sundance

The other penguin

Gay penguins everywhere must be upset over the news out of San Francisco this week. Harry and Pepper, once a happily coupled gay duo, have split up according to zoo officials. And no, the reason does not seem to be another man. Another woman has gotten between the love birds.

FOOD, INC. gets a plug from fast food… really!

If you’ve already seen the documentary FOOD, INC., you know that film reiterates the argument that the industrialization of our food supply resulted largely from the rise of fast food: the business model requires a large supply of cheap, consistent meat and produce. If you haven’t seen the film, it turns out you may be able to do so for free… and that fast food Tex-Mex chain Chipotle will pay for your ticket.

Huh?

Florentijn Hofman’s giant rubber ducky

I previously blogged about Florentijn Hofman’s latest project involving giant sized creatures. Here’s an oddly captivating video recording of the inflation of his oversized aquatic sculpture or Ernie’s favorite bathtub buddy.

Urban Outfitters hops on the bike-wagon

Bike snobs, back away from your computers. The end is near, and it’s coming in the shape of fixed gear bikes available with brakes in a wide array of bright, customizable color combinations courtesy of Urban Outfitters and Republic Bike. It won’t surprise anyone that the big draw of these bikes is that they can be made to match your closet’s color scheme, but before snubbing my nose at the idea that Urban Outfitters could produce a quality item, I turned to Brooklyn bike expert Chris Wielk for some answers.

Mayor Gavin Newsom announces sustainable, regional food policies

You likely associate food policy with the federal government, but on July 8th, San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom demonstrated what local governments can do to promote local, sustainable, and healthy food initiatives. Speaking at the West Oakland Woods Urban Garden (one of several farms operated by City Slicker Farms), Newsom outlined new policies aimed at “…form[ing] a comprehensive and strategic approach to addressing pressing needs in all sectors of the food system.”

What it looks like to go really fast

Jason Kottke has a great post that compiles a bunch of videos of people and things going exceptionally fast, including BASE jumpers in wingsuits, a French TGV train, and two skateboarders on powder-blue suits, below: Adam Kimmel presents: Claremont HD from adam kimmel on Vimeo. [more at kottke.org.]

Pop culture class painting

Artist Jeff McMillan’s painting, “All Together Now” brings together various pop culture icons for a nice group picture. Finger snaps to whoever can name them all.

Mike Birbiglia’s “Porno for Parents”

We mentioned comedian Mike Birbiglia in passing the other day, but failed to convey just how awesome he is. Someone who can appeal to both the audiences of Comedy Central and This American Life possesses a rare gift. He  covers crass topics without ever crossing the line. He’s the boyfriend you love so much, but [...]

Mesmerizing Rube Goldberg contraption

I just came across this and even though it’s ancient in Internet time, it’s too good to pass up. Swiss duo Peter Fischli and David Weiss’s 1987 “The Way Things Go” is a video recording of a Rube Goldberg machine, measuring approximately 100 feet long and set in a warehouse, come to life as common [...]

ASU Art Museum explores sustainability definitions in Fall exhibitions

In 1987, the United Nations’ Bruntland Commission defined the concept of sustainable development as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs…” Is this an accurate definition? Certainly. Does it capture the imagination, and prod people to action? Probably not…

This Fall, Arizona State University’s Art Museum is going to take another, and very different, stab at formulating a definition for sustainability. A series of projects gathered under the title Defining Sustainability will not only display artistic renderings of the concept (or specific examples of it, such as greener transportation or recycled shade structures), but also bring together “artists and designers, faculty and students [to] engage the greater Phoenix community in their creative processes and in conversations about sustainability.”

Get your bleak on: dystopian cinema

I don’t know about you, but when I even think about seeing the upcoming film THE ROAD, based on the novel of the same name by the brilliant Cormac McCarthy, my shoulders sag a little. Post-apocalyptic America, lawlessness, cannibalism, and a vulnerable family? It’s heavy! Embrace the darkness here:

Seeing this trailer recently in the theatre, I then Netflix-ed a few futuristic down-and-out sci-fi thrillers, and began to think about the distinct shape of the dystopian movie. Why and how is this form unique?

“Not Monday Night Football XXX”: A porn parody too far?

For the past few years, porn parodies of popular sitcoms have been increasingly big business–and for good reason, too. With rampant piracy decreasing the adult industry’s market share, porn companies are eager to latch on to anything that sells: and, not surprisingly, the age old formula of taking a popular TV show and getting the [...]

Where’s my couture?

The Fall 2009 couture collections have been surprisingly wearable, which is probably a good road to take for sales-minded designers, but not as much for me. When it comes to couture, the crazier the better. On that note I’d like to applaud Jean Paul Gaultier for being possibly the only designer to send some wonderfully unwearable stuff down the runway. Drawing inspiration from Hollywood from Bardot to Barbarella with a healthy dose of sci-fi corsetry, it was also one of the few shows that looked as if the designer was having fun.

How hetero?

Those sassy Swedes throwing Stockholm Pride have created a way to test just how heterosexual you are by scanning your Twitter posts for obvious gay terms. The results are quite funny. For example, if you search my Twitter account, youngbradford, the results come back pretty obvious: 1% hetero! Though I think I am even less. [...]

Parisian graffiti taxonomy

In “Graffiti Taxonomy,” Evan Roth ambitiously photographed and documented over 2,400 graffiti tags from each of Paris’s 20 districts, then archived and categorized them by letter. The artist tackled a smaller scale version as a Parsons graduate student in New York City where he “created character studies of the letter ‘S’ from the Lower East Side and the letter ‘A’ from Harlem, followed by an NYC-based letter ‘E’ study in 2008.”

Jean-Luc Godard interviews Woody Allen, 1986

In this 26-minute mini-documentary from 1986, the great French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard interviews Woody Allen. This is from the days when Allen was still making important, hilarious movies, so it’s well worth watching. Meetin’ WA (1986)by Tomsutpen [via Khoi Vinh.]

A Dilettante’s Dispatch: Chanel

A Dilettante’s Dispatch is a series of posts from a jet-setting friend of ours, Arturo. Watch for more in the coming days.

OMG, I forgot to mention in my last post that I saw Ewan McGregor — my number-one celebrity exception — at L’Eclairuer. Beautiful, and wisely checking out a pair of Rick Owens motorcycle boots. Unfortunately he was with his wife and children, and therefore unlikely to fall prey to my waning charms.

In any event, Chanel. I’m not going to review the fashion, as I’m hardly qualified, and I don’t want to piss anyone off…yet. That said, the clothes at Chanel were quite shiney and elaborate and seemed well positioned to appeal to rich ladies in Texas and Russia. (See if you can spot me in the crowd!)

THE LAZY ENVIRONMENTALIST : Lazy Driver

THE LAZY ENVIRONMENTALIST, hosted by Josh Dorfman, screens Tuesdays at 9PM on Sundance Channel.

From a Lazy Environmentalist perspective, I have to admit that I’m not altogether unhappy to see gas prices rising again. For better or worse, the most effective way I’ve encountered to convince people to make environmentally sound choices is to appeal directly to their wallets. So when gas prices rise, fuel-efficient alternatives start to look much more appealing. In “Lazy Driver” I’m working with a really busy courier service – delivering on the order of several hundred packages around Los Angeles per day – to figure out how to boost the fuel economy of their cars (to reduce greenhouse gas emissions), reduce fuel costs and still enable deliveries to be made in time.

Urban Love Blog Launches Today

Ever since Miranda July’s Learning to Love You More closed up shop, city dwellers and other love-starved web surfers have been in need of an emotional nicotine patch. Something to get us through the day and make the restless cravings go away. Well, our need has been met. Our pleas and mutterings have been answered. Urban Love Daily has launched!

Gallery of photography assistants

Light Test focuses its lens on the uncelebrated heroes behind the scenes at a photo shoot: the assistants. This is a fun and interesting collection of light test photographs for a wide range of professional, editorial, and commercial shoots, including some notable ones such as ones for Sarah Palin and Steven Spielberg. Others are goofy, [...]

Naked News (07-14-09)

photo by aforero The recession (and, perhaps, that Sasha Grey movie The Girlfriend Experience) is pushing more and more women into sex work. In more cheery financial news, apparently being told “I love you” is worth more than $200,000. Too bad your credit card company won’t accept that sort of currency. If your new partner [...]

Alison Mosshart: A New Venture with Jack White and The Dead Weather

The Dead Weather – Jack Lawrence, Jack White, Dean Fertita and Alison Mosshart.Photo Credit – David Swanson

Ten Minutes with Alison Mosshart

Fans of indie rock have long admired Alison Mosshart for her work as singer/guitarist in the hugely successful band, The Kills.

Her newest venture, with Jack White (of The White Stripes and The Raconteurs), Dean Fertita (of Queens of the Stone Age) and Jack Lawrence (of The Raconteurs and The Greenhornes) is a band called The Dead Weather and their first album, Horehound, debuts on Tueaday, July 14.

Despite Mosshart’s breakneck schedule, we caught a few minutes with the hard-rocking and extremely hard-working singer.

The Crystal Method: Exclusive “Behind-the-scenes” look at Divided By Night

Comprised of Scott Kirkland and Ken Jordan, THE CRYSTAL METHOD is one of the best-selling electronica bands in the United States. They’ve come a long way since their debut album, Vegas (’97), which went platinum…a feat that most electronic bands can only dream of. Having earned their reputation for creating explosive live sets throughout the 90′s, the duo has gone beyond studio mixing and DJ-ing to scoring film, television, and video games. During a hiatus following the release of Community Service II (’05), Kirkland and Jordan took a break from live performance and focused on other projects like their first original motion picture soundtrack for LONDON, Nike’s Drive: Nike + Original Run, and the deluxe edition of Vegas which contained various remixes.

Divided By Night is their latest album and is their “re-introduction” into performing live sets once again. Recently seeing them in concert, Lara Marsman of BILLBOARD.COM said that they “still perform as they did fifteen years ago, even after a five-year hiatus, demonstrating why they are the original gangsters of electronic music.”

Read more about The Crystal Method and view the exclusive behind-the-scenes video!

Apparati Effimeri’s stunning projection art

A video-artist collective Apparati Effimeri created a very impressive video installation which was then projected onto a pre-mapped castle facade, which produced some really stunning “wow!” effects. A+ for this effort. APPARATI EFFIMERI Tetragram for Enlargment from Apparati Effimeri on Vimeo.

Castanets at the Cake Shop

With the exception of the back room at my hometown’s Christian Community Center, where my friends and I watched local high school bands play when we were 15, the Cake Shop in NY has the shittiest sound of all the basement hovels where I’ve seen live music. Regardless (and as a testament to their abilities), Castanets were still able to coax a good performance out of the space. Before their first song, front man Ray Raposa announced that they were going to keep it short; “it just feels like that kind of night.” And if the girl who fell asleep slumped over one of the amps was any indication, he was right.