Little Napoleons & Japan

Today I started helping my friend Larissa make costumes of characters in her paintings, (specifically Little Napoleons) to use in front of a bluescreen towards making a performance/painting video to explain her work at an upcoming show in Denmark. I'm going to fuck this up but in a nutshell they represent patriarchal/domineering/rigid, binary gender systems trying to take over a world of Cry Babies/Maternal Men:



I'm really excited to be working on something visual & physical with another person instead of putting all my creative energy into audio/virtual stuff all alone.

They remind me of these portraits my friend Jordan tipped me to by Japanese artists who couldn't visually comprehend newly arrived westerners after two hundred of years of isolationism.


[Link to Commodore Perry & the Opening of Japan]

Oh, and I really liked this painting she had clipped out for inspiration, The Battle of Lances:

Life Found on Mars

Simply amazing, this will put all scientific debate to rest. Virgin Galactic announces Mars game hunting packages beginning 2018.

A Visit to the Natty Hist. Museum

Liam Lynch's (aka one half of Sifl & Olly) Museum Rap
I really hope The X-Wing dance move catches on...

When I first moved to the city I spent 1 week deciding what my dream job would be (diorama builder at the Natural History museum), 1 week drafting a letter and 2 weeks waiting for them to call and offer me a job. After a month I figured out I should probably be looking for other work at the same time. I can't believe I was that stupid. I still love dioramas though, my friend Jeremy and I had this great idea to start making shoebox dioramas to send to each other in the mail. It never happened, probably because it would have required quitting our jobs and all other extra-curricular activities in order to get them done.

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This is a metal album cover waiting to (please guys) happen:

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I had an epiphany that owls are pretty much flying cats:
















































These types of mineral formations make me think about what an alien manufactured object would begin to look like, something completely divorced from the entire human history of creation yet recognizably designed. Actually it reminds me of the ancient alien tomb that surfaces a few hundred miles off New Zealand in HP Lovecraft's The Call of Cthulu. Some sailors come upon it and are sickened by "the geometry of the dream-place...abnormal, non-Euclidean, and loathsomely redolent of spheres and dimensions apart from ours." This feeling, and Lovecraft's general deal (as far as I've read of him), is summed up in the opening paragraph of the same story thusly:

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of disassociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."

The guy is pretty much the anti-Sagan (and predictor of Reavers).

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Peking






























Alexandria






























I forget which city this is (note the flying carpet hovering above the city). The shifting scale and perspective on these things is really impressive.

Penate Busts Out

If I could pull this off I'd die satisfied:

Roller Disco Boogie

First off, I was hoping to post a mixtape every month on this thing but I've already fallen behind. That being said, I don't particularly care (all part of my new effort to dismantle my New England guilt complex) and somehow figure you don't either.

I was inspired to make this mix after my friend Caitlin told me about her being a passionate roller disco devotee back in 1992. I asked for her help in making this mix but she couldn't get it together in time/was too overwhelmed to suggest her favorite songs (Egyptian Lover - Egypt Egypt, Debbie Deb - When I Hear Music & Shannon - Let the Music Play to name a few). This mix is dedicated to that awkward 10-year-old in the orange leotard and classic quad-skates I wish I had been friends with back in the day despite the 3000 miles separating us.

Despite the recent closure of many of New York's roller rinks you can still go to Central Park (in the warmer months) and skate with the Central Park Dance Skaters Association who I wandered upon one weekend and was captivated by what can only be described as joy on rollerskates, a mix of disco-era holdouts and more recent yet just as zealous converts.

Two P.S.'s: First, I'm really excited about Timbaland's new song, a club hit about liking someone regardless of how little money they have (!?!) and second, all apologies for not including your song if you suggested I add it, sometimes a mixtape takes you places you didn't expect. As a perfect example (and I realize this defies logic) but for whatever reason Zapp & Roger didn't make it onto this mix, what the fuck?

Kool & the Gang - Spirit of the Boogie
Vernon Burch - Get Up
De La Soul - A Roller Skating Jam Named Saturdays
Mighty Ryeders - Evil Vibrations
Jamiroquai - Feel So Good
Timbaland - The Way I Are
Chromeo - Fancy Footwork
Calvin Harris - The Girls
Kano - I'm Ready
The Bee Gees - You Should Be Dancing
Jamiroquai - Canned Heat
Justice - D.A.N.C.E.
PJ - Happy Days (Beatstreet Remix)
Madonna - Holiday
The Jacksons - Blame it On the Boogie
Rick James - Give it to me Baby
The Bar-Kays - Freakshow on the Dancefloor
Prince - Uptown
Ohio Players - Love Rollercoaster
The Emotions - You've Got the Best of My Love
Earth Wind & Fire - September
Kelis - Roller Rink


Roller Disco Boogie Mixtape [right-click to download]

P.P.S. For all the haters (presumably in the United States) who immediately dismiss Jamiroquai as a one hit wonder, you obviously A.) Have never been out of the country, B.) Don't know know enough music history (i.e. Stevie Wonder and good disco) to understand what they're attempting to replicate and C.) Don't enjoy dancing.

P.P.P.S. I just discovered a Mac widget that allows you to click along to any song playing in iTunes to determine its BPM and automatically add it to the track's info in iTunes. If you don't immediately know what this is useful for, forget it, otherwise you can download it for free here.

Oh, and one more Freaks & Geeks clip (why is it so relevant to everything I'm in to?):