sundance

We need your vote: Sundance Channel receives 5 Webby nominations!

Yesterday we were thrilled to learn that Sundance Channel received 5 Webby nominations!  The Webbys are the web’s highest honor so we’ll take ‘em with pride! Congrats to the entire Sundance Channel Digital Media team for all their hard work! But now WE NEED YOUR VOTE! The People’s Voice Awards are determined by YOU so [...]

Naked news: Gaga on celibacy, Huckabee on gay adoption & Nike on Tiger

• “[I]t’s not really cool any more to have sex all the time,” says Lady Gaga.
  
  
• Mike Doesn’t-Believe-in-Evolution Huckabee’s deep thoughts on gay couples adopting: “Children are not puppies. This is not a time to see if we can experiment and find out, how does this work?”

Major league baseball’s green season

As Robert Redford notes in the video above, the environmental footprint of major league baseball (or any professional sport) is “formidable”: from the energy to run the stadium, to the gas consumed by fans traveling to a game, to water used in bathrooms and to keep field grass green, many resources go into the production of America’s national pastime. Yesterday, the partnership between MLB and the NRDC announced a significant initiative to assess and address that footprint: “…a comprehensive software system to collect and analyze stadium operations data to develop and distribute best practice information across the 30 Clubs” that will go into use this season.

Vincent Olinet

The Times Style Magazine recently posted an item on their website on “Vincent Olinet’s mixed-media sculptures” which is currently exhibiting at Galerie Laurent Godin in Paris through May 15. Their accompany photo of the artist’s (intriguing) lipstick piece caught my eye and loosely reminded me of the Lipstick Building. For those of you who don’t [...]

New Banksy in LA

Coincidentally timed with the near-upcoming launch of the highly anticipated (at least by me!) film by Banksy, EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP (view trailer), a couple of new pieces by Banksy have been popping up in street corners of Los Angeles, which is predictably sending the Internet and blogosphere abuzz.

Model Home: Certified LEED Silver

Nestled at the foot of a low mountain range in Emigration Canyon at the edge of a 200-acre camp site in Salt Lake City, UT lies the first private residence in the state to achieve LEED Silver certification. The 2,500 square foot structure features an operable wall that can be moved to instantly transform the [...]

How to correctly pronounce authors’ names

The downside of an analog reading experience is that books don’t give you definitions of words you don’t know nor does it provide the proper pronunciation for author names. Here’s a handy cheat sheet for the latter issue. The only author I intentionally mispronounce is Ayn Rand’s name. I’ve known the correct way for a [...]

Mini modern dollhouses

We gays love modern furniture. Pop into any Design Within Reach and you’ll see. Take a trip to Palm Springs. Trust me. And, no big surprise here, we love a dollhouse too. So you know I was freaking out last week when I read this New York Times article on modern dollhouses. The replicas are [...]

Clash of the titans: James Cameron vs. the dam

Is blockbuster producer/director and self-proclaimed “king of the world” James Cameron powerful enough to take out a dam single-handed? Well, no… but the creator of AVATAR has apparently been moved by his own film’s exploration of “the destruction of the natural world by expanding industrial interests, and the consequent impact to Indigenous populations.” Since February, Cameron has become passionate about stopping the building of the Belo Monte dam in Brazil, and has joined with indigenous leaders and activists to protest the opening of the bidding process for the project (set to begin on April 20th).

Faces behind the avatars

Photographer Robbie Cooper’s project “Alter Ego” is a fascinating series in which he spent three years traveling around the world to snap portraits of people who participate in virtual world games or MMORPG such as City of Heroes, EVE, Second Life, and World of Warcraft. He then juxtaposes their photos with an image of their [...]

TrustoCorp Products

Previously mentioned culture jammers TrustoCorp hit New York City with these repackaged products which they placed in New York City stores ranging from delis and supermarkets to K-Mart, although I’m not sure if they misspelled bulimia on purpose. Sometimes it’s easy to forget to spell-check when making a social statement. View more here.

Vince Clarke’s cabin

Vince Clarke, though not gay, is a gay icon. He was a founding member of Depeche Mode. He created Yazoo with Alison Moyet. And as one half of Erasure, he’s been part of one of the most out and proud musical groups ever. Clarke typically gets less press than the lyricist and lead singer of [...]

Walla Walla’s green junk yard

In 1929, Emory Stubblefield opened a salvage yard; in 1944, he moved it to Walla Walla, Washington. Like most junk yards, Stubblefield’s was full of rusting cars, old tires, scrap metal… the typical detritus you’d associate with such a business. Just before Emory’s death at the age of 94 in 2008, he and his children took the business in a new direction: metal and scrap recycling… plus nature habitat.

Amazing LEGO Falling Water

Nearly a year ago on this blog, I posted about LEGO sets of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings, including the iconic residential “Falling Water,” which was cool. However that official set, which is also much smaller, is amateur compared to Croatian “LEGO architect” Matija Grguric’s version seen above. I love that she built it in a winter setting, and the water effect is really fantastic.

Heartbroken fiancee fought the law and the law won

Late last year we published an excerpt from our friend Robin’s book (So Sue Me, Jackass! Avoiding Legal Pitfalls That Can Come Back to Bite You at Work, at Home, and at Play) about who gets to keep the ring after a broken engagement. The lawerly response? “While common courtesy dictates that the ring should remain with the dumpee, the law in most jurisdictions dictates that if a ring is given in contemplation of marriage, the woman doesn’t take title to the ring until the marriage takes place. That means if the marriage doesn’t take place, the ring goes back to the giver.”

Michel Gondry’s A THORN IN THE HEART

If you’ve seen A THORN IN THE HEART, the latest from director Michel Gondry (ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND), congratulations: you are part of the 50% of audiences that made it to the end of the end. 50% is only an estimate, of course; I can only speak from my own experience on a Friday night at IFC, the only theatre it’s playing at in NY, and for good reason too. The 50% that walked out midway didn’t leave because they were offended or because the film went over their heads, they were just bored.

Visions of the Earth

I did a double take at this photograph taken by Amit Dave that was published by the National Geographic as part of their “Visions of Earth” series which features breathtaking photos from around the world “as seen through a photographer’s eye.” National Geographic explains this photo above: Parched people mob a vast well in the [...]

Skateboard animation

Skateboardanimation from Tilles Singer on Vimeo. Tilles Singer created this brilliant little short film that combines stop-motion with a paper craft aesthetic to produce a wonderful style and effect, which I’m sure will be aped in car commercials attempting to market to a “hip” audience. Singer succinctly explains that this took “a ton of digital [...]

Climax delay condoms gone cute.

As a general rule, we’re not really fans of climax delay condoms (the numbing agents most of them use aren’t good for you, and, well, just make sex less enjoyable). But we’re still amused by this ad for Olla Prolong condoms, which offer an illustration of what, exactly, your sperm cells might be getting up [...]

FULL FRONTAL FASHION highlights

Mike Meyers and Sir Sean Connery Think of this as your FULL FRONTAL FASHION cliff notes. Spring — and love — are in the air! Don’t miss supermodel and photographer, Elle Muliarchyk’s, fashion love story. GOING TO MARKET explores the process of how looks move off the runway and into you hands. Check out this [...]

Dewy bug’s life

Polish amateur photographer Miroslaw Swietek captures “resting” bugs while they are covered in tiny droplets of dew in a series of stunning macro photographs. The photos are fantastic, but I still can’t help but view these insects as the squeamish stuff of my nightmares! Look at all those eyes! [Via]

Getting by with a little help from a sportsgasm

When Craig Venezia, the man behind the Faking a Sportsgasm blog, wrote to us suggesting that our sites had a lot in common, we were wary. On the one hand, we love that he makes fun of macho dudes who slobber and moan over balls and hard pucks. But on the other hand, we’re against faking of any kind — and it seems like Craig just wants to blend in with all the face-painted sports fans. Which would mean that slobbering macho dudes win. And on the other other hand, part of us thinks that Craig just might be pulling everyone’s leg.

But then Craig uploaded his Faking a Sportsgasm song to his blog, set to the tune of YMCA, with lyrics like “A discharge of your testosterone / You can do it when you’re all alone / But it’s more fun, when you’re with other guys / Then you can all do high fives.” Okay, so (a) that is hilarious on so many levels, and choosing the YMCA tune was a stroke of genius. And (b) the recording actually sounds really good and surprisingly professional, which leads us to think that Craig is serious and not pulling our leg. We’re still not down with the faking, but we’re totally down with making fun of sports fans in song, and so we decided to ask Craig a few questions and let him explain his mission in his own words.

Jeff Koons’ BMW Art Car

The BMW Art Car tradition began in 1975 when French driver Hervé Poulain invited his friend, artist Alexander Calder to create a canvas on the car he would drive later that year at Le Mans, the seminal 24-hour Formula One race. Since then, 18 other artists have been invited to create their own art cars for BMW, [...]

Jason Salavon’s average centerfolds

What you’re looking at in the above photograph by Jason Salavon “is the result of digitally averaging every Playboy centerfold foldout for the 10 years beginning Jan. 1988 through Dec. 1997″ which was arrived at by “a simple, custom process: point-by-point mathematical averaging.” The artist also averaged and segmented the Playboy centerfolds by decade. In [...]

RIP Malcolm McLaren

Malcolm McLaren has died and with him goes a remarkable piece of counter-culture history. McLaren discovered the Sex Pistols. He managed the New York Dolls. He dated and helped create the empire of Vivienne Westwood. He made some great albums. And way before Madonna caught on he discovered the voguing houses. See above. A piece [...]