Wednesday, November 16, 2005

13 x 19


i'm looking for a frame for a Jay Ryan poster print that i picked up at the Andrew Bird / Martin Dosh show that i went to last night. The print is an odd size, about 12.5 x 19. I have since discovered that 13 x 19 is somewhat available around.

what a pain, i should just back it with poster board and cover it in plastic.

while i was investigating, i saw that someone else on ebay was also looking for a 13 x 19 frame. he was a little adamant about it.

"I'm looking for a 13" x 19" black picture frame for a vintage art print. DO NOT RESPOND WITH SIZES OTHER THAN 13" X 19" OR YOU WILL BE REPORTED!!!!!! Thanks!"

for a second i thought that it was Pat incarnate. but then there was the "Thanks!" business.

and then, someone posted that they had a 16 x 20 frame available. is there any justice in this world?

i wonder if that person got reported.

i can't imagine. i looked at his feedback profile and he is the ideal ebayer. if ebay was an academic institution he would apparently get an A++++++++++++ .

a patriot is he.

an ebaytriot.

hmm? oh yah, the Andrew Bird show. the man is awesome. i suppose i'll post on that. maybe a little later.

Saturday, November 12, 2005

Hung Up Live

This is not meant to be a Madonna obsessive blog, but she's captured my attention with the nifty song.

She performed live at the MTV European Music Awards to a rapturous audience.

You can DL the clip (about 20 MB) here

or if they don't allow direct links, look here

Even while singing live, she can still bust out my favorite move:


HAND CLAP













then

ARM ROLL.

Thursday, November 10, 2005

Space Invaders meet Mega Man

DON'T SCREAM, HERE'S YOUR MEME

On a cold night in Boston, I walked down Mass Ave over the I-90 overpass near the Virgin Megastore and saw Mega Man charging past. and i said "hoo-wut?"

i looked like yet another crazy man as i pulled my camera out and took flash (because it was night) pics of this feat of awesomeness. Perhaps one person shared my joy enough to point out that i was the 3rd person she'd seen taking pictures of it. Everyone else, however, had only the idiotic city-presence of mind to walk by and ignore everything happening.

Yes, I have a kinship with the little Blue Bomber after guiding him through many tricky levels deftly trying to avoid his destruction. However, this work of art means more than just revisiting boyhood (and teenagerhood, and adulthood) fascinations. This is frikkin cool. Its the kind of street art that is seemingly done to great effect in bigger cities like NYC and in many European cities.

Here is an example taken by someone else in Harvard Square -CLICK-

After getting some comments, I've found that this may be a part of a big international Space Invaders street art meme. ( Check out an example ). Its been taking place all around the world. I think this is much cooler than the pre-packaged bull of the Obey Giant stuff which i found cool for 2 seconds. Though, rest assured, its already packaged itself and at the afore-linked-to website, there are sneakers and posters and t-shirts for sale at ridiculous prices.

Seeing the Space Invader creatures gave me traumatic flashbacks of playing Defender for the Atari 2600. A similar looking game, but light years more technologically advanced. You have to save the humans from getting snatched by aliens and then turned into mutants that mess your s*it up. Playing this game as a child, i couldn't deal with the task of saving the humans from being snatched by the aliens. At the same time, i knew that you didn't necessarily have to do this in order to play. I don't know if you could actually win by doing this, but i basically killed all the humans, thus destroying the planet, mutating all the aliens into really hard to beat buggers and making the game incredibly hard and pointless. It speaks volumes for laziness.

Yah.

So that was cool.

To see more of my Flickr pics, please check out the link on the right side.

To see the collection of pics of the Space Invader Flickr Pool: Click HERE


Saturday, November 05, 2005

the Madge ick



This one sort of hit me out of nowhere.

Ria is correct, it is "delish". but i won't say it because i would feel like i am taking a job away from an old Jewish man at a deli. or perhaps i am confusing this with "knish"es. i dunno.

anyway. Madonna, new single "Hung Up". Sometimes i am very happy about my faith in pop music.

Apparently the new album (including) this single is produced by modern new-wave man Stuart Price AKA Jacques Lu Cont AKA Les Rhythmes Digitales and it shows. from the beginning there is a churning electro synth to get the dancefloor bubbling, it kinda sounds like electro mixed with hard vocal trance. this is combined with a processed flute that sounds like it comes from the Doctor Who theme. Which actually makes sense. Its a rather heroic-sounding dancefloor burner.

The lyrics show an odd pop naivete combined with Madge's pseudo new age knowledge-bringin. They ride on the swirling rhythms. "time goes by so slowly" "i'm hung up on you" "ring ring ring goes the telephone". "tick tock"s to go with the ticking clock (a direct reference not heard of since... when Gwen Stefani did it, also to great effect on her "what you waiting for?"). But it works. There are cliche expressions of frustration, obsession, half-wisdoms in them along with stuff about not calling (thus the "hung up"). Like a great Kylie track the genius is in the simplicity. As long as it inspires you to the dancefloor and is not too purile, then please go right ahead.


The video is also awesome. That is if you can get past Madonna yet again showing that yoga is a wonderful thing and is the fountain of youth. Or at the very least limberness. I can't do any of that sh/t nor can most of my friends. She goes into an aerobics studio solo with a super boombox. This is combined with scenes of people in various urban settings with the same boombox going crazy with the dance moves. From Madonna herself, the best dance moves since Noodle's in DARE. and that was some crazy turn-shuffle-hop-skip shiz. Plus, she ends it with a huge scene in an arcade, with a Dance Dance Revolution footpad as her stage.

my cynicism would make me say: "She's clued in to the kids, man!" with dripping sarcasm. However, when she is leading the crowd with that disco move of the spinning arms in front of you up in the air (... gah, look at the vid to see what i mean)

At any rate, this is great to lose yourself in the moment dancing.

you can view the vidness if you click HERE

so i'ma dance. i'll work on my writing skills later.

Listening to:
Madonna 'hung up' (obviously)
Annie - DJ Kicks (f-ing awesome mix)