The Sea and Cake: Weekend

Late this year I got a recommendation for The Sea and Cake's most recent album (which is actually 2 years old). I hadn't really thought about them since I was in graduate school, so I was excited to have a listen. I'm not through hearing the whole thing yet, but so far it's a bit more poppy than their usual chilled-out sound. It's pretty fantastic. I came across this video a few weeks ago and wanted to share. I'm not the type to miss the season I'm not in, but it's one of the most perfect music videos about summer and that carefree, young feeling that I've ever seen.



I started reflecting on this past summer in New York, which was filled with bike rides, barbecues, record stores, balconies, brunches, Brooklyn, bloody marys, and World Cup games (lots of good things seem to start with the letter B). It made me smile and want to listen to Mark Ronson and The Beach Boys as well, which I listened to a lot. Enjoy! And give the rest of Car Alarm a listen.

EFIT in Montana

A few weeks ago, I went to a completely foreign place: Montana. I had never seen snow or mountains like that up close before; it was a completely surreal and dreamlike weekend for me. The inverted-V rooftops of the ski lodges and pine trees strung with silver lights and caked with snow made everything feel like a gingerbread neighborhood.

One of the days I was there, I did an EFIT for Julie. Those of you who have been around for a while know I do these every now and then. A combination of no-Internet (none) and a shoddy memory made my email to her about doing a joint EFIT float into the ether rather than getting to her. So here are my photos. I was worried about them all being only of snow, but I managed to get a little variety in there.

10.30am - I was convinced me to go snowmobiling. The moment we got out of the car at the rental place, 3 dogs walked over to us, curious. This one had the most piercing blue eyes I had ever seen. Like water in the Blue Grotto.


11.33am - On my snowmobile. I tried to pretend I was Beatrix Kiddo the entire time so I wouldn't be paralyzed by terror. The narrow trail up the mountain through forests had a probably 60° drop on one side.



12.23pm - In a meadow thing on a mountain - our first destination. Completely silencing.


1.09pm - In a rented snowsuit and helmet. Those guys know how to dress for the weather, yeesh. I wasn't cold the entire afternoon, and it was about 6°F that day (colder than I've ever exprienced).


2.04pm - Taking a break.


3.30pm - Back at square one, 50 miles later. A note about snowmobiling - I had no idea what a snowmobile even was until I looked it up on Wikipedia (most of my life was spent in tropical places). If you've never been before and you want to try it, there is a section of the article called "Accidents and Safety" - don't read it. I made that mistake and was petrified for the first half of the trip. But then by the end I was having a blast. So much so that I almost flew off the thing from going too fast over a hill on the way back. Another note: You will not be able to move the next day. From my triceps all the way to my sides and quads, this thing used just about every muscle to steer.


4.07pm - Another tip for anyone who may go snowmobiling for the first time: Eat beforehand. We were all so starving by this point that we had dinner at 4 o'clock on the afternoon. This was at one of the half dozen restaurants in the area - a motorcycle-themed place called Choppers. I had a burger, onion rings and Guinness. Perfect.


5.24pm - This huge thing was on our way out.


6.03pm - Just before the hottest shower ever. Mister Toky's midi keyboard, Nooka, and loose change.


7.40pm - Writing a letter to Julie about Montana.


9.00pm - Here is where I was one minute too late to get an 8pm photo. Rats. This is Mister Toky's computer; he was playing this amazing computer game that was like Doom but took place in an underwater city with zombie-like guys walking everywhere.


9.32pm - On our way to have a snack (still hungry) and drink. Most of the little trees in the resort were lit up and covered with snow like this.


10.50pm - If anybody has any idea what this is, let me know. I looked up at my table and was met with this dude; pretty disarming.


The first half of those pictures were taken with my phone, since taking a camera on a snowmobile is pretty useless. The second half were with the Nikon. Quite a different EFIT than the ones I'm used to doing. This was a pretty amazing trip; I'd go back. And maybe do the same thing again ^^

Art Historians, German Translators, Frankish Kings, and Scrooge McDuck

A text message conversation with Brandi this morning about Disney characters led me down my second rabbit hole of the week. This one is about Frankish kings in the 7th century. The question that prompted this:

"Who is your favorite Disney character?"

The immediate answer of "Dagobert" came from my father.

?

He said that Dagobert was the rich uncle of Donald Duck – the one who would dive into a pile of gold coins while being a very stingy guy on the side. I am admittedly a bit ignorant about the side stories of Disney characters, but I knew who he was talking about.


[source]

Dagobert is what Scrooge McDuck was called in Germany.

I started Googling. The first result on my phone was for Dagobert I - the king of Austrasia (623–634), king of all the Franks (629–634), and king of Neustria and Burgundy (629–639).

??

Okay, too weird. Was there a connection? Unsure. Digging into this one took a really long time. Two hours. I read about Dagoberts I, II, and III, and none of them really gave any hints as to why this name was given to Scrooge in Germany. Well, Dagobert I took me down a side-rabbit-hole that ended up being a clue, but more on this later.

I also read about Dagobert of Pisa and Erich Dagobert von Drygalski.* I read about a famous German extortionist named Arno Funke.** I read the near-eleven-page Scrooge McDuck Wikipedia article.***

Still nothing. I searched on Metafilter, more Wikipedia, and then just started Googling all over the place. My father told me that his brother might know the answer. It was dinnertime in Germany at that moment, so I waited on that one. He also said that perhaps he was just called Dagobert Duck because it sounded good, and because it allowed for him to have an alliterative DD emblem all over the place. I supposed that was possible.

THEN, my final resort – which I was just turning to so I wouldn't feel like I had abandoned an unsolved mystery – got me close enough to feeling I had the answer. I went to the German Wikipedia page for Dagobert Duck and winced as I hit the Translate button (I'm still used to the horrors of Babelfish days). It introduced me to the person who gave Scrooge his German name – German Walt Disney translator Erika Fuchs.


[source]

Fuchs was a prolific Disney translator in Germany, and stuck all kinds of wordplay and hidden meaning into the stories. She seemed to have a ton of fun with it, and once said, "You can't be educated enough to translate comic books." Apparently some phrases have stayed in pop culture throughout time and there is even a term - Erikativ - for popular phrases she coined (no Scrooge pun intended). In 2001, she got a prestigious literature prize "for her work on Duckburg." I am SO DELIGHTED that someone became successful and famous for translating Duckburg stories for most of her career. She was an honorary member of – ready? - D.O.N.A.L.D. This stands for "Deutsche Organisation nichtkommerzieller Anhänger des lauteren Donaldismus" or the "German Organization of Non-commercial Devotees of the true Donaldism". HA! This is the best thing I've heard in weeks.

Anyway. It was Erika Fuchs who gave Scrooge the name Dagobert in her Duckburg translations, named after those Frankish Kings Dagobert I, II, and III. So my initial impulse WAS the right one, but I needed that Translator button (ha, das ironie).

And you know why this makes sense? I will tell you. First, let's go back to the Dagobert I clue I mentioned earlier.


[source]

That is a cathedral close to Paris called Saint Denis. Dagobert I founded this cathedral in Saint Denis's name, and is now buried there. Who is Saint Denis? A patron Saint of France. How was he martyred? By beheading.


[source]

That is a statue of Saint Denis. Apparently after he was beheaded, he walked six miles, preaching the word of God while holding his own head (yes). And apparently saints were beheaded happened enough that there is a term for statues depicting saints holding their own heads – cephalophores. Good grief. Anyway, at Saint Denis's burial place was erected a shrine, and this is where Dagobert I founded the Abbey of Saint Denis (a Benedictine monastery). This is now the cathedral of Saint Denis. The shrine was made by a goldsmith named Eligius.

Above all, Eligius fabricated a mausoleum for the holy martyr Denis in the city of Paris with a wonderful marble ciborium over it marvelously decorated with gold and gems. He composed a crest [at the top of a tomb] and a magnificent frontal and surrounded the throne of the altar with golden axes in a circle. He placed golden apples there, round and jeweled. He made a pulpit and a gate of silver and a roof for the throne of the altar on silver axes. He made a covering in the place before the tomb and fabricated an outside altar at the feet of the holy martyr. So much industry did he lavish there, at the king's request, and poured out so much that scarcely a single ornament was left in Gaul and it is the greatest wonder of all to this very day. [source]

So. A very lavish shrine, with gold and jewels everywhere. And these, unrelated to Saint Denis but very related to Dagobert I: gold Dagobert coins.


[source]


[source] and [source]

Know why this is interesting to me? Because I am an Art History nut.

Know who else was an Art History nut? Erika Fuchs. In the 1930s (about 10-15 years before Scrooge was invented and entered into German pop culture), Erika Fuchs studied Art History in university. And I'm fairly certain that this stuff is why she named this character after Dagobert I.



So cool. And now I'm exhausted. Hooray! I guess it's still a theory, but hopefully pretty close. And as I tweeted earlier:



* Erich Dagobert von Drygalski was a really cool geographer and took the first Antarctic aerial photo from a balloon, ever.
** Arno Funke used to place bombs all over Germany to get ransom money. He always strategically placed the bombs to minimize people getting hurt – he was mostly seen as a prankster who kept trying to get rich. He gave himself the pseudonym Dagobert after Scrooge McDuck, because he had visions of himself one day swimming in gold coins.
*** You have to read this thing. It is more thorough an historical account than some articles I have read about real people. It contains a personal history; educational history; professional history; psychological analysis; code of values and moral conduct; log of traveled countries and languages spoken; analyses on his relationship with Donald and Huey, Dewey and Louie; and short list of wealthy duck rivals in Duckburg. I can't believe how extensive this article is. It blew my mind.

Thanks to Brandi and my father for making this afternoon amusingly strange ^^

From The Turtles to 1800s Organs

Tonight I had the intense urge to listen to You Showed Me by The Turtles:



I was compelled to Google "circus organ" after thinking that one never sounded so nice as it does in the opening notes of this song. And I found some really cool pictures:


[source]


[source]


[source]

This type of organ – called a calliope – was wheeled around by traveling circuses in the late 1800s. They work via steam (what?) passing through pipes (what??). Here is an old ad for one from 1874:


[source]

The calliope is kind of distant cousins with the train whistle (which makes sense now, steam and all).

Calliope mechanics evolved a bit over time: First they were played via a series of pins on a metal cylinder (like in a music box). Then there were organ keys, and a person played them (like in that ad, above). Then things went back to rotation-based systems with rolls of paper, and resembled player pianos.

I suppose I've only heard "good" versions of what a calliope sounds like, because apparently it's impossible to keep in tune, can be heard from a mile away (no volume control), and the notes' sound depends on how hot the steam is.

Here's a video of a riverboat calliope; you can see the steam flying out of the pipes:



EDIT: I just received an email from Zachary saying that he played this very calliope on the Delta Queen in the 1980s, "When I was about 5 while traveling down the Mississippi River on a riverboat trip that included a visit to the real setting of Mark Twain's work." Amazing.

And here's a video that came up when I searched "circus organ" on YouTube. The sound is different from a calliope, but I wonder if the vast world of 1800s organs gets mixed up easily since it still came up in search results. A quick Wikipedia search helped me figure out that this is a fairground organ, which is (it turns out) different. These were found around fairs and amusement parks, and if you play this video with your eyes closed, it will make perfect sense. Though, don't listen to this if you're not in a good mood, because you will want to throw your shoe out a window.



Randomly falling into a rabbit hole like this one at 1am makes me realize how many other insane things I don't know about yet. Jeez. I could easily spend another 2 hours researching different types of organs from the mid- to late-1800s (there are dance organs and street organs too; which of these sounds the most like a baseball game?).

Yelle La Musique

I was just perusing the video section on GBH.tv and found this new Yelle video for La Musique:



This thing mesmerized me. Not only is Yelle's sound a lot more mature since I last heard her material, but the video seems to match it perfectly. I knew it was going to be a pretty interesting video from the beginning – it starts out with cut-outs of sumo wrestlers moving around on planets in a galaxy. Then you spot the heads of Kanye and Michael Jordan in a corner, and the entire thing explodes into cut-outs of pop culture icons moving around and dancing in a watercolored fade all over the place. Everything from the Brazil Jesus statue hula-hooping to Clint Eastwood, the Taj Mahal, and Justin Bieber have cameos. At one point a flaming car flies from the sky into a camper, which then explodes into a mountain of kittens. Paris Hilton sits on a huge version of her chihuahua. Popsicles fly through the air as cats play guitars on icebergs. Finally at 1:20 I realized that the whole thing was strikingly similar to the feel in one of my favorite videos of all time, Leave Me Alone by Michael Jackson:



Usually I question interpretations that are this close, but then I saw the Yelle video close with this little nod:



Awesome. Especially since Bubbles is heavily featured in his video. Thumbs up to Yelle, can't wait to hear the whole album. She's playing Highline Ballroom on 4th November; buy tickets! If her performance was incredible 3 years ago, think of how it will be this time around with this new material.

Levi's Photo Workshop

Last night I went to the launch of the Levi's Photo Workshop. If you haven't heard of the Levi's Workshops yet, they aim to encourage and foster the creative spirit as part of their current Go Forth campaign. The first one was in San Francisco in July, and it was a printmaking workshop. Very happy that the one to hit New York was about photography! The whole thing was put on by friends of Undercurrent Sub Rosa, and was held where Deitch Projects used to be at 18 Wooster.



Now, this party was a fantastic madhouse. It was one of the best vibes I've gotten from an event in a long time - probably all year. The music was great, the crowd was great, the drinks were great (thank you Skyy), and there was photography stuff EVERYWHERE. Light tables, vintage cameras for renting, tons of film and other goodies, photo booths, a machine that puts any photo you want onto a t-shirt, huge Macs with editing software, this place was hooked up. And lining the walls was a really great curation of photographs hand-picked by Tim Barber of tinyvices.com. You can buy supplies, take classes, go to panels, see rotating exhibits and just mess around with all of the goodies for almost the entire month year. I highly, highly recommend this thing if you live here and have even the slightest interest in photography. Seriously, there's something for everyone.









Out of the entire space and event, I don't think I saw a single piece of Levi's branding, which is just insane. Over the years I've seen the worst of the positive correlation between size of brand and how much control they want to have re: "make the logo bigger" syndrome. The most I saw were three little racks of jackets and shirts on the upper level. Very well done, guys.



Speaking of brands, the collaborators' list is nuts. Everything from Aperture Foundation to Leica and Kodak, Taschen and Vice. And there's a community partnership component, which supplies the warm fuzzies. A+ to Levi's, Sub Rosa and everyone else involved.

[More of my pictures here; see the Levi's Workshops pool here.]

EDIT 12 Oct | Marisa blogged about the workshop and event as well; if you're in the mood for more polished editorial (and some other shots courtesy of The Selvedge Yard), it's worth a read!

Three songs

Music is a huge part of my life, as it probably is for a lot of people. I'm thrilled about how often I hear something that I instantly love because I'm the type to play that song exclusively, over and over for 2 weeks straight. But it isn't very often at all that I am blown away enough to stop what I'm doing and listen to the whole thing with my jaw on my desk. This usually happens about once every year and a half, but I guess I've been lucky lately because we just hit time number three for 2010. Just want to share these three very different songs with you. Maybe you'll like them too, if you haven't heard them yet.

Hot Chip: I Feel Better
I first heard the Bonnie Prince Billy remix of I Feel Better on RCRD LBL, and loved it. My friend Lucy sent me the original, and I wanted to jump out the window. I went home that night and transcribed the entire thing because I wasn't satisfied simply listening to it. Yes, people are sick of autotune by now, but I don't know if I ever will be. It can be used in a ton of different ways, and this way is spectacular. I kind of hate the video because it violates the image that the song put in my head originally, and it's a slightly edited version. And all I need is the magenta of the audio (but click on that link if you're curious and in the mood to be creeped out by an endearing bald man).



France Gall: Poupée De Cire Poupé De Son
I heard this one off of Niotillfem's French Spotify playlist. I stopped working and listened to it 3 times in a row; I couldn't tell at first whether it was a girl or a very young mischievous boy. Then I looked up France Gall and it turns out she was part of a huge musical movement in the 60s called yé-yé. I had heard of it before, but didn't know how influential of an explosion it was. It mostly involved young girls singing about boy stuff in an intentionally innocent way. I don't know what the song is about, but I do know that Serge Gainsbourg wrote it and that it's been covered all over the place (Arcade Fire and Broken Social Scene are just 2 of the bands who have).



Mark Ronson x Ghostface Killah: Lose It (In The End)
Some of this album gives me a slight golden oldies feel, but I may be the only one. The song has a good intro, a great beat, and an extremely catchy verse. Almost reminds me of the Four Seasons (it's less than two and a half minutes long, too). He throws in that effect that sounds like you're singing into a fan, and Ghostface swoops in nearly a minute in (similar to how he does in his version of You Know I'm No Good with Amy Winehouse). I smiled the whole time I heard this song for the first time, and it's my favorite on this album (Record Collection; I bought the whole thing after previewing on Spotify and I suggest you do the same. Also check out the final track).



Hope you enjoyed. I might stitch together a playlist that features songs that have affected me similarly in the past; I wonder if it will have a good flow or just sound like a complicated mess. Anyway, has this happened to you this year? What song(s)?

VAMPS

A couple of weeks ago, Ryan from New York-Tokyo sent me a press release for a Japanese rock band that is playing this weekend. They are called VAMPS, and I'm kind of upset that I already have tickets to a different show that night because from the looks of them, they are pretty much the epitome of my idea of what Japanese rockstars are like.





The guys' names are Hyde and K.A.Z, and from what I understand they each had years of being in other bands under their belts before deciding to form VAMPS together. It's hard to find much else about them other than the other bands they were in before, but apparently they are a big deal and sell out all over the place. One look at their MySpace page shows that they have 17,579 friends and six pages of just fansign photos, which is really endearing. And watching this album teaser really makes me sorry that I can't make it:



I know, right?

This is their first world tour, and if you live in NYC you can catch them at Roseland Ballroom this Saturday the 9th. Get your tickets here and let me know how it is!

Takashi Murakami x Versailles

When I see something covered over and over on different platforms and Twitter feeds, my typical reaction is to ignore it forever. This is why I didn't see the Arcade Fire video until a week after it launched; I guess the buzz just annoys me and I don't even want to bother. But this instance was too weird, and well, it appealed to two loves of mine: fine art and contemporary art.

Within 3 minutes, I saw this tweet:


This blog post:


And received this email:


It's almost like my noticeably fast adoration of the new Blonde Redhead album, except it's the Internet with Takashi Murakami having 22 pieces displayed all over Versailles.

TAKASHI MURAKAMI// Exposition Versailles from OFIVE.TV on Vimeo.

This is kind of AWESOME. I can't even imagine how this could have happened; I don't know a lot about the recent history of art being on display at Versailles (or even who is in charge of something like that), but over time I've noticed a sometimes-prickly divide between lovers of fine art and lovers of contemporary art. Especially since even though Takashi Murakami is most widely known for his happy, psychedelically-colored flowers (did you know he also created six little mascots for the Tokyo district Roppongi?), he has also made some pretty controversial stuff (maybe don't click on that link if your entire office has full view of your monitor, just saying. It's art, but it's definitely leaning more toward NSFW).


[from Flavorwire]

It's very disarming and delightful to see the imagery of bubbly creatures juxtaposed in front of Rigaud and Bernini works. If in the past you could only imagine these two guys hanging out…



…now you can see it for real. If you get over there by 12 December (or before the angry French protesters kill it, whichever comes first), that is.

Penny Sparkle

A few weeks ago, I opened my email to find this:



If the text is too small, it was basically tickets to see Blonde Redhead kick off Fashion Week at the Tribeca Grand Hotel. And for those who don't know, Blonde Redhead is my most favorite band. How good Gilt City is at curating special packages like this should be a separate post entirely, but to give an idea, $80 would get you:

• A ticket to the (very small) show
• An advance copy of their new album, Penny Sparkle (scheduled for release a week later (today))
• An hour of open bar prior to the show (sponsored by Brooklyn Brewery and Tequila Avion)
• A reserved area at the after party
• Two immediate digital downloads of tracks from their new album

This is pretty much insane. Plus, the entire thing was to happen on the eve of my birthday, so I hesitated very little on getting two tickets.

All in all, I loved it. They have this kind of synced magic between the three of them that just kind of works. At one point all they could hear was fuzziness on their ends, and they weren't wearing ear pieces, yet they were still all exactly on beat with each other throughout.

Forgetfulness left my camera at home, but I did get two kinda neat shots with my phone that actually fit the sound of Penny Sparkle really well:





It wasn't until the next day that I got to take a good look at the CD. It's the nicest packaging I may have ever seen from something that doesn't get a lot of attention at all anymore; I can't wait to see what the vinyl looks like.







As far as the album itself, I got to sneak a listen a few days before the show, and it's beautiful. It's very different from the previous two or three releases, and at first I wasn't really sure at all what to think. But you know how sometimes you give a new album a couple dozen spins, you warm to it over time, and in the end you grow to adore it? The process was expedited with Penny Sparkle in a strange way that's never really happened before with any other album. The very next time I heard it, I was really into it. By the third time, elated. By the fourth, inseparable. I actually noticed the spikes with each listen. If 23 was like drowning in a goldish shimmery haze, Penny Sparkle is like drowning in a silvery brushed vapor (which I realize doesn't sound VERY DIFFERENT AT ALL, but trust me). I am not sure how else to describe it except please give it a listen. Here's a link to one of my favorite tracks off the album on The FADER, Not Getting There.

Pre-digital music playback and rotation

Part of my being unimpressed with iWork.com so far is that it seems I can't work on anything else while one file is being uploaded (which so far has taken about an hour and is not finished yet). So you get to look at some pictures. There is not too much deep thought to this post; I just was sitting on my couch last week, staring at an album playing on my record player. I thought, "So, this massive circle spins, and a whole song takes up very little space in this format. How did they ever think of doing it this way?"



And then I realized that over time (and up until digital files), everything that played music has been based on rotation. Duh. I know, so obvious. But it was fun to keep thinking of examples.


Phonograph


Organ grinder


Nickelodeon


Music box


Casette tape


CD

Any more that I'm missing? I wonder if Steve Jobs got the click wheel idea from this.

Motivational credit: Photojojo linked to this picture of a pinhole camera sitting on a record while the turn table was spinning:



It inspired me to get this thought down before I forgot about it again. Cool, no?

EDIT 7 Sept | Zachary gave me two that I missed! Reel to reel and 8 track.