Audio blogs

On the subject of audio blogs, here's two more that I'm enjoying (one courtesy of SF/J). Today, Moistworks is offering some mashups. The one mixing the Beatles and the All Saints is eeriely cool. Fluxblog's offering a Phil Specorish song and a funky little jam. The winner today would be Moistworks if you were to compare mp3s. Though Fluxblog's been quoted in the Times on an article about marketing through audiobloggers.

Fruits of Chaos

Fruits of Chaos is an mp3 blog devoted to (mostly) Asian pop music. At least as far as I can discern from my initial glance at it.

The 8th Tehran International Poster Biennial

"The 8th Tehran International Poster Biennial is the latest in a succession of seven national Biennials of Iranian Graphic Designers. It has been prepared for a long time, and very carefully, and has been preceeded by a number of exhibtions both in Tehran and in Europe." You can see some of the posters and the designers here. Oh to be in Tehran!

Creep (acoustic)

Cool animated music video set to Radiohead's "Creep". Very nicely done.

Mining links

I haven't checked #1/usr/bin/girl in a while, and she's put up some links to some cool games and animations. Check out the Scarecrow game, which looks like Tim Burton might have designed it; MoMa's site on Tall buildings, which is nicely designed though it bothers me that three or four of the buildings are WTC sketches which won't even be built; the speed reading test; and the cartoon Heroes.

Soul Sides

Oliver Wang (aka O-Dub) is running this great audio blog called Soul Sides. It started as a place to post record reviews, but it's since become a place where he posts mp3s and comments on those. One of the greatest discoveries in recent weeks is the Bizzie Boys. If I had the original 12"'s, I'd be wearing out the grooves. As it is, the three tracks O-Dub's posted are quickly climbing the charts according to my Itunes play count. It's too bad they only had those four singles. It's almost enough to convince me to become a record collector.

Like sand for water

A neat video showing that sand behaves like water.

Hot in Herrre

What happens when two video game combatants decide to lay down their arms and get funky? Well, you might get something like Dance, Voldo, Dance.

Middle East photographs

I've spent the last three days scanning negatives and designing and producing a site to exhibit some of the black and white photos I took while in the Middle East. A color site will have to come later (when I have the time to edit all the photos). You can find the site here.

Pentrx: Pen Spinning Revolution

I never got but the basic tricks down (and that took forever). Some of the moves shown on this site are beyond what meagre abilities I might ever hope to have. (courtesy #!/usr/bin/girl)

Terror, Terrorism, and the Human Condition

This is my 200th post on this blog. Just thought I'd note that. I'm still trying to figure out what to do with my day. Guillemette guilted me into working (she's been working on her book all weekend) and so I spent part of my afternoon doing this. About the book: In an attempt to explore the impact of terrorism at its most basic level--that of sowing fear and anxiety--this book investigates our now centuries-long attraction to, and dread of, terror and its progeny, including terrorism, or political terror, and mass murder. It is also a call to thought, and an appeal to reasoned action. Charles Webel argues that while a "war" on terrorism cannot succeed in eliminating terror from our human condition, this does not mean that it cannot, and should not, be confronted by means other than war.

Women's Police Stations

There are times that I wish I did read all the books that I design, especially those for the academic press for which I do work. This book "examines the changing and complex relationship between women and the state, and the construction of a gendered citizenship and justice, using the case study of women's police stations in Sao Paulo. These are police stations run by police women to deal with crimes against women, such as domestic violence, assault, and rape." Think of how much better informed if I could read all these books (and retain the facts—that's the other problem. Remembering what I read).

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.