sundance

Pop culture currency

Originally conceived for his own personal amusement, artist James Charles had a show recently at San Francisco’s Shooting Gallery of his collection of US currency altered to feature various pop culture icons ranging from Yoda, Mr T, Justin Bieber (pre-haircut), members of the band KISS to my favorite, Bob Ross. [Via]

Trompe l’oeil sidewalk

La ville molle (part III) from Raum Raum on Vimeo. There’s more than meets the eye to this sidewalk in France. Created by Benjamin Boré, this interactive trompe l’oeil installation appears to simply be just a slightly bulbous cobblestone sidewalk, except that it exhibits an almost quicksilver quality when someone steps on it. From the [...]

Barbie’s dirty secret: rainforest destruction

Think what you will about Greenpeace and their often aggressive brand of activism… they do know how to create clever, eye-catching campaigns around important environmental issues. Rainforest destruction is a big one for them (as well as most of us), and after tracing the pulp source of packaging for toys from brands like Mattel, Hasbro, Lego, and Disney back to Indonesian rainforests, they did what any responsible organization would: they broke the news to Barbie’s longtime companion Ken. You can see the fallout in the video above…

Waves crashing on a BIG BEACH

I’m writing to give props to a small company that I love … Big Beach Films. Why do I love them? (They have summarily rejected plenty of my own scripts … so why?) Well, they’ve been making good work. They’ve been taking chances.

Formed in 2004 by producer Peter Saraf and funder/producer Marc Turtletaub, one of Big Beach’s first films was Liev Schrieber’s EVERYTHING WAS ILLUMINATED. A success? Well, not really. It had some beautiful elements. But overall, adaptation is really difficult, and this epic Jonathan Safron Foer novel was simply tough to reduce to the screen. When the documentary OPERATION FILMMAKER hit the screen, a profile of ILLUMINATED’s Iraqi intern, it didn’t help in making the film look a little indulgent. But Big Beach survived it without a hiccup – and maybe ended up looking okay. (Trailer here.)

The next film out was LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE. Nuf said.

Putting local goods back in Rwanda

You might be surprised to learn that many so-called African fabrics – fabrics that you buy in Africa and are called African fabrics – are actually made outside of the continent. On a recent trip to Rwanda, designers Eugenia Morpugo and Maya Ben David were shocked to find out that none of Rwanda’s “local fabrics” come from Africa, let alone Rwanda. To find out why that was, Morpugo and Ben David founded Atelier Rwanda and launched a research project to explore the local materials and techniques available in Rwanda in order to create economic opportunities and support the identity of the local culture.

Come on, Vogue

ME AT NINE, PERFORMING TO MADONNA IN SUMMER ’91! from Robert Jeffrey on Vimeo. I don’t know who Robert Jeffrey is, but God I need to! He’s uploaded this amazingly gay video on Vimeo of himself, age nine, proving Gaga’s not the only formidable challenger to Madge’s gay icon status. This made my day! Week! [...]

Original GODFATHER casting list

Here’s a treat for fans of one of the most iconic gangland films ever: The original casting list for GODFATHER from director Francis Ford Coppola’s notes.

The first cut is the deepest: the recent circumcision debate

Thanks to San Francisco’s proposed circumcision ban on the ballot this coming November, there’s been a lot of turtleneck debate of late. Many have been crying antisemitism, which seems a bit ludicrous if you think of male bodily integrity as a human rights issue (i.e. no one would call fighting against female genital mutilation anti-religion) — but then you you find out that one of the main proponents of the ban (btw, proponents are called “intactivists”!) recently put out an anti-c comic with some rather indelicate imagery (i.e.”Monster Mohel”, WTF?). It’s been interesting to read some different takes on the issue:

The delicate dance between cars, bicyclists, and pedestrians in NYC

3-Way Street from ronconcocacola on Vimeo.

Ron Gabriel shot and edited this neat overhead video depicting the delicate dance between between cars, bicyclists, and pedestrians at a NYC intersection. In a follow up post to the video, which went viral and elicited many opinions, Ron explains:

Duck hunters: the best advocates for Gulf Coast environmental restoration?

During last year’s BP oil spill, I noted in several different venues that, as someone who grew up on the Gulf Coast, I saw this disaster as another chapter in a long history of active degradation of coastal environments. The spill itself deserved the attention it received… but I also hoped that it would bring the decades of destruction into focus.

Fran Drescher’s gay ex-husband has a show!

Happily Divorced couldn’t ask for a better lead-in. It premieres on TV Land on June 15 directly after Hot in Cleveland, the biggest phenomenon to hit the upper part of the cable box since Half-Ton Teen.

It also has a pretty hot premise: Fran Drescher plays a florist whose 18-year marriage ends when her husband (John Michael Higgins) announces, “Yep, I’m gay”—and for various reasons, they continue living together anyway!

What’s more, the show is loosely based on Drescher’s own experience. In fact, Drescher co-writes it with Peter Marc Jacobson, who happens to be her real-life gay ex-husband.

There are just two problems with the show, based on my viewing of the pilot: (A) Betty White isn’t in it. (B) It’s not that funny.

The High Line, part 2

The long awaited, much anticipated second section of the Chelsea High Line finally opened last week. Architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro enlisted landscape architects James Corner Field Operations and planting designer Piet Oudulf to complete the half mile-long stretch of elevated walkway. When the entire project is completed it will run 22 blocks through Manhattan’s West side, a total of 1.5 miles, divided into three half mile stages of construction. The first section, completed in 2009, drew crowds with its streamlined simplicity and elegance both in the landscaping and quality of building materials (benches, flooring, lighting design, etc.), but at only a half mile-long the original High Line walk was so short lived it was almost disappointing, especially given all the hype and anticipation leading up to its debut.

Naked News: Declining sperm count just a nasty rumor after all

The myth is debunked – humankind’s sperm count is a-okay! Alabama passes “fetal pain” anti-abortion bill, with no exceptions for rape and incest. Miami high school elects transgender senior as prom queen. Tracy Morgan says gay is something kids learn from the media. Wyoming grants divorce to same-sex couple despite not performing same-sex marriages. Obama suggests [...]

Stefon-themed Mad Libs

One of the highlights and crowd favorites of this season’s SNL was Stefon, your local guide to New York’s hottest clubs. Stefon is played hilariously by Bill Hader, who despite his best efforts always breaks character in large part due to the writers making last-minute surprise changes to the script, as Bill explained to David Letterman. Well, for you fans, create your own club that Stefon would visit with these three Mad Libs.

THE LAST MOUNTAIN: one community’s fight against mountaintop removal

When did you first hear the term “fracking,” the shorthand for hydraulic fracturing, a decades-old natural gas extraction technique that’s come under scrutiny from both activists and governments alike? It was probably around the time of the release of Josh Fox’s GASLAND (which won a Special Jury Prize at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival). No doubt that director Bill Haney and the producers of THE LAST MOUNTAIN (an official selection at Sundance this year) hope their activist documentary will bring similar attention to the practice of mountaintop removal by coal mining companies… another extraction method that’s been in use for years, and received a ton of attention within environmental and activist circles, but that hasn’t hit a tipping point in terms of general awareness of the damage it does to Appalachian communities in West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky (as well as watersheds that feed huge portions of the Eastern US).

Steve Jobs reveals Apple’s new campus

Cheekily dubbed the iBuilding, the plans for Apple’s latest and greatest undertaking – its new campus in Cupertino, California – have finally been revealed. At a city council meeting last week, Steve Jobs unveiled some pixelated but nonetheless exciting renderings that take “office building” to a whole new level. The eye-catching structure (just see the satellite image below) is a ring-shaped building reportedly spearheaded by architect Norman Foster, whose super slick design ethos can be seen in projects the world over, including the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site in NY.

Zhang Huan’s “49 Days”

While out in LA last week I dropped by the fantastic gallery Blum & Poe, which is currently exhibiting Zhang Huan’s “49 Days”, including the breathtaking installation pictured above. The twenty-two foot tall bell shaped pagoda is comprised of salvaged brick collected from demolition sites surrounding Shanghai (centuries old buildings that have been bulldozed in [...]

My Daguerreotype Boyfriend

We’ve been bemoaning the lackadaisical nature of blog creation these days: theme+culled images+captions=instablog! Just as there is a site for every sexual fetish (giantesses, anyone?), there is a site for every combination of mild interests and/or hobbies and/or pet peeves. Last week it was Awesome People Hanging Out Together; this week it’s My Daguerreotype Boyfriend [...]

Fancier Meals

Toronto’s The Grid asked four local chefs to re-imagine and create a fancy meal using only a McDonald’s Big Mac combo meal (Big Mac burger, fries, Coke and condiments), and other than oil and water, no other ingredient was permitted. Fabio Bondi of Local Kitchen made the above dish, “McLumi Platter.” It took chef/co-owner Fabio [...]

Middleton sisters, MTV Movie Awards and more killer style

We waited to see if the Middleton sisters would keep poppin’ out in great outfits, and indeed they did. Check out our lookbook of this style savvy duo. See all of the beautiful babes at this year’s CFDA‘s and young stars from the MTV Movie Awards. Get a daily dose of fashion inspiration with Today’s [...]

Taking paper dolls to a higher level

Early Morning Life : Paper cutout animation from S A R A N yen P A N Y A on Vimeo.

“There was a time,” artist Saran Yenpanya explains, “when I mistakenly believed that my parents were well-off, but pretended to be otherwise in hoping that I would grow up modestly… In truth they are quite poor. Plus, I turned out to be a snob.” This somewhat startling revelation and confession is at the heart of Yenpanya’s short animation about a stuck-up, middle-class boy telling the story of how he was shocked to discover the extreme poverty of his parents’ childhood in rural Thailand. “Early Morning Life” is a critique of the classism that exists not only in families but on a national level in Thailand as well.

Herman Melville’s passport application

From the Internet archives is Herman Melville’s 1856 US passport application from a simpler time when the government trusted the individual to describe themselves. However as The New Yorker describes below, this author might have had a bit more help in expediting his application than the average US citizen at the time.

Beyonce, who run the world? Not girls.

Beyonce’s latest hit “Run the World” is a girl-power anthem, sort of: “Who run the world? Girls” over and over. Maybe it’s aspirational. Eh, probably not

Manhattan versus Brooklyn

For those unfamiliar, there’s always a bit of friendly banter and rivalry among New York City boroughs. Things however had been calm until one Etsy’r launched a shot across the bow-klyn bridge at Manhattan with his artisan hand screen printed poster above. Well, Manhattanite James Campbell Taylor returned the fire with his own poster that was “designed using an international software giant’s latest creative suite,” “mass-produced by the overworked, underpaid slaves of a Manhattan-based corporate behemoth,” and most decidedly “not available on Etsy.”

David David’s and Glass Hill’s simple geometry

Collaborations are becoming an increasingly common practice, making unlikely bedfellows of artists and car manufacturers and boutique textile-makers and big box retailers, and now, in what is perhaps an equally random pairing, fashion label David David and furniture designers Glass Hill. The single unifying trait they both share is their relative newbie status in their respective fields. That, and an attention to line and propensity for minimalism make them a perfect match for the recent commission from Phillips De Pury & Co. for their retail space in the Saatchi Gallery.