#20

What are these flowers called? They are in bloom and smell nice. Like spring.

mine to use and mine to lose.

Mike Mills has a new movie coming out:

Charming. A dog that gets subtitles!
Some of you may know Mike Mills because of this image:

Others of you may know him because of this other movie he did (which I had only recently found out, thanks Sean), Thumbsucker:

I really wanted to like that movie, but I was just really underwhelmed. Maybe Keanu Reeves (who really oddly stood out to me in the movie) threw me off? Because I feel like that was kind of sort of around his Matrix days and I didn't realize that Keanu Reeves is this weird robotic actor that needs a deeper sense of appreciation that I clearly didn't have at the age of seventeen. It was just a really quiet movie, and I should probably see it again, I've...become more perceptive to quietness. (haha).

Anyways though, what I really want to say about Mike Mills is this, he had this book that he put out through Nieves, Fireworks. The explanation he had for this book was just one of the nicest things I had read in a long time:

Some things that may or may not relate to these drawings: A professional suggested I take anti-depressants. I declined. About the same time I started drawing fireworks. I didn’t know what they meant or why I was drawing them. I was confused and embarrassed by this lack of meaning, but they kept coming. I could draw them no matter how I felt. I read that fireworks were first used in China in the 12th century to scare away negative spirits. I envied a world that not only recognized spirits, but scared the negative ones away with small man made explosions.

So, so nice.

And he ends by saying:

I felt a connection between the Chinese fireworks and the placebo effect, and some relief in all the things we don’t understand. At some point the fireworks grew more and more abstract, and messy, and complicated, and I became if not content then at least willing to make things that didn’t have any apparent meaning.

And so:



Last time I drew fireworks was in my first year drawing class at Emily Carr. We had to draw a night scene and I drew people watching fireworks. The teacher said that the idea was nice, but fireworks actually look very clean, and mine were too messy. I didn't really take it to heart. And it was in the class that I didn't take much of his criticism to heart as I did with my previous drawing teacher. And then drawing didn't seem like such a terrifying struggle to impress someone.

But a way to feel better.

Books Read '10

Books I read in 2010 (in the order seen in the above image):

The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski
Dance, Dance, Dance by Haruki Murakami
Chocky by John Wyndham
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession by Julie Powell
No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
Love in a Fallen City by Eileen Chang
The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis
A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami
Trouble with Lichen by John Wyndham
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham
South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Funny Misshapen Body by Jeffrey Brown
Jamilti and other Stories by Rutu Modan
After Dark by Haruki Murakami
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
Ladies and Gentleman, The Bible! By Jonathan Goldstein

Out of all of these books, if you need something to read, I’d say: No Country For Old Men (Texas Noir, aka, such a badass book) by Cormac Mccarthy, The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (especially if you want to cry), Geek Love by Katherine Dunn, Jamilti by Rutu Modan, and man, I read a lot of Haruki Murakami books, which were all enjoyable, but I’d say, Dance Dance Dance takes the cake. Ha, all my recommendations, you’ve probably read them anyways, but they’re good books aren’t they?!

I didn’t like Tales of the City so much, as detailed here, and I was pretty disappointed with The Kraken Wakes and the Trouble with Lichen by John Wyndham, mostly because I thought they would be so good (as some of his other books are), but they were just so disappointingly boring.

BOOOOOOOOOKS!!

harry, you're all right.

What oh what have I been doing?
Humming away at Adbusters, the latest issue, the January/February 2011 Big Ideas issue just came out.

A few spreads I designed:




This issue was the 3rd and final issue in the Adbuster's Revolution issues (Issues about Revolution, giving a history of it, and what kinds of revolutions are happening now and could happen in the future). The visual themes tying this issue together was light and colors (yes, I know, really broad metaphors, but it did help narrow down how to approach designing these spreads). So the issue goes from dark colors (Indigo, Violet) and transitions on through to angrier colors (Red) and into calmer more poetic ones (Green, Yellow). With each corresponding colors, the stories of the magazine follow the same sort of feeling, so dark stories at the beginning, and revolutionary, activist stuff in the middle, and ending on more thoughtful and quiet ideas.

I used so many bitmaps and what seemed like the first time ever, gradients. Have never used so many gradients in all of my time designing, always kind of thought they were slightly ugly and cheesy looking, but erm, I've changed my mind. GRADIENTS!

So yes, go look at the issue, and...buy a copy. It's a good issue.

Other things I've been doing, and this is kind of Adbusters related:

Being number 1 in the office Fantasy Football. :) :) :) :) . Although I did lose last week, a pretty brutal loss, 200 points to my 140 something points. That team was insane though. Let's hope that none of the other teams are as insane in the next 4 weeks, cause then...I'LL WIN!

Just started watching Twin Peaks. Man I really like it. Endearing townspeople with dark secrets. SPECIAL AGENT COOPER! Holy crap Kyle Machlachlan. Did you know he has a vineyard? And keeps a blog for his dogs? And takes on the strangest and most varied roles? Like really good ones like Special Agent Cooper in Twin Peaks and then stuff like the villain in the live action movie The Flinstones (I know this because for some reason I watched this movie over and over when I was a kid) and as Charlotte's first husband in Sex and the City? He didn't want to be type-casted I read somewhere. Yep, I think you've got that covered Kyle. Also I really love the theme song of Twin Peaks. It has the most cheesiest bass line, and it is slightly creepy, but man it is good.

I was walking home with Will (the art director at Adbusters) and I told him I've started watching Twin Peaks and he said that a lot of people when they're at my age watch Twin Peaks. I asked why. And he said he didn't know, just that they do. And I can see that being true. All 23 year olds, watch if you haven't, you can appreciate this donut image more.

I leave for Calgary in a couple of weeks. I was passing by an apartment and I could see their Christmas tree, and I don't know! It instantly made me fall in love with Christmas! Or at least start to get really excited and into it, and now all these Christmas related things are popping up that are making me fall in love with it even more, like, CHEESE BALLS! I haven't had a cheese ball in so long! I LOVE CHEESE BALLS! Here is a place that has a couple of interesting recipes for them: http://homesicktexan.blogspot.com/2008/12/cheese-logs-cheese-balls-and-aunt-betty.html

Anyways, that's the long and short of what I've been doing, working at Adbusters, killing the football pool, watching things, and eating and dreaming about cheeseballs.