The Hackenblog

You know, I don’t like Chase Bank, but I like what they did for this mural:

“Meanwhile, one of Sheets’ mosaics just got a pricey facelift. Chase Bank, which now owns the former Home Savings chain, recently spent six months and approximately $400,000 refurbishing a 1974 mosaic at the Rolling Hills Estates branch depicting horseback riders by the sea.”
Old frescoes would love to see the light, by Alison Bell, LA Times, June 5, 2010

Home Savings buildings in So Cal have always been famous for their public art. I’m glad to see Chase appreciates that because Washington Mutual never did.

There should be more restaurants like this.

“As if that weren’t enough, the U.S. Treasury went all out and made a blockbuster release video for the new $100 bill.”
Even the New $100 Bill is Going 3D, Mashable, April 21, 2010

And I wish I had more of these.

And the original for comparison:

I embed; you decide.

Part cyborg, all blockhead.

Jason…I…you…um…

I love these comics. Buy them. You’ll be glad you did. The first Weapon Brown, before Blockhead’s War, has a Christmas story in it.

“If you’re someone who has to spend their whole day half-slumped in front of a computer keyboard, your time is almost certainly spent dreaming of razing the entire fucking office to the ground with a chainsaw. We feel your pain.”
Commercial Break: Sexist chainsaw massacre, by Andy Dawson on usb, Bitter Wallet, July 9, 2009

“‘It looks like you’re writing a letter. Would you like help?’ No. Fuck off Clippy. Remember Clippy? He’s the paperclip-shaped knobwit who would infect your work on Microsoft Word with his inane questions and offers of assistance.”
Commercial Break: Just when you thought it was safe to type the word ‘Dear’…, by Andy Dawson on office 2010, July 13, 2009

Knobwit. That word just made all the Bitter Wallet reading I’ve ever done totally worth it.

(Dude Craft)

I should have gone to art school.

Was the world really a better place then?

I wonder. You just don’t see PSAs like this anymore.

I have been blessed to have not seen a Disney feature animation since Jungle Book, and as far as I knew I wasn’t missing anything.

I was missing this:

I can’t believe Disney made this. It has Elvis songs in it. It’s brilliant. I can’t believe Disney made it. Why don’t they make more like it? They could change the world for the better with stuff like this.

Oh well. I’ll always have Phil Harris, Sebastian Cabot, and the king of the swingers, Louie Prima. And now I have Lilo and Stitch: Elvis, surfing and “Pudge controls the weather.” Oh Margaret! Disney, ya bastards, I can’t even hate you properly anymore.

I don’t think we’re supposed to understand Japan.

“It’s Japan Day here on Bitterwallet, which means we’ve got this story and possibly another one later on that heralds from the alien world of Pachinko, the original Hole In The Wall (minus Dale Winton) and vending machines filled with schoolgirl knickers.

“Here are a couple of ads for Space Shower TV, Japan’s largest cable/satellite music channel. The first one is utterly, utterly, UTTERLY off the map and as we can’t describe it, we’re not even going to bother trying. Just watch it.

“Meanwhile, the second ad is just your typical tale of war and peace among inanimate objects in an everyday kitchen. Watch it also. Then watch the first one again. But not in the three hours that immediately precede your bedtime. That might not be so good for you.”
Commercial Break: Maybe the most deranged ad we’ve ever seen, by Andy Dawson, Bitter Wallet, June 18, 2009

Bitter Wallet is fast becoming my favorite “fun” blog.

Furies Publishing (working title: 3 Girl Group) is just in the begin to beginning stages and trying to raise a little money. Please go over and click on their Google Ads or drop them a donation (the donation button is way down the sidebar, or here for those of you who’d just like to toss them a little long green. Their blog content is worth a look). Furies Publishing will publish translated Asian and original English comics in serial and book formats, and probably some in e-formats. Please support them.

Here’s why they go by the names they write under on the blog:

“Virgil, probably working from an Alexandrian source, recognized three: Alecto (“unceasing,” who appeared in Virgil’s Aeneid), Megaera (“grudging”), and Tisiphone (“avenging murder”).” Wikipedia

Or maybe it’s just a bot thing. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be an appeal. Oh well.

Femme Femme Femme is a magnificent art blog that is a joy to read and voyage of discovery. It also gives my crappy French a nice work out, n’est-pas?

“This is the second blog in a series in which young artists talk about the art they created on city traffic control boxes as part of our effort to beautify East Hollywood, Thai Town, and Little Armenia. LA Commons — a non-profit organization that works with communities across the city to highlight their ethnic, historic and cultural assets — enlisted the artists who are from local neighborhoods. To protect the art, the boxes have an anti-graffiti coating.”

“Message from the artist: ‘I started this project with Grace at Hollywood Youth and Family Center as a part of community service. When that service was done I kept on going because I love this project and I want to be a part of future art projects. One more thing I have to say (about the 27 fellow youth artists) … we started out strangers and ended up friends.’”
Young artists beautifying neighborhoods – RaeVaughn, Eric Garcetti blog, March 6, 2009

I’ll try to keep the links updated as they get posted, no promises though. Here’s the first artist:

Young artists beautifying neighborhoods: Eddie Cortez

I love this photo by the very artistic Pablo Martinez Monsivais:

I find the subject so inspiring.

This is about as close as I ever get to Vogue. It weighs too much for me to read.

Take it away, David E!

But she does look pretty cool on this cover.

And get Mummers!

These pictures are from the Philadelphia parade. Lynn L sent them to me.

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Film Drunk’s Trippiest Video of 2008. And, yes, there’s more at the link.

Very disturbing, but you’ll be able to say you saw it here.

Bush is like Hitler to those people. Don’t forget Poland. Different decade, different location, same sick insanity of one man with too much power and no decent people anywhere near him. Old dog, still hunts.

“Flame me all you want, but I saw Quantum of Solace over the weekend, and it was exactly what I was afraid of when they hired the stunt coordinator from Bourne: a bunch of blurry, shakey, incomprehensible action sequences. GARBAGE. This is THE WORST trend in movies out there right now. It doesn’t make it exciting to cut together a bunch of blurry whatsits like a hand shifting gears or a foot on the gas pedal. Action movies are in the details. If you just cut together a bunch of crazy closeups super fast and then end on a slow-mo of the good guy getting away or the bad guy dying, it’s insulting to the audience. It’s like telling us we’re on a need-to-know basis with the movie we’re watching. If you’re going to make it totally ambiguous as to how things happen, you might as well just cut to black and put up a title card that says ‘he got away.’ Also, it’s half-assed. F-cking choreograph that shit you lazy motherf-ckers.”
Oh Boy, More Bourne, Film Drunk, November 24, 2008

Yes. Bond: good. Action: bad.

The best part of the rather bizarre Footlight Parade.

Opium dens, flag waving, aquatic lesbian orgies, furries, offensive stereotypes, Joan Blondell, etc. Busby Berkely was just obsessed with getting as much girl flesh on the screen as he could, wasn’t he?

Is anyone else underwhelmed by Ruby Keeler’s dancing, or is it just me?

is probably better than becoming obsessed with the Republicans right now. Probably more American, too. This is such a goofy show. I love it.

Strange, though, how Robert Preston can be hot without being sexy. Very strange.

And here is a very good page of all things DNC in Denver without the stupid commentary.

Same old Bill, same old magic.

(Geeze, just ignore the stupid commentary after Elvis, I mean, Bill, yeah, Bill leaves the stage.)

I’m going to quit worrying that I don’t get out enough. I’m not making videos like this, so I must be getting out enough. Y’think?

(via)

(via, which is the only way I see these things)

So, 2008 Comic Con in San Diego and this year I had a camera!

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in this particular handbasket:

“When an artist becomes branded, the market tends to accept as legitimate whatever the artist submits. Consider the attraction of a work by Japanese conceptual artist On Kawara, whose Today series involves painting a date on canvas. Thus the work Nov. 8 1989 (just those letters and numerals, in block white against a black background), in liquitex on canvas, 26 in _ 36 in (66 cm _ 91 cm), sold for 310,000 GBP in February 2006 at Christie’s auction house in London. Kawara paints freehand, and limits himself to the hours of one day to complete a work. A painting unfinished by midnight is discarded as it would no longer be a day painting. The paintings are all made on Sundays. If Kawara is in the United States, the date begins with the name of the month in English, followed by the day and year. If be is painting in Europe, the day precedes the month. If he is in a country that does not use Roman script, he writes the month in Esperanto. Each sale includes the front page of a newspaper from that date. Christie’s catalogue described the Kawara work as ‘an existential statement, a proof of life.’

“There is no rarity factor; Kawara has been making these paintings since 1966. There are two thousand Kawara day paintings in existence. But Kawara is a brand, and his branding stands as a beacon for every contemporary dealer and every aspiring conceptual artist. One dealer told me that so long as collectors will pay high auction prices for Kawara’s day paintings, there is hope for everyone.”
from: The $12 Million Stuffed Shark. The Curios Economics of Contemporary Art, by Don Thompson, page 14 of the uncorrected proof that I’m not supposed to quote from, but was unable to resist quoting this much. (Sorry, Ms. Thomas, email me and I’ll take it down.)

Fuck, why did I waste all that time in music school? I could have gone to art school.

“The $12 Million Stuffed Shark” is a wonderful book so far (I’m only on page 37, but so far it rules so hard) and if you like laughing/marveling/pondering/sneering/whatevering at the super rich and their wacky antics, this is the book for you.

Of course I have to point out that, yes, Eli Broad spent millions on a dead sheep in formaldehyde (I mean, it better be dead) and the LA County Museum of Art has armed guards in the building he donated to put it in (along with some wonderful R. Serra iron walls), but he also ponied up $25 million for a stem cell institute at USC medical school, so I guess I he’s not completely wacky. They say LA gazillionaires are flaky, but the serious nuts seem to be west of the Mississippi, in London, Russia, and Hong Kong. And our weather is so nice, too.

But a sense of humor

(ht)

Anime Expo 2008: Day 1 and Day 2 and Day 3 and Day 4

I loathe American irony, but I found this apt:

Voter Registration in all 50 States. Ginger doesn’t want to hear you didn’t know how to register to vote. She knows baby is muuuuuch smarter than that.