Magnet Cat

Hear Ye!

2009-08-20T17:57:00.000-07:00

Hello all! This site is no longer active; the Magnetic State Blog Department has moved here.

Check out the brand-spanking new Magnetic State portfolio site! I decided to attach the blog department to the portfolio site by building a customized blog on a fresh installation of my favorite blogging platform, Wordpress. Blogger is very convenient and user-friendly but Wordpress offers extensive customization and I'm a big fan.

Thanks for visiting and I hope you'll subscribe to the Magnetic State Blog Dept. at its new location!

Shirt and Destroy.

2009-08-04T19:43:00.000-07:00

On a skateboard, I am a disaster waiting to happen. Nonetheless, I think the skateboard industry is home to some of the most inventive apparel graphics on the market. Of course, you have to wade through plenty of bad trends (spoof advertising, emulation/plagiarism of horror movies and rap stars, simplistic glorification of drugs, et cetera) but you can usually find some interesting garments if you look hard enough and find the reputable or adventurous brands. Here are a few cool shirt designs I found while browsing today.

An interesting take on the stripe pattern from Atwater. I love the color scheme too - it stops just short of too loud.

Another variation on the stripe theme from Volcom. The asymmetry of the blank sleeve is pleasantly jarring to the eye.

You can always count on Nor Cal for gorgeous, sophisticated type. These antiquated typographical styles are so classy, they make my eyes drool.

All product photos from Zumiez.

Out for a Stroll.

2009-07-31T09:45:00.000-07:00

This image is part of an in-progress series I've been working on in my free time for a while now. I just decided to share one because they've been fun to make and they are totally different from much of my work. Click the image to view full size.

Coldfront Redesign

2009-07-28T16:23:00.001-07:00

I recently completed a website design for online poetry purveyors Coldfront. I began by designing their logo, using a decorative cloud element from their previous site as the primary image. Then we embarked on the task of designing a website that would include an ambitious front page that would feature a multi-tiered magazine-style layout. As always, I chose Wordpress as the platform with which to power the site and customize its appearance. The Coldfront editors have yet to migrate the entirety of their content to the new site, but I hope you'll stop by and take a look at the results of our hard work!

And of course, if you're in the market for a new website or blog, please send an email to dan at magnetic state dot com!

www.ryanmcmenamy.com

2009-07-19T17:18:00.000-07:00

Illustration by Ryan McMenamy

I am pleased to launch my most recent website design: the online portfolio of the very talented fashion illustrator Ryan McMenamy. Please visit www.ryanmcmenamy.com. This site is built entirely with valid HTML and CSS, so stick that in your pipe and smoke it, internet!

Robogeisha

2009-07-06T13:13:00.000-07:00

Oh man. This is gonna change your life so drastically, you will mark this date on your calendar. "Today marks the anniversary of the first time I saw the trailer for Robogeisha," you'll reminisce next year, as you gleefully uncork a bottle of fine champagne. "I've truly evolved since then." The only thing better than the ludicrous special effects concepts in this trailer is the creepy, whispered voice-over of the narrator, who manages to pronounce "fried shrimp" like it's a dirty secret. In this movie, it probably is. You're welcome.

'The Bear' Shirt

2009-06-28T16:35:00.000-07:00

Check out the shirt I designed for my friends in Stephen Kellogg and The Sixers. Their new album The Bear is due out in early September.

Photo by Elmo Thamm.

Here's the design triumphantly emblazoned on the bass drum of Brian 'Boots' Factor. Many thanks, gentlemen!

Health Care for America Now

2009-06-23T16:12:00.000-07:00

I recently did a great deal of graphic design work for Health Care for America Now. One of the most satisfying parts of my career is when I am given the chance to use my skills for such a crucial cause. They will rally for health care reform in D.C. this Thursday, June 25th. Click here to learn more!

Chet Baker - 'Time After Time'

2009-06-11T06:38:00.000-07:00

Wordpress named its new version (Wordpress 2.8, 'Baker,' released today) after jazz legend Chet Baker, so here's a little dose of my man Chet. This performance captures the great vocalist and trumpeter early in his descent into a drug habit that ravaged his looks, his musical skills, and his career. Here, he's missing a tooth from a contentious incident that was allegedly an altercation with an angry dealer. He hits a few sour notes, but otherwise, you can still hear the bittersweet melodies and laid back phrasing that made Baker a pioneer of the 'cool jazz' sound that arose in 50's California. The man was just bursting with beautiful melodies. Baker is the subject of the riveting documentary Let's Get Lost - probably the one film that I would have released on DVD if I could.

Matchless 6/18

2009-06-10T09:30:00.000-07:00

I'm looking forward to seeing several old friends perform at Matchless next week - come out if you are in Brooklyn on Thursday, June 18th! Performers include Ivana XL, The Static Age, and a debut performance by Systems, a new band featuring my great friend and former bandmate, Sean Hutcheon. I'll be there with eager ears!

Say It Ain't So

2009-06-10T09:17:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite bands is responsible for the biggest apparel design mistake of the year. Oh, those timely 'bling' jokes! I thought it was a hoax until I saw it for sale on their website. Check out Faith No More's 'Gold Chain' shirt and read the comments below. With so many talented graphic artists out there, this is such a sad waste of fabric.

Off the Deep End!

2009-06-09T19:32:00.000-07:00

Below are posters for movies I discovered in the book Attack of the 'B' Movie Posters. These posters have got it all: brazen compositions, political incorrectness, memorable titles (Invasion of the Blood Farmers), and amusing slogans ("So Young... So Bad... So What?"). The posters are likely better than the movies themselves, but it still makes me wonder why anyone would feel inclined to go see a movie with a title as bland as The Reader.

Handmade Promotional Mailers

2009-06-07T18:29:00.000-07:00

Here is my recently completed series of six handmade promotional mailers for Magnetic State. They are due to be shipped out to former and potential clients this week. Each one is unique. They were fun to make and I hope it shows!

Remember To Take Risks Sometimes

2009-06-02T17:34:00.000-07:00

I was intrigued and impressed when I saw the cover of the Fiery Furnaces' recent live record, Remember (Thrill Jockey). At first glance, my eyes boggled and my mind knotted at the strange, perplexing shapes. And then it dawned on me that I was reading - or slowly deciphering - the word Remember. Someone has gone out on a limb with this one, and the result is a design that really surprises the viewer with its slow revelation.

Graphic design is about communication, and it's quite unusual for an album cover to abandon legibility and obscure communication the way that this one does. Of course, the title Remember is written legibly in the upper left hand corner of the square, but it's the larger, abstracted version of the word that dominates the composition. I love the way the E's and the M's interconnect with each other and I think the way the R has been simplified is quite brave. If I could change two things, I'd change the color of the first M (it appears to be negative space right now) and I'd include the last R in the composition (why has it been squeezed out of the frame?).

All in all though, this design is a risky one and it's nice to see a good, daring risk once in a while. I can't believe it got approved. One of my favorite quotes is from my former professor Sergio Baradat, who once said, "It's great to pull a rabbit out of your hat, but sometimes, a rabbit out of your hat is not what's called for." The cover design of Remember is an example of that first part - sometimes, it's great to pull a rabbit out of your hat.

Ten Great Art & Design YouTube Videos

2009-05-25T16:09:00.000-07:00

Today I've selected ten art and design-related YouTube videos that I hope will inspire and entertain you. The subjects run the gamut from fine art and graphic design to graphic novelists, but they have one thing in common: serious ass-kickery. Enjoy.

Josef Albers: Homage to the Square

Here is a discussion of a painting (‘Aurora’) from Josef Albers’ ‘Homage to the Square’ series. I wish I could go back in time and take a class with the famed Bauhaus/Black Mountain master who believed that color was a “magic force.”

Paul Rand Interview

“Most good things have a timeless quality” according to designer Paul Rand, and this interview with him (on a hopelessly 80’s cable access program) is no exception. Rand is a hero of graphic design; his timeless work (logo designs for IBM, ABC, UPS) and no-nonsense, utilitarian approach to design can be seen here. Rand didn’t offer clients many choices for the solution to a logo design assignment “for the same reason that a doctor doesn’t give you a million choices – if you’ve got a headache, he’ll give you an aspirin. He doesn't give you a choice between that and Ex-Lax.” Visit YouTube to watch parts 2 and 3 of this interview with the coolest dude that ever did it.

Charles Burns in 'Fear(s) of the Dark'

This is artist Charles Burns’ entry in the animated French film ‘Peur(s) du Noir’ (‘Fears of the Dark’). Burns is responsible for Black Hole, the best graphic novel you’ll ever read. He uses his beautifully stark illustration style to tell Cronenberg-ian tales of love and lust that are dark, creepy, and usually populated with mutants. This film isn't available on DVD yet but this YouTube version will tide me over until it is. Visit YouTube for Part II.

Paula Scher: Great Design is Serious (Not Solemn)

Here is Pentagram partner Paula Scher’s speech ‘Great Design Is Serious (Not Solemn)’. Ms. Scher is refreshingly honest about the joys and disappointments of her career; she admits that some of her best work occurred in situations where she was “totally and completely unqualified for the job.”

Aesthetic Apparatus

The artists at the Milwaukee-based design studio Aesthetic Apparatus discuss their inspirations and processes. You know how every Criterion DVD release looks more beautiful than a cold beer on a hot day? These guys are one of the reasons why.

Jeff Koons Interview

Art is a “vehicle that creates anxiety.” Jeff Koons is interviewed here by the Tate Museum in his New York studio. If Warhol's studio was a factory, then Koons' place is an industrial complex. Out of all the museums whose YouTube channels I've browsed over the last week, the Tate's was the most watchable.
David Carson: Design, Discovery, and Humor

This is a quite funny and amusing speech given by David Carson, a graphic designer famous for breaking/ignoring a lot of rules in his work. “Don’t mistake legibility for communication,” he says here. “Just because something’s legible doesn’t mean it communicates; more importantly, it doesn’t mean it communicates the right thing.”

Matt Groening: 'My Wasted Life'

This is part one of a BBC program called ‘My Wasted Life’ about Simpsons creator Matt Groening. Groening recalls the sweet surreality of his own youth as well as the cultural roots of Bart and the gang. My favorite Groening comic: Bongo's Dream House.
Jenny Holzer: PROTECT PROTECT (Whitney Exhibit)

This video considers the politics of Jenny Holzer’s work on view in 'PROTECT PROTECT' at the Whitney Museum. Jenny Holzer has always been one of my favorites due to her skill at uniting image and word; the intersection of visual and literary arts has been a lifelong fascination for me. See the Whitney exhibit this week; its last day on view is Sunday, May 31st.

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Here is your new muse. Watch this video once a day and behold the wellspring of creativity that is sure to erupt from within your spirit.

Attention: Artists

2009-05-25T16:00:00.001-07:00

Do you need to get your portfolio online or upgrade your web presence? I'd like to build your site - and at a very low price. I've been building websites for the last year (mostly Wordpress-based blog/magazine sites like the one I built at www.fivechapters.com) but I'd like to begin building portfolio sites (view the one I built for my own work at www.magneticstate.com). My goal is to build simple, professional sites with intelligent navigation and a layout that makes your work shine. Take advantage of my cheap rates while they last and drop me a line at dan@magneticstate.com.

Miami Baldwin & Psycho Pasta

2009-05-24T17:02:00.000-07:00

The two most entertaining movies I watched this week were Miami Blues and Beyond the Mat.

Full throttle Baldwin.

Take one look at the film still above and you'll understand why I had to watch Miami Blues. This is a bizarre movie that's a lot of fun to watch; the schizophrenic tone of the film wanders between dark comedy, cop thriller, and B-movie drek. This forgotten nineties flick stars the inimitable Alec Baldwin in a full-throttle performance as a con man prone to thievery and suspicious sidelong glances. In most scenes, Baldwin can be seen slugging on a beer while proudly displaying his beastly chest hair. The wafer-thin 'plot' of the movie is nonsensical and bizarre - Baldwin kills a Hari Krishna at the airport by breaking his finger (?), and spends the rest of the movie dodging the cops while posing as one. Overall fun to watch for the weird performance by young Baldwin in his prime and tacky nineties Miami Vice wardrobes.

Unlikely pasta spokesman: psychopath with talking sock sidekick.
Beyond the Mat is a documentary about pro wrestling. These real-life stories might pull a Star Trek on you by entertaining and fascinating you even if you don't normally give a shit about the subject matter. Judging by the tales in this film, Mickey Rourke's chewed-up has-been in The Wrestler probably feels almost biographical for many former pros (especially Jake 'The Snake' Roberts). The most arresting character is Mick Foley (aka Mankind), a kind and sensitive family man whose on-stage persona is a savage madman. Foley gets a dose of reality when he sees his kids' visceral, potentially traumatic reactions to the beatings that Dad takes at work. Beyond the Mat reveals that pro wrestling is "fake, but not as fake as you'd think." These guys are choreographed and trained, but they often bleed real blood and literally put their lives on the line.

The Appropriate Demeanor

2009-05-23T09:37:00.000-07:00

"The appropriate demeanor for a human is to feel lucky that he is alive and to humble himself in the face of the immensity of things and have a beer." --Dr.Kary Mullis, winner of the Nobel Prize in chemistry

The Work of A.J. Fosik

2009-05-20T19:17:00.000-07:00

A.J. Fosik has a show that goes up at White Walls (San Francisco) on June 13th. View more of his recent work here. A.J. and I had a few classes together at Parsons and his work has developed into something astounding. These pieces look like Carlos Castaneda acid visions of animal spirits from another realm. They also remind me of the evil puppets in Joe Dante's portion of Twilight Zone: The Movie. I am impressed with the complexity of the structure, the attention to detail (check out the veins protruding from the bottom of the head), and a sense of mythology that is just as sophisticated as the mouth-watering use of color. For those of you in the San Francisco area, I'd recommend going to see the White Walls show because I bet that up close, these things look like they are going to devour you, digest your spirit, and regurgitate it in the form of a thousand brightly colored pieces.

All Apologies

2009-05-17T20:21:00.000-07:00

This amusing set of 9 mock open/closed signs comes from the clever people at Aesthetic Apparatus (go here to see the other side of the signs). Not only are these folks charmingly self-effacing and clearly having lots of fun, but everything that comes out of their studio looks like a million bucks.

The Citizen Kane of Blog Posts

2009-05-14T06:07:00.000-07:00

To call a film the Citizen Kane of its genre has become the ultimate (and ultimately absurd) superlative. Orson Welles' 1941 masterpiece represents a watershed moment in filmmaking and is considered by many to be the best film ever made. Therefore, it sounds pretty preposterous/awesome (depending on how drunk you are) to say that Shakes The Clown is "the Citizen Kane of alcoholic clown movies." Anyways, I was curious about this phenomenon, so I did some research. It turns out that some writers are not afraid to call something (egg rolls, for example) the Citizen Kane of anything (food, let's say). Is it funny, or is poor Orson rolling in his grave? Here are some of the results of my research.

Citizen Kanes in Film

'Whore,' "The Citizen Kane Of Streetwalker Movies Starring Megan Fox And Rumer Willis" (Defamer)
This movie stars one young woman who is famous because she's hot and another who is famous because her dad is a big R&B star. Does it warrant a Citizen Kane comparison? Methinks not. I would have been willing to accept "the Touch of Evil of streetwalker movies," however.

'You Got Served' is “the Citizen Kane of break-dancing movies! And yet it still isn't any damned good.” (Mountain Xpress)
"Isn't any damned good"!?! I disagree and respectfully take umbrage. I consider the scene in Served where breakdancer J-Boog segues a coin drop into a boyoing to be equivalent to the famed Kane 'breakfast table' montage where Charles Foster Kane's marriage erodes from idyllic to grueling. And I'm sure we can all agree that The Lil' Saints are the 'Rosebud' of breakdancing crews.

'National Treasure II' is "The Citizen Kane Of American-History-Themed Bruckheimer Thrill Rides" (The Insider)
Nicolas Cage is the opposite of Orson Welles. Welles was a renaissance man who displayed brilliant talent as a director, writer, actor, and producer. Some say he was a genius. Cage, on the other hand, is an untalented actor who has managed to gain box office success using only one facial expression (concerned)*. Most say he is a grade-A dingleberry. Comparing the two is like comparing Twinkies and Filet Mignon. *Also guilty of 'acting' with only the 'concerned' facial expression: Elijah Wood.

'The Room' is "the Citizen Kane of bad movies" (The American Scene)
Now, there's a lot of tough competition for the category of really bad movies (ever see Pay It Forward?). However, The Room is surely one of the most regrettable movies ever committed to film. This drek is a cross between an episode of your least favorite soap opera (I'm looking at you, Days!), your creepiest sexual fantasy, and a horse fart. For those who are unfamiliar, The Room features a nauseating parade of repulsive sex scenes, a delusional (and sinewy) writer/director/star who took this farce very seriously, and a cast of supporting actors more wooden than cigar store Indians. Sheer shit. However, for many viewers, The Room also epitomizes the phrase 'so bad it's good.'

'Superbad' is “the Citizen Kane of dick-joke movies.” (Onion A.V. Club)
God, that movie is funny. Coincidentally, there's an Orson Welles reference in Superbad. Seth complains that when it comes to girls, he's peaked early, and his friend Evan replies, "You're like Orson Welles." (Kane was Welles' hit feature directorial debut, but he faced many obstacles during the rest of his career.) Somehow, I don't imagine that this joke scored big among the legions of chortling McLovins that packed theaters for this one. Still awesome, though.

The Citizen Kane of Kids in the Hall sketches

The Citizen Kane of Comic Book Movies
"Watchmen set to rival Citizen Kane" (UK Metro)
Nerds worldwide recently fogged up their nerd goggles while arguing over what is the Citizen Kane of comic books and the Citizen Kane of superhero movies. To quote the above article: “Okay, so we've established that Watchmen is the Citizen Kane of comic books. But could the upcoming film become the Citizen Kane of movies? Well, no, that title will probably stay with Citizen Kane.” Probably? My whole thing is - how can you be so sure? Now that the nerds agree, I'm certain that the distributors of Watchmen are considering manufacturing their DVD packages with the title Citizen Kane on the cover. Welles' film should thereafter be produced under the title The Film Formerly Known As Citizen Kane. Either that or we should just ditch it.

Citizen Kanes of Stuff
"Charles Saatchi, the Citizen Kane of the art world, is about to transform himself into the Andrew Lloyd Webber of art." (Jonathan Jones, The Guardian)
I consider this to be the Keanu Reeves of sentences.

"Will video games ever have their Citizen Kane?" (CBS News)
The debate over this question has caused an uproar among gamers. One writer has even called on the community to stop the madness about Kane comparisons. How can they take it all so seriously? I guess these are the things you get upset about when you've been awake for seventy-two hours, you're coated in a thick layer of Doritos crumbs and shame, and your avatar has just been slain by a level-five Demonmaster with a Romulan broadsword. My favorite part of this debate comes from a commenter on this article ("Let The Kane Thing Go") who wondered when we'll have a "big daddy kane of video games."

Drummer Mike Jeffers is “the Citizen Kane of Chicago jazz" (Chicago Tribune)
The only thing funny about this is that a reputable newspaper would print such nonsensical hyperbole.

'Stairway To Heaven' is the Citizen Kane of Rock (What I Hear You Saying Is)
Dear God, please make it stop.

In Conclusion

The Real Thing.

After scrutinizing a few dozen Citizen Kane comparisons, I am beginning to understand how Charles Foster Kane must've felt just before he dropped that snow globe and exhaled his final, dying breath. I feel exhausted, disoriented, and ultimately, annoyed. I had hoped to spend tonight studying the mise-en-scène of You Got Served (with feature-length DVD commentary by Lil' Fizz and Mr.Rad!), but instead, I read a bunch of overwrought writing. I know, I know, it's supposed to be snarky and funny, but most of it is just trite and lame. I'm no Hemingway, but I sure feel like one after spending a few hours reading DVD advertising copy and comment threads on video game blogs.

A few other interesting tidbits I came across during my exaustive research efforts (read: three Google searches) include Donald Trump on Citizen Kane (from the brilliant Errol Morris) and Citizen Kane 3D.

To Trek or not to Trek

2009-05-08T20:03:00.000-07:00

Here are my top three favorite moments from the 1997 documentary Trekkies:

1. Married pair of Trekkie dentists insist that all of their employees work in Star Trek costumes; they also discuss their Trek-themed sex life

2. 'Hamlet' is available in a Klingon translation

3. Trek fan on his annual Star Trek party: "Every year it gets a little more fun... this year we had a girl attend!"

Smiths Weather

2009-05-05T20:29:00.000-07:00

Gloomy skies in Brooklyn (Kent and North 11th, to be exact) on Tuesday.
I know for a fact that it pleases the Gods when you listen to The Smiths on days like this one.

2009-05-05T20:28:00.001-07:00

Maskmaking at The Lighthouse

2009-05-04T18:48:00.000-07:00

I teach art classes for visually impaired teens at the Lighthouse International (see previous post for our robot pinata project). We recently made papier mache masks in my class. After completion, the students used their masks for theater exercises in their Drama class (I sat in on one Drama class and was quite surprised by the abandon with which the students took on the characters of their masks). Some of our students are blind, but most of them have some degree of sight.

I am extremely impressed with the results of this project and very proud of these talented artists. Here are some highlights. Enjoy!

The Robot Pinata

2009-05-04T17:36:00.000-07:00

In my art classes at the Lighthouse International, many of our art projects are sculptural and require hands-on building and the use of tactile senses. The students and I recently built a robot pinata out of papier mache and recycled materials (cereal boxes, paper towel rolls, etc). The robot was named XC3R60 - an anti-human droid sent from the future on a mission to destroy mankind. But mankind destroyed him first, and we added insult to injury by feasting on his delectable insides. Here are some photos of our pinata smashing in Central Park on a warm, beautiful Saturday in April.

Esdriel winds up. The video monitor on the robot's chest read's 'Must Kill Humans.'

Emmanuel scores one for the humans.

Here you can see the robot's papier mache belly shortly before Amanda struck the fatal blow.

They will demand that you listen to Insane Clown Posse.

Go for the Reese's!

Submit a Movie Dream.

2009-05-02T16:16:00.000-07:00

Have you ever dreamt about movies? Maybe you dreamt you were in a film, watching a film, or that your teeth were falling out and transforming into tiny Val Kilmers. Email your one sentence movie dreams to dan@magneticstate.com. Include your name in the email or indicate if you'd prefer to have your movie dream(s) listed anonymously. Include your URL if you'd like me to link to your site. Make sure each dream you send is no longer than one sentence long.

The results will be posted on this blog and on Twitter later this week.

I'm curious about how movies and movie stars are embedded into our collective unconscious. Personally, I recently had a bona fide Freddy Kreuger nightmare (he had six Freddy gloves protruding from his hat, spinning like a blender) as well as a dream in which I was being directed by Martin Scorcese in his new feature (set at my grandmother's house, of course). Please resist the urge to fabricate or exaggerate, and keep your steamy Hugh Jackman fantasies to yourself (unless they're really funny and really truly dreamt).

P.S. This blog was featured on the New York Times City Room blog on Friday. Cool!

Interview: Photoplay Owner Michael Sayers

2009-04-28T21:29:00.000-07:00

Michael Sayers is the owner and manager of Photoplay Video & DVD, a movie rental and sales store located at 928 Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. The store has been a staple of the Greenpoint community for nearly a decade. Michael is formerly the Programmer at Film Forum (he was once interviewed by Leonard Lopate!) and his knowledge of cinema is astounding and encyclopedic. I have been a part-time employee at Photoplay since 2003 and Michael has been a truly great friend over the years. He doesn't give a shit about publicity - he recently half-jokingly referred to business promotion as a "sign of weakness" - and I'm sure he only agreed to this interview because he's very generous and because he loves talking about movies. I hope you enjoy my chat with the extraordinary Michael Sayers. -Dan Redding (Note: this interview was featured on the New York Times' City Room blog here. Many thanks to the editors.)

In his natural habitat.

Dan Redding: Can you tell me about a film that’s been a particularly memorable theatergoing experience for you?
Michael Sayers: I remember seeing Blue Velvet at the Waverly Theater at midnight, the week it opened. And just being completely blown away by it. Not knowing what (David Lynch) was doing or what it was supposed to be… I’m just remembering how funny it was. Amazing. Seeing Scarface at 42nd Street with a late night crowd was another great one. People were just going apeshit, you know?
What actor bothers you more than any other?
(long, long pause) There must be some that I hate, but I can’t think of any.
(laughter) That’s okay. You seem to have a very positive disposition, so-
Well, I’m never very fond of, um, what’s her name? Chipmunk face.
Charlize Theron?
No! I like her.
Drew Barrymore.
No. The one who ruined Appaloosa.
I didn’t bother watching that one.
She’s in those Bridget Jones movies. Zellwegger.
Oh, God, she’s the worst! Fucking Zellwegger. She and Nicolas Cage are one and two on my shit list.
But Cage is a talented actor! You can’t ignore his good movies.
Sure I can.
Oh, no, he’s amazing in those movies! Adaptation, Wild at Heart…
I kind of think of those movies as great in spite of him.
No, I think he helps make those movies great. Face/Off. Brilliant.
Face/Off is so obnoxious! Cage’s bad films greatly outweigh the good. He reminds me of DeNiro in a way… DeNiro is perhaps the most revered actor of his generation, and rightly so, but he hasn’t been in anything good – or even decent – in many years. Do you think that DeNiro could ever make a comeback?
I don’t think he’s ever gonna make a comeback. I don’t think he’s interested, obviously, since he chooses what scripts he’s in. I don’t think he’s interested in taking on any serious dramatic roles, clearly. He hasn’t done any in twenty years, right? Twenty-five years?

Open daily from noon to eleven.

What actor will you go to see at the theater no matter what he or she is appearing in?
Isabelle Huppert is a very interesting French actress. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is always picking good stuff. Charlotte Rampling. Julianne Moore I’d usually go to see.
What did you think of Phillip Seymour Hoffman in Doubt?
Didn’t see it. I guess it’s not true then (that I’d always see him) - I wouldn’t go see that. There’s nobody I would go see all the time. Some actors have a good, like, seventy percent standing. That’s the best it’s gonna get.
Huppert seems kind of obscure. She’s not in that many movies.
Oh, she is, actually. She’s been in two Chabrol films, she was in The Piano Teacher, Ma Mere…
You’ve just mentioned Michael Haneke’s The Piano Teacher. Haneke famously said that his desire as a filmmaker is to “rape” the audience with his films. Why do you think there is a large audience for such a violent style of filmmaking?
I think it’s just a fascination with the darkest elements of human existence that he portrays: murder, acts of random violence and cruelty, suicide… People are fascinated by the extremes of human experience, which he tends to portray.
I never go to a theater hoping to be ‘raped’ by a film.
I don’t think he actually does that; I think that’s misleading. I think he wants to maybe brutalize the audience in some way. Unlike a rape, his movies leave you enriched in some way. I think his description is a little overstated.
Enriched? I find Haneke’s films so frustrating.
Even Cache?
Especially Cache. I found the lack of resolution in the narrative to leave me feeling incomplete and disappointed in a way. I guess I’m a traditional viewer in that sense; I like a traditional narrative. I like it when it’s experimented with, but not when certain parts that I depend on are obliterated.
But maybe he’s touching on subjects which have no possible way to be closed off. He’s dealing with colonialism and racism; issues which are still unresolved in France. He may be treating those subjects more accurately by not tagging on some kind of device that would end the film more comfortably.
Over the years, I have only witnessed you strongly object to a few films. Can you tell me why you dislike The Royal Tenenbaums?
I think it’s cartoonish, empty, whimsical… It pretends to deal with events that are of consequence, but in fact, it doesn’t deal with them. It presents this perverse, entitled, all-white New York, with ethnic stereotypes thrown in in the background - usually for laughs. It’s some kind of fantasy of a rich, white New York where the personal problems of bored, wealthy people somehow dominate. Which is disgusting.
Can you tell me why you dislike The Last House on the Left?
I don’t like films that portray rape as entertainment. I just find them abhorrent. Something is soul-killing in films like that. The idea of degradation as pleasure for an audience is something I find pretty unbearable.
I agree. There seems to be a modern school of filmmakers that draws on those ultraviolent seventies films as inspiration. What did you think of Hostel?
I liked Hostel, because I felt like Hostel turned the tables. You have these young Americans overseas trying to exploit women for their own purposes, taking advantage of the economic situation in Eastern European countries… And then, in fact, (those Americans) wind up as the victims of far wealthier, more powerful people. I felt like it was somehow a commentary on American economic power… Although Hostel II was terrible and had none of that subtle social commentary.

Fool's Gold.

Are the Academy Awards an honorable ceremony or an elitist farce?
An elitist farce, I think. At this point they’re just a way for studios to market their films. I don’t know that they indicate any more than who’s promoted their films most. They’re pretty silly.
Are there any new or emerging directors whose work you find exciting?
Charlie Kaufman’s first directorial effort (Synecdoche, New York) was pretty amazing. Um…
I thought you might mention Funny Ha Ha director Adrew Bujalski in response to this question. You seemed to be a fan of his.
Yeah, I liked that movie a lot, and the second one (Mutual Appreciation) a little less. But yeah, he’s kind of interesting. We’ll see where he goes… The director who did Calvaire (Fabrice Du Welz) is interesting. His second feature, Vinyan, was kind of interesting, too.
Dreamworks executive Jeffrey Katzenberg believes that an oncoming trend of 3-D movies will be a revolution equivalent to the transition between silent and sound. Do you foresee a future in which the art of filmmaking is revolutionized by technology?
No. That’s a ridiculous statement. I think 3-D movies will be only interesting for people seeking sensation. It’ll appeal more to, like, video game fans, or people looking for some kind of virtual reality… They’ve been playing with 3-D for over fifty years and it just doesn’t interest most people.
It just seems like technology is evolving at such a rapid pace.
I think technology may create other entertainment options, but the structure of narrative film hasn’t changed that much in eighty years, really. I don’t think technology is gonna make any changes in the way people watch film. It may dictate where they watch the film, but the structure will remain intact.
Robert Altman once said, “Decent films are just disappearing. Everything’s being made for kids.” Do you agree?
No. I think he was probably responding to that first wave of blockbusters like Star Wars and Jaws, which kind of changed the way people marketed films to teenagers. I think that was probably a pretty dramatic shift. In the early seventies, interesting films were being made for very sophisticated audiences. Between ’67 and ’75, let’s say. After Bonnie and Clyde, when the ratings system fell away… Look at the films Altman had made: M.A.S.H. and McCabe and Mrs. Miller and Images and 3 Women and Brewster McCloud. These were very strange, sophisticated films which were being championed by critics and found cult audiences. But after the mid-seventies, that changed; there was much less of that going on. He had a lot of trouble getting things produced after that point.
You once recommended to me the great novel Flicker, which is about haunted film dating back to the origins of filmmaking. You were also a big fan of David Lynch’s Inland Empire, which concerns the filming of a haunted narrative from the past. What do you think it is about the history of Hollywood and the history of filmmaking that is so intriguing and mysterious to storytellers?
Well, the history of Hollywood has such a dark side to it. It’s filled with suicides and scandals and murders… like the stories told in Hollywood Babylon by Kenneth Anger: these outrageous ups and downs of various directors and producers and actors, and this dark underside that permeates the industry itself. It’s a good premise for a ghost story. Inland Empire is about a script that had been around; they’d maybe started shooting it and there were some mysterious deaths… the story itself was dangerous to tell. Which is also the premise of The Ring. The idea that a film can hurt you.

He shoots but never shits.

You once watched a whole season of 24 in 24 hours consecutively.
I did.
How would you describe that experience?
Exhausting. Stimulating. That show is pure sensation, pure action, pure narrative. It’s an awful lot of fun. Preposterous. Invigorating.
Does Jack Bauer ever take a shit or drink a coffee?
He has no time for that, no. That would be unacceptable.
I recently had a Freddy Kreuger nightmare as well as a dream in which I was being directed by Scorcese in his new feature. Have you ever dreamt about movies?
(long, thoughtful pause) I don’t think I ever have, actually. That’s funny. I seem to get them out of my system during waking hours. They don’t enter my dream life.
What inspired you to open a video store in Greenpoint?
Wanting to work close to where I live and having something that I could do exactly the way I wanted to do it. I’ve always wanted to be around movies because they’re the best thing in the world.
When you were a kid, were you an avid movie watcher?
Yeah, even as a very young kid, I would circle all the movies in TV Guide that I wanted to watch. My brother and I went to the movies and saw a double feature every Saturday. During my entire childhood. There was a second-run theater in town, and they would show two movies, and they would change them every week, and we would go see whatever was playing. I always wanted to go to the movies.
Does anything stand out from those double features in your memory?
I remember seeing Breakout with Charles Bronson, and seeing a man killed by an airplane propellor, and being stunned. Just stunned by the violence. And it was only a PG, but he splattered like a watermelon on the tarmac. Horrifying…
[At this point, Michael seems to have a visceral reaction to the memory; I try to begin another question but he is clearly distracted]
Wow! You’re still feeling that!
It really got me, yeah.
Have you watched it since?
Yeah, it’s not so bad. But at the time, it was the most violent moment I’d ever seen on film.
I guess there’s something especially compelling to young kids - especially young boys – when they see a movie that’s more violent than anything they’ve ever seen before.
Yeah, and I was only eleven or so.
What’s your favorite movie theater on Earth?
I guess my favorite is probably the Castro in San Francisco. Old movie palace with an organ. That’s as good as it gets. Huge screen.

Photoplay Magazine

For the record, what is the meaning of the name Photoplay?
Film studios once wanted movies to be referred to as ‘photoplays.’ They felt it was a more sophisticated word than ‘movies’ or ‘talkies.’ They felt that it just had a little more class to it. And then it was a very, very, very popular magazine from the thirties through the sixties, which covered movie star gossip and such things. But the word never caught on with the general public.
I’m always happy when I see an issue of Photoplay magazine pop up in a movie. It pops up in The Postman Always Rings Twice, John Carpenter’s The Thing…
It was the movie magazine for quite a while if you were interested in the private lives of the stars. But yeah, it does pop up in movies once in a while, usually as an anachronism. It never seemed to show up in old movies, but in movies about that time period, it shows up.
You seem to have it all figured out. What’s the secret to happiness?
(laughter) I wish I had that figured out.
If you were going to recommend one movie off of the new release wall today, what would it be?
I would recommend Obscene, the documentary on Barney Rossett, who founded Grove Press, because it was an amazing story about someone who built his own strange empire based on his own strange personal tastes in literature.

Many, many thanks to Michael Sayers and Photoplay Video.
More interviews by Dan Redding:
Musician Brian Factor (Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers)
Google Designer Ryan Germick
Rapper MF Doom
High School Student Julie Redding
Science Teacher Mark Stratil
Rap Group Jurassic 5

Creature Sketch

2009-04-24T16:52:00.000-07:00

This is a sketch I did to illustrate a film title I made up. Here's the full list of titles at my old blog.

Logo of the Week

2009-04-23T19:02:00.000-07:00

This is my favorite logo I came across this week while doing research at the Gimbel design library. It's gorgeous. I love the near-symmetry of the composition and I love the pointed spires that the letters form along with the shears. Also, it's quite bold, and boldness is next to Godliness.

I found the logo in a book of German marks and logos. I guess you have no choice but to use an acronymn when the name of your business is Grosseinkaufsgenossenschaft Abteilung Schneiaerartiket (association of wholesalers of tailor's supplies).

Thanks to the Tipsters.

2009-04-21T15:47:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Scott for the tip on this video about the font Comic Sans. Comic Sans is dopey for sure, but my personal most despised font is Sand, a typeface which wouldn't look out of place scrawled on the wall of a serial killer's crawlspace. Thanks to Drew for the tip on these satirical posters for Matthew McConaughey's Next 10 Movies (best one is 'Failure To Act'). And finally, thanks to Ryan for hipping me to this NYT article about J.J. Abrams' guest editorial issue of Wired magazine. I plan to pick the issue up tomorrow, and I also plan to be converted to an enormous Trekkie as soon as Abrams' revamp of the dorkiest film franchise ever hits theaters in early May.

Kyle Is Somewhat Nifty

2009-04-21T05:39:00.000-07:00

He's also apparently a fan of Matt Groening's Life In Hell. Lorimer Street, Brooklyn.

Harbingers of Spring

2009-04-19T16:15:00.000-07:00

Today I noticed these two handmade dolls tied to a tree branch on Lorimer Street here in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. They are red and white - traditional Polish colors in this Polish neighborhood. One is a man and the other is a woman. Pretty much made my day.

Interview: Musician Brian 'Boots' Factor

2009-04-16T15:34:00.000-07:00

Interviews at Magnet Cat feature discussions between myself and other creative professionals. My good friend Brian 'Boots' Factor and I were flatmates in Scotland while studying at the University of Stirling. Enjoy! -Dan Redding

Photo by Elmo Thamm

Dan Redding: What bands do you perform in?
Brian Factor: My main band that I’m in full-time is called Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers. I am a Sixer. I also have a side project called Trevor Jackson with my friend Kyle Riabko.
What instruments do you play?
My main instrument is drums, but I also play mandolin, banjo, and guitar.
For those who are unfamiliar with Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers (SK6ERS), how would you describe the band?
My first intuition is always to say rock band. It’s a rock band with a singer-songwriter quality, and that comes from Stephen. Our main influence is the alt-country genre, like The Band, early Wilco…
What’s the most exhilarating moment you’ve ever had onstage?
There’s been a couple times where we played in front of our own audiences and sold out the joints, like the 9:30 Club in D.C., a couple places in Boston where we have a good fan base, and actually, the Bowery Ballroom, a couple years ago, where we kept on ending our encore and they just kept on demanding more and we’d go out-
How many encores?
I think the Bowery show we were out like three times and we ended the show in the audience, in the center of the audience, playing acoustically. That was probably the coolest. There was a night at the 9:30 club when people just kept cheering and we just had to wait for them to die down. It was great. Yeah, there’s been some moments.

Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers.
Photo by Elmo Thamm.

How come drummers are always late and they all smell?
(defensively) Um, I’m actually a punctual person. I’ve got about three or four clocks in my apartment.
Overkill, no?
Well, my point is that I’m punctual. So that’s your first wrong about drummers.
Is it true what they say: ‘a broken clock is always right?’
At least twice a day it’s right. So if the broken clock says 6:20, then twice a day, AM and PM, you’re gonna-
But why not just use a clock that-
(angrily) My clocks work! (laughter) And as far as smelling, um, I hear you on that… I guess naturally drummers probably do smell more than, say, keyboard players. Pheromones in drummers are significantly stronger. But I don’t agree with you about them being late.
SK6ERS recently performed for soldiers abroad. Were you ever in any danger?
Not that we knew of. We did fly commercially everywhere from the Mediterranean to the Middle East. When we were on the base in Kuwait, at no point did I ever feel nervous, because you’re probably in the safest place in Kuwait. The looks that I got in the airport being a white guy in Bahrain or the Kuwaiti airport, compounded with the fact that in my head, I think they know that I’m Jewish… I got a little freaked out by the looks, but I never felt danger.
Are you sure they weren’t just turned on by your beard?
Well actually, to them, it is a religious sign, so maybe they were like, ‘Oh, he’s with us,’ or something. But no, I never felt threatened. Although one time we were driving through the desert in Kuwait at night, and once in a while these cars would shoot out of nowhere in the darkness in the desert and you’d see headlights. Maybe that bugged me out a little bit.
And you were with military escorts at the time?
Yeah, they hired contractors, they weren’t part of the military, but they were security guards.
Would they comment on those other vehicles, or let you guys know the status of your location?
They never explained why there were cars going on and off the highway in the desert in the middle of the night. But looking at them, if they didn’t look nervous or seem to notice or care, then I didn’t care.

G.I. Joke.

I’ve seen photos of you holding a large gun during the tour. What kind of gun was that and what were the circumstances around the photo?
It was an M dash something, and that was in Kuwait, it was after a show… I guess I was on a high of the show, I was very demanding, and I basically demanded to hold a soldier on duty’s machine gun. After much back and forth, finally he gave in and I got a chance to hold a real machine gun.
Was it loaded?
It was not loaded and the safety was on, but it was heavy. I picked it up, and I guess the nozzle of the gun went up a little too far, and three people jumped at the gun to push it down. Loaded or not, you have to be careful how you hold it.
Why did you want to hold it so badly?
There’s a child in me. There’s an eight year-old kid that lives in my bosom, and that kid likes to play with G.I. Joes and play war. I’m nearing thirty years young, and when you see all this army shit it just comes out. I’m not pro guns, and I’m not pro war, but I’d love to shoot a machine gun.

Kyle Riabko and Boots Factor are Trevor Jackson.

Who would win in a drum-off: Keith Moon versus John Bonham?
John Bonham.
Neil Peart versus Dave Grohl?
Dave Grohl.
Tommy Lee or that guy from Poison?
Is Tommy Lee in the cage?
Yes.
Tommy Lee. (laughter)
Here’s a drummer joke for you. What has nine arms and sucks?
I dunno.
Def Leppard.
Ooooh…. But Def Leppard’s pretty good.
I know, but they also suck.
They suck, but when you break down their formula, they’ve got great melody, and it’s anthemic, and you still hear their music…
Plus, any band that wears sleeveless British flag shirts is a band that wins.
True. People say ‘fashion faux pas,’ but I say ‘hurrah.’
What’s the lamest instrument?
If you walk into a show and you see a bass player playing a five-stringed bass, what would you think?
If it’s Les Claypool or Victor Wooten, I’m into it.
I think it’s lame. You have these sub-divisions. A drumset with the toms that are on that metal rack that was popular in the nineties - some guys tour with the rack and it’s totally lame.
Rack equals hack.
Yes. Saxophone in a rock band in a rock band is also pretty tough to swallow.
Yeah, but saxophone is jazz. What about castanets or the triangle?
Cool. In context.
They’re percussion so you’re defending them.
Well, the triangle is-
It’s like an avocado – it just doesn’t belong in any group. It’s its own group.
The triangle is the avocado of musical instruments.
If God put a gun to your head and demanded that you banish one musical genre from existence, which genre would you banish?
If I had to? For the good of mankind? What is it, like, rap metal or whatever it is? Linkin Park? That should probably just go. If God put a gun to my head, and I said that, it probably wouldn’t hurt too many people.
What if God turns out to be a member of Linkin Park? You’re fucked.
If I know he’s in Linkin Park, I’m not gonna choose that genre. I’d choose commercial country or something.
SK6ERS are a very popular touring band. What’s the secret to building a strong fan base?
The secret is to get in front of other bands’ audiences first and foremost. Get the opportunity to win people over. And really commit to touring. Play the right places, and make sure your live show is enjoyable so that people come back. Give it your all every show – don’t blow off one fuckin’ show. Our band, we play just as hard and try just as hard if there’s fifty people or five hundred people. You have to have that attitude to even have a chance at winning.
I think that’s really good advice, and everything you mentioned was about performing live. Do you think that now more than ever, the live show is the most important element of being in a band due to the changes in the music industry?
It’s huge. It’s the one thing that a band can control. It’s almost like the band’s own entity. Most bands don’t sell enough records to see money accrue to them from album sales. There are companies that have what are called 360 deals – they want a piece of everything: merchandise, touring, record sales. Record sales aren’t enough these days. But if you’re smart enough, you probably won’t get involved in that.
Ozzy Osbourne once had sex with a bat onstage before diving into a mound of cocaine. What’s your craziest tour story?
On the last night of this one tour, we were completely bombed out of our minds, and we were all onstage. I played the drums in just my boxers, a sailor hat, and aviator sunglasses, and that was in front of over ten thousand people.
You can play drunk?
Mm hmm! I don’t know if I can keep time well…
What was that you said about giving every show your best performance?
The alcohol just fuels it!

Many thanks to Brian Factor.
More interviews by Dan Redding:
Google Designer Ryan Germick
Science Teacher Mark Stratil
High School Kid Julie Redding
Rapper MF DOOM
Rap Group Jurassic 5

Five Chapters Redesign

2009-04-13T07:42:00.000-07:00

Five Chapters logo by Magnetic State

I am pleased to announce my redesign of literary website Five Chapters! I was asked to design the logo (shown above) and redesign the site, and the results went live at www.fivechapters.com over the weekend. Five Chapters is an online magazine that publishes a new short story in five parts each week. As a fledgling fiction writer myself as well as a fan of many of the authors featured on Five Chapters (including John Cheever and Jay McInerney), I found this project to be an exciting challenge. I am quite happy with the results, and in the spirit of President Obama's fondness for transparency, I thought I'd discuss some of the work and share a few of the logo designs that didn't make the cut.

I began the project with the logo design; below are two of my favorites from the rejected concepts (I especially like the 'bookmark' concept). Five Chapters editor David Daley gave me his initial brief on the nature of the site's identity: it combines a 19th century reading format (serialized fiction) with a modern one (online publishing). This was an inspiring starting point that led to lots of research and some interesting results (like the old-style printer's ornament adorning the second logo below), but eventually, we began to feel hampered by it, and chose our final logo, whose primary functions are aesthetic and visual rather than conceptual.

Two unused logo designs.

The previous version of the website (see below), was abrasively colored, contained the site's name in the header but had no logo, and contained only one way to access the site's archives.

Old site.

To power the new site, I chose the extraordinarily powerful content management system Wordpress and designed a custom theme to control the appearance of the site. I modernized the site by equipping it with access to the Five Chapters RSS feed, and added alphabetized menus for the archives, which are now categorized by story and author. Finally, I extended the Five Chapters brand by revising the 'about' blurb, making it the first thing visitors see in the sidebar, and then embedding the new logo in the header and background. The 'bookmark' concept from our rejected logos can now be seen in the favicon.

New site!

So visit Five Chapters and read today's chapter or a full story. There's enough free fiction on this site to entertain us all until the next century. There's even a story about my 'hood Greenpoint!

Visit www.fivechapters.com

The Rampantness

2009-04-08T14:05:00.000-07:00

Heraldry is the description and decoration of coats of arms and armorial bearings. This blog post will describe a popular figure in heraldry as well as a source of inspiration for many logos, including the Magnet Cat logo at the top of this blog.

The Royal Standard of Scotland, pictured above, is otherwise known as the Lion Rampant ('rampant' meaning 'upright' in heraldry-speak). The rampant lion figure has been used in countless variations in countries as diverse as Bulgaria and Jerusalem, where the figure takes the form of The Lion of Judah on the municipal emblem of Jerusalem.

In Scotland, the Lion Rampant flag may have been used as early as the 12th century by William I ("William the Lion"). Today this banner is used as an unofficial second national flag of Scotland (The red lion rampant on a yellow shield also features on the badges of both the Scottish Football Association and the Scotland national football team). I lived in Scotland for a year while studying English literature at the University of Stirling and became rather fond of the flag.

Animals and creatures in the 'rampant' position have been used in all manner of emblems and logos over the centuries, so it's refreshing to see something usual. I tried to provide the Magnet Cat with something new by greatly reducing his angular shapes and having him wield magnetic force. Another one of my favorites is the winged rampant dragon of Swiss chocolatier Lindt (complete with its strange floating bannered crown). Logos this ornate are rarely seen in an age where reduction and neutrality are the dominant trends in logo design, but in this case, I love the decorative, illustrative line work. They say the lion is the king of the beasts, but this dragon would scorch any lion with its chocolatey fire breath.

Ye Olde Beer

2009-04-06T08:25:00.000-07:00

Check out this amazing collection of antique beer cans. Via Gearfuse.

Dwarfsploitation

2009-04-05T17:33:00.000-07:00

Weirdest movie find of the week goes to 'The Sinful Dwarf,' a slimy Danish sleaze-fest from 1973. I have not seen it yet, and I am not normally interested in 'exploitation' films (or exploitation itself for that matter), but I have to say that I was intrigued today when two Photoplay customers - a couple in their twenties - returned the film to the store after watching it. The dazed young man muttered "We're still recovering from that one" in the tone of someone who has just crawled from the twisted remains of a burning vehicle. The reviewer at this site opined, "I’ve watched several movies where I wanted to take a shower afterwards, but this is one that I actually wanted to pause so I could go take a shower in the first third, another right before the climax, and by the time the end credits rolled I needed a high-pressure sprayer." Bring it on!

The Empire State Strikes Back

2009-03-27T07:31:00.000-07:00

This month, movie theaters suffered the latest installment of one of the ugliest trends in graphic design and shitty movies: I'm talking about 'Know1ng,' the latest crap-heap of sub-entertainment from that toolshed Nicolas Cage. I reported on the 'numbers as letters' trend last June and it's only gotten staler since.

Here's a great tale about my nemesis Cage. This week, my great Brooklyn friend Kristina saw the 'Ghost Rider' star and grade-A bonehead filming 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice' on the subway in Park Slope. She reports that she and a crowd of subway passengers at the 7th Avenue stop "were asked to move to the side" when a "fellow passenger yelled: 'Fuck you, Nicolas Cage. We're not moving. Who the fuck shoots a subway scene at 7 p.m. rush hour? I am just trying to live my life and I ain't taken orders from Hollywood. Welcome to Brooklyn - go fuck yourself.'"

I wish someone would put that anonymous subway rider in a movie, because he is a true hero.

Here is another excellent tale of a famous actor being cursed at by a New Yorker. My friend Mike reports that he saw Tim Robbins crossing the street in Manhattan with a friend. Robbins was cut off by a trash truck passing through a yellow light. Robbins began hollering at the truck when one of the garbage men leaned out the window and shouted, "Shut the fuck up, Shawshank!"

No Crybabies

2009-03-25T19:27:00.000-07:00

I saw this image on a sticker for a local Brooklyn laborer's union (it's on the fridge in Carmine's pizzeria). The world would be a much cooler place to live if every time someone complained, they thought of this image, shut their trap, asked themselves "What would Eastwood do?" and then took care of business.

I am strongly considering plastering this image on the door of the studio just so people know where I stand on the issue of crybabies.

Trend Alert!

2009-03-23T07:12:00.000-07:00

The movie posters for both Doubt and the new Sin Nombre combine two fonts in their logos: one blackletter-style font and one sans serif. The two fonts are so drastically different that the contrast is striking and the letterforms suggest a clash of the old and the new.

Sin Nombre (a new film already inspiring comparisons to City of God) uses Linotext for its blackletter-style font and Doubt (the kids just can't get enough of these brooding church dramas these days!) uses Goudy Text. These fonts are late-nineteenth/early-twentieth century updates of the blackletter font style that was popular from about 1150 to 1500. Linotext and Goudy Text add legibility to this antiquated style for modern audiences who don't normally sit down by the fireside to read a few passages from Gutenberg's 42 line Bible.

When I first saw the poster for Doubt, I was pleasantly surprised that a thoughtful graphic design treatment had been used, because most film posters are mere Photoshop Disasters. The difference between the two posters is that it's thematically powerful for Doubt to have a font with Biblical associations in its design (although I'd rather do math homework in the hottest layer of Hell than watch Meryl Streep scowl in a nun's habit for two hours). The application of the concept in Sin Nombre's design seems less relevant, although clearly sin is a theme in the film.

Anyways, I guess this isn't really a 'trend' yet; so far it's merely an incident of one designer ripping off the Doubt design. I'll be damned if there isn't more to come, though.

Burton on Palance

2009-03-17T11:33:00.000-07:00

Jack Palance (left) with Jack Nicholson in Tim Burton's 'Batman.'

The best stories in filmmaking are when the old-timers let the rookies know who's boss (read William Friedkin's awesome Hitchcock story here). These moments are part genuine anger, part rite-of-passage hazing. Below is director Tim Burton's story about the legendary Jack Palance (Shane, Panic in the Streets) on the set of Batman.

"I think it was the first day of shooting Batman. It’s probably the only time I’ve ever been terrified of anybody. I was nervous – you know, I’d never really done a big film before. It was a shot of Jack Palance coming out of the bathroom. So we set up the shot. I think my voice was changing - I was just going through puberty then, so I went, kinda like, (in high-pitched voice) ‘Action!’ Jack didn’t come out of the bathroom. And I go, ‘Okay, so… Cut! Come out of the bathroom…’ I probably wasn’t a good people person at the time or whatever, but he started to get angry with me. He started going, (in icy Jack Palance voice) ‘I’ve made over a hundred films. How many have you made?’ I literally left my body. I had a white-out experience that I will never forget. In fact, the hairs on my neck… when I think about that story, I still start to get freaked out." -Tim Burton, DVD commentary, Batman

Lookin' Sharp

2009-03-15T20:02:00.000-07:00

I don't know what the musicians known as N.A.S.A. were thinking when they chose the same name as the space guys, but I do know that they hired someone cool to design their logo. This thing is all angles and it causes your eye to bounce around the letters feverishly. The matching slots in the 'a' and the 's' are quite clever. I love the near-symmetry of the composition and the bold, sharp shape of the outline.

As for the tunes, the track with ODB and Karen O ('Strange Enough') is funkier than toe jam and I recognize the sounds from Spike Jonze's skate video 'Yeah Right' (I assume this is a reworking of the same song; one of the musicians in N.A.S.A. is related to Jonze). ODB posthumously rhymes, "Mo money mo problems my ass." True indeed.

Another N.A.S.A. track features a mind-boggling collaboration between Tom Waits and my man Kool Keith. Waits' chorus is a lot of fun, but otherwise the pairing inspires about as much indifference as Keith's collaboration with Mike Patton on the latter's Peeping Tom project.

Regardless, I am impressed with this extraordinarily stylish logo. The space guys (aka the real NASA) must be jealous; their logo is at least a couple decades past its expiration date.

Shield of Man, Hand of God

2009-03-13T06:09:00.000-07:00

Here are my two favorite items I've come across while researching various projects this week.

According to heraldica.org, "the family of Coglione, in Naples, bore three pairs of testicles counterchanged" on their charge (the image on their shield). Ballsy! Why bother with the predictable rampant lion (I'll tell you about him next week) or three dexter arms conjoined at the shoulder when you can cut to the chase and tell your enemy what you really mean? I salute you, Coglione family, for your most heroic sense of humor. Unless those are actually reversed hearts.

You've probably seen this symbol around before; it is commonly known as the Hamsa and it seems to have corresponding mythologies in both the Judaic and Islamic cultures. In Islamic, it's called the 'Eye of Fatima' or the 'Hand of Fatima,' in reference to Fatima Zahra, the daughter of Muhammad. In Hebrew, it is the 'Hand of Miriam,' in reference to the sister of Moses and Aaron. In both cultures, it is meant to ward off evil, especially in the form of the 'evil eye' or 'stinkeye,' as I prefer to call it. Some evidence suggests that the Hamsa predates both religions, and some have used it to represent the common origins of Judaism and Islam. I've seen it described as having a thumb and pinky pointing outwards, but to me, that looks like a hand with two thumbs. Perhaps it originally signified two hands atop one another, in a spirit of offering or receiving? Or maybe, since this is sometimes referred to as the hand or eye of God, this represented God's hand? It would make sense if God had two thumbs on each hand, as the opposable thumb is a symbol of human evolution.

More Filmmaker Quotes

2009-03-11T14:23:00.000-07:00

"Decent films are just disappearing. Everything's being made for kids." -Robert Altman (from his audio commentary on The Player)

"To be or not to be. That's not really a question." -Jean Luc Godard

"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying." -Woody Allen

"The Universal backlot is where I first met Mr. Hitchcock... I directed the very last episode of 'The Alfred Hitchcock Hour'... Hitchcock would come in one day a week... And I was a young man in my twenties that had never made anything on a sound stage, but had made a documentary film that impressed Hitchcock and his producer. I remember one day when Hitchcock came on the set, and he was introduced to me, and he held out his hand with his fingers sort of drooping as if I were supposed to kiss his hand rather than shake it, and I was kind of put off by this but I said, 'Mr.Hitchcock, what an honor it is to meet you!' And he looked at me rather critically, and he said, 'Mr.Friedkin, usually our directors wear ties.' And he was off - he took off - and he didn't say another word to me at that time. Then about four years later, I had just won the Directors Guild Award at the ceremony at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, and there was Hitchcock at a table with his family right below where I was standing to accept the award. I made my acceptance speech and then I walked down the short flight of steps, and I had on one of those snap-on bow ties, and I was holding the DGA award, and I snapped the tie at Mr.Hitchcock and I said, 'How do you like the tie now, Hitch?'" -William Friedkin, director of The Exorcist, on his relationship with Alfred Hitchcock, from Friedkin's feature-length audio commentary on a new version of Hitchcock's Vertigo

"People love seeing violence and horrible things. The human being is bad and he can`t stand more than five minutes of happiness. Put him in a dark theater and ask him to look at two hours of happiness and he`d walk out or fall asleep." -Paul Verhoeven (Basic Instinct, Robocop, Starship Troopers)

Two Shirts, Same Subject

2009-03-08T19:50:00.001-07:00

'Dead Rabbits' t-shirt by Rugby. The Dead Rabbits were a gang in New York in the 1850's. According to Wikipedia, The name has a second meaning rooted in Irish American vernacular of NYC in 1857. The word 'Rabbit' is the phonetic corruption of the Irish word ráibéad, meaning 'man to be feared'. 'Dead' is a slang intensifier meaning 'very.' Thus, a "Dead Ráibéad" means a man to be greatly feared. I just revisited Scorcese's Gangs of New York, in which Liam Neeson plays the leader of the Dead Rabbits. I admire Scorcese's attempt to imagine the city during the time when it "was not yet a city, but a furnace where a city might be forged." However, the resulting film is so stagy and overindulgent. The set and costume design look like a Broadway musical version of the filthy, crime-infested hellhole that the Five Points area was. The casting blows, too. Cameron Diaz, for example, belongs in Ashton Kutcher movies, not Scorcese movies. But I digress.

The 'Dead Rabbit' shirt by Peter Conway is available from I Dress Myself ("the eco-friendly screenprinters"). I don't know if Conway's shirt was inspired by the Dead Rabbits gang, but the concept of his design is clever nonetheless. According to the BBC, Conway's I Dress Myself company "are still getting plenty of orders" despite the crap economy due to the unique nature of his business, which prints "onto ethically-sourced T-shirts and are one of the only UK commercial printers to use water-based inks."

The Gentle Art of Making Enemies

2009-03-03T13:29:00.000-08:00

Last week I nearly went spastic when my favorite band Faith No More announced their reunion. Bassist Billy Gould says the band is "still young and strong enough to deliver a kick-ass set" and hinted that they might consider writing new material. My obsession with Faith No More once led me to deliver a speech about their song 'Land of Sunshine' (in eleventh grade English class), and later to write an essay called 'The Holy War for Faith No More.'

A few weeks ago, I was browsing through some design-related books when I stumbled across something that surprised me. It turns out that the Faith No More song 'The Gentle Art of Making Enemies' (from their greatest album, King for a Day, Fool for a Lifetime) was not the first work to bear that name. It is also the title of a book by the painter James McNeill Whistler, published in 1890. Below is a photocopy of what I assume was the title page of the book.

The page reads, "THE GENTLE ART OF MAKING ENEMIES as pleasingly exemplified in many instances, wherein the serious ones of this earth, carefully exasperated, have been prettily spurred on to unseemliness and indiscretion, while overcome by an undue sense of right"

According to Wikipedia, "the book contains Whistler's letters to newspapers chronicling his many petty grievances against various acquaintances and friends." As for the Faith No More song, it is a wild pastiche of absurdity, including the infamous line "Happy Birthday, Fucker!" and also "If you don't make a friend now, one might make you / so learn the gentle art of making enemies."

2009-02-25T07:55:00.000-08:00

Eastwood Quotes

2009-02-22T17:03:00.000-08:00

The Oscars are tough to sit through. One half is commercials. The other half is Wolverine prancing down a flight of stairs and that girl from 'Doubt' talking about how fabulous her shoe designer is. It's mostly mental junk food, so let's all turn to the honorable Clint Eastwood for a healthy dose of cold, harsh reality. The following Eastwood quotes were published in the January issue of Esquire. So listen up - you might just learn something about the old days, back before people became such damn pussies.

"My father had a couple of kids at the beginning of the Depression. There was not much employment. Not much welfare. People barely got by. People were tougher then."

"We live in more of a pussy generation now, where everybody's become used to saying, 'Well, how do we handle it psychologically?'"

"I don't know if I can tell you exactly when the pussy generation started. Maybe when people started asking about the meaning of life."

"I remember going to a huge waterfall on a glacier in Iceland. People were there on a rock-platform overlook to see it. They had their kids. There was a place that wasn't sealed off, but it had a cable that stopped anybody from going past a certain point. I said to myself, You know, in the States they'd have that hurricane-fenced off, because they're afraid somebody's gonna fall and some lawyer's going to appear. There, the mentality was like it was in America in the old days: If you fall, you're stupid."

"As you get older, you're not afraid of doubt. Doubt isn't running the show. You take out all the self-agonizing."

"Children teach you that you can still be humbled by life, that you learn something new all the time. That's the secret to life, really - never stop learning. It's the secret to career. I'm still working because I learn something new all the time. It's the secret to relationships. Never think you've got it all."

Last Lights

2009-02-20T08:14:00.000-08:00

Last Lights is a hardcore punk band that is unfortunately now defunct due to the untimely passing of 24 year old lead singer Dominic Mallary in December (apparently from complications resulting from his last performance, The Boston Globe reports). I am just familiarizing myself with the band, but they seem to epitomize the ideals of hardcore punk: full of dizzying guitars and caustic lyrics railing against complacency and mediocrity. The best hardcore is clever hardcore, and Dom's writing is proof: song titles like 'U.S. Out of New England' and 'Everybody's Working for the Weak End' reveal wit, anger, and intelligence (the latter especially can be rare in a genre with its fair share of testosterone and rage). I also love his approach to lyrics - he's not afraid to raise more questions than he answers and some of the lyrical content reads on its own as poetry: "the lack of meaning is also a meaning / the lack of feeling is also a feeling / but don't press my face to the floor and call it a ceiling" (from 'Love + Rent'). Last Lights will play a final performance (with friends on vocals) at a memorial benefit for Dom's family on February 21st in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Guilty/Pleasures

2009-02-18T16:28:00.000-08:00

In the Skeleton Boy video by Friendly Fires, infectious dance pop meets the skeleton-costume-clad Cobra Kai from 'Karate Kid' (some of their work owes a heavy debt to 'Off The Wall'-era MJ, which rules). I finally overcame a recent addiction to My Delirium by Ladyhawke. There is new music to hear from Yeah Yeah Yeahs (still have my hopes up for a comeback, but if the new single is any evidence, it's not gonna be in 09) and Lady Sovereign (ditto). Also, I can't tell the difference between my pleasures and my guilty pleasures anymore. They have finally merged into a sublime union. Glorious!

Crumpled.

2009-02-17T16:26:00.000-08:00

Photographer Christiane Feser's 'Models' series features photos of crumpled-up beauty ads from women's magazines (more). The results are highly expressive caricatures like this one. Reposted from I Heart Photograph.

Rock Band Idea

2009-02-16T12:57:00.000-08:00

So I had a lot of ideas today, and one of them is an idea for a rock band. You know that guy Greg Gillis, aka Girl Talk, who makes infectiously catchy songs from mile-a-minute samples of everything from Nirvana and Pixies to Biggie and Elton John? What if there was a rock band that operated under a similar premise? You could construct cover songs out of dozens of songs from different eras and rock artists - they'd be more like collages then medleys. Maybe one song would start with a verse from The Police, enter a chorus from an Elvis Presley song, go into a verse from The Ramones that has a similar chord structure to the first Police verse (thereby highlighting the inherent similarities of most rock songs), then into the Elvis chorus again but this time with Neil Young lyrics in place of the Elvis lyrics, and then conclude with a breakdown from a Black Sabbath song. You could even make a Frankenstein song that had a single theme (heartbreak, for example) and assembled verses and choruses from six other songs about heartbreak into one. In the future, originality is going to have just as much validity as using our shared cultural past as fuel for your assemblage (because they're actually the same thing when done in a spirit of inventiveness and honor). If you don't feel like starting a rock band and would prefer to start a comic book franchise, see below.

Supervillain Idea

2009-02-16T12:43:00.000-08:00

So I was thinking about Batman's enemy The Penguin and how a penguin is the least intimidating animal and therefore terrible inspiration for a supervillain. And then I thought, What's the nastiest animal? The answer, of course, is roadkill. Roadkill is the nastiest animal, and that's why my idea for a supervillain is a criminal mastermind named Roadkillhead. He has a regular body but his head is a gory roadkill head with tire tracks on it, and his power is that when he sneezes (which happens often, especially when he's in the vicinity of a nemesis), he sneezes bone fragments and roadkill gore all over you. All right, so maybe he needs an eviler and more villainous superpower (so far it's more disgusting than deadly), but I was hoping that some comic book artist or mad scientist out there would kind of take the seed of the idea and run with it and then make a fortune and give me credit (and part of the fortune). You're welcome.

With Bacon

2009-02-13T07:13:00.000-08:00

Everyone knows that the internet is nearly perfect and the only missing ingredient is breakfast. Well, hunger no more, because now you can add a sizzling strip of bacon to any website by typing http://bacolicio.us/ before the site's url (to add bacon to Magnet Cat, you'd type http://bacolicio.us/http://www.magnetcat.com/). It even comes with it's own fatty favicon in the browser bar and changes the title page to read "Mmmm Bacon." I don't what's behind the bacon craze as of late (bloggers had a field day with the appalling Bacon Explosion), but bon appetit!

The Fuckin' Union That Gives A Shit

2009-02-10T17:45:00.000-08:00

Should I watch this video a dozen times, each viewing accompanied by a fit of laughter? Don't mind if I do! According to the YouTube description, "This was a PSA that the voice-over person decided to record an 'alternate' version of for fun. This comes from the archives of a local tv station." You got that, asshole? (repost from Watchin Things)

Thank You For The Dove

2009-02-10T06:26:00.000-08:00

Check out these gorgeous album covers I spotted on this list. I did some research on these artists and was startled by what I found:

Yodeling legend Joyce Schwartz was inspired to write this record (titled Full Throttle Yodel) by her producer and lover Mike Adkins (see below), who she claimed once visited her in a dream and demanded that she "get up and yodel." Standout songs: 'Picnic People' and 'Fondue Party'

Seminal reggae artist Mike Adkins ("The Godfather of Funky") was inspired to write Thank You For The Dove after his muse Joyce Schwartz (aka 'Joyce') gifted him with the titular bird. Channeling the sounds of Jamaica by way of Wisconsin, Adkins invented the hit dance 'Ganja Strut.' Standout songs: 'Jah's Adopted Stepson,' 'Ganja I Jah Dub'

Shipley & Halmos

2009-02-08T16:50:00.000-08:00

I am impressed by the animated videos at the website of fashion label Shipley & Halmos ("geeky-preppy sportswear cited by GQ this month as one of the six new men’s labels you must know," according to this New York Times article). Anyone who has ever seen 'The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb' knows that stop-motion animation can be very striking visually, especially if you animate something that doesn't require stop-motion to animate itself - like a human.

Bad Taste.

2009-02-05T06:39:00.000-08:00

Pizza Hut Japan's 'Double Roll Pie' (rejected names include 'The Kitchen Sink' and 'Instant Death') is topped with bacon-wrapped sausages, mini hamburger patties, mushrooms, soy beans, corn, paprika, garlic chips, green peppers, pepperoni, mozzarella, parmigiana, and fucking cheddar! Oh also, it's served with ketchup, maple syrup, and a vigorous slap across the face. Oh, the gluttony and audacity. The shame and sheer thrill of it all!

My favorite part is that the design of this ad truly reflects the overbearing attitude of the pizza (not that it should qualify as a pizza by any stretch of the imagination). It's a traffic jam for the eyes that would precede the ten-car pileup that would occur in your gut if you had the gall to step near this monster. Check out the cute little tomato icon (ketchup!), the maple leaf (syrup!), and the kinda-smiling, near-comatose boy and girl (kill your kids!). And of course, the ad is absolutely drenched in text, because this pizza requires a fucking explanation. Paradoxically, I'm quite sure that no explanation is sufficient.

Divert thine eyes. Staring at this thing for too long might turn you to stone.

The Studio.

2009-02-04T10:46:00.000-08:00

Flashback.

2009-02-03T12:03:00.000-08:00

Last Friday, David Letterman broadcast a controversial lost clip of the late, great comedian Bill Hicks performing on Letterman's stage in 1993. Dave also apologized personally on-air to Hicks' mother for censoring the performance (which was likely considered controversial by the network or its sponsors due to Hicks' material about pro-lifers) at the time (read more). Hicks has been a hero of mine for years and I found this quite moving. His performance, of course, is hilarious, and as usual, his material remains quite prescient even fifteen years later. He rails against mediocrity (one of his favorite themes), suggesting that he'll host a television show called 'Let's Hunt and Kill Billy Ray Cyrus.' He also speculates on the amenities in Heaven less than a year before his death. I think Mr.Letterman's gesture is an example of his integrity and character, and I think Bill would appreciate it greatly. Enjoy!

Nazi Zombies! Run!

2009-02-01T07:43:00.000-08:00

Some goofballs in Austin, Texas hacked computerized road signs and added their own warnings (more). Other slogans include 'NAZI ZOMBIES! RUN!!!' and 'THE END IS NEAR!'

Portfolio Site Do's and Don'ts

2009-01-29T07:56:00.000-08:00

Here are two publishing industry websites promoting values of good web design. Read the posts 'A Good Author Website Is...' at 26th Story and 'What not to have on your book website' at The Book Publicity Blog.

These particular posts are aimed specifically at the literary industry (author's websites), but many of these values apply across the board. A good portfolio site is easy to navigate, inherently entertaining or aesthetically pleasing, and it immediately engages and informs first-time visitors and gives them a reason to return. Flash should be used sparingly or not at all.

Sharpie Wall and 'Cello Scrotum'

2009-01-28T07:15:00.000-08:00

Lawyer Charlie Kratzer decorated the basement of his Kentucky home with an elaborate Sharpie mural that covers every wall (check out this article for a scrolling panoramic view of the scene). His artwork includes everything from Picasso replicas to "Winston Churchill lounging with George Bernard Shaw." Good thing he's a lawyer; most people get grounded for this type of thing.

British doctors invented a medical claim called 'cello scrotum' that had string sections quaking in their wingtips for decades (read the CNN article). Other made-up conditions include 'guitarist's nipple' and 'flautist's pussy.'

Brand New.

2009-01-26T20:49:00.000-08:00

Even if you are not a graphic design geek, you must have noticed the disastrous redesign of the Pepsi logo recently! That's why I was happy to see that redesign in the 'Worst' category at the Best & Worst of 2008 list at Brand New, a knowledgeable blog about corporate branding and logo design that is actually fun to read. Also, Planet Earth was on during a dinner party I attended recently, and I couldn't help but implore some party guests to explain the meaning of the sideways 'M' in the bizarre new Animal Planet logo. Of course no one could explain that purposeless stunt in the logo, and so I was happy to see that in the 'Worst' category, too. Their best of the year honor goes to the mouth-wateringly cool designs at 826 Valencia.

"It's okay to pull a rabbit out of your hat, but sometimes, a rabbit out of a hat is not what's called for." -Sergio Baradat

Visions of Vultures and Villains

2009-01-22T21:30:00.000-08:00

Here's a most interesting oddity that I came across while doing research for a design project this week. I found this in an old book about the printing and book binding process. The caption reads, What a fine printer is apt to see when he lies awake at night. Who knew printers led such tormented lives? There's truly nothing scarier than villians, vultures, and graveyard bunnies.

Interview: Google Designer Ryan Germick

2009-01-21T06:46:00.000-08:00

Today marks the debut of a new feature here at the Magnet Cat blog: a monthly interview with a creative professional. This month's subject is my great friend Ryan Germick. Ryan is a designer at Google as well as a cartoonist, web designer, Indiana native, and Prince enthusiast. Ryan and I attended the BA/BFA program at the New School together; we graduated in 2003 with BFA's in Illustration from Parsons School of Design and BA's in Writing from Eugene Lang College.

Ryan's got a dedicated work ethic and his creativity seems limitless. He comes from a family of numerous talented Germicks; you can check out their multimedia art empire Germart here (listen to Dylan and Nathan's new record Planet Booty and Nathan's mesmerizing Year of the Dragon). Also check out ryangermick.com and Ryan's comic, Gomance: My First Kiss. Last week, Ryan and I shared a cross-continent conversation about his storied Google career, the future of the internet, design inspiration, and T-Pain. Enjoy!

Dan Redding: What is your job title and place of employment?
Ryan Germick: I’m a Web Designer at Google. But really, I don’t do any web design; actually now I’m more of an illustrator.
There was a book published recently called What Would Google Do? Let’s settle this once and for all: what would Google do?
(Laughter) Google would organize the world’s information and make it universally useful and accessible. That’s the mission statement – like, verbatim. Sorry. I’ve drunken the Kool-Aid. (Laughter) And they wouldn’t do it in an evil way!
That’s the Google motto I’ve heard quoted, right? ‘Don’t be evil’?
Yeah, I think they’re pretty legit about it… I think at the top of the company there is good in the hearts of the ones running it.
Is Google CEO Eric Schmidt a nice guy?
I think so! He said my video (see below) was the funniest thing on the planet. So we’re totally cool. It was really flattering.

Ryan stars in Google's first video for the Google Maps 'Street View' feature.
View more Google videos that Ryan wrote and/or starred in here, here, and here.

And yet Google is so ubiquitous, you guys seem to come under fire a lot… It was recently alleged that performing two Google searches can create the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle and that the global IT industry generates as much greenhouse gas as the world's airlines.
I noticed that the official Google blog did have a post that sort of tried to explain their power consumption… I know that Google does have a lot of care for their carbon emissions, and like even being around the company, we just got rid of plastic water bottles, you know, to try to be eco-friendly. We’re getting composting. You know, for a company with like eight thousand people – eight thousand people just in the headquarters, in Mountain View - that should hopefully make a difference… The data servers consume a lot of energy. I read that Google is working on a patent for a data server that would float in the middle of the ocean. It’d be cooled by the water, and would sort of rise and fall with the tide. The hydrodynamic power from the rising and falling of the tides would power it… More to the point of people complaining about Google, when anyone’s big, people complain about ‘em, you know? I mean, you could complain about T-Pain, but the truth is, T-Pain is money. (Read/watch more about Google’s green initiatives.)
Oh, and I will complain about T-Pain. I was on record today complaining about T-Pain and his ridiculous hats.
That’s why they call people like you a hater.
Google has a search robot named Googlebot. Have you ever met him?
(Laughter) I’m not at liberty to discuss. But I will say, it was consensual.
You have drawn some of the Google holiday illustrations that can be seen on the homepage periodically. What does it feel like to have your drawing viewed by more people than one can fathom in every nook and cranny on the Earth?
I don’t think about it that way. I guess I don’t take the drawings very personally, so, I try to have fun with them… but generally I just kind of keep quiet about it and it’s just sort of part of my job. I’m really grateful that I get paid to draw.

Ryan's illustration of new year animals was
visible on the Google homepage on January 1st, 2009.

I’m looking at your Happy New Year animals. They’re very cute and cuddly. The economy's in the gutter; what the hell are they so happy about?
You wanna hear an exclusive dish? I was totally ripping off one of my favorite illustrators, Mary Blair, who was a Disney story artist and a really talented illustrator. She did all this great concept art for Disney, for classic movies like Alice in Wonderland and Cinderella. I thought people would call me out as some kind of total thief, but then nobody said anything. Nobody got the reference. Maybe I either failed, or no one knows anything about illustration anymore. But (the animals are) probably happy because I had a lot of fun doing it. Also, one of the characters – the purple monkey character – is actually not a monkey. It’s a motter. It’s half monkey, half otter. Her name is Oysterbar. A character that’s near and dear to my heart. I was happy I got to put in a character that’s been around in my world for awhile.
I guess in a lot of cases, you think that your inspiration is actually plagiarism, but usually you’re wrong, or no one else cares, or notices, or you have made it your own enough that it is your own.
Yeah! I’m shocked and I wish I would’ve done it sooner... You know our good friend and talented illustrator, Miki Amano. I would watch her draw, and she was also a big fan of Mary Blair, and I would see the way that she would use (Blair’s work) as a really creative and constructive influence, and it kind of opened me up to understanding that that’s okay, and it’s actually really healthy and good. So, it’s funny; it’s something that I thought was not good, and then it’s good.
What do you think the future holds for Google’s open source mobile platform, Android?
I will tell you that I’m talking on an Android phone right now and it’s pretty sweet. I’m a believer. It’s pretty darned open source, and I’m a believer in open source.
That’s kind of a crazy concept that web applications and development can be that democratic that anyone can have their input.
I think it’s great! And I think there’s no problem with it coexisting with iPhone. I think iPhone’s great, and I think that it’s cool that there’s other things out there. To bring it back to Google, as far as Google is concerned, they just want people using the internet. People are using the internet on iPhone, people are using the internet on Blackberry, that’s cool, because Google is in the business of selling ads, right? If people are using the internet, they’re probably using Google… so they’re happy.
I wonder if the future holds the potential for geniuses whose genius is code. When you think of geniuses and masterminds of the past, you think of artists and inventors. Now in the technology industry, there are brilliant entrepreneurs, of course, but I wonder if there will be someone who comes along and revolutionizes the whole design of the internet.
There is, man! There’s millions of them, and a bunch of them work for Google. The guy who invented the language Python, he’s a code genius, and he works for Google now. There’s amazing people there. They’re out there, it’s just a little less glamorous, because they don’t shoot themselves in the stomach… they play World of Warcraft till the wee hours. There are definitely code geniuses out there. You should look up the Computer History Museum.
Yeah, you’re right, that sounds really boring. (Laughter)

"My proudest accomplishment at Google is designing the animated poop emoticon."

From Android to Google’s browser Chrome, there always seems to be something new in the works at Google. What do you think is the most exciting venture in the works right now?
Well, I can’t talk about anything that hasn’t been released, but I think Android is really exciting and I think Chrome is really exciting. I was just talking to somebody about this on the Google Bus. I think Google Reader is the most underrated Google product. I think Google Reader is really cool. Google Reader lets you collect all the blogs and news sources that you read in one unified place, and then it lets you share what you like to read with your friends, and it’s very well designed and very simple and very effective. I think Gmail is a great product.
I totally agree.
Yeah, and they have Gmail Labs now, so there’s all these cool new features coming out. I don’t want to toot my own horn, but – can you put in a pull quote that my proudest accomplishment at Google is designing the animated poop emoticon? There’s a poop emoticon in Gmail, and that’s my proudest accomplishment.
I’m gonna see to it that that’s what it reads on your tombstone.
They’re gonna animate my tombstone anyway. (Laughter)
When do the machines plan to rise up and wage war on us humans?
It’s a goal for mid-2009. If Obama doesn’t give us reason to not start the coup, then it’s on.
Why do you say ‘us’? You’re on my side!
Oh, right, humans. Go humans.

Robot drawing by Ryan.
Read the comic here.

Are you on Twitter?
No.
What is your favorite website to visit for fun?
I really like the Sorry I Missed Your Party blog.
What site do you visit for news?
I go to the New York Times, to the Huffington Post, I read tons of blogs through Google Reader. I probably keep up with like fifty blogs. I’ll give a shout out to my friend Ryan, who runs the Electric Ant Zine blog.
What do you think is the future of web design?
I think the future is going to be information-dense, lightweight, a lot of information through things like RSS, getting things on the go…
Things are getting too small: a favicon, and an emoticon, and a 140-character Tweet…
Basically the future of web design is gonna be on a little tiny screen. That’s okay… In regards to Twitter, I don’t get it, exactly, but I know people are into it. I’m visual, so I like Flickr, I like having photos and comics and stuff that people do. But it’s really cool that a site like Flickr has everything universally formatted, and I can have RSS feeds for it. It’s not the prettiest presentation, but it’s so efficient that you’re basically mainlining information. And that’s where it’s at and that’s where it’ll stay… I think the internet’s built for, you know, the information superhighway. I coined that phrase. Tons of information all the time. And if you can set it up in an efficient, lightweight way, then you can really get your fix.

Ryan talking.

What is the most important thing you learned in design school?
Time management skills and life balance are really good things to have.
There are a few quotes from Parsons professors that still ring through my head quite often. Like when Viktor Koen told me, “you say you love type, now it’s time to make love to type.” Do you have any quotes that you are often reminded of?
Yeah, there was this professor Richard Waxburg, he was awesome. He said three things that I remember very distinctly. He was the first person to use the word gestalt that I knew of. He talked a lot about the overall feeling of something. It’s like another way of saying, ‘does it work or not?’ But gestalt is so much more German and nice. I like saying that. He also said that you have to take things on their own terms. That concept is the basis of a really constructive critique. You start to say, ‘what is the artist trying to do?’ And you really empathize with the artist. That to me is the basis of constructive criticism and I can thank Richard for that. (And the third thing I learned from him) was that you gotta be ruthless. Ruthless in the sense that if you’re drawing a figure, and you really get into the details of the knuckles, and you feel really, really good about the knuckles, but if you aimed to draw the figure, and it turns out that you screwed up the arm, you just have to be willing to suck it up – to meet your goal, you gotta erase the knuckles, you know? You gotta just wipe it out. You gotta be willing to be really hard on yourself, and not be precious, and do what needs to be done to make it happen. He was really into that. He’d get on his knees and yell.
I remember how crazed his paintings could be. He was a walking gestalt.
He was a walking gestalt. And what else could you hope to be?
Any artists that you’ve been deriving creative inspiration from lately?
I forever love Osamu Tezuka. Another artist who I love dearly who recently passed away is Fujio Akatsuka. And then also, two of my friends whose work I really love and are a continual inspiration to me are Bay-area cartoonist Hellen Jo and Calvin Wong. I’m constantly surrounded by inspiration.
What’s the last great graphic novel you read?
I just read Watchmen. I thought it was good. I really appreciate how many levels things were working on. There’s lots of dense layering of symbolism…

Ryan at the Alternative Press Expo (read more)

When and why did you decide to become a vegetarian?
Well I’m not, I eat fish still, so I guess I’m a pescatarian. I decided in a Dairy Queen in the summer of 1993, before ninth grade. I ate a burger and I was like, ‘This is disgusting, I feel terrible… I don’t wanna eat this anymore.’
What was the most profound change that came from your experience living in India?
There were several things… I saw people who were poor but pretty content. The pace of life was - if you showed up somewhere, people stopped what they were doing and just chilled out with you. Here I am thinking that Americans have it all figured out… But really, these people are the ones that really have time, because they don’t have the 'resources' to ruin it. (Ryan’s India photo site from way back in 2000: ryanayana.com/)
You’ve been an outspoken Prince fan for many years. We know what Google would do, but more importantly, what would Prince do?
(Long sigh) Um, I’ll tell you what I would like Prince to do. ‘Cuz I don’t know what Prince would do. I wish Prince would go back to basics. I have this fantasy of having, like, a Court TV show where my favorite artists who have disappointed me would be put on trial. I thought of this idea with my friend Peggy. It would be a court show where my favorite artists get put on trial, and I would sentence them to a project that they’d have to complete to get out of a prison. And I wanna put Prince in prison to make him come out with a four-track jail album, where he can’t use a lot of cheesy synthesizers… he’d have to use really simple materials to make a straightforward good song. He can’t just rely on his old studio tricks.
Would it be a purple prison?
That’d be fine. That’d be great.

Thanks to Ryan Germick. Next month: an interview with public relations and music biz whiz Kristina Weise.

Movie News (with hyperbole)

2009-01-19T20:16:00.000-08:00

Tonight I was tired and ready to drift off into some ludicrous dream (my favorite recent one was when I battled a killer tomato... not kidding), so what did I do? I wasted a couple hours reading movie news online. Here's the results:

The documentary 'Tyson' premieres at Sundance this week. I am endlessly fascinated by the squeaky, tattooed former boxing champion. I just re-watched the superb 1993 documentary 'Fallen Champ,' and now I'm hungry for more...

I kinda thought Spike Jonze had fallen off the increasingly small face of the earth since 'Adaptation' (and his stint as wrinkly oldsters in both 'Jackass' movies), but it turns out he's been working on 'Where The Wild Things Are.' The monsters look great. Speaking of 'Jackass,' where's Number 3? How hard is it to drag Steve-O out of the gutter, prop him up, and get him to blow a goat for a few minutes?

Sounds like the film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road' is in limbo somewhere. I was excited for this one - the hiring of director John Hillcoat ('The Proposition') gave me hope - but the more I read, the more skeptical I am. Stills from the film just don't look grim enough, even if they do plan to do 'sky replacement' in post-production. I fear that this could be nothing more than a competent, obligatory film adaptation of a hit novel. This could turn out to be a bad idea dressed in a good idea's clothing...

Unfortunately, there always seems to be room on the big screen for another heartless, pointless remake. Will Smith is remaking 'The Karate Kid,' starring his son Jayden. I'd rather watch paint dry... while licking fecal matter off barbed wire. Apparently, so would Ralph Macchio, which he basically admitted without actually coming out and saying it.

'The Legacy of MLK'

2009-01-19T16:35:00.000-08:00

I am impressed that the free television site Hulu has a feature called 'The Legacy of MLK' today. Check out some of the news clips and interviews!

Mail Day.

2009-01-15T18:51:00.000-08:00

One of the best parts of life is when good things arrive in the mail. Today I got one shirt from Art In The Age and another from Jon Knox at Hello, Brute. In both cases I was impressed with product quality, beauteous packaging, and attention to detail. Check it:

Visit Art In The Age.

Visit Hello, Brute.

Next week, I will debut a new feature here at Magnet Cat: the monthly interview! Stay tuned.

Found.

2009-01-15T18:46:00.000-08:00

I opened a sketchbook from many years ago and a small piece of paper fell out. On it is this verse from Upanishads:

We are like the spider.
We weave our life and then move along in it.
We are like the dreamer who dreams and then lives in the dream.
This is true for the entire universe.

UPANISHADS

Instant Classic.

2009-01-13T07:10:00.000-08:00

Last night, Miss Riss and I saw the Swedish vampire film Let the Right One In at the Angelika. If I could watch it again right now, I would. On one hand, it is unlike any other vampire movie you have ever seen: tender, subtle, remarkable for its distressing quietude and stirring portrayals of adolescence. However, it also embodies the mythology of vampirism with more authenticity and heart than anything since Bela Lugosi and Klaus Kinski. Sunlight, flight, crypts, and hissing cats: all of these traditional elements of the vampire story are here and each one will set off an alarm in your mind or a tremble in your spine. Hollywood treatments of the subject range from glossy kids' candy (Twilight) to the ham-fisted, abrasive CGI barrage (the Underworld series). So Let the Right One In was a gust of fresh air and a genuine thrill. It uses vampirism as a metaphor, and yet the horrific climax will leave you reeling. Fuck, go see it immediately.

The Scariest Thing of All Time

2009-01-13T06:20:00.000-08:00

I know what you're thinking: the scariest thing of all time has got to be either the root canal, Tilda Swinton's face, or Camden, New Jersey. But nay. The scariest thing of all time is the subliminal demon face that assaults your very spirit for less than a second at a time during The Exorcist. One source reported that the face is fashioned after this mask from the 1964 Japanese film Onibaba.

Charitable Tees

2009-01-08T19:21:00.000-08:00

Yellow Bird Project is a nonprofit that asks their favorite bands to design a shirt for them, prints and sells the shirts, and then donates all of the proceeds to a charity of the band's choosing. How cool! My favorite is the shirt designed by The National.

New Winterfresh Scent!

2009-01-07T14:13:00.000-08:00

The brand-spanking-new version of www.magneticstate.com is online! Now with %100 more newness! Now available in winterfresh scent!*

Please stop by and have a look at the work. I built the site myself, and I hope anyone who needs a website will get in touch! I especially encourage artists/photographers/balloon-tyers who need their portfolios online to contact me at dan@magneticstate.com. And, of course, you should get in touch if you need a logo/t-shirt/poster design for your band/company/diabolical invention. Thanks and Happy New Year!

Also, if you haven't read them yet, here are the two most-read Magnet Cat posts of 2008: 'Great Design in Music Now,' and 'The Best of Thrash Metal Cover Art.'

*Does not apply in certain parts of most parts of everywhere.

Blue Sky Law on Uncensored Interview

2009-01-07T14:06:00.000-08:00

My great friend Sean's band Blue Sky Law has been interviewed on Uncensored Interview. The band won this opportunity during a Battle of the Bands event that was one of the most exciting rock shows I've witnessed in years! The contest was declared a tie, Blue Sky Law was offered the chance to perform one last song, and their thrilling performance led the judges to declare them the winners. Congrats, dudes! Visit Blue Sky Law on Myspace.

Proof Pudding

2009-01-05T07:28:00.000-08:00

They say the proof is in the pudding, and now you can get both online. My good friend Scott and I have collaborated on his new food blog, Proof Pudding. I designed the logo and the website (with Wordpress). Visit the blog and leave a comment!

Dig 'em.

2008-12-28T18:47:00.000-08:00

Here are three of my favorite YouTube videos of 2008. (1) The Grizzly Bear performance is dazzling; I probably watched it twenty times. (2) Gillis pulls a remix out of his ass, likens his process to your band's last Beatles ripoff, subtly toots his own horn, and smirks. (3) The Bon Iver song builds to a percussive and emotive frenzy. For me, this band strikes the same nerve that Elliot Smith's music does. Dig 'em.

Grizzly Bear 'Two Weeks' on Letterman June 08

Greg Gillis (Girl Talk) mashes up Elvis Costello

Bon Iver 'Skinny Love' on Letterman 12/11/08

List Fever

2008-12-28T18:24:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year again! The time of year when every publication under the sun publishes its 'best of the year' list or '2008 roundup.' Hell, Time even published a 'list issue.' So it is in the spirit of the season that I present the 'Magnet Cat Best of the Best of Lists' award for 2008. The best 'Best Of' list of 2008 is actually a 'Worst Of' list and it's located here.

Christmas in Greenpoint, Brooklyn

2008-12-19T06:19:00.001-08:00

Ween Designs!

2008-12-17T05:16:00.001-08:00

So I came into contact with the mighty Ween recently and they were kind enough to consider four t-shirt designs that I pitched to them. Unfortunately, they did not decide to print any. Here are two of the four designs (click images to enlarge). For those of you who are not initiated Ween fans like the rest of us, here are three very brown facts about the band: that toothy face you see below is The Boognish (Ween's logo/mascot), the band's debut album is titled GodWeenSatan: The Oneness, and Ween's favorite adjective is 'brown' (carrying connotations of 'cool,' 'chocolate,' and 'shitty'). Thanks to Ween. Stay brown.

Design #1 'God Ween Satan'

Design #2 'The Ween Trinity'

Jenny Holzer's Truisms

2008-12-16T16:37:00.000-08:00

Confusing yourself is a way to stay honest

People are nuts if they think they control their lives

Being happy is more important than anything else

Lack of charisma can be fatal

Protect me from what I want

Myths make reality more intelligible

Anything is a legitimate area of investigation

Believing in rebirth is the same as admitting defeat

It's crucial to have an active fantasy life

Stupid people shouldn't breed

more info

Werewolf Sale

2008-12-12T16:32:00.000-08:00

'The Party Werewolf' shirt by Magnetic State is on sale for only $8.99! Everybody knows that the economy blows and everything's on sale this year. Celebrate by taking advantage of this great deal before these shirts are gone!

Garment Goodness.

2008-12-12T16:20:00.000-08:00

I often surf the web looking for artists and designers that are up to interesting things. Rarely do I find them. Here are three t-shirts that rule.

'Arpie Tee' by Jon Knox at Hello, Brute

'Slime City' shirt by Creep Street

'4-point' tee by M. Carter

Comes with FREE MC Hammer Pants

2008-12-10T09:04:00.000-08:00

Sometimes you find the funniest (not to mention manliest) writing where you least expect it. Now put down that barbell, crank up the Van Halen, and read this.

Perpetrators.

2008-12-10T08:28:00.000-08:00

DJ A-Trak has a blog and he is calling out suckas that perpetrate. He recently blogged about a flagrantly ripped-off Maroon 5 album cover design as well as another by Good Charlotte. Read/watch this post I wrote about A-Trak in June.

Bookend Cat

2008-12-08T18:54:00.000-08:00

Check out these cool cat bookends by Alpha Workshops, mentioned in the New York Times' Gifts For Hard Cases feature (I also thought these were particularly ingenious). Alpha Workshops is a cool nonprofit, so proceeds from the bookends go to a good cause. Plus, you never have to empty a litter box.

Stingray Sam

2008-11-30T17:29:00.000-08:00

Check it out! It's the trailer for Cory McAbee's Stingray Sam, in which I was fortunate enough to briefly participate last month. Stingray Sam premieres at Sundance 2009. Watch the trailer; it looks like a boatload of comedic sci-fi-musical-space-western fun. Also check out Cory's blog and the official Stingray Sam website.

Interviews

2008-11-30T17:21:00.001-08:00

Here are three excellent Onion A.V. Club interviews with some of my favorite dudes: musician, label owner and voice-over artist Mike Patton, rapper Kool Keith (you need only to read his answer to the first question to find out why he's the most entertaining interview in the genre), and comedian Michael Ian Black.

New Web Design

2008-11-23T16:50:00.000-08:00

I'm happy to announce the launch of www.kimandteo.com, built and designed by yours truly. Congratulations to the happy couple!

Please contact me if you or anyone you know is in need of a website. Artists - need your portfolio online? Drop me a line!

Presidential Doodles

2008-11-21T06:54:00.001-08:00

Obama draws fellow politicians, Sarah Palin doodles like a high school freshman, and LBJ's 'devil cat.' Check out this CNN Video.

New Shirt

2008-11-19T06:37:00.001-08:00

Today I added this new shirt for Judge Roy Bean to the Magnetic State portfolio. It's currently available for sale at the band's shows. Click the design view to enlarge!

Great Design in Music Now

2008-11-15T19:36:00.001-08:00

So I've browsed an abundance of bands' websites recently. I'm learning new web design techniques and I've also noticed a great deal about how some friends and design clients choose to represent their music, both online and off. I see your shows, your merch, your MySpace pages, your fans and goals. Viewing as both a designer and a musician, I tend to react strongly when I see something that brings a smile to my eyeballs. I thought I'd share some of the best music-related designs I've come across during the last few weeks. It's by no means comprehensive; I've just listed the best out of what I've come across while browsing the work of forty or fifty bands. I could spew forth a torrent of vitriol about all of the heinous design mistakes I've come across, but in most cases, these incoherent logos and timid t-shirt designs ensure that a lot of awful bands go where they belong (nowhere fast) and we should all remain thankful. However, I do not intend this post to be about the most popular band or the hippest genre; it's about successful work. Each entry includes a link to the band's MySpace page or website. If you have a favorite shirt/logo/whatever design, post it or email me and I will put it up!

BEST ALBUM COVER
Some say the album's a dying format but the jury's still out on that one. For now there are still bands who care about a striking album cover that gives a visual voice to the music within. One thing we can agree on is that album covers have shrunk from the size of an LP sleeve to the size of an Ipod screen, so go forth and be bold.

Paint It Black New Lexicon
If eyes had mouths, this would make my eyes' mouths drool. The stunning photograph conveys ethereal stillness and the danger of darkness in a setting that seems to epitomize the suburb. The typography is tasteful and austere. My favorite thing about this cover is that it transcends the genre; I don't think I would guess that this record was hardcore punk.

Also notable:

The Death Set Worldwide
Everything about it screams. They say the devil is in the details and the killer details here are the mouth and the weird tale/phone cord.

BEST BAND LOGO/GRAPHIC IDENTITY
Bands have a unique opportunity because in the music industry it's not uncommon to use a new logo for every album or tour. Some bands do it right the first time and stick with it (Nine Inch Nails' symmetrical 'NIN' logo comes to mind), but others take advantage of the opportunity and re-brand themselves every few years.

The Raconteurs 'R' Logo
The Raconteurs used several different versions of this script 'R' logo during their tour for Consolers of the Lonely. The image on the left is a copper lapel pin. The image on the right is the floor of the performance space in this live performance of 'Level.' Pure class.

Also notable: The Faint's logo

BEST MYSPACE LAYOUT
Say what you will, but MySpace has offered instant access to bands and their music whether you're on a major label (do those still exist?) or still in the garage. That said, the site has been the laughingstock of the web design community since its inception due to poor design; and yet it's highly customizable, offering bands the opportunity to put their personal stamp on their site provided they have access to someone with the necessary skills. Sometimes it works best when a band embraces the ridiculousness of the social-networking site and chooses a layout that's tongue-in-cheek or over-designed (see Mastodon and Natalie Portman's Shaved Head, respectively). When in doubt, choose simplicity. Just because you can make an animated gif doesn't mean you should. Visit Magnetic State on MySpace.

Every Time I Die
Every Time I Die has clearly hired a talented photographer, the color scheme is catchy, and the imagery is bold and bizarre (the combination rarely fails). The layout provides for user-friendliness and clarity of function.

BEST NON-MYSPACE WEBSITE
Some bands have an online presence that's big enough to require more than one site; others want more creative options than what MySpace offers. The band below does both.

ween.com

Fuck 'music-related,' this is one of my favorite anything-related websites ever. You have to visit in order to experience the ingenious interactive Flash-animated cow's head at the center of the site. Design by Honest.

BEST YOUTUBE VIDEO
Ensuring that there are high-quality videos of your band available online means that fans and (more importantly) potential fans will have access to a visual representation of you and your live performance.

Dub Trio 'Bay vs. Leonard' (Fearless TV)
Dub Trio has this video imbedded on their MySpace page. It's got great sound, quality recording, and a mean performance from a talented band with a unique sound. Plus, I just think they're nasty.

BEST T-SHIRT DESIGN
So I saved the best category for last. I've always been a sucker for rock and roll t-shirts (a primary obsession during adolescence) and they're one of my favorite design challenges. Frankly, there's not much competition out there, and this area is where bands make the worst mistakes. Most bands' shirts are adorned with boring, dull and criminally small designs. You have to squint to read the band name, and you don't know why you're looking at a bleeding skull with wings or a geometric drawing of a guy in a suit. Everything's fucking 'distressed.' I think most bands have their drummer's brother do it because they hear he can draw and he'll do it for free, and they wind up with a stack of hideous rags stacked on the merch table. Now you've saved money on the free design, but it's backfired; no one wants to buy the shirts you paid a couple hundred bucks having printed up. My goal in designing a shirt for a band is to attract potential fans; I want to make a shirt that customers will want to buy even if they don't know the band (yet). A cool shirt is a cool shirt. I also want to make designs that might get noticed from across the street. When designing, I follow the mantra 'make it bigger,' as Paula Scher likes to say. Anyway, here's my selection for the best t-shirt design I've seen recently.

Grizzly Bear T-Shirt by J. Penry

I had conflicted feelings about this shirt at first, because I was unsure that it reflected Grizzly Bear's music. I'd expect a shirt like this from maybe Melvins or a punk band. But Penry's shirt is weird and demented (both qualities that exist within the band's sound), the drawing rules, and he's taken advantage of the entire canvas of the garment. It's a one-color design but he does it so well, it transcends the limitation. And conflict is good; my feelings of conflict have caused me to continue thinking about the design.

Tricked Out

2008-11-11T12:23:00.000-08:00

One of my goals this month was to learn how to customize a MySpace page, as this is a service I want to offer bands and clients. I especially wanted to embed a banner above all the other content, and I just finally nailed it. There is also a full portfolio there now, so check out the new Magnetic State MySpace page! The design is nothing too complex, but I'm pretty sure it counts as 'pimped.' Where's Xzibit when you need him?

Halloween Photos Part One

2008-11-02T17:27:00.000-08:00

Rachel and Molly as 'Pot Brownies.'

One of the most inventive Halloween costumes I've ever seen. She dressed her leg as the lamp from A Christmas Story. Complete with functional light bulb!

Blurry half-female Wayne and Garth Number One. Party Time!

Blurry half-female Wayne and Garth Number Two. Excellent!

Halloween Photos Part Two: Blue Sky Law

2008-11-02T17:25:00.001-08:00

Halloween Photos Part Three: Judge Roy Bean

2008-11-02T17:18:00.000-08:00

My great friends in Judge Roy Bean performed as Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars at Uncle Mike's in New York City on Halloween 2008.

Monuments at Union Pool 11/13

2008-10-28T08:10:00.000-07:00

Here's a flyer I made for my good friends in Monuments. Click the image to enlarge.

"This One Is A Gasser"

2008-10-24T09:57:00.000-07:00

I recently resumed the Music Class I teach for teenagers at the Lighthouse International. One of the items we will discuss and listen to this week is Billboard's Top Ten Songs of the last fifty years (August 1958 through July 2008). This extraordinary chart (the online version is complete with embedded videos) is the result of compiled sales and radio play data and serves as a condensed survey of American taste over half a century. From The Beatles to LeAnn Rimes, this list does not represent what is good but rather what is popular. Staggeringly popular. But beware: the most-represented decade in the top ten is the nineties with four entries, and they're probably all songs you'd prefer to forget. But like it or not, these songs have delighted (or assailed) more ears than you can likely fathom. The number one most popular song of the last fifty years is Chubby Checker's 'The Twist;' below is a video of that vampire Dick Clark introducing Chubby during the dawn of the sixties. The novelty dance that accompanies a hit pop song is still in vogue; only these days instead of doing The Twist, we lean back or brush our shoulders off.

The American Astronaut & More

2008-10-21T18:00:00.000-07:00

Today, the Photoplay boys and I had a helluva lot of fun participating in a film production helmed by our friend Cory McAbee (the production was also recently mentioned on Cory's blog, The Smallest Star). I'll post more details about the project when Mr.McAbee does, but for now, watch this trailer for his previous film, The American Astronaut. The film is an exuberant "musical space western" that overflows with surreal humor and stunning black-and-white imagery. Mr.McAbee not only wrote, directed, and starred in the film, but he's an accomplished visual artist and musician as well. That's an awful lot of creative ambition and I admire it. I'm quite curious to see what he's got in store for the future.