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Team Macho
Jun 25th
The gallery I work for has a fun summer show coming up next month. I’ll post the details once the show opens (on July 19th), but for now I thought I’d share the awesomeness of one of our special participants, Team Macho.
Team Macho is an art collaboration of five men based in Toronto. Their work is a gleefully eclectic mix of styles and little surprises.
They recently had a show at Magic Pony in Toronto, where they released their book called Fancy Action Now. (I’m having trouble locating the book online, but I suspect that Magic Pony might still have some copies.)
It’s all so strange and wonderful – I can’t wait to see what they’ve come up with for our show.
Best of all, check out their adorable photo:
Don’t you just want to give them all a big hug? Team Macho seems very huggable. And they’ll send you some artwork if you happen to have a spare drill press lying around. How nice!
Legos + Star Wars + Video Game = Nerd Heaven
Jun 25th
As I’ve admitted before, I’m a sucker for cute video games. If you are too, then you must get Lego Star Wars II. This game (available for all kinds of game systems, though I’m playing it on PS2), allows you to play a variety of characters, from Princess Leia to an anonymous stormtrooper, through a super-condensed version of the three original Star Wars movies. And everything is made of Legos!
The attention to detail in the cut scenes is delightful – if you’ve seen the movies in the past 10 years or so, you’ll recognize little bits of action from the movie, though they whizz by in a fraction of the time that they played out in the original.
In fact, it’s kind of an interesting study of the Star Wars epic as a shared cultural story: if you had never seen the movies, you would have no idea what is going on in the video game, there’s so much shorthand in the scenes.
As for the gaming action, it’s well designed, incorporating little Lego puzzles in addition to the shooting of stormtroopers. Come upon a pile of Lego blocks and you can make your character assemble them into a robot or secret exit at lightning speed.
Oh, and you can play with two people! It’s fun to make John do the boring work of keeping the bad guys at bay while I put all the Lego contraptions together.
So it’s cute, and fun, and multi-player. Highly recommended.
And if you’re wondering, yes, there apparently was a first Lego Star Wars game, but it takes you through the prequel movies, which nobody liked.
Rock Albers, Comic Hero
Jun 22nd
Tonight John and I went to see his big brother (as seen on Last Comic Standing!) perform at Gotham. Laughter ensued.
Among the 12 or so five-minute performances, the highlight of the evening came with bunny ears, a boom box, and a megaphone. Rock Albers stole the show by far, at least according to our table of three. I’m generally more of a quiet chuckler than a hearty guffawer, but Mr. Albers had me in pieces, literally crying with his routine about various countries’ national animals. Maybe his comedy isn’t for everyone, but for us it was truly inspiring.
Check out the videos on his website for a sense of the experience. The “state birds” clip made me realize that Rock and I have something in common: we’re both from Oklahoma!
After the show, we met him and signed up to his mailing list (an honest-to-God mailing list, with real newsletters), so we’re looking forward to much more Rock.
TV Guy
Jun 20th
Little outdated TV Guy used to be the talk of the town, but now he is dwarfed by today’s modern technology.
There’s not much to him, just a blank screen and antennae. (His knobs fell off sometime in the early ’90s.)
He doesn’t measure up in more ways than one….
Retirement isn’t so bad, though – now that no one is watching him, TV Guy has more time to watch what he wants to watch: Trading Spouses.
Waves or Ruffles or Clouds
Jun 20th
Sick of her nursing mannequins and all their complaining about being in pain, my mom came back to New York with me from Oklahoma last week. On Saturday, we paid a visit to Mood, the ultimate fabric destination as seen on TV.
The staff was much nicer than I remembered from before, when I had visited during Fashion Week and they had all been in an understandable tizzy. So I definitely recommend a non-Fashion Week visit.
To complement my awesome cotton print that’s now sitting in a bag somewhere, I got this awesome cotton jersey print to sit in another bag somewhere until I actually take up sewing:
But really, it’s so pretty, I have no excuse this time not to pick up that Singer manual. I’m thinking a pretty tunic top, simple and sublime. Or at least as sublime as a first sewing project can get.
