Many years ago, designers lamented losing a square foot of art space when the vinyl record ceded to the 5" x 5" CD case.
Now that album covers have basically shrunk to 1" x 1" for display on an MP3 player screen (and slightly larger on the computer scrren), they have all but given up hope.
However, it wasn't just LP album covers that had fantastic designs, many 7" sleeves were pretty cool as well, and they don't get nearly enough retro love. Check out the Record Envelope blog for a collection of 45RPM sleeves that span time and the world. Verve Records' was stark and simple, Go-Feet was totally ska (as expected, since the label was owned by the English Beat). And dig the cute cartoon art from the German label Weltschlager (pictured).
Find more record cover related goodies at this installment of web zen: record cover zen.
+ While I'm frustrated by Marvel Comic's rising cover prices, annoyed by their epic "events" that spread a major story over multiple series ($$$), and completely disgusted by Marvel's "Sex and the City"-influenced Marvel Divas book, it's an almost sure thing I'll be picking up their limited-run Models Inc. later this year, featuring Tim Gunn as a comic book action hero!
+ A column I wish had been assigned: the Village Voice's Studies in Crap. Hell, I wouldn't even need to scour thrift stores (although that is great fun), just pillage the 60+ years of paperwork stored in my father's files, like fallout shelter information.
+A list of 75 Ways to Draw More by artist Michael Nobbs. Entries include: 23) Give up watching one TV programme and draw instead. 24) If you can’t give up a programme draw it instead. 40) Draw while you’re on the toilet. 73) Stay up ten minutes later tonight and draw something. 74) Get up ten minutes earlier tomorrow and draw something.
When the original V miniseries aired in 1983 (original) and 1984 (The Final Battle), I didn't care about watching them, although everyone else in junior high did. In fact, I fought with my sister for television rights when it was on. I was more interested in music videos at that age than science fiction. However, the show was a huge deal in the days before 500 channels, streaming video, and DVD.
In the 25 years since the two miniseries and the short-lived "regular" series, I developed an appreciation of the science fiction genre, and much anticipating the "re-boot" of V airing next year on ABC, especially since it resembles one of my favorite novels, Childhood's End.
Obviously, the effects will be much better, and it also features a few of my favorite genre actors: Alan Tudyk (Firefly, Dollhouse), Joel Gretsch (Taken, The 4400 (cancelled before its time)), Morena Baccarin (Firefly), and Laura Vanervoort (Smallville).
I've had a copy of the late David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest on my "to read" shelves for a year or two, purchased at a library book sale for $1, an incredible bargain. This copy is in great condition, tight spine, no bent pages, and free of that icky musty smell that often plagues library sale books. It's likely that the donor never even read it. I haven't done a much better job at getting it read, either.
However, I may finally tackle Infinite Jest this summer, as part of the web-organized Infinite Summer project. Divided up through the summer (6/21 to 9/22) it works out to 75 pages a week (plus endnotes, as the site reminds us, lots of endnotes).
It may just be the right time to tackle this novel, or at least try anyway. I'll still be reading comics and graphic novels while I read IJ this summer, but no other fiction until it's finished. The most difficult part of this project may not be understanding the content, but lugging around all three pounds of it during the commute.
When I lived in downstate Illinois, one of my favorite places to get take-away was Lil Porgy's Bar-B-Q, "incredibly good 'cause they cook on wood". I still remember one of the most satisfying meals of my life from there, eating a half-rack of ribs, served over steak fries and topped with a squishy piece of white bread, devoured from the top of a cardboard box in a new apartment I had just moved myself to.
However, I was always a little bit disturbed by their mascot, a grinning pig in a chef's hat and apron, grinning and holding BBQ tools. A few years ago, the Suicide Food site launched, documenting the disturbing use of animals advertising their own demises. I finally had a name for these odd animal mascots.
I thought the Lil Porgy's pig was one of the most disturbing examples of Suicide Food until I got this flyer stuffed in with take-away from Philly's own Sweet Lucy's. Now, I love this place, and if I'm going to eat meat it's going to be from here. But does this buffet flyer have to be so disturbing?
At the end of last year, the Consumerist blog was getting the boot from the Gawker Media family. Since Consumerist didn't accept advertising, it didn't bring in any revenue for the company. It looked as if the site was doomed, but then Consumers Union - publisher of Consumer Reports - swooped in and bought the blog. CU has been letting the Consumerist run unadulterated, informative and witty as ever. (Plus, they always seem to use photos of cute cats to illustrate stories!)
One of the benefits of Consumers Union buying Consumerist is that the blog writers now have access to an incredible resource with the CU Labs. Consumerist recently held a fund drive for the site to help out with expenses, and as a reward, CU agreed to test the Snuggie, "the blanket with sleeves"!
Check out the video:
I'm not surprised at the crappy quality of the Snuggie. I've used the Slanket, which was on the market long before the Snuggie, and it kicked my lazy ass.
On the other hand, you could probably felt another Snuggie out of that dryer lint.
My love for the IKEA RATTA stuffed toy is known on this blog (see here and here). On a trip to IKEA yesterday, I was pleased to discover that RATTA now comes in black and white in addition to the "classic" gray!
And they've added mousies, or GOSIG MUS to the collection as well!
Original AVQ&A Q*:What are your pop-culture guilty pleasures? Nothing that you're proud to be different about—nothing based out of nostalgia, irony, or a love of kitsch or camp.
SPCHQ A: Personally, I don't believe in "guilty pleasures", because you should enjoy what you want and don't worry about what other people think. However, I do believe in having "dirty little secrets", pop-culture products that you gladly partake in, but would really prefer no one else finding out about.
So, here goes.
My dirty little pop-culture secret is I've developed a strangely non-ironic appreciation for selected 80s/90s hair metal.
The bizarre thing is that I DIDN'T LIKE THIS MUSIC AT ALL during its heyday. I blamed hair metal for "killing" MTV as I knew it, never bought albums from those bands, and thought they all blew chunks. Back then it was "give me indie/college radio/music no one else listens to or give me silence".
The only explanations I can fathom for willingly listening to hair metal today are (1) reading too much Chuck Klosterman or, (2) not listening to enough of this music when was actually popular. I'll never attend one of those reunion shows of washed-up hair bands that proliferate during the summer, like the Rocklahoma festival, but at times I find myself enjoying WYSP's "8 from the 80s" lunch, the Sirius radio "Hair Nation" channel, and blocks of old videos on VH1 Classic.
Really, who can resist Dio's "Rainbow In The Dark" or some classic Night Ranger every so often? (Although I draw the line at Whitesnake.)
SPCHQ A: Unless I'm caught in a low point of the twisty randomness that defines my life, I don't cry over movies. Okay, I bawled during Snoopy Come Home, but I was four years old. Much more recently, I cried at the end of Waitress, not because of the conclusion, but because director Adrienne Shelly was brutally murdered before the film was released. I cried more over losing her than over the film's content.
However, one movie destroys me every time: Hedwig and the Angry Inch. It's not a traditionally weepy film - a musical extravaganza about a transsexual whose "operation got botched" taking to the road to reclaim hir rightful career. While I certainly laugh during many parts - okay, everybody, who can resist the "Wig in the Box" sing-along? - a sadness hangs over the entire film. "The Origin of Love" with its simple, crayon-like accompanying animation at the beginning of the movie puts a lump in my throat ("Last time I saw you, we had just split in two. You was looking at me, I was looking at you. You had a way so familiar, but I could not recognize, 'cause you had blood on your face, I had blood in my eyes. But I could swear by your expression that the pain down in your soul was the same as the one down in mine, That's the pain that cuts a straight line down through the heart, we call it love..."). By the end of the film, after the car accident, during the reprise of "Wicked Little Town" as Hedwig wanders around, naked and dazed, I'm a complete mess. Maybe it's the line "If you've got no other choice, you know you can follow my voice through the dark turns and noise of this wicked little town...", maybe it's the whole metaphor about the sad, long search for personal identity, probably both plus the sound and fury of the previous 85 minutes that leaves me a soggy wreck.
Amazingly, Hedwig and the Angry Inch is posted in its entirety on Google Video (probably illegally, so watch it while you can).
Many years ago, designers lamented losing a square foot of art space when the vinyl record ceded to the 5" x 5" CD case. 
