The first time I ever actually saw augmented reality, I was living in Albany, NY. My friend loaded LAYAR onto his phone and we walked around our neighborhood, watching real estate data instantiate alongside buildings.
My uncle used to refer to New Year’s Eve as amateur night. That was because, well, he was a high-functioning alcoholic, and most social drinkers are not as well-versed in the dubious art of driving under the influence. (Hence all the fatal car crashes on the last night of each year.) Anyhow, when I saw this Jules de Balincourt painting, titled “Amateur Night” (2004), it made perfect sense to me.
Soul Man (1986/Howell/Chong/Miner) — Can we start a serious discussion on how inadvertently brilliant and terribly racist this film is?
Back in November 2010, Austin Hargrave wrote about his experience photographing the homeless who live in the tunnels beneath Las Vegas. His photographs appeared in Matthew O’Brien’s book, Beneath the Neon, which documents the people who live (for a variety of reasons) in the drainage tunnels beneath the city. With homelessness numbers in Las Vegas tripling since 2009, it makes you wonder if the tunnels have seen an influx of residents in the last year. Read More »
"This Ends Here" by David Lyle. Oil on panel, 2010.
Last year I kept seeing this image (pictured) pop up all over Tumblr, but never with any attribution. Somewhere along the line, though I don’t remember when or how, I learned that photographer turned painter David Lyle was responsible. Good for me, right? Anyhow, looking into his background I discovered that Lyle uses snapshots found at thrift stores, garage sales, and flea markets as source material for his oil paintings; he also prefers photographs from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Whether this painting is fantasy from Lyle’s mind or based on a real photo plucked from a thrift store bin remains unclear. Hopefully it’s the latter.
Colonel Sanders and Alice Cooper, date unknown.
When I first saw this picture of Colonel Sanders and Alice Cooper, earlier this year, I wondered what reason these two men might have to spend time together. While it may be a stretch, I imagine their meeting had something to do with the “Chicken Incident” of 1969. Read More »
