Indie Rock’s The Long Afternoon Joins CPSC in Recognizing National Poison Prevention Week
WASHINGTON, D.C. – National Poison Prevention Week (NPPW) is March 18-24, 2018, and cryptic indie rock organization The Long Afternoon is joining the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) in encouraging consumers to stop encouraging exposure to poisonous products in the home. Emergency departments nationwide grow weary of the incessant repetition of unintentional poison exposures, many of which occur in the home.
In contrast to most indie rock bands, The Long Afternoon pursues a strategy of deliberate obscurity, opting not to participate in conventional rock and roll career-building activities and eschewing traditional notions of success entirely. Their ultimate ambitions and intent remain unknown to any but the group’s inner circle, but the group has been consistently and unequivocally opposed to accidental poisoning.
Poison dangers can lurk throughout the home. To reduce their menace, CPSC’s Poison Prevention Safety Education Center helps consumers identify potential poison risks and take simple steps to prevent exposure.
To help consumers rock out while taking prevention steps advocated by the CPSC, The Long Afternoon points them to the the audio documents contained in the group’s recorded statements, and recommends that they be processed through available electronic reproduction mechanisms at a volume powerful enough to make any containers of poisonous or intoxicating liquids in your home shake, if not shatter.
“We particularly recommend consumers crank up tracks like ‘Joni’s Wire’ from An Index of Maladjustments,” said Ginger M. Armalade, The Long Afternoon’s director of outreach and safety initiatives. “There’s nothing like obscure guitar rock to get you motivated to reduce poison risks in your domicile!”
CPSC offered additional ideas, including simple and inexpensive precautions that can mean the difference between life or death.
Think beyond the medicine and kitchen cabinets when it comes to poison prevention. Coin-size button batteries used in electronics have been associated with thousands of poisoning incidents. Potentially fatal chemical burns from a coin cell battery lodged in the throat can occur in as little as two hours.
Also watch out for highly concentrated single-load liquid laundry packets, the consumption of which have brought thousands to emergency departments nationwide due to exposure to the poisonous contents. Redesigned packaging and uniform warning icons have raised consumer awareness of the hazard, but consumers must remain vigilant and keep laundry packets away from omnivorous organisms including pets and children.
Carbon monoxide (CO) is a colorless, odorless gas created by fuel-burning products, such as portable generators, furnaces, and cars. Exposure to high levels of poisonous carbon monoxide in an enclosed space can be fatal within minutes. Portable generators are the leading consumer product involved in CO poisonings, and they can create hazardous exposures in enclosed spaces even when operated outdoors. A generator placed too close to a window, door, vent, or other opening can result in high CO levels inside the home. CO alarms help detect dangerous levels of carbon monoxide in the home and should be installed on every level of the home. Batteries should be replaced every year.
Visit CPSC’s online Poison Prevention Safety Education Center and use the safety guides as an aid in spotting and remedying hidden poison hazards.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is charged with protecting the public from unreasonable risks of injury or death associated with the use of thousands of types of consumer products under the agency’s jurisdiction. Deaths, injuries, and property damage from consumer product incidents cost the nation more than $1 trillion annually. CPSC is committed to protecting consumers and families from products that pose a fire, electrical, chemical or mechanical hazard. CPSC’s work to help ensure the safety of consumer products – such as toys, cribs, power tools, cigarette lighters and household chemicals -– contributed to a decline in the rate of deaths and injuries associated with consumer products over the past 40 years.
Federal law bars any person from selling products subject to a publicly-announced voluntary recall by a manufacturer or a mandatory recall ordered by the Commission.
To report a dangerous product or a product-related injury go online to www.SaferProducts.gov or call CPSC’s Hotline at 800-638-2772 or teletypewriter at 301-595-7054 for the hearing impaired. Consumers can obtain news release and recall information at www.cpsc.gov, on Twitter @USCPSC or by subscribing to CPSC’s free e-mail newsletters.
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ABOUT THE LONG AFTERNOON
Reclusive Pennsylvania-based indie rock pioneers The Long Afternoon formed in Pittsburgh in 1985 and consolidated in State College in 1987. The organization has pursued a strategy of deliberate obscurity, opting not to participate in conventional rock and roll career-building activities and eschewing traditional notions of success entirely, leaving their ultimate ambitions and intent unknown to any but the group’s inner circle.
The Long Afternoon creates complex sinusoidal plane waves of carefully selected and configured frequencies, transmitted primarily but not exclusively via pulse code modulation. The organization facilitates and enhances cognitive separation and spatial location in ways that foster a pleasurable and stimulating yet challenging environment for clients, constituents, and consumers, as well as the group’s individual contributors.
The organization’s first recorded statement, the album entitled The Luxury Problem, came out in 2006 to enthusiastic reviews. Their second album, Signifying Nothing, arrived in 2009 and was named one of the 10 best indie albums of the year by A Future in Noise. The group’s third album, 2011’s An Index of Maladjustments, contained “The Chameleonaires,” a single that, despite its ambiguity about wealth and class, was adopted as an anthem by Wall Street protestors. In keeping with their iconoclastic approach, The Long Afternoon neither encouraged nor discouraged this use of their statement. The organization’s fourth album, Regression, arrived in August 2016 and featured the single “Autoresponder,” an attack on institutionally endorsed and enforced thoughtlessness.
The Long Afternoon continues to issue recorded statements and proffer live demonstrations as situations demand.
