Shoes Master: cool!

Go here.
Saw this cover at Reed Space, which also has coach jackets with the word "studio" where a sport would be. The Singularity seems to be upon us, Captain.

New Modes Old Forms

Not only does Twitter contrast greatly with all sorts of media, but I was also thinking about a wall of Polaroids I saw today in Heist gallery on Essex St which were an emulsion based photostream.

Corby on Bagels

Corby might be a PITA, but he's right about alot of things. My Name is Bagel dispatches nattering nabobs of italo-authenticity.

(Yes, this means I am at least lazily/occasionally tweeting as me as well as terroirny. There's overlap btwn "my" voice & that of terroir, but it's not always the same thing. Let's see how it goes...)

Hang With Me Joe!

This is perfect:
More here.
Via the mighty Comics Journal blog. That and Comics Reporter are essential.

Napkin dispenser with notebook paper (I.D. Mag)

"There’s something to be said for the romance of the napkin sketch—the informality of the gesture, the unidentifiable food stains. That said, if you had access to proper office supplies at a tapas bar, what better excuse to hold off-site staff meetings? Madrid designer and Fabrica alum Sandra Bautista, whose work was included in 2006’s “Feeding Desire” exhibition at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, reloaded this standard tapas bar napkin holder with notebook paper. “It’s a small intervention,” she says, but a useful one."

I love this. Check em all out: I.D. Magazine

No Wonder I Have The Munchies All The Time

This article is a treasure trove of pronouncements on our current predicament. Oh shit, I mean MY predicament, who's kidding who here?

He sees our distraction as a full-blown epidemic—a cognitive plague that has the potential to wipe out an entire generation of focused and productive thought. He compares it, in fact, to smoking. “People aren’t aware what’s happening to their mental processes,” he says, “in the same way that people years ago couldn’t look into their lungs and see the residual deposits.”

And:

People who frequently check their e-mail have tested as less intelligent than people who are actually high on marijuana.

And, And:

The Internet is basically a Skinner box engineered to tap right into our deepest mechanisms of addiction.

Sam Anderson, NY Mag

A Rosé is a...

Leo Barrera is to Rosé as Paul Grieco is to ------------------ (for 15 points)

I unabashedly love rosé, following in the path blazed by Leo Barrera and others. Friend and co-Terroirist, David Flaherty, at Grapes and Grains has provocatively posted on the current numbnuts EU debate. Here's my comment, which has grown into a posting somehow as well:

Some thoughts. I generally get out my bullshit detector when I hear a supposed opposition of values, usually suspecting a dialectic in the making or outright irrelevant hairsplitting.

The problem is larger than winemaking, it's that traditional culture has some great, time tested truths that must be respected. But at the same time, if not kept fresh by irreverent experimentalists all culture will stagnate and die.

I don't think that codifying winemaking and categorizing creative activity means shit. Vino da Tavola or IGT? The name of the producer is what counts.

The relevant Star Trek clip is this one from The Omega Glory:

James Hillman wrote about the connection between the radical (who looks to the root, literally) and the traditionalist somewhere. My version of what we are doing at the wine bar is breathing life into moribund forms but always returning to the root in terms of content.

Thackrey is not in opposition to typicity and sense of place, he delivers a critique of unthinking jargon/marketing lingo.

Anyway, that's my take right now.

PS: As always, the EU is wasting time codifying Rosé when they could be feeding people, man!

One More Imeem: Joy in Repetition

Just saw the Vaselines, wow. The show, at Bowery Ballroom, was filled with perfect moments. The balance of pop, noise and wit was exquisite. Superclassicist anti-rockiest popstars, the driest sense of humor ever, spectacular stuff. Give them $ for the new uberset MP3 link vinyl
(PS, if you buy the vinyl, you get the MP3 for free. Yes, my 2 favorite formats live & cds still get to die. Cassettes/mixtapes I will have to post separately on since that's kind of an emotional thing around here.)

Shake. Some. Action.

Saturday night/Sunday morning, Rainy Spring night. Perfect weather to powerpop. 

What is the connection these deceptively cheery sounds have to melancholy? This stuff, The Raspberries, The Records... all these upbeat songs have a kind of yearning jangling feeling somehow... 

What does Norway Actually Produce?

"Norway trade union: Boycott Israel if peace process fails"

Well, good luck without cellphones, computer chips or medical advances. But what in the world do those hypocrites actually contribute so that they can be boycotted in return?

OH, Norwegian SALMON? You mean fancy LOX? Bring it on, Norwegian trade union. Who the fuck do you think is eating all that smoked fish? Hint: probably not our Palestinian brothers and sisters!

Independent George for Friday

Damn. This snippet is like a koan I can watch on repeat all morning. And I have.

"Start small. Do what you can with something you care about so deeply that you simply can’t not do it." (via tferriss) http://ping.fm/F1MSn

Xaime!

Comics great Jaime Hernandez: “That was kind of our punk mentality at the time: If they hate it, that’s good too!"

Quoteable:

"Do you get all hot and bothered when you find an allmusic.com profile that includes the words "obscure" and "groundbreaking" or "influential" in close proximity? This group is for you."

Our Band Could Be Your Life group.

Damn, the best typography when the mainstream culture was eating Reagan's shit 24-7.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Fuck THAT

Obama To Fire His First Gay Arabic Linguist
Do we ever get out of high school? Enough is enough. Fire homophobic assholes. Fire republican hypocrite pederasts.

More:

CHOI: Well, when I got the letter, I was extremely angry. I was angry -- I mean, the letter is basically saying bottom line, Lieutenant Dan Choi, you're fired. You're a West Point graduate, you're fired. You're an Arabic linguist, you're fired. You deployed to Iraq, you're willing to deploy again, doesn't matter. Because you're gay, that's enough grounds to kick you out.

But the biggest thing that I'm angry about is what it says about my unit. It says that my unit suffered negative good order -- negative actions -- good order and discipline suffered. That's a big insult to my unit.

I mean, all the insult that the letter can do, to say that I'm worthy of being fired, you know, that's nothing comparing to saying that my unit is not professional enough, that my unit does not deserve to have a leader that is willing to deploy, that has skills to contribute.

One More Video: Ramones, MENTAL

"Men like the same item the same way over and over again. I wear mine until they’re finished, and then I want the same exact pair."The same applies for every piece of clothing I own. Justin R. Saunders, fashion person, NYT.

Yeah. Let's take that one step further. Men like the same 3 min song...

After Party Schmafterparty

Have I reposted this recently? The scene in Hannah & Her Sisters where Woody slips into a theatre and regains his will to live via The Marx Bros rings true. "The Management Requests Absolute Silence During The Following Presentation..."




It also seems reminiscent of the royal afterparty held in my honor the other night at Terroir.

Meta to the max

Mimi Zeiger: still thinking about the neuroenhancer article. the new yorker as a gateway drug?

Steven Solomon:
You start out reading NYT online, end up FB'ing your Tweets which link to your blog and then post it on a comment. I swear I just did that, in between answering emails and replying to tweets. Not joking. Help.

(Now posting all of this to the blog to see if I explode or what.)

The Name of This Company is Steven Solomon

I lost the Beard award, but being a finalist nationwide (out of 3) the first time out of the gate pretty fucking much establishes me as a force to contend with in the world of fucked up animated GIFs & swearwords on restaurant websites.

"I will fucking brand your fucking winebar and it will fucking STAY branded, motherfucker!!!" is my corporate mission statement.

A Stefan Sagmeister shaped suit would still chafe and constrain, only a custom StevenSolo suit would make sense. But The Sag would make the most sense as a reference if one is needed here. (While staring at framed, tattered newspaper pic of David Carson on a surfboard and lighting a candle at the Ramones belt buckle of ARTURO VEGA, who donned the luchadore mask while I was still in high school.)

The most important bit of business at the moment is getting my own pair of the loaner silver Nikes I wore, courtesy of a fashion forward friend here in NYC. Friends in Rome are scouring the Eternal City as we blog.

(P.S. Yes, I copped the title for this entry from the Talking Heads. Respect!)

THANKS for your support, fun ride, now back to work damnit.

Jeremy: THANKS FOR THE SHOES! They killed last night.

There's alot to be written about being a Beardie nominee, sitting in that audience waiting to hear the winners announced for hours is a roller coaster ride that I would not have missed. And, for all my skepticism about awards in general there were many moments that were meaningful. The tribute to Totonno's pizza was cool. Feeding America infomercial and the hands down best speaker of the night: Jack Arnold, who just owned the room with dry drawling wit.

Eating, like 4 pounds of octopus carpaccio and uni cuban sandwiches was cool. Minor disappointment: the Illy capsule espresso maker doesn't offer Nespresso a challenge at ALL. I want Illy to do better as they are way cooler.

Drinking at events like this is more a matter of avoiding drinking too much for me. Champagne at the Terroir afterparty was delicious, that was the real moment. (With Rocket To Russia blasting.) The Terroir afterparty was so blissfully fucked up that it's hard to imagine it being better if I were wearing a medallion with Lex Luthor on it! What would have happened if I won? A nuclear explosion on East 12th Street?

Paul Grieco, human fireball. David Flaherty, criminal mastermind.

The amazing support of all my friends was a bit overwhelming

Seeing so many people from my restaurant life was surreal. Note to self: go OUT in Boston & get to Myers and Chang already.

In retrospect, being a dark horse for the nomination suits me just fine. Kudos to The Korn Group.

The sneakers were a loaner from friend Jeremy and changed my life. They were real Nikes so they were not only sick shiny but actually bouncy and sneaker-y. Awesome.



OH, and it's Sampanthavivat!

Inside the baby mind: (Boston Globe)

Baudelaire was right: "Genius is nothing more nor less than childhood recovered at will."

Although scientists have long held the lack of a functional prefrontal cortex responsible for all sorts of "childish" behaviors, researchers are beginning to realize that, sometimes, it might actually be better to allow the prefrontal cortex to loosen its grip.

A recent brain scanning experiment by researchers at Johns Hopkins University found that jazz musicians in the midst of improvisation - they were playing a specially designed keyboard in a brain scanner - showed dramatically reduced activity in the prefrontal cortex. It was only by "deactivating" this brain area that the musicians were able to spontaneously invent new melodies. The scientists compare this unwound state of mind with that of dreaming during REM sleep, meditation, and other creative pursuits, such as the composition of poetry. But it also resembles the thought process of a young child, albeit one with musical talent. Baudelaire was right: "Genius is nothing more nor less than childhood recovered at will."

The immaturity of the baby brain comes with another advantage: utter absorption in the moment.

I Want To Bite The Hand That Feeds Me

THIS is the shit, Elvis C. at the point of maximum impact. Anyone potentially doing a public presentation, say, at an awards ceremony or something, should study this carefully.

Strummer on Suits

"My bummin' slummin' friends have all got new boots
An' someone just asked me if the group would wear suits"