NaBloPoMo

For the die-hard bloggers out there (or, alternately, for people who lack the time & motivation to participate in NaNoWriMo), Fussy.org brings you NaBloPoMo.

Farewell, Print Journalism, We Hardley Knew Ye

The New York Post now has a higher daily circulation than The Washington Post.

Excuse me while I go cry in a corner.

From Nexus Productions

This spot for Orange is one of the most wonderful ads I have ever seen.

Elsewhere in Adland, this ad for an Ariston washing machine is beautiful, as is the older French Citroen commercial.

Vormator

For any illustrators out there, Vormator is holding a cute design competition that involves creating a masterpiece from the above eight shapes. Once the contest ends, 100-150 of the best entries will be compiled into a design book. Now, to find a copy of Adobe Illustrator...

Bring Back the Third Column

I really don't know about this Gothamist redesign...

Animal Testing

Pretty effective ad campaign from Freedom for Animals. Click on the images for a larger version.

Fun With Cutlery

As a nice followup to my last entry, I've always been fascinated by one particular artist who always stations himself outside of the Met with jewelry and figurines made from forks. The just-too-high pricetags have stopped me thus far from purchasing any (though his collection of fork-musicians is delightful), but when I ran into someone selling spoon bracelets and rings in Union Square this morning, I decided to poke around a bit on the web.

Fork-Art.com boasts an impressive collection of statuettes (the dragon is fairly amazing), with everything from penguins to dentists. The jewelry is beautiful as well, though slightly uncomfortable looking. Slightly more understated are the spoon rings that I've been seeing everywhere lately, and this DIY coin ring would be worth experimentation if only I had a dremmel. Darn.

Don't Forget to Recycle

I've recently become a big fan of jewelry and other household objects constructed from recycled materials, like these vinyl cuffs made from old LP records. (Elsewares also sells record bowls made from warped LPs, but Deborah Merlo's DIY version is just as good (and more exciting). Other items from Elsewares include these beer & soda can bracelets, bowls made from ticket reels, and street sign coasters. I suppose the real question is how hard it would be to make some of these products yourself, for a fraction of the price...

Photography Links

This is a year old, but I just saw it for the first time and found it interesting: the ASME released the top 40 magazine covers of the last 40 years.

A $20 DIY pinhole camera from Fred Flare.

And while you can easily do the same thing yourself in PhotoShop, the Poloaroid-o-nizer is a cute little photo tool.

Blank CDs for £10?

"In an audacious and unprecedented move, Superthriller proposed to sell a fully artworked and exquisitely packaged, yet entirely blank CD for £10. So far, so bad. But rather than being a cold hearted scam, The Blank Album offers Superthriller fans access to a world of new material, B-sides, remixes and outtakes, and the chance to tailor the album to their own specifications."

While it seems unnecessarily roundabout, this is a pretty clever idea.

Veer.com

I recently stumbled upon Veer while searching for pretty fonts on the 'net, and was absolutely fascinated by Sam Buxton's Mikro-Man sculptures, which are essentially business-card-sized plates of stainless steel that unfold into miniature works of art. Beautiful.

Other oddities in their online store include the wonderfully dorky Lorem Ipsum and Baseline t-shirts, as well as this surprisingly attractive tape dispenser.

And! In addition to selling fonts, stock photography, illustrations, and video footage, Veer also maintains a pretty little blog with design tips and ideas. Definitely worth a look.

Time Lapse

A small study from my studio architecture class.

Matchsticks

Oh. My. God.

Wall Decor Ideas

These wall applications are simple adhesive plastic shapes that can be stuck to walls/doors/just about anywhere in pretty patterns. Would get some for dorm, but the "These applications are permanent and may damage your wall, door or the product if removed" note made me think twice.

Design your own wall graffiti! Well, not really (they're more like carefully printed phrases), but it's still a cool concept.

And this chaotic bookshelf may not be too practical, but boy is it pretty.

The Nation

Hey, The Nation is running one of my photos!

From E.

New toy!

Yes, I Have A Kitchenware Fetish

Reason #7624 why I adore Williams Sonoma:

Hot chocolate, with its rich taste and alluring aroma, is a wintertime treat like no other. This ceramic pot from Bonjour makes it easy to prepare the classic drink using a microwave oven. The pot comes with an automatic frother that whips hot milk and shaved chocolate into a creamy, decadent homemade treat in minutes. Just fill the ceramic pot with milk, heat it in the microwave and add chocolate syrup, shavings, chips or powdered cocoa. Then set the lid in place, insert the frother and mix to perfection!

Blog of the Week

For quick and quirky DIY ideas and other design news, check out ReadyMade magazine's blog. Recent examples range from how to construct a miniature trebuchet (y'know, in case you need to launch small stones at pigeons from the safety of your windowseat) to reusing gutter pipes as bookshelves. The archives of the magazine itself are worth a look as well -- especially their current "small spaces" issue that is something of a must-read for any Manhattan resident.

The NYPD Was Having A Slow Day

I mean, I'm all for locking this guy up, but isn't that entrapment?!

Mix of the Week

01 Brad Mehldau - River Man
02 Vienna Teng - Blue Caravan
03 Devendra Banhart - Now That I Know
04 Liz Phair - Listen Here
05 Born Heller - The Left Garden
06 Cafe Tacuba - Las Flores
07 The Falsies - Judy and the Dream of Horses
08 Regina Spektor - Summer in the City
09 The Decemberists - Sons and Daughters
10 Seu Jorge - Una Mujer
11 Cat Power - The Greatest
12 Beck - Devil's Haircut
13 The Mountain Goats - I Will Grab You By the Ears
14 Iron & Wine - Bird Stealing Bread
15 Sufjan Stevens - Sister
16 Ani DiFranco - Glass House
17 Django Reinhardt - Swing
18 Dave & Tim - When the World Ends

Don't Forget the Gummi Bears

You can never go wrong with Toothpaste For Dinner.

Mmm, Camera Porn

For those of you unfamiliar with tilt-shift lenses (photo courtesy of wvs), this explanation from Jake Dobkin of Gothamist illuminates everything nicely:

"Real architectural and fine arts photographers use Tilt/Shift lenses to avoid problems with converging lines and false perspective. These problems occur when you tilt the camera up towards the top of the building or scene to capture the entire subject. To avoid converging lines, the film plane (or back plane of the digital camera) should be parallel to the front of the building, and the camera should be positioned exactly halfway up the face of the building. This is great if you have a cherry-picker, but if you are standing on the ground, even a 6' tripod is still not going to get the height you need to avoid the distortion. Enter the Tilt/Shift lens. It allows you to shift the lens up while keeping the back of the camera parallel to the scene, and thus avoiding the distortion."

Basically, they're amazing. But for those of us who aren't quite ready to drop $1100 on a lens (though they can be easily rented for about $35 a day), this PhotoShop tutorial is actually quite effective if applied carefully.

Studying

Go Fly a Kite (Or Ten)

"Researchers in Italy have high hopes for a new wind-power generator that resembles a backyard drying rack on steroids. Despite its appearance, the Kite Wind Generator, or KiteGen for short, could produce as much energy as a nuclear power plant."

Oooh, pretty!

Art Opening on October 19

If you live in NYC and you're free next Thursday night, come to Gallery Viet Nam in Tribeca for the opening of artist Le Van Tri. In addition to being a brilliant painter, he was my art teacher for several years and is finally bringing his work to the U.S. after having shows throughout Europe and Asia. Stop by at the reception to meet the artist and have a glass of wine.

Gallery Viet Nam [ MAP ]
Thursday, October 19
6 - 9 p.m.

ФОТОГРАФИИ

The Russian photographers at 500px are pretty good. If only I could read Cyrillic...

Next She'll Be Struck By Lightning

Good grief, this woman never catches a break.

Pirate Riddles for Sophisticates

This has been circulating on the 'net for a while, but it's an old favorite of mine and McSweeney's doesn't get nearly enough play.

Q: What's a pirate's favorite aspect of computational linguistics?
A: PARRRsing sentences.

Q: Of which concept shared by Jungian psychology and Northrop Frye's literary theory are pirates especially fond?
A: ARRRchetype.

Q: Who's a pirate's favorite member of the creative team behind "32 Short Films About Glenn Gould"?
A: Don McKellARRR.

Q: Of all of Richard Harris's many achievements in the performing arts, which is a pirate's favorite?
A: "MacARRRthur PARRRk."

Q: What's a pirate's favorite alliance-creating diplomatic agreement from the Second World War?
A: The TripARRRtite Pact.

More tongue-in-cheek silliness here.

30% Off Everything

Pretty damn brilliant ad campaign by Saatchi & Saatchi.

On Assignment, Kind Of

It's been a big news month, to say the least.

Yesterday was no exception. When I heard that a small plane had crashed into a building in the Upper East Side, a fellow Spectator photographer and I grabbed our gear and rushed out the door into the pouring rain.

For the most part, massive amounts of water and cameras do not mix well, and thus my photos all turned out to be fairly blurry/waterlogged (I was initially really worried that water had even managed to get into my camera and mess with the sensor, but all appears to be back to normal now). Anyway, while none of my photos of the building on E. 72nd Street turned out particularly well, I liked this one salvageable shot of various media outlets gathered on 74th Street trying to find a line of sight to the building's 30th floor.

Checkmate

Speed chess in Grand Central.

300

Generally speaking, I have a strong aversion to Hollywood-bastardized cinematic retellings of the ancient classics. Mention Troy, for instance, and I will launch into a 30-minute tirade on why Brad Pitt should have died minutes into the film, how a 10 year war cannot possibly last for two weeks, and why Paris shouldn't get his way just because he's played by Orlando Bloom (who really only looks good with long blonde hair).

Anyway.

As much as the movie industry alarms me when they get their hands on classical history, I am actually exceedingly excited for 300, mostly because 1. it's Frank Miller, people, and 2. I suppose since there's no conventional epic foundation anyway, there exists no story line to utterly ruin -- only historical accounts about the Battle of Thermopylae to distort, at the worst.

Watch the trailer. The graphics are stunning, although I'm slightly bothered by the typeface at the end that makes "300" look more like "ZOO."

Sunset on 96th Street

From Tiffany's to Louis Vuitton

New Frank Gehry building planned for Paris!

Spam, Beans, and Really Big Flowers

Found Leo Bridle while surfing YouTube ... pretty impressive, I thought. Check out some of his other films, like the quirky and beautiful Still Life With Flowers.

On Assignment

Minuteman Protestors Rush Stage
Columbia Daily Spectator

Protestors took the stage less than five minutes after Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project, took the microphone in Roone Arledge Wednesday night, sparking a chaotic brawl involving more than 30 students, other attendees, and guests of the College Republicans.



And in the media orgy that has exploded since Wednesday:

NYTimes: Columbia Investigating Protest That Stopped Speaker

NYTimes: Silencing of a Speech Causes a Furor

LA Times: Minuteman Founder Forced From N.Y. Stage

Daily News: Minuteman College Talk Gets Violent

NY Sun: At Columbia, Students Attack Minuteman Founder

Original liveblogging of the event from the BWOG: Minuteman Mobbed

In addition, FOX News (on both the O'Reilly Factor and Hannity & Colmes), ABC, and MSNBC have also jumped on the bandwagon.

Easy As Pi

What.

A New Look for the NY Post

The New York Post has a new and vastly improved website. It's still sleazy and horrible and gossipy as ever, of course -- but that's why we love it so.

Infer What You Will

Discuss.

What Every High School Dean Has Been Waiting For

Another argument for ending early admission.

Oh, the Possibilities!

First they provided wireless in Bryant Park, now will Google spread free wi-fi to all of Manhattan?

Post Secret

Though Post Secret's postcards have gotten increasingly morbid as of late, I thought one of today's batch was cute.