visual

Anything that can be seen. Stuff with in this category is generally somehow interesting to look at, beautiful, stunning, provocative, silly, crrrrraaaaaazy, intriguing, or inspirational.

James Brown - Hot Pants - Wordle

Wordle seems sort of perfect for representing James Brown lyrics. I used Internet lyrics, which don’t appear to be a true transcription of the version on In the Jungle Groove, which is 8+ minutes of “huh!” and “hey!” and “Good God!” and “smokin!” Still, good enough. While you’re considering James Brown as a lyricist, you should check out Eddie Murphy’s theme song for “James Brown’s Celebrity Hot Tub Party” — the video; and in Wordle, which is an interesting way of visualizing one element of the satire.

Wordle + The First 100% Accurate Transcription of Led Zeppelin II Lyrics =

Led Zeppelin 2 lyrics - wordle
 

I’ve love infographics, and I’ve gone on and on about collaboration and the Beatles before, so when I heard that someone had created an infographic displaying the degree to which Beatles collaborated on songs — well, “interested” would be hugely understating my emotions at the time. (Thanks, Dan, for the tip).

“The Beatles: Authorship & Collaboration” is a nicely composed graphic, clearly breaking down the contributors to each song, Beatle and non-Beatle. The songs are laid out chronologically, and the overall effect clearly reveals that the Beatles collaborated less as they progressed in their careers. (If anything is true of the Beatles, it’s that they grew apart over time). The chart’s data is drawn from Beatlesongs, which quantifies the degree to which each Beatle contributed to the writing of a song, using a scale of 0 – 100%.

Beatles - Collaboration - Octopus's Garden

I can’t quibble with the desire to understand and visualize the degree to which each Beatle shaped each song, but I find the quantification bit a little — well — falsely precise. It makes for a nice infographic, but a mere skim through The Official Abbey Road Studio Session Notes, 1962 – 1970 makes it clear that there was quite a lot of collaboration among the four Beatles — not to mention the various “fifth Beatles,” the “Black Beatle,” and their producer, George Martin. Perhaps there’s a difference between “collaboration” and “authorship?”

In the example to the right, “Octopus’s Garden,” is said to be 100% Ringo? Yes, Ringo does receive sole credit for “authorship,” but it is widely known that George had a significant role in shaping it. In fact, George works out the song on a piano in the Let It Be movie. How to represent this softer sort of collaboration? Good question. Shapes? Sizes? Colors? Dimensions? Whatever it is, it should fairly communicate the organic nature of creative collaboration. And dispense with the too-neat round numbers.

Ever since I heard about Battle Royale, I’ve wanted to see the film ... Quentin Tarantino has called it “the best movie since 1992,” so it’s probably not surprising that it’s both extremely bloody and very darkly funny. The premise: Adults fear the rise of youth, and each year they put the most badly behaved kids on an island and force them to battle each other to the death.

Battle Royale - Batoru RowaiaruLike Tarantino’s movies, the setup is quick and effective.
Battle Royale - Batoru RowaiaruThe humor darkens: A baby-voiced Japanese teen explains the rules of the game, including the fact that the collar worn by contestants goes “boom” under certain circumstances.
Battle Royale - Batoru RowaiaruEach “player” gets their own weapon. As the plot unfolds, the “players” learn who has what, and figure out how to work with what they have.
Battle Royale - Batoru RowaiaruFinally, there are liberal amounts of blood, and much killing. Mixed with the sardonic dialogue, it’s easy to see why Tarantino loves it so much.

Despite the nihilistic milieu, the story focused on traditional stuff — loyalty, trust and friendship; and in the end, it was actually sort of sweet, much sweeter than bleak 60’s and 70’s films like McCabe & Mrs. Miller or The Wild Bunch. Worth seeing, just for that weird juxtaposition.


Stop whatever you’re doing and watch this. It’s called “Windowdipper,” and it’s by Jib Kidder, aka Sean Schuster-Craig. I remember Sean describing his music as something like minimalist crunk, or Dirty South boogie, or Memphis dirty go-go, or something, but you really have to see this to get it. Sean, if you read this, remind me of the official sub-sub-genre. In the meantime, holy crap. Enjoy.

Nike Air Jordan 3 Black Cat

The Nike Air Jordan 3 Black Cat ... This shoe frightened me when it first came out in 1988. It looked like it had arrived from outer space, which made it absolutely the perfect shoe for Jordan to wear when he was just beginning to dominate the NBA. His game was threatening. These shoes were so sleek, so — it must be said — fierce, that a kid knew that he needed to step up his game in order to be worthy of them. I’m currently totally riveted by the extensive Air Jordan documentation and commentary on the web. For instance, here’s a killer 8-minute video profile of Tinker Hatfield, the genius behind the Jordan line. Nobody in the world can cover my main man, Michael Jordan ... Impossible! Impossible! Impossible! Imposs-!

Saul Steinberg - Robert Frank - The Americans - Les Americains - first edition

Saul Steinberg’s cover for the first edition The Americans by Robert Frank. Publisher Robert Delpire: “The only point of disagreement was the cover. I insisted right away on using a drawing by Saul Steinberg, whom I had met and whose work I liked. Frank said, ‘It’s a book of photos, we could use a photo.’ I told him, ‘You can use a photo for the American edition, but let me use a Steinberg drawing.’ But when I reprinted the book in 1986, I used a photograph because I had discovered, basically, that he was right.”

Photographer Robert Frank is known for a few things, primarily The Americans, a ground-breaking book of photography published in the late 50’s. He is also known for avant-garde film-making, e.g., Pull My Daisy, and his never-released Rolling Stones documentary with an unprintable name.

We checked out SFMOMA’s 50th anniversary retrospective of The Americans today, and I was astonished at another of Frank’s skills: Grant-writing. In order to fund the gathering of the photos that became The Americans, he applied for a Guggenheim Fellowship. I’ve pasted his clear, simple, two-part essay below.

Part 1: Frank’s brief summary of the proposal

To photograph freely throughout the United States, using the miniature camera exclusively. The making of a broad, voluminous picture record of things American, past and present. This project is essentially the visual study of a civilization and will include caption notes; but it is only partly documentary in nature: one of its aims is more artistic than the word documentary implies.

Part 2: The full statement of intent

I am applying for a Fellowship with a very simple intention: I wish to continue, develop and widen the kind of work I already do, and have been doing for some ten years, and apply it to the American nation in general. I am submitting work that will be seen to be documentation — most broadly speaking. Work of this kind is, I believe, to be found carrying its own visual impact without much work explanation. The project I have in mind is one that will shape itself as it proceeds, and is essentially elastic. The material is there: the practice will be in the photographer’s hand, the vision in his mind. One says this with some embarrassment but one cannot do less than claim vision if one is to ask for consideration.

“The photographing of America” is a large order — read at all literally, the phrase would be an absurdity. What I have in mind, then, is observation and record of what one naturalized American finds to see in the United States that signifies the kind of civilization born here and spreading elsewhere. Incidentally, it is fair to assume that when an observant American travels abroad his eye will see freshly; and that the reverse may be true when a European eye looks at the United States. I speak of the things that are there, anywhere and everywhere — easily found, not easily selected and interpreted. A small catalog comes to the mind’s eye: a town at night, a parking lot, a supermarket, a highway, the man who owns three cars and the man who owns none, the farmer and his children, a new house and a warped clapboard house, the dictation of taste, the dream of grandeur, advertising, neon lights, the faces of the leaders and the faces of the followers, gas tanks and postoffices and backyards.

The uses of my project would be sociological, historical and aesthetic. My total production will be voluminous, as is usually the case when the photographer works with miniature film. I intend to classify and annotate my work on the spot, as I proceed. Ultimately the file I shall make should be deposited in a collection such as the one in the Library of Congress. A more immediate use I have in mind is both book and magazine publication.

Frank was awarded a fellowship, which amounted to $3,600, and he used this to travel in a long loop around the US in 1955 – 6. That “more immediate use” that he refers to in the final sentence turned into The Americans, a stunning document that is every bit as interesting 50 years later. The exhibition is captured in an extended version of The Americans, including contact sheets and commentary.

David Choe - Dirty Hands
David Choe: Setting a good example.



I’m psyched to check out Dirty Hands, a new documentary about artist David Choe. I’m usually skeptical about “street art” films, but the trailer looks pretty great, and I’ve heard that Choe is kind of a madman. I compare everything in this street/art vein to Video Days — which, by the way, did you know that can watch all of Video Days on Google Video? — and I’m always hoping that new stuff will somehow advance the form that Spike Jonze laid out all those years ago. Maybe this will? Maybe other stuff has?

David Choe - Black Dynamite - watercolor
Choe worked some watercolor magic for a movie called Black Dynamite that just made some waves at Sundance.

David Remnick’s excellent biography of Muhammad Ali, King of the World contains a truly stunning scene that sprung to mind during last week’s inauguration. Before Ali’s first big bout, a meeting with Sonny Liston, the press didn’t know what to make of Ali’s confidence and bombast. A reporter asked: “Cassius, all these things you’re saying about Liston, do you really mean them? Do you really think you’re going to beat this guy?”

Ali: I’m Christopher Columbus ... I believe I’ll win. I’ve never been in there with him, but I believe the world is round and they all believe the world is flat. Maybe I’ll fall off the world at the horizon but I believe the world is round.1

I feel like there’s a thread that runs directly from this statement to last Tuesday’s inauguration, and it made me want to dig deeper into Ali, the myth-maker. So last night I watched a 1964 documentary, made by photographer William Klein, called Muhammad Ali: The Greatest; it’s included in a recent Criterion Collection release called The Delirious Fictions of William Klein, which is cheap-o on Amazon right now, actually.

Muhammad Ali - William Klein - Title
Typography suits the subject. ALI. Yeah.

Muhammad Ali - William Klein - Ali
Klein is known for his still photography, and he brings a photographer’s eye, and a cavalier attitude toward editing. The movie is a montage of spontaneity and action, tracing Ali’s path from the build-up to his first fight with Sonny Liston to the Rumble in the Jungle with George Foreman.

Muhammad Ali - William Klein - Joe Louis
Klein catches a nice glimpse of another groundbreaking figure.

William Klein - Muhammad Ali - Mysterious punch
Ali’s second fight with Liston became infamous for the “phantom” punch that ended it. Rumors abound that Liston took a dive, either because he bet against himself or because he was afraid that the Nation of Islam would seek revenge if Ali lost. See it for yourself on the YouTubez.

Muhammad Ali - William Klein - Kids in Zaire
Klein captures some amazing moments around the Rumble, which took place in Zaire, 1974.

Muhammad Ali - William Klein - Foreman fan
The whole nation appears to be in and around the stadium. When We Were Kings tells the whole story. It will blow your mind, and make you love Norman Mailer at the same time.

Muhammad Ali - William Klein - Mobutu Sese Seko
Mobutu Sese Seko, Zaire’s strongman president, is omnipresent in Klein’s footage from the fight. I love this image of his head slowly coming into focus from the clouds.


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