Considering one's "value-add"

"the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans." - RFK

Good times keep going, out into space now

Kavinsky - Nightcall (Robotaki Remix) by Robotaki

A fresh start coming in 2012

Being shot out of a cannon will always be better than being squeezed out of a tube

For every moment of triumph, for every instance of beauty, many souls must be trampled.

-HST

via theselvedgeyard

Musey Tuesday

Kate "Keep your eye on the prize" Moss.

David Byrne by artist Ryan Kelly (inspired by hearing about Byrne traveling to Arcade Fire concerts by bike).

I hot and heavy beat from David Boucher.

NASA - People Tree

pagan with ann

Wicker man and cornish pasties tonight with Ann, head in the clouds on Summerisle.

al fè rout ou

Well that's a little better

Auguste Abeliunaite for Vogue Portugal, via Zac

Apparently I'm not as fabulous as I should be, images of me aren't swirling around in aether as much as some would prefer. Maybe I should switch to a tumblr and be twee.

Listening to M83, Dead Cities, Red Seas, and Lost Ghosts

Swimming Pool

Weekend viewing - Swimming Pool

Late summer surrealism, gif via if we don't, remember me

all work and no play

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

Scott Pilgrim reboot from comics alliance

1st world problems

I'm big into taking into account that the way we live is so privileged that virtually any complaint is without meaning. These faux-advertisements by trustocorp for "reality shows" hit home.

via arrested motion

New dreams of electric sheep...

Ridley Scott has been confirmed to be working on a new Blade Runner production. I could not be more excited.

...like tears, in the rain. - Roy Batty

belles-lettres

Throw those Curtains Wide

Ann's back in orbit - all's well on planet Lo

a splash of color

Sometimes I wish I could see all the colors. Color blindness isn't a terrible disability; like blindness it can often lead to the heightening of other senses.

And you can feel color too, right?

I'd be crazy not to follow

In the deepest ocean
The bottom of the sea
Your eyes
They turn me

Watching

Sunday afternoon matinee - The Great Gatsby, 1974

costumes by Ralph Lauren

Fail

When people say "win" or "fail", I make a point to tell them that speaking in that manner is not a proper way to express yourself or the world around you.

'Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten.'

1984 - Part 1, Chapter 5

Ai Weiwei's first interview after being released from prison. One condition of his bail is that he not use Twitter. I love how authorities think restricting the use of particular modes of internet communication can silence someone (especially one as outspoken as Weiwei). Give me ethernet; give me a voice.

Back from Jet City

Washed Out - Before from Franck Deron on Vimeo.

Boston feels slow and scared.

ink

hattie (great name) wilson from the world's best ever

Patina of Time

Polaroids take up an interesting place in my head. My initial reaction is distaste for what they have become, and begat (hipstamatic is for idiots). I think the reason why they are so compelling is that they have an intrinsic immediacy, while they also carry a connotation of obsolescence and temporal distance that has an almost mystical quality.

Anyway - here are some good ones from the WestLicht collection.

on the beach

Took a personal Thursday and spent a sweltering day on Singing Beach with Ann. Pics perhaps, whenever I finish these damn disposable cameras.

don't let that south central scare you

Drew League 2011 - Week 5 from Popeye Jawns on Vimeo.

It's hot out there - image via noirfacade

Espo

Art by Espo - via Ghosts of the Great Highway

Military Industrial

"That, my boy, is the sound of freedom." - Bob

Amor Fati

"My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it—all idealism is mendaciousness in the face of what is necessary—but love it."

Ecce Homo - Section 10

Blink and you'll miss a revolution

Blink And You'll Miss a Revolution (Toro Y Moi Remix) by cutcopymusic

radio+head

1. Airbag (OK Computer)
2. 15 Step (In Rainbows)
3. Paranoid Android (OK Computer)
4. Bodysnatchers (In Rainbows)
5. Subterranean Homesick Alien (OK Computer)
6. Nude (In Rainbows)
7. Exit Music (For A Film) (OK Computer)
8. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi (In Rainbows)
9. Let Down (OK Computer)
10. All I Need (In Rainbows)
11. Karma Police (OK Computer)
12. Fitter Happier (OK Computer)
13. Faust Arp (In Rainbows)
14. Electioneering (OK Computer)
15. Reckoner (In Rainbows)
16. Climbing Up The Walls (OK Computer)
17. House Of Cards (In Rainbows)
18. No Surprises (OK Computer)
19. Jigsaw Falling Into Place (In Rainbows)
20. Lucky (OK Computer)
21. Videotape (In Rainbows)
22. The Tourist (OK Computer

Back to back - all the way through. I will tell you how it goes.

Campbell

My brother has taken up residence in the sunny Pacific Northwest - hopefully it'll mellow him out a bit. This image was sent "on [his] way home from the hippie festival".

Upside Down Kinda Day

image via romantic

-What is a man without his instrument? - Jon Westfield's dad.

Thanks to Jon for this indirect musical interlude.

Low

A photoshoot courtesy of Ben Trovato, featuring Stephanie Frederickx channeling Bowie.

I long for the day when Gaga embraces the stylized minimalist paranoia of white duke David Bowie. Alas - modern spectacle has no room for monochrome, and my color-blind sensitivities will not soon be sated. At least not in the top 40.

"I, obviously, am partial to this New England." - Borges from "The Detective Story"

noir

James R. Bingham - via todaysinspiration

An arched eyebrow is an umbrella, but she has eyes I wish would rain on me always.

"Perpetrating a sonnet, concocting an article. Language is a repertory of these convenient snubs which are the ordinary currency of controversy." - Borges

Bogles, Barguests & Brags

The Summer dawns through true whirl. Thank God my western friends were spared the brunt of passing tornadoes.

Humility and gratitude - wabi sabi - Edward Gorey (go see Elegant Enigmas before it closes tomorrow)

Folk

Cross currents of cultural identification are always so interesting. The back and forth between American and British folk music is one such fascinating interaction. The banjo, an African instrument, was popularized in America, adopted by Irish folk performers, and generally embraced as an awesome instrument.

The Dodos - Horny Hippies

The Crooked Stills -

DogEared

Robin in the Rye - The boy wonder faces existential uncertainty, puberty, and almost certainly Asperger's syndrome

Covering Lolita - A compendium of various attempts at cover art for the titillating Nabokov novel.

Graphic Typography - Jody Barton

Siouxsie & the Banshee's - Kiss them For Me (Kathak 2 Remix)

image from Painted Roses by Sergio Lopez

Lit

Time to strap in - progress planned, and fortune earned. Time for a new job, a new perspective. Get lit within and keep the bridges from burning.
Dystopia (The Earth is on Fire) by RADIO YACHT

Time to Pretend

Mask by Herb Ritts

Is Glenn O'Brien pretentious? Maybe so, but we all pretend - he just picked the right fantasy. His guide to social climbing is full of name-drops and amusing/somewhat useful advice.

Fresh Coat

Paint - Photos by Aram Bedrossian for Ben Trovato

White - by Charlotte Hatherley

Tattooed Funny Pages - via the Aeger

Chris Thornley Illustrations - via Beware

1996

Where did April go? Down an existential hole that I floated right out of.

Concerts and papers - 20pages on the knowledge economy and its re-socializing affect (not effect Keira!).

Twin Shadow is great in front of you; all mustache/weird haircuts, disco rock and heartbreak. Pains of Being Pure at Heart was as dorky as their name suggests.

Annie had never heard of a band being dorky. Obviously she's never seen the Mobius Band's music video for "1996 (The Loving Sounds of Static)":

(image via inspirefirst)

White Day

My outfit: usually coordinated. My shuffle: unusually coordinated.

Whitest boy alive - Golden Cage

White Denim - Paint yourself

White Rabbits - The Plot

Lyndells donuts for breakfast - MFA's American wing for Taylor's birthday - Pescatore's for repeat seafood.

Try to be shocked by your culture, every day. Lifting one's self out of the complacency of cultural acclimation is nearly impossible, but it's useful to try.

Rock the Casbah

Pursuing my study of media and social change in North Africa. Here's a video which points out Khomeinei, while in exile, distributed audio cassettes to raise support for his revolutionary ideas. Our generation recalls another revolutionary using video taped messages, as well as a network of websites, to disseminate his revolutionary (and hateful) ideas. Today - social media and other means of digital communication drive change - as argued in this article.

Listening, and being heard, are the two greatest callings in life. Now both blessedly easy to do - if you know how.

Dogeared

Saturday - cartoons, sunshine, guests and late nights

Dogeared

Kimura Custom Motorcycles - Zen and rpm

Marie Fleur Charnsworth - Fashion fotography for your daydreams

Young Madonna - damn (bless) modern marketing and it's idealization of youth

An Album based of the Garden of Earthly Delights* - Hieronymous Bosch? Sea chanty? Say no more!

painting via sylvia ji

*that's right 7793x4409

Judging by the ridiculous stop-motion ducks and their female drummer (!), I'm guessing Metronomy doesn't take themselves as seriously as this video might suggest. I'm a sucker for a bassline.

feeling fortunately

WABI SABI

WABI SABI

WABI SABI

I like to think of evanescence and transience. It seems to be where the action is - for good or ill.

Tsunami I can't even imagine what something like that would be. Listening to the Japanese people: they seem to have faith in their community, and themselves. So far they have displayed such courage, it makes me wonder if there is that much courage in America. I think so.

Rebuild. What will Japan become in the next 25 years? Will the singularity (if watching anime has taught me anything, it's that technology leads to giant robots destroying your city) emerge there? Akira (also possible)? Godzilla(which was a cautionary tale of technology and destruction)? Rebirth - I feel hope for Japan.

rum diaries

"There are times, however, and this is one of them, when even being right feels wrong. What do you say, for instance, about a generation that has been taught that rain is poison and sex is death? If making love might be fatal and if a cool spring breeze on any summer afternoon can turn a crystal blue lake into a puddle of black poison right in front of your eyes, there is not much left except TV and relentless masturbation. It's a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat shit and die." - Hunter S. Thompson, 1988

If you have to say it...

image via symbolic dimension

If you have to say you're not trying to be arrogant or provocative, you're probably arrogant and provocative. Still though - I agree with A.P.C. head designer Jean Touitou on most points, most especially Beckett's style, Bret Easton Ellis, and the importance of originality in art.

Jean Touitou, of A.P.C., Interview via wsj

"...only then was it time to disinter the archaic weapons of the tribe and sound the drums in the hills; or, more easily, to turn from the sunlit door and lie alone in the darkness, where the impotent painted deities paraded the walls in vain,, and cough his heart out among the rum bottles." - Evelyn Waugh

That far off feeling, an up close kind of ache - a widescreened reason to look the other way. So you're changing again, all your clothes, all your friends. A path that you paved over Indian graves and you wonder why your dreams are crazed. -Map of the World Monsters of Folk

How many more dramas seem to be happening. Oh - silent conversations; the multitude communes with the city. Overhead catenary wires are alive. The sky breathed springtime; time was flowing.

Green Tunnel

Green Tunnel from Kevin Gallagher on Vimeo.

For those without the perseverance and psychosis required to complete the Appalachian trek.

What you say and what you do.

beautiful photography by elizabeth brooke

art by thomas ehretsmann

beats by bot'ox

image via the guardian

Decay

Image via vandalog

Here we are; there we are going. My studies of development and culture have led me to the realization that no one has anything but a general idea of progress. There seems to be no far-reaching end goal; our handlers have a four year window in which to achieve measurable goals, after that, it is their successors responsibility. D'où Venons Nous / Que Sommes Nous / Où Allons Nous?

Perhaps we had the right idea thirty years ago, when we (Carl Sagan) just starting flinging our ideas into the 'cosmic ocean'. Is such far-reaching optimism wrong? Is it decay or folly? Well, as the Strokes say, you only live once, so might has well hurl yourself as far afield as your strength will allow.

Back from the dead are ghouls and flaming hearts - Downtown Music Festival and Blkmarket All nighter - fade to New York

A boy returns home not realizing how much he has changed -Ian Francis, at the Joshua Liner Gallery

Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire.

-Borges

An epic weekend approaches and I find myself unprepared. The wind swells and I drift along; life and death lacking from my life.

-LO

I'm Not in Love - Crystal Castles ft. Robert Smith, via gvsb

“And suddenly it’s evening”
by Salvatore Quasimodo (1901-1968)
translated by Gian Lombardo

Everyone’s always alone on the earth’s breast
pierced by a ray of sunlight:
and suddenly it’s evening

Ed è subito sera

Ognuno sta solo cuor della terra
traffito da un raggio di sole:
ed è subito sera

Tintin in the New World - Ray Lichtenstein, 1993 (via art21blog)

Heaven's on Fire - The Radio Dept.

Heart is Strange

Heart is Strange (Active Child Remix) - School of Seven Bells
via stereogum

Another weekend over and I'm already excited for the next, and the next. Once more I come into the new week with someone on my mind. Entirely preoccupied - and entirely happy.

Jumpin Jive From 'Stormy Weather'

Dogeared

Photography of Daniel Weiss - via theselvedgeyard

I Need You Now - Cut Copy

ShyScapes - By Misha Shyukin, via monsieurbandit

Movement - Dam Mantle, via gvsb

Adriana Lima - for Vogue Italia, via fashiongonerogue

Stylecaster undoubtedly hurt a lot of people's feelings with their listing of the 50 most stylish New Yorkers. I wonder what the Boston list would look like - could we even fill out a full 50?

School of Seven Bells - Half Asleep

Music Videos by Garth Jennings

A Song to Cheer You UP - Keep Shelly in Athens

via gorillavsbear.net

Watching Sanjuro, writing about Islam and the Internet

Assault with a Smile

There's inspiration everywhere - Sounds like my sound - how much are you for sale for?

Text Messages from last night: "Leave before the cops come."