Present Shock to the ISS.

-  I need to work on a lot of music today, so this is going to be quick… and likely a massive link dump.

-  Phantom Balance’s new record “Loser” is up on their Bandcamp now and FREE.

-  SpaceX Capsule Arrives At ISS.

“A privately-owned unmanned US space capsule arrived at the International Space Station on Sunday, bringing to the space outpost food, scientific materials and other crucial equipment.

The capsule named Dragon was captured—with the help of a robotic arm – by NASA Expedition 34 Commander Kevin Ford and Flight Engineer Tom Marshburn, 5:31 am EST (1031 GMT), when the ISS was over northern Ukraine, US space officials said. The craft, owned by SpaceX corporation, will now be inspected via cameras, brought to the Earth-facing port of the ISS’s Harmony module and bolted into place by commands from mission control.“

-  Really great take on the main characters from The Wizard of Oz by Gregory Manchess:

-  I have a shitload of comics to read.  I AM EXCITE.  I’ll have reviews up here this week.  Also I hate how nobody gave a fuck about Morrison’s Batman for the past year until a major character got whacked, and now advanced orders for the next issue are selling out.

-  The End of Time Is Not The End of the World.

“Present Shock is a big concept with profound implications for culture, politics and business. A simple visualization (borrowed from Adrian Bejan’s theories of flow systems) is to think of time as a river flowing at a certain pace. Below a certain threshold, the movements of things on the river are fairly linear and predictable. You launch a barge in the river here and three days later you have drifted to there. This is historical progress as we have come to know it over the millennia  But when the speed of the flow increases beyond that threshold, the river becomes turbulent, non-linear, unpredictable. Such is the state of time in 2012.

What does this mean? Rushkoff breaks up “presentism” into five symptoms or challenges and matches each with constructive solutions for pressing the pause button. The “aha-moment-per-page ratio in Present Shock is high. Once you identify these concepts for yourself, you will start to see them everywhere.”

-Sonny

Winter’s Oblivion.

-  Artists Ryan Ottley and James Harren have a Tumblr where they release non-comic pieces of art they’ve been conjuring up.  There seems to be themes, too.  Like the other week they called ‘Shadow Week’.  The site is called “THE BOG“.  James just posted this, as winter is not over yet:

-  AND NOW, THE NOMINEES FOR THE NEBULA AWARDS.  I haven’t read any of these novels, but Kim Stanley’s “2312″ sounds intriguing.

-  More comic stores are refusing to sell Orson Scott Card’s new Superman book on account of his straight-forward, clear stance on gay rights and indeed lesbians, gays, and bisexuals as people too.  I love that Mark Millar came out and said something to the tune of, “that’s the thing about free speech, it isn’t always something you’re going to agree with.  But that doesn’t mean you ban someone, you threaten their livelihood.”  Actually Mark, that’s the thing about Free Speech, you can sell or not sell whatever products you choose as dependent upon however you feel about said products, production methods, or producers themselves.  And while we’re at it, work on your dialogue please.

-  Very interesting perspective here.  Former ‘sex worker’, now journalist on what feminists get wrong when it comes to prostitution (from Guernica):  WAGING WAR ON SEX WORKERS.

“I’ve been free in my writing to have that opinion. I’ve never been constrained by journalism in a formal way in which I have to hear both sides. I don’t even know who “both sides” would be on this issue. No, I’m not going to have a debate with you about how you feel about sex work. It has no impact on what happens tonight with the police in the streets. Our feelings alone don’t change what happens with the police, what happens in jail, what happens when someone tries to go to the welfare office, the unemployment office, or any kind of state agency where a criminal record comes up for prostitution. How we feel about the commodification of sexuality and violence doesn’t actually translate to those people’s lives. A lot of the debate is really academic and a waste of time.”

-  The latest Watch Dogs video looks unbelievable.  Too bad this is a PS4 game, cause I’ll probably wait to buy one of those ’til they go down in price.  I still haven’t finished even 50% of Skyrim, and have Dishonored to get into.  A new Playstation will guarantee one thing though, super outrageously cheap games on eBay and Craig’s List for the last system.  Anyways, here’s that video:

-  That Sioux Falls group Phantom Balance — I discussed them a couple posts ago — is releasing a new album called “Loser” tomorrow I believe.  I’ll stream it here either tomorrow or later in the week.

-  New How To Destory Angels (Trent Reznor’s latest band; his wife is the singer, and Atticus Ross co-producers/performs) is streaming.  The new album is called “Welcome Oblivion” and will be released March 5th.  13 tracks at 65 minutes.  On Columbia Records.  Wikipedia’s labeling it as “post-industrial” and “electronica”.

-Sonny

 

From Beast to West.

-  To get personal shit out of the way (even though I know very few people who may be reading this care; and those who are probably have been linked here by google searching “george tooker”):  That job I interviewed for last week?  I got it!  I’m getting closer and closer to a final product with this album I’m working on.  It should be pretty neat.  My wife is pregnant, so soon I’ll be able to share all this art and music and information with a mini-me.  Also, my life will obviously get insane… so, I may have to shut this thing down.  Okay, enough of that.

-  Some of my buds from across the pond, specifically Daniel the curator, will be starting a music blog very soon that I’ll occasionally be writing on.  I’ll definitely be linking to it once it’s up and running, I think he’s shooting for a Tumblr-based site.

-  New Game of Thrones trailer:

-  Jonathan Hickman has been teasing a new creator owned project that comes out sometime in March with Image Comics.  This is the latest teaser:

-  I saw Beasts of Southern Wild last night and I really, really enjoyed it.  Surreal, haunting, powerful, peaceful, humanistic, with a very something-bigger-than-you vibe to boot.  The occasional glimpse at the extinct ancient beast “Aurochs“, who have risen from their frozen states, melted out of the ice caps, is perhaps the best visual metaphor in film this year.  The acting is top-notch with the occasional good.  The directing and cinematography are beautiful, from the fireworks celebration early on to the parting shot of the characters strolling carelessly as the power of the rising ocean bears down on them.  There needs to be more movies like this.

-  I don’t why  — considering I’m a Minnesotan — I just recently heard of the Sioux Falls group Phantom Balance.  Good Lord, they’ll tear your face off.  This is the kind of thing that can only be conjured up in the midst of frozen lakes, crops, and wind chills of negative 20 degrees Fahrenheit:

 

-Sonny

 

A Letter To Steve.

-  I got Mixed Blood Majority tickets this morning, along with Cecil Otter’s first solo show in some time.  MBM is a super group of sorts, at least when it comes to the Twin Cities music scene.  The group features vocalists from both No Bird Sing and Kill The Vultures, and production from Doomtree‘s Lazerbeak.  Pretty excited, as all three members are some of my favorite local musicians.  Here’s the latest thing they threw up on their Soundcloud page:

If you preorder their album right now you’ll get the album, a shirt, a poster, and a random CD from either of their other bands for just 12 bucks (without shipping).  Good deal.

-  Daniel Day Lewis originally turned down the chance to play Lincoln.  SlashFilm recently got their hands on the letter he wrote to decline the part.  Ah… screw it, here it is:

“Dear Steven,

It was a real pleasure just so sit and talk with you. I listened very carefully to what you had to say about this compelling history, and I’ve since read the script and found it in all the detail in which it describe these monumental events and in the compassionate portraits of all the principal characters, both powerful and moving. I can’t account for how at any given moment I feel the need to explore life as opposed to another, but I do know that I can only do this work if I feel almost as if there is no choice; that a subject coincides inexplicably with a very personal need and a very specific moment in time. In this case, as fascinated as I was by Abe, it was the fascination of a grateful spectator who longed to see a story told, rather than that of a participant. That’s how I feel now in spite of myself, and though I can’t be sure that this won’t change, I couldn’t dream of encouraging you to keep it open on a mere possibility. I do hope this makes sense Steven, I’m glad you’re making the film, I wish you the strength for it, and I send both my very best wishes and my sincere gratitude to you for having considered me.”

-  Wow… you gotta check out Filip Kulisev.  Holy shit unreal photography.

-  Sonny

 

 

Offensive Action Figures.

-  Chris and Matt over at WarRocketAjax have included some of my award categories in this year’s “Gordie Awards”.  WarRocketAjax is a pop cultural podcast wherein two really, down to the bone, unequivocally nerdy dudes talk about comics, video games, BBQ, music, movies, TV, net stuff, etc.  But mostly comics.  The categories they took from me were “Best High Concept”, “Best Rap Verse”, and “Best Last Page (of a comic)”.  To which I would have to answer (in order): the entirety of Hickman’s “Manhattan Projects”, Sadistik on “Wild West” (off Kristoff Krane’s “fanfaronade”), and I’ll have to come back to the last page thing.

Here’s that track (and verse):

And while I’m on the subject, Sadistik has a new record coming out soonish.  February 19th.  Here’s the announcement on his page, along with the track listing and album info/artwork/all that jazz.

-  The BAFTA nominations have been announced.  Not many surprises here.  One flick I was really excited for that didn’t get raving reviews was the crime/screenwriting/Shih Tzu kidnapping comedy “Seven Psychopaths“.  It was nominated for “Best British Film”.  Glad to see Michael Haneke’s new film getting some attention.  Somewhere.  I haven’t seen “Amour” but I’m sure it’s probably challenging as are all of his movies.  “Original Screenplay” is an interesting category, as I could see almost any one of the guys win.  But c’mon, “Zero Dark Thirty” isn’t really an “original” script.  I mean, it is in a sense that there wasn’t a fictional account of those events prior to it existing… but it’s a journalistic take on what happened.  It’s just telling a real story.  And if there’s evidence of that, it’s that the State Department is taking quite an interest in investigating where Boal and Bigelow got their information for the movie.

-  Good Lord.  More people having more issues over Django.  Along with an ultra-conservative co-worker (who’s mad because the movie’s “just about white people getting murdered”) here comes Al Sharpton who’s saying there shouldn’t be figures of the characters in the movies because he says these toys are for kids.  Which they clearly aren’t.  I mean, any kid would be bored out of his mind with an action figure that vaguely looks like Leo DiCaprio in a Hugh Hefner-esque robe with a cigarette holder dangling out of its mouth.  And I’m doubting action figures of characters from Tarentino movies sell all that well.  I think they’re probably geared towards hardcore fans who collect things of this nature, and they’re not widely available.  “”I don’t see any dolls representing Hitler that came from Tarantino’s (Holocaust movie ‘Inglourious Basterds’)…”, Sharpton says.  No, you don’t.  But who gives a shit if there was?

When I have kids I’m not going to let them have a fucking Hitler doll from a Tarentino movie, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t allow such a thing to exist.

-  Sonny

2012 Tunage.

[DISCLAIMER:  This is not a "Best Albums of 2012" list.  Rather a list of my favorite albums of the year.  And it was a lot longer but I've whittled it down substantially.  It was a good year for me.]

Baroness -  Yellow & Green

Baroness became one of my favorite Metal bands when they validated their debut with the beautiful “Blue Album”.  “Yellow & Green” takes the litany of influences to another level, stirring all sorts of ingredients together to make a pretty, if haunting, “metal” album.

Local H -  Hallelujah! I’m a Bum 

Lyrically, musically, and thematically, this is the record Scott Lucas has been itching to make for possibly the entirety of his career.  Hopeful, pessimistic, and very Chicagoan, “I’m A Bum” reaches down into its guts and heart to rip out an outburst of understated political criticism.

Brother Ali -  Mourning In America, Dreaming In Colour

Similar to Local H’s album in many, many ways, Ali returns to the full-length after the all too happy “Us” with a scathing critique of the American political process with one finger always on the button of hope.  Probably the most apt title of the year.

JJ DOOM – Keys To The Kuffs

MF Doom – or whatever he’s calling himself now – collabs with one Jnerio Jarel to present a sound that hearkens back to his Madvillain days with a slight tinge of Electronica to boot.  The bizarre and compelling backstory behind the making of this album, and the themes, is as interesting as the sound it inspired.

El-P – Cancer For Cure 

After yet another five year break between solo records, El-P’s newest album is definitely his most accessible: heavy, catchy, conceptual without being taking it too far.  His production and lyrics are both the stars, with the former tackling complex synth based beats and the latter walking further down the tracks of 21^st Century alienation and paranoia.

P.O.S. – We Don’t Even Live Here

This is the most non-political political album of the last five years.  Though you wouldn’t know it from the reviews, the message is simple: free yourself from a system that doesn’t work for you, doesn’t accept you, or both.  Production and appearances from German techno dudes to Justin Vernon to Ryan Olson keep things very, very interesting.

Aesop Rock – Skelethon 

It took Aesop Rock over a decade to finally trust his chops enough to make an album with all his own beats; the result is the most personalized and soulful record of his career.  His trademark high-concept lyricism is in full effect, but it feels like the imagery and metaphors are pulled straight from the last 5 years of his life.

Flying Lotus – Until The Quiet Comes

Steven Ellison continues his acclaimed, multi-genre discography with a wonderful, mysterious 15 track album grounded in where it came from but still forging ahead without inhibitions of any kind.  The features are spot on with the likes of Thom Yorke and Erykah Badu lending vocals.

Kendrick Lamar – good kid, m.A.A.d city

Mainstream Rap music takes a huge step forward this year with Kendrick’s proper debut LP, a concept album about growing up in Compton under the shadow of previous West Coast Hip-Hop and the underbelly that comes with it, both metaphorically and literally.  The final step in Rap music entering the 21^st Century, and growing up.

Swans – The Seer

There’s a reason why this punk/hardcore/??? band’s 2 hour-ish magnum opus has been making list after list of late… it is one bold, massive, go for the throat piece of work that rewards listeners for repeated listens and just simply getting to the end.  This is what happens when rules and limitations go out the window: the results are often stunning and powerful.

Death Grips – The Money Store/No Love Deep Web

A tie for the most anti-corporate band’s two albums of 2012 because, really, they work in conjunction.  Together, “The Money Store” and “No Love Deep Web” form an admirable and poignant story about the limits of control, capitalism, and the record business in the second decade of the 21^st Century.

Killer Mike – R.A.P. Music

I don’t know about everyone else, but for me there was a fear that El-P’s beats would overshadow the veteran Atlanta rapper’s rhymes on the Adult Swim sponsored “R.A.P. Music”.  That didn’t happen.  As it turns out Killer Mike keeps pace with the heavy, heavy production and maybe even surpasses it.  The best album of his career by far.

Grimes – Visions

Clair Boucher – better known as Grimes – is a one woman wrecking crew of ethereal, primal, yet futuristic witch house that will bite at your soul while making you want to dance.  “Visions” takes her looping and overlaying style to a whole new degree: at times there are 4 or 5 Clairs singing in conjunction to form 13 fresh and undistinguishable Electro tracks.

Dan Deacon – America

Nowhere else is it more clear that Dan Deacon studied electo-acoustic and computer music composition than on “America”, an album that encompasses everything Dan Deacon does to its absolute best form.  The hearty, thick analog sounds are here, as are the intricately laced runs of synth scales.  Awesome record.

Purity Ring – Shrines

Another Canadian outfit, this time from the East (Montreal), presents to the world a very, very good debut that sparkles and shimmers even amongst a whole lot of good 2012 Electro albums from seasoned veterans of the genre.  Really hope this 21 and 24 year old stay together and keep making music for years to come.

Black Moth Super Rainbow – Cobra Juicy 

I’ve introduced Black Moth Super Rainbow to as many people as I can.  And for good reason, there’s really nothing out there like them… even in a year so influenced by the sound they’ve pioneered.  “Cobra Juicy” sees the band getting a little less dreamy and trippy and a little more dancey.

The Bad Plus – Made Possible      

Why I still haven’t seen the Twin Cities best modern Jazz trio I do not know; but The Bad Plus are players to be reckoned with, each of these guys get a 10 on skill alone.  Which can often overshadow soul, but “Made Possible” serves up both.  And in spirit of democracy ([laughter]) each member gets a chance to write multiple tracks.

Gary Clark, Jr. – Blak and Blu 

This guy keeps getting anointed as some iteration of “best new artist”, which is a little deceptive: he’s been recording officially since 2004.  And there’s lots of bluesmen out there, few invigorate their brand of tunes with such energy and variety.  At least not lately.  But even calling this album “blues” paints it into a corner it doesn’t sit it for too long at a time.

Robert Glasper Experiement – Black Radio   

“Black Radio” is my biggest surprise of the year.  Previously to it I only had briefly heard Glasper’s name barely in passing.  The ringleader and his amazing band though make modern Jazz as cool as any other type of music the kids may or may not be listening to.  It doesn’t hurt that the album features one of the best (and strangest) Nirvana covers I’ve ever heard.

Polica – Give You The Ghost    

Hype can be a bit of a problem sometimes.  This Minneapolis band began garnering hype for their debut long before its release.  Deserved or not… it’s hard to deny the uniqueness of Polica’s sound.  Ryan Olson’s synths and Chaney’s processed vocals over one hell of a rhythm section is, if anything, just damn entertaining to listen to.

How To Destroy Angels -  An omen_EP

As hard as it is for me to include this album due to it feeling like a short and sweet prelude to some other great piece of work further down the line, it’s still the best thing Reznor and co. have done yet.  And I know this might be hard to read, it’s certainly hard to write… I think I like How To Destroy Angels’ sound better than NIN.  Gods forgive me.

A Place To Bury Strangers – Worship

A Place Bury Strangers suffers from that all too often affliction of lavish praise upon debut, only to have those heaping on the praise forget about you and move onto the next hot new band.  It’s a shame because “Worship” takes everything them made them so dangerous before and adds all kinds of new dynamics and layers.

Andrew Bird – Break It Yourself  

I’ve only gotten into Andrew Bird lately and boy is it overwhelming trying to catch up.  His discography, like his arrangements, is fairly daunting.  But with Andrew Bird – and the band he’s assembled for “Break It Yourself”, including a couple of my favorite MN instrumentalists – the amount of work you put in is far surpassed by what you get out of it.

Fiona Apple – The Idler Wheel…    

Fiona Apple remains to this day a curious case of semi-successful independent musicianship.  Not many late 90’s chart toppers are willing to name their newest album using 23 words, or craft the types of songs that appear on “Idler Wheel”.  These are bizarre and quirky tracks, but would you expect or want anything less from her?

Guided By Voices – Let’s Go Eat The Factory

So Guided By Voices released a boatload of music this year: 3 LPs, all featuring 20-ish tracks.  It was a little difficult picking which one.  The other two are good, and GBV is one of those bands whose quality remains very, very consistent.  But “Let’s Go Eat the Factory” saw their return from an almost 10 year hiatus.  And Robert Pollard and co. came back with the hunger of a band in their 20’s.

Matthew Dear – Beams          

Matthew Dear has been making Electronic music for over 10 years, and a lot of it is really good.  But it feels like on “Beams” he finally found his creative sweet spot.  The music is comfortable in its own skin: confident but perhaps a bit shy at the same time.  And this album perhaps has some of the best lyrics of the year.

Blut Aus Nord – 777: Cosmosophy      

This French black metal band (with a German name) ends its “777” trilogy in stunning fashion with an almost ambient take on the genre.  While so many other metal bands, particularly this brand of metal, limit themselves within the confines of what “metal” is, Blut Aus Nord branches out beyond the borders and the results are awe-inspiring, majestic, and very beautiful.

Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Psychedelic Pill

It’s hard not to applaud the aspirations – or maybe balls – of a record that opens with a half-hour track of 70’s jam band psychedelica about those very days some 40 years ago.  Normally I’m weary of nostalgia in almost all its forms, but “Psychedelic Pill” brings it in droves and you will find yourself thinking, “Damn I wish it was 1972 right now”.

-SonnyW.

/\/\_/\/\_vs_J/\Y.

-  New remix EP!  I’m basically doing here what I tried to to with Biggie, but now I have more tools at my disposal and I don’t suck as much.  I wanted to do another Hip-Hop legend.  Nas was on the list, and is still.  Ironically though, one of the songs on this album is a 2001 track (off The Blueprint) called “The Takeover” in which Jay-Z talks alot shit about both Mob Deep and Nas.  I can’t mess with the original, which is one of Kayne West’s best beats, it manages to sample The Doors and KRS One and David Bowie.  Dang.  Anyways, yeah enjoy.  Most of the tracks are pretty dark besides “H.O.V.A.” which kind of has a dance party vibe, and “Encore” which is sort of a reflective, hopeful sounding song.  Here’s the cover:

There’s still much to be desired with my scratching, but I’m getting better.  Also there should be a guitar solo.  Maybe at the end of HOVA.  Okay I’ll stop.  Here’s the stream:

Okay what the fuck?  Bandcamp has changed since I last used it.  There used to be a drop down menu to embed albums on a variety of sites, including WordPress.  Now they’re only providing embed shortcodes for Tumblr, Twitter, and Google+ (with Facebook being default embed).  Hmm.  Okay, well here’s the damn link cause yeah F this:

http://mildmaynyrd.bandcamp.com/album/vs-j-y

The title of the album is /\/\_/\/\_vs_J/\Y.  Yes, written like that.  Here’s the tracklist:

1. December 4th
2. The Takeover
3. H.O.V.A.
4. Bed-Stuy
5. Can’t Knock The Hustle (feat. Mary J. Blige)
6. Hey Papi (feat. Memphis Bleek)
7. Encore

Thanks!

-Sonny

 

 

 

New Podcast/Emoticons From Women.

-  I’m tuning into the War Rocket Ajax podcast at Comics Alliance right now, mostly because it features an interview with Jonathan Hickman, who I’m a fan of.  He might even turn me into an Avengers reader, a feat previously thought impossible.  But when I tuned in I was pleased to hear them talking about El-P and Killer Mike, and apparently they talk about hip-hop alot on their podcast (and BBQ).  Then they pointed towards a Comic-Con called ColaCon, which blends comics and hip-hop.  Fucking awesome.  This year Ghostface and Phife (from Tribe Called Quest) are playing.  I may have to become a regular listener.

-  CBR is reporting — though they provide no link — that RZA is going to direct a film adaptation of Grant Morrison’s new book “Happy”.  The book is about an ex-cop, now hitman maneuvering through a world of drugs, sex, and violence with the help of his daughter’s imaginary friend (a blue horse that looks like a Dinsey character) after getting shot.  Sounds insane and spectacular.

-  Adapting Super Mario to a Chinese Gangster film:

-  Obviously… women use emoticons twice as much as men do when text messaging.

-  Wow, very cool article from 1978 on Burroughs’ “Nova Convention”:

The Nova Convention, three days and nights of readings, panel discussions, film showings and various sorts of performances that sought to grapple with some of the implications of the writing of William S. Burroughs, concluded Saturday night with a program at the Entermedia theater. Actually, the convention was not entirely over; there was a midnight rock concert featuring Robert Fripp, Blondie, and other rock performers. But it was over for Mr. Burroughs and his inner circle, who all went immediately to a private party.

The convention drew an interesting cross-section of people, and one suspected that only Mr. Burroughs could have brought them together. There were more or less conventional poets, novelists, performing artists, composers as diverse as John Cage and Philip Glass, rock musicians, serious students of American literature, street types and others.

All or almost all of them had been touched in some way by Mr. Burroughs’s varied body of work, which includes straight hard-boiled prose fiction, autobiography, nonrepresentational writing using the cut-up technique invented by Brion Gysin, science fiction of a sort, barbed satire, accounts of drug experiences and attitudinal or political pronouncements.

And here’s some audio from the convention as well:

-Sonny

Minor-Key Solitude.

-  Via SuperPunch’s Tumblr account:

-  Julian Assange hiding out in Ecuador comes close to defining irony; here’s an article from February of just this year titled, “Ecuador’s [President] Under Fire for Media Laws”, which goes on to say, “President Rafael Correa of Ecuador is leading a relentless campaign against free speech” and “the most comprehensive and ruthless assault on free media under way in the Western Hemisphere”.  Nevermind, it defines irony.

-  That JJ DOOM album I mentioned yesterday is now streaming in its entirety.

-  One gripe I have with current state critically acclaimed music is that a disproportionate amount of it is infinitely happy.  I’m happy sometimes too.  It’s good to be alive.  But far too many bands are failing to explore the darker sides of music (some of these band’s lyrics get dark, I guess).  It’d be very interesting to somehow take all the acclaimed albums of the last two years and compare the amount of minor-key’d songs to that of years past.  A lot of it is major keys, with very consonant, resonant melodies and hooks.  In previous decades/cultural trends this has been the aim of Top 40/Pop music, not independent and/or acclaimed music.  And considering the uncertain atmosphere that seems to be leaking into almost every aspect of our lives on a global scale, one would think it’d be the opposite.  What’s probably really going on here is bands/musicians/possibly artists are overcompensating for this, and using their output to cope with all the unrest.  But for me, it just doesn’t seem honest a lot of times.  And even when it does feel honest, it is not for me.

I tried Googling this, to see if anyone else what noticing or writing about this… I found nothing.

-  Through Edward Hopper’s Eyes: In Search of an Artist’s Seaside Inspiration.

She was also intrigued to discover that Hopper, who is regarded as a realist and who painted the houses in Gloucester with great precision, manipulated one important aspect of what he saw. “He changed the light and shadows in his pictures a lot and combined different times of day so that the shadow might go in two directions – that’s how he created his narrative, his drama.” Albert Halaban responded to this by taking a more painterly approach to her photographs and manipulating the light as Hopper had done in the 1920s. “The houses that he painted remain, but the narratives he created only exist on his canvases. Standing in the same places, I was inspired to take my own liberties and create narratives that are my own.”

-Sonny

Glass Half Empty.

-  ARTIST OF THE DAY: Roxie Vizcarra.  That will take you to her official site, she also has a blog (though she hasn’t updated since April; probably because she’s incredibly busy for being a BOSS artist).  Roxie’s art is mildly surrealistic, but her figures always seem to be anatomically spot-on.  Just check out some of her NSFW pieces.  Her use of color is great, it hearkens back to pop art a little, though her designs and compositions are much more sophisticated than that would lead on.  One word I would use for her stuff is energy.  All her art has this wicked sense of energy flowing through it.  Here’s one from her site called “Adulthood”:

-  New poster for Paul Thomas Anderson’s “The Master”:

-  The story about the comments sections getting closed on Rotten Tomatoes “Dark Knight Rises” page has more to it than it seems.  Initially I had read that ardent fans of Nolan’s Bat-films had been so disgustingly brutal — some going so far as to offer death threats — to ANYONE who didn’t like the film, that the Admins shut down commenting.  That is true.  But there was/is a twist: film critic Eric Snider (who’s had his share of controversy before), put up a review saying this…

“The Dark Knight Rises is easily the most disappointing Batman film so far – and I’m including Schumacher’s Batman & Robin in that statement.”

Not a big deal, right?  Snider, with the power he had been granted by RT, uploaded this mini-review and when clicked, it would bring viewers directly to his site.  To up his traffic count.  Also — what’s worse — he hadn’t even seen the film yet when he posted that.  He was trolling.  For hits on his site.  Ugh.

Why does everyone get so fucking weird about these movies?  I don’t get it.  I wrote extensively about the hubub surrounding The Dark Knight upon release back in July of 2008, I may have to do that again soonish.  There are lots of cultural ticks at play with things like this.  If you’re a fan, why the hell do you care if people don’t like the movie?  I would love it if everyone didn’t like this movie… the theaters would be way less crowded.  And annoying.

-  To cope with the genocide and war and terror of the Congo, some citizens are turning to art.  Specifically, making socially conscious hip-hop music.  It makes sense, it requires the least money to manufacture.  It has always been a voice and/or outlet for the oppressed.

“Rap music provided escape and inspiration. The young men listened to it on the local radio and when the Institute’s internet connection was working, they watched videos on YouTube of American and French rap groups. Many of the youth she met were in rap groups themselves. They had organized a concert with cash prizes for winners, around $100; a large sum in a country where the average monthly salary for a teacher is around $50. The two-day event took place at the Kaoze Community Center in the village of Rutshuru, Nord Kivu.

The shows, which took place during the day due to security concerns, were full of the euphoria of youth anywhere. Using pre-recorded tracks, they sang and danced until sunset, when the Community Center was cleared.”

-Sonny