Young 'un illustrator-designer Olly Moss's posters for Alamo Drafthouse grace the Apple movie trailer website today to promote the Rolling Road Show, a series of outdoor movie screenings in the locations where they were shot (i.e. There Will Be Blood in Bakersfield, California).
"...I can’t help it if I think unnecessary quotes are funny, as if signs are trying to be ironic. ...I’m turned off by guys who spell it 'definately.'"
"Of course they're not explicitly endorsing teen pregnancy, but by nudging teens and saying 'If you do find yourself pregnant, looking fashionable is one less thing you'll have to worry about!' the chain is going the Bristol route of unwittingly glamorizing teen pregnancy."Can we be sure that these clothes are meant for teens? Not really. Forever 21's business has exploded in recent years because the store offers tons of fashions that look good on the rack (don't wash them if you want to wear them again!) for less than $20. H&M is great (read: where I get 90% of my clothes) but the price point is markedly higher.
The thing that's always bugged me about women's magazines—not all, but 80 percent -- is their prevailing editorial attitude toward readers, women, is that they're imperfect specimens in need of fixing or are so emotionally fragile they require constant celebration. Advertisers, then, are the white knights riding in with the fix or pat on the head -- hair product, lipstick, weight-loss plan, speedy supper remedies -- and editorial generally panders to them with an excess of service stuff as well as editorial that's as vanilla as it is earnest (no irony or risky humour, please, women are too stupid to get it). For example, a while back, Chatelaine did a service piece on how to cope with fatigue, offering tips such as power napping, what to eat to avoid afternoon slumps etc. Heck, shouldn't the story be about why women are so fatigued and offer strategies on how to kick the fat butts of partners and kids who are shirking their share of the domestic load?
On the other hand, men's magazines like Esquire respect their readers no matter how imperfect, flatulent or drunk. It's the world that needs fixing, not their readers. Their nudge-wink pact with the reader is that every man coulda been James Bond if only James Bond hadn't gotten there first, the lucky bastard.
"Vogue's lawyers will not have their Fashion's Night Out trademark tarnished: They threatened to sue a fashion show in Victoria, Canada, for trademark infringement. Victoria Fashion's Night Out, which took place last night, was like a little Fashion Week where Victorian businesses showed their latest collections. Organizers had to scramble to change the name the day before the event after getting a letter from Vogue's legal team. /via The Cut, NYMag.com"It read:
'Our client did not consent to use of its Fashion's Night Out trademark by your organization or its members and is extremely concerned by this unauthorized use of its intellectual property.'"
A great critique by Sara Williams at Made by Many (via Shannon) was the first blog post I've read that gives some very real instructions to the magazine and newspaper biz about how to survive in a world of free content. Williams doesn't miss a beat here in explaining why charging consumers for content that's not enhanced by curation or context has two central and detrimental consequences: first: content can be found somewhere else, and second: being the snobby kid in the playground that doesn't want to share is not going to make anybody like or admire you more. You are not being invited to any birthday parties. It's going to be awfully hard for me to link to you next year, New York Times.
"But a kind of virtual redlining is now under way. The Webtropolis is being stratified. Even if, like most people, you still surf the Web on a desktop or laptop, you will have noticed pay walls, invitation-only clubs, subscription programs, privacy settings and other ways of creating tiers of access. All these things make spaces feel “safe” — not only from viruses, instability, unwanted light and sound, unrequested porn, sponsored links and pop-up ads, but also from crude design, wayward and unregistered commenters and the eccentric voices and images that make the Web constantly surprising, challenging and enlightening."
“The App Store must rank among the most carefully policed software platforms in history,” the technology writer Steven Johnson recently noted in The Times. Policed why? To maintain the App Store’s separateness from the open Web, of course, and to drive up the perceived value of the store’s offerings. Perception, after all, is everything: many apps are to the Web as bottled water is to tap — an inventive and proprietary new way of decanting, packaging and pricing something that could once be had free.
According to an article from the New York Times, 36-year-0ld Hello Kitty is fading in popularity (In Search of Adorable, as Hello Kitty Gets Closer to Goodbye).[Anpanman is] the main character of the anime, whose head is a bun made by Uncle Jam. His name comes from the fact that he is a man with a head made of bread (Japanese: pan, a loanword from the Portuguese word meaning "bread") that is filled with bean jam (Japanese: an) called an anpan. His weakness is water or anything that makes his head dirty. He regains his health and strength when Jam Ojisan bakes him a new head and it is placed on his shoulders. Anpanman's damaged head, with Xs in his eyes, flies off his shoulders once a new baked head lands. He was created when a shooting star landed in Uncle Jam's oven while he was baking. He is in love with Melongirl. He has two special attacks called: An-punch and An-kick (with stronger variations of both). When Anpanman comes across a starving creature or person, he lets the unfortunate creature or person eat part of his head. [Ed's note: Now you're just blowing my mind] He also has super hearing in that he can respond to anyone that calls his name out in distress from anywhere in the world.Sorry, Hello Kitty. Anpanman is way cool.
Last summer, just as we were sending our first mag to print, Lono Ranger and I went to see End of the Line. The 80-minute documentary turned me off fish and for almost 12 months, I've managed to stay away from salmon, tuna, swordfish, and halibut--the big fish. Cautiously, I'll eat little fish like herring, sardines, and sometimes mackerel... because it tastes good."While the cultural uses of meat can be replaced...there is still the question of pleasure. A vegetarian diet can be rich and fully enjoyable, but I couldn’t honestly argue, as many vegetarians try to, that it is as rich as a diet that includes meat. (Those who eat chimpanzee look at the Western diet as sadly deficient of a great pleasure.) I love calamari, I love roasted chicken, I love a good steak. But I don’t love them without limit."Finally, a vegetarian that admits that meat tastes good! And before I know it, I'm totally won over by Safran Foer's handsome prose and his sentimental portrayal of family. In the end, it might have been the writing that made me swoon more than the reasoning... when they make the movie version of this, my long and loving relationship with meat might finally end.
