#9: Vintage Style, Tan Mice, Kind Words, & Chapterhouse.

First off, congratulations are in order: this past week, Nina won the People's Choice Award in an exhibition at the Old Firehouse Art Center in Longmont, Colorado. If you live in the area, you can view her work through October 14th.

I was leafing through a magazine the other day when the SpeckTone Retro console caught my eye. Festooned in deliciously '70s lime green and brown, it's an iPod stereo similar to those produced by Bose and other companies... except the design is much. What makes me like it even more is the fact that it only has one knob, the volume control. It seems even Luddites can get in on the MP3 revolution.

In more weighty matters, it seems that scientists have discovered a way to give mice fake tans that chemically recreate a natural suntan (instead of just dyeing the skin). I bet those bronzed mice get all the lady mice. Joking aside, were such a treatment perfected for humans it could have many benefits, with protecting folks from skin cancer chief among them. The link will take you to the NPR story, which is definitely worth a listen.

There is a fantastically written article about our project in today's Florida Times-Union, Jacksonville, FL's largest newspaper. Out of more than blatant narcissism (I swear!), I implore you to give it a read.

Something about Sundays makes me want to listen to music that holds a special, sepia-toned place in my heart. Today, that means Chapterhouse, one of my favorite groups from the early '90s British shoegaze movement. Although they frequently get back-seated to other amazing acts like Slowdive, Ride, and Lush, Chapterhouse's first album (the recently re-issued Whirlpool) and the many EPs that sandwiched it are all pretty flawless. Exhibit A is "Mesmerise," the title track from a 1993 EP. Download it here and watch the video:


It's got that quintessential shoegaze feel to it: bright colors, blurry camera shots, a vibe that is both ethereal and trippy. The video is horribly dated, no argument there, but the music still feels timeless to these ears.

xoxox
Danny