Envy: (Google) Earth is beautiful

I've been surfing Google Maps lately and I've been so inspired by the textures and colours of its satellite images. I pulled these from all across the globe.



Envy: Annie Hall

I recently watched Annie Hall for the first time, and instantly fell in love with Diane Keaton's wardrobe... very streamline, carefully accessorized and put-together. I know I'm not the first to recognize the HOT FASHIONS of Annie Hall, but god damn, it's hot. Screen captured by yours truly (except the last image), so they're a bit blurry. Two words that come to mind: NECK SCARVES. Yes!

Beautiful & Haunting: James Jean (Artist)

 James Jean produces some incredibly stunning paintings, full of imagination and wonder, with such skill that you're immediately immersed in his world the moment you set your eyes on them. I first fell in love with his work when I saw some graphics he had done for Prada, and at that point he hadn't made much of his personal work public as he had for commissioned pieces, but at the time his sketchbooks (which are still on his website) were enough to blow me away. James Jean took a hiatus from commissioned pieces to work on personal projects some time ago and from there blossomed a whole side of his artwork I had never seen before. His sketchbooks have a lot of figure renderings and the like, but his paintings have so much more depth and narrative that you can't help but fall in love with them. I received a copy of his book Kindling, a large book of poster pull-outs of a few of his recent works (which are currently displayed along the entire length of my apartment), and they are mind-blowing. Take a look at some of his work to see for yourself, and I highly recommend picking up a copy.

Young Once: Pt. II

 Jeff Bridges, 1991

 Steve McQueen

 Mickey Rourke

 Tony Curtis

Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise

Jack Nicholson, Candice Bergen and Art Garfunkel (on the set of Carnal Knowledge, 1971)

Meryl Streep

MALE MODELS FOR THE WIN

Boys of Milan & Paris FW2011 from Justin Wu on Vimeo.

Young Once

I'm feeling a little nostalgic this evening, and instead of posting pictures of my past, I'll show you some old photos of people you may recognize. You'll get old, too.

Bob Dylan

Clint Eastwood

Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward

Marilyn Monroe

The Rolling Stones

 Sam Cooke and Muhammad Ali

 Chet Baker

Marlon Brando

BROOKLYN

I'm heading to Brooklyn in February! A little while ago I joined a Sketchbook project run by Arthouse Coop in Brooklyn. The basics are: you're sent a sketchbook, decide your theme from a list and "sketch" away, send the sketchbook back and have it tour across the US for a few months as a huge, international project. There are about 28, 000 artists that signed up this year! So now I'm heading to Brooklyn to check it out.

If you have suggestions for places to see and visit in New York, shoot them over. So far I have only a couple of guides to help me out. I'll be staying for a few nights so I'll have a lot of time to explore Brooklyn and maybe a bit of Manhattan.

Design*Sponge City Guide
BrooklynNow.com: Williamsburg Guide

Parts of my sketchbook:

Envy: You Wish You Saw Billy Connolly Live

Last night my mother and her boyfriend took me to see Billy Connolly live at Massey Hall. This guy is hilarious, I really love his stand-up that I've caught on the Internet. His live show last night was also quite funny, but he has aged a bit and was basically just spewing anecdotes for two hours. However, they were incredibly funny and his interpretation of Canada (TREE-O-RAMA) really hit the nail on the head. The best part of his act was the point at which he was describing the funniest thing he had ever heard. After spending a good 10 minutes building up to the joke, he finally gets to the good part: at a talent contest, his good mate was the MC and was interviewing the contestants before they performed. One special act was comprised of a young boy and his uncle, who happened to be in a wheelchair and was missing both his legs. The MC asked the boy, "So, if you don't mind my asking, what happened to your uncle?" The boy answers, "He was a window installer for many years, and one day as he was lifting a sheet of glass to place in the frame, a gust of wind came and knocked it out of his hands, letting it crash into his lap and consequently severing his legs." The MC, trying to move on, says "Oh, I'm terribly sorry to hear that. Um, so what is it you're doing for us today?" "We're singers" "What have you called yourselves then?" The punch line: "Simon and Half-Uncle!"

 I used to only catch glimpses of the man when I was a kid on bits of TV that my dad was watching, or in some random roles in a wide variety of movies, like Boondock Saints, Muppet Treasure Island, White Oleander, the Last Samurai and Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. I also have to say that this man has a wonderfully quirky sense of style (definitely my kind of man)... his outfit last night consisted of a black t-shirt that was incredibly long only in the back, paired with black-and-white striped pants and what seemed to be a pair of Doc Martens with extremely high/thick soles. Hot!

 Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

Boondock Saints

Here is a clip from his stand-up quick a few years ago; MASTURBATION, and what to do if you get caught (not safe for work)...

Envy: How I wish I could have been on the set of the Empire Strikes Back

Just stumbled upon some very cool photographs from the set of the Star Wars film the Empire Strikes Back.