Tag Archives: Book

Coincidence // http://i43.tinypic.com/2e4ki07.jpg // κατάχρησις // http://www.the-ziggurat.com/ / Jello Spider // Stay detuned. ? //

Posted on by Muggs

Feb 6, 2012:

@ChieftanMews: Coincidence // http://i43.tinypic.com/2e4ki07.jpg // κατάχρησις // http://www.the-ziggurat.com/ / Jello Spider // Stay detuned. ? //

Mew’s tweeted a the following photo taken of the Amnesiac special edition book released in 2001.

He had used what appears to be Microsoft Paint to remove the words RADIOHEAD, Amnesiac with the spray paint tool.
The modification date on the image tells us that it was done at 7:55 AM(GMT) on Monday the 6th of February 2012.

Below where it’s printed Radiohead, Amnesiac there are two date stamps for ’06 FEB 2012′ matches the exact date the message was tweeted. No doubt a co-incidence that the band was still together on the date in question.

This was one of a number of ‘fake’ return/due dates stamped on the book borrowing slip. According to Follow Me Around the day and month was chosen to signify someone’s birthday.

The key word however is found above the photo where ‘REQUESTED/CARACHRESIS’ is written in ink. You can see it here:


(Source : Bucketoffive on Flickr )

Carachresis comes from the greek word ‘κατάχρησις’ included in the tweet. Wiki provides the following definition:

“misapplication of a word, especially in a mixed metaphor” according to the Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. Another meaning is to use an existing word to denote something that has no name in the current language.[1]

Compare malapropism and solecism, which are unintentional violations of the norms, while catachresis may be either deliberate or unintentional.

(Source: Wiki )

He once again makes a reference to the Ziggurat (www.the-ziggurat.com) along with ‘Jello Spider’

Catachresis College is the name of a school invented by Stanley Donwood and set to be in ownership of the Amensiac book. The name also appears as part of the Zigguration Tests taken by the band that was awarded to the winners of the Waste Game which are copywrited c. 2002 W.A.S.T.E. Board of Catachresis on the last page of the test.

Catachresis also appears as part of the title of the Autechre song ‘Lentic Catachresis’ from the album Confield released on 30 April 2001 a little under two months before Radiohead released Amnesiac.

Jello is an American brand name for what in the UK is called ‘Jelly’ (and to answer the obvious question ‘Jelly’ in the UK is called Jam or Preserve).

or simply a ‘Catachresis’ description of what the Ziggurat looks like ( A spider made of Jello ).

The use of a American rather then English word could be a reference to what was Radiohead’s upcoming Tour which started in America on the 27th of February 2012.


( Vintage Jello ad of Miss Muffet & The Spider from : Write_Light’s Livejournal )

He signs off the message telling us to “Stay detuned. ?” however the use of a question mark instead of the usual EOT is suggestive that he isn’t sure of what is to come.

Interestingly I managed to quickly tweet Mew’s back with the meaning of Carachresis,

@ElMuggs: @ChieftanMews Catachresis (from Greek κατάχρησις, “abuse”) is “misapplication of a word, especially in a mixed metaphor

within seconds he had deleted the post on both Twitter and Facebook.

It’s possible he found the correct answer he was looking for?

@radioheadperu Are you joking with Mews? Space? I won’t even get dead air space from them!

Posted on by Muggs

Jul 1, 2011:

@ChieftanMews: @radioheadperu Are you joking with Mews? Space? I won’t even get dead air space from them!

Mew’s tweeted this in response to @radioheadperu who asked:

@ChieftanMews so they finally gave you air space? what about your buck?

Dead Air Space is of course the name of the blog section of Radiohead’s Official Site located at http://www.radiohead.com/deadairspace.

Dead Air is the name for a unexpected gap in Radio or Television broadcast usually due to a operator error or technical fault. In a era of 24 hour news-cycles and broadcasting Dead Air is the one thing media organizations strive to avoid.

It is also the title of a 2002 novel by Iain Banks.

The Guardian review of it states that:

Dead Air is narrated by Kenneth Nott, a shock-jock on commercial radio who takes a swollen pride in his contrarian opinions. We first meet him at a drug-fuelled loft party in the East End of London, where everyone, for some reason, starts chucking fruit and furniture off the balcony. Ken’s girlfriend, Jo, does PR for a snotty young British indie band called Addicta; he is also sleeping with a woman called Celia (or “Ceel”), who happens to be married to a dangerous gangster.

You probably wouldn’t like to meet Ken. He is one of those annoying, professionally opinionated people who are never off duty. Large portions of the novel are dedicated to expounding his reactions to the latest topics of media discussion, whether he is on air or just chatting in a pub: gun control (“Guns for nutters only; makes sense”), American imperialism, CCTV cameras, Euroscepticism, the death of Diana (“put on a fucking seatbelt”), all get extended libertarian rants. It is a tribute to Banks’s chatty prose skill that these discussions are largely entertaining, if superficially argued.

( Source : Guardian Review: It’s all in the initial )

For all his hard years of service Chieftan Mews has only gotten this brief mention by Ed O’Brien on Dead Air Space on March 5th, 2005 in a post titled ’1 2 3 4 …. Chieftain Mews anyone?’:

For those who don’t know or remember, Senor Chieftain Mews,as he likes to be addressed now, was our slightly disturbing host on ‘the most gigantic lying mouth of all time’ …. Well, his comrade in arms and occasional masseuse, Chris Bran (who has also been hugely involved in our webcasts since we started them back in 2000), has a pilot out of his new comedy called ‘This is Jinsy’ .. it went out last Monday night on BBC 3 and you can still watch it on the BBC iplayer, but only for a few more days… hurray whilst stocks last… Go check it out .. It’s mental:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00r8z4r/This_Is_Jinsy/

( Source Dead Air Space )

Interestingly this is the only time Mew’s has had his name spelled ‘Chieftain’, it’s probably a typo.

Mew’s has previously tweeted a Youtube video from This is Jinsy named ‘Types of Wood’, and follows them on Twitter.

RT: @TangentBooks: Almost there with new Stanley Donwood collection of short stories. Sorting final artwork today. It’s gonna be a lovely book.

Posted on by Muggs

Sep 30, 2011:

RT: @TangentBooks: Almost there with new Stanley Donwood collection of short stories. Sorting final artwork today. It’s gonna be a lovely book.

Mew’s Retweeted this from TangentBooks.

Household Worms is the title of the book in question.

(Source: No News is Good News)
Stanley talks about this on his blog on the 22nd of November 2011…

In other news, Household Worms has come back from the printers, as you can see above. I’m very fucking pleased with it, and am enjoying this sense of acheivement whilst it lasts. Before it fades into the inevitable ennui. So yes, my new book! It will be available from the shop on this site, which you can get to by simply clicking that word right above here that says ‘SHOP’. And also from actual bookshops. Even, possibly, Amazon too. Happy happy, joy joy etc.

..and gives the following details of what the book contains in his shop:

Forty-one stories of varying lengths and levels of cheerfulness from the failing brain of Stanley Donwood. Ideal as a Zmas stocking filler for the slightly deranged. The same size as old fashioned Penguin books, this sumptuous paperback has 144 pages and an embossed cover featuring a detail from one of Mr Donwood’s linocuts, as well as a frontispiece and an endispiece (?) by Zachariah Twain.

Zachariah Twain is a alias Thom Yorke used for The King of Limbs replacing the earlier as Dr. Tchock.

If you have a Spare £10.00 (plus postage) you can buy it Here.

Hidden In Your 8-Track

Posted on by Muggs

@ChieftanMews: I am hidden in your 8 Track

Hidden In Your 8-Track is a reoccurring theme for Chieftan Mews. He tweeted ‘I am hidden in your 8 Track’ prior to the release of The King of Limbs. Some had at the time taken it to suggest a clue in that TKOL had 8 songs or that a clue was hidden ‘within’ that album.

His original Twitter Background picture included a photo of a 8 Track Tape along with what appears to be a campfire photo taken from the same series at the one that appears in the book edition of Amnesiac on page 8.

(Source: Inkybrown’s Flickr)

Wiki gives the following description of a 8-Track:

Stereo 8, commonly known as the eight-track cartridge, eight-track tape, or simply eight-track, is a magnetic tape sound recording technology. It was popular in the United States from the mid-1960s through the late 1970s, but was relatively unknown in many European countries.

You can read more about them here.