Browse Worthy: Juxtapoz

Juxtapoz: Art & Culture Magazine

Juxtapoz is the don of art magazines as it boasts the title of having the largest circulation out of all the art magazines in the U.S. The website for Juxtapoz of course features artists but functions as a blog covering all the news in the arts world whether its clothes, videos, galleries or photos. The best feature they have online is the gallery guide that list a ton of art galleries, shops and museums in NYC (also California and other locations). I know Cali has a big art scene but I didn't realize there were that many spots in the NYC area. Another site that you should bookmark just to be on top of all the great art out in our world.

+ Juxtapoz: Art & Culture Magazine Online

- Sonic

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Browse Worthy: Format Magazine

photo and copyright by Mr.Wright2 on Flickr

Format Magazine is a site that features urban fashion and art. It is really easy to navigate and they put up info on all the latest threads, toys, graffiti, art and anything that would fall under their moniker Urban Art Fashion. They do some great interviews with artists like the one for our featured artist this week Brandi Milne. This is definitely a site you can check back often to see all the latest in the Urban World.

+ Format Magazine

- Sonic

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Browse Worthy: Gelaskins

Gelaskins.com

Customization is always a popular thing, especially with all the gadgets out right now. People always want cool graphics on their phones, iPods, laptops, and whatever device they might have. What better way to protect your device from some everyday wear and tear than to do it in style? That's what the folks at Gelaskins.com had in mind. Gelaskins provide skins for everything from your iPhones, Blackberries, Mac laptops, PC laptops, PSPs and iPods with artwork from great artists old and new from across the world.

Gelaskins.com

Sure skins are cool, but what I go to this site for are the prints. As you may have read I started my little art collection, and this is another site I spend hours at picking out my next art print purchase. It's no secret I pull many of the featured artists at Highlark from this site, but this is an exciting site for me where I can discover some great artists. So browse away and pick up a skin, or just take a look at the all the awesome artwork!

- Sonic

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Browse Worthy: Hi-Fructose Magazine

Hi-Fructose Magazine

I randomly came across their website, and I pretty much subscribed to it right away. Hi-Fructose Magazine is a quarterly art magazine that has been showcasing underground and not so underground artists since 2005. I am patiently waiting for my first issue to arrive, but their website is pretty awesome on its own. It has a calender section that tells you all the up and coming events and galleries, and the blog section allows me to discover some really great artists.

I only hope the art section at our Emissary here will grow to be as informative and extensive as Hi-Fructose one of these days. If you are into art like I am, definitely go subscribe or at least bookmark the page.

+ Hi-Fructose Magazine

- Sonic

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Featured Director: Vincent Moon of La Blogoteque

#80.1 - VAMPIRE WEEKEND - Mansard Roof
by lablogotheque

French blog site La Blogoteque started doing their version of video podcasts called The Take Away Shows around April of 2006 with founders Chryde and Vincent Moon. Here is a brief description from their website about The Take Away Shows:

"Every week, we invite an artist or a band to play in the streets, in a bar, a park, or even in a flat or in an elevator, and we film the whole session. Of course, what makes the beauty of it is all the little incidents, hesitations, and crazy stuff happening unexpectingly. Besides, we do not edit the videos so they look perfectly flawless, instead we keep the raw sound of the surroundings. Our goal is to try and capture instants, film the music just like it happens, without preparation, without tricks. Spontaneity is the keyword."

Although a bunch of other directors have joined the project since it's initial birth, it was Vincent Moon who took his desire to film music in an innovative way to new heights. If you've ever wondered what your favorite band would sound like walking down the street playing their song, here is your chance. Visit the site for more of Moon's projects along with the other directors.

+ The Take Away Shows [La Blogoteque]

- Sonic

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Browse Worthy: Verve Photo

Photo by Zackary Canepari on Verve Photo

Verve Photo is an awesome blog slash website created by photographer and editor Geoffrey Hiller that showcase some of the most talented documentary photographers. Each post features a photographer and an image they took with a brief bio of the man/woman behing the lense along with a description of the photo. The photos are beautiful to look at, but they also tell a compelling story.

Anyway, Verve Photo is a really cool site! Go surf and get inspired.

+ Verve Photo: A New Breed of Documentary Photographers

- Sonic

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It's Better Handmade: Etsy.com

photo by Stella Loela on Flickr

Whether you are bored of shopping in the same stores or just looking for something different, Etsy.com is the answer. Etsy is a website where you can buy and sell anything handmade. Artwork, jewelry, clothes, pottery, toys, whatever it is, if it's handmade it's at Etsy. There is so much cool stuff on this site you can window shop (browser shop??) for hours, but you'll probably find that one of a kind item you are looking for.

Support your fellow makers of things! Go to Etsy.

+ Etsy Company Profile [Crunch Base]

- Sonic

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Netflix: The Best 9 Bucks You Can Spend A Month

Sonic's latest Netflix rental

Here’s something you already know:

The current economic climate absolutely sucks. It’s terrible out there. People are doing all sorts of crazy things to save money – I even saw an article in the Daily News here in New York City today about a woman giving tips on how to eat on a $1 a day budget (basically, you eat cornmeal and then reheat it the next day. Or something like that, she lost me at “cornmeal”).

With many industries waning and losing money, which (if any) continue to do somewhat well in times like these? Mainly, home entertainment companies do pretty well. People like to go out and see movies – but that can be crazily expensive. Theaters in New York City charge upwards of $12 a ticket. You and your spouse, plus the kid(s) … that’s already $36 - $48. Add in popcorn, drinks, candy … A family evening to the movies can easily run over $60 or $70. And so, people tend to stay in, maybe rent a movie instead. But this doesn’t necessarily mean a trip to your local video store.

Here’s something you may know, or maybe only partially:

Netflix is awesome, cheap, and has become a much better deal than most people realize. For only $8.99 a month you can sign up for a Netflix unlimited plan. This means, for the uninitiated, that you can “rent” out a movie from their incredibly-better-than-big-chain-video-stores library, which will be sent to you in around 1 business day. You can keep that movie out as long as you want, with no late fees, and then return it in the pre-paid envelope – there are never any shipping fees.

From the Book Designing Web Interfaces by Bill Scott and Theresa Neil © 2009

But wait – there’s more!

Also on this plan, you can choose from another library of movies and television shows to watch instantly – as many as you want, whenever you want – on certain devices. For most, this would probably be a pc or a mac. But there are ways to watch the instant selections on you television as well! If you have an Xbox 360 and an Xbox Live Gold subscription, you can link your Live account to your Netflix account – your entire instant queue will appear on your TV and be available at the touch of a button. I signed up in this particular manner a few months ago and through this service, watched the first two seasons of 30 Rock (which I had not yet seen – for the record, it’s hysterical) in HD on my TV. I’ve seen a ton of cool movies through it, and can watch them in my living room, or I grab my laptop and put something on while lying in bed before I go to sleep.

And you know what? Its 9 bucks a month. Check it out – and if you sign up, use the instant queue to watch Joe Rogan Live. Raunchy as hell, but one of the better comedy specials I’ve seen in a long time.

+ Netflix
+ The Netflix Blog

- Goodchild

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Website Feature: Rotten Tomatoes

photo by ScottWJ on Flickr

Rotten Tomatoes is a site dedicated to movie reviews and information. It has a lot of features on the site which is not easy to navigate through sometimes, but it's a pretty cool site otherwise. The main feature of the site is their tomato meter which compiles reviews on a particular movie from amateurs to pros all over the net and calculates and tabulates it into a percentage value. That percentage value is what I have been using recently to decide what to rent or go see. I can't say that the values they come up with are always right or to my liking, but it's surprisingly on point.

For example, a great lesser known Mike Judge comedy like Idiocracy which didn't get much attention or good reviews when it came out has a 72% on the tomato meter. Not all but a bunch of the movies have a general consensus part which in a few sentences sums up what people are saying about the movie. Once again, there's some science to it I guess and it ends up being rather accurate.

So if you're not sure what movie to check out or if people are telling you different things about a film, visit this site and it might help you make a good decision.

+ www.rottentomatoes.com

- Sonic

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Site Feature: Astronomy Picture of the Day

Suspension Bridge Solargraph © Justin Quinnell

Hey, everyone in cyberspace – Wanna see some real space?

One of the coolest sites that you’re probably not checking every day, but should be, is Astronomy Picture Of The Day, from NASA.

It’s nothing you have to spend any real amount of time on – just an amazing picture each day to make you say things like “Wow”, and “Pretty”, and “Holy crap, I never knew what a long panoramic shot of Lisbon that was so wide it caught the sun setting on one side and the moon rising on the other looked like”.

If it’s your first time there, you can even head to the archive, which goes back for years and has tons of content to sift through. You can even do what I do, and save the beautiful shots of various nebulae and planets so you can put them on your ipod and gaze wistfully at them and pretend you’re going there when you are instead on the Q train headed to work in midtown.

Check it.

[official website]

- Goodchild

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