In a beautifully flawless prank, the Public Ad Campaign refaced over 120 illegal billboards in New York City. The billboards are illegal because the parent company never received permits and there are too many of them for the city to tear them all down. That means they are open game for public art!
photo by unknown
Bravo to all those fine folks in taking citizen action against the plight of illegal billboards. Now, here is a question for you all – are there illegal billboards in the Bay Area? If so where? Mail me at mastermind [at] thoughtpolice [dot] commercial.
Tweed Rides – group bicycle events in which riders eschew spandex in favor of elegant, vintage-inspired riding attire – are growing in popularity, with newly-announced rides in San Francisco, Chicago, and Sydney, Australia.
Once again, we fine bastions of tweed bicivility will gather to show the city how to really ride in style! Fortunately, Spring is upon us, and the night has begun to be pushed back by the day. As such, the sun shall still grace our ride, giving all passersby a chance to bask in our grand tweediness! Our last ride was a joyful time with games, contests, and of course the sharpest dressed company a cyclist could ask for.
In addition to the games, contests, and prizes that proved so popular during the inaugural San Francisco Tweed Ride, Thursday’s ride has a special surprise: a mid-route musical performance by the fabulous “post-industrial-folk-noir” septet Corpus Callosum!
Moving Eastward, Chicago’s first Tweed Ride will take place this coming Saturday, May 2nd. Organized by the fine dapper folks at The Chainlink, their event takes special inspiration from no less of an historical figure than The Right Honourable Sir Winston Churchill.
The 2nd of May 2009 marks the 80th anniversary of Winston Churchill’s invention of his exquisitely dry martini: copious amounts of gin poured over crushed ice while he observed the vermouth from across the room. The route, designed by the Right Honorable Lee Diamond, is 10 civilized miles meandering past (and into) some of The Windy City’s most infamous (and still open) speakeasies.
Like the SF Tweed Ride, Winston’s Tweed Ride will host contests for Most Dapper Chap, Most Snappy Lass, Most Stylish Noble Steed, Most Inspired Interpretation of Tweediness, and Best Mustache (open to both lads and inventive lasses).
image by unknown
Meanwhile, from the other side of the world, vintage cycling haberdashery Rocket Fuel brings us news of the first Sydney Tweed Ride.
Following the fine style of London, San Francisco, Auckland and soon Chicago. Sydney is having it’s very own Tweed Ride. So gather your most dapper or ladylike apparel and join us for a spin around the city and a fine cup of tea!
From London to San Francisco, or the Windy City to a Land Down Under, clearly the appeal of Tweed knows no bounds.
Interested in becoming one of the cogwheelnoscenti? The latest news of all things two-wheeled and tweedy can be had on SFTweed’s RSS feed, via their Jaunty Mailer, or on twitter @sftweed.
Laughing Squid has had some form of an all black website over 13 years, so it’s finally time for a change. We’ve just launched a new design for the blog with a much cleaner look, that loads faster.
I’ll be tweaking and modifying the theme over time, this is just a new starting point.
If you are reading this via RSS, head on over to the blog and check it out.
We are now using the wonderful Thesis WordPress theme developed by Chris Pearson (version 1.5 should be out any day). It’s one of the best WordPress themes I’ve ever used and is going to allow us to have much more design flexibility and added features.
As I rolled out the new theme, I asked people on Twitter what they thought and as expected the reactions ranged from loving it hating it and everything in between.
Now it’s your turn, let us know what you think in the comments.
Artist Marisol Escobar designed this poignant memorial to American Merchant Mariners lost at sea located on the west side of Battery Park in New York City. The imagery in the memorial is based on real pictures of drowning merchant marines taken by German U-boat sailors during World War II.
Ogilvy and Mather put together a beautiful series of advertisements for Scrabble in which an engaging animation illustrates the silly and sweet songs that really are just kinda random strings of words – much like Scrabble. Kudos to Scrabble on making a really creative and original ad series.
The show starts at 5:30 (doors at 5) and goes until 7:30. Admission is free, but you can make a donation to support The DNA Lounge (and buy drinks, too) in their fight to stay open. More details are on Oren Michels’ blog. Oren’s company Mashery is sponsoring the show along with Zivity.
I had the pleasure and honor of attending a private performance by Eric as part of the launch party for startup Adventive.com at Harry Denton’s Starlight Room off Union Square this past week.
I put up a Flickr set with photos and videos that I shot at this intimate performance in an incredible venue.
While Eric is trained and honored in classical and jazz music circles, he loves to perform solo piano interpretations of popular and alternative bands like The Killers, Evanescence and The Knife. He is an incredibly passionate performer who is awesome (in the grandest of senses) to see live. I cannot recommend this highly enough.
DNA Lounge has been battling to stay open due to aggressive practices by The California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control that seem to target all ages venues and that also focused on nights when DNA featured LGBT events (as Violet Blue has covered).
Eric’s performance at TED2009 is how many people around the world first heard of this singular performer.
It’s an early show, so if you are going out tonight (like to the How to Destroy the Universe show at NIMBY), you can easily catch this, too.
Noteboek (English title: Notebook) consists of 4 short experimental films where I try to confuse the reality. In these films, illusions and expectations are challenged.
According to When Did You Join Twitter? the Twitter epoch is March 21st, 2006, the date that founders @jack, @ev and @biz all first created their accounts.
I joined a few months later on July 18th, 2006. Find out when you signed-up.
Then there’s My First Tweet which helps you find your first post on Twitter.
The Honda Insight television ad for “Let It Shine” is pretty cool on it’s own, but for the full experience watch it on Vimeo. This takes online advertising to a whole new level.
Here’s how the commercial was made, using hundreds of headlights to create one of the world’s largest LED displays.
“I’m surprised it took this long,” Mike Gold declares in his ComicMix review of legendary illustrator Spain Rodriguez and his decision to ink a graphic biography of revolutionary socialist Che Guevara. While the ubiquitous tees silk-screened with Alberto Korda’s iconic photograph of Guevara are often derided as a facile display of misplaced idealism, by deposing U.S.-backed military despot Fulgencio Batista, Che’s historical legacy serves as a continually relevant counterpoint to the imperial ambitions of American leaders in Latin America and beyond. “Che: A Graphic Biography” is available through Last Gasp.
Spain Rodriguez’s powerful artwork illuminates Che’s life and the experiences that shaped him, from his motorcycle journey through Latin America, his rise to prominence as a leader in Fidel Castro’s revolutionary movement, his travels in Africa, his involvement in the insurgency that led to his death in Bolivia, and his extraordinary legacy.
Editor Paul Buhle has also contributed to graphic histories of Emma Goldman, the Wobblies and the SDS.
Revel in New York posted an interview with Spain where he talks about Che.
Laughing Squid is run by primary tentacle Scott Beale, who is also the publisher & editor of this blog. He is joined by several awesome guest bloggers.
