MACLAINE

By Antanas Sutkus

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 16:46:24 -0700

Is this a young Tim Heidecker at Disney World? I wish it was....

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 22:27:00 -0800

Is this a young Tim Heidecker at Disney World? I wish it was. However, it’s from something even better. A new post from the internet k-hole. Seeing this wealth of shitty snapshots makes me wonder why anyone is ever nostalgic for anything. Yes, there can be comfort in the safe and familiar past, but the memory is often much nicer than the moment itself, at least under the garish illumination of the flash from a cheap camera.

Sculpture by Jonty Hurwitz. Among other things, Mr. Hurwitz...

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 14:05:25 -0800

Sculpture by Jonty Hurwitz.

Among other things, Mr. Hurwitz makes these really cool sculptures that are only truly revealed in the reflection of a metal cylinder. Check out his site for much more.

LACMA on Flickr. Los Angeles, California

Fri, 14 Dec 2012 00:51:00 -0800

LACMA on Flickr.

Los Angeles, California

Perch on Flickr. Capitol Hill, Seattle, WA

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 01:09:00 -0800

Perch on Flickr.

Capitol Hill, Seattle, WA

Goodell Creek on Flickr.

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 10:56:00 -0800

Goodell Creek on Flickr.

Zak on Flickr. Plum Point, Newburgh, NY

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 10:36:00 -0800

Zak on Flickr.

Plum Point, Newburgh, NY

House on the water on Flickr. Sebago Lake, Maine

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 10:10:00 -0800

House on the water on Flickr.

Sebago Lake, Maine

I saw the new James Bond movie the other day. If you have even a...

Sun, 18 Nov 2012 16:12:58 -0800

I saw the new James Bond movie the other day. If you have even a remote love for Bond in your heart, this one is definitely worth seeing in the theaters. I’ve seen just about every movie in the series, including the weird ones like the original Casino Royale and Never Say Never Again, and I feel confident in saying that this new one ranks easily among the best. However, I’m here to talk about the music of Bond.

As even the most casual Bond fan knows, a major component of each movie is the opening theme song. Adele does justice to the legacy with her excellent song for Skyfall. Still, it’s hard to beat the queen of all Bond singers, Shirley Bassey. With three songs in the Bond theme repertoire, she sets the gold standard (get it?) that everyone else has to live up to. She manages to effortlessly combine sensuality, tongue-in-cheek playfulness, and power in her singing, all hallmarks of the Bond mythos itself. Other singers have managed to hit the mark on one or two of these, but with the possible exception of Tom Jones effort for Thunderball, only Bassey has managed to pull off the entire trifecta so well.

Here she is singing the song live at Royal Albert Hall circa 1964-65. She absolutely kills it.

John Kerry at a New Hampshire rally (2004?) In the spirit of the...

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 18:10:00 -0800

John Kerry at a New Hampshire rally (2004?)

In the spirit of the election, here’s a great photo by the amazing David Burnett. Burnett is a man after my own heart, a photographer who still uses film, and not only that, but uses old cameras that any sane individual, let alone a present day professional photojournalist, would stay far, far away from.

He’s made a reputation for himself in the last decade or so by shooting major political and sporting events with an old Speed Graphic and an absolutely enormous Kodak Aero Ektar lens, which is an aerial surveying lens that dates back to WWII.

There was a time that a Speed Graphic was standard issue for any press photographer, but that was 70+ years ago. The name of the game in sports and news photography is smaller, faster, lighter. With long zoom lenses and faster film (and now digital, of course), it became possible for a photographer to stand well away from the subject and still get a tight closeup. What you lose in that situation, however, is context. You get no sense of the space the action is taking place in. Burnett’s work harks back to images like this one of Major League Baseball pitcher George Wiltse from 1912*. The scale is bigger, both in the sheer size of the negative (4 inches by 5 inches) as well as the amount of information delivered by the image. It makes it seem a little more important.

I don’t know if Burnett was on assignment for this year’s election, but I imagine he was, and I’m looking forward to seeing his take on it.

*By the way, if you haven’t checked out the Library of Congress’s amazing Flickr feed, you should.

Transformation Mask by Anthony SantellasMore at Neatorama.

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 16:16:29 -0700

Transformation Mask by Anthony Santellas

More at Neatorama.

For those who might not know, I work as a sound designer and composer for a company called...

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 13:46:00 -0700

For those who might not know, I work as a sound designer and composer for a company called ArenaNet, and we currently make a game called Guild Wars 2. I feel very lucky to here every day, because I get the chance to do all sorts of fun stuff with all sorts of smart and talented people. Lately, I’ve been getting the chance to work on more music for the game, and I’ve been having a blast.

The first Guild Wars established an annual tradition around Halloween where new events, art, and characters would pop up in the world. It revolved around a character named the Mad King Thorn, a jack-o-lantern-headed lunatic who would appear once a year to heckle and terrorize players. Since Guild Wars 2 just shipped a couple of months ago, this Halloween is his first appearance in the new game.

Since the style and mood of the game art is very much in the Tim Burton vein, I thought we needed a suitable piece of music in the Danny Elfman vein. That ended up being the Halloween Theme. I was also asked to do some more dramatic, tense music for a specific map that involves you running up a clock tower in a set amount of time, and that ended up being the Mad King Clock Tower piece, which has its origins in the rhythm and melody of the Halloween Theme.

Happy Halloween!

One thing I love about flying west in the evening is that sunset...

Sun, 21 Oct 2012 21:50:00 -0700

One thing I love about flying west in the evening is that sunset gets drawn out over the course of hours instead of minutes. These four pictures were taken about half an hour and hundreds of miles apart each. (at Above the fruited plain, America)

Control. (at JFK International Airport, NY)

Sun, 21 Oct 2012 21:41:00 -0700

Control. (at JFK International Airport, NY)

Goodbye again, New York. I’m way into you, but you already...

Sun, 21 Oct 2012 11:12:42 -0700

Goodbye again, New York. I’m way into you, but you already knew that. (at Brooklyn, NY)

Incredible title page art from the Sanborn map company. In an...

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 17:42:25 -0700

Incredible title page art from the Sanborn map company. In an age where anyone with a laptop, Photoshop, and some free fonts can feel like a graphic designer, I can’t begin to imagine what it must have taken to make something this intricate by hand.

Go here for many, many more. Make sure you click on them to see the files are their enormous full resolution.

Seven Hours With A Backseat Driver by Gotye Here’s an...

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 17:29:54 -0700

Seven Hours With A Backseat Driver by Gotye

Here’s an excellent video for a Gotye instrumental by the animation studio Rubber House. It has kind of a nightmarish Golden Books vibe to it, or like it’s some weird foreign knock off of a proper children’s book.

This was brought to my attention via the Twitter feed of the fantastically talented Marlo Meekins, who, in addition to having the best name ever, also contributed some design and background work to the video. Follow her Tumblr blog for your fill of funny and twisted comic strips.

Goodell Creek, WA

Sat, 29 Sep 2012 02:21:05 -0700

Goodell Creek, WA

Album art for Earth, Wind, and Fire’s 1979 album I Am, by...

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 21:28:35 -0700

Album art for Earth, Wind, and Fire’s 1979 album I Am, by Shusei Nagaoka.

Lots more spaced out ’70s/’80s artwork here.

Cement - Georgetown, Seattle, WA

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 23:42:00 -0700

Cement - Georgetown, Seattle, WA