You suck at Photoshop #1

via Mike Monteiro can't blog

my vik muniz story, circa 2003

While posting the previous post I found Vik Muniz's video on TED. It's a must-watch. He is one of the most personable artist I've ever seen. Definitely one of my favorites. His work is fascinating and his storytelling makes it all even more engaging.

I had the opportunity to see his lecture at the opening of an exhibit at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, I think in 2003. Somebody I knew introduced me to him, because you know, we're Brazilian and all, then automatically people think "THEY MUST MEET". So I remembered I had in my car - a jeep back then - an album cover that Vik had created for the Tribalistas. It was a piece made out of chocolate, photographed for the cover. So I ran to my car, got the CD jacket and had Vik Muniz sign it for me. He kindly did and I went on my merry way.

That same night, someone broke into my jeep and stole ALL MY CDs, including the cover he had signed. The end.

the work of Bela Borsodi

"Austrian Bela Borsodi does still life photography in a very special way. Instead of just showing us products for fashion magazines, he plays with our perception, giving each one a personality. He glues together art and fashion photography; being part of the commercial entertainment and questioning it at the same time."

The way he manipulates objects and takes them out of context reminds me a lot of Vik Muniz's work. I love that none of it is done on Photoshop. He assembles everything manually. Check out his portfolio here.

"Foot Fetish"

"Animation Suspended"

This is my favorite series - "While you were out":

pet peeve

People here call Kanye West "Ke-nny" West.

And Beyoncé is "Bee-yon-say". Like BeyonSAY.

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I was watching "What Not To Wear" with Portuguese subtitles and Stacy London was talking about how some guy's pants were all torn out, with a bunch of tears - pronounced |te(ə)r| or (târ). They translated it as "tears", as in that clear salty liquid secreted by the lacrimal glands in our eyes.

WHY LORD, WHY??!!

(and God forbid I try to correct anybody! I have better luck trying to nail my eyelids to the wall!)

this is random

One of my favorite things about being back in Brazil is getting used to "new" visual stimuli that had always been part of my history but somehow was replaced by a much more "sterile" aesthetics when I moved to the US. I can definitely see now how our environment shapes what we create, the colors we work with, our typography, our compositions, and as much as we might try to be conscious about those choices as designers, our spacial stimuli always contaminates our work.

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Looking at typography in Brazil still bothers me. I still don't like how often I see ugly and extremely overused typefaces on designed things, from packaging to restaurant menus. I do love the use of colors and illustration in a lot of the material being produced here.

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I might be going to Buenos Aires, Argentina in a couple of weeks. I want it to be mostly a photography trip, and I am excited to bring back with me the rich imagery from there. Living in the Midwest for so long will do that to you. You'll get all excited about anything.

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And as you can see from these beautiful photos I stole from Mariana Massarani, you'll understand what I am talking about when I say that Brazil so far has been an overdose for my senses.




Make sure you check out her Flickr.

they left this morning. I miss them already.

beautiful color stripes

from Kris's Color Stripes

sign of our times

His dad is my uncle.
My mother's bother.
Her godson.

He is my cousin.
My mother's nephew.
My godson.

finally!

I don't know the official details yet, but Jordin was born about 20 minutes ago with bright yellow skin, hazel eyes and freakishly long arms. Both baby and mom are doing well, after a long day of labor.

This is all so surreal and marvelous. It's like having my first niece.

I love you Jordin. Welcome to this crazy world of ours.

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UPDATE: Look at her!!! All 7 pounds and 1 ounce of pure cuteness.

I will never love you more

I'm loving this song. You can hear it here (it's the second song).



I will never love you more than the drummer of Flaming Lips
I will never love you more than Woody Allan movies
I will never love you more than the White album of the Beatles
I will never love you more than God only knows

I will never love you more than DVDs night with my girlfriend
And we talk about stupid things like feelings and men
I will never love you more than my boyfriend when I was 14
Even if he's now an asshole, I will never love you more

And you say, you love me more than everything
And compared to me everything is nothing...

I will never love you more than meeting Paul McCartney
And we asked him to play a song on my Ukulele
I will never love you more than Scandinavian Tour
Which was more than paradise we shall remember it to

I will never love you more than dancing to Phil Spektor
I will never love you more than my Casiotone keyboard
I will never love you more than Daniel Johnston himself
For me he's more than God, I will never love you more

And you say, you love me more than everything

And compared to me everything is nothing

Ohh this is sweet, I just wonder what it means

You say you love me more, than all the girls you have before
Even more than music, even more than yourself
Even more than everything, but it's just a lie
So I will never love you more, than anything

I will never love you more than singing in the shower
I will never love you more than my Mac computer
I will never love you more than having a daughter
I will never love you more than peanut butter

I will never love you more than kisses all day
I will never love you more than cuddles all night
I will never love you more than kissing girls lips when they're really pretty

I will never love you more

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Thanks, Sarah for the edit!

i'm feeling nostalgic...

so here are some of my favorite pictures.

i hate young people - christmas edition

Remember these?

the kind that makes you want to cry

Ron Mueck - Click here for more home videos

Sculptures by Ron Mueck

my type of fun - Human Tetris

exactly how I feel

"If i could throw a parade for lexapro and how it saved my life, i totally would."

Comment left on this post from Dooce

creepy bastard

If you've ever lived in Indianapolis, this won't be any news to you. The northwest side of town, also known as the Lafayette Square Mall area, is a growing mecca for cheap stripper clothing, titty bars, ghetto nightclubs and NBA players shoot-outs.

That's where it all happens. A place that is all about triflingness, loudness and lack of very basic common sense. And, dear friends, those things comes in all shapes and colors. One of the most "trifling" members of that Lafayette Square area (where, by the way, I lived for about 2 years) is Don from the gun shop. Don embodies everything I absolutely despise in the average middle American, the Republican with a vomit-inducing sense of humor Caucasian man.

Thanks to the wonderful internet, I came across an Indianapolis classic - the Don's Guns commercial. The bastard is the king of this kind of cheap, nasty advertisement targeting poor, young men from the area. He even had his "Back to School Sale" a couple of years ago, and believe me, I wish I was kidding.

So as I found this video, I knew I had to share it with whoever reads this blog. Please note - in the picture above, the lettering under the big sign, reads "I DON'T WANT TO MAKE MONEY. I JUST LOVE TO SELL GUNS! HA! HA! HA!"



If you can, give the old dick a call or send him an email telling him how dangerously pathetic he is. I know I will.

to my sister

A Dri eh minha melhor irma. Ela eh linda. Dri te amo. Cuticula.

that probably says something about me

Here are some interesting keywords users were looking for when they found my blog:

- tight bitch
- couch ate my phone
- koalas don't do shit
- i wanted 12 lemons
- best compliments for a girl
- i don't need no ipod
- is dummass a bad word
- where brazilian women legally fuck animal
- job super power

UPDATE:
- how much to brazilian transsexual hooker cost

Go figure.

this time last year

A lot has changed, clearly not just for me.

Puppy loves snow. His nose turns pink before the first big storm, and I used to have to beg him to come back home every time I let him out. He would dive his little face into that sea of white, while I stood inside under a pile of blankets. Weekends were the best. I miss snowy Saturdays when I could sleep in and didn't have to drag myself to my car and get rid all the snow sitting on top of it. I don't miss that part. I never got used to having to do that in the morning, I fucking hated that ritual. But other than that, I really miss it all.

alarm dance 2

Remember this one here?

I found a new one!

different versions of me

Real, boring me

Baby

Afro-Caribean

East-Asian

West-Asian

Modigliani

Botticelli

El Greco

Manga Cartoon

Apeman

Made possible by the Perception Laboratory from the School of Psychology of the University of St. Andrews, Scotland.

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Last but not least, my Foxy Cleopatra version, made possible by my very kind twin.

sort of how i feel

"For the past few days, Sarah hadn't been able to concentrate on anything but the prom king(...) She felt a sense of profound disorientation as if she had been kidnapped by aliens and released unharmed a few hours later."

from the movie Little Children

utilitarian + comercial + fine: art

Ok, we designers always talk about how our industry is sooooo important, that we're here to make the world safer, cleaner, to democratize information, etc, etc, etc. Tru, I don't disagree with that very pompous job description. But there's also the other side of design that I absolutely love, which is the passion designers have for making things visually poetic, to deconstruct the ordinary, and to make our everyday environments just that much more pleasant. I love designers that take themselves lightly. I love design that doesn't try talk down to people, design that is not pretentious but that is still so beautiful you could cry.

Eric Kass embodies all the above. He's a designer from Indianapolis, whose detailed quality of work is absolutely stunning. I remember seeing tons things all over city that I now realize came from Eric - like posters, logos, menus of restaurants, artwork in galleries, street signs.. work I had always admired but didn't know where it had come from.








Check out Eric's website to see more of his work.

Moneygami - Origami With Bills

via SwissMiss

The comments over at Fun Fever are just as fun.

affordability, sustainability, safety, beauty

Say what you want to say about the man behind the project, I don't care, that's beside the point. This is a beautiful project and I'm excited to see something like it happen.

Make It Right Nola is a project launched by Brad Pitt to help bring families back home to New Orleans, after having their houses destroyed by Katrina.

13 architecture firms were commissioned to design green affordable housing to be built at the impoverished Lower Ninth Ward. The future residents will be able to choose the layout of their home from a list of designs selected by Make It Right, which to me, sets this project apart from so many others that may have come before. The idea that people will be able to go back to a place that was carefully designed for them is nothing short of outstanding. Those people have lost everything they had, and most of them probably never had much to start with, so rescuing their self-esteem seems just as urgent as giving them a home.

You can see the selected designs here.

Anybody can donate anything, from a dollar to $150,000, which is the cost of a full house. The website also gives you information about how to sponsor specific things, such as landscaping, appliances, low VOC paint, efficient lighting, rooftop solar panels, etc. Click on the pictures below, go check out the website and maybe help if you can.

my latest book purchase

This is the next one on the line for me: "The Warhol Economy". It seems fascinating and could not be more relevant specially to professionals in the creative industry. If you are in any way, shape or form related to the field, or if you are at all interested in public policy, it's a must-read.

Check out a great interview with the author, Elizabeth Currid, following below. Currid is Gawker's "Celebrity Theory 101" author. By the way, this is her first book. Not too shabby.

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Here's from a review from the New Yorker:

"Any discussion about New York City's economic well-being tends to start and end with one phrase: Wall Street. As the Street goes, we assume, so goes the city, which is why politicians will do almost anything to keep the brokerages and investment banks happy.... [In] The Warhol Economy the social scientist Elizabeth Currid argues that this fixation is misdirected, and that it has led us to neglect the city's most vital and distinctive economic sector: the culture industry, which, in Currid's definition, includes everything from fashion, art, and music to night clubs. In other words, it's SoHo and Chelsea, not Wall Street, that the politicians should really be thinking about. Of course, everyone knows that art and culture help make New York a great place to live. But Currid goes much further, showing that the culture industry creates tremendous economic value in its own right."
-- James Surowiecki, The New Yorker

Here's from a review from The Economist:

"New York's cultural economy has reached a critical juncture threatened by, of all things, prosperity. The bleak economic conditions of the 1970s allowed artists to flock into dirt-cheap apartments and ushered in the East Village scene of the early 1980s. The boom of the past decade, by contrast, has priced budding Basquiats out of Manhattan, pushing them across the water to Brooklyn and New Jersey. Studio flats meant for artists-in-residence get snapped up by bankers. The closure last year of CBGB, a bar that became a punk and art-rock laboratory in the 1970s (and whose founder, Hilly Kristal, died last month) came to symbolise this squeeze. Ms Currid sees this expulsion of talent as a serious problem. The solution, she argues, lies in a series of well-aimed public-policy measures: tax incentives, zoning that helps nightlife districts, more subsidised housing and studio space for up-and-coming artists, and more."

Here's an excerpt from the official description:

"The implications of Currid's argument are far-reaching, and not just for New York. Urban policymakers, she suggests, have not only seriously underestimated the importance of the cultural economy, but they have failed to recognize that it depends on a vibrant creative social scene. They haven't understood, in other words, the social, cultural, and economic mix that Currid calls the Warhol economy."

And here is my favorite, an excerpt from Annie Fischer's Villace Voice article: "there's now documented proof that New York's taste makers need to drink together for the sake of the city's financial health. Cheers to that."

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You can click here to check out the entire video - you can't control the timer, but it's all in there - or you can watch it below in three parts.