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Visited my parents and sister in Wisconsin a few weeks ago. It was cold! The landscape around Hudson and River Falls was very beautiful, however, with lots of fresh-fallen snow.
Wife Kelly has a Compilations and Collaborations show up at the MJ Higgins gallery in downtown L.A. The pieces are the result of collaborations with pals Walt Hall and Susan Weber. This is one of my favorites for its retro folk-art vibe. More on Kelly at her blog, Untitled 54.
Our friend Julie Peasley has created “The Particle Zoo”, super-cute plush toys inspired by the standard model of physics. Hey, I don’t understand sub-atomic theory at all, but I love my Higg’s Boson plushy! And it’s weighted (it is the “God particle” after all) so it makes a great paperweight. My daughter Claire went for the equally adorable Gluon. Check ’em out and nab one for yourself at The Particle Zoo.
I don’t feel much nostalgia for the VHS player, but there’s no doubt it revolutionized the way I watched and experienced movies. And, at the time, there was something techno cool and space-age about the bulky player.
If you weren’t there, Total Rewind is a totally genius site that has indexed the whole history of the format. My favorite is the Sony AG-7 Betamax tape changer, an ungodly beast that allowed you to record or play back four tapes in a row.
“Watching the AG-7 work is hilarious. Whirring motors, clattering tapes and the pinging of springs accompany every operation, and the whole device raises itself into the air as it pushes the cassette lid down, like a holiday-maker trying to force his suitcase shut.
Ejected tapes are spat out into the receiving tray at some speed, and if there are already three in this tray, ejecting the fourth knocks the top tape onto the floor…”
The evil scientists at Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories came up with this wonderful project that uses a toothbrush, a pager motor, and a watch battery – it’s a Brush Bot!. This is a keeper for the next school science project!
Wallace Berman was a collage artist active in the early ’60s L.A. scene at the Ferus Gallery and his own Semina Art Gallery in Larkspur, CA. The Michael Kohn Gallery on Beverly has an exhibit of his photography until January 19th. Berman’s one of those names that keeps cropping-up (his Semina journal published a who’s who of names), so it should be an interesting show. There’s a little bit more about him on this NYU Grey Art Gallery page about this past years Semina Culture show in NYC and Santa Monica.
LCD Soundsystem has posted some more videos from their show in Manchester. This has probably been up forever, but it wasn’t there last time I looked, so there!
A vid clip from one of my favorite albums of the year, directed by Elijah Wood no less. Proving, I suppose, that if you own the label the Apples in Stereo are on, like Wood does, you can direct anything you want. I love how Apples lead Robert Schneider looks like anything but a rock star.
One of my discoveries at the GR50 show was APAK, the husband-wife duo of Ayumi and Aaron Piland (how did they get APAK out of that?) Their art reminds me of video games with its fantastical, slightly mysterious and oddball imagery…or maybe a Shins cover. They have lots of cool limited edition prints and greeting cards for sale, so check them out at their APAK Studios website.
Elastojam 
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