Multimedia - NY Times "One in 8 million"

In the old news category, here's something I discovered that I had missed when it happened in 2009.

The NY Times did this awesome photo+audio series about real people in NY talking about themselves and their lives. It's called "One in 8 million". You may have heard of it because it won an emmy in the "New approaches to documentary" category in 2010. 


I'm not going to rip the audio from their site, but here are 4 people with their profile pictures to give you an idea...
They're all interesting character studies, probably of interest to anyone studying people, or interested in representing people in fiction. Click here to start exploring this interesting project and begin meeting some of the 54 people depicted in it.
Also, if you're into that kind of thing the way I am, you gotta dig all those awesome accents!

"To play for people is everything. When they come to you they are suddenly in this world you've created"

"She asked me what kind of plant it was so I said it was an eggplant, and she said, "So that where we get our eggs from?" and that's when I noticed a lot of kids in NY don't know where their food comes from you know?"

"Sometimes when I cook I don't taste... I just know."

"And a woman said, "I know you, you're an actress...""

Photography - Katie Hosmer

A while back, doing my daily run through My Modern Met (very nice website by the way), I came across a post by Katie Hosmer, I thought I'd share the contents of the post with y'all, but whilst digging around about the OP (original poster) I found out she was a professional photographer in her own right, and as I perused her galleries, I found out that I rather liked her pictures better than what I was originally going to post about! So check out Katie Hosmer's work like these:

Hit up her MyModernMet profile and her photography website (specifically the galleries) to find out more about her!

Art - Mengyu "Jenny" Chen

So this neat artist/photographer/designer/all-around-creative person is getting around the net...
Her name is Mengyu "Jenny" Chen. Her website is here.

I first saw her work over on laughingsquid, and she's been cropping up all over the place for the following gifs:

 Which are all neat, but there's a lot more cool stuff on her website.

She's apparently a part of a project to save the last Polaroid production plant to keep instant photography alive. So they made ads for magazines that are to be realized on card-stock imitating the look and feel of actual Polaroids, here's one below.

Or you could check out her illustrations:

Or her photography, or crafts etc.
Basically, check out her website, you might enjoy it!

By the way. New mail link is on the top left.
Feel free to ignore or use it as you see fit. : j

Video - Apocalypse later, surf now

I love the idea and the feeling in this video.
The idea that things of global magnitude can occur and be almost irrelevant on a personal scale.



There is something grandly self absorbed in saying "Screw you" to the end of the world.
"I was surfing yesterday, I'll surf today, and tomorrow I die with a smile".

Keef70's youtube channel.

Art - Two galleries from retronauts

I wasn't quite sure how to categorize this post, and I eventually settled on calling it art.
I recently stumbled onto a site called retronaut, which features thematic retro photo galleries.
Lots of interesting stuff there.

Here are some samples (click on the titles to get the whole enchilada) from two galleries I thought y'all might enjoy.


Cartoons Vs. Old masters

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Alternate history by Matthew Buchholz (fullsize to read the caption, it makes the image)

If you like Matthew Buchholz, check out his etsy shop in which you can see many more of his creations (he has a cute picture in his etsy profile).

Art - Learning to love you more

I've recently come across this website called "Learning to love you more".
To best describe it, I'll cut paste from their intro:

"Learning to Love You More is both a web site and series of non-web presentations comprised of work made by the general public in response to assignments given by artists Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher. Yuri Ono designed and managed the web site."

The project took place from 2002 to 2009 so, unfortunately, it's too late for us to officially take part. It's still very interesting to see/hear/listen to what others did, and to observe how people from different backgrounds articulate a guiding directive in different or in similar ways... 
At any rate I hope you'll have as much fun exploring the website as I did.

Here are just some some of my favourites...

Assignment #32  
Draw a scene from a movie that made you cry:

"The final sequence in Requiem for a Dream that is entirely about devastation and degradation."
Natalie T.
Oakland, California USA

"From Fight Club, You met me at a very strange time in my life."
Chiara
GERMANY

Assignment #4
Start a lecture series.

In Touch a picnic lecture series on absorbing art through the skin

 

 "In Touch"
Ric Royer 

Assignment #42

List five events from 1984.

-Being in Los Angeles  for the Olympics but only seeing the torch.
-Being upset that Reagan won again.
-Hearing Punk Rock For the first time.
-Checking out Doonesbury Anthologies from the Fletcher Branch Library in Little Rock and photocopying the books at my mother's receptionist job.
-Cooking for my family the first time.

McCloud Zicmuse
Olympia, Washington USA

Assignment #63 Make an encouraging banner.

Julia J.
Charleston, South Carolina USA

In large friendly letters? (THGTTG FTW) ; j

Assignment #16 Make a paper replica of your bed

Anne Farrell
Perth, AUSTRALIA

And on that note I bid you all goodnight. : j

Text - We are become pals (Joey Comeau and Jess Fink)

There are a number things I enjoy on internet and sharing those is what this blog is all about.
Curiously, one of the one's I indulge in on a daily basis (webcomics!) hasn't gotten much coverage here.
Well this post isn't about webcomics either...

Today I'd like to share a series of short fiction written by Joey Comeau and illustrated by Jess Fink.

Ok, so why the windup about webcomics? Well, I first discovered Joey Comeau through "a softer world", a series he is creating in conjunction with Emily Horne. A softer world uses captions and pictures to create single standing episodes, three frames and a handful of lines to tell a story, stories that pack a punch. They are at times tragic, bitter, sweet, funny, random, and everything in between or any combination of the previous and many other things.
Well, recently, I found out that Joey Comeau was working with Jess Fink (who does just the right illustrations for these texts) on a series of short stories aptly named "We are become pals" featuring the (mis?)adventures of two teenage girls called Helen and Jane (pictured below). I feel as if I should put up an excerpt, but the chapter/stories are so short there wouldn't be much point. Lets just say I strongly recommend these stories to anyone who likes reading and Calvin & Hobbes.
The first part of "We are become pals" can be found here.
Hope you enjoy it as much as I do! : j


Joey Comeau:
    Livejournal
    His books (some available for reading online)
    Twitter

Jess Fink:
    Her website with links to her blog, comics, art gallery, and more.

Art - Matias Adolfsson the illustrator extraordinaire

Meet Matias Adolfsson, a fellow blogger and an awesome freelance illustrator hailing from Sweden.

His sketchbook illustrations remind me of those I used to see in children's books... I find myself grinning goofily as I butterfly from sketch to sketch. Perhaps you'll enjoy them as well.

His blog is loaded with his art: check it out!
His personal website also has contact info and archives of his drawings and sketchbook illustrations.
This is his deviant art account.

Have a look for yourselves:
(Much better expanded to see the crazy details he puts into his works! Wheel click or ctrl+click on the images to open larger versions in new tabs)

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Photography - Update on "Young me/Now me"

Some of the long time followers may remember that I posted about a project called Young me Now me... Well, they now have a blog which posts a Young me/Now me picture every day.

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They've also now pushed the concept further and have created a variant called "Like Mom Like Dad", adult children posing to recreate pictures of their parents... Which is a further dose of awesome! It's touching to read and see how these people have gotten better acquainted with their parents or pay tribute to them as they go about recreating these pictures.

Photography - Three way photo safari Vol. II

Eryl from "The Kitchen bitch ponders", Khnoum, and I have been at it again.

For those of you who missed the first part, here is how we got organised: each of us choose a theme, which we then grouped, and each of us took a picture for each of the three themes.

The themes this time were "Missing", "Consequence", and "Landmark".

The pictures are below. If you'd like, you're welcome to try and guess who took which shots, and further who choose which themes. I think it's quite difficult unless you really know the person well, and even then... so good luck with that if you try! . : j

(Psst... Click on the pictures to enlarge them. Holding the ctrl button as you click opens pictures in a new tab in most modern browsers, or alternatively wheel-clicking)

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I liked the monument before it made me ralph.

Windy Miller's new pad.

Too obvious...

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Ouch!

The consequence.

Life on the fast track!

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Loss of heart...

I'll miss you.

How many waiters does it take to change a bulb?