Spirits in the Material World

Tin types from the 7th Ave flea market in Brooklyn on Sunday morning, $6 each. (Click to enlarge.)

Dark Night

So, completely unbeknownst to me, that Ben Gibbard & Feist song I posted last week is from a new Red Hot compilation, in stores today, called Dark Was The Night. (Thanks to fellow Seattle-based design blogger Still Dottie for the tip.) More audio samples:



The list of artists involved is so outstanding, you have to see it for yourself – visit 4AD to acquire a pretty serious sense of urgency about going out and finding this record. More info at darkwasthenight.com.

Here's a favorite track from a 1996 Red Hot comp, America Is Dying Slowly: Organized Konfusion Decisions mp3

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P.S. – For anyone who gives a crap, I posted a little addendum to the Neko Case post from last week...scroll down.
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Paragraph, President

Pacific Standard the blog is closed for President's Day, i.e., I am just back from NYC and playing catch-up. Great trip, loads to report, tons of pictures…all starting tomorrow. Also, some interesting changes and developments for Pacific Standard the studio. And it's fashion week.
So look out – stuff is about to get real interesting up in here.

Above, maybe my all-time favorite photo of Abraham Lincoln (click to enlarge). The photo was taken by famed Civil War photographer Matthew Brady at Antietam, Maryland, on or shortly after September 17th, 1862 – the first major battle fought on Northern soil and the bloodiest single day of the entire war, with over 23,000 casualties. Pictured with Lincoln are General J.A. McClernand and "Major" Allen Pinkerton, the head of Union Intelligence (which would become the Secret Service) and of the infamous Pinkerton National Detective Agency.

Your Weekly Mr. Littlejeans

Jeans in his study.

Usually It's Nothing

We're in NYC right now on a quick trip to do our taxes--we have a crack team of accountants in Queens, it's worth the trip--but I wanted to note that today is the one-year anniversary of this here blog. Thank you for reading, I hope I have provided you with some enjoyment. I like blogging and I'm going to keep doing it.

Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone with SprintSpeed

S words

Hmmm... I'm not sure about this album cover.

I like the various elements (color, type, car, styling...even the sword is okay), but something about the light-gray background bothers me. Looking forward to the album though – it's in stores March 3rd.

Neko Case People Got A Lotta Nerve mp3 (via Anti-)

More info here.

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An addendum:
I highly recommend reading this great piece on Neko Case in The New York Times Magazine. It's an incredibly morbid thing to note, but just about anyone who grew up in the Northwest around the same time as me will identify with her comments on the inspiration for one of the new songs:

“It’s based on the Green River killer,” she says. “When I was a kid in Tacoma, we were all scared all the time. I actually carried a knife to school with me. The ‘you’ in the song is one of his victims. They were all prostitutes, but we didn’t know that. They could have been anybody; they could have been us.”

Man, I remember that feeling – I was scared too as a little kid, even knowing that the victims were all women. Such a strange thing to grow up with. I wonder if the sword on the album cover references the knife she carried. Anyway, it all makes me look forward to hearing the rest of the record.

Train of Thought

While we're on the subject...

Red Gay & Jack Wellman Flat Wheel Train Blues mp3
courtesy Mr. Bussard
Feist & Ben Gibbard Train Song mp3
buy their stuff everywhere
José Gonzalez Untitled (Train) mp3
from Visionaire 53 SOUND (buy it)
Don Thomas Train Keep Moving mp3
(extension courtesy Hugswon)
Reflection Eternal Train of Thought mp3

Photo: near The Dalles, Oregon, May 2007

Blue Train

Emily knows me really well. For our January Xmas, as I mentioned before, she got me a set of maps for finding all the ghost towns of Washington State, and she also got me the beautifully packaged Criterion DVD Two-Lane Blacktop. But I think the coolest thing she came up with was this first paperback edition of Paul Fusco's self-published book RFK Funeral Train.

Fusco, a staff photographer for Look magazine, traveled with Robert F. Kennedy's body as it made its way from New York to D.C. in 1968. Fusco documented the journey with pictures of the people who stood at the side of the tracks to pay their respects. (Click to enlarge.)

Aperture published a new version of the book last year, including many previously unpublished photos – you can get it at aperture.org for $35.


Check out this New York Times Magazine article for more info and a slideshow.

Stuff we forgot we owned, Part 3

When I was a kid I ordered a list from the back of a comic book that had all these free things you could send away for. I don't remember what else I got, maybe some stamps and stuff, but I was pretty psyched about this trucker dictionary.

Comin' out the Woodwork

A lot of telephone poles around Seattle have this cool-looking typography chunked into them.

Unrelated: Hobo Junction Woodwork mp3

Your Weekly Mr. Littlejeans

Fun with record boxes…



…and then, of course, back to sleep.

I live my life like there's no tomorrow

Oh yeah? Really?
Well prepare to have the next 7 minutes of it completely wasted.

Cool your jets:
Van Halen Runnin' with the Devil (isolated vocal track) mp3

Words Do Matter

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Via Slog: Obama knows how to swear. I think he should do it all the time – the motherfucking state of the union could use some extra modifiers. Listen here.

Purple Reign

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Another thing I got Emily for Christmas is the Purple Magazine Anthology. Purple was one of the first magazines to interweave contemporary art and fashion, and while that mix can easily go horribly wrong in either direction, the various incarnations of Purple have been consistently smart, albeit in kind of a dirtbag way, since they started in 1992. Here are some spreads, click to enlarge:













More info at purple.fr

Staring at the Sun

Way back in August I mentioned that we had shot the Sunshine & Shadow Spring/Summer 2009 lookbook in Brooklyn.

Now that we're headed into that most hopeful of seasons, the clothes are finally in stores and online for your viewing pleasure – head for sunshineandshadow.com and have a look.

Define "Forever"

In the off chance anyone has missed this – a dad documents his son's ride home from the dentist.

Stuff we forgot we owned, Part 2

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Margiela paper coffee cups (white with silver ink and rubber stamp on the bottom), sent out to announce the new West Village store a couple years ago.

Flexi-Disc

I had the pleasure of working with Flexions and photographer Kyle Johnson last week on a photo shoot for the forthcoming Flexions record – a favor for my man Byron Kalet. Flexions = Robin Stein and Devin Welch and they are doing some interesting shit…it will be cool to see what else they come up with. I picked up the Flexions 7" (pictured above) at Cairo on one of the first weekends I was back in Seattle, and I highly recommend searching out a copy for yourself.

In the mean time, listen here.

The Inside is the Part That Makesthe Outside Sound Good

Thelonius Monk's advice to saxophonist Steve Lacy, 1960.
Click to enlarge:

Via Spencer.

I Don't Know My Way Around Maui

The plastic bag picture in the post below reminded me of a scene in the wildly underrated, almost entirely ad-libbed Wayne Wang and Paul Auster film Blue in the Face where this guy derives endless satisfaction from removing plastic bags from trees using a long pincer-on-a-stick device he's invented. Since that clip is not available on YouTube, here's some other highlights from Blue in the Face.



It's funny, I never thought about it, but on the map when it says "you are here," that's exactly where my brother lives.

Toy Stories

My step-brother Chris, a firefighter in Portland, sent me this link this morning, to illustrator Christopher Neimann's blog at The New York Times. Hilarious, and also makes me want to build Legos all day.

Click here for more.

I also love this post, about his sons' obsession with the subway system.


*Yes. Both my brother and step-brother are firefighters. I am a "graphic designer" and an "art director" and sometimes a "creative director." I am fine with that. Suck it.

Stuff we forgot we owned, Part 1

Playboy Club ashtray

Christmas Break

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Emily and I celebrated our Christmas a month late. We wanted to wait till we were in our new space and somewhat unpacked. (There are still 100+ boxes of books and records in the middle of the living room, but that's another story, shelves are coming soon.) Economic depression be damned, we decided to treat each other a little. Why the hell not. Anyway, here's some stuff we got, and I'll post a couple other things soon.

I got Emily this wool blazer she wanted from Topshop. Keeping it chic as usual.

She got me this set of maps showing all the ghost towns in Washington state. I didn't even know this existed (not to mention how many ghost towns there still are here). Can't wait to try it out, especially now that the weather is starting to get nice.

My brother's Nightmare-Before-Christmas Tree in Brooklyn. When we had our stoop sale back in September, someone down the street was throwing this weird old tree out and he grabbed it. Now it's covered with origami cranes in his apartment – it looks cool.