Teki Latex

There’s more to life than music. In the first of our new Show & Tell series, Sound Pellegrino’s Teki Latex talks us through some of his other interests. Watch his ten-hour DJ set, broadcast live from Paris, this Friday from 12.00 CET on Overdrive Infinity.

Game of Thrones

I discovered Game Of Thrones when the first episode aired, and it very soon became an obsession of mine only rivalled by the obsession I had for Lost (but we’ll get back to that). After spoiling myself a couple of times with online theories and Wikipedia entries I decided to start reading the books, and earlier this year this amazing companion book came out, called The World of Ice and Fire. It’s basically  an atlas and history book of everything related to the world of Planetos (where the continents of Westeros, Essos and Sothoryos are), including detailed history of centuries of Targaryen ruling in the Seven Kingdoms but also information on the customs of every single city on the map, from prehistory to current events – even stuff that hasn’t yet been touched upon in the books, let alone the show. The mythology of George RR Martin‘s Song of Ice and Fire series is so rich and profound – maybe the richest I’ve ever seen in a work of entertainment – it’s fascinating. This clip touches upon the different religions of Westeros, including the fascinating Drowned God worshipped on the Iron Islands. Contains spoilers if you haven’t reached season 3.

Tinker Hatfield

I’m a Nike obsessive, but I don’t consider myself a shoe collector, as I don’t have most of the habits true sneakerheads possess (from not wearing shoes to keeping all boxes or buying doubles and debating retros). I’m just a fan of shoes and shoe design, so for me Tinker Hatfield – designer of early Air Max models, plenty of Jordans, and my favorite shoe of all time, the Mowabb – has godlike status. In this clip he explains how he got inspired by the museum Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris to conceive the visible air-cushioning design of the first Air Max models.

Lost

Lost is one of my favourite TV shows. What I especially liked about it is the fact it demanded a lot of interaction and involvement from its audience. After each episode we were rewinding, playing bits in slow motion to catch a logo on the fin of a shark, or going online to check what’s written on the blast door map. Lost producers were very conscious of this aspect and so early on in the history of the show they introduced The Lost Experience, some sort of “alternate reality game” to engage fans by having them look for Lost-related clues online via a fictional blogger called Rachel Blake. This video shows what happened at Comic-Con 2006 when the producers of Lost staged a Rachel Blake intervention where she asked a question and got escorted out of the room during the official Lost panel, resulting in a collective nerdgasm in the audience. People were witnessing the virtual/social role-playing game come to life in front of their eyes, and you can hear them losing their shit. If Lost sucks and no one should care that much about it, why am I having goosebumps when Rachel goes on her rant? This is an incredible example of TV, the internet and real life combining to provide top notch entertainment.

Mimic Octopus

This is a short documentary about the mimic octopus, a fascinating species which has the ability to shape-shift into other aquatic predators in order to escape difficult situations. It is a truly fantastic creature and living proof of the wonders of evolution. The mimic octopus almost perfectly imitates the shape and colour of a sea snake, a lion fish, a flounder, a jellyfish, even what seems to be a frogfish at some point in this video, leaving aquatic life specialists baffled by such ingenuity. Don’t sleep on the mimic octopus. Best sea creature.

Profit

Profit is a short-lived TV show which aired on Fox in 1996 and got immediately cancelled a month after its premiere due to audiences complaining about its lack of morals and shocking plot aspects, which I will not spoil here. Only four episodes out of the eight produced ended up being aired, even though the whole thing later came out in DVD format. The show tells the story of Jim Profit, a rich, handsome, charming and highly manipulative sociopath who rises to the top of multinational Gracen & Gracen with the use of immensely vile plotting and who sleeps in a cardboard box since his difficult childhood. This show was so ahead of its time, and its use of edgy themes and multidimensional characters can be seen as something that opened doors for modern TV shows such as Dexter, Mad Men, Game Of Thrones and The Sopranos. Jim Profit, played by Adrian Pasdar (Heroes, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D), is like a psychotic Don Draper with a hint of Jamie Lannister, who narrates the show Dexter-style, except TV audiences weren’t ready for that in 1996. The show even had long, awesome and super dated Lawnmower Man-style CGI scenes! This clip compiles all the trailers of this incredibly slept-on gem of a show.

La Planète Magique

Le Théâtre de la Gaîté Lyrique is a monument in the centre of Paris which used to host ballets in the 19th century. After going through many phases and incarnations it became one of France’s first theme parks in 1989 as La Planète Magique, under the supervision of French animated series creator Jean Chalopin. The park’s rides were inspired by famous Chalopin-produced cartoons such as Space Legend Ulysses 31, Inspector Gadget, Mysterious Cities of Gold, The Littles and so on. Unfortunately these futuristic rides were apparently out of order most of the time, and the often non-functioning park soon suffered financial difficulties. It closed in 1991 and remained dormant for more than 10 years. This clip shows a filmed visit of the abandoned yet almost intact rides of La Planète Magique in 2004. Since then, the rides were destroyed and the theatre got remodelled into a museum of digital arts which opened in 2011. It will host the Paris edition of the Red Bull Music Academy this fall.

Stella

Stella is the brainchild of New York comedians/writers David Wain, Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter. All three of them were members of cult comedy troupe The State which had a hilarious and very influencial sketch show on MTV in the 90s (Eastbound & Down‘s Ken Marino, Reno 911‘s Thomas Lennon and Brooklyn 99‘s Joe Lo Truglio were also part of The State). In 1997, Stella was a stand-up comedy trio which used outrageously absurd short films in the middle of its performances. The shorts show the absurd and often awkward adventures of three friends and roommates somewhere in between the Marx Brothers and some really annoying child-men, and they are now all watchable on Vimeo. These shorts inspired a one-season Comedy Central series (with a slightly milder tone but just as absurdist and hilarious, this time with fantastically written plots) which remains one of my favourite comedy shows of all time to this day. The trio (mostly Wain) went on to direct and produce awesome things such as Wet Hot American Summer (a cult movie soon to be turned into a Netflix series), TV series Childrens Hospital and movie They Came Together starring Amy Poehler and Paul Rudd, all of which still recycle a tone, specific joke styles and typical plot devices reminiscent of the Stella days.

Teki Latex will broadcast a ten-hour DJ set live from Paris this Friday on Overdrive Infinity. Find him on Facebook, Twitter and SoundCloud.