A while back we had a contest where we gave away records and toys and things. And I never did congratulate the winners. So, congratulations! To Felicia, Liz, Adrienne, Megn, Meaghan, Nicholas, Angharad, Steven, Andrew, Vanessa, Alana, Burcu, Anthony, Angela, Elena, and the post office! (Cause, boy, did they love me that day.)
So, that out of the way, I'd like to congratulate the winners of our latest contest! Hooray to Erik, Audrey, Jen 1 (Captain Berlin) and very especially to Jen 2 (Miz Gambel), the winner of our Cactus Friend. (Mmmm, poems.)
So that out of the way, I have gone mad with power and am giving even more stuff away! While at Comic-Con, I managed to snag a couple of never-before-seen-in-the-wild black UglyDolls. They don't even sell them in stores yet! And I want you to have them. No, really. I insist. All you gotta do to win is add us as a friend on our brand-spankin' new MySpace profile. (Ooh, shiny.)
...and since you're already here, go say hi to our very nice guest writers. They like pocky, long walks at the beach, and the tiny white fluff inside of Popples.
Went to Paris and forgot your camera? No problem. Never been to Paris and want to retrieve all those precious memories you never had? Still not a problem.
This is one of the neatest things I've seen in a while: Up To You is selling a little "disposable camera that contains 27 undeveloped souvenir shots of Paris photographed by up-and-coming artists (every camera is different.)"
I wish people started whole clubs based around this. Artists, camera hobbyists and fotografia professionals could wander around on their vacations or in their hometowns, and just fill a camera. Send it to each other, to someone else in the club, or a random stranger in the phone book. They could be passed out at street corners. They could be left in dispensers labeled "Anywhere But Here." Who's with me? We could call it Auto-Flash Mob.
This is Fiona Apple covering "I Want You" at the VH1 Elvis Costello tribute concert. The original version of this song breaks my heart. When Costello was asked what he thought the highlights of the concert were, he responded "...Fiona's incredible job on 'I Want You.' For me, that was musically the high point of the evening, in terms of how much you can reach within a song and come up with something that was for you."
Depressed? Here's a no-fail cure: Gogol Bordello. The only thing better might be having an actual gypsy Ukranian band waltz into your living room to lead you out into the streets for a spot of mid-morning fiddle-led bar-hopping carousing.
They've been described as "the Clash having a fight with The Pogues in Eastern Europe," and I blame Jewlie entirely for turning me on to them. Gogol Bordello is currently on a world tour (playing part of it with the amazing Manu Chao), and if you can manage to catch them, go! Bring your tambourine.
Every hour, The Hype Machine sends little musical nanobots scouring music blogs across the interweb, looking for juicy morsels of auditory yumminess. A quick glance will yield unreleased music, new stuff, old favorites and obscure things you never knew existed. You can even check out a cheat sheet to the songs we've posted here on the Fabulist recently.
They lived up to their "Fall in love with something new" slogan when I stumbled across Ane Brun-- and I promptly went to Tower Records and picked up her CD. (Which led me to buy four other CDs, 'cause hey, I was already there.) Ane Brun is a quirky Norwegian folk singer who lives in Sweden, and though she's got a good fan base in Europe she's just released her first LP (A Temporary Dive) in the states. You can check out a few music videos at her site, and you can pick up her LP at AmpCamp.
Online NewsHour has an interview up with Leonard Cohen: "I had the title poet, and maybe I was one for a while. Also, the title singer was kindly accorded me, even though I could barely carry a tune."
And because everything a la Cohen makes me smile lately, here's one of the best covers from the I'm Your Man soundtrack:
Lark Pien makes paintings and comic books and tiny felt cat puppets. Your adult sensibilities will buckle under the childlike joy of her cartoon paintings-- try and resist their charms! You shall fail miserably, but Long Tail Kitty will love you in spite of it.
Owl Movement is a fancy little shirt company that features designs from various artists around the globe. They've even been spotted on Alias! Check out their blog, then go ogle the wondrousness that is their sexy garments.
Tangoland has the cutest kitties, and the best intro-commercial-flash-song-and-dance-thing of just about anywhere. We caught up with them in San Diego, and they are overflowing with fluffy clothes and bags, and you can even send them your address for your very own mail catalog.
Over the weekend we visited our friends at the Allen Spiegel Fine Arts booth, which has somehow managed to collect fistfuls of brilliant artists all in one place. It's as if there existed a nuclear bomb of talent, and ground zero of detonation happened directly inside Allen Spiegel Fine Arts. How otherwise could you manage to corral the likes of Dave McKean, Kent Williams, Jon J Muth, Greg Spalenka, Thom Ang, August Hall.. I could keep going, and going. Maybe Allen Spiegel is a snake charmer, but instead of snakes, he plays lilting tunes that charm and ensnare prolific painters.
It's possible.
If I were you, I would get myself over to the ASFA site, where you can order hard-to-find goodies that, like the artists, are too numerous to mention here. Just trust me, it's good stuff, and some of it you can't get anywhere else. (Tell Allen we said hi!)
Over the weekend I got turned on to the young pop wonder that is Lily Allen, whose Smile reached #1 in the UK pop charts last week.
As an aside, Ray LaMontagne, Snow Patrol, Gnarls Barkley and Muse are all in UK Top 40. I can barely turn on a radio here, and the stuff that I like on the US charts hit the UK charts months earlier. Case in point of popular US music being a sad state of affairs: Paris Hilton at #34. (For the curious, a good list of country-by-country chart comparisons can be found at AllofMP3.)
So, Lily Allen. She's this pop-ska 21-year-old cutie pie from London, and is another one of the wonder creatures who has used MySpace to launch her career. Her music is good if you're in the mood for giggling, dancing, or giggling and dancing simultaneously. Check out her site here, or go to Lily's MySpace for more info.
Here's a round up of what I'm looking forward to on second day of Pitchfork Fest. Chi-town in 26 hours, oh man! A hearty thanks to those of you that left a comment suggesting places to go, they're on my list. Have a great rest of the week, Fabufriends!
We managed to hit the Chimni booth over the weekend at Comic-Con, and have a chat with the self-professed roving band of nomad puppeteers who run the place. I bought their Azucar! Papi Churro tee at Brat ages ago, so I got all squealy when I saw they had a new design: "Some Churros Are Bigger Than Others." It's not up on the site yet but should be soon. You can join their mailing list to get notified when the shirt is available to the public. (But don't fret, they have tons of other great stuff to covet-- like their Rich Kids Get All The Monkeys tee.)
Dean on 
