References to the abuse of pink and octopi, a nudie flip book sequence with an ode to spider webs voice over and a series of all-to-brief, intimate conversational excerpts found in the trailer for Eileen Yaghoobian’s doc about rock posters all leave me hoping it way to the states much sooner than later.

The film’s description and featured artist list from the site only serve to hammer the anticipation home. See for yourself:

Died Young, Stayed Pretty is a candid look at the underground poster culture in North America. This unique documentary examines the creative spirit that drives these indie graphic artists. They pick through the dregs of America’s schizophrenic culture and piece them back together…Yaghoobian shows these artists for what they are: the vivisectionists of America’s morbidly obese consumer culture.

Brian Chippendale • Art Chantry • Print Mafia • Andrew Bird • DMBQ • Clyde Jones • Ron Liberti • Tom Hazelmyer • Stephen McClellan • Bryce McCloud • Seripop • Ames Bros • Methane Studios • El Bado/William Ballard • Tyler Stout • Rob Jones • Jay Ryan • Mat Daly • Nick Butcher • Keith Herzik • Steve Walters • Shawn Wolfe • Noel Waggener • Jeff Kleinsmith • Mig Kokinda • Dale Flattum • Mike King • Dan Schlissel • Stainboy • Uncle Charlie • American Poster Institute

via: Eileen Yaghoobian / diedyoungstayedpretty.com

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Dustin Humphrey’s new work for the Insight DOPAMINE campaign and video does for surfing what Crazy Dan Sturt did for skateboarding with booms and other assorted means of breaking envelopes beyond the fisheye. Brilliant.

via: ffffound / designyoutrust

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My friend Jess Gibson has been busy in the NEMO basement making strides on his side film project with Portland designer Aaron Draplin appropriately titled, The Draplin Thing. From the sound of things at Jess’s site, editing is closing in on completion — just as soon as they get back from the World’s Largest Yard Sale.

Check out the new trailer (Draplin vs. USA) and join us in the ranks of those eagerly awaiting a deeper look into the mind of a true American original.

via: Jess Gibson / Draplin Design Co., North America

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“Dan’s work bears the hallmark of his intelligence…”
—Liz Siegel, The Art Institute of Chicago

Artist, photographer and old friend Dan Estabrook, who’s show I recently posted about, has been included in Anthropy Arts, The Photographers Series. A new DVD series that provides the first comprehensive study of today’s most influential photographers.

That’s perfectly fitting description of Dan and his decades-long exploration of vision and technique which began around the time of our late-night Harvard darkroom stints, when he would sneak me in between skate and zine-making sessions.

From Anthropy Arts:

Working exclusively in 19th century processes, Dan Estabrook produces intimate, yet compelling photographs that illustrate the beauty of long forgotten methods.
- - -
Dan Estabrook discovered photography through the underground magazines of the punk-rock and skateboard culture of the 1980’s. As an undergraduate at Harvard, he worked with Christopher James, from whom he learned alternative photographic processes as well as ways to combine his disparate artistic interests.

It’s great to see another document serving up the recogntion Desta deserves. 

Dan’s skate zine Contort is also traveling with the show, There Is Xerox on the Insides of Your Eyelids.

The Photographers Series: Dan Estabrook (trailer)

via: Anthropy Arts / Pathetica / Desta: Flickr

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Here’s a re-up of David Lynch’s Ghost of Love from the Inland Empire soundtrack and a older post, with props for the curious folks that let me know that the previous link was dead. Communication is always welcome and appreciated. Well, almost always, I suppose (although some spam is ridiculous enough to actually enjoy). Said exceptions aside, notification of the need for re-ups are never filed under that category, so thanks again.

And a funny thing happened on the way to this re-up…

While in the process of digging for a new header/gallery link image, I was reminded of a scene in Inland Empire that reminded me of one from another film. The film, Meshes of the Afternoon by Maya Deren had such an impact on me as a young film student (preparing to drop out of art school to work at a skateboarding magazine) that I named my daughter after the woman who made it.

I wonder if Lynch intended the shot as an homage? It wouldn’t surprise me at all considering Deren was as much of a risk-taking, visual-narrative driven, abstract filmmaker as Lynch. She hasn’t been referred to as the High Priestess of Experimental Cinema for nothing. Plus, Meshes of the Afternoon deals with transitive states of consciousness shot in a nearly seamless linear flow, leaving a more obscure line for the viewer to strain their mind in their attempt to follow. Classic Lynch, classical Deren…

Although I’ve got a more focused post about Deren in the works, in the spirit of serendipity, homage and the Silver Jews’ Open Field nod I’m about to post about, I thought I’d upload the scenes from both for your own comparison, edification and amusement.

Screens via the image above, Ghost of Love re-up below.

David Lynch: Ghost of Love (9.2mb, mp3.zip, MF)

Previous, link-laden s|b posts:
strange what love does
strange what love does (redux)

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It’s really weird that I haven’t dug deeper into this subject matter before. Not just here, but generally as well. The sense of nostalgia that arrives while digging through this stuff has little influence on my sense of awe at the impact of the work itself and the signature beauty it continues to maintain.

I remember seeing a couple of light shows as a kid. I think they were at a local library. Certainly (unfortunately) not a Hendrix show. I remember being moderately appreciative. It wasn’t until later, at the right time and state, that I’d get it. I mean, the cross-disciplined, like-minded collaborative tactile effort is inspiring in itself, given the insular state of the work most of us do today— nestled behind our monitors. And the results, so entwined in the act of creation. So directly linked with the chemically agape audience…

OK, so maybe nostalgia does have a part to play.

Regardless, it seems that with few exceptions these performances overshadow any similar projection work that has followed since. This is especially true in regard to the Boyle family. Surely, well known in the old guard of psyche cognoscenti, but new to me — by name at least.

More to come.

Boyle Family: 01 / 02 / 03
Tate Show ‘05

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GSD.

Unless your skateboarding enthusiasm pre-dates 1990, chances are good you’ve never heard of him. That’s about to change.

Garry Scott Davis is a prolific, obsessive-compulsive collector/creation-engine currently working and living in Lake Forest, California. He is one of skateboarding’s forefathers. He invented the boneless one, and was the first street skater with a pro street deck. For the past decade he’s been playing in bands with “Floor” in their names, Custom and Carpet respectively. His zine Skate Fate, was not only the first and longest running in skatezine history (1981-91), it was also one of the most creative (grip tape, Del Mar pool tiles, an issue issue folded up into a kite). Though Winford Thomas has been relegated to the past, and still staples xeroxed piles of paper to this day.

GSD is one of the true fathers of grunge design.

Others may have carried it into the public eye, but all one needs to do is rifle through mid-to-late 80s issues of Skate Fate to see where crossed-out/truncated type and xerox crunk was “discovered”. The evidence is there, in xeroxed and stapled black and white.

I was Assistant AD to GSD when David Carson left Transworld and the AD title to him. At the advice of my film professor, I quit art school to work that dream job, and Garry gave me all the foundations in graphic design i still draw from to this day. He once made me adjust the leading of a long-ass article by a few picas. This was before pixels. When it required x-acto knifing each waxed line out and physically adjusting them all with a pica ruler and straight edge. He checked them all too. What a bastard. I still have the x-acto knife I borrowed from him to do it.

We’ve kept in touch since then, occasionally swapping envelopes of recent work and xeroxed ephemera. It appears I’ve got some catch-up to do, having recently received a copy of the long out-of-print skate art book, Dysfunctional which Garry authored with Aaron Rose and C.R.Stecyk III. It remains the pinnacle skateart book to this day — one just turned up on amazon.uk for $705. I was stoked to see a couple of my zines in there, along with so many others from that time.

Also included in the classically re-purposed envelope were a handful of Carpet Floor discs to add to my collection of Garry’s musical explorations. Having grown weary of most guitar-accompanied vocals, I was never as big a fan of Custom Floor as I wanted to be. Carpet Floor on the other hand, is right up there with a lot of the instrumental contemporary psyche and experimental stuff I’ve been digging so much lately. With the exception of some righteous chanting it’s pure, spontaneous instrumental goodness and has been filling my home since it arrived.

At a time when heroes were meant to be killed, GSD filled the role as an enigma, a good friend and an inspiration. He remains so on all accounts to this day.

Mass Ejection / Case Sensitive (3.4mb, mp3,mf)
Majestic / Discreet Meds (7.4mb, mp3, mf)
Hovering Pillows / On the Resurgance of Power Ballads (22.4mb, mp3, mf)
Blow Out / Pour Some Fructose On Me (8mb, mp3, mf)

GSD / Custom Floor / Carpet Floor /
TWS Interview / Apple Memorial Site / El Cortez session
Eye Deck reissue!

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Merzboy has gone conceptual and I’ve been following along. The latest post surrounds a stack of films by Toshio Matsumoto entitled, Experimental Film Works (1961-1987). The collection charts Matsumoto’s decades-long course of exploration in film, presented in downloadable AVI format. I haven’t dug through them all yet (time, how much and what to do with it…), but the few that i have seen are absolutely flooring.

For the Damaged Right Eye is a dual-lobed, split-screen montage charting the unrest, sexuality and pop-culture of the late 1960’s. Sexual topography, typography and riot police coupled with grooving heads and the intermittent overlay of grid-breaking sequences of film and imagery constitute the bulk of my favorite so far. Both FtDRE and Ectasis paved the way for, and were eventually incorporated into Matsumoto’s 1969 film, Funeral Parade of Roses.

True to the collection’s title, all of Matsumoto’s films trace a diverse trajectory through years of work and wide-ranging experimentation. The Weavers of Nishijin classically captures the process of Nishijin textile manufacture in rich black and white reminiscent of Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai era. The minimalist Atman explores the concept of the one-true-self in masked deity-form, set in a field of psychedelic (dis)coloration. A continuation of Matsumoto’s recurrent conjuring of Buddhist/Hindu deities in pulsing, interstitial fields of color and script that leaves me longing for subtitles.

Thanks no doubt to his roots in painting, Matsumoto’s films are the type that demand to be experienced rather than passively observed. Lucky for us, Merz has pointed the way toward a drove of them to dive through, via UBUWEB.

The Weavers of Nishijin (1961) (avi, 317mb)
For the Damaged Right Eye (1968) (avi, 154mb)
Ecstasis (1969) (avi, 123mb)
Atman (1975) (avi, 329mb)
Everything Visible Is Empty (1975) (avi, 167mb)
White hole (1979) (avi, 126mb)

via: Merzboy Goes Conceptual / The Grey Lodge / UBUWEB

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One of the first posts here was centered around David Lynch’s latest and most impactful movies to date, Inland Empire. I have yet to set my thoughts and interpretations to keyboard (which means I probably won’t) but suffice it to say, Inland Empire inspired plenty. As if the novel process by which it was “written” and the fact that it was shot entirely in low res digital weren’t inspiring enough…

“Film, at least for me, is dead. I never want to go back. Even thinking about it now makes me feel weak and sick.” —David Lynch, AE

I’ve been looking forward to the DVD release of Inland Empire not only because it offered a third of many more viewings to come, but because it suggested that the soundtrack would become available too. More specifically, it meant that I’d finally get my hands on a full-length version of Ghost of Love, one of Lynch’s own additions to the score. Initially heard on the first trailer, it has haunted me ever since.

Toward the exorcism of such ghosts and as a completion to this thread, Ghost of Love can be found below. I’ve also included links to several interviews with Lynch covering topics related to Inland Empire ranging from influences, process, digital cinematography and transcendental meditation.

David Lynch: Ghost of Love (9.2MB, mp3.zip, mediafire)

Inland Empire: DVD (Limited Edition) / Soundtrack
Interviews: AE / Salon / RS / Brattle Theatre (intro /q&a) via: Bradley’s Almanac

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Gary Hustwit’s brilliant documentary tracing the origin, history and controversy surrounding the world’s most ubiquitous typeface is now available for pre-order.

I caught Helvetica’s first Portland screening at the PDX Film Fest back in April, and have been waiting for news of it’s DVD release ever since. If you haven’t had the chance to see Helvetica, I highly recommend keeping an eye out for future screenings and doing so before it leaves the screen.

In the event you miss it, the extras-heavy DVD release promises to be an engrossing experience of it’s own — especially the Deluxe edition which includes: the retail DVD, three letterpressed mini-posters, a color C-print of a still from the film (one of ten different stills) signed by director, two love/hate Helvetica buttons, and a letter of actual Helvetica metal type!

Limited to an edition of 1,000 copies. 999 actually, excluding my own…

Better get on it!

Helvetica: stills, video, blog, shop
Helvetica reviewed: Metropolis / Chicago Tribune / Design Observer

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