11/26
11/27
11/28
Popeyes
First Avenue Atmosphere Sold Out
Budo on Instrumentals, RSE Artist Grieves on the Mic
RSE Artist: Blueprint
Atmosphere
Fin
13 minutes ago
Monday, November 29, 2010
Friday, November 26, 2010
Artist George Condo Explains His Five Covers for Kanye West’s Twisted Fantasy
Credit: nymag.com
Last spring George Condo received a phone call from Hawaii. It was Kanye West, asking if the painter was interested in collaborating on art for his upcoming album. “He was new to me,” Condo says. “I was very old school rap, you know what I mean?” The ensuing partnership resulted in the five covers that West has presented for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. From his Upper East Side studio, where he’s preparing for a major retrospective at the New Museum, Condo talked to us about Macbeth, ballerinas, and how the pair might have a few surprises up their sleeves.
Cubist-style portrait of Kanye
On Kanye’s first visit to Condo’s studio, he blasted “Power.” “Immediately,” Condo explains, “I started having all ideas about these mythological creatures and volcanic landscapes. Parts and pieces from Macbeth. Parts and pieces from some sort of sci-fi landscape.” But when Condo heard the song’s hook, from King Crimson’s “21st Century Schizoid Man,” he told West he wanted to paint a portrait. The next afternoon, West came back and posed. “It’s sort of cubist, you know, this portrait with all these different dimensions to it. Like an African mask with almost a modern face. I wanted to get that feeling that he’s almost a Miles Davis-like guy.”
Naked sphinx straddling Kanye
“That’s a good painting,” Condo says matter-of-factly. “She’s a kind of fragment, between a sphinx, a phoenix, a haunting ghost, a harpy. And then Kanye is also in some sort of strange 1970s burned-out back room of a Chicago blues club having a beer — so far away from the real Kanye West that it’s just a scream.” In painting Kanye in such an outrageous situation, Condo says, “I was challenging him with the imagery as well. He said, ‘I’m shocked, but I like it, and I gotta go with my gut feeling.’” This cover’s already been banned by Wal-Mart and Apple’s iTunes Music Store, much to Condo’s disgust. “The superimposition of people’s perceptions on a cartoon is shocking,” Condo scoffs. “What’s happening in their minds should be banned. Not the painting.”
Ballerina
Condo remembers that West came to his studio between eight and ten times over the course of the summer. The ballerina — a concept that later worked its way into West’s “Runaway” film and performance at the VMAs — came from one of those visits. “We were hanging around one night, and we were listening to that tune ‘Runaway,’” Condo recalls, when his wife, Anna, showed West a a shot of French dancer Sylvie Guillem moving in slow motion. “And somehow Kanye grabbed onto that idea of the ballerina,” Condo explains. “He just said, ‘Hey man, I’d like to have a great ballerina painting.’ I thought of a ballerina toasting. You know, ‘let’s toast to the scumbags.’”
Head With Sword
“I really like that idea of a Shakespearian thing,” West told Condo about this painting of a severed head wearing a crown. The piece’s two contrasting styles -- “cubism and classicism forged together in a single painting” — dovetail, Condo says, with West’s music, with its “layers of different styles happening simultaneously.” What did Kanye see in the picture that made him like it? “His tragedy was a kind of exile that Kanye imposed upon himself,” Condo says. “He was free from exile by having the cathartic moment in the image. He’s alive in the painting, you know what I mean? In a strange way it’s like, he opened his eyes.”
headlesscrown.jpg
“He’s lost in the world,” Condo says, of this cover that Kanye showed during a recent web chat. “All of a sudden, he was gone. The crown was there, the sword was there, but his head had disappeared. You feel his presence but you don’t see him. He’s been somehow reduced to symbols.” He describes this painting as “a variant, like an outtake,” and hints that it may not in fact be the fifth cover. (Just before getting on the phone, Condo was visited by a Def Jam representative with the album’s final packaging.) “That’s the funny thing,” he says lightly. “This will all come out and there’ll be a few surprises. You can always trust Kanye for a surprise.”
Last spring George Condo received a phone call from Hawaii. It was Kanye West, asking if the painter was interested in collaborating on art for his upcoming album. “He was new to me,” Condo says. “I was very old school rap, you know what I mean?” The ensuing partnership resulted in the five covers that West has presented for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. From his Upper East Side studio, where he’s preparing for a major retrospective at the New Museum, Condo talked to us about Macbeth, ballerinas, and how the pair might have a few surprises up their sleeves.
On Kanye’s first visit to Condo’s studio, he blasted “Power.” “Immediately,” Condo explains, “I started having all ideas about these mythological creatures and volcanic landscapes. Parts and pieces from Macbeth. Parts and pieces from some sort of sci-fi landscape.” But when Condo heard the song’s hook, from King Crimson’s “21st Century Schizoid Man,” he told West he wanted to paint a portrait. The next afternoon, West came back and posed. “It’s sort of cubist, you know, this portrait with all these different dimensions to it. Like an African mask with almost a modern face. I wanted to get that feeling that he’s almost a Miles Davis-like guy.”
“That’s a good painting,” Condo says matter-of-factly. “She’s a kind of fragment, between a sphinx, a phoenix, a haunting ghost, a harpy. And then Kanye is also in some sort of strange 1970s burned-out back room of a Chicago blues club having a beer — so far away from the real Kanye West that it’s just a scream.” In painting Kanye in such an outrageous situation, Condo says, “I was challenging him with the imagery as well. He said, ‘I’m shocked, but I like it, and I gotta go with my gut feeling.’” This cover’s already been banned by Wal-Mart and Apple’s iTunes Music Store, much to Condo’s disgust. “The superimposition of people’s perceptions on a cartoon is shocking,” Condo scoffs. “What’s happening in their minds should be banned. Not the painting.”
Condo remembers that West came to his studio between eight and ten times over the course of the summer. The ballerina — a concept that later worked its way into West’s “Runaway” film and performance at the VMAs — came from one of those visits. “We were hanging around one night, and we were listening to that tune ‘Runaway,’” Condo recalls, when his wife, Anna, showed West a a shot of French dancer Sylvie Guillem moving in slow motion. “And somehow Kanye grabbed onto that idea of the ballerina,” Condo explains. “He just said, ‘Hey man, I’d like to have a great ballerina painting.’ I thought of a ballerina toasting. You know, ‘let’s toast to the scumbags.’”
“I really like that idea of a Shakespearian thing,” West told Condo about this painting of a severed head wearing a crown. The piece’s two contrasting styles -- “cubism and classicism forged together in a single painting” — dovetail, Condo says, with West’s music, with its “layers of different styles happening simultaneously.” What did Kanye see in the picture that made him like it? “His tragedy was a kind of exile that Kanye imposed upon himself,” Condo says. “He was free from exile by having the cathartic moment in the image. He’s alive in the painting, you know what I mean? In a strange way it’s like, he opened his eyes.”
“He’s lost in the world,” Condo says, of this cover that Kanye showed during a recent web chat. “All of a sudden, he was gone. The crown was there, the sword was there, but his head had disappeared. You feel his presence but you don’t see him. He’s been somehow reduced to symbols.” He describes this painting as “a variant, like an outtake,” and hints that it may not in fact be the fifth cover. (Just before getting on the phone, Condo was visited by a Def Jam representative with the album’s final packaging.) “That’s the funny thing,” he says lightly. “This will all come out and there’ll be a few surprises. You can always trust Kanye for a surprise.”
smart Magazine: Supreme 2010 Fall/Winter Collection Lookbook
Asian people, we swag the fuck out shit! Enough said.
smart Magazine’s January issue is the latest publication to produce a photographic editorial highlighting the latest apparel from Supreme. Pieces are drawn not only from Supreme’s 2010 fall/winter series, but also from some of their recent collaborations for this season including the Nike X Supreme 94. Shot against a plain white background, the shoot is casual and primarily uses wider shots to display full outfits. Focusing on outerwear, simple layering is used throughout as each look is appropriately designed for warmth.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
New York Minute: Six-Part miniseries written and directed by the creators of Gasface.
I MADE NONE OF THESE VIDEOS. THE CREDIT GOES TO THE PEOPLE OF http://nyminute.arte.tv/en/
101 - Midnight Marauder from ARTE New York Minute
NYC, Dec 10th, 2009. 11.30 am.
Six shots tear up Times Square's mumbling.
"Ready", a CD pusher, just got killed by a plain clothes cop
from an unit specialized in... watching CD peddlers in the midtown area.
Squala Orphan also sells his own production on the Deuce.
We got him to share the insomnia of the Midnight Marauder with us.
102 - The Magic Number from ARTE New York Minute
"Joell Ortiz, it's me, Mike and Dennis".
An ex-con collecting muscle cars, a producer from haitian descent and a MC with no stage name remix the Holy Trinity live from Brooklyn... Holy sh*t !
Since those 3 got back together, each one lives in his own timezone. A paradox that works magic since Joell is on heavy rotation in the city's biggest radio stations.
How to get to the top without going anywhere.
103 - Land Of Dream from ARTE New York Minute
New York is an universal magnet.
And Queens, with its two airports, is the American Dream's waiting room. Next to Flushing Meadow Park's Unisphere, at the end of Roosevelt Avenue –the most cosmopolitan thoroughfare of the city-, there’s Willets Point, a place where the World meets with hundreds of ghostworkers from the Junkyard.
An inspirational blend for Deejay Mista Sinista.
104 - Night Nurse from ARTE New York Minute
What goes up must come down. Everyone knows that, especially if you are from Uptown, Harlem.
G Dep was the talk of the town when he joined Puff Daddy in 1999. But he felt in love with the Night Nurse… 8 years after his meeting with the Hip Hop mogul, he was arrested for breaking a display model mobile phone and spent a year on Rikers Island, without anyone showing up with his $750 bail.
Sometimes the night seems endless on Allerton Ave.
105 - Lost Generation from ARTE New York Minute
Staten Island, home of 8,000 Liberian immigrants,
might have the largest concentration of child soldiers in North America. US citizens used to see these kids on CNN -carrying a Teddy bear in one hand and an AK-47 in the other- during the Liberian civil war.
Ten years later, they observe this lost generation out their window.
This story has no heroes, only survivors.
106 - Fast Life from ARTE New York Minute
“Live fast, die young“...
In New York the ride is wild on the road to riches… And no one embody that way of life better than the Ruff Ryders crew from the Bronx : talents who go from broke-to-multi-millionaire-to- bankrupt, dare-devil Bikers, hustlers who try to make it happen livin’ the Illegal Life like Mysonne…
There’s only one rule to this game: live fast and die in another New York minute.
Voila. 6 for 6.
101 - Midnight Marauder from ARTE New York Minute
NYC, Dec 10th, 2009. 11.30 am.
Six shots tear up Times Square's mumbling.
"Ready", a CD pusher, just got killed by a plain clothes cop
from an unit specialized in... watching CD peddlers in the midtown area.
Squala Orphan also sells his own production on the Deuce.
We got him to share the insomnia of the Midnight Marauder with us.
102 - The Magic Number from ARTE New York Minute
"Joell Ortiz, it's me, Mike and Dennis".
An ex-con collecting muscle cars, a producer from haitian descent and a MC with no stage name remix the Holy Trinity live from Brooklyn... Holy sh*t !
Since those 3 got back together, each one lives in his own timezone. A paradox that works magic since Joell is on heavy rotation in the city's biggest radio stations.
How to get to the top without going anywhere.
103 - Land Of Dream from ARTE New York Minute
New York is an universal magnet.
And Queens, with its two airports, is the American Dream's waiting room. Next to Flushing Meadow Park's Unisphere, at the end of Roosevelt Avenue –the most cosmopolitan thoroughfare of the city-, there’s Willets Point, a place where the World meets with hundreds of ghostworkers from the Junkyard.
An inspirational blend for Deejay Mista Sinista.
104 - Night Nurse from ARTE New York Minute
What goes up must come down. Everyone knows that, especially if you are from Uptown, Harlem.
G Dep was the talk of the town when he joined Puff Daddy in 1999. But he felt in love with the Night Nurse… 8 years after his meeting with the Hip Hop mogul, he was arrested for breaking a display model mobile phone and spent a year on Rikers Island, without anyone showing up with his $750 bail.
Sometimes the night seems endless on Allerton Ave.
105 - Lost Generation from ARTE New York Minute
Staten Island, home of 8,000 Liberian immigrants,
might have the largest concentration of child soldiers in North America. US citizens used to see these kids on CNN -carrying a Teddy bear in one hand and an AK-47 in the other- during the Liberian civil war.
Ten years later, they observe this lost generation out their window.
This story has no heroes, only survivors.
106 - Fast Life from ARTE New York Minute
“Live fast, die young“...
In New York the ride is wild on the road to riches… And no one embody that way of life better than the Ruff Ryders crew from the Bronx : talents who go from broke-to-multi-millionaire-to- bankrupt, dare-devil Bikers, hustlers who try to make it happen livin’ the Illegal Life like Mysonne…
There’s only one rule to this game: live fast and die in another New York minute.
Voila. 6 for 6.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
51
More details when I get around to filling in the outline.
Zoom speed what I did a Week in Review:
Last Friday:
Wants vs. Needs. Vinces place.
Last Saturday:
Honey. Walked in ice
Sunday:
Ordered Fresh Wok. Watches something then slept.
Monday:
Went into work late, ate leftovers and subway.
Walking Dead. Irreversible.
Tuesday:
Day off. Bun Mi. Sawatdee Express.
Easy A. Saw3D
Tonight:
Honey tonight.
Zoom speed what I did a Week in Review:
Last Friday:
Wants vs. Needs. Vinces place.
Last Saturday:
Honey. Walked in ice
Sunday:
Ordered Fresh Wok. Watches something then slept.
Monday:
Went into work late, ate leftovers and subway.
Walking Dead. Irreversible.
Tuesday:
Day off. Bun Mi. Sawatdee Express.
Easy A. Saw3D
Tonight:
Honey tonight.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Bape Sheepskin Zip Hoodie & Leather Gloves
Sheepskin leather produced for this zip-up and gloves made by A Bathing Ape. The leather looks good from these first pictures, smooth and premium. Minimal distractions, with a refined cut and comfort it seems. The key point now is waiting for what the price will be. Available on bape.com soon I estimate.
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