Just wanted to mention how amazed I am of the new Cat Power album called ‘Juke Box’. If you don’t have it already, please buy it as it makes you a better person. Period. It is the best album I have heard since Bob Dylan’s ‘Modern Times’ released in 2006 - that is how good it is.
Cat Power, or Chan Marshall is her real name is, is covering Frank Sinatra, Bob Dylan, James Brown and Billie Holiday to the extend of actually making better versions than the original ones. Juke Box is definitely a huge cadeaux to your iTunes Library!
Photo taken by Stefano Giovannini.
PTW, a very cool architecture company with a ridiculously bad webpage, has done it again. Last time the Australian guys played with water they made the ‘Sydney International Aquatic’, but this time they have managed to make an even more breathtaking architectural masterpiece. Or at least some think so. Anyhow, the new ‘Water Cube’ in Beijing made for the Olympics in a couple of months, apparently managed to kill 6-10 people during construction which I believe at least gives it an additional value. I find it pretty fancy on the inside, but not that cool as I had hoped on the outside. Reuters called it ‘bubble-wrapped’, and I believe it describes the exterior pretty well.
Talking of bubble-wrapped buildings: the guy who partly financed the project is called ‘Henry Fok’. A name I believe would be more usefull for a third brainless film starring Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro.
I like the pope, cause the pope….. drinks ale?
Reading the Guardian today, one man became my hero-of-the-day; John Sentamu.
Apparently, when meeting the pope it it a custom to give him some sort of gift. For example did Tony Blair give him a painting of the Catholic convert Cardinal Newman and Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah presented him with a jewelled scimitar. Nonetheless, when the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, met the pontiff he gave him the ‘Holy Grail’ - a beer brewed in North Yorkshire, UK. Riazat Butt continues saying; “The gift pleased the Pope, who is Bavarian by birth and prefers beer to wine and water.”
Naturally.
How I sometimes miss being able to bring a stupid thing as this pencil sharpener to school and gain respect. Being 13 was wicked…
(The sad thing is, I will probably still buy it and try out the same bragging trick nowadays)
Jonathan Ive (Apple) and legendary Dieter Rams’ (Braun) designs have actually more in common than me and a pale danish student who loves Guiness and Kubrick. Earlier tonight my brother and I talked about the similarities in Apple and the old school Braun design which causes a huge debate about rip-offs, inspiration and influences. I my view, the ideas behind apple’s design magic isn’t made by Ive. Sorry to say.
Dieter Rams charter was:
Good design is innovative.
Good design makes a product useful.
Good design is aesthetic.
Good design helps us to understand a product.
Good design is unobtrusive.
Good design is honest.
Good design is durable.
Good design is consequent to the last detail.
Good design is concerned with the environment.
Good design is as little design as possible.
Back to purity, back to simplicity.
I believe Jonathan Ive’s charter looks exactly the same, which doesn’t necessarily mean that the final designs should look so much alike. Anyhow, they do. The pictures under this text is just to illustrate the reasons of the debate and functions only as a few examples of how much the braun designs are inspired, influenced or ripped-off by Apple. Just to make sure; Jonathan Ive acknowledge the (similarities) inspiration himself. But, anyways…
England is more than pale hooligans. A very good evidence is their yearly traditional Chese Rolling contest in Gloucesterhsire, where a lot of pale hooligans run around chasing a rolling cheese, which makes English people pale cheese hunting hooligans! What a title!
Anyways, if you would like to join this years madness, please read more here!
I am not talking about David Bowie’s wonderful song, or about the ant in my chocolate bar, but about the discovery of a green human shape that the media is poining out as the evidence of life on mars! It really underlines the ideas from film, where aliens are green naked men.
The picture is taken by Nasa’s Mars Explorer Spirit! No shit…
