Chamonix

The last two days have been spent shopping in Chamonix, an outdoor-sports town at the base of the Mont Blanc in the French Alps. For a small town, there is a surprisingly large amount of retail shopping, due to the large tourist population. The many sports stores are geared towards the ski, hiking, and climbing crowd, as there were many climbers taking the Chamonix tram up with us. The cable tram to the top of Aguille du Midi afforded an amazing (ridiculously amazing) view of the mountaing and the town below, and I'll try to upload my own pictures when I can later on.

Bread & Butter, Berlin

This is my first international posting from the internet cafe at Bread & Butter, a fashion convention in Berlin. The show is seperated into different sections with names such as denim, streetwear, kids, milk n' honey, etc., and most brands that you can think of in the fashion, sportswear, and denim industry are represented. Mavi, Puma, G-Star, and J-Fold had interesting booths, from what we could see, anyway. And as far as Berlin goes, there are definitely alot of beautiful people here.

Coincidentally, our first day in town happened to be the same day as Love Parade, an outdoor roving rave party, with different floats manned by a superstar dj and dancing entourage. There were more than one millions people in attendance and it goes along a circuit between Alexanderplatz and ??? I've always wanted to go, and I'm glad I was able to experience it, and I don't think I've had a better time people-watching.

PNC Park Architecture

I attended MLB All-Star weekend in Pittsburgh, held at PNC Park, which I'm sure most of my overdraft fees helped finance. It's been billed as the "Best Ballpark in America" by most sportswriters, and I'd have to agree. Spectaular views of the rivers, downtown, and bridges, bringing the city skyline seemingly within arm's reach of the fans. Architect Christopher R. Haupt, AIA, used curved blue steel I-beams and trusses, mimicking the form of the nearby bridges, and clad them with a tan limestone fascade, a departure from the usual red brick. And it's great seeing people swim to fight for a homer hit into the Allegheny river. The traffic layout and information design is also well thought out, or at least it's better than most parks, allowing lumbering Pirate fans to mope their way out of the stadium in a civilized manner

District B13

I just went down to the Little Roxie to watch District B13, a French action movie that's got some of the most amazing stunts I've seen since Jackie Chan's SuperCop. B13 was choreagraphed in the same vain as Ong Bak, with no special rigging (think Matrix without the wires), and an equal disregard to inserting any type of plot, but then that would only get in the way. The stars of the movie are premier LeParkour athletes Cyrill Rafaelli and David Belle. LeParkour being an extreme (I hate that word) "urban gymnastics/climbing/jumping/running" sort of sport. Nike used a few Le Parkour athletes in their Nike Presto shoe campaign a few years ago. There's also this amazing video of some russian kids climbing around some lovely eastern bloc neighborhood.

clips from District B13

Graphics from the Graveyard

Just before I moved from Pittsburgh to San Francisco I had worked on an identity and exterior signage for Sartos, a clothing store on Walnut St. which has since closed. The original logo was of a yellow hummingbird with script lettering, but I had done this punk-style concept using the hummingbird theme which I thought was really cool and would be eye-catching on the street. Of course, with most clients it's hard to tear their own designs out of their heads, so this design was never used.

CrackBerry for Japan

The new Sharp smart phone, the W-ZERO3, has just been released in Japan.

Take it to the Bridge

Happy Fourth, everyone (which means all three people that read this blog). I spent the day huffin' it up to the Marin Headlands to admire Joseph B. Strauss' bridge design from a better angle. Photos of the bridge, and especially paintings, seem pretty cliche around here but it never gets tiring riding across it. Well, actually it does get tiring, the winds are a killer.

The Internet is made of tubes.

"(the internet) is a series of tubes"
Senator Ted Stevens (R) - Alaska

Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy knowing people like this are dictating the future of technology in America. (via: Wired)

New Painting

I finished the painting yesterday! Now I have to figure out how to get this 2'x4' canvas to the east coast.

Dance, Dance, Revolution.

I checked out the pilot show for the Move Tour last night, a sort of home grown Do You Think You Can Dance type gig over at Mezzanine. The production left alot to be desired, lots of dead time, dj flubs, and miscues, but hey, it was their first run. Fortunately the highlight of the night was the introduction of the celebrity judges, comprised of a representative from each dance genre. They included Richard "Crazy Legs" Colon, one of the originators of the b-boy movement (who still has it at 40), Junko Kudo the japanese dance hall queen, Ponytailz, a freestyle dancer and choreagrapher that appeard in a number of R&B videos, Miss Prissy who was featured in Rize, the David LaChapelle documentary film about the krumping movement, the Arkiteks from Oakland who originated the Hi-C dance style (ghost ride the whip) unique to the Bay Area, a dance choreagraph group from the bay called Mind over Matter (eh, so-so), Rayne, a choreagrapher who used to dance on tour for Michael Jackson, and a really tight capoeira troupe from Brazil. This made up for the dance competition which ranged from the good, the bad, to the ugly. I could've been a late entry and at least placed in this thing. Watch the judge's intros below in Quicktime (sorry for the crappy phone video quality):

• Crazy Legs
• Ponytailz
  
• Miss Prissy
• Capoeira guys 1, 2
  
• Arkiteks
• Mind over Matter