Be a Pal

Sign the petition to get the Bay Ridge Ferry up and running again....or I very well may never see you again.

Liberate the North American recluse!

Be Still My Aching Metrocard

Ever since moving to my lovely (and reclusive) apartment, I have been hunting for an easier route to make my way back to humanity. One day I wandered down towards the Navy Yard and saw a sign for a ferry. A ferry!! Oh boy, oh boy, a pretty and quick commute! But alas, no schedules around, no ferry to be found. A single water taxi, with no cabbie. Boo.

But today on GreenBrooklyn.com I came upon an article about the Sunset-Ridge Waterfront Alliancce working towards restoring this ferry that would make the commute (wait for it) 15 minutes! Wow...I'll be keeping my ears to the ground for this to come to fruition.

Salt Water Sound

Open Air

OPEN AIR from knox on Vimeo.


Run those yards!

Its Been Ages!

Yes, an entire season has almost come and gone, and here I am shirking my writerly duties....or rather Im writing often and alot and shirking my bloggery....

Either way Im usually in the midst of shrugging off many a thing, so here's my peace offering to any readers who still exist (is there anybody out there?), a small sampling of what's running amok in my conscience. It's really more like a clown car in there so don't try and make sense, just take this as a reintroduction. The winter should provide me with more insights, and fascinations, I hope.

First thing in the morning,
as I wander betwixt imaginary boundaries,
I think of you and smile.

Germans Know How to Party

Brave Little Soldiers

JR vs Blu

Speicher blu_mp4
Uploaded by urbangrassroots

Oh yes......

I just wanted to thumb-wrestle but....

Ive got a bag of empty cans and some free time...

Marine Mischief Causes Confusion in New York Harbor

NEW YORK (The New York Times)—As reported in the New York Times, Brooklyn artist Duke Riley was able to float a make-shift submarine within 200 feet of the cruise ship the Queen Mary 2, which was docked in Red Hook. Riley’s performance art project was halted by the New York City Police Department and the Coast Guard, with the artist and his two assistants taken into custody for their stunt. Made to resemble the Turtle, a Revolutionary War era submarine, Riley's vessel was fabricated from plywood coated with fiberglass. The sub is scheduled to go on display soon at the Chelsea gallery Magnan Projects, after it and its captain have dried off.

Check the images:HERE
And seriously, if anyone feels like they need to explore some bad ideas in submarine construction with me, the door is ALWAYS open (and can we maybe build a fort out of couch cushions too?)

Listen to THIS and get yourself in the mood.

Drifting Away

Bill Pinkney 1925-2007

He knew some things about L O V E

Reclaiming Design

These pieces are amazing and a responsible way towards chic living. Makes me wish twice as hard that I had a fully stocked workbench.

My Geekiest Blog Yet...

Since I'm a nerd, and totally addicted to both dashboard and reading the days headlines, me and the CNN widget have been tight since day one. Our relationship was honest, keeping tabs on goings on, quietly on the sidelines of each others day. And although I didn't always agree with what my little black, white, and red interface had to say I could at least look at it knowing it was trying to maintain a modicum of integrity.

Two days ago, or perhaps three, I hit the little refresh button and thought that there had been some glitch in my system. All these little hyperlinks were littering the sections directly below each headline, making it only possible for me to read 2 at a time! And for what? So that you could send it to facebook and digg it easier! Ugh...look, Im all for changing with the times, I just don't think it necessary to clutter up my headlines with what seem to be less than pressing issues. How could you know that you want to email/facebook/del.icio.us unless you've already read the story? Put it along the bottom of the actual story, or at the very least hire a decent web designer to make those hyperlinks (which are SECONDARY to the headlines) less visually obtrusive. Im saying, you're a multi-million dollar company you must know people who can provide this sort of service.

I'll always have a special place on my dashboard for you, but until you learn how to act, BBC widget with it's scrolling headlines and search bar are getting all your time.

And just to save face and thank you for bearing with my rant: Bad News

Face2Face Movie

Face 2 Face - THE BOOK
Uploaded by 28millimetres

My favorite project of the past year.....

Made for Walking

The only thing sexier than high heels and Prince, is Prince in high heels...

In Over Your Head

Brave New York

New York City circa 1988-2003
(By Richard Sandler, the filmmaker responsible for "The Gods of Times Square", which youve probably never seen or heard of but should have. Go dig it up in a video store with a good cult/indie section. And I do mean video store.)

The New Commandments

*thanks to Domer for linking me this

Unabashed Cloud-Humping

Eden Goes Dark- Domer

Finding a balance between melancholy growls and joyful indifference, Domer takes you through the stress and struggle of yet another city day on, Work With Me. Playful and dark in the same breath, "Whistler" is a jaunty depressives walk through the park, and "Tacky Shoes" nearly begs for a euro-house remix. With a truly original approach to beat making, never fully existing within a single genre, Domer stretches expectations beyond the 16 bars or verse-chorus-verse cubicles, into the land of the independent musical contractor.

Domer-You and Me

Look for him on UK label: Skipping Beats Records

...because I can't forget

Everytime She Turns Around....

...its her birthday
Ive got a bit of work to tend to. Perhaps not just tonight but in the next year(s) of my life. Thanks for checking in with me from time to time. I'll do my best in the realms of edu-tainment.

Peas and Carrots,
Clouds and Candy

No Such Thing as Neutral Space

Suffice it to say, this is a near-future addition to my dvd library

The Nature of Permanence

When I was a child in my fathers car, I would watch the city zip by from the back window and read the rooftops from the highway. I remember seeing COST REVS wheat-pastes on every crosswalk light in the city in the mid to late nineties. For a while I truly thought REVS was running for office.

One of my all-time favorite pieces I could only see from the BQE. REVS image of Sisyphus pushing the stone of Life up the hill with a checkerboard beneath him. I found what seems to be a recreation of that piece a few weeks back in East Williamsburg. It was a strangely sentimental moment.

REVS journey as an artist has always amazed me. He wrote a book inside the tunnels of the subway. Each wall a new page of his life. I mean this in the most literal of senses. He wrote his story deep in those tunnels and I always dreamt of reading them first hand. For now I just collect snippets.

Thanks to Wooster Collective for posting this video today, to help me remember the writer who made me look at each wall twice.

"Spilling whiskey and learning songs for The ONE that got away"

Rotoscoped live performance of Tom Waits circa 1979.....


The original live action was shot with 5 cameras - 2 high, 2 low and one hand held. The music from "The One That Got Away" blared in the background as Tom sang karaoke style different lyrics on each take. Two strippers, 6 takes and 13 hours of video footage were edited to make this 5 1/2 minute live action short which was then turned into animation.

Even animated he's the hotness....

Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle...

A worker of the Malaysian Fisheries Development Board (LKIM) in Batu Maung, Penang, discovered this strange auqatic biped upon contemplating making lunch. The only thing that saved it from the soup pot was the Chinese belief that eating fish with unusual features could bring disaster or ill luck. It was later thrown back into the waters from whence it came, bogling the minds of local scientists who believe it must have swam into Malaysian waters from either North Sulawesi in Indonesia, or South Africa.

Who would have thunk it. Sharks are scary as it, the last thing they need is to learn how to run too....



In other new species news, the clouded leopard of Borneo and Sumatra has been discovered to be a seperate species from its cousins in mainland Southeast Asia.

Sometimes growing to the size of a small panther, the clouded leopard is the biggest predator in Borneo, equipped with the longest canine teeth, relative to body size, of any cat.

Its nice to know we are still evoloving, new islands springing up, fish with feet, and freshly discovered differentiations in species. So exciting! I hope they find one of those flying fish with feet, THAT would be the coolest animal ever made.

Banksy Feature- BBC Culture Show

Living By Words Alone

In the midst of a demonstration, a breaking moment of news, or near riot, there is a certain degree of bullet-proof delusion that cancels out the usual fear involved in such moments when you are reporting on the event itself. Your camera or recorder feel as if they are a shield between you and the rest of the world, since within the minds eye you have ceased to be a participant and have crossed into the realm of conscientious observer.

The fantasy of merely being the watchful eye is just that. Everyday reporters put themselves at risk, far more reality based than the fear of losing a lead or accidentally deleting that perfect shot. Those who report the wars are not just watching but become a part of them. Often used as pawns and leverage in negotions, these men and women take risks for a living.

The Committee to Protect Journalists keeps meticulous records of abuses to the journalistic community and offers help for those headed out on dangerous assignments or in the midst of capture or arrest in hostile environments.

Go check out their site: Committee to Protect Journalists and browse the press freedom archives for statistics on killings, abductions, and imprisonments. And after that consider giving them a donation, to help keep the project running.

"In the Image of God"

Trailer for the Face2Face project:


Face2Face takes an up close and very personal look at that which divides us politically set against that which connects us on the very basic humanistic level. In an attempt to bring a bit of compassion and understanding to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, French photographer JR and North African mathematician Marco, have embarked upon this project to convert signals into messages and to connect art to action.

From Face2FaceProject.com:

"After a week, we had a conclusion with the same words: these people look the same; they speak almost the same language, like twin brothers raised in different families."

You can see more of JR's work on HERE

A little late, but this was worth sharing...

February 10th
From The Times:
Council cleaners jetwash away Banksy’s graffiti art
Nicola Woolcock

When council cleaners spotted graffiti 24 hours before the official opening of a new London square, they enthusiasically removed every trace of the offending drawings.

Unfortunately, the two stencils they wiped out were drawn by Banksy, the subversive artist. One of his works fetched more than £100,000 in auction at Sotheby’s this week.

To make matters worse, the street cleaners did not deem the graffiti worthy of being photographed before destruction, as is their usual policy. Nor did they seek permission from the building’s owners.

The council has now admitted its blunder and apologised.

The street cleaners, armed with jetwashers, had been ordered to touch up the area before the official opening of Gillett Square in Hackney last November.

Two days before the ceremony, Hackney Cooperative Developments (HCD) decided to uncover a 4ft Banksy stencil of a girl wearing a frilly dress and a gas mask. It had been covered by plywood for several months.

It was scrubbed off the day after, along with another Banksy picture on their building of a man’s face.

Adam Hart, executive director of HCD, wrote to Hackney Council complaining that the murals had been removed, saying: “These were famous artworks by Banksy and of considerable value and there is likely to be something of an outcry.” He said later: “Perhaps the nature of the whole thing is that graffiti is ephemeral, so maybe Banksy would approve.”

The council is now drawing up a list of graffiti artwork in the borough that should not be removed. Mr Hart said: “It’s something they need to be aware of so they don’t eradicate everything that gives character to the area.”

Urban Scavenger

Cruising the Wooster Collective site, as usual I came across a bit of inspiration. UrbanCurators.com documents a project begun by six Rhode Island School of Design students, mounting museum frames around the city of Providence, Rhode Island to specifically call attention to the overlooked beauty of decaying landscapes, derelict buildings, and all sorts of beautiful imperfections. (Think, the Japanese philosophy of Wabi-Sabi) The results are rather satisfying, but the scope of this project leaves me wanting for more frames in more cities. I would love to see a swatch book full of brick, biten away at by truck exhaust (like on the BQE by the bridge), and multi-layered walls, no longer wheat-pasted but not yet cleaned. In any event, its a pretty cool concept.

Here's a clip of their mission statement:

"Humans have for centuries sought after the grandeur of ruins that were once the glory of ancient cultures, recognizing them as windows into the lives of past civilizations. The Urban Curators project proposes that we should likewise cherish those ruins that reflect modern-day consumerism and industr- ialization, realizing them as vehicles by which we can gain insight into our own society."

Their links section is pretty great too. Various archives of urban ruins and explorations. The Northeast is teeming with rot kids. Dig in! It also led me to a great site called Dropspots.org, which is basically a message board working in conjunction with google maps to facilitate the exchange of various goods hidden in public places. Sort of a treasure hunt and swap meet in one. Go type in your zip code and check out how many times you passed over a prize because you were too focused on walking and not making eye-contact at the same time.

Thump,Thump

Ahh, Valentines day....a day celebrating love and all its complicated nuances. Contemplating the whole thing tends to furrow the brow so bad the only thing that can make it right is a little bit of music. But what does that special someone, or someones (geez, it only gets more complicated doesn't it?) evoke the desire to say?

I want you, I need you, come back to me, back off of me, Im over the knots you tie in my chest...ok just this one last time.

Any of these statements ringing a bit too familiar???
Yeah, all of them, sometimes being spoken simultaneously...

Don't be afraid. Embrace it. The worst it can do is eat you alive and leave you a mumbling hermetic mess. But hey, it feeds the art, whatever your art may be (and if your only outlet is the bottle, then talk about a wellspring of inspiration!)

So here's an indulgent little gift, to assist the rumination of the many ways in which we love

Lust:
Muddy Waters-I Just Wanna Make Love
Magnetic Fields-underwear
Joi-What If I kissed You
Gregory Isaacs-Love You in the Morning

Devotion:
Marcia Atkins-Im Still in Love(Yes, that hook)
Otis-Thats How Strong My Love Is
Chet Baker-My Funny Valentine
Jose Gonzalez-Lovestain

Desperation, Dread, & Anger:
Playgroup-50 Ways To Leave Your Lover
TV on the Radio-Dont Love You
St Etienne-Only Love Can Break Your Heart
Tanya Stepehns-Part Time Lover
Dawn Penn-You Don't Love Me (No, No, No)
Joan Jett & The BlackHearts-I Hate Myself For Loving You

"Trust Your Story"

"Is the inner world of a story too big to get onto the page?"

All stories are too big to get onto the page, if they're good stories.
Just like the world is too big to get onto the page. But you can
sketch and scratch it, and show bits that imply the whole. You can let
the reader put it together in her mind.

--Neil Gaiman, excerpt from Well.com

As usual the world provides me with playful and productive synchronicity. This weekend I finally watched Neil Gaiman's "Mirror Mask" and realized that I needed to take some time and get better acquainted with Mr.Gaimans body of work. There's the beast that is the Sandman series, childrens books: "The Day I Swapped My Dad For Two Goldfish" and "The Wolves In the Walls" (which you can get audio of him reading...his voice is fantastic), and tons of other graphic novels, short stories and film projects.

As luck should have it, he's just released a new book of short stories, "Fragile Things", and did a fun email interview on Well.com. There is nothing more satisfying than good timing.

A clip from Mirror Mask...


Go visit him on his page, he's a juggernaut

Frisky Dingo

I think Ive come across my new Adult Swim jump off. Frisky Dingo uses allusions to Alan Moores Watchmen characters but placing them in more modern day situations involving family drama with Killface and his skulking adolescent son, and professional rivalries....enough of me, watch Killfaces debut, I love him...

Ok, that was episode one, heres a later one...Im saying, death and dismemberment gives me the giggles


Refined taste is over rated

"The Letters Have Left the Page"

Rammellzee- Style Wars interview "The Evolution of the letter"

Ok, I promise this is it for Today...

Go to Graffiti Research Lab's site and read their response to the "terror" toons...wow, the post-9/11 world cracks me up.

This is NOT the Work of the GRL

For Serious???

Oh come on! Everyone knows terrorists dont like cartoons. Loosen up them straps on your white hats and have yourselves a laugh Boston!