Dean Potter  |  Untethered Spirit

Comment

Dean Potter | Untethered Spirit

A few years back I was into watching rock climbing videos, drawn more to extreme free-solo climbers. I'm talking about Dan Osman and Dean Potter, two untethered spirits. Now, I'm bringing it out of the treasure chest of ideosyncratic interests because I just read an article on the WSJ about Patagonia clothing popping up on the fashion runways. The tie in here resolves with Dean Potter infamously being canned by Patagonia after he climbed Utah's Delicate Arch back in 2006, which is apparently a huge "no no," mainly because he may, or may not have, left rope scars on the arch.

Dean is known for his BASE jumping, free climbing, and highlining. Pictured above is his highline Moonwalk at Cathedral Peak and below is Dean highlining Yosemite's Taft Point. Do check out the Moonwalk vid, it's nice. Sometimes you have to touch the void.

From left: Patrik Ervell, Altuzarra, Louis Vuitton 

From left: Patrik Ervell, Altuzarra, Louis Vuitton 

Comment

Cuba Lives!

Comment

Cuba Lives!

Fall 2011: We flew into Cuba via Miami

I captured this cool little man reppin' about thirty seconds before he was taken away by a policeman who was driving the car you can see in the upper middle  right of the photograph.

The two little guys in the circle above were playing outside not too far from where the bottom photo was taken.  You can see a few more pics from Cuba if you click either photos.

...Cuba: The Architecture, The Culture, The People...

Comment

The Crystal Palace | Joseph Paxton

Comment

The Crystal Palace | Joseph Paxton

Joseph Paxton’s 1851 modular, modern, masterpiece, The Crystal Palace, was created for The Great Exhibition, hosted in Hyde Park, London, in the same year.  From the nascent vision of Prince Albert, the Great Exhibition celebrated peace, industry, and modernity, and opened on May 1st by Queen Victoria to much delight and amazement.  It was the first World’s Fair to celebrate industry and worldwide culture.  

Donned in glass, it was a cultural Matryoshka, a cross section of culture and industry, housing its hundred thousand objects along with all the flags of the world.  From Sevres porcelain to the 27-foot crystal fountain, the palace was a tour de force, an architectural wunderkammer erected on a self supporting iron structure with an edifice comprised of the largest glass panels available on the market.  The Crystal Palace embodied the spirit of the Great Exhibition two-fold, it being an industrial vessel holding cultural objects, while itself being a cultural object signifying ‘nowness.’

Now experienced through Paxton’s inky field sketch, still held in the V&A Museum, some architectural plans, and a few illustrations along with black and white photographs, the Palace can be relegated to a position of antiquated ‘has been,’ as it was some one hundred fifty years in the past.  However, the Palace can be delegated as an architectural and industrial breakthrough, taking the blue ribbon for modernity.  It is, and was, the founding member of the avant garde for a culture of glass.

Paxton’s Crystal Palace emits a rational beauty of geometry, set to the tune of a fixed modular, balanced in form and rhythm, glistening through and through with the one thing that lets one see...light.

Comment

Photoshop Pre-Photoshop

Comment

Photoshop Pre-Photoshop

Raynal Pellicer, a French author and photo collector, was recently featured in Eye magazine's 88 issue along with a few examples of his collection of vintage press photographs.  The press photographs show the editor's croppings, notes, and paint strokes, that in turn, become fascinating works of art done, seemingly unwittingly and pre-dating particular trends in art, through a utilitarian point of view.

Comment

Tera Melos

Comment

Tera Melos

This band and this record is one of the few I've spent an extended amount of time listening to within the past three years or so.  While every song may arguably have a discernible structure, these songs aren't really straight off the cookie cutter.  The guitar's distortion, tight-as-a-five-sided-fistagon drumming, and crisp assbass make it happen.  Try out New Chlorine or Sunburn. 

Comment