To kick it off, I attended a runway show last night at Hotel Rivington (not the tents). I better not mention the label, as not to preemptively draw any Google traffic (i.e. before I have edited 9000 photos and posted something on SoJones about it, hehe). Although, feel free to read the floor tiles in the photo, if you are curious. Hahaha. Despite the snowpolacalypse, there was a very good turnout.
After I covered all of the red carpet and runway stuff, I took off the flash and threw on the 30mm with the aperture dialed open, to get some behind the scenes-type of shots. For whatever reason, these always end up being my favorite. I guess because I love watching the whole process as much as I love being a part of it.
Anyway, expect plenty more of this type of stuff between now and the end of next week. Woot!
“Stick Around for Joy” is one of the first cds that I ever owned. It was released in 1992, which was probably near the high point of popularity for the Sugarcubes, in the US. ‘92 was also the year that they broke up. It obviously didn’t slow Bjork down. In fact, in my opinion, she was getting rid of the dead weight. The music was good. But the male vocals were just a little too reminiscent of Fred Schneider of the B-52s (i.e. purely obnoxious). Nonetheless, in 1992, I had no notion of a solo Bjork, so I jammed to the Sugarcubes. I have always loved something about Bjork. I think that part of it, is that she is completely crazy. I also dig her little Icelandic accent. Plus, I think that it is cool that we are practically nieghb’s, now. That whole weird movie that she did a couple of years ago with her boyfriend was also mostly shot locally (in a big warehouse with green screens) Hahahaha. Anyway, here is a cool track from “Stick Around for Joy.” Try to ignore the Fred Schneider-guy and just pay attention Bjork’s cuteness. The track is called “Lucky Night.” Give it a spin.
People tend to get stir crazy, when they are sick and it is too cold spend any sort of quality time out doors. We do, anyway. Saturday, it was barely in the double digits outside, and it felt even colder because of the wind. Reagan had an appt on the UWS early in the afternoon. I decided to pick her up afterward, so that I could say I had been out of the house, hahaha. When we were trying to figure out what to do for the rest of the evening, I came up with this kind of corny idea about making some miniature ppl and photographing them. There were a few things that I have seen recently that gave me the idea. There was this thing that I saw on Boing Boing. There was also a thing that I saw on a blog kept by some of our acquaintances from Harlem. Finally, let’s not forget this Seth Green-esque weirdness.
So, we stopped by the Michael’s on the UWS and picked up some FIMO, then picked up some burritos at Ch#$%$, and headed home. Kelly, I would like you to know that per your fine fine suggestion, I have now added a burrito tag and category.
We made various little models, so that we could have a few options of scenarios, to shoot.
By the time that we finished building all of the little guys, and baking them in the oven, we were kind of running out of energy to get really fancy with the photos. But, we did have a lot of fun with the underwater scenario (shot in the fish tank). Reagan suspended a little scuba diver and mermaid from some of her hair. Yes, she tied one of her hairs around them (her idea [an awesome one]). Hahahaha. The baby convicts and the gold fish were the funniest part about it. They were so incredibly curious about what was going on, that they are in just about every shot. Look how curious the little convicts are in the shot below, when Reagan first dropped in the mermaid.
Ok, so here is the real ripoff. Our friend Zach always puts together these awesome time-lapse videos of stuff that they do. I have been super curious to try my hand at making one, for a while. I didn’t get very fancy, like he does, with the music and everything. But, if you want to see my first crack at a time-lapse video, click play below, to watch Reagan and I building little Fimo guys.
If you want to check out a few more photos of the Fimo ppl and some other randomness, click through here.
Since Piper has been back at Columbia, I have been back to the old car moving routine. I have not enjoyed it. I normally get up at 6, so that I can get it done before there is any real traffic. The sweet spot is between 6 and 7. After 7, there is a garbage truck and a school bus blocking every single street in our neighborhood.
This morning, Reagan woke me up, while she was stirring around. I had one of those sudden moments of panic, like I knew I shouldn’t still be asleep. I had forgotten to take my phone off of silent, and the type of alarm that I had set for moving the car, doesn’t make any noise, when my phone is on silent. It was already 7. I got down stairs just in time for the blizzard to start, and in time to get stuck behind every school bus and garbage truck in our neighborhood, at least once. Hahahaha. I’m ok with that though, because the snow was very pretty and entertaining to watch, while taking breaks from watching the dudes toss garbage into the truck.
At long last, I did find a parking spot in time to make it down to work w/o being late, where I took the above photos of the storm. I know they are kind of boring. I liked these ones much more.
To add a little bit of contrast to the gray photos above, I thought I would post the image below. It has made its way around the internet by now, but I thought it was cool enough to share again anyway.
The image comes from artist Steven Worley’s blog. In his post, he outlines the history of Crayola’s color spectrum, and how the palette has expanded over the years, saying:
Crayola’s crayon chronology tracks their standard box, from its humble eight color beginnings in 1903 to the present day’s 120-count lineup. According to Crayola, of the precious crayons of my childhood – the seventy-two colors from the official 1975 set – sixty-one survive.
One day when I was about 10 years old or so, I asked my older brother, who had a pretty extensive collection of music, if I could borrow a couple CDs. I was looking for something besides my usual suspects: symphonic rock, the Phantom of the Opera, and the Chipmunks.
One of the CDs he gave me was The Specials: Specials.
The Specials original line-up had actually broken up the year before I was born, and to this date have not played together in their entirety, although many of the original members have formed and re-formed many times in many combinations over the last 30 years to put out an occasional album or play on tour here and there. I remember a concert for the Special Beat being advertised by KJQ. According to the house rules, I wasn’t old enough to go.
That is pretty much where it all started. Since the first time, The Specials have always been music that I could get down to. In San Diego, some of the local radio stations play “A Message to You, Rudy” a couple times a day. It is my all time favorite “on the way home from a 10 hour day in the work truck and stuck in traffic because it took us too long to get the job done” song. Sometimes during my shifts at Starbucks, I get to listen to some of my old time favorites: “Monkey Man,” “Nelson Mandela,” “Ghost Town,” and even their version of “Pressure Drop,” as they have made it onto official “hear music” play list.
However, none of the aforementioned songs were ones that I would listen to on repeat in my room for hours at a time while reading or playing videos games or whatever. “Doesn’t Make It Alright” was.
It’s Sundance time in Park City. Being a bit of a street art aficionado, I was pretty excited to hear that Banksy was throwing up some pieces in SLC and PC, since the film “Exit through the Gift Shop,” is debuting at the film festival. I’m hoping that the art will still be there in late Feb., so that I can get some of my own shots of the work. The photo above was shot by my homey Dan Richards. He told me that this particular stencil is off of West Temple and 3rd S., in SLC.
In other news, Piper is doing about the same. She seems like she is doing better, but there is a hard balance between keeping her calm, and over-sedating her. Reagan and I plan to take a trip to Jersey tomorrow to pick up her wardrobe. Hopefully having some of her more stylish threads readily available, will motivate her to recover a little more quickly. Or, at least recover enough to not require the center line anymore, so that she can wear her normal clothes (not that her little clown print gowns aren’t cute).
For some reason, this has seemed like one of the longest weeks, ever. I’m really excited for this weekend, even though it will be a busy one. I’m probably even going to have to spend some time in the office. But for some reason, just by virtue of being the “weekend,” I can always find a degree of solace that I don’t have during the regular work days.
Make no mistake, these guys are weird. But, they are also pretty awesome. This week, we are swinging back to the NYC Electronica scene. Fischerspooner was formed by New Yorkers Warren Fischer and Casey Spooner. They got their start performing in the Starbucks at Astor Place. So, you know the’re good. Hahahahah. For real, though, you have to respect an outfit that can make it from performing at Starbucks, to where they are now.
Over the years, Fischerspooner has grown from just the duo, to become a full-on theatre/music troupe (sort of). By this, I mean that they have put together some pretty elaborate stage antics to accompany their live performances, including more than 10 people on stage, at a time. Their sound consists generally of some Matt and Kim-style keyboard, with a technofab beat underlying a barrage of various Depeche Mode-esque samples. The vocals are reminiscent of the performance that Kip gave at the end of “Napoleon Dynamite,” or what it would have sounded like, if he had a clone of himself singing a duet. Despite the fact that I just made them sound totally lame, I’m really a pretty big fan. I currently have two of their tracks on my latest and greatest workout playlist.
Fischerspooner has released a few studio albums. I think that my favorite Fischerspooner album, track for track, is their 2005 release “Odyssey.” The particular track that I’m sharing, is called “Get Confused.” This song is awesome for many many reasons. The reason that I personally love it, is because it embodies an inside joke that Reagan and I have had forever. I always tease her about being confused and about getting too excited. She does this fake pant-breathing when she pretends like she is getting excited and when she is pretending to be confused. When I first came across this song, I felt like they were totally ripping off our joke. Ok, so there is that, pluuuuussssss, toward the end of the track, there is a flute solo not unlike something that Ron Burgundy could have composed on the fly, to woo a lady like Veronica Corningstone.
Sorry that I am kind obsessed with bridges, at the moment, because of the book that I’m reading. If you are sick of hearing about them, feel free to change the channel. I’m taking a break from blabbing about the Brooklyn Bridge for a minute to share this outstanding time-lapse video of the Manhattan Bridge. The Manhattan Bridge is situated just north of the Brooklyn Bridge, on the East River (for those non-NY-ers who are curious and too lazy to dial up a Google Maps search). I shot the image above during this outing, from the Brooklyn side promenade of the Bk Bridge. Brooklyn even has a neighborhood that is named for the Manhattan Bridge. It is called DUMBO as an acronym for “Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass.” This video comes via a post that I saw in Animalnewyork.com, last July. The video below show the way that “the Manhattan Bridge sways up and down with each passing subway train.” Soooooo cool.
Ludacris! Yeah, man. It is about time that I threw some southern hip-hip into the mix. Whenever I hear southern rap, it reminds me of the good old days before Lil’ Jon came along and ruined it all-up with “Crunk.” I mean, we all thought that Crunk was going to be one of those timeless genres that our great-grandchildren could listen to, while they booty-pop at the school dance. Alas, it seems to have burned out as quickly as it originally came onto the scene. Rants aside southern hip-hop is hot.
Getting back to Luda: Reagan and I were actually having a discussion the other day, over sandwiches, about southern rap. It was about how when we hear albums like “Chicken-n-Beer” or Nelly’s “Country Grammar,” it just reminds us of simpler times. I also think that Luda was hilarious in “2 Fast 2 Furious.” Yes, I am admitting that I actually watched that movie (not that any females reading this didn’t watch it just to see Paul Walker and Tyrese looking hot and acting dumb). Ok, now for the real confession: I own that movie. Hahahaha. The image in this post is actually of Luda’s character from the movie.
I can’t say that I care for Lucacris’ entire body of work. For example “Move, get out the way” drove me absolutely insane. Some of his songs, on the other hand, fall among the ranks of my favorite hip-hop jams. It is one of those songs that I’m sharing today. “Get back,” is the name of the track. It is from the 2004 album “Red Light District.” It is the edited version. You definitely need a sub, or some headphones with at least 50mm drivers to do the low end justice, on this track. Click me to play.
I had to be in the office for a while on Saturday. When I arrived downtown, it was late afternoon, and it was like a ghost town. It was totally freezing outside. The only people that I really saw were occasional groups of tourists. The sun was totally lighting up the west side of the downtown post office. So I stopped to take this shot. Not the first time I have had fun with this piece. I walk past it almost every day, at least once. So, why not?
What is even better, is that after I got this shot, I was packing everything bag into my bag, when a group of tourists who were kind of off to the side watching me pulled in right behind me and started breaking out their cameras. Like run-on sentences much? This is why that’s funny (the incident, not the fact that it was expressed in a run-on sentence, it’s pretty obvious why that’s funny).
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