Friday, March 12, 2010

Phish on Phriday-- photos by Justin Horne



These are recent photos by Brooklyn-based Justin Horne. He sent them to me the day I finished watching the “Phish: Live in Brooklyn” DVD’s.

“Song I Heard the Ocean Sing,” which opened the first Brooklyn 2004 show, particularly reminds me living in NYC-- but in a good way! This combination of “Waves > Song I Heard the Ocean Sing > David Bowie” from Knoxville 2009 seems appropriate today.





I didn’t see the two Brooklyn shows when they happened in 2004, but Justin Horne did. He has a supernatural level of luck when it comes to getting good tickets (frequently miracles) to sold out shows, like the Brooklyn shows.



Like Mr. Wizard or MacGyver, Horne makes disproportionately cool things happen with what seem like small gestures. Natural principles are corralled and focused by simple means. Horne combines a strong color sense with minimal techniques to make a variety of formal works that deal with chance, transition and transformation.



See more at JustinHorne.com

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Lance Link Does it Again!

Watching Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp the other day I noticed something kind of neat.



The Dragon Lady (an evil chimp working for CHUMP) was receiving a custom camera. I love cameras, so I was very excited to notice that she was handed a Diana! The camera was originally produced in the early 60's to mid 70's and I've never seen one actually being used during that time period, much less by a chimp! So, of course, I was really psyched. Luckily the Diana is so simply constructed that a chimp probably really could use it.




The Dragon Lady's Diana has been modified to spray some sort of sleeping gas at her victim, a foreign ambassador. She's planning to intercept him on a plane and knock him out after they land.



As you can see this modified Diana is the non-flash version. It's very hard to tell if it's an actual Diana or a Diana clone. I'm leaning toward clone because the film advance looks slightly rounded, but some Diana's were like that. It's hard to say since the proliferation of clones was enormous. Even Reader's Digest gave out branded clones for free!



Lance Link and Mata Hairi are guarding the ambassador on the plane, and they do not recognize the disguised Dragon Lady. Lance gets friendly and asks to borrow her camera. Oddly, she says that the camera is very expensive (about a dollar retail) and not to touch it.



Lancelot Link snaps the Dragon Lady with her own Diana

But touch it he does! And he knocks out the Dragon Lady with her own camera!



The day is saved!