NY Decompression and the Bubble

An amazing weekend in NYC for the NYCwide decompression party.

Here's pix of the best party within the party.

Note: this is Nicholas Butterworth aka the Bass, Michael's brother.

You can see the puddle we created in the back of a budget rental truck. This feature will be added to camp reorient this coming year.

Thanks to everyone for making the trip so wonderful.

something beautiful, something hateful

From 100luz, my collaborator on a new Born project. Taiko drums.

And from Tom Ridge, um, a beauracrat of evil.

The Most Blogged Onion Article Ever

Mom Finds Out About Blog

MINNEAPOLIS, MN—In a turn of events the 30-year-old characterized as "horrifying," Kevin Widmar announced Tuesday that his mother Lillian has discovered his weblog.

NYC Burning Man Decompression 'Boundless'

From here

About Decompression
After we have come back from the Burning Man arts festival, and before the playa dust has completely settled and our heads have stopped spinning, many of us gather to "decompress" by taking one more communal plunge into the depths of what we found so affirming and memorable at the festival.

Decompression is an opportunity to dust off and share again playa art, performances, theme camps, photos, videos and stories from the playa; to re-connect with family and friends; and collaborate to create new art. It is at its simplest: a reunion. But more significantly, it is a thoroughly participatory celebration of Burning Man art and community within our larger communities. And it is one of the more powerful ways many of us bring some of what is so inspiring about Burning Man to our cities and the rest of the year!

We bring a bit of the event to you, New York style.

About Burning Man
Burning Man is an annual experiment in temporary community dedicated to radical self-expression and radical self-reliance. Check out What Is Burning Man on the Burning Man web site for more information, read the other articles on the site and visit other web sites for a broader understanding of the Burning Man event. If you wish to truly understand and comprehend Burning Man, you need to attend the event - it's unlike anything you've ever experienced!

Whilst we were in the woods

The SuperDuckMan Party Bus was hitting the town in NYC.

HairM Grand Opening

Join the celebration November 14th!


Save all Day (10am-6pm)

>>Save 15% on all men’s grooming services and retail products!

>>Plus, FREE shoe shines, neck line trims and hand massages!!!



Party all Night (6pm-10pm)

>>Eat, drink and start your weekend off right! Sample hors d’oeuvres by the soon to open H20 Martini Bar and Restaurant (located at 204 SW Yamhill).

>>Win great prizes including a one year membership at HairM, dinner gift certificates at H20 and more!

>>Watch belly dancing performances by the Gypsy Caravan.


Don't miss it!

What's the song, in that, y'know, ad?

Here.

HairM: Grooming for the Urban King

Here's a link to the hot new Men's only hair salon HairM

"Welcome to a new era in men's grooming. No longer do men have to feel out of place in a women's salon or short-serviced in a barber shop. Now there is a place just for you. A place where you can relax, enjoy a complimentary beverage (including beer and wine), read an interesting "men's" magazine, watch your favorite satellite show or just shoot the breeze with other professionals. Best of all, you can begin indulging in services that will make you feel like a king. Services designed just for men. All performed in an environment that provides privacy and comfort. Welcome to HairM. "

President Without a Game Plan (washingtonpost.com)

Christ, I rebel by going to the desert and doing some radical self-expression. W. rebels by going to the desert and, well, read this passage from W's Dad's Autobiography:

"Someone has dug out and put on the Internet a fascinating passage from the first President Bush's memoir, "A World Transformed." The senior Bush is explaining why he didn't pursue and kill Saddam Hussein at the end of the Gulf War (the elisions are for space only and in no way change the meaning of the passage):

"Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream . . . and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. . . . We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect rule Iraq. . . . There was no viable 'exit strategy' we could see. . . . Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different -- and perhaps barren -- outcome." "

Street Terms: Drugs and the Drug Trade - ONDCP

Here's the White House's list of 'street terms' for Ketamine .

I wonder if 'Kitty Flipping' has anything to do with furries?

More: The Street Terms database contains over 2,300 street terms that refer to specific drug types or drug activity. The database is used by police officers, parents, treatment providers and others who require a better understanding of drug culture.
You can also download a printable version of Street Terms (PDF).

Worst Album Covers Ever

The Music & The Art of the "Worst Album Covers Ever":

Thanks to reader Brad B. for turning me on to the work of Nick D. who collected these priceless old album covers from the musical greats of the past.

Send your disturbing album masterpieces to news AT cenedella D0T com and tune in on Monday for next week's edition of "Worst Album (or CD) Covers Ever"

Crispin! & Helen Keller's Wife

About our friends at Crispin, from Newsweek

Virgin’s New Flight of Fancy

The airline tapped a hot ad shop to help it relaunch the jet-set age

By Arian Campo-Flores
NEWSWEEK

Nov. 10 issue — In August, two creative directors at the Miami ad agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky wrestled with a new tag line for their client Virgin Atlantic Airways. They liked “Jet swanky,” but it sounded a bit superficial. “Going up?” echoed United Airlines’ “Rising.” Then they nailed it: “Go, jet set, go!”

       ON THE HEELS of the Concorde’s last flight, Virgin hopes that tag line will signal that it’s the rightful heir to the supersonic traveling class. (“Rock stars, keep on touring”; “Supermodels, keep on strutting.”) It’s a key part of one of the most anticipated ad campaigns of the year. After all, rarely do such irreverent partners come together—an agency whose cheeky, award-winning work for Mini Cooper and IKEA have made it one of the hottest shops around, and a client known to fancy racy ads. When CP?B pitched Virgin for the work early this year, the airline was so smitten that it truncated its search halfway through. Ever since, the two have goaded each other on, as NEWSWEEK observed behind the scenes.
What's Your Digital IQ? Take our quiz.
        The agency first needed to clarify the airline’s identity, which was torn between its rebellious roots and its aspirations for a more sophisticated image. Virgin’s most recent tag line—”Serious fun”—was “the biggest cop-out we’ve propagated,” said John Riordan, vice president of customer services for Virgin. “More moronic than oxymoronic.”
        When CP+B recommended a new identity—”a party on the way to London”—that embraced the airline’s irreverence, “we were on edge,” said Riordan, as he and his colleagues envisioned debauchery in the aisles. But eventually, the Virgin team came around, with one condition—that the word “party” never appear in any ad.
        In August, CP+B presented Virgin with the fruits of its labors. Executive creative director Alex Bogusky explained the proposed tag line, “Go, jet set, go!”: “We’re thinking of it as the ‘Just do it’ of travel,” he said. “It’s a call to action to get out there and do great things.” Then he unloaded a bevy of ideas: a Jetrosexual magazine, billboard ads with lines like “Whose guitar pick is in my martini?,” saucy 30-second spots involving couples tickling each other on the flat bed. In the weeks since, the Virgin team has pushed ahead on some ideas it’s jazzed about—like a bar replicating the Upper Class cabin that would go in malls or airports—and nixed others, such as an ad touting Virgin as Playboy’s airline of choice (“The Mile High Club just got a boost”). “We’re just excited to make some noise again,” said a Virgin executive. If CP+B hits the mark, Virgin will be heard.

Lucky?

From a Fast Company article about the book The Luck Factor: Changing Your Luck, Changing Your life and the Four Essential Principles . Really interesting. I wonder what the lucky v. unlucky breakdown is of the people that read this blog. (PS, Keener, when the heck are we going to add commentary? I'm willing to start throwing in happy hours at the Tin Shed).

"What are some of the ways that lucky people think differently from unlucky people?

One way is to be open to new experiences. Unlucky people are stuck in routines. When they see something new, they want no part of it. Lucky people always want something new. They're prepared to take risks and relaxed enough to see the opportunities in the first place.

How did you uncover that in your lab?

We did an experiment. We asked subjects to flip through a news-paper that had photographs in it. All they had to do was count the number of photographs. That's it. Luck wasn't on their minds, just some silly task. They'd go through, and after about three pages, there'd be a massive half-page advert saying, STOP COUNTING. THERE ARE 43 PHOTOGRAPHS IN THIS NEWSPAPER. It was next to a photo, so we knew they were looking at that area. A few pages later, there was another massive advert -- I mean, we're talking big -- that said, STOP COUNTING. TELL THE EXPERIMENTER YOU'VE SEEN THIS AND WIN 150 POUNDS [about $235].

For the most part, the unlucky would just flip past these things. Lucky people would flip through and laugh and say, "There are 43 photos. That's what it says. Do you want me to bother counting?" We'd say, "Yeah, carry on." They'd flip some more and say, "Do I get my 150 pounds?" Most of the unlucky people didn't notice."

Halloween 2003

Some pix from the excellent .Halloween in the Woods.

I'd be the Golden God. Aim'ee Binford is the hottie in the black. Much thanks to Hart'n'Steve as the twins from The Shining for throwing the party.

Kids doing videos

Mike Proctor turned me onto this while we were concepting new Tonkin spots.

The Media Spot

Take a look at the projects section.

Here's their statement: "Since our students will have watched approximately sixteen thousand hours of television by high school's end, questions should have arisen, even in the minds of officials at the Department of Education, about who will teach our students how to look at television, and when not to, and with what critical equipment when they do. "
--Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves To Death

The Media Spot builds media literacy in the K-12 classroom. We are a group of educators and media professionals providing a production-based curriculum to schools, and resources for students and educators to tap into the larger media literacy movement.

We work with teachers to connect video and the Internet to their current subject material, and then collaborate with students in the classroom to produce projects with these media.

This process allows students to understand what it means to be a producer of media, helps them think critically about the relationships between producers and consumers in our media-saturated society, and empowers them with the skills to make their own voices heard in their media environment.

The Art of Burning Man collage

here. Keep clicking through on Page 2, Page 3, etc. It's all a great introduction to the breadth and breath of Burning Man.

Big Hello to the Slackmaster 2000, who's in town for a few days, and to attend the Halloween bash. Pix on that to come...

Carol Kucera's imagery

My friend Molly pointed these out to me, along with the (amazing) fact that Santa Fe has more gallery space than NYC.

Carol Kucera