EG 2008

Snapshots from the EG self portrait photo booth: Tan Le and Marvin Minsky, Olivia-Eric-Gus-Shelly, Richard Saul Wurman, Teller, Kev and Coley, Michael Hawley, Mr. and Mrs. Wozniak, Mr. and Mrs. Lovins.

Conference highlights: Woods Hole footage, Miru Kim, Joshua Bell, David Pogue, Marc Patcher, David Binder, Emotiv Systems.

Details to follow. Brains are processing.

Cozy Bird-Dictator Palaces

Mussolini’s Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana

“Super Kingdom is an art installation with a difference: each of the pieces on show in King’s Wood, near Ashford in Kent, is a fully-functioning animal house. They just happen to be based on a selection of infamous dictators’ palaces…” read more at Creativereview.co.uk

Looks like the knitted art from a previous post! - Tree Cozy.

Neighborly

Palm Frond Sculpture Bus Stop, artist unknown, 2008.

This is a little story about 3 random neighbors in Noe Valley that don't know really each other. Neighbor #1 is a woman who has lived in her Noe Valley home for forever. Let's just say 40 years. The first time Blizz (neighbor #2) met her, she was trying to drag a gigantic palm frond that had landed in her driveway to the gutter. He noticed a tiny frail woman struggling with a giant heavy thing, so he helped. He's cute that way. She was very grateful and chatty. She hated that Palm tree, always dropping it's gigantic fronds in her way. She cursed an ex-husband who had sold that property out from under her, which resulted in new owners planting that tree. After their chat, he dragged it home and used the table saw to cut it down to fit in the bin. Last week Blizz found another frond blocking the sidewalk near Neighbor #1's house so he pulled it aside and out of the way. It was smaller but he still didn't want to drag it all the way home. Today, while on a dog walk I came across the results of unknown Neighbor #3.

My Fellow Cozys

Thought I'd take a look-see for other cozys out there.

Cozy Dog Drive In

The Cozy Dog Drive In in Springfield, Illinois is the home of the one and only Cozy Dog. The Cozy Dog is a delicious hot dog on a stick that is found nation-wide at many county and state fairs.

Cozy Cruiser

Cozy Cruiser is an RV manufacturer specializing in fun and comfort for the adventurous and outdoor-loving person. Our camping “teardrop” trailers are the perfect solution for the weekend mountaineer, camper, hiker, hunter, or fisherman.

Cozy Beehive Blog
Cross pollinating velo buzz and served a little chilled


Cozy // Comfort Music Radio



Tree Cozy by Carol Hummel

Reverse Graffiti

Following Laughing Squid on twitter provides a lot of quick access to cool-stuff-right-now. This one in particular is really neato. An eco-friendly cleaning product company teamed up with a graffiti artist to create public murals by cleaning away dirt, instead of using paint. I love this because it gets me to look at the world in a different way, what else can be flipped around like this?

Reverse Graffiti Project
“San Francisco’s Broadway tunnel is a highly traveled thoroughfare in the heart of the city. Over 20,000 cars, trucks, and motorized vehicles pass through it per day. Its walls are caked with dirt and soot, and lined with patches of paint covered graffiti from days gone by. It set the perfect canvas to create a beautiful work of art showcasing the talents of reverse graffiti artist “Moose”, and the power of Green Works plant based cleaner.”

Panoramic

Milan, Galleria Corso Vittorio Emmanuele, 2003

Ari Salomon makes good pictures. This one hangs on my wall.

On Foot

A really nice thing about not being in a car and being on foot is all the stuff you'll see. Bliz and I started the day off on bus to the Union Street Fair, and over to Cupcake Camp. On our way back from Camp we took a quick detour to the Water Garden with Kinetic Sculpture and Bamboo Grove. Forgot to note the name of this place, anyone know?


View Larger Map

Sci-Fi Time Traveler Golden Era Superhero Helmut

The Mercury Helmet by Jasmin Zorlu.

This. This, I want.

I tried it on and it was amazing. It is made from fish skin suede and lined in organza. Placing this on my head made me feel like I had magical powers. I could summon Godzilla from the depths. I could cut through any dust storm. Light would shine upon me in a flattering diffused vignette. I could communicate telepathically with the whales.

I am saving up.

Possum O' Possum

I love it when friends send me things in the mail. It's like being stranded on an island and finding a message in a bottle. Today was especially exciting. The mailman kerplunked our mail through the slot and it had an extra bang-plop to it. So I immediately went over to see what had been delivered. This package was on the floor with this hint on the back, "A registered possum is a better possum and that is a fact!" and "...and if you can accept that then you can accept just about anything... - Basil Clark". A few weeks back our friend Greg had given us a DVD of a film he made and the disc was scratched so we weren't able to watch the entire movie. I sent him a Facebook message asking if he had another. And a week later, presto! Hello, Possum O' Possum.



And as an extra bonus, also included in the package was one sterile adhesive bandage and one eraser. Things that just might come in handy. Thanks Greg.

Maker Faire Poster

Poster by eboy.

I'm a little tardy for a Maker Fair mention but, I came across this poster today and it's worth mentioning just for the visual graphics alone (one in a long series). And so, my quick review of the faire will be better late than never. Bliz and I went for the second time. We took CalTrain and the faire shuttle bus which worked out 200% better than driving, and we reviewed the schedule in advance to make sure we saw the stuff we wanted but, it was still totally overwhelming. This poster captures it well. The faire seems to have huge momentum and I imagine it'll be even bigger next year. It's really amazing to see a little bit of Burning Man in San Mateo. (As an aside, I grew up in San Mateo County. My parents were both born and raised there. My sisters and I were in 4H and they showed their lambs at the same fair grounds. I spent many summer nights running around the carnival eating sticky sugary foods and trying to win stuffed animals and gold fish. It was so the 1970's.)

A couple highlights:

- My friend Emi works for TCHO, who had chocolate samples you could vote on. It's yummy chocolate from scratch. Always a crowd pleaser. We had them at EG2007.

- My friend Marnia was there with Swarm. It's great to see this Burning Man project still going and now starting to tour year round.

- Mike with BlinkM, of course.

- David with Making Things, of course.

- Steampunk Squid, Robot Girafe, Tesla Coil, Cupcake cars, Never Was House and The Treehouse.

- The Mento-Coke guys did a show. Was fun to see in person.

For a more thorough review, Wired has a great blog write up complete with photos and videos.

Making Stuff From Junk

Worth a trip over to the SF Dump, the artist in residence show is open today. We've been meaning to go to one of these for a long time now and finally got a chance to last night. The show is recycled pedal powered mechanical noise and circus gone wrong contraptions, by Paul Cesewski. It was a great turn out and all the kids were running around going bonkers. Hot dogs and booze too.

To outer space and back to the couch

It was one of those busy-fast weekends and we were excited to get everything accomplished. D has been swamped at work so this was a necessary break to get recharged by seeing some great stuff other people are up to. We started the day off with a hike up to Twin Peaks with Lucy. We are really lucky to be able to walk right out the front door and just keep going up until we've reached the top like the surface of another planet. Spring is so here with butterflies, birds, alien weeds and flowers. It was so windy up there that Lucy's ears flew back like she was riding a motorcycle.

Once we got back down to earth, we bused into town to load up with a super taco and horchada and head to the historic Armory building. It was open to the public for the Mission Bazaar, an exhibition of art, design, music and performance. We drive by that place often and someone usually makes a comment about what sordid things go on in there. In 2006 it was purchased for $14.5 million by an adult production internet company, giving the ominous Moorish Castle style building on a edgy intersection an even grittier presence. So we have been really curious to see the inside. It was like walking back in time into an old airplane hanger, lots of brick and steel and huge windows with bright sunlight streaming into the dark space. Most of the vendors were clothing and accessories, with a burningman-steampunk-hippie aesthetic. I got a super cute red and cream striped wrist band made from a vintage tie, with a single silver snap. D tried on a tiny victorian top hat, which made him look like something out of Alice in Wonderland. I think I should get him one. We bumped into a friend who makes films. A favorite local clothing designer of mine was there, Miranda Caroligne. I'd really love to get to the point where budcozy could be part of an event like this. I was inspired to get back to work on some new limited editions themes. American Cupcake sent me a link to the Union Street Faire in a couple weeks, which happens to be an eco theme, but it's hard to swallow the $650 booth fare. Being creatures of habit and feeling a bit overloaded by the bazaar, we walked over to La Copa Loca for waffle cones of hazelnut sorbet and sat on the sidewalk to charge up for evening plans.

The rest of the weekend went like this:

Wes Scoop at the Marsh
Hard to cover the 90 min show, I kept wanting to write things down but didn't want to miss anything. One thing I remember him saying is the answer to our nations problems is to acknowledge our predicament and engage in an intentional decline with a Reverse Peace Corps, to learn how to siesta and make tasty dishes from rice and beans. Remember to breathe. Unlearn our overachieving.

icanhaz
An honest attempt to icanhazcheezburgers but gravitational pull of the couch won. Instead we went to witness with our own eyes a really big crossover moment between the internets and reality.

Opera.

That butterfly
More collisions between worlds with the butterfly from the hike now firmly embeded in a mural. It stopped me in my tracks.

Free samples
In between giant boxes of cereal, a moment of bliss at Costco: toasted ham-n-cheese croissant sammie samples.

iPhone
A new iPhone case that goes real cute with the Pow budcozy. But I find myself looking at my iPhone wanting to take a picture of my phone with my phone. Need to track down the camera.

Series of amazing events
D got 2 pairs of jeans and 1 pair sneaks, without even trying. Do you know how amazing that is? We were so tired and hungry but you just can't stop when shopping karma strikes. Nutella-banana crepe post spree prepared us for MUNI home. And then the most amazing series of events happened. The J arrived immediately. Only one crazy person on board talking into a cellphone with no one at the other end. It did not break down. I do not kid. Then as we sat waiting for our transfer on the 48 to take us home (estimated 17 min), Hoshi appeared out of nowhere in a skid and waved us aboard to deliver us to our door.

More couch.

Friends of Budcozy

Budcozy is my pet project that I'm having a lot of fun with. I've been inspired by people who have taken a chance on their own ideas and are making a go of it. I have some friends that are up to some pretty cool things themselves that I'd love to tell you about:

American Cupcake
"Not your mother's cupcake"
http://www.yelp.com/biz/american-cupcake-san-francisco

BlinkM
Make crazy LED things.
http://thingm.com/

Love Spirals
Ryan and Anji Bee are uber chilltastic.
http://lovespirals.com/

Sister goes to Uganda
Yes, my sister. She is rad.
http://lorisaltveit.wordpress.com/

Solar Death Ray 3000
"Do not look into beam with remaining eye."
http://people.tribe.net/5969572e-afaf-4c36-97d4-b7be3d08f572

El Grande, Lumia Grande and Thomas Wilfred
Makers of visual music.
http://performinglights.com/index.html
http://www.lumiagrande.blogspot.com/
http://www.lumia-wilfred.org/