Doodling with Light

Photograph: Gjon Mili

So Picasso did it. Beautifully, as you'd expect.

Now this crew - Tochka - out of Japan does animation, graphics and comics. Their Pikapika project is a hypnotic little abstract animation piece, using the same technique Pablo did: flashlights on long exposures. They stitch the photos into this film, which was nominated in the Ottawa International Animation Festival. [Psssst, I know that's a pretty pathetic honour, but don't tell Tochka okay? They were led to believe it was the Canadian Cannes.]

Capricorn Birthday Party III: Cody

Last Friday was all about good times as we celebrated Cody's birthday by getting hella drunk at the Bayside.

If you don't know Cody, you should probably get a clue, because anytime you want a dance floor, party or really any moment to be 40% more fun, who else you gonna call? Ghostbusters?

As an added bonus, we got to party with Monica, who left the next day for Europe indefinitely. Lucky for her; unlucky for Vancouver.


Our household gift to Cody - a product of our cumulative artistic efforts. Everybody needs a self-esteem collage.


Birthday Boy meets Travel Girl on the dance floor. Can the two belles of the ball share the spotlight? Of course they can!


Brief snapshot. I love the colour in this one.


K-Ro and the Beckstar.


Woo hoo! Scott's signature party face.


I know exactly what story I am telling Allison here. No, you so don't want to know.


My other gift to Cody - commemorating him in fog. Cody's very equestrian you see.

The Other Evolution of Dance...

Sure, you could watch that guy doing the Evolution of Dance comedy performance. You know, the one where one guy performs the entire history of popular dance, from the twist to the robot and beyond. Yeah, it's pretty good I guess.

But, if you will, let me present an alternate, more compact, little history, focusing on funk styles which are obviously awesome and rule:

Let's start with an all-too-timely video from one of the first hugely popular masters of the style, Mister James Brown:

Grab your notebook, because the Godfather is taking you to school.

And after James of course came Michael:

This video compilation of MJ's best dance moments? Reason #4510 that I love YouTube.

And... do I even need to 'justify' including the current master of pop dance?

Haters can hate, but I'd like to see them dance like JT.

As an additional bonus, check out this video of one of the many, many unsung masters. This guy, Pop N Taco, taught Michael Jackson to dance. Word.

Breakin'. One of the best movies of the 80's by far. After Revenge of the Nerds, obviously.

Missy said it best I think:

Big Daddy Kane and Public Enemy, Salt'n'Pepa, Lyte,
EPMD, LL, Run DMC, KRS-ONE, Rakim.
Most of them artists used to dance
and still get respected in the street.

Don't be scared to bank-head or bowl-gowl [??]
Or moonwalk as far as I care - it sold Michael Jackson 43 million.
Shoot, everybody had a zipper jacket, and have of these thugs had the glove to match it, you feel me?

Yo it's okay though.
If you wanna be hard and ice-grill,
and Harlem-shake at the same time.

Whatever - let's just have fun.
This is hip hop, man. This is hip hop.

Dear Penthouse: I'd just defeated Bowser when...

Okay now seriously.

A basement-recorded hip hop track about getting Mario laid, set to visuals from various Nintendo games?

It's like my subconscious has a YouTube account.


Note: This video is NSFW. Which means Not safe for work, BTW.
Which means by the way, FYI.
Which means For your information. I'm just saying!

On sneakers and foot cred.

< billy-madison-voice>

Puma is better! I came out first and made sneakers cool!
Nike is better! I make your feet cushy and styled!
Adidas is better! I rocked Run-DMC!

</billy-madison-voice>

Okay, so the point is that designer sneakers have been around for ages, continue to stay current, and have a cultural significance very separate from their constructed brand personalities.

The Puma video below, a short film produced by Imperial Leisure, articulates this beautifully, don't you think?


Puma: Foot Cred

Okay, now for some random shoes of goodness. These are from solepedia.com, a site that is all over the latest and greatest.


Clockwise from top left:
MadFoot!'s Mad Professor denim sneaker; the amazing Vaughn Bode-inspired Pumas; Clot Air Max 1’s - designed for Kanye West and Edison Chen, for one show only. What?!?; Japanese movie star Kubotsuka Yosuke's signature New Balance; glow-in-the-dark Nikes

Why stop the thrill ride there? Check these fun shoe-related links for more hot leather action:

- Adidas has high-res images of all kinds, like the 2003 ad on the right, in its image bank.

- Puma has a crazy addictive shoe customizing tool called Mongolian Shoe BBQ.

- Flight Club took first slot in the Dime magazine best boutique sneaker shop in the U.S. rankings. Their site is easy to get lost in.

- nicekicks.com is a sneaker blog. It is way current, with lots of eye candy.

Capricorn Birthday Party II: Clinton

Two friends - Quentin and Clinton - both had their birthdays on Saturday. Oh the delightful hijinx!

As you browse through, consider the following:

- Why is everyone wearing white?
- Why wouldn't you expect polyester granny panties to be incredibly hot?
- Why don't I roll in a Lex all the time?


Mika with Birthday Man... kiiiiind of looking like he's making a poo.


Headless Mika. Way hot!


This girl's crazy meter was reading white hot.


Word. It's me and Clinton drunkenly busting rhymes on the roof. Our biggest lament? The dearth of rhymes for '7'. It'll be a hard year for MC's... no joke.

Edit: So Clinton allegedly thinks I have a 'lame/bad girl rapper' pose in this photo. To which I reply - speak for yourself Mr. Taking-A-Poo-Or-Looking-Like-A-Camel-In-All-Your-Photos.


This was one of the tamest of a disturbing yet insanely hot photo series I found on my camera the next day. Yes, I fully support secret camera-borrowing.


The next two photos are from Joni's amazing flickr set and are such great photos I had to share them.


Tripping the light fantastic.


Probably the best party photo I've ever seen.



Gangsta rap? Lexus? Joni pretty much bleeds Cristal at this point.

Go, monkey, go!

There's really no commentary required here...


Check the amazing look he gives the camera at the beginning. Loves it!

Okay, maybe a little commentary.

While shopping for food for the black dog, Scott saw some monkey jockey footage on a dvd for dogs.

This is Whiplash, a 16 year veteran monkey jockey. This photo is obviously amazing.


So cute! It's like a tiny Charleton Heston!

Now obviously monkeys riding dogs are always going to be funny. I mean, what am I - made of stone?

Of course, I do feel obliged to mention that it's proooooobably not the best thing for either animal. Although they do look like they're having fun, what with the terrified shrieking and the hysterical dashing around the pen.

Animal Rights Florida certainly condemns the practice, saying that training-by-abuse is common. They include a mildly sinister quote from another pioneer in the business:

“I know what I've been through to train a monkey to ride a dog and if I can train a monkey to ride a dog, I can train a rock to do tricks."
- Tim Lepard

Creeptastic! I mean seriously - these guys are basically carneys with monkeys. Nobody wants to see that.


The monkey wears the shirt to hide all the bruises. Tommy Lucia, you monkey-abusing freak.

I really couldn't find anything around that fully explains the whole monkey jockey thing, but I did find a photo series that suggests it's not entirely a new phenomenon:


I particularly love the second contraption.

Ah, it's all so very, very weird.

Capricorn Birthday Party I: Deanna

So it was Deanna's birthday on Tuesday, and of course we sent her off into the next year of her life in fine form.

Lady D is hands-down one of the most inspiring people I know. She accomplishes more - hell, demolishes more - of her goals than Lance Armstrong, Tony Robbins and Steve Jobs put together. I'm only slightly exxaggerating here.

Anyway, I'm proud to call her a friend so... go D! Happy birthday!


For a forty-year-old, she's got a pretty nice rack!


Laugh while you can ladies. Soon it'll be.... still funny.


Beckstar and Steve. Good times!

Polish Circus Posterfest!

So, if I wasn't so ignorant and self-taught in regards to design, I might have known how significant Polish poster art is. Instead, I just go to Internet University and slowly drag myself towards enlightenment. So check it:

The Society of Polish Applied Art, founded in 1902, opposed foreign influences and composed posters with traditional historic forms. These earliest posters revealed Polish folk art, and were characterized by decorative color patterns and a rhythmic flow of line. From the outset, critics in Paris , Vienna , and Munich recognized their distinctiveness. Their approach to design – lightness in conveying the subject, the free manner of associating theme and image – is shared by their successors a half-century later.

Between 1919 and 1939, Polish posters were enriched by a steady stream of progressive European art movements – Cubism, Constructivism, Futurism, and Surrealism. The artists included not only applied graphic designers, but also printmakers, painters, architects, sculptors, and cinematographers. Warsaw became the noted center of poster art in Poland .

After World War II Polish society gradually began to regard poster design as an art form equal in importance to painting. On the one hand there were political propaganda posters drawn from the Soviet influence, and on the other were posters on cultural topics, particularly films as people flocked to the movies. Movie posters that evolved were unlike most in that a scene was rarely shown. Instead the artists tried to capture the essence of the film or use a visual metaphor to sum up the impression of it. This trend caught on and spread to other fields. Posters became an outlet for individual artistic expression.

The above is an excerpt from polishfilms.org, one of many good sites that discuss Polish poster art. polishposter.com also provides a very interesting history.

In any case, check these examples - all posters promoting the circus (or CYRK in Polish). They are absolutely outstanding. How awesome is it to have a poster with only four letters on it?


I only wish I could do work this awesome.

It's good to know Poland's good at something, isn't it? Just kidding Urs!

General Electric: Samurai

It's the new age of patronage.

Corporations are sponsoring amazing pieces of art, which have little/nothing to do with their product, in the hopes that they will be associated with the imagination/innovation that characterizes the piece.

We get more art. Artists get more money and artistic freedom. Television and advertising get more pretty.

I'm going to duct tape my cynical brain shut and call it a win-win.

So on that note, this is a completely amazing anime short, done for General Electric's Imagination at Work campaign. Enjoy!



It's a production of BBD and Green Dot Films, directed by Three Legged Legs, who include a great selection of production stills on their website.







Three Legged Legs have actually done many great little shorts - including the completely amazing one below, called Los Angeles Let's Be Friends



That last one is inspired by the also great work of artist/illustrator Jeff Soto. His stuff is cool enough to warrant a separate post though, so... stay tuned.

In the meantime: go samurai monster anime cuteness! Holla!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY R-KELLY!

A huge happy birthday to one of my personal heroes. A man who is ghettofabulazy to the ultimate degree. R. Kelly, I love ya.

I demand more nerd girls!

Packaging Girlhood is a great blog concerned with marketing aimed at girls. They just released their Best & Worst Marketing Campaigns of 2006 list, and it's a pretty good audit.

On the loser list, the disturbing Bratz Party Plane, which I'm sure all junior spoiled slutz enjoyed opening this holiday season. The whole Bratz line is particularly repulsive, not to mention their line of padded bras for six-year olds.


Accessories included: cup holders; nail polish applicator; smoothies; hair gel; crimper; make-up case; mascara.

Accessories they should have included: lapdance chair; tanning bed; wheel of appetite-suppressants; morning-after-pills; I'm an exotic dancer because daddy didn't love me t-shirt.

Grossest.

On to the winners list, my peeps at Nintendo get props for the game Super Princess Peach, which I enjoyed playing immensely this year, and which did have a fantastic commercial:


Go Pink Power!

Having said that, on a feminist level, I wasn't sure what to make of this game. Princess Peach's powers come from her emotions - anger turns her to fire, sadness makes her shoot tears, joy makes her fly etc. Isn't that reinforcing the stereotypes that girls are more emotional than logical, and that our uncontrollable feelings make us unreliable - one of the classic arguments against promoting women in the workplace?

Another winner, and a program I have been a big fan of for a while, is the Girl Scouts Girls Go Tech campaign. It's so critical to teach young girls that technology is cool, because, well, technology is hella cool! How great is this ad:


Baby's smarter than daddy!

Driving young girls less toward lame lip gloss crap, and more into awesome science and adventure crap, will make more Natalie Portmans, and less Tara Reids. And really, isn't that something we all want?


Seriously people. Think about the children.

There's also a great CBC Marketplace piece on this issue - Buying into Sexy.

Let's all make it a mission to make more nerd girls this millenium. Hear that pregnant moms-to-be? I'm looking at you, Willow and Nikki! Don't think Auntie Beckstar won't be popping in with her Lego Robotics kits!

Live Action Video Games!

Why is anything digital rendered in live action so so very awesome?


Live Pac Man is obviously the coolest thing ever. I love Japanese television. And beating video game characters with sticks, naturally.


And of course, we have the great Super Mario live action performance from Gordon College. These guys should make the Dean's List just for this one effort.

Remember the Acapella Nintendo? Same general family of fantastic.

Down Mexico Waaaaay...

So I'm back from an amazing trip South of the Border.

Check out these amazing photos I took in Mexico - each one leads to a gallery of images.