The Thousands

The internet. If you're not careful, it'll make you forget you have a body. Your buttock pockets will flatten while your hoops return to nature. We've been on the internet now for 300 hours straight. Pork Chop's eyes have started waxing over. [Pause while we imagine you asking, "Oh noes, why?"] Because: Daily Next Wave posts!

Oh. AND OUR TUMBLR.

Cover image by B. Barton. Be deadly like Barrie! Send covers to melbourne.photo@thethousands.com.au.

Charles and Ray Eames were the duo behind the Eames chair, the design most responsible for keeping post-war arses happy at a low price, but their output wasn't limited to stuff you could sit on. Their Californian HQ 'The Eamery' was a Renaissance-style studio that rivalled Warhol's Factory in terms of multimedia productivity, cultural influence and sheer chaos. The Architect & The Painter, therefore, feels like a slightly misleading title for a doc about Charles and Ray's working relationship. While Ray was indeed the protégé of Hans Hoffman with an unrivalled eye for colour, and Charles the design-minded businessman with the charisma to win clients over, such titles seem way too restrictive.

Still, the film does a good job portraying these two innovators like the right and left side of the same brain, and all the issues that entails. Not least the struggle for a married couple to be viewed as equally brilliant in 1950s America, a time when Don Drapers were automatically championed above Peggy Olsons. Or the later fight for input, as Ray felt she wasn't really needed in creating the awesome Powers Of Ten. Mostly, though, it's a celebration of their successes. After all, they helped soften Russia's view of America during the Cold War with Glimpses of the USA, and assisted IBM in persuading regular Joes that computers were here to help humans, not rise up and destroy them. See? You read this and your laptop didn't crush your stupid fingers.

Andrew Morgan runs People's Potential Unlimited (PPU), the Washington DC label that discovers and reissues some of the weirdest and most insane ultra-rare boogie, funk and soul from the '70s, '80s and '90s. His latest gem/find is Uku Kuut. Not a lot is known about Uku. He was born in the Soviet Union and raised in Sweden and Santa Monica. When Morgan tracked him down he was recording and producing music in Tallinn, Estonia. As an 11 year old he performed as a vocalist alongside some of Estonia's top jazz musicians and his mother is legendary Estonian singer Marju Kuut.

On Visions of Estonia, Uku produces a mad blend of funk and soft jazz. Written and recorded at his home studios in Los Angeles and Stockholm between 1982 and 1989, the album matches left-field beats with lost '80s boogie groove. All recorded on domestic and Soviet electronic gear. Songs such as 'Real Love' and 'Secret Dream' sound like they could accompany the outro of an '80s morning television program. The closing 'Right or Wrong', with its strutting boogie and crooning vocals, proves that while some get ready to bag out the Eurovision song contest not all Eastern Euro songs are lame.

I went straight home with my copy of The Art Of Daniel Clowes : Modern Cartoonist climbed into bed and said, "Hold all my calls". Turning the giant pages slowly in silence, I occasionally let out an unintentional gasp, or "sick!".

Dan Clowes makes comic books that are perfectly suited to pet obsession and bedroom consumption. He pores over his drawings with a perfectionism that rivals modern master Chris Ware. And his characters exhibit those most stinging moments of doubt, angst, neurosis, lust, passion, compassion, anger, inflexibility and hopeless romanticism - the thoughts you used to think were only indulged by your inner monologue.

'Ghost World' and the comic where that story came from (Eightball) are Clowes's most famous works, and probably his most provocative (want to know what the '90s were really like? Check out 'I Hate You Deeply'). Original Eightball art is beautifully reprinted herein, but it's only a fraction of the incredible cross section of awesome images included, from album cover and movie poster art to OK Cola and anything else Clowes has worked on. There is also personal stuff such as childhood photos, drawings, and his annual Christmas card designs (amazing!).

Attached essays range from a new interview with Clowes, to gushing enthusiasms from comic book buffs, to a somewhat dry (though totally valid) academic analysis from Ken Parille (who co-edited an entire book of Clowes's interviews that I highly recommend).  read more

“Not creepy” is how Kenny Pittock told me to describe Twenty Nine Drawings of People on the Train. And considering this publication is precisely what the title suggests, his sentiments, intentions and motivation for making it all seem pretty on the level.

Usually Kenny makes sculptures that look like the thing they're supposed to look like. But his hour-long daily commute from Ferntree Gully to VCA led him to start sketching his fellow passengers and what was a simple game to pass the time became an obsession amounting to 300 or so portraits, and counting.

The drawings are crude, candid, often unfinished but accurate representations of the real Melbourne public transport experience. And if you can’t get enough of that realness, there is further documentation on his blog and YouTube channel, including gems: Man in suit (with a racist and his dog) and Girl in bandana handling a ball.

I found Tom the typewriter guy by emailing Robert at the Australian Typewriter Museum in Canberra. I had recently acquired a very beautiful, but very underserviced Remington Noiseless. Robert was quick to reply: “Elgin Street, Carlton, up at the top end.” These slightly cryptic instructions were followed by the encouraging words: “I don’t know his surname, I don’t think he uses one, but he is excellent with typewriters.”

Robert was right. Tom is on Elgin Street, he doesn’t use a surname and he is excellent with typewriters. He has a shop full of them, and photocopiers and fax machines, which he says people still buy. In this day and age? Cray-zee. You can’t just show up and walk into Tom’s shop. You must call. The reason you must call is that Tom lives upstairs and he, understandably, doesn’t want to hang out in his shop all day waiting for you to show up. Once inside, Tom will give you a quote. You can either take it, or go see the other guy in town who fixes typewriters. Which is no-one.

Tom learnt his trade in Europe and he learnt it well. Not only did he fix my Remington Noiseless he also cleaned it up and gave it a polish. Now it looks far less scrappy and works a dream… for a typewriter. Those of you who have used a typewriter will understand this. They are hard work at the best of times. You really have to punch those keys. I have no idea how the ladies of Mad Men did this all day without breaking their fingers but I tip my hat to them, and Tom, and Robert of course, for keeping the dream alive.

And the Lord looked down on the sons of men and said, "Let there be more greyhounds on pants. Chinos, in particular."

And Jesen listened, and the Lord saw that the greyhound print chinos were good and instructed Comeback Kid to waive the shipping fees so that the sons of men may cover their shame cheaply. And He also specified that they should be available in classic khaki and forest green, and bare the likenesses of over fifty famous greyhounds. Spot them all!

Now, let us pay.

Charles Schulz (of Peanuts) famously bought every single Esterbrook Radio #914 pen nib when they heard they were being discontinued. R Crumb won't fuck with anything but a Rapidograph technical pen. Pencils though? Voices in unison were praising the Eberhard Faber Blackwing 602. Famous users included Vladimir Nabokov, Frank Lloyd Wright, Thomas Wolfe, John Steinbeck, Stephen Sondheim, Igor Stravinsky and Chuck Jones. How many famous people use your favourite pencil? Don't make me laugh. Even the Blackwing's motto 'Half the pressure, twice the speed' is imposing and sleek in a modernist kind of way.

Then: disaster. Blackwings were discontinued in 1998. I have seen evidence of them selling for upwards of $50 on eBay. An incredibly exhaustive blog sprung up. The streets ran with graphite. People wept. Then: Resurrection. California Cedar Products bought the Blackwing trademark and started manufacturing recreations of the Palomino Blackwing 602 and the Palomino Blackwing. The former for writers, the latter for sketchers - and now available in Australia at NoteMaker. It's almost impossible to overstate the reverence people have for this pencil. Such fanatical devotion to a writing stick. But, as Ray Eames said, "What works good is better than what looks good, because what works good lasts." And sometimes what works good can even come back from the dead. It's the Jesus pencil.

There was a time when Melbourne’s Mission to Seafarers was the hippest scene in town. Artist Laura Delaney told me it used to be *the* place to go for sailors and well turned-out Melbourne ladies to get loose and have a rum-fuelled glide around the dance floor.

These days it still functions as hang out for seafarers in serious need of a bit of land-based social time, but you might not even notice it’s there, wedged between a highway off ramp and a cluster of high-density towers at Docklands. Visual artists Laura Delaney and Danae Valenza in collaboration with sound artist Lisa Steward are making people take notice again. They've spent the better part of a year at the Mission, working at the bar, listening to stories, dusting out the archives and distilling the building's 150-year history into a walk-in contemplation of community, isolation, migration and communication (complete with giant, dripping ice spheres that sing) as part of the Next Wave Festival.

They've taken care to build the art into the functionality of the place. The musty, time capsule feel of it is intact (and in some places literally amplified). Anyone can still wander in off the street to shoot some pool or watch TV (Fridays between 12 and 2pm are apparently the best for cheap drinks and Chilli Padi food) with all profits put back into keeping the mission running.

As ambitious as the whole project already is, it’s still not quite finished. On Friday, read more

As preposterous as it may seem to name a radio show This American Life, it's a fitting title for a program whose creative, personality driven broadcasts regularly grapple with the contradictions of a nation both trailblazing and conservative, individualistic and conformist, funny and solemn, arrogant and humble. Started in 1995 in Chicago, This American Life is one of the most popular public radio broadcasts in the country. Hosted by the lovingly dweeby Ira Glass, over the years it has featured everyone from Nick Hornby to Michael Chabon to Spalding Gray and Dave Eggers.

Weird as it may seem to put a radio show on the big screen, this works. This American Life - Live! was staged live at a theatre in New York City, and Glass says they endeavored to incorporate stories onstage that would never play on radio (like dance, for instance). The idiosyncratic programming of NPR is easy to poke fun at (like on Parks and Recreation) and there's a bit of self-reflexive humor herein (courtesy of a short film by Mike Birbiglia).

Like the best of National Public Radio, what makes This American Life - Live! so special are the rich personalities and real-life stories presented. There's a great reading by much beloved humorist David Sedaris, a terrific story on an anonymous found photo archive, and a heart tugging yet in no way naff humorous story by a blind father. Amongst many other things (I don't want to spoil anything). This is a perfect way to spend a weekend matinee.

The kids will love Fairy Park. It’s an entire mountain peppered with castles, castle-sized playgrounds and fairy tale scenes. For more than 50 years it has been a dream come true for the little ones.

But kids are fucked up. Watch the Boohbahs and tell me kids aren't sick and warped. More than that, fairy tales and all their harsh lessons seem grim as you grow older. Maybe you'll read the original Grimm tales and they'll seem even grimmer. Or maybe you'll dip into Freud and realise that fairy tales are no more than a symbolic exploration of fear.

With all this is in mind know that Fairy Park, while a child’s treat, can be one of the strangest and most frightening experiences of an adult's life.

read more

The predictability of what I normally eat makes dining the filing of my body’s working life. But this is where Daniel George Dobra’s molecular food night steps in, electrifying the brain back into questioning exactly what your mouth is tasting. Nothing on the plate here is quite what it seems.

Appropriately garbed in lab coats and working from a penthouse laboratory at the Aylesbury Hotel, Dobra (formerly of The Brix and The Royal Mail) is presenting some illusive fare in a style not normally seen by the likes of anyone but Swedish millionaires. In our nine courses and several cocktails we experienced sensory everything from champagne foam to colour-changing water-soluble dyes. There was an anti-establishment French bouillabaisse (served here cold and raw), a magically meatless take on osso bucco and a three-part crack baggie and toothpaste-tube ensemble.

Reconstructed sits atop deconstructed; foams fight with gels to float powders and pastes. The “bacon” from the dish ‘morning after served the night before’ will blow your mind when you find out what it really is. A dessert ode to St Kilda Beach is done disgustingly well, and the whole team are more than happy to explain the scientific processes while you sit back and nibble at your edible after-dinner cigarettes.

Melbourne-based fashion photographer Frank, aka She Is Frank, is putting on her first solo show this week at the new Everleigh Gallery. It's a series that contrasts the deserts of Australia against, well, the ice of Iceland. Rocks versus glaciers. Outback versus icepack. Hot versus hot toddy. Frank has carried this striking set of contrasts over into a book, which will be for sale on opening night. And now, over to you Robert Frost.

From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire
But if it had to perish twice
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great.

Madman are moving! Yeah! I think they got the lease on Twentieth Century-Fox's studio in LA. Bon voyage! So it is time to clear out all the DVDs, posters, toys, memorabilia and office furniture they have collected over the years. Note: there will be no 'delivery services'. Whatever you buy on the day you must be able to take home with you. Hire a van so you can take home the six boxes of novelty Kirsten Dunst dolls complete with detachable telescopes they had mass produced for Melancholia.

Love Connection are relocating to New York in July and once I settle down from my outrageously hysterical jealous fit I will wish them the best of luck. Before that though they will be doing a few more local shows, including tonight at NSC where they will be launching their second album Euphoria with friends Montero (whose Bjenny Montero also created their sweet as new video) and Angel Eyes. The title track goes for over twenty minutes. I've not heard it but somebody said it has got some Kraut rockish things going on about it. In my book, anything that goes longer than a quarter of an AFL game is Krauty.

Raw Prawn is the very, very cool name for Sydney's newest exponents of punk music. Killed by murder punk meets UK post punk is the word. Or, as RIP Society corporate strategist Nic Warnock proposed, "Aussie murder punk and UK shit like Crisis, Warsaw, Zounds meet at a Bunnings sausage sizzle." Their first Melbourne shows are most certainly going to break hearts. They are very selectively playing with bands that have very, very cool names. On Friday 25 May, they join Constant Mongrel's LP launch lineup at the Gasometer with Eastlink, Trench Sisters and Leather Towel (wait... read that one again... Leather Towel), and on Saturday 26 May at Yah Yahs, with The UV Race, Interzone and Ratsak (and DJ Mikey Young). Bring money to the shows to trade for friendship and admission.

As you wander through this depressing life you may have noticed how much of everything there is. The more canny amongst you would have observed that almost everything in this infinity of everything is terrible. This is why we have curators, sommeliers, street photographers and Throwing Frisbees. To tell us what is good to look at, drink, have intercourse with and listen to. Specifically what garage, punk and noise to listen to. So you can infer a level of assurance somewhere between the word of god and a strongly worded letter that the following bands will be aces: Mesa Cosa, Whipped Cream Chargers, Bad Taste, On Sierra, Smoke Signal, The Shards, Ali E and Flyying Colours.

Seatbelts on! Next Wave Festival is pulling the handbrake. Show's over. To commiserate: art food. Queen Victoria Market will be hosting all you po-faced gorgers in a fat farewell to this Wave. Lily Paskas and Lee Serle are doing chicken dances, Tom Polo is giving 'advice cakes' and Lara Thoms is bringing a big buffet table filled with 9,913 Queen Victoria Market products. There'll also be artless food supplied by Cornutopia, Gumbo Kitchen, Massive Weiners, Crank Coffee and Dhaba Mill.

Picture yourself on Sunday. Your artfully tousled hair caressed by an uncaring wind. You stroke your luxuriant beard (man) or your slightly less luxuriant beard (woman). You stare across the plateau (Fed Square Atrium). There are treasures there. You know it. You plough wallet-first into Markit. Organiser Simon Obarzanek's biannual wonderland constructed from jewellery, fashion, stationery and so on. Tasteful tchotchkes of untold shapes and forms. An a-to-z of designers bigger than a dictionary. At some point you will, inevitably, wonder to yourself, "Is there a difference between housewares and homewares?" It won't matter, because you will have the talented artisans who actually made these artefacts on hand to explain the difference to you.

Thanks to some of those craftspeople we are giving away a ham! A delicious ham worth over $500. There can only be one ham per winner. Wait a minute. I read that wrong. We are giving away a hamper. There can only be one hamper winner. It's still worth more than $500. Which, admittedly, seemed high for a leg of cured pork. Who contributed to this cornucopia? Tightology, Sunday Ganim, Third Drawer Down, Re-Done, Sandra Bowkett, I Wish I Had a Little Shop, Emily Green, Dani M and Ruth Allen.

ONE NOTE: Just like hams this prize can't be sent through the mail. You've gotta be able to go on Sunday to pick it up.