The Quest for Freedom

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I loved this interview with Miranda July – from Elvis Mitchell's KCRW podcast The Treatment.

Image of the Day

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Two pedestrians on Broadway at West 44th Street in New York's Times Square on a November night in 1976 (uncredited photo via NPR/AP).

On Fresh Air yesterday, Terri Gross interviewed author James Wolcott about his new memoir Lucking Out: My Life Getting Down and Semi-Dirty in Seventies New York, which I'm looking forward to reading. Click here to listen.

The Straight-Arrows that Nonetheless Get It

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Glenn O'Brien (right) with Jean-Michel Basquiat during a filming of O'Brien's TV Party

On this week's installment of The Sound of Young America, Jesse Thorne interviews Glenn O'Brien, most recently the author of How To Be A Man. It's worth a quick listen – at this point in his life, with all of his various experiences, O'Brien is on the level of Vince Aletti or Steven Heller as both a primary and secondary source of interesting information. Click here to check it out.

Design Literacy

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A 1968 issue of The New York Free Press, art directed by Steven Heller when he
was 17 years-old (image via an article on Heller by Paula Scher for AIGA)

Steven Heller has written 135 books on design. He founded the Design Criticism program at SVA and currently acts as co-chair of the MFA Designer as Author Department. Among other jobs, he writes the "Visuals" column for the New York Times Book Review, which I generally tear out and read twice when it runs. Heller was an art director at the Times for 33 years, following various stints such as art director and designer of U&lc, Screw, and Interview. I'm not sure there is anyone else out there who can tie so many references together – high and low and everything in between – in the pursuit of understanding design. As far as I'm concerned, the dude is a national treasure.

In a new audio interview with Debbie Milman at Design Observer, Heller discusses "his new book, Pop: How Graphic Design Shapes Popular Culture, blogging from the bathroom, Christmas in New York, working with Patti Smith, Screw magazine, Paul Rand's tombstone, creating graduate programs and, of course, writing."

Click here to listen and visit hellerbooks.com for more.

Bad At Sports?

. Jeffrey Deitch with Deitch Projects director Nicola Vassell

It is no great revelation to say that Jeffrey Deitch embodies the current trajectory of the art world [read his bio here]. His gallery, Deitch Projects, was opened in 1996 and will close at the end of May, when he moves to Los Angeles to direct the Museum of Contemporary Art – an unexpected but all-around seemingly natural next step. In a fascinating podcast for Bad At Sports, Carlo McCormick interviews Deitch on his time in New York and his outlook on the art market. Go here to listen.

The final show at Deitch Projects, Shepard Fairey's May Day, opens May 1st.

Inspiration, Imagination, Discipline

. "...or go to the ocean. And drink coffee."

Last night my mom, Emily and I went to see Patti Smith play a few songs and read from her new memoir Just Kids. It was great, the most inspiring thing I have witnessed for a long time. I'm too swamped to write much about it right now but just wanted to mention it, and to post a link to a very good recent interview with her on Fresh Air.

Photo by Angelo Cricchi from pattismith.net

Talk Amongst the Trees

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Eirik Johnson Confluence of the Rogue and Illinois Rivers, Oregon

I stopped by G. Gibson Gallery the weekend before last to see new work from Eva Sköld Westerlind, Julie Blackmon, and Faryn Davis, which is on view through January 2nd. Among many other artists and photographers, Gail Gibson represents Eirik Johnson, whose show Sawdust Mountain at the Henry was among my very favorite photography shows of the year, along with the Richard Avedon and Edward Steichen shows at ICP. (The Jacques-Henri Lartigue show, also at G. Gibson, would be high on the list as well.)

Gibson mentioned that Eirik Johnson was on KUOW the other day discussing his work; you can download the podcast here – it's definitely worth a listen or two.

Sawdust Mountain is on view at the Henry through the end of January, and signed copies of his beautifully designed book of the same name are available at G. Gibson. See more of Johnson's work at eirikjohnson.com.

Wow, that was a lot of links.

Here's one more, unrelated to the above, unless you stretch:
Eluvium New Animals from the Air mp3
from Talk Amongst the Trees (2005). More info at eluvium.net or listen & buy at temporaryresidence.com.

Singular

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Tom Ford was on Fresh Air the other day discussing his new movie, A Single Man, with Terry Gross. He has some interesting things to say about fashion and creative direction as well, not suprisingly – click here to check it out.

Tom Ford (photo by Richard Avedon)

Above and below (in no particular order) are some spreads from the excellent book that Rizzoli published several years ago chronicling Ford's time at Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, including (after the jump) some of the more provocative images discussed in the Fresh Air interview.

Corduroy etc.

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I'm too swamped to post much right now, but in case anyone missed it, I wanted to mention that today on Fresh Air Terry Gross had a very enjoyable interview with Wes Anderson about his new film The Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Where Am I

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Lordy Rodriguez Westward

Leo Saul Berk was on KUOW's Weekday this morning with a few other art peeps, talking about maps. As a lover of maps who probably only did not become a cartographer because I'm really bad at math and frightened of science, I found this delightful.

Joyce Kozloff Walk-In Globe (the maps inside are Kozloff's paintings of places the USA has bombed)

Click here to download the podcast.
Warning: if you don't love maps, you will think it's boring.

Dark Side of the Sun

. I've heard Larry Mizell Jr. play various cuts by local hip-hop outfit Dark Time Sunshine a few times on KEXP and it catches my ear each time. The beat on this one is especially solid:

Dark Time Sunshine The Wrong Kids mp3

The rest of their densely layered debut album, Believeyoume, falls somewhere between Company Flow and left of there (I can't give specifics, my eyes glaze over when people mention stuff like Aesop Rock and Jedi Mind Tricks) but it has that certain I-don't-know-what that makes it a good album. Download the whole thing (plus coveted instrumentals) for free at fakefourinc.com.

American Apparel

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At The Sound of Young America this week, Jesse Thorn interviews possibly the most popular blogger on the planet, and certainly the most-followed fashion blogger: Scott Schuman, aka The Sartorialist.

Schuman's street style blog has been so successful because he knows where to go and when, he has a good eye, and he connects with his subjects very quickly; his pictures are visually interesting not only because of the clothes but because of the personalities they capture.

Increasingly many of the photos on The Sartorialist are from commissions of one kind or another, and Schuman seems to take himself much more seriously than he did when he started out; I suppose on some level that is only natural when a hobby becomes a job. Still, I remain a big fan of the blog, so it's interesting to hear him discuss the motivations and interactions behind it. Click to listen:



More:
The Sartorialist blog
The Sartorialist, a book of Schuman's photos published earlier this year
The Sound of Young America podcast

WTF

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I think I've mentioned a couple times that I'm constantly on the hunt for new podcasts to keep me company while I'm working. One of my favorites these days is WTF, a relatively new series from comedian and former Air America host Marc Maron. He's a little angry and neurotic, and yet he maintains a certain optimism about the world, a combination that reminds me of...me. Past episodes feature appearances from David Cross, Eugene Mirman, Steve Agee, Jerry Stahl, Greg Fitzsimmons, Jim Gaffigan, and other personalities of note. In the most recent podcast, Maron chats with Zach Galifianakis (pictured). Listen here.

Cities Need To Act Like Cities

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First & Columbia, Downtown Seattle, 1901 [via Vintage Seattle]

This morning on KUOW, Weekday featured a 20-minute convo with Bruce Katz, the VP and founding director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, which "seeks to redefine the challenges facing cities and metropolitan areas by researching major demographic, market, development and governance trends." Katz's comments regarding Seattle – the 19th largest city in the country and growing quickly – are particularly interesting. Here's one:

You just built this transit system...I think what now has to happen is you need to change the land use and the zoning along that corridor so you really can achieve the potential, the benefit, of having a world-class transit system.

Listen to the podcast at KUOW.org (skip ahead to 4:35 if you've already donated to public radio and don't want to hear the seemingly endless fundraising chatter).

Katz is also speaking at 6:30 this evening at the University of Washington's Kane Hall. Read one of his recent speeches, at University of Minnesota, here.

And Here's the Kicker

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My buddy Mike Sacks was recently on The Sound of Young America discussing his new book. Click to listen:


More info on And Here's the Kicker: A Collection of Conversations with 21 Top Humor Writers On Their Craft here.

TBD

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I've been listening to a radio show called Too Beautiful To Live since it started up in early 2008. I always look forward to it and at this point it almost feels like the host (Luke Burbank), the producer (Jen Andrews), and the sound engineer (Sean DeTore) are a part of our family. Well, I'm happy to announce that today TBTL gets even better. Having been dropped by its radio station (KIRO, where the show always seemed like a boozy cousin Ray-Ray to the station's other programs), Too Beautiful To Live is defying its name and switching into DIY-podcast mode. They're actually broadcasting right now, as I type.

Listen live every day at 11:30AM, or download the podcasts, at TBTL.net.

Insight, foresight, more sight

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The Sound of Young America radio sweetheart/boy detective Jesse Thorn has a great interview up right now with Pharoahe Monch, who rose to prominence as one-half of Organized Konfusion and then as a solo artist. Organized is easily in my top ten favorite hip-hop duos of all time and I'm glad to hear they'll be doing some reunion shows this summer, starting tomorrow at the Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival in DUMBO.

Organized Konfusion's second album, with artwork by Matt Doo

Pharoahe and Prince Po never really made that late '90s jump to pseudo thuggishness that brought other formerly-innovative MCs down (I'm talking about Black Sheep's second album, Special Ed's third album, Intelligent Hoodlum changing his name to Tragedy Khadafi...), and I think maintaining that certain level of weirdness positions both of them well for continuing to do interesting things.

Click here to listen to the Pharoahe Monch interview. (The previous week's interview with Brother Ali is also great, and I recommend combing through the gigantic Sound of Young America archives for interviews with Tim & Eric, Zach Galifianakis, Bob Odenkirk, Miranda July…the list goes on and on.)

Some favorite Organized cuts:

Organized Konfusion Stray Bullet mp3
from Stress:The Extinction Agenda (Hollywood)
Organized Konfusion Releasing Hypnotical Gases mp3
from Organized Konfusion (Hollywood Basic)
Organized Konfusion & O.C. You Won't Go Far mp3
from the New Jersey Drive OST (Tommy Boy)
Prince Po Love Thang mp3 (produced by Dangermouse)
from The Slickness (Lex)
Attica Blues Tender (Organized Konfusion remix) mp3 (Mo'Wax 12")
Prince Po freestyle (Stretch & Bobbito, June 1992) mp3

...and a few more from previous posts.

Legal Downloads of the Mind

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The Kills' Allison Mosshart and Jamie Hince stopped by TBTL to chat with Luke Burbank before their show here on Friday, and they played a few songs to boot. Interesting, funny, and worth a listen.

Also worth checking out: The Kills have a bunch of cool photos (and other info) on their website.

Grow Up

The second oldest known photo of Seattle, dated 1869 – from Pioneer Square at Yesler's Wharf, looking North.

Anyone interested in the past and future of growth of the Seattle area should check out this KUOW podcast of an hour-long "debate" between Knute Berger and Timothy Egan. I deploy the rabbit ears on the word debate because Berger, Egan, and the moderator (Crosscut editor David Brewster) spend way too much time reminding listeners that they're all friends, and not enough time actually debating; with something like one million people expected to move here in the next twenty years, the topic deserves much more heat than they give it. Still, it's a start, and they trade a lot of interesting observations on the Northwest. Click here to listen.

Photo via Vintage Seattle, courtesy of the Washington State Historical Society.

Take that to the bank

A couple random things, a little hodgepodge, if you will, before the weekend:

Luke Burbank and Jennifer Andrews at Too Beautiful To Live have been doing a series of interviews with a seemingly regular guy and fan of the show who used to be a bank robber. A very successful bank robber. From Bellevue. It is fascinating – catch up on the podcasts here starting with the Monday, January 19th episode. I have been somewhat obsessively listening to this radio show, TBTL, since it started last January. The Stranger's article on Burbank and the show is highly informative, and you can catch up on old episodes at toobeautifultolive.com. (Stranger photo by Curt Doughty.)

Chad put me up on a blog I've been enjoying called Archival Clothing. Today's post is on re-purposed Filson gear, using fabric acquired by dumpster diving outside the company's Seattle headquarters. Interesting.

I got the new Andrew Bird record. I like it a lot and I'm sure I'll get more into it, but I'm not flipping over it like I did the last one. I tend to like his warmer-sounding stuff (Plasticities, Lull) and the new record strikes me as purposely tinny-sounding. I also got the new A.C. Newman record. It's basically a collection of variations on the same themes and sounds he always hits (both on his own and with New Pornographers), and honestly that is just fine with me.
A.C. Newman Submarines of Stockholm (edit) MP3 via Matador

Agent Provocateur just issued Love Me Tender…Or Else, an extremely high-gloss short video reminding its customers not to forget Valentine's Day. Fashion films generally suck, and this one has a lot of annoying things about it, but hey…what, I'm a red-blooded American, what can I say. I believe I have encapsulated the plot fairly well with the photos above, or if you want to perv out, perv, watch it here.

The Times has a pretty fascinating story this morning about surf gangs of the North Coast. Approached by Pacific Standard for comment, Hawaii native SK Honda had this to say: "dude, it's gangsta up there." Read here. (Times photo by Marco Garcia.)

I like this salsa. It's only $1 a can. I'm not sure what the duck has to do with it but it's good.