Art You Can Do at Home

So, apparently, Fussy already blogged about this.

I don't care.

This is an art-project where the artist very carefully creates a rift in the space-time continuum.

Baby photos are carefully matched with photos from present-day, and the results are these creepy, engaging pictures.

I'm going to do this when I get home. I often think that my face has changed drastically since I was a kid. I was a cute kid. I'm not so cute now.

Check it out.

Chain-chain-chain....

I'm a pretty passive music listener. Music is one of the few areas where I just can't claim to be an early-adopter. Don't get me wrong, I love me some tunes, but I guess that I've just been surrounded my entire life by people who were feverishly passionate about their music and I've always been happy to be an attentive audience.

One of the few times in recent history where I've gotten pretty effing psyched about music was when I discovered the late-great Napster*. Napster opened up a world of potential to me. Every song you could ever want was right there at your finger-tips, and I discovered that I wanted a lot of cool music.

As it would turn out, most of what I really wanted were covers of songs. They could be snarky (Weezer covering Gin N Juice), they could be obvious (Marilyn Manson covering Sweet Dreams), they could be absurd (Techno cover of the Peanuts theme/Mario Bros.), or they could just plain be bad ass (The Sugarcubes - early Bjork - covering Leaving on a Jet Plane).

Well, Leave it to Agent Em to take it one step further.

She started making chains. Smashing Pumpkings covering Prince covering David Bowie covering the Pixies.....etc. She'd come up with a whole CD where each artist was covering a song from the previous performer.

Some clever soul has taken the time to put the whole damn thing online

Cover Project has taken on the daunting task of documenting every single cover out there.

I say, more power to them.

*(Then Napster got sued and sold-out and is now a corporate suckfest, but we won't get into that because there are better services out there.)

Smells like Crazy to me.

Uh, yeah. I can't think of anything to say to prep you for this one:

*ahem*




note: The photo has nothing to do with the link. I just think that everyone needs to see that photo. It's the cover for a Japanese album called "Meow, Meow, Meow" by a band called At 17. They do a cover of "I Can't Get You Out of My Head".

Anyway, the link... well, it's like this...don't blame ME, I didn't make it. ok?

How's Your Freedom Taste Now?

For the most part, I'm going to keep away from politics, because politics tend to not make me happy.

But this just tickled my fancy (My fancy WHAT, you ask? Well, I'm just leaving it at my Fancy.)

These Guys have responded in-kind to the recent Supreme Court decision allowing Governments to seize property for private ventures, even if said property has a happy family (or even a not happy one) currently living on it and said private venture is a strip mall with a Quiznos and a "massage" parlour or a Walmart or whatever.

The proposal is for a hotel to be built on the property where one of the deciding Supreme Court Judge's homes now stands. He can't really complain either, since he approved the law.

Zing!

Sour Grapes? Immature Abuse of The Law? That's what you get.

Why I will one day speak Japanese

Ok, I can't even post the picture of this. I mean, I could, but I can't.

Suffice it to say, that I love Japan.

This article is from The Japan Times. Now, understand, The Japan Times is NOT a Japanese version of The Onion. It's real news.

And, yes, I know that the photo looks totally fake. But it's still real news.

This is why I want to go to Japan.

One day...one day.

*Yawn*

I don't know who Emilie is, but she's devised a simple and yet maddening game.

It's called Emilie's Don't Yawn Game.

All you have to do is sit there and watch the pictures scroll by...and don't yawn.

Burn Hollywood, Burn

(Props to Chuck D and Public Enemy)

So, maybe you're aware, but the entire world is waiting to see the re-imagining of Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

The original movie is something of a classic. It bombed in the box office - but that makes its enduring appeal all the more magical. Gene Wilder created a manic, frenetic genius in his portrayal of Willy Wonka, and Veruca Salt's pissy rich-girl attitude thrives today in the alternative music scene.

There are few perfect movies. I know this. But Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is one of them. There's something sad about the fact that a creative whirlwind like Tim Burton couldn't just leave it alone and do his own thing. And Johnny Depp, as much as I think he's right up there with Gary Oldman, has let me down by his presumtion.

But this blog isn't about things that piss me off (that blog would be a lot more time-consuming). Instead, it's about things that make me happy...so with that in mind, I invite you all to visit this FAN PAGE.

This guy has organized not one - but TWO Willy Wonka Reunions, and managed to pull together the ENTIRE cast.

It takes a certain kind of crazy to feel this kind of devotion for a movie. I love this kind of crazy.

If they host another reunion, I want to go.

"If you want to view paradise, simply look around, and view it - any time you want to, do it. Want to change the world? There's nothing to it."

That's my kind of therapy.

If I had a Million Dollars - This Would Be My TV.

HDTV? bah

Plasma? pfft

60" 3 CCD projection? meh

If *I* had an unlimited amount of money, I'd buy one of these.

I say any screen that uses a laminar turbulence-free micro-flow, ultra-sonic waves, and allows you to actually walk through the projection without disturbing the image is my kind of toy. Just think, you could set this thing up as an incredibly expensive form of beaded curtain, or use them to project virtual walls...the possibilities are endless.



Actually, I don't even need a million dollars. I need $116,000. I emailed the sales people in Finland.

Yeah, Finland.

Kurt Halsey Update

So, I wrote to Kurt Halsey after I posted my initial blog to see if it would be ok for me to post a few photos of his art work on my blog. He was very kind and replied that, yes, that would be fine. So, every now and then, I'm going to post a picture of a Kurt Halsey painting...because they make me happy.

This first post, however, isn't quite the same. Yesterday, I went to the Long Beach Tattoo Convention. It's hosted on the Queen Mary, a retired Cruise Liner with a long and celebrated history (it's haunted!). The show was AWESOME. If you've never been to a tattoo or body art show...I highly recommend it. You get a chance to see some really really beautiful work and you also get to see some very committed people (for instance, the legendary 3-Stooges guy who only has Stooges tattoos. he has "knyuck knyuck" on his EYE LIDS, "Larry, Moe and Curly" on his lips AND TONGUE, and a portrait of Curly that covers his entire back...)

Well, I just happened to see THIS:



She and her boyfriend were patient enough to share my excitement and allow a photos. She then went on to tell me that she'd sent photos of her tattoo to Kurt, who had then asked if he could draw HER.

HOW COOL IS THAT?

I say it's extra cool.

Art/vertisement

Seee, THIS is what the internet should be all about.

This is basically an ad for super strength glue. But it's also an incredibly cool/addictive techy trick. You can write pretty much anything, hit enter, and voila, the world sees your message. Until, that is, the next message comes through.

I sent a few messages, including:

MONKEYS ROCK
PIRATES ROCK
MONKEY PIRATE

Hey, I have my interests, you have yours.

And no, this isn't a clever collection of pre-recorded scenes like the chicken (or the sexy knockoff bartender...) or the infamous Chistmas Hoax. No, this is the real thing.

Nice.

An Artist I Like

Who doesn't like art?

Well, there's one artist that I really enjoy. He's not a fancy Dutch Master or a lazy French neo-impressionist. His name is Kurt Halsey, and I think he lives in Detroit.

He has a simple, honest style that - to me - is incredibly comforting.

A lot of his work is kind of sad, or more accurately, wistful. But it's the kind of sad that makes you feel like you're not all alone in the world...that everyone is kind of out there figuring it out as they go - just like you. (Unless you're an angsty 17-year-old, and then no one is or ever has been as alone as you, I promise.)

And every now and then, between shy confessions of fallability, Kurt shows that he knows what joy is. A kitten, a bird, a kiss. And in those moments, it's all ok.

I'm lucky enough to own a print of one of Kurt Halsey's paintings. It's a painting of a guy and a girl on an evening stroll, locked arm in arm. The girl is gazing at the stars, and the guy is transfixed by fireflies. It knocks me out. I have it framed on our bedroom wall, and a lot of people think that maybe I made it - probably because it's so awesome and also because the girl bears a lot of resemblance to my wife. But, like many other seemingly simple things I wish I could claim as my own (the songs of Leonard Cohen, or the poems of Richard Brautigan) - Kurt Halsey's art achieves something that I can aspire to and appreciate, but never replicate.

One day, I'd like to own an actual Kurt Halsey original. I'd like for it to fill an entire wall with bold colors and disarming simplicity. But the days of me owning original art are not yet upon us.

Until then, I'll keep watching his website. I invite you to do the same. Be warned, he rotates his work, and once it's gone, it's not archived. There are a few paintings that I have fond memories of from a few years ago that simply dont exist on his homepage any more. The magic of Google image search helps...but I sure do wish he'd have an archive of all of his work.

I'd spend days there.

So much more than a dog.

So, listen. I know that we all have a secret desire to have a monkey. But the only way to get a good monkey is to get a helper-monkey. (The real question is what they help WITH...)

Well, I'm probably not a good candidate for a helper-monkey. And while my vision is pretty solidly impaired, I'm no candidate for a seeing-eye-dog either.

But in this day and age, who the hell wants a dog? Particularly when you can get a mini-horse?



You heard me.

















The best part about this is that they wear teeny little shoes. Not horse shoes. Tennis shoes.




















There is growing debate over whether this is real or not. I need to state that I did NOT create these pages in Photoshop. As far as I know, mini-horses are real.

I wish I had a flock of them, and a gang of helper-monkeys to guide them.

All good things must come to a ...

Well, you figure if something can END, it's gotta start. There's a Newtonian Law associated with that. And a Beastie Boys song too.

Point is, the internet has gotten boring. When I log on to waste my day away, I'm not longer doing it with the glee that I used to. I check the same pages, learn the same things, and accomplish very little. The end is no longer justifying the means.

So, this is going to be a repository for fun things.

I hope.