Did you know that this week is “Geography Awareness Week?” To celebrate this occasion, National Geographic asked the 100 US senators to draw an outline of their home state from memory on a square approximately the size of a cocktail napkin and note at least three important locations or landmarks in their state.

It’s almost not fair that Senator Al Franken of Minnesota is included in this survey. As I previously mentioned here, we know Sen. Franken is an overachiever in this department, as he’s demonstrated that not only can he accurately draw his homestate but a complete map of the United States as well. Anyway, check out his and a few other senators’ efforts (including my home state!) after the jump. View rest of the drawings here.

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Hey, it’s me the resident design and furniture nerd over on SUNfiltered. You’d feel really sad for me if you realized what great pleasure discovering these classic Herman Miller commercials over on Grassroots Modern.

Herman Miller is the American manufacturer who brought the world the designs of Charles and Ray Eames, George Nelson, Isamu Noguchi and George Nelson among others. They were groundbreaking in the 50s and 60s spearheading the Modernist movement in the US. Their unique approach to design is reflected in the often-time hilarious moments of these ads.

The use of humor and the dated references still don’t outshine the chairs. They’re the real stars and always will be.

Elvis Costello spoke with WNYC’s Leonard Lopate about his music and the upcoming season 2 of SPECTACLE: ELVIS COSTELLO WITH…

Listen Here:

Elvis Costello, host of SPECTACLE: ELVIS COSTELLO WITH… on Sundance Channel

Catch Elvis Costello on Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report airing Thursday, November 19th and in a jam-out session with The Roots on NBC’s Late Night with Jimmy Fallon airing on Friday, November 20th. Costello will be on to discuss the return of his music/talk Sundance Channel original series SPECTACLE: ELVIS COSTELLO WITH… premiering on Wednesday, December 9, 2009 at 10:00pm et/pt featuring U2’s Bono and The Edge. Among the confirmed guests for the seven-part season are: Bono, The Edge, Bruce Springsteen, Sheryl Crow, Lyle Lovett, John Prine, Ron Sexsmith, Neko Case, Jesse Winchester, Ray LaMontagne, Nick Lowe, Levon Helm, Richard Thompson and Allen Toussaint.

The inaugural season of SPECTACLE featured an extraordinary and eclectic roster of legendary musicians and fascinating personalities including: Sir Elton John, Tony Bennett, Lou Reed, Julian Schnabel, Smokey Robinson, The Police (Sting, Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers), James Taylor, Herbie Hancock, Rufus Wainwright, Rosanne Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Diana Krall, John Mellencamp, Jakob Dylan, She & Him (Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward), Norah Jones, Jenny Lewis, Renée Fleming and President Bill Clinton.

Season one of “Spectacle: Elvis Costello With…” will be available on DVD hitting shelves on December 9th.

LEARN MORE:

SPECTACLE on Sundance Channel

Elvis Costello Official Site

The Colbert Report

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon

I greatly enjoyed these interesting five little known facts compiled by Mental Floss about Bob Ross, the iconic and soothing host of the show “The Joy of Painting” which taught thousands of people how to create landscape oil paintings.

Before Ross became a TV painter, he spent 20 years in the United States Air Force and retired with the rank of master sergeant. In fact, an early assignment to Alaska helped expose the Florida native to the snowy mountains and evergreens that would become staples of his art.

Viewers might find it surprising that the serene Ross was an Air Force sergeant, and it sounds like the painter thought it was a little odd himself. He later told the Orlando Sentinel, “I was the guy who makes you scrub the latrine, the guy who makes you make your bed, the guy who screams at you for being late to work. The job requires you to be a mean, tough person. And I was fed up with it.”

As a former Alaskan, I’m going to go ahead and take credit on on behalf of the 49th state in the union for inspiring Bob Ross. He’s now officially an honorary Alaskan. Now I’m off to grab brushes, some paint, and create a few happy little trees and mountains.

Tim Burton fans came out in droves to the opening of his retrospective yesterday at MoMA. Dressed in red and black stripes and lace and crazy hats – even painted on stitches – they were hard to miss. And with the massive collection of drawings, set pieces and video I doubt they left disappointed. To get to the actual exhibit you have to walk through the mouth of one of Burton’s classic freak show creations, down a hallway lit only by TV screens playing his animated series “The World of Stainboy.” At the end of the hallway is a dark room lit by black-lights where some of his glow-in-the-dark pieces are on display.

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California based artist Mike Stilkey uses the spines and covers of piled old books as a canvas upon which he paints to form larger, often wonderful images. When asked in a recent New Yorker interview on how he selects the books, Stilkey said:

I consider several aspects of the book when I’m selecting for a painting. One factor is the color of the book cover, another is the material of the cover, and a third is the title of the book and how this relates to the narrative of the piece.

Visit Fecal Face’s Dave Kinsey for more on Stilkey’s works.

One more photo after the jump.

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Robert Rauschenberg’s “Small Rebus”

It seems crazy that MOCA, one of the most important and influential contemporary art museums in the world has only been around for 30 years, and I suppose it speaks to the ingenuity of its founders that it has made such an impact in that time. To celebrate its 30th birthday, chief curator Paul Schimmel has pulled 500 works by over 200 artists and divided them between the museum’s two locations, organized chronologically. The MOCA Grand Avenue takes us from “the abstract expressionism of the 1940s and 50s to pop, minimal and conceptual art of the 60s and 70s.” Then hop over to the Geffen Contemporary to see important works from the 70s onward, featuring pieces like Edward Ruscha’s “Chocolate Room” and Douglas Gordon’s “Between Darkness and Light (After William Blake).”

There are always plenty of opportunities to see work by contemporary artists, but what makes this exhibition so important is that all of them, and I really mean all of them, are together, side by side, in one location.

MOCA’s First 30 Years is open until May 3, 2010.

Brooklyn artist James Blagden created a terrific short film that animates former major league pitcher Dock Ellis’ entertaining narration of his infamous no-hitter for the Pittsburgh Pirates against the San Diego Padres in 1970 while he was “high as a Georgia pie,” or specifically under the influence of LSD. After retiring, he later worked as a drug counselor before passing away last December.

Inspired by an attempt to learn more about the five story tenement building located today at 218 Eldridge Street in New York City that his great-great-grandfather lived in, Zach van Schouwen created a super cool interactive visual history or “a complete record of the life cycle” of this block located between Rivington and Stanton Street in Manhattan’s now trendy Lower East Side neighborhood. The journey starts from the street’s pastoral origin in 1795 with James Delancey’s farm. A more indepth version of this can be found on his website where you can click on each building to get more information. And if unfamiliar with this neighborhood, take a virtual tour courtesy of the Google Map street view car.

[Via]

Sarah Palin’s worst nightmare, Levi Johnston, just did his Playgirl shoot, flaunting some of his body parts as unselfconsciously as he tried to show the world the flaws in Palin’s family values. The ex of Palin’s daughter Bristol, Levi’s the one who earlier this year carried out a p.r. campaign labeling Palin a hypocrite and an opportunist who stepped down as Alaska Governor partly because she could make more cash on the lecture circuit.

And where does Levi go from there? Making more cash on the nude magazine circuit! Tacky? Maybe, but it was an inevitable step on the road to reality shows and Seth Rogen movies. And Levi will be thrilled to know that the history of celebrity nudity and semi-nudity reveals that he’s in really good company.

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