Archive for April, 2007
The Land of Coulda Shoulda
April 26th, 2007You probably already know that I’m crazy about theme parks, both real and imagined. So it kinda blew my mind when I came across these concept drawings for an unbuilt Hanna-Barbera theme park which Dan Goodsell shared at his Sampler of Things weblog. The six-year-old inner me is jumping up and down at the thought […]
Bollywood by Ear
April 25th, 2007Swapatorium shares a few nuggets from Musical Highlights from R.K. Films, an LP which appears to be an early compilation of Indian film music for the English-speaking audience. Coincidentally, I was in the mood for some cool Bollywood music this month, so I used some of my eMusic credits to download 2005’s Bollywood: An Anthology […]
Teach Me Tiger
April 24th, 2007The commentary on 25 great Calvin and Hobbes strips encapsulates why this was perhaps the greatest daily newspaper comic strip ever (via Pop Culture Junk Mail). My absolulety favorite time was the c.1990 series when Calvin was making snowmen and explaining his creations the way a fine artist would (i.e. full of hifalutin’ bullshit). Maybe […]
LOL in Activity
April 22nd, 2007I’d file Something Awful’s hilarious parody of Cartoon Brew in the “better late than never” category since it came out on the 12th. It’s still funny, though. From the obituary of fictional old-as-dirt animator Terp Henderson:
Though most of Terp’s work has gone unseen by the public, he will mainly be remembered by the competent cel-painting […]
The Sunny Side of Sad
April 20th, 2007This morning I was having my usual idle TV watching session and was disappointed to find that Turner Classic Movies replaced their longstanding “Sunny Side of Life” movie intros with a more generic intro showing contemporary footage of morning commuters, pigeons and tall buildings. Yawn. This was inevitable, since the channel’s previously chaotic on-air visual […]
Book Review: Mingering Mike
April 18th, 2007Today I start a new and (hopefully) continuing scrubbles.net feature in which new books which fall under the “pop culture/art/design/retro goodness” umbrella are reviewed. Our first subject is Mingering Mike: The Amazing Career of an Imaginary Soul Superstar from Princeton Architectural Press.
The story behind this book really started in late 2003, when Washington D.C. deejay […]
Objects in Darwinsanity
April 17th, 2007Here’s something for intelligent designers — online mag Inkling (no, I haven’t heard of it either) is holding a contest to redesign the Darwin fish seen on so many cars (via UnBeige). What the entries lack in polish they gain in the funny dept.
Let’s All Go to the Mall
April 13th, 2007Keith Milford of the terrific Malls of America shares a short video of Phoenix’s Metrocenter circa 1990 (you can tell when it was videotaped because that lame-o “Baby I Love Your Way/Freebird” song is playing in one of the shots). I visited Metrocenter only once as a child, but it was amazingly clean, white and […]
What a Relief It Is
April 12th, 2007Watching the Discovery Channel’s Planet Earth makes me wish we had an HD-equipped television. It looks nice enough on a regular 36-inch flat screen, however.
Last weekend, we caught the latest two installments on our tiny 12-inch Sanyo backup television. As usual we were wowed by the gorgeous photography and the unprecedented footage of unusual […]
Idol Chatter
April 10th, 2007I was thinking I haven’t posted anything “artsy” here for a while, until this interview with illustrator Calef Brown came up via Drawn! Brown is one of my idols going back 15 years or so, and it’s good to read that he seems like a nice, down-to-earth kind of fellow.
Moogs and Beer, a Heady Combination
April 9th, 2007I totally dig this old Schafer beer commercial with Edd Kalehoff noodling on a moog synthesizer. It’s the very personification of grooviness. Kalehoff composed the early Price Is Right showcase music, which probably explains why this commercial’s soundtrack has a familiar feel. The clip comes from the DVD for the stupifyingly boring 2004 documentary Moog.
Our […]
Betsy McCall’s Easter Eggcitement
April 8th, 2007We just finished doing a three day road trip to Northern Arizona. Part of our stay was in the town of Winslow (as in “Standing on a corner in …”). The town is a dingy, depressing little place with one beautifully restored hotel to recommend it, the La Posada. We also went to the town’s […]
The $4-A-Day Habit
April 4th, 2007SFGate.com online columnist Mark Morford rants against Starbucks. Despite having a link to Starbucks’ iTunes music store on the front page of this very weblog, I found the piece hilarious and very insightful. Mostly what I can’t figure out about Starbucks is the amount of moms who bring their preteen children there to buy them […]
Brazilian Beauties at Sabadabada
April 3rd, 2007Have you checked out the vintage Brazilian music sharing site Sabadabada.com lately? I hadn’t been there for a while, but their two newest albums immediately caught my ear. One is from a trio called Os 3 Morais. Don’t be fooled by their stodgy album cover (is that lady Toni Collette, by the way?) — this […]
Spinach Not Included
April 3rd, 2007Well, blow me down. Cartoon Brew announces that the first sixty Max Fleischer produced Popeye cartoons are coming to DVD in July, restored and with lots of bonus features. I’m not as big on the Popeye as with other cartoon stars, but admittedly this looks plenty nifty and the understatedly retro package design is lovely […]