February 2009
1 post
Happenstance.
It’s been a labour of love, learning, and sometimes fury, but it’s finally here.
Happenstance is launching soon. Check out the website, or add us on Facebook.
Help us help you.
January 2009
2 posts
3 tags
A letter to Lupe Fiasco.
Dear Mr Fiasco (if that is your real name, and I know it isn’t),
We go back, man. Way back. We were pretty tight. We grew apart for a while there, I know; you took unnecessarily loud breaths between sentences, I got annoyed and ventured into the back-catalogues of other rappers. But we were tight, man.
I thought you were the new standard-bearer of intelligent rap. Humble, poetic, more...
1 tag
The X-Men vs Immanuel Kant.
You’re right: I haven’t produced new content in ages, so here’s a few unproof-read, uncited, pretty much unsubstantiated snippets from a very, very early draft of a huge paper I’m currently writing. It’s supposed to be a jurisprudential study of ethics and morality in comic books, but like I said to my lecturer in a moment of panic, “OMG, IT HAS LIKE, NO LAW IN...
November 2008
2 posts
Procrastinators, take note! (If not now, maybe...
I find it particularly difficult to engage with self-help guides. I blame my year 12 English teacher for making us study You Just Don’t Understand: Men and Women in Conversation as a core text (more like bore text, amirite?), and also the subliminal connection I draw between Dr Phil and wasting endless days of unemployment at home in front of the TV. To me, self-help has always seemed the...
2 tags
What is waiting for me on the other side of exams?
KILLER FUCKIN’ COCKROACHES.
Vertigo’s The Exterminators has issued its final tradie in a 30-issue series. After waiting nearly two years to close this story, I’m saving it as my post-exam reward.
I’m not sure how I feel about this final cover by Tony Moore; it feels a little too rendered, and not entirely representative of some of his more amazing pieces. But how...
October 2008
6 posts
“Tired of Washington.” There’s a sly hipster syncopation to his...”
– Joe Klein’s 2006 TIME magazine profile on Obama; a well-written, interesting article more pertinent today than two years ago.
4 tags
Procrastibation.
Now that the assessable component of this blog is over, I’ll be frank about what has been consuming a large hunk of my time over the past few weeks: GIANT PENIS MONSTERS.
No, it’s not some Freudian fantasy gone horribly awry (or horribly right, depending on how gross you are); it’s SPORE, Maxis Software’s latest successful effort at destroying my soul.
SPORE is like...
1 tag
2 tags
One of the only times "Oh, snap!" is a tolerable...
Remember Emma Frost in Grant Morrison’s run on the New X-Men? Before she turned soft and somehow fell for the foppish, whinging bag of snot that is Cyclops? Remember? When she was awesome?
Image scanned by me, because yes, I am that lame. From Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely’s E is for Extinction.
Because I don’t know how I ever forgot. Flipping through the...
2 tags
Double extra cheese.
Tits & Guns by flood. Image courtesy of Jeremy Prondoso.
IS IT PORN, or is it art? The age-old question is one that you should be afraid to bring up around feminists and/or skeevy old dudes, but I’ve always thought it was simple: it’s just porn. But flood’s installation at the second stage launch of Extra Cheeese showed that even gross old porn can be part of art, too.
You might...
4 tags
MOAR ART ATTACK.
It’s too easy to complain that Sydney doesn’t have as vibrant a cultural focus on public art as other major cities (hi, Melbourne!) or to whinge about how we Sydneysiders are comparatively uncultured. But you know what’s way more fun than played-out old comparisons? Celebrating what we do have, and breeding a culture of continual improvement. And that’s exactly where Art & About comes...
September 2008
3 posts
3 tags
Where rap went wrong.
I have a shameful confession to make. I love rap. Seriously. I often go weeks without listening to any music other than rap. Once upon a time, I dreamt of becoming a rapper, but that career path hit a wall in year 12 when I battled some Russian kid during class, and my teacher subsequently called me a bitch for upsetting him.
Also, I couldn’t rap for shit. Nowadays, such a small detail seems...
What's a blog?
“Blog: The word “blog” is literally shorthand for “boring;” a vulgar, overused word that strikes your ear with the dull thud of a cudgel to the soft spot of a child’s head. It’s an abbreviation used by journalism drop outs to give legitimacy to their shallow opinions and amateur photography that seems to be permanently stuck in first draft...
August 2008
7 posts
3 tags
Nineteen Eighty-Four sucks, and four more of the...
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. The best book George Orwell ever wrote was Down and Out in Paris and London. I once got into a fist fight defending the validity of this statement. Well, I guess it was more just a bunch of girly slapping, but whatever. Nineteen Eighty-Four was groundbreaking in its time, and in many ways its cautionary depiction of a state-controlled dystopia shows...
3 tags
Fuck yeah, free booze!
Let’s face it: a lot of people only turn up at exhibition openings just for the free booze. Well, POST MORTEM will have plenty of it, as well as some pretty sweet pictures to look at while you’re getting soused.
POST MORTEM is an exploration of art, death and illustration, featuring some of the most exciting names in Sydney art. From James Jirat Patradoon, Akina, William Loeng and Nanami...
3 tags
When art attacks.
Remember Art Attack? That awesome kids’ show that used to run on the ABC? It featured a chirpy little British dude who made giant art installations, and gave on-camera tutorials on fun little creative projects.
Yeah, well, this post isn’t about that show, as awesome as it was. This post is about those rare moments when you stumble across exceptional art in an otherwise routine day.
Picture...
4 tags
Who will watch the Watchmen? Me, for sure.
Fact: if you say ‘I read graphic novels,’ you sound way wankier than if you just say ‘I read comic books.’ Surely, the phrase ‘graphic novel’ is just a desperate attempt to legitimise the art form, to bring comic books into a more literary, intellectually acceptable realm by sluicing away the negative connotations that imply light, pulpy reading.
At least that’s how I felt until I read Watchmen...
3 tags
Extra cheese? Yes, please.
Vegan and lactose intolerant folks can relax. Extra Cheeese really has nothing to do with, well, extra cheese. The Sydney-based creative project is about crafting art with heart: taking one man’s trash and breathing new life into it with some clever thinking and redesign.
The first stage of the collective launched in May 2007, with just under 60 artists and designers who each took a humble used...
The internet doesn’t exist in real life, and other...
NB: This is part two of a two-part post. You can read part one here.
“Oh hey, aren’t you on my friends list?!” is one of the most awkward questions I’ve ever been asked by a stranger. And I’ve been asked it repeatedly. One time, a guy on a bus tried to pick me up by giving me his Myspace URL, and asking for mine in return. I thought it was strange, but he was cute, so I obliged. He looked at...
The internet doesn’t exist in real life, and other...
Much to my shame and embarrassment, my teen years can be haphazardly traced through the catacombs of the internet. I got my first PC way back when a 32kbps dial-up modem was state-of-the-art, and I took to it like a pig to shit.
While the other kids played sports in the sunshine, or, I don’t know, built meaningful social skills through face-to-face interactions with other humans, I was holed...
July 2008
1 post
Blogging sounds gross.
I’m a self-confessed nerd, and I already fritter away too much of my time on the internet. I’m hoping that this course will add some much needed professionalism to my frivolous web presence.