Souvenirs

Michael Hughes has a quirky little series going on Flickr called "Souvenirs," which involves superimposing cheesy tourist items (magnets, postcards, figurines, etc.) over their actual counterparts.

Kuler

Adobe Labs just released a fantastic web app called Kuler that allows users to create and share 5-color themes for any number of graphic design projects. When you're in edit mode, adjusting one color will automatically cause the other four to shift so that the set stays appropriately coordinated. Whee!

Doodle #1

DIY Dostoevskij

     

Penguin has just created a series called "My Penguin: Books by the Great, Covers by You" where readers can design their own book covers for Crime and Punishment, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Emma, and others. As prospective artists send in images of their work, Penguin is creating a gallery of the entries they receive. An entertaining -- if slightly alarming -- marketing strategy to up readership for Jane Austen (and certainly, she needs all the help she can get).

From the Sketchbook

(Inspired by a recent post over at NYTimes.com design director Khoi Vinh's blog, I think I'm going to start posting snippets from my architecture sketchbook now and then. Among the expected orthographic drawings and model sketches are cartoon giraffes and baby jellyfish that pop up from time to time...)

Jazz Sampling

I've been poring over my jazz collection recently and felt like sharing a few old favorites:

Jesse Sharps Quintet - Mike's Tune

Brad Mehldau - River Man (Nick Drake cover)

Modern Jazz Quartet - Vendome

Thelonius Monk - April in Paris

Happy Belated Thanksgiving

A Psych T.A. at Penn added "draw a turkey" on to the end of a recent test, and posted the results on Flickr.

The Executive Coloring Book

THIS IS MY TRAIN. It takes me to my office every day.
You meet lots of interesting people on the train. Color them all gray.

The snarky Executive Coloring Book is a quick and amusing read from the 1960's (as is evidenced by the "$100 a week" comment). And the bowler hats.

Guess The Logo

Think you're well-versed in the ways of the 'net? Test your ability to identify major site logos with www.guessthelogo.com. I am proud to say that I guessed each one correctly on the first try, with the exception of MySpace.

Whiteboard Stop Motion Animation

An E-mail Excerpt:

"On an unrelated topic, comedian Jeff Foxworthy has built a quite successful comedy career (including a TV sitcom that ran for a few years) built on the premise “you know that you're a redneck when...”. I think that I can now follow in his footsteps with “you know that you're over the hill when your college-age daughter tells you to go to bed before 11PM.” I was actually still up but didn't respond to avoid being lectured for breaking curfew. See you tomorrow!"

--My illustrious Father

Taxi Crash

(More photos up in my Flickr account.)

Mini-Gardening

As someone who a) lives in a 140 square foot room and b) has something of an unfortunate knack for killing flora, these miniature herb and plant kits are a beautiful little experiment in indoor gardening.

Egglings, from Elsewares, are small ceramic eggs filled with soil and seeds (thyme, flox, basil, or mint). Crack the egg's tip open, lightly water, and watch the seeds grow. (Window Box offers the identical product with flower seeds instead of herbs, in addition to a "Jumbo" eggling.)

Eco-Herbs from Branch are similar, but instead are packaged in biodegradable paper cups so that the entire plant--cup and all--can be dropped into your herb garden outside when the weather warms up.

Urban Outfitter's Micro Terrarium is a beautiful self-contained ecosystem--choices include cacti, a venus flytrap, and various flowering plants.

For Your Viewing Pain:

Specimen 1:
In which Michael Richards (Kramer from Seinfeld) flips out at a few audience members in the Laugh Factory with a series of choice racial slurs. Lovely.

And much, much worse...

Specimen 2:
In which an Iranian UCLA student is tasered five times by the campus police for refusing to produce his ID while inciting a riot no, wait, studying in the library.

Outsourcing Hits Journalism

Great. I have become completely superfluous.

(But I'm really going to be miffed when technology evolves to the point where photojournalists can be outsourced...)

International Poster Gallery

For anyone else also obsessed with French art nouveau posters, the International Poster Gallery offers a stunning selection of rare vintage posters and lithographs (not just French, though those are the ones that caught my eye).

The collection of war & propaganda posters is pretty extensive as well: these Spanish Civil War posters are beautiful.

They're fairly expensive -- but they're all originals each embossed with the original printer's mark.

Autumn in New York

Quote of the Week

Oh, silly Brits:

"There's a real lack of courtesy in the world," said Daniel, the hulking 6-foot-6 man dressed as Little John. "The world would be a better place if people were more courteous, but the English are very skeptical, so we decided to come to New York."

Spring 2007 Schedule

So excited!

VIET1101
Vietnamese II (4)
MW 10:15 a.m. - 11:55 a.m.

ARCH3101
Architectural Representation Studio: Abstraction (4)
MW 12:10 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.

ARCH3117
Perceptions of Architecture (3)
M 4:10 p.m. - 5:25 p.m.

AHUM3400
Colloquium on East Asian Texts (4)
T 11:00 a.m. - 12:50 p.m.

ARCHA4659 (GSAPP)
Philosophy of Materials & Structures (4)
T 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.

Oh, Eliot!

This, without doubt, is the sexiest photo I've ever seen.

In other New York political news, I passed the affable Bill Perkins on the street this afternoon, who was wearing a rakishly tilted fedora and looking vaguely lost.

Oneliners

Ronen Kadushin's Oneliners are elegantly minimalist foam chairs machine-cut in a series of sections with CAD software and an elaborate band saw.

According to Kadushin:

"The saw blade must enter the foam block, cut out the desired path and exit the block. This presents a design challenge where the product is designed as a continuous cutting line. Hence the collection’s title: Oneliners. The outcome is a complete product with no finishes or assembly needed. The design utilizes the foam’s elastic properties in thin sections and its constructive characteristics when it is thick, to design and produce soft chairs that bounce back to shape when not in use.

Beautiful!

Kiwi!

Dony Permedi's thesis animation project is kind of adorable.

Gothamist Job Search

I am very definitely applying to become a Gothamist food contributor as soon as I have a spare second. After I finish my architecture project. And an art history paper. And a Spectator proposal. Ack.

You Beheaded The Wrong GW...

Some genius broke the head off of a statue of George Washington that stands next to the altar in St. John the Divine, leaving a dollar bill (with the head of GW cut out) in its place.

From the Studio

A study model from my architecture class, made with basswood & glue.

UNIQLO Comes to SoHo

I cannot express how excited I am to stop by the recently-opened UNIQLO store in SoHo -- but for now, I'll be amused by the 24-hour time-lapse video (and ongoing live webcast) available of consumer traffic on their website...

Etchings

I came upon Matthew Tung's artwork while poking around Flickr... he has some lovely drypoint etchings and sketches up on his website. They're very moody and delicate -- definitely worth a look.

Lorem Ipsum Dolor Sit Amet

The Lorem Ipsum cuff from Veer is amazing,
and rather pretty (in a super dorky kind of way).

Flickr Tagging Pays Off

Woo! Gothamist ran one of my photos!

Amsterdam at Night

Donald Rumsfeld Resigns

Y'know, normally this news would make me ecstatic, but I'm almost afraid that his Bush-appointed successor will be even more terrifying...
UPDATE: According to the Chronicle of Higher Education's blog, Bush plans on nominating Texas A&M President Robert Gates.

"Document Democracy"

Grab your cameras, photojournalists, for the Polling Place Photo Project!

(And remember to vote!)

PhotoPlus Expo

I trekked down to the PhotoPlus Expo on Saturday to look at pretty pretty cameras, and stopped by the Canon stage to listen to NYTimes photographer Vincent Laforet speak.

Aside from being a completely amazing photographer (and teaching at the CU J-School!), Laforet embodies everything that I love about photojournalism. For him, the discipline is a fine art and an exact science, but above all a way to tell a story from a completely new angle (figuratively, literally, etc.). I think that some of his front page photos in the Times are among the most stunning visuals I've ever seen, both as art and as journalism.

Okay, done gushing. Go look at his site!

Jazz Pianist

Cardboard Faces

     

These are pretty amazing.

It's A Bad Sign When Your Lawyer Tells You "There's No Point"

Saddam Hussein sentenced to death by hanging.

Poloramas

Moo.com has recently started offering mini business cards made from crops of your Flickr photos. They're easy to customize, reasonably priced, and kinda cool. I ordered some last week and should have them soon, but in the meantime Flickr user John Ralston used his Moo cards to create "Poloramas": little rearrangeable scenes made from 15 beautifully hand-drawn sketches. Check out Set 1 and Set 2.

Bird's Eye View Required

For those of you still wondering what those orange lines running through the streets of downtown were, apparently it was just graffiti artist MOMO at it again -- this time actually tagging the entire island from west to east with his name.

Watch the video!

So, So Wrong

Adopt Your Own African Baby!