I used to be really into designing t-shirts. I’d spend a morning sketching the design then (lacking a scanner), I’d take a picture with a digital camera and edit the image in photo shop. Next, I’d print it out on thick paper, cut that into a stencil and paint it onto shirts with a roller brush. It was a pretty labor intensive process, and some of those designs never actually made it into shirt form.
Fortunately, my girl got one actually printed on a shirt for me after snagging the design off of an earlier post I wrote (that’s her sexy ass modeling it above).
Expect more t-shirt designs, both new and from the archives here soon on 199X.
In the comment section of io9 a few months ago, someone suggested that t-shirts be made depicting a quote attributed to George Orwell:
“Back in the 1900s, it was a wonderful experience for a boy to discover H.G. Wells. There you were, in a world of pedants, clergymen and golfers…and here was this wonderful man who could tell you about the inhabitants of the sea, and who knew that the future was not going to be what respectable people imagined.“
Its a wonderful quote, and I completely agree with the commenter that shirts should be made, so I’m offering my design above, paraphrased from that quote (clicking on the image will give you the layered, PSD file should you wish to use it - I can’t remember where I got the template).
I’m certainly not a graphic designer, so if you make your own version, let me know in the comments or via email. It’ll probably be better than what I’ve come up with.
Keep the sci-fi dream alive, my friends…and while you’re at it, grok these future tracks:
Did you watch that video of “Neon” Dion Agius? The whole thing is super slick, but when he lands that big 360 at around 3:18 that’s when you know he’s serious.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Heads Will Roll (Digiraatii Dance Til You’re Dead Remix)
Dion Agius isn’t a musician but he’s on MySpace (and hey, it says he’s from Currumbin! I learned to surf at the alley).
So are the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Digiraatii. (Yeah, I checked: they actually spell it with two As and four Is).
I just finished reading House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds. In the book, two shatterlings named Campion and Purslane (the galaxy-wandering, six-million year old clones of a woman named Abigail Gentian) fall in love with each other, befriend a golden robot (Hesperus, of the Machine People) and arrive decades late for the gathering of shatterlings that happens approximately once every 32,000 years.
I absolutely loved the book, and the fact that parts of it span tens of thousands of years. Reynolds writes sci-fi on an enormous time scale. As Charlie Jane Anders writes:
“House Of Suns is one of those novels that assumes a shape after you’re done reading it. All of the elements that seemed purely random fall into place, and you realize quite what an intricate design you’ve been looking at all this time….This novel has everything: artificial intelligences that become sentient, post-humans, questions of faster-than-light travel and causality, cloning, virtual worlds, a murder mystery and a group of nigh-immortal people dealing with the burden of history in a more personal way than most of us ever do.”
Anyways, that’s not a picture of Hesperus, but of my Halo 3 armor. I was inspired by the book to make him golden and to give him the House of Suns insignia.
Anyways, here are some tracks that I’ve also been coincidentally listening to these days. I really feel like they flow with the book. The Empire of the Sun track makes me think of the love between Campion and Purslane, and the name of the original band and remixers just works with the book as well.
Why this Girl and the Robot? Because at one point in the book, the female shatterling (Purslane) spends a great deal of time with Hesperus (don’t worry, nothing weird happens).
I totally should have posted this earlier, but a few weeks ago I was Break Thru Radio’s featured music blogger - they did an interview with me, and let me choose some tracks for their show.
Their site is a Flash nightmare, so you’ll have to dig into the archives to find my stuff, but it’s there in the Anatomy of a Blogger section for February 5th, 2009.
For your pleasure, one of those tracks reposted here:
I asked the cowboy if I could add some shit to this site and he said yes, so here we go. I’m a friend from Australia so I’ll try to add some local perspective from time to time. I’ll try to keep it interesting.
Presets go. Pretty mainstream now i think, these guys are so big right now they get remixed for BMW commercials…
the original joint is here and it won’t let me embed it.
The Drake Hotel reminds me of bars in Australia, and that reminds me of Sneaky Sound System. In the photo booth before us was a guy with his shirt off and a hot chick. Afterward, the guy bought us a round of beer, then drank Micker’s.
Check out this wicked remix of UFO by 18 year-old Melbourne prodigy RDCTBR.
Also make sure you check out RDCTBR’s Myspace page - it’s got an amazing background, the kind that is only designed by innate talent.
A few weeks ago we had a Medical Themed party, The St. Beatrice Memorial Hospital Annual Gala.
Everyone came dressed appropriately medical. There were doctors, patients, a lifeguard and the sexiest stab-wound victim that you’ve ever seen. It was fucking wicked.
We set up a muxtape playlist for the party, but it doesn’t work anymore so instead check out this track by Pnau. It’s called Shock To My System, and seemed to fit with the party theme.
While you’re listening, check out their MySpace page (people still have those?) and see if they’ve got anything to buy on iTunes. Their video for Wild Strawberries is also pretty wacky.
And while we’re on this topic, check out Lucid TV. It’s an online comic about doctors and you’ll love it.
I’d never really heard of these guys until my friend showed me the video for their track “Yeah Yeah” and I was blown away. What is it about the music scene in Australia that keeps pumping out wicked tracks like this?
Listen to Bodyrox featuring Luciana - “Yeah Yeah” below or download that shit here or buy it on iTunes here.
For more of their stuff, check out The Hype Machine.
