FINALLY

"Most fresh spinach in the United States is "as safe as it was" before a nationwide E. coli outbreak, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said, revising a two-week-old consumer warning."

P.S. Page Me Later

I found Found Magazine's website. It's wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. I wish I still had the amazing note that was left on my car by some Savannah vandals after they wrecked the deer skull I had attached to my bumper. It was hilarious. I can't remember what it said exactly, but I loved it and I saved it, but it's vanished by now into the ether. Maybe it'll turn up again one day and I'll send it in to Found Mag. Here's what they're all about:

We collect found stuff: love letters, birthday cards, kids' homework, to-do lists, ticket stubs, poetry on napkins, doodles- anything that gives a glimpse into someone else's life. Anything goes.

We certainly didn't invent the idea of found stuff being cool. Every time we visit our friends in other towns, someone's always got some kind of unbelievable discovered note or photo on their fridge. We decided to make a bunch of projects so that everyone can check out all the strange, hilarious and heartbreaking things people have picked up and passed our way.

You should read the rest of the about page... the note that started it all is pretty great... and then check out some of the finds, complete with brief explanations of the context in which they were discovered.

This is my favorite one for today:

Ralph's Note
FOUND by Jennifer in New York, New York
I had been playing my music (which can get pretty odd at times) one night in my apartment. The next day, I woke up to a lot of sounds outside my door. I opened my door to see paramedics taking away my neighbor. He had died, apparently during the night.

By the way, we lucky Atlantans can pick up the yearly paper version of the magazine at Criminal Records... Just so you know. I'm gonna be looking for it.

God, i love this stuff.

A Chaos of Conscious Forces

Listen: I've been accumulating a pretty nice collection of bookmarks to various photo and imagery archives around the internets for a while now, with the intention of sharing. There is so much visual treasure just waiting to be looked at, from Soviet-era maps of the U.K. to photos developed from film found in cameras at antique stores and flea markets to hundreds of scans of old illustrations from the turn of the century.

[I have to disclaim that I've been turned on to a large majority of these collections via Boing Boing, (though I've found some on my own,) so if you're a regular BB reader, I ask you to forgive a little repetition. But I think some of y'all might not have seen this stuff, and I want you to.]

So I'm gonna start posting some of these archives regularly.

To start: a really nicely designed site about found photos from Buenos Aires.

And this:

'A city is, properly speaking, more poetic even than a countryside, for while Nature is a chaos of unconscious forces, a city is a chaos of conscious ones. The crest of the flower or the pattern of the lichen may or may not be significant symbols. But there is no stone in the street and no brick in the wall that is not actually a deliberate symbol -a message from some man, as much as if it were a telegram or a post-card. The narrowest street possesses, in every crook and twist of its intention, the soul of the man who built it.’

Well put, G.K. Chesterson.

By the way, I like the layout of this website. The photos are neatly separated into categories, and you get the thumbnails and the actual photo you're looking at in the same screen. Everything here is pretty good, but the "pieces" section is especially worth seeing.

Joe's a Real Person Now

Our dear friend and comrade Joe Stickney has his name in print on a real life mostly respectable website - Pitchfork - for being a (rather integral) part of the Table of the Elements festival that took place at Eyedrum a couple weeks ago.

I wish I could've gone for the whole festival; it sounded, and apparently was, incredible. But it was expensive and I'm not a rich man. I did make it to the second to last night, and caught Tony Conrad's awesome violin intonation deal as well as Rhys Chatham's Essentialist (for which Joe was the "drummist") (or is it "drum-a-teer" ? who can say.) I also listened to a little bit of Leif Inge's 24 hr version of Beethoven's Ninth. But I couldn't stay for the whole thing.

Overall, it was a pretty impressive night of avant garde music, and everyone seemed to be really digging it. Also, somewhat coincidentally, there was a miniature reunion of a bunch of us former Savannah residents who all happened to be in town. It was real cool to hang with those dudes again for the first time in about 4 years.


Anyway, the point of all this is that Pitchfork did a nice "live review" piece on the festival, and Joe gets mentioned very favorably. In fact, the point at which his name comes up seems to be the moment when the reviewer noticed that everyone in the room was high on the awesomeness of everything, and Joe is given credit for bringing a new vital flavor to the pantry. So, way to go, Joe.

update 9.24.06:

Joe and the Rhys Chatham's Essentialist gang just got written up in Pitchfork AGAIN - twice in the same week. The new one is about the Wire Fest in Chicago on 9.20, which was the last stop on their tour, this time performing with the likes of Jandek and John McEntire.

The Pitchfork peeps really like Joe - here's the best quote:

Chatham addressed his young players with the intensive stare of a conductor, keeping time with strums on his own guitar rather than a baton. And his drummer (pitcured above) positively killed

What I want to know, is if Joe's been killing people in Chicago, shouldn't someone stop him? I mean, yeah, he's a great drummer. We all know that. But murder? Come on, Joe, you're not above the law.

Check out Joe sweatin' like a Viking on Pitchfork:

I am a Dog

"He perked right up when we started calling him Charlie *B*. We chose the name Charlie because he just looked like one of those characters in the painting "Dogs Playing Poker". He just reminded us of a poker visor wearin', stogey hangin from his mouth kind of dog."

Drunken Drawings

I found this website while browsing Jeremiah's Painting-a-Day blog (previous post) a while back... this hasn't been updated in months, so I guess it was a short-lived project, but there was some dang great drunk drawing happening here. I forgot how much I enjoy inebriated collaborative art making... I might need to give it a shot again sometime soon. anyone up for it?

neat

This guy puts the rest of us lazy, procrastinating artists to shame.


A painting (just about) every day, and most of them are really good. And a lot of them are inspired by old Nintendo games and the internet. Lately, he's been doing YouTube portraits. There's even video of him painting. It's good. Look. You now have no choice but to click on the excitebike man.

Check Out My New Resume

Reverse Graffiti