A New Age of Love, an Incandescent Joy
Talking about stop-motion samurais, Róisín Murphy's brilliance, conceptual lipid worlds, Jennifer Coolidge x The Daniels and more
For the last week or so my partner Kyle has been on vacation, and my Spanish classes ended after 10 weeks, and honestly? I’ve been relaxing and chilling hard, much needed after a very eventful 4 months. All good stuff! Only I had forgot how nice it is to be “lazy,” or at least as lazy as I can personally be. So lazy Bobby is keeping this section light for the week. I hope your week will be as chill as mine was! 💙
📌 — There’s something so mesmerizing about a stop-motion. Even the idea, that a team of talented individuals painstakingly crafted each and every movement, is remarkable. So when I saw the initial trailer for HIDARI, I was completely enthralled. The film will tell an action-packed story of “Jingoro Hidari,” a legendary sculptor in the Edo period of Japan, using wooden puppets. And like, look at that title treatment, it’s stunning.
They were able to gather a world-class stop-motion animation team who believed in the story, and created a 5-minute pilot film which you can check out above. If you're a fan of stop-motion animation and samurai films, you might want to check out the Kickstarter. The film is being created by Masakazu Fukatsu, a Tokyo-based animator who has worked on a number of high-profile projects. The campaign is seeking funding to help bring the project to life, and there are a number of great rewards available for backers. If you're interested in supporting independent animation and unique storytelling, be sure to check it out.
📌 — I’m totally smitten with the The Daniels, and I’m so excited that Everything Everywhere All at Once has been given so many praise and awards for their work. At the heart of it, they’re a couple goofy guys who are passionate and love to have fun, what’s not to love about that?
It’s literally impossible for me not to share the photoshoot The Daniels directed in partnership with everyone’s favorite, Jennifer Coolidge for W Magazine. A love letter to Tokusatsu, a genre of campy Japanese cinema that birthed such legendary creatures as Godzilla, Mothra, and Giant Robo. The photos are joyfully campy, vibrantly colored, and I personally wish I could have personally been on set to watch this.
📌 — I found myself staring in awe when I discovered Markos Kay, a multidisciplinary artist and director with a focus in art & science and generative art. Specifically, there’s this series he created called aBioGenesis, a study of how life originated on Earth. He’s created “a conceptual reimagining of the "lipid world" theory which postulates that life originated from lipids forming membranes which would then envelop matter and nutrients to form protocells. Biological cells as we now know them can be thought of us membranes within membranes.” No big deal! haha… The works are mind-bending, especially with the way he’s lit these creations. Watch the animated versions on his site, then go download the wallpapers for your phone.
📌 — This one is a dense one, take notes and get ready! The immense talent that is Róisín Murphy, an Irish musician who’s last album Róisín Machine was absolutely one of the best of 2020. Now she’s back with her old friend and cohort DJ Koze, the ineffable German DJ and producer who she worked with on his last release, Knock Knock (named as the third best album of 2018 by Pitchfork), providing vocals for not one, but two stunning tracks on album stacked with top-tier talent.
They’re currently hard at work on Róisín’s upcoming album, though in the meantime, they’ve released a first single, the gorgeously layered, tenderly sweet, “CooCool.” The energy and mood they bring to a track is palpable. It feels like they’re having so much fun collaborating together. And how great is this cover art by Beth Frey? Has that feeling of uneasy realness meets fine art meets bad dream, I’m in love with it.
🍃 — Ya’ll really loved when I posted about puzzles last time, so here’s a new company you may not have heard of. Sulo is a French puzzle company who did a recent collab with Malika Favre on a puzzle called Les Toupies d'Oskar. This looks both beautiful and challenging!
🍃 — Kyle was in Seattle this past week and he came across this beautiful shop called Glasswing. They sell clothing and home goods, as well as holding workshops around planting, such as making your own kokedama or terrarium.
🍃 — After 8 years Daniel Clowes, well-known for his graphic novel Ghost World, is back with a new work, Monica. The description sounds vague, but I’m here for it: “Monica is a series of interconnected narratives that collectively tell the life story — actually, stories — of its title character.”
🍃 — I thought this collaboration between illustrator Noma Bar and lighting manufacturer Foscarini was so charming. Noma’s signature style, incorporating shapes of the lamps into every day situations and people, works so well together.
🍃 — Do you need a typeface inspired by the one from Neon Genesis Evangelion? Most likely, but what do I know, I have a problem with buying too many typefaces! Domenico Barreto really nailed it with this one.
🍃 — I found this dude named Dwells on TikTok who mixes random artists together. I was impressed with this Kendrick and Radiohead track called “take off everything”, blending Kendrick’s “N95” and Radiohead’s “Everything in Its Right Place.”
🍃 — Two Kickstarter projects in one edition, what is this, 2012? I liked the idea of this project called Arc, an analog alarm clock with some digital smarts. It’s the fact that it has a physical chime inside that really did it for me, and the form just feels right.
🍃 — There’s something so nice about some branding that’s so wild and eclectic yet it all somehow feels cohesive? That’s what All True Studio did with their work for Batshit, an video production company, and I’m obsessed with the “batsterisk" a mark that can make their name safe for your mom.
I think I clicked every link <3