Lauren

London-based designer Tom Williams managed to capture a time-lapse video of two street workers expertly painting text for a bus stop on a road in 2012. The two accomplish the task with some chalk marks, a straightedge, and a decent amount of yellow paint.

via Jo Wright, The Kid Should See This

I am proud to announce that Yelping with Cormac is in The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2013. In bookstores today.

If you’d like to see what I’m working on now, go here. It involves sea otters.

Update: I’ve got a new project, A Farewell to Leggings.

The brainchild of Los Angeles architects Kyle and Liz von Hasseln, The Sugar Lab has adapted modern 3D printing technology to produce high-end edible objects for use on wedding cakes or table centerpieces. Recent graduates from the Southern California Institute of Architecture, the pair have developed a printing method that uses a mixture of sugar and alcohol that prints in layers. While the objects seen here are made using regular sugar, they hope to eventually create flavored mixtures that could be used for more complex pastry decorations, typographical treatments, or even functional objects that can later be eaten.

You can read more about the project over on Dezeen, and follow their progress on Facebook.

Chinese artist Xu Bing has several works currently on view as part of an exhibition at Mass MoCA in Massachusetts. Among the works are two 12-ton birds titled Phoenix that fill the museum’s football field-sized Building 5. Two years in the making, the birds were constructed from materials collected at various Chinese construction sites including demolition debris, steel beams, tools, and assorted remnants of migrant laborers. The male Phoenix titled Feng measures 90 feet long, and the female, Huang, is nearly 100 feet in length from beak to its steel tail feathers. Both birds are illuminated from within through a network of lights.

Somewhat similar to artists Yao Lu and Ai Weiwei, Xu Bing seems to be commenting on China’s rapid commercial development that is drastically altering the physical and cultural landscape within the country. Phoenix will be on view October 27th. (via junk culture, hyperallergic, my modern met)

Through Hollow Lands is a 2012 installation by visual artists Etta Lilienthal and Ben Zamora of LILENTHAL|ZAMORA at Frye Art Museum in Seattle. The suspended labyrinth was constructed from 200 fluorescent lights in various configurations, creating a sort of immersive geometric canopy of light. If you liked this, also check out the work of Esther Stocker. Photos above by Malcolm Smith courtesy Frye Art Museum. (via colossal submissions)

Fresh off his well received collaborative LP with Ghostface, producer Adrian Younge has announced his next project: a concept album with Souls of Mischief that will be narrated by Ali Shaheed Muhammad of ATCQ.

Younge described the project to XXL during a recent interview:

…It’s a project that if somebody misses the sounds of 93 ’til Infinity meets The Low End Theory meets De La Soul Is Dead. If somebody misses that kind of sound, they’ll be happy to hear this album because it goes back to that time, you know. Kind of like how the Ghostface album [12 Reasons To Die] kind of went back to that time. And I love both styles of music back then, so I’m very, very excited.

“And it’s also a concept album too—Souls of Mischief almost gets killed by some dude that was just crazy and the whole album just starts off with this incident, and then it blossoms into these different stories that are a result of this volatile incident. And that’s basically what that album is about.

Previously: Ghostface Killah x Adrian Younge – 12 Reasons To Die: Bringing The Ruckus to Comics | Oh No ft. Souls of Mischief – Controlled Riots

This is hard, but I’m pretty sure not texting about the location of the stash is the 11th Crack Commandment.

Previously: M.O.P. & Smif-N-Wessun Interview Each Other | P-Money ft. M.O.P. – The Hardest

I had such an absurd amount of fun working with the Sketchbook Project to curate their first mobile sketchbook tour in 2012 that they asked if we might partner again for their hugely expanded 2014 tour that will stop at some 20+ cities in the U.S. and Canada. Colossal will be along for the ride as part of their Central Tour making stops in Brookyln, Chicago, Madison, and Minneapolis. If you’ve never participated or haven’t heard of the Sketchbook Project you can watch the video above to learn more about the world’s only mobile library of art sketchbooks from the Brooklyn Art Library based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY that’s now home to 27,000 sketchbooks from around the world. Last year I had the honor of viewing some 3-4,000 books and I didn’t even get a paper cut, though my brain hemorrhaged several hundred times while I discovered incredible sketches, paintings, collages, poems and even paper sculptures.

So let’s make the Central Tour the BEST TOUR, signup for your blank sketchbook and have your work travel around the midwest—it might even show up right here on Colossal.

Kurt Vile has shared his latest video, for Wakin on a Pretty Daze track "Never Run Away". Directed by a duo called HARRYS, it's a characteristically Vile affair: long hair flowing in the wind, Instagrammy vintage-looking shots, Philadelphia. Watch below, via NPR.

Watch Vile perform live at Pitchfork.tv's office:

Ghost and Adrian Younge give us a preview of the track “Murder Spree”, featuring Deck, U-God, Masta Killa and Killa Sin, set over a behind the scenes clip of the folks at AntiDesign manually screenprinting the vinyl jackets for the “12 Delucas” deluxe packages of 12 Reasons To Die.

Previously: Ghostface Killah & Adrian Younge – 12 Reasons To Die (12 Delucas Deluxe Editions)

At New York's Park East High School, they're experimenting with new ways to teach students about science. How do you talk to kids? You rap to them! In this pilot program started by Dr. Chris Emdin of Columbia University's Teachers College, ninth graders are learning about the reproductive system by writing rhymes and raps about fallopian tubes and women's boobs. More »

Previously: Azealia Banks – Yung Rapunxel

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Kathy MacLeod's heart is brimming with emojis. She draws comics and posts them here. You're totally welcome to come visit her in Bangkok. 

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41 comments

Why do nail polishes have names? Not brand names — color names, like Essie's Ballet Slippers? Sure, naming polishes is a fun way to add personality to the products and make them memorable, but unless it includes a word that clearly describes the color, they're ultimately arbitrary and have absolutely no bearing on the quality of the polish.  More »

Swiss designer and artist Paul Grundbacher makes incredible hand-cranked marble machines that he wrote about and filmed for Matthias Wandel’s Woodgears just this weekend. Grundbacher told Woodgears that he works mostly with firewood from a local factory and that he rarely sketches anything beforehand but has the ability to fashion each piece and try it as opposed to carefully measuring things out through any sort of blueprint. All the work here spans 2009-2012 and each piece is a mixture of his own ideas and tricks learned from watching videos of other artists creating similar wooden devices. You can read more about his inspiration and methodology behind each piece right here. (via mefi)

We all love Christopher Guest's mockumentaries, so let's just get all the bragging about how we watched Spinal Tap in our mother's wombs and laughed so hard our mom went into premature delivery and we had to be hooked up to all sorts of special tubes for months and got in the local paper for being a "miracle baby" outta the way. More »

Twin Falls, Idaho

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Three Stars. *First Review.

He walked into the empty cafe and looked at the vinyl booths and the linoleum counters and picked up a menu to glance at it and then put it down again in one smooth motion. His leadgray eyes settled on an old woman wearing an apron and standing behind the counter. Three stars, he said. First review.

The woman smiled. Come again dearheart?

You don’t know what this is.

I’m sorry I guess I don’t.

He walked to the counter and stood before the woman. I am the Reviewer, he said. I have evaluated your business. And your business has received three stars.

Oh my, she said. That’s very kind. The Reviewer didn’t respond but stood there staring at her with his hard eyes. His hands stiffly at his sides as if he stood before some tribunal.

But you haven’t eaten anything, she said.

I have seen the menu. I have seen it before a thousand times. It is a tragedy of man's mediocrity.

Is there something wrong with the menu?

You have used comic sans font in the menu and you have failed to describe the provenance of your roast beef and you advertise panini sandwiches. That means sandwiches sandwiches.

Goodness.

And your choice of music speaks of your disregard for human excellence.

Well I can change the radio.

That would be a meaningless gesture.

Oh. She stood there worrying her apron hem with her big hands. Would you like some cake, she said. People seem to like that.

I speak for people. I am their delegate. I saw the cake on the counter and I took its measure and it is without merit.

But you haven’t even tried it.

I have not tried your cake but I know your cake. I know of its flour, of its corn syrup. Of the brazen indifference with which you crafted it. You think it is just cake. You are wrong. It is the sum total of you. Of your ability to create, to transcend the world of beasts and build some small fleeting cairn to mark your passing.

She stood there and did not speak.

I will return in one year, he said. I will return and I will review you again. There will be no third review. The Reviewer turned and left.