the art of gregory s. paul

this is the first of hopefully a few posts on scientists who are also accomplished artists. gregory s. paul is a paleontologist and dinosaur illustrator extraordinaire. his book predatory dinosaurs of the world is a fave since i was like eleven.

permian swamp life comes alive!

i hadn't seen anyone try to draw a dinosaur's muscles before.

a sampling of dinos in various mesozoic climates from portland-esque, to frozen, and then to really very hot (that velociraptor is panting in case you couldn't tell). the point being that dinosaurs were warm-blooded. i love the carnage in the background on that bottom one. also note the velociraptor's feathers, something that was still fairly controversial in '88 and are all over the place in Paul's artwork.

i'm hoping to get my hands on paul's other dino book. his wikipedia page says he's got another in the works too. can't wait.

the summer of 2009

it was a whirlwind summer seemingly with no time for blogging. three weddings and sadly one funeral, bachelor party after bachelor party, cabin trip after cabin trip, heat wave after heat wave, camping trip after camping trip, and countless swimming expeditions across three states. snapshots are collected for viewing in the summer 2009 collection in my flickr. thanks to everybody who helped make this summer one for the record books.

the waylon group™

i have a horrible confession wlog readers. i have been seeing another blog for the last three months. the blog in question is a sexy one intended to document the rise of The Waylon Group™, a fake company i started as a project in my studio practice class. since the term has now concluded, i thought i'd finally share the fruits of this project here with you. in business we call this kind of crossover "synergy." among other things, this project included setting up a very rudimentary and somewhat incomplete website, a number of power point presentations given on a variety of business topics, setting up an office, buying some (not) really expensive art for said office, having an in-service day for the class (replete with a guest speaker, team building exercises, box lunches, and certificates of completion), producing a short and really awful video on success, and running a fake charity (read fake tax shelter) on the side. you may view the waylon group flickr set here.

my top three concerts of 2008

i thought it would be best to wait until the end of april to do my year-in-review-super-duper-round-up-spectacular-for-concerts-i-attended-in-2008 post. truth is, i only went to three concerts last year, so here they are in chronological order:



the drive to the white river amphitheatre sure was long enough and the ticket price sure was high enough. it all begged the question; could the quintagenarians calling themselves "iron maiden" still deliver the metal goods in 2008? the answer turned out to be a resounding "YES." often when geezer bands reunite, things can get a little embarrassing. not so with maiden. i'm too young to have seen them in their "classic" phase, but i naively suspect this concert was comparable to something from back then.


steve harris

adrian smith

dave murray, somewhere in time eddie



next up was the take back labor day event on harriet island in downtown st. paul. the event was put together by the service employees international union. the line up included steve earl, tom morello, mos def, and atmosphere, none of whom i'd say i'm a fan of. fortunately, thanks to my shady union connections, the tickets were free. i should mention that this concert took place while the republican national convention was happening and i just couldn't pass up the opportunity to go gawk at the RNC. for me, st. paul will always be this sleepy river town and to see it become so militarized was surreal. as for the music, steve earl and tom morello were not my thing. i also failed to enjoy mos def, but i dug atmosphere. meanwhile, gunboats patrolled up and down the mississippi.

a couple weeks after that, i went down to the triple rock to see neil hamburger and pleaseeasaur. i have been a fan of neil for a while but this was the first time i got to see him perform. i knew nothing about pleaseeasaur, but he (they?) turned out to be just perfect. here are some pictures i took of neil with my mobile:

after the show, i picked up a split seven inch single, signed and dated by both acts. the cover art is by mark mothersbaugh.

on side a, we have neil singing a rather ironic selection from the bee gees songbook:

while side b finds pleaseeasaur running through the "business incorporated" song cycle. enjoy:

covers II

the first time i did this kind of post, it turned out to be a real belter. hopefully this newest installment will live up to the first one.

this lp was released by a division of jimmy swaggart's JIM records. dwain looks kind of high. is that a pot plant behind you, dwain? no, it's actually this.



here's a cover that's two tickets to creeps-ville. i was really hoping that marcy was the doll and that this was some sort of ventriloquist act, but, alas, it's not : (



wow fellas! those shirts are some bona fide slam dunks!



and lo, they have some body-slammin' leisure suits too!



tits, psychedelia and alexander scriabin... ...a bit like peanut butter, chocolate and a declination table for the sun???



no tits on the next one, just four boobs instead! no, these minstrels are not actually in the navy. according to the back of their record, they're all "shipmates" on "the good ship grace." this reminds me of a certain other naval-oriented religious ORGanization. can you guess which ORGanization i'm thinking off? perhaps a little light photoshopping will help you figure it out:



(if you guessed this, give yourself a hearty hand/milkshake.)



we close with this magnificent specimen. it was an awesome gift from jenn.

i invite you to check out the collection in my flickr account called "Records! Records! Records!" dedicated to scans of record covers and other vinyl-related stuff.

the results are in!

the polls are now closed. actually, not really. feel free to keep sending them in and i'll continue putting them up below. these first few come from eli, tess, ned, and kelly, respectively.









some of you may recall last week's unfortunate misspelling in my example. thankfully, a quick and crude photoshop has remedied the situation:



and the stragglers:

ona's

album cover test

i spied this activity on beware of the blog. the rules are simple. first go to a random wikipedia article. this will be your band's name. then grab the last bunch of words in the last quote at the bottom of a random quote page from this site. this will be your album's title. finally, download the 3rd photo from the explore/interestingness/last 7 days page on flickr. this is your band's album cover. mock up the results and serve!

here is how mine went:


+

+

=

email me your results and i will post them.

addendum: if you can figure out how i screwed up my cover, i will give you extra credit. here is an example of the same kind of mistake, but on a real album cover for a real band.