Duck Goes Moo!

German architecture company Vitra has a campus dedicated to exploring and showcasing their innovations in modern architecture.  One of the more amazing buildings there just opened: the VitraHaus.

Located on the northern side of the campus in front of the fenced perimeter of the production premises, the VitraHaus joins two other buildings in this area, the Vitra Design Museum by Frank Gehry (1989) and the Conference Pavilion by Tadao Ando (1993).

 

- from DesignMilk.com

The complexity of the interior space arises not only from the angular intersection of the individual houses but also from the integration of a second geometrical concept. All of the staircases are integrated into expansive, winding organic volumes that figuratively eat their way through the various levels of the building like a worm, sometimes revealing fascinating visual relationships between the various houses, at other times blocking the view. The interior walls are finished in white in order to give priority to the furniture displays.

 

- from DesignMilk.com

Simply breathtaking, though perhaps not big on privacy, though I imagine this is not the main point. I just wish the horizon was a little more verdant, but perhaps this is just winter time and they are having a seasonal shortage of foliage.

picture from nytimes.com

The Flaming Lips frontman, Wayne Coyne, had a house/music studio built for him in the midst of the crack-addled neighborhood he grew up in.  Actually, he bought a several buildings he calls “The Compound”.  Trying to help revitalize the neighborhood in a bizarre gentrification scheme (I suspect his goal is to change each crack-house into an acid-house one by one).

picture from fitzsimmons architects

Living here, he says, gives him freedom. “You can do what you want — when we rehearse, nobody ever complains about the noise.”

- from nytimes.com

picture from fitzsimmons architects

…the living situation has been difficult at times, especially with the area’s high crime rate. “If we hadn’t been able to expand” and create a buffer zone, Mr. Coyne said, “we’d have been in trouble.” Seven years ago, they purchased the home that belonged to their next-door neighbors and demolished it; the three other houses and two other lots have since expanded their property to about two acres.

- from nytimes.com

from fitzsimmons-arch.com

Personally, my favorite part of this whole house is the bathroom, which looks like something from a David Lynch movie.

picture from fitzsimmons-arch.com

Yeah, if I won the lottery and got millions of dollars I could see myself buying a bunch of buildings in St. Louis and making something like this in South City.  Or maybe just buy a tall building in Downtown West and put a weird cafe at the bottom of it.  Well, I guess money can’t buy you happiness, but it can add a lot of variety to your life, like missing a dinner date because you got lost in your own shower.

Come 2011 there shall be a new Ghostbusters movie, for real this time and not just a false alarm brought up by the creating of the Ghostbusters Video Game.

This following movie poster is, of course, a fake though:

I was browsing around DeviantArt for dune-related imagery and found a bunch of really neat bits of fan art:

Dune art 1 by ~teyekanik

God Emperor of Dune by *NathanRosario

Dune - St Alia of the Knife by *gorrem

Dune: Swordmaster of Ginaz by ~jubjubjedi

Fremen Mahdi by =Andalar

Baron Harkonnen by ~drywipen

Fremen Warrior by ~kunkkunk

Fremen Warrior by ~originalnilson

Shai-hulud by ~AdoC

Wormrider by ~acoldoldkodiak

I did a google image search on “Steampunk Pinup” just to see what would come up:

Steampunk Pinup by ~Colorful-Ayako

SteamPunk Pin Up by ~stock4profs

Steampunk Circus Doll 7 by *mizzd-stock

BIZARRE Magazine

Heliograph

The Scoundrel's Lounge

VectorTuts has an article that showcases WWII propaganda:

Run out of places to put all of your many, many, many books? (I’m looking at you, Mom and Dad…)

Get the BookWave and hang your books from the ceiling!

On Knitty they have a knitting pattern for dead fish hats:

Of course if it was me I’d attach googly eyes to them, but then again I don’t know how to knit.

On The Design Inspiration they had a lovely article on coffee foam art.

Yeah…so this commercial has got me going insane.  I mean, are they trying to be funny?  PREGO COMES IN A JAR TOO!!!!  They even show it in a jar right after they make fun of the other stuff coming out of a jar.

What is their market demographic?  Four year olds?  I think even a four year old would be like, “Uhh… but your stuff comes in a jar too!”

FEH!!!

———-

Edit: I failed to note that their slogan is “It’s in there”.  It’s in where?  THE JAR?

Today I drove down the road to The Royale and enjoyed some awesome company at The Royale where they were celebrating their 4th year of operation with a formal Kentucky Derby party.

Everyone was supposed to be in proper gentlemenly and lady-like dress, which most everyone obeyed stay a few people who didn’t even know today was dress like a upper-class snob day.  I myself was dressed in nice slacks, a dress shirt, fish tie, and my standard brown fedora.

One of the best things about any time spent in The Royale are the friendly and interesting people you meet.

Lori and her mother here were quite a treat to chat with.

Such an adorable punim!  And she loves Missouri as much as I do!

Of course I engaged in my favorite hobby: putting googly eyes on pretty girls.  I’m not sure who looks more seductive and sultry, the girl or the hat.  (BTW, I am terribly sorry, I forgot your name;  I am terrible with names)

I forgot her name as well, but she looks resplendid with here googly eye accessorized bodice.

And this pretty lady was nice enough to let me put googly eyes on the birds on her hat:

Even more, The Monads were performing their punk/bluegrass style music to accompany the awesome party times:

Rock on, good friends.  Rock on.  Sorry I couldn’t see your show tonight at Off Broadway, but I spent far too much money and fell too far off my diet already.

All in all, an awesome time.  I really wish I was better with names, so sorry about forgetting them, nice ladies.  In the future I’m going to write down everyone’s names on my hand or keep photo-notes on my phone.

I’ve got more pictures here on my flickr account:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29465017@N07/sets/72157617620068684/

This is a very funny series of panels by Nedroid Comics.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is the work of artist Daniel Edwards and it borders on the Giger-esque with its creepy-yet-stately beauty.

I wonder if some future civilization will find this and believe was an homage to a fertility goddess, or if the Venus de Willendorf was meant as social slander and not an icon of worship.

Note: I had originally linked to another blog which originally posted this, but they decided to be uncouth and add some really garish and obtrusive watermarking to the image, so I made my own image and unlinked them.  Someone needs to learn some web-etiquette, me thinks.  There’s nothing wrong with hotlinking an image if someone links back to you and promotes your blog.  I was even about ready to add the blogger’s site to my list of sites but now they had to go and spoil everything.

I can’t remember which friend pointed this one out to me, but did you know that Jorge Garcia (Hurley from LOST) has his own blog?  He has some good posts, mostly about TV appearances and his gardening, but plenty of other interesting news and images as well.  Cool fellow.

Dispatches from the Island

This ranks up there with the person who discovered you could sell bottled water.  How about boxed garbage?

Well, to be fair, we’re not talking about any old garbage, but authentic NYC garbage, not some common garbage you could find here in St. Louis.

Hey, but who am I to judge?  I have to admit, I’m thinking about buying a cube of the stuff of my own… except it’ll set you back about 100 bucks to get some.  Well, in NYC dollars that’s not so much, so perhaps it’s a fair deal.

Really, I think I’ll just ask one of my NYC friends to box me up the contents of her garbage bin and just pay for shipping.

Read more about it here.

I’ve lately been digging the comic genius of Adam Koford and his comic Hobotopia, which combines many of the most popular memes: lolcats, old-timey stuff, hobos, and geek culture references.

I was very excited when I saw the words, “Cowboy Bebop Movie”… then I saw that it was staring Keanu Reeves… oy vey…

Keanu Saddles Up for Cowboy Bebop

Well, it could be worse. They could get Will Smith to play Jet Black. Why are Will Smith and Keanu Reeves the defacto leads for any sci-fi movie? ugh…

I can sort of see the resemblance, so maybe it will work out, but the lead actor pick drips of a marketing division who will rip any semblance of the original anime series to shreds.

Please, please do not do to Cowboy Bebop what was done to “I Robot”. Please, I’m begging you.

I made a new squiggly painting recently. I call it “Gilded Interior”.