Ricotta Park

MUTO

MUTO: a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu.

Educational Graffiti

This is probably the first instance I've seen of collaborative story-telling via Flickr posts. The first picture post (the second image in this post), from GammaBlog, garnered comments from [~~ Walter ~~] who shot both the source graffiti (above) as well as the school's second open letter to the "artist."

Also, sorry if this post showed up in yr feed readers about one hundred times. Typepad's been a punk lately.

Crossdressed Snake

Creepy animal jokes from Nina Katchdourian.

Friday Night: Bottle Caps, Syringes, et cetera.

Great show opens tonight at J. Johnson in Jax Beach. The work shown above is Zac Freeman's Jerry, which, like all of his "junk art," is wonderfully deceptive. Here's a close-up:

One of the most remarkable things about this series is that the pieces of "junk" are used in their entirety and not manipulated in any way before being affixed to the plywood canvas. There's a lot to be said for that, but we've talked about fragments and meaning before and i'm still a little groggy from the bourbon season opening this week. You, dear reader, have been spared.

Also, the Park plays Talleyrand tomorrow at 1 pm. DJ PJ Pants and I will be playing 60 1-minute-long  songs or something equally tedious. See you then.

Park-a-Brac II

While I'm waiting for this creepy new Total cereal ad to pop up online (if you thought Bob Dylan shilling for panties and Cadillacs was weird, you'll love this new spot), here are some of the better finds of the past few weeks:

The Raven SIngs the Blues site is a great source for all of you  longhaired-watery-domestic-swilling-resin-scraping-psych-metal-sludge-folk fans.

Dig David Cross' hilarious story about Bob Odenkirk fucking up his cellphone. An excerpt:

"Anywhosies, When I was in LA Bob fucked up my phone trying to fix it. Seriously. It was being cranky and slow and Bob offered to "fix" it. He pulled the back off and started to poke that tooth pick type thing into the reset slot and I panicked and ran over shouting, "wait, wait. Are you sure"? He tossed off my concern like a wet a.i.d.s. quilt and reset it."

FYI, kids: "A wet a.i.d.s. quilt" = Comedy gold.

Magnus Rembold and Jürgen Späth have created some pretty stunning infographics to portray the thematical content data of some essays.

And from there, you can link to the German Projekttriangle Design Studio and freak out on their disturbing corporate identity work.

Lastly, the 2nd annual installment of the 'Klept's Scary Stories is up and even more hilarious than last year. Check 'em out. 

We also added some mpfrees to Whalebelly's Higgs post from yesterday. Allah willing, we'll have more contributions from him, Crowder and others in the weeks to come.

The Future of the Folk

Jonah Whalebelly peers into Daniel Higgs' world and gets his own puppet head shoveled into the fires of love. Enjoy! - Longlunch

Daniel Higgs was, or still is, depending on what state of reality you subscribe to, the frontman for Lungfish. (Suggested Tag for Lungfish: “The Best Band On Dischord Who Aren’t Fugazi.”) He is now also, judging from the last few solo records he has put out, officially a wizard. And I don’t mean that in a metaphorical sense, I mean I think the guy is really off somewhere in Baltimore shuffling around in a moon/star woven cloak and a pointy hat, waving a tuning fork in a junkyard and putting spells on people only he can see.

On Activism

As you'll soon find out, we asked our good friend Jonah for some words on a subject far too broad for one post. He's a wayfaring stranger, folks, and we hope to hear much more from him in the days to come. - Longlunch

“Because every thought, either philosophical or religious, is interested in perpetuating itself; because the idea which has moved one generation wishes to move others also, and leave a trace.” -Victor Hugo

I was born in the mid-Seventies, at the tail end of the marketing scheme that some slick jackass stuck with the moniker "Generation X." I didn’t really care about generational movements when I found out that they’d tagged us, and I still don’t. I think that was the core of our generation movement. Attempt to define us, and even if your definition is dead on accurate, we’ll act like we have no interest in whatever you’re talking about...at least until it returns to obscurity. I suppose it's a knee-jerk reaction to the über-consumerism of the Eighties. Or maybe it just looked cool. Who knows? And really, who gives a fuck, anyway?

See. It's still as easy as breathing.

When I look back at coming of age, I had no clear idea that that's what we were supposed to be doing. I was too busy trying to figure out if the drugs were really strychnine. I think like most kids of the late 80s/early 90s indie rock/skateboard counter culture, I got my politics from punk records and Public Enemy. I read The Autobiography of Malcolm X when I was 15 or so, and for a little while I got interested in social movements. I joined a few grassroots anarchist newsletters, I wrote blatantly political poems, I damned the Man and all of His tentacles. I don’t know. I seem to remember at least believing that deep down inside I cared about something. It almost felt earnest, whatever it was. At least for a little while, maybe I thought youth movements could affect a change on society as a whole, but nothing concrete ever really felt imperative. I wanted to find something to get up in arms about, but all of the causes just sort of seemed either hopeless or doomed to fashion.

Ursine

The Colts are killing the Jags. BRT's gonna kill the city. Thinking about switching teams? Dig Jill Greenberg's Ursine series for some real four-legged love. She does this with little kids and monkeys, too.

for more on Jill Greenberg, check this out! thanks, alice!

Beat-ola.

Sorry it's been so long, folks. I spent the weekend participating in a 48-hour development competition (Rails Rumble) and then went to Obie Fernandez's book completion party last night. If you're in the Ruby on Rails programming scene, pre-order his new book here. He's a genius and he can hold his liquor pretty well. Just don't ever stand close to a pool if he's nearby. Dude almost drowned me, like, 4 times.

And in honor of "The Day Football Stopped," check out the 'Klept's thought-provoking commentary here. There's a lot to be said for stripping an event of its emotional resonance and examining it for its place in time.

And I apologize to those folks on my email list for the redundancy, but the following photoset is, as one of my esteemed co-temp-workers put it in 2004, "truly awesome." While this stuff doesn't even come close to comparing with the airbrushed portrait of Taz on my Jeep, it's still pretty dope.

Missing Yeti

From Joey's post on Urban Jacksonville. Please read.

"John Arvin’s Yeti Munny was stolen at last Wednesday’s Art Walk. I’m assuming the crime occurred during the Black Kids' set when the lights went out.

If you know of or have any information on who might have taken the Munny, please contact me. If you are the person who took it and want to return it no questions asked, that’s fine too. Just tell me a time and place when you will drop it off and I’ll be there.

This Munny had sentimental value to the artist and I would really like to see it returned. If you have a blog or a website can you please post a quick note similar to this one? Let’s find the Yeti!"

While we definitely want to see our friend John's Munny returned, the Park officially advocates theft of well-known masterpieces, if for no other reason than for inspiring the plot of so many entertaining films (The Great Muppet Caper, for instance).

Also, I was in Oslo in 2004 when Madonna and one of the Scream paintings were stolen from the Munch Museum by some dudes driving a black Audi. People went nuts. It was a fascinating time to be in a ridiculously expensive city.

Charles Grodin as "Nicky Holliday" in The Great Muppet Caper