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a lot of people try to tell me that wizards aren't real but how the hell else can you explain something like this happening?

stefan - Apr 30 - 09:35 AM | reply (0)

nor am i color blind but why is this iphone not white, or rather, why isn't the iphone white ? overall, i am not sold on mac's black line. sure the black album was good, and the black apartment was oh so great but that laptop was looking dangerously like a pc to me, as close as a mac has ever dared. and now this phone. with offers as deeply soothing as a sea screen saver such as icons that are too explanatory, with too much stuff to be a good icon. icons that i like are straight and forward. and please what's with the sunflower, and it gets worst with the weather, and the maps. the map icon is more windows than ipod for sure, just as this phone fails at being a symbiosis of ipods. why are there little clouds on the mail icon? why does the compass seem so researched? but to my disbelief, these products are successful, the first has been keeping a nerd or two daydreaming for a while. i expect the iphone to attain great success too with wall street execs that are always so keen on design. after all they want to attract women and have sex with them, so they invest in a new phone but it doesn't work. i don't need another black and metallic phone so i'll go back to my daydreaming.

sebastien - Apr 30 - 09:22 AM | reply (0)

picture #8: good to see darth lucas still has finally grew a sense of humor regarding a certain bungling gungan.

stefan - Apr 30 - 09:20 AM | reply (0)

armed america is set to offer an incredible look into the lives of the estimated 50% of americans that own and keep firearms in their homes. i was going to make a joke about “preordering the book from amazon at gunpoint,” but i have strep throat right now, and the finer qualities of hilarity are lost in a sea of ‘tussin and ginger ale. cough cough.

charles - Apr 30 - 09:09 AM | reply (0)

not being a fast food consumer, i don't really know what i'm missing but apparently, not much... (via swissmiss)

stefan - Apr 30 - 08:57 AM | reply (0)

aaah, to peer into a child's eyes to finally understand all of the universe's mysteries... that's evidently what søren hald tried to do and arguably succeeded in. there are a lot of beautiful moments in his portfolio which is refreshing. moments, instead of photographs. quite beautiful.

stefan - Apr 30 - 08:43 AM | reply (0)

the mares arrive at the marketplace c. 60-90 minutes before the stallions at the the fickstutenmark. when the stallion has finished covering the mare, this mare is then available for covering by other stallions.

stefan - Apr 30 - 08:31 AM | reply (0)

the whole point of 2.0 is that sharing ideas and content can be beneficial, rewarding, empowering and everything else thats inherently right with sharing knowledge. its a blessing when done properly, when you’ve got your delicious and your flickr and last fm all kicking ass at the same time. of course, larger corporations here about how “sharing” is the shit and they want to throw their giant ass hat in the ring to turn a few heads. unfortunately for nokia, i don’t think the market for kids looking to share their emotions via rotating flower-sculptures even exists.

stefan - Apr 30 - 08:17 AM | reply (0)

oh boy, that's it, it had to happen someday... i can't think of one bloody thing to tell you this morning. don't look so relieved!

let's see, friday night, i met a fetching girlfriend of mine from london in a nice bar in the middle of hell; the dove is an uncharacteristically nice bar in a neighborhood (bleeker street) that i would normally avoid at any cost, save for this little gem. with airs of victorian velvet and good service, it stands out in this nabe which is filled with tourist and bridge-and-tunnel-based watering holes in which jugs of beer are easily purchasable. then it was on to meeting gary and the good people of the new york collective who were celebrating the signing of a new fantastic project (more on that at some point if they let me...) at yama where my young, red-dressed friend made quite an impression on the sea of boys lined up at the sushi bar. good edamame, competent inside-out rolls, nothing to win awards over. then gary and i headed to the newly one-starred mcnally foray into the italian countryside morandi and we were both highly disappointed. keith mcnally is one of the entrepreneur who, much like andré balazs, doesn't get much wrong. but i think this was wrong, all wrong and not for the reasons mcnally i thought could ever be wrong about. lucky strike, balthazar, pastis and schiller's liquor bar have in common that their faux-thenticity™ is realized fully and to perfection. i lived in paris most of my life and i can tell you that those places reflect the feel of a parisian brasserie with more realism than even at la coupole. every detail has been slaved over, from the found giant mirrors to the paint used to scribble the raw bar menu on them to the vintage branding colors, mcnally has an eye for context and everything else (yes, even food) comes second, and it works marvels because you feel like you have escaped to a new world. at morandi however, with its criminally low ceiling, distracting floor tiles and ubiquitous unfinished wood (complete with sloppy and apparent wood putty), it just didn't feel like, what i can only hope was the goal, an intimate place. the basket wine all over made the place feel cheap and very much like what those crazy disney imagineers might come up with for their version of an italian restaurant. and that's exactly how we felt, like we were on a ride.

saturday morning at 11am, i met up with our old friend david for one good-old fashioned movie marathon: 4 movies, rushing from theater to theater and enjoying the best hollywood has to offer. see, i don't get to the movies much and that's the only way i can catch up. david had picked the movies this time and jamie kennedy's kickin' it old skool was up first. i could do it, couldn't even go in, jamie kennedy people, no one can take that at 11am! so instead we went to see what should have been standard fare in the bruce willis, halle berry thriller perfect stranger which, as the rating explained, promised nudity and sexual behavior. when ms. berry's involved, i assume that would be a breakfast fit for any man on a saturday morning. but, no zilch, nothing, just a piece of shit with phoned-in performances, script and pictures of some naked girl, pictures! if you can't count on your rating's board who can you count on these days? (why'd you have to go jack?!) anyway, next was hot fuzz for which i had great hopes having had an uprorious time at shaun of the dead but i was greatly let down by the direction of the film with its over-parodying of the cop-on-a-mission genre. next came one of the worst movies i've ever seen (david, i'm going to need those 2 hours back,) year of the dog, a pro-peta manifesto fit for suicidal housewives. ho-rri-ble! and last, i tought will ferrell would save the day with blades of glory but, alas, only half of me laughed with the other thinking that now all comedies will try to replicate this new genre of ironic laughter at the expense of beloved sports (see forthcoming balls of fury) and will inevitably fall short. all in all, a wonderful day, i mean that, i love the movies!

saturday night was michele's birthday and we went to gonzo, a pizzeria she favors and where they make that fancy thin crust which is, in theory, supposed to highlight the ingredients used on top but in reality, in the end, just leaves you hungry. gina and i got her that hot marc jacobs pan am weekender filled with orange mini-cocottes from staub because she love cooking small portions and we love her, so there, that worked out well. from there, it was on to lotus and finally bob where the funk was on tap and the girls were getting sweaty which was pretty much a win-win for me.

the next day, bread called my and nicole's name for brunch which i heartily recommend any day of the week, it just keeps getting better. after that, a wonderful visit to earnest cut & sewn netted gina some wonderful asstastic denim short shorts which will get some use in and outside the house and zo got lucky with some jeans that compliment his 4-year-old frame in a way he'll only be able to thank me for years from now as he waives from his float.

like i said, really did nothing this weekend, but if you find yourself in new york this summer, i'd say that's a pretty good itinerary... oh, and you'll need some tunes:

kate havnevik
charlotte gainsbourg
peder
the album seal
filmotheque
jazz love spirit
bebl gilberto
avishai cohen

stefan - Apr 30 - 08:04 AM | reply (1)

right there are two of my most cherished influences, orson welles and bernard herrmann. the former is obvious as he is one of our official muses but the latter, you may not be familiar with even though his melodies have probably haunted your hearts many times over. you know, inspiration is an odd thing, one never knows where it comes from, some say the heart, some say the lord, others say genes but i prefer to imagine that there's a jiminy cricket inside all of us that, once activated, feeds us ideas we think are ours. and herrmann's jiminy was dark and brooding and extremelly active.

from citizen kane to vertigo to taxi driver, the man was prolific to the point of indecency and his inspiration kept on coming whether he had a portly and amusing british director or a boy-genius from kenosha, wisconsin in front of him. famously ill-tempered when a situation did not suit him, he would storm out of rooms he did not feel welcome in and go back to his room to write. impetuous genius... no wonder what came out of the room was often worrysome, who knows what he would do in there, whose gods he would invoke in the name of inspiration.

if you are not familiar with his work, you could start with the wonderful collection of suites from esa-pekka salonen and the l.a. philharmonic (iTunes link) which will give you a small yet potent first lesson in the art of composing for film. not often can you really see a film in your mind's eye while listening to scores as they are often to bland to truly reach their visual goals. not true with danny elfman, not true with john williams and especially not with the bespectacled mr. herrmann.

i once heard it said that idolatry merely connects a part of you with a part of your idol that you recognize as available in you and if that's the case, boy am i doing well... anyway, have a fantastic weekend and i'll see you monday!

stefan - Apr 27 - 11:22 AM | reply (0)