sundance

Pee-wee’s back

Paul Reubens, he of public masturbatory fame, is reviving the character that made him world famous: Pee-wee Herman. Herman started out as a crude stand-up act and then became a popular children’s TV show and a feature film directed by Tim Burton. Beginning in November, Pee-wee will be performing live at the Fonda Theater in Hollywood. And yes, Chairry, Pterri the pterodactyl and Miss Yvonne will be present. Maybe a trip to LA is in order?

Kanye sunglasses, ver. 2.0

Just when you thought the shutter sunglasses popularized by Kanye West had finally jumped the shark, Roman Kremer and Mykita have decided to re-introduce them with a more refined sensibility. The ROMAIN frame is cut out of 0.5 mm stainless steel and features metal shutters. The design borrows cues from traditional Inuit eyewear, which was [...]

U.S. State Department OKs Pipeline From Canada’s Oil Sands

The U.S. State Department has issued a permit for a multibillion-dollar pipeline to carry crude oil from Canadian oil sands to refineries south of the border, triggering a court challenge from environmental and native groups.

Mythology of video game creation

Amusement Magazine’s “Made of Myth” re-imagines classic videos, created not as bits of data, but rather carved, molded and shaped by skilled artisanal hands, such as Alexei Pajitnov: Tetris When Alexei Pajitnov first ordered a load of bricks from Karpov Abramtsevo’s workshop, workers there were wondering who could be interested in all those right-angled blocks. [...]

ASIA EXTREME: Hollywood Looks East

It doesn’t take much more than a precursory glance at Hollywood’s output in recent years to conclude that there’s without question a shortage of original ideas. Reboots of old franchises (STAR TREK), endless, pointless sequels (THE SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS 2), and even toy and board game-based movies (GI-JOE, MONOPOLY) are being green-lit by studios more than willing to dump millions into their productions. But by far the most egregious offense is the ever-increasing trend of remakes, particularly of films from Asia. To look at the situation, you’d think there wasn’t a single original screenplay to be found in all of the US.

Facebook breakup: Throw’d TV’s hilarious send up

Yes, I am a sucker for stupid YouTube videos and blogs that take me away from real work. You must be too. Why else are you reading this? This video, done by Throw’d TV, had me LOLing. Or better yet, LMAOing. It is a send up of an all too familiar story these days: the Facebook [...]

Three New Solar Farms to Bloom Under the California Sun

First Solar, Inc. and Southern California Edison have agreed to build two large-scale solar power projects in Riverside and San Bernardino counties in Southern California that together will generate enough electricity to provide power to about 170,000 homes.

World Water Week Statement Builds Bridge to Climate Talks

Water must be an integral part of the climate negotiations in Copenhagen, World Water Week participants today said with a unanimous show of hands in support of The Stockholm Statement.

A year without haircuts

While checking out Kid Robot’s blog this morning I came across the below stop-motion video of one man’s travels and hair growth. Christoph Rehage was going to walk from Beijing to Germany. While he did not make it to Germany, he did document his hair growth for one year. Not a single haircut. It’s a fascinating video. [...]

Gil Scott-Heron’s “Whitey on the Moon”

A friend of mine recently posted this sharp and witty poem on his blog in between his busy days working on his MD/PhD in biomolecular chemistry. Like him, I was surprised by my unfamiliarity with what Slate called “one of the one of the finest, funniest protests ever recorded.”

MRI sex

Improbable Research is an organization which collects (and sometimes conducts) improbable research (i.e. “research that makes people laugh and then think”), publishes a magazine called the Annals of Improbable Research, and administers the Ig Nobel Prizes. These mock Nobels are held once a year in a fun, goofy ceremony to honor the most unusual recent [...]

Chris Rubino for Ace Hotel

Ace Hotel x Chris Rubino from Jim Helton on Vimeo. Artist and illustrator Chris Rubino (whose resume is as diverse as it is impressive) recently finished a series of four canvases commissioned by the newly opened Ace Hotel in NY. A video directed by Jim Helton documents the month-long process with music by Big Blood. Whether [...]

Not much to look at: conceptual art at the MoMA

Gilbert and George

Conceptual art can be funny, poignant and clever, but overall, with a few exceptions, I find it to be one of the most visually underwhelming schools of art. I suppose that’s bound to happen when the artist lays out the framework or provides only the idea (the concept) and leaves the rest of the work – in some cases the entire visual element of a piece – to the viewer. It’s curious then that the artist I like best out of the bunch is Lawrence Weiner. It has a lot to do with our mutual love of the letterform, but I also genuinely enjoy thinking (conceptualizing) about the concrete thing his words describe.

Cross-dressing kills in The Bacchae

In the Public Theater‘s production of Twelfth Night for Shakespeare in the Park, cross-dressing gets Viola many things but death isn’t among them. For Pentheus (Anthony Mackie), the unlucky King of Thebes in The Bacchae, donning a dress, heels and a wig gets him torn apart, limb from limb, by his own mother who then saunters about the stage with his bloody head. It’s a bit of a change from the happy-go-lucky ending of Twelfth Night, but then again this is Greek tragedy.

Obama: this joke’s on you

The Los Angeles Times has caught up with the artist responsible for those Obama/Joker posters popping up around your local healthcare town hall. And shockingly, he’s not a Republican. He’s a Kucinich supporter.

What does the Internet say about you?

Created by Aaron Zinman, Personas is “a component of the Metropath(ologies) exhibit, currently on display at the MIT Museum by the Sociable Media Group from the MIT Media Lab” that attempts to “create a data portrait of one’s aggregated online identity” by utilizing magic some fancy analysis based solely on the input of your first [...]

Green tech finds (8/20/09)

From recycled plastic plywood to giraffe poop in your tank, it’s a green tech-a-palooza… here are this week’s finds:

• Don’t have an iPhone? Not to worry… 3rdWhale’s comprehensive green information app is now available for open-source mobile platform Android, and a Blackberry Storm version is on the way.
  
  
• Don’t want an iPhone? Samsung’s new Reclaim boasts a casing made from 40% bioplastic, outer packaging made from 70% recycled materials, very few nasty chemicals, and a very efficient charger.

Seal a Strong Climate Deal, Young People Urge World Leaders

“We now need more actions and less talking” on climate change, 700 young people from around the world declared today at the 2009 Tunza Children and Youth Conference on the Environment in Daejeon.

Zero Film Festival

The Zero Film Festival is a virtually recession proof affair. Tonight at Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn, five NY-based, self-financed filmmakers will premier their work. But don’t let the words “low-budget” deter you. These aren’t newbies. Timothy Saccenti, for example, has directed music videos for Animal Collective and Chairlift. Guy Ben-Ner shot “Stealing Beauty” at IKEA during store [...]

In sleep vs. sex battle, the winner is…mattresses, pills and PDAs

photo by audreyjm529

It seems like every few years, someone comes out with a study about what percentage of the population would choose a good night’s sleep over sex. The studies are usually sponsored by a mattress company, or a pharmaceutical firm developing non-addictive (riiiiight) sleeping pills, or — as in the most recent case — a chain of hotels with extremely comfortable beds. The study, funded by Westin Hotels, found that 51% of Americans surveyed would choose sleep over sex (as we mentioned here earlier this week). It sounds much less depressing if you put it the other way: 49% of us would still sacrifice sleep for a bit of raucous boot-knocking, aw yeah. But it sounds much more depressing when you learn that a decade ago, a massive 69% (heh) of those surveyed said they’d choose sex over sleep.

Modeling the Humanthesizer

Featuring 15 bikini wearing models, Calvin Harris and his bevy of girls are painted with conductive ink on the palm of their hands and soles of their feet to become the “humanthesizer” and recreate Harris’ weekend anthem “Ready for the Weekend.” It gets going around the 1:43 mark. [Via]

Pedro’s dinner with Julia

Photographer Pedro E. Guerrero shares with The New York Times’ food blog, Bitten his experience photographing Julia Child’s kitchen for the readers of House and Garden in the fall of 1962. After capturing a kitchen which was “was impeccable, despite a profusion of pots and pans worthy of a department store,” Guerrero recounts his initial [...]

BEESWAX : the Bujalski time zone

I saw BEESWAX last night. It is director/writer Andrew Bujalski’s third feature after FUNNY HA HA and MUTUAL APPRECIATION. The plot is vague and the conflicts are subtle. And because more urgent twists and turns fail to arise and demand our attention, each small moment seems to slow down as we witness the micro-tensions of interaction. I felt like I was in a Bergman or a Cassavetes film or a combination of the two (PERSONA meets SHADOWS?), as if I had entered a different time zone or landed in an exotic place, despite the banal subject matter.

The King of Pop painted by the King of Pop!

I posted earlier about Andy Warhol’s junk being combed through, including that naked poster of Jackie O. Those catalogers will spend six year going through everything the artist meticulously collected during his life, ranging from fan mail to taxi receipts. I am excited to see what other oddities they find. And speaking about oddities, a [...]

The Apatow boys bro it out again in FUNNY PEOPLE

How many ways can men bond? They can bond over the effort of getting their friend laid (40 YEAR-OLD VIRGIN), or they can alternatively support and ridicule their friend as he struggles to do the right thing (KNOCKED UP), or they can fetch them diet cokes, cup their balls, and sit at their bedside while they fall asleep as in FUNNY PEOPLE. It’s been out for awhile now and I wasn’t compelled to see it until it was 90 degrees out yesterday and I sought the respite only an air-conditioned movie theater can provide, but I’m kind of glad I did. It stars Adam Sandler as George Simmons, an Adam Sandler-like comedian: middle-aged, ex-stand up comic earning an ample income making pandering comedies, and Seth Rogen as Ira, a struggling comic hired to be Simmons’ assistant. The pair develop that love/hate bro-relationship Apatow does so well, at one moment patting each other on the back and the next making fun of each other’s penis size.