Month: November 2008

for his birthday, we got 100,000 hits on the Buttmachine video


HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SWEETHEART!
Awoooo!

Mike’s birthday was yesterday, and it was the most low key, anticlimactic one yet. He didn’t even have a gig, he spent it driving from Albuquerque to Tucson, ate Subway for lunch and Taco bell for dinner, so I want everyone to comment here with Happy Birthday wishes to make up for it!

Tour Dates:

November 15 – The Rialto Theatre w/ Buckethead – Tucson, AZ
November 16 – The Clubhouse Music Venue w/ Buckethead – Tempe, AZ
November 19 – McNear’s Mystic Theater w/ Buckethead – Petaluma, CA
November 20 – The Catalyst w/ Buckethead – Santa Cruz, CA
November 21 – Big Fox Night Club w/ Buckethead – Redwood City, CA
November 22 – House of Blues w/ Buckethead – Anaheim, CA

I want to talk to someone like me again

Every time I listen to Let The Devil In, from the TV On The Radio album Return to Cookie Mountain, I’m inspired to track down a bunch of musicians, get them drunk, and have a giant sing-along house party. I blame Naysayer.

Also, does anyone have Talvin Singh’s Heavy Rotation Radio Refixx remix of OK?

Tales of The Unexpected: a Roald Dahl inspired Tim Walker fashion editorial featuring, among others, Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter.

The weather today is a slow molasses jazz of rain and cold wind, but last night was gloriously different. The skies were profoundly open, a bit of silk fluttering dark black and blue pinned in place with a bright, round, almost full moon. My mother and I took a night ride on her motorcycle, enjoying the last drop out of her last day with insurance, out to the store, the long way around. Five layers of clothing against the cold, three jackets, stockings, tights, black leather gloves, my matching black helmet. I’m still not used to how small she is against me on the bike in the same way I’m not used to how big her newest bike is. There’s nothing like realizing you’ve grown bigger than a parent to remind yourself of mortality.

Riding out into the night, we flew downtown, soared across the Burrard St Bridge, and out to UBC, to circle around and come back along Spanish Banks, the most splendid view to be found in Vancouver. The glut of ugly picket-fence condo development that’s been climbing up the mountains is transformed into a skein of tangerine gemstone glitter at night, tiger striped black by the remaining runnels of nature that drip from the tops of the peaks all the way down to the ocean. Downtown becomes a dream of skyline, a precious, tiny thing floating on water, but like it’s in the sky, held up by a willing suspension of disbelief. Everything that wasn’t lit up didn’t exist. I felt like we were something new, my mother and I, connected better than we have been, the city blocked out by the motorbike, separated from our weekends and bleak days. As if to prove my fresh perspective, or to reward the moment with permanent memory, I looked up over her head at just the right time to see an airplane perfectly silhouetted as it flew over the moon.

artpost: possibly one of the most unique interfaces I’ve ever seen

http://www.bio-bak.nl

The wicked playful, amazing and just downright weirdo-funny portfolio of talented, award winning, dutch flash artist/designer Coen Grift.

Make sure to zoom in on everything, there’s an obscene amount of detail packed into the 1000 megapixels of art, comedy, and minigames.

To start, find the raccoon with the metal detector. He’s hanging out by the tree of carrot death.

via James Everett

get it here

Nato, a dear, dreadfully clever and entirely nifty friend of mine, has gone into the very niche business of selling LED Christmas Trees at LEDtrees.com. This thrills me. Oh yes. For I have seen these trees, and lo, they are awesome.

The first time I encountered an LED tree was years and years ago while I was still in the habit of occasionally Christmas shopping, (yes, I’ve mostly recovered). The retailers had rented a gutted section of failed stores, taken down the plywood frontage, littered the space with enchanting, glowing trees, and didn’t install any lights. Stepping from the grossly shiny Christmas shopping bustle, commercials and glam into a dark, fairy-tale area of soft, gleaming, colourful trees… It was stellar, wondrous. Completely Narnia. I may never forget it. It felt like creeping around a corner and stumbling sideways into the fantastic. Science as a substitute for the mad ceremonial waste of precious tree flesh. Pretty science. Pretty and really, really neat, making me happy in a gleeful child sort of way, like that “magic” wand I posted.

I love the internet world we live in, how connected we can be to anything we like. I love that something I’d always thought of as skin riveting rare is something that a friend is in business in. I especially like the white ones that look like some deliriously designed set piece created for a preposterous yet super stylish retro-future. Timeless and absurd, all at once, the Christmas tree Barbarella would ask for to go with her albino bearskin space-ship, or a fashionable, couture Dexter, (Showtime’s nonsensical, blood-splatter serial killer who feels nothing, but for ANGST!), to go with his immaculate, crimson clean lab. I’m obscurely proud that Nato keeps one hanging upside down above his desk, a cheerful lunatic lamp all year round. I want to do the same.

Of course, that said, it’s not like I’ve done Christmas for several years. This year, though, David and I are batting around the idea of having a Hannekuweenmas house-warming party, (it’s not our fault he wasn’t moved in by October 31st), an all day non-denominational, costumes optional, holiday social and house party, with crepes in the morning, tea in the afternoon, and candle-lit silent black and white horror films until dawn. What do you think? Would you come?

Thanks to a new technique, DNA strands can be easily converted into tiny fibre optic cables that guide light along their length.

though I like whoever carved I LIKE FOOD into the Kamloops bus-station tree

The interior of BC is a funny place, a reclusive mix of unassailable nature speckled with tiny towns that call anywhere with a strip mall a city. The communities there aren’t like the spindrift of settlements that line the coasts, they’re far more stubbornly isolated. Trying to find a connection to the rest of the world proves difficult, and asking after the internet gets you Looks. I wonder at the youth of these places, why they stay, why so many don’t wish to escape. There’s so much planet to explore, and they could always come back later.

consider

“When my daughter Alison was born, in the tradition of a new parent, I began to photograph her, initially in a separate and private body of work.”

Every day since the last week of October Dominique pops up on my messenger with the same message, “Still pregnant.” A small thing, but powerful, as every time it reminds me she’s carrying an entire human being curled in her belly. Tiny hands, tiny feet, an entirely separate heart-beat. I’ll be glad when it’s born, though not as glad as her, I’m sure, who complains daily that she wants it out already. “I think it’s staying,” she messages me, despairing, “I’m over-due.” I know I can’t relate, not really, though I try, and feel I understand to a point.

I had a nightmare, once, that I was pregnant. I could see inside my belly, which had distended to translucency, and see that the child had sharp, triangular, razorblade teeth.

When the message doesn’t come, I wonder, “did it happen? Is she at the hospital now?” I’m torn between relief and wonder and disbelief, that she could be doing anything so incredible as I sit at my desk and help people with media software issues, until it is my turn to message her and ask, “Not yet?”, soothing the day back into something mundane. Earlier today she had an appointment with her midwife for a membrane sweep, and I was blaming that for her lack of message, while with a less rational part of my brain, I was crossing my fingers until she returned.

“Still round?” I asked, and eventually she replied, “Home again. Think I’m in labour, though.” “Excited?” “Contractions about every four minutes. Will check again in an hour or so. I am SO READY to be vacated.”

I know her contractions didn’t necessarily mean anything, she’s been having them on and off for over a week, but that was this afternoon and I haven’t heard word back since. That hour later check in never happened. Those fingers are still crossed. Maybe she’s having her child right now. I was hoping for a Hallowe’en baby, but November 12th should do just fine, too.

artpost: preparing for lift-off

Cory McAbee, fringe-music demigod, founder of The Billy Nayer Show, best friend of my last sweetie, That Mike, and director and creator of one of the most splendid films ever made, The American Astronaut, has finally directed a new movie with his mad and crazy band, Stingray Sam.

“A dangerous mission reunites STINGRAY SAM with his long lost accomplice, The Quasar Kid. Follow these two space-convicts as they earn their freedom in exchange for the rescue of a young girl who is being held captive by the genetically designed figurehead of a very wealthy planet. This musical space-western miniseries is designed for small screens and perfect for screens of all sizes. “

It’s not Werewolf Hunters of the Midwest, the next film he was ostensibly working on, but it looks to be just as weirdly captivating. For extra points, his sweetheart co-star in this kooky Cowboy Space Musical is his wee little daughter, it’s narrated by David Hyde Pierce, and rumour says it was filmed in only two weeks. I believe the proper response is Hell Yeah!!

found via Marc-Antony, popular purveyor of joy