Wednesday, March 28, 2007

New Life Goal: Visit The Sedlec Ossuary

Sedlec OssuaryI stumbled upon this link off of the Meathaus Art Collective's website (A fantastic site in its own right!)

But this isn't about Meathaus. This is about the Sedlec Ossuary. A Christian chapel located in the Czech Republic where (according to the website) it became quite stylish to be buried towards the end of the 13th Century when an abbot journeyed to the Holy Land and returned with a jar of dirt that he spread over the chapel's graveyard, which gave the graveyard "sacred land" status. People from all over Europe would travel to the chapel to be buried. The ossuary was built to house the bones gathered from abolished graves to make room for new "customers".

The site linked to above has several galleries filled with pictures of the ossuary. It is truly a bizarre site to behold. The bones have been arranged in decorative fashion throughout the building in several ghoulish and intriguing forms. Some bones have been organized into the shape of a giant chalice. Others have been arranged into a coat of arms. It's truly a must-see. I would love to visit the site in person. I can't imagine what a freakish experience it must be.

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Watchmen Movie a Go?

Woah...I must be slipping. I hadn't heard anything about Watchmen being made into a movie and all of a sudden, I find a link off of the iFanboy.com website to director Zach Snyder talking about MAKING it...is this a go? IMDB has it listed as "pre-production". Wow. Watchmen as a movie. I don't know...

For those of you who don't know, Watchmen is considered one of the greatest (if not THE greatest) comic book of all time. It was a 12-issue miniseries released in 1986, written by Alan Moore and drawn by Dave Gibbons. It is a huge, sprawling, complex story. But one that can be effectively translated to the big screen? Personally, I don't think so. At least, it can't be made in any manner that would replicate the comic. The layers in that story, and the non-linear method of moving that story along, would be very, very hard to reproduce.

But who knows? I've been pleasantly surprised before. A man can dream.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Pulp Fiction in Typography

I've got, like, a billion things I've wanted to put up here over the past week. But it seems that life has other plans for me. I haven't even had time to read my E-MAIL this week, let alone blog (so, if you have sent me an e-mail over the past week, and haven't heard from me, I'm so sorry! Only 40 e-mails left to go!)

You would think I had a ton going on, or something. But I don't. I just don't have enough time to do the few things that I AM supposed to be finishing up. Isn't that odd?

In the meantime, I thought I would at least throw up THIS bit of pop-culture nirvana.
Typography has never looked cooler...





Friday, March 09, 2007

Captain America is Dead...

I was surprised at the amount of attention this kicked up. So what? Cap is dead. He'll be back, people! It's a comic book!?! Does the name Doomsday mean nothing to you!? (er...probably not, I guess.) He killed Superman. Yeah, Superman died. Don't worry. He's back. Which is my point.

Seriously, though, it seems like EVERYONE is talking about this. But leave it to Stephen Colbert to put it all in perspective.



When comics meet politics. That's good stuff, there.

Thursday, March 08, 2007

The Local Record Shop and the Long Tail

A few weeks ago, one of our local weekly rags, The Other Paper, ran a story about how MP3's are killing the local record shop. I felt bad at first, I'm an adict when it comes to downloading music, and I haven't even browsed a record store in well over 5 years.

But no matter how badly I feel for Used Kids or Magnolia Thuderpussy, I'll never be able to look back from downloading. There is just so much OUT there...and online, you can actually FIND it. Record store gurus may know music, but they know THEIR music. I can count on one hand the number of times a record store employee actually pointed out a band I hadn't heard of before and that I enjoyed. (The most extreme example I can think of is the time I had a record store owner talk me into buying a John Tesh record. "I think you'll really like him. I mean, the guy is married to Connie Sellecca and had a walk on role on Star-Trek, The Last Generation!" Who can argue with logic like that?!)

So, screw you, record stores! I'm surfing the Long Tail! In the past 5 years, I've discovered and bought more music than I had in the rest of my music listening years combined. Here are three of my recent favorite spots to search...

Last.FM banner - Last.fm asks you to install some of their software on your computer (I've had it on mine for almost a year now, with no ill effects) which will track all the music you listen to. While that may sound dull, I can't help but find it endlessly fascinating. The more data they collect on me, the more music I have had recommended, either through their on-line "radio stations" (individually built based upon the tracks I listen to most) or through my "neighbors" (other members with similar tastes to mine) It's become my site for music discovery and tracking. I'll either tag new artists I discover with something descriptive (usually "good recommendation", so I remember to check them out when I have the time) or I'll check out their sample tracks on their artist home page.

They even have fun widgets you can embed in your site. (The "Top Artists Last Week" chart on the right nav bar is supplied by Last.FM!)

- Next is the bizarrely titled but fantastic You Ain't No Picasso blog. Run by a music fan from Kentucky (Matt Jordan by name, apparently) it covers the gamut of fantastic bands and musicians. I've found hip hop, Girly Rock, Alternative weirdness and my current favorite group. Best of all, almost every post comes with a fantastic sample song! (Make sure and stay on top of the posts, though...some of the MP3's don't stay up for long!)


eMusic - And finally, there is eMusic. As soon as I ran across eMusic, I knew I must join. Pure MP3's. None of this M4P crap you get on iTunes. Absolutely no DRM...play your MP3's wherever, however you want. $9.99 for 30 songs a month (I actually upgraded to the 50 songs for $14.99) It has it's drawbacks...mainly that they only have rights to a limited amount of music...but I have yet to have any trouble downloading my 50 songs a month (usually, I'm chomping at the bit, waiting for next month to arrive so I can pick up more) I think it's the best deal on the net for music, and it's given me a legal outlet for my music fixation. (I'm finally clean! No more illegal downloads for me!)

As stated before, the amount of music online is enormous. The days of the local record store are over, and I can't imagine that the giant music labels can be too far behind. Local, passionate musicians have their outlet right here, online. These are the places I've been finding them.

And I'll never be fooled into buying a John Tesh album again.