putting the j in jjosh

I should mention that this month’s banner photo is from Maxine’s friend Charlotte who was staying with us in February (apologies for my photoshop fakery, Charlotte!). She posts on flikr as madeinsheffield and she’s got some really good stuff there — apparently she won some photo competition that got one of her photos on the front page of The Guardian or something? And has some photos in galleries as well. We went to Coney Island for a winter visit and all 3 of us took pictures — it was such a great scene there on the vacant beach…

I took photos using this Holga camera (pictured above in a madeinsheffield shot) that Laird M gave me years and years ago; the camera is purposefully broken, so it has light leaks and double exposures and so on, which should hopefully result in interesting photos. Now I just have to find somewhere that develops the Holga film…I’ll post the photos once I get them…

madeinsheffield’s New York set here.

Back in 1998 (10 years ago!!) Mike Heany, Andrea Seabrook, her crazy Mexican boyfriend and I made this short film called Character. It had been a while since we’d done any filming, and I wanted to try and make something where we shot it all in one day. I whipped up a script, we met up and shot it, and over the next few weeks I edited it at the place in Arlington where I was working at the time.

Unfortunately, due to a technical (and boring) screwup that can be translated as "Josh didn’t know what he was doing", at the end of it all, the cut that I had made would have to be put together all over again, eye-matching every shot in its 11 minutes. In other words, a major pain-in-the-ass hassle.

Such a pain-in-the-ass, in fact, that it has taken me 10 years and some downtime at work to get it done.

The sad part of all this, of course, is that the star of the film and one of my best friends ever, Mike Heany, tragically committed suicide in 2004. It’s given this whole project a kind of bitter-sweetness to it. But to be honest, it’s been more sweet than bitter. I have been laughing so much at how we’re cracking each other up during the filming, and just seeing all the fun we’re having, seeing how seriously Mike is taking the acting, seeing what a dynamic person he really was.

When you read the obituaries of famous artists, people are always saying how lucky we are that we can still experience that person through their art; from working on this film I am finding myself feeling the same thing about Mike. I’m so glad we have a fairly extensive number of short films that we made together, so I can still hang out with him from time to time.

At some point (maybe by next Dec?) I’m hoping to make a DVD of all the films Mike and I made together, and I’m really looking forward to it. I’ll post Character soon as well, but in the meantime, there was one great bit in the raw footage where Mike is trying so hard to get this line right that I almost felt like it was its own 3-minute short film. Admittedly, it’s a tough line. Please enjoy…

"I’m Not Going To Make Any Friends When I Wake Up As Ass-Fetish Samson"

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UPDATE – there might be problems with the video…I’m going to tweak some settings and see if it helps…it’s working fine for me at work, but very stuttery at home…

UPDATE 2 – I think I’ve sorted the video issues…lemme know if its not playing well for you…

(shoes painted directly onto feet, from the below ref’d NY Magazine walking article)

Last Summer when we moved to NYC I started running again. I wanted to do it right, so I went to a running specialty store to get the best shoes I could find. They had me run on a treadmill and videotaped it from 4 different angles, and then analyzed it on a computer — very hi-tech! It turned out that I was seriously "overpronating" (or something), which means that my ankle was hitting out over my foot…they recommended a shoe that was super-corrective for that. It was a big, clunky, heavy, running shoe called The Beast. The Beast!!! When I first ran wearing The Beast, it felt like lead weights, but I soon got used to it and figured that when I switched to lighter shoes later it would feel so freeing.

After a few months of running, I developed really painful shin splints. I did some online research and tried to do everything they suggested — various strengthening exercises, running on the softer ground instead of pavement, spending extra time warming up and cooling down — but nothing seemed to help. It completely shut down my running for the whole winter and into Spring. I would try to run every now and then but it would be too painful. Finally I went to my doctor and she suggested that maybe it was the shoes. The Beast?!?! Could it be?

Well, I just bought new, lighter, neutral, shoes and so far so good ( knock on wood). It seems so obvious in retrospect.

Then I just read this great article from NY Magazine on how shoes by their very nature are bad for us. I’m a believer! Sign me up for the barefoot world!

From the article:

"Epidemiologically speaking, it’s been estimated that, by age 40, about 80 percent of the population has some muscular-skeletal foot or ankle problem. By age 50 to 55, that number can go up to 90 or 95 percent.” Ninety-five percent of us will develop foot or ankle problems? Yeesh. Those are discouraging numbers—but wait. Are we talking about 95 percent of the world population, or of North America? “Those are American figures,” he says. Which makes me think, North Americans have the most advanced shoes in the world, yet 90 percent of us still develop problems? We’ve long assumed this means we need better shoes. Maybe it means we don’t need shoes at all.

Also…

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Done by Larry Cuba, the guy who made the graphics for the attack briefing scene in the original Star Wars, these graphics look so different from the cg of today. They have an organic quality, and are strangely beautiful.

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Maxine has improved my day immeasurably by sending me this.

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Sunday Maxine and I finally got around to checking out the Murikami exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum, and lemme tell you, it was a mind-blower! If you are in the area (it’s on until July something) you gotta see this. It would probably make a great field trip too, ‘cuz it seems very kid-friendly (umm, except for the weird, blatantly sexual ones like Hiropan).

But most of the art is simply great — from canvases with layers of paint meticulously sanded down, to weird anime-style plastic figures, to installation-style rooms full of eye-popping imagery, the exhibit is stimulating on many levels. We didn’t get to see his short films in the little theater area because the line was too massive, but then in the elevator on the way out we heard a couple of guys talking about how the films really weren’t worth the line. Nice.

In among all his smiling flowers and cute characters, he also had a series of canvases that have things like death skulls with rings of flowers for eyes (above, titled "time bokun missing"; below, titled "time bokun black"), or psychedelic-style caricatures of famous buddhist monks. It’s the kind of art that really gets me going, and I was pretty excited that Maxine was into it as well.

There’s also a whole side to his art that has to do with blending art and commerce (the exhibit is really called ©Murakami). For example, Murakami was brought on by Marc Jacobs to do a specially designed Louis Vitton bag and design print that’s apparently been a huge sensation, so they had a Louis Vitton store as one of the art installations in the middle of the museum. Weird, mind-bendy, but somehow cool.

From digging around online I found this sort-of promotion animation he did a couple of years ago for his Louis Vitton design. It’s called "Superflat Monogram," the concept of Superflat being a central tenet of Murakami’s work. Some decry this little film as a 5 minute commercial for LV, but I think it’s kind of playful, lyrical and beautiful too. It’s on youtube, but I dug up a hi-rez version of it for you ‘cuz low-rez Murakami is weak!

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Is it Spring where you are?

Yesterday was just stunning here (until early evening) so I threw together a quick Spring mix to listen to as I walked around in the sunny sun sunshine. Then I figured I’d give it to you! Keep in mind, it’s pretty random. The criteria for songs was two:

1. it should remind me of Spring

or

2. it should be something I wanted to hear

(right-click to download, then unzip)

Sunny Sun Sunshine Spring Mix

Other than that I was just scrolling through my itunes, alphabetically by band, starting at Z. Some odd choices, but overall it was a great soundtrack for my day. Enjoy.

click here to find out more about the tracks on the mix!

By now the internet is full of — and links have been forwarded and re-forwarded of — the classic way to make the Garfield comic strip funny: remove Garfield’s speech or thought balloons. It also seems to make it more the way cats really behave…

But, thanks to Malcolm M I have now discovered that there’s a way to take Garfield into the stratosphere of funny: live action. This guy’s site has a ton of these…each one dramatizes a 3 panel strip and then does a weird sort of remix with a music track. Very weird, and I love it.

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ps this is a gar, so a field of those would be pretty weird too

I remember watching Ali G for the first time on a tape that Roscoe got while we were both working at BBC America (were they thinking of licensing it?), and we laughed until it hurt. This is a great interview with Beckham and Posh Spice from the UK’s Comic Relief…British cultural references abound, but even if you’re not getting them, it’s still pretty funny…

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Even though his schtick is a little played out, I still find Ali G really funny, much funnier than Borat for some reason. Borat’s humor seems to come from exploiting cultural foibles, which can be funny, but relies on us being able to point our finger and mock whichever regular person he’s interacting with. Ali G on the other hand takes apart so-called experts in some field (is being famous a "field"?)…I think he has to be quicker, smarter, sharper. The character of Borat bases his misunderstandings on cultural mismatches, where Ali G’s are based on clever use of slang, and youth culture stereotypes. Or something like that.

More analysis is called for, but I don’t have the time or inclination. Plus, with humor it really just boils down to what you think is funny.

UPDATE – I should point out that this vid is old, as Maxine somehow knew it was old and Roscoe’s link to an old Vanity Fair article mentions it…still funny tho…

The internet loves it when someone spends an inordinate amount of time doing something with no real purpose other than to entertain.

Especially when it involves home-made=y stuff.

More especially when it’s Asian.

And even more especially when it involves the Super Mario theme song.

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Amazing work, nerds.

In the jjosh effort to keep you up to date on all potential black hole occurences, it should be noted that John Wheeler, the scientist who coined the term "black hole", has just died, at the age of 96. New York Times obit here. Here is a great quote from him:

The black hole “teaches us that space can be crumpled like a piece of paper into an infinitesimal dot, that time can be extinguished like a blown-out flame, and that the laws of physics that we regard as ‘sacred,’ as immutable, are anything but."

Too bad he died before we potentially create a "black hole" in "Sweden."

…via a survey on Waxy of supercut montages, here is a collection of all the questions asked during one two-hour episode of Lovelines, separated out by host and then put in alphabetical order. There’s something great about this. Plus it reminds me of working at BBC America, cutting the swearing out of British shows for American broadcast, and making a montage of all the swear words. So much fun.

What’s interesting is that while there are tons of mashups using Beatles vocals, and tons using Doors vocals, there don’t seem to be that many using Rolling Stones vocals. I think this might be because the Doors and Beatles ones come from re-mastering into 5.1 sound that isolates the vocals, and then savvy remixers can grab the vocal track. Maybe the Rolling Stones haven’t been re-mastered into 5.1?

Anyway, since it happens very rarely, it’s always fun to come across one. I’m guessing that this Soulwax remix of You Can’t Always Get What You Want is officially sanctioned and timed to market the Scorsese Stones film (why Marty, why???). Soulwax make great remixes, and while it’s not quite as transforming as I’d like, it’s still pretty great.

Rolling Stones – You Can’t Always Get What You Want (Soulwax remix)

Banzai Republic vs. Beatles – Blackbird (remix)

Go Home Productions – Rapture Riders (Blondie vs. Doors)

While working I came across this fantastic clip from Sneakers, the 1992 team-caper film with the dream cast of Robert Redford, Sidney Poitier, River Phoenix, Dan Ackroyd, that guy who was the main bad guy in The Bourne Identity, and Mary McDonnell as the love interest — amazing to contrast her there (young, 80’s sexy, flirty) with her character now on Battlestar Galactica (older, wiser, still flirty).

Also, they’ve got Ben Kingsley(!) as the bad guy, who’s also some kind of computer genius with a weird accent that I think is supposed to be Brooklyn. In this amazing clip, he reveals to Redford how he started his life of crime in prison. Kingsley is pouring on as much menace as he can, and then it gets to the hi-tech bit where he sort of demos how he did what he did. Using the terrible! power! of! spreadsheets!!!

(I especially love the sound of the keyboard when he hits the keys…clak!)

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Walking back from yoga today, Maxine and I stumbled into a new sort of graphic arts store on 3rd st, right in the middle of Gowanus. Called Picturebox, it looks like it’s in the middle of nowhere, but there were a couple of people in there when we were there, and from talking to the guy who was working there we learned that it’s been a small art and comics publisher there for a year and a half. The art was very cool, graphic, psychedelic — just my style.

I picked up a Dr. Strange treasury from 1975 that looks absolutely amazing, and reminisced with the guy working there about how cool it was that Dr. Strange lived in Manhattan on Bleeker Street! I love it.

From looking at the art, by comics legend Steve Ditko, it got me thinking of this great doc that I read about a while ago and tracked down (with quite a bit of effort). It’s by Jonathan Ross, who is a sort of British late-night talk guy, but gets a bit more respect than our Leno/Letterman dichotomy.

Called "in Search of Steve Ditko", it’s about Ross’s fascination with Ditko, and his attempts to track down the camera-shy artist. It’s really fun and tough to find, so I’m putting it here for you to download and enjoy. It’s about 600MB, and I’ve no clue what speed my server will go to, so maybe set it going overnight or something. If it’s not working, let me know in the comments and I’ll work out some other way to host it…

I originally read about it on Neil Gaiman’s blog, because he shows up at the end to help Jonathan Ross out, so if you’re a Gaiman fan, it’s got that too. And Alan Moore, in all his crazy beard, crazy rings glory.

Jonathan Ross’s "in Search Of Steve Ditko"

(right-click to download; left click to open as QT)