There’s no doubt: Everything Is Terrible is the funniest and most depressing collection of found footage Cyberspace has ever seen. The group of video artists that contributes to the site keep it simple: each clip is a highlight reel of pure insanity usually culled from a single infomercial, self-improvement tape or edutainment special. Without straying too far from the source material, Everything is Terrible cuts through the filler to tastefully underscore the horror and hilarity of these all-but-forgotten bargain bin VHS marvels. While the dated, low-budget anonymity inherent in these clips makes it easy to feel distanced from the subjects of Everything Is Terrible’s playful scorn, the implicit message in all this admirable work seems to be: whenever it was made, no matter how professional it looks, just about anything can be awesomely awful– so learn to enjoy it!
The collective’s first feature-length DVD, Everything Is Terrible: The Movie, hits mailboxes tomorrow. To celebrate the release, the entire EIT gang is appearing in person tomorrow night for a special presentation at (where else?) The Silent Movie Theatre.
At the heart of Sendak’s brilliance is his unforced spontaneousness as a writer. His most epic works: Where the Wild Things Are, In The Night Kitchen, and Outside Over There play out like dreams, discarding the patronizing narrative contrivances of less intuitive children’s literature. But they’re not completely disorganized surrealist romps. Like dreams, they incorporate everyday banal experiences as props and stage dressing in an absurd theatrical puzzle revealing the answer to an unresolved problem from our waking lives.
I’m not one to casually diss institutions devoted to fun, but there is an inherent problem with playgrounds, which is that they are static. There is a limit to the amount of fun that can be had on an unchanging set of slides, swings, and ladders. Once you’ve monkeyed around and devised some imaginary games (robbers, pirates), the jig is pretty much up.
Unless you happen to be at Berkeley’s Adventure Playground, where the facility consists of a never-ending kid-constructed fortress. Tools, paints and nails are readily available for those kids who want to build or add on to the numerous forts, towers and thingamajigs on the grounds. Those who prefer a low-key play experience can ride the zip-line or simply admire the creations of their peers.
Photographer Lauren Dukoff’s deluxe new book Family is comprised of 150 intimate images of Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom, Bat for Lashes, Vetiver, Vashti Bunyan and a host of assorted other freak folk hot shots. It’s great to see what these artists’ lives are like outside the often obscuring context of a magazine photo spread. You can almost picture yourself drinking kombucha with Devendra on a Big Sur cliff overlooking the vast majesty of the Pacific.
If you are one of the few people who haven’t seen their much-blogged renditions of various classic rock radio gems you should definitely spend some time today at the PS22 chorus blog. A new take on a trusted model, there you will see what it’s like to be a school kid growing up in the internet age- singing with Stevie Nicks at Madison Square Garden, recording with Passion Pit, and vibing out with daytime talk show hosts the world over. You know, kid stuff.
Dave Eggers’ 300 page young adult novel, The Wild Things, will be released on October 1st. You can pre-order a copy today from the McSweeney’s store, in either the standard edition, or the fur-covered edition. Yes, you heard that right: you can own a copy of this book covered in the real fur of an actual wild thing. McSweeney’s never stops raising the bar in the field of rad book design. The art of bookmaking lives on! Here’s what Eggers had to say about what The Wild Things is and how it came to be, in a December 2007 interview with The Montreal Gazette:
When we were in the middle of [writing the script], Maurice called me and somebody had brought up the idea of there being a novel, too, and he asked me if I would do it.
… We all really get along – Spike and Maurice and I always had the same goals for the movie, and the novelization, too, which was to sort of reinstitute the dangerous elements of that book. Because when it came out (in 1963), it was pretty controversial and some librarians didn’t like it, and child psychologists thought it was, you know, unhelpful. (laughs) And it was really morally ambiguous in a way. It showed a kid sort of disobeying his mother and acting crazy – which all kids do, but you still don’t see much of in children’s literature. It’s too often, I think, washed clean.
Spike and Maurice and I just decided we needed to make the book wild and dangerous again and really unexpected. So the movie is really unlike anything anyone will expect, I think. And the book is different from both of them, actually. It has Max and Max going to an island, but in the book I’m able to (develop) the storyline also – as a book can always do. You have a lot more room to play with. The (picture) book is 150 words, the movie is 90 minutes, the novel gets to be a whole different level.
David Horvitz is known for his art + internet + poetic missions method of creating small things to think about and look at and wonder why you might not have come up with the same idea yourself. When he is not making lists of things that he will do for you for certain amounts of money (take a photograph of the sky , go to a small island , visit a friend in Seattle) he is updating his task/mission Tumblr in an attempt to get you moving in the right direction. If you feel you might be moving in the wrong direction you should visit him.
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