neonresolutions

Some Flickr-clicking led to to this sublime sketch by original...

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 02:37:08 +0100

Some Flickr-clicking led to to this sublime sketch by original Penguin designers Jan Tschichold and Erik Ellegaard Frederiksen. (via David George Pearson, also check his collection of sketches for the Penguin logo)

Chloe Sevigny’s East Village apartment totally has the Ed Ruscha...

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 14:35:15 +0100

Chloe Sevigny’s East Village apartment totally has the Ed Ruscha magic (via andrewromano, via Apartamento)

If the Phone Don’t Ring, It’s Me, 2008, Oil on...

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 14:03:29 +0100

If the Phone Don’t Ring, It’s Me, 2008, Oil on canvas, 213x155cm, Photo: Stephen White

The revealing George Michael interview in the Guardian also notes Mr. Michael’s art collection, leading me to check out Harland Miller’s work, much of which artfully departs from classic Penguin paperback covers.

Yoonha Park directed this documentary video for Small...

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 02:00:00 +0100

Yoonha Park directed this documentary video for Small Black’s Despicable Dogs, starring singer-keyboardist Josh Kolenik’s surfing uncle. Find my own surf-and-Seattle-themed mixtape here.

Before we get too far up into the whole “Best of...

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 13:59:49 +0100

Before we get too far up into the whole “Best of 2009” business, here’s a taste of some of the best of 2010 as Final Fantasy previews Midnight Directives off his Heartland concept album for Pitchfork.tv’s Tunnelvision series.

Then, now that we are on the subject of photograms, here are...

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 01:59:51 +0100

Then, now that we are on the subject of photograms, here are some more of these primitive but elegant images, courtesy of Les Rudnick’s Photograms.org.

Körner Union also created these elegant photograms from crystal...

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 13:58:49 +0100

Grand Noir, 2008

Körner Union also created these elegant photograms from crystal fruit bowls, see more of their very diverse portfolio at their site.

Is there anything more beautiful than destruction in slow...

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 01:57:53 +0100

Is there anything more beautiful than destruction in slow motion? Körner Union new video for Bo’tox’s Blue Steel reveals an innocuous country road to be the site of much stuffed toy and bouncy castle carnage.

“In the late 19th and early 20th century, enigmatic...

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 13:56:50 +0100

“In the late 19th and early 20th century, enigmatic photographer T. Enami (1859-1929) captured a number of 3D stereoviews depicting life in Meiji-period Japan.” (via ink Tentacle)

“The more that which is written takes from me, the more it...

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 01:56:38 +0100

“The more that which is written takes from me, the more it shows what was missing from the experience that was lived. Only the words make this discovery, because they didn’t know it earlier. And where they catch the lived experience by surprise is where they reflect it best. In the end they become so compelling that the lived experience must cling to them in order not to fall apart.”

Herta Müller, this year’s Nobel-Prize winner for literature, lectures beautifully on writing, family, dictatorship, and the importance of always carrying a handkerchief.

AfterElton.com posted up this Glee season recap all done up in a...

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:46:41 +0100

AfterElton.com posted up this Glee season recap all done up in a Facebook stylee, click through for the next, spoiler-laden jpegs.

"I bounce the dowel in my palm, take a measure of its heft. First, a few fake tosses to inflame his..."

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 08:03:05 +0100

“I bounce the dowel in my palm, take a measure of its heft. First, a few fake tosses to inflame his desire. Then I commence what amounts to a countdown. Throw and return. Throw and return. Gradually, space and time widen. He runs further from me, he takes longer to reappear. I am forced to reflect upon the strongest memory I possess these days of my own fatherhood. He and I toss a football on our front lawn in Midland, a tetchy back-and-forth that passes for the conversation we’d both prefer not to have. Babs has tasked me to perform a dressing-down, his sixth-grade performance diagnosed as terminally shabby. I throw the ball harder and harder, edging him toward the street he’s known, since walking came to him late, never to cross. My attention wanders; I’m thinking about drilling holes in the skull of a certain adversarial oil-wildcatter who won’t buckle to my advances, and I over-muscle the ball. Into the street it goes, and him after it, his inflamed desire to catch my every toss rendering him oblivious to the speeding Cadillac.”

- Heidi Julavits on the elder George Bush, his namesake son, and the family dog, taken from the best story in New York Magazine’s Political Fictions Project.

This second mix covers some of the best newcomers of 2009,...

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 20:00:46 +0100

This second mix covers some of the best newcomers of 2009, artists like Passion Pit and Hunx & his Punx, but also some of the coolest reissues, albums that reconvinced me of the raw genius of the first Beatles record and of last-period Nirvana.

Overall I’ve tried to capture the year’s passion for fuzzed-out bliss, which in tracks by Washed Out and Desire comes out through syrupy, hypnotic grooves, and in songs by The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart or The Drums as jubilant, elastic pop.

The only-slightly-older-guard is represented with cuts from the strongest albums of the year: Veckatimest, Begone Dull Care, Actor, Rules, but enough with the namedropping, get with the downloading, the tracklist is in the comments below.

In her Places of Education series, photographer Lissa Rivera...

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 17:14:16 +0100

In her Places of Education series, photographer Lissa Rivera captures classrooms, fraternities, and even bathrooms without their students, revealing a potent portrait of power and privilege in the American school system.

El Perro Del Mar performs Change of Heart, a track from her Love...

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 05:01:57 +0100

El Perro Del Mar performs Change of Heart, a track from her Love Is Not Pop album which I featured earlier for its acrobatic muscleman meditation video. Here undressed and unplugged for Baeblemusic, the song loses its shiny production values, suffers terrible lighting design, and yet achieves a new and urgent poignancy.

One of the most underheard albums of the year was Ramona...

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 16:57:51 +0100

One of the most underheard albums of the year was Ramona Falls’ Intuit, an infectious and concise collection that is daringly unafraid of stage school pathos. The animated video for I Say Fever showcases this sense of drama with some gorgeous Victorian chase scenes. The live version of The Saddest Day embedded below captures this Menomena offshoot’s charming live incarnation.

tmblg: Eva Hesse, Right After, 1969

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 04:57:07 +0100

tmblg:

Eva Hesse, Right After, 1969

I realize we’re all already inundated with “Best of...

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 16:51:00 +0100

I realize we’re all already inundated with “Best of the noughties” and “Best of 2009” lists being blogged at us from all sides, but my inner mixtaper still feels the sick need to spread the love he has for the best music that was released in o-nine.

This first mixtape (download it here) perhaps lacks what was the best song of the year - Party in the U.S.A., duh - and neither features Panda Bear nor other members of the Animal Collective, instead celebrating the likes of Taylor Swift, Beth Ditto, and Fever Ray, all idiosyncratic, uncompromising artists who remain resolutely and most heartily Pop.

The full tracklist is in the comments below, but know that you can look forward to newcomers like Ellie Goulding and Sleigh Bells, covers of Freddie Mercury and The Dirty Projectors tunes, as well as some messy floorfreakers by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Britney Spears.

The second part of WHY?’s These Hands/January Twenty...

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 06:44:49 +0100

The second part of WHY?’s These Hands/January Twenty Something video is a straight-up performance vid, but the first is an apocalyptic and heartrending fragment set in a parking lot under siege from unseen evil. Directed by Ben Barnes.

Square America has a slideshow of 48 pictures of women on...

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 18:44:54 +0100

Square America has a slideshow of 48 pictures of women on television taken by an anonymous photographer in 1957.