Befitting a tropical people in a cosmopolitan city, Manny Vega's work draws on various traditions:
With nothing more than a pair of pliers, thick fingers and boundless patience, he transforms thousands of stubby tiles of stone and glass into glimmering mosaic portraits of poets, drummers, mothers and sons. By the end of the workday, he has to plunge his numb, dust-covered hands into hot water to revive them.
Unfortunate news for the world of advertising: The creative mind behind McDonald's "I'm Lovin' It" ad and the "Dude, You're Gettin' a Dell"
campaign committed suicide this week at age 40:
As the top creative executive at advertising agency DDB's Chicago
office, Paul L. Tilley oversaw commercials and campaigns for marquee
clients such as Budweiser and McDonald's.
Mr. Tilley was named managing director of creative at DDB in September
2006, nine years after he joined the shop. Over those years, he led
creative teams that came up with Dell's "Dude, You're Gettin' a Dell"
campaign and advertising in McDonald's "I'm Lovin' It" effort.
Mr. Tilley, 40, died on Friday, Feb. 22. The Wilmette
resident apparently jumped from an upper floor of the Fairmont Chicago
Hotel Friday, and his death was ruled a suicide by the Cook County
medical examiner's office.
"Life is complicated, and Paul was a complicated man," said Mr. Tilley's wife, Cristina.
Always tragic when someone this young and creative offs himself . . .
>
Source: Dude, You're Gettin' a Dell Trevor Jensen TRIBUNE STAFF REPORTER, February 26, 2008 http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-hed_tilley_26feb26,1,2832015.story
When Jim Power created his first mosaic on a lamppost on Astor Pace
in 1987, a concrete band shell still stood inside Tompkins Square Park,
admission to the CBGB club cost $5, and about the same amount could buy
a night’s lodging in the Bowery.
Plenty in the East Village has changed in 20 years, and, some say,
that is one good reason the dozens of pieces of public art created in
the neighborhood by Mr. Power ought to be preserved.
“The mosaics have became landmarks,” said Clayton Patterson, a
photographer who has documented the area in Manhattan for 25 years.
“They’re some of the only things left that give a feeling of
familiarity to the neighborhood.”
In the late 1980s, Mr. Power decided to create 80 mosaics that would
mark the neighborhood’s boundaries and some significant sites within
its borders. The mosaic trail, as Mr. Power refers to the project, has
proceeded in fits and starts as the artist’s fortunes have ebbed and
flowed.
I never was interested in an electronic reader, but the new Amazon (AMZN) gadget looks quite intriguing: Amazon Kindle "Reader"
This thingie does have some attractive features: The ability to wirelessly grab books anywhere you are is way cool.
But this is more than an eBook: It is a wireless device, grabing RSS feeds of blogs, newspaper and magazines. And, unlike Apple's iTunes, you own the books you buy, and if the device is lost or broken, you can re-download all of your Amazon purchases -- at no charge. (Apple's failure to do that is an inexcusable failing, and one of the reasons I hardly buy songs from ITMS).
Can Amazon generate the sort of frenzy reserved for Apple products? Perhaps -- earlier to today, Amazon as saying the Kindle was sold out. However, there are very few companies -- Apple, Harley Davidson (HDI), Tivo -- which have that sort of appeal or can generate that customer loyalty of that sort. I like Amazon, but its doubtful they will ever be in the rabid loyalty group.
Maybe they should tear a page from the Apple playbook -- after Christmas, slash the
price 50% or more.
Why? At $150-200, this becomes a more compelling
product. Amazon tells me that since the retail price also includes
the wireless connectivity, this is already a $150 machine with $10 per month service for 2 years included. But would anyone really pay a $10/mo
for the privilege of wirelessly purchasing books?
Some of the initial reviews of the doohickey were pretty good -- endorsements include Michael Lewis and Guy Kawasaki (below), and the NYT's David Pogue.
Criticisms: Version 1.0 has some obvious shortcomings: A few good observations (and one lousy one) via Scoble:
1. No ability to buy paper goods from Amazon through Kindle.
2. Usability sucks. Didn’t they think how people would hold this?
3. UI sucks. Menus? Did they hire someone from Microsoft?
4. No ability to send electronic goods to anyone else.
5. No social network. Why can't my friends see what I’m reading?
6. No touch screen.
The buying of regular Amazon products and send ebooks or other gifts are good suggestions. Social networking ("What I am reading") can easily be adapted to a widget.
In most software products (and this is an embedded piece of software), by version 2.0, the UI gets improved. Perhaps, the build quality/materials will get upgraded. Note that very few devices start out perfect, and even TiVo and the iPod got better over time.
Scoble's all wrong on the touchscreen: You don't really want to smudge the screen you are reading (Besides, I don't believe electronic ink works with touchscreen -- yet).
I would think that after working at Microsoft, Scoble would (heh-heh) know better than to buy 1.0 of anything.
~~~
Lets me make a suggestion to help Amazon out:
If Jeff Bezos wants to make the Amazon Kindle "Reader" a breakout iPod-like product, he has an easy solution: Get the price under $200, charge $5-10 per month for the service, and include 2 free books per month at that price.I would also think pre-loading the gadget with a few gratis books was an automatic. Home run!
I am not the road warrior I once was, but if I were, I would definitely have one of these . . .
Momspit (inspired by the original) is the universal no-rinse cleanser. It’s not a sanitizer and does not contain any alcohol. In fact, it’s gentle enough to use on your face. Momspit foams for easy application, eliminates dirt and grime, and leaves skin moisturized and yummy smelling. It’s the perfect thing to throw in your purse, place on your desk, or keep in your car. To use: Apply a small amount on hands or face and rub in completely. No rinse needed.
Ron Mueck is a London-based photo-realist artist. Born in Melbourne , Australia , to parents who were toy makers, he labored on children's television shows for 15 years before working in special effects for such films as Labyrinth, a 1986 fantasy epic starring David Bowie.
Mueck then started his own company in London, making models to be photographed for advertisements. He has lots of the dolls he made during his advertising years stored in his home. Although some still have a presence on their own. Many were made just to be photographed from a particular angle -one strip of a face, for example, with a lot of loose material lurking an inch outside the camera's frame.
Eventually Mueck concluded that photography pretty much destroys the physical presence of the original object, and so he turned to fine art and sculpture.
In the early 1990's, still in his advertising days, Mueck was commissioned to make something highly realistic, and was wondering what material would do the trick. Latex was the usual, but he wanted something harder, more precise. Luckily, he saw a little architectural decor on the wall of a boutique and inquired as to the nice, pink stuff's nature. Fiberglass resin was the answer, and Mueck has made it his bronze and marble ever since.
The attention to detail and sheer technical brilliance of his figures are incredible, but it is Mueck's use of scale that takes your breath away..
Ron Mueck's work became world-famous when a poignant sculpture of his dead fathers small, naked body caused shock waves in the Royal Academy'SSensation exhibition in 1997.
His work is lifelike but not life size, and being face to face with the tiny, gossiping Two Women (2005) or the monumental woman In Bed (2005) is an unforgettable experience
Mueck's huge 4.5m crouching Boy was the centerpiece of the Millennium Dome in London and of the Venice Biennale in 2001. The artist's work is becoming ever more intriguing, ranging from smaller-than-life size naked figures to much larger, but never actual, life size.
Consequently his hyper-realistic sculptures in fiberglass and silicone, while extraordinarily lifelike, challenge us by their odd scale. The psychological confrontation for the viewer is to recognize and assimilate two contradictory realities.
Its a holiday weekend, so I'll be out on the boat:
The XSR48 is a supercar on water, a luxury powerboat with supercar looks. With a total of no less than 1600hp, and as much of 2000hp, from two bi-turbo diesel engines, the XSR48 has supercar acceleration to match its stunning appearance. Top speed: over 100 mph.
Peter Young’s art is a blast from the past that singes the present. His almost-major career, which flourished during the fashionably mythic late 1960s and early ’70s, has been drifting just out of reach for decades, a tantalizing medley of dotted, stained, gridded and geometric paintings, rarely seen but not forgotten.
Now his work has been gathered into his first museum show anywhere and his first solo show in New York in 23 years. A radiant survey of 34 paintings from 1963 to 1977 has arrived at the P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center in Queens, and at the Mitchell Algus Gallery in Chelsea a smaller, more focused but equally excellent display features works from Mr. Young’s Folded Mandala and his Oaxacan series from the 1970s.
Together these shows reintroduce a maverick Zenned-out hedonist who was also a process-oriented formalist with a sharp painterly intelligence, a genius for color and a penchant for the tribal and spiritual. They also revisit the efforts of an ambitious artist who got to the brink of a big New York abstract-painter career and took a pass, dropping almost completely from view and fading into legend.
Organized by P.S. 1’s founding director, Alanna Heiss, and the artist David Deutsch, the larger show arrives on the heels of the exhibition “High Times, Hard Times: New York Painting 1967-1975” at the National Design Museum, which included one of Mr. Young’s small enticing “stick” paintings, and also opened the Pandora’s box of the history of Post-Minimalist painting. And it coincides with the Whitney’s sweeping if spotty “Summer of Love” exhibition, from which Mr. Young’s work is noticeably absent.
“I think 1957 was a high-water mark for Ford design; Chrysler as
well,” said Greg Wallace, manager of General Motors’ Heritage Center in
Sterling Heights, Mich.
The enduring popularity, not to mention collectibility, of
Chevrolet’s 1957 cars “speaks for itself,” he said, adding, “The ’57
Chevy was quite simply the best-looking car of the entire postwar era.”
It was a Golden Era, but a fleeting one. It would end before the year was out.
Fifty years ago, things were very different for the now-beleaguered
Ford Motor Company. Ford’s 1957 lineup was all new for the first time
in five years. The 21 models included a restyled Thunderbird sports
car, a new generation of F-100 pickups, the car-based Ranchero pickup
and the Fairlane 500 Skyliner — the first American convertible with a
retractable hardtop. Sales were way up — so much that Ford outsold
Chevrolet for the first time since 1935.
Together, Ford and Chevrolet accounted for fully half of American car production.
The public viewed the Chevys and their General Motors siblings as
somewhat dowdy compared with competing 1957 cars. Critics derided the
G.M. designs as passé because they were essentially makeovers of the
1955-56 models, with high rooflines, voluptuous fenders, short
wheelbases and stubby overall lengths — the shoebox look favored by
G.M.’s styling czar, Harley J. Earl."
Too cool . . .
>
Source: Fifty, Finned and Fabulous JERRY GARRETT NYT, May 20, 2007 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/automobiles/collectibles/20FIFTY.html
Very nicely done (what musical recording accompanies this?)
Leonardo Da Vinci Raphael Raffaello Titian Tiziano Vecellio Sandro Botticelli Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio Albrecht Dürer Lucas Cranach the Elder Antonello da Messina Pietro Perugino Hans Memling El Greco Hans Holbein Fyodor Stepanovich Rokotov Peter Paul Rubens Gobert Caspar Netscher Pierre Mignard Jean-Marc Nattier Élisabeth-Louise Vigée-Le Brun Sir Joshua Reynolds Franz Xaver Winterhalter Alexei Vasilievich Tyranov Vladimir Lukich Borovikovsky Alexey Gavrilovich Venetsianov Antoine-Jean Gros Orest Adamovich Kiprensky Amalie Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot Édouard Manet Flatour Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres William Clark Wontner William-Adolphe Bouguereau Comerre Leighton Blaas Renoir Millias Duveneck Cassat Weir Zorn Alphonse Mucha Paul Gaugan Henri Matisse Picabia Gustav Klimt Hawkins Magritte Salvador Dali Malevich Merrild Modigliani Pablo Picasso
"Yet the ministry building’s design also debunks many of the standard clichés we hold about late Soviet architecture. Rising on an incline between two highways, the building’s heavy cantilevered forms reflect the Soviet-era penchant for heroic scale. Yet they also relate sensitively to their context, celebrating the natural landscape that flows directly underneath the building.
The composition of interlocking forms, conceived as a series of bridges, brings to mind the work of the Japanese Metabolists of the late ’60s and early ’70s, proof that Soviet architects weren’t working in an intellectual vacuum.
Similarly, the Druzhba (Friendship) Sanitarium in Yalta, Ukraine, designed by Igor Vasilevsky and completed in 1986, is an object lesson in bold architectural strokes. The resort building’s cylindrical form stands on a hill overlooking a beach in what was then an exclusive resort town. To enter, visitors cross a bridge encased in a glass tube and then descend into the complex, which is supported on massive legs housing the elevators and stairs. Conceived as a “social condenser,” the building’s core is occupied by a cinema, dance hall, swimming pool and cafe. Circling this core are the guest rooms, arrayed in a dazzling saw-tooth facade orienting each room toward the water and sunlight, while giving the structure an eerie science-fiction quality. (Think Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey.”)
But what’s refreshing about this exhibition is its lack of an ideological agenda: it is open to all sorts of possibilities. The Gaudiesque romanticism of a sanitarium in Druskininkai, Lithuania, for example, spins the aesthetic off in yet another direction. Built as a series of interlocking cylinders, its forms are lifted slightly off the ground to create the illusion of lightness. Decorative concrete ribbons spill out over the facade; columns for draining rainwater splay open at the bottom. The building looks as though it’s unraveling, a blend of creativity and madness spilling out into full view.
In another project, a sports complex and opera house in the Armenian capital, Yerevan, an open-air terrace steps down into the earth, flanked by a pair of immense concrete walls and narrow staircases that evoke the excavation of some forgotten futurist city — not a bad metaphor for the entire show."
Source: Soviet Architects and Their Edifice Complex NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF NYT, May 16, 2007 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/16/arts/design/16cold.html
IT looks like a Volkswagen Microbus, the
sort that starred in last year’s film “Little Miss Sunshine,” somehow
squeezed into a sphere six feet in diameter.
The ball is the work of the artist Lars-Eric Fisk of Burlington,
Vt., who specializes in sphere-shaped sculpture. His work has been
shown in museums including the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in
Lincoln, Mass., outside Boston, and the Dartmouth College museum.
In the catalog for the DeCordova exhibition, he called the sphere
was a “simple, seamless form expressing movement and the concept of
endlessness and timelessness without a beginning, without an ending.”
“Everyone gets it,” Mr. Fisk said of his use of the sphere in a recent interview.
He completed the VW ball in 1999. “I don’t know why, but the VW ball keeps surfacing every few years on the Internet,” he said.
The VW ball is in a private collection. Mr. Fisk, who was born in
Vermont in 1970, has made other balls with auto themes: a school bus, a
green John Deere tractor, a drab brown U.P.S. truck and a white Mister
Softee ice cream truck, complete with lights.
“A U.P.S. guy saw the U.P.S. ball and stopped by the house of the
owner,” Mr. Fisk said. “He thought it was a package ready for
shipping.”
His spheres come with windows and steering wheels. He does all the
work using metal and glass fabrication skills he taught himself. He has
also sculptured a street ball, a sphere of asphalt marked with painted
dotted lines. Mr. Fisk’s barn ball, with wood painted red and a window,
was used for the cover of the Phish album “Round Room.”
He has moved beyond the balls into new modes of sculpture. “The new
theme for some reason seems to be garbage,” he said. Among his latest
pieces, shown at the Taxter & Spengemann Gallery in Manhattan, is a
sculpture of a garbage can and another of a garbage bag. PHIL PATTON
Every profession has its lingo. A list of common terms — and a few of the most colorful ones — can come in handy. With cars, words and metal share territory: each brand’s vocabulary of shapes is collectively known as its design language.
The beltline divides the greenhouse, or glassed-in upper body, from the portion that extends down from the window sills. Equally important is the A-line, said Michael Castiglione, principal exterior designer at DaimlerChrysler’s Pacifica studio in Carlsbad, Calif. The A-line runs the length of the body from headlight to taillight, tracing the car’s silhouette. The car may also have a character line, a crease formed in the sheet metal of the sides.
Vehicles are said to have styling cues that prompt viewers to recognize models by their resemblance to other family members — a brand’s characteristic shapes and flourishes, the form of its grille or the arc of the roofline.
Porsche Design Studios is bringing some Stuttgart style to the boating business with its first-ever seacraft (the waterlogged 928 in Risky Business doesn't count). Set to debut at the Miami Boat Show, the 28-foot-long high-speed cruiser is a collaboration with Florida-based upstart Fearless Yachts. "We reached out and said, 'You have a blank canvas,'" says Fearless CEO Jeffrey Binder, and the German creatives set about designing a luxury racer that could dominate what they dubbed the "aquabahn."
The boat boasts a fiberglass hull with the sleek curves and lean silhouette of a European coupe, and its "unitized," or seamless, construction does away with unsightly rivets that might slow it down. There's also a 525-horsepower Viper engine that helps the craft reach a top speed of 80 mph, which may not break any world records but will make you grateful for the Latham precision steering controls. Should 28 feet (and room for five) prove insufficient for your entourage, Porsche and Fearless are expanding the line to include vessels of up to 150 feet in length, and while the prices may be steep—the 28 starts at $300,000—they have this advantage: They manage to make a 911 look like a bargain.
"A quarter century ago, on March 29, 1976, a simple, pastel map of New York City appeared on the cover of The New Yorker. Drawn from the perspective of a low-flying bird looking west from Ninth Avenue, you could see the world receding from the city: the Hudson River, New Jersey, Kansas City, then the Pacific Ocean and Japan. It was Saul Steinberg's famous ''View of the World from Ninth Avenue,'' a drawing reproduced and imitated countless times. Every city wanted a version of its own. Steinberg once said that if he had gotten the proper royalties, ''I could have retired on this painting.''
This week, another simple pastel map, a flat, bird's-eye view of New York City drawn in pen and wash, appeared on the cover of The New Yorker. It showed the names of the city's neighborhoods Afghanistanicized: Lubavistan, Kvetchnya, Irate, Irant, Mooshuhadeen, Schmattahadeen, Yhanks, Feh, Fattushis, Fuhgeddabouditstan, Hiphopabad, Bad, Veryverybad, E-Z Pashtuns (leading to New Jersey), Khakis and Kharkeez (in Connecticut) and, most touchingly, Lowrentistan, where the World Trade Center once stood."
"As scientists investigate the relationship between sprawl and obesity, a compact style of city development sometimes called smart growth might become a tool in the fight for the nation's health. However, University of Toronto economist Matthew Turner charges that "a lot of people out there don't like urban sprawl, and those people are trying to hijack the obesity epidemic to further the smart-growth agenda [and] change how cities look."
For decades, housing and population growth in U.S. suburban areas have outpaced those in city centers. Shifts in commuting patterns reflect the trend toward people residing at a sizable distance from where they work, shop, and play. According to U.S. Census data, the average commute lengthened from 22.4 minutes to 25.1 minutes between 1990 and 2000, and the proportion of workers walking or biking to work dropped by one-quarter.
TIGHT FIT. Densely built urban areas such as Vancouver's downtown may encourage pedestrian traffic and promote physical activity. In contrast, cities of low density, where people depend on cars to get to stores and other facilities, seem to favor obesity. Corbis
A few communities buck the national trend. For example, Frank says, "there is a great deal of new development in Atlanta that is walkable."
Source: Weighing In on City Planning Could smart urban design keep people fit and trim? Ben Harder Science News, Week of Jan. 20, 2007; Vol. 171, No. 3 , p. 43 http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20070120/bob9.asp
