Saturday, September 12, 2009

Statement for the Season

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Posters on Orchard Street near The Sound Library, NYC

Today, as New York Fashion Week moves toward top speed, the YSL street team is on street corners in NYC and Paris passing out limited edition tote bags, each housing a copy of the label's Fall/Winter 2009 Manifesto.
Last season's package (pictured above and below) included a fold-out poster and a heart-shaped YSL flash drive on a string.

The bags are not, you know, the highest quality, but don't look a gift horse in the mouth – they are functional for light travel, and the silk screened prints are always interesting.
The Spring/Summer lookbook featured Claudia Schiffer under the Hollywood sign, photographed by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin. Some of the images were die-cut peel-off stickers:

They really spare no expense, so it's no wonder the Manifestos are so sought-afte. If you find yourself in New York or Paris this afternoon, make it your mission to find one.
If, however, those cities seem a million miles away right about now, don't fret too hard – you really don't need more stuff, and you can preview the Manifesto here:



Check out the whole thing, as well as past Manifestos, at yslmanifesto.com.
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Friday, September 11, 2009

When I'm Gone

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Conversations Regarding The Future of Architecture, a vinyl record pressed by the Reynolds Metal Company in 1956, featuring interviews with Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, Eero Saarinen, Richard Neutra, Philip Johnson, and others.

I narrowly missed out on acquiring this while we were in New York. Emily and I were having a beer and some snackies at The Magician on Rivington Street last Friday evening before joining our friends and family at Arrow Bar, as is our way. At 6:58PM Eastern Daylight Time the weekly e-mail from Seattle's Wall of Sound Records came across my crackleberry. I immediately went outside to call the store and see if they could save it for me if I paid by credit card right then and there. Alas, by the time I called, three other people had already done the same and it was gone.

It has been added to the want list. Some day it will be mine.

For now I am consoling myself with sounds from the Vivian Girls' new LP Everything Goes Wrong. You should do the same. Here's a sample (via GvB). Play it loud:

Vivian Girls When I'm Gone mp3

And here's another nice take on it, from They Shoot Music:



More info on Vivian Girls here.

...
Update: Oh, sweet internet. You can download both side one and side two of
Conversations Regarding the Future of Architecture for free at Record Brother. Mies van der Rohe: "I don't want to be interesting. I want to be good."
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Image of the Day

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Artwork by Milton Glaser, September 2001

[More on Milton Glaser, above in a photo by Eric Johnson, coming soon.]
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Your Weekly Mr. Littlejeans

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Emily and me with Jeans in our apartment on Union Street between Smith and Hoyt, Brooklyn, Spring 2001

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Good Enough, Smart Enough

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This is impressive – it's sort of the political/historical equivalent of Picasso drawing a horse starting with the tail, or something.

Okay, so the Olympic Peninsula is not quite that big compared to the rest of Washington State, but it feels like it when you're out there.

[Via A Special Way of Being Afraid]

Image of the Day

. Crosby Street, last Thursday afternoon.
More photos from our NYC trip coming soon.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Image of the Day

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Roman Ondák Measuring the Universe (detail), 2007, at MoMA.
Click here for more info and images.


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Rated X By An All-White Jury

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We're not in Seattle right now, but if we were, bet your sweet ass we would be heading over to Northwest Film Forum for a screening of Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-Itchyfooted Mutha. The film's 75-year-old director, Melvin Van Peebles (pictured above in a spread from Wax Poetics Anthology Volume 2) will be in attendance to introduce the film and answer questions. Click here for info; the film screens through September 14th if you can't make it tonight.

Here's a classic from his most well-known work of, well, genius: the theme from Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, written by Van Peebles and performed by a then-unknown Earth Wind & Fire.

Earth Wind & Fire Sweetback's Theme mp3

Monday, September 7, 2009

Image of the Day

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Sunny's Bar in Red Hook, Brooklyn

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New Style

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Mika Tajima The Double, 2008, The Kitchen, New York

I have been posting (here, here, and here) about the Spring/Summer 2010 lookbook shoot for Sunshine & Shadow, and here's the next installment – the styling. Mika Tajima is a highly accomplished artist represented by Elizabeth Dee Gallery in New York; she was featured in last year's Whitney Biennial (remember?) with New Humans, her ongoing sound collaboration with Howie Chen and Eric Tsai (and past co-conspirators Vito Acconci, C. Spencer Yeh, José León Cerrillo, among others). In addition to all of that, she handles occasional styling duties for the Sunshine & Shadow shoots, bringing a totally unique eye to the normal conventions of that duty.

Mika Tajima Deal or No Deal, 2008, Kevin Bruk Gallery, Miami

Here Mika is discussing an installation last year at the Honolulu Academy of Arts. (As a side note, I think some of the ideas she brings up would be of special interest to anyone who has been thinking about the themes of Target Practice, Painting Under Attack 1949–78, the current show at the Seattle Art Museum.)



Photos via Elizabeth Dee Gallery – click for more info and images on Mika Tajima/New Humans.
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Sunday, September 6, 2009

Image of the Day

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The Highline from our room at (where else) The Standard.


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