Robot Action Boy

this looks like a fantastic show. it combines two of my favourite things: toys and polaroids. the book from the show is definately on my want list. for those of us who can’t afford the book or missed the show there is a flickr set for a virtual show.

another photography book to add to my wishlist. this one is of polaroids by patti smith. i haven’t found very many details about the book. but it looks to be a catalogue or related to the show she had in paris. i’ve read the book is more than just photographs including some poetry as well. while trying to find more details on the book i came across another book, this time on patti, not by her. a book of photographs by michael stipe documenting patti’s first tour in close to 20 years. interesting, but i think the land 250 is the more desirable of the two.

i really should stay away from bookstores when i’m trying to save money. when i saw this i couldn’t resist. it doesn’t have anything really new(to me) in it. it’s written in japanese – so i can’t understand most of the text. however, it does have some small pictures that appear to have been taken in the holga factory. i’m always curious about this sort of thing. in the end i bought it mainly to add to the toy camera library collection. one refreshing thing about the book is there is no mention of lomography anywhere. at least none that i can detect.

awhile back i was approached by comma press about using one of my polaroid transfers as part of the design for the cover of a book of english translations of some icelandic short stories. the book has been out for awhile now, but i finally got the book in the mail today. it’s a pretty cool feeling to see your work on the cover of a book, not to mention being able to flip it over and see your name in the credits.

watching some bongwater videos on youtube got me wondering about the film version of go ask alice. the book was one of those things many teenagers had to read in school in the hopes of scaring them away from drugs. i can’t recall if i’d acturally read the whole thing or just bits and pieces. turns out the whole movie is up on youtube. here’s the scene where she first gets introduced to drugs:

part one can be seen here. as is typical with these things, the comments by the moron brigade are pretty funny/pathetic.

recently the four corners dark blog did a write up and short interview with me about my hacking a hello kitty disposable camera. pretty fun to featured on such a cool blog.

an interesting discussion here on drum click tracks and analzying those that may or may not have used them. i’m not sure if such things are always a bad thing, but i can see how it could contribute to the staleness of music.

a bit of old news, but for those that didn’t hear, the oscars re-broadcast(ie the ones with subtitles) here in asia were censored. the words gay and lesbian were simply cut or muted. i haven’t heard any details on who made the decision to do this. i wouldn’t be surprised if it was someone in singapore eventhough the network (star) is headquartered in hong kong. a lot of chinese subtitles are done in singapore(and singapore is hardly a bastion of gay rights). movies(on tv) shown here(taiwan) in general tend to be pretty hacked up(i feel like it’s getting a lot worse too). even stations like hbo or cinemax cut their films quite a bit. sometimes it’s just a “fuck” that becomes “frick” or gore cut out so that in some cases if you haven’t seen the movie before you may be rather confused. if a station is completely local it’s less likely to be as censored. taiwan isn’t quite as homophobic as a lot of other asian countries. there’s at least one out tv host/guest, a transgender host, and locally produced gay and lesbian films have been aired on the public television channel. in this market any excuses for this kind of censorship are just ridiculous. i guess this is what happens when someone from a rather conservative viewpoint is allowed to make a decision for a large chunk of asia.