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These comments are excerpted from two emails Andres Bisserier sent to me in March, 2002:

“Among the second set of antivideos RH released, there is one called Piranesi. Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720 – 1778) was an italian artist who did a series of etchings called The Prisions (Le Carcieri) … [I’ve recently] bought a book that comprehends the entire series. [I’ve] observed that the image of the temple with the staircase in the Amnesiac booklet, also a part of the artwork in Rh’s I Might be Wrong Live Recordings, is very much based on some of the plates in these series. Also, the image of the gravestone with two heads in it, included in the Amnesiac booklet, is based on a very similar image in one of the etchings (number XVI, Carcere, with a High Gallery Beyond a Low, Timbered Anteroom).”

“It’s not really possible saying whether the series depict underground prisons, and [they] don’t seem to be actual mazes, but rather labyrinthine (word rings any bells?) structures. In many of them you see people walking by, arguing or even shouting out to other people across the rooms, and stuff like that–it actually looks like some sort of an endless castle, made of a lot of annexes built on top or around the others; just this really messy, improvised, even living architecture. One of the most remarkable aspects of the etchings is the staircases: some of them seem to have been built around parts of the structure after it was finished, like they needed to get to a place where they hadn’t [planned] they would have to go, so the lifted a flight of stairs that hadn’t been [planned] in the first place.”

“The book I have is simply called The Prisons (Le Carcieri) By Giovanni Battista Piranesi, subtitled The Complete First and Second States. It was published by Dover Publications, Inc. NY. Their address is: Dover Publications inc., 180 Varick Street, New York, N. Y. 10014. The first edition is from 1973. The international standard book number is 0-486-21540-7; and, just in case you have access to the library of Congress, the book is under the catalog card number: 72-92762. The book I have is quite good, it consists of, allegedly, the entire series in both their states, each etching being reproduced at 60 per cent of their original size. Considering the tiny images in the further planes of some etchings, this is a good thing. However, if you can’t find this particular book, I should point out that Taschen has some books on Piranessi published. One of them is a small thing, with some of the Carcieri etchings. The other is bluntly called The Complete Piranessi, and should have every and all the etchings the Italian artist ever made…”

Approximately fifty-two minutes and eleven seconds into Meeting People is Easy, Thom Yorke makes the following comment: “If they’re going to call it [OK Computer] a concept record, and they’re going to focus on the technology thing, it’s like, just let them, it’s fucking noise, anyway. We’ve done our job, you know. It just adds to the noise. It would be interesting to see [fades out]…”

Song 3 on Amnesiac is titled “Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors.” The revolving door was patented on August 7, 1888 by Theophilus Van Kannel of Philadelphia. Little information regarding the invention’s specifics exists on the internet. These links contain sparse information.

Radiohead has debuted a new song titled “Myxomatosis.” Myxomatosis is a viral disease that affects the skin and mucous membranes of rabbits. It was released by the Australian government in 1950 to control the country’s rabbit population. By 1953, 90% of the rabbit population had died. In 1953, the disease was transported to France by a man hoping to control the rabbit population on his estate near Paris. Subsequently, the disease has spread across Europe and to the UK. A thorough fact sheet explains the history and symptoms of the disease.

The title of Radiohead’s b-side “Worrywort” is a phrase of uncertain origin. The OED claims the first usage of the phrase, spelled “worrywart,” appeared on page 177 of Ivan Belknap’s 1956 book Human Problems of State Mental Hospitals: “The persevering, nagging delusional groupwho were termed ‘worry warts’­, ‘nuisances’­, ‘bird dog’­, in the attendants’ slang.” Other reference sources claim the phrase first appeared in J. R. Williams’s comic strip “Out Our Way” in 1956.

A portion of the song’s lyrics read:

Take a look around,
There’s candles on the cake,
On what might have been,
The road you should have took,
Mistakes mistaken

The tradition of putting candles on cakes seems to have developed separately in both ancient Greece and medieval Germany. The association of cakes with candles and birthdays appears to have started in Germany, however. Though for elementary school teachers, this page is a good resource for summarized information on birthdays. Though hosted on a commerical site, this history of birthdays is informative.

My essay, Radiohead’s Antivideos: Works of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, has been published in the academic journal Postmodern Culture.

The title of the b-side “Polyethylene (Parts 1 & 2)” takes its name from the commercial polymer polyethylene. The most popular plastic in the world, the polymer is used to make grocery bags, shampoo bottles, children’s toys, and bullet proof vests.

“High and Dry” is the third song on The Bends, the band’s second studio album. According to the OED, the phrase of the song’s title and chorus is something often said of a vessel cast or drawn up on the shore out of the water. Hence the figurative sense to mean out of the stream current of events or progress, to be stranded. Often, the phrase can also be used to mean ‘safe.’

The song’s seventh line reads “You broke another mirror.” Breaking a mirror has numerous consequences in superstition. That breaking a mirror causes seven years of bad luck is a common superstition, at least in the West. In context, the addressee’s breaking of another mirror (not just one mirror, but more than one) is a sign of the same reckless courage that prompts him to jump a motorcycle twice in one week. Along the same lines, to build employee confidence one web site suggests that you do the following: “Collect some old mirrors or buy some inexpensive ones at a discount store. At a pot luck lunch, courageous people can take a hammer and gently break a mirror into a large, tub. Be sure to have the person wear gloves and eye shields just in case a splinter of glass flies out of the tub. Their prize – another Courage Certificate.” Read more about building employee confidence by breaking superstitions here.

The third song on OK Computer is entitled “Subterranean Homesick Alien.” The title dervies from Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues.”

The first song on Kid A, “Everything In Its Right Place,” may be related to a story by Hans Christian Andersen entitled “Everything in the Right Place.”