When Google Said That They Wanted All the World’s Knowledge Online, This Wasn’t What I Had In Mind.

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With their Google Books service, the world’s dominant search engine is making the contents of everything from Arts & Crafts Homes and the Revival to Texas Monthly to VIBE available through anyone’s computer.

But this is the motherlode, friends: Weekly World News, the self-proclaimed “world’s only reliable news source since 1979.” (Google’s archives go back to 1980.)

Can you believe it? That’s the January 2, 1990 cover, above, courtesy of Media Assassin, complete with nutty Xmas messages and puerile racism. “Baboon boy”? It get’s no worse, people. It gets no better.

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Visions of a Gorgeous, Green Future.

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That’s “The DoChoDo Zoological Island,” above, a fantastic rendering of an environmentally neutral structure, designed by Brussels-based JDS/Julien De Smedt Architects, from the retrospective of their work, Agenda.

[via bldgblog]

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Crash Text Dummies.

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I’ll give you one guess why British viewers were so outraged by this provocative anti-texting-while-driving PSA, above.

Drive safely.

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The Elements to Producing Precious.

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Precious, Lee Daniels’ adaptation of author / poet Sapphire’s 1996 novel, Push, has gained wide acclaim for the director. Perhaps even more, though, it has procured deeper regard for both Gabourey Sidibe, as the titular, obese, frequently-raped, illiterate, 16-year-old Claireece “Precious” Jones, above, and comedian Mo’Nique, as her acid-tongued, trigger-hair-violent mother, Mary.

lisacortesUnless you closely study indy film credits, though, you may not heard of Precious executive producer Lisa Cortés, right. (A sr. v.p. with Lee Daniels Entertainment, she’s also worked with Daniels, in varied roles, on the Academy Award-winning Monster’s Ball, The Woodsman, Shadowboxer, and Tennessee.)

That Cortés does this in comparative obscurity, however, may prove she possesses what those in a producing role actually need, even more than publicists: The ability to work relentlessly, behind the scenes, to make movies happen, and an ego healthy enough not to pursue media visibility as its own end.

Lisa Cortés is a guest today on my WBAI-NY / 99.5 FM radio show, NONFICTION, this afternoon, Friday, December 11th, at 2 pm ET.

Then, Theodore Gray, is cofounder of software company Wolfram Research, makers of the legendary Mathematica. But that’s just his day job. In his spare time, Gray writes Popular Science‘s “Gray Matter” column…and collects samples of the 118 elements which populate the periodic table.

9781579128142But why leave all that hydrogen, helium, and ununoctium just sitting there? Working with Nick Mann, the two shot seemingly everything in Gray’s hoard for publication.

The result is The Elements A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe, right.

Organized in order of appearance on the periodic table, each element is represented by a spread that includes a stunning, full-page, full-color photograph that most closely represents it in its purest form. For example, at -183˚C, oxygen turns from a colorless gas to a beautiful pale blue liquid.

You can hear Lisa Cortés’s and Theodore Gray’s ideas by tuning in at 2 pm. If you’re outside of the New York tri-state, check out our live stream on the web. If you miss the live show, dig into our archives for up to 90 days after broadcast.

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Never Bored By a Board Like This.

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This skateboard concept by designer Loren Kulesus appears to translate the loopy letter flows of aerosol art to the loop-de-loops of the skate park. Now, that’s rolling with rush.

[via trendhunter.com]

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To Boldly Go Where No Soft, Corinthian Leather Has Gone Before.

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800_1976chryslercordobasportcoupe-thumb-800x464Do you have to be old enough to remember Ricardo Montablan’s faux couture, 1976 Cordoba car commercial, right, to find this Chrysler/Star Trek: Wrath of Khan mashup, above, hilarious?

I’m guessing pretentiousness has no expiration date, and the answer is “No.”

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Let’s Get Ready To Rumble: Watch Iron Man 2 Turn the War Machine On.

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Need I say more about what will almost certainly be Summer 2010’s biggest hit? Don Cheadle (replacing Terrence Howard) puts on the classic steel-gray War Machine battlesuit, above, and, matched with Robert Downey Jr.’s titular character, I’m bettin’ it’s about to be ridonkulous.

[via impawards.com]

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Gee, R. Kelly: Since You Were Accused of Doing A “Number One” On Under-Aged Girls, Should You Really Have Called Your New Single, “Be My Number 2”?

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Dunno: “Be My Number Two” seems like an unfortunate title choice. I mean, considering this is a guy who was rawly accused of peeing—doing a “Number 1″—on little girls.

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Absolutely No More Starving Artists.

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modigliani_picasso_and_andre_salmonIn 1920, Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani died at the age of 35, destitute and penniless. Done in by a then uncurable case of tubercular meningitis—and way too much drinking—he was literally so broke that he only ate by trading his work for meals. (That’s, l-r, Modigliani, Pablo Picasso, and critic André Salmon in 1914, Paris, right.)

Of course, today, he is recognized as a genius. In 2004, Jeanne Hebuterne (devant une porte), above, an eponymous portrait of his life’s great love, sold at auction for $31,368,000; a record for his work.

Too bad he couldn’t take a trip to the future, not just to skim some needed cash off the top, but to pick up a copy of author Jackie Battenfield‘s book, The Artist’s Guide: How to Make a Living Doing What You Love. As she notes on her web site, the text

is a comprehensive handbook that provides the information, tools, and techniques, for developing and sustaining a successful art career. It provides answers to the challenges artists face everyday and includes real-life examples, illustrations, step-by-step exercises, and bulleted lists that allow readers to dive in and begin working immediately.

jackie-portraitSome artists see poverty as the price they must pay to become great, or even, wrongly, as a sign of it. But Battenfield, right, a gifted visual artist herself, doesn’t dispute that, at points in one’s career, Ramen noodles can be a sculptor’s best friend.

Instead, her core idea is that, equipped with the right information, an artist can run their career, as opposed to having it run them. Modigiliani would, no doubt, agree.

Jackie Battenfield is a guest today on my WBAI-NY / 99.5 FM radio show, NONFICTION, this afternoon, Friday, December 4, at 2 pm ET.

i38b-frontThen, eight years ago this month, Wax Poetics, right—the chunky, Brooklyn-based bimonthly—began what has become a stellar run of thirty-eight issues to-date. Designed to putty “the once noticeable gap in music journalism—an editorial void between contemporary artists and classic greats,” the magazine effortlessly bridges disparate blends of groove-oriented musiculture.

Today, I’ll be talking with editor-in-chief Andre Torres, as well as writer Michael Gonzales, author of the current issue’s cover story on Super Fly soundtrack creator Curtis Mayfield.

You can hear Jackie Battenfield’s Andre Torres’s, and Michael Gonzales’s 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.

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Awwww, Yeah, Ladies: This Is Gonna Be Our Little Secret. You See, THE MEDIA ASSASSIN Is ‘Bout To WEAR YOU OUT. Tonight, It’s the Weekend, And You Don’t Stand A Chance…

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…against this sexy little slow jam, featuring my main man, Mr. Hole-In-One, Tiger Woods.

It’s called the “Tiger Woods Voicemail Slow Jam Remix,” and gurrrrl, I hope you Vaselined your legs today, so yo’ panties can have a smooooth ride down.

Awwww, yeah, girl: You better believe you’re gonna break out the rear window of my 2009 Cadillac Escalade.

Only this time…..it’s gonna be from the inside….

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