Sunday, December 31, 2006
Burnlab's picks for NYE in NYC:
The Mother of All Parties, featuring Michael T, Justine D and the usual gang + Dethlab's good friend Xris Flam of Byte and Smack, JDH, Mike Simonetti, Lauren Flax and more awesomeness at Rebel (formerly Albion/Batcave.)
Also tonight, RE:UP Magazine & New Release present Ursula 1000, the Machine Punk crew and much, much more at Asterisk in Bushwhik. Oh, and we're told free beer until 8 in the morning.
See you at the above and a very happy 2007!
posted by Michael Doyle
Three Mile Island Park by the late Disney theme park designer Art Riley.
[via Justin Jorgensen, author of Obscene Interiors]
posted by Michael Doyle
The Mother of All Parties, featuring Michael T, Justine D and the usual gang + Dethlab's good friend Xris Flam of Byte and Smack, JDH, Mike Simonetti, Lauren Flax and more awesomeness at Rebel (formerly Albion/Batcave.)
Also tonight, RE:UP Magazine & New Release present Ursula 1000, the Machine Punk crew and much, much more at Asterisk in Bushwhik. Oh, and we're told free beer until 8 in the morning.
See you at the above and a very happy 2007!
posted by Michael Doyle
Friday, December 29, 2006
Three Mile Island Park by the late Disney theme park designer Art Riley.
[via Justin Jorgensen, author of Obscene Interiors]
posted by Michael Doyle
Thursday, December 28, 2006
I realize the Chris Walken/otter reference may have been slightly esoteric for some.
Below is the context.
Everything should make perfect sense now.
"I don't buy the tomatoes with the stems on them. They don't degrade. They go down the sink and into the water. Then they get lodged in the throats of little otters."
- Christopher Walken
posted by Michael Doyle
Too beautiful for words: Letters to Walken
posted by Michael Doyle
Below is the context.
Everything should make perfect sense now.
"I don't buy the tomatoes with the stems on them. They don't degrade. They go down the sink and into the water. Then they get lodged in the throats of little otters."
- Christopher Walken
posted by Michael Doyle
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Too beautiful for words: Letters to Walken
posted by Michael Doyle
This is the worst flyer I have ever seen, but is somehow so incredibly awesome that I can't stop staring at it.
Thanks a lot Dan.
posted by Michael Doyle
Thanks a lot Dan.
posted by Michael Doyle
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
For all our New York friends, Bethany and I will be home for our monthly visit in a couple days. Other than a belated Shorb family Christmas and spoiling Mark's cat Otto, we have no plans at all... which is kinda nice. I know you're reading this, so hit me up at mike@burnlab.net!
posted by Michael Doyle
posted by Michael Doyle
I'm too old to make party on a Tuesday in the middle of auto show season and 100 other projects on three hours sleep from holiday festivities... but UNTITLED TONIGHT!
Dear, Elliott, Servito, Mudge, Troxler, Crosson
The Shleter, Detroit
10pm | 18+ |$5
posted by Michael Doyle
Dear, Elliott, Servito, Mudge, Troxler, Crosson
The Shleter, Detroit
10pm | 18+ |$5
posted by Michael Doyle
Sweet Smelling Surfaces is a net label created by digital artist Tampopo and his bad lieutenant Supakaji. All SSS content is released under a Creative Commons License (which means you can download it and enjoy it for free, so long as you don't sell it or mess with it.) The Figuration Of Trans EP is SSS's newest release, from the over-sexed bad boy of Italian acid-electro Adriano Canzian.
posted by Michael Doyle
posted by Michael Doyle
Evil Christmas Carols Volume 1 and Volume 2: your favorite carols played in minor key.
posted by Michael Doyle
posted by Michael Doyle
Only one week old, Gibby's Daily Video Blog is shaping up to be one of the greatest treasures on the whole internet. Each post is a carefully selected treat with thoughtful writing that whisks every thirty-ish music lover back to those special moments of discovery.
Bless you, Gibby.
posted by Michael Doyle
*whew - flyer hot outta photoshop. click for big version.
The Dorkwave tradition continues this New Years Eve at the Northern Lights Lounge. On top of the usual chaos, there's going to be a free special buffet for those who get there early. So get there early.
It's also my psudo-going away party as I'm moving from Detroit probably forever to San Francisco the very next day. What better note to leave on then me ruining my finest clothes while embarrassing myself with drunkin boisterous belligerence with my closest friends.
I'm going to miss all of you and this city, and I hope to see everyone come out of the woodwork for one last horrah.
Northern Lights Lounge
660 W Baltimore St
Detroit, MI 48202
(313) 873-1739
dorkwave.com
myspace.com/dorkwave
posted by Doc
Matt Harding was a developer for Pandemic Studios Australia when a family-oriented game he was working on was scrapped he made the remark that the studio should work on a title that involved "blowing up everything and killing everyone"--needless to say the title was green lighted and it became Destroy All Humans!
Matt left the company and decided to travel the world which he documented with this YouTube.
Extremely inspired! Cheery stuff for the holiday.
posted by Schnizzle Goodman
Bless you, Gibby.
posted by Michael Doyle
*whew - flyer hot outta photoshop. click for big version.
The Dorkwave tradition continues this New Years Eve at the Northern Lights Lounge. On top of the usual chaos, there's going to be a free special buffet for those who get there early. So get there early.
It's also my psudo-going away party as I'm moving from Detroit probably forever to San Francisco the very next day. What better note to leave on then me ruining my finest clothes while embarrassing myself with drunkin boisterous belligerence with my closest friends.
I'm going to miss all of you and this city, and I hope to see everyone come out of the woodwork for one last horrah.
Northern Lights Lounge
660 W Baltimore St
Detroit, MI 48202
(313) 873-1739
dorkwave.com
myspace.com/dorkwave
posted by Doc
Matt Harding was a developer for Pandemic Studios Australia when a family-oriented game he was working on was scrapped he made the remark that the studio should work on a title that involved "blowing up everything and killing everyone"--needless to say the title was green lighted and it became Destroy All Humans!
Matt left the company and decided to travel the world which he documented with this YouTube.
Extremely inspired! Cheery stuff for the holiday.
posted by Schnizzle Goodman
If you hadn't noticed, I've been making an effort in recent months to write posts of more editorial substance - in addition to the usual one-liners, personal banter and interesting links. I'm not sure if something triggered nostalgia for my days as editor and publisher of my high school newspaper, or if it's a little voice saying "you're going to be 35 in a couple weeks - get serious!" Either way, I hope the longer, more opinionated posts lean more toward the interesting than the tedious for you.
I've also scaled back on using this blog as a "what's happening" list. I've become less interested in the ephemeral nature of nightlife since the end of summer, and have decided to leave most event postings in the more able and tuned-in hands of Burnlab's thirty other contributors. [Servito, Jon, Liz, Lynnel, etc., this means you!]
On the subject of nightlife, It saddens me to write that Oslo [the one in Detroit] has closed. It may re-open in 2007, but all events scheduled through 2006 [including Dethlab's ninth installment of Sex & Sedition] have been cancelled. Oslo was the very best venue in Detroit for electronic music, bar none. It is a great loss to the community, and I hope dearly they can sort everything out. Meanwhile, Bethany and I have shifted focus from DJ'ing to remixing and recording original material. Santa brought me a beautiful Fender bass guitar for Christmas, which I'm going to need to learn how to play. The last guitar I touched was a six string Les Paul at the age of sixteen, but math dictates this is going to be 33% easier to figure out. Right?...
In other Dethlab news, our next scheduled event in Detroit is Machines That Feel II on April 14th. More details as it fleshes out.
Best wishes and happy holidays from everyone at Burnlab.
posted by Michael Doyle
I've also scaled back on using this blog as a "what's happening" list. I've become less interested in the ephemeral nature of nightlife since the end of summer, and have decided to leave most event postings in the more able and tuned-in hands of Burnlab's thirty other contributors. [Servito, Jon, Liz, Lynnel, etc., this means you!]
On the subject of nightlife, It saddens me to write that Oslo [the one in Detroit] has closed. It may re-open in 2007, but all events scheduled through 2006 [including Dethlab's ninth installment of Sex & Sedition] have been cancelled. Oslo was the very best venue in Detroit for electronic music, bar none. It is a great loss to the community, and I hope dearly they can sort everything out. Meanwhile, Bethany and I have shifted focus from DJ'ing to remixing and recording original material. Santa brought me a beautiful Fender bass guitar for Christmas, which I'm going to need to learn how to play. The last guitar I touched was a six string Les Paul at the age of sixteen, but math dictates this is going to be 33% easier to figure out. Right?...
In other Dethlab news, our next scheduled event in Detroit is Machines That Feel II on April 14th. More details as it fleshes out.
Best wishes and happy holidays from everyone at Burnlab.
posted by Michael Doyle
Monday, December 25, 2006
When I first moved to New York in 1999 Giulianification was well underway, but the meatpacking district remained lower Manhattan's last bastion of seediness. The Chelsea Market was thriving and bistros were moving in, but it was still commonplace to see junkies and unusually tall prostitutes among the forklifts and animal blood seeping from under steel garage doors. The district has gentrified at break-neck speed over the past seven years, and seems to have tripled in pace since the start of High Line redevelopment. Now home to high design showrooms, countless French restaurants, and [unfortunately] the most grotesque nightlife scene this side of West Hollywood, the old Gansevoort Market area is now only recognizable by the rusty elevated freight line currently being transformed into a 21st century public promenade.
Gentrification is always a mixed bag. It can destroy the character which made a neighborhood intriguing to start with, but it can also bring unexpected benefits and opportunities. This week, Nicolai Ouroussoff ponders both.
We New Yorkers have a morbid fascination with pinpointing the death of a neighborhood scene. You wonder, for example, exactly when the seeds were planted for SoHo's grim destiny as an open-air mall. Was it 1971, when Leo Castelli opened his downtown gallery? The advent of Dean & Deluca's overpriced cheeses? Victoria's Secret underwear displays?
But the artists who bemoaned SoHo's gradual reinvention as a tourist mecca in the 1980s would have been dumbstruck by the pace of gentrification wrought by the High Line, an abandoned stretch of elevated railway tracks that will be transformed into a garden walkway from the meatpacking district to Chelsea.
Even before local activists picked the project's design team, Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro, two years ago, developers had begun circling the site like vultures. Today, the High Line risks being devoured by a string of developments, including a dozen or more luxury towers, a new branch of the Whitney Museum of American Art and a Standard Hotel. Already the area is a mix of the fashionable and the tacky, with tourists tottering from boutiques to nightclubs across its cobblestone streets, even as they recoil from the occasional whiff of raw meat.
Not all of these are run-of-the-mill development projects: they include potential designs by renowned talents including Renzo Piano and the Polshek Partnership. And even more promising, a few younger, relatively unknown talents like Neil Denari and Work Architecture are getting the opportunity to design major projects.
But the frenzied activity surrounding the High Line shows how radically the development climate in Manhattan has accelerated. No longer content to allow gentrification to proceed at its own tentative pace, developers now view even the humblest civic undertaking as a potential gold mine. City planners who once had to coax developers to build in rundown neighborhoods are groping for strategies to keep them at bay. Pretty much everyone who has walked the length of the weed-choked High Line agrees that its magic arises largely from its isolation. Carving its way through the urban fabric two to three stories above ground, it is framed mostly by the backs of buildings and billboards, with occasional views opening out to the Hudson or across Manhattan.
read more [NY Times]
posted by Michael Doyle
Gentrification is always a mixed bag. It can destroy the character which made a neighborhood intriguing to start with, but it can also bring unexpected benefits and opportunities. This week, Nicolai Ouroussoff ponders both.
We New Yorkers have a morbid fascination with pinpointing the death of a neighborhood scene. You wonder, for example, exactly when the seeds were planted for SoHo's grim destiny as an open-air mall. Was it 1971, when Leo Castelli opened his downtown gallery? The advent of Dean & Deluca's overpriced cheeses? Victoria's Secret underwear displays?
But the artists who bemoaned SoHo's gradual reinvention as a tourist mecca in the 1980s would have been dumbstruck by the pace of gentrification wrought by the High Line, an abandoned stretch of elevated railway tracks that will be transformed into a garden walkway from the meatpacking district to Chelsea.
Even before local activists picked the project's design team, Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro, two years ago, developers had begun circling the site like vultures. Today, the High Line risks being devoured by a string of developments, including a dozen or more luxury towers, a new branch of the Whitney Museum of American Art and a Standard Hotel. Already the area is a mix of the fashionable and the tacky, with tourists tottering from boutiques to nightclubs across its cobblestone streets, even as they recoil from the occasional whiff of raw meat.
Not all of these are run-of-the-mill development projects: they include potential designs by renowned talents including Renzo Piano and the Polshek Partnership. And even more promising, a few younger, relatively unknown talents like Neil Denari and Work Architecture are getting the opportunity to design major projects.
But the frenzied activity surrounding the High Line shows how radically the development climate in Manhattan has accelerated. No longer content to allow gentrification to proceed at its own tentative pace, developers now view even the humblest civic undertaking as a potential gold mine. City planners who once had to coax developers to build in rundown neighborhoods are groping for strategies to keep them at bay. Pretty much everyone who has walked the length of the weed-choked High Line agrees that its magic arises largely from its isolation. Carving its way through the urban fabric two to three stories above ground, it is framed mostly by the backs of buildings and billboards, with occasional views opening out to the Hudson or across Manhattan.
read more [NY Times]
posted by Michael Doyle
James Brown is dead. :(
-j
posted by sneak
-j
posted by sneak
More on Herr Lang
WWD reports Hemlut Lang is displeased with a New York Times article last month which suggested he was guilty of "corporate insubordination," resisting attempts to add "lucrative accessories and luxury pieces" to his collection and that "unwavering dedication to his creative vision and his distinctive, if uncomfortably masochistic, bondage references will ultimately be recorded as the cause of his failure."
Personally, I think those are very admirable traits and part of why Lang is so awesome as a person and as a designer.
Michael and Nicole Colovos of Habitual will be taking over design at Helmut Lang [the brand] rather than Alexandre Plokhov, as rumored. The Colovos' work is nice and the lines are clean I suppose... hell, let's not beat around the bush: it is boring and comfortable - which undermines everything the brand stood for. What made Helmut Lang [the clothes] so incredible were the subversive and witty details, unexpected material choices and those "distinctive, if uncomfortably masochistic, bondage references." It was a singular, unrelenting creative vision which revolutionized both men's and women's wear in the late 1980s, created a small but extremely dedicated cult of fans, and influenced a whole generation of designers. It was never meant for everyone, but it was absolutely perfect for what it was. If parent company Theory thinks they can offer slouchy, more "accessible" [as Theory's Andrew Rosen puts it] products for a wider customer base, then they have already lost all the brand equity they spent tens of millions of dollars on before the first store even opens.
posted by Michael Doyle
WWD reports Hemlut Lang is displeased with a New York Times article last month which suggested he was guilty of "corporate insubordination," resisting attempts to add "lucrative accessories and luxury pieces" to his collection and that "unwavering dedication to his creative vision and his distinctive, if uncomfortably masochistic, bondage references will ultimately be recorded as the cause of his failure."
Personally, I think those are very admirable traits and part of why Lang is so awesome as a person and as a designer.
Michael and Nicole Colovos of Habitual will be taking over design at Helmut Lang [the brand] rather than Alexandre Plokhov, as rumored. The Colovos' work is nice and the lines are clean I suppose... hell, let's not beat around the bush: it is boring and comfortable - which undermines everything the brand stood for. What made Helmut Lang [the clothes] so incredible were the subversive and witty details, unexpected material choices and those "distinctive, if uncomfortably masochistic, bondage references." It was a singular, unrelenting creative vision which revolutionized both men's and women's wear in the late 1980s, created a small but extremely dedicated cult of fans, and influenced a whole generation of designers. It was never meant for everyone, but it was absolutely perfect for what it was. If parent company Theory thinks they can offer slouchy, more "accessible" [as Theory's Andrew Rosen puts it] products for a wider customer base, then they have already lost all the brand equity they spent tens of millions of dollars on before the first store even opens.
posted by Michael Doyle
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Next year we're doing ALL our holiday shopping at Necromance in Los Angeles. (Where have you been all my life?)
posted by Michael Doyle
posted by Michael Doyle
One of my biggest heroes in the fashion world, Alexandre Plokhov of Cloak has decided to close up shop. The end of Cloak is undoubtedly a great loss to men's fashion, but it may not be that bad after all. A few months ago we posted rumors that Theory, which earlier in the year acquired the rights to the Helmut Lang brand, has been courting Plokhov to head up design at the [formerly] eponymous label. The closing of Cloak could be a sign that things are moving ahead for a re-tooled Helmut Lang, and I couldn't think of anyone better [besides Lang himself] to be at the helm.
Related: fill in your own caption. [I don't need to be captain obvious here...]
link [via Style Forum]
posted by Michael Doyle
Holiday cheer from Ghostly: download Snow Ogre by PostPrior.
Go Snow Ogre go!
posted by Michael Doyle
Related: fill in your own caption. [I don't need to be captain obvious here...]
link [via Style Forum]
posted by Michael Doyle
Holiday cheer from Ghostly: download Snow Ogre by PostPrior.
Go Snow Ogre go!
posted by Michael Doyle
Friday, December 22, 2006
Saying Yes to Mess
It is a truism of American life that we're too darn messy, or we think we are, and we feel really bad about it... this is why sales of home-organizing products, like accordion files and labelmakers and plastic tubs, keep going up and up... but contrarian voices can be heard in the wilderness. An anti-anticlutter movement is afoot, one that says yes to mess and urges you to embrace your disorder. Studies are piling up that show that messy desks are the vivid signatures of people with creative, limber minds (who reap higher salaries than those with neat "office landscapes") and that messy closet owners are probably better parents and nicer and cooler than their tidier counterparts. It's a movement that confirms what you have known, deep down, all along: really neat people are not avatars of the good life; they are humorless and inflexible prigs, and have way too much time on their hands.
"It's chasing an illusion to think that any organization - be it a family unit or a corporation - can be completely rid of disorder on any consistent basis," said Jerrold Pollak, a neuropsychologist at Seacoast Mental Health Center in Portsmouth, N.H., whose work involves helping people tolerate the inherent disorder in their lives. "And if it could, should it be? Total organization is a futile attempt to deny and control the unpredictability of life."
In the semiotics of mess, desks may be the richest texts. Messy-desk research borrows from cognitive ergonomics, a field of study dealing with how a work environment supports productivity. Consider that desks, our work landscapes, are stand-ins for our brains, and so the piles we array on them are "cognitive artifacts," or data cues, of our thoughts as we work.
To a professional organizer brandishing colored files and stackable trays, cluttered horizontal surfaces are a horror; to cognitive psychologists like Jay Brand' who works in the Ideation Group of Haworth Inc., the huge office furniture company, their peaks and valleys glow with intellectual intent and showcase a mind whirring away: sorting, linking, producing. (By extension, a clean desk can be seen as a dormant area, an indication that no thought or work is being undertaken.)
-New York Times
[via Archinect]
posted by Michael Doyle
It is a truism of American life that we're too darn messy, or we think we are, and we feel really bad about it... this is why sales of home-organizing products, like accordion files and labelmakers and plastic tubs, keep going up and up... but contrarian voices can be heard in the wilderness. An anti-anticlutter movement is afoot, one that says yes to mess and urges you to embrace your disorder. Studies are piling up that show that messy desks are the vivid signatures of people with creative, limber minds (who reap higher salaries than those with neat "office landscapes") and that messy closet owners are probably better parents and nicer and cooler than their tidier counterparts. It's a movement that confirms what you have known, deep down, all along: really neat people are not avatars of the good life; they are humorless and inflexible prigs, and have way too much time on their hands.
"It's chasing an illusion to think that any organization - be it a family unit or a corporation - can be completely rid of disorder on any consistent basis," said Jerrold Pollak, a neuropsychologist at Seacoast Mental Health Center in Portsmouth, N.H., whose work involves helping people tolerate the inherent disorder in their lives. "And if it could, should it be? Total organization is a futile attempt to deny and control the unpredictability of life."
In the semiotics of mess, desks may be the richest texts. Messy-desk research borrows from cognitive ergonomics, a field of study dealing with how a work environment supports productivity. Consider that desks, our work landscapes, are stand-ins for our brains, and so the piles we array on them are "cognitive artifacts," or data cues, of our thoughts as we work.
To a professional organizer brandishing colored files and stackable trays, cluttered horizontal surfaces are a horror; to cognitive psychologists like Jay Brand' who works in the Ideation Group of Haworth Inc., the huge office furniture company, their peaks and valleys glow with intellectual intent and showcase a mind whirring away: sorting, linking, producing. (By extension, a clean desk can be seen as a dormant area, an indication that no thought or work is being undertaken.)
-New York Times
[via Archinect]
posted by Michael Doyle
A nice shot of Bryan Black rocking his Cyberoptix tie + more great photos from the Nitzer Ebb/Fixmer/MOTOR show in Cologne last month here from Black Cat Net.
posted by Michael Doyle
posted by Michael Doyle
Moths drink the tears of sleeping birds.
With its tears depleted, crying must be like dry-heaving sorrow for the little feathered ones. Ohmygawth!
[via Toybreaker]
posted by Michael Doyle
With its tears depleted, crying must be like dry-heaving sorrow for the little feathered ones. Ohmygawth!
[via Toybreaker]
posted by Michael Doyle
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Despite rumors on the internets, Galapagos Art Space is not closing. (See comment 9 in the link by director Robert Elmes.)
By the way, Galapagos has one of the most awesome mission statements ever:
The most basic function of the arts is to be relevant in the advancement of society.
Galapagos does not accept government grants or public funding of any kind. We believe that if the work we present is strong, communicative, and effective, we will survive.
If we don't produce strong, communicative and effective work then we won't survive - we're not feeding the hungry: we make art. If we can't be grown-up about that and stand up on our own, then we don't think we'd have anything interesting to tell you anyway.
This is New York City. One of the greatest cultural cities to have ever risen; perhaps the greatest. We're not sitting around dreaming of the grant we applied for.
We have our whole lives to live and that is terribly important.
Culture should reflect that clearly.
Related on a personal note: This seems like ages ago due to the extreme ups and downs of the past four years, but it also seems more familiar than it has in a long time. Back in '02 some good friends and colleagues came to see me speak in New York. Through some combination of fate, determination and dumb luck, we now get to make art together every day, which is pretty awesome.
posted by Michael Doyle
By the way, Galapagos has one of the most awesome mission statements ever:
The most basic function of the arts is to be relevant in the advancement of society.
Galapagos does not accept government grants or public funding of any kind. We believe that if the work we present is strong, communicative, and effective, we will survive.
If we don't produce strong, communicative and effective work then we won't survive - we're not feeding the hungry: we make art. If we can't be grown-up about that and stand up on our own, then we don't think we'd have anything interesting to tell you anyway.
This is New York City. One of the greatest cultural cities to have ever risen; perhaps the greatest. We're not sitting around dreaming of the grant we applied for.
We have our whole lives to live and that is terribly important.
Culture should reflect that clearly.
Related on a personal note: This seems like ages ago due to the extreme ups and downs of the past four years, but it also seems more familiar than it has in a long time. Back in '02 some good friends and colleagues came to see me speak in New York. Through some combination of fate, determination and dumb luck, we now get to make art together every day, which is pretty awesome.
posted by Michael Doyle
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
A Defiant Architect's Gentler Side
Thomas Mayne may be losing his edge, but only literally - not figuratively. The recently unveiled design for a new tower at La Defense is influenced by "the sensuousness of Paris," and has been likened to a slip draped over a body. "It becomes metabolic, the skin. It moves," Mayne says. Like Mayne's other recent large scale work, the Phare Tower's powerful sense of motion makes its unexpectedly soft forms anything but "blobby".
Resented and admired for a brazen, punk-rock approach to both design and practice, Mayne has always thrived on being the feisty underdog challenging authority and establishment. With a handful of high profile projects and the prestigiouss Pritzker Prize (the architectural equivalent to the Nobel) under his belt, he finds himself in a strange place - a position of authority. He seems to be adjusting well however, and the Phare Tower is proof that not only is he still fighting the good fight, but a 300 meter high, one billion dollar affirmation of everything he has been fighting for.
NY Times slideshow + info and images at ArcSpace
posted by Michael Doyle
The 10 most dangerous toys of all time [via Core77]
Also see: Lifestyles of the Rich and Fascist
posted by Michael Doyle
Thomas Mayne may be losing his edge, but only literally - not figuratively. The recently unveiled design for a new tower at La Defense is influenced by "the sensuousness of Paris," and has been likened to a slip draped over a body. "It becomes metabolic, the skin. It moves," Mayne says. Like Mayne's other recent large scale work, the Phare Tower's powerful sense of motion makes its unexpectedly soft forms anything but "blobby".
Resented and admired for a brazen, punk-rock approach to both design and practice, Mayne has always thrived on being the feisty underdog challenging authority and establishment. With a handful of high profile projects and the prestigiouss Pritzker Prize (the architectural equivalent to the Nobel) under his belt, he finds himself in a strange place - a position of authority. He seems to be adjusting well however, and the Phare Tower is proof that not only is he still fighting the good fight, but a 300 meter high, one billion dollar affirmation of everything he has been fighting for.
NY Times slideshow + info and images at ArcSpace
posted by Michael Doyle
The 10 most dangerous toys of all time [via Core77]
Also see: Lifestyles of the Rich and Fascist
posted by Michael Doyle
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Burnlab top 10s follow-up a.k.a. why Owen Ashworth is so awesome
Casiotone For The Painfully Alone swept my lists this year with ease and humble grace. Etiquette managed to set itself apart from much more polished releases by fellow favorites Perspects, Circlesquare, The Horrors and The Knife in a way that is intangible and difficult to describe. Ashworth's deceptively simple narratives have an ability to cut right to your heart - I would go as far as to call him the Leonard Cohen of Generation X - and he's just only getting his feet wet. The low-fi arrangements and stories of hipster melodrama could easily be dismissed if they were ironic, but CFTPA's music is absolutely honest, raw and as painful as it is beautiful. Young Shields tore my heart out presented a bevy of personal flaws and insecurities on a platter (thanks,) wrapped in an epic equal only to M83's Teen Angst, but 100X more sincere, and Scattered Pearls is as catchy and smart as anything The Postal Service has ever produced, but again drenched in a purity that puts it on an entirely different level. I was a little skeptical about CFTPA expanding beyond the battery powered keyboards for which the project was named after, but the fleshed-out arrangements on Etiquette only add to the power of the music. Ashworth may be the first of our generation deserving residence alongside Williams, Cave, Waits and Cohen in that fabled tower.
posted by Michael Doyle
Casiotone For The Painfully Alone swept my lists this year with ease and humble grace. Etiquette managed to set itself apart from much more polished releases by fellow favorites Perspects, Circlesquare, The Horrors and The Knife in a way that is intangible and difficult to describe. Ashworth's deceptively simple narratives have an ability to cut right to your heart - I would go as far as to call him the Leonard Cohen of Generation X - and he's just only getting his feet wet. The low-fi arrangements and stories of hipster melodrama could easily be dismissed if they were ironic, but CFTPA's music is absolutely honest, raw and as painful as it is beautiful. Young Shields tore my heart out presented a bevy of personal flaws and insecurities on a platter (thanks,) wrapped in an epic equal only to M83's Teen Angst, but 100X more sincere, and Scattered Pearls is as catchy and smart as anything The Postal Service has ever produced, but again drenched in a purity that puts it on an entirely different level. I was a little skeptical about CFTPA expanding beyond the battery powered keyboards for which the project was named after, but the fleshed-out arrangements on Etiquette only add to the power of the music. Ashworth may be the first of our generation deserving residence alongside Williams, Cave, Waits and Cohen in that fabled tower.
posted by Michael Doyle
Somebody give Bernard his pants backs.
posted by Michael Doyle
posted by Michael Doyle
And the gift of music keeps giving: Gibby's Daily Video Blog
posted by Michael Doyle
Twelve Seven Days of Dorkwave
Exclusive holiday mixes from Dorkwave just for you.
Collect them all for a limited time only!
Extra special cheers to Rob for managing and to Sneak for hosting.
posted by Michael Doyle
posted by Michael Doyle
Exclusive holiday mixes from Dorkwave just for you.
Collect them all for a limited time only!
Extra special cheers to Rob for managing and to Sneak for hosting.
posted by Michael Doyle
Monday, December 18, 2006
Dear Google,
All I want for Christmas is a search function for YouTube that doesn't suck.
posted by Michael Doyle
All I want for Christmas is a search function for YouTube that doesn't suck.
posted by Michael Doyle
Please Let It Be Whale Vomit...
Dorothy Ferreira of Montauk, New York recently received an intriguing gift from her 82-year-old sister in Waterloo, Iowa: a greenish, waxy blob discovered on the beach in Long Island some 50 years ago. No one has been able to positively identify the object, but it is suspected to be ambergris - an almost mythical substance produced in the digestive system of sperm whales. Most commonly used in perfumes, ambergris is also considered an aphrodisiac and is used in homeopathic medicines. It has been mentioned in literature and film from Moby Dick and Don Quixote to Hannibal and an episode of Futurama. Most recently, it was a central element of Matthew Barney's Drawing Restraint 9.
If Ms. Ferreira's object is indeed petrified whale vomit, it may be worth around $18,000. Even so, ambergris is illegal to buy or sell in the United States due to endangered species legislation, and there are only a handful of specialists in the world qualified to identify it.
posted by Michael Doyle
Dorothy Ferreira of Montauk, New York recently received an intriguing gift from her 82-year-old sister in Waterloo, Iowa: a greenish, waxy blob discovered on the beach in Long Island some 50 years ago. No one has been able to positively identify the object, but it is suspected to be ambergris - an almost mythical substance produced in the digestive system of sperm whales. Most commonly used in perfumes, ambergris is also considered an aphrodisiac and is used in homeopathic medicines. It has been mentioned in literature and film from Moby Dick and Don Quixote to Hannibal and an episode of Futurama. Most recently, it was a central element of Matthew Barney's Drawing Restraint 9.
If Ms. Ferreira's object is indeed petrified whale vomit, it may be worth around $18,000. Even so, ambergris is illegal to buy or sell in the United States due to endangered species legislation, and there are only a handful of specialists in the world qualified to identify it.
posted by Michael Doyle
Sunday, December 17, 2006
R.I.P. Ahmet Ertegun, Atlantic Records founder and music visionary.
posted by chris
posted by chris
Despite currently being on a rave hiatus, this is amusing: Ravezooka
posted by Michael Doyle
posted by Michael Doyle
Saturday, December 16, 2006
I don't know how much press this got on the other side of the atlantic but Belgium's national news pulled off the biggest dupe since War of the Worlds. Belgium is having very serious problems between their French and Flemish-speaking populations and the fake news flash was meant to bring attention to the very real possibiltiy of a split in the country.
posted by chris
posted by chris
I had a feeling I was going to leave out something really important and obvious on my 2006 Top 10s, and sure enough...
Apologies to our Scottish friends, but Belle and Sebastian have been bumped from the list to make room for I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness. Shame on me for forgetting one of the most amazing records of the year.
To repent for the oversight, links to two of the best music videos of the year: According to Plan and the beautiful wrist slasher The Owl.
Also, file under "where are they now?"/"I'm a complete dumbass for not knowing this", I only recently learned that ILYBICD are produced by Ministry's Paul Barker. (No wonder that bass line on According to Plan sounds familiar - it has Lard all over it.)
posted by Michael Doyle
Apologies to our Scottish friends, but Belle and Sebastian have been bumped from the list to make room for I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness. Shame on me for forgetting one of the most amazing records of the year.
To repent for the oversight, links to two of the best music videos of the year: According to Plan and the beautiful wrist slasher The Owl.
Also, file under "where are they now?"/"I'm a complete dumbass for not knowing this", I only recently learned that ILYBICD are produced by Ministry's Paul Barker. (No wonder that bass line on According to Plan sounds familiar - it has Lard all over it.)
posted by Michael Doyle
Friday, December 15, 2006
Christmas is time for free MP3s. Download Christmas Reindeer from The Knife.
posted by Michael Doyle
posted by Michael Doyle
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Official Space Weather Advisory: Geomagnetic Storm in Progress
A geomagnetic storm began on December 14 at 1416 UTC (9:16 A.M. EST). A solar flare on 13 December at 0240 UTC (12 December, 9:40 P.M. EST) from NOAA Region 930 produced strong radio blackouts (R3) and an associated moderate (S2) solar radiation storm. A large Earth-directed coronal mass ejection was also observed with this event, producing today's geomagnetic storming. Strong to severe (G3 - G4) geomagnetic storming is expected to last through 15 December.
Aside from potentially nasty things like knocking out power grids and communication systems, the storm should provide spectaular northern lights.
Related:
A geomagnetic storm began on December 14 at 1416 UTC (9:16 A.M. EST). A solar flare on 13 December at 0240 UTC (12 December, 9:40 P.M. EST) from NOAA Region 930 produced strong radio blackouts (R3) and an associated moderate (S2) solar radiation storm. A large Earth-directed coronal mass ejection was also observed with this event, producing today's geomagnetic storming. Strong to severe (G3 - G4) geomagnetic storming is expected to last through 15 December.
Aside from potentially nasty things like knocking out power grids and communication systems, the storm should provide spectaular northern lights.
Related: