LH

You know I’m the best older sister. The kids are real...

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 21:25:43 -0500

You know I’m the best older sister.

The kids are real flagrant with the text typos these days…and this kid happens to be ranked in the top 20 of his class, smdh.

Photo

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 10:20:59 -0500

Video

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 09:28:44 -0500

There’s this homeless? man who sits in the space between...

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 05:11:11 -0500

There’s this homeless? man who sits in the space between two buildings, 40 drinking. My favorite part about this is how he’ll swig the 40 then, he slips it into a pipe hole and comes back for it later. It’s not liquor so, what the hell?

The Sartorialist and the Digestive System

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 22:45:00 -0500

I wouldn’t call myself a connoisseur of fashion blogs but it kind of makes me uncomfortable that the biggest fashion blog- The Sartorialist, a streetwear blog, is so boring. This is something I’ve thought for awhile and after listening to Scott Schuman’s Sound of Young America podcast, my feelings are reaffirmed.

The problem with the blog is the same problem with most fashion coverage; there are trends…the trends are covered to death…and even if the trends are dirty, the focus of the trends are still the “clean version”. In the podcast, Sartorialist Scott talks about how the pictures on the blog are not always just outfits he likes…but he calls them portraits of a person with a style or “aura” if you will, that he’s attracted to. But the aspect I find most problematic about his noble intentions is the content of the content.

So, obviously there are both males and females…but they are all the same types of people— holding the potentially unattractive variables stable at a consistent: wealthy and educated. Consequently, age and race varies slightly, but not significantly and the body size and type is also 99.5% stable.

The women: 98.3% are young and model-type slender (is this to be expected?)

The men: never obese but more room for average sized males and also many more old men are photographed than old women, still mostly young males with noticeably more variation in race among male photo subjects

In the podcast, he’s asked about taking photos of old men. He talks about visualizing himself getting older through his attraction to these men for photographs. Does this mean women don’t get old? Maybe the website is just in need of a woman’s touch. At least the facehunter blog doesn’t paint itself as being accepting of other cultures and different people…he’s just posting streetwear pictures of stylish white people who are thin enough and fashionable enough to maybe be models one day.

Sartorialist also posts visual after visual of trends that are already established…it’s certainly not utilizing the random factor of being in many different cities to prop up new and actually INTERESTING trends. I mean, it almost appears as if the blog is funded by Urban Outfitters to increase sales. Yes, I understand leather oxford shoes are popular…do I really need to see 100’s of photos of people all over the world wearing them in the same classy way?

My annoyance with this has certainly made me think that maybe I should start taking streetwear photos.

But…

A. I don’t have a lot of time to wander

B. it might end up being weirder than I am ready for and I’m too conscious to appear completely reckless

But I will say that most of the time, if I’m having a fashion inspiration moment it’s usually NOT from people in my age group and most often NOT from people who are “into” fashion. It’s often not about how agreeable what the person is doing is and more about if they are pulling it off (aka not being a douche and not trying too hard), whatever it is. It’s the combination of loosely defined variables and the informed eye that result the creation of potential trends. Loosely defined variables include all influences and inspiration from the broad definition of art as well as “street fits”. Music, art, literature, movies…all that can influence a person’s mood and tone when dressing themselves…afterall, fashion is the result of culture…culture is not the result of fashion. So, I’ll keep tumbling about the culture part.

Money $pent this weekend on some culture shown below:

Download the Future

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 12:56:00 -0500

When I was downloading all that modern psych shit awhile ago, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti was among the mess. At first I was thinking it was complete bullshit, until I kept reading about it and found that it pre-dated and inspired a lot of 2009’s Lo-Fi, indie madness. I can’t decide whether the purposeful obscurity of Ariel Pink, James Ferraro, or even that of Richard D. James is “cool” or cowardly- changing depending on my own mood. Do you want to have a secret blog a little outlet where you can just be YOU? That’s how this tumblr shit started for me and I can relate but it’s ultimately a pretty stupid fucking way of living. Is your diary a secret? Nah, you want people to read it…it’s ultimately for someone, pine tree.

Ariel Pink is definitely working in the realm of “hauntology” before that was really a thing people talked about. Long-windedly explained here. In short, I’d explain it as basically, playing into human perception and subconscious by post-modern usage of familiar tones, patterns, and the established rock-canon (that is, if you are familiar with it). It’s hard to care about this shit unless you are in the moment with it. Do I really need to download one more CD-R of Ariel Pink music…nah, I will NEVER feel like that because it’s such a mixed bag in a self-indulgent way (I kinda think you only really need if you are interested, the album: The Doldrums). So, does that mean 2009’s version of this is better? Girls? Wavves? I might argue so. Never really into Wavves for whatever reason, but Girls sticks with me because even though Owens really worships Ariel Pink, the music is still more earnest and much less dependent on what the listener knows about rock music. Then, there’s James Ferraro.

This dude, although still fitting into the hauntology realm, is way more modern than Ariel Pink or Girls or anything else. But it’s hard to explain without this leading comparison. When I say he’s really on some other shit, I mean he’s turned the referencing the rock canon into conjuring up images and notions directly from our culture, with sound. Oh you forgot about Zooba pants? This motherfucker can make music that “sounds old/used” because it’s recorded through 50,000 VCRs and somehow makes you feel like you are running in some Zooba’s with (remember these?) those jackets that could be purchased at the beach and they were teal but if you moved the fabric you would see different colors? on the boardwalk with the glory of the Baywatch theme song.

And that’s the breaking point for me, where it becomes personal and my relationship with the music starts to build. I start to think of mid to late 90s TBS…shit like watching Highlander with my stepdad and those obnoxious La Femme Nikita commercials. For better or worse, in this society, we are incredibly influenced by all this marketing shit. It broke through socioeconomic classes to affect many more people because it occurred at the time when the economy was good (great?) and most people had TV and access to some programming. So…our obsessiveness/sentimental? attachment to old fads and even, old ads seems to be a direct result of this. Shout out to tvnutboy.

I never fast forwarded through the commercials on VHSes when I was a kid, you had to ride them out. Land Before Time was the movie my mom thought I was going to burn out the VHS of and I’m pretty sure that’s why when I found this, I really realized for the first time how much these advertisements had an impact on me (and probably the whole last of the pre-internet youths generation). So, will the children of the next generation…have this same attachment when it’s coupled with the internet and DVDs? Will it be internet memes? Should be interesting.

It’s great that music can force this conversation/feeling. It’s really the future, y’all.

Download the Future

Yup still doin this.

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 23:50:41 -0500

Yup still doin this.

Photo

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:42:40 -0500

Photo

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:41:50 -0500

Photo

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:40:16 -0500

You might know the rap but you don’t know the COUNTRY,...

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 10:54:00 -0500

You might know the rap but you don’t know the COUNTRY, cityboy!

You might know the rap but you don’t know the COUNTRY,...

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 10:42:16 -0500

You might know the rap but you don’t know the COUNTRY, cityboy!

You might know the rap but you don’t know the COUNTRY,...

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 10:40:39 -0500

You might know the rap but you don’t know the COUNTRY, cityboy!

Monique's Rapp Mix for Femmes Who Sorta Like Rap

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 02:42:00 -0500

Me and my cousin have this weird relationship. We are really lucky if we see eachother once a year (especially, now that I live in NC and she goes to Penn State)…but for some reason we get kind of caught up in rap related conversations on the Facebox; I recognize something she’s quoting or she’s sending me messages talking or asking some shit. So, on a whim, I decided I was just going to pass on a tasteful mix of songs including new stuff, stuff I think she’d like, stuff I think anyone seriously interested in rap should probably hear or be interested in…ect, ect. I figured I’d share it even though it’s quite pedestrian for most BLOG READERS, I think it’s a good surprise bag of rapps for a girl.

1. Throw Money ft. Sean Garrett- Gucci Mane

2. Fellin’ Myself- Mac Dre

3. Clubstarr- 410 Pharaohs

4. I Look Good- Chalie Boy ft. E-40 [kid tested, monique approved]

5. Hood Girl- Jacki-O

6. Loose as a Goose ft Foxx & Mouse- Lil Boosie

7. Buck Bounce- 8ball & MJG

8. Tear the Fuckin’ Club Up- DJ Class

9. Feel So Good- Mase

10. Ms. Fat Booty - Mos Def

11. I Wish- Skee-Lo

12. Wouldn’t You Like 2 Ryde - Kanye West

13. Rhymes Like Dimes ft. Cucumber Slice- MF Doom

14. Pourin’ Up ft Mike Jones & Bun B- Pimp C

15. Big Rotha- Z-Ro [the song I initially sent her that sparked this idea and she liked was a z-ro song]

16. Mr. Me Too ft Pharrell- Clipse

17. Bandz- G-Side

18. Rollin ft Jhi Ali- Jackie Chain

19. Blinded - Jackie Chain [haha]

20. Shook Ones Pt. II - Mobb Deep

21. Elevators (Me & U)- Outkast

22. Eternal Sunshine (the pledge) - Jay Electronica

**if a link is showing up- not sure if it works.

Over ten times straight through in 2 days.

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 21:54:10 -0500

Over ten times straight through in 2 days.

Dean McPhee's Brown Bear

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 01:18:12 -0500

In (continued) serious avoidance of my pending presentation due date, I decided to download some modern psych-shit I knew I’d at least sort of hate which lead to randomly browsing myspaces. Through all this, I found the unrelated, Yorkshire-based guitarist, Dean McPhee.

DL: “Brown Bear”

Guitar, in general, is dead to me except for when something like this pops up. With a little bit of the twang of Chet Atkins and the grandeur of the guitar playing of Christian Fennesz, Dean McPhee shows novelty via guitar is still possible. His track “Brown Bear”, one of three tracks on his 12” release also called Brown Bear (released 11/2/09), is sort of all over the place. It moves without really moving and if you aren’t listening very hard, it’s easy to mistake it for elevator muzak and miss the tonal changes in the song. Sort of beachy, sort of ambient but still new-sounding enough that doesn’t make me want to go pull out that stack of Atkins records or whoever else’s records. Probably going to see if my local record store can order this…(so far, they are 1 for 3).

And if this makes you fiend for more solo geetar greatness, just download this greatness: Henry Kaiser - It’s a Wonderful Life

Also, for reference:

A duck reasoning with an enthusiastic snake: I drew this at a...

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 21:12:23 -0500

A duck reasoning with an enthusiastic snake: I drew this at a conference I went to this week.

Singing Songs of Separation, Together

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 21:02:00 -0500

I have a tendency to think certain movies, like many pieces of art or any sort of information sharing, are intended for people who are conditioned to understand. People walk away from some movies not liking them or not caring or never wanting to watch it again while others feel like they have gained validation or a new understanding. Movies have the ability to illicit a very selfish response in people because, among other reasons, we are creatures who depend on vision for our often differing, blurred interpretations of life. One can’t necessarily share movies the same way one can’t 100% share an experience.

I often strongly dislike this selfishness because I think, ultimately, both experiences and movies can be shared, at least to some degree. But at the same time, when you are the one feeling the selfish feeling about a movie, it’s almost like by sharing it, you somehow feel like you are loosing stock in it or that it will result in a conversation you don’t want to have.

In the past couple years, I’ve seen two movies that I feel selfish about. One of them is Snow Angels (2007) and the other is Ballast (2008). Every fucked up thing that has ever happened to me is in some way, shape or form contained in these movies. But another result, unfair on my part, is to be completely annoyed/offended when a friend or a family member when they tell me, “I didn’t get it” or “ehh”. But for me, these two movies represent shit I’ve had to hide or not share, both as a child and as an adult. So, basically, I’m just trying to say here are two movies that “speak” to me in that Oprah way, no, I’m kidding—but what I am trying to say is—here are two movies that are both very real but also speak a message that isn’t often said or accepted by the average person- something I think only movies are really capable of doing in a way that is not disrespectful.

And if you are one of these people who is hiding because when it’s in your face “that’s not you”, these movies really might help you work through it on some level.

2d visual creatures

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 21:21:15 -0500

Super skinny Jermaine Dupri footage from 1986.

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:24:41 -0500

Super skinny Jermaine Dupri footage from 1986.