May « 2019 « design-newyork.com

Archive for May, 2019

Treasures from the internet.

Wednesday, May 29th, 2019

Seriously, how much garbage-y garbage do you see on an average day whilst surfing the web? I found a example of what most of my blinking ads look like:

It’s annoying. But there’s some great nuggets to be discovered under the detritus. Let’s delve together.

1. Ask a Mortician. Have you been watching this on YouTube? I mentioned the channel back in 2013 but only now have I truly sat down and watched many many oh so many episodes. Caitlin Doughty is incredibly informative and charming and I love her and would want to be her friend if she lived in NY (sadly, her home base is LA). I love the opening credits that feature her now-deceased Siamese cat The Meow fluttering like an angel.

The episodes I liked best so far:

Closing Mouths Postmortem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8RtdsKQYZg

What is the Oldest Mummy in the World? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF4vL7p-jI0

Vultures, Forensics and Border Policy – Why Migrant Bodies Disappear: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNow5soA714

Adipocere aka Corpse Wax: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi0Gi0sqXwg&t=360s

Exhumation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0cvVyIEfHI

Iconic Corpse – Eva Peron: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIwj0ybenmM

Caitlyn has some books and a blog and she runs a very nice mortuary, I like her. I know I mentioned that earlier but I feel the need to reiterate.

2. I have a HORRENDOUS sense of direction. Before map apps if something was happening below 14th Street I refused to go because it was off the grid and I would get lost immediately. I’ve gotten lost in my hometown, the place I lived in for the first eighteen years of my life, a town that is nine miles square. It is not a cute quality. But I would venture into all the wilds if penguins would guide me on my way.

https://www.geek.com/apps/japanese-aquarium-uses-penguins-to-make-the-best-ar-app-ever-1599745/

Hey, computer inventor folk! Penguin guides for everything! I will accept not-penguins but I still want animals to lead me places. Waddling animals preferred. Get crackin’.

3. Additional item that’s not really internet-related but I want to share it anyway: When I went to Mexico for my beading class I saw some truly stellar alebrijes. Click here for explanation and examples. The most drool-worthy artists are Jacobo y Maria Angeles, a community of artists who make the most phenomenal alebrijes. If you saw the movie Coco by Pixar you may remember the alebrijes, specifically the rabbit-frog who spoke to me on a deep level.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8wpoIZj9iM

Pixar got much of their inspiration from the Angeles art community.

The whole point of this recap is that I saw a piece by them and I want it. I want it bad. Three words: Gold leaf eyelids.

And the pattern. And the tail that wraps around the body. It’s all the greatest. After I spend all my money on this I will live in a cardboard box with my beloved… lizard? and it will be glorious.

Posted in Beastiesbeastiesbeasties, Nature, Stuff, Teh Intarwebz | No Comments »

I’ve watched a lot of TV. Let’s talk about it.

Friday, May 17th, 2019

Again, as I have mentioned before, I don’t actually watch seven hours of television a day. I am crafting during that time and I glance up from time to time to check what’s going on. Really good programs to watch but not watch are cartoons and true crime. It would be extremely concerning if the police are like, “What kind of programming is Jessica into?” Then they look through my recent cable choices and immediately decide that I’m the killer. Even if they’re investigating a neighborhood fiasco involving lawn maintenance. I’m still the killer. But there are a few special shows where I hunker down with a glass of water, get all comfy in my bed and pay full attention. We’re gonna discuss two of them. There might be some spoilers. Or not. Either way I’m covering my rump with this delightful animated gif.

1. Happy. Holeeeeee crap. I don’t know if I’ve talked about this show before. I don’t care. If I have, we’re going to talk about it again. It’s based on a graphic novel and it’s on the SyFy network and it’s on its second season. Brief synopsis: A former cop named Nick Sax who is basically indestructible befriends his daughter’s imaginary friend Happy who is a plump blue unicorn / pegasus hybrid with big ole buck teeth. I do not know what the standards are for cable TV but I think they’re all gone. The show drops f-bombs here there and everywhere and the violence is bananas. Really intense and dark and messy. In the pilot episode we meet Nick who is a disgraced cop who earns his living as a murder-for-hire hitman. The mob gets involved and then there’s that imaginary friend and demon password and Christmas! This show straight-up ruins Christmas. Every week I begin the episode with a quiet “Hoo boy” to myself. I really don’t want to give away too much because shock value is a huge part of the show but occasionally they’ll put in an Easter egg for the viewers. This season Nick (who is played by the glorious and dirrrrrrrty Christopher Meloni) goes to the OTB with Happy (who is voiced by my favorite comedian Patton Oswalt) where they have the horses’ names on the wall. I paused it to read the names. In honor of Patton who also voiced the lead in Ratatouille there was a horse named “Remy the Rat.” The best one was the one they made for Chris Meloni. You may remember his fine work on Law and Order: SVU so his horse was named “Especially Heinous,” it was a very thoughtful touch. Two points you should be aware of: There are many plot points made in Season 1 that are not even remotely answered by the end. Don’t worry, they’re almost all answered in Season 2. I recommend you watch Season 1 (you’ll be a bit confused), watch Season 2 (resolutions), then watch Season 1 again. I understand soooo much more. The second thing are the actors. They are all excellent but the actor who plays Sonny Shine is outstanding. He really comes into his own in Season 2. Every scene he’s in, I can’t take my eyes off of him. I hope he gets a million more roles so I can see him in stuff forever.

2. Game of Thrones. C’mon, you knew this was coming. It’s the last season, we have to get into it. It’s fine if you’ve never seen it, I’ll do my best to explain. The first item that needs to be discussed is how epically crappy this season is. It is boring. Really. The damn show has dragons and I’m bored. I found an image that explains how I feel.

One of the aspects of the show that is chapping the diehard fans is the destruction of character development, specifically Daenerys Targaryen, the pretty blonde lady with the eighty-twelve braids in her hair. People are absurdly enraged.

Okay, here’s the deal for you non-watchers: For seven seasons, DT (I’m not typing out her whole name) has been all about freeing the slaves and bringing peace and harmony. Don’t get me wrong, if someone crossed her DT would have them killed in some horrific manner, but if you followed her and swore loyalty to her you were all good. Now, in the last two episodes DT has gone completely crazy and everyone is very very angry about it. Here’s my point: Last season she had three dragons that she called her children (we found out in Season 1 that DT couldn’t have children with her womby-parts so she’s called the Mother of Dragons). She had a huuuuuuge army made up of Dothraki, The Unsullied and some other peeps that I can’t remember now. She was the last Targaryen alive so the throne was hers. In, like, a month-long period two of her dragons were killed AND her bestie was beheaded in front of her AND a big chunk of her army was killed by frosty zombies AND she learned the man she’s been banging is both her nephew AND higher up on the monarchy food chain and therefore would prevent her from getting the throne AND mental illness runs in her family. Absolutely nothing is going her way. With all this it is precisely no surprise at all they she loses her damn mind. It makes complete sense to me. I’m annoyed that the series is ending on a “meh” note (remember, boring) but I don’t think the plot and character structure is destroyed. Here’s an example of dullness – Cercei is one of the biggest baddies on the show, a truly garbage person. She has done the most atrocious acts and everyone was sooo excited for how she would die. It was going to be epic. Did you know how she died? The roof caved in and she was crushed. That’s it. We didn’t even see it. A giant didn’t eat her, the frosty zombies didn’t cut her up and make some festive art with her limbs, she wasn’t hung from a window so villagers could throw moldy apples and dragon poop at her, nothing. Zzzzzzzzzz.

Bonus show: The Good Place. I am so surprised by this show. It’s a network show so I assumed it would be pleasant and non-threatening and it was in the beginning. But shortly after it began it turns into a philosophical experiment where Emmanuel Kant and Soren Kierkegaard are regularly discussed. It’s totally worth it. I think it’s streaming on Netflix.

Addendum 5/21/19: Gosh, it feels good for professional writers to validate your comments.

Posted in The Telly | No Comments »

San Francisco Part 8 and done.

Friday, May 10th, 2019

Birds! So, so many birds. But first, something else.

I’ve spoken about how much I love Jeremy Fish’s style. I own one of his pieces in my apartment, a signed print of a skull with wings and a bunny head riding on two dachshunds while a hand holds a carrot to motivate them. (Jeremy Fish is very surreal – it’s best not to ask questions.) I know Jeremy Fish is based in San Francisco so imagine my delight when I saw this pasted to some wooden siding.

And here’s a another bit associated with the game park. On the side of the road there was a ankole cow, the kind with the gigantor horns. It makes the difference between antlers and horns very clear. Horns are temporary, they’re used for mating rituals and then they fall off. Horns are forever and in the ankole’s case (and many other beastie’s cases) it cools the blood before it goes to the brain. That’s why it looks like a sponge.

Okay, birds. The game park not only had herbivores and the occasional carnivore, it also had birds. A lotta birds. And few of my dream birds that I never thought I’d see so I got super-excited.

These are storks of some kind. Fancy storks. The males and the females are almost exactly the same and the only way to tell them apart is one sex has yellow eyes and one sex has red eyes.

Flamingos. I don’t feel like I have to do much explaining here. They’re a bird we all are familiar with.

In a very large net-covered area was a plethora of birds. A lot of ibises (I like to call them ibii, I assume that’s wrong but I don’t care). Some different storks. A lovely medley of ducks. Something called a hammerkop. It’s related to the pelican.

The tour guide said we could go inside the enclosure as long as we stayed with him and didn’t interfere with whatever the birds were doing. That’s how I got so close to these fancy fancies.

And then… I saw them. I’ve mentioned the vulturine guineafowl before. I’m well-acquainted with helmeted guineafowl, they’re common in South Africa. They was free-range there, wandering around being stupid (which is what they do).

But there’s the bestest guineafowl in the world and that’s the vulturine kind. And there they were, two feet from where I was standing. I tried to be cool about it. I was not cool about it. I was plotting on how to steal one.

So if anyone is going to the San Francisco area and feel like picking me up a present, this would be an excellent choice. Get me the skull-faced balding blue-faced chicken asap.

There were a couple other creatures in other areas.

Cheetahs!