This, from the overly-scented mall store Abercrombie & Fitch’s 2007 Back to School Line:

Or this, from designer Vanessa Bruno’s Spring 2010 line?

And which is actually more appealing?

Discuss.

The House That Jack Built from William J. Meyer on Vimeo.

Not much in my life had as much as an effect on me as Calvin and Hobbes did. I still have a distinct memory of being asking in class to name a type of mammal and I said “human”, I was 8 at the time, and the whole class laughed at me. I didn’t know why they laughed at the time and to this day I still don’t understand. I think maybe I connected more with Calvin than I did with my peers. A child who has too much knowledge and not enough social skills to understand how that might cause problems. In other words, this:

This is a fascinating and brilliant project unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The concept of spatially complex video paintings intrigues me, and I have a feeling they will be a important part of contemporary art in our science fiction future thats coming. Click on the picture to jump to the site and watch the video.

How its used :

When he asked us to work with him on Civilization, a vision he had of taking hundreds of stock footage, movie footage and original clips and combining them to create a moving landscape depicting the ascension from hell to heaven, we knew that it was going to be huge challenge but one we were very excited about.

The project had two huge challenges. Firstly we needed to figure out how to create content that could move with the elevator where it would ultimately be viewed. The idea was this, when you go up in the elevator the content goes down and when you go down it goes up. Not unlike a ride film this project was designed to be synced to the moving environment of the hotel elevators in New York. We wanted to synchronize the footage to the movement of the elevator as best as we could.

As /rupture admits, “Auto-Tune is culturally complicated”. Some of us may have heard of Shawn Corey Carter’s hate on Auto-Tune, but frankly, J.Z. hasn’t released worthy of a close listen (actually J.Z. only appears on The Jaz records, so the prior should actually read Jay-Z) – not to say that certain Clark Kent, Premier, 9th Wonder, The 45 King’s Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem) and the Kev Brown Brown Album productions on Jay-Z’s albums aren’t not worth a listen – since the In My Lifetime/Can’t Get Wit Dat 12″ (1994). Orignal rap? A Rockafella neva sellin’ out, eh?:

Now, although the cleanliness, glory and occasional uplifting moments of Empire State of Mind is far from Nas’ Queensbridge project-born, dark realist masterpiece NY State of Mind – all Jay-Z’ll prolly do is squeal – and I do not necessarily disagree with Mr. Carter and Ms. Keys possible belief that New York is perhaps the city where dreams are made of, but I will judge both by the content of their character, as New Jacks masturbating on their wealth made in a culture industry that has exploited the creative potential of hip-hop as an artistic expression and emptied it of any artistic expression. Hip-hop lives, but Jay-Z has nothing to do with it: it is moving in directions founded on intelligent, creative, poetic expression, militant politics and a universal self-empowerment of the poor, and MPC, electronic and turntable experimentalism: misogyny, capital and social inequalities are and have always been its primary targets. From the looks of the Empire State of Mind, it seems Mr. Carter takes pride in becoming a billboard for MacDo, NYPD security cameras, pharmaceutical companies, Hershey’s, T.G.I. Fridays, the Nets, Knicks and Yankees…and that poverty no longer exists in Brooklyn or elsewhere around the Metropolis. Thanks Jay-Z! There is nothing you can’t do! If I move to New York for graduate school at least I’ll know that I can play out my fantasies there! Or at least I can play out my fantasies in fantasizing about that Empire elsewhere!

My criticism is not necessarily of Jay-Z, the man, as, since Proust, at least, one should not confuse the art with the artist. I find a strange joy whenever Canibus, Chino XL, Ras Kass and other battle rappers toss their (often violent) criticisms at Mr. Carter’s work. Nevertheless, how quickly one forgets how apparent is the robbery in Jay-Z’s lyricism, the sonority of which is nothing but a New Jack version of the machine-gun, stutter-stop-go lyricism of Das EFX, the only difference being that Skoob (bookS) and Krayzy Drayzy brought the style straight from the sewer and never came out. :

More can be learned here

But srsly, could a few of you folks get your act together and step it up like these people did? If a cat house could shred gnar, that house’d shred that gnar.

Too bad dogs don’t like hopping around on top of platforms. Certainly not my dog. I can’t get her to stop barking at our dehumidifier when it turns on.

So, gather your favorites and post away.  At the end of the week I’ll pick a winner whom will have the honor of being the person with the most 90’s website submission.  (It’s kind of a big deal.)

Here’s a few to get you salivating…

OHIO-USA Your Key Link to the World ...

What's Happening in Space?

1. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (New Line; 2003) $1,119,110,941

2. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (Disney; 2006) $1,066,179,725

3. The Dark Knight (Warner Bros.; 2008) $1,001,921,825

4. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Warner Bros.; 2001) $974,733,550

5. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (Disney; 2007) $960,996,492

6. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Warner Bros.; 2007) $938,212,738

7. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Warner Bros.; 2009) $929,022,922

8. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (New Line; 2002) $925,282,504

9. Shrek 2 (DreamWorks; 2004) $919,838,758

10. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Warner Bros.; 2005) $895,921,036

11. Spider-Man 3 (Columbia; 2007) $890,871,626

12. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Warner Bros.; 2002) $878,643,482

13. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (20th Century Fox; 2009) $878,615,229

14. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (New Line; 2001) $870,761,744

15. Finding Nemo (Disney/Pixar; 2003) $864,625,978

16. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (20th Century Fox; 2005) $848,754,768

17. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (Paramount; 2009) $833,229,011

18. Spider-Man (Columbia; 2002) $821,708,551

19. Shrek the Third (DreamWorks; 2007) $798,958,162

20. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Warner Bros.; 2004) $795,634,069

21. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Paramount; 2008) $786,636,033

22. Spider-Man 2 (Columbia; 2004) $783,766,341

23. The Da Vinci Code (Sony/Columbia; 2006) $758,239,851

24. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Disney; 2005) $745,011,272

25. The Matrix Reloaded (Warner Bros.; 2003) $742,128,461

26. Transformers *DreamWorks/Paramount; 2007) $709,709,780

27. Ice Age: The Meltdown (20th Century Fox; 2006) $655,388,158

28. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (Disney; 2003) $654,264,015

29. Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (20th Century Fox; 2002) $649,398,328

30. Kung Fu Panda (DreamWorks; 2008) $631,736,484

31. The Incredibles (Disney/Pixar; 2004) $631,442,092

32. Hancock (Columbia; 2008) $624,386,746

33. Ratatouille (Disney/Pixar; 2007) $623,707,397

34. The Passion of the Christ (Newmarket; 2004) $611,899,420

35. Mamma Mia! (Universal; 2008) $609,841,637

36. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (DreamWorks; 2008) $603,900,344

37. Casino Royale (MGM/Columbia; 2006) $594,239,066

38. War of the Worlds (DreamWorks/Paramount; 2005) $591,745,540

39. Quantum of Solace (MGM/Columbia; 2008) $586,090,727

40. I Am Legend (Warner Bros.; 2007) $585,349,010

41. Iron Man (Paramount; 2008) $585,133,287

42. Night at the Museum (20th Century Fox; 2006) $574,480,450

43. King Kong (Universal; 2005) $550,517,357

44. Mission: Impossible II (Paramount; 2000) $546,388,105

45. The Day After Tomorrow (20th Century Fox; 2004) $544,272,402

46. Madagascar (DreamWorks; 2005) $532,680,671

47. The Simpsons Movie (20th Century Fox; 2007) $527,071,022

48. Monsters, Inc. (Disney/Pixar; 2001) $525,366,597

49. WALL-E (Disney/Pixar; 2008) $521,268,237

50. Meet the Fockers (Universal; 2004) $516,642,939