Art Destinations

With warm weather fast approaching, here are two great art-centered destinations:

Storm King Art Center: Nature provides visitors with this 500+ acre sculpture venue that’s within daytrip distance from NYC. From April through mid-November, the rolling hills, wooded trails, lush lawns and grassy plains provide the perfect setting for uncountable works of postwar sculptures. Visitors can explore on their own, rent an Acoustaguide (mobile audio units providing commentary from artists, the chairman & president, and director & curator of Storm King), and maximize their viewing capacity by taking trams which hit designated areas at specific times all over the property, allowing people to roam and reboard at their own pace. Roadtrip anyone?

Storm King Art Center
Old Pleasant Hill Road
Mountainville, NY 10953
P: 845.534.3115

The Huntington: Edutainment at its best! Three art galleries, a massive research library, and 12 different botanical gardens cover 150 acres of this San Marino research and educational center. And of course, you can’t leave out the fabulous gift shop, book store and the Rose Garden Tea Room, where diners can enjoy tea, scones, and a buffet of fancy edibles while in the midst of a lush rose garden. While the jumbo sized Audubon's Birds of America, and Rogier van der Weyden's Madonna and Child might draw crowds, we’re partial to the gardens, particularly the Japanese and Zen Gardens. Be warned: get there early and leave the day plan-free as you might find yourself scrambling for more at closing hours.

The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
P: 626.405.2100

Street Wars

Years ago it was known as "Kiss of Death", but the fantasy murder game is now known as "Street Wars" and is becoming a cult obsession among twenty-and young thirty somethings. The game is a mix between hide-and-seek and capture the flag with a little bit of the mafia thrown in for fun. It's played for 3 weeks 24/7. The Los Angeles game started on March 13th and ends April 3rd, and has been played in NYC, Vancouver, San Francisco, and Vienna.

Once players register at the Street Wars website, they receive a manila envelope containing the following:

• A picture of their intended target(s)
• The home address of their intended target(s)
• The work address of their intended target(s)
• The name of their intended target(s)
• Contact information of their intended target(s)

Upon receipt of these items, your (or your team's) mission is to find and kill (by way of water gun, water balloon or super soaker) your target(s).

You can hunt your target down any way you see fit; you can pose as a delivery person and jack them when they open the door, disguise yourself and take them out on the street, etc.

If you are successful in your assassination attempt, the person you killed will give you their envelope and the person they were supposed to kill becomes your new target. This continues until you work yourself through all the players and retrieve the envelope with your (or your team's) picture(s) and name(s). Then you win. Cash…but first live in fear.

Here's clip from the San Francisco game;


**This post is about fun and games. Utobia does not condone real assassinations.**

Celtic Woman at TPAC

Last night my wife and I has a chance to see Celtic Woman at TPAC in downtown Nashville. It was our second time seeing them live, and let me tell ya...it wasn't the last.

It's hard to say exactly what Celtic Woman is. The name makes it hard to describe because there isn't just one celtic woman. There are five. Orla, Lisa, Meav, and Chloe are four equally different, but yet equally beautiful vocalists and Mairead is the fiddler player who's onstage charisma in more like Tinker Bell than any fiddler player I've seen.

The show is a blend of theatre and concert. The voices may be uber fem, but the songs and orchestrations are not. David Downes, the composer and musical director, writes incredible scores and arrangments that showcase each of the woman on their own, but then brings them all together for some pretty breath-taking ditties. There's something very haunting and magical about the music of Celtic Woman.

A few facts:
Celtic Woman was officially launched in the US in March 2005 on PBS.

Since then, the Celtic Woman CD has been certified gold and the DVD has been certified platinum.

They have been No 1 in the Billboard World Music Charts for over 45 weeks and PBS has aired and re-aired the show on over 300 PBS stations across the US.

The girls solo albums were released in the US at the beginning of January 06 and all debuted in the Billboard World Music charts a feat only matched by Kiss in 1978. Who would have thought that Celtic Woman and Kiss would have something in common!

If they are ever within a 3-4 hour radius from you-GO AND SEE THEM! They are phenominal!

The Afters' Beautiful Love

This is a great new band from Dallas, TX. The Afters all got their start at Starbucks and now they are the theme song to MTV's "8th & Ocean". "Beautiful Love" is currently number 24 on iTunes' top 100. Check them out when you get a chance.

Marketing Highlights from SXSW XX

The annual South By Southwest Music Conference and Festival recently celebrated its 20th anniversary (March 10-19 in Austin, TX) with its highest attendance, artist participation, and international contingency ever - making it a hotbed of opportunity for marketers. Following are brands who took advantage of this opportunity to reach a highly concentrated community of influencers:

Levi's/The Fader: Now an annual tradition, the Levi’s/Fader Trading Post is one of the most popular daytime hangout spots at the festival. Outfitted with all the latest Levi’s gear and plenty of Fader/Cornerstone Promotion paraphernalia, the huge outdoor/indoor space at the end of Sixth Street was packed with musicians who came through for fittings and photo ops and droves of people with the invite-only wristbands who came to see some of the hottest acts performing. Red Stripe was flowing and there was plenty of Glaceau Vitamin Water to keep the crowds hydrated.

Zippo Lighters: They had a massive customized 1947 Chrysler parked outside a venue on Sixth Street; the real crowd stopper was the giant flaming lighter that flipped open between the front and backseats of the car. Every single person who walked by stopped to take photos with their mobile or digital cameras.

Toyota Yaris: These won’t actually be on the market until later in the year, but there were three of these ethanol fueled, iPod-enabled cars floating around the conference that attendees could catch free rides (within a two mile radius) with.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Taxi receipts advertised the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ new album Show Your Bones. Since everyone who came to the conference relies heavily on taxis, the number of impressions the Yeah Yeah Yeahs received, particularly among music journalists and industry players, was significant.

HT: Trendcentral

"V" for Victory at US Box Office

THE FUTURISTIC terrorist thriller V For Vendetta blew up its rivals at the weekend box office in North America, according to studio estimates released yesterday.

The film, based on a comic book about a masked man who destroys landmark buildings in a fascist England, sold US$26.1 million worth of tickets across the United States and Canada in the three days beginning March 17.

The film's distributor, Time Warner Inc.-owned Warner Bros. Pictures, said the opening was broadly in line with expectations. Hugo Weaving stars as the masked man, V, and Natalie Portman as his sidekick.

It was produced by Larry and Andy Wachowski, the brothers who directed the Matrix movies, in which Weaving co-starred.

Top Ten list

1 V For Vendetta US$26.1m

2 Failure to Launch US$15.8m

3 The Shaggy Dog US$13.6m

4 She's The Man US$11.0m

5 The Hills Have Eyes US$ 8.1m

6 16 Blocks US$ 4.7m

7 Eight Below US$ 4.2m

8 Madea's Family Reunion US$ 3.0m

9 The Pink Panther US$ 2.5m

10 Aquamarine US$ 2.0m

Indiana Jones IV: 2007

‘Indiana Jones 4’ screenplay may finally be set to roll!

It’s getting very dizzying on the merry-go-round known as Indiana Jones fandom. Over the last number of weeks, we’ve heard reports from producer George Lucas that he was slaving away over writer Jeff Nathanson’s screenplay for “Indiana Jones 4,” and that he had hopes that the film would go into production within the 2006 calendar year.

Fast forward a few weeks to both Variety and Fox News stories that claimed Steven Spielberg would be taking a year off from production and all bets were off to when the production would go before cameras. On the upside, Spielberg told Fox that he was working on the screenplay (following Lucas’ work throughout the end of 2005) with yet another writer in David Koepp (“War of the Worlds”). Spielberg boldly said that Koepp would be his “closer” on the project, bringing what may very well be the longest development process ever on a Spielberg film to an eventual end.

Today, however, the news gets even more labyrinthine as German magazine Fit for Fun —by way of Reuters and Entertainment Weekly — grabbed a quote from series star Harrison Ford in which the actor crowed, “Steven Spielberg and I now have a script in hand that we both like. I believe that we can start with the filming soon.”

Soon, was of course relative, given Spielberg’s self-confessed year long hiatus from production (if both Variey and Fox are to believed.) All that may have changed this afternoon.

E! Online reported today that Spielberg’s publicist Marvin Levy confirmed that Ford’s excitement is well-founded.

“[The script] certainly seems to be [in the can], but I don’t think we’re at the point where we have a firm start date,” Levy told E! Online. “But it is certainly the closest where we’ve been in this whole development process.”

Click here for the rest of the article.

I'll link to you...

...if you link to me. It seems to me (by the look of that map over there to the right) there are quite a few people coming out to play here at utobia. If you'd like me to link to either your blog, or your site (or both) I'll gladly do that. Links are power. So what do ya say? Leave a comment with your name and URL and I'll put it on the sidebar, but in return you have to do the same on your blog. Deal? See ya soon.

urban slang: über

This is one of those words that I keep hearing from trendy creatives. über (rhymes with "goober") means "above" in German. Brought to the mainstream in the early 80's by hardcore American punk band, the Dead Kennedys when using the term in the anti-Californian government song "California Uber Alles", which is a take off the German motto of "Deustchland Uber Alles", which translates to "Germany above all." The term was picked up in their native California stomping grounds by the typical surfers and "punks" and extended from there to many teenagers, the majority of which use the term online. It can also mean above, top, the best, nothin above it, totally, very, cant beat, it.

Used in a sentence:

"This blog is uber creative."
"Can you get uberfatman to shut up?"

Podbop-podcasting bands coming to your town

Instead of spending countless hours Googling yourself silly trying to find shows in your area, then more time reading about the bands, listening to their music, and downloading the MP3s, this cool minimalistic site lumps it all together for you in an efficient, easy-to-use format. Just type in your city and state and you’ll receive listings and MP3s of bands playing in your area. This way you can listen before you commit to a show. Also, you can drop the Podbop Feed into iTunes and you’ll have your city’s MP3s in no time.

Robot Dance

I'm not impressed with the two guys are the beginning, but you have GOT to see the dude at the end. Freakin' amazing!

Feng Shui: How to Add Harmony to Your Space

Don't worry, I'm not going to go all new age here, but there is something to Feng Shui (pronounced "fung schWAY"). Last night, my wife and I decided that there was something missing in our home. It just didn't...feel right.

I always kept our bills on the counter so I would remember to pay them. But it seemed that Colleen wanted to keep all of our unopened mail there too. It was clutter. And I was starting to feel frazzled.

"Why don't we try moving my desk"--(it's more of a hutch, really)--"here into the kitchen and you can keep the bills in there." "Ok" I said.

We moved the desk into the open space and by the end of the night we had hung a picture above it and placed a lamp on top as well. And it fit. Everything was good. It felt right.

What is that feeling when everything feels right? What causes that to happen? Enter feng shui.

Mr. Webster describes it as: a Chinese geomantic practice in which a structure or site is chosen or configured so as to harmonize with the spiritual forces that inhabit it; also : auspicious orientation, placement, or arrangement as determined by feng shui.

Here are some ways you can create a better work invironment by using some tips from feng shui. I've put the reasoning in yellow. You'll see...it just makes sense. It feels right.

1). Always sit with a solid wall behind your back to ensure that you have support in your life, never sit with a window behind you. (Energy/Ch'i (pronounced CHEE)/whatever you want to call it) comes through the window and you shouldn't have your back to it.

2.) In your office, never have the main door opening into your desk as the chi coming in will hit at your face causing you not to have good luck but instead more obstacles and problems. Make sure your back is not to the door. Reorganize your office. I've seen this a lot and I don't know how people work. Would you be able to work well with your back to the entrace of your work place?

3.)Do not have clutter in your office; desks must be kept tidy and clutter free. This is so important, an office in China would not have these paper trays on desks, and most American companies now employ the same approach.

4.) The arrangement of tables and chairs should be in a harmonious position so that chi is able to flow smoothly. Not too close together, not too far away.

There are five elements that are essential to feng shui: wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. They are all part of a cycle. Wood feeds fire. Fire feed earth. Earth feeds metal. Metal feed water. Water feeds wood. It's important to have each element represented in your space. To me, there's something about having a plant at home, or at work. It's life, it's green. It's an element that often forgotten. But when you have it, there's something about it that feels right.

Now, fenu shui is not a religion. You won't go to hell if you rearrange your furniture and add a fern to your living room. It's all about balance. A lot of people take it really far and place dragons, crystal balls, and streams throughout their house. You don't have to do that. Just take some of these with a grain of salt.

Give it a try. I think you'll find it'll feel better. When it's right, it's right. Right?

Kids and Tweens Dominate the Charts

"Toddlers and tweens stormed the album chart this week, with kid-centric offerings selling enough CDs to take the top three spots. The soundtrack to the Disney Channel movie High School Musical took Number One, selling another 101,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan; while the ninth installment of the Kidz Bop series -- in which children sing pop hits like Mariah Carey's "We Belong Together" and Green Day's "Wake Me Up When September Ends" -- moved 98,000 CDs to bow at Number Two. And surfer-folkie Jack Johnson's soundtrack to the children's film Curious George, Sing-A-Longs and Lullabies, dropped only one spot, to Number Three (89,000)."--Jessica Robertson, Rolling Stone Magazine.

What does all this mean? Does this age group hold more buying power? They don't have jobs, or responsiblities...just mom and dad's allowance which seems to be just enough to turn the tides. Kids are on the move. Tweens are a market that seem to have been over looked in the past with the twenty-something Gen Y craze. The music is clean and it's all in kid-friendly keys so they can sing like their favorite rock star.

It's perfect for the ones that are too old for Barney, but too young for Britney.

The Simpons--in living color

This is pretty cool. Someone had a lot of time on their hands.

Oscar Night: 2006

In case (like me) you missed last night's Oscar's, here's a list of the winners:

BEST PICTURE
Crash




ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
Philip Seymour Hoffman - "Capote"




ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
Reese Witherspoon - "Walk the Line" (go Nashvegas!!)




DIRECTING
Ang Lee - "Brokeback Mountain"




ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
George Clooney - "Syriana"




ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Rachel Weisz - "The Constant Gardener"




ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

SCREENPLAY (Adapted)
"Brokeback Mountain"

SCREENPLAY (Original)
"Crash"

ART DIRECTION
Memoirs of a Geisha

CINEMATOGRAPHY
Memoirs of a Geisha

COSTUME DESIGN
Memoirs of a Geisha

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
March of the Penguins

DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin

FILM EDITING
Crash

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Tsotsi

MAKEUP
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe

MUSIC (SCORE)
Gustavo Santaolalla - "Brokeback Mountain"

MUSIC (SONG)
"It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" - Hustle & Flow

SHORT FILM (ANIMATED)
The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation

SHORT FILM (LIVE ACTION)
Six Shooter

SOUND EDITING
King Kong

SOUND MIXING
King Kong

VISUAL EFFECTS
King Kong

Design Trends 2006: Typography, Style Genres, Materials, Composition, and Attitude

More from Nancy Bernard...

TYPOGRAPHY- Last year, we saw a lot of modernist fonts in page-wide settings, often with big, top margins. This year smart, highly legible mixed setting dominate. They're not like the mixed settings of the past, with single sentences set in multiple sizes and fonts. They're mixed in two new ways: First, there isn't a clear division between modernist typography and what I call Classic Book typography (oldstyle fonts set justified, centered, single column). Instead, the font might be Modern and the setting classic, or vice versa. The settings are dictated by content with an eye on expression and readablity. Grids are way more flexible. Baselines bounce, margins shifts, justified is mixed with ragged-right, and flush left is mixed with centered settings.

This flexibilty means that legibility is king. We see very few extreme setting, such as overspaced or underspaced type. Most copy is set in comfortable, oldstyle fonts. If body copy is set in Helvetica, it gets bigger so it's easy to read. One hint for the future: On art school catalog uses '70s-style extra-bold fonts in hyper-tight, Herb-Lubalinesque settings.

STYLE GENRES- Speaking of Modernist vs Classic Book, the same sort of thing is happening with style in general. Although Modernist dominates, the trend is to mix tropes from various genres for conceptual effect. With this new approach to style, most of the genres we saw over the last decade have faded out. Retro-look work is way down. The "real object" and trompt 'loeil thing--where annual reports look like medical records, for example--is basically gone. Ultra-minimalism is out.

One style that is surviving nicely--second only to Modernism, and not by much--is the Industrial look. Industrial materials, metals, type set in little boxes to mimic the labes on blueprints, condensed sans serifs, and undesigned typography still turns us on.

MATERIALS- In the same vein, the trend for authentic materials is very strong. Steel, uncolored (i.e. white) plastic, real tip-ins, little book mark ribbons are everywhere.

COMPOSITION- There are quite a few trends here, so I'll just give you the data: Borders on pages and photos either black or white- 10% of all entries; wide top or bottom margins -10%; black backgrounds (which have been out since the '80s)-5%; solid color pages-15%; foldover pages, either to stiffen covers or as foldouts-10%; tiny books-15%.

ATTITUDE- For a long time, if the attitude wasn't composed or professional, it was agrresive and in your face. No more. Now it it isn't composed and professional it's smartly witty--or lush, lush, lush. Witty ranks at 10% Lush wins at about 20%. Extravagent color, rich imagery, lavish use of paper and ink, are back with a vengence after years of eco-budget based restraint. The ultra-minimalism backlash that snapped us out of the excesses of the '90s have been backlashed itself.

to be continued...