May 14, 2007
Putting the "Lo" in Lohan ... More Juicy Celebrity Gossip Linkage ...
Lindsay Lohan in Tongue Fest with Calum Best in Bahamas ...
Critics Dump Hate on New Lindsay Lohan Film "Georgia Rule" ...
Lindsay Lohan to Play Stripper in Next Film Role ...
Paris Hilton Gets No Time From Gov. Arnold Scharzenegger ...
Indian Actress Shilpa Shetty Appeals to India's Supreme Court ...
Jessica Simpson Dishes About Her Sex Life ...
Posted by Thurston Ali at 11:20 PM
April 30, 2007
Juicy Celebrity Gossip Links ...
Courtney Love to Sell Late Nirvana Singer Kurt Cobain's Pajamas ...
Lindsay Lohan Addicted to "Shopping and Sex" ...
Prince Allegedly Humiliates Paris Hilton at Las Vegas Concert ...
Britney Spears Wears See-Through Outfit ...
K-Fed Allegedly Drove Britney Spears to Brink of Suicide ...
Former "Posh Spice" Victoria Beckham and Her Nipples Hit LA with See-Through Top ...
Alec Baldwin Rumored to Write Book Bashing Ex-Wife Kim Basinger ...
Posted by Thurston Ali at 11:21 PM
April 18, 2007
Celebrity Gossip Linkage to Get Ya' Through the Week, Kidzzz ...
Lindsay Lohan Talks About Rehab ... Says She's Not "An Addict" ...
Paris Hilton Violates Her Probation ...
Britney Spears Fires Her Manager, Faces Possible Lawsuit ...
Britney Spears Blames Paris Hilton for Recent Downward Spiral ...
Sanjaya Malakar Gets Voted Off American Idol ... There is a God After All ...
Baby Phat Queen Kimora Lee Simmons to Get Her Own Reality TV Show ...
Posted by Supercore at 11:45 PM
April 12, 2007
Kurt Vonnegut, RIP
Sad to hear that novelist Kurt Vonnegut has died. Vonnegut's dark, satirical stories are among our favorite works of modern fiction. His stories were comic and at time absurdist and employed uconventional storytelling that was fresh, original and -- most of all -- a riveting pleasure. After we read our first Vonnegut book, a dog-eared paperback edition of "Breakfast of Champions," we devoured several more of his works in quick succession and became hooked on Kurt. Literature aside, Vonnegut was a pleasure to see and hear speak, as well. Learning about the artist behind the art often adds another dimension to our experience with their work. Vonnegut's humanism in the face of a crazy world, will be missed. Kurt Vonnegut, 1922 - 2007. RIP.
Posted by Supercore at 11:46 PM
March 15, 2007
"Among The Thugs"
We've just finished reading "Among The Thugs," Bill Buford's remarkable and page-turning book about crowd violence during the dark days of English and European football/soccer hooliganism in the 1980's. The book is a work of non-fiction, but reads like a highly personal piece of well-researched first-person journalism.
Buford befriended some of the most notorious of the hardcore members of the various team "firms," including that of the Manchester United football club. The author witnessed countless acts of crowd violence at soccer matches across the U.K. and Europe while living in London in the late 1970s and through the '80s . Buford was himself beaten severely by Italian police when thousands of English supporters went on a rampage outside a World Cup match in 1990. The book is a meditation on the nature of crowds, psychology and culture. It's absolutely fascinating, yet disturbing.
"Among The Thugs" was written and published in the early '90s at a time when English football hooliganism inside the top-league stadiums was gradually being eradicated following the Hillsborough disaster in which 96 people were killed in the standing-area terrace of a stadium.
Since then, police crackdowns on violent football fans, better surveillance and policing, the introduction all-seating areas and the removal of all-standing terraces in British stadiums, among other things, has all but extinguished crowd violence at matches and made attending games in the U.K. now a far safer experience than it was when Buford wrote "Among The Thugs."
Posted by Thurston Ali at 11:37 PM
March 14, 2007
Appetizing Celebrity Gossip Linkage for the Mid-Week ...
Angelina Jolie Adopts Another Kid, This Time From Orphanage in Vietnam
Paris Hilton Puts her Nipples in Public View Yet Again
Britney Spears in Rehab Romance Fling
Photographer Larry Birkhead Demands DNA Test to Determine Father of Anna Nicole Smith's Daughter ...
Donald Trump and Rosie O'Donnell Ward Words Heats Up Again ...
Jessica Simpson and John Mayer Have Romantic Italian Vacation
Posted by Thurston Ali at 11:32 PM
March 12, 2007
Sweet 'n Savory Celebrity Gossip Linkage ...
The "300" Rakes in $70 Million at Opening Weekend Box office -- That's a helluva lot of souvlaki ...
Did Paris Hilton Get a Boob job?
Hilary Duff Dumps More Hate on Paris Hilton ...
Joes Simpson Says Daughters Jessica and Ashlee Will Never "End up in Rehab" ... Oh, Really?
Madonna to Appear on Nip/Tuck
The Rehab Diary of Britney Spears
Posted by Thurston Ali at 07:44 AM
February 19, 2007
Speed Racer Intro
Speaking of the Toyota "Speed Racer" homage on this past weekend's New York Time Magazine cover, here's a video of the intro to the American version of the Japanese anime series.
Posted by Supercore at 11:08 PM
New York Times Mag's "Speed Racer" Cover
Yesterday's New York Times Magazine ran a massive article on Japanese automaking giant Toyota and how the company has surprassed General Motors as the world's largest producer of cars. The magazine's cover touted the feature with an eye-catching piece of illustration. The cover art shows a salaryman in white suit posing in front of a recent model Toyota. The pose and composition of the image is a direct reference to the iconic still frame shown in the intro of every episode of television anime classic "Speed Racer," known in Japanese as Mach Go Go Go.
Posted by Supercore at 10:49 PM
February 06, 2007
Guerilla Ad Agency "Miami" of Sweden
In the week after a guerilla marketing agency launched an under-the-radar marketing campaign that turned into a massive bomb scare, we've come across a small guerilla marketing agency in Sweden that is starting to explode onto the ad scene and get on the radar. The company has a most intriguing name. The firm is called Miami, as in the Florida city, except that Miami the agency is in Sweden, as in Scandanavian country known for Absolut vodka, IKEA furniture, and the birthplace of the Volvo. Anyhoo, Miami has a cool -- if kind of dorky -- and unconventionally simple and unintuitive website that shows some of its work.
Posted by Supercore at 10:18 PM
January 17, 2007
In Japan: Flipping Through Recent Issue of "Studio Voice" ...
Studio Voice is a Japanese magazine devoted to design and style. The monthly mag is a must-read for Japanese designers and has something of a cult readership among global design creatives working in advertising, interactive media, the graphic arts and fashion. Though we can't read all the Japanese articles, flipping through the pages and absorbing the gorgeous graphics and layouts is enough to tell us Studio Voice is quality.
Posted by Supercore at 03:55 AM
December 19, 2006
MissBehave Magazine Rocks It!
Though we're probably not as a group part of the target demographic, MissBehave magazine has seriously left an impression on us. The new Brooklyn-based "girls" lifestyle mag reads and looks like an editorial DNA-mashup of Mass Appeal, Nylon, and Tokion, but with more of the streetyness and flava' of Mass Appeal. The magazine design is gorgeous, vibrant, fresh and sick. The second issue features the delicious British poptress Lily Allen on the cover and it's a prize. Check it. Rock it. Love it. Be it.
Posted by Supercore at 11:42 PM
December 13, 2006
The Year in Ideas
In our opinion, it's the most interesting and stimulating annual issue of any magazine in the English-publishing world. It's the New York Times Magazine "The Year in Ideas." Some of the many ideas explored in this issue that got our attention include "Trash-talk Exegesis," "Jujitsu Advertising," "Digital Maoism," and "For-Profit Philanthropy." Kudos, NYTM, for another great issue.
Posted by Supercore at 01:33 AM
December 08, 2006
Bookslut's Best Book Covers of 2006 List
We love great book covers. It's amazing sometimes just how effective a good book cover can be. When the jacket design can grab your attention from across a room and make you pick up a book, especially one that you eventually purchase, that's a testament to the power of design. Over at literary blog Bookslut, there's a list of the best book covers of 2006. There are a few books not included that we would have expected to have seen, but overall it's a pretty good list.
Posted by Supercore at 01:10 AM
November 22, 2006
If William Shakespeare Were Alive Today He'd Be A Hollywood Screenwriter ...
Imagine if William Shakespeare were alive today. Some observers think that the Bard would be working in Hollywood as a hot screenwriter and/or as a successful Broadway playwright earning a bundle on the royalties from his many plays. He'd also be making a bundle on the real estate market. His career would be on a level of either a Woody Allen or a Stephen King, either a favorite of high-brow and but small audiences in other cases or a mass-culture phenomenon, or maybe a mix of both. Though one "Hollywood insider" suggests that in today's Hollywood, Shakespeare would be "too talented to be successful."
Posted by Supercore at 12:19 AM
November 21, 2006
OJ Book Launch and Fox News Interview "Killed"
The HarperCollins-published book "If I Did It" by O.J. Simpson and the planned Judith Regan intereview of him on Fox News have been scrapped due to the public and media backlash surrounding the launch and television event. It is generally believed by the American public (and the news media promulgates the view) that Simpson is guilty of the crime of murder, even though a trial jury acquitted him of the charges in the early 1990s. Over a decade after his infamous trial, Simpson's life has been ruined. The former actor and NFL star is an outcast who lives in the constant shadow of his notoriety. Still the public is fascinated, while disgusted and outraged, with Simpson and the case.
Posted by Thurston Ali at 02:13 AM
November 19, 2006
Turning "Obsessive Consumption" Into Art
In a fascinating, multi-layered twist on illustrating how art meets commerce, "Obsessive Consumption" is an art project inspired by the artist's monthly credit card statements -- actual paintings of her mailed Chase-logoed, computer-spewed statements. The artwork is for sale, naturally, on the Internet, and Obsessive Consumption has become something of an art-cult brand.
Posted by Supercore at 04:39 AM
November 12, 2006
"60 Minutes" Journalist Ed Bradley, R.I.P.
Very sorry to hear that one of the greats of American television journalism has passed away. Ed bradley died at age 65 this past Thursday in New York City. Bradley was one of the core group of reporters, the so-called "I'm's," of the weekly CBS investigative news show "60 Minutes." Ed Bradley, R.I.P.
Posted by Supercore at 02:05 PM
October 26, 2006
The Style of 1993 Lives On in 2006
A New York Times Style Magazine article looks at style trends inspired by the fashions of 1993, when the grunge look emerged from the music underground of Seattle. We're not quite sure we see it. But some of the make-up (or, rather, the lack of make-up) and clothing of the grunge era have become a part of the contemporary style kit. We can't see flannel shirts coming back in a big way anytime soon, but Nirvana's "Nevermind" will always be a part of our MP3 collection.
Posted by Robsam at 11:53 PM
September 28, 2006
John Hodgeman is the Man - An Interview with the Daily Show Expert and PC Guy
He's best known as the PC guy in the those Apple Computer commercials compring the Mac to a PC. But you've also seen him on the Daily Show , where he's a fake "expert" with a real journalism career. His name is John Hodgeman, and he's funny. Radar magazine has a Q and A with the man who personifies your average Windows machine.
Posted by Robsam at 01:08 AM
July 23, 2006
Comic Book Superheroes to Appear on US Stamps
DC Comics pantheon of superheroes are gracing a set of US postage stamps for the first time this week. Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and Aquaman are among the superheroes who will appear on the new 39-cent stamps and 20-cent postcards. To be fair, the US Postal Service will be issuing a set of stamps bearing images of famous Marvel Comics superheroes in 2007 -- helloooo, Spidey!
Posted by Robsam at 04:29 AM
April 05, 2006
Printed Matter: "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay" by Michael Chabon
We're on page 280 of the 639-page paperback edition of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Michael Chabon novel "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay." The book tells the story of a pair of Jewish cousins, one a Czech emigre, in Brooklyn who set out to make action-adventure comic books at the dawn of what would become comics "golden age" in World War II-era America. Chabon's writing is rich and exciting and full of detail. "The Amazing Adventures" transports the reader to depression-era and 1940's New York City and Central Europe as the story of Joe Kavalier's escape to Amercia from Nazi-led oppression and his success as a comic book artist unfolds. We're loving this book in a big way.
Posted by Supercore at 03:14 AM
April 01, 2006
Obligatory Cat Photo Vol. 3: Cornelius Snuggles Up with the April Issue of Play Magazine
One-half of the Air Massive feline mascot team, Cornelius, has his paws on the April issue of Play, the best-designed, best-written video games magazine that ever was. Although, to be accurate, Play bills itself as a "Games / Anime / Multimedia" publication. And, indeed, it covers all of those things and covers them well. Think of it as an otaku reviews mag minus the misfit otaku style. That is, Play looks like it was designed for a kind of anime and games fan who prefers to stay at the W Hotel. Anyway, the April issue has an interesting article on the relative merits of the super-charged Microsoft X-Box 360 videogame console, now that a few months have passed since the hysteria of its launch. The verdict is that the X-Box an amazing piece of hardware with amazing multimedia potential, but the paucity of game titles and the prohibitive expense of many of those titles is what will keep Microsoft's second generation games platform from winning the console war with Sony PlayStation and Nintendo.
Posted by Supercore at 06:08 PM
March 13, 2006
New Yorker Mag's "Style" Issue Hits Stands
The New Yorker magazine puts out one of its thick, spine-bound "Style" issues this week. Most of the features in this themed issue are devoted to all things fashion, design and the business of clothing and style, from off-the-rack to one-of-a-kind, from street chic to haute couture. But the contents of this New Yorker style issue, despite its 160-page heft, feels a little light on actual articles devoted to style compared to recent editions. That said, there's an excellent piece on Hedi Slimane, the French designer and re-invigorator of Dior, and an amusing take on how people in car-obsessed L.A. shop.
Posted by Supercore at 10:32 PM
March 04, 2006
"The Illest Car Magazine Ever!"
Rides magazine could be called the hip-hop Road & Track. Or to put it another way, if Road & Track is the BMW of car mags ("ultimate driving machine" and all that), then Rides is the cream-and-gold Cadillac Escalade, complete with blinged-out rims, tinted windows and a stereo system with enough bass-amplification to set off every car alarm within a 30-mile radius. Rides is a reflection of a hip-hop subculture more than a culture of mere car-enthusiasts. In Rides the focus is more on the size of one's "dubs" (wheel rims) rather than, say, torque and fuel-injected engines. And gas mileage? Who cares when you're an aspiring rap star with the "paper" (the cash or credit) to buy all the gas you'll ever need. Rides is published by the same folks that publish King, so while the production values are slick and glossy, the content within often leaves something to be desired. That the crunky Houston "trill" star Mike Jones is on the cover of this month's Rides says a whole lot given the Houston hip-hop scene's above-average lyrical fixation on all things vehicular. The mag's tagline -- "The Illest Car Magazine Ever!" -- says it all really.
Posted by Supercore at 01:32 AM
November 23, 2005
Turning On to Japanese Design with I.D. Mag
We picked up the November issue of I.D. (International Design) magazine last week. This is rare because though we often flip through the mag every time we're in the bookstore, we seldom actually buy it. But the November 2005 edition has a striking cover that beautifully sums up the theme of this special issue: The Honda ASIMO robot walking in front of a massive glass window with a view overlooking the towering glass-and-steal –and-concrete inner-city sprawl of Tokyo. The theme is Japanese design. But the cover headline and teaser put it best: "Keeping Up with Japanese Design" and "So beautifully strange and oddly familiar--we can't take our eyes off it." The last time I.D. dedicated an entire issue to Japanese design was 1984. Some of the highlights are articles on the designer toy makers a la Kubrick; Osaka indie fashion designer Cosmic Wonder; and Japanese design mags and mag design (this article by Jean Snow of the blogs jeansnow.net and MocoLoco Tokyo). As they say, this one is a keeper.
Essential Links
I.D. Magazine Web Site
jeansnow.Net
Posted by Ray Chan at 12:56 AM
November 02, 2005
A Coffee Table Book for Toy Robot Collectors
We wandered into the McNally Robinson bookstore on Prince St. in Soho last night and stumbled across a wonderful art-design book devoted to a distinct Japanese product. "Super #1 Robot: Japanese Robot Toys, 1972-1982" beautifully catalogs a widlly imaginative collection of all sorts of plastic, diecast, aluminum and metallic small-scale play automatons. The period from 1972 to 1982 was the golden age of Japanese robot toys. "Super #1 Robot" is a defintive document of every robot by every Japanese manufacturer of the era. Published by Chronicle books, "Super #1 Robot" is the work of Tokyo-based American writer Matt Alt and LA-based Robert Duban. Saburo Ishizuki, the founder of a couple of well-known robot toy designer-manufacturers, has contributed an afterword that puts the collection into the important Japanese perspective. Brilliant stuff for the coffee table, "Super #1 Robot" is a book that every guest will pick up.
Essential Links
Chronicle Books Webpage: Super #1 Robot
Posted by Thurston Ali at 02:53 AM
October 23, 2005
"Dreaming Pachinko" Gets Us Through the Week
This past week was a tough one at Massive HQ. A couple of us got slammed hard by this season's flu bug (if that's what it really was -- or, at very least, slammed by a gang of viscious cold symptoms). Our illness had us on our backs, confined to our apartments and shackled to our living room sofas for most of the week. This is not the most depressing way to spend four days, but it damn well sucks and we got little work done.
But being feverish, supine and doped up on Day-Quil allowed us to do a couple of good and bad things we don't do as much when we're healthy and fit -- 1.) read highly-addictive pulp novels about American magazine journalists fighing crime in Japan; and 2.) watch junk-food caliber cable TV programming. Case in point of the latter, VH1's Best Week Ever. Case in point of the former: the novel "Dreaming Pachinko" by Isaac Adamson (published by Perennial).
Dreaming Pachinko is a mystery, but not quite in the vein of Agatha Christie or Sue Grafton. Like Adamson's previous two novels, "Tokyo Suckerpunch" and "Hokkaido Popsicle," Dreaming chronicles the misadventures of Billy Chaka, a journalist for the Cleveland-based "Youth in Asia" magazine (whose name can be read as a grim, clever play on "euthenasia").
Chaka's beat is the obscure and sometimes ridiculous, the people and events in teen-oriented pop culture in far corners of East Asia, but mostly, it seems, in Japan. The journo-as-gumshoe-in-hardboiled-Tokyo world of Billy Chaka is highly entertaining, funny and as often accurate and illuminating about Japan as it is absurd. Adamson's prose style reads like Raymond Chandler, Haruki Murakami, and Elmore Leonard (with a dash of Kurt Vonnegut) all rolled up into one giant literary dragon roll of punk storytelling.
We loved Tokyo Suckerpunch and Hokkaido Popsicle when we read them a couple of years ago. Now that we've been through Dreaming Pachinko, we're hungry for more. The good news is that Adamson has a new, fourth Billy Chaka book out in Perennial paperback called "Kinki Lullaby." Can't wait.
Essential Links
Official Isaac Adamson Billy Chaka Website
Posted by typhoon at 02:31 PM
October 17, 2005
100 Best Novels in English (Since 1923)
Time magazine has done a piece on the 100 best English-language novels published since 1923. Included on Time's list are some surprisingly recent works by "young" authors such as Zadie Smith and Jonathan Franzen. We were also surprised by just how many of the books on the list are novels we've actually read -- at quick count, it looks like we've read about 20 of them. But the real kicker for us was the inclusion of two 1990's cyberpunk classics, "Neuromancer" by Willam Gibson and "Snowcrash" by Neal Stephenson, both of which we've read. Of all of Gibson's novels, we wouldn't have expected "Neuromancer" to be so well-regarded so as to be included on such a list. Our pick would have been "Virtual Light," Gibson's most elegant and crossover literary work IMHO. "Snowcrash" is definitely a breakthrough work of the genre, though Stephenson's most recent novel, "Cryptonomicon," was as fascinating, complex and satisfying a novel as any by the author.
Essential Links
All Time 100 Novels [Time]
Time Magazine Review of "Snowcrash"
Time Magazine Review of "Neuromancer"
Posted by Supercore at 11:11 PM
February 01, 2005
The First Lady of Japanese Noise Music Makes Cover of Index Mag! Meet the Boredoms' Yoshimi
Boom! Pow! Surpise! Walking into St. Mark's Bookshop in the East Village Monday evening, we were struck by the cover of the February/March 2005 issue of Index, the New York-based independent music-film-art-fashion-music mag. Screaming from the front of Index was Yoshimi, sometimes called Yoshimi Pee-Wee, singer-songwriter and frontperson for the influential Osaka, Japan noise band Boredoms.
If the name sounds familiar even though you can't quite place it, the reason may have something to do with the Oklahoma indie band the Flaming Lips, whose last record was inspired and named after the Japanese first lady of noise music. The album was called "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" and on it the Flaming Lips sing out her name--"Yooshiiiimiiiiii!"
Seeing Yoshimi on the cover reminded us of our salad days when, for a brief period of the 1990's, we lived in Osaka. During those heady days, we spent many a late Saturday night with friends in our tiny apartment sitting on the floor listening to the Boredoms' "Chocolate Synthesizer" over and over again, sipping hot sake while trying in vain to deconstruct the noise aesthetic and slowly getting cruelly drunk. (Aaaaah, to be young again!)
Yoshimi also fronts her own band, the all-female and accidental quintet OOIOO (pronounced oh-why-oh*), which released a record last year titled "Kila Kila Kila." We saw OOIOO perform a few years ago when the band opened for Buffalo Daughter at Club Quattro in Osaka. Yoshimi and her four bandmates blew us away.
In Interview magazine-inspired tradition, Yoshimi is interviewed in Index by one of her peers, Hisham Bharoocha, drummer for the NYC noise band Black Dice. The Q&A reveals that Pee Wee is now a mother, lives near the ancient Japanese town of Nara, not far from Osaka and Kyoto, and is really into Okinawan and indigenous Ainu music these days. To the uninitiated, this may seem a far cry from the screams, squeals, yelps and other indecipherable vocals Yoshimi is best known for on her many Boredoms' recordings. But the diverse musical forks of noise and indigenous Japanese folk music share some primal, vocal qualities.
Yoshimi also explains in the interview the connection between herself and the Flaming Lips. She relates a funny story about how she first found out that the Lips had sung about and named their CD after her--it was while in a record store in London while on tour with Boredoms, where she heard her name sung by the Lips on the shop's stereo. Of course, despite being friends with the group, the Lips' vocalist still managed to mispronounce her name.
RELATED LINKS
Index Magazine Web Site and Archive
Thrill Jockey Record Label Web Page for OOIOO
The Flaming Lips Official Web Site
Posted by at 10:40 PM
January 11, 2005
Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs! The World According to Chuck Klosterman
Welcome to our mid-week post-holiday blues, and, by the way, Happy fucking New Year and all that bull-caca!
Coming down from the aimless, unhurried daze of a long (and company-paid) winter break, we've hit upon a book to rescue us from the funk. The book is "Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs" and it is, as Dave Chappelle might say, "the bizzomb, bee-otch!"
Written by SPIN magazine scribe Chuck Klosterman, "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs" (Scribner, 253 pages) itself isn't new (it was originally released in 2003), but it was recently published in paperback, which will make it all the more affordable to your average over-educated, semi-impoverished (yet iPod possessing) Los Feliz/Williamsburg uber-hipster.
What's more is that "Sex, Drugs" will make you laugh out loud, infuriate you (or mesmerize you) with its logic, or keenly entertain you with Klosterman's exacting observations on pop culture in its many forms. Quite likely, the book may do all these things to you simultaneously. But here is the key point, kids: "Sex, Drugs" is a damn fine read.
(Note: Links to interview, reviews, etc., after the jump.)
Subtitled "A Low Culture Manifesto (Now with a New Middle)," Klosterman's second book is a collection of 18 essays that wrap around a healthy polyphonic spree of American mass-culture output and phenoms--Star Wars, Saved by the Bell, amateur porn, tribute bands, The Sims, Pamela Andersen, the Lakers vs. Celtics rivalry, and the complete decade-long episodic corpus of MTV's The Real World series (in a spine-crushingly well-detailed analysis) are all given the treatment by Klosterman.
"Sex, Drugs" has won plenty of critical acclaim and fans, but the book and its author have also received their share of scorn and, in a particularly viscious review of "Sex, Drugs" by the NY Press' Mark Ames, outright hate.
We have some issues with Klosterman, too, but his essays are just too well written and funny to discount the book merely on the merit of his opinions. Even when provoking, Klosterman's prose snares you. And, at any rate, we find ourselves agreeing with many of his opinions.
Prior to penning music criticism for SPIN, Klosterman worked as a reporter for a newspaper in Ohio. But it was acclaim for his previous book, "Fargo Rock City," that got him noticed by the big league cultural cognoscenti. "Fargo," in a sentence fragment, is about loving heavy metal hair bands a la Guns 'n' Roses while coming of age in small town North Dakota. Klosterman published his telephone number in the book and people actually called him up to chat. Among the callers was musician/artist/former-Talking Head David Byrne.
The attention generated by the book eventually uprooted the writer from middle America (he is originally from North Dakota) and landed him in New York City with one of the plummest gigs in music journalism. In addition to writing for SPIN, Klosterman has written articles for various pubs, including the New York Times Magazine and Esquire, where he has a column called Chuck Klosterman's America.
RELATED LINKS
Q&A: Chuck Klosterman [Media Bistro]
Interview with Chuck Klosterman [Gothamist]
The infamous, vicious News & Columns review of "Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs" by Mark Ames [New York Press]
"Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs" reviewed by Li Rapkin [Shotgun Reviews]
Posted by Robsam at 10:37 PM | Comments (1)
September 15, 2004
Paris is Book Burning! Hilton Sis Launches 192-Page "Peek" at Celebutante-Heiress Lifestyle!
Heiress, fashion model, reality TV show star, recording artist, handbag and accessory designer, red carpet starfuckee, film actress, accidental amateur porn star and now ... author! Yes, Paris Hilton has written a book. Oh, wait, just a sec, we should have included scare quotes with that--we meant to say Paris Hilton has "WRITTEN" a book.
Professional writer Merle Ginsberg worked with Paris to co-write the volume, which is is subtitled "A Tongue-in-Cheek Peek Behind the Pose" and for which Ginsberg is given somewhat equal billing on the jakcet. Simon & Schuster, which published "Confessions," describes the book as "A Learjet's view of the fast, fun world of Paris Hilton--packed with enough photos, advice, and inside scoop to help anyone live a glamorous life." Well, we'll see about that.
We're way past irony on this one. We want a copy of the damn book already and we're not ashamed to admit it. We want to race through its 192 pages--good or shit read that it may be--and see for ourselves (1.) what Simon & Schuster and editor Trisha Todd did with the material and the positioning/marketing; and (2.) see if it's funny, stupid, entertaining, a yawn--whatever--and worthy at least of the bathroom reading shelf.
For those who aren't big on reading in the first place, but who are willing to plunk down $22.00 for "Confessions," note that there are lots of pictures in Hilton's book (which seems fitting, doesn't it?) of the WireImage papparazzi variety. We imagine if you've watched at least three minutes of either VH1 or E! Channel in the past couple of years, you've probably seen every photographic permutation of Hilton on the red carpet or Paris, cellphone to ear, caught in the glare of flashbulbs while tearing up Manhattan/West Hollywood. Which all means you'll have lots of fab and familiar Paris pix piled up with handy, convenient gratuitousness. (Yay, gratuitousness!)
RELATED LINKS
Paris Hilton to publish 198-page memoir [Salon]
Confessions of an Heiress Reviews [Amazon]
Paris Hilton Filmography [IMDb]
Posted by typhoon at 10:59 PM | Comments (2)
September 09, 2004
Visionaire Debuts First Inkless Mag! Contents "Printed" with a Laser-Cutter! (What the #%!$?)
Yeah, and speaking of Visionaire, the cutting edge art publishing collective has just put out issue 43 of their magazine. But the issue is the first--maybe the first magazine anywhere--in which the traditional printing process has been totally eschewed in favor of a new technique in which the entire magazine's contents have been "etched" or cut into the pages by a laser-burning process.
Not that using a laser to print anything is in itself new--the technology was pioneered in the 1960's and personal, commercial desktop laser printers came into their own in the 80's and reached mass popularity in the 90's. (Still, Gutenberg, the German who invented the moveable-type printing press in the 15th century, would've been impressed by any inkless printing process.)
Even though so much has changed in printing and publishing just in the last twenty years with the advent of computers, electronic pre-press, desktop laser-printers and more sophisticated printing techniques, for commercial publications the process still has mostly always relied on the physics of applying ink or chemically-treated liquid substances to paper (or to some surface). Laser etching, however, cuts away by burning into the paper/surface. It's a technique and technology that's on a whole other level beyond the desktop laser printer.
Aside from the technological innovation, where Visionaire really scores is in its approach to contents and design. The magazine has been published three or four times annually since its launch in the spring of 1991. It was conceived as a "multi-format album" devoted to fashion and art, with each issue of the magazine set to a theme and published as a limited edition with a small print run. Only 1,500 copies of the latest issue will be printed. The theme of Visionaire No. 43 is "Dreams."
The contributors to each issue--writers, photographers, designers and other creatives--are often among the elite in their respective fields. "Dreams" features contributions from the likes of artists Robert Longo and Mario Sorrenti (see graphic above), legendary couture creator Karl Lagerfeld and photographer Bruce Weber.
RELATED LINKS
Posted by at 09:28 PM
September 04, 2004
Friendster as Magazine! It's All About "Me" and My Friends!
We love magazines. We love one-off zines, obscure, handsomely bound four-pound design tomes that cost as much as a Super Bowl ticket. We love offensive style and culture ( aka, "lifestyle") magazines with attitude, humor and fearless content (think Vice). We love flipping though Bon Apetit as much as we do Scientific American and Mass Appeal. We're mag freaks.
We love thick shelter mags produced by middle-aged trust-fund kids with a penchant for pattern and hyper-sensitive aesthetic antenna (think Next). We're passionate about music mags written by a collection of half-literate chain-smoking British "nu jazz" DJs and Japanese noise-headz who fill their articles with academic music-speak and obscure references to Karlheinz Stockhausen (think Straight No Chaser or Wire). And we especially love multi-lingual East-meets-West cutting-edge and arty pop-culture pubs like Tokion.
Of course, we also love reading a wide-variety of the monthly mainstream commercial mags, some of which get delivered right to our doorstep. The big mags like Wired, the New Yorker and Vanity Fair are dependable and well written. The smaller mags and zines can be hit or miss.
But even a rag--mainstream or bitstream--with mediocre content might still be worth the price of purchase for excellent graphic design, photography or the expression of an intriguing idea(s). Or maybe the graphics suck, but the writing is so hot it's on fire, and we'll gladly fork over the cash every month (or whenever it's published) to get a copy.
That brings us to Me, a new magazine title with a fresh idea. Or rather, it's a fresh take in mag publishing centered on an idea that was a key feature of the social-networking boom on the Web (e.g., Friendster) during the past year and a half. We have yet to have a look between the covers and judge Me's contents--editorial or visual--as to its quality and merits.
The idea behind Me is straightforward enough: Publish a magazine devoted to profiling a handful of a person's friends and explain the connections between them. For each issue, a different guest editor will direct the editorial content and style to the extent that he or she will select the friends to be covered in the magazine, pick the photographer and determine the typography.
The New York-based Me is the creative spawn of Angel Chang and Claudia Wu, both previously colleagues at Visionaire magazine. When not working on Me, Chang works at Donna Karan as a design assistant while Wu is the design director of Index magazine.
On the cover of the premiere issue is an artist named Joshua Abelow ("Who?" you ask. "Dunno," we say.), an alum of Wu at the Rhode Island School of Design. The table of contents in the debut issue supposedly includes a chart showing the connections between the guest editor and the various profiled friends.
The first question about Me that comes to mind is this: Can the friends profiled in an issue of Me include Friendster "friends"? "Friendster friends?" you ask. You know, those people listed as "friends" on your Friendster page who pinged you out of the blue in early 2003 asking to be your "friend" and of whom you know next to nothing and with whom you have next to nothing in common. Now that could really spice things up if you decide your real-life buddies are too boring to be in a magazine.
RELATED LINKS
Memo Pad: From Bad to Worse ... The Me Generation ... [WWD]
Posted by typhoon at 11:27 AM
July 12, 2004
You Will Buy and Obey! Street Artist Shephard Fairey Launches Stunning New Pop Culture Mag!
We haven't been this excited about a big new magazine launch in a long time, not only because Swindle magazine looks so fresh, but also because it's largely the brainchild of Shephard Fairey. If you don't recognize the name, you may recognize Fairey's street art-turned-brand Obey Giant--its logo is designed around an iconic image of the late great wrestler Andre the Giant. Obey Giant became a worldwide street-marketing phenomenon in the 90's. In a few years it went from a guerrilla sticker-art campaign to a global commercial brand in a way that has become a textbook study for marketers and culture-jammers alike. Now the same mind behind Obey Giant brings us Swindle magazine. According to the Swindle Web site, the quarterly magazine aims to be "the definitive pop-culture and lifestyle publication for young men and women." That's Cool. But that's also quite an ambitious statement. Advertisers, distributors and retailers, however, LOVE hearing statements like that and expect nothing less than bold, hyperbolic declarations from mag publishers. We mean, think about it, do the marketing team at, say, Diesel really want to hear that your magazine hopes, someday, to "humbly carve out a niche on the magazine rack" and be just "one of many voices attempting to define and document pop culture"? No. No, they don't. (Not unless they're on drugs.) But "definitive"? C'mon! If Swindle can pull that off or even half, that would excellent--we're rooting for Swindle all the way! So, Shephard, more power to ya'! Bring it on and be definitive! The essential content formula is--suprise, surprise!--fashion, music, art, etc. Yes, it seems there are more magazines like this than any other kind on the newstand. Though it also seems that the more ads pages the publication has the more commonly it is referred to as a "lifestyle magazine." Like several other high-quality, highly original and well-produced small mag titles in the fashion-music-art-lifestyle category, Swindle has the potential to be successful and important insofar that it can be influential. First the magazine will need to be deemed cool by the kidz that matter. That influence will be determined in part by the way Swindle styles its editorial voice and packages itself. The magazine could become truly inspiring. But to do this, Swindle will have to mine the richest areas of pop cultural evolution--the cutting edge, the underground. It will have to interpret and disseminate the 411 and style elements of what's happening at the fringes of popular culture in places under the mainstream radar, rather than what's obvious and truly "popular" in the mass culture. In other words, not Britney Spears, but Bebel Gilberto. (Hey, there's a mantra in here ... repeat: "Bebel, Not Britney! Bebel, Not Britney!") We have no doubt Swindle can do this and do it well. But even so, for how long can such a magazine remain niche (not mass) without collapsing under the intense financial pressures inherent in the print publishing business unless it packages its content for a broader readership and in a way that will appeal to more mainstream sensibilities? At what point does it cease to be relevant, especially in the face of the ever rapidly shifting ground that is pop culture. It's rare that such a delicate balance can be achieved and sustained. Tokion magazine (one of our faves) has managed to pull it off fairly consistently for close to a decade. Raygun--if anyone remembers it--didn't and folded. In its favor, Swindle will be a quarterly publication. That's a smart move. (Though our media metabolism is such that we could eagerly digest the magazine on a monthly basis.) That gives Swindle more time to put together something really special for each issue. And it puts a greater premium on its content. The Swindle crew have also upped the premium by offering two versions of the magazine, one a higher-quality "boutique" version published by Gingko Press that will be that much pricier. The content and overall design is essentially the same for both versions, but one will be more book-like with some small tweaks, the other more of the soft-cover magazine. The difference is akin to that between a hardcover and paperback novel, except with Swindle you won't have to wait a year for the more affordable paperback version to come out. It goes without saying that Swindle will serve as default brand advertisement for Obey Giant's work and product line‹everything from stickers to t-shirts with some variation on the Shephard Fairey iconography. The first issue of Swindle weighs in at a formidable 160 pages, with full color and quality paper. The graphics, layouts and page designs and photography look super-juicy delicious. Aesthetically the magazine is a sight for sore eyes. On the cover is an illustration of hip-hop godfather, Grandmaster Flash. Contents in issue number one include a feature on Grandmaster Flash, an interview with L.A.-based designers National Forrest, a six-page photo spread on old-school gangland fashion inspired by the 70's cult flick "The Warriors," and a cool story on Brazil's graffiti subculture-- way rad! --Instamatic + The Kid From Kyoto
RELATED LINKS
+ Swindle Magazine Web Site
Posted by at 10:51 PM
Cargo magazine has arrived! Yay! What's not to love about a shopping and lifestyle magazine just for men? Now your inner metrosexual can find all those answers that have proved so elusive despite having watched every single episode of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy for the past eight months. We've been waiting for the Queer Eye/Metrosexual backlash to begin any minute now. The much-hyped debut of Cargo might just be the tipping point. There were some false starts to the backlash earlier. When South Park dedicated an episode to skewering the phenomenon, it looked pretty certain the trend would collapse in on itself leaving only a trail of barely worn Size-38-waist Diesel jeans, but alas Matt and Trey were too early. Maybe this is because the metrosexual thing was a naturally occuring trend long before Queer Eye embedded itself on the nation's television sets and its conciousness. In other words, the metrosexual thing pointed to something real, not an invented fad. The straight men who really are hyper-vigilant when it comes to personal grooming and clothes-sense are not the product of hype but of good timing. What is new is that such men are not considered freaks anymore. Now it's the metrosexuals who had got it all along and were way ahead of the curve, which the rest of the male populace is only now discovering. This is indeed due to the mainstreaming and popularity of Bravo!'s cable show and the lifestyle coverage of metrosexual poster children like David Beckham, the international soccer star who plays for the Real Madrid football club and changes "edgy" hairstyles more often than you and me change pairs of socks. So what can we expect from Cargo? How about "House Rules: Pieces to upgrade your living room with Thom Filicia." Hmmm ... name sounds ... familiar ... Thom ... FI-LI-CI-A ... ooooooh, of course, THAT Thom Filicia, the Interior Design guy from Queer Eye (Duh!). (Filicia, by the way, has just inked a deal to appear in commercials for Pier 1 Imports, replacing Kirstie Alley as official pitchperson.) Here's what else is in store for readers: a feature called "Lube Job: Shaving Oils That Save Face." Here's an excerpt... "Until recently, shaving oils were considered the 98-pound weaklings of the grooming world. A few puny drops might work as a pre-shave treatment, perhaps, but who would pair them with a razor when you could have a thick, creamy palmful of foam instead? The newest crop of oils, however, has bulked up with richer and more advanced formulas designed to increase lubricity." Well, that's just great. No, seriously, that is great--really and truly, no snark-asm here. Honest! This is really useful stuff. In fact, after flipping through Cargo a few times, we think they're definitely onto something here. It's actually good. So maybe this backlash talk is in vain. What's more to love? How about a Cargo messenger bag? We're not convinced that you're going to start seeing real bike messengers racing through cross-town Manhattan traffic with one of these. The bag is nice in a basically stylish and inoffensive way, but like all schwag it's likely to end up as a hand-me down to younger brothers and distant family members who probably need Cargo like Antartica needs ice. What Cargo is attempting to do is something that no other "men's" magazine has successfully done in America, and that is provide men with practical information about how to look better, dress well and put it all together for life in the real world. Until now, the only thing that came close was GQ, which was fine as long as your wardrobe consists mostly of $1200 Zegna suits and you spend your weekends lounging with supermodels on St. Maarten. Cargo reminds us of men's magazines in Japan, where titles such as Men's Non-Non and Smart can be found in abundance on the news racks. The Japanese have about a dozen such monthly men's shopping mags and they're way cool and have lots of photos of real people wearing stylish, well-designed and fashionable new clothes that don't cost a month's paycheck. Whether Cargo succeeds or fails is anyone's guess. We're hoping they don't drop the ball, metrosexual backlash or not. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to go exfoliate my skin... did anyone see where I put my Clinique Scruffing Lotion? --Da Smitho Cargo Magazine Web Site
Posted by Robsam at 02:26 AM
+ Obey Giant Web Site
+ Shephard Fairey Biography [Gingko Press]
+ Grandmaster Flash Web Site
+ The Medicine Agency
+ Gingko Press Web Site
March 10, 2004
Cargo Magazine Hits Newstands! Metrosexual Backlash Starts... NOW!
RELATED LINKS
House Rules: Upgrade Your Living Room [Cargo]
Lube Job Shaving Oils That Save Face [Cargo]
Metrosexual, Definition of [The Word Spy]
Essay: Meet the Metrosexual [Salon]
Manchester United's David Beckham Bio
Official Queer Eye for the Straight Guy Web Site [Bravo]
Thom Filicia Bio
Thom Filicia's Official Personal Web Site
Official South Park Web Site