New Mix (part one)
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Monday, December 29, 2008
Bird Turds #26
• Finally, right? Also, the second color treatment for "The Constant Gardener" strip after the jump.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Sunday, November 02, 2008
"I Want To Read, And I've Never Said That Before"
•Today's subject line is a quote from my man Jush, who, along with my two other readers, has wanted a "Curtains For You, Kid" update for quite some time now.
About the picture: it's taken from the Ivan Brunetti chapter of that book In the Studio that I can't shut up about. As you may have gathered, it's a miniature biography of movie producer Val Lewton. See, I just finished watching thirty-one straight days of horror movies, and about the only ones I can stand are the ones made by Val Lewton. I Walked With a Zombie is probably my favorite. But whatever. Here's the Flickr page.
• Paraphrased from a strangely irate B-Rett:
'How is it that we're in an economic crisis when the economy can support at least five magazines that come out every month solely devoted to RC helicopters? And there's a bunch more that just deal with the Civil War! How can you fill a shitload of different magazines with news about something that happened 150 years ago?'
I'm not sure what set him off about this, or what it has to do with the economy, but I'm certain that you'll be able to find many more observations like this one when Biscuit finally starts his own blog, tentatively titled "Videogames and Stuff I See on E-Bay."
• It's way cooler that Terry Tate's back than it is that CFYK's back, by the way.
• I am right now, and at long last, finishing up Bird Turds #25. In the meantime, though, there's this other thing I made after the jump.
(Flickr page here.)
• So I guess I'm a Pistons fan now. Which is way the hell easier than it was being a Nuggets fan. (And, yeah, way the hell easier than being a fan of the Kansas City Chiefs.)
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Sort of Homeless Once Again
• Above: A little flowchart I made for Vulcan Video. It's rough 'cause it's a rough draft. (Original Flickr jam here.)
• Paraphrased telephone conversation between Jush and The Devil Himself, October 2, 2008
TDH: The thing about it is, like, I have some time to kill. But it's just enough time to not have time to really do anything. But too much time to do nothing.
J: I bet you have enough time to update your damn blog. It's been like a month.
TDH: For real? A month?
J: Maybe not a month. But like three solid weeks.
• So, yeah. Sorry about that. I am a little bit transient at the moment, having just moved out of my apartment, and waiting to move into the new place. I do, however, have a good feeling in the form of a suspicion that increased productivity is on the way. Right now, though, I am blogging at a coffee shop, which is about the lamest thing you can do with an afternoon.
• CFY,K hero Paul Pope's clothing line for DKNY finally came out. And I don't know. I could see rocking the hoodie, but I'm holding out for the Heavy Liquid hardcover and in the meantime holding it down for regular old black tee shirts.
• Anyway, like I said: There'll be more - I'm hoping a lot more - soon. In the meantime I'm waiting for B-Rett's official commentary on tonight's Vice Presidential debates.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Reading A Lot Lately
• A while back, a co-worker of mine was talking about how much better of a movie The Constant Gardener would have been if it had actually been about a guy who constantly gardens. So. I drew a little comic about it. (Original Flickr page here.)
• More (read: "Legit") comic news: I finally got my hot little hands on "Love and Rockets: New Stories #1," and it, to say the least, did not disappoint. I don't know what to say about it other than that.
I mean. There's more to say. Like. About the tightening of Jaime's drawing style versus the loosening of his writing. And how the opposite appears to be happening with his brother Beto. But, you know. If you're a fan of Love and Rockets, then you're going to read New Stories #1 regardless of anything I'm going to tell you. And if you're not a fan, then you're going to have to pick through like 25 years of back issues before that kind of observation makes any difference to you whatsoever.
• Yesterday I received the new Neal Stephenson book, Anathem, in the mail. Because OD rules.
I'm not one of those guys who has read everything that Neal Stephenson has ever written. I have, though, read The Baroque Cycle and it's precursor Cryptonomicon. All these books are long as hell. So. Even though I haven't read everything that he ever wrote, Neal Stephenson is probably the writer that I've read the most pages of in my life. Which is weird.
Following The Baroque Cycle, which dealt primarily with Stephenson's large scale re-imagining of the history of technology and commerce on Earth, Anathem is kind of a curveball, as it, so far, deals with monastic civilizations on a planet separate from our own. By which I mean to say: Neal's on some sci-fi shit.
That's fine with me. I'm not the biggest sci-fi guy in the world, but I respect mastery as much as I do not respect genre fiction / literary fiction distinctions, and Neal Stephenson is that dude. So. I'm willing to not resist, as a reader, some science fiction.
That said, early and often in Anathem, a reader is inundated with all kinds of new vocabulary concocted and cataloged in a glossary by Stephenson in order to describe, among other things, historical events and architectural elements on the planet Arbe. As willing as I am to follow Stephenson's stories, the verbiage of the early pages of the book coupled with a series of complicated descriptions of structures - using heavily, of course, many of those words created by Stephenson in order to describe them - interspersed with nonchalant allusions to the history of his fictional planet, had me worried.
Shit, I was thinking, I hope Mr. Stephenson hasn't gone and written his Silmarillion.
Because, see, I view The Silmarillion as kind of an unintentional warning for science fiction and fantasy writers to not take the imagining of alternate worlds to the limit. (I am not a fan of Tolkien, but I have certainly known plenty of Tolkien fans in my life and not a single one of them has ever been able to plow through the totality of that thing.)
Now, having gotten a little futher along in Anathem, it occurs to me that I shouldn't have been so apprehensive. My favorite thing that Stephenson does with his writing is the showcasing of his uncanny insight into complex systems. He has the ability to describe them in terms that make them simple to understand without reducing them. In Cryptonomicon - my pick for the best book with the nerdiest title maybe ever - he does this both with the way codebreakers do their work as well as with the military chain of command. (And, you know, a dozen more times.)
There is a paragraph in Anathem, on page 41, in which Stephenson discusses an in-book historical figure, Proc, who is a kind of metaphysician:
"... Proc was the leading figure in a like-minded group called the Circle, which claimed that symbols have no meaning at all, and that all discourse that pretends to mean anything is nothing more than a game played with syntax, or the rules for putting symbols together. ..."
With this sentence, Stephenson has sold me my ticket. He has not only distilled, pretty much, the essence of what all those weirdoes are talking about when they discuss postmodern literary theory into a relatively simple statement, but he has also demonstrated, to me, that he may well be using the world that he has created within Anathem not as a self-contained thing, but as a commentary on the world in which he, the author, lives.
Saturday, September 06, 2008
That, Plus Word Jumbles, Comics, and Coupons
• Above, the Mystery Lady enjoys a digital sunset. (The Flickr page for this image? Right here, buddy.)
• Notes from the couple of art exhibits I've attended recently:
- Kehinde Wiley is a badass.
- Fahamou Pecou's deal where he paints these gigantic images of himself on the covers of various magazine is an ingenious ploy. I remember I heard about him when the Fader gave him some press after he, you know, made a painting of himself on the cover of the Fader.
- At the "Reset/Play" show at Arthouse, I saw an installation piece that made me think that if there's a market for this sort of thing, then B-Rett has all the materials necessary to become like the next Jeff Koons.
• From the "It's Fun to Pretend that You Care" file: I am, despite evidence to the contrary, hard at work on making new comic-type work for your enjoyment and perusal. In fact, I had a creative meeting with one S. Higginbotham today, so there should be a bunch of stuff pretty soon.
• I'm not big on blogs as written by celebrities, but I have decided to make an exception for Bai Ling's blog for the following reasons: 1. I don't know who Bai Ling is. 2. Her blog is either as unintentionally hilarious as Battlefield Earth or she's a secret genius. My favorite post so far is "I llook. Like a little sexy fox...... [sic]"
• Football season has started. So. Get used to "stories" like this "printed" here on CFY,K:
"Don't Fret, B-Rett"
While, yes, you just lost your number one stunner fantasy QB for the season, I wouldn't worry too much about it, especially if you can get Matt Cassel. Anybody with that much time in the pocket and Randy Moss to throw to is going to put up serious points every week. Also, if I was a betting man, I'd say that the Patriots may well sign recently-retired Daunte Culpepper. (Especially since mere moments after concocting this theory, I found out that it has legs on Wikipedia.)
Monday, September 01, 2008
Stay Low and Keep Firin'
• I don't know what it is, but I haven't been able to think of a new Bird Turds in a couple of weeks now. So, for the moment, you'll have to make do with dumb little pictures like the one above. (Original Flickr page here.) Also: today's post, as per usual, is pretty disjointed.
• So like I was saying, the Mystery Lady got me that book Maps and Legends. I had wanted the book since I first saw it, based on its incredible dust jacket, designed by Jordan Crane. I have, yes, literally judged this book by its cover, because I've never seen anything like it.
{Editorial Note: The following critique isn't an attempt by me to - if you don't mind another cliché - look a gift horse in the mouth. My favorite presents are like these, the ones that provoke examination and critical thought.}
The thing about Maps and Legends is that the essays in it are good. That dude Michael Chabon is no joke. What's more: I agree with him most of the time.
It's just, like. Let's imagine that Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines had been a good movie. It wasn't, really, but whatever. If Terminator 3 had followed The Terminator, it might've worked out, but it didn't. It followed Terminator 2: Judgement Day, an action movie that, in its day, changed the game. So. What I'm saying is is that even if Terminator 3 had been good, it would have had to have been as revolutionary as its immediate predecessor to be a success.
While Terminator 3 was, at least in my opinion, not a good movie, Chabon's writing in Maps and Legends is quite good. But it does sort of suffer from not being as mind-blowingly great as its cover, which, to me, not so much as a reader but as a consumer, immediately precedes the text.
On the other hand: Having read most of the essays in Maps and Legends, I am now aware of their quality. By which I mean, knowing what I know now, I would read the book whether or not Jordan Crane's cover was part of the deal. Initially, though, I would probably have never read any part of Maps and Legends had it not been for the cover. So. Either Jordan Crane has created a promise with his cover that, really, no writer could hope to fulfill for a reader, or he has simply created, like, the most effectively seductive dust jacket ever. Both, probably.
• On the strength of the following paraphrased statement, I think long-time reader B-Rett ought to be the official CFY,K political correspondent:'I might have to vote for John McCain now so that the stripping teacher from Varsity Blues will be the VP.'
• I remember a while back I was all whiny about - maybe my favorite "sequential artist" - Paul Pope's lack of content. I would like to now take this opportunity to once again tell Past Self to keep it because Pope's photostream is killing shit right now.
• I have always generally sucked at videogames, particularly Goldeneye-style death match joints. So I guess when I went to my dude Will's birthday Blazertag extravaganza, I should have known that my Oddjob-emulating Chuck Berry duckwalk strategy would only leave me miserably defeated. Alas.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Breathed On Wrong
• This is the view from outside my work. The cigarette view. I don't know if you can tell from this photo, but I love it because it looks like a real-life version of a streetscape that either Dan Clowes or Chris Ware might have drawn, in that everything is all soothingly geometrical and muted.
• You may have noticed the link down there for the Bird Turds site. It's, um. "In beta." I am now accepting ideas as to what to do with it and how to make it good. Either here or there.
• Speaking of Chris Ware, though, the other day The Mystery Lady bought for me a Quimby the Mouse figure and - and - that book Maps and Legends! She's the best ever.
• So, a while back, in issue #46, The Fader had this great Vinyl Archeology feature called "The End," in which Jimmy Tamborello - of Dntel and Postal Service fame - discussed, like, great songs to die to. (Looking at his website, it seems like he has remained pretty involved with that theme.) It's one of my favorite articles they've ever published, and not only because he's super spot-on with his selections. (Brian Eno's "An Ending (Ascent)?" Jack Nitszche's "Starman Leaves?" Come on. Those are perfect dying songs.) As a concept, it's a great conversation to have.
The other day me and the Rai Chile were talking about it, and he was like:
'Off the top of my head, that song that's playing in the background when Cameron does that 'When Cameron was in Egypt's land, let my Cameron go' thing would be a great song to die to.'
And thus began a search for what the hell that song is called that has lasted, so far, like 48 total hours.
I'm not talking about the lyrics. They come from "Go Down Moses." What I'm looking for is a full-length version of the lovely synth instrumental that plays behind the vocals. At this point I kind of doubt that such a thing exists, a suspicion shared by synth-guru Holotone, who cites the addition of harmonizing vocals as evidence that it's probably an incidental selection made by either Arthur Baker, Ira Newborn, or John Robie, the guys credited with providing original music for the movie.
Two final things about this:
1. You'd think that a guy like myself, who seriously based his whole life on Ferris Bueller's Day Off for many, many years would own a copy of the shit on DVD. Or, failing that, that if that same guy now worked at a video store, you'd think he'd at least have access to it. But I don't own it, and it's always checked out, so I can't do the simple thing and just check the damn credits.
2. The good thing about any worthwhile-yet-unsuccessful internet search is all the shit that you unintentionally find along the way. Like this original script I came across, which has a ton of dialog that didn't make the final cut. My favorite part:FerrisMy uncle went to Canada to protest the war, right? On the Fourth of July he was down with my aunt and got drunk and told my Dad he felt guilty he didn't fight in Viet Nam. So I said, "What's the deal, Uncle Jeff? In wartime you want to be a pacifist and in peacetime you want to be a soldier. It took you twenty years to find out you don't believe in anything?"(snaps his fingers)Grounded. Just like that. Two weeks.(pause)Be careful when you deal with old hippies. They can be real touchy.
It's like the search for the fuckin' Philosopher's Stone, only on like a way insignificant level.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
