Helvetica the movie

Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which celebrated its 50th birthday in 2007) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives. The film is an exploration of urban spaces in major cities and the type that inhabits them, and a fluid discussion with renowned designers about their work, the creative process, and the choices
and aesthetics behind their use of type.

SOURCE: Helveticafilm.com

10
TELL THE TRUTH.

The rabbit joke is relevant because it occurred to me that looking for a cabbage in a butcher’s shop might be like looking for ethics in the design field. It may not be the most obvious place to find either. It’s interesting to observe that in the new AIGA’s code of ethics there is a significant amount of useful information about appropriate behaviour towards clients and other designers, but not a word about a designer’s relationship to the public. We expect a butcher to sell us eatable meat and that he doesn’t misrepresent his wares. I remember reading that during the Stalin years in Russia that everything labelled veal was actually chicken. I can’t imagine what everything labelled chicken was. We can accept certain kinds of misrepresentation, such as fudging about the amount of fat in his hamburger but once a butcher knowingly sells us spoiled meat we go elsewhere. As a designer, do we have less responsibility to our public than a butcher? Everyone interested in licensing our field might note that the reason licensing has been invented is to protect the public not designers or clients. ‘Do no harm’ is an admonition to doctors concerning their relationship to their patients, not to their fellow practitioners or the drug companies. If we were licensed, telling the truth might become more central to what we do.

— Milton Glaser,
Ten Things I Have Learned
Part of AIGA Talk in London
November 22, 2001

Who's watching the watchers?

SOURCE: Paramount Pictures

Milton Glaser's 10 things…

9
ON AGING.

Last year someone gave me a charming book by Roger Rosenblatt called ‘Ageing Gracefully’ I got it on my birthday. I did not appreciate the title at the time but it contains a series of rules for ageing gracefully. The first rule is the best. Rule number one is that ‘it doesn’t matter.’ ‘It doesn’t matter that what you think. Follow this rule and it will add decades to your life. It does not matter if you are late or early, if you are here or there, if you said it or didn’t say it, if you are clever or if you were stupid. If you were having a bad hair day or a no hair day or if your boss looks at you cockeyed or your boyfriend or girlfriend looks at you cockeyed, if you are cockeyed. If you don’t get that promotion or prize or house or if you do – it doesn’t matter.’ Wisdom at last. Then I heard a marvellous joke that seemed related to rule number 10. A butcher was opening his market one morning and as he did a rabbit popped his head through the door. The butcher was surprised when the rabbit inquired ‘Got any cabbage?’ The butcher said ‘This is a meat market – we sell meat, not vegetables.’ The rabbit hopped off. The next day the butcher is opening the shop and sure enough the rabbit pops his head round and says ‘You got any cabbage?’ The butcher now irritated says ‘Listen you little rodent I told you yesterday we sell meat, we do not sell vegetables and the next time you come here I am going to grab you by the throat and nail those floppy ears to the floor.’ The rabbit disappeared hastily and nothing happened for a week. Then one morning the rabbit popped his head around the corner and said ‘Got any nails?’ The butcher said ‘No.’ The rabbit said ‘Ok. Got any cabbage?’

— Milton Glaser,
Ten Things I Have Learned
Part of AIGA Talk in London
November 22, 2001

Flatstock 17 Poster Convention

Flatstock 17, presented by Pitchfork Music Festival and The American Poster Institute, will be held for two days, July 19th and 20th, 2008 at Union Park on the grounds of the Picthfork Music Festival in Chicago, IL. This event will take place RAIN OR SHINE and takes place OUTDOORS. You must have a Pitchfork Music Fest Pass to get access to the Flatstock show. Pitchfork has sold out every year so far so don't hesitate to get your tickets.

Pictured:Casey Burns
SOURCE: AmericaPosterInstitute

Milton Glaser's 10 things…

8
DOUBT IS BETTER THAN CERTAINTY.

Everyone always talks about confidence in believing what you do. I remember once going to a class in yoga where the teacher said that, spirituality speaking, if you believed that you had achieved enlightenment you have merely arrived at your limitation. I think that is also true in a practical sense. Deeply held beliefs of any kind prevent you from being open to experience, which is why I find all firmly held ideological positions questionable. It makes me nervous when someone believes too deeply or too much. I think that being sceptical and questioning all deeply held beliefs is essential. Of course we must know the difference between scepticism and cynicism because cynicism is as much a restriction of one’s openness to the world as passionate belief is. They are sort of twins. And then in a very real way, solving any problem is more important than being right. There is a significant sense of self-righteousness in both the art and design world. Perhaps it begins at school. Art school often begins with the Ayn Rand model of the single personality resisting the ideas of the surrounding culture. The theory of the avant garde is that as an individual you can transform the world, which is true up to a point. One of the signs of a damaged ego is absolute certainty.
Schools encourage the idea of not compromising and defending your work at all costs. Well, the issue at work is usually all about the nature of compromise. You just have to know what to compromise. Blind pursuit of your own ends which excludes the possibility that others may be right does not allow for the fact that in design we are always dealing with a triad – the client, the audience and you.
Ideally, making everyone win through acts of accommodation is desirable. But self-righteousness is often the enemy. Self-righteousness and narcissism generally come out of some sort of childhood trauma, which we do not have to go into. It is a consistently difficult thing in human affairs. Some years ago I read a most remarkable thing about love, that also applies to the nature of co-existing with others. It was a quotation from Iris Murdoch in her obituary. It read ‘ Love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real.’ Isn’t that fantastic! The best insight on the subject of love that one can imagine.

— Milton Glaser,
Ten Things I Have Learned
Part of AIGA Talk in London
November 22, 2001

Milton Glaser's 10 things…

7
HOW YOU LIVE CHANGES YOUR BRAIN.

The brain is the most responsive organ of the body. Actually it is the organ that is most susceptible to change and regeneration of all the organs in the body. I have a friend named Gerald Edelman who was a great scholar of brain studies and he says that the analogy of the brain to a computer is pathetic. The brain is actually more like an overgrown garden that is constantly growing and throwing off seeds, regenerating and so on. And he believes that the brain is susceptible, in a way that we are not fully conscious of, to almost every experience of our life and every encounter we have. I was fascinated by a story in a newspaper a few years ago about the search for perfect pitch. A group of scientists decided that they were going to find out why certain people have perfect pitch. You know certain people hear a note precisely and are able to replicate it at exactly the right pitch. Some people have relevant pitch; perfect pitch is rare even among musicians. The scientists discovered – I don’t know how - that among people with perfect pitch the brain was different. Certain lobes of the brain had undergone some change or deformation that was always present with those who had perfect pitch. This was interesting enough in itself. But then they discovered something even more fascinating. If you took a bunch of kids and taught them to play the violin at the age of 4 or 5 after a couple of years some of them developed perfect pitch, and in all of those cases their brain structure had changed. Well what could that mean for the rest of us? We tend to believe that the mind affects the body and the body affects the mind, although we do not generally believe that everything we do affects the brain. I am convinced that if someone was to yell at me from across the street my brain could be affected and my life might changed. That is why your mother always said, ‘Don’t hang out with those bad kids.’ Mama was right. Thought changes our life and our behaviour. I also believe that drawing works in the same way. I am a great advocate of drawing, not in order to become an illustrator, but because I believe drawing changes the brain in the same way as the search to create the right note changes the brain of a violinist. Drawing also makes you attentive. It makes you pay attention to what you are looking at, which is not so easy.

— Milton Glaser,
Ten Things I Have Learned
Part of AIGA Talk in London
November 22, 2001

Old news is good news

Blender Magazine Welcomes New Senior Editor

Blender magazine has hired well-known Radar magazine senior editor, Tyler Gray. Gray is also an upcoming author of the highly anticipated Harper Collins book The Hit Charade: Lou Pearlman, Boy Bands, and the Biggest Ponzi Scheme in U.S. History. The book hits shelves on November 11, 2008.

SOURCE: JJ's Dirt

Milton Glaser's 10 things…

6
STYLE IS NOT TO BE TRUSTED.

I think this idea first occurred to me when I was looking at a marvellous etching of a bull by Picasso. It was an illustration for a story by Balzac called The Hidden Masterpiece. I am sure that you all know it. It is a bull that is expressed in 12 different styles going from very naturalistic version of a bull to an absolutely reductive single line abstraction and everything else along the way. What is clear just from looking at this single print is that style is irrelevant. In every one of these cases, from extreme abstraction to acute naturalism they are extraordinary regardless of the style. It’s absurd to be loyal to a style. It does not deserve your loyalty. I must say that for old design professionals it is a problem because the field is driven by economic consideration more than anything else. Style change is usually linked to economic factors, as all of you know who have read Marx. Also fatigue occurs when people see too much of the same thing too often. So every ten years or so there is a stylistic shift and things are made to look different. Typefaces go in and out of style and the visual system shifts a little bit. If you are around for a long time as a designer, you have an essential problem of what to do. I mean, after all, you have developed a vocabulary, a form that is your own. It is one of the ways that you distinguish yourself from your peers, and establish your identity in the field. How you maintain your own belief system and preferences becomes a real balancing act. The question of whether you pursue change or whether you maintain your own distinct form becomes difficult. We have all seen the work of illustrious practitioners that suddenly look old-fashioned or, more precisely, belonging to another moment in time. And there are sad stories such as the one about Cassandre, arguably the greatest graphic designer of the twentieth century, who couldn’t make a living at the end of his life and committed suicide.
But the point is that anybody who is in this for the long haul has to decide how to respond to change in the zeitgeist. What is it that people now expect that they formerly didn’t want? And how to respond to that desire in a way that doesn’t change your sense of integrity and purpose.

— Milton Glaser,
Ten Things I Have Learned
Part of AIGA Talk in London
November 22, 2001

Milton Glaser's 10 things…

5
LESS IS NOT NECESSARILY MORE.

Being a child of modernism I have heard this mantra all my life. Less is more. One morning upon awakening I realised that it was total nonsense, it is an absurd proposition and also fairly meaningless. But it sounds great because it contains within it a paradox that is resistant to understanding. But it simply does not obtain when you think about the visual of the history of the world. If you look at a Persian rug, you cannot say that less is more because you realise that every part of that rug, every change of colour, every shift in form is absolutely essential for its aesthetic success. You cannot prove to me that a solid blue rug is in any way superior. That also goes for the work of Gaudi, Persian miniatures, art nouveau and everything else. However, I have an alternative to the proposition that I believe is more appropriate. ‘Just enough is more.’

— Milton Glaser,
Ten Things I Have Learned
Part of AIGA Talk in London
November 22, 2001

What do you like in your serial drama?

Nea Polis 003: The Darkness — Episode 13
A serial drama by Vittorio Adinolfi


Find more videos like this on Sabet TV


SOURCE: Sabet.tv

Milton Glaser's 10 things…

4
PROFESSIONALISM IS NOT ENOUGH or THE GOOD IS THE ENEMY OF THE GREAT.

Early in my career I wanted to be professional, that was my complete aspiration in my early life because professionals seemed to know everything - not to mention they got paid for it. Later I discovered after working for a while that professionalism itself was a limitation. After all, what professionalism means in most cases is diminishing risks. So if you want to get your car fixed you go to a mechanic who knows how to deal with transmission problems in the same way each time. I suppose if you needed brain surgery you wouldn’t want the doctor to fool around and invent a new way of connecting your nerve endings. Please do it in the way that has worked in the past.
Unfortunately in our field, in the so-called creative – I hate that word because it is misused so often. I also hate the fact that it is used as a noun. Can you imagine calling someone a creative? Anyhow, when you are doing something in a recurring way to diminish risk or doing it in the same way as you have done it before, it is clear why professionalism is not enough. After all, what is required in our field, more than anything else, is the continuous transgression. Professionalism does not allow for that because transgression has to encompass the possibility of failure and if you are professional your instinct is not to fail, it is to repeat success. So professionalism as a lifetime aspiration is a limited goal.

— Milton Glaser,
Ten Things I Have Learned
Part of AIGA Talk in London
November 22, 2001

Milton Glaser's 10 things…

3
SOME PEOPLE ARE TOXIC AVOID THEM.

This is a subtext of number one. There was in the sixties a man named Fritz Perls who was a gestalt therapist. Gestalt therapy derives from art history, it proposes you must understand the ‘whole’ before you can understand the details. What you have to look at is the entire culture, the entire family and community and so on. Perls proposed that in all relationships people could be either toxic or nourishing towards one another. It is not necessarily true that the same person will be toxic or nourishing in every relationship, but the combination of any two people in a relationship produces toxic or nourishing consequences. And the important thing that I can tell you is that there is a test to determine whether someone is toxic or nourishing in your relationship with them. Here is the test: You have spent some time with this person, either you have a drink or go for dinner or you go to a ball game. It doesn’t matter very much but at the end of that time you observe whether you are more energised or less energised. Whether you are tired or whether you are exhilarated. If you are more tired then you have been poisoned. If you have more energy you have been nourished. The test is almost infallible and I suggest that you use it for the rest of your life.

— Milton Glaser,
Ten Things I Have Learned
Part of AIGA Talk in London
November 22, 2001

Milton Glaser's 10 things…

2
IF YOU HAVE A CHOICE NEVER HAVE A JOB.

One night I was sitting in my car outside Columbia University where my wife Shirley was studying Anthropology. While I was waiting I was listening to the radio and heard an interviewer ask ‘Now that you have reached 75 have you any advice for our audience about how to prepare for your old age?’ An irritated voice said ‘Why is everyone asking me about old age these days?’ I recognised the voice as John Cage. I am sure that many of you know who he was – the composer and philosopher who influenced people like Jasper Johns and Merce Cunningham as well as the music world in general. I knew him slightly and admired his contribution to our times. ‘You know, I do know how to prepare for old age’ he said. ‘Never have a job, because if you have a job someday someone will take it away from you and then you will be unprepared for your old age. For me, it has always been the same every since the age of 12. I wake up in the morning and I try to figure out how am I going to put bread on the table today? It is the same at 75, I wake up every morning and I think how am I going to put bread on the table today? I am exceedingly well prepared for my old age’ he said.

— Milton Glaser,
Ten Things I Have Learned
Part of AIGA Talk in London
November 22, 2001

"BoonEx is not a company. BoonEx is a community."

SOURCE: Boonex via SpringNet

Milton Glaser's 10 things…

1
YOU CAN ONLY WORK FOR PEOPLE THAT YOU LIKE.

This is a curious rule and it took me a long time to learn because in fact at the beginning of my practice I felt the opposite. Professionalism required that you didn’t particularly like the people that you worked for or at least maintained an arms length relationship to them, which meant that I never had lunch with a client or saw them socially. Then some years ago I realised that the opposite was true. I discovered that all the work I had done that was meaningful and significant came out of an affectionate relationship with a client. And I am not talking about professionalism; I am talking about affection. I am talking about a client and you sharing some common ground. That in fact your view of life is someway congruent with the client, otherwise it is a bitter and hopeless struggle.

— Milton Glaser,
Ten Things I Have Learned
Part of AIGA Talk in London
November 22, 2001

"Buying handmade helps us reconnect"

The ascendancy of chain store culture and global manufacturing has left us dressing, furnishing, and decorating alike. We are encouraged to be consumers, not producers, of our own culture. Our ties to the local and human sources of our goods have been lost. Buying handmade helps us reconnect.

SOURCE: BuyHandmade

Documentally speaking…

SOURCE: Documentally

Future Buzz needs a makeover…

…but has some interesting content:

Lists:

• Are scan-able
• Provide easy to read and consume content
• Have the novelty factor
• Are many times “must-share” content
• Engage people
• Are at times humorous, entertaining or incredible
• Are a strong social web meme
• Get strong traffic

There are 58+ pages of top 10 lists that have made page one of Digg. And that’s just for “top 10” lists!

SOURCE: TheFutureBuzz

Buy a t-shirt, save the world

Africa Aid provides the foundation for innovative partnerships and intimate community-based relationships between developing African communities and their more established American counterparts. To create a sustainable and mutually beneficial community partnership, Africa Aid characterizes the problems of an African community and then integrates foreign aid projects into American university curriculum, allowing university students and faculty experts to design solutions to extreme poverty. Africa Aid implements the resulting university designed solutions in Africa, working alongside African communities to establish basic levels of Education, Health, Water, and Economic Empowerment.

SOURCE: AfricaAid

You remind me of something…

In times of need, brothers and sisters, it becomes the right time to sit down and ponder the true meaning of it all. Navigating a nadir, there's nothing that stirs the soul more than a good dose of the brother Bonnie "Prince" Billy. His latest release, 'Lie Down In The Light' (Drag City/2008) is the quintessential elixir that brightens the blessed day. Give a listen.

SOURCES: Drag City, Daytrotter

Playing the Building

Creative Time presents Playing the building, a sound installation in which the infrastructure, the physical plant of the building, is converted into a giant musical instrument. Devices are attached to the building structure — to the metal beams and pillars, the heating pipes, the water pipes — and are used to make these things produce sound. The activations are of three types: wind, vibration, striking. The devices do not produce sound themselves, but they cause the building elements to vibrate, resonate and oscillate so that the building itself becomes a very large musical instrument.

Playing the Building, Battery Maritime Building, New York, NY, 2008
SOURCE: CreativeTime

Twyla Tharp and creativity

“…it doesn’t necessarily fit neatly into the “self-help” box, which is already overstuffed with cookie-cutter books on making yourself a happy, healthy, sexually-satisfied, skilled overachiever. Tharp speaks to her reader in a language that any person, whether they are already creative or only desire to be, can understand and use for their own lives.”

SOURCE: Bookslut

A Brief History of JKrishnamurti

Jiddu Krishnamurti lived from 1895 to 1986, and is regarded as one of the greatest philosophical and spiritual figures of the twentieth century. Krishnamurti claimed no allegiance to any caste, nationality or religion and was bound by no tradition. His purpose was to set humankind unconditionally free from the destructive limitations of conditioned mind. For nearly sixty years he traveled the world and spoke spontaneously to large audiences until the end of his life in 1986 at the age of ninety. He had no permanent home, but when not traveling, he often stayed in Ojai, California, Brockwood Park, England, and in Cennai, India. In his talks, he pointed out to people the need to transform themselves through self knowledge, by being aware of the subtleties of their thoughts and feelings in daily life, and how this movement can be observed through the mirror of relationship.

SOURCE: Krishnamurti Foundation

Ghost Rock

Ghost Rock is the new album from the Michigan-based collective NOMO. The album, produced by Warn Defever, sheds light on the way forward for a band that has been forging its own vital sound. This is not the Afrobeat of Fela, nor the revivalist funk of a forgotten decade. This record owes as much to Can, Eno, and MIA as it does Kuti, Francis Bebey, and Funkadelic. On Ghost Rock, NOMO arrives in a new place. There’s no loss of steam as they incorporate new influences, instead NOMO breaks through with a matured and developed sound that is fully its own.

SOURCE: Ubiquity Records

Ice Cream Spiritual, indeed

Listening to Ponytail's second effort, Ice Cream Spiritual (We*Are*Free; 2008), John Cage's quote about poetry taken to its logical extreme comes to mind. Molly Siegel, Ken Seeno, Dustin Wong and Jeremy Hyman have nothing to say and they're saying it, loudly and with a sense of joy that's nothing short of infectious.

SOURCE: Pitchforkmedia

My Bloody Valentine: Live in London

My Bloody Valentine's show finale, at The Roundhouse in London on June 20, the white noise coda to "You Made Me Realise", has become as central to their legend as the bankrupt record label and the endlessly scrapped new material. Everyone in the Roundhouse was waiting for it, many had probably wondered how they might react, how extreme things could possibly get.

Photo of Kevin Shields by Shannon McClean

SOURCE: Pitchforkmedia

Etsy Watch

Three words: Eco Dog Toy

This dog toy will be hours of fun for your pet. It is made of upcycled items. The fabric was disgarded upholstery samples that were going to be thrown away. Inside is a plastic water bottle that makes a crunchy sound. There is a little poli-fil used for stuffing. It is machine sewn for extra durability.

SOURCE: LumpyStrawberry

David Lewis is Bang & Olufsen

The 69-year-old Mr. Lewis, a U.K. native, graduated from London's Central School of Art and Design in 1960. He had aspired to be a furniture designer, but when the class was full he turned to industrial design instead. Three of his B&O creations are part of the Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection in New York.

SOURCE: WallStreetJournal, Beoworld.org

Introducing: Monotonix

Monotonix are a punk trio from Tel Aviv, featuring guitar (Yonatan), drums (Ran) and vocals (Ami). They formed in November 2005, set up on the floor of the club with the audience, and the party began. But the party usually got too wild, the power got cut, the cops were called and Monotonix were banned from playing again almost everywhere. Before long, they were looking for good places to play outside of Israel — and they were delighted to find that there are more rock and roll party places outside of Israel than inside!

SOURCES: DragCity, Myspace.com/monotonix

Damon Albarn's Monkey Opera premieres in London

Damon Albarn's operatic adaptation of Journey To The West, which had its premier at the Manchester International Festival last summer, will make its London debut at the Royal Opera House. Monkey: Journey to the West will open in Covent Garden in July as part of a celebration of the Beijing Olympics. Chen Shi-Zheng directed and adapted......
[READ MORE]

SOURCE: Londonist

Composites

Patrick Winfield shoots with many different cameras, but likes his Polaroid best. “It’s that creaminess,” he says, “that seductive, almost nostalgic look that you get from it.” He also enjoys the instant gratification of the film, being able to hold it in his hand and work with it as soon as it’s shot. “It’s more like drawing in a sense. You can see the line or the finished piece instantly, it’s very nice to work that way,” Winfield says. [READ MORE]

SOURCE: PatrickWinfield.com

What is crowdsourcing?

Crowdsourcing is when people gather via the Internet to create something and share in the profit — often without ever meeting each other in person. The products of these collaborations are referred to as crowdsourced. [READ MORE]

SOURCE: CambrianHouse

Twitter: A community in 140 characters

This morning Jeff Pulver woke up with the melody of “Happiness Is... from “You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown” in his head. So he decided to ask his friends on Twitter to finish the sentence that started with “Happiness Is...”
Enjoy!

SOURCE: Twitter

"The Originator" dies of heart failure

Bo Diddley (December 30, 1928 – June 2, 2008), born Ellas Otha Bates^[1], aka "The Originator", was an influential American rock and roll singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Often cited as a key figure in the transition from blues to rock and roll, he introduced more insistent, driving rhythms and a hard-edged guitar sound. He was also known for his characteristic rectangular guitar.

SOURCE: CNN, Wikipedia

Wildbirds & Peacedrums, yeah!

SOURCE: TheLeafLabel

YouTube = citizen journalism

Elbowing aside the media elite, YouTube wants to grab a seat at the anchor desk with a new channel dubbed "Citizen News." Harnessing the advantages of the burgeoning citizen journalism movement, YouTube aims to aggregate and capitalize on newsworthy content produced by an increasingly well-equipped user base. An official YouTube channel will give the world's John and Jane Does a bigger spotlight with which to illuminate stories not picked up by mainstream media, but big spotlights are hot; will YouTube be burned by linking its brand with citizen news?

SOURCE: Ars Technica

From 'Tube to 'Tomb…

YouTomb is a research project by MIT Free Culture that tracks videos taken down from YouTube for alleged copyright violation.
SOURCE: YouTomb

Osho speaks volumes

Conditioning

Many of us are like this lion — the image we have of ourselves comes not from our own direct experience but from the opinions of others. A "personality" imposed from the outside replaces the individuality that could have grown from within. We become just another sheep in the herd, unable to move freely and unconscious of our own true identity.

It's time to take a look at your own reflection in the pond, and make a move to break out of whatever you have been conditioned by others to believe about yourself. Dance, run, jog, do gibberish - whatever is needed to wake up the sleeping lion within.

SOURCE: OshoZenTarot

This just in from PitchforkTV…

Jose Gonzalez on a Brooklyn rooftop,
playing songs from In Our Nature.

SOURCE: PitchforkTV

Russian Circles

SOURCE: Russian Circles

Robert Rauschenberg: 1925-2008

Robert Rauschenberg
(born Milton Ernst Rauschenberg; October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American artist who came to prominence in the 1950s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art.

Rauschenberg is perhaps most famous for his "Combines" of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations. While the Combines are both painting and sculpture, Rauschenberg has also worked with photography, printmaking, papermaking, and performance. Rauschenberg had a tendency to pick up the trash that interested him on the streets of New York City and bringing it back to his studio to use it in this works. He claimed he "wanted something other than what I could make myself and I wanted to use the surprise and the collectiveness and the generosity of finding surprises. And if it wasn't a surprise at first, by the time I got through with it, it was. So the object itself was changed by its context and therefore it became a new thing."

Robert Rauschenberg

Bed
1955
mixed mediums, ca. 75 x 32 x 8 in.
Museum of Modern Art

SOURCE: Wikipedia, ArtNet

Kayo Dot is…

…an American avant garde group that was formed in 2003 by Toby Driver. They released their debut album Choirs of the Eye on John Zorn's Tzadik Records label that year.

The music of Kayo Dot bridges several genres, from heavy metal to classical music. Their songs involve complex instrumentation (composed by singer and frontman Driver). They are substantially longer than typical rock songs, often ranging from 8 to 15 minutes in length.

Tzadik's descriptive label on that album reads: "Kayo Dot powerfully integrates elements of modern classical composition with the layers of guitars and vocals more common to rock and metal. With a compositional map that is strict in form yet malleable in execution, Kayo Dot uses a vast array of instrumentation to create an exciting convergence of violence and serenity."

SOURCE: Kayo Dot, Wikipedia

New Muxtape mix!

Future sounds from London

Daniel Burka - FOWD London 2008 from Future of Web Design on Vimeo.

SOURCE: DanielBurka

Black Postcards

A wickedly honest and unsparing account of a journey through the music world-the artistry and the hustle, the effortless success and the high living as well as the bitter pills and self-inflicted wounds-by a brilliant and fearless participant-observer, Black Postcards is absurdly rich in rewards for anyone who was ever in a band or just took an interest in indie music over the past twenty years-a sort of Kitchen Confidential written by a different species of front man. Black Postcards also captures what has happened, for good and ill, to the entire ecosystem of popular music over this time of radical change, a time when categories like "indie" and "alternative" started to morph beyond all recognition. Rolling Stone called Dean Wareham's band Luna "the greatest band you've never heard of " and named its album Penthouse one of its 100 greatest rock albums of our time. Black Postcards is also about what it's like to have to pretend to be civil as you answer the same helpful question over and over again, "Why aren't you guys more famous?" Why indeed?

SOURCE: PenguinPress

My Morning Jacket is grand

SOURCE: BrooklynVegan

Documentally speaking…

SOURCE: Documentally

Bloody well told!

When people think of "Activism", most envision some form of awareness program, protest or public disobedience. While these forms of Activism are functional and important, they often only operate on a limited level, usually failing to address root causes. In fact, our whole society tends to address any and all social problems from a superficial standpoint.

SOURCE: zeitgeistmovie.com

In The Year of the Pig

Simultaneously nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary and the subject of bomb threats and innumerable editorial attacks, In the Year of the Pig became a rallying cry for the growing anti-Vietnam War movement and a sensation whenever and wherever it screened. In the Year of the Pig remains not only a great document of the era but also a sad and still relevant meditation on the hubris of power.

Print courtesy of the UCLA Film and Television Archive.
SOURCE: Film Society of Lincoln Center

Portishead: 3rd times' the charm

What Barrow and Gibbons have cooked up now ain’t no party, ain’t no disco, ain’t no fooling around.

SOURCE: PASTE

Say It Loud!

Village Voice Poetry Roundup

Last week's annual Poets House Showcase held in the West Village displayed more than 2,000 poetry books and related materials published in 2007. As impressive and even overwhelming as that number might seem, it represents a sliver—as any overview must—of poetry's current state, a large portion of which also exists off the page in readings and classrooms, on the Internet, and via word of mouth. [READ MORE]

SOURCE: VillageVoice

Steve Gullick is a badass!

Photo by Steve Gullick

Trust your tribes

In the company's own words:

Praized Media is a startup company working on a web-based application that will enable you to find and discover local places and merchants with help from people you can trust. It’s also a tool that will structure local conversations within blogs and a new platform for local search providers to generate leads from the untapped social media market.

SOURCE: PraizedMedia

Dave Eggers gets it!

SOURCE: TED.com

Amy Tan on creativity

SOURCE: TED.com

Frank Zappa remembered

Go ahead and…

He who speak to fork tongue

Pitchfork invited El Guincho to submit to a guest list column. See how he answered the extremely banal questions.
[CLICK HERE]

Jazz On Edge

Jazz On Edge launches Vol. 1 on Saturday, Aug 23 at 9pm, at Taste in Orlando FL. The showcase of new, original jazz features Brian Groder ("Best CDs of 2007" -Downbeat Magazine) with Grammy-nominated bassist Doug Mathews; piano trio Eastside Combo; and jazz cellist Claire Courchene, and is produced by Joseph Hayes. See the website, Jazz On Edge, for artist details, music clips and a map. Already planning Volume 2 for February!

SOURCE: JazzOnEdge

What did you eat for lunch?

The peanut butter and jelly sandwich, (PB&J), also known as a peanut butter and jam sandwich in the UK and Canada, is a sandwich that includes a layer of peanut butter and either jelly or jam on bread, commonly between two slices. Jars of pre-mixed peanut butter and jelly are commercially available for making these sandwiches.^[1] It appears to have been invented by GIs during World War II.^[2] The sandwich has the advantage that it does not contain any perishable ingredients, so it does not require refrigeration in hot weather, making it suitable for lunch bags. The peanut butter and jelly sandwich is very popular with both adults and children in the US and Canada. A 2002 survey showed the average American will have eaten 1,500 of the sandwiches before graduating from high school.<sup>[3]

SOURCE: Wikipedia</sup>

Eno/Byrne unite forces again

Thirty years since Brian Eno and David Byrne collaborated on Talking Heads records, and 27 years post the original release of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, the pair are
joining forces again.


SOURCE: Stereogum

Interesting take on an old adage…

Don't forget…

Fanboy supercuts = hilarious

SOURCE: Waxy.org

iTunes Indie finder

Independent music is exploding, but it can be a challenge to find the gems. These podcasts will help you discover some of that great new music. Tune into samplers like Noise Pop or The Fader. Browse the astounding collection of full live performances in NPR's Live Concerts From All Songs Considered. And be sure to check out the Indie Music Spotlight feature on iTunes for the best new albums.
SOURCE: Apple

Existence

You are not accidental. Existence needs you. Without you something will be missing in existence and nobody can replace it. That's what gives you dignity, that the whole existence will miss you. The stars and sun and moon, the trees and birds and earth — everything in the universe will feel a small place is vacant which cannot be filled by anybody except you.

This gives you a tremendous joy, a fulfillment that you are related to existence, and existence cares for you. Once you are clean and clear, you can see tremendous love falling on you from all dimensions.

SOURCE: OshoZenTarot

Kensington Heights is good…

Discover good music here…

The artist in his own words:

"My father, Jimmy is a great soulful guitarist, bassist and singer. My brother Josh is a phenomenal writer, singer and rapper who also happens to be one of the best drummers I know. My uncle, John the Baker, is a great writer and activist working at Alternative Tentacles and fronting several punk and hardcore outfits on the west coast. There is definitely something in the genes, although each of one of us is stylistically unique. Our passion is truly what we have in common. As an artist I strive for balance. When it comes to expression I do not favor one polarity over another. Im not trying to be dark in what I create but Im also not going to sugar coat my feelings about the world. A friend once described my music as a dark night of the soul that delivers you to the light.
I dont think I could have put it any better myself."

— Joey Eppard

Hungry?

News you can use

SOURCE: Infocalypse

Social media productivity checklist

1. What’s first in your day? What do you do before any other social media task?
2. How do you listen? (example, I use Google Blog Search and Technorati search)
3. Where do you connect with your communities?
4. How many communities do you visit?
5. Is your social media use primarily for personal use or business or both?
6. What are your goals with using social media?
7. If you could list a bunch of tasks you perform with social media, what would they be?

SOURCE: chrisbrogan.com

Earth Day Network

Founded by the organizers of the first Earth Day in 1970, Earth Day Network (EDN) promotes environmental citizenship and year round progressive action worldwide.

Earth Day Network is a driving force steering environmental awareness around the world. Through Earth Day Network, activists connect, interact, and have an impact on their communities, and create positive change in local, national, and global policies. EDN's international network reaches over 17,000 organizations in 174 countries, while the domestic program engages 5,000 groups and over 25,000 educators coordinating millions of community development and environmental protection activities throughout the year. Earth Day is the only event celebrated simultaneously around the globe by people of all backgrounds, faiths and nationalities. More than a half billion people participate in our campaigns every year.

SOURCE: EarthDayNetwork