why America is graphically fucked

A friend of mine sent this to me. It features designer Aaron Draplin, the founder of Draplin Design. The video is salient for alot of reasons, but as I watched it, I felt like I was watching Levi Ratliff's spiritual older brother: a designer with a strong point-of-view and aesthetic, combined with a great storyteller who isn't afraid to get his hands dirty.

Plus, he's saying things that matter...or should.

string, kitten whiskers, raindrops

A couple of years ago, I wrote a small piece for the Times Union on hip hop in Jacksonville. In it, I covered three “acts,” the smallest and possibly the most atypical of the hip hop genre was Astronautalis, nee Andy Bothwell.

I wanted to write the article not just because I love hip hop, but because at the time, I was regularly checking out Hip Hop Hell (thanks Ian) and I was blown away by a few of the local and national acts that got booked (Louis Logic). It was there, one tipsy summer night, that I saw this skinny white kid in a blazer and tight jeans get up on stage and craft a pretty flawless freestyle of topics suggested by the crowd.

It was then that I knew the kid--and hopefully by extension the scene--had something viable and unquantifable. Since then, I learned that Astronautalis’s feat is not without precedent, but still, his music, his ability to transform and transcend the specifics of his chosen genre, are dazzling slight-of-hand tricks.

So, it’s with all that gushy loviness that I am super-stoked to say that he’s about to drop another album, Pomegranate, and for those that are curious as to the new sound, here’s his myspace link.

“Then there was me,
I was born a charming man with silver tongue and pearl teeth, this was never how it was supposed to end, we were promised all we dreamed. The envy of the everyman our family seemed complete, our father was a charming man, our mother a Siren. But, now I'm on the run again, this hotel's home to me, after they found the eldest's skeleton floating face down in the stream. The youngest was still tucked away in bed, they thought he was a sleep, till they moved the mirror from his mouth, and the fog that should remain was not to be seen.”

His fate is ours, sped up.

I have not been able to stop thinking about Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch’s “Last Lecture.” So I have posted it here.

For those that don’t know, Pausch was a computer science proffessor, arguably one of the most popular on campus, and so, as a part of a larger academic tradition, he was asked to deliver what would be a hypothetical last lecture.

Then he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Though Pausch died on July 25, of this year, his legacy lives on in the form of the youtube video of his lecture.

I will warn you, it is long. I listened to it as I was working on some other material. And, it is not profound, it is practical.

And I can’t stop thinking about it.

Whats up nerdzzzzzzz?

To the Art Institute:
95 to Baymeadows.
West on Baymeadows.
Right at 2nd light (Baymeadows Way)
Right at 1st light (Baypine Road)
Follow that around to the parking garage, gallery is right there.

Expect a review to follow.

everyone has a "rep" worth protecting

the perilousness of beauty

Costa Rican artist Tatiana Echeverri Fernandez's work: Frauleins Christina, Panthea, Zenobia, Semiramis and Guinevere took an unfortunate hit as a visitor to London's Royal Academy bumped into one of the nine-foot high totems causing it to topple and smash.

The exhibit, curated by Tracey Emin (pictured with the pieces), is a annual summer show, which some have accused Emin of "sexing up."

In regards to the shattered work, conservators are trying to figure out a solution. Though similar accidents of historic works might lessen a piece's value, I'm guessing that this will only add to the work's cache.

Indeed

Sometimes on sunny days when I see the road peel away from me, it is everything I can do, not to keep driving. I don't suspect I'm alone.

*image courtesy Postsecret

Perspectives

Let me begin by saying that I will vote for Obama. It’s pretty simple really. But most of you probably knew that. However, as much as I support him for president, I think it’s important to keep in perspective that he is a politician, and therefore an open target.

The recent cover of Obama and Michele on the cover of The New Yorker doesn’t vilify their character or persons, as much as it pokes fun at those paranoid psychos that actually espouse views that Obama is “un-American,” –whatever that means, and that he’s a flag-burning extremist (Muslim or otherwise) with nefarious plans for office.

However, I find it equally galling that because so many people see in Obama a hope for a better tomorrow, that he is somehow exempt from political cartooning.

Was the picture offensive or in poor taste? Perhaps. But really isn’t that the role of the artist—to upend thoughts and challenge the statue quo—and in doing so, the cartoonist especially is participating in a time-honored, deeply American tradition, the lampooning of leaders lest these same leaders forget that they too (for all their power) are ultimately only citizens.

tryptophan junky

Those of you that know me might know that I was once a vegetarian. For ten years I ate a diet heavy in fruits, veggies, soy-product (in fact, I still like to eat marinated soy “steaks” raw out of the packaging...to the disgust of many friends), and candy.

Then, bacon returned to my life...and with it a slow at first, then exponential increase in carnivorous desire. Finally, late one night, I found myself standing in my parents’ kitchen--pulse racing, tangibly afraid of being discovered--digging leftover hunks of turkey out of the Thanksgiving carcass. A tryptophan junky.

It was then that I re-embraced the morally-dubious, yet inevitable deliciousness of flesh. Though I still eat it sparingly, and rarely (if ever) down a steak...given a chance and a slab of maple bacon, I’ll hork it down quite happily--especially if it is accompanied by bicuits cooked in that same bacon’s fat.

Enjoy the above diagram, thoughtfully provided to me by my friend Juniper...herself a world-class porkficionnado (not to mention fantastic actor and wonderful chef).