tandem espresso shot

Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011

Zip-tied & handled tandem espresso cups:

“collaborating” with Stephen Matysik whom I met at I-Park while on residency at their first-ever IDC Program.

TONIGHT! Takistan vs Vulgaria – a party so big you must choose your allegiance

Friday, June 3rd, 2011

TONIGHT! It’s the final fundraiser for Swimming Cities before they depart for India’s Ganges River – the art and several of their crew are already there, but they need a final last-minute cash injection to go the distance and get everyone overseas. Also, it’s a party so ridiculously big it’s split in two!

FRIDAY JUNE 3RD

9PM-LATE | 9-10PM OPEN BAR
$10 before 11pm or with costume; $15 otherwise
Bordertown takes place in a converted trolley repair station scheduled to be demolished this summer
1428 FULTON ST (at Tompkins Ave)
BED-STUY BROOKLYN
Subway: A, C to Kingston-Throop Aves
www.weareswimmingcities.org
All proceeds go to Swimming Cities’ Ganges River project in India, fall of 2011

Choose your allegiance between the two fabulous party nations of VULGARIA & TAKISTAN. After an impassioned disagreement over whether a Pomeranian’s nose is mauve or puce, a great wall has been erected between them, patrolled by the world’s sexiest border guards.
Celebrate the absurd & arbitrary nature of borders, bureaucracy, and class inequality with us in this epic event that is designed to inspire the joys of insurrection, freedom, & integration.

The grungy Eastern Block gypsy state of VULGARIA invites you to celebrate the most debaucherous of holidays, National Vulgaria Day, the filthiest drunken day of the year. Festivities ruled by the corrupt dictator DAVO, featuring The People’s National Thieves Market ,Tattoos, Rickshaw rides, Raunchy Street Food, Bike Jousting, Catherine the Terrible’s Cossack Guard, Fortune Telling at the Altar of Saraghina, The People’s Steam Room, visuals by DJ Fuzzy Bastard and Surprises!

The opulent monarchy of TAKISTAN invites you on the day of the great royal wedding to enjoy decadent attractions, featuring His Majesty’s Royal Casino, Princess Cupcake’s Naughty Boudoir, The Grand Inquisitor’s quiz show, Dr. Adventure’s Royal Guard, The Royal Passport Scavenger Hunt, the Royal Ultra-Tacky Runway Show, Live acts by Laura McMillian of the Egyptian Shumba and by Sugar in the Gas Tank, S&M Royal Wedding Visuals by The Housewives’ Guide to Anatomy, Dirty Uncle Pony Rides, and More Surprises!
Dress in your Princess Best for a chance to wed the dashing Prince of Takistan!

Patriotic Libations include: Vulgaria’s national cocktail “The Three-Legged Mule” and Her Majesty’s royal imbibement “Groundskeeper’s Embrace at the Summer Palace” and yes, back by popular demand “Morning After Pill Jello Shots!”

…

COSTUME SUGGESTIONS

VULGARIA
SARAGHINA 8 ½
COSSACKS
STROMBOLI
ANAMATRONIC FORTUNE TELLING GYPSY BOOTH
DRUG FRONT BOARDWALK FORTUNE TELLER
BORDELLO MADAM
COCKTAIL THIEVING MONKEY
GHOST OF RASPUTIN
MUSTACHE CONTEST
INTERNATIONAL ARMS DEALER PLAYBOY

TAKISTAN
THIRD WORLD DICTATORS (THE DEVIL WEARS TAUPE)
GADAFFI SEXY BODYGUARDS
CARABINIERI
JERSEYSHORE VICTORIAN
IVANA TRUMP AND LIBERACE’S PROM NIGHT IN MONACO
SIGFRIED AND ROY
MICRONATION ROYALTY
GROOMED POODLE “STANDARD” WITH SHOWPAPERS
MUSTACHE CONTEST
“WHAT IS THAT, VELVET?”
PRINCESS! PRINCESS! PRINCESS!

Stella Dog

Saturday, May 28th, 2011

Stella is a beautiful boxer with tons of energy and a gorgeous underbite. Trained not to kiss, it’s impossible for her not to play – and she has a particular knack at dragging 8′ lengths of branch on the beach, among other traits:

SHOW ME THE WAFERS! or, Snow Don’t Stop NYC

Thursday, January 13th, 2011

City definitely did a better job this time around clearing the streets. It helps when 1. there’s less snow, 2. you actually know where your salt trucks are, and of course 3. THE POWER OF WAFERS!

Sci-Fi July week 2 – we watched Silent Running! #fb

Friday, July 16th, 2010

So the opening film for Sci-Fi July was important to me because it was in my formative teen-adult years, and it was at a time when net lingo was just beginning to gain awareness and usage in popular culture, or so my naive teen-adult memory recalls. But for the second installment of Sci-Fi July, I decided to turn back the dial, to 1971, to a time before time-as-I-knew-it, and screen a film with a much slower pace, virtually no plot, that was pre-Star Wars and thus before space opera – my hope was it was a movie wholly unfamiliar to the crowd (whereas Johnny Mnemonic was “known” from most peoples’ youth, but simply never seen because it was so bad). I was right, and I introduced the film with the following text (btw the screening took place inside the Flux gallery due to a consistent threat of rain – which did happen for about 5-8 minutes during the film, so I thank everyone for putting up with the humidity of the space – thus the fans!):

Welcome to the second installment of Sci-Fi July, an informal rooftop film series of the science fiction genre.

The movie you’re going to watch tonight has consistently returned a mixed bag of emotions and responses for nearly 30 years. Regarded by some as seminal influence, and by others as a complete flop, I would argue for the staying power of tonight’s film, Silent Running, and its pivot point in film history. It’s influences and its influence are far and wide.

It’s no 2001 A Space Odyssey, but it is directed and produced by Douglas Trumbull, whom some would recognize as a special effects supervisor on that 1968 blockbuster, and who would go on to supervise special effects for one of the truly greatest sci-fi films of all time, Blade Runner. However it would seem Trumbull’s trade was best put to use in the special effects department, and less in the director’s chair – nice try though.

Made on a budget nearly 1/10th of Kubrick’s space masterpiece, Trumbull did employ some genius techniques to achieve his desired shots, notably filming aboard a decommissioned NAVY aircraft carrier, the USS Valley Forge, which also happens to be the name of this film’s space freighter turned botany ark.

You heard me right, I said “botany ark”. The earth has been completely defolliated and the last remaining forests and plant life float in space inside geodesic domes while humans apparently debate over whether plant life is necessary or not for the continuation of the species. Domes whose design was influenced in part by the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Climatron, a Bucky Fuller-style facility in St. Louis housed not but a mile from where I grew up.

Oh and there’s robots! Or “drones” rather. Drones that wobble and never fall down, somehow. That’s because housed inside them were multiple amputee actors, again another genius Trumbull technique. Domes and drones which can easily be seen as influence on other sci-fi titles like 2007′s Sunshine or even Mystery Science Theatre 3000.

However the science falls short: are you seriously telling me you didn’t know light was needed to grow plants? and why are geodesic domes in orbit around Saturn anyhow – what’s wrong with an orbit around Earth? And not about science, but why is it called Silent Running anyhow? If someone from the audience figures this one out, please, enlighten us.

But do look out for some incredible sets, including vector waveform monitors, American Airlines freight containers, and a truly remarkable scene with a sort of microscopic integrated circuit soldering machine – wow!

and once again some great crowd shots by Astrid Bussink’s digital diarrhea photostream

Sci-Fi July week 1 – we watched Johnny Mnemonic!

Thursday, July 8th, 2010

the opening of Sci-Fi July, a weekly month-long rooftop film series for friends and friends of friends, was a resounding success! Around 23 people showed up for an unknown screening of Johnny Mnemonic.

I introduced the series, or the film more-specifically rather, with the following text:

The movie you’re about to watch is based on a short story by William Gibson, regarded by some as the father of cyberpunk, who coined the word “cyberspace”, and sought a “combination of lowlife and high tech” in his often dystopian novels.

This 1995 screenplay of Gibson’s 1981 short story stars Keanu Reeves as Johnny Mnemonic, post-Bill and Ted and pre-The Matrix, whose realization of his role lies somewhere between the “duuuude” and the “whoah” of those respective films.

Set in the year 2021, Johnny is a digital data courier who stores clients’ information in a cybernetic implant in his head. It holds a whopping 80 gigabytes – which is a laugh today given our phones hold nearly this much data, and we’ve easily achieved the multi-terabyte compression level.

Johnny’s “pride in profession” rests in the security of his data-envelope, which is protected by seemingly randomly generated images, yet also reminds one today of fffffound images, delicious gif streams, and image macros: I want room service!

I won’t sugar-coat it, this is an especially bad film! A special movie to a lot of cult sci-fi fans, yet IMDB rate it at 4.9 and I think that’s being generous. Keanu’s acting is horrendous. The editing is choppy. And at 1 hour 40 minutes it can appear to go on forever. But there are some special full-minute VR scenes, some incredibly geeky one-liners, oh and performances by Udo Kier, Takeshi Kitano, and none-other than rapper Ice-T as a tattooed & dreadlocked hacker, Black Flag’s front man Henry Rollins as a saviour doctor, and Dolph Lundgren as a street preaching Jesus freak-cybernaut.

Welcome to Sci-Fi July.

the remarkable crowd shot above was taken by current Flux Factory resident from the Low Countries, Astrid Bussink.

Sci-Fi July is an informal rooftop film series curated by moi, and will happen every Tuesday in July – you will not be told what movie will be screened, but they will all be of the sci-fi genre and they will all reward you in one way or another!