Yes Mike it is a sad world in which we live. It is full of small narrow minded insecure people who still cling to some medieval notion of territory. When certain territories are invaded or encroached upon defensive walls are made. It's too bad really. My personal definition for "Art" consists of just about anything that I find inspiring, reactionary or induces an emotional response. By this definition, Mr. Saltz's review/response only reinforces the fact that the work of Diller + Scofidio is in fact very significant conceptually, artistically, as well as architecturally. I strongly question a critic's integrity if only operates in a stagnant world which uses preconceived ideals of what art should be.
COOPER HEWITT DESIGN TRIENNIAL (Note this is DESIGN not art)
Easily the most exciting survey exhibition at a New York museum this spring features not art but "design," that vast, truly interdisciplinary category that ranges from magazine graphics and book design to architecture and fashion, and also includes furniture, accessories, lighting, cell phones, automobiles and just about every product that the capitalist mind can produce. Thus the "National Design Triennial: Inside Design Now," Apr. 22, 2003-Jan. 25, 2004, at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum - On view is the work of 80 designers and design firms.
The breadth of the show is a postmodernist's dream. It includes major corporations: the Ford Motor Company, for its glowing prototype car by Laurens van den Acker; Nokia, for its gold and platinum cell phones by Frank Nouvo; and Target Corporation, for its advertising and logos. It includes individual artists: sculptor Michele Oka Doner with nature-inspired jewelry in silver and gold, and Michael Rakowitz, with his "parasite" inflatable plastic shelters for the homeless.
Among the fashion designers are As Four (with a large wall arabesque made of silver sequins), LoyandFord (samples of their deconstructed couture), Tina Lutz and Marcia Patmos (sweaters and knits), Gene Meyer (who is cited for his use of color), Isaac Mizrahi (his frog costume for a Mark Morris ballet bouffon) and Isabel Toledo (her 2002 "hermaphrodite dress"). Among the architects are Brian Bell, Peter Eisenman, Frank Escher and Ravi Gunewardena, Stanley Saitowitz, Dennis Wedlick, and Kiki Wallace and Mark Sofield, who have designed an entire new town in Longmont, Colo.
Bergdorf Goodman window designer David Hoey is included with a mini-retrospective of some of his windows, and Hollywood makeup artist Rick Baker is cited for his work on The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, Men in Black and Planet of the Apes. Novelist Dave Eggers is included, for the design of his McSweeney's publications, as is Maira Kalman, she of the celebrated 2001 New Yorker cover cartoon that recasts New York's five boroughs as a succession of "stans," moolahs and pashminas.
The New York City collaborative Collaborative (Jessica Corr, William Doll, Anton Ginzburg and Joe Serrins) is included for, among other items, its mold-blown glass "Foot and Mouth" beer stein, shaped like a cow's hoof, that holds a pint of Guinness (and is for sale in the Cooper-Hewitt gift shop for $120). And the Triennial is the first major design show to include a scent designer, with an installation from the Demeter Fragrance Library, a set of 160 "pick-me-up cologne spray" bottles of generic scents like riding crop, tomato, New Zealand, dirt and turpentine. "Most commercial perfumes provide a finished idea, a fantasy," said Demeter's Christopher Brosius. "We allow people a more personal and real relation to the scents."

posted by Chad

Montreal's Mutek festival starts May 28. This year's line-up includes Pole, Telefon Tel Aviv, Coil, T. Raumschmiere, Magda, Matthew Dear, Richie Hawtin, Senor Coconut, & Monolake, among other notables.

If you can't make it there, Avant_Mutek is an "intimate little evening at APT" in New York on April 29 featuring Akufen.

posted by Dan Parham

Rant: Here, the 21st century, we still have to deal with prejudice and insecurities in the arts. I recently had a discussion with a couple of architects who proclaimed that architects may move freely between buildings, consumer products, graphics, or whatever field they choose because there is some [magical] element in architectural studies which does not exist in other design disciplines. I of course fully endorse and encourage multidisciplinary activities, but, being intimate with both architecture and industrial design, loudly point out that a good design education is a good design education, and to suggest that an architect may design a chair, but an industrial designer may never dream of designing a house is as preposterous as taking the old testament word for word. It's not a matter of scale, it is a matter of design process, and anyone with fifth grad education should be able to grasp this. The reason I'm so upset this morning is infact in defense of architecture from the even more intangible territorialism of fine art criticism. My personal heroes, Ricardo Scofidio and Elizabeth Diller, have made a career of destroying the walls built by insecurity and frivolous title chasing. They simply do what they do, and do it with absolute quality, beauty and passion. Is it art or is it architecture? It doesn't make a damn bit of difference, my dear. Apparently art critic Jerry Saltz is so offended and threatened by this divergence that he wrote a scathing review of not only Diller+Scofidio's mid-career retrospective at the Whitney, but criticized every detail of their public persona, down to how they use punctuation. The critique reads like a temper tantrum by a spoiled child who's neighbor just beat them at their favorite game. Can we please fucking grow up and just appreciate good work when it happens? Lets reward people for breaking the rules and working in the spaces between the boxes, not be indignant because we blindly worked hard, according to the rules and found its a dead-end street. Following the rules is almost always a dead-end. I suppose it takes establishment defenders like Jerry Saltz to show what pioneers people like Diller+Scofidio truly are. Consistently, the best designers have a solid foundation in fine arts, and the best artists have a solid foundation in design. It's just sad that this argument still needs to happen. Mr. Saltz is a very good art critic, but clearly doesn't understand design or its capacity as a medium for intellectual exploration and social commentary. I appreciate that he doesn't throw up academic credentials to defend his opinions, but his fixation with the Art World (note caps) is the core problem with this most recent crit. The Art World is BS: there is only Art, and just like design, often the best comes from unexpected places.

fire away: mike@burnlab.net

Anyway... thanks for the great DEMF scoops, Josh! [below]

posted by Michael Doyle

Tuesday, April 22, 2003

In their infinately wisdom, Urb Magazine has decided to make my article on Dinky the featured Next 100 piece for their website. Kinda funny that so many Burnlab conspiritors know her, yet I'm the one dropping 250 words on the girl.

In DEMF:Movement news, it was announced today that Jeff Mills will be headlining the festival. A good choice considering he's never played the fest before. The rest of the line-up will be announced on May 2nd, but scouring artists websites has already found that Speedy J, Ghost Cauldron, Adam Jay, Rolando and Pole will be make appearances somewhere that weekend.

Not bad for four months of preparation.

posted by joshua

"Every man has inside himmself a parasitic being who is acting not at all to his advantage." �
-William S.Burroughs

I'll be guest DJ'ing TONIGHT at the BQE Lounge in tragically hip Williamsburg with fellow freak Trisha McBride. 300 N. 6th at Meeker and Metropolitan, just under the freeway from the Lorimer L stop, 11:15pm - 4ish.

"DJ'ing" may be too strong a term and disrespectful to people who do this for a living. I'll be playing records in some meaningful order, but with no attempt at mixing beyond iTunes' crossfade function is more accurate.

Either way, come on down and drink to dirty electropunk with good friends on this lovely Tuesday night.

posted by Michael Doyle

Monday, April 21, 2003

is your pad just not goth enough? scarefactory can help, with wide range of haunted furniture.

posted by Jaron

My new Friendster and 1/3 of AUDC, John Southern runs an excellent design, music and culture site out of LA called Drowning in Culture. Everything you need to know about architecture, biking as a political act and punk shows (real punk shows) under one cybernetic roof.

Speaking of AUDC, Kazys ponders urbanism and network centric warfare.

Oh, and speaking of culturally insensitive humor (ref. yesterday's post), Get Your War On updated. Thank goodness for mnftiu for putting everything in perspective.

posted by Michael Doyle

Sunday, April 20, 2003

Stole this link from Rob, after laughing for about fortyfive minutes... even though its stupid and culturally insensitive on several fronts. (Touch�, sir.) The British never cease to amaze me.
Be sure to look at the TV commercials, and don't forget to meet the Doodys. Yes, its all too real.

posted by Michael Doyle

Just another Saturday night in New York City. Despite Tadd's mentoring and unrivaled experience eating Chinese food, Sam Valenti's chopstick form still needs much work (left). Study aid here. Matthew, Sandimal and Paul Martin from the LA office getting rowdy on the Lower East Side (right).

posted by Michael Doyle

Saturday, April 19, 2003

My eurotrash self stumbled across this page. Sweet.

posted by Michael Doyle

swiped from NewsToday: DACAFE.PHOTOGRAPH
A refreshing and beautiful site, full of Japanese kids smoking cigarettes, delicately grungy texture and superb English. Love it.

posted by Michael Doyle

m-nus.com updated with Rich and Magda's tour schedule and a slew of new releases, including Matthew Dear's FALSE project. Speaking of Matt, our friend Will has updated his photo archives with some ridiculous pictures from Mr. Dear's birthday party in Detroit. [scroll down]

posted by Michael Doyle

Friday, April 18, 2003

Lots of good music happening this weekend:

Tonight at midtown goth haven Downtime is the return of Motherf*cker, New York's most outrageous party. Rock, punk, glam, industrial, new wave, electro, you name it. The kids are beautiful, and the sound is good. Collapsing New People to the tee.

Standing Still Contest Saturday night at Frenchie's bar in Ypsilanti, MI (the quaint yet somewhat sketchy town just outside of Ann Arbor) features Todd Osborn, Blank 00 Soundsystem and our buddy Rob Theakston. "An Evening of Downtown Disco and Pogo for Punks in Pumps with an Ironic Title." (+ you should really read Rob's blog.)

Of course, if you're more of a city cat, UNTITLED is the place on Saturday in Detroit. The Motor City's most successful weekly club night with the coolest sponsors *cough* just gets better and better. Blackbx always throws a high quality evening of debauchery with pleasant surprises and this week is no exception. Brand new flyer right here. (Yeah, pretty much the only thing that's changed in the life of that jacket is my ability to grow facial hair.)

posted by Michael Doyle

After a devestating hack a couple months ago, CranbrookDesign.com is back up and better than ever. Burnlab's commercial division ENGRAM is linked up in the alumni firms section. We're quite humbled to have more hits than Studio Libeskind.

Apparently I'll be DJing with my Salt Lake girl Trisha this coming Tuesday night at BQE in Williamsburg. More info to come soon.

posted by Michael Doyle

Thursday, April 17, 2003

Brand new Memory Systems poster, hot off the PowerBook and on its way to the printer as you read. Look for this all over New York in the coming weeks.

posted by Michael Doyle

Patriarch to Detroit ex-pats in Brooklyn, corporate spy, brief star of the Fischerspooner documentary and punk-rock statesman Odell Nails celebrates his 3Xth birthday today. Please join us for casual cocktails and the always outrageous Hong Kong Counterfeit at Luxx this evening, starting around 11pm.

posted by Michael Doyle

Woopsie. That's what you get for get for using Latin in your post, Mike (or maybe I thought "Deus ex machina" was French & boycotted it for Patriotic reasons, eh?). I guess I know which 79% I fit in.

posted by Dan Parham

Wednesday, April 16, 2003

Uh, I posted that two weeks ago Karl, but good to have you back on the Blogging! ;) The Cog ad is so good it deserves the extrea attention. (Also see Rube Goldberg.) + you can buy The Way Things Go from MASS MoCA for $19.95. That's a savings of $240!

posted by Michael Doyle

Honda has a new take on the 1987 'The Way Things Go' film by Peter Fischli and David Weiss.

Shot in real time, the �750,000 two minute ad, called "Cog", took eight people five months to prepare. It shows a transmission ball bearing setting 84 other pieces of equipment in motion across a floor. The advertisement took 606 takes to get right.

You can buy Fischli and Weiss's original film on video from First Run Icarus Films in Brooklyn for just $280.

posted by Dan Parham

admittedly trying to catch up as a non-electro fan,i bought the "lectroluv" compilation, only to find that two of my favorite tracks were on a mix i already had by barcelona dj sideral (by toktok and fischerspooner). in the process of mixing the music for a party for the upcoming barcelona motorshow i figured i should update myself, but after listening to the lectroluv compilation and revisiting my own music i rediscovered a few things: mouse on mars�s niun niggung is a creative, sound-loving,weirdly danceable beauty, while giorgio moroder has to be recognized as a possibly cheesy but undeniable forfather of techno et al.....

posted by chris

Kazys is one step ahead of the game with his own Fischerspooner video. Heed this though: "It's absolutely and completely stupid. The kind of thing you'd only do if you had a bright new Canon GL2 and a three week old baby. Varnelis.net's just a G4 running X on a dsl line so if you're stupid enough to download this, it'll take ten minutes."
Dr. Varnelis' modesty aside, I doubt many will be able to top it.

posted by Michael Doyle

Tuesday, April 15, 2003

Create your own Fischerspooner Emerge video and you could win an Apple eMac with Superdrive and have your work prominently featured on iFilm.com, Fischerspooner.com and more. Details here.

posted by BitBoy

"They wanted to go for the brass ring and really live the good life. What they don't seem to get is that the key to living the good life is to avoid that brass ring like the fucking plague."

i like to think this is about me and my workplace.

posted by israel

the most expensive space in north america by kazys varnelis and the audc. these guys are the throbbing gristle of architecture.

posted by israel

i love this guy - imagine becoming a pop icon for nonsensical quotes. mr. blackwell or the academy awards may want to hire him as a writer...pick up your "fuck bush" bumper-stickers, while they last, at union (la) and supreme (nyc). i get lots of "thumbs up" and middle fingers for mine.

posted by israel

may 1st, 2nd, + 3rd barcelona hosts offf3, online flash film festival, which showcases the best in web design as well as experimental audio and audiovisual trends. the theme the work is based on for this edition is "who is your superhero?"...i confess to not recognizing any of the guests besides tomato (the guys from the group underworld) but hopefully after the weekend i�ll be able to give a more informed report

posted by chris

Monday, April 14, 2003

It's always sad that the creative people are the first to hit hard times. One note of solace, most of the creatve people I know aren't bogged down with loads of debt- cars, houses, kids, etc...
When you live on the fringe, at least the weight of society doesn't come crashing down so hard.

On that note, music journalist needs more work as well.

posted by joshua

No smooth way to say this, and perhaps we are too good at giving the appearance of success, but war, economy and all things considered, Engram/Burnlab is seriously looking for paying work right now. Interior design, exhibit design, graphics large and small... All the pro bono projects and lectures are glamorous, but tax day is putting major hurt on the operation here. Consider this a rare and humble plea, and an offer of high quality design services for you and yours. You have things to be designed - I want to design things for you. I need your money. You need our services. Everyone wins. Write to: mike@engramdesign.com

posted by Michael Doyle

New coffee and tea services by a host of avant-garde architects go on view at Max Protetch Gallery in Chelsea in "Tea & Coffee Towers," May 1-June 28, 2003. The 20 sets, made variously of silver, titanium, porcelain and glass, are produced by the Italian design company Alessi. The designers are Vito Acconci, Will Alsop, Weil Arets Architects, Juan Navarro Baldeveg, Shigeru Ban, Gary Chang, David Chipperfield, Denton/Corker/Marshal, Deszo Ekler, Massimiliano Fuksas, Future Systems, Zaha Hadid, Toyo Ito, Tom Kovac, Greg Lynn, Alessandro Mendini, Morphosis, MVRDV, Jean Nouvel, Dominique Perrault, Kazuyo Sejima and UN Studio.

The gala opening of the 50th Venice Biennale, June 15-Nov. 2, 2003, is only two months away. Overall, the theme of the Biennale is "Dreams and Conflicts: The Dictatorship of the Viewer." "There is a dictator inside all of us," Bonami maintained, while admitting that his title courts controversy. Bonami himself is curating two of the 11 special exhibitions and co-curating a third, and has enlisted independent curators to organize the rest. One highlight is certain to be "Delays and Revolutions," an exhibition of work by 40 artists, ranging from Andy Warhol to David Hammons and including Matthew Barney's first post-Cremaster effort and a piece by Sam Durant commissioned for the fa�ade of the Italian pavilion reading "Like, Man, I'm Tired of Waiting."

Acclaimed fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto is the subject of an art show at the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art in Japan -- via pictures taken by eight photographers of his fashion shows. Dubbed "Yohji Yamamoto: May I Help You?," Apr. 26-July 21, 2003, the exhibition includes about 70 photographs by Max Vadukul, Inez Van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin, David Sims, Nick Knight, Craig Mc Dean, Sarah Moon, Peter Lindbergh and Paolo Roversi.

posted by Chad

Saturday, April 12, 2003

The Dia:Beacon
Call it the anti-Bilbao, New York's highly acclaimed Dia Center opens the doors to the new home of its permanent collection in the sleepy Hudson valley town of Beacon, New York on May 18th. Situated between the Storm King Art Center and the sprawling MASS MoCA, Dia:Beacon will house a stunning array of work from what the NY Times calls "the Dia generation", including Richard Serra, Donald Judd, Andy Warhol and Michael Heizer. The building itself is a 300,000 sq. ft. former printing factory donated by International Paper, and received a very modest renovation with a great deal of input from the artists themselves.

posted by Michael Doyle

Friday, April 11, 2003

Token suckers.

posted by Michael Doyle

Thursday, April 10, 2003

Not smooth.
Japanese electronics giant Sony has taken an extraordinary step to cash in on the war in Iraq by patenting the term "Shock and Awe" for a computer game. It is among a swarm of companies scrambling to commercially exploit the war in Iraq, which has killed more than 5,000 soldiers and civilians in the space of three weeks.

posted by Michael Doyle

illustrator, graffiti artist, "bimbosculptor" ?? barcelona-visiting, berlin-based boris hoppek�s website is worth taking a look at..refreshing

posted by chris

Wednesday, April 09, 2003

"In case of emergency, when you find yourself in a scene, possibly involving a biologic or chemical agent (1), you should try to protect your airway. Our consumer neckwear may be important when moments count in an emergency"

posted by Jaron

Speaking of the future, after giving only a handful of interviews over the last 20 years William Gibson now has a Blog. The protagonist of his latest novel Pattern Recognition is a freelance trendspotter with an allergy to corporate logos.

posted by Jaron

Tuesday, April 08, 2003

A cool site that reminds me home much cooler the future used to be.

posted by joshua

Peter Saville
Peter Saville was born in Manchester, England, in 1955. He studied graphic design at Manchester Polytechnic from 1975-1978.
In 1979 he was a founding partner of the independent record label Factory Records for which he developed an identity and image that were to prove influential well beyond the music business. His relationship with the company lasted until 1991.
From 1981-1983, Saville was art director of the Dindisc record label in London, where he was responsible for identity, packaging, and marketing. His early sleeves received immediate acclaim and he won three silver awards in the 1981 D&AD Awards.
In 1983, Saville established his own studio, Peter Saville Associates, with regular collabrator Brett Wickens. During these years, music industry clients such as Roxy Music, Ultravox, Peter Gabriel, and New Order were joined by institutional clients such as the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, the Pompidou Centre, Paris, and the French Ministry of Culture, as well as fashion clients such as Yohji Yamamoto, Martin Sitbon and Jill Sander.
In 1990, Saville closed his studio and joined Pentagram's London office as a partner. He continued to work with existing clients while carrying out projects for the Natural History Museum of London, and Channel 1 in Los Angeles. The relationship did not work out, and in 1993, Saville, accompanied by Wickens, left Pentagram to join Frankfurt Balkind's Los Angeles office as a creative director. In 1994, he returned to London, where he works as a freelance for British and European clients, including London records, and the Italian bag and luggage maker, Mandarina Duck.
THE PETER SAVILLE SHOW - 23 May to 14 September 2003 - THE DESIGN MUSEUM LONDON
The first retrospective of Peter Saville's work, drawn from his private archive, will trace his career from Factory Records to his recent multimedia projects while tracing the history of contemporary graphic design and the story of how style culture hit the High Street.

posted by Chad

New message from the other Mike from Michigan, now living in New York. Stupid White Men was back at #1 on the NY Times bestseller list last week, and Mike has been asked back to network TV. Love Mike. We need more Mikes.

posted by Michael Doyle

Friendster at work: Check out DJ Loveless' web radio program. Anyone with pictures of Nick Cave and Morrissey on her home page gets an automatic link here at Burnlab.

posted by Michael Doyle

Fun with monsters and more, form ANARTIST(E)zine. Very nice!

Because you need more distractions in your life.
Mike Servito got me into Friendster a coupled days ago. This is a really well designed service that connects you with your friends, and their friends, and their friends' friends. With detailed profiles and the ability to search people based on interest criteria, it collapses the time involved to create a network of like-minded freaks dramatically. If you're not sure your real world friends are on the service, you can search for their e-mail address. Security seems to be very good, but I have to wonder about the fallout if this collective data were to fall into the hands of the CIA or an advertising agency....

EngramDesign.com and Burnlab.net have had very heavy traffic the past 24 hours or so from AvantGo users: apparently a PDA-based web service. This is the first I've heard of it, and am just curious about the origin of the increased traffic. The only three things I can think of are 1) something to do with the above post, 2) a project for Invisible Records I'll talk about later, and 3) Richard Perle is preparing to sue me for blaming him for yesterday's snowstorm. Drop me a note: Mike@Burnlab.net

posted by Michael Doyle

Monday, April 07, 2003

Could it snow any bloody more in New York today?
Somehow this is Richard Perle's fault.

posted by Michael Doyle

And so it begins. URB Magazine recently released their 9th annual Next 100 list, featuring a handful of talent from the Burnlab extended family, including Magda, Matthew Dear and Dinky. Way to go! It promises to be huge year for all three.

posted by Michael Doyle

Sunday, April 06, 2003

Graphic designer Steven R. Gilmore has a new site (new to me at least). Gilmore's groundbreaking work for Skinny Puppy and other Nettwerk Records artists in the late 80s placed him in league with the likes of Vaughan Oliver (Pixies, etc.) and Peter Saville (New Order, etc.). Check out the extraordinary With Love card collection, and his work for the Holy Body Tattoo dance company.

+ Some of Steven's demented art bookmarks:
Mark Ryden
Camille Rose Garcia
Merry Karnowsky Gallery

Short term nostalgia, research, any reason... a few old Burnlab favorites always worth a revisit to maintain humility:
Jennifer Sterling
[+ISM]
Reverend Yohan
Golan
Droog
Williams+Tsien
Mark Romanek

Off the screen and into your hands: Mike and Mike (a.k.a. WWFT) present One, "a Book+CD-Rom containing interactive versions of Designgraphik, TrueisTrue, and Submethod from 1998-2002."

posted by Michael Doyle

Friday, April 04, 2003

In the everything old is new again department:
Vitaly Komar and Alex Melamid, two of the speakers at the IDSA.03.NYC conference, released a CD in 1996: "People's Choice Music: America's Most Wanted Song and America's Most Unwanted Song." All of the song's elements were based on extensive polling. The "most wanted song" sounds like any Diane Warren schmaltz from a lite rock station (complete with a Michael McDonald sound-alike). The "most unwanted song" is pretty incredible. It's approx. 20 minutes of opera singers rapping about cowboys, punctuated by accordian solos and off-key children singing about Walmart. Of course the unwanted song is much more interesting (cooler) than the wanted song. I heard an interview with Komar and Melamid on This American Life (in an episode named "Numbers"). With tongue firmly in cheek, they tireless defend the focus group method for producing art. "72% of you voted for it, therefore it must be better and everyone must like it." Better living through statistics.

posted by Andy Malone

Thursday, April 03, 2003

Artist delta's web site features his paintings and some artwork for record labels such as Ann Aimee, Dub, and Rush Hour. Refresh the opening page to see more work. Good stuff.

Rhythm and Hues seems like a great place to work. Former Art Center maveric Nick Pugh has a desk there. Check out the galleries to see what they are up to.

posted by Dave Pinter

Wednesday, April 02, 2003

Adult. at the DIA this Friday.

posted by liz

Dutch electro master I-F's site cybernetic-broadcasting is back online and streaming electronic 56k love. You can tune in using Winamp, iTunes or Real here.

posted by BitBoy

Honda: "the cog ad"
Deus ex machina! Beauty.
Thanks to Kris via Eric at Core77.

posted by Michael Doyle

This is a good start.

posted by Michael Doyle

Tuesday, April 01, 2003

Growing up in Detroit, everyone made cracks about the master manipulator and career thief (I mean politician) that was Mayor Colman Young. But I gotta tell ya, nothing prepared me for Chicago and the viscious, blatent and down right hilarious political thuggism (word I heard on CNN) under the Mayor Daley regiem. This guy does whatever he wants whenever he wants, and he proved it last night when he sent dozens of bulldozers to destroy the runway of Meigs Field without any public debate or even notice- (This link choosen because of the great picture on the right). I don't really have an opinion on whether this is good or bad, but damn is it crooked.

For all you NYC dwellers, my roommate Atomly will be performing at Open Air this Friday. Go check out some grade-A
laptop techno, jungle and Midwest hardcore.

posted by joshua

On July 24, 1959, vice president Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev spent hours publicly debating cultural ideology at the American National exhibit in Moscow. They also discussed about an all-American kitchen, designed by Raymond Lowey associates and furnished with general electric appliances.
Nixon saw this as an opportunity to discuss the lifestyle of the average American worker. Khrushchev pointed at the kitchen behind him, and made it clear to Nixon that he was not going to be made a fool of; 'don't you have a machine that puts food into the mouth and pushes it down? Many things you've shown us are interesting but they are not needed in life... ' Herbert Sadkin, president of all-state properties, returned to the states elated that this much-publicized debate took place at HIS kitchen, and began making lucrative plans to bring the all-American concept to the next level; a community of affordable second homes.
Thus was born the 'Leisurama', house.Macy's department store in New York City's Herald Square served as the distributor for the project. The homes were to be built in Montauk, NY (and some in Lauderhill, Florida) and came fully furnished with General Electric appliances and every other necessity, including plates, towels, even toothbrushes. Approximately 250 Leisurama homes were built in Montauk by 1964.

Andrew Geller, the chief architectural designer at Raymond Lowey associates in the early 1960s. The Leisurama housing project was under his direction.

Marc Atlan was born in france in 1967. He graduated from ESDI (Ecole Superieure de Design Industriel, Paris) in 1989. He has been active as a freelance designer since 1993. He met Rei Kawakubo and started to collaborate on graphic design (such as the package design for Comme des Garcons, perfume in 1994). In 1999 he met Helmut Lang and participated in the launching of his first perfume line. In 2001 he met tom ford and became senior art director for Yves Saint Laurent, the YSL 'Beaute' line and Boucheron. In 2002 he creates MAD, inc. (marc atlan design). Recent experience covers art direction for big magazine, Prada beauty and a new Oliver Stone movie promo. Marc Atlan is based in Los Angeles.

posted by Chad

SUBWAY CINEMA PRESENTS Asian Films Are Go!!! 2003 New York Asian Film Festival
May 15-May 26, 2003 at the Anthology Film Archives (32 Second Avenue, @ Second St.)

"New York�s best contemporary Asian film festival erupts like a volcano with 21 of the latest and greatest from India, Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand and Japan."

i highly recommend "ichi the killer," "versus," and "sympathy for mr. vengeance."

posted by israel

Information Clearinghouse provides uncensored and hard to find news about the war. This article written by a UK journalist traveling with US Marines is so explicitly detailed and horrific, I couldn't finish it in one sitting. (Please try to look past the sensationalist headline.) How many days are we into this? And its already this bad? So much evil at the top. Let the cowards in Washington and Baghdad tear each other apart with their bare hands at a UN sanctioned smack-down, and leave everyone else out it. If Bush, Hussein and all their psychopathic henchmen, from Uday to Cheney, aren't strung up side-by-side for tomato lobbing at a Hague tribunal after this mess is over, we have indeed fallen to one of the lowest points of human history.

I never really truly believed in evil until now. Thank you Mr. Bush for destroying the integrity of the country I love and cherish, and quite possibly bringing decades of terrorism and hatred upon us. Enjoy your last days in prison, while we're still getting attacked with poison gas, hijacked airplanes and god-knows-what years from now and Wolfowitz, Perle and Rummy scratch their chins muttering, "Well.. that didn't work as planned..." No shit. Even 41 thought it was a terrible idea. How did a handful of delusional and amoral 'conservative thinkers' (who aren't even liked by most republicans) get to decide the fate of the world in the first place? This country's political system has been corrupted in a way that makes Enron look like an honest mistake and Richard Nixon look like a pretty good fella.

Here's one foreign policy suggestion: Stop giving people reasons to hate us.

If anyone hasn't seen the Fontline special reports on the origins of the war in Iraq, please turn off the CNN and do so. PBS even has entire streaming programs online. PBS is definitely one thing I love about this country. (I'm sure its on the administration's hit list.)

*sigh*

meanwhile...



Our new friend Will [top left, foreground] served as official paparazzi for Ghostly International during the Winter Music Conference. "For your awe and horror, the definitive collection of Miami photos."

posted by Michael Doyle

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