Fugazi at the Wilson Center, Washington D.C. on December 29th, 1988.
Labels: American Hardcore, Music
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
The LA Times Neill Blomkamp Interview
"I like where we're going with technology and global integration but the fact that corporations and dollars rule everything in our lives, I don't like it. This isn't the Hollywood I wanted to be part of. This isn't the version of it that I saw when I was a kid..."District 9" and every other movie is treated like fast food. It's promoted relentlessly and then it's gone. Everything is a flamethrower-intensity and milked for everything it can give and then it's just chucked away. Everything is judged instantly, too. You look back at something like "Blade Runner" and wonder how a film like that, which doesn't do well at first, would be treated today."
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
"I like where we're going with technology and global integration but the fact that corporations and dollars rule everything in our lives, I don't like it. This isn't the Hollywood I wanted to be part of. This isn't the version of it that I saw when I was a kid..."District 9" and every other movie is treated like fast food. It's promoted relentlessly and then it's gone. Everything is a flamethrower-intensity and milked for everything it can give and then it's just chucked away. Everything is judged instantly, too. You look back at something like "Blade Runner" and wonder how a film like that, which doesn't do well at first, would be treated today."
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
Monday, January 04, 2010
Cover Versions by Littlepixel
Classic records lost in time and format, re-emerged as Pelican books. Brilliant!
Classic records lost in time and format, re-emerged as Pelican books. Brilliant!
Labels: Design, Literature, Music
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Drawings by Emma McNally
The influence of data system mapping is immediately apparent when first confronted with the drawings of Emma McNally. The complexity of lines could represent online chatter, the flight path of starlings, or a new global epidemic. But they are all pencil on paper and any system that is being plotted here exists purely within McNally's mind.
The influence of data system mapping is immediately apparent when first confronted with the drawings of Emma McNally. The complexity of lines could represent online chatter, the flight path of starlings, or a new global epidemic. But they are all pencil on paper and any system that is being plotted here exists purely within McNally's mind.
Labels: Art, Edge of Chaos, illustration, Minimalism
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Great Moments in American Hardcore #1
Sunday, November 01, 2009
Supercollider 140
"When Dan [Stowell] started tweeting snippets of SuperCollider code he expected a lot of "throwaway waffle" but collated also a bunch of really interesting things...Many of these pieces are actually generative, so if you re-run the source code (the track titles) you get a new piece of music."
—Susanna Glaser at The Mire
writing about the live coding music project Supercollider140, 22 pieces by artists from around the world, each piece created with just 140 characters of code.
"When Dan [Stowell] started tweeting snippets of SuperCollider code he expected a lot of "throwaway waffle" but collated also a bunch of really interesting things...Many of these pieces are actually generative, so if you re-run the source code (the track titles) you get a new piece of music."
—Susanna Glaser at The Mire
writing about the live coding music project Supercollider140, 22 pieces by artists from around the world, each piece created with just 140 characters of code.
Labels: Edge of Chaos, Music
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Chris Ware's Halloween Cover for New Yorker
This link is blazing across the internets like wild fire but thought it worth posting here: yet another timely and beautiful New Yorker cover by Chris Ware.
This link is blazing across the internets like wild fire but thought it worth posting here: yet another timely and beautiful New Yorker cover by Chris Ware.
Labels: graphic novels, illustration, Signs of Our Time
Monday, October 19, 2009
Speaking at Interesting Vancouver
The 2nd installment of Interesting Vancouver is taking place this Friday, October 23rd at The Vancouver Rowing Club. Those of us who attended last year were treated to one of the most refreshing and inspiring gatherings that you could hope to experience. This was ultimately due to the fact that the evening was not centered around any particular industry, nor was it trying to get us to upgrade anything, jump on bandwagons or subscribe to hidden agendas. As Brett McFarlane, the founder of IV, states, it is “a multi-disciplinary conference that seeks to impart new knowledge, things you’ve never known, or thought about. Open up parallel thinking ports. Activate parts of your brain that for even the brainiest person may have been neglected or unexplored.”
This year, I will be one of the speakers. I am currently putting together a presentation titled "Mindful Eating: The Biography of a Single Bite" that I have been touting as a somewhat rambling diatribe on travel, buddhism, eating local, slaughterhouses and Oreo cookies. Or something like that. Also on the bill are fellow Foodists Eagranie Yuh, aka The Well Tempered Chocolatier, who will be speaking about her passion for sweet things and Jer Thorpe who will no doubt be blowing minds with his data visualizations.
Check out the IV site over the course of the week as the list of speakers and eclectic range of topics is revealed. After the buzz of last year’s event I suspect that tickets will be going fast so get them while you can. And we’ll see you on the 23rd!
The 2nd installment of Interesting Vancouver is taking place this Friday, October 23rd at The Vancouver Rowing Club. Those of us who attended last year were treated to one of the most refreshing and inspiring gatherings that you could hope to experience. This was ultimately due to the fact that the evening was not centered around any particular industry, nor was it trying to get us to upgrade anything, jump on bandwagons or subscribe to hidden agendas. As Brett McFarlane, the founder of IV, states, it is “a multi-disciplinary conference that seeks to impart new knowledge, things you’ve never known, or thought about. Open up parallel thinking ports. Activate parts of your brain that for even the brainiest person may have been neglected or unexplored.”
This year, I will be one of the speakers. I am currently putting together a presentation titled "Mindful Eating: The Biography of a Single Bite" that I have been touting as a somewhat rambling diatribe on travel, buddhism, eating local, slaughterhouses and Oreo cookies. Or something like that. Also on the bill are fellow Foodists Eagranie Yuh, aka The Well Tempered Chocolatier, who will be speaking about her passion for sweet things and Jer Thorpe who will no doubt be blowing minds with his data visualizations.
Check out the IV site over the course of the week as the list of speakers and eclectic range of topics is revealed. After the buzz of last year’s event I suspect that tickets will be going fast so get them while you can. And we’ll see you on the 23rd!
Labels: Collaborators, Shameless Self Promotion
Monday, October 12, 2009
A Weird Random Thing
The calls start coming in on Thursday. Wrong numbers — or so it seems at first. All of them are from the United States. All of them looking for the same person: Tony Johnson. Upon answering the 3rd or 4th call, from Rhode Island, the voice on the other end is that of a frail and elderly woman and I ask her what specifically she is calling about. She reveals that she has received a letter in the mail from Citiwide Bank in Nevada with an enclosed cheque for $3853.00. In order to authorize the cheque, she was instructed to call the bank's claim manager Tony Johnson at the phone number provided.
"And that phone number once again is..." I ask, already knowing what she is going to say. She repeats back my own phone number.
"I'm sorry, but not only were you given the wrong number but I think that letter is a scam."
"I think you are right." She replies and we hang up.
And so it has continued. Around 6AM Pacific Time, my phone will start buzzing every 20 minutes or so for the rest of the day. 19 missed calls this morning from across the States: Arizona, California, Connecticut, New Jersey, Alabama, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, New York. I check my voicemail every few hours. It is always the same story repeated one after the other. I feel strangely voyeuristic, as though given a brief audio snapshot into the lives of people with whom I would otherwise never have crossed paths. I can only guess that I am connecting with America's most naive, perhaps her most desperate. Lots of older people; plenty of thick smalltown drawls; a man who asks for assistance "cuz I can't read so good"; another man who just keeps yelling "HELLO?" into my message box. I picture these people sitting in their homes, in their trailers perhaps, ubiquitous cliches of the American lower class inevitably flashing through my head as they cradle their phones against their shoulders, holding their cheques up in front of them like beacons of hope, convincing themselves that it is a sign from God, that in these desperate and trying times this is the break that they have been looking for.
At the same time, I picture "Tony Johnson", who to his credit must have put a fair amount of time and perhaps even a significant startup investment into this scam -- creating convincingly branded bank letterhead, envelopes and cheques; copywriting for all of the documents; acquisition of some form of database; and then the actual trans-American mail out -- I picture him sitting in his apartment, staring at his phone and wondering why the hell it hasn't started ringing. I wonder when he will discover the typo. I wonder if he has a boss.
Meanwhile, I am randomly caught in the middle of these two worlds. I call the police, mainly to assure that my connection to this mail fraud case is not going to result in swat teams smashing through my living room window. The officer assures me that she thinks I am safe. The phone company informs me that they are not able to block calls from the US. In fact, my only options are to block all calls or to get a new phone number, neither of which are all that appealing. So I decide to ride it out for a few more days in the hopes that the initial surge will die down. Afterall, how many dupes can there be in America?
The calls start coming in on Thursday. Wrong numbers — or so it seems at first. All of them are from the United States. All of them looking for the same person: Tony Johnson. Upon answering the 3rd or 4th call, from Rhode Island, the voice on the other end is that of a frail and elderly woman and I ask her what specifically she is calling about. She reveals that she has received a letter in the mail from Citiwide Bank in Nevada with an enclosed cheque for $3853.00. In order to authorize the cheque, she was instructed to call the bank's claim manager Tony Johnson at the phone number provided.
"And that phone number once again is..." I ask, already knowing what she is going to say. She repeats back my own phone number.
"I'm sorry, but not only were you given the wrong number but I think that letter is a scam."
"I think you are right." She replies and we hang up.
And so it has continued. Around 6AM Pacific Time, my phone will start buzzing every 20 minutes or so for the rest of the day. 19 missed calls this morning from across the States: Arizona, California, Connecticut, New Jersey, Alabama, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, New York. I check my voicemail every few hours. It is always the same story repeated one after the other. I feel strangely voyeuristic, as though given a brief audio snapshot into the lives of people with whom I would otherwise never have crossed paths. I can only guess that I am connecting with America's most naive, perhaps her most desperate. Lots of older people; plenty of thick smalltown drawls; a man who asks for assistance "cuz I can't read so good"; another man who just keeps yelling "HELLO?" into my message box. I picture these people sitting in their homes, in their trailers perhaps, ubiquitous cliches of the American lower class inevitably flashing through my head as they cradle their phones against their shoulders, holding their cheques up in front of them like beacons of hope, convincing themselves that it is a sign from God, that in these desperate and trying times this is the break that they have been looking for.
At the same time, I picture "Tony Johnson", who to his credit must have put a fair amount of time and perhaps even a significant startup investment into this scam -- creating convincingly branded bank letterhead, envelopes and cheques; copywriting for all of the documents; acquisition of some form of database; and then the actual trans-American mail out -- I picture him sitting in his apartment, staring at his phone and wondering why the hell it hasn't started ringing. I wonder when he will discover the typo. I wonder if he has a boss.
Meanwhile, I am randomly caught in the middle of these two worlds. I call the police, mainly to assure that my connection to this mail fraud case is not going to result in swat teams smashing through my living room window. The officer assures me that she thinks I am safe. The phone company informs me that they are not able to block calls from the US. In fact, my only options are to block all calls or to get a new phone number, neither of which are all that appealing. So I decide to ride it out for a few more days in the hopes that the initial surge will die down. Afterall, how many dupes can there be in America?
Labels: Signs of Our Time
Friday, October 02, 2009
a photography that is 'unfinished'
"I'm more interested in a photography that is 'unfinished' - a photography that is suggestive and can trigger a conversation or dialogue. There are pictures that are closed, finished, to which there is no way in."
—Paolo Pellegrin
"I'm more interested in a photography that is 'unfinished' - a photography that is suggestive and can trigger a conversation or dialogue. There are pictures that are closed, finished, to which there is no way in."
—Paolo Pellegrin
Labels: Photography
