Sleep(walk)ingbag

As the days get progressively colder, I want one of these more and more.

Stooping for dollars

Photo by Earl Wilson

Today's NYTimes featured a front page story on stoopers, people who hang out in front of Off-Track Betting parlours and pick up discarded betting slips. One has made half a million dollars during his 10 year career. They're the gleaners of the betting world.

Fresh folk of bel air

Neil Young covers Will Smith. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Sometimes I run to you

I'm back from Asia (though I didn't see anything like this in China or Uzbekistan) and will be posting again semi-regularly. Sorry for leaving everyone in the lurch. Here's another type of lurching. In slow-motion.

Peter Pan, in pink

Molly Ringwald pens a remembrance of John Hughes in today's Times. I was unaware of his relationship to Hollywood and the arc of his career. On the other hand, I am still aware of how much his films meant to me during the time I was living in Boston. I clung to his films (and, perhaps, a stage of my youth) like security blankets. Ringwald's words bring another level of intimacy to the work and to the man. John Hughes, RIP.

Tryin’ to keep it real

Peter Lindbergh has a portfolio of eight supermodels in September's Bazaar shot with minimal makeup and retouching. Larger scans can be found at Models.com

Katie Couric rocks

They've been doing this for a while, but I just caught up. Check out Katie at 1:45, right after the Biggie reference. "You can be Lady Gaga I can be T-Pain we can be bringing on the boogie droppin' rhymes like rain."

if IKEA were a vintage bookstore

The covers would look something like this.

At the drive-in

Time magazine has a gallery of photographs taken at drive-ins from the past 75 years. I first saw Star Wars at a drive-in. It was a double-feature with a film featuring stop motion dinosaurs.

Patterns with light

Peter Buning "illuminates the environment with shadow pantomimes."

It’s sort of the low bar of life goals—just don’t get dead.

True stories

As a coworker has it, "This is frigg'n hilarious. It's funny because it's true." And sad for the same reason: Business guys on business trips. (tx karen)

1 bedroom apartment for rent

Cardon Webb finds flyers posted around the city and redesigns them for effect. The one above is so clever. Unfortunately the flash interface leaves a bit to be desired . . .

TRON!

An intriguing trailer. Coming 2010 in Disney digital 3D!

Animator

Pages and pages of sweet gif animations.

And that᾿s the way it was

My father watches the evening news every night. At the appointed hour, he turns the television on, whether before, during, or after dinner. Broadcast images flash on the screen; voices crowd the living room. But no voice filled the living room like Walter Cronkite's. To me, he was the news. This morning, I read about his passing.

It᾿s so white; it᾿s so clean

I'm not giving up my M6 anytime soon, but this limited edition white M8 is something to behold.

Where᾿s the fish?

Eric Ripert shares some photos and thoughts on what goes on behind the scenes at Le Bernardin. One of the more fascinating tidbits is the use of black lights to find the shells lingering in crab meat.

Type tart cards

Wallpaper asked a few designers, "If your typeface were a prostitute, what would its business card look like?" Here are some of the results.

Pop! Pop!

Richard Heeks has taken some interesting photos of bursting soap bubbles.

A nail's life

Photographer Vlad Artazov shares his view into the secret life of nails.

Carboard masks

Junior Jacquet makes these masks from the carboard tubes left over after the TP runs out. There's something Disney-esque about them . . .

Back to the feature

Wale's got a new mixtape, which has been in heavy rotation on my ipod this past week (along with Kid Cudi's A kid named Cudi). Right now, I'm listening to some "vintage" Britney Spears, tho...

Sketchy characters

For a while I was obsessed with The Wire. I was sad to see it end, even if I found the final season a bit of a letdown (though not entirely). Since then I haven't had much opportunity to relive it, which is why I was excited to find these illustrations by c. blake hicks.

Film in the blanks

Film the blanks takes modern movie posters and reduces them to their basic elements. A bit of competition brews as people try to identify the films. Some are easier than others.

Bollywood posters in Bangalore

Matt Lee takes photos of the film posters around Bangalore. A friend of mine and I were just talking about how he'd love to get one of the hand-painted Bollywood posters from the 70s to frame and hang in his apartment.

Rivers flow like blood

Last week the NYTimes Lens blog posted some photos taken by NASA astronauts from space. Included in the slideshow is the above, a 1984 shot of the red sediment from teh Betsiboka River in Madagascar.

Baby you invade my car

THC hasn't quite fully announced this Space Invaders Mini Cooper, but I couldn't wait to link to it (scroll down to see a Pac-Man Mini as well).

Wayne Liu, photographer

ICP colleague Wayne Liu has a new website, including some impressionistic black and white photography from China.

Agaetis Byrjun at 10

It was 10 years ago that Sigur Ros released their breakthrough album. In celebration of Agaetis Byrjun, they've released this live performance from the original launch party, when no one outside of Reykjavik knew who they were.

Skies after Thai

This evening after dinner the clouds over Queens took on shapes I had only seen in pictures.

Michael Jackson

I can't tell you how many times I've watched this from the time it first aired until now.

Coke is it!

What with the recent retro packaging revivals (hello, General Mills), here's some photos of actual vintage Coke cans.

Land of the lost (color) regained

Will has posted a few sets of photochromosomes (set one, set two) culled from the LOC photochrome archive and the NY Public Library's postcard archive. They're lovely and surreal, at times feeling like collage, at others like some new stereoscopic process.

Swimming away

Disney is set to release the new Hayao Miyazaki film Ponyo (dubbed, rather unfortunately. I ended up not watching the trailer; partially so that I may see the film knowing nothing, partially because I can't stand the dubbing). Miyazaki's Spirited Away is one of my favorite films of all time.

A screaming comes across the sky . . .

I recently finished reading Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow . I've been wanting to read it for some time now; I finally bought the paperback partially because of the Frank Miller cover. I read it without the help of a companion volume; I'm reading the companion volume soon to figure out what happened.

Zak Smith was so moved by the book that he made an illustration for every page of the book. Smith's book can be found here.

William Eggleston's Democratic Camera

My brother just sent me a link to this NPR story about William Eggleston on the eve of his retrospective exhibit at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. The show had previously been exhibited at the Whitney in NYC.

Fly me to the moon

Nothing brings back the past like a vintage video game. And it's been a while since I posted a game, so here's Lunar Lander!

Art of Up

Color script by Lou Romano

Illustrator Lou Romano has posted some of the development and production work he did on Up, spanning the years 2005-2008: The art of Up. He did the work to help inspire the look of the film, a job he also did for The Incredibles. The photos of the actual tepui in Venezuela as inspiration are illuminating, as are the initial lighting animation studies.

Circle and square

Initial sketches of Kevin, Disney/Pixar

The NYTimes has a short feature on the character design for the Disney/Pixar film Up. Director Pete Doctor and production designer Ricky Nierva speak. A related article can be found here: Well-rounded boy, meet old square.

New work by Sebastião Salgado

The NYTimes has an article and accompanying slide show about Salgado's most recent work, Nature, Nurtured.

Adventure is out there!

Eric Tan does it again with a beautiful series of posters for the Disney/Pixar film Up. I just saw the film and it's amazing. it's rare that a film is so transporting. I forgot about the 3D effects, the animation, and everything save for the characters and the story. The humor is so immediate it's amazing to think of how much time it took to create every gag and grimace. It's a really wonderful piece of filmmaking.

I'm also amazed that Pixar can keep getting better and better. The bar they've set is already stratosphereic. Tan's posters (and some of his comments on working with Disney/Pixar) can be found here, here, and here.

I came, I saw, I got the luggage label

I can't say I've stayed at any of these hotels (though I've sat on the patio of the Raffles Hotel Singapore). If they still gave out luggage labels like these however, I might have had to inquire at the front desk. The only labels my beat-up backpack rain cover can boast are some customs stickers from Lebanon or Syria that have managed to fuse themselves to the plastic.

When I want to get away, I drive off in my car

Painting by Ed Ruscha

I had hoped to get away for my birthday. I had thought of driving to the Catskills or the Finger Lakes region to do some fresh-water canoeing, but the weather forecast calls for rain. Turns out the Finger Lakes region is among National Geographic Traveler's "most beautiful, interesting, and off-beat road trips".

Neville Brody's New Deal

Neville Brody and Research Studios have recently created a new typeface for Public Enemies, a Michael Mann film to be released later this year. The typeface uses Works Progress Administration posters as inspiration, and will be featured in the titles as well as in posters advertising the film. Some more examples (and some inspiration) can be found at Creative Review.

New forms from a desert capital to an island one

Left: Jean Nouvel; right: Zaha Hadid, photograph by Virgile Simone Bertrand.

Construction has apparently begun on Jean Nouvel's Louvre Abu Dhabi. The LATimes has a short story with some renderings. I'm particularly taken with the dome, which at once reminds me of Independence Day and the star-shaped openings in the domes of traditional bath houses I've visited in the Middle East. I can't wait to see how the light will describe patterns on the floor.

In other architecture news, Zaha Hadid has opened the Neil Barrett flagship store in Tokyo. I was introduced to her work through a friend who encouraged me to see the survey of her work at the Guggenheim a few years back. I became a fan immediately. Yatzer has more photos of the store along with some text by Zaha Hadid Architects.

This is not a bag

Magdalena Czarnecki's empty bags are printed with instructions on how to turn them into the origami versions of what they proclaim. It's the opposite of dada (or is it?). Proceeds from the sale of the bags are directed to the WWF to help save the endangered animal and its dying population. See more photos of the project at Lovely Package.

Wallace Shawn at the Royal Court Theater

Photograph by Susana Raab

The New Yorker has an article by John Lahr about Wallace Shawn's new play Grasses of a Thousand Colors, now playing under the direction of Andre Gregory at London's Royal Court Theater. I hope it comes to New York.

Many years ago I was fortunate enough to see Shawn in his play The Designated Mourner, also directed by Andre Gregory. It was produced in an abandoned men's club near the South Street Seaport. The audience was limited to 30 each night, and each act was staged in a separate room of the building; the first in a dining room, the second in a raquetball court. It was one of the most amazing nights of theater I have had the priviledge to attend.

Some might remember Shawn from his recurring role on Gossip Girl, on the occasion of which the NYTimes published this article by Dave Itzkoff.

Setting the stage

Detail, Construction for a Tragedy, Alexandra Exter

The Morgan Library and Museum has recently opened Creating the Modern Stage: Designs for theater and opera, an exhibit that "examines the origins of modern scenic design and chronicles the evolution of stage sets during the highly innovative period of ca. 1900 to 1970." I had hoped to highlight the work of Nikolai Pavolvich Akimov (especially his pen and ink satirical constructivist setting for Now for Hamlet) but I couldn't find a version of it online.

In other news, Anthony Tommasini writes in the NYTimes about various settings of Wagner's Ring cycle in advance of the Metropolitan Opera's new productions, which will be introduced with Das Rheingold in 2010. I was fortunate enought to catch the last cycle of Otto Schenk's production earlier this month. Unfortunately, I attended Die Walkure the night Domingo couldn't continue, though his replacement was in fine form.

Robobama

Detail, "Change—Into a truck" by Tim Doyle

The NYTimes has an article about the new animatronic Barack Obama Disney is preparing for the reopening of its Hall of Presidents exhibit.

From the article: "The public is to get its first glimpse of “Robobama,” as it is known among some handlers, on July 4. The unveiling will be in a Disney World theater, alongside animatronic figures of every other president. As in the past, the program will end with each president nodding or turning toward the audience during a roll call, as if Mount Rushmore had suddenly come alive."

This ain’t the Mr. Goodbody you’re used to

Wesuits by Diddo

Why must wetsuits look all the same? Diddo has taken up the challenge and produced four original wetsuit designs: "a rusted iron diving suit evoking the days of Jules Verne, the anatomic musculature suit as a homage to our inner strength, a wet suit which gives the illusion that the wearer has been attacked by a group of hungry sharks and finally a whale shark patterned suit that celebrates the brilliance and originality of our natural water world." Check them out on his site.

Music from the masses

Terry Riley, In C

I recently came across Darren Solomon's project In Bb 2.0, a collaboratie music project that consists of a "wall" of YouTube videos of people playing musical phrases in Bb. Users can start or stop any video at any time to create their own mix of music.

I was immediately reminded of Terry Riley's in C, often cited as the first minimalist composition (above). Whereas Solomon's project invites musicians to contribute amorphous and timeless musical phrases in the key of Bb (and lets the user determine how the piece will be played), Riley instructs his musicians to play his piece in the order written, but allows them the choice to repeat phrases as often as they wish or skip phrases entirely to create a unique performance each time the piece is performed.

On the other side of the spectrum, Kutiman takes found musical videos and remixes them to create new pieces of music. He's documented his compositions at ThruYou.

He can dance if he wants to

Photograph by Andrea Mohin/The New York Times

The Sunday Times ran an article about Mikhail Baryshnikov pegged to his current European tour. I saw him years ago with the White Oak dance company. He was in his 50's then, and I was amazed at how strong and quick his movements still were. I hope the current tour comes to New York (and I hope I'm in New York to catch it).

Speaking of dance, I saw Mark Morris' Romeo and Juliet this past weekend, choreographed to Prokofiev's resurrected original score. It was disappointing. In 2007 I saw his Mozart dances, which comprised some of the best dance I have seen. That night I bought tickets for another performance so I could see it again. Morris returns to Lincoln Center in August with a few New York premieres and one of his previous works. I just bought tickets. I can't wait.

All the news that fits in frame

The NYTimes launched their new photojournalism over the weekend, Lens: Photography, video and visual journalism. From the first post: "Lens will be a showcase for the work of Times photographers, but it will also highlight the best images from other newspapers, magazines, news organizations and picture agencies, and from around the Web. It will point readers in the direction of important books, galleries and museum exhibitions. And it will draw on The Times’s own pictorial archive, numbering in the millions of images and going back to the early 20th century."