Archive for 2009

« Older Entries | Newer Entries »

Nothing To Worry About

[ Comments Off ]Posted on February 23, 2009 by admin in Music

Monday, February 23rd, 2009

Uplifting video for the song “Nothing To Worry About” from Peter Bjorn & John’s upcoming release Living Thing

If you’re having a rough day, play the video at left, and I guarantee you’ll have Nothing To Worry About. You may have already seen the disturbingly uplifting video for the song from Peter Bjorn & John’s upcoming release Living Thing, but you may not have realized that the crazy Japanese rockabilly breakdancers featured in the video do this every Sunday in Yoyogi Park next to Harajuku Station in Tokyo. More on the history of the shenanigans of the Takenoko-zoku (bamboo shoot kids) can be found here, and if you haven’t listened to Peter Bjorn & John before, you might start with their 2006 release Writer’s Block, in which they prove that you can capture the Decemberists‘ fan-base without being a bunch of pretentious smartypants. Read the rest of this entry »

Everything’s Amazing & Nobody’s Happy

[ 3 Comments ]Posted on February 22, 2009 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture

Sunday, February 22nd, 2009

Louis CK on Conan O’Brien

I love this Louis CK bit on Conan O’Brien. I feel like he’s been following me with a hidden mike…

Thanks Donna Ryen!

U2 Still Hasn’t Found What I’m Looking For

[ Comments Off ]Posted on February 21, 2009 by admin in Music

Saturday, February 21st, 2009

I’m really not too fond of pop culture criticism; I think mom was right when she said “If you don’t have anything nice to say…”, so let me preface what I’m about to say with a little disclaimer: My inability to discern the differences between any two U2 albums is probably a result of my [...]

I’m really not too fond of pop culture criticism; I think mom was right when she said “If you don’t have anything nice to say...”, so let me preface what I’m about to say with a little disclaimer: My inability to discern the differences between any two U2 albums is probably a result of my own shortcomings. That being said, I haven’t been too thrilled with the band U2 since precisely the time that this became the case, or worse yet, since the moment I also became unable to tell if it was maybe a Coldplay song and not U2 at all. And I really lost my love for them when they sued Negativland, whose song is featured here in that audio-only YouTube clip (Warning: Lots of swearing by Casey Kasem). Well now, to give the added impression that they’re as out of touch with reality as a Beltway insider bailing out banks, they’re launching their latest release by making it free on MySpace until March 3rd. Shouldn’t they have maybe used Eons.com? Having taken a very quick listen, I’ll give them one thing; it sure as heck sounds like a U2 album. Keep up the good work lads. See you in Vegas in a few years. I mean that in the most positive possible way; Vegas is pretty cool, from what my grandma tells me.

KOMS.ru – Inspired Russian Flash Animation

[ 3 Comments ]Posted on February 20, 2009 by admin in Popular Media

Friday, February 20th, 2009

I’ve always been intrigued with the amazing possibilities for new media that Flash offers, and a little disappointed that most things you see created with Flash are annoying ads or clever games. We’ve mentioned the eerie creations of Han Hoogerbrugge before, but yesterday I ran across a fantastic collection of Flash work, some interactive, some [...]

ChevengurI’ve always been intrigued with the amazing possibilities for new media that Flash offers, and a little disappointed that most things you see created with Flash are annoying ads or clever games. We’ve mentioned the eerie creations of Han Hoogerbrugge before, but yesterday I ran across a fantastic collection of Flash work, some interactive, some not, at KOMS.ru. The screen grab at left (I couldn’t find an embeddable clip) is from the dark and macabre CHEVENGUR, an animated video based on the work of dystopian Russian writer Andrei Platonov , and featuring the music of one of my favorite composers, Arvo Pärt. There are many more clips at KOMS.ru, who describe themselves as a “non-commercial community of artists, which presents the new wave of russian flash-animation” adding ” This is not a sequel of flash junk-collections located all over the world, which don’t have any system or ideology. We want to introduce you intellectual flash-animations made of different styles: gothic, urban, vanguard, neo-psycho, etc.“. I love this kind of hip bad-assness in Russian pop culture. I haven’t seen anything this cool since the controversial Russian pop act n.A.T.o.

Discovering “Disfarmer: A Portrait of America”

[ Comments Off ]Posted on February 19, 2009 by admin in Popular Media

Thursday, February 19th, 2009

A fascinating and amusing story about an enigmatic photographer

I have an amusing story about how I became familiar with the documentary Disfarmer: A Portrait of America, which is the amazing story of how the work of depression era photographer Michael Disfarmer was discovered. One of his photos captured my eye on a Turkish link site, of all places, and I made a mental note to take a closer look later. Later that day, while looking at the artwork of an old friend (Hava Gurevich) I noticed that of all the odd coincidences, she was involved with the very same project. Although I’m not an active photographer at this point, I’ve loved photography all my life. I had a Kodak 620 camera when I was six; just ask me for samples of my work…that may have been the apex of my career! In any case, I’ve always just sort of laughed off the question of whether or not it’s “art”; just look at work by bigger names like Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Edward Weston, or Hiroshi Sugimoto, and it becomes a moot point. That’s why it was an incredible pleasure to stumble upon the work of Michael Disfarmer. I’ve always been fascinated with depression era and WWII photos of the sort you might find on the Library of Congress’ Farm Security Administration site or the FDR Library site, but Michael Disfarmer’s photos capture an incredible inner something in almost every single subject. They’re powerful, magical, and many other words that won’t begin to do the images justice. The clip featured here is a one-minute teaser for the film that is slated for release this fall; you can catch another trailer and a 20-minute preview on Vimeo.

« Older Entries | Newer Entries »