Pack Rat is sitting in the club car, drinking rum and Karma-Kola
Hmmm. Seems I am really into videos recently. This post makes three in a row. I hate getting stuck in a rut, but I just saw the music video that goes along with Oren Lavie’s song “Her Morning Elegance,” and I felt compelled to talk it up. On one hand, if you want to be a negative Nelly, like SOME people, you might take a look at this stop-motion animation, co-directed byYuval & Merav Nathan and Lavie, and comment, “That’s a total Peter Gabriel rip-off.” But, while Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer video, directed by Stephen R. Johnson in the late 80s was all about the flashing neon lights and the hyper jerky surrealism of stop-motion animation, all orchestrated in such a way as to make the viewer slightly discomforted, the video for “Her Morning Elegance,” is meant to charm. A young woman has the sleep walk of her life as she floats and flutters through a whole world caught up in her bed. The stuttering images inherent to the medium mirror the rhythm of the train in Lavie’s song, while his sweet vocals (more like Nick Drake than Peter Gabriel) provide the same sort of soothing comfort as a rocking train car. There’s something magical about the superimposed two-dimensional reality of this woman’s bed world, the way that it trumps the more mundane third-dimensional reality gives the whole piece an illustrated children’s book-type quality. And the directors were smart enough to give the piece five acts, so the concept never gets too cutesy or stale. And my favorite part is the scarf jelly fish.
Pack Rat will always fight the enemies of love. We promise to Shine On.
I offer you a few of my favorite new eweb finds. They have tremendous re-visit value. And if laughs were some kind of plastic explosive, they would be dropping bombs left and right.
First up are the comic book kids of Questionable Content. They’re like every indie punk rock listening, ironic t-shirt wearing, body piercing, withering glance giving hipster you know, except they only exist for six panels of comic goodness a day so they are actually funny and not, you know, immensely depressing. It’s fun to play “non-mainstream” bingo with the many band references, and the creator/writer/illustrator Jeph Jacques gets that the “counter culture” his characters inhabit is a bit insipid and so dishes out the skinny-jeans cool with a generous helping of self-deprecation.
Questionable Content and image copyright Jeph Jacques
Next is the brillance that is Dr. McNinja. Has so much information ever been conveyed in one name? Maybe Bronze Medalist Patty McShitsalot, but that’s about it. The brain child of comic artist/author Chris Hastings, Dr. McNinja heals with one hand and kills with the other. He is aided in his many random adventures by a man-child with a SERIOUS moustache named Gordito (the man, not the moustache) who rides around on a dinosaur, and Julie, his gorilla secretary. Unlike Questionable Content (which is drawn as a fully contained story every day), Dr. McNinja is published in issues (like a paper comic book), with new pages of each issue coming out on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. He is currently working on the mysterious case of “Death Volley.” Get caught up immediately.
Dr. McNinja and image copyright Chris Hastings
And Finally, the video you’ve all been waiting for, even if you weren’t aware that you were waiting for it. I would go so far as to say that I’m not sure how I ever lived without it, it’s THAT good. The song is called Shine On and the music video is by L.A. musician Chris Dane Owens. You need to see it before we can talk about it. I’ll wait. Take your time–you have to see the whole thing to really appreciate it. P.S. definitely worth watching in high quality. You may even want to see it direct from his website, which has it at the highest quality.
Right? RIGHT?! I seriously can’t get enough. I heard about this while reading The New Yorker blog, of all things, and I have to say that this video is probably the best piece of information that I’ve ever gleaned from The New Yorker. Chris Dane Owens is like some alien time traveler, alternating between a parallel, magical universe and 1984. There is so, so much to love about this video (unsurprisingly directed by a wiz in the special effects biz). And it’s astonishing how much one well-placed ’stache can actually up someone’s masculinity. Here are my top ten favorite Shine On moments (but don’t hold me to them. Every time I watch this video I find more to love).
10. The Karate Kid moment (1:30 into the video)
9. His unexplained, un-introduced posse (1:36 & 3:06). What happened to the bandanna guy?
8. Slashing sword=massive boat explosion (1:51)
7. Push it out! (1:59)
6. Some how it all leads up to his chest lighting up… (2:20)
5. And then, the whole thing is just too overwhelming for him… (2:25)
4. Which causes him to mince his way into a fire. (2:34)
3. RANDOM CROCODILE! (I think their budget may have run out on dragons)(2:43)
2. Classic, classic slow-mo jump off the cliff (CLASSIC!) (2:49)
Okay, so I know I’ve been awol recently and I’m sure you’ve all be struggling to find the will to live without my sage words of advice (JK) but I’m back and the reason for my prolonged absence and subsequent return is that I’ve been working diligently on producing for you all (or y’all where appropriate) issue numero quatro of Pack Rat. This issue we help the Earth in the spirit of Earth Day by doing what we do best: recycled crafts and lots of them. We also talk with jewelry designer Becky Houle, a.k.a. The Vicious Kitty, look into what this whole letterbox craze is all about and, with the help of Cat Morley from Cut Out + Keep make our own letterbox stampers, hit the thrifts for some inexpensive crafting supplies, and just about a zillion things more. Head over to www.packratmag.com/zine to get in on the action. I missed you all and I’m glad to be back. Happy crafting!
Hello my darlings. I have missed you. I try not to hamper you all with my personal life very much because really, this blog is about cool finds not a whole lot of navel gazing, but I did want to let you know that I apologize profusely if I am a bit remiss in getting blogs out over the next couple of months. I am doing my best but as some of you know, I’m in grad school right now and frankly this semester has been the most time consuming so far. I just wanted you to know.
Anyway, now on to the interesting stuff. As I sit here clicking away at my keyboard, I find myself taking for granted such amazing developments in modern technology, such as the backspace key or the delete key. I was born just as a generation of typewriters were being retired, so I never knew the frustration of the whited out type-o. But, likewise I never knew the satisfaction of perfect, error free typing, or the gratifying deep clacking of the keys, the ding of the bell at the end of a line, the whir of the carriage release lever. I do, however, have a great love and respect of all things typey. I was actually just mentioning to my co-workers the other day how much I like typing, how when I was first learning in school I would go home and copy pages from my library books onto my Tandy 5000 word processing program (my dream was to type out a whole copy of my favorite book at the time, Sorcery and Cecelia. I wasn’t hip to copyright infringement laws at the time). Even now, my favorite online time waster is a game called Typer Shark where you have to type words as fast as possible or sharks will eat you. All of this is lead up to explain why I am completely enamored with the Boston Typewriter Orchestra. A group of dedicated typewriting enthusiasts refused to let a classic, refined piece of history simply drift away to the realm of nostalgia. Instead they’ve banded together in every sense of the word and have created a percussive symphony (can you have a percussive symphony? Whatever.) of typewriting. Like the Japanese Kodo drummers, the Boston Typewriter Orchestra layers percussive rhythms of typing keys to create a rich, hypnotic sound that is fully addictive. Visit their website to hear their full, layered sound and see video of their lively performance.
Hi kids! the Feb/March Issue is finally out and rarin’ to go. Click on the pdf link below! And remember, if you think you could do better, you’re welcome to show us what you’ve got. Submission deadlines for next issue will be March 20th. Happy reading.
