Comes a rare ray of warmth and light.

Noted painter, long-time friend of BoL, and general Ubermensch-about-town Neill Ewing-Wegmann has put together a new series entitled “Mills” that will be premiering at the Playhouse Gallery, running from February 5th through the 21st.

Neill’s work always has a tremendous amount of vitality to it, and this new set looks to be an extension of that. Just going by a few of the preview pieces I’ve seen, it seems a bit more stylized, and as a result, more impactful. Not to mention that the chosen subject matter is necessarily dear to my own heart.

It’s not unlike viewing images of the ruins of Detroit. Those once-great bastions of Industry now lying fallow. Maine itself is rife with abandoned history, and I adore how Neill’s work hearkens back to some of the elements we all come across (but perhaps don’t see) on a regular basis while retaining his unfettered enthusiasm.

The show opens Feb. 5th from 5pm-7pm. The Old Port Playhouse is located at 19 Temple st. in Portland. If you’re anywhere in the Greater Portland environs, come out, stop by, and stay and chat for a while. We’ll be there, and Neill always does seem to have the most enjoyable openings.

How does he do that?

Tags: Aesthetiophilia, Pictoriphilia by Etruscan
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I look back fondly on those naive days when it was 1999, when we partied like it was well…1999. And we were damn sure of it to. Because our computers told us so. Right up until the point where it wasn’t any more, and they were predicted by many to go ‘kablooey’ in a most ungracious way.

Except of course they didn’t, and continued chugging along to the great dismay of many newly unemployed COBOL programmers. As someone remarked to me recently “you had only to whisper the word COBOL to someone in a suit and it was worth 10k.”. Those were the heady days of the pre-millennium.

But there was always this niggling little thought in the back of our minds that maybe, just maybe, this was actually the apocalypse. That this time around it might be different. There was an air of excitement and unease that informed every action. People braced. They spoke quickly. They took that extra shot of vodka and to hell with it. Either we all die, or we figure out what to do once the hangover goes away.

Except, of course, nothing happened.

It’s been past ten years now, and given the global state of affairs I think it fairly safe to assume that by now everyone should more or less have woken up.

Let a man have his dream.

Although it is interesting to posit alternate reasons as to why exactly the Earth stubbornly failed to end on schedule those many years ago, which brings me around to tonight’s feature. Clamp’s X/1999, originally a manga series, and later adapted for both television and eventually film.

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Tags: Aesthetiophilia, Videophilia by Etruscan
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CASABLANCA - Okay, okay, okay.  Now you’ve read easy-to-get-into comics, comics about comics, literary comics, and down-and-dirty mystery comics.

You’ve done your homework and now it’s time to cut loose.  Let’s pick up some dumb fun.  Then, we’ll check in with my comic collecting compatriots and see what comics they’ve enjoyed in the past and in the present!

But I know what you’re saying: “I was led believe there would be a man wrestling a squid.”

Well, here ya go, ya punk!

BAM! Page 1 of this week’s comics selection:

The Umbrella Academy: The Apocalypse Suite

Written by Gerard “Yes, the guy from My Chemical Romance, JEEZ, let it GO!” Way

Illustrated by Gabriel Bá

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Tags: Aesthetiophilia, Pictoriphilia, Uncategorized by Cash Money
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<In my best deep gravely movie preview voice>

In a cabin…

in the woods….

during the zombie apocalypse….

<cough, cough…cough.  Normal voice>

Anchorman’s Paul F. Tompkins and Mad Men’s Ben Acker star in Sketch of the Dead.  Where we are confronted with an entirely different “if  I’m bitten you have to promise me…” situation.

Sketch Of The Dead

Thanks, Vault of Horror, Atom.com

Tags: Zombiphilia by Gestalt
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I just discovered this and am truly blown away.  For anyone who has ever said that CGI is totally fake looking and predictably fake this little film completely redefines what computer generated images are capable of.  I’m talking about realism beyond the Hollywood or the usual “video games are so lifelike these days”, but you know they are still video games.  Alex Roman illustrates “architecture art across a photographic point of view”.  What impresses me is his attention to detail and especially his exploration of light and  how reflective surfaces define space.  Watch this in full screen mode.

The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

As soon as it started in full screen mode, I couldn’t believe this was computer generated and not real.  I kept think maybe this part is real and the CGI gets slipped in later to confuse us, but no Roman advances the field of art with CGI.  After watching this composite breakdown excerpt I started to believe that this was in fact made with a 3d emulator.

Thanks, Popwhore

Tags: Aesthetiophilia, Audiophilia, Videophilia by Gestalt
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Subcategory: Forgery

Nigeria President Yar’Adua budget signature ‘forged’

BBC, Jan. 7, 2010

Tags: Economics, Politics by Cash Money
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Tonight’s feature comes to us via a tip picked up from Japundit from Peter Payne’s J-List. In his post, Payne had ruminated that the emotional content and engagement in anime were the driving force behind its growing appeal and worldwide reach. I’d like to interject just a few thoughts of my own. While I think these sorts of universal storylines, and emotionally familiar and personally reminiscent characters are a fantastic force in storytelling (think for instance of Campbell’s hero cycle as displayed in Star Wars, which is a further execution of Beowulf). I think that misses a little bit of exactly why this is compelling to so many individuals. Much of the beauty I find in anime, and indeed, a work like Star Wars, is that it has the power to express tremendously complex philosophical and emotional concepts in what would be considered on the surface as a very basic form. It’s not unlike reading a layman’s guide to quantum mechanics. You have the ability to take much more away from it than the narrative or presentation actually impose upon you.

That said, there’s also the issue of stylization, which plays largely into how these narratives are perceived. If you’ve ever looked into anime, you’ve likely heard plenty of jokes about Moe, or alternatively, overt male androgyny (Disclosure: I’m still working on male anime hair). I theorize that there’s actually an extremely clever design behind the stylistic forms we associate with anime, and it’s the same one that keeps kittens and babies safe from predators.

They’re supposed to be exaggerated. You identify more with them that way.

Encountering a stylized human form (large eyes, exaggerated features, childlike behavior). Has always engaged an emotional parental response; it’s a biological imperative. This is what our young are born looking like. No wonder they evoke an emotional response. And look at what gates that opens for storytelling:

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Tags: Aesthetiophilia, I should probably go to bed, Videophilia by Etruscan
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