Cute, and true.



















Bikes of San Francisco

Buy the poster here.

Who says American manufacturing is dead?













The Inside Scoop on the Fake Barf Industry

This is terrific.



















Painful Groins in Art

My mother was an excellent cook. I say "was" because after almost 40 years of cooking meals from scratch for her family, she's decided that she's done with homemade and done with cooking. Now she's strictly a microwave mama. It happens, and I don't blame her, really, but damn, I miss going home to her barbecued chicken. And her pork ribs. And her spaghetti, and casseroles, and stews...

It's funny how that even as I was raised on venison my dad shot and dressed himself, wild rainbow trout my mom fried up in cornmeal, and fat tomatoes, peppers, and peaches from our own garden, as a child I still wanted things like this:

















I know, right?! If you can believe it, TV dinner days were a treat for me as a child (much more so for my mother, I'm sure). I think all kids are like this, non? I cringe when I think back on the oysters I would pass up for Chef Boyardee (one of the few concessions my mom made to convenience food), and how even as my mom was ladling out creamy homemade macaroni and cheese, I would ask her for the stuff that came in a blue box. Ooh, the shame.

I just stumbled across a blog dedicated to vintage ads and pics of these and other "gastronomic atrocities of the past" so I can now get my fix of all sorts of forbidden and forboding delicacies.

Aspic and Other Delights

A favorite for so many reasons (and something I may actually make -- shhhh):

So I was excited, but bitching, a few days ago, and now see why A.A. Bondy doesn't have a club date yet in the Bay for his tour.

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 2011

Yes, it's free, and one of the coolest festivals in the country, but call me spoiled -- I'm still a tad disappointed. Hate having to fight the crowds that weekend, so maybe, just maybe, Bondy will pick up a small venue before he heads to Portland.

Don't judge! Look at this mess...













I did stay home last year, but I suppose I am inevitably going to fight the crowds this year anyway, given the fact that Bondy is playing, as well as the rest of the awesome lineup.

Kris Kristofferson and Merle Haggard! M. Ward! Chris Isaak! Robert Plant! Thurston Moore! All among other regulars I never tire of like Gillian Welch. I've heard good things about Devotchka too for years -- this may be a good opportunity to finally get a good listen.

But truly, after Bondy, I am most excited (and most surprised to see on the lineup list) for Conspiracy of Beards. Conspiracy of Beards is a male a capella choir which performs only the songs of Leonard Cohen, often reworked so as not to be exactly joyous, but so you don't want to kill yourself at the end of the set.

I saw Conspiracy of Beards long ago when they first formed, at the Starry Plough, and they were fantastic. What a great break for them!

Now to cross my fingers for all of the folks I want to see to play on the same day!

I've blogged in the past about the Austrian art collective Gelitin and their magnificently irreverent art projects.

I don't check in on their goings on as often as I should, but during my recent perusal of their site I was pleasantly surprised to see a ton of new projects and installations. One that particularly interested me was a recent showing at the Tim Van Laere Gallery in Belgium.

All Together Now













The visitor (m/f) is asked to pee in a urinal, the urine then runs through a transparent tube throughout the gallery and is collected in a colossal plastic bubble best described as an oval hot water bed. That (warm) bubble offers other visitors a seat, a lie-down, a wandering moment or - why not - a moment to reflect on the sense and nonsense of life itself.

I really admire Gelitin in general for their balls out art aesthetic, and this piece is no different -- challenging comfort zones and reinterpreting traditional ideas around medium and permanence.

There is also an interview with Gelitin by the gallery's Jos Van den Berg that gives a bit of background on the history of both the piece and the collective, as well as the type of experiences that inform their work. A super read.

An internet search the other day that manifested as a hit on this blog was the phrase, "knicker wetting for fun." I couldn't for the life of me figure out how I actually got a hit with that, but what serendipity.

YEEEEEEEEEE!

Song Premiere: A.A. Bondy's 'The Heart is Willing'



















(A.A. Bondy at The New Parish in Oakland, 9.7.2010, photo by moi)

New album, Believers, coming next month!

And there will be a tour, but boo -- no dates in the Bay! Really?

Common-sense design:













Change Tasklight

...insert a coin into the lamp to turn it on, and when you want to turn it off, the lamp will dispense your coin back...the lamp was designed to be used in public places like libraries, where forgetting to flip the switch is not uncommon.













Way cool.