These North London kids and their cheery ways! How can I not be buoyed up and boppy when they come at me with ukeleles, handclaps and a nimble little whistling number?
This would be Installment Number Two in the Grand Valentine's Project: The Song About That Early Bit Where You're High As A Kite With Pure Happiness and Getting Nostalgic About Things You Haven't Even Done Yet.
Take a song by Da Vinci's Notebook, a band with an awesome name and standard boy-band video fare. Add wily YouTube commenters. Mix. Aaaaand... enjoy!
It *is* approaching Valentine's day, in't it? Time to join forces with Charissa (Music! Art! Beauty! Fluffy Things! Heart! Let our powers combine!) and bedeck this site with Valentine AND anti-Valentine postables. Consider this my first shot at love songness (this one covers *all* the critical bases, I think). And do check out those YouTube comments, they're feckin hilarious!
Earlier today I got one of those wonderful e-mails in my inbox telling me about a contest the Hirshhorn Museum in D.C. supposedly had wherein people were challenged to make a work of art from a single piece of paper. The results were breathtaking. But when I went to the Hirshhorn's site, there was absolutely no mention of any such contest.
Instead, I found that those gorgeous paper cutouts were all the work of one man, a Danish artist named Peter Callesen. And glory upon glories, the examples of his work shown in that e-mail (and making the rounds on a lot of art blogs) are just the tip of the paper iceberg.
I think I want to live in one of his giant paper towers and let my paper braids down for a handsome paper prince.
A soulful voice, great song structure, and a dazzling array of retro-inspired hairstyles and outfits? These are among the many reasons I love ya, Paloma Faith.
If you happen to live in London, be sure to check out Paloma's dates there for the month of February on her Myspace page. You lucky bastards in London. You get all the breaks.
My goal is to post a week's worth of Valentine's gift ideas. I really do have the best intentions on that, so we'll see how it goes. That's the plan, and I'm going to do my best to see it out, but sometimes though the soul is willing, the flesh is so weak. So runneth the course of both Love and blogging.
My first contribution is this adorable zombie pillow by Cipolla, for your favorite living dead sweetheart. It's a niche market that's been largely ignored, so snatch this one up with your grubby little claws while you can!
Since I moved to Portland, it seems like every other artist I run across online just happens to be based here. My latest crush is Trish Grantham, who, along with her friend Greg Klaus, is starting a business called Paper Milk. Paper Milk is dedicated to producing art-related products using recycled and organic materials. And Trish's art is *stunning*. Paintings of animals that seem to have been caught mid-act, surprised during private moments, all laid over printed pages from Japanese books. It's a gorgeous combination that works flawlessly.
And now those of us who can't afford the paintings, as well as those of us who just really love stationery, can get some of the cutest postcards and notecards I think I have possibly EVER seen.
So, there's that. If you were having a bad day or something.
There's a ton of buzz building around Vampire Weekend's self-titled debut that hits stores today. This video (directed by Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy's Hammer & Tongs) is very cute, complete with snowstorm and fake fishies, and makes me totally see what the fuss is all about. Pick up the new album at Amazon.
You And Me And Love is from the forthcoming album Hello World by Amit, and it is just made of happy. It's gotten some airplay in the UK, and it is a great song to wake up to in the morning, with all its cheery jangly piano and saxophoneness. Sign up on his site to get the album for free when it drops.
Really good new video for the great new song "Sax Rohmer #1" off the fantastic new album from my favorite band! Adjectives! I got the full album (”Heretic Pride”, for the uninformed) a few days ago, and as somewhat of a tMG purist, I can tell you it rocks. If you hated “Get Lonely” and only kind of liked “The Sunset Tree”, don’t worry. Everything’s getting back to normal now.
They say the best songs are those that make you feel like they're speaking directly to you--to your own unique experience, your own emotions, your own circumstances that sometimes seem so alienating and lonely. And the wonderful thing about a song like that is that it reminds you you're NOT so alone after all. Other people out there share the same experiences, the same feelings, they react the same ways. And one of them wrote a SONG about it!
Laura Marling's "My Manic and I," off her debut EP late last year, was That Song for me. The one that made me go, "Oh thank GOD I'm not crazy. Or at least if I am, there's more of us out there." And now I've finally seen the video, and that feeling was multiplied by about a thousand. So if you're like me and have an affinity for Alice in Wonderland and gloomy boys on the wrong side of sanity, this one's for you.
Gummi bears are delicious and fun to eat. So if my entire house was constructed mostly of gummi bears, including the rug and the chandeliers, I would soon be homeless. But it's exciting to imagine a world made of candy, and thanks to artists like YaYa Chou, now you can.
YaYa's Gummi Bear Series (pics located under "Sculpture" on her site), is now showing at the Tinlark Gallery in LA. Go see it quick before someone goes berserk and eats it all up.
(This post is dedicated to the fair Elaine, in honor of the many uses of candy).
I haven't posted in three or four months, due mostly to a particularly disruptive mass failure of technology on almost every conceivable level, but also because I have finally relocated to Portland, Oregon. During the season of torrential and endless rains, apparently.
And now that I'm here, I've been poking around looking for new (to me!) artists to discover. And my first offering to you? Portland resident Seth Neefus. Though he moved here recently, the flavor of his art is quintessential Oregon, to me. Shades of green and brown predominate, trees are everywhere, and the overall effect is organic and natural. It is dream-like while still maintaining a grounded feeling of reality and common sense.
His site isn't the easiest to provide example links to, as most everything is posted on one page and you have to scroll down, but it's definitely worth a long look. There are drawings, paintings, absolutely *huge* mountains made of painted houses, art outside, art inside, art incorporating bits of the natural environment, art with statements, art WITHOUT statements...I mean, seriously. Go. Look. Here.
Dean on 
