Easy Wizards
‘Sound Sculptor’ Susan Philipsz wins Turner Prize
2010 really is the year sound art broke. I predict that Susan Philipsz will be the ‘next Susan Boyle’; and her sales of Scottish folksong CDs will make that £25,000 Turner prize money look like small change. Currently her recordings are only available to listen to in the environments...
Read moreIrony Dies Screaming
A photo essay with minimal commentary. Mostly taken in Brooklyn during the week of CMJ 2010. You work as a graphic artist for 20 years and this sort of stuff drives you crazy. There are certain things that are constant to Brooklyn. Egg sandwiches are easy to come by, coffee is served with milk...
Read moreRest in Peace Greg Giraldo
Underwear Goes Inside The Pants. I played the hell out of this when it came out four or so years ago. No idea if this is the Lazy Boy project of Rob daBank’s or someone else. It’s still pretty damn funny. As reported in The New York Times today, Greg Giraldo has died at age
Read moreOne (Year) After 909 – The Backlash Begins Here
We are now officially in that future world where you gladly pay for the 3D animated corpses of rock stars to dance on your face forever. Today was a sad day for me. Today was the last we would hear Mary Anne Hobbs on BBC Radio 1. I imagine there is just a week to listen again on the iPlayer as...
Read moreLink’s Labour’s (Day) Lost
An further installment in the series of clearing out thee interesting tabs from thee browser before thee coming several weeks of much excitements and announcements of profound import. Missed it Dept.: Bryan Young at Huffington Post has an exclusive eight-page preview of Mat Johnson and Simon...
Read moreBBC 6Music Saved From The Ax
Sadly, The Asian Music network not so lucky. BBC Trust says that ‘the case has not been made’ for digital station’s closure. Read the full story on the Guardian’s site. This is the best news ever this year for independent music. 6Music has been very nice to Wow...
Read moreSesame Street’s Big Bird Found Floating Dead in the Gulf
May I Use Your Phone? E.T. Meets the Inspector
From The Guidepost English Reader 2A. ET, The Extraterrestrial Meets the Inspector and asks to use his phone; and is given the tourist treatment. Garfield looks on approvingly. The book also features Popeye, Minnie and Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Little Duck, The Pink Panther, Little Bee and a...
Read moreAfter The Warming – Climate Change perspective from 20 Years Ago
Hosted by the great James Burke of Connections fame.
Read moreSelf-Adjusting Table Cloth Clamps
I could stare at this package all day. From a long gone golden age of design. So much more inspiring than what the same product gets today. Purchased for 50 cents at a local yard sale.
Read moreBurning Up: Tom Otterness Art Installation in San Jose
Tom Otterness’s ‘Another World’ Installation’ of bronze figures was written about here previously. The work has taken on a new incarnation as it seems the cast bronze figures are now too hot to handle from sitting in the sun and are now mostly surrounded by plastic white...
Read moreKitchen Mittens and Skull Measurements
I have certain fascinations, passions, interests and obsessions. Always having a camera in my pocket means I now take thousands of photos related to them. Sometimes the meaning can only be demonstrated in sequence or juxtaposition. Most of the time they just sit undisturbed on a flash card or...
Read moreDennis Hopper on David Letterman talking Blue Velvet and River’s Edge
Sadly this clip does not include the anecdote about the night Natalie Wood took a Champagne bath that Hopper related during the interview. The time I played slide guitar on a performance of Roy Orbison’s ‘In Dreams‘ with Brown Cuts Neighbors may be one of the dodgiest bit of...
Read moreRemembering Dennis Hopper Part 1
The above is from Hermann Vaske’s excellent The Fine Art of Separating People From Their Money. I used to make everyone in my art department and all the sales reps who used our materials watch this movie. The work and life of Dennis Hopper has meant more to me than I can begin to express...
Read moreThe Aesthetic of Our Anger
$3.99 gets you two Toy Story army men with parachutes or an entire 40 piece army force. Which side are you on? Please go read: 1-2-3-4 What are we Fighting For by Adam Curtis
Read moreStephen Fry on Language
While assembling the accounts and inventories of the past year that the IRS wants for some reason or other, I have spent an excessive amount of that time with a TV on. I have gone through an incredible number of season box sets and the like. After finishing Season Two of House M.D. I thought
Read moreHappy Hollow 2010 – Another World by Tom Otterness
HappyHollow20101, originally uploaded by Marc Arsenault – Wow Cool. Today (Sunday March 14, 2010), San Jose’s beloved childrens’ playground and zoo, Happy Hollow reopened after a nearly two year renovation and closure. Clearly the star of the show was the installation in the...
Read moreRadiohead’s Ed O’Brien talks 6Music
I wasn’t quite sure what to say about 6Music, other than “they’re really cool, and I’m psyched that they have played my music, so speak up and save this awesome station”. It also seems weird to be a non-license-paying foreigner trying to muck about in another...
Read moreSave BBC 6Music & BBC Asian Network
Save 6Music Facebook Group | Love6Music.com | If you won’t listen to me you might listen to Lily Allen
Read moreStellar Content-Based Advertising FAIL On BBC News
On February 20, 2010, the BBC posted “Dutch cabinet collapses in dispute over Afghanistan” as the top story on their News homepage. The complicated mechanisms of content-based advertising placement brilliantly selected to display a box for the current Netherlands tourism campaign...
Read moreThis Time (I’m Gonna Try it My Way) – Behind the scenes at DJShadow.com
DJ Shadow live in Chile 2006. photo by Leo Prieto. Licensed under Creative Commons In 2006 DJ Shadow dropped his most recent solo album, The Outsider, and set in motion the process of creating one of the most fully-realized and successful artist sites on the web. The latest incarnation of...
Read moreSupport Disaster Relief in Haiti
U.S. President Obama signed a bill into law today that allows American taxpayers to deduct contributions made to relief in Haiti before March 1, 2010 on their 2009 tax return. So, you really have no excuse not to help out now. Wow Cool endorses Oxfam America as our charity of choice. Oxfam is...
Read moreGumby Discovers that the Blockheads never read Silent Spring
This is the video I was looking for a few days ago. A lesson for me in not relying on YouTube. Gumby puts the kibosh on the blockheads latest evil scheme, a pesticide protection racket, that has the worms up in arms and gasmasks, even. Available on the DVD of Gumby: the Movie. There must
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