Burtonka

Burton + Willie Wonka= I want to see more movies like this. Visually incredible. So much fun to watch! I am not going to get into the debate whether the first one is better, because I just don't remember the first one. Have to see it again. But... you have to love Burton after seeing this, and what's coming next: Corpse Bride.

The You are Beautiful book project

You are beautiful is an interesting collective. One of their latest projects is the book project where the participant responds to the statements on the front & back cover. As the books are filled, the line of distinction between 'You Are' & 'I Am' Blurs. Currently there are 112 books circulating around the world.
These books will return June 30th, 2005 for an exhibition in Chicago.

Apart from that they have an sticker project, and many others.

The Naked Face

A few years ago Malcolm Gladwell published this article on the New Yorker. (the pdf version is better because it has all the graphics.) I missed it at the time, but I just run into the topic of "can you read people's thoughts just by looking at them?" reading his latest book "Blink".

Although I liked "The tipping point" better, there are some interesting stories in this book too: the story of the greek statue that didn't look right but none of the experts could really tell why, the doctor John Gottman that is able to know if a couple is going to stay together or not in 15 years based on looking at the interact for just 15 min, the power of one of the top tennis coaches Vic Branden in always knowing when a player was about to double-fault, how the CEO Jack Welch just followed his gut on his major decisions, the studies of Columbia professors Sheena Iyengar and Raymond Fisman on speed-dating, the Warren Harding error on why we fall for tall, dark and hansome man, the structure of spontaneity based on a improv team, how to understand first impressions, the truth behind the Pepsi challenge, how difficult it was to launch the now highly successful Aeron chair by Herman Miller because it was just too ugly, etc.

The thought project

"Over a period of 3 months I stopped 150 strangers on the street and asked them what they were thinking about the second before I stopped them. Using a mic and a dictaphone I recorded what they told me, then took a picture od them. 55 of the 150 are presented on this website as quotes. All quotes state exactly what was said during the interviews. The interviews took place in Copenhagen, Denmark, and NYC."

(via room 156)

The Kite Runner

"One day, I was at a video store in Freemont. A guy next to me pointed to the Magnificient Seven and asked me if I had seen it. "Yes, thirteen times" I said. "Charles Bronson dies in it, so do James Coburn and Robert Vaughn". He gave me a pinch-faced look, that was when I learned that in America, you don't reveal the ending of the movie, and if you do, you will be scorned and made to apologize profusely for having committed the sin of Spoiling the End. In Afghanistan, the ending was all that mattered. When Hassan and I came home after watching a Hindi film at Cinema Zainab, what Ali, Rahim Khan and Baba wanted to know was this: Did the girl in the film find happiness? Did the guy in the film become kamyab and fulfill his dreams, or was he doomed to wallow in failure? Was there happiness at the end, they wanted to know."

- The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini.

An amazing book about the changes in the life in Afghanistan told through the eyes of its children. Maybe if we all read more books like this, there would be less hate towards foreign cultures. Maybe.

Karen Beard

I love this photographer. You can see more of her stuff here here or on her personal site.

The Adcenter's blog

The adcenter has a blog and a newsletter. Just found out that Britton & Dana and Dinesh & Karen had babies... congrats!

Aubrey Beardsley

Siempre me ha encantado este artista art noveau. Pero hoy.. se me ha olvidado su nombre. La edad.... uff.

(thanks April for catching the typo!... ups.)

Empollando el mapa

Lo mejor de las vacaciones es que desde que te compras la guía te da la sensación que estás un poco allí ya. Nosotras no nos vamos hasta dentro de un mes.. pero aquí ando emocionada con la tocho guía. El planning se lo dejamos a Elaine, que para eso es horiunda del lugar.

Pero a los que hayáis estado... se admiten sugerencias miles! gracias. Besos!!
Mami... todavía te acuerdas? Que 12 años allí dan para mucho!

Sara Fanelli

Looking around at Strand I found the work of this really interesting illustrator. You can see her work here.

Kyoko Hamada

Si todo va bien trabajaremos con Kyoko. Me encanta el surrealismo super sutil de sus fotos. Podéis ver más aquí.

Sailing around Lower Manhattan

Nora had the brilliant idea to organize a pirate party. A bunch of friends, wine and cheese, a schooner from 1885: the Pioneer and the sunset on an beautiful night. Amazing!
And when we got out, a tango festival at the Pier. I want to learn to tango soooo bad !!

Kundera, always Kundera

I have not been able to get my head around certain things lately. But I found this today and made me peace out a bit. Kundera, always Kundera. This time in the afterword of "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting". He talks about a novel, but it can be applied to so many things...

"A novel does not assert anything, a novel searches and poses questions. The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything. When Don Quijote went out into the world, that world turned into a mystery before his eyes. That's the legacy of the first European novel to the entire subsequent history of the novel. The novelist teaches the reader to comprehend the world as a question. There is wisdom and tolerance in that attitude. In a world built on sacrosanct certainties the novel is dead. The totalitarian world, whether founded on Marx, Islam or anything else, is a world of answers rather than questions. There, the novel has no place. In any case, it seems to me that all over the world people prefer to judge rather than to understand, to answer rather than to ask, so that the voice of the novel can hardly be heard over the noisy foolishness of human certainties."

Here, to all the inspiring people that wander through life with open eyes, full of questions and uncertainties, to the nonjudgemental, the tolerant and the respectful ones. Unfortunately, to the fewer ones.

Me and you and everyone we know

Ayer vimos una de esas pelis super especiales. Difícil de describir, y mejor no hacerlo para no revelar demasiado. Me quedo con eso de que en Sundance ganó el "Premio del Jurado por la visión más original."
Miranda July escribe, dirige y protagoniza esta película que simplemente es una visita al interior de su cabeza y donde ella hace de sí misma, una artista experimental empezando en un suburbio americano que parece LA pero podría ser cualquier sitio.
Super personal, encantadora pero perversa a veces, presenta las contradicciones que todos tenemos dentro.
Podéis ver un trailer aquí.

London 7J

Puff.

From: eider suso /To: eider suso

Hoy tenía un día algo empanadilla (menuda novedad....) porque además la tormenta de ayer me dejó una migraña de esas de campeonato y esta mañana estaba con esa cabeza que se te queda tonta, de que no sabes si estás aquí, o allí, o dónde.
El caso es que estaba tomando el café tan tranquilamente, cuando se ilumina la pantallita esta de "tiene usted un mensaje", y cuando miro veo que... era de "eider suso".
He pensado que me lo he debido enviar a mi misma... pero no. Lo más alucinante es que abro el correo y me encuentro a una tal eider suso que no soy yo!!!
(A ver, aclaración: supongo que Pedro Sánchez, Luis García o María Pérez no encuentran esta historia nada relevante. Pero yo... no os lo podeis imaginar !!!! ) Puede existir otra persona con combinación tan extraña? Puede haber alguien más que de peque en el colegio mentía a sus amigos y les decía que en realidad se llamaba Ana para evitar esas inevitables rondas de: "cómo? aida? cómo? heidi? cómo eida?".... Puede haber otra pobre por ahí deseosa de llamar a sus hijos Juan y Pedro para no complicarles la vida? Puede haber otra vasca a la que le preguntan si es alemana, eslovaca, sueca o rumana?????
Pues sí sí. Existe otra !!! Y googleleándose ... me ha encontrado a mi y me escribía con curiosidad porque no le había pasado esto nunca. Toma, qué cosas !!! Es periodista, vive en Bilbo y me ha escrito en inglés. Todavía no hemos descubierto si tenemos algo en común más que el nombre. Pero ahora sé que si alguna vez no puedo usar un billete de avión siempre se lo puedo regalar a ella.

Uff.. qué pequeño es el mundo. Y qué repetidos estamos todos.

Stefanie Augustine

I met Stefanie at the ADC Illustrators review and loved her work. Check it out here.

ONE

ONE is a new effort by Americans to rally Americans to fight the emergency of global AIDS and extreme poverty. ONE believes that allocating an additional ONE percent of the U.S. budget toward providing basic needs like health, education, clean water and food would transform the futures and hopes of an entire generation in the world’s poorest countries. (right now less than ONE percent of the federal budget is currently marked for development assistance). ONE also calls for debt cancellation, trade reform and anti-corruption measures in a comprehensive package to help Africa and the poorest nations beat AIDS and extreme poverty.

If the U.S. were to devote an additional ONE percent—one cent for every dollar spent by the federal government—to helping the world’s poorest people help themselves, America would demonstrate a commitment to the Millennium Goals, an internationally agreed upon effort to halve global poverty by 2015.

ONE and the Live 8 concerts will send President Bush to the upcoming G8 summit on July 6-8th on a wave of support for doing more to fight AIDS and extreme poverty. At the G8, President Bush can lead an historic effort for compassion and justice, with America doing its leadership share.

They don't want your money, just your awareness. Sign up here.

Yellow Arrow

Yellow Arrow is a spatial annotation project that started in Brooklyn in which anyone can mark places of interest with sticker and tell a story about it. People print out and place yellow arrows in a public place of their choice. They make a digital photo and post the images with a personal description on the site; these are linked from a map on the website. When other people come across a yellow arrow in a public place, they can call from their mobile phone and access the information from the site.

This summer, the yellow arrow people launched 2 new projects. One is Secret NY. A web with a map with all the arrows all over the city. The short individual audio messages will this time be composed from unconventional urban research, interviews with everyday New Yorkers about their daily lives, as well as conversations with NYC experts. It is not a walking tour or an historical investigation, it's simply a new way to tell stories about the city, capture subjective experiences and ultimately, offer new perspectives on the place.

And the other is Experimental Travel, a project with Lonely Planet. Experimental Travel is for those people who like their travel a little less formulaic. It is not about checking off the major sights or following your guidebook to the letter; it's a playful way of travelling, where the journey's methodology is clear but the destination is usually unknown. Experimental Travel renders all destinations equal - be it a burger shack or the Taj Mahal.

'Experimental Travel is travel with constraints, that at the same time liberates you from the limitations and expectations of classic tourism. By travelling with the constraints of Experimental Travel, you conversely have more freedom'.
- Joël Henry, founder of Latourex (Laboratory of Experimental Travel)

Greater NYC

We went to P.S.1 to check this exhibit. It's been going on for a while now, but it was cool to go on a saturday because now they have parties with djs, drinks and barbacue. The exhibit was pretty worth it. P.S.1 is an old school building owned by Moma dedicated to up and coming artitst. From the 160 artist showing their work... I loved a bunch of them, but the P.S.1 web has no easy links to their personal webs, so it's kind of hard to share. A shame.