Sarah Beetson revisited

WE'RE SUPPORTING

Los Feliz artist Vanessa Prager has been exhibited at the Robert Berman Gallery, Gallery 1988, and the Santa Monica Museum of Art. Her series, Hunting and Gaming — which opens in LA on January 24th — explores the ‘nature of sinister play’. Prager paints ’starkly-lit scenes of surrealistic moments in daily life; untangling holiday decorations, playing with old toys, driving or chatting. But her odd theatrical arrangements suggest something creepy going on behind the innocent façade’. Read more

WE'RE LISTENING TO

Already with a Spectrum show under their belt, The Archerbolds are an up and coming Australian band well worth checking out. I saw the Sydney-based lads play recently at the Mars Hill Café and it was evident that they should be permanently rocking out on a real stage; not in front of coffee sippers. Their floating lyrics, smart guitar riffs and meaty bass lines are infused by The Strokes, Mars Volta, The Beatles, and Led Zeppelin — ultimately producing a freshly spun modern-vintage sound. Lead vocalist and guitarist Geoffrey ‘Gep’ Rectin says The Archerbolds plan to create a solid sound for next year: ‘Over summer, we’re recording an EP and working on a set sound, defining more of an image’. If their track, Rest Your Soul, is anything to go by, then it should be pretty dandy.

WE'RE THINKING

Marianne Goldin creates lush illustrations that convey a wonderful sense of drama amidst its classical romantacisim. Read more

WE'RE TRAVELLING TO

This striking design — still in the planning stages — aims to covert a desolate, disused sand mine into a thriving environmental preserve and eco-resort. The development lists an impressive array of green designs, including living walls and a five-acre green roof, and effortlessly succeeds in that all important eco-feature of blending in with its surrounding environment. Read more

I spent the formative first six years of my life in Wellington, New Zealand, a beautiful windswept city framed by a magnificent harbour in one direction and a stunning collection of green, rolling hills in the other. It was here, on a return visit many years later and deep amongst the clipped accents and ruddy faces of the weather-beaten locals, that I stumbled upon the vast catalogue of the then Dunedin based record label Flying Nun. And what a roster of acts they housed — The Chills, The Bats, The Clean, Tall Dwarfs, The Verlaines, and my favourite guitar-pop band, Straitjacket Fits. Read more

WE'RE WEARING

We used to depend on sundials back in the day, but now there are multiple ways to tell the time. And Tokyo Flash has just invented another one. Based on LED technology, these watches are not only stylish but futuristic and wildly innovative. They even have a watch from minimalist designer Naoto Fukasawa that is more than just your basic timepiece. The Tokyo Flash site says that their watches are supposed to ‘resemble the various moods of a human’, and they’re definitely an attention grabber. These are watches to take us right through to the 22nd century.

WE'RE READING

Springfield Punx is a great blog that features renderings of what your favorite comic book, cartoon, and movie characters (and a few late-night talk-show hosts thrown in for good measure) would look like as characters on the Simpsons.