Is Google becoming our collective brain?

WE'RE SUPPORTING

Ryan Riss, aka Craptical, is firmly rooted in the grotesque school of pop art, drawing heavily from horror comics, drug culture imagery, and the work of Ed ‘Big Daddy’ Roth. Beneath the irreverence and sophomoric imagery, however, is contrastingly well-controlled line work and a mature sense of design and composition. Read more

WE'RE THINKING

Obsessive, impossibly intricate art can sometimes veer off into self-congratulatory messes, overwhelming viewers while not having any real substance. Vasco Morao’s Escher-esque line drawings are rather simple, however, and have a gorgeous, meandering, and meditative quality about them. Read more

WE'RE READING

It turns out that the Internet was invented for cute animals as much as it was for porn. All these four-legged nobodies suddenly have our attention, and all they have to do is sneeze or fall asleep or act like they’re talking for us to fawn all over them. Heeding the growing chorus of people calling for these furry hacks to be cut back down to size, Fuck You Penguin aims to keep the egos of goats, puffins, moose, and pretty much every adorable creature on earth in check.

WE'RE LISTENING TO

If you ever happen to find yourself riding across the mid-west on horseback with an iPod jangling about in your holster, be sure to let Calexico soundtrack the experience. They’re cleverly fusing a range of genres, mixing some good old country with US indie, a bit of jazz and even, in 2003’s Feast of Wire, some smatterings of electronica. Lead singer Joey Burns gives a healthy amount of cowboy twang and the soaring orchestral background and sweet country guitar licks add a real atmosphere to the music.

Listen to the Calexico song, Convict Pool.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

WE'RE TRAVELLING TO

71 is the kind of place which is small enough to miss, but once you see it, you realize everyone somehow knows about it. It’s set three steps down from the sidewalk level, and it’s always packed, except for week late nights and mid-mornings. Even though their service is not the friendliest — like any other spot in New York that’s too cool for school — 71 has a noticeably loyal clientele. Lots of writers hang out with their computers, while photographers check out the scene, and artists meet up with their reps. Besides hot and cold drinks, including their own coffee, they also offer a great selection of pastries, sandwiches and my friend Nicolas’ favorite chicken soup ever.

If animated wall drawings of severed heads and insect men ejecting their brains from their craniums is what people produce when they have too much time on their hands, then we should do their laundry for them and cook them dinner so they’ll have even more time on their hands.

WE'RE WEARING

From this artist selection of t-shirts comes this Christina Koustospirou illustration, silkscreened on a limited edition t-shirt, and distributed in a vinyl sleeve, with a biography of the artist on the back of the sleeve. Every t-shirt is numbered and signed by the artist, and comes in organic cotton.