Richard Pryor x Organized Konfusion

February 21, 2010 Written by Tahero at 11:32 am · Filed under Culture Snob, Social Studies

I thought these 2 excellent uses of anthropomorphism should be together:

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20 Questions

June 19, 2009 Written by Tahero at 3:40 pm · Filed under Advertising Critique, Culture Snob, Photography, Social Studies

Last July the good folks at Miami Ad School asked me a great question:

If you had to explain to someone what an increasing divorce rate, cable television, the space shuttle challenger disaster in the 1980’s, the popularity of South Park and the rise of instant messaging (social media) all have in common, what would you say?

My answer: No hope for the future has shaped our impatience for the present. We need everything now. Who knows, who cares what happens later?

Divorce: the paradox of choice - too many options have us in a permanent upgrade mode. The novelty of something new activates our brain’s reward center. Perfection is the expectation. Why repair something when we can get the new model?

Space Shuttle Disaster: apathy - My parents’ generation got ‘one giant step for mankind…’ my generation watched our futures explode with the Challenger on television.

Cable: sedentary life – Cable programming is comprised of reality shows and news programs sandwiched between pharmaceutical ads and retail therapy. We watch modern archetypes live out their scripted lives on TV. We live vicariously through our favorite characters and mimic their lives (i.e. the Sex And The City / NYC Prep / Real Housewives Of New Jersey phenomena). The result makes our authentic thoughts and movements secondary.

South Park: super cynicism - A little cynicism is healthy. Overly cynical people become too paralyzed to act, we can only watch from the sidelines and comment while we wait for a hero to save us.

Text Messaging: Devolution - digital communication is making us into humanoids who can’t talk face to face, can’t employ proper writing syntax and have no compassion to wait for a slower non-digital exchange of information to unfold.

Sounds dark, but also enforces the need for a cadre of optimistic contrarians to instigate positive social change.

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Apple Is A Biter

June 10, 2009 Written by admin at 2:34 pm · Filed under Culture Snob, Social Studies, Stolen Creative

The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. -Albert Einstein.

Does Jonathan Ive send checks to Dieter Rams? The Apple iMac VS Braun LE1 is what killed it for me. That and the perforated aluminum used on the Braun T1000 radio, nearly 50 years before the PowerMac G5.

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Today’s Walk: SF - The People Oakland

May 14, 2009 Written by Tahero at 4:30 pm · Filed under Culture Snob, Music Theory, Social Studies

DJ BBrown & Daz-i-Kue, Big up! Nice folks, nice set.

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Fred Rogers x Malcolm Gladwell

April 22, 2009 Written by Tahero at 9:50 am · Filed under Culture Snob, Daily Feed, Social Studies

Mr. Rogers neighborhood teaches Gladwell’s Outliers theory that 10,000 hours of practice makes a genius. Starting at age 7, Jermaine Vaughn Practiced every day for 5 Years and was clearly on his way to mastery. A testament to the power of Public Television.

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New Museums. New Curators.

April 14, 2009 Written by Tahero at 9:01 am · Filed under Culture Snob, NYC Events, Photography, Social Studies

Last week’s visit to the New Museum’s Be(com)ing Dutch closing party made me contemplate of the value of the exhibit curator.

While looking at some of the installations on lower floors it was difficult not to feel the weight of the obsolescence of it all. My tolerance for sitting through a media exhibition that wasn’t tailored explicitly for me has been greatly lowered because of the availability of more compelling & timely work out in the streets & tweets. Having become accustomed to using cable TV’s, PC’s and portable media to curate my own entertainment media ‘exhibitions’ at home as well as on the go, I fear that curation may go the way of desktop publishing and disc jockeying. Meaning:

The tools used to curate media exhibitions are widely available and a person’s formal training in this skill is no longer the barrier to entry.

A high point of the talk was hearing about the resistance that the curators of Be(com)ing Dutch received from artists and citizens concerning how museums were no longer qualified to create compelling exhibitions for their community, about their community with art that was housed inside of buildings which created a barrier between the community that co-created the art and the art itself.

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Today’s Walk: Favorite Spots Brooklyn

April 10, 2009 Written by Tahero at 2:50 pm · Filed under Culture Snob, Photography, Social Studies

There are a few spots in NYC that feel like portals to me, crossroads that make me stop and take notice.

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All Of My Favorite Hip Hop DJ’s Are Jewish

April 8, 2009 Written by admin at 11:46 am · Filed under Culture Snob, Music Theory, Social Studies

DJ Herbert - Kenneth Herbert Hyman

DJ Scribe - Ben Goldfarb

DJ J.Period - Joel Astman

DJ Mark Ronson - Mark Ronson

DJ Workhorse - Jonathan Schnapp

DJ Cassidy - Cassidy Podell

DJ Bill Sharp - William Sharp

DJ Captain Planet / Chuck Wild - Charlie Bethel

DJ $mall ¢hange - James Dier

DJ Cosmo Baker - Cosmo Baker

DJ AM - Adam Goldstein

30ish, came of age in a multicultural 90’s world, sons of Steve Jobs, indicative of Obama’s progressive, wealthy, educated, White, male demographic talked about by the cable media pundits. Rumors of a regime shift, away from a Presidency funded by the old guard oil guys, toward one funded by the ex-hippies and hip nouveau riche tech guys.

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Mr. James, I Presume (Hat Tip To Eric Holder)

April 7, 2009 Written by Villalobos at 1:59 pm · Filed under Culture Snob, Social Studies

He was screaming at the top of his lungs in front of the bar. Or he was nodding off to sleep in an armchair, a tilted glass of ruby wine dangling from his fingertips. Still, it could be he was dragging on a cigarette sitting with his legs crossed flitting ash and exhaling smoke, his head banked to one side in mid conversation. Then again, he may have very well been laughing loud and obnoxious, his shoulders heaving underneath a joke’s imminent weight much to the surprise of the surrounding uninformed.
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Today’s Walk Manhattan - Carmine Street Printers

March 13, 2009 Written by Tahero at 9:01 am · Filed under Culture Snob, Photography, Social Studies

I took a trip to Second Little Italy to proof a project for a client. This Carmine Street printer was down the block from the public pool I used to frequent as a youth. As I stepped downstairs into the shop I got hit with wafts of ink & acetone fumes. Immediately bringing me back to a job I had in Atlanta as a negative stripper at Nexus Press. The Carmine Street Shop seemed frozen in time, when much of the industry West of 6th Avenue to Greenwich Street dealt with printing. Impressive. Pete the press master, has stories galore and an original letter press poster of Benito Mussolini framed on his wall - printed in The Bronx, New York, USA in 1942. Huh?

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