Animated Gif

this is my first animated gif.  I was fooling around in Photoshop and I am also trying to figure out how to use the more tab.  I mean, the more tag.  

Cheap! Electronic Musical Instruments and Musical Toys

I’m mostly just saving this list here for myself.  The website Synthtopia published a great article called “10 Cool Electronic Music Instruments Under $100″.  Click HERE to go there: 10 Cool Electronic Music Instruments Under $100.  I especially like the device featured called the Stylophone Beatbox.

While we’re on the subject of weird electronic musical instruments I have the share a few things.

I’m also developing an interest in the melodica (they’re cheaper than I expected) and the otamatone (the sounds it makes are annoying, but it looks so cool…).  Where will this all lead me?  Who knows?

Analyzing the Eisner Awards -Best Artist Infographic

A while ago, I decided to analyze the winners of the Eisner Awards, and present the information as an info-graphic.  Here is the result.  My apologies for the weird colors.  That’s the result of not saving for web.

Cash, Guns, and Smoke – the synonyms they leave out of the books

So a while ago I was on thesaurus.com, or some similar website, and I was noticing that the list of synonyms left out anything from modern slang.  That got me thinking about some of the objects or concept that rap has a lot of words for.  With that said, here is a list of synonyms for money, guns, and marijuana.  Some rap glorifies these things, and some rap talks about them in a more critical way.  For now, I’m not presenting my point of view on that.  I just thought it was interesting that these 3 things were the easiest to come up with synonyms for.  For your consideration. (Note: They are not all straight synonyms, and carry different shades of meaning.  Some of them definitely need their own definitions if you want to use them properly.  In the gun category, some of the words refer to specific models and manufacturers. )

MONEY

Cake, Ends, Cream, Paper, Cheese, Cheddar (also Provolone, Feta, any cheese you want to name), Dough, Bread, bankroll, Papes, dead presidents, Green, knot, stack, grand, G, rack, Benjamins, Bills, Bacon or breakfast (as in bringing home the breakfast), currency, bank, scratch, scrilla, skrill, bucks, bones

GUN

gat, heater, heat, roscoe, glock, desert eagle, Ruger, Smith & Wesson, AK, chopper, AR, Mack-10, iron, Shotty, sawed-off, Sawed-off shot, hand cannons (45s and up), nine, two-two, forty-five, cold steel, clack-clack, chrome, boom stick, auto, automatic, semiauto,

MARIJUANA

weed, trees, L, Blunt, Spliff, Piff, Dank, Chronic, Hash, Cannabis, Purple, THC, Haze, Dro, Hydro, Ganga, MaryJane, Herb, Kush, Green, Grass, Buds, Doobie, Roach, Reefer, Sticky

Negative Emotions and the Church – Something worth checking out

This is an article worth checking out, from a great Christian blog called ‘Good Women Project’.

When The Church (And Your Friends) Are Terrified Of Your Negative Emotions

Here’s a sample:

I think Judaism retained a valuable aspect of faith that Christianity tries to suppress: the emotional rollercoaster. By focusing on controlling emotions, we neglect the process: we refuse to give ourselves the freedom to heal, to rejoice, or to grieve.

We’re taught to reign in our emotions. Our heart is evil. Our feelings are lies. God wants us to have joy abundantly, and we must teach ourselves to be happy and perfectly content little Christians.

If something goes wrong, we simply say: “well, God must have a plan” or “everything happens for a reason.” Maybe God loves Machiavellian strategies. OR MAYBE, we come up with ridiculous explanations in order to ignore our own emotional health.

Yes.  This.  A hundred times yes.

Four Young Rappers To Watch -Tarik, Aziz, Joey Badass, Teejay

It’s an exciting time an hip-hop right now, and I think there is a lot of attention on who the next crop odf hot rappers is going to be.  There’s a lot of attention focused on young rappers, and I think that has to do with the success of 25-year old Kendrick Lamar (who had the number 2 selling album the week his ‘Good Kid, MAAD City’ album came out, eclipsed only by Taylor Swift) and also by the success of Odd Future, a posse that includes 18-year old Earl Sweatshirt, and 21-year old Tyler, the Creator. How young is young?  for the purposes of this article I’d say teens to mid 20s.

Tarik -Everything I Am

Tarik is a young dude who’s spent most of his life in Brooklyn and Queens, where he graduated from an arts high school with a diploma in the field of drama/acting.  He started rapping seriously after the money situation made it too difficult to finish college at St. Thomas Aquinas college, where he completed 3 semesters.  In terms of subject matter, he makes me think of what Common would be writing if he were a young man now.  Everything I am, borrows a beat from Kanye, but I think that Tarik’s delivery and content outshine Mr. West’s.  This song blows me away.  Tarik has a message I can get behind, and this song may just have to go on any list I might make of slightly downbeat, self-reflective raps.

Aziz – My Own World

Aziz has done more videos that I’ve been able to find than anyone else on this list, and they are all solid.  It’s hard to believe that this guy isn’t signed.  Aziz also did videos that are labelled as ‘the 1990s’ and ‘the 2000s’ where he raps over some of the iconic beats of those eras, and those are both worth checking out.

Joey Badass -Hardknock

Of all these guys, Joey Badass is the one I discovered first.  I first saw an interview video with him,  and then I saw the video Survival Tactics with Capital STEEZ, which is on a P.O.S./Doomtree “burn everything and riot” kind of thing.  Joey has released a album/mixtape called 1999, and everything I’ve heard off of it is straight.  Joey Badass, and his crew, Pro Era, are a step above the rest of these young MCs because they have developed a signature sound when it comes to picking beats, by choosing ones that are off the beaten path.  Joey’s mixtape 1999 features beats by MF Doom and by J Dilla, and beats by others, including some reminiscent of Madlib.  You can say what you want about the Odd Future crew (Tyler the Creator, Earl Sweatshirt, Hodgy Beats, MellowHype, etc.) and you can say they have gotten where they are largely by applying the shock-rock thing to hip hop, but you have to admit that their beats sound different than anybody else’s.  Do you want other songs worth checking out by Joey Bada$$?  ‘Survival Tactics’, and ‘Waves’ are both solid.

Teejay -See Me Now

The song ‘See Me Now’ matches a stirring, insistent vocal delivery with a dance-y beat a la Lupe Fiasco’s Lasers.  I think I love the video, in large part, because it shows off Chicago, my favorite city in the world.  Teejay seems really green in some ways, so I’m interested to see where he goes in a few years.  There’s a few lines in here I especially like, such as  “we on the rise like Lebron’s hairline” and “no holds barred till I get a black card”.

Science Fiction Art Inspiration November 2012 -pt. 2

Here is some more inspirational science fiction art.

Image 1-3: Comics pages from Moebius – Jean Giraud.

 

Image 4-7 – art by comic book artist Francois Schuiten.