Entries from September 2009 ↓

Scottish knitter Anne-Marie Dunbar‘s designs border on the utterly bizarre. They range from webbed claw gloves to a knitted model of the acrylonitrile molecule and beyond.

“Beyond” is probably where this ram’s head balaclava, above, goes, or, as she calls it, a “baalaclava.” For those of you who swing needles like a samurai’s katana, the pattern, which she sells via the web,

is entirely seamless – the ears are worked by picking up stitches, and there’s a little grafting at the front – instructions for which are given in the pattern.

As per my previous mask patterns, I’ve used an aran weight yarn with 4mm needles. The pattern gives two sizes – standard (19″ to 23″) and extra large (24″ and up).

Plus, I just had this thought: Though Dunbar has strived for a…er…naturalistic appearance in the piece, this being yarn, you can color yours in any hues you want. Orange face with teal horns and nose, Dolphins fans?

So, sign up to Ravelry.com, order the pattern for $5, pay via Paypal, and knit one up for the Aries in your life. Just remind ’em not to wear it on their next SWAT call.

B3TA’s mashup movie poster contest resulted in a gang of inspired entries, like this fusion between Star Wars and A Clockwork Orange, above, or this melding of Das Boot and Yellow Submarine, below. Plus, there’s a lot more where that came from, too, on the site. Hooray for Hollywood! Hooray for Photoshop!

[via digg]

A boo-boo: My NONFICTION conversation with Women in Boxes‘ filmmakers Blaire Baron Larsen, Harry Pallenberg, and Phil Noyes has been pre-empted by WBAI fundraising. That interview, as well as my conversation with writer/blogger Geoff Manaugh, will air on a future date.

Women in Boxes will still air tonight, on Documentary Channel, at 9:10 PM ET, however. Please do check it out. It’s a remarkable film.

After Anthony Williams’, aka D.J. Roc Raida’s, funeral today in Harlem, D.J. Premier gave out T-shirts with this balletic image, above, of the late, great master of steel wheels.

May he rest in peace.

Videogames are getting more and more life-like. In this Japanese TV ad, below, for the upcoming Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, out here September 29th for the Playstation 3, gamers get a look at one character’s stunning new moves.

[via crazysexytechiecool.blogspot.com]

Summer will be over within mere hours, ladies, but that’s still enough time to tell ’em whose really runnin’ things in the White House. Brandishing an ecstatic portrait of First Lady Michelle Obama, and the caption, “The Hottest Chick in the Game,” this American Apparel Slim Fit tee is constructed from pure cotton and held together by a durable rib neckband. In sizes S, M, and L. Fittingly available in black, only. Bossip “Hottest Chick in the Game” T-shirt, $24.95.

Dr. Leonard Susskind is widely regarded as one of the fathers of string theory. The field’s objectives consist of nothing less than a re-ordering of the universe, and a mapping of its very structure, far, far past the atomic level. In his book, The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design, Dr. Susskind illuminates the challenges of his research, the discoveries, and the work still to be done.

Dr. Susskind is the guest today on this previously broadcasted edition of my WBAI-NY / 99.5 FM radio show, NONFICTION, this afternoon, Friday, September 18, at 2 pm ET. You can hear his ideas by tuning in at 2 pm. If you’re outside of the New York tri-state, check out our stream on the web. If you miss the live show, dig into our archives for up to 90 days after broadcast.

Dear The Domestic Terrorist:

Greetings. Thanks for linking to and quoting my post, “‘Is Kanye the New O.J. ?'”, from my blog, Media Assassin, in your post about Kanye West and Taylor Swift, “Much Ado About Kanye.” I enjoyed your writing.

In your piece, however, I couldn’t help but notice the following excerpt:

Where Mr. Allen lost me (well, he never really had me but I was going in with an open mind since I highly respect the person who referred me to his article), was when he spewed forth this nonsense:

Continue reading →

Robert Bechtle’s 1974, 48 in. by 69 in. oil, Alameda Gran Torino, is a masterpiece of the photorealistic style he mastered in the 1960s and ’70s.

In his 2005 review of the artist’s work, The New Yorker‘s Peter Schjeldahl called Bechtle’s images visions “from a prior life,” and Alameda Gran Torino, paradoxically, “a nova of banality.”

The station wagon can’t help but be only and exactly what Detroit fashioned. Hot sunlight can’t help but glint from a bumper and produce a faint reflection of the windshield on a garage door. A closeness between the green of the car and that of a background shadow is unusual, but so perfectly meaningless that your mind may panic at the waste of its energy in beholding the fact. Then something peculiar can happen: your reflexive sense of the picture as a photograph breaks down, and the object’s identity as a painting, done entirely on purpose, gains ground. Look closely. A congeries of tiny freehand strokes delivers an inconspicuous patch of foliage. The whole work is a feat of resourceful painterly artifice. At last, it’s as if the original photograph were a ghost that died and came back as a body.

And what a body it is.

The familiar, sky-blue font is there, but the usual, loud, hyperventilating, all-caps text is not.

Instead, last night on his blog, Kanye West gave the apology that, perhaps, fans and foes had wanted to hear all along.

Comparing himself to Gaylord “Greg” Focker, the luckless character played by Ben Stiller in the 2000 film, Meet the Parents, West admitted that, with his bum rush of the MTV Video Awards on Sunday, he’d “messed up everything.”

That was Taylor’s moment and I had no right in any way to take it from her. I am truly sorry.

Elegant and terse, where his original, much-derided “apology” was mouthy and glib, the remorseful statement may go a long way toward repairing West’s shattered image, particularly when coupled to his earlier, highly emotional appearance on the debut episode of The Jay Leno Show that same evening.

The same probably isn’t true, however, for the Twitterers who salted the artist with racist invective in the wake of his outburst. Perhaps the best we can hope for, in their case, is to never hear from their ilk again.

Not betting on it.