Stuff I Like – Part 2

Post Date: September 09.08.09

Sonic Youth – Bomb Popsicle Shirt

A popsicle is defined as “a trademark used for a colored, flavored ice confection with one or two flat sticks for a handle.” For those of you who have ever tried to eat a popsicle on a hot summer day, you know there is no avoiding the sticky mess of melted sugar and ice that will end up all over your face, hands and shirt.

Sonic Youth’s musical output, especially during their early 90′s/welcome to the major label period (Goo, Dirty, Experimental Jet Set), creates the same sort of melty, sticky experience. Listening to Sonic Youth often leaves not only a taste in your mouth well after the record is over, but seems to literally drip all over you. Perhaps it’s the layers of guitars, or the sweet-as-pumpkin-pie vocal work of Thurston which seems to ooze over the track, but there is certainly a parallel between a melting popsicle and tracks like Kool Thing, Sugar Kane, and Sweet Shine.

Is Sonic Youth the most self-aware band in history, with the ability to see the connection between water ice and their music, or is the image simply striking. I say both.

Stuff I Like

I’m lucky enough to guest blog on Insound every few weeks, as part of the ongoing “Stuff We Like” section.  I basically pick a product that I love for this reason or that, write a short post about why, and hope that someone somewhere agrees.

I figured I would start posting those here…to continue down my road of ongoing archiving.

Post Date: 01.25.10

Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra – Kollaps Tradixionales (Deluxe Edition)

Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra (SMZ), have had almost as many names over the years as they have had albums, with Kollaps Tradixionales being their sixth. For the entirety of their career, dating back to 1999, they have called Constellation Records home. A good choice, as few labels would support the unbounded creativity and experimentation in both music and packaging.

For their latest release, Kollaps Tradixionales, the band takes the packaging to yet another level. Three formats – all distinct in their form and components, all special in their own right.

For the vinyl lovers: Deluxe 2×10″ limited-edition first pressing, which includes a CD copy of the album, a 6″x9″ 16-page perfect-bound art book and two posters (a duotone 9″x13″ and a full color 9″ x 19″) all printed on uncoated 100% recycled paper.

For the CD lovers who appreciate the physicality of the record: Deluxe CD in custom gatefold cardstock jacket, accompanied by the art book and the posters, also limited to 2500.

For the fan who cares for audio only: Standard CD in our custom gatefold cardstock jacket, without accompaniment.

Ambitious projects of this nature make my heart scream with excitement. I have not heard this record yet, and truth be told I am not all that big a fan of the band’s latest few records. However, that has not stopped me from excitedly collecting each release on all deluxe formats, as the objects themselves are a thing of beauty.

Pre-order it now before you miss out. You can thank me later.

Weekend Roundup

Truth be told, I go back and forth endlessly about the purpose of this blog.  The basic question is about scope: Is Born Under Punches a personal filing cabinet for me to catalog thought, ideas, links and curiosities, or, is it the vehicle I employ to force focus on a particular thought, idea, link or curiosity.  The catalog of lists or the deep dive into a topic, one at a time?

Blame it on the weather, the sleeping schedule of the past week, or the chicken parm in the oven, but for at least for today the answer is lists…with a theme: If all were right in the world…

If all were right in the world: The exhibition accompanying the release of Ecstatic Peace Poetry Journal # 10 at White Columns would get far more attention than Jeffrey Dietch’s manipulation of the art world (sort of like Bernanke running the Fed).

If all were right in the world: Productivity tools would be the game changers for creative people, not the contact lists in their iPhones. “There are too many ideas in the world, and not enough action. Without organization and productivity, brilliant ideas never happen.”

If all were right in the world: The media would realize that the McSweeneys iPhone App (and others of its ilk, where publishers give people content they actually want to pay for vs. what they want to sell), can reinvigorate publishing.

If all were right in the world: I would think it realistic that I could one day see all of these places in person. In a lifetime of course, not a year.

If all were right in the world: Paul Krugman would be running the Fed, the IMC, the Committee on Foreign Affairs, the NYC Board of Ed, and the Congress.

If all were right in the world: I would have started Muji, and still own all my Legos.

If all were right in the world: Tadao Ando would be my mentor, and my architect.

And lastly, if all were right in the world: Arsenio would still be on the air and the guest in this clip would have never, ever, stepped into a recording studio.

All the time inspiration

Saturday inspiration

The PS 22 Chorus.

Follow-up reading…

Boldtype responds to Katie Roiphe’s NY Times article on the current male author’s attitudes towards sex…let the banter begin.

Thursday night road trip

Where: Boston (not my favorite place)

When: January 14th

Why: Lemonade (a short film about creative unemployment)

A new year, a new mission

The problems are staggering, and quite obvious to the average American. The solutions are complex, unclear, and often debatable. Our goal must be to create solutions for architecting a better future. We must do this the way the a mason or farmer would, brick by brick, seed by seed.

From Bob Herbert of the New York Times:

I’m starting the new year with the sinking feeling that important opportunities are slipping from the nation’s grasp. Our collective consciousness tends to obsess indiscriminately over one or two issues – the would-be bomber on the flight into Detroit, the Tiger Woods saga – while enormous problems that should be engaged get short shrift.

Staggering numbers of Americans are still unemployed and nearly a quarter of all homeowners owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. Forget the false hope of modestly improving monthly job numbers. The real story right now is the entrenched suffering (with no end in sight) that has been inflicted on scores of millions of working Americans by the Great Recession and the misguided economic policies that preceded it.

As The Washington Post reported over the weekend, the entire past decade “was the worst for the U.S. economy in modern times.” There was no net job creation – none – between December 1999 and now. None!

The Post article read like a lament, a longing for the U.S. as we’d once known it: “No previous decade going back to the 1940s had job growth of less than 20 percent.”

Middle-class families in 2008 actually earned less, adjusted for inflation, than they did in 1999. The data for 2009 are not yet in, but you can just imagine what happened to those families in that nightmarish downturn. Small children over the holidays were asking Santa Claus to bring mommy or daddy a job.

One in eight Americans, and one in four children, are on food stamps. Some six million Americans, according to an article in The Times on Sunday, have said that food stamps were their only income.

Read more here.

On my mind as we start 2010

Does the attitude towards and descriptions of sex in the novels of the current crop of successful male authors (Franzen, Wallace, Chabon, etc.) say anything about the modern males? (courtesy of the NY Times, illustration by Paula Scher)

The belief that food has the ability to heal is shared by foodies and Jews everywhere. Courtesy of Cassie’s food-centric blog, I recently discovered  that very belief has a quarterly to call its own.  Introducing Remedy.

A few years ago, Amy and I started what has become a tradition, celebrating Puerto Rico Appreciation Day on New Years Day.  We make Pasteles.

Long Johns (Uniqlo) and socks (Woolrich / Wigwam) make the winter acceptable.

Google’s new browser, Chrome, lives up to its claims of being faster and smarter. How do they keep doing it?

Tupac and Biggie’s murders are still unsolved, but thankfully we still have Raekwon.

i (heart) illustrated essays

i also (heart) Christoph Niemann (bio courtesy of the new york times):

Christoph Niemann’s illustrations have appeared on the covers of The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine and American Illustration. His work has won numerous awards from the American Institute of Graphic Arts, the Art Directors Club and American Illustration. He is the author of two children’s books, “The Pet Dragon,” which teaches Chinese characters to young readers, and “The Police Cloud.” After 11 years in New York, he moved to Berlin with his wife, Lisa, and their sons, Arthur, Gustav and Fritz.

his series of illustrative essays on the nytimes site is heartwarming, affirming as to why we feel connections as new yorkers, and simply the most playful 5 minutes you will spend all day:

i lego ny
coffee
ny cheat sheets
bathroom art
the boys and the subway