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October 29, 2005

The Night Clerk - Chapter 3

The sleepy leg

I wish I had time to rest than funneling down markings and secret ops on the passers-by, checks, rents, appointments and roses. Yes, roses. My sub-staff of Filipinos, bums. As you know, it has been raining for 3 days now, with furious winds and subarctic temperatures, and thick and sharp snow falling all over the metro area. Cry baby, cry, it won’t be like this in April. Lying in bed and pedaling to work and I just feel like I want to cry. My only cozy went to visit olds in Biloxi, ham hock, corn bread and all. But New Year’s I’m off, alright.

I dreamed that I was at a party having stuffed shrooms and cheese and checking tattoo listings, waiting for a spark to choose the carrier when I noticed the face of a man idling carelessly, smooth and shiny, staring at me. I closed my eyes and let the waves of some tropical warm shore wash away my wrinkles, the crummy chats, the expensive white palms. Restless, when I opened my eyes I saw a blue-eyed boy with red hairs falling forward on his sunglasses, smoking from a crackpipe. He was shaking. He had a gun, a silly huge black thing. And I saw the other man, still, eyes open, smiling, calm, happy that it was over. He had a tiny hole on each side of his forehead. The party was on, following the score of laughs, small-talks, avances and fake palm trees.

At twelve I woke up with a sleepy leg, the word “Med” pounding in my head tickling voodoo, a reassuring view of empty cans and socks piled up in the pit and a plan to sweep anonymously thru the last day of the year. My sassy girl was coddled in very parental arms, the Caribbean in the viewfinder and work happily understaffed on plenary indulgence.

I forced myself to visit a tattoo parlor with the backyard barber and got out bold and fantastic, hairless and senseless in a rain of snowflakes. By late afternoon it was dark and the celebrations had started in full. I had a Blueberry and several cups of Tazo in Third Ave at Starbucks where I met the boss and his smooth cluster of businessmen, secretaries and insurers on daily rations of lemon chiffon pie and Expresso. Left and walked south-west realizing only after an hour that I was in Times Square. A sprawling of shoppers, staring at displays, making faces at strangers and pushing a pattern of liturgical worshipping. Drugs were at knocked down prices. I did not have any but rather drank every kind of the old drug that I could put my lips on. Beer, brandy, tequila, rum, martini, vodka and even Mexican gin and tonic. I dragged a puffy midget with blazing green pupils that forced me to Mulagatani soup at the Electric Lotus. I never liked chicken but dipping into chaos with a smile is me. We got a room and hit it like animals for two hours. Outside naked people started to appear at every corner, windows were falling, riots began. Cars started to smash against each other for the fun, police joined the ride, fires started.

Midnight arrived in Times Square. Thousands, hundred of thousands amassed elbow to elbow, between the 46th and the 42nd, laughing, screaming, happy and for an hour I was squeezing on somebody’s boobs, the only quay in an ocean of sheer mass derangement.

I was terribly drunk. I was thrown away and run with the crowd, fighting to catch breath, and I fell. I covered my face waiting for a second hit but it did not arrive. At the first terrifying thunder the collective orgy stopped and started to rain. Blast after blast, a torrential rain welcoming us into the new year. I was naked. I let the rain wash out of sweat and drowsiness but after that I felt shaking. I dragged back home. By the East Side I was frozen to the bone and by the 58th the rain was snowy particle dust. It was 5 when I got home, crashed naked on the bed, waiting to die. And I started dreaming.

In the hall I’m having a break with the girl. Between a croissant and a sip of coke she’s listing reasons why the job at the burger's line sucks. Rolling dice and eyes methodically, aligning the count with no regret or anger, playing with her chin and expression, she whips her communication into a usable vector of calibrated empathy.

This is my card, this is my job and this is my name. Yes, my name.

© Fortunato Caragliano. All rights reserved.

Posted by lck at 07:05 PM

October 28, 2005

Rambla

Little bro sending, the Editor kindly put it in the wild. (It's a night out, ya know)
Simmetry, how did you guys pick up that name?
However, I'm waiting for muzak to add to this post, bro, spin the reel.

A Night Show

Sunday, October 13th, at Ramblas, a small pub in downtown Catania, the band "Simmetry" had its first show in public. The five boys of the band were very excited for playing live, because the last time they played together was in May and they have been only rehearsing since that time.
It was a good show, there were lots of people and many of them sang and danced. The sound was good, the musicians gave their best and played many covers, like, for example, "Because the night" by Patti Smith, or "Crazy little thing called love" and "We will rock you" by Queen and a malinchonic, acoustic version of "The one I love" by REM and a funny "The lion sleeps tonight" that people liked so much because of its freshness and semplicity, and also because the singer invited them to sing a choir before the song started and then they sang all together, with the singer. He also put the microphone at my mouth, and I felt a little bit embarassed, because I was concentrated on playing my guitar and I didn't expect it at all.
Almost all of the songs were covers, and from many famous artists, but I hope I can hear some original music next time, and I'd like to hear something from Ascending Geometries also, the Architect would be very happy.
Friday, November 4th, Symmetry is playing again at Ramblas, adding some new songs, one that I remember is "Il tempo di morire" by Lucio Battisti, (some people were asking for some more italian music). I guess it will be a more electric version than the original.

Symmetry is:
Andrea Mannino- vocals
Angelo Costantino - guitar and backing vocals
Roberto Morales - bass guitar and backing vocals
Salvo Dantone - drums and backing vocals
Sergio Caragliano - guitar

Posted by lck at 05:00 PM | Comments (0)

October 27, 2005

Eric Feng, surrealist

Who: Eric Feng
Who? Eric Feng, NYC Director and Designer
Works for: Feric Design
Featured: Idents for MTV2, the US Sci Fi Channel, ESPN and the MTV Movie Awards packaging. Was also featured in ResFest in 1999 and 2001
Interview maybe? here
What's cool? Hovering between fantasy and reality, interwoven with natural and mechanical beings, Fevolution is about infinite evolutionary possibilities.

Each and every drawing is impressive here, Eric has no fillers. Magnifique!

Posted by lck at 03:08 AM | Comments (0)

October 22, 2005

Pump up the volume

We're on a migration route. We're not destination but in-transit station. Migrating birds get down from Russia over to the coast of Africa and take a break around here for food and rest. They love such places as the Lentini's Biviere (a small lake) and Vendicari (a pond system and protected oasis). This morning while a bit out of town I got into a sudden eclipse of a few minutes when what looked like tens of thousands of these birds were moving southward like a giant cloud in slow waving. And no dead bodies. Let's hope the Hungarian antidote makes here soon.

Memory Serves: In Gozo, an Island in the pelagos of Malta, in Victoria, they have a Bus Terminal Station surrounded by trees. The reason why the locals will laugh at the tourists standing by in waiting is the trees are heavily infested with pigeons. And the "dropping", say that in English please, is abundant, a light rain. What they've done so far is to put patches of metal net on some areas so that the "dropping" gets really fine. For those stubborn on American-English, dropping is bird poo.

Do you remember Spike Lee? When he was not on valium and gave us "Do The Right Thing"? Like everything else, boomboxes are back. They're discreet for now, kinda shy, white, wisely sized and take a CD or an MP3 plate but they're back. From Bang & Olufsen and Beverly Hills to Sharp and Panasonic and the golden Ghetto blasters years, set for a loud returning. If a bird comes diving over you do not hesitate to pump up the volume with the latest Madonna. Chances are this may be more effective than prayers. I use my pretty big speaker on the Sony phone to broadcast for personal use but you may look at your flea market for some huge clunky piece of decor to wow visitors.

Precisely when the term boombox was coined is not known. Dep. stores such as Sears and K-Mart began used it in their marketing as early as 1983. Merriam-Webster pins it at 1981, and defines the boom box as "a large portable radio and often tape player with two attached speakers". Here a retrospective is provided.

My Night Clerk is lost in a frenzy New Year's turnover and trying hard for a comeback before dawn.

Posted by lck at 12:28 PM | Comments (0)

October 21, 2005

Publish a podcast

While I feel lazy presently with digging around for new designs and designers to put on the spotlight (but promise is I will soon), there are other things I'd like to share.

We have, officially now, a podcaster in the house. She did it and talks of course about knitting (about our turtle too) and the cast is located YouKnowWhere.

This makes me wonder about what makes a good podcast, about tools, style, scripting and skeletoning with a few good advices in the mix. One striking exception, I won't talk about podcasting on a PC. We're not at war but that is firm, you the user do not have to fiddle with soundcard's drivers or having to crack that very expensive sound-edit program just to produce a decent MP3. I assume you are not a geek and you're on a Mac, that is it.

Let's also dig a bit forward and say you have Tiger on your Mac or get a copy. My advice? Get a copy. It's cheap for a whole Operating System and you'll love it.

Recording: Open Quicktime and start a New Audio recording. Make sure no striking or loud noises are going to interrupt your speech, landscape noises on the other side are legit. Important: almost all variants of Macs have microphones embedded so don't start looking for a mike, it's more than likely straight under your nose. Don't be shy, make sure the Input Level is decent (try a couple times record and playback while fiddling with your System Preferences:Sound:Input). It is preferable that your script (you should have one) has a skeleton and is good that you put your skel in writing for reference. It is ok to have an accent, to use an accent if you do not have one and to pause. To slow down and accelerate is a feature that you can put to good use if you know what you are going to say in advance. A refrain at the beginning of your cast and at the end is very recommended, I suggest a short intro and a longer closure. You may easily break copyright by doing this but sure enough you won't get into big trouble right away. It is not ok to fall asleep, shout or read too fast. A good podcast should stay between 10 minutes and 20 minutes. Less or more is either literature or comedy. One thing that my half noticed and nobody else yet, a Powerbook is almost silent compared to G5s which are heavily equipped with fans of all sorts, if you have an iMac and a Powerbook record on the 'book.

If you do not have Quicktime you may use the free WireTap (google it) or any other free utility that lets you record audio. WireTap Pro produces straight MP3 and is a mere 9$ shareware app from Ambrosia.

The output file will be of type MOV, actually a sound-only Quicktime movie format. If you have other audio to intermix to your recording you'll use a bit of cut and paste in Quicktime (you can copy and paste different formats) or iMovie. Save everything as an AIFF (do not be intimidated by the file size) or as a Quicktime Movie (MOV).

Now open iTunes and make sure that your input encoder (Preferences:Advanced:Importing) is set to MP3, or you'll risk to encode everything in AAC or MP4 and cry the day away. Only an iPod, iTunes and few other devices can read AAC and there's still a few out there that don't have an iPod. Drop your file into iTunes, select it and choose Convert Selection to MP3. Note that from the same Preference pane you can tweak the quality of the MP3 file which will affect its size. You are looking for a max of 10 Megs for your output MP3 file. If purpose is to stream your file for the web look for 4 Megs or less.

You're ready now to distribute, hand over for iPodding, on a CD, email, drop it into your FTP and link to it from a web page or stream it using a flash streamer (google it).

Don't forget rule #1: podcast only if you have something to say. There are so many other ways to say nothing that do not require a podcast. But don't forget rule #2: do it only if you believe there is an audience or that you can create one for your cast. If you just don't believe that somebody will buy your 5 minutes starring at a progress bar, why bother? And have an eye open on rule #3: often, less is more.

If you are going to try based on this skinny guide let me know what you get. Next time you're doing video, which requires more make-up :)

To browse for other podcasts and check quality, style, techniques and to compare what you've done with others go not too far. Open iTunes and browse Apple's Podcast Directory.

Wave.

Posted by lck at 07:31 PM | Comments (0)

October 19, 2005

Generations

One of the most striking images that come to shine when talking about "generations" (Not the now de-funkt Star Trek typo) is of a man in his forties and his daughter age 5, both on earphones, sucking up the same tune via a split cable out of a single iPod (or other MP3 cracker). If this sounds overly dramatic, private docu-romance of sorts as you know I have a daughter aged 5, expand your view for a moment and generalize the scene but not abstract: this is a common parent-child duet. Why? Did it happen and quietly that our children at some point in time lost their genes, their social-class-like orientation, their natural propulsion to conflict? Why are they not fighting us anymore as we use our elders? How did it happen that they turned a flat and undetermined deep-blue-sea? Economics? Get out. Values and content distribution systems getting global? One sure factor. One: Did it happen? Two: When or how. Three: good or bad? Four: Is evolution, (and conversely revolution), an obsolete psychological class in an aging framework model? Five: It did happen, at some point in time, we dunno when or how, and yes, evolution is obsolete and forgotten and yes, we love it.

Consider this: rock music.

What is rock music today? What can it possibly and inevitably be? Recycling. Wins who does it better. Some do so with such sophistication and ability, we can only kiss their (forehead?) and go (leave a little love to these masters, think Beck, think Squarepusher). Changes are hiding well if any are present at all, combining and refining is what is left to us to do. Distribution and composition processes have changed a lot, dramatically and in ways that are of no return. The best rock bands on the planet today are so because they have perfected this. They rely on a market that has no memory, no saturation threshold, no model or ability to envision, no patience to fight anything but headaches, check grammar as you type. Our kids are all born into this. They love what we use to embrace a generation ago like free fuel to fight our parents schema, as an empowering personality offer too easy to access and too easy to lean on. We share the speakers with little men and women that were once supposed to take us on a battle. Is it good?

We love it. Don't you deny it, you can't. We love to plug in our kids onto our preferred tunes and find they appreciate the same conglomerates of feeling, regrets, passion. Our kids, loving Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Velvet Underground. How embarrassing.

Good producers, they know the trend well. They have sown it, developed it and exploiting it with a smile. Long dead rock bands re-forming at the sound of big money with a track or two and a number of covers to grab the hail of an army of young kids that still need to believe rock music is revolutionary or at least evolutionary. Play the game.

Depeche Mode new, out yesterday, available on iTunes, Loving The Angel, walking some older shoe's footsteps, Black Celebration, 1986. The band, severely underrated, still remarkably capable of 4 or 5 hits out of the same plate. Exaggeratedly overly romantic, as always (listen to "Precious", #1 on the UK charts). "If god has a master plan, that only he understands, I hope he's you're eyes he's seeing through", geez, breaking the heart of my kid already. And yours? Yours as well, on the same earpiece.

Evolution is over. Just give me a pain that I'm used to.

Posted by lck at 09:32 PM | Comments (0)

October 15, 2005

Rampant

We have been busy. Busy we are. Since we were told we're going to die by the nastiest and most untenable bird flu. We've got into overdrive. Birds. Take them out and the sky will fall. Leftover stars, Venus and black holes waiting for better mathematics. So before we stop breathing we redesigned Coruscus. For those not in the know, the site will change ever so slightly in the coming weeks (unless body temperature gets really high) based on feedback, guilt and girlfriends. But if you dare, it's there.

So behave!

Shiseido is a respectable brand. I deal a lot with the letter "S" in my design work for some devilish reason and good time is spent for inspiration on their unique mark. Their official website, au contraire, is a nightmare. Massive, with a wide range of techniques and styles, all intermixed, of languages and strategies. And an army of sleepy webmasters, cracks are under the eye. Exquisite corpse rotting in a lousy state of confusion.

I have Nate Williams site open (www.n8w.com, cool?). Nate does not have an army of stalkers and takes care of the business himself. His site sports a terrific search that is tag-based. Dig his place if you have time. Remember that he's a precursor and a prolific one; tons of materials to browse at his place and each piece a unique blow after an obstinate layer of over-consistency. In the past the elements in his portfolio were tiny. Now he has added a very satisfactory "enlarge feature". Good job.

David Ostrowski, the founder of weareporn.com has a decent horizontally oriented portfolio where each piece is surmonted by the following: "scroll to the right or enter site". This goes on for a while all the way to the right edge. Funny. David sells paintings. If you have ever bought anything from him cry your tears and use a dump.

Another website that adds nostalgia to deception is maldesign. Portfolio a size that fits mobile phones. Pretty fast and pretty meaningless. What about a redesign?

And redesign is for lounge72. Finally! Colorful, shaded, usable and, for now, crowded just enough. Forums are integrated and the overall backend work is admirable, with a working event calendar (not to forget their classic PDF calendar). But do they really need to rename their home page "root"? That is a disturbing geeky trend. On a similar venue and style and bigger-bigger advertising you may dig newwebpick.

In conclusion, before the birds bring Apocalypse closer to real and our test chicken falls dead on the floor, I must confess that the above lot is nada when I think that I have seen just way too many rampant creatures: lions, mean cats of all sorts and colors (black) used in websites and marketing materials and shirts (and never a little rampant pig). Too many blood-dripping hearts (red) and crown of thorns and screaming kids with a punch ball face and in tears. I guess it's time that someone clears that up. Or the birds will.

Posted by lck at 05:33 AM | Comments (0)

October 08, 2005

Of turtles and flu

While Toyota and Bar-Honda reshuffle cards and prospects of what was once a Ferrari secluded domain our flag-airline, Alitalia, is going on strike again. Check with your travel Agency to see if and when this very exclusive Italian-only feature will be in effect. If you are a returner you may have good knowledge of how to better exploit quality time at airports with those huge white whale-like carcasses parked in sight waiting for a crew and a destination.

In other news Northern Pakistan is pretty much devastated by what seems to be just a piece in a gigantic seismic puzzle involving the whole eastern backbone from the Alps down to Sumatra. Only consolation could be that one of the many thousands of victims may happen to be public enemy number 1, Osama Bin Laden, good at avoidance but at least can't predict earthquakes.

How you feel about AF a.k.a. H5n1 which is for now only affecting birds (latest is Romania, found in ducks), pushing for extensive killing and in some cases extermination? Scared? If AF, or avion flu, can travel from chickens to ducks to pigeons (but reported also in cats, rats and pigs) I would not be surprised to see it going epidemic within humans in a year. But despite special interest panic spread aplenty by manufacturers we'll be more than likely prepared for that. We were not prepared to find that the main point-of-entry for African immigrants in Italy, the island of Lampedusa, was a little Abu Ghraib (thanks to one of the few newspapers not owned by Berlusconi yet), but we certainly were prepared for Boy George arrested on cocaine (as in 1984), for kids flying off a bridge on a BMW (as in 1984, just different car brand), for black leather shoes returning in fashion (as in 1984, now made in Vietnam) and the freezing of our retirement reform bill due to insurers not happy with the retirees having too much control on what to do with their money (never seen before?).

And if CIA and the counterterrorism enchilada have been proven to be a waste of money in several instances now are getting into Sunday's comics full steam. NY subway attack warning for Sunday? Because, you know, subways get very crowded on Sundays. Or you did not know that?

On a private scale we finally agreed with the kid to get her an animal. Not the horse she wanted, not the cat but a tiny turtle which is now floating off her pool trying to grab the edge of a bedrock. The life of a small turtle (Ornate Redears are the most common type and come from Brazil) can be pretty nightmarish. Have you ever seen a young turtle 3 weeks old, very short legs and a big head trying to turn when she's facing one of the corners in her pool? She'll slap right with the right forearm (thus going left) and left with the left forearm (thus going right). The result is the turtle will keep honking her nose for awhile against the glass without moving left or right at all. Pathetic yet amusing. We should be getting a round bowl for...well, Rosie.

Checking our meteo-man via Dashboard, which has been fair so far, and solemnly declaring the Powerbook's keyboard the best keyboard ever made (by humans).

Rumor has it Zib will start pod-casting within the next few days. We're all in trouble now (at least she doesn't have a squeaky voice).

Posted by lck at 02:05 PM | Comments (0)

October 04, 2005

Inycon Merlot

Time: So, it isn't summer anymore.
Place: Nel Centro
Accompaniments: Slow cooked spinach with a buttery garlic sauce (or garlicy butter sauce as it was), green salad, scrambled eggs with pancetta.

Though the label claims it to be a merlot, I do have some hesitation in that respect. It just may be a merlot but it is a youngin'. Of the 2004 vintage, I'd give it another 3 years to hit perfection. Not that there isn't anything wrong with a novello but if you are expecting a full blown merlot, I'd wait a bit before the decanting. Locally produced merlot are rare. This is produced in Menfi which is near Agrigento (you know, the valley of the temples place).

First impressions: The bouquet precedes the actual tasting of it. Nice, young and alive on the tongue with a heavy honey hit right before it disappears. Strawberry and a bit of stone included.

Last impressions: A two bottle minimum with plenty of water along.

Cost: 3.00 euros
URL: http://www.cantinesettesoli.it/inglese/

Posted by zib at 10:53 PM | Comments (0)

October 03, 2005

Ubu's back

After a long summer of building, UbuWeb is back.

Originally focusing on Sound Poetry proper, UbuWeb's Sound section has grown to encompass all types of sound art, historical and contemporary. Beginning with pioneers such as Guillaume Apollinaire reading his "Calligrammes" in 1913, and proceeding to current practitioners such as Vito Acconci or Kristin Oppenheim, UbuWeb Sound surveys the entire 20th century and beyond. Categories include Dadaism, Futurism, early 20th century literary experiments, musique concrete, electronic music, Fluxus, Beat sound works, minimalist and process works, performance art, plunderphonics and sampling, and digital glitch works, to name just a few. As the practices of sound art continue to evolve, categories become increasingly irrelevant, a fact UbuWeb embraces. Hence, our artists are listed alphabetically instead of categorically.

UbuWeb embraces non-proprietary, open source media. As such, most of the newer files are encoded in MP3 format.

One of the most valuable sites of all.

Posted by lck at 05:15 PM | Comments (0)

October 01, 2005

100 Keith's paintings

Possibly the most extensive ever, the Keith Haring Show kicked off in Milan on the 28th of September and will close on the 29th of January, 2006. Sponsored by Chrysler at the Triennale in Milan. More info here and the press release (in Italian) here

Posted by lck at 01:56 PM | Comments (0)

Candykiller

Brian Tailor's Candykiller smells of old comics, with a nostalgic twist for the Marvel classics (plus much more). This portfolio is also available as a comprehensive book at Lulu, here.

Posted by lck at 11:47 AM | Comments (0)