sundance

The Dream Shop is open

Lies Maculan has built the shop of our dreams, literally. Her Chelsea-based Dream Shop puts over 100 of our most common dreams on shelves in a 3,000 sq. ft retail-like space, as if they were available to purchase. There’s a trompe l’oeil at work however – the shelves and everything on them are 2D, Maculan’s specialty being photo-installations. At first glance, however, they’re convincingly real. The pile of bricks looks poised to topple over and the man with the briefcase and mop bucket looks as if he could walk right out of the walls – if that unfortunately hokey grin glued to his face didn’t give the illusion away.

The Doggie Gaga Project

Lady Gaga ascension to pop’s super stardom was cemented even more last week with the debut of her video “Telephone,” a nine minute movie honoring Quentin Tarantino and homicide. It also stars Beyonce who adopts the curious wardrobe and dance moves of Gaga. After watching, many were left repulsed. Many more, inspired. One such Gaga-inspired [...]

Green tech finds (3/19/10)

Lots of solar and phone news this week in our green tech finds…

• Solar for renters: Landlord won’t put up solar panels? No problem… the “solar garden” concept is catching on from Sacramento to St. George, Utah (as well as points East). (via HuffPo Green)
  
  
• Green wireless systems: Feel kind of silly when your sprinkler system starts running during a rain storm? That just one wasteful scenario People Power believes its new wireless application development platform could be harnessed to address. (via Green Technology at TMCNet)

The GQ interview with Rielle Hunter

Have you read the no-holds-barred GQ interview with Rielle Hunter, John Edwards’ mistress during his presidential campaign and father of her only child? It’s required reading. Not necessarily for the intimate behind-the-scene details you learn about Edwards’ relationships, both with Hunter and his wife Elizabeth, but for the voyeuristic door it opens into the mind [...]

Street art of the times

This street art spotted in Toronto offers some cheeky advice with a sense of humor for these difficult economic times, although I’m not sure if laughter is the best medicine for people whose savings are running on fumes and rent is due. At least in Canada the unemployed don’t have to worry about health insurance.

World’s biggest house of cards

After 44 days of work and using 4,051 decks or 218,792 playing cards, Bryan Berg broke his own Guiness World Record for the world’s largest free standing house of cards. Although this is clearly a publicity effort for a Macau casino, the effort is impressive nonetheless especially since yours truly’s last futile house of cards [...]

Ryan McGinley gets naked (again)

“India” and “Larson F” The fact that Ryan McGinley’s latest show, “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere,” involves candidly photographed young naked people will come as a shock to no one, though there is one major departure from his previous work in that this series is shot entirely in black and white in a studio. Far [...]

Dr Seuss’ letterhead

As its name suggests, Letterheady is a website devoted to collecting and sharing the blank correspondence letters of various notables. I suppose the letterhead belonging to Theodore Geisel aka Dr Seuss isn’t to most imaginative, however seeing it reminded me of my favorite “fact” regarding this genius children’s book author and illustrator. He was voted [...]

Herpes: the good news, the bad news, and the really bad news

A new study out from the CDC shows that herpes is twice as common in women than men, and three times as common in blacks than whites. A massive 48% of black women are infected. We called on Dr. Vanessa Cullins, an obstetrician/gynecologist and vice president for medical affairs at Planned Parenthood, to get the story behind these depressing statistics.

Em & Lo: Can you briefly explain the difference between HSV-1 and HSV-2, and how they are related to oral vs genital herpes?

Dr. Cullins: Herpes is a very common infection caused by two different but closely related viruses — herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) and herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2). Both are easy to catch. They remain in the body for life, and can produce symptoms that come and go. Both forms of herpes can infect the oral area, the genital area, or both. When the infection is on or near the mouth, it is called oral herpes. Oral herpes is caused most often by HSV-1. When herpes infection is on or near the sex organs, it is called genital herpes. Genital herpes is caused most often by HSV-2.

The Cinemagicians: Kentridge and Melies

I caught up with the shows at the MOMA last weekend, including the William Kentridge exhibit. A show that grapples with heavy subjects like apartheid and colonialism, Kentridge’s animated charcoal drawings get smudged, erased, and redrawn to tell stories about characters that are often heavy, egotistical and morally adrift. Kentridge said, “I am interested in a political art, that is to say an art of ambiguity, contradiction, uncompleted gestures and uncertain endings. An art in which optimism is kept in check and nihilism at bay.” My favorite part of the exhibit however was where the weighty politics of the stories disappeared and Kentridge does seem to let loose with a cinematic fun that is both surprising and welcome…

Pedal-powered recycling pick-up… and more

Recycling does create energy savings overall, but if you watch those big trucks rolling through your neighborhood on pick-up day, you probably realize that there may be even more efficient ways to handle the collection of these materials. A couple in Northampton, Massachusetts, has found one: pick up those recyclables by bike.

BAM Silent Art Auction

If you’re wondering why this picture above, an untitled photograph from Shirin Neshat’s “Women of Allah” series is the only picture you’ve been seeing to advertise the upcoming BAM Silent Art Auction, it’s probably because she’s the event’s Honorary Artist Chair, but it may also very well be because this year’s auction is slim pickin’s. Even with over 160 artists on the roster, there are only a handful worth bidding on. Before getting to the bad, allow me to first mention some of the better pieces up for auction. Aside from Neshat, there are some good photos up for grabs by Ian Baguskas, Chuck Close, Sally Gall and Christoph Draeger. Lawrence Weiner and Marcel Dzama are offering some nice prints and I have my eye the red desk lamp by David Weeks. Notice that I haven’t (unfortunately) mentioned any of the paintings.

More at MoMA

Marina Abramovic’s astonishing retrospective and mesmerizing performance at the MoMA (reviewed here by Perrin and Patrick) has earned a lot of buzz, and I highly encourage you to visit, however while visiting be sure to also check out two interactive installations that will bring a smile and sense of wonderment. The first is Yin Xiuzhen’s extended van sculpture “Collective Subconscious” which the public can enter and “find a cozy refuge complete with low stools and soft pop music—a space that invites visitors to break the silence of the hushed gallery, reinventing it as a place for conversation and discussion.” The second piece is Ernesto Neto’s “Navedenga” where “visitors are invited inside its hollow chamber to engage their visual, tactile, and olfactory senses.” I went this past Saturday and the sensations felt at both installations must be experienced in person. After the jump are some photos.

We asked some of our friends to film their favorite tweets.

Twitter: The Criterion Collection from sween on Vimeo. In an attempt to answer the question, “What if Twitter came to life?” various people submitted their filmed reenactments of other people’s tweets which were then compiled into this single video of hilarity. This is an example of when the combined collective creativity, talent, and humor of [...]

Naked News: Gender-bending chickens, homophobic hicks and gay mountain weddings

• In sci-fi news, NPR has a fascinating article on gender-bending chickens.
  
  
• In no-duh news, research has found that better health means a better sex life, especially later in life.
  
  
• In yay-gay! news, five same-sex couples were married in Mexico City last Thursday, the first such ceremonies since a law went into effect this month legalizing same-sex marriage in the Mexican capital.

Biotown USA: an affordable green housing hub?

Since 2005, the tiny town of Reynolds, Indiana, has been hard at work developing itself into Biotown USA. This designation awarded by the state government meant that Reynolds would become a hub for energy experimentation… particularly in using agricultural wastes and byproducts to power the community.

Airline uniform fashion fans

On the heels of the news recently of Japanese Airlines declaring bankruptcy in January, I came across this story about the lucrative black market online for the grey uniforms worn by the flight attendants and ticketing agents of this airline. Apparently these grey outfits originally designed by Hanae Mori are desired among people with uniform [...]

8-bit NYC

The generations that grew up with the old school Nintendo gaming experience will particularly enjoy this interactive zoomable map of New York City created by Brett Camper that mimics the look and feel of the 8-bit video games from that era. Camper explains: 8-bit NYC is an attempt to make the city feel foreign yet [...]

Marina Abramovic at MoMA

In the MoMA’s Atrium Marina Abramovic sits at a wooden table dressed in a high-necked, long-sleeved navy blue dress that gathers in a pool of fabric at her feet. She’s lit on all sides by 5ks – big, bright, hot lights. Her face is serene and statuesque, her gaze completely focused, and you’re welcome to take the chair on the other side of the table and sit with her for as long as you like.

Meanwhile the rest of her retrospective, “The Artist is Present,” is happening upstairs, and really, it’s a happening.

Mad Men Barbies

Mattel is set to release four new Barbies ($75 each!) based on characters from Mad Men this coming July to coincide with the start of the show’s fourth season. There’s main character Don Drapper and his soulless wife Betty, company head Roger Sterling and his one-time mistress and office manager extraordinaire, Joan Holloway. While Mattel chose to leave out the “inappropriate,” sinful accessories like martinis, packs of Lucky Strike, and silk panties in suit pockets that are ever-present on the show, it’s still a bold choice for the company to celebrate such a debauched group of alcoholic adulterers. But then again, Barbie was created in 1959, right around the time Mad Men takes place — a time when women were expected to simply look pretty and shut up, make a nice home, and expect their husbands to cheat. So maybe this licensing agreement is not so bold, maybe it’s just eerily perfect.

Joan Rivers Rocks my World

Joan and Melissa Rivers (Photo by Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic)

Post Oscar hangovers are never fun… Trust. I’ve been covering them for 10 years! But this year was different. Not so bad. Even though – let’s be honest, seven days into a nine day journey, you are ready to run for the hill. And by hills, I mean Appalachian, Eastern Hills. Except for the fact that I came back from Rainy LA to monsoon-y New York. I mean… Okay, okay. I got two good days of beautiful Spring weather before my boots were soaked and once again I had to forsake fashion for Tretorn rain galoshes.

Green documentary news

Just came across several interesting tidbits on green-themed documentary films currently in the works, so thought I’d share them all at one time.

• Crowd funding green films: Tree Media Group, which produced THE 11TH HOUR with Leonardo DiCaprio, is trying out a different mechanism for raising money for two planned documentaries: crowd funding. If you check out the sites for URBAN ROOTS, which follows the growth of urban farming in Detroit, or INTO EDEN, which explores environmental crisis from the perspective of human consciousness, you’ll see NPR-like fund raising appeals. This is a model that’s currently being tried for all sorts of media — Spot.us is a great example of crowd funding for journalism, for instance — so we’ll be interested to see how well this works.

The Chat Roulette Game

The latest Internet IT thing, Chat Roulette has been exhaustively covered at this point by the blogosphere and the mainstream media’s culture pages, but for those still not yet familiar, here’s a quick primer: This minimalist (and often NSFW) website, created by 17-year-old Russian Andrey Ternovskiy, connects your computer’s web cam (with your permission first) [...]

Abstract sandwich art

San Francisco-based artist Dan Kenneally’s “Lunch Box” collection is a series of 18” x 18” acrylic abstract paintings where each sandwich’s ingredients are stripped down to their most fundamental. And yet they still look delicious, especially the ice cream sandwich. [Via]

Five brilliant Gaga covers

The world went crazy the other day over the release of Lady Gaga’s video for “Telephone.” It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but it is insane. Everyone, haters and lovers alike, can agree that video is nuts. Bananas. Nuts and bananas. I think that Gaga’s talent as a musician is often overshadowed by her costumes. [...]