s Brit pop sound in the 90’s
How culture has become stagnant and people are looking to the past for inspiration
Vaporwave, which is an aesthetic that emerged online, inspired by 80’s and early 90’s illustrations, video games, and elevator music
The Vaporwave Documentary
Donald Trump as an 80’s Retro-Futurist Vaporwave Icon
Cyberpunk, how it was inspired by 80’s Films such as Blade Runner, as well as Science Fiction writer Issac Asimov, it’s popularity with the Dark Enlightenment and Silicon Valley Techno-libertarians.
Steampunk, which a Futurist movement inspired by Victorian Aesthetics, Old Train Stations, and Science Fiction writers such as HG Wells and Jules Verne
Islamic Retro Futurism
The Mid Century Space age aesthetic
Soviet Retro Futurism
Las Vegas, the Retro-Futurist theme to the city, and hypothetical casino designs(Steampunk, Art Deco, Midcentury Space Age, Cyberpunk, Vaporwave)
Architect John C. Portman Jr. who built futuristic hotels with massive atrium in the 70’s and 80’s
The 80’s mall aesthetic, and how 80’s malls were a lot more futuristic and innovative than the ones being built today
Alex’s point that there is a transcendent element to the mall experience
How Retro-Futurism provides inspiration for architecture and urbanism
How Retro-Futurism offer a Third Alternative to the past and present course
How right wing publications tend to be mostly political, while left wing ones will focus on culture and insert politics
Whether Retro-Futurism is an aesthetic for a New Political Movement(ex.Radical Centrism)

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Robert Stark and Rabbit talk about their trip to Las Vegas

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Las Vegas-California Casino

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Rabbit blogs at AltLeft.com

Topics include:

Robert and Rabbit’s recent trip to Las Vegas
How Las Vegas epitomizes capitalism and commercialism at it’s fullest
How Las Vegas demonstrates how capitalism is both a force for creation and destruction
How Las Vegas lacks any historic preservation
How despite it’s flaws Las Vegas offers an otherworldly fantasy experience
The Resort Fees
The ethics of Gambling
The political and demographic landscape of Las Vegas and Nevada
How Las Vegas lacks any significant SWPL presence
How Las Vegas attracts the trashiest of pop culture
Douche Bag culture, it’s different subsets, and how it’s absorbing hipster culture
The Aesthetics of Las Vegas Casinos, Robert and Rabbit’s favorites, and conceptual casino designs
The different era’s of Las Vegas, including Vintage Las Vegas, the themed resorts of the 90’s, and the newer casinos
The Las Vegas monorail
Whether Las Vegas resorts are a model for urban living

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Robert Stark interviews Thomas Rinaldi about New York Neon

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Robert Stark and co-host Rabbit talk to Thomas Rinaldi. He is the author of New York Neon and blogs at  nyneon.blogspot.com

Topics include:

How Thomas got interested in Neon growing up, and how he noticed it’s decline
His project charting and photographing existing  Neon Signs before they disappear
The History of Neon, how it was invented in Victorian England in 1898, and latter made into signs by French Scientist Georges Claude
How the peak of Neon was in the late 1920’s and  30’s(Art Deco Era), but already started to see a decline in the 40’s
How Neon was originally used by Corporate chains but latter delegated to small businesses
Churches & Neon
How Neon  was originally seen as glamorous but latter became associated with seediness
Neon in Cinema, contrasting Dick Powell’s  glamorous Gold Diggers Of 1933 – The Shadow Waltz and his 1944 detective film Murder, My Sweet, which depicts Neon as seedy
The 1946 film It’s a Wonderful Life which also uses Neon to depict seediness
Hotel Neon Signs and and Hotel Neon in the Film Noire Genre
Neon in future films including the utopian 1927 film Metropolis and the dystopian 1982 film BLADE RUNNER
Incandescent Bulb Signs
The history, decline and revitalization of Time Square, and how there are very few Neon Signs left
How Neon has become replaced by LED Signs
The myth that Neon signs are not eco friendly
Historic preservation issues regarding Neon Signs
New Neon Signs designed in the Vintage style
Neon in San Francisco and the book San Francisco Neon
Las Vegas, how newer casino’s have rejected Neon, and how older signs are preserved at the Neon Museum
The popularity of Neon in Asian cities
How there is a renewed interest in Neon
Artist who depict Neon in their work including Robert Stark
Neon in 1960s Pop Art
The importance of patronizing businesses that have Neon Signs

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Robert Stark interviews Rabbit about Art, Architecture, & Culture

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Rabbit is an artist, experimental musician, and blogs at AltLeft.comRobert Lindsay joins latter in on the conversation

Topics include:

How politics is driven by the culture
How conservatives tend to focus on politics and are ineffective in creating culture
How the Alternative Right tends to attracts more creative types than the mainstream right
Why Rabbit feels that much of the Alternative Right holds backwards views towards art and culture
Rabbit’s artistic inspiration in MinimalismCubism, Mid-Century Space Age, and Dutch Constructivism
Danish Modern Interior Design
Robert Stark’s Artwork
The difference between between modernism and postmodernism
Italian Futurism
How cultural innovation has stagnated
How the past is the future( ex: in the mid 20th Century the culture looked to the future instead of the past)
Vintage Las Vegas
Skyscrapers
Whether capitalism is responsible for aesthetic decline
How in the early to mid 20th Century there was still an innocence to capitalism and higher aesthetic standards
Mid-Century Advertisements
Strip malls Suburban cookie cutter houses as an example of when architecture is driven purely by profit without any aesthetic value

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Robert Stark talks to Charles Lincoln & Robert Lindsay about LA, the 1980’s, & Blade Runner

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This is a continuation of the discussion on True Stories

Topics include:

The demographic transformation of Southern California
Robert Lindsay’s experience as a substitute teacher
Beverly Hills
The Film Fast Times at Ridgemont High set in the San Fernando Valley in the early 80’s
The depiction of adolescent sexuality in the film
How in the 70’s and early 80’s hedonism existed with less materialism and higher social trust than today
How the rise in hyper materialism coincided with the popularity of Reagan
How Robert Lindsay was involved with the Punk scene in the 80’s
The Film Earth Girls Must be Easy
The Porn Industry in the San Fernando Valley
Southern California Mall Culture
How the decline of traditional Mall Culture symbolizes how all of society is becoming one giant mall
How strip malls in LA are being replaced by higher density development
The debate about density and Urbanism
Mexican Culture vs. Mexican American Culture in California
The Film Blade Runner which is set in LA in 2019
Whether Blade Runner is an accurate depiction of the future
The genre of Dystopian Future Films(ex.Hunger Games, V for Vendetta, Mad Max)
NEON SIGNS OF BLADE RUNNER
The Film “Her” which depicts the future of LA as an eco friendly SWPL utopia
The decline in the quality of products

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