Category Archives: media

PSA: Visual Arts Development Awards applications released

Posted on by

News Release! Spread the Word!
 
April 11, 2007
 
$56,500 IN AWARDS FOR BC ARTISTS AND ARTISANS NOW AVAILABLE
2007 Visual Arts Development Awards applications released

The eleventh annual Visual Arts Development Awards (VADA) is now underway. The Awards assist British Columbia’s emerging or mid-career visual artists and artisans. The initiative is to encourage the development of new skills and techniques. Grants range in size from $3,000 to $5,000. Deadline for receipt of completed applications is Friday, June 29th at 6 p.m.

This award is for emerging or mid-career visual artists and artisans who want to explore a new technique or process that will further their practice and artistic development. Last year, 14 visual artists and artisans from across the province received awards. Their projects included: travelling to Iran to learn skills and techniques of traditional Persian miniature painting; mentoring with a Chilkat weaver to connect the processes of dovetailing, interlocking and drawstring to recreate a full Chillkat dance apron. Learning the fundamentals of garment conception, construction and alteration; learning how to use a Focused Ion Beam to produce work with gallium and other substrates; a self-directed program to learn the linocut printmaking process to incorporate cutting and printing into 2D works; and learning digital technologies such as basic editing, titling, graphics, digitizing video and production methods.

Read more details over the jump! Continue reading →

Mr Brains’s Faggot Family of Doodys

Posted on by

Betty and Me and Theo and Clay and Mike 

Words.

Fail.

Me.

From the BBC, for the LOVE OF THE SWEET BABY JESUS, via Reddit:

A West Midlands family is playing a central role in the quest to raise the profile of a forgotten British dish – faggots.

The Doody family from Wolverhampton has been crowned The Faggot Family in a national competition, and to kick off their reign they will launch National Faggot Week.

The family will be touring the country extolling the virtues of the dish, which is best-known for its links with the Black Country.

Oh, they just had to get racism in there too, didn’t they?

Also: bonus headline on that page:

What’s in the great British banger?

Probably Jude Law’s DNA.

add to del.icio.us :: Add to Blinkslist :: add to furl :: Digg it :: add to ma.gnolia :: Stumble It! :: add to simpy :: seed the vine :: :: :: TailRank

MC Nuts vs the Shat: rapping the classics, old skool

Posted on by

I love that the YouTube post for the following says, with a boundless and entirely irrational optimism, “See http://www.utalkmarketing.com for more like this,” almost as if you’d want to. The shrivelled and crusty cockles of one’s heart are bewarméd at their boyish enthusiasm and entirely unjustifiable pride in product. You GO, girlfriends!

How not to rap the classics: with a cheap squirrel costume, rancid moves, a transparent mercenaric desperation to appeal to “yoof,” and an intrusive fake “street” accent, eg the Lake Country‘s tourism campaign’s would-be-viral video of Wordsworth‘s great Romantic poem, “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud“.  

Contagious? Like ebola, baby! This thing has infected hard drives all over the world and, in fact, any laptop laid on a table that’s had an electronic device that has played this within the last thirty days is 80% likely to have its circuits liquified, spewing silicon in horrific gushes from every oriface.

Now, watch how it should be done, by that master of subtlety, The Shat!

Honestly, when William. Fucking. Shatner. pulls this off better than you, it’s time to turn in your Norton Anthology.

add to del.icio.us :: Add to Blinkslist :: add to furl :: Digg it :: add to ma.gnolia :: Stumble It! :: add to simpy :: seed the vine :: :: :: TailRank

soap, not dope: Don Bolles jailed over Dr. Bronner’s

Posted on by

Never forget! 

Now I’m worried about the Cybergypsy. He’s been known to take trips to the United States of Amerika, and I happen to know that he’s in possession of a large bottle of this very (apparently-controlled) substance. Like very large. Like, this could be a fucking trafficking charge if he gets busted.

What the hell am I rambling about?

Don Bolles, drummer of the legendary punk band the Germs, was arrested for felony drug possession because he had a bottle of Dr. Bronner’s peppermint soap in his van when he was pulled over for a busted tail light.

Sounds like a late April Fool’s joke; isn’t.

Should be.

Here, for general distribution, is the official press release from Dr. Bronner’s PR:

“Germ” Wrongly Jailed Over Soap

Absurd GHB Drug Charges for Don Bolles, Drummer of the “The Germs”, Stem From a Bottle of Dr. Bronner’s Peppermint Soap Found in Van During Police Stop

an 8 ounce bottle? Not even enough to get a good buzzESCONDIDO, CA – The Bronner family, makers of the popular organic Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps are shocked and disturbed by musician Don Bolles’ April 4th arrest for felony drug possession after police alleged an 8oz bottle of peppermint Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap tested positive for the illicit drug GHB (Gamma Hydroxy Butyrate). The notion that anyone would put GHB in a rinse-off liquid soap product is beyond belief, and the police field test used must have been flawed or tampered with. GHB, which produces euphoria and is an alleged aphrodisiac when ingested, of course has absolutely no effect in a soap product that is rinsed off the hands and body.

Mr. Bolles, drummer of the legendary punk band The Germs http://germsreturn.com/ was arrested following a police traffic stop and spent three and half days in various jailsin Orange County before being released early Easter morning. During a consented search of Mr. Bolles vintage 1968 A-108 van, Newport Beach police found a bottle of peppermint Dr. Bronner’s soap which is made with organic coconut, olive, hemp, peppermint and jojoba oils. Felony drug possession could mean 20 years in prison if convicted. A pretrial hearing is scheduled for Friday, April 13, 2007 at the Harbor Justice Center, 4601 Jamboree Road Newport Beach, CA at 8:30am.

“I’ve used only Dr. Bronner’s soap for 35 years,” says Mr. Bolles. “I use it for everything – bathing, washing my hair, washing my clothes – it goes everywhere I go. I’m scheduled to go to Europe to tour with The Germs this summer, but these felony charges could keep me from traveling out of the country. This whole thing could be really devastating to a 50 year old guy just trying to make a living. I told the officer ‘its soap, it smells like peppermint soap,’ but he seemed intent on arresting me.”

“It is totally outrageous that the police could be this malicious and idiotic,” says Michael Bronner, Vice-President of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps. “This clearly is a case of profiling by the Newport Beach police of a person who doesn’t look like the people who live in that town. We are paying the cost of Mr. Bolle’s lawyer, and we demand the charges be dropped or proof from the police forensics lab of GHB contamination be immediately provided to us,” said Bronner. Adds brother David Bronner, President: “We cannot imagine anyone putting GHB, or any other drug for that matter, into a rinse-off soap product that is lathered and rinsed off the body immediately. The Newport Beach police should see how much of a buzz putting beer in their shampoo gives them, and get a grip and apologize on their hands and knees to Mr. Bolles.”

At the time of the arrest Mr. Bowles was driving his girlfriend, and fellow musician Cat Scandal to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in Newport Beach. “I had heard of GHB but the police had to tell me what it was,” said Bolles. “I’m going to fight these charges.”

To arrange an interview with Don Bolles, Michael Bronner or David Bronner please contact Adam Eidinger at 202-744-2671

Omigod, I just remembered: the Cybergypsyleft me a bottle of this soap too! And I had a bath with it just today! Omigodomigod brb d00d, got 2 sterilize th scene, but 1st…hmm, what’s good for barricading patio doors? And hey, is anybody else up for some nachos?

add to del.icio.us :: Add to Blinkslist :: add to furl :: Digg it :: add to ma.gnolia :: Stumble It! :: add to simpy :: seed the vine :: :: :: TailRank

Fame, Glory, Sex and Money through Blogging: what it takes to beat the squirrel babies

Posted on by

Jedi Squirrels unite! 

Fame. Glory. Sex. Money. You want it all. You want it now.

And you want to get it by blogging.

I hear you, baby. I know how you feel. I’m one of you.

I’m about to give you some bad news…

The Fame? That comes fast, as long as you define “fame” as “slightly known, in that they can kindasorta recognize my header but have no idea what I look like way, to people who already read blogs.” This is a smaller group than you currently imagine, and even your late-night entreaties of the retired longshoremen on the rail at your local watering hole are not likely to change it on a measurable scale.

If you want to be famous to politicians’ research staffers, WoW-playing slackers, or sysadmins, however, you’ve got it made.

The Glory? See above, plus your mother will be proud of you once you spend three consecutive holidays explaining to her what blogging is and showing her how to put YOUR blog in HER email signature. Unless you’re a porn blogger, and then we don’t want to know about your relationship with your mother.

The Sex? You mean with other people? What would I know about that? Ask the porn bloggers if you must.

The Money?Ah, the money. Now we come to it; you figured that if you stuck Adsense on your cat blog that you could just sit back and watch the millions roll in, didn’t you? You’ve taken a couple of overpriced SEO seminars and can’t understand why you aren’t able to quit your day job just yet.

In point of fact, there are three ways to earn six figures from blogging.

  1. Be Robert Scoble.
  2. The engtech method
  3. The Manolo method

Of these three, we at the ol’ raincoaster blog favour #3, for lo, we are in truth and in fact not Robert Scoble and yea verily we can hardly understand what engtech says half the time (and could only get a six-figure job if you left out the decimal entirely), so that leaves only one option.

Fortunately, the Magnanimous Manolo has laid out a simple yet superfantastic planenabling you to scale the heights of the six-figure-blogo-strato-sphere. Or, as he puts it, “to beat the squirrel babies.”

You may think, Mr. Arturo G. Bloggerman, that your grand mission is to enlighten the unwashed masses, to whom you declaim the unpleasant truth from your exalted perch at declaimingloudly.blogspot.com. But in the point of fact, if the unwashed masses do not find your loud declamations entertaining they will quickly move down the street to the Cuteoverload to look at the pictures of the squirrel babies.

So, what must you do to compete with the squirrel babies?

Read the rest of the articleto learn the superfantastic surefire secret to six-figure success!
(sorry, been reading a lot of marketing faff lately)

add to del.icio.us :: Add to Blinkslist :: add to furl :: Digg it :: add to ma.gnolia :: Stumble It! :: add to simpy :: seed the vine :: :: :: TailRank