this blog is a visual notebook of inspirations for a group of bandit bloggers. we post things we see and like. our lives don’t revolve around singular topics and neither does our blog. sorry! nothing is in-or-out of context here. enjoy xx
this is an alternative slower version of the original song and possibly the best version in my opinion.
musically, “crazy” was inspired by film scores of italian spaghetti westerns, in particular by the works of enino morricone who is best known as the composer of sergio lenone’s dollars trilogy but more specifically the song “last man standing” by gian piero reverberi and gianfranco reverberi from the 1968 spaghetti western viva! django (italian preparati la bara), a sequel to the better-known django. “crazy” not only samples the song, but utilizes the parts of the main melody and chord structure. the original songwriters for “last man standing” are credited by gnarls barkley for this song alongside their own credits.
the lyrics for the song developed out of a conversation between danger mouse and ceelo… ceelo took that conversation and made it into ‘crazy,’ which we recorded in one take… regardless its a massively incredible heart renching song. its on our repeat playlist all day long. and the lyrics:
i remember when, i remember, i remember when i lost my mind there was something so pleasant about that place. even your emotions had an echo in so much space
and when you’re out there without care, yeah, i was out of touch but it wasn’t because i didn’t know enough i just knew too much
does that make me crazy? does that make me crazy? does that make me crazy? possibly
and i hope that you are having the time of your life but think twice, that’s my only advice
come on now, who do you, who do you, who do you think you are, ha ha ha bless your soul you really think you’re in control
well, i think you’re crazy i think you’re crazy i think you’re crazy just like me
my heroes had the heart, to lose their lives out on a limb
and all i remember is thinking, i want to be like them
ever since i was little, ever since i was little it looked like fun
and it’s no coincidence i’ve come
and i die when i’m done
unique reinterpretation of the adidas superstar featuring hanging “tassel” stripes and a smooth shell-toe hit the market again in early 2015 with the monochromatic all-black and all-white colorways. the red threat release followed soon after. both colorways are constructed in premium leather which in adidas worth means just you average leather. but cool non the less. by dd
not sure why jony ives gets on my tits so much, maybe it’s his poor rendition of that david attenborough like voice, or his calculated “poor little me… i’ve been working all day and night to solve human kinds problems” stubble and hair cut, or maybe it’s the way he makes the most basic things sound so complex and self important? but he does annoy me much. jony doesn’t just think about things like you and i, instead he “incubates notions”… what ever he does it’s a pivotal shift in the cosmos. the truth is apple has come up with less usable innovations and more jargon. i can’t recall how many times philip schiller used the word innovation before they got to the most amazing feature on the iPhone 6S… the most astonishing selfie button!
this pivotal shift in the evolution of human kind is right up there with apples previous engineering intervention in iPhoto. the iPhoto has not been anything like the old iPhoto… because they brilliantly changed it to simply “photos”… i mean that really changed my life. what seems simple to common folks is actually a very complicated process at apple… well thanx! that was brilliant search optimization guys, now try and search “i have problems with photos” to fix your latest kinks and you now end up with prescription eye glass stores near you. but joking aside, and there are some nice things about the 6S like the 3D touch etc. but apple has messed up really bad in the most basic areas ever since jobs passed. issues that mac users never experienced and where the exclusive domain of PC users have since found their way into apples. perhaps apple should focus on fixing some of these before fiddling with the letter “i”… all of these OSX problems listed below, i have personally experienced first hand, so these must be just a few of the mac OSX problems of the late…
1- the spinning ball of death when you try to shut down OSX yosemite, only to come in the next morning and have to force shut down.
2- iTunes playlist playing in reverse order when you’re using apples own remote app?
3- updating apple software… getting an unknown error on apples own “app store”
4- slow motion videos shot on apples iPhone, and transferred to apples iPhoto (sorry p h o t o s), and back onto your iPhone no longer plays in slow motion?
5- unable to delete some “photos” in “p h o t o s”… now that sounds just wrong!!! let’s see how was it before…. unable to delete some photos in iPhoto. better. thanks for that ingenious idea guys.
6- syncing problems with iTunes and photos… where things do not actually sync. you have to shut down apps, sometime restarting your computer, detach iphone attach again etc. until it finally syncs (never had these issues and i’ve had apple for ever, every mac and iPhone in the past).
7- transferring photos from your iPhone to apples photos and clicking on “delete after export” leaves a bunch of photos on your iPhone.
and this is just what i can remember at the top of my head, fuming after watching the apple september 9th keynote. by dd
what a cool pet project by by jesse reed and hamish smyth… to reprint the original 1975 NASA graphics standards manual through kickstarter. for just $79 you can be one the very few to own and sport a soft-touch, hard-cover, copy of the reissued NASA graphics bible. a must have for any self respecting graphic designer. go ahead. pull out your credit card and reserve yours, there is only 26 more days left, and only so many copies. these are sure to be collector book items. you can most definitely sell your extra copy on ebay for much more than the price offered here given the limited edition issues. so do it as an investment, do it for design, do it for NASA, do it so we can get our copy. here’s the link to the kick started page, may your design go where no man has gone before. by ars
the mersault investigation is the reverse mirror novel by kamel daoud countering camus’ the stranger
l’etranger by albert camus
albert camus in paris… smoking of course!
for all you illiterates, here’s the one connection you may have had to camus… “killing an arab” the song by the cure was based on camus’ the stranger. robert smith read the book… you should too!
ok now for some real talk… the mersault investigation is the debut novel by kamel daoud, an algerian writer who has made his living by journalism, for various french journals. the novel’s first sentence is “mama’s still alive today.” this alerts us to the fact that daoud is re-imagining camu’s 1942 classic “the stranger” for the new century that begins: “mama died today”. camus himself borrowed from ernest hemingway’s spare prosaic style (seen to full effect in a clean well-lighted place) but pushed it to the point of absurdity by creating a first person narrator in the throes of a virtual existential, comatose experience – until he kills an unknown arab on a beach for no apparent reason. he then has to defend himself, to his friends, to the state, and finally to a priest that he lashes out at in one grand soliloquy, where he finally articulates his philosophy to the priest, and even more surprisingly, to himself.
in daoud’s brilliant contemporary “sequel” the “unknown arab” finally has a name – musa –moses in arabic. harun, musas’s brother realizes that he must go back to that catastrophic event and examine the root cause of it – in effect to instigate an investigation – before he can move any further with his life, which is nearing its end. it is of course not only harun, but algerians themselves that must examine, not only camus’ tortured history with algeria, but their colonial past, to move on, and find their way in the new century.
while other novels have taken camus’ masterpiece as a jumping off point – most recently michel houellebecq’s brutal, sardonic “platform”, daoud is more ambitious, being both an homage and a criticism of camus’ work, that does not attempt to resolve that contradiction. daoud’s novel is also a profound meditation on identity, and the secret pull that the dead exercise on the living, and in this it shares some qualities with w.g. sebald. the connections between present day algeria, and the current situation there, are contrasted with the past of camus’ colonial pre-war algeria, and an alienated meursault who could only find his own identity when he realized that he was about to loose it to the guillotine as retribution for a senseless act of violence. in the mersault investigation that senselessness comes full circle into the present tense, bringing camus’ novel back from the mausoleum of the academy, where it has lingered far too long, making it resonate with current history. daoud dares to look back and the result is an imaginative, brilliant, moving book that stays with you – as much as camus’ the stranger. by gp
summer inspiration for a sunny weekend. jane birkin fashion tips: roll your T sleeve, wear a double long necklace, skip the bra, thick eye makeup, no lipstick. go kill it girl… have good long weekend everyone. by kv
i know this is a bit old news by now, when i saw it i was going to do a post but that never happened. still it must be in the archives of TS… can the future of L.A. be this? or maybe the future of the world? most likely it will… and per chris burden, well all be driving in autonomous cars going on average at a speed of 230 miles per hour. the city structures are very cool especially the reflective mirror like high rise and the charles eames reference house of cards. i think anyone with a current or past love for slot cars, hotwheels, or matchbox cars would love this… by uh
illustration by julie morstad in her great book called milk teeth
“here are a few lessons i’ve learned in my many days on this planet earth. i do love many things about your planet but there are also many things that i dislike. its is not all your fault, so don’t be sad. i think this is how humans are made to behave. i think i will spent more days here, and i will enjoy the many things it has to offer, but i do wish to return to my planet one day. its a bit lonely there but its ok, i have less complications and life is a little easier when you are alone. but here are 3 important things i have observed while being here:
#1-
people in general mean well and they don’t mean to harm one another but they often do. this is not their fault because they can not see the world from another’s eyes. if you are from another planet for example, they don’t simply understand how you see their world. they only see what they can see… only their sadness and their complications. they want you to help them, and of course you do. they want you to be there when they are sad and defeated. but when they are well and good they only want you to be well and good. they have no time for your complications… they already have theirs. and this world of yours has many complication that i did not want to have but now i do too, just like you. but i understand. you have to accept that, and not demand much attention. just go along. just be there for them when they want you. its a fruitless proposition but that is how humans are, even the best ones, and if you must be around them, you have to accept that.
#2-
i learned about love early in my visit. it was quite an interesting experience and i can now see how that basic idea has engulfed your entire population. everything everyone does everyday is to attain that feeling of love. from others, from strangers, from dogs and family and co workers… even from the general public many distences away. everyone is racing and working very hard every day to attain this love. they buy things in order to be loved. they say things in order to attain that love. its peculiar for some one like me. i lived alone, with no one around me. so i couldn’t understand what that was all about. but i now see why… it is a good feeling this love, it’s nice to be loved. but this intangible concept is very vague, even for me. it comes and it goes. it’s there and its not there. it’s like a cloud, even your people who study the clouds can’t tell you much about their destiny or future. just like that they appear and just like that they disappear. i think having experienced this, i know now that it is quite silly and as you say, naive, to want to chase such an ethereal thing. i did not need it or want it before i came here. i will not need it when i leave. but when you are here, you simply get in line with everyone else and follow them in this quest. its funny when you look at this from another view. again its not your fault, maybe you where made this way, or maybe you were conditioned to be this way. for me after i found it and i lost it just once, i realized its not worth the trouble… this is a big ‘complication’… and i understand that you have to live here for ever, so i see why this is so important to you. but my advice, if you plan to be here for long, is to ask yourself why? why such an intangible thing? such an impermanent thing is so important to your kind? especially when you know what i already told you in #1…
#3-
the most difficult complication on your planet comes with visiting your planet for too long. its the realization that what you though was true when you arrived turns out to be false many years later. if i was to see this from my eyes, it would be as if i would live on my planet for many years and one day realize my planet was never there. i would be in space floating alone on no planet at all!! that would be very awkward. and very disorienting. i don’t think i would like that very much. but out here you will have to go through that many times in your life cycle. again my advise to you is to accept this. i know it was not your fault or your choice to be here, but here you are and here it is. its just one of the complication of your kind. if you where me and could see the world from my eyes then you would not be you. so here you are. you! it is best not to take things literally, not to invest in things or people, or do things that require an outcome. of course it is a bit difficult to go about this in this world of yours like this. so you may choose you don’t have to. but if you do, you must be prepared to float in space alone one day. and it will be very awkward.
i hope this is of some help to some of you. this world of yours has many good things, but it also has many complications. it’s one of the more interesting and curious places i have visited. i wish you all very well.” – verbal excerpts from visual drawing in a book called milk teeth. by cm
our west coat designer friend, esai ramirez, had this lovely idea for crayola which made us quite excited, so we asked for his permission to post these. we’d buy a dozen of these today if crayola would have produced them. so listen up crayola!! we suggest you all email crayola and convince them to get their marketing hats on and get ready to sell these at colette, moma stores and anywhere artster-youngsters hang.
first image is the yves klein blues of course (love those) and right above you have the damien hirst chloroform series.
and above we have jen stark followed by josef albers… you can just imagine the range of amazing colors you could come up with and get those drunk kids off of primary colors for a bit. well done esai ramirez. by uh
an end clip with kinski playing werner herzog’s aguirre wrath of god. this can be seen as an addendum to dd’s post!!
klaus kinski, the epic actor, who played in herzog’s aguirre wrath of god (one of our favorite films of all time – a must see) was a german national of polish decent and born to a struggling family in germany. his father was a failed opera singer, and his mother a nurse. his true name was klaus günter karl nakszynski, which he later changes to klaus kinsky. he was conscripted at age 17 into the german wehrmacht some time in 1943, serving in the army. he saw no action until the winter of 1944, when his unit was transferred to the netherlands. he was wounded and captured by the british army on his second day of combat and was eventually transferred to england as prisoner of war. of course in true kinsky fashion, he recalled the events differently. kinsky claimed that he defected from the german wehrmacht and was court marshaled and sentenced to death. he explained that he theh managed to escaped, and turned himself-in to the british army, but as his recollections on the set of fitzcarraldo he is likely painting a finer picture than what was reality. at the end of the war the german POW’s were anxious to return home. kinski had heard that sick prisoners were to be returned first, and being the nut case that he is, he tried to qualify by standing outside naked at night, drinking urine and eating cigarettes. he remained healthy but finally was returned to germany in 1946, after spending a year and four months in captivity. upon arrival he discovered that his father had died and his mother had perished in the allied bombing. alone, he pursued what he had first experienced under allied imprisonment, acting… and the rest is history. the enigma of klaus kinski still remains. by uh
our friends at “here we go now” yoga to the groove. here are just 4 of the many eclectic playlists available from their blog. click on links to check em out. happy listening and good weekend y’all… above: “dj & kundalini yoga teacher yeva don with her poetic inspiration towards infinite gratitude to mother earth. this music mix is a journey of emotions that teaches you how to breathe, feel, give, live and dance…” follow her on instagram.
“to all who hear this collage as it concerns you, i put this together as an extension of myself and what i am standing for, freedom. i want for this to leave you moved and inspired to do what it is you are here to do in this space and time in every moment, thus you will be free. so, here we go now…” – anthony “the twilite tone” dj khan…”
“dj lima love, has created a transcendental meditation mix with a beautiful melodic and sensitive soulful splash of vertical love… “
“ceft coalition is a musical collaboration led by “internationalist buff”, ucef hanjani. the collective includes various friends, producers and selectors who have came together in NY in the past decade for appearances at 675 hudson, sunday sessions, frying pan, cielo and capital. here we bring you an exclusive mix of vintage and new electronic tracks with reggae/funk roots. expect to be surprised at the range of genres colliding in this mix – a true hallmark of this collective…”follow them on instagram. all photos by herr gerald forster. visit “here we go now” blog by clicking here.
a visual collective outlet of inspiration
