The Chicago Sun-Times, a Tumblr, and the Thoughts of A Wannabe Photog
Last week the Chicago Sun-Times laid off its entire photography staff. Now the Sun is in the process of “training” reporters to shoot with iPhones. Whether this is the future of journalism or just a sign of another great American paper in decline, no one knows for sure. Perhaps the best thing to come out [...]
Chanté, You Stay: Pride in the LBC
Sunday’s Pride parade demonstrated the fact that Long Beach is truly one of the most diverse cities in the world. All colors of the rainbow were beaming as they took to the streets. The Dikes on Bikes roared by, fists raised in the air. Gay veterans marched in step honoring the country they served, as [...]
Amanda Palmer: The Art of Asking
Amanda Palmer made some waves with her talk at TED 2013. The big controversy: she explained that the key to getting people to pay for something the can get for free is simple – all you have to do is ask them. The big idea of her presentation is that superstardom has been a relatively new way of life [...]
Flaming Lips – The Soft Bulletin Documentary
Pitchfork Classics talks to the Flaming Lips about their 1999 masterpiece, The Soft Bulletin.
Big Data And Why Spielberg Don’t Know Dick
A problem with philosophically charged reviews of sci-fi films is that they often treat technology as either an extension of an ancient question or secondary to the quandary at hand. Upon a recent viewing of Steven Spielberg’s dystopian thriller Minority Report, based on the Philip K. Dick short story, my online hunt for a review venturing beyond [...]
McNeill and Burroughs: Ah Pook Is Here
OBSERVED WHILE FALLING: Bill Burroughs, Ah Pook, and Me’ & THE LOST ART OF AH POOK IS HERE: Images From The Graphic Novel’ by Malcolm McNeill; Fantagraphics, November 2012. William S. Burroughs’ The Soft Machine, inaugural novel of what would become his “Nova Trilogy” (also including The Ticket That Exploded, and Nova Express) arrived on [...]
Zero Dark Thirty Waterboards the Facts
Since the dawn of American cinema historical events have been followed with jingoistic white propaganda films. Just to name a few: WWI had Charlie Chaplin’s The Bond. WWII had Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, Casablanca, and Chaplin’s The Great Dictator. Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 rightfully belongs on the list. Zero Dark Thirty is the latest such venture. Director Kathryn Bigalow [...]
Brilliant New Cover Art For Orwell’s 1984
The cover art for Penguin’s latest edition of George Orwell’s classic dystopian tale is fantastic! Designer David Pearson said that the design went through numerous iterations as to, “Establish just the right amount of print obliteration. Eventually we settled on printing and debossing, as per the Great Ideas series [Why I Write shown, above], with the [...]
Short Documentary: Shteyngart Blurbs
First a tumblr dedicated to author Gary Shtengart’s blurbs, and now this short documentary by Edward Champion and narrated by Jonathan Aimes, makes it official - Gary Shteyngart is a blurb whore. Shteyngart has gone so far as to blurb his blurbs on Twitter. In fact, he blurbed this documentary:
A Romney Administration Would Have No Democracy On PBS
Mitt Romney wants to end funding for PBS and NPR. Besides all of the educational programs which help close the gap in literary skills and elementary mathematics for low-income kids, countless specials such as The United States of Poetry, which aired this spoken word rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Democracy,” would risk never being made. This [...]
Edward Hopper and the Dissolution of Pulp
Edward Hopper painted American melancholia, scoping the silent exhaustion and unuttered shame of men and women so isolated and suicidal that one can only wonder at the desperation shadowing them. These mute Hitchcockian scenes (his 1925 painting House by the Railroad is worthy of Norman Bates – incidentally Robert Bloch, author of Psycho, got his [...]
Ralph Steadman’s 2012 Olympics
Ralph Steadman’s interpretation of the 2012 Olympics in London is featured in this week’s New Statesman, accompanying Will Self’s essay on a stroll through the protean city with his son.
Get Jiro! Anthony Bourdain at SDCC
Noted chef, author, and world traveler Anthony Bourdain has finally released his graphic novel “Get Jiro!” Vibrantly illustrated by Langdon Foss and José Villarrubia, “Get Jiro!” features a raging sushi chef in a near-future Los Angeles who casually slashes and decapitates militant vegans and soy sauce slathering sushi noobs. Besides his two hit shows “No [...]
Ridley Scott’s ‘Prometheus’: A Personal Boycott
Although I appreciate that I will not be missed, and I may live to regret this anticipatory despair, the following states the rationale for my personal boycott of Ridley Scott’s new Alien-derived film Prometheus. According to Scott, interviewed for The Hollywood Reporter: “NASA and the Vatican agree that [it is] almost mathematically impossible that we [...]
Kathy Acker’s 4H Club
Tattooed, mastectomized, pierced, body-built and crew cut, Kathy Acker rode her motorcycle along the wet seam of the posthuman, defying and pirating the traffic of literature in her leather jacket and sunglasses. Acker was a mythographer, rewriting the corpus of literature, rewriting the body, writing through the orgasmic body and writing on and into the [...]
Jeffrey Lewis – The Bold Type Interview
Bold Type caught up with illustrator and Rough Trade Record’s recording artist, Jeffrey Lewis, on tour promoting his sixth album, “A Turn in the Dream Songs.” We conversed throughout the night about the fledging record industry and the commonality between punk, folk, and illustration. We also discussed Alan Moore and Will Oldham, which, [...]
Bill Cunningham New York
(published, Dec. 15 2011, in the North Coast Journal) It’s good to know there are people like Bill Cunningham in the world. He’s happy. He’s kind and sincere. He has built a life doing what he loves and is acknowledged internationally for it. Richard Press’ charming and emotive documentary, Bill Cunningham New York, is a beautiful [...]
VIDEO: Diggin’…The art of Brian Woida
Humboldt County artist Brian Woida has done it all. He’s a DJ, painter, sculpture, record collector, rockin’ guitarist in bands such as The Ravens, and the best damn barista in town. His latest art show, Diggin’…Can You Collect Them All? sets out to show the interconnectedness of music, as well as all the mediums he frequents, through collage. Unlike [...]
Achtung Baby Cover Album Released to Benefit Concern Worldwide
A covers version of the U2′s 1991 album, Achtung Baby, famous for launching Bono’s sunglass buying addiction, has been released today (itunes). The album features artists such as Nine Inch Nails, Patti Smith, Depeche Mode, Jack White, The Killers and others who have been in hiding for much of the past decade. With the support of iTunes, the Independent [...]
Occupy Art
“I don’t paint things. I only paint the difference between things.” – Henri Matisse Every cultural movement leaves in its wake a sea of art. Over the past two months the Occupy Movement has not only brought the world some stunning photos, it has inspired quite an array of posters, prints, and paintings. Although many [...]
Shades of Green: Artist Lucas Thornton
Artist Lucas Thornton slid into his modest home studio and eagerly began rotating pieces gathered from all over his home onto his lyre easel. The walls, lined with everything from mid-sized acrylic paintings, sketches, etchings on aged ivory piano keys and art books – some over a hundred years old – seemed to kaleidoscope out [...]
Mobile Motion Pictures Featured at the 2011 Edinburgh Film Festival
The 65th Edinburgh Film Festival, in partnership with Nokia, featured film makers who shot their films entirely on phones. Eight pocket-sized productions shot on the Nokia N8 cell phone got a big screen premiere. The beautiful short film, Splitscreen: A Love Story, featuring a split screen narrative of Paris, London and New York, stunning cinematography [...]
ZEF is as Die Antwoord Does
Die Antwoord (Afrikaan for “the Answer”), South Africa’s rave-rap outfit, want “Zef” to be the first word that comes to mind at the mention of their country, not “apartheid.” What’s Zef, you say? According to singer Yo-Landi Zef is, “associated with people who soup their cars up and rock gold and shit. Zef is, you’re [...]
Meth Mouth: The Art of Jesse Wiedel
Jesse Wiedel paints Americana. That’s not to say his subjects are your run of the mill placated Protestants ornamented in shrouds of patriotic exceptionalism like the works of Norman Rockwell or Charles Wysocki. Nor are Wiedel’s creations Warholistic imitations screaming for attention like spoiled hipsters measuring their self-worth on the spectrum of irony. On his [...]
Form, Function & Friction: A Vinyl Man in a Digital World
Arguing about music is, more often than not, like arguing about religion, there’s bound to be hurt feelings and raised voices but rarely is an agreement reached. So when the discussion arises about what’s a better for music, analog or digital, aren’t we just rehashing Tastes Great vs Less Filling? Be you record collector, DJ, [...]
