3.29.2007

anyone caught hating on MC Rove will get they mouth blew out



Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Master of Ceremonies Karl Rove.
When Karl Rove is one day locked away in a very small room for a very long time I hope this is the only piece of video he's ever allowed to watch.

I say that because maybe it will remind him of the good old days.

Gaze upon your rulers and despair.

3.24.2007

wrd

The letter combination 'wr' begins some of English's Most Awesome Words:

  • wrack
  • wraith
  • wrangle
  • wrap
  • wrath
  • wreak
  • wreath
  • wreck
  • wrest
  • wrestle
  • wretch
  • wretched
  • wriggle
  • wright
  • wring
  • wrinkle
  • wrist
  • writ
  • write
  • writhe
  • wrong
  • wroth
  • wrought
  • wrung
  • wry

Bayou

Thanks to my friend Jeff, tonight I had the pleasure of meeting Phish's archivist Kevin Shapiro. He spoke to a small crowd drawn from the intersection of Phish fans and media nerds about the practicalities of maintaining (and monetizing, let us not forget) a rock and roll archive. A good deal of it was a fun romp through Phish history, and he'd put together both a slideshow about the archive and a video montage of performance excerpts tracing the history of the band. I was audacious enough to give him my current editor's showreel, which he accepted very graciously, and Jeff and I both were able to speak with him for quite a while after the whole thing wrapped up. Kevin's a cool guy and I really appreciate the time he took hang out with us for a few minutes.

I think I sent Kevin a reel of mine waaaay back when I worked at Bozell... I guess I've been trying to get my hands on the mountain of Phish-related footage they've got envaulted up there in Burlington for a while.

As an added bonus, artist Russ Bennett, chief designer of all of Phish's festivals from the Clifford Ball to Coventry, spoke for a while about those projects and his feelings about art and artists. He was an inspiring guy, reminding us all that "taking a day job means you're not working on your art".

3.19.2007

explosions in the sky

Los Angeles Air Raid

February 25, 1942.

Two days after Goleta, California was shelled by a Japanese submarine, a mysterious object appeared in the skies over Los Angeles.

At 2:25 in the morning the sleeping citizenry was blasted awake by air raid sirens. They blackened the city, as ordered. Some of them, afraid, but unwilling to miss the spectacle, watched as searchlights converged and more than a thousand explosions shattered the sky. Six died.

There is no consensus as to what, exactly, was being fired upon.

Not long afterward, the Scientific and Technical Branch of the US Army Directorate of Counterintelligence began an "in-house project" called the Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit.

The original black and white photo was taken by an unknown photographer (or created by an unknown graphic artist) at the Los Angeles Times.

3.12.2007

when the shadow strikes

Further to the ongoing ludicrosity of American Empire, today I read a news item about the Pentagon hiring a group of Native American trackers to help train forces in central Asia how to hunt "terrorists". This is, of course, an excellent way for that giant money laundering machine known as the Defense Department (which, you'll remember, has literally "lost" trillions of dollars according to ex-Secretary Rumsfeld) to spend a little more cash on useless nonsense, but that's not the best part.

The best part is that this group of trackers is known as The Shadow Wolves. Seriously. If they were japanese ninja (and oh god, why aren't they ninja?) they'd be KAGE NO OKAMI. Possibly "Ogami". My japanese is weak but the POINT is that this is hilarious.

My favorite sentence from that article? "Defence officials are convinced their movements can be curtailed by the Shadow Wolves."

can you do any less?

This is not the interview I hinted at in the last post.

Instead, it's a quick note to ask the populace this: what is going on with The Simpsons?

Last night's episode "Rome-Old and Juli-Eh" (#JABF08) featured an unfunny yet somewhat disturbing exploration of intergenerational love and/or sex filled out by some insights into Marge and Homer's fantasy roleplaying ("Hola, I am Esteban de la Sexface!" was a highlight of classical Simpsonian absurdity that I will probably never forget). However, the true gold was to be found in the 'B' plot. The throwaway plot required to fill 22 minutes of airtime.

It was clear to me that the writers, or the subteam of writers assigned to the B story, have discovered that they can literally do whatever they want given the world's oft-referred to and artfully handled lack of continuity. This, coupled with the show's high yet underutilized budget leads to the kind of epic High Weirdness engaged in by Bart and Lisa to which we were treated. In summary, Bart discovers a source of unlimited free cardboard boxes and Lisa concocts a plan to use them to build a huge castle in the backyard. When the free box company learns that the boxes were used for imaginative play rather than legitimate business, they assemble an assault team of delivery drivers to storm the fortress and take back the boxes. This plays out in a Lord of the Rings-esque battle sequence featuring waves of attackers and, and I am not kidding here, a dragon. The high point comes when Nelson arrives out of nowhere to help save the day, and dives off the battlements shouting "HAAAAAA HAAAAAAA!". Bart and Lisa are, of course, victorious and celebrate their win by melting down the castle with a garden hose. The last we see of them is an overhead shot of the backyard which reveals the dragon, slain by a cardboard lance, lying dead behind the house.

Given the high level of craft involved in this sequence and the number of laughs per minute it evoked from myself and my housemates, I move that The Simpsons progress toward an all-absurdity format. There have been paradigm shifts before; the one that leaps to mind is the famous Monorail episode which has come to be acknowledged as the beginning of a new Simpsons era. Here's hoping the Cardboard Castle episode will garner similar nostalgia.

3.05.2007

your back curves like a creeping vine

Zodiac, in my opinion, needed to lose up to half of its second act. I began to lose interest in the steady stream of data about the killer, and that translated into mild exasperation as the protagonist later revisited a lot of the same information. That said, it featured many solid performances and Fincher was as skillful as ever in evoking a mood. But come on, man... tighten it up a notch. The closest comparison that sprang to mind while in the theater was All the President's Men in that it's an epic investigation with a focus on a small group of investigators (though four in this case, rather than two).
I found myself curious about how this movie is ever going to transfer to video, even HD, given that so many people's faces are about a 1/2 stop above absolute darkness in most of the movie. But it turns out it was shot on HD, rather than film, so never you mind I suppose.

Sorta broke in my camera recently, though I didn't really find much to shoot.

Hungry March Band

I think this is my favorite one, and a lot of this image is a testament to the power of Adobe Lightroom HEY ADOBE I JUST PIMPED YOUR SWEET APPLICATION ALL I'M SAYING IS ONE HAND AND THE OTHER DO SOME WASHING YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN. The original is way underexposed and far too amber even with tungsten white balance. You can certainly see noise in the dark areas, but this was shot at 800 ISO and then had the midrange brightness forced way up in post. For all that it's been through I'd say that's awesome. So all hail RAW.

NEXT: An interview?