For those hiding under a log (and gods know I hide under my own log of sorts) LIFE magazine has published all or most of the photos from all their back issues and it’s all searchable. Lots of historical photography to trove through, I could literally get lost on this site all day.
Incidently, it’s a shame that they haven’t published all the old articles as well. why not?
I started searching for photos of Charles A. Haertling’s Volsky House, a very organic mid-century modernist house, showcased in semi-recent issue of Dwell. But once I started to search the site, I quickly became distracted by the mountain of good photography. here’s a few nuggets:
Cassius Clay and some guys from Britain that make music
Dr. J throws it down
To put the icing on the cake, some of the images can be purchased and printed via QOOP, a web-based photography printing service (you can print your flickr photos through QOOP as well). Photos are around $100 framed. Unfortunately, none of the Cassius Clay or Dr. J photos are purchasable, that’s a travesty.
This last image is one of my favorites. I’d love a shot of this framed on the wall. Total Classic:
Cassius Clay relaxes after becoming heavyweight champion
Impressive photos and accompanying essay over at Burn Magazine, an online photography journal curated by Magnum photographer David Alan Harvey:
The local crew on the Outer Banks is a diverse lot, from burnt-out punks to born-again Christians; from pre-teen gremlins to guys in their sixties and seventies. A number of strong women surfers represent the fairer sex, but the crew is predominantly male. There are summer surfers, Sunday surfers; guys who won’t surf if it’s too cold to trunk it; guys who will ALWAYS paddle out, even on the iciest days….there are brat packs and lone wolves, world-famous globetrotting professionals, and mellow stoners who just want to get wet and catch a ride. In the summer, there are tourists–loads of them–trying to figure it out on rented styrofoam boards, or clogging some spot with a surf school…and whenever the surf is really good, the Va Beach crew rolls in like a band of Turks, charging it at the best spots, pulling crazy aerial maneuvers, and generally acting like they own the place.
I love it when text and image come together to create something more.
I’ve had this song on repeat for the past day or so. constantly going back to it. moving on and then coming back. It’s been floating around my mind for years and a brief screening of The Wackness, prompted me to dig in the (pixel) crates for a copy of this beautiful, haunting, insanely wonderful song. Some true true soul.
While gooooogling for an image for this post I ran across an Oxford American Mag article that explains the historical context of the song and its resurgence (after being sampled by Rza). An amazing article and great read.
It would prove to be Rene’s greatest artistic success, but it had little commercial impact upon release. Rene released a few more singles, including the exuberant “Bar B-Q,” and sang and toured with Rufus Thomas and Otis Redding before fading from the public eye, retiring to motherhood and church-singing. “After Laughter” languished, more or less forgotten, for over a quarter-century.
“I love the fact that hip-hop has helped soul music to get back on the shelves or allowed a lot of people to rediscover these songs in their four-minute versions instead of our sampled hip-hop versions. Because those songs are great, man,” he says. “A song like ‘After Laughter’ probably spent two months in the stores when it came out, you know what I mean? To see that song as something people recognize now, that’s a beautiful thing.” – Rza
grain edit · House Industries interview Great Interview with Andy Cruz, the art-director behind the Alexander Girard series released by House Industries. House Ind. is releasing a Girard type family and in addition to the fonts, they have released new tshirts, a nativity set, alphabet blocks, a children's puzzle, lettering and Marliyn Neuhart designed Casa dolls. Basically, a bunch of cool toys for modernist loving grown-ups.
how 2 shoot a water shot and line up shot | on surf photography this blog post is schizophrenic. the first part is total crap. i dislike posts like this. there's been a few, recently. instead of giving helpful, clear advice, the synopsis of part 1 is basically: don't ask questions and get a pair of balls and a camera housing and get out into the line-up and don't get in anyone's way. The author's writing style isn't cool in that old-school curmudgeon vibe that you expect from Brewer/Grannis/Servais etc… Part 2 is way better and (gulp!) actually helpful. Alex Laurel's part 2 is down to earth and to the point.
Labuat | soy tu aire sometimes the internet can show you beautiful things. this is one of those. takes a minute to load but worth every second. delightful.
okayplayer – Video: Documentary on Big Daddy Kane One of my favorite MCs growing up. this a 17 minute doc following a true legend of hip-hop. worth a look. incidentally: why does he look like Ghostface's older brother?
Marcia — sometimes grudgingly — posed for over 800 shots over the course of 9 months. I put this together real quickly late last week. still not sure if it’s done. I might revisit it again when i have a little free time. Technically, I totally shot the whole thing wrong. Bad lighting, moving tripod, vertical format. The list goes on.
But I hope ya dig. Back to strictly surfing posts soon….
The Surfer’s Journal did an article on Thomas Meyerhoffer back in ‘07. I was a non-subscribing kook back then, but who can blame me. I live on the edge of nowhere. I was checking out Rider Shack today when I came across his new surfboards. The board’s form interested me, but it’s lack of conventionality made it appear somewhat whimsical. And then I read the board description and immediately went to Sway Locks to check out what the shapers are saying. That lead me to the video below, which has Meyerhoffer describing the board and his design process. Very interesting.
I’d love to see one of these in person and here’s video of the board in action (turn down the volume). I can appreciate his modern approach to solving old problems, but I still can’t quite wrap my mind around just how different this thing looks. It definitely adds a performance edge to the traditional longboard, but in a way, one of the endearing traits of the longboard is its direct, dialed-in connection to mid-century modernism. The longboard outline has essentially stayed the same since the 50s. It’s gotten a fair share of nips and tucks, but never a wholesale reinvention. I could be wrong. And for my money, I think the boards look waaaay better with the resin tints and cigar bands. The radical departure of the form, mixed with the old familiarity of retro tints helps pull the board back into a familiar context, kinda makes me wanna lick them. And that’s a good thing.
The Making of a Narco State: Rolling Stone powerful article: "As Mexico descends into brutality and lawlessness, the government itself has become a tool of the drug lords" – Short synopsis: frightengly underpaid police and politicians beg and steal money from narcos. And when the gov't steps up the drug war, things get wild. A lot of people have their hands in the drug pie. If Mexico weren't located next to a country filled with gun-crazy drug addicts, Mexico wouldn't be having this problem.
Global currency flies with push from Russia and slip from Timothy Geithner | Business | guardian.co.uk China (who is basically single-handedly propping up the dollar by buying our bonds) has signaled that since we are creating so much new currency – which causes inflation, which makes our dollars worth less and their investments worth less – has proposed that an IMF alternative be used as a new alternative to the dollar. This spells the literal end of any American empire that may have been and scares the hell out of me, personally, as a person who deeply believes that the IMF is a shadow world government – as described in Confessions of an Economic Hitman.
43f Podcast: John Gruber & Merlin Mann's Blogging Panel at SxSW | 43 Folders if you're in to blogging, writing, or creating anything that deals with the internet, you should listen to this talk from SxSW. amazing and inspirational – "We talked about building a blog you can be proud of, trying to improve the quality of your work, reaching the people you admire, and maybe even making a buck (in a way that doesn’t blow your deal)"
The Big Takeover : Rolling Stone "The global economic crisis isn't about money – it's about power. How Wall Street insiders are using the bailout to stage a revolution" – great article.
PostSurf » Unfiltered Thoughts on Surf Culture: PostSurf is possibly one of thee most entertaining and well written surf blogs I've read in awhile. I usually go for the kinda blogs that post sentimental surfing schmata, out of focus trips to the beach photos and shots of newly minted retro kooky surfboards, but I have a soft spot for curmudgeons who like to air dirty laundry. Lewis Samuels can chew up some pixels and despite his irreverent, snarky tone his shit is interesting. Definitely not for everyone, though. He was just fired from Surfline for saying his employer "licks advertisers' balls" among other things. Interesting read. And dude gets like 75 comment per post. damn?!
U.S. to blame for much of Mexico violence: Clinton | Reuters damn. Hillary speaks to the truth of the matter: Mexico's drug violence is a direct result of American's voracious appetite for illegal drugs. So when people like Glenn Beck knock Mexico, it's kinda like saying "why aren't you doing anything about this massive problem we're creating for you?"
Walk This Way: making the right choices to reduce your water footprint an awesomely illustrated infographic that visualizes your daily actions, your energy needs and the things you eat and how much water consumption they each use. Everything from toilets and showers to te, soda, meat and nuclear energy. Synopsis: try not to each so much beef and nuclear energy is a water suck.
Auto Tuning on Vimeo hilarious office video made by the folks at vimeo. these guys can make good short form clips. this one rips on autotune (that tech that helps singers sing better, or in Kanye West's case, helps him create new genres of music).
Simple elixir called a 'miracle liquid' – Los Angeles Times "It turns out that zapping salt water with low-voltage electricity creates a couple of powerful yet nontoxic cleaning agents. Sodium ions are converted into sodium hydroxide, an alkaline liquid that cleans and degreases like detergent, but without the scrubbing bubbles. Chloride ions become hypochlorous acid, a potent disinfectant known as acid water."
12 new pics from 'Where The Wild Things Are' amazing images. nice captions too. i love the look of this film. beware: the USA Today site has a pop-up video ad superstitial with audio that is way too loud and no 'skip ad' or 'sound off' button. Dillholes. But the images are worth sitting through the very annoying ad.
Front Fell Off – CollegeHumor Video This guy probably lobbies for the banking industry now. ain't nothin changed but the year. [via the baroquely curt 70%]
House of Pain at Concepts and The Roxy, St. Paddy's Day 2009 who knew that House of Pain still play shows. These guys need to get with Muggs and do a flash-back to 15 years ago record. and record it just like they would have 15 years ago. no girls, no drugs, no bling. just crazy redneck irish pride party records. we could use some nondescript party anthems. And i could definitely rock the green House of Pain Adidas campuses.
Zombie financial ideas – Paul Krugman Blog – NYTimes.com Krugman weighs in on the newest bank bailout plan Geithner is about to unveil. In short: Krugman thinks Geithner and Obama have lost the war on ideas. Very sad if he's right. and he's usually right. I'm starting to think that Geithner needs to go.
Tweetizen – Easy Twitter Groups There are tons of new twit aggregators popping up. Aggregators are sites that collect twits by topic, by following certain people. They usually focus on single topics like design, technology, web development, sports, stocks, etc… Their focus is usually narrow. Twittizen takes a different approach. It marries the twit aggregator idea to crowd-sourcing. Instead of giving you a narrow range of topics, it gives you a framework to home-roll your own aggregator and to share it on your own blog. Great idea!
Muller — Anatomy of… awesome design series from Tom Muller (Kleber design studio). In this series, he goes in to the process behind the projects he's designed for clients. I especially like the Viking logo one. A great resource for designers, from a guy who's been visible on the web since the late 90s.
James Day – photographer everything a flash-driven photography portfolio website should be and nothing it shouldn't. amazing photography. amazing presentation. See – flash can be cool. sometimes.
LET IT DIE: Rushkoff on the economy "The thing that is dying—the corporatized model of commerce—has not, nor has it ever been, supportive of the real economy. It wasn’t meant to be. And before we start lamenting its demise or, worse, spending good money after bad to resuscitate it, we had better understand what it was for, how it nearly sucked us all dry, and why we should put it out of our misery."
Insanely talented surf artist Al McWhite of Island Jive fame scribbled up the above graphic for a version of QP that I was putting together with a randomly revolving image header, last fall. That version never made it out the front door, things kicked into high gear surrounding little man’s imminent arrival and I came up with the current “minimal watercolor” vibe — fast n easy.
Well, my apologies to Al for sitting on this art. I really appreciate the time and energy he spent putting it together. I’m working on finding a permanent spot somewhere, on the site, for the art. Thanks Al. I also notice that Al has a new flash-driven site.
Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable « Clay Shirky "The problem newspapers face isn’t that they didn’t see the internet coming. They not only saw it miles off, they figured out early on that they needed a plan to deal with it, and during the early 90s they came up with not just one plan but several."
doubleTwist "All your stuff, on all your devices, with
all your friends — in seconds" – nice lifestream app. watch the demo.
TPM Photo Features | Talking Points Memo | Just Say No Yes to Earmarks "When the 2009 spending bill passed last week, Republicans on the Hill– and the stray Dem — were united in a chorus of earmark-bashing. In the words of Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY): "Cut 'em all out." But it turns out that while the senator from Kentucky voted against the bill, he had $10.6 million in earmarks — 13 separate earmarks, to be exact — in the bill. And he is by no means alone. Several members touted their opposition to the bill and then voted against it, even as they tucked in earmarks for their own districts (thanks to Taxpayers for Common Sense). Oh the shame." – I guess it's useless to question why we're getting stuff like this from TPM and not CNN or NBC?
A few gorgeous analogish photos seen on the newish random-as-hell surfyish blog Lets Live. definitely worth an eye. The writer looks to have an “interesting” sense of humor. very promising.
Hi, my name is Ed. I’m a graphic designer who lived in L.A. I quit my job, sold my car, rented out my house and moved to Mexico. Along the way, I learned how to surf and fell in love. This blog is my story. In these pages I write about and photograph my daily experience. I also post about things I find interesting: art, design, photography, music, tech, etc...
