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GUEST EDITOR

From The Desk Of Horse Feathers’ Justin Ringle: “Resurrect Dead: The Mystery Of The Toynbee Tiles”

So when asked to be a guest editor for MAGNET, my initial reaction was that my inner 18-year-old self might flip out so much that I might have nary a word to say. However, I persevered and was immediately filled with some of the memories of growing up in the proverbial “sticks” in the ’90s. Starting there and moving forward to the present day, I accumulated a list of people, movies, music, food, poets and other stuff that, although not exhaustive by any extent, it gives an insight into me, my music, the band, inspirations and interests. At the very least I would hope that a few of these things may also be viewed as recommendations that could steer people toward becoming acquainted with a few new people, and things that I find dear. It goes without saying, I appreciate the opportunity to “preach from the pulpit,” so to speak and air my opinion on so many different things. Normally people only care about what I say about my music or music in general, which can get tedious. So thank you, MAGNET, for providing the platform to impose my taste on others. Really and truly, I hope someone finds something in here that they, too, can enjoy.

ResurrectDead

If you are like me, I was initially perplexed by the title of this film. Turns out this documentary focuses on one of the most captivating and shockingly complex urban folk phenomenons I have ever heard of. The director begins the story by discussing the appearance of these unusual tiles embedded in street intersections that he started to see pop up in Philadelphia in the 1980’s. Intrigued by their inscription of: TOYNBEE IDEA IN MOVIE 2001 RESURRECT DEAD ON PLANET JUPITER. The director eventually, with the advent of the internet, discovered that the tiles here surfacing all over the United States and beyond. From this point on, the mind blowing begins. Conspiracy theories, hypothetical motives, detective work, short wave radio transmissions, eyewitness accounts, phantom syndicates, and a host of suspects are discussed at length. There are those moments in the documentary where they make a revelation and I gasped. It’s one of those kind of movies. After everybody in the band watched it, we talked about details of the film for a solid week and we are all still collectively a little bit on the WTF!? spectrum. It is an unbelievable story where the best part of it is that it’s real.

Video after the jump.