Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Media Irreverent Type Blog The Big Caption Gives The Big Picture New Meaning
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Wed, May 26, 2010 at 1:27 PM
The Boston Globe's The Big Picture is probably the web's best newsy photoblog (we're big fans), but the captions under its spectacular photos can get a little repetitive, which is why the blog The Big Caption, with its hilarious text and often very pretty typography, makes such a vital contribution. For instance:
Now that's infotainment! (CreativeReview)
Music Watch This Very Brief Clip of Paul Westerberg on Top of the Minnesota Twins Dugout
Posted by Mike Conklin on Wed, May 26, 2010 at 12:55 PM
During filming 40 Nights of Rock & Roll, a new documentary by Steve LaBate and Scott Sloan meant to determine "the state of rock and roll in America," the two filmmakers somehow wound up at Target Field in Minneapolis, with Paul Westerberg sitting cross-legged for an interview on top of the dugout. The state of rock and roll in America is quite strange, apparently. [via The Tripwire]
Art Mike Leavitt Designs Famous Artist Action Figures
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Wed, May 26, 2010 at 12:24 PM
Mike Leavitt, a Seattle-based artist most recently seen in our city when he had a solo show at Fuse Gallery last spring, just unveiled some new additions to his Art Army action figure series, which, as the name suggests, turns modern and contemporary artists into stylized, articulated collectors' items. The new set includes Ron English, Damien Hirst and Banksy (above, respectively), as well as R. Crumb and David Byrne. Clearly, a Cindy Sherman action figure should be next in the series—just think of all the accessories! (Asylum)
News / Media Fake BP PR Twitter Helps Make Oil Spill Disaster Seem Less Disastrous
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Wed, May 26, 2010 at 11:50 AM
Obviously, making light or beautiful photography of the greatest man-made ecological superdisaster since Godzilla is not cool, but whoever is behind @BPGlobalPR sure is having a grand time roasting the evil, misinformation-spewing oil company behind this whole thing. For instance, "It's official, the phrase "All the tea in china" has been replaced with 'All the oil in the gulf" - Can't wait for the royalties!", and this gem:
Best fake Twitter since @FakeMTA? Totally. (TheDailyWhat)
News Holy Shit! Red Neck Out-of-Town Poachers Are Stealing Our Pigeons and USING THEM FOR SPORT!
Posted by Jonny Diamond on Wed, May 26, 2010 at 11:23 AM
- Shoot this, you cracker sumbitch.
Seriously. The Wall Street Journal reports that out-of-staters have been coming to New York and capturing local pigeons with nets. No, it's not to eat them (there's edible vermin across this great nation of ours), but rather to sell them to gun ranges to serve as "live skeet" in day-long competitions where contestants fire shotguns at thousands of "released" birds. The lucky birds are transported to Pennsyltucky without food and water and then get filled full of buckshot. Holy fucking shit that is awful and pathetic.
Here's what American hero Frank Pascoe, the Pennsylvania representative of the Amateur Trap Shooting Association had to say about the whole thing: "It’s an American tradition and form of pest control."
Frank, they're our pests. Quit stealing them. And if we see you in our city stealing our birds we will kick you in the nuts.
Music American Idol Recap: In Which I Remembered Why I Stopped Caring About American Idol
Posted by Mike Conklin on Wed, May 26, 2010 at 10:55 AM
News Brooklyn College Plan to Tear Down Garden to Build Parking Lot Denied... For Now
Posted by Jonny Diamond on Wed, May 26, 2010 at 10:23 AM
- Joni Mitchell should write a song.
News Manhattan's Hudson Waterfront Now Fully Bike-Friendly After UWS Link Opens
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Wed, May 26, 2010 at 10:01 AM
Media Is the Daily News Totally Fucking With Macho Italian-Americans?
Posted by Jonny Diamond on Wed, May 26, 2010 at 9:39 AM
I'm sorry, but I had to look about four times at this Daily News pic of "The Dance of the Giglio," the annual Italian tradition of carrying a giant thing through the streets and eating fried foods (in honor of a 5th-century saint). Because this is the gayest thing I've ever seen. Like, Pride Preview gay. (Nothing wrong with that, just, you know, mischievous photo editor, etc.).
Music Kanye Premiers Four New Tracks at CV Lounge
Posted by Mike Conklin on Wed, May 26, 2010 at 9:15 AM
Film "Because I'm Alive": Minnelli's A Matter of Time
Posted by Dan Callahan on Wed, May 26, 2010 at 8:47 AM
News New Yorkers Are Good People: Community Board One Votes to Allow Mosque Near World Trade Center
Posted by Jonny Diamond on Wed, May 26, 2010 at 2:09 AM
You know, you walk around this city feeling like you're a terrorist target, and you have all kinds of crazy people on the TV telling you (YES YOU) that all the Muslims are evil and they want to kill you because you live in Times Square or once ate at that place Meg Ryan had that sandwichgasm. It can get to be a bit much. That's why I'm glad that Community Board One voted 29-1 in favor of allowing the Cordoba House (mosque and community center) to build near the World Trade Center site.
Anyway, thank you Community Board One for reminding us why America is great.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Music On Bettye LaVette's New Album, Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook
Posted by Mike Conklin on Tue, May 25, 2010 at 4:50 PM
Art Michelle Rogers Paints Terrified Stock Traders on Wall Street
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Tue, May 25, 2010 at 4:08 PM
Reprising a piece that she showed at last year's Venice Biennale, Michelle Rogers just put up her triptych poster work "My God, My God...The 3 Stock Traders" (pictured) right around the corner from the New York Stock Exchange. Part street art pranksterism, part Old Masters-style portrait of lowly humans imploring the goodwill of a vengeful god, the piece depicts three stock brokers looking skyward fearfully. On her website, Rogers writes: ""I want the Wall Street guys to know, that they are not the masters of the universe." Her stock is skyrocketing. (ANIMAL)
Art New Media Artist and Digital Artisan Justin Kemp Adds to the Internet
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Tue, May 25, 2010 at 3:33 PM
The Newton, Mass.-based media and mashup artist Justin Kemp's Adding to the Internet series (2010) involves him searching for really random images on Google and, when his queries turn up zero results, creating the corresponding image, thus adding to the internet. Here, for instance, is what happened when Kemp searched for “Jack Johnson is hiding behind my house plants”:
And so, taking up his pioneering internaut mission, he filled the gap.
Music Rihanna's "Rockstar 101" Video is Infuriating and Stupid
Posted by Mike Conklin on Tue, May 25, 2010 at 2:50 PM
There are few things in the world that I find more irritating, more cringe-inducing, than people who don't know anything about rock and roll doing the things they think people who know something about rock and roll might do. Celine Dion's stint as an air guitarist is, for my money, the most egregious example, but it pops up all over the place, from contestants on American Idol to, well, the morons who made mainstream rock and roll an absolute laughing stock for nearly a decade. It's always super serious, faux-intimidating faces, headbanging and windmills—it's the same kind of ridiculous as when your dumb white uncle does his impersonation of a rappers. Anyway, here's this new Rihanna video for a song called, oh god, "Rockstar 101." When she gets done writhing around on the floor in almost no clothes, she takes part in some of the best rocksploitation I've ever seen, actually going so far as to dress like fucking Slash. And then what does she do? Oh, she smashes a guitar, of course, because that's just what those rockers do, you know?
Music Chris Brown Promises Long Night of Safe Sex in New Video, "No Bullshit"
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Tue, May 25, 2010 at 2:14 PM
Still not really understanding the accepted boundaries between sexy aggression and aggressive aggression, Chris Brown spends much of his new video, "No Bullshit," brooding in his darkened apartment, dancing on his rooftop, and making claims of sexual super-endurance that you might not believe because "you be on that bullshit." That's hot! (HipHopDX)
Art The One True (Fake) MTA Hipster Subway Map
Posted by Jonny Diamond on Tue, May 25, 2010 at 1:47 PM
The yucksters over at FakeMTA have made a hipster subway map, featuring such terra icognita as "To Prague" and "Cab-only zone." It's funny 'cause it's true. [Here's a larger version.]
Music Watch the Ladies' Hangover Video for Ludacris and Trey Songz's "Sex Room"
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Tue, May 25, 2010 at 1:20 PM
Ludacris and Trey Songz are suave Vegas casino tycoons who corrupt a group of young women visiting their fair city in the brand new music video for the slow love anthem "Sex Room" from Luda's latest record, Battle of the Sexes. It's like The Hangover from the opposite sex's perspective, except dead serious.
(MissInfo)
Media Back By Feverish Demand: The L Magazine's Horoscopes
Posted by Jonny Diamond on Tue, May 25, 2010 at 12:53 PM
- The only known image of Laps Trinity
But for whatever reason, this time around we got nothing. And the people started to worry... Never ones to ignore public outcry, we set out to track Laps down and make him write the horoscopes again. Well, we found him sleeping in a pick-up truck in a diner parking lot just outside Suffern, New Jersey, making his way through the collected works of James A. Michener. Has he found what he's looking for? No. But that's good. The day he finds what he's looking for is the day the horoscopes die forever.
So relax, Laps fans, the horoscopes will return in the June 6th issue, in all their oblique glory.
