The Land of Coulda Shoulda
You 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 of a Jetsons ride-thru, and that Flintstones Freeway ride looks like a blast and a half.
On a semi-related note, drink in the appealingly modern simplicity of Disney artist Walt Peregoy’s 101 Dalmatians color key art. Thanks to Amid at Cartoon Modern for sharing these. Wow.
Bollywood by Ear
Swapatorium 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 of Songs from Popular Indian Cinema comp. I just sampled the first disc of this double-disc set, which covers the years 1949-1977. Although four tracks overlap with the Rough Guide to Bollywood CD I already had, it’s a nicely kitschy and diverse set with plenty of vocals from the ageless and legendary Asha Bhosle. My all time fave song of that sort still has to be Ms. Bhosle’s “Dum Maro Dum” from 1971′s Haré Rama Haré Krishna. The hugely popular film served as Bollywood’s comment on the shallowness of the Western hippie movement, and that tune came as wild and wooly as it got. The sheer number of movies/soundtracks that Bollywood churns out is mind-boggling (eMusic lists an astonishing 4,020 albums under that genre), but those two comps serve as good introductions for the adventurous Western listener.
Bonus goodie: “Dum Maro Dum” on YouTube. Dig it.
Teach Me Tiger
The 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 it sprung from the fact that I was studying fine art at the time, but those particular strips really struck a nerve with me.
LOL in Activity
I’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 on such Disney shorts as Trolley Follies, Clarabell Cow Eats a Straw Hat, Love that Horseless Carriage! and the canceled 1940 adaptation of Mein Kampf.
The Sunny Side of Sad
This 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 identity has been gradually moving to a more consistent “cityscape” theme over the past year. Supposedly this is part of an overall effort to attract more youthful viewers, but mostly the new imagery comes across as safe and borning. One TCM forum poster likened this new intro to a late-’80s Levis ad, and I’d have to agree. “Sunny Side” must have played in our home at least a thousand times, but I never got tired of the spot’s calming animation, Edward Hopper-like visuals, and Chet Baker’s voice/trumpet. Oh well.
At least TCM still does one visual identity with a sense of style and panache: the “This Month” promos. Vintage clips expertly edited with a current, edgy song on the soundtrack can actually make old movies look hip. Look at the beautiful job they did using Beck’s “Lonesome Tears” (this one’s from 2003, I believe):
Book Review: Mingering Mike
Today 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 and record collector Dori Hadar found a cache of unusual LPs during a vinyl hunting trip. The records weren’t records at all but intricately drawn artworks representing the works of one “Mingering Mike” — a mythical Soul/R&B performer whose career encompassed dozens of works on several different made-up labels. Hadar took photos of the albums and shared them in the Soul Strut forums, and his findings became the talk of the internet. As the story spread among crate-diggers, then bloggers, then the mainstream media, everyone wanted to know the identity of the enigmatic person behind these appealingly funky folk art creations. Eventually Hadar located the man — and the whole fascinating journey of these pieces, from their creation to their rediscovery, is told in this book.
I think one of the main things that initially attracted me to these pieces is how they express the need to project oneself onto the things you enjoy. This guy found so much to identify with in his favorite musical performers that he attached this stylin’ alter ego to it, building an intricate world around him in the process (that’s the way I interpret them, anyhow). Adding to the charm is the fact that he used whatever was at hand — scraps of cardboard, children’s tempura paint, ball point pens. The pieces are clumsy and childlike, obsessively detailed and situated in a quintessential early ’70s world of afros, Nixon-era social issues, and kung-fu movies. Mike’s album art, sketches and poems are lovingly presented here in large format alongside text telling where he was at that time, and why he abruptly retired Mingering Mike in the late ’70s. It’s a fascinating story that overlaps between the worlds of music and outsider art. There’s even a nifty Mingering Mike discography in the back!
Mingering Mike: The Amazing Career of an Imaginary Soul Superstar will be released May 1st. Pre-order at Amazon.com here.
Objects in Darwinsanity
Here’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
Keith 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 big. Some of that amazingness has been preserved in the movie Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. My favorite part of the video is the shot of Goldwater’s with its textured gold brick wall on the mall’s entranceway. Goldwater’s was a mainstay on the Phoenix shopping scene, a swanky destination which unfortunately got bought out by Macy’s in the ’80s. I loved those gold bricks.
What a Relief It Is
Watching 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 animals in their habitats. I even like how they’re not shy about showing the reality of nature — namely, that cute lil’ baby animals become afternoon snacks for all sorts of predators. These last few episodes have been especially high on the carnage: a few seals, a couple of penguins, a fluffy gosling (pathetically peeping for mercy, no less), an adorable little miniature bunny, and most spectacularly an elephant falling prey to a pride of lions. It’s uncomfortable to watch, but that’s the nature of nature — leaving it out would make the series nothing more than a bunch of pretty pictures. My only caveats are that Discovery replaced the original BBC narration by Richard David Attenborough with a bland Sigourney Weaver, and the commercial breaks seem too awkwardly shoehorned into the program’s narrative. Better wait for the DVD for a purer viewing experience.
Anyway, the whole point of this post was to tell about our television woes. Our Dell flat screen had been showing some weird horizontal lines once the TV was left on for a couple of hours. It would start off subtly, but the longer the television stayed on the more lines would appear, until the top half of the screen would stretch horizontally into a flickery mess. This problem was so bizarre that we couldn’t find any reference to it on the internet. Since the set was out of warranty, Dell wouldn’t help. Or so we thought. We went ahead with pursuing a refund via American Express, and in the process we spoke with Dell again. A simple procedural call turned into Dell offering to replace the TV free of charge (wow!). We got our new set this afternoon and the picture looks lovely. The old set has already been shipped away, and life is good. Back to Planet Earth in large screen. Until this new TV starts crapping out, that is.
Idol Chatter
I 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
I 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 next film is a late-’70s promotional clip with producer/synth pioneer Giorgio Moroder. Despite coming across like a pretentious twit in this film, I still find his music so fascinating, so evocative of coke snorting parties and Helmut Newton fashion shoots. As a matter of fact, I’m working on compiling a mix of some of Moroder’s more underrated ’80s productions (Melissa Manchester’s “Thief of Hearts”, anyone?). Check out the man’s voluminous discography here.
Betsy McCall’s Easter Eggcitement
We 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 sole antique store and bought up a couple of vintage early ’70s McCall’s magazines for a quarter each. Betsy McCall paper dolls were a popular running feature in this magazine for years, but this one from 1973 must have been near the end of her run.
The $4-A-Day Habit
SFGate.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 a morning pick-me-up. I just want to shake those ladies good and slap them across their collective faces — first off, it’s too expensive and secondly, why are you indulging you precious little ones this way? Stupid ass moms.
Brazilian Beauties at Sabadabada
Have 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 is cool, cool stuff. The music is more in a jazzy, ’60s-mod vocals vein than you’d expect coming from south of the equator, highlighted by the perfectly dreamy “ba ba ba” voices on the tune “Sambachiana”. Read Jonny Delicado’s review for more.
Their other cool album is the self-titled release from the groovy looking Quinteto Ternura. This 1974 LP resonates with an appealing lite-funk sound combining beautifully blended male and female voices. I’d categorize the group as a Brazilian hybrid of the Fifth Dimension and the Jackson 5. As Trio Ternura, they’d previously recorded the deliriously hyper “Vou Morar No Teu Sorriso”. Don’t know much else about them, but their LP is a treat. And it’s free, baby!
Spinach Not Included
Well, 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 (is that 3-D, or what?).
