‘Beauty Is Embarrassing’, the life and times of Wayne White (video)

The first time I saw Wayne White’s work was in Fred 62, an all-night diner here in Los Angeles. His paintings of colorful phrases and words over found paintings instantly caught my attention, and I was shocked that I had never seen him before that point. Funny enough, after watching the trailer above for the upcoming Wayne White documentary Beauty Is Embarrassing, that actually wasn’t the first time I had seen his work.

Come to find out Wayne was the art director of Pee Wee’s Playhouse, a show that absolutely shaped my childhood. It was insane, it was non-sensical, and it was perfect. It says a lot about who he is, that his work and talent has stretched out for so long, and that I’ve appreciated his work as a child and as an adult. I can’t wait to see this movie, which actually premieres in March at SXSW. Hopefully it comes to Los Angeles soon.

Bobby

Jaaam (The Fresh Prince Remix) by Pogo

This makes me so happy. The extremely talented and oft-featured Pogo has released a new remix using footage from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Vivian, Carlton, Geoffrey, everyone is excised from the mansion, the early ’90s, the videotape, and moved into an updated digital melody. As the early ’90s would have it, the cast is wearing some of the only clothing that could compete with the song they now live in. But isn’t that part of Hilary’s charm?

I’m a bit skeptical of nostalgia when it seems inauthentic, but this is legit. Watching the Fresh Prince with my sisters after school is one of my favorite memories. We were on a first-name basis with the Banks and watching this again, I think we still are.

Alex

P.S. Did you know that Pogo came to the States and got arrested? He is banned from reentering the country for 10 years which is very sad for us. I would cite SOPA, but I’m a day late.

The Bark Side, Volkswagen’s new Superbowl commercial

Volkswagen has gotten quite chummy with the Star Wars brand in the last year, as you may remember the mini-Darth Vader using the Force in their last commercial. This time around they’ve cast the movie with an adorable assembly of dogs, who together bark and howl the Imperial March. It’s a super clever idea, I’ve already watched this several times in a row and it’s better with each sequential viewing. It’s also fun trying to figure out who all the dogs are supposed to be, can you distinguish who is who?

Bobby

Fantastic interactive window displays by Britzpeterman

Britzpetermann, a German design studio, recently wrote me to share their newest project, a series of interactive window displays for their shop. They did an amazing job on these so far, creating one with eyeballs, one with musical waves and another with randomized words. Each of these respond as you pass by their windows, grabbing your attention and bringing some fun to the street. Here’s how they did it:

We used a high quality projector and semi-matt foil from the hardware store to project the eyes to the window. They are rendered by a WebGL frontend using a shader sphere effect. The detection is performed by OpenFrameworks and the Kinect.
An Arduino controlled servo motor, pushing a button on the projector remote, is turning the installation on at 4pm and off at 11pm.

Super cool, in my opinion. I’d love to see more stuff like this populating shop fronts, bringing life to ordinary streets.

Bobby

‘You As You Were’, a new track from Shearwater

Shearwater is back and releasing a new album in 2012 called Animal Joy, this time around with the help of the always on point Sub Pop Records. From this track alone I’m extremely excited to hear the rest of the album. It’s got a wonderful pace to it, Jonathan Meiburg’s vocals spilling out like a beautiful brook. The vibe is also a bit more uplifting than their previous material, constantly building up higher and higher. The new album comes out February 14 in the USA and Feb 27th everywhere else, so be on the look out. If this song isn’t weird enough for you, I’d suggest checking out Meiburg’s collaboration with Jamie Stewart of Xiu Xiu called Blue Water White Death.

Bobby