our new friends Nat and Armand are talented peoples. the pair have shared duties as advertising agency copywriters, short-story-scribblers, directors and cartoonists; but as of late have focused on their line of cavity-inducingly adorable greeting cards.
the cards, masterfully written with a keen sense of humor and charming illustrations, are the perfect way for me to maintain my agoraphobia while keeping in touch with loved ones. talking on the phone is annoying, text messaging impersonal and e-mail quickly becoming passe, I’m left with few communicatory options.
Thankfully, Nat and Armand’s care-package arrived just in time for me to salvage relationships with the few friends that occasionally come to visit my self-inflicted prison cell. Thanks Uncooked, I don’t know what I’d've done with out you.
Click over to Uncooked’s website and poke around, there’s lots of funny to read, watch and buy!
You may recall research I did for creating a business card for my custom tailoring business. I want to present to you my latest web-design research related to custom tailoring. The first example comes from John Isaac’s Clothing in Gainesville, FL. Wait. Is this guy a tailor or is he selling you the clothes off his back? Is John Isaac a real person? Is Mr. Isaac a fan of the Gators? Just read the “FAQ’s”. (The FAQ’s what? Do the clothes belong to the FAQ?) My favorite part is when he describes what will happen in the the first meeting: “Talking man, lots of talking.”
John Isaac is not a real person. It is an amalgam name of John Mitchell’s father’s name (convienently, his namesake) and grandfather’s first name (Isaac). “John Isaac” is a more, hmm, Old Testament name than “John Mitchell”. But please folks, can you give John an A For Effort? He’s very sincerely acting out the Me Too Jew role described by Emma Forest in her novel Namedropper (Simon and Schuster, 2000):
Great tenors don’t go on diets: they know great tailors! According to his dossier, Beniamino Gigli was a tailor’s apprentice when he was 10.
This entry continues my series of images of old guys that inpsire me.
bay area artist has painstakingly recreated our beloved city of san francisco with… wait, what? toothpicks?!
scott weaver spent 34 years on this incredible replica. it includes everything from the bay bridge, golden gate bridge, palace of fine arts, coit tower, the painted ladies, and many other sf local and touristy favorites. standing at 9 feet tall, 7 feet wide and 2 feet deep, this sculpture includes upwards of 100,000 toothpicks. “Rolling Through the Bay” is 9 feet tall, 7 feet wide and 2 feet deep. It sports four pingpong ball tracks with more than a dozen entry points.
weaver includes ’sentimental toothpicks’ in this masterpeice–toothpicks that were thrown at his wedding as opposed to the traditional rice, and gifted toothpicks from friends from all over the world.
video footage of weaver here
Tennis dress (style no. 6604) from Brunswick Worsted Mills knitting manual entitled New Dreams, volume no. 668 (1968). I am ready to play.
Dear God please don’t forsake me to a hell of hanging around women who would carry bags like these.
I’m still trying to tighten up my business card game. My plumber, Marx, runs a bar called Gene O’s Lounge in Hayward, CA with his girlfriend.
I must admit, the first thing that struck me about Geno’s card was image of the woman standing behind the bar and cocktails. I believe she is ready to take payment for those drinks. That leads me to the second thing I noticed about Gene O’s card: this is LEGAL TENDER! Genius Gene O prints his own currency in the form of business cards. Sorry, only $0.50 denominations are available.
So what can I buy with Geno’s money and when? It’s good toward “Any Products Available” from 6 am to 2 am, Monday thru Sunday.
Oh! In case you didn’t notice, Gene O’s “Customers Are Appreciated!”
Key elements:
Patronizing slogan (twice) with exclamation point
URL for promo website (twice)
Image suggesting “you owe us money”
Legal tender with time/location restrictions
Phone number
Location
Semi-blank back
Called the Georgia Guidestones, the monument is a mystery—nobody knows exactly who commissioned it or why. The only clues to its origin are on a nearby plaque on the ground—which gives the dimensions and explains a series of intricate notches and holes that correspond to the movements of the sun and stars—and the “guides” themselves, directives carved into the rocks. These instructions appear in eight languages ranging from English to Swahili and reflect a peculiar New Age ideology. Some are vaguely eugenic (GUIDE REPRODUCTION WISELY—IMPROVING FITNESS AND DIVERSITY); others prescribe standard-issue hippie mysticism (PRIZE TRUTH—BEAUTY—LOVE—SEEKING HARMONY WITH THE INFINITE) … What’s most widely agreed upon—based on the evidence available—is that the Guidestones are meant to instruct the dazed survivors of some impending apocalypse as they attempt to reconstitute civilization. (Via Wired).
The Road is finally (or, hopefully not, unfortunately) being made into a major motion picture.
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The Guggenheim building on 5th Ave. is 50 years old, and they’re celebrating with a new show of work by the building’s architect: “Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward“. They’ve done extensive repairs to the cracked facade over the last few years, and only pretty recently is it totally scaffolding-free. The Times did a great article in September of ‘07 on the restoration. The Multimedia graphic paints a pretty grim picture of the building’s then current state. Get your engineering on, Franky.
There’s also a nice write-up in the New Yorker this week. This is my favorite part:
When it opened, John Canaday, in the Times, called it “a war between architecture and painting in which both come out badly maimed.”
Personally, I could give two shits; the bannisters are scarily low in that place and I always feel like I’m about to fall to my death.
