World Order: "Machine Civilization"

LOVE this choreography! I could watch these guys all day, they're so magnificently precise.

Bonus: excellent choice of locations. I'm such a sucker for industrial chic, especially when combined with suited guys dancing with a dry wit.

Bonus bonus: check out all the bewildered people going by who suddenly realize they're walking into a video. O, the joys of low-budget filmmaking....

Fun with your Home Computer!

The Kraftwerk original:




And the cover by Señor Coconut:



Are we humans a bunch of zanypants or what?

Slinky Log

I can't believe it took me this long to realize the connection:

WHOO SPRING BREAK WHOO

Time to get our groove on!




Actually, for true dance enjoyment, I'm going to rely entirely on the funky best of the early 1970s:









I hope you're all jumping up and down on your sofas now.



Whoo spring break whoo!

sweet dreams are not made of this

Watch this if you want nightmares about monstrous mushrooms out to devour you (and worse!):




But if you'd prefer nightmares about wacky driving, try this instead:

Beyonce as performed by Pomplamoose

I can't stop listening to these people! They are too hep for words.

Stop - It's Hammertime! (only with bindis and dupattas)

    When I'm not doing micromarketing or calculating inventory, I prance about like a Bollywood star in MBA talent shows. This seems to astound and impress the Indian students, who think that no American would ever be caught dead shaking her groove thing in front of 110 people to "Desi Girl" or "Mauja Hi Mauja". In your face, dubious Indian students! You're not the only cool, dancing-type people to hang out in business schools! So there.



P.S. The Rockettes we ain't, but we still brought the house down. This was quite possibly one of the most awesome experiences I've ever had, at least since that one time I was duct-taped to a wall.

The Pink Floydness of Tustin

    Is it just me, or does this Tustin blimp hangar look like a Pink Floyd album cover?

   

    True, it's in nearby Tustin and not Irvine, but I shall still claim it as part of my new stomping grounds. I believe the technical term for this structure is "wicked rad".

    That is all.

brilliant...?

Kinda Bizarre Audience-Building Strategy: Come to My Apartment

Would I want 60 strangers in my apartment every week? Probably not -- but it would be a fantastic way to piggyback PR for a personal project. Will mull this over.

Feelin' like a cyberpunk Monday

"I've never really been very interested in computers themselves. I don't watch them; I watch how people behave around them. That's becoming more difficult to do because everything is 'around them'." - William Gibson, 2007

[John] Shirley convinced [William] Gibson to write a story for the television series Max Headroom for which Shirley had written several scripts, but the network canceled the series. - interview, 1994

"After witnessing the first 20 minutes of landmark cyberpunk film Blade Runner (1982) which was released when Gibson had written a third of the novel, he 'figured [Neuromancer] was sunk, done for. Everyone would assume I’d copped my visual texture from this astonishingly fine-looking film.' He re-wrote the first two-thirds of the book twelve times, feared losing the reader's attention and was convinced that he would be "permanently shamed" following its publication . . . ." - interview, 1986

". . . . in 2005, Time included it in their list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923, opining that '[t]here is no way to overstate how radical [Neuromancer] was when it first appeared.'" - Wikipedia

twitter catch-up

Rory_Blyth: Going out is frustrating. I want witty, challenging, flirtatious banter, but mostly just find people who text with their mouths.

fireland: Yeah, swimming is good, but I still think the best full-body workout is grabbing someone's baby and running away.

onecreativenerd: I heard a porsche car alarm going off today in quarter notes (but in Eb not F), found myself singing Treadmill

mcgrory: Bilingual - or Bivisual?

jagwicK: in a job interview, when asked if you have any questions for them, don't say "If you were a fruit, what fruit would you be?"

Truly, I love you all. Hooray for the stupendously awesome.

the magic of weekends

This has been an excellent weekend:

1 chocolate bread pudding
1 old movie involving glamorous people, jewel thievery, and France
1 new movie involving exploding spaceships and amusing accents
1 cemetery, beautiful at twilight
3 kids
5 dogs
30 new acquaintances (approx.)
an indeterminate amount of phenomenal potato salad

I also just discovered that an old friend of mine will be in town on Friday with his gal! I haven't seen him forever -- certainly not since he moved to Australia -- so this is officially fantastic.

To celebrate all of this cumulative awesomeness, I bring you two works of audiovisual magic:



I never went to the prom, but even I can tell you that this is officially The World's Best Prom Slow Dance/Necking Music of All Time. I mean, seriously -- how can anyone possibly resist all those shebop-shebops?




That John Foxx, back in 1983, was an exquisite man. Trouble is, I think he knew it -- but I'd still totally flirt with him based on cheekbone structure alone.

Side note: I just did some more noodling around online, and discovered that Foxx is an exquisite writer, too. His work reminds me of that of Ray Bradbury: the same sense of decay and dislocation, although with only an echo of Bradbury's longing.

I once met Bradbury a while ago on a film shoot. He'd recently had a stroke, but also had moments of lucidity and seemed perfectly happy to grant an interview. After we shot the segment (I was camera assisting) and packed everything away, I snatched a moment alone with Bradbury to tell him how much I loved his work and how deeply honored I was to have the chance to meet him. He was silent for a moment, slowly refocusing his eyes on me, only to grant me a gummy smile and a cheery "Hello!" I was utterly forlorn for weeks afterward. I'm not sure what I had been hoping for; how can you be Best Friends Forever with your idol when when he's old enough to be your grandfather? It's a bittersweet experience, finally meeting someone you've cherished like a lost love for years, only to realize you've met them too late.

As with Bradbury, I regret that I can't meet Foxx (or should I say Dennis Leigh?) in a parallel reality where we'd be the same age. Reminds me of the phase I went through a few years ago where I had a crush on a statue at the Huntington Library. I'm not goth, I'm gothic -- allow me my tender reveries. Shush.

Join me at Mindshare, May 21!

So, here's the latest email I've received from the madcap folks behind Mindshare:

We're excited to announce the program for next Thursday at 1018 Gallery!
http://www.mindshare.la/events.html

William Pomerantz / Senior Director of Space Projects, The X PRIZE Foundation
Winning Our Way to the Moon

Heather Knight / Roboticist, MIT Media Lab
Social Robotics - Exploring the Human-Robot Relationships

David de Rothschild / Founder, Adventure Ecology
The Plastiki - Rethinking Plastic as a Resource!

Daniel Yoder / Hacker, Zeraweb Labs
Flash Fundraising for The Abruzzo Earthquake

Unnamed Military Source / US Air Force
Apocalypse Survival (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Breakdown of Society)

Evonne Heyning & Matt Davis / Lightning Temple Artists
INTERACTIVATION: Collaborative Visions of Human Evolution

And of course there will be and open bar, hors d'ouevres, music and a number of installations on display from the great brains from Mindshare Labs!

I'll be there at 7 to help set up, who else is coming?

high-tech animation of Red Riding Hood

I recommend watching this in as large a size as possible, since there's a lot of text. This animation approach doesn't add much to the story, IMHO, but it's a fascinating exercise nonetheless, plus a little Röyksopp is always welcome.


Slagsmålsklubben - Sponsored by destiny from Tomas Nilsson on Vimeo.

Trader Joe's / Quietube

Man, this ad-which-isn't-an-ad totally sums up the Trader Joe's experience for me, right down to the wonderful cheeses and hideous lack of parking. The parsnip chips are new to me, though.

Also: if you don't yet know about Quietube, try it now. Nownownow. It's so...restful.

dancing about architecture

Thanks to Parlophone, and to Jamie for pointing me in the right direction. Bonus: I now understand the term "jackanory."

cheese, cheese, that's what I love

Here we are, already into February, and this is my first blog entry for 2009. Why, you ask? Because I have been too busy having adventures to bother writing about them. Someday, I will write about those adventures. Right now, however, I need you to listen to this song about cheese.



(NB: I hate ReverbNation's blog widgets, since I can't figure out how to embed one song alone, but Jenn Beast is totally worth the agony.)










I really like "Wish" too, but seriously, I'm all about the cheese.



[Thanks to Paynie at breadbuttercheesevictory for the tip.]

Wassuuup, Obama-style

The following is all thanks to William Gibson:

Remember this?



Now watch this:



I love pop culture when it's transposed into a socially conscious...er, thingie.

And finally, because they rock:



Happy Sunday.

accordions, candy, and Atari -- oh my!

Simply because:

killing me loudly with his song

I'm about to crawl into bed, happy and full of fine bacon vodka spaghetti -- but before I do, I have to post this.



I first heard this song this morning, on my way to work. Two minutes in, I was already singing along with it, belting out the chorus with all my soul as I hurtled down the 110 freeway. I had no idea the song was by Death Cab for Cutie [trust me, it's a fine figure of a website, nice 'n' retro] until I Googled "i will possess your heart" a few minutes ago this evening. The video is a wisp of a thing, plotwise, but it sure captures a lot emotionally. Not sure how, since watching a beautiful woman walking around the world doing nothing isn't normally my idea of compelling entertainment.

Anyway, they will possess my heart, those dastardly devils of deliciousness known as Death Cab. I feel like such a sell-out trendster now, but it's a good kind of pain.