Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Bikesnobbed!

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Lindsey and I are in the running for Bike Snob NYC's super-awesome parody photo contest! Our amazing photo collabo is putting 80's schwinns on the map! Check it out!

Here are the rest of the shots on flickr.

Now I'm back to laboriously editing my bike out of the corner of a long timelapse shot I'm including in the Winter in SLC bike video. Read More......

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Dolla Dolla Bill Yall!

Jann Haworth is in a Pop Art retrospective show called "Art Not Dollars" this spring in Paris, and she invited a bunch of Salt Lake artists to modify $1 bills for a big sewn piece she's making. Here's my contribution. Thanks Jann!

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Collage is great for someone who is inept and cannot draw straight lines, like me. Read More......

Monday, December 29, 2008

Glorious, Wicked Images

The Boston Globe has an amazing photoblog, The Big Picture. Displayed in full-screen resolution, my blog can't do them justice, but here are a couple picks and then a link to the relevant story.



The Greek Riots








The Year in Photographs Pt. 3

The Year in Photographs Pt. 2

The Year in Photographs Pt. 1


These pictures remind me how full the world is. They remind me to make every day count, and how much there is to know, to contribute to, to fight against. These pictures make me want to go out and be a fully creative person, but there's a flip side to such images:



Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, every position of privilege twinned with a disadvantage. A love-filled life requires some serious balance. Read More......

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Lindsey showed me Kaiser's Orchestra a while ago, pretty cool stuff!



They're from Norway. No idea what dude's saying, but it's a swell gypsy tune. Lindsey uploaded the lyrics into the comments section, it's actually a swell pirate tune! Read More......

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

One NY Post, on the go...


I forget how much wandering is an integral part of my being. Our flight pushed back, my mother and I return to the just-packed-up Brooklyn apartment, rebuffed at the airport. We're going to miss Christmas, but neither of us seems to mind. We've had good dinners with family before, this thanksgiving in fact, and we're pretty sure it'll happen without us.

The brownstone on President St. undergoes a role reversal due to the 3 hour journey with baggage and all, it is now home rather than a place of departure. We've arrived, in-between time, and without priorities. The structureless-ness caused by this stolen freedom (because we shouldn't be here, really) unlocks the wanderer.

I head out into the bitter cold and begin to walk, headphones on. I walk until there is no more Brooklyn, along streets where black faces look into my solitary white one, rather than the scene I've grown used to. The music is good and I look deep into everyone's eyes on this cold street, I see more than a few friends in the multitude of strangers finishing their day.

I come to a point where I have to decide: take the Manhattan Bridge into Chinatown below Canal St or the Brooklyn Bridge to Civic Center. I begin to walk across the Manhattan, scuffing and scuttling over the ice. The sun is beginning to set, I follow the bridge's subtle parabola and take in the sheer weight of its industrial repetition.


The bridge, the night, the silence, the cold, it's all so beautiful. All the more so for the wrought iron, the caging in, the infinite depth of human experience that is New York juxtaposed with the ubiquitous authority of the cage. I like the fences, the turnstiles, the barriers, the routes of New York, because they physicalize the kind of melancholy that makes this city such an astonishing place. The people I pass on the bridge are few and far between, the occasional biker or man walking alone. Their eyes are cold, blasé, and guarded. Mine are not, they are ablaze, undefended, open. A characteristic that has flaws, to be sure, but I couldn't and wouldn't trade it. I am in awe of what I see from the bridge, in awe of the bleakness of the walk and the richness of experience. I love it, love that it isn't simple. I love the weight of the bridge with its army of ghostly riveters and the way it shakes from the volume of humanity passing over. I love the graffiti-soaked walls and film-noir streetlamps and how much these settings don't belong to me as a visitor, but I am powerless to recreate them in my own home town.


I look down into the Bladerunner-esque Chinatown below and imagine hurtling through gridlock on a bike, swimming in the barracaded humanity. It makes me smile and warm, though I am cold.



I grab some dim sum to warm up, the music's still good, and I walk back over the other bridge. It's slippery and covered with tourists. Read More......

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Finals Week, and Cultural Pinnacles.

No really good thoughts for a while, being an academic then going to NY. Stay warm!

In the meantime, this not-safe-for-anything video gets taken down off youtube more often than footage of Palin naked, I consider it a beautifully mis-evolved endangered species, so enjoy while you can. This is what every other youtube video aspires to be:

Read More......

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Rockin' Tee.


This is my new favorite T-shirt.
I discovered it a while ago when I found the original image on flickr.

It's got everything. It refers to a touching photo, a moment of our history that illustrates the warmth and humanity of our new leader. It's ironic to see a man named Barack Hussein Obama cartoonishly transformed into a white icon of the american west. The message in spanish is great: "The hope has come; I represent those who have until now been left by the wayside." The whole thing is ridiculously campy as well, sort of a garbled, psudo-patriotic shirt that I would normally be appalled to wear, but representing everything I love about america: Bravado, excitment, multi-cultural struggle, honesty, and... hope.

I'd be happy to lop the sleeves off it and rock it redneck style through my European bike trip next summer. Or, even better, it comes as a tank-top!:

Read More......

Obama Killin' it again



Obama's press release this week is pretty damn cool. He starts with the regular doom and gloom economy stuff, but once you get through that it's all specific improvements he's planning that will make things more efficient and advanced and create jobs. It's like a techno-modern New Deal, revamping all the crumbling stuff and bolstering the economy in the process.

This is a much better tactic than just bolstering the 'free market,' where money is spent and made but only in the perpetuation of the existing problematic systems. Obama's plan spends money but with long term foresight and sound improvements in schools, government buildings, and hospitals.

The only part I'm not sure about is the "use it or lose it" part of allocating money to state budgets. I can see Utah quickly squandering this money on UDOT bullshit to hold up another crumbling mountain they swiped away to squeeze in a 6-lane highway. We need ideas along with dollars. Read More......

Thursday, December 4, 2008

This time last year

The spirits of the dead miss each other.

We know they do, because occasionally their whispered, lost communications go astray and drift across our mind. The human mind sympathizes with the loss, the grief and creates its own story, without really knowing why. That discontentment breeds and broods in the souls of poets and on the minds of thinkers and in the hands of artists until it metamorphoses into something beautiful. Until it does so it is excruciating.

The pain of butterflies is in their fragility, knowing that the slightest push results in a tear, the loss of a crystal so delicate and beautiful that it has no material value. This is our legacy, the production of the crystal, regardless of the pain and the cost, regardless of the value. Read More......

Monday, December 1, 2008

Senior Seminar Paper

Unlike everyone else talking in the library right now, I actually enjoy writing papers. They're usually not as good as I want them to be, and this one's no exception, but I wanted to throw it online 2 weeks before it's due and see if anyone had any feedback. You can be honest, and tell me if specific paragraphs are stupid and convoluted, I just have no distance from it anymore and would appreciate a fresh eye. It's all about this image:

Consemüller woman with Schlemm mask Breuer chai


Read the essay here.

*edit* Lindsay edited a ton of the worst dorky sentences and commas out, so now the second draft's up. Thanks! Read More......

Cratelung Taking off!

We at The Dada Factory are hosting Cratelung's going away party!



Cratelung is a local art collective that's leaving on an all-star trip through the Southwest. Their bold and adventurous team includes our dear buddy Casey and a bunch of his friends.

Find out more about Cratelung's Tour.
Join the party's Facebook Page.

Sadly, I will be in New York on the 13th, so go for me and take pictures! Read More......

Sunday, November 30, 2008

the key is in laughter, bicycles and music.



A friend of mine has a crafty pseudo-anonymous blog that deals with one of the roots of internet culture: self-centeredness. its1am.com is a beautifully de-personalized collection of thoughts, poems, and moments that are disconnected from their contributors in such a way that the creator's words blend seamlessly into the words of friends and contributors across the globe. here's a poem from which I nicked the title of this post:

the boy i once was
will disappear into the darkness, 
vanish into the night,
and with him will travel,
my blind and rash attitudes on life,
the key is in laughter,
bicycles and music. 



Delicious. So if you're feeling de-personal, or just ambigously poetic, head on over and submit something. Read More......

Friday, November 28, 2008

Well done America! Good Job, Really!

Black Friday Shoppers trampled a Wal-Mart employee to death this morning.

That one really deserves a golf clap. Really. Way to go shoppers, hope you landed that plasma screen TV for $499. that's only $10 an inch!

And I thought I was doing a good thing staying at home and doing homework. Guess we'll have to compensate by instituting Buy Nothing Year.

The American people got nominal bonus points by electing a good president, but their behavior in the face of economic crisis is akin to rats on a sinking ship. I hope they drown, with cheap toxic plastic in hand.

Give the people you love homemade art for christmas. Or secondhand books. Or hot chocolate. Or simply look them in the eye and let them know how much you love them, however you do that best.

I'll be hurtling along, looking for a place on high to sift through the ashes, and all the while craftily avoiding collisions with our doomed excesses. I hope I make it. Read More......

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Allow me, if you will....

A short Treatise on Privacy, Isolation, and Communication.




We hereby declare the use of sunglasses in non-utilitarian or non-ironic circumstances criminal. Sunglasses may be marginally soothing to your eyes whilst basking in the full heat of a july day, and perhaps once in a while whilst trekking across the snow-blinding arctic, BUT THEY'RE NOT NEARLY AS USEFUL AS THE AMOUNT OF SUNGLASS WEARING WOULD LEAD YOU TO BELIEVE. For me in fact, sunglasses are only useful for losing. Which isn't useful at all.





These sneaky little barriers, creations of the modern metropolis, serve only to alienate us and turn us into distrustful, shallow, and socoipathic creatures of fear.

Eyes are windows to the soul. You may not like the idea of strangers seeing your soul, but the majority of strangers aren't that strange.

Throw down your glasses!

Also:

Cars shall be driven with the windows down, except if:
  • It's really cold
  • You're on the freeway
  • The music's really good.
Read More......

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Comin' Right up! Cranksgiving!

Matt's Cranksgiving Drawing
Matt Delporto did an awesome drawing for the 'cat, but we got it too late for the flyer. Still, mad cool.


Come one come all to the coolest freakin' charity ride out there, alleycat style! get food on some plates and a bit of warmth in your brisk pre-turkey saturday.

Idea and poster stolen from The New York Bike Messenger Association, sorry about the bad photoshopping! Read More......

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

The beauty of creative commons



As part of their annual fundraiser Creative Commons released this video. Read More......

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Step in the right direction...

This is way cool. President-Elect Obama released the first ever Presidential Youtube Address today, which is apparently going to be a weekly thing! Right on track...


The content's a little lacking, not much new but an argument to extend unemployment benefits beyond the first year, but having palatable communication with the country through youtube once a week will be a vast improvement and motivator to keep people involved.

I want to see these huge economic bail-outs cleverly distributed. So instead of handing a check to Ford, which is a terribly managed company completely lacking in foresight, I'd like the check to be mated with mandates that force the company to spend that money on alternative energy projects. Or at least, say, half of it. When a business model is disfunctional and selling crap gas-guzzlers that nobody wants, you don't patch it with cash. You throw out the business model and sell useful stuff. Read More......

Quite Quite


Faith-The Restless Debt of Third World Beauty from Rowan on Vimeo.

Exactly, more or less, the kind of work I want to get adept at.
If anyone knows how to find more music by Fletcher Beadon let me know. Read More......

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Libraries are fun!



Is it more than incidental that 'Focus' backward is close to 'suckoff'?


or am I just perverted? Read More......

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

The nicest rap evar.

Beautiful stuff



check out complete lyrics here.
from Shoplift Windchimes

Thanks to Nicke for the introduction! Read More......

Monday, November 10, 2008

Yeah, but does your President have a blog?

"Oh hi there President Medvedev! That's a very nice arsenal of nuclear weapons you have there! Where can I check them out in action on youtube?"

"What's that? You don't know what youtube is? Oh, and you don't have a blog? Sorry, You're officially off my information radar."

Luckily, President Obama already has a blog, and it's very snazzy:



They've got a ton of different sections, it's more or less designed as a information distribution center for the whitehouse, Web 2.0 style, with the potential to expand into a forum for the American people.



In fact, you can send in comments, which I've already done. Here's a copy of what I wanted to say to Mr. B off the top of my head:

"President Obama,
I am so pleased to see Change.gov up and running, and I eagerly await its implementation and expansion. I'm a 21 year old student, blogger, and videographer from SLC UT and an avid supporter of your campaign. I traveled to Grand Junction, CO to canvas for you and was happy to see the state swing in your direction.

I think forums like this that easily and clearly connect the American people with the goings-on inside the white house are a huge step forward and will be a crucial part of this administration. I'd like to see constant bulletins that update us on what you're working on. I think you should keep the Youtube channel up and running, and do releases occasionally to keep the youth informed.

The best thing that could happen, in my opinion, is that you link the topics on the blog or on the youtube channel with opportunities for active people to volunteer and get involved with specific aspects of specific issues. We're your ground troops still, and we're energized and motivated to enact change. A few days after the election I attended a rally protesting the involvement of the LDS church in the passing of Prop. 8 in California, it was amazing to see so many people activated and socially aware, ready to work to make the country better. For the first time in my life I feel patriotic and politically involved in a non-subversive way, I believe it is in your administrations best interest to capitalize on my generation's capable enthusiasm. We'll achieve great things.

Thank you so much for standing up in this crazy world and daring to become President,
Your constituent,
Davey Davis

p.s. and if you need me to drop everything and become a videographer for a specific project, let me know and I'm there! :)"


The coolest part is, they've already got a place where you can apply for jobs, how neat is that? So maybe my dream of being a cameraman for change can come true! check out the blog and make yerself an active member of the webtubes community! Read More......

Friday, November 7, 2008

Aw yeah

So I don't know if you heard, but WE WON MUTHAAF**!KA! YEAH YEAH OBAMA IN THE WHIIIITE HAUS!

to celebrate:
Read More......

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

One Word Nation

This little page is so cute! After you've put in your response and checked it out, be sure to click the McCain button for a bit of a telling shock. 

Read More......
The New Yorker is filled with excellent and inspiring writings on the election. Check out their website if the regular election coverage rabble isn't to your taste.

From The Choice, the editors' very thoughtful and powerful endorsement of Obama:

On energy and global warming, Obama offers a set of forceful proposals. He supports a cap-and-trade program to reduce America’s carbon emissions by eighty per cent by 2050—an enormously ambitious goal, but one that many climate scientists say must be met if atmospheric carbon dioxide is to be kept below disastrous levels. Large emitters, like utilities, would acquire carbon allowances, and those which emit less carbon dioxide than their allotment could sell the resulting credits to those which emit more; over time, the available allowances would decline. Significantly, Obama wants to auction off the allowances; this would provide fifteen billion dollars a year for developing alternative-energy sources and creating job-training programs in green technologies. He also wants to raise federal fuel-economy standards and to require that ten per cent of America’s electricity be generated from renewable sources by 2012. Taken together, his proposals represent the most coherent and far-sighted strategy ever offered by a Presidential candidate for reducing the nation’s reliance on fossil fuels.



or from David Sedaris' Undecided:

I don’t know that it was always this way, but, for as long as I can remember, just as we move into the final weeks of the Presidential campaign the focus shifts to the undecided voters. “Who are they?” the news anchors ask. “And how might they determine the outcome of this election?”

Then you’ll see this man or woman— someone, I always think, who looks very happy to be on TV. “Well, Charlie,” they say, “I’ve gone back and forth on the issues and whatnot, but I just can’t seem to make up my mind!” Some insist that there’s very little difference between candidate A and candidate B. Others claim that they’re with A on defense and health care but are leaning toward B when it comes to the economy.

I look at these people and can’t quite believe that they exist. Are they professional actors? I wonder. Or are they simply laymen who want a lot of attention?

To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?”

To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.

I mean, really, what’s to be confused about?

Read More......

Please Godammit Please

I just teared up a little bit...

Read More......

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Opo Terser takes amazing macro pictures of spiders and insects on flickr. They look like CG, very unreal.He also writes in-depth descriptions for each one, including information on the bugs and his methods. Click on any of the photos to see full size shots.

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Read More......

Tag Galaxy

I love interactive Flickr toys!
First you put in your search:


Then you select your choice from the cloud of related results:


Then you choose your image!





Try it out!
Thanks to Zed from saltcycle Read More......

Oh snap! Poor Governer Palin...

Two canadian radio jockeys prank call Palin, pretending to be French President Nicolas Sarkozy. I feel kinda bad for her, but the whole thing is such a mookish move that you'd have to be pretty naive to fall for it. She probably thinks Presidents call each other all the time just to have a little chit-chat.
Read More......

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Party

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Happy Halloween!


We had a good night.


Thanks everyone!
See all the Photos on Flickr. Read More......

Monday, October 27, 2008

Back to winter.

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Casey and I built this bike a year ago, we both rode our single speeds fanatically all through the cold months. This winter I'll be biking for work, and I look forward to sliding around and feeling the bite of frost on my face in the cold morning air. But I'm a little scared, I won't have the youthful enthusiasm of that first single speed season to keep my spirits up. Read More......

Friday, October 24, 2008

Palais de Tokyo Massacre

click on any of the pics for larger versions
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I took these shots 2 years ago and they still startle me. In Paris the world boils over, the commodified contradictions of street and art match up and leave a wrecked plaza and a ghost of a party in their wake.

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Splashes of color, dregs of beer bleed into puddles and mix heavily with the ennui of an overcast lonely day. In the best nights the Parisian youth come together and turn this plaza into an anarchist circus, with wild haired girls spinning fire and knotting together over jokes and canteens and shared histories of focused moments. The morning is left to sift through their debris.

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But I guess things got a little out of hand this day. The saddened walls know they'll be scrubbed, and other painters with hangovers more slight will take out their revelry on stoic history, on buildings that speak of permanence and wisdom and statues that speak of glory and reason. Neither the institution nor the burning will of the radical triumphs.

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Truth is I'm lonely, thats why I'm looking over old photos, anyway. Read More......

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