sundance

They do eat puffins

Inspired by Iceland Video from Inspired By Iceland on Vimeo. On a whim a few weeks back my friend David and I booked a 3 day trip to Iceland. We both have a love of design, oddities, and natural wonders so we figured our curiosity would be satisfied in spades there. And with a 5-hour [...]

Original Snoopy illustration

Above is the original Snoopy artwork done by Charles Schulz for A Peanuts Treasury from the 1960s and featuring the antics of Charlie Brown and the gang. Incidentally, Banksy aka Charlie Brown was recently spotted smoking and pouring gasoline in Los Angeles. [Via]

Tree planting = green jobs? MillionTreesNYC thinks so…

Green jobs involve installing solar panels, maintaining wind turbines, and weatherizing houses… right? Yes… and no. The technical aspect of renewable energy and efficiency have received the most attention as both the public and private sectors move towards a lower-carbon economy… but that doesn’t mean the job prospects are limited to the techies, engineers, and mechanically inclined. As more locales recognize the natural services provided by urban plants and forests, those skilled in tree care, landscaping, and natural systems maintenance will find demand for their abilities.

James Bond in drag

In the above video James Bond, AKA Mr. super-hottie Daniel Craig, dons pumps and a DVF wrap dress for full effect in support of International Women’s Day. Narrated by Judi Dench, the short film illustrates the still very vast disparity between what it is like to be a man and a women in Britain, and in [...]

SXSW!

Our movie, SMALL, BEAUTIFULLY MOVING PARTS is going to Austin, Texas this week, and we are in the middle of getting it ready. Our hard work is paying off – we feel like we took the micro-budget bull by the horns and are excited to feel the fruits of that labor, in the form of SXSW audiences – some of the most film savvy, fun-loving audiences in the nation. SXSW is an interesting event – it’s massive, and it’s certainly not only about film. In fact, mention it to a passer-by on the street and most likely they will know about it for the music, first and foremost. Truth is, however, Interaction, Film, Comedy – all parts of this extravaganza are extremely important to their own industries. It’s a massive intersection of some of the most creative people around … all in search of some good barbeque, and an experience that is relaxing, surprising, friendly, and filled with discovery.

Here are some of the films we are excited about:

Gay self-hating re-examined in new film

Mart Crowley’s landmark play The Boys in the Band was first produced in 1968, a year before the Stonewall rebellion changed the face of modern gay movement with defiance and pride.

In its bitchy and witty portrayal of a group of friends sharing dangerous New York party games that often verge on the sadistic and self-loathing, it represents a darker moment in gay identity—one the LGBT community has long wanted to turn its back on in shame.

But enough time has passed that people are more willing to embrace the play (and the 1970 film version, directed by Wiliam Friedkin) as an important step forward in gay representation and catharsis.

In fact, Boys has engendered so much new lovin’ that it’s the subject of a documentary, Crayton Robey‘s Making The Boys, coming out this month in an attempt to put the work in its proper historical place.

As one of the talking heads in the film—along with Crowley, Edward Albee, Tony Kushner, and many more—I’m qualified to make several defenses of the original play.

Drawing “All the Buildings in New York”

Think of James Gulliver Hancock’s ongoing project “All the Buildings in New York” as the ink and paper Google Street View. An illustrator and world traveler, Hancock drew his way from Australia to France, England and the US before finally settling down in NY. In his notebooks he documented each city’s prevailing motifs, like rain in London and rooftops in Paris.

NOLA street art: Before I die…

Candy Chang created this cool, giant interactive piece of street art in New Orleans that transformed the side of an abandoned house into a chalk board. She explains: It’s also about turning a neglected space into a constructive one where we can learn the hopes and aspirations of the people around us. It turns out [...]

Naked News: We didn’t get live sex demos when we were in college!

• Northwestern University human sexuality class has live demonstration by a kinky couple (we’d feel better about that if the guy had been naked too and hadn’t been wielding a modified power tool).
  
  
• HuffPo has a DOMA “for Dummies” rundown.
  
  
• Egads: half of US men have HPV!
  
  

Original “I (Heart) NY” sketch

Found in the MoMA online archive is this early sketch by designer Milton Glaser of his now-iconic “I (Heart) NY” logo. And click here to see the concept layout. [Via]

Play with your type

Photos from dezeen.com

There are certain things that even those most averse to online shopping will concede to buying online, mainly because they have no other choice. E-books, for example, aren’t sold in stores. Domain names, web hosting, mp3′s – all these must be purchased on the Internet for the obvious reason that they lack a physical space and can, therefor, not be stocked in a physical store. The same used to be true for fonts. A designer creates a font and you buy the rights, download the font and use it in your work. It only becomes physical when you hit print.

The creative minds behind e-Types have thought a lot about this concept and how it applies to their heretofore online-only type foundry Playtypes. Then they came up with the idea for “the world’s first brick and mortar type shop”: Playtype, type foundry and concept store.

Sikhs to usher in new year with Sikh Environment Day

Groups and organizations within the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic faith communities have made “creation care” a focus of their belief systems, and even worked to associate major holidays and celebrations with environmental action. Member of the Sikh faith, the world’s fifth-largest organized religion, will celebrate their faith’s connection to the natural environment on March 14th (the Sikh new year) with the inaugural Sikh Environment Day.

Anti-Muslim hate speech in Orange County

“Mohammed was a child molester, Mohammed was a pervert…” Those are just some of the chants protesters hurled at attendees (many children) of a charity dinner held in Yorba Linda, CA by ICNA Relief (an American Muslim relief organization) to help raise money for projects that include women’s housing, hunger prevention, family counseling, medical aid, and emergency financial.

Famous Objects from Classic Movies

The genius lightning of designer Ji Lee struck again with his latest project Famous Objects from Classic Movies. This time, he makes an addicting online word and movie trivia game combined with the recent trend of minimalist movie posters. My fanboy enthusiasm for Lee’s works is well known among my friends: this latest makes me [...]

Crochet Banksy

Facts: I’m an unabashed fan of Banksy. And I love the crochet art of Agata Olek. One of my favorite chroniclers of street art Luna Park recently snapped this picture where Olek adapted her style and paid homage to this famous piece by Banksy on the West Bank barrier wall. Speaking of Banksy, this is [...]

Comics aren’t just for kids

New York City’s Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA) is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year with their annual MoCCA Festival. Far more than just a yearly retrospective, the festival, held this year at the amazing space at the Lexington Avenue Armory, is a two-day affair (April 9-10) and boasts a guest list that includes Jules Feiffer, Chip Kidd, Bill Plympton, Adrian Tomine, Julia Wertz and Al Jaffee, winner of the 2011 Klein Award, which “acknowledges significant contributions to the field of comics and cartooning.

Calling Miguel Arteta

I recently googled “Miguel Arteta,” director of CEDAR RAPIDS, the new comedy about insurance executives attending a conference in the big city — Cedar Rapids, Iowa. My #1 hit was the movie section of a local Arkansas paper. The featured local film reviewer, “Big Screen Peter” of Fort Smith, is right out of … a Miguel Arteta movie. Or Alexander Payne. Big Screen Pete notes that CEDAR RAPIDS is not yet playing in the area, but he gives it a 4 out of 5 on his smile-meter, below:

As a filmmaker, I shudder at the lower part of the scale — the thin and dissatisfied lips of that menacing bottom image. THIS MOVIE SUCKS! What other art form is vulnerable to this sort of onslaught? THIS OPERA SUCKS! THIS PAINTING SUCKS! I don’t think so.

But indeed, I showed my students CHUCK AND BUCK (2000) a few weeks back — another Arteta work and in my view, a brilliant one — and I fear most of my trapped subjects were hitting Pete’s lower rungs.

Photographer Stephen Mallon documents man and the machine

If you can’t tell what’s stacked on top of the barge in the photo above that’s okay; You’ve probably never seen, let alone thought about, subway cars being piled up and transported by water, and neither had I until I saw photographer Stephen Mallon’s incredible series, “Next Stop Atlantic,” that documents NYC subway cars as they’re taken offshore and dumped in the ocean to act as barrier reefs. Not only was I unaware that we needed a barrier reef off the coast of New York, but I was also unaware that you could build one simply by chucking old subway cars into the sea. I’m still not convinced that this is cool with the EPA.

“Comics Stripped” at The Museum of Sex

The problem with live-action porn (okay, one of the many problems) is that it’s difficult (okay, it’s difficult for some) to forget that the actors on screen are somebody’s son or daughter, and could potentially be suffering from any number of issues (drug abuse, poverty, mental problems, bad taste) that got them in the biz [...]

Chuck Norris street art

Hilarious street art that continues the Chuck Norris meme. [Via]

Bidder 70

In 2008 a young environmental activist named Tim DeChristopher bid on 13 parcels of land quietly put up for auction by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in the waning days of the Bush Administration. This land was part of a larger offering by the BLM of federal public land in an attempt to open it up to oil and gas exploration. The majority of the land was near national parks in southern Utah.

Green tech finds (3/3/11)

An electric unicycle, iPad recycling, and creating your own bike lane on the go… this week’s green tech finds.

• California farmers leading the way on renewables: According to the USDA’s new On-Farm Renewable Energy Production Survey, “California farms and ranches now make up more than 20 percent of all operations in the nation with solar, wind and methane digester use.” (via Calfinder’s Residential Solar blog)
  
  
• Harvesting energy from slow tides: That’s the concept behind Minesto UK’s Deep Green technology, a “kite-like device [which] is tethered to the seabed and is steered by a rudder, which allows it to adjust the speed at which water enters the turbine.” The UK’s Carbon Fund has awarded Minesto £350,000 to test the device.
  
  

The enduring style of THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS

WATCH THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS TONIGHT AT 10PM

“I get criticized for style over substance and for details that get in the way of the characters, but every decision I make is how to bring those characters forward.” Wes Anderson said this in 2007 after the less than glowing reviews THE DARJEELING LIMITED received, but just six years earlier when THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS was released, style trumping substance wasn’t something he had to worry about. In fact, the hyper-stylized aspects of the film helped give it substance. Wardrobe wasn’t just a quirky touch, it was an extension of the characters themselves. But Anderson’s attention to detail went well beyond clothing. Every choice, including the music, set design and the overall color palette has had a profound and long-lasting effect. Fans and designers alike have been inspired by or flat out mimicked the Tenenbaum house with its brightly painted walls and artful arrangements of pictures, taxidermy and framed ephemera, but its the clothing that has had the most pervasive influence on a broader cultural level.

Jessica 6′s “White Horse”

Every once in a while a song comes out that just makes you shake your ass. Jessica 6‘s “White Horse” is that record. It’s pop with a Latin soul; it’s electro with a world beat. Nomi Ruiz’s vocals are sultry and deep-throated and the song’s an ode to cocaine. Which is not something necessarily worth [...]

Jeremy Scott x Linda Farrow sunglasses

I can’t believe it’s already March, which means Spring and Summer is just around the corner and it’ll soon be T-SHIRT TIME (you don’t want to miss it!). And if you want to upgrade your sunglass situation consider these avant-fashion eyeglasses from Jeremy Scott and Linda Farrow which will let you channel your inner Lady [...]