Elgin Park in Miniature

Not dissimilar from Alex Prager's work in their staging and beauty, Michael Paul Smith makes amazingly realistically photographs using miniature cars and forced perspective. His work is an impressive lesson on how much world creation one can accomplish with a relatively finite set of tools.

Alex Prager's Crowd

Fair warning: if I don't get to see this show in person, I will be a sad, sad man.

Hero in Decline

Andreas Englands paintings of an aged superhero are gorgeous, but more impressive is the fullness of the what he's created. Go through his gallery and watch the super powered man grow up from infancy, stubble with addiction, and deal with the eventual reality of his body's limitations. The individual paintings are funny. The arc is sweetly tragic and human.

City of Necessity

One of the major updates missing from this blog (but detailed plenty of other places on the web) is that in September, my family relocated from Chicago to the Boston area. Boston is of course a beautiful city rich in history, architecture, and accents, but it's hard to not miss the land we called home for over a decade. This amazing film from 1961 only drove home the nostalgia, in addition to being a great glimpse of the city as it was decades ago.

Making The Midnight Coterie

Thanks to Emily for forwarding this great dissection by cinematographer Alex Buono of how SNL was able to make (at breakneck speed) such an amazing mashup of Wes Anderson's aesthetic and horror films.

Ho Ho Hilow

Thanks to Hilowbrow for their kind words about my work in general and about the new book, Artists Authors Thinkers Directors, specifically.

Now Then

Now that the dust has been shaken off of a couple of the web sites, it's time to clean off the cob webs on the old blog. Let's see if we can't close out the year with a few posts, shall we?

Cartoonists at Their Desks

Dane Martin has done the world a service and started a tumblr titled, perfectly straightforwardly, Cartoonists at Their Desks. I look forward to analyzing every pencil tray and ink well in great detail.

(Above: a young (and quite dapper – look at that jacket!) Dr. Seuss)

Of Jub Jub and Jibber-Jabber

In his ongoing (and consistently great) series Serious Jibber-Jabber, Conan O'Brien sat down with his former colleagues of The Simpsons for a great discussion on the show's writing process, longevity, and history. Well with a listen if you're at all interested in comedy (or Star Trek references).

James Jarvis Winston Churchill

This (unfortunately one of a kind) James Jarvis figurine modified by James Yeah? is a thing of beauty. Or as my spellcheck just tried to write: a thing of Betty.

Fat Toad Farm

Anyone who knows me know that I have a terrible sweet tooth, probably bordering on a mental illness. Well for anyone who is in the same delicious boat, I highly recommend you order something from Fat Toad Farm. But the real reason to order something from them isn't that their caramel (and goat cheese) is delicious (though it undeniably is). It's that they're easily some of the nicest people you'll ever deal with. In addition to being beyond friendly and including hand-written notes in orders, the owner, after me mentioning in an e-mail that my sister has always been a big fan of goats, took the time to write me a nice long e-mail about taking walks with her goats and listening to the sounds of them eating in the morning.

Delicious food prepared by standup, caring people. What more can you want? Oh, and a logo by New Yorker cartoonist Ed Koren. Add good taste to the list.

Fleischer Superman

This news is several months old, but Warner Brothers has posted the Fleischer Superman cartoons on their YouTube channel. If you haven't seen these, please do. They're some of the most beautiful pieces of animation I've ever seen. The color and design is humbling, no matter how many times you watch them.

(Also, here's an interesting bit about the model for Superman.)

Yum Yum

These figurines from Yum Yum studio in London are great.

There is nothing further to add.

Cinemas, Theaters, Operas

These amazing pictures of cinemas by Sylvia Ballhause, theaters by Frank Bohbot, and operas by Rafael Naff all feel of the same world, and are all well worth a look. (And while you're there, be sure to look at Bohbot's Pools and Neff's libraries.) It's hard to imagine doing anything in these spaces but letting your mouth drop open in admiration. (via evolutionists on tumblr)

Glaser Lasagna

Jon Glaser is easily one of my favorite comedians, and his show, Delocated, is, for my money, one of the greatest shows ever created. In the above video from the good people of Thing X, we are treated to a rare intimate conversation with the man, the artist, the lasagna chef.

Down In The Basement

You could do worse than starting your day with this cup of nonsense. Enjoy.

The Cooper Apparatus

I'm always fascinated to get a look at other people's studio set ups, especially when it's someone whose work I love. Dave Cooper is one such artist, and his contraption for easy painting set up/knock down/adjustment is as ingenious as his artwork. (Thanks to Jesse LeDoux for alerting me to this.)

The Mill at Calder's End

There are only a few days left on this campaign, but I'd be remiss in my duties if I didn't mention it. This is exactly what Kickstarter and sites of its kind are for. I have no idea how this kind of project would get made otherwise, other than directly out of pocket. And it's great to see that plenty of other people (over five hundred and counting) agree: more weird, beautifully realized projects, please.

No, Really. Really.

Right after the last post saying there would be posts to follow, the universe conspired against this blog and – insert sound of the Millennium Falcon not making the jump to lightspeed – the blog disappeared. So after weeks of getting to the bottom of the problem. Here we are again. And now, really, I will start putting some things that have little to do with one another other than I like them. Which is, after all, the whole point of this thing.

Once More with Feeling

I posted in.. egad... October of last year? That I had been delinquent on this blog. And then posted only once more. Sorry, blog. A million apologies. I promise hereafter to fill your bloggy gut with ample postings. A new year, a rejuvenated blog.