T-shirt designs

O.K. I'm suddenly obsessed with t-shirts and t-shirt designs. I had promised a friend of mine that I was going to design a t-shirt with her face on it for a friend of hers and here's a possible thought. Any opinions?

Back in the saddle

O.K. I'm trying to get back to work, though it's not so easy. First up, a book about the two Korea's. Here's the blurb: In post-Cold War thinking, North Korea was expected to collapse and be absorbed into a single Korean state by the democratic regime in South Korea. Fifteen years later, this has not happened, and June 2000 saw a summit marking the warmest inter-Korean relations yet. Over that time period, the two Korean states found instead new mechanisms and methods for interacting with each other on the level of de facto if not yet completely de jure sovereign states and have begun to overcome some of the shadows cast by the partition and violent war that befell the peninsula following World War II. This book examines the origins, dynamics, and impacts of these multi-level relations between North and South Korea, situating them variously as two incomplete nation-states, as a single national entity, and within a larger international environment. The contributors demonstrate how inter-Korean relations have fostered new forms of conflict management and reconciliation on the peninsula. They wanted something designy and authoritative.

Threadless

Threadless sells T-shirts designed by its community members. I wanted to buy the shirt to the left, but it's sold out in my size. :-( There are still a few that I'm thinking of at the moment. I'd love to design a shirt to submit, but I can't think of what might be appropriate . . . That and the fact that I can't draw. Maybe I'll try something with type if I can think of interesting words to use.

Tongue-tied

The London Times has translated the most untranslateable word in the world.

The word is ilunga, from the Bantu language of Tshiluba, and means a person ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time. It came top of a list drawn up with the help of 1,000 translators, narrowly beating hlimazl, Yiddish for a chronically unlucky person and radioukacz, Polish for a person who worked as a telegraphist for the resistance movements on the Soviet side of the Iron Curtain.

Read the rest of the article reproduced here.

Fly Guy

Here's a fun interactive plaything. Manuever the man through the clouds and discover what you can. From Time's 50 Coolest Websites.

Peach be mine

I spent the weekend attending wedding celebrations for Lin and Michael. For the Saturday brunch, Guillemette made peach marmelade, for which I supplied the above label.

Pitchfork top 100 albums of the 70s

Pitchfork has their list of the top 100 albums of the 70s. I'm a sucker for such lists. Even if I don't agree with them it's interesting to see them and there's always new discoveries on them. For one, I'm surprised to find that Van Halen was around in the 70s. I'm also surprised that two Fela Kuti albums made the list. The top album also surprises me, but maybe that's cause I've never really listened to it. I should see about trying it out.

To the 5 Boroughs

I just picked up the new Beastie Boys album. It's a solid stripped back affair, leaning on old skool hip hop while riding recent trends. The first song indicates the influence of the Neptunes, and other tunes demonstrate their take on Missy and Timbaland's recent homages to the golden age of hip hop. Their voices belie their age, however, their vocal chords sounding a bit ragged. Still, it's amaizng they've been in the game as long as they have, producing good music.

A Cook's Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisine

I just started this book, written by the guy who wrote Kitchen Confidential. After the success of that book, he convinced his publisher to send him around the world searching for the perfect meal. He starts in Portugal, where his Portuguese boss at Les Halles invites him to a family cookout where they slaughter and eat an entire pig, from snout to hoof. His travels take him to East Asia, Southeast Asia, Latin America, Europe, and points in between, where he eats what he can. Throughout he's being filmed by the Food Network, where the cameramen are eating and vomiting along with him. He's a funny writer and already I can feel that I'll be hooked into reading this book well into the night.

Morrissey

I find myself sucked into the new Morrisey album these days. It's a decent album, reminiscent of his earlier work. It seems that there are a number of 80s artists who are re-emerging with albums that recall their prime. Ki.Hu was over and as she listened to the album she said she used to love one of the songs that was playing. I told her it was the new album. She was surprised, but it's not surprising. It's easy to like the familiar, and the new album is almost instantly familiar.

Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China

On the subject of museum shows, it appears that there is a new one at the ICP (unfortunately I missed the show on photographs from Iraq since I didn't have the time before leaving for the Middle East myself). This show purports to be "the first comprehensive look at the innovative photo and video art produced since the mid-1990s in China." Unfortunately the ICP site never seems to have a good sampling of what it has on offer. It's a shame, especially for those who can't make it all the way to New York. The exhibit is jointly presented with the Asia Society, with two sections at ICP and two sections at the Asia Society. I wonder if you have to buy two tickets? Looks like it's going to be a busy museum week for me next weekend . . .

August Sandler and Andy Goldsworthy

There's reason to go to the Met museum these days. Ch.Mo informed me that she had been to see the August Sandler exhibit at the museum. The photographs are taken from his project People of the Twentieth Century in which he attempted to create a comprehensive visual record of the German populace. I'm definitely going to see the show either this week or next. As an added bonus, there's a piece by British sculptor Andy Goldsworthy adorning the roof gallery. When in Cupertino I went to Palo Alto to see the wall he had built in front of the Stanford art museum, which was reminiscent of his work at Storm King (though the construction methods were very different). And I'm still waiting for Rivers and Tides to be released on DVD so I can finally see more of his work.

M*A*S*H* and MASH

When I was in Cupertino, I was starting to get into M*A*S*H* again. I had liked the show well enough when I was younger, but I was really getting into it at my aunt's house. It's just so smartly written at it's best. I was just thinking about the show and did a google search, and found a site where you can play MASH online. Not the tv show, but the mansion, apartment, shack, house game from elementary school! Oddly, there seem to be more categories than I remember . . .

Summer reading

I'm reading Kitchen Confidential these days, by the chef of Les Halles. It's a quick fun read (a friend lent it to me last night and I'm half done with it already) that I recommend to people who have been in the food industry or are vaguely curious about it. At times it reads like Less Than Zero or a Jay MacInerny novel from the other side of the bar at Odeon, at others he's laying down how it is. It's not an expose on the industry, really, which is how I think some people have fashioned it. It's more a cook telling you his side of the story and giving a glimpse into the kitchen, from his humble beginnings at Cape Cod fish fry joints to the big leagues of New York. Fascinating.

New music

I've been stocking up on new music since getting back. I finally got around to getting the new Madvillain album, Madvillainy, which is a collaboration between MF Doom and Madlib. I had first heard Madlib on his Shades of Blue album, where he was given the keys to the Blue Note records store. I was a little disappointed with the record, probably because I was expecting remixes of the hard bop sides. I've been relistening to Shades of Blue after checking out the Madvillain, however, to see what I was missing. I've also been listening to Quasimoto's The Unseen to round out the roots and influences, Q being a Madlib sideproject and character. I've also been spinning the new Prince album in preparation for seeing him in a month. The album starts in a funky groove and then mixes it up from there. I really only like about half of it, but I do like that half. And it's more than I can say for some of his other recent albums. Soon he'll be per4ming his hits 4 the last time with me in the audience. I can't wait! I picked up Loretta Lynn's Van Lear Rose after reading some good reviews. Produced by Jack White of the White Stripes, it sounds just like what one might expect, with the 60 year old Lynn singing sometimes over a country-fied garage groove, sometimes over more traditionally country arrangements. Rounding out this bunch would be the Street's new album A Grand Don't Come For Free. A single story spun out over its running time, I'm really into the spare beats and his casual flow. It makes me want to go back and listen to his first album, which I couldn't get into when it came out. I must have not been ready for it yet.

Photography exhibits in Los Angeles

This past week I caught two exhibits in Los Angeles. Both were excellent and excellently presented. The Getty is now offering the Photographers of Genius, a historical retrospective of photography presented through the work of 38 photographers. The exhibit celebrates the 20+ years over which the museum has amassed its colection of over 600 photographs. Unfortunately, the Diane Arbus exhibit at the LACMA has recently closed. If it comes to a museum near you it's well worth seeking out.