frightened fields

Schiaparelli

2012-01-16T15:43:00.000-08:00

Elsa Schiaparelli's Skeleton Dress was the first piece of hers I'd seen that caught my eye enough for me to say her name three times so as I would remember it and this was well before I cared enough about fashion to care enough to remember who'd made what, and that dress is good. Pre- or Ur- or Proto-Gaultier seems dismissive, but what do you want? Giger? Sufficed to say, I had every intention of posting something, but then I sat down and googled Elsa Schiaparelli.

Sometimes I hear the high whistle of wind hitting some such building just so so it whistles even when the building's not there so I whistle just so sometimes I whistle as well. Sometimes I whistle. This is what it was that I was whistling today.

Then I drank a bunch of coffee and got the bass line to For the Love of Money by the O'Jays deeply stuck in my brain over and over to the point that, whilst trying to knock it off its perch with atom bombs of earworms (80s rap songs I know the words to, anything on Queen's greatest hits, pre-school morning circle songs), this fusillade's respective lower clef were summarily replaced, each and every, with bum bahm-bah-bm-bm bah-behmbehm-bah-bim. The spontaneous acappella mash-ups did get lively once I decided to giggle and give in. The dancing, however, remained bottled deep down for later.

I remember these from a good while ago, but I stumbled over them again and they're still so cool.

She takes baths all over.

I like trashy pulp magazines and 50s Italian ones more so.

I like to write backstories for strangers.

I get lost in pages composed in languages I don't speak. It helps me hear the noise of it as sound, like how shitty Spanish pop lyrics don't bother me.

Speaking of pulp leads to thinking of pin-ups. I lean towards cheesecake but Robert McGinnis's noir vibe has the same fans in my head as the ones that fondly remember reading James Bond novels as a boy.

To balance out all the pictures of tits, Djuna Barnes should be more well known if for no other reason than that her bio starts off with "Barnes was born in a log cabin on Storm King Mountain". I know the period is outside the quotation marks, but working around the comma at the end of that phrase would have been as cumbersome as continuing on to say near Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York.

The Russian designs turned my mind to Japanese prints and thinking about taking an art class at a community center.

There's a store in Prague named after Terry Gilliam's Sock and it has real cool posters.

While we're on it, Russians,

Revolverwind,

hand-style,

ravenlessness,

but birds.

The Black Hours:

Radical Maps:

OK. I'm sleepy now. Here is RTP TV.

Zwischenraum: the space between things

2012-01-03T15:26:00.000-08:00

Hot Rod Lincoln Car Jump gave me exactly what I expected, but, half-listening and not watching, it revealed itself as a lightning-fast evisceration of the soul. "Powers was lucky: He'd broken his back." is a vivisection. "Did I make it? Is everyone pleased?" This is a man living a life of noisy desperation. He didn't make it across the river, but I'm sure he got there in the end.

I can't remember the first time I saw this image. I don't know where it is in the world, where in the world it is. It's in the rolodex next to Tamara de Limpicka's Le Turban Vert as pieces that I must see in the real: how rosy are her cheeks; which green. Duchamp is purported to have joked that a painting's most important element is its title: I keep thinking, she's right-handed.

If you're going to be into one Vietnamese feminist post-documentarian, Trihn Mihn-ha is a pretty safe bet in my book.

RTPTV:
I make all these faces.

This is better than any antidepressant.

Young Sonny Rollins. 'Nuff said.

Just listen.

I remember hearing about an experiment centered around a group of chimpanzees. The chimps were well-treated and well-fed, with the exception of a banana bunch just out of reach that was forbidden. If the apes went for the bananas above them, they got the hose. Eventually the group learned that the taste of those fruits are forever to be a forbidden knowledge. It was an insoluble constant. After the establishment of this status quo, some apes were swapped out. The new apes immediately went for the bananas and everyone got the hose. After some time, new apes were exchanged into the group. The new apes went for the bananas, but the group stopped them because 'we don't eat those bananas.' This process continued until a time when new apes were introduced to the group and the others prevented them from eating the verboten bananas even though none of the apes had ever been sprayed with the hose; it was tradition.

I want to be friends with her.

Again with the antidepressants...

Again with the just listen.

This is one of my favorite christmas songs.

Madame Yevonde's series of socialites as goddessess is a pocket favorite.

Peoples is peoples.

Emma Hartvig has a great eye. I feel a similarity in the dreaminess of Liliroze.

Mr. Steve McCurry

The Ashaninka will outlive us all.

I saw Eugene Von Bruenchenhein's work at the Intuit Center. I like to go there on the weekends because you can usually get a guided tour. This visit, Sarah the guide let me into Harvey Darger's apartment (which they've reconstructed on the site). I touched his wallpaper.

Bolivian Air Force

2011-08-06T07:30:00.000-07:00

I choose the titles for posts by hitting Random Article at Wikipedia until something jumps out at me. Last night, the second page to come up was St. Joseph County, Indiana. I lived in St. Joseph County. I went to high school there.

I thought this papercut was amazingly detailed and almost overwhelmingly precise, and then I saw the big one.

Mucha's interpretation of the themes inherent in The Lord's Prayer makes me wish he had drawn comic books.

I saw the signs.

Bolivian Mask Force

I need to get back to New York soon.

Soviet architecture

map drawings

Ronit Baranga

above/below

obligatory image search results: Erwin Blumenfeld

This is chocolate cake.

Sand Branch Texas

2011-07-21T15:38:00.000-07:00

I generally find the headings for posts here by searching on a random article at Wikipedia and going with the first three-word-poem that latches my eyes. It's long been theorized that clicking on the second link in subsequent articles will inevitably lead to Philosophy. This visualizes that retroactively.

Sand.

The Scream has way more orange than I remember.

100 days of Typography.

Money Dragons.

So much fun stuff here.

Villahermosa, Mexico

Claire makes bugs.

coffee cups are mugs

Russian trilobites.

I don't think I've ever been more pleased with search results.

Clang

Little Nemo is dreamy

recipes

I can be a tramp for the Nouveau, but these ornamental elements are delightful.

Hell, while we're on Art Nouveau, Mucha's occult exploration of the themes inherent in the Lord's Prayer is pretty rad.

in tumult, earnestness

2011-07-03T21:26:00.000-07:00

I'm enamored with the myth of the cosmic Iago; the genetic memory of ancestral whispers from ghost mouths, a kagemusha to say be cool.

These calm me.

Sometimes, there are lovely pictures of jellyfish here.

Peter Langenhahn.

This piece is made from nail clippings and baby teeth. All of her work is smart and good, but the shit she does with oreos is fantastic.

Bears.

Hats.

there's just tons here.

It's weird to think that this was porn.

what Goldsmith hath wrought.

diamantini & domeniconi

Pablo Delgado

Paper Princesses

AJ Fosik

Side Show Banners

I love John Hartford.

quilling

more too much, but so good.

books

Johannes Larsen Flatla

2011-06-19T15:43:00.000-07:00

Gorgeous Hungarian Bi-Cycles.

Japanese Lightning Bugs.

Sinbad's Roc's Egg

Unimaginable Paper Cuts.

Il Bestiario Barocco.

Retro Logo Goodness.

Paper Not Velcro.

Sweaty Tokyo Commute.

Vintage European Posters.

Crafted Paper Hummingbirds.

Paper Paper Paper.

Phone Book Buddha.

This World's Small.

Do This Everywhere.

Still More Paper. (See the video through.)

Magda Sayeg Knits.

Hanging Gourd Lamp.

Countless Lolita Covers.

You Are Here.

These Rule Rooms.

Russian Navy Pictures.

from enthusiastic novices

2011-05-24T19:33:00.000-07:00

This was the first thing I stumbled upon whilst mining the depths for ore. I'm excited to be going to the big city (barefoot, overalls, chewing straw). Skull & Crossbones-themed craft project is inevitable this visit. That one fight in that one Matrix movie where there's like a million of that one guy would have been great as a dance sequence. Has anyone put CGI to its natural good use, which is, of course, ginormous Busby Berkeley dance numbers? Gorgeous propaganda While we're on the Russians, I love an exploded view diagram. Ornate snuff boxes and tankards and shit. To give you some idea of the scattershot (dare I say slipshod) nature of the remaining that will clear out links from since forever ago, here is everything you need to know about mustard. oritsunagumono, indeed.

New York in my mind is a movie and I can't wait to be in it.

Obligatory Japanese graphic design post.

Obligatory Russian photo site.

Something borrowed, something blue, some French art/theater magazine covers.

fish pictures

Dolls

exploded view diagrams, exploded view people diagrams.

more than just a pretty face.

imaginary opera costumes

What's your sign? Auaricapricornius?

All these people wanted to do the weather.

James Jean has done some of my favorite comic book covers. They aren't here.

smut

clothes smut

Oh my god. It's full of 78s.

more Russians

roanoke

New York is dirty and in the 70s in my mind.

I'll talk to you soon.

hey yourself

2011-04-25T16:04:00.000-07:00

Spring Cleaning, hard and fast. This slate is dirty.

From an half-informed anthropological standpoint, speaking in tongues in the context of teeny windowless backwoods churches like this can and does come across as creepy, to be generous. It makes me think about how rad some pagan rites must have been before christians turned them into easter.

Edgard Varèse said the modern-day composer refuses to die. There's a ton of recordings of classical composers that remains listenable here.

Movie Barcodes

Miscellaneous illuminated manuscripts

I could flip through fashion plates for days. The essays on fashion theory here are interesting, but it leads my mind to wonder about theoretical fashion.

In the iconography of iconography, there is a better symbol for a generic star than מָגֵן דָּוִד
That one already means something.

It's the Star of Goloka, the residence of Krishna, a world of cows in which he performs his grand cosmic play, or something along those lines. I don't know. Freud said that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

I'mma 'bout to drop some science.

Chinese opera masks, all day.

Mark Twain is one of my favoritest Americans.

Rock

Eyes

How the pin-up sausage gets made

This is one of my favorite rabbit-holes.

no jazz flute

a place in case the world just ends

Anita Berber

paper letters

abandoned Russian place

this is all nails

These are like a visual Turing test. Which are robots?

oh my god. it's full of stars.

These watermelons are made of paper.

nocturnal onion towers

unstuffed animal rugs

Suehiro Maruo is Japanese and creepy. I remember poring over his stuff on old John Zorn albums as a teenager.

Tinker to Evers to Chance

I will make it to Carnival someday.

every cassette ever... seriously. every.

nomadak tx 1 from tuva on Vimeo.

I'm glad it's Spring.

Curses!

2011-02-27T14:15:00.000-08:00

Sophie Scholl was a member of the White Rose. Tried for treason, she was executed for distributing anti-nazi propaganda. Anybody who talks like this in the heart of Nazi Germany warrants a tip of the hat in my book.

“Every word that proceeds from Hitler’s mouth is a lie. When he says peace, he means war. And when he names the name of the Almighty in a most blasphemous manner, he means the almighty evil one, that fallen angel, Satan. His mouth is the stinking maw of hell and his might is fundamentally reprobate. To be sure, one must wage the battle against National Socialism using rational means. But whoever still does not believe in the actual existence of demonic powers has not comprehended by far the metaphysical background of this war.”

That makes me make my power face. This too.

This had the same effect on me at 8 that Nietszche did at 15.

Dmitry is recreating the evolution of wolves into dogs with foxes.

ENO video painting.

I need to get back to Michigan.

Also, my banjo is still there and my fingers are fat soft lazy and oh-so-stupid.

Tonight's YouTube Viewing In Order Without Comment

2011-02-24T18:34:00.001-08:00

Pride Fighting

2011-02-23T16:30:00.000-08:00

One of the contestants on the biggest loser (me, for watching) used to be an Olympic wrestler. The show reunited him with a former trainer in order for the trainer to shame the brute for letting himself go. His trainer is a former Pride fighter. Pride is a big mixed martial art (blended army painting) league, but I always liked the two-word poem of the name. I'd say stick with this at least until he says "people always underestimate the kick to the groin."

What to do for a sorbet after all that bang-a-da-bang-a-da-bang? Elsa Mora.

My science teacher in 10th grade arranged 9 students in a line on the football field, each holding one of 9 differently-sized spheres to represent the planets and their proportional distances. It made me think of the scene in Jaws when the ginormous shark is right off the port bow (left) of this puny ass boat and the one guy wants the other guy to go stand by the shark so you could get a sense of scale from the picture he wanted to take. I guess it's all about where you stand.

I spend an embarrassing amount of time poring over Medieval manuscripts online. I swear I only read it for the pictures.

Speaking of two-word poems; silk tree.

cricket cage. (I can't seem to settle on the right pet for me.)

Eddie and I were talking today about the glories of the days-long-gone when one usually had to be talented to be famous.

parsifal

2011-02-15T16:41:00.000-08:00

I regret not recording the 7-foot-tall man with long white hair. He'd often turn his head and remark loudly, announcing some fact of mythology that needed to be dispersed as gospel to the masses. The closest he came to any declaration of intent was when he compared a can of black beans to fudge and made it seem as though fudge might be bad. He started with the dove. "Do you see they dove above my head? I am the human form of Noah that gave God the plum. A quill from the dove above my head was used by Jesus to write the name George Washington," he half-shouted to the thin black teen sitting next to him. The kid hid behind his headphones and stared into space. I stared at the bewildered giant spouting off some serious Harvey Darger freestyles up in the piece. His delusion was so well-cataloged and organized.

I'd had a long day which led to beers at the bar around the corner from work. I talk the golden age of Hollywood with the old Jew who holds ups the end of the bar. He's sharp as a tack and never passes the opportunity to one-up me on cinematic minutiae from 50 years before I was born. He gives me grief about being half-Goy and I rehash jokes Rabbi Barash told me in Prague. He brought this scene up and I immediately said "Hume Fucking Cronyn" and pointed emphatically. We became fast friends.

I've been reading lots of Hellboy and Lovecraft lately. The long day and the quick drinks helped tempt me to engage the enormous prophet on the train. I didn't because the only thing that would unnerve the entire car would have to be along the lines of "Nuh-uh. Shut up," when, in all honesty, I would have gone a more "I am Sadu-hel, scion of Baphomet, sigil of the great South hoop of Arawapa. You incite Gahdu-Shem with your various indignities. Tread carefully as your vibrations today will be in lines of 3s, 5s and 7s" route. Give it a minute to sink in, then nonchalantly validate it. "I know all this because I'm George Washington." I just sat and wished for a piece of paper with a pocketful of pens.

He sounded crazy, but lots of stuff sounds crazy to me.

People don't have to talk crazy for me to like watching them.

words, of how terrible orange is

2011-02-07T17:36:00.000-08:00

I was going to write something about oranges instead of sifting through my past week's worth of browsing history in order to assemble a psychological profile that maintains a genuine-seeming air of urbane verve and insouciant charm, but what do I know about oranges.
Let's take a moment for some Music Television.

I used to rock a fantastic flashdance routine to this whilst in my cups back in the day alone in my room, la zona fantasma. I went to my myspace page to mainly to see if my myspace was still there and partially to see if myspace was still there. I'd forgotten about the song Kahlil Blues that I'd made a million-and-a-half years ago. It takes a minute to warm up but it still sounds good on headphones loud with coffee.

This music makes me want to hugpunch a clownface

Let's write poems using only these word combinations and nothing else.

Popcorn!

The fox is my favorite.

Being able to understand German does not help one to understand this. I love it.

I wonder if you're on one of these trains and which sound does it make.

Goddamn, I love pictures of nothing in the middle of nowhere. Robert Adams talked about the photographic vernacular of the everyday and the strength that it drew from the closeness with which it skirted banality by saying something along the lines of "Show me a family album and I'll find you a great picture."

Jackie Clubs.

I want this song to have sex with my face.

oranges

CR127

2011-01-31T15:42:00.000-08:00

The austere curatorial bent has run its course, in the least for now. I cover lots of ground and my eyes catch things, but it's easy to be a lazy filter, a narcissistic butterfly net ("Did you see what I saw?").
Let's look at at what I looked and at what I liked looking.

That's Elspeth Beard. She rode that motor-cycle around the world, London to London. I read about Thor Heyerdahl when was 10, and knew that this gene that pulls people full-force into the breach was different than those heroic lost pets that track families for thousands of miles or polar bears that swim for 9 days. It is at the root of the shift from consciousness of self onto consciousness of not-self. Here I am becomes where am I not? Curiosity is at the heart of Siddhartha's bird of fire winging upon the infinite. In its simplest and most rugged form, what's over there? Without it we'd be mold.

I want one of Alyoisius's astronauts.

Spoerri's hilarious. He just makes the floor and the wall switch places.

I think the Orangutan not only passed the mark test, but also went on to wonder how someone was raised to think that it's acceptable to go marking someone like that.

If you search on Tony Pale, that picture comes up second.

Devin Yalkin takes great portraits.

I was going to ramble on about amish country and survival knives, but I need to eat.

I'm glad you're my friend.

negative nine degrees

2011-01-23T15:56:00.000-08:00

main belt asteroid

2011-01-20T15:50:00.000-08:00

youngest ever broker

2011-01-14T16:13:00.000-08:00

new railroad bridge

2011-01-12T19:38:00.000-08:00

playing card edge-on

2011-01-05T19:23:00.000-08:00

former napoleonic foes

2011-01-01T18:48:00.000-08:00

amanti di valore

2010-12-26T19:49:00.001-08:00

which means shirt

2010-12-20T20:22:00.000-08:00

whip cracking expert

2010-12-14T16:44:00.000-08:00

drosophila melanogaster

2010-12-04T13:28:00.000-08:00

mandibular canine location

2010-11-27T06:28:00.000-08:00

savage internecine maelstrom

2010-11-20T18:41:00.000-08:00

penumbral apogee conundrum

2010-11-13T10:14:00.000-08:00

precarious assertion's inertia

2010-11-07T06:41:00.000-08:00

Concurrent Sursurration

2010-10-29T15:45:00.000-07:00

Ural Vulpine Whelp

2010-10-23T19:48:00.000-07:00

bone marrow arrow

2010-09-25T18:15:00.000-07:00

whittle block candy

2010-09-08T17:00:00.000-07:00

arithmetic-toc

2010-08-31T19:02:00.000-07:00

eyes water ice water

2010-08-22T14:47:00.000-07:00

rat-a-tatter with the chitter-chatter

2010-08-05T09:12:00.000-07:00

hazards of materials

2010-07-30T19:00:00.000-07:00

air conditioner filter

2010-07-05T19:57:00.000-07:00

I made a new friend, and I think she's great: Tziporah Salamon.

Speaking of great hats.

Beautiful chairs, but this one's for you.

Cool collection of Pin-Ups... American Pin-Ups.

Art for Housewives.

Gorgeous Smut.

Zoology.

Norman Parkinson.

100 Girls and 100 Octopuses. The grammatically accurate plural, in Latin, would be octopodes.

Some things to watch on a lazy day in a Brooklyn heatwave.

enough fireflies to read by

2010-07-02T17:20:00.000-07:00

I haven't listened to so much music lately. It was a good long bit where music became some sort of thing that I could nibble at in passing and be confident and cool enough in my own mind to know what is cool enough to know about. I have, however, realized that my ears have cottoned to some sort of affiliation with the minute and everyday (mine-oot). Maybe I'm aging along with cheese but the strength of images the last handful of days has only been bolstered by the closeness with which they skirt the mundane: has my own irony (sarcasm being the central joy of self-pity) eaten its own tail finally to where I can relax in saying that 'everything about it is so bad, and I love it.' Sometimes I see signs of wear on industrial push-carts and think that I could hang that on a wall and sell it for multiple thousands of dollars because people are silly sometimes and its fucking beautiful. I work all day in a room so much more full of white noise than you could imagine; I can hear the absence of it.
Apparently, the Celtic armies around 2-300 AD would have these trumpet players, and these trumpet players played a thing called a carnyx. A carnyx (I'm not even going to try to pluralize that) went six feet straight up in the air and was traditionally topped with an animal head. They remind me of how annoying I find vuvuzelas to be; it's hard enough for me to watch sports, but the tone of that drone something something bones.

OK. This is smut and I know its smut, but its gorgeous smut. OK.

In my dreams you sleep in a cave that has photoluminescent fungi.

Categorizing people has historically led to aspirations of eugenics, but that doesn't mean I don't do it on the red line.

I can't help but post cutaways maps and eploded views of things. It's a little too much like advertising because that;s what it is but at least some of the pictures are cool.

Circuitously, in that vein; Islamic medical scripts.

I'm going to buy one of these.

Japanese Monsters!

These remind me of muscle striations.

I've long been blessed with dreams of floating and flying.

Banknote Jewellery has been sitting and sitting in my list of links and everytime I read it I would pronounce it silently as jewellery as opposed to jewelry; there you go. This picture's not that, but I like it.

I can't begin to comprehend the unbridled glee with which I would dig into a crate of this.

I'd forgotten that I'd had a dozen of these as a child and treasured them.

and these as well too boot.

this picture doesn't link to anything, but you know what it means.

bikini season

2010-06-25T17:10:00.000-07:00

The sun is shining and everyone looks so pretty and handsome. Let's talk fashion.

If I won the lottery, I'd open a museum.

I want to go swimming.

The Victorian cape thing from The Hours of the Women of Leisure makes me think you need to get your André Leon Talley on.

You need this hat.

Number 22 is all you.

Nerd Boyfriend.

From fashion onto a grab-bag. Newspaper Comics.

Yet another Scandinavian photo archive.

Secret chambers and hiding places.

Adorable sculpted beasties.

Alex Ross is the original gangsta of drawing superheroes.

Deluge Level Catastrophe

2010-06-18T14:54:00.000-07:00

It was so hot and humid and I had on too many clothes when I got on the Red Line: it was dark and cold by the time we went above ground (dark, like check-your-watch dark); it was dropping buckets three stops later. It was raining so hard that I couldn't see: ten steps out the door of the Addison Station, and I could not possibly get wetter in a full bathtub. It was great.
The jelly is from the tree of life project that aggregates information about and images illustrating biodiversity and arranges them chronologically. If I lived in the ocean, I would be a Mer-Nerd.

If you ever need samples of a wide variety of birdsongs as well as the birds' Latin, English and Finnish names, go here.

Pictures from a long time ago of all over the place:

A Dream to Have in Heaven:

It's gross to say fun, but I wish Anna Gulmann would do something.

I could see you driving a smiling, olive car.

I would use this to paint me a big ol' peanut.

These are gorgeous.

as are these

Carny Lingo

John White's Black Chicago

Whitney Box

zen eccentrics

2010-06-15T14:50:00.000-07:00

I was flattered today. I decided to eat well and to do it up. I picked out some cheeses, olives, dried figs, almonds, a nice table wine, fancy jam and what not. As I was fishing for my wallet, the cashier asked me why weren't friends, just-like-that: : "why aren't we friends?" I was flattered.
Hanuman's been in my dreams, but I love this adorable Ganesh. Make sure yours face the door to greet you when you arrive, because it is good.

So much loveliness from French children's books (books written for children which most likely also belonged to children but were not written by them).

Josephine Baker.

I'm not even going to post a proper picture for this one. I stumbled across the non-descript front page for this site through some Hungarian link-aggregator picdump site, and chuckled to my jaded self. Some guy's collection of stewardess uniforms? It's going to be either nerdy or creepy or both, and then I clicked on the gallery, ready to judge. I think I may have actually said, 'oh my god. it's full of stars.'

I wonder what your troupe would look like.

So that's what it means when Mars is in retrograde: I like to play a retrograde inversion of happy birthday on my music box while I watch this.

Zen Eccentrics. Hands down, the best two word poem of the day.

This is the entrance to an adult bookstore in River North.

Copley's painting of Watson and the Shark is a link to a list of unusual deaths.

mmmmh… bla.

2010-06-14T14:19:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I'd never seen this footage. I mean, these are Famous & Recognizable Jazz Artists. I went looking for Hank Jones footage, because I missed the news that he had died. I know 15 minutes is an awful commitment in this day and age, but sit right down and watch the shit out of this. Bird drops a solo at about four-and-a-half in that reminds you why he's Charlie Parker. It's those sparse interstitial moments that charm me most: Bird lighting a cigarette before they even say cut warms my heart.

It's been a weird week of circuitous tunneling; speaking of which, Denver Airport apparently has lots going on underneath it. It looks fine to me, outside of how it's totally a swastika.

Searching for Extreme Music from Africa, I found this odd abandoned archive: Africa & Omega.

Swedish Subways look like this; Chicago'd have it tagged-all-to-hell and reeking of piss in about a minute (I'm not saying; I'm just saying).

I liked this picture, and then I looked at the album in which it was.

This was the first comic I ever bought: I would tell you what it's about, but it says "Spider Men and Monkey People pit Turok against Andar in MORTAL COMBAT" on the cover which prominently features two fighting Native Americans engaged before an on-looking throng of aforementioned men and people; Andar's the little one.

Bless The Algebra Mothers.

Jupiter is lovely.

I could watch these for a good while (Maybe too good of a while? Maybe too good of a while.).

From Swedish subways to Japanese bike storage.

Opium

Angora Mint hipped me to these.

This is called Old Man Fondling The Exposed Breast of a Young Woman Who's Taking Coins From His Purse.. Yeah.

Aaaaaand, Giant Squid for a garnish.

zero is an odd number

2010-06-08T13:43:00.000-07:00

I'm working on sounds for our army (hunkering in a bunker this Winter will be a boon to productivity this year: it is not to be frittered away, consarn it!): please, enlist.

I think it's funny that I never made the connection between French New Wave

and French New Wave (I accented different words when I said it in my head.).

These remind me of the warfare series you were toying with.

I wish she made jellyfishes.

I've bought more than one album for the cover alone.

William Blake archive.

Apparently, Alcoholics Anonymous used to publish comics.

Russian Hobbits.

Embroideries.

A delightful bestiary.

London Guarantee and Accident Company Building.

Things that move.

I did this at 3 in the morning with a belly full of Guinness, which is probably why I started out with 'I Love You All.'

2010-06-05T09:35:00.000-07:00

The nominal you, I love. I can fairly guarantee that it is the solar waves of a summer heat that gets me glowing enough to spout off of the top out from the top o' my hairy dome with affectionate rays, these sapphire bullets of pure love, to paraphrase the Mahavishni... and They Might Be Giants... and a band that's actually called sapphire bullets of pure love: as stated previously, at a base level you are all-right in my book. Beyond that, right now and here; you're a delight and I'm grateful.

I've been dreaming; in actuality, trying to have had a dream of a jellyfish: this is the closest thing to what I think of a jellyfish when I think of you.

You know; when I get down, I try to remember that Celine likes to make people laugh: I'd bet her butler loves her.

I cruise an inadmissable amount of vintage hairstyle photo archives, but, when one contains an album entitled The Italian Boy Look, I listen.

Patricia Piccinini first came to my notice based on some sculptures she did of these hybrid hairless homonid types (I see images of them turn up in those impulse banner ads from time to time: "Is this a nuclear mutant hybrid result of genetic testing? Click here to find out the answer and apply for an online college at the same time.). Her short film The Gathering, kind of brought me to a halt for a second.

I like Martin Parrs's stuff; his Bored Couples series reminds me of this Jon Brion lyric: Setting traps out in advance/So we could spend the weekend staring in a trance.

The Boton Public Library's photostream is amazing.

Louisiana, as well...

and lastly a dash of Ottoman Calligraphy; I'm hung-over and need breakfast.

mongolian death worm

2010-05-30T16:40:00.000-07:00

I wanted to listen to Jamaican music while I cleaned, and, apparently, a couple in Israel took it upon themselves to make a proper video for Bam Bam by Sister Nancy in their free time in their apartment in their underwear. The American flag boxing gloves are a nice touch.

The Mongolian Death Worm might exist and apparently it hates yellow.

I've posted this set of polaroids before, but it's something I myself often revisit. In short, he took a polaroid a day for 18 years. If you pay it nominal attention and follow it through to the conclusion, I challenge you not to be the least bit moved. Sometimes I leaf through them over coffee or look up that particular day's date, usually reverse annually; sometimes, it's certain holidays or one of those few times where I know where I was back when. He was here on my 21st birthday.

I've had this link to coffee that's expensive because it's been run through a jungle sitting around for a long time. I don't want to delete it, because the informative graphic demonstrating the process makes me laugh. We should put this image in one of those interplanetary time capsules that used to be fashionable to shoot out into the darkest recesses chock-full of goodies for our extraterrestrial neighbors. You know, just to fuck with them.

bottles of knots

This was my weapon of choice.

They're all deaf.

Tenderfoot sweetheart.

Giraffa Camelopardalis.

Oh god, zoom in.

I know I've linked to ma-i-na-ku-ma-na before, but, come on...

The red in that Michetti reminds me of the red in this picture.

I found this while looking for alchemical notations to steal for use as design elements in my post-ironic t-shirt line.

It's getting to be that it's not a post around here until I link to some East Asian graphic design...

I like big butts.

jam vs. jelly

2010-05-29T19:25:00.000-07:00

I spent the day practicing Japanese and Russian folk songs on the ukulele; I can't help but play any instrument I pick up like a banjo: regardless and understandably, the e-perusal has been spurious and fairly directionless. Case in point, Nick Cave (no, not that one...).

I'm thinking about getting a dog. I just wish I knew how well it would respond to being drawn on... drawn upon? adrewn? (the dog is paper and I want to write on it)

My favorite thing in the world when I was 11-years-old was a copy of The Collected Works of Jules Verne. The image of the argonauts in the 20,000 Leagues under the Sea was transcendent to my mostly prepubescent mind. I was already completely mad for Greek mythology and knew Bullfinch's like the back of my hand, and was, consequently and wholly, charmed to have these magical as-yet-unheard of creatures jump out of a woodcut and land in my lap. The video of them here is silent, so play them both at once, if you would.

these are dandy

I'd always known Mort Künstler for his Civil War illustrations; I was unaware of his awesomely pulpy work until I saw this painting called Sweet Lips Cove. I shit you not.

Seven years ago, someone with a polaroid moved to New York: this was his first week in the city.

It is and always has been the city, in my mind.

and our regular roundup of video content. In a half-hearted jab at thematic and conceptual continuity, I'd started researching the classic comics that instilled in me a nascent appreciation for dadaist absurdity and insouciant surreality. Winsor McCay is high on the list.

Oy! I've got such a crush on Abigail Washburn. I mean, such a crush.

I've always liked this Rosetta song because it's subdued, by her normally jumpy-shouty standards.

so much for that hat

2010-05-28T19:23:00.000-07:00

It's late on Friday and I'm listening to cartoons and destroying a pint of coconut sorbet and an over-sized handful of cherries. I haven't thought of a theme for Saturday, but I'd like to start fresh and unceremoniously unload the links I've stumbled across, this week that was. Mooooooooooooooooooogs! (If that didn't sound like a cow in your head, award yourself 10 Canadian Cool Kid Points)

Do take a minute to listen to a god particle decay.

I need to come visit.

Long Fin Killie (TV on the Radio for the early 90s)

While we're on music, this site makes nice mixes for all occasions.

I want to touch this art so bad.

The beautiful women of Belgium.

And, alternately, for the ladies.

Seriously gorgeous big pictures of little bugs.

I can't reconcile the expense of the marimba that is also a storage chest, but that doesn't stop me from trying to talk myself into buying the marimba that is also a storage chest.

God bless ornamental typography.

early and I can't sleep

2010-05-23T05:04:00.000-07:00

Sorry I've been all-business and stingy with the chatty, but, today, it's early and I'm uncaffienated, so I'm doing you a favor by keeping my trap shut. It's a little early to go full-maniac, but why the fuck not...

That's lots to deal with, early on a Sunday. I'm going to have to cash in my breather right out of the gate; I recommend the woman's house turban for a go-go-maniac cool-down.

Joel Robert Harris: a life in doodles.

The floor isn't half-bad either.

Vintage Russian posters.

Alexei Vella.

Nick Knight.

This is becoming a bit of an ART/FASHION parade...

I like the color splashes.

Cutaway Views... (pink panther)

I got an exacto knife because I wanted to cut out some pictures. Kako has some serious knife skills.

More Russian graphic design, board game edition.

Tentacles are something which I often doodle.

Drawing with a stick in the sand.

I thought this list of reasons for adopting an old dog instead of buying a puppy was funny because, in an ideal world, these would apply to people as well.

via Kahlo

quickly, before coffee

2010-05-22T08:01:00.000-07:00

NYC, to me, is seedy and aflame.

I can't start by saying if-you-were-a-fox, so I'll just say this-is-so-you.

Ta-daaaa.

Iain Crawford.

Agru used to work here...

This need to be a rooooooom.

I need a vacation.

Radio.

Cutaway views.

Look for the ant colony.

Love her.

I wish I had a better hand-style.

Bust out your hairbrush and sing.

OK. The coffee situation has drawn to a head. I need to run to the corner. I'll be back in a bit.

full off

2010-05-16T17:52:00.000-07:00

These are so fun to shuffle through, though I've yet to figure out my favorite.

Undeniably cutaway views of a sort...

These remind me of creches.

superhero knitwear

fashion plates

fashion states

I like Mimmo Rotella

Honestly, how does one not love one who keeps one's journal in such a fashion?

Kii Arens

old color

My old banjo teacher is crazy. He used to ride unicycle and play all the time.

.

it was going to be permanent.

2010-05-16T10:09:00.000-07:00

1938?

which naturally led me to early 20th century theories on draping and lines, hats.

Maybe it's the pre-school teacher in me, but I adore this aesthetic.

in the right mood, my eye is admittedly easy to catch.

I could kick it in the LOC all day long. It's too much to even approach, but an absolute goldmine for brainstorming designs. It's also good for just looking.

I need to dust off my banjo.

One chair an hour; four chairs a day.

Cutaway views are my comfort food. (what would the opposite of hindsight being 20/20 be?)

Sunny... because it's sunny.

Celebrities...

I wish I was in Shanghai.

put em up

2010-05-14T14:19:00.001-07:00

So, sometimes it's just one of those days and this was a week of them.

As a small boy, I'd daydream about being 6 inches tall and living in expansive bases hidden inside walls or tree stumps; the layouts of which were well-planned and clearly illustrated. I think what was followed by cutaway views of my sub-marine base.

I've moved on from Nicaragua; let's go to Rio.

Indian castes.

Were I to ever receive transmissions from beyond, I would prefer that it were here.

I need a coffee table.

a bunch of videos for the hell of it.

crybaby

2010-05-10T17:53:00.000-07:00

I wish I could remember the name of the painter who'd made that one I bought forever ago; it was the bust of a woman spinning her head and covering her face with her hair. I can't even recall what color it was, what color it is.

Whenever I see weed in the city overcoming abandoned pavement, I try to smile. Weeds made me think just now of Richard Wright in Native son saying something about reality of oppression trying to strangle people like weeds growing up from under stones and how poetic that sentiment was to a seventeen-year-old me when extended beyond the terms of race, speaking to the undertones of the struggle of existence. Some people are weeds; some are fucking gems: from every stripe and walk, in my book most days.

As a boy, I would hoard Art Nouveau illustrations in secondhand copies of the classics. At first, it was the woodcuts in The Collected Works of Jules Verne; it was all over for me when I found Maxfield Parrish. I'm a sexist pig I guess; but these pinups are all so dreamy, even yet.

People seem to comment that the process of this work must be maddening, but I could see how, after a couple of coffees, it would be so soothing.

The Japanese apparently went through a postcard-craze phase. I recommend spending a minute flipping through these for inspiration. I want big-ass giclées of all of them.

If I were here, my neck would hurt.

Solitary bees make hives for one, but the make them out of fucking flowers.

I don't remember which particular image it was that made me bookmark this guy's photo account late one night awhile ago, but I'm glad I did. Look at this guy's stuff.

More paintings of ladies (I'm such a gender-colonialist, I know. Like Ben Gazzara said, "They're beautiful girls. What's the matter with tits?"). Ahem. William-Adolphe Bouguereau!

Staff Benda Bilili. I love this song.

This umbrella has drum pad for when it rains, what with it being an umbrella and all.

Some pickchers.

Zhou Fan.

ok great

2010-05-08T10:17:00.000-07:00

I just noticed that half of my images don't link to the corresponding pages. what a tremendous waste of time. Fuuuuuuuuuu.......

weapons nerd

2010-05-07T20:35:00.000-07:00

Stayed home sick for the first time in a long one.

That's via Angora Mint. She sends me great stuff. I fell down the Ruth St. Denis rabbithole hard this afternoon. Too gorgeous.

I wonder what your cake would look like.

Norway.

I'm excited that you're going to London; remember those cows in Chicago?

and while we're on elephants...

I need to travel somewhere sometime soon.

Urban adventure stories (needs more monsters).

Oh, Veronica Lake.

You so need this discman...

I can't wait until you're Italian-Italian.

monkeys

I'd forgotten what the Rainbow Brite theme sounded like, and I stumbled across every tv show theme ever...

It was a long week by Monday afternoon...

2010-05-05T19:12:00.000-07:00

Ghost Ads of Chicago

Scrapbooks of a Glaswegian Poet

It should be obvious why I thought of you when you see what's inside

Paintings of real persons

I've been reading about Grace Kelly lately

I remember reading somewhere that the Mayans had constructed a model of the universe out of crystal

Roerich

I'm not sure what this is, but I think it has no blood

I need to figure out what to do about this videos that accumulate

Shhhhh...

2010-05-02T16:58:00.000-07:00

"In a bid to rest his sore feet as much as his restless mind, Larry tried to meditate. They found him hours later, unable to quit thinking about his breathing. 'The only way I can not think about breathing is by thinking about not breathing,' he parceled out in whimpers. Sometime later, he forgot about breathing, maybe he fell asleep; some distraction or other'd rid him of the burden, and he's since filled his ears and eyes with anything to keep him from not thinking. A soul filled with garbage and static was not wholly dissimilar from a zen empty mind when you run them both through a meatgrinder." Gordon Shearer Achers

I could post Nina Simone videos and look for (at) of her as the day is long. Then again, I've got a lot of favorites. Maybe banjo next? Gender dynamics in 70s game shows? Oy, with the videos.
You speak Spanish. Tell me about the fountain of youth.

Been a minute since I've hollered

2010-05-02T14:25:00.000-07:00

Some quick cleaning before I launch back into this fully. I'm only rushing because I've got avocadoes that need to be guacamole and I can hear them ripening. so, ummmmm..... the apocalypse.

The birds and the ex-acto work made me think of you or Cornell.

I'd never heard of Ramon Casas, but this image brought me to a halt...

pixelated cross-stitchings.

more soon. The anticipation of guacamole is too much to bear.