New N.A.S.A. Video ft. Tom Waits

Do you like music and animation and cool things and little floaty balls that wear headbands? You should totally watch this. It's a part of the North America South America (N.A.S.A.) project over on Boing Boing. There's an interview with the video's creator Fluorescent Hill along with the video up over there now.

Am I the only one who thinks N.A.S.A. and these videos are ridiculously cool?

West Hollywood Book Fair... and Cookies?

The Ginger Cookie madness is never ending. Mostly because I will not let it end. Delicious, delicious madness.

I was meeting a friend for dinner at Real Food Daily Sunday after the book fair and as I was a little early, I decided to grab a beer at the counter while I waited for him. On display they have a variety of tasty looking baked things under protective, pretty glass covers. What happened to be right in front of me? Giant Ginger Cookies. It was fate. Or destiny. Or some such thing. It was also an incredibly tasty way to finish a very satisfying dinner.

At least this time I included a picture.

Book Fair was great! I knew there was a reason I linked to it ten billion times. I forgot about the triathlon or whatever it was going on Sunday morning which unfortunately meant I was stuck trying to make my way up from the westside in the most oblique manner ever. But after two hours of back tracking and driving in circles and getting vaguely lost (why have I been getting lost so much lately? Thomas Guide, where did I put you???) I finally arrived to find free parking and the Border Grill truck. And my roommate who was very confused as to how she managed to beat me there.

We wandered around, caught a few panels, got things signed, I bought more books as I figured I would. We took a break at one point to grab some water from the grocery across the street. That ended in an almost awkward disaster as I saw a former co-worker I had no desire to ever make casual chat with again. Luckily I was able to escape before being noticed.

Panels! I didn't make it to all of the ones I wanted to check out (like the one about Zombie stuff with Amber Benson) but I really enjoyed the few I saw.

Bryan Lee O'Malley and Joshua Dysart talk Scott Pilgrim

Josh Dysart (Unknown Soldier) had a great panel chatting with Bryan Lee O'Malley about Scott Pilgrim and the process of adapting that comic into a film. I'm such a nerd for things like this. I love hearing about the different experiences people have from various angles of getting into Hollywood. It's always a challenge regardless of whether your experience is good or bad. I also found interesting how the movie and comic evolved sort of together and yet end up in different directions. I'm looking forward to seeing how it all compares.

Josh also did a a great job as a fan and fellow comic person leading the discussion. It was fun to watch them both talk.

Gerry Conway, Asterios Kokkinos, John Rogers, Laura Valdivia, Kevin Seccia

The Comics on Comics panel was hilarious. Good points were also addressed and the super enthusiastic kid in the audience made for some additional entertainment. He was really into his Venom.

D.J. Kirkbride, Darren Clavadetscher, Ed Laroche, Kiyoshi Nakazawa, Joe Matt

(Jordan Crane eventually showed up too!)

The last panel I caught was the Indie Creators panel. I think it was actually one of the more interesting panels I've seen. The guys up there had quite diverging opinions on various comic type things, from the practical side of marketing to the more esoteric question of "what is the perfect comic?" They got feisty!

And if you've been following my comments section, you'll be happy to know that I did manage to say "hi" to D.J. Kirkbride after the panel. I also bought Jordan Crane's comic which I'm very excited to read. I would have grabbed more (including Popgun which is just a bit out of my financial grasp at the moment, sorry D.J.!) but I'm still broke. Oh the glamorous life of the freelance filmmaker...

I really did enjoy the book fair and I can't recommend attending next year's enough. My afternoon focused pretty heavily on the comics but that's by no means all that's there. They had a variety of panels on all sorts of genres, poetry, theater, etc. I talked to various booth people about indie publishing, writing classes at UCLA, some cool sounding theater stuff, more comics, books, and lots of writing.

There are also a number of things going on for kids and families. Kids should be encouraged to read and love books! This is a great thing! I would totally bring kids if I had any! Maybe next year I can borrow few. Parents won't mind if I just pull a few off the street, right? I'll return them after the book fair...

What I did manage to buy:
Uptight #3 by Jordan Crane
Unknown Soldier by Joshua Dysart
Death's Daughter by Amber Benson
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith

Completely unrelated, I've been listening to a lot of Neko Case, Regina Spektor, and David Byrne lately. In case you were wondering. I don't know, it seemed pertinent that I share this information with you... um... yes...

Go read stuff!

Thinking Things Through

There are always lots of things to think about. My mind has been mostly full of one of them for the last few weeks.

In just over a week I'll embarking on one of the biggest trips of my life. No exaggeration! I'm leaving L.A. for two and half weeks and what's more, I'm leaving the COUNTRY for 10 days. This is huge guys. I'm 26-years-old and I've never left the country. Maybe it's my socio-economic place in this world, but from where I'm coming from this is not really normal. Almost everyone I know has at least been to Mexico or maybe Canada. I never have. Up until two days ago I didn't even have a passport.

Needless to say, I'm very excited. Excited and nervous as heck. Mostly emphasis on the excited though. My plan for the weekend involves lots of last minute shopping and packing. I don't need to get much but there are few items that need to be purchased. I've already picked up my shoes.

I'm also not planning on bringing my computer with me so this means that as of a week from Saturday I will be offline. No blogging, no Facebook, no Twitter once I leave the states... no more online timesuck. I will have my ipod with me so I could potentially be updating from there when wireless makes itself available. But that's about it.

I have to admit that I'm almost as excited about the prospect of disconnecting as I am about the trip itself. I love the internet and what it does for me but sometimes... I just need a break. This sure is going to be a big one.

In the meantime, there are still other things to occupy my brainspace with.

Roman Polanksi. Okay, not going to say much more about this but I think I can better articulate my thoughts on it all after reading more and talking to folks and thinking about it. Here's what I think. Looking at the crime - reprehensible. There's no excusing it, plain and simple. Looking at the reactions to the story - ridiculous. On the one hand, we have people yelling for his head. People who up until a week ago couldn't have cared less. 33 years and you get offended now? Come on. On the other hand, this petition to free him? No matter what else, he's still guilty. Whatever other absurdity is going on, how can you justify signing a petition to release someone guilty of the crime? And Woody Allen signing in support? Seriously? I feel like I'm watching a satire, not real life. It's all absurd.

And I'm done. That's all I'm going to say about it. I didn't much care about what Polanski was doing last week beyond a passing interest in what his newest film might be and I think it's probably best to stick to that. There's all ready enough hypocrisy to go around.

More fun things!

For the Vegans: Came across this site thanks to @ecovegangirl. Curious if your beer/wine/liquor is vegan friendly? Check out Barnivore! Happy to see that some of my favorites like Stone and Abita are on the list.

Also on the vegan front is Vegan Oktoberfest  at Verdugo Bar on Sunday. I probably won't make it since I'll be at the book fair all day but it looks tasty!

And how many times can I link to the book fair? Really?

Rashomon is playing at the Nuart! I have so much going on and I've seen this movie not just a few times but still. A nice new 35mm print? Tempting...

Thom Yorke is doing a surprise show tonight but good luck getting tickets to that! And if you did get tickets, don't tell me. I don't want to know. You jerks.

Adam P. Knave has an interview up about Stays Crunchy in Milk. It's good! Go read it! And then read his book that my favorite grammarmonkey edited.

That's all I got at the moment. This work thing is actually requiring me to work. So back to that!

I Can't Wait For A Scanner

Warning, I'm very rambly tonight. In that I ramble a lot. Rambly isn't really a word guys, I just made that up. In case you were wondering.

 

I can do only so much with the camera on my cell phone. My scanning abilities will be returning shortly though! We are all very excited for this, no? And yes, that's supposed to be me. There is more that goes along with that! Like, a whole story about how I got stuck in a tree! See why I need a scanner???

 

It's the Thinking Mud Puppy. Did anyone else know that mud puppies are stupidly adorable? I mean, my thinking man kind of moved away from adorable. But check this guy out:  

Cute right?

Then there's the unstoppable partners Cobra and Shark. Great White Shark to be exact.

 

 

I have to admit that these guys were super fun to sketch. I mean come on, the guy has a cobra for a necktie. The guy is a Great White Shark! With an Indian Cobra tie (the only cobra long enough for the Windsor knot, apparently).

I have odd friends with bizarre ideas. I love it.

Hey! Other stuff!

My friend Lauren talked about cool t-shirts over here.

If you're in LA you should check out Little Radio and the stuff that they do. I went out to their September Camp on Sunday in downtown and it was pretty great. Good music, tasty food and beverages, a pool... I believe it was the last of the Summer Camp events but they're around doing other stuff. Totally worth the time and $10.

Spotted this guy on the street walking up to the Little Radio thing.

It's a Green Pussy Monster? Um. Okay, I may have just wanted an excuse to call something a Pussy Monster on my blog. It also kind of looks like a weird cactus thing but that might just be me.

Moving on in the rambly...

Am I the only one who thought the True Blood season finale on Sunday was a little bit of a let down? Not that it was terrible... but... I just feel like it could have been so much more. I think that Maryanne storyline was dragged out way too much. There just wasn't enough there to be interesting for as long as they tried to keep it interesting.

I hate to end this on a sad note and unless you're living under a rock you've probably all ready heard, but Patrick Swayze died today of cancer at 57. It's not a huge shock as he had been sick for quite sometime but it's sad nonetheless. I still have a huge crush on Dirty Dancing Patrick. I probably always will.

Good man, Patrick. Good man.

Video Overload

Lots of videos to share tonight. There are some cool things to be found on the internet.

I probably don't really need to share this is one as it's all ready all over the place. That's right, Jed Whedon's Guild music video Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? Featuring Felicia Day and the rest of The Guild cast members in all their Avatar-y glory. You can watch it for free on YouTube but the single is also available for purchase on Amazon and iTunes. If you buy it you're supporting The Guild and all things geeky. Why not?



Season 3 of The Guild premiers September 1st.

District 9 is another big thing of the moment. It rocked the box office this weekend and everyone I know who has seen it loved it. I haven't gotten to it yet but I'm hoping to check it out maybe Thursday evening with my mom. In the meantime, I have watched Neill Blomkamp's original short film that District 9 is based on, Alive in Joburg. You can find it here on the Spy Films website.



Going an entirely different direction is this Episode 1 of Creature Cast. Guys, it's about squid! It's very cool and even a bit educational.

CreatureCast Episode 1 from Casey Dunn on Vimeo.

In other news, I've been watching True Blood and Eric is hot. Er, well, I guess that's not really news. That's just stating the obvious.

In other news (for real this time), a friend of mine is making a movie! My friend Cherie is getting set to shoot this fall in Northern Florida. Check out the website and throw some love, and maybe even a little cash, her way.

No Matter What

That's all I've got at the moment. Look for another post tomorrow detailing what I do when I'm unemployed and bored (beyond trolling the interwebs for videos). It shall involve bad art and a recipe for baked eggs.

Links for Friday

I have so many random things I've been looking at today. I shall share them with you now! There will be links. Oh yes. Links there will be. And appreciate this because I'm taking a break from my Mad Men to share goodness with the world. Does that make me a philanthropist? Okay, maybe not.

Anyway, on to the linking...

Speaking of Mad Men, The New York Times has this article about the series. It does contain spoilers so if you haven't finished season 2 yet, be careful. To say it one more time, the new season premiers this Sunday at 10 PM. So make sure you're home or set your DVR or, like me, try and do both.

Another interesting New York Times article about Photography in NYC. It details a fascinating portrait of the city. If I was in New York I would definitely try and check out some of the photography being exhibited at galleries around the city. Someone on the east coast should go look at it for me.

This feeling seems familiar... Image from explodingdog.

This story from Mark Evanier made me laugh. How very Hollywood! I'm just curious to know who that Very Big Movie Star was.

Finally, I leave you with this video detailing the lovely harmonies of the Beach Boys. Yes, I still love Pet Sounds. Personally, I think it's brilliant.



What else?

Oh yes! I shall be going here tomorrow night to see a gallery filled with expensive toys. As someone who still loves her My Little Ponies, I fully appreciate the toys-as-art (or whatever it is) idea. Plus, they're really cute. And awesome.

And that's it for now! At some point I'll actually be posting an original little flash fiction I wrote yesterday so stay tuned for that. Guys, I'm going to let you read something FICTIONAL that I've written. I'm just as in awe as you are. That may happen tonight or may happen tomorrow. I promise I won't keep you in suspense for too long.

Otherwise, I hope you all have fabulous weekends full of good news. I'm tired of bad news. I've decided that it's time for me to stop receiving it. I will only be accepting good news from this point forward. Just an FYI. Send good news my way!

Girl Talk Thursday - Music

I’ve never really considered myself a music person. I’m a movie person and I only have so much room in my brain. I can remember only so many obscure facts and details. That being said, I do have my favorite music. Who doesn’t?

Music is something that surrounds us. Culturally saturates us. It’s on TV, it’s on the radio in our cars, it’s in grocery stores and elevators. Even more so than film and television, music is a part of the daily fabric of our lives. You can go a lifetime without seeing a movie in a theater, but unless you’re deaf you will probably hear music.

Still not a music person but I do have my favorites. I have a few songs that individually remind me of things but for the most part my favorites are the artists themselves. The songs tend to depend more on what I’ve been listening to in the moment and change frequently over the course of time. I don’t have an Ultimate Playlist for my lifetime; I have smaller playlists for the season. If I were to make the Ultimate Playlist, it would certainly include songs like Hey Jude by the Beatles that will always remind me of my dad pushing me around the lake as a kid or if I’m feeling sentimental I might include I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing from Armageddon, the song my high school boyfriend and I (along with a million other teenagers) decided was ours.

I don’t have that list yet though and if I tried guessing at it here most of the choices would be arbitrary and would probably change in a month or so. I’d pick something by Led Zeppelin, maybe a Fleetwood Mac, definitely Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel. Bob Dylan, Elton John, Joni Mitchell, more Beatles, The Clash, Velvet Underground. We can go another direction with Sam Cooke, Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday. And those are just the classics. What about the more recent artists with the songs I love just as much? Or the guys from the 90’s whose music defined my adolescence? Smashing Pumpkins, Tool, Bush, No Doubt, Stone Temple Pilots, Everclear, NIN, Greenday, Nirvana. And don’t get me started on what I was listening to in 8th grade when I discovered Punk and Ska. Do you see my problem here? There’s just too much.

And I say I’m not a music person…

I don’t have room in my head for it but I love it just the same. I’m going to cut myself off here and go ahead and post my current summer playlist. It starts off a bit folksy, a little indie, expressing some minor frustrations over friendship and relationship (non) issues and then moves on to a little more upbeat, dance type fun stuff. And ends with something silly that’s mostly there for a friend.

Track 1: Brownstone Alley by Freddy & Francine

Freddy & Francine are a couple of friends with their album Briar Patch recently out on iTunes. Always one to support my friends, I have to admit that I was still surprised by how much I like this album. It’s fun, upbeat and yet soulful. Great music to ride your bike to. And man can Bianca sing.

Track 2: Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa by Vampire Weekend



I love Vampire Weekend. I thought I didn’t but then I heard their album and realized I was wrong. I gave them a chance after a writer I follow added them to his favorite album list of last year. Also on that list were Death Cab’s Narrow Stairs, Robert Plant and Allison Krauss’s Raising Sand and Adele’s 19. Those are all great albums so I figured if he liked those, maybe he was right about Vampire Weekend. Yeah, he was.

Track 3: Best for Last by Adele

This is one of the ones that was just hitting home. I love Adele; I love her sound and her music.

You should know that you're just a temporary fix
This is not rooted with you it don't mean that much to me
You're just a filler in the space that happened to be free
How dare you think you'd get away with trying to play me

Track 4: Call It Off by Tegan & Sara

Tegan and Sara - Call It Off


When I first heard Tegan & Sara I thought they were kind of silly. Then my ex sent me their album, I listened to it, and it’s great. A Fleetwood Mac kind of feel to it at times. This particular song is another that fell in with my current mood toward relationship-y stuff.

Maybe I would have been something you'd be good at
Maybe you would have been something I'd be good at
But now we'll never know

Track 5: The Ice is Getting Thinner by Death Cab For Cutie

This one actually isn’t one of my favorites from Narrow Stairs. But it fits in with the rest of the mix and works for the time.

Track 6:Portions For Foxes by Rilo Kiley

I love this song. I have loved this song. I came to Rilo Kiley shortly after More Adventurous was released, Accidental Death was actually the first song I heard, but Portions For Foxes is the one that caught my attention. It came up on shuffle on my old iPod one day while I was at work after my friend had given me a few of their songs. After it finished I paused my iPod, wrote down the song so I wouldn’t forget it, and proceeded to play it another five times. And I still remember that moment years later!

It’s on this particular mix because it also goes along with my relationship mood.

There's blood in my mouth 'cause I've been biting my tongue all week
I keep on talkin' trash but I never say anything
And the talkin' leads to touchin'
and the touchin' leads to sex
and then there is no mystery left

Track 7: Candy by Paolo Nutini

Paolo Nutini - "Candy" (Official Video) HQ
Uploaded by wonderful-life1989. - Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.

I heard of this guy from a British kid I follow on Twitter. Nice, right? He came out with his new album Sunny Side Up just a bit ago and I really enjoy it. It’s just something I’ve been listening to, goes a long a bit with the relationship theme, and is fun.

Track 8: I’m An Animal by Neko Case

Neko Case was a college discovery. One of the first female artists I really got into. I love her voice and what she sings about. A little bit country. Yeah. I’m An Animal is off of her most recent album Middle Cyclone. One of these days I’ll manage to not miss her playing in LA. She seems to play often enough.

Track 9: Zero by Yeah Yeah Yeahs

This is where the mix starts to move into the more dance-y portion. Stuff to move along with. Zero was on the radio a bit and I got the album from a friend I met during the three weeks I spent hanging out in Lake Havasu, AZ back in May. I will forever associate it with Piranha 3D. A strange little tourist town on a lake in the middle of the desert, unbelievable heat, and a little heat of another sort with a not unattractive man. If you know what I mean… May was certainly a memorable month. One of those little adventures that make life interesting. I have a feeling those memories will make me smile for a long time yet.

Track 10: Little Bit by Lykke Li

Little Bit


It’s a fun song! Um, yeah, that’s about all I’ve got to say there. Honestly I don’t have much to say about the next few other than they’re great for the summer.

Track 11: Stillness Is the Move by The Dirty Projectors



Track 12: The People Tree by N.A.S.A Feat. David Byrne

Discovered this one through Boing Boing, which I discovered around the same time. I think someone actually may have linked me to this video. Either way, I love them both. And David Byrne! Any other Talking Heads fans out there?

Track 13: Strange Overtones by David Byrne and Brian Eno

Sooo good…

Track 14: Hunter by Bjork

This one actually reminds me of working on Reno 911! Watching a Bjork video (for a different song) with the Co-Producer (and my now good friend) when we possibly should have been working. C’est la vie.

Track 15: Superman from the Scrubs Soundtrack



This one was for KT. And all of the time we’ve spent together sitting on the couch watching Comedy Central. Good times with a good roommate and a great friend.

And isn’t that what music is for? Expressing emotion and bringing people together. At least, that’s what it’s about for me.