High Five Yogi

My good friend and excellent all round human Yogi sent me this you tube link for a guy who cycles round New York high-fiving people. He sent me said link with an accompanying request; to put it on this blog. However, if I am being terribly honest, I did not like the video that much...I almost did, but not quite (sorry Yogi). However, since I'd cleverly and hilariously replied to his 'you should put this on your blog' comment with the genius retort 'I'll put YOU on my blog' - I will.


Also, Yogi is coming out to stay in New Zealand with me in 2 weeks time! I am proper excited.

Alyssa Monks

OK, hang on...so, first of all look at these images from Alyssa Monks 2009 portfolio.

Smirk

Filtered

Will

Done it? OK now you're ready I can tell you that these are in fact paintings not photos. Jaw sufficiently dropped? Pretty ridiculous really. Seeing her paintings kind of makes me want to paint immediately and kind of makes me want to never paint again. Either way I still can't get my head around the beautiful details. Check out the rest of her portfolio here. Found through the always great Please Sir.

Nixon are awesome...

Nixon have released a whole load of new watches recently. This Newton Digital is my favourite though...I really, really want it...maybe next pay day. The blue one is particularly rad but if I'm feeling grown up I'll get the black one instead

White Box

There are many things to love about this video by Makoto Yabuki. The soundtrack works perfectly, the animation is quaint and cute without being too much and the camera work is soft and lovely. However, after four minutes and eight seconds of feeling quite warm and fuzzy inside, my favourite, favourite thing about this video is the way those coloured pencils are so well lined up. They are just so lined up. Fantastic.

Through Reuben Miller, originally posted on Share Some Candy

Life-Size

I've always enjoyed things that are out of scale. Like when mugs or glasses are huge and it makes me feel like a borrower...you know like Ian Holm in that TV series I used to watch. But there are not normally many opportunities to enjoy the reverse of this...until now.

Camera

Door

Life-Size is a series of photographs by Cynthia Greig from Detroit. The images are of her friends and family holding and struggling to utilise everyday objects in miniature. She says that as "smaller scale surrogates of the original, the miniature seems to imply the existence of some kind of alternative universe where we are like gods, omnipotent and in control." Interesting concept and the photos...well, they are gorgeous.

Magnifying Glass

By the way, I found Cynthia's work through a new favourite blog Please Sir. You should go there next.

Watch Listen Tell

To record a band live and outdoors with a stills camera in video mode and make it look as beautiful as this is quite a feet I think. The way it's shot is so soft, and the occasional well timed focus pull keeps the whole thing intimate and honest.



Watch Listen Tell comes from director Dave Tree and is by no means new to internet world. It is the first time I have seen the videos though, and seeing as no one will read this anyway it doesn't matter if it's not breaking news. The you tube channel is well worth exploring with some excellent bands including the new Mercury Prize winners, Speech Debelle. My favourite though is the Florence and the Machine track My Boy Builds Coffins

A Plethora of Plurals

Short post today as I am 100% going to spend the morning in the glorious sunshine...

'All Sorts' is, as it explains, a linguistic experiment into the art of collecting collective nouns. Some of these are deemed to be dictionary worthy and some others should be but are not. Through the frankly quite frighteningly expansive power of twitter it searches for suggestions globally and now there are hundreds. My personal favourites so far are...

A seemingly empty room of ninjas
A knot of string theorists
A madeus of Mozarts

Worth a wee internet nibble anyhow...

Nanny Here

It's my Nan's funeral today; my Dad's mum. I can't go of course as she lived in England and I live in New Zealand but I wanted to do something to mark it anyway. I'm not sure why really, just so that I am thinking of her whilst everyone else that loved her is too. Her name was Eileen but my brother and sister and I used to call her 'Nanny Here' as she lived round the corner from us. My Mum's mum lives in Kent and she is 'Nanny Far-away.'

Website of the Week

OK, granted I have only just run into 'Book By Its Cover' so to give it the prestigious status of 'Website of the Week' already...on a Monday...is probably a little presumptuous. On the other side of the coin, it is awesome and seeing as I have never done a 'Website of the Week' feature before it doesn't matter all that much does it.

Moulger Bag Digest #2 - Rusty Jordan & Brent Harada

Anyway...'Book By Its Cover' is the brainchild of illustrator and pattern designer Julia Rothman. It brings together beautiful, independent publications including zines, sketchbooks, designs and comics that she has either found recently or collected over the years. Some are available to buy and some unfortunately are not. Well worth investing 20 minutes of internet nibbling time...

Sketchbook Series - Will Miller

Songs for September

Spring is well and truly in the air and accordingly my heart is constantly on the hunt for songs to listen to whilst sitting in the sunshine with my eyes closed or to accompany a beer and bbq. However, although I have been listening to some songs along the aforementioned vein, most of the ones sure to be on repeat over September and making it onto this post are more melancholy than I intended including these musical nuggets...

Julian Plenti - Only If You Run (buy it)
It took me until midway through the first chorus to realise that Julian Plenti was in fact the Interpol frontman (Google tells me his name is Paul Banks.) Anyway, this is delightful folk-rock upbeatness only deviating slightly from the oh so successful Interpol formula.

Blitzen Trapper - Black River Killer (buy it)
Border line country but certainly my favourite serial killer themed song since Sufjan Stevens' John Wayne Gacy Jr. One of those songs that you don't realise how much you like it until it's crept into your head and is too late to remove it.

T-shirt T-ime

I have been pointed towards quite a few ace new t-shirt websites/designers/printers of late, the top two of which are probably 'We Make T-Shirts' and 'Graniph'. We Make T-Shirts are a collaborating group of designers from Nottingham, UK and Graniph seem to be a massive enterprise from somewhere...possibly Japan as all their prices seem to be in JPY. Anway, here are two really rad ones.

We Make T-Shirts - Paper Planes

Graniph - Control Bear

Now if only I could make my stupid NZ visa card work online I could spend all kinds of monies! (that I don't have).

Softies?

I have been meaning to post these next lovely little nuggets all morning but keep getting distracted by refilling the garden pond, breakfast and THPS3. Anyway, originally hailing from Italy but now living in Germany, Ninon makes 'Softies' - which seems to be what I am supposed to call cuddly toys these days. Regardless of terminology her 'Les Monstris' series are rad and I don't feel at all demasculinated by liking them...at all...not one bit...

Ira Knobbolstein

August Leafballs

Ninon has a blog you can follow with updates on her exhibitions and gallery showings if you are very fortunate and in the area. If not, or as well as this even, you can buy from her etsy shop where she has 17 for sale at the moment as well as other occasional bits 'n' bobs.