I am not used to join these things – actually I blogged this only once on my main blog, seteventos.org – but I consider this one interesting because it is meant to promote stuff you really like and that most people may not know yet. So, let’s start BlogDay 2009 here on Outsiders.
Feverish Photography Blog – this first one is quite simple: a fabulous showroom of photographers from around the world. Maintained by Los Angeles resident Aaron Feaver – he himself a photographer – the blog brings to readers – or, better saying, viewers – plenty of beautiful, elegant and charming shots in high resolution which are carefully selected by Aaron. It’s surely a feast for the eyes.
E-merl.com – here, comic creator Daniel Merlin Goodbrey publishes everyday – or so – his creations which presents such ordinary things like the use of giraffes as a new unit of currency, polar bears ignoring what they were supposed to say and Hitler as the new rap icon. Yes, it seems a complete nonsense but isn’t this the best thing about the British sense of humor?
Bands & Design – the title pretty much says it all: a blog which centers on the artistic features of (photo)graphic images and videos related to the world of music. The blog is run by Rich Samuels who is also a designer who produces music related content. Take time to pay attention to the charming clean layout of his blog – it fully combines with its content.
videos.antville.org – a community blog in which people post and comment videos related to music. The focus is on indie music but is also accepts content from mainstream music artists. It is so influential that it has its own annual video award – the Antville Music Video Awards – and many video directors and producers themselves post their work to receive feedback from the visitors.
Matt on Not-WordPress – the last one is not exactly runned from some unknown personality though it is actually the unknown blog of him. Matt on Not-Wordpress is the “sideblog” of Matt Mullenweg, the WordPress founder and one of its main developers. Most of the content posted is related to one of his main passions – photographs, taken by Matt himself – but you may find some other things there too.
So I hate “Top-anything” lists.
But why?
I do because it is simply impossible to point out something as “the best” of any kind of subject, theme or media without leaving behind lots of other things as good as the chosen one that you may not even know that exist – not to say that many times these top lists are actually full of things that are far from being good. It is even worst when people insist on doing “the best ever made” lists. If it is difficult to pick the best album, song, movie released or book published at any given year, why would it make any sense something as stupid as trying to point out the best ones ever made? No, it definitely does not. Top lists are nothing more than an old practice on media that has been turned into a blog routine on the internet by lazy people who do it because it is easier to list stuff without giving any explanation. It is an internet plague so popular and disseminated that it it ruins even the easiest task.
Take something that is not exactly the most thought-provoking duty, DNA’s Sexiest Men Alive list, for instance. It is not difficult at all to group the 60 most sexier man alive – though I think it is a silly thing to do precisely because there are lots of more of them out there – but even still the Australian magazine makes it a complete failure.
First, since all the men are listed in no specific order I suppose the magazine’s editors believe all of them are equally appealing. But, for example, how would I assume that this guy
would be comparable to this one?
Second, among the really jaw-dropping actors, models, sportsmen, porn models/actors who were listed, be them famous or not, the magazine has thrown some men on the list merely for the sake of diversity, political commitment and correctiveness. Because, Lord, no, Barack Obama and Dustin Lance Black can’t be listed along with Ryan Reynolds, Chris Evans, Sam Worthington, Jakub Stefano, Chris Rockway and Leo Giamani as the sexiest men alive simply because the former ones aren’t. It is clear the only reason they have made the jump into the list is because both are admired by people as political figures – and, sorry, as much as intelligence can be some kind of a turn on to someone it is far from the one aroused by physical attributes. Third, it is time to update references: after so many years, George Clooney’s beauty or sexiness can’t be paired to Justin Hartley’s. Yes, Clooney can still be considered attractive but it is clear he is far from that level of sexiness which Hartley easily sports. Because of these mistakes the list seems too big – among the sixty guys there I would pick only half of them, if much.
That’s why top lists rarely work, no matter what people are listing. So, instead of filling the web with them I think it is better to simply point out something as one of the best in a subject or field. It seems the same but actually it is not: if you say that something is among the best ones of its kind you are leaving room for you to keep listing many others as you keep discovering new ones that you may even find are better and at the same time it also gives your audience the chance to point the ones they also like – this way you are sharing knowledge rather than showing off yours. After all, the beauty of the internet is sharing, isn’t it?
So, I’m not a fashionist. I always try to take fashion into consideration as a serious subject but I can’t go along too much sustaining this belief. Maybe this is some kind of inherent bias on me but things like the reutilization of shoulder pads by designers who certainly stated for years that these were undoubtedly disgusting flaws in cloth design shapes as a reinforcement of this assumption.
That’s why I really consider oversimplified the brief comment made on news section of the SPFW official site about the album cover of the new Kasabian’s release – the writer says the members of the band have exaggerated on costume choice. Well, let’s see it.
Anyone who has a fair amount of knowledge about the history of music realizes that they did not simply decide to dress fancy clothes on the album cover. There is an obvious purpose in it – and I did say it has a purpose but not necessarily a meaning, though there is one. The cover, that depicts the band as inmates of the mental institution which the album title – West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum – makes reference is clearly an homage to the 60’s psychedelia on music. The atmosphere built by the reincarnation of what seems to be napoleon, a priest, a king and a prisoner, all of them reflected in a mirror and holding something – a bottle, a knife, a book by Jorge Luis Borges, a light bulb and a golden globe – echoes the similarly baroqueness of album covers made on that decade, as well as most part of the songs composed by the band also references the sound that was born in the 60’s. After The Beatles‘ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, is it really so difficult to realize this is not simply a band preparing themselves for a costume party? Well, maybe it is, since fashion shows are usually like that, aren’t they?
About a year ago – well, maybe it was more than a year… – I was zapping through TV channels when suddenly I came across a movie where a a beautiful woman with that typical 70’s look was surrounded by icebergs and water. I’ve had not seen it at that time, however in a matter of seconds I’d came to realize it was the ending of the movie “Orca, The Killer Whale”, directed by Michael Anderson.
http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=56730371
What had got my attention on that scene was not only the classical beauty of Charlotte Rampling but the way this final sequence was resembling another ending scene of a film I’d watched on theater when it was released in 1997: Bille August’s “Smilla’s Sense of Snow”.
http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=56730537
Both movies deal with revenge and the seek of justice and have a promising start but as things go on the stories dive deeper on ridiculous ideas and solutions – an avenger whale, able to plan and implement the assassination of the ones who destroyed its “family” and the a woman trying to find the responsible for killing a boy for the sake of protecting information about a…well, I won’t reveal too much since you people may wish to watch the movies – I will only say that the it does not fit on what you’ve spent more than an hour watching.
Though the movies are not good their endings, as I said, are strangely beautiful: both of them have an idyllic feature, trully poetic and contemplative. Yes, the ends are not the same, they are considerably different but there is a similarity in its style – even the inverse panoramic shooting (“Orca’s” shooting underneath water and ice and “Smilla’s” above it) intensifies this feeling. Probably it is just a coincidence but I would not be surprised if one day Bille August tell us that he was inspired by the other movie’s end and decided to pay some kind of homage to it – the only good idea on the whole movie.
Australian singer Sarah Blasko has opened a blog – on WordPress.com, of course – and since January she posts about a variety of things, including the production status of her next album that she is recording in Sweden with producer Bjorn Yttling – which scares me a bit since I did not come to enjoy his work on his own band though I do like what he did on Lykke Li’s album. Talking about her ideas for her new release, she has recently posted about how she is feeling nostalgic as she revisits some old songs that she may record to release as B-sides. Although feeling a bit ashamed, she confesses that she was considering some hits by Olivia Newton-John, mostly “Magic” – and hearing this on Sarah’s voice is definitely something that would please me so much. I’ve enjoyed not only the fact that there are more people feeling nostalgic these days – of course, and we both are not the only ones, duh! – but felt happy because we both were accidentally induced to like these embarrassing old hits since our parents listened to them while we were growing up. Yes, I also feel ashamed because these songs receive a fair amount of plays on my iPod Touch along the week but, let’s admit: even if enjoying some stuff from Olivia and her partners of the 70’s and the 80’s can not be considered something to be proud of, I believe that Sarah and me are very lucky people – we could have been born in the present days and have our childish ears filled with this awful stuff that most people likes to listen to today…
