Finally uploaded my camping photos from Sequoia National Park. Some of these came from my friend Brian and also my cell phone. As usual, you can hit the right arrow on your keyboard to advance to the next photo.

Man, I’m really obsessed with this Victorinox edition Airstream trailer. It’s soooo beautiful.

This industrial designer Rhea Jeong made a vinyl killer-inspired device that plays records in thin air and it’s kinda freaking me out.

The record player uses a carrier and dock outfitted with a magnetic and auto-calibrating control system which carries the LP into thin air as it is playing music. a self-running record player shaped in the form of a red sphere, contains a needle, amplifier and speaker, spins around the record, bringing the music to life. the sphere that plays the vinyl was technically influenced by the ‘vinyl killer’, currently the world’s smallest LP player that has a built-in motor, amplifier and speaker.

My friend Alexis, the one who gave me the Hitchcock inspired piece that hangs in my hallway, has some new works showing at Park Life tonight at 7pm. She told me her new stuff was inspired by Ed Ruscha (one of my biggest crushes ever) in the sense that this time she uses her distinct aesthetic to spell out phrases. For example:

It’s Happening Now

She got a nice write up on sfgate.com here and Fecal Face paid her a studio visit and I highly recommend checking that feature out to get a good sense of what an awesome person she is and why I and many others adore her. Remember how I complained that I want more science-fiction with a feminine touch? Alexis has done that before:

Her stuff keeps getting better and better and I’m proud of her. If you can’t make it, you can check out the set of her new works on her flickr.

This is the same idea as the Cover Versions post, but instead of records in book format it is now movies. Killer

//opening scene in Sam Peckinpah’s violently symphonic western The Wild Bunch

For the record, I personally think Kathryn Bigelow’s movies so far have been god awful (Point Break & Strange Days, anyone?). And it wasn’t until I looked up her filmography recently that I found out that she was involved with that lame & pretentious Twin Peaks-rip off back in the day on ABC called Wild Palms which starred Jim Belushi. Yeah… JIM BELUSHI! It was so bad that I remember it clearly. One episode appalled me because it wasted use of licensing the Supremes’ Love Child for some second rate David Lynch atmosphere.

Anyway, back to Bigelow. She is one of those women directors who frequently works in genres like horror, action and science-fiction where I think has a lot of meaningful & intellectual potential, but then she always blows it with some cornball heavy-handedness and/or bad casting choices. I would really, really love for a woman director to achieve commercial success in approaching these typically male dominated genres with a feminine hand. it would be inherently more interesting/engrossing, not to mention make the studios tons of money by appealing to the other demographic.

That said, her Top 10 Favorite Action Sequences list recently is so on point and inspiring. Her list reminded me that the sniper scene in Full Metal Jacket = instant anxiety attack for me. Holy crap, I get goosebumps just thinking about it, that’s how powerful it is. And The Wild Bunch scene is one of many big reasons why I felt compelled to buy that Sam Peckinpah shirt at Lost Weekend Video. She knows her stuff and the trailer for this new Iraq movie is fooling me into thinking this may be her first really good movie, even with that terrible terrible name. (Sidenote, I think that Three Kings movie with Ice Cube, Wahlberg and Clooney back during Desert Storm might be one of my favorite Iraq movies. Seriously)

Anyway, i may need to come up with random lists of my own as I have a compulsion where I like taking random shots of things that appear on my tv screen. Here’s a sampling. Don’t even try to make sense of it, it’s more poetic out of context:

Attention bookworms and record geeks! Look at this set called Cover Versions. so creative!

Classic records lost in time and format, re-emerged as Pelican books.

A chance recording by astronauts on the International Space Station has captured the moment a volcano explosively erupted, sending massive shockwaves through the atmosphere.

Fortuitously, the International Space Station was flying overhead at the time, and managed to capture this spectacular image of the ash-cloud tearing through the atmosphere, sending clouds scattering in its wake in a perfect circle.

I saw Shellac play at the Great American Music Hall last Wednesday night. Steve Albini is still an amusing asshole, Todd Trainer is still a freak and Bob Weston still solicits questions from the crowd between songs while Albini tunes the Travis Bean guitar strapped to his waist like it was a tool on a utility belt.

One highlight question to Weston, probably joking, was “How often do you use your Pro Tools rig?” It prompted the response “I don’t own a Pro Tools rig, my friend,” which made the audience giggle. Albini and Weston are two renown recording engineers who are still very much Nazis when it comes to being hardcore analog loyalists. Albini who has only recently caved in to the pressure of having a digital set-up in his Electrical Audio studios refuses to use it himself or even talk about it. Other questions from the crowd were gear related as one guy asked “Where’s the Harmonic Percolator?”, referring to a rare distortion pedal that is now holy grail material for hardcore audio nerds thanks to Albini championing it. This was truly the nerdiest/fanboy rock show ever but highly satisfying and cathartic for someone who had a very stressful day at work (AKA me). Going to this show alone and being one of the very few women there kinda made me feel like a perv.

Anyway, I don’t know why I feel this is worth mentioning, but Albini repeatedly did these pump fake b-ball moves towards the audience during “A Minute” but in a really intense and straight-faced serious manner. I was dying of laughter and really wish I got video. Here’s some other video instead

If it seems at all weird that I like this kind of dark and depraved rock music, here’s an old disclaimer post I made about Shellac in 2007

in 1970. makes perfect sense if you are familiar with Kraftwerk off-spring groups such La Dusseldorf and Neu! (See early Stereolab discography) but still…it’s kraftwerk. These german youth didn’t know what hit em

I’m back from a fun and scenic camping trip in majestic Sequoia National Park. i’ll upload pics later, but for now here are two videos of my friends warring & retaliating with stupidity. brian aims rocks into the pet door of young’s tent early one morning and then young and gabe collapse brian and kelly’s tent early morning after they made bear noises in the middle of the night and shook our tents to scare us. War never ends.

We picked a rough weekend for camping.

Young: what the hell. it’s supposed to snow saturday and sunday
Young: with thunderstorms
Audrey: i’m screwed
Audrey: my sleeping bag is like 45
Young: i’m glad i have a super warm one
Audrey: i’m not
Young: i’m gonna go to target and buy a pancho
Audrey: can you buy me a pancho too please
Audrey: i’ll pay you back
Young: no, i want you to get wet and cold
Audrey: i’ll die
Audrey: and you’ll live the rest of your life with guilt
Young: good, we’ll leave your body out so the bears won’t get to us
Audrey: i hate you

Young: do you have hand warmers?
Young: i’m gonna get some warmers for myself. and then call you from my tent and let you know how warm i am
Audrey: i hope you don’t have any “accidents” this weekend
Young: if i do, you won’t be able to get home
Audrey: i know how to drive
Audrey: when i get home i’m going to pull one of those “leap from the car, drive it into the bay’ moves
Young: you wouldn’t dare
Audrey: i’m going to buy a helmet and knee pads just for this purpose
Young: hahahaha
Young: i’m going to buy a big steel pole and set it up right outside your tent while you’re sleeping. nature will take care of you
Audrey: I’m going to dress you up as sexy female bear when you’re sleeping and see what happens

Flying Pig manufactures these super cute paper animation kits and they are so cool. I wanna get like 20 of them and decorate your house with them (not mine because I’ve got too much crap in it already).

There is a small section of free downloadable kits as well. Fun!

All the Conan’s greatest hits & retrospectives I’ve seen the past month in anticipation of him taking over Leno’s chair on the Tonight Show failed to include one of my most sentimental & poignant Late Night w/ Conan moments ever. Back in 2003 for TV Thanksgiving hiatus, they reran one of his old episodes but in claymation. WTF? Never would this have made sense anywhere else. I remember being completely engrossed in this half-familiar but half-netherworld episode from beginning to end and then a few minutes before the credits, my personal piece de resistance came on: claymation David Bowie started performing one of my all time favorite romantic rock ballads (and easily one of my favorite Neil Young songs) “I’ve Been Waiting For You.” I was shocked into bliss on so many levels and I don’t think I need to explain why it has remained one of my most favorite and indelible TV moments in history.

I’m officially going to kick of summer by camping in Sequoia National Forest with 18 other people. I’ve never camped with that many people in my life –I hope there will be enough food for everyone. And by everyone, I mean me.

Completely unrelated, I’m hoping that threatening people with smothering makes a comeback.

Young: oh, nevermind. i just read his email again. he just said that it’s a 6 person campsite and that we’ll have to hide you under a blanket when we go through the gate
Audrey: haha
Young: but seriously, we have to hide one of you
Young: since patrick makes 7
Audrey: did you tell brian patrick was coming
Young: yeah. he knows. that’s why he suggested putting you under some blankets
Audrey: i’ll put you under some pillows, if you know what i mean
Audrey: like Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Young: what do you mean?
Audrey: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/176/433975265_1b1c32da91.jpg

The Sleeveface photo pool on Flickr is an endless stream of record nerd fun. Covers with giant faces on them are so much fun to use this way.

I love John Lurie’s deadpan sense of humor and I’ve mentioned his Fishing with John show here before. He’s better known as a musician and actor first, but he is also a visual artist. Look at his paintings, especially the titles he gives them.

OK last one for tonight, I promise. I’m so grateful that quality old music television programs like Rockpalast, Musik Laden, Beat Club, It’s Lulu, Revolver, Top of the Pops & Old Grey Whistle Test existed for me to visit my favorite parts of history in moving picture form.