King of Nothing Hill
Barry Adamson: King of Nothing Hill
When Magazine and The Bad Seeds are in your cv and Ennio Morricone is one of your influences, chances are you're going to make some interesting music. This is my favourite Barry Adamson album, it's a few years old now but always feels current.
Wait For Me
Moby: Wait For Me
A home made album inspired by a David Lynch speech about how creativity needn't be governed by the need to be received by and fit into the marketplace. Perhaps that will be true of this latest piece of work from Moby but I like it
Nuclear Evolution: The Age Of Love
The Sa-Ra Creative Partners: Nuclear Evolution: The Age Of Love
Technically the first full-length from one of LA's brightest and trippiest musical tribe's. Think Funkadelic meets Pink Floyd meets hip-trip-hop and you'll be partway toward grasping just how out there these boys are.
Robert Wright: The Evolution of God
Religion, game theory, violence and benevolence, fundamentalism, evolution, it's all here and all brought together masterfully by Wright.
Alain De Botton: The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work
De Botton is a reliable thinker and good writer who explores a 'philosophy of everyday life.' Here he tackles work, taking us on a ride through the 21st century working world that is surprisingly captivating even when he is talking about biscuit factories.
Deyan Sudjic: The Language of Things: Understanding the World of Desirable Objects
This book is an extension of a talk Sudjic recently gave. Very readable exploration of how design shapes us as we shape design. Lots of interesting historical anecdotes and some great insights from the extremely bright and creative head of London's Design Museum.
Czech designer Maxim Velcovsky worked on the interior of a church in Bohemia called St. Bartholomew's--bringing in some wicked modern plastic chairs with crosses punched in the back, Persian rugs and rough crystal chandeliers--cool mix of ancient and contemporary if you ask me.
I make no bones about my love for Paul Smith--the man and his fabulous eye for fashion, furniture and all points in-between. My sock and hankerchief collection would be a barren wasteland without his input! I like his daily blog as well. His philosophy of 'classic-with-a-twist' has served him well, and I have used his book, You Can Inspiration in Everything (*and if you can't look again) quite a lot in my ad classes, both as a motivator and as a tool to help with 'sideways' thinking. You can check out his blog here if you are interested. The photo is of a recent birthday gift he got from Jonathan Ive, the man behind most of Apple's products--a great designer who also has a sense of humour it seems.
Well, today might be a madhouse. The Staples Center is the location for Michael Jackson's memorial service. The police are telling everyone to stay away...yeah right.
Today's Gospel from the Lectionary is Matthew 5: 43-48, which ends with the dangerous comment, "be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect." I say dangerous because a comment like this is easily taken as a call to perfectionism, performance, and pressure. Religion can sometimes make being human sound like a bad thing, and can easily prey on our awareness of our own imperfections, I think this is probably the polar opposite of what was intended in this comment.
(image from Sebastian Buescher)
Independence Day here in the U.S. Lots of fireworks and, in our local community, a parade along Sunset Boulevard that feels like we've time-traveled back to the 1950s--marching bands, western riding clubs, smiling children with their dogs, and d-list celebrity Grand Marshals, all very peculiar, oh and, bbq.
One could get lost for hours, perhaps even days, on the archive site of British Pathe. Offering up 75 years wirth of British cultural history in the form of 12 million digitized images and over 3000 hours of video footage. You can just type in a topic and see what happens. I typed in pop culture and got a 1964 news piece on Liverpool that was fascinating--it is easy to forget how much the meergence of youth/pop culture shook the foundations of social life in mid-century Britain.
I really like JJ Cromer's art. He apparently spent time in Africa and you can perhaps see the influence, but it also rings somewhat of aboriginal art. Cromer chose education before art initially and was working as a reference librarian after graduate school, before returning to art once more. He is often called an 'outsider' artist or a folk-artist, I think that his work might stretch beyond the usual parameters for being put into those categories, although it really doesn't matter what they call it, I think it is cool.
U2 have kicked off their latest tour with a subtle stage set vaguely reminiscent of an alien craft from a Spielberg film. Never much for understatement it seems that they have outdone themselves this time--stainless steel, aircraft aluminium, and an expandable screen with a potential of about 3800 sq. feet. It is concert in the round this time. I can't say that I'll be rushing to the show, I have not enjoyed their last few albums but to be fair, they do know how to put on a certain kind of rock-show, and the live experience is decidedly preferential to the recorded one for me anyone. I think I have a couple of mates working on this one so I'll see when they come to LA later in the tour.
Have I mentioned how much I enjoy the work of Gilbert and George? Their latest project, the Jack Freak pictures brings the Union Jack into focus. I like them for their art, I also like them for their bespoke tweed suits and their always brilliant ties.
Jamie Chung's site.
