Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father

Gromit Makes the World Go Round

Wallace and Gromit in 'A Matter of Loaf and Death'
Click here to watch (full)

We Love Stephen Sprouse Website & Interview with Marc Jacobs

As reported some time back, Louis Vuitton creative director Marc Jacobs has resurrected his previous collaboration alongside the late American fashion pioneer Stephen Sprouse, for a new 2009 lineup. With that release now waiting in the wing, an interactive website has become available featuring various aspects of Stephen Sprouse’s interaction with the fashion world as well as his work alongside world renown designer Marc Jacobs. Check it out at Welovestephensprouse.com.

Yay. Whip out those neon colors.

Source: Hypebeast

Tracy Chapman ft. Eric Clapton - Give Me One Reason (1988)

Uncertain Industry

Uncertain Industry: Angel's Bakery from Thirteen.org on Vimeo.

New York’s PBS Channel Thirteen has put together an interesting three part series called Uncertain Industry on the state of New York City manufacturing. Per the website: “New York City was once the capital of American manufacturing. In 1950, the city boasted nearly one million manufacturing jobs. By 2007 that number had dwindled to one hundred thousand. Today’s manufacturers face stiff competition, space constraints, and high real estate prices.”

It's just sad that the market just have no place for small businesses. They've got 2 more videos about the metal and umbrellas manufacturing industry in NY. Check Micheal William's post. 

Parra x Incase ‘Curated by Arkitip’ Video

Source: mashKulture

Simple and Clean

Band: Whitest Boy Alive

Song: Golden Cage

Hand-Drawn Animation: Geoff Mcfetridge

王菲 - 不留

I was listening to this album on my friend's car and it reminded me of home, because my Dad's a huge fan of Faye Wong's (王菲)... Went to her concerts, got her CDs, VCDs, and even youtube-d her... You see dedication when you see a 50+ man try on some new technology... Oh and this is healthy admiration, not some distorted obsession, by the way. Haha, he said he likes her voice and her 'take-it-or-leave-it' attitude.

Anyway, her last album was released in 2003 and last official concert was in 2005. Other than the appearance she made earlier this year for a fundraising effort for the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake, it is still uncertain whether she'll return to the music business. 

Elliott Smith

It's been 5 yrs since the passing of Elliott Smith, a singer whose sorely missed for his delicate lyrics and delivery.

"Waltz #2"

"Chris Garneau - Between the Bars (Elliott Smith cover)"

Source: Kitsune Noir

Lykke Li - Breaking It Up

Shot "in one take live in Stockholm" by Christian Haag.

Minilogue - Animals

Directed by Varelsen and Ljudbilden.

Source: Computerlove

I Met the Walrus

In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon’s hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview. This was in the midst of Lennon’s “bed-in” phase, during which John and Yoko were staying in hotel beds in an effort to promote peace. 38 years later, Jerry has produced a film about it. Using the original interview recording as the soundtrack, director Josh Raskin has woven a visual narrative which tenderly romances Lennon’s every word in a cascading flood of multipronged animation. Raskin marries traditional pen sketches by James Braithwaite with digital illustration by Alex Kurina, resulting in a spell-binding vessel for Lennon’s boundless wit, and timeless message.

June Taylor Jams

June Taylor has a respect for food that is becoming more and more rare these days...

An example of the lack of respect for food can be seen in a recent scandal in China, where diary products tainted "with the industrial chemical melamine has caused the death of four infants and sickened tens of thousands of others". It's easy to point the finger at capitalism (or even at China, which is commonly perceived as an 'inhumane', authoritative country) and say that all corporate producers care about is profits, profits, profits and could care less about people's wellbeing.

But I think it's also useful to think about how the profit-oriented capitalist system is contributing to our culture of food. Now, it's more common to view food in terms of its monetary cost, rather than its quality. But then there's the problem that it's not like people don't want to buy quality food, but they're just too expensive. Then there're the questions, "Why is our system set up in such a way that quality food is hard to purchase?" and "Are there other ways that we don't need to perpetuate this industrial food system?"

Read up! I recc Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma (Wiki, Excerpt of book). Interesting stuff to excite your brain juices.

But on a lighter note, haha this summer my older bro's ex-gf went to France. And to be nice to the family, she bought a jar of orange tea jam for our family of 5. It was so good + exotic that it was finished within 2 days. Haha and my mom told my brother to ask his then-gf if she had anymore. And she was like, '...No...I didn't know you guys will finish it that fast...It'll take me a whole semester to finish that jar...So I don't have anymore...' She doesn't understand that with a family of this size, you have to fight for food. There's the thinking that who ever's the slowest will just miss out, so that just perpetuates the system of food fighting and make the food disappear quicker, bla bla... Haha

Source: Cooling Hunting + Time

Elis Regina - Águas de Março

This performance was broadcasted in 1973, on a MPB Especial series called Ensaio. Check out the rest of the show here. I love the fact that she seemed to have enjoyed herself in the performance.

Similar to its predecessor, MPB (Brazilian popular music) was born out of an attempt to produce a Brazilian "national" music, thus revitalizing traditional styles. The beginning of MPB is often associated with Elis Regina´s interpretation of the mysterious Arrastão, by Vinícius de Moraes and Edu Lobo. The song was almost censored by Brazil's new ruling junta, because it told the story of a fisherman, while hauling in his nets, prayed to St. Barbara for aid. It was a story that hit a little too close to home for the everyday man.

Bob Dylan played another song of hers on his Theme Time Radio Hour, but recalled that by the end of her Arrastão rendition, Regina posed in a crucified position, with tears streaming down her eyes. This emotional song performance won her awards and widespread popularity in Brazil.

The earliest MPB borrowed elements of the bossa nova and often relied on thinly-veiled criticism of social injustice and governmental repression, being based on progressive opposition to the political scene characterized by military dictatorship, concentration of land ownership, and imperialism.

The conjuncture that created the MPB movement ceased to exist after 1969, but the acronym has survived, albeit with a less specific meaning. Transforming from a left-wing musical movement, MPB became the core of Brazil's urban middle-class music, and the term still indicates a certain aesthetic quality in modern Brazilian music.

First heard about Elis Regina on Dylan's radio show, he played a cover called "Aquarela Do Brasil" that she did with Jean Toots' Thielemans. It's a song that's really hard to find, butttt with my skilllzzz I've gotten hold of it! Just click on the link to the song.

You can learn a bit more about her here.

Source: Wiki + Dreamtime

Bon Iver & Lykke Li

Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago


Lykke Li - A Little Bit


Lykke Li feat. Bon Iver - Dance Dance Dance


Lykke Li once mentioned her appreciation for Bon Iver's music and maybe that somehow got them to perform together. YAY!

Source: Stereogum

João Gilberto & Caetano Veloso - O Pato

Well, haven't posted in a long while...but 27club commented on one of the entries and I was like, 'Damn, someone still reads this?!' So I've decided to do a couple more.. Haha I guess I need a little nudging...

Anyways, been learning a bit about history of Brazilian music, specifically the popularization of samba under the rule of Getulio Vargas in the 1930s-40s. He tried to promote nationalism through the use of radio and pop culture. Pretty awesome stuff - music as a political tool...

But I'm more into bossa nova and above is a video of João Gilberto (aka 'Father of Bossa Nova') and Caetano Veloso (an equally well-known musician... whom I know little about). It was a movement that lasted from the 1950s-60s.

Hope all is well.

JR JR JR

TRAILER " WOMEN ARE HEROES"
Uploaded by JR

'“Women are Heroes" project, a collaboration between JR and Médecins Sans Frontières.

Taking his trusty 28 millimeter lens, for the last year JR has been traveling to such countries as Sierra Leone, Liberia, Southern Sudan and Kenya, documenting the lives of a group of incredibly courageous women.

Now, on the occasion of International Women’s Day, the full documentation of the Women Are Heroes project is being launched on the web. And not surprisingly, the work is absolutely breathtaking.

This past Saturday, the faces of eight women were placed on walls across Brussels, where they will remain for a month.'

It's so easy to bitch... So easy. But when you compare your daily troubles with those of these women, women who can still bring themselves to put on smiles and funny faces, who are you to piss and moan?

Source: Wooster Collective

Look from Down Below

Click me!

Source: Fecal Face

Black Eyed Dog

"Heath Ledger had directed a relatively unseen video for Nick Drake's "Black Eyed Dog," a song titled after Winston Churchill's term for depression. Ledger created the video for an exhibition paying tribute to Drake's work ([whose life] was cut short by an antidepressant overdose [in 1974, at the age of 26]). In the time since, Heath's self-described "obsession" and unfortunate similarities with the singer-songwriter have been drawn out and explored, as has most every other detail speculative or otherwise of Ledger's life. Bits of the video are now available, bundled into this newscast circulating on YouTube. In it, Ledger directs himself spinning in a field and drowning in a tub."

At first I appreciated how the reporters provided some context for the video, but they just dragged on and on and on. Stop milking it.

Source: Stereogum

Accompanying Viddies

LOVE is a DESERTER


U R A FEVER


CHEAP and CHEERFUL