Author Archives for Jay Babcock

GAME OVER CONTINUE? – Giant Robot SF, Friday Mar. 27

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There’s an art opening at Giant Robot SF (618 Shrader Street) tonite from 6:30 – 10pm.  Video game inspired artwork by APAK, Matt Furie, Jeremyville, Kaz Strzepek, Albert Reyes and dozens more.  The show runs through April 15th.  And coolest of all, in store playable video games by ARTXGAME Collective.  The following artists collaborated to make four unique video games incorporating comic style artwork:

Hellen Jo and Derek Yu (pictured above)
Saelee Oh and Anna Anthropy
Souther Salazar and Petri Purho
Deth P. Sun and Jonatan “Cactus” Soderstrom

(via Hellen Jo)

March 28: A Day of Peace, Love, and Chaos

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For the past three years I’ve been blessed to travel to the San Carlos Apache Reservation in Arizona to partake in an inspiring and heartfelt expression of skateboard/punk/diy love. The event is the Apache Skate Blast, organized by artist and father Doug Miles, and centers around a skate contest and concert that takes place on family land in the heart of the Reservation.

This year marks the fourth anniversary of the Skate Blast, and as Doug says, “This is going to be special… # “4” is a very sacred number to Apaches.” If you are anywhere near Arizona (or not, people come from across the country) I strongly suggest you come out for the day and see what it’s all about. A lot of young skaters coming up, good music (JFA has headlined every year), and immersion in a community that just keeps getting stronger and stronger. It’s truly a beautiful thing.

You can see more flyers and get info at myspace.com/apacheskateblast

See you there, warriors

Friday, Mar 27, 7-9pm: Gabrielle Bell and Ariel Schrag at Desert Island

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From Desert Island:

Gabrielle told me that she and Ariel used to sell their wares together on the street in the old days! Awesome. Glad they’ll be visiting together for this signing.

Gabrielle Bell + Ariel Schrag
book release party, signing, and slide show
friday, March 27th from 7 to 9 pm
at Desert Island, 540 Metropolitan Ave, Brooklyn NY

Today's Autonomedia Jubilee Saint: KARL MANNHEIM

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MARCH 27 — KARL MANNHEIM
Lukacsian theorist of the sociology of knowledge.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Mannheim

HOLIDAYS FOR MARCH 27
Ancient Rome: LIBERALIA, the Festival of the Vegetation God, Liber Pater, which in the third century B.C. exploded into the wild nocturnal orgies of the Bacchanalia, later suppressed by the state.
Egypt: SMELL THE BREEZES DAY. In the morning, smell a cut onion, get dressed up and head for a picnic in the country.
LAZY MOOCHER’S DAY. Mason City, Iowa: ROSA’S CANTINA DAY.

    ALSO ON THIS DAY:
    30 — Rebel leader Jesus condemned to death by crucifixion, rules Pontius Pilate.
    1513 — Ponce de Leon sights Florida coastline, looking for a fountain of youth.
    1893 — Lukácsian social theorist Karl Mannheim born, Budapest, Hungary.
    1924 — Legendary jazz vocalist Sarah Vaughn born.
    1968 — Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, first man in space, dies.

    All info courtesy The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective

    PODSNAPPERS by Al Columbia

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    From Pim & Francie #6. Al Columbia has the rare gift to suggest an entire story, an entire world with just a single image. He is currently compiling and re-contextualizing hundreds of these images and story fragments from his archives to be published by Fantagraphics Books in THE LAND OF BROKEN HEARTS Volume One – Pim & France (THE GOLDEN BEAR DAYS).

    ((ed. note — interesting coincidence with the big numbers post earlier today. but really, isn’t everything coincident? isn’t everything happening at exactly the same time? maybe now it’s just more apparent with the scope of the internet.))

    March 28th – Vertical Gardens Opening at Exit Art (N.Y.)

    Above: A living wall in Paris by Patrick Blanc (left), and “Vertical Garden (Weeds)” by Naomi Reis

    Date & Time: Opening Saturday, March 28th, 6-8PM (Closing May 23rd, 2009)
    Venue: Exit Art (Go here for map & hours)
    Location: 475 Tenth Ave. at 36th St / New York, NY 10018
    Price: $5 suggested donation

    A “living wall,” a part of a building made entirely of vegetation, is not a fantasy. Just look at these pictures and see for yourself. In cities where arable land is scarce, it makes perfect sense to build vertically oriented “sky farms” for cultivating both food and oxygen, two things all humans need to live. So what’s stopping us? This ingenious method of farming is not only practical; it provides us with a dream-like vision of the future, where cities of glass and metal could possibly be infused with green patches of living, organic architecture.

    One of the original plans for a World Trade Center memorial included a glass building with certain floors dedicated to tree nurseries. As the trees matured, the idea was to distribute the trees throughout Manhattan in memory of those who died. Unfortunately, some people were not thrilled with the idea of Manhattan regressing to the forest it once was…but hey, if they’re doing it in Paris, why not New York? Read on:

    NEW YORK – A project of SEA (Social Environmental Aesthetics), Vertical Gardens is an exhibition of architectural models, renderings, drawings, photographs and ephemera that depict or imagine a vertical farm, urban garden or green roof. It features over 20 projects, both imaginary and real, by artists and architects that envision solutions for building greener urban environments. The highlight of this exhibition is an eight-foot high living green wall by Edmundo Ortega and Dianne Rohrer.
    Continue reading →

    Big Numbers #3

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    In today’s WTF news, Alan Moore scholar Pádraig Ó Méalóid unveils Xerox copies of Big Numbers #3, the unpublished issue of Alan’s abandoned comic book series begun in collaboration with Bill Sienkiewicz in 1989. Artist Al Columbia took over when Sienkiewicz dropped out after the first two issues. Pádraig says:

    …everything I know leads me to believe that this is a copy of the unpublished third issue of Big Numbers, and I genuinely didn’t believe it existed, and certainly never expected to actually see a copy, led alone own one. Even Alan Moore doesn’t have a copy, to the very best of my knowledge, which in this case is considerable, as I decided to specifically ask his permission before I posted this here. He is happy for it to be made available to the world, so here it is.

    See the whole thing (!) here.