Giant Robot Goods: 5.21.13 – Pantone Notes, Yoshitomo Nara postcards, and more!

PANTONE NOTECARD SET Be like graphic designers and master communication with color. POKETO X LISA CONGDON HERRINGBONE TEA TOWEL Turn your bathroom or kitchen into a neater space. YOSHITOMO NARA 30 POSTCARD SET Beguile everyone on your correspondence list. YOSHITOMO NARA THE LONESOME PUPPY In his first book for children, the renowned artist tells the charming story of a puppy so large that no one notices him—-until a determined little girl climbs high enough to meet him and become his friend. JEFFREY BROWN STAR WARS: VADER’S LITTLE PRINCESS Vader—Sith Lord and leader of the Galactic Empire—now faces the trials, joys, and mood swings of raising his daughter Leia as she grows from a sweet little girl into a rebellious teenager. TARO GOMI – SCRIBBLES: A REALLY GIANT DRAWING AND COLORING BOOK With playful drawings, funny scenarios and fun-to-follow instructions, this book is not just for coloring, but for doodling, drawing, imagining and thinking! AVERY MONSEN & JORY JOHN ALL MY FRIENDS ARE DEAD Cute and dark all at once, this hilarious children’s book for adults teaches valuable lessons about life while exploring each cartoon character’s unique grievance and wide-eyed predicament. MATT FURIE DUNGEON FAMILY ZINE *SIGNED* Original images were part of the past art show at Giant Robot 2 “Facial Recognition.” Signed on the back by the artist himself! MIMOBOT X ADVENTURE TIME USB FLASH DRIVE Mimobot has collaborated with everyone’s favorite show to release Adventure Time characters such as the adorable BMO.

Artist Susie Ghahremani on her band, Bulletins

I’ve known Susie Ghahremani as an awesome indie illustrator, artist, crafter, and good friend for more than a decade but had only scratched the surface of her musical talent through karaoke. Last week I saw her play with a fairly new band, Bulletins, right down the street from my house at the Silverlake Lounge. The sound is both lovely and cosmic with elements that recall the energy-filled hooks of Velocity Girl and noisy undercurrents of Asobi Seksu. Afterward, I had to ask my pal from San Diego for more details… (more…)

Matthew Specktor at GR2 Sunday 2-3pm

“With coolness and precision, Specktor comes across as a West Coast Saul Bellow in this sweeping narrative, but his energetic, pop-infused prose is markedly his own.”
—Booklist

“Specktor’s book deserves a special space in the L.A. canon, somewhere looking up at Pynchon and Chandler. Even as the narrator searches through his past to uncover the truth about his family, the author is searching, too.”
—LA Weekly

“…Matthew Specktor’s American Dream Machine [is] a big and generous novel that functions both as elegy for a recent past and fictional anthropology . . . .it evokes a world with casual ease and unexpected tenderness, recalling and referencing lots of other fiction (both Hollywood and non) while contriving to establish its unique authority.”
—LA Review of Books

“Specktor’s great achievement is to make familiar territory original, the Hollywood novel born anew. It’s bold, weird, an d unforegetable, as startling as a poke in the eye.”
—The Sunday Telegraph Magazine

“Specktor does for L.A. what Hemingway did for Paris and what Hunter S. Thompson did for Las Vegas: create a character that lives and breathes a city. Like hotels in Vegas, we see characters rise, grow dusty, and collapse.” —Daily Beat, Hot Reads

“American Dream Machine takes readers into situations that might seem familiar: the drug-fueled party at a star’s house in the hills, tense meetings between executives, dimly-lit wood-paneled bars filled with players and movie stars. Yet Specktor’s lyrical writing and insights into human nature elevate the novel into fresh territory.”
—Kirkus

“[American Dream Machine] is a vivid evocation of the entertainment business from the 1960s to the near present, an L.A. bildungsroman and a murder mystery, all wrapped in one . . . entertaining package.”
—New York Daily News

“American Dream Machine is grand, complex, lush, intelligent and lively, funny as hell and generous in ways you don’t often find. It’s also a strikingly original portrait of Los Angeles. People speak of Chandler’s Los Angeles, or Didion’s, or Nathaniel West’s. Someday, they’ll speak of Specktor’s the same way.”
—Victor LaValle, author of Big Machine and The Devil in Silver

“American Dream Machine may be the first literature I’ve read in which Los Angeles is assumed as London is assumed by Dickens and Paris by Proust and New York by a host of twentieth-century American writers. There is nothing ironic, ambivalent, or apologetic about Specktor’s relationship to Los Angeles — as it is and was, as myth and as a thriving capitol city. Los Angeles provides an animate pulse under the lives of these men and boys, a source of permanence that lends their struggles gravity.”
—Mona Simpson, My Hollywood

“Matthew Specktor has created a great American character in Beau Rosenwald. He is full of contradictions, full of ambition, full of raw life, and yet he manages to seduce us. This riveting novel shows us the existential desperation that lurks in the dark hunger of Hollywood power mongers. Specktor gets every detail right, and American Dream Machine‘s sentences are suffused with an elegiac beauty.”
—Dana Spiotta, author of Stone Arabia and Eat The Document

“American Dream Machine is the definitive new Hollywood novel. It’s almost
impossible to write now about the movie business without resorting to well-established
mythology. Somehow, here, Matthew Specktor has figured out a way to do so.”
—David Shields, author of Reality Hunger and The Thing About Life Is That One Day You’ll Be Dead

“This is the novel about Los Angeles that I’ve been waiting for–a mythical LA full of longing and distances and illusion. Specktor has captured the LA I know, the one all around me and the one in my head, a city of invention and grit, surface and underbelly. Funny, poignant, and gorgeously written.”
—Charles Yu, author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe and Sorry Please Thank You

“On the other side of paradise from Monroe Stahr and The Last Tycoon is Beau Rosenwald in American Dream Machine, the last agent who mattered as much to the movies as a studio boss. Against the backdrop of the possibility-plagued seventies, Matthew Specktor’s moving, witty, and irresistible epic captures as well as any novel in memory that time in LA when twilight could still be mistaken for sunrise.”
—Steve Erickson, author of Zeroville

Giant Robot Time: 5.17.13 – Game Night 14 + Matthew Specktor signing this weekend at GR2

GAME NIGHT 14 FEATURING: RETRON 5 AND SUPABOY BY HYPERKIN SATURDAY, MAY 18, 6:30-10PM Scheduled are two Retron 5 consoles which as of this date has not been released along with 10 Supaboy handheld consoles. We’ll also be giving away 2 Supaboys and customized buttons. We’ll also be an official LA Streetpass event so bring your DS! Since its inception Hyperkin® has rapidly established a reputation for developing innovative, reliable and cost-friendly video game peripherals. Hyperkin® designs, manufactures and distributes a wide variety of accessories for every major platform including; Nintendo® Wii™, Sony® PlayStation® 3, Microsoft® Xbox® 360, Nintendo® DSi®XL, Sony® PSP™ as well as an extensive catalog of peripherals for classic platforms like NES, SNES, GameBoy™, SEGA® Genesis™, Saturn™ and Dreamcast™. MORE INFO | FACEBOOK EVENT   AUTHOR SIGNING — MATTHEW SPECKTOR AMERICAN DREAM MACHINE SUNDAY, MAY 19, 2-3PM Matthew Specktor is the author of the novels American Dream Machine, which is currently being developed into a series for Showtime, and That Summertime Sound, as well as a nonfiction book of film criticism. His writing has appeared in The Paris Review, The Believer, Tin House, Salon, and numerous other anthologies and publications. He is a founding editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books. MORE INFO | FACEBOOK EVENT MIMOBOT X HELLO KITTY USB FLASH DRIVES Store all of your precious moments and memories with Hello Kitty! GUNDAM COLLECTION DX6/00 FIGURE BLIND BOX Impressive robots you can enjoy on your desk. HINT MINT AUDREY KAWASAKI SERIES Audrey Kawasaki’s beautiful paintings adorn the collectible tins. SHIPPON SELF-WATERING MINI PLANTERS Hang the little cat or dog on a cup filled with water and watch the plant grow from its bag! MATTHEW SPECKTOR AMERICAN DREAM MACHINE American Dream Machine is the story of two talent agents and their three troubled boys, heirs to Hollywood royalty. MATTHEW SPECKTOR THAT SUMMERTIME SOUND Freshman summer, 1986: You think you’re looking for happiness and you’re in love with the world’s best and most obscure band.     WAITING — SOLO EXHIBITION BY EISHI TAKAOKA MAY 25 – JUNE 12, 2013 OPENING RECEPTION: SATURDAY, MAY 25, 6:30-10PM We’re not changing a thing. “Although the sculptures of Eishi Takaoka all portray the same serene expression, their outwardly calm façade belies a world of bottled-up emotions. With nowhere to go, these intense feelings manifest themselves in outlandish formations that sprout out of the top of each figure’s head. The uniquely sculpted heads of Takaoka are rooted in a personal fantasy world that is fueled by the emotional ups and downs of daily life in lower-middle class Japan. He instills his frustration with life in Kagoshima and feelings of isolation into each of the pieces, which are comprised of carved wood painted with raw mineral pigments placed atop empty glass medicine bottles.” Takaoka’s pieces have been seen in group shows including the Giant Robot Biennale I and III, and on the cover of novelist Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore. For this exhibition, Takaoka will create new sculptures at Giant Robot 2 in Los Angeles. He is currently attending school in his hometown of Kagoshima, Japan and will not be in Los Angeles for the opening. MORE INFO | FACEBOOK EVENT

GR INTERVIEW: J*RYU By GIANT ROBOT NEWS GR: Animals are an obvious theme this time out, yet it’s not limited by mammals, insects or reptiles, yet there’s a common bond between them. Can you talk about how you chose which animals to depict? J*Ryu: I chose to call this body of work “Biorgasmica,” a study of what it would be like to meld various elements of baroque stylings, the human face and the shape of various creatures together.  When determining what animals I wanted to involve, it mostly came down to animals where I could envision how those disparate elements could more easily coalesce into one cohesive creature.  The final roster of creatures tended to be those that were organically armored, whether with a carapace or scales, or those that had body shapes that would lend themselves to the incorporation of faces or detailing. >> 2015 Sawtelle Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90025 2062 Sawtelle Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90025

GR Interview: Artist J*Ryu

GR: Welcome to Southern California. Tell me about your new place and your working studio set up situation?

Thank you very much. I currently live in the South Bay with some fellow artists including Aaron “Angry Woebots” Martin and Mathew Curran, a fellow North Carolinian that made the cross country move with me.  We have a converted loft in the back of our house where we can paint, cast resin and sculpt amongst other things, all to facilitate the different types of projects that each of us might be working on. It’s definitely a change from being in NC where I was essentially working in an artistic vacuum on my own – being amidst many artists that inspire me has definitely given me a new-found appreciation for being able to share techniques, offer and receive critiques and have constant constructive feedback.

GR: This exhibition features pieces that are fully sculpted and not customized. Is this a new direction? Will you still customize?

For this particular show I wanted to focus more on form, rather than the narrative or emotive qualities in many of my previous pieces. Although I am often recognized for being a part of the toy customizing scene, I prefer to create original sculptures for shows where I have the opportunity to showcase a larger body of work, work that is not contingent upon modifying or customizing existing base platforms.  That said, I will still participate in customizing shows depending on if I feel that I can create a piece that is fundamentally sound in theme and execution.

GR: Animals are an obvious theme this time out, yet it’s not limited by mammals, insects or reptiles, yet there’s a common bond between them. Can you talk about how you chose which animals to depict? 

I chose to call this body of work “Biorgasmica”, a study of what it would be like to meld various elements of baroque stylings, the human face and the shape of various creatures together.  When determining what animals I wanted to involve, it mostly came down to animals where I could envision how those disparate elements could more easily coalesce into one cohesive creature.  The final roster of creatures tended to be those that were organically armored, whether with a carapace or scales, or those that had body shapes that would lend themselves to the incorporation of faces or detailing.

(more…)

Toysrevil: Strange Symbiosis

Thanks much to Toysrevil for stringing together these images.

More Hello Kitty Mimobots!

Hello Kitty and Mimobot have collaborated again releasing these new flash drives!  She is dressed in the cutest animal outfits and ready to store your computer files.  Choose from Hello Kitty as a fox or raccoon.  All 8 GB of memory.  Find them here!

AsiaSociety – Konrad Ng Interview

Some Q and A with Konrad Ng regarding his gig at the Smithsonian. “The Asian Guy on stage”. (Asia Society – Konrad Ng)

Haruki Murakami in Asahi Shimbun

Reclusive novelist Haruki Murakami surprised and delighted the audience when he opened up about several topics during his recent speech at Kyoto University. Smiling and cracking jokes, the best-selling author and Nobel Prize contender was in high spirits from start to finish….

(Asahi Shimbun – Haruki Murakami)

Please pick up your own poop.

File this one under C’mon, Chinese people.

A Chinese shop owner in Namibia, told one of his local employees to toss out a plastic bag of his wife’s poop. The employee refused and was fired. Story covered here by AllAfrica.com.

Problem #1 – Why is your wife pooping in a plastic bag? The story says she didn’t want to use the toilets used by the employees. I understand how desperate one can be when poop is eminent, but I’m not sure that I’ve ever been inclined to poop in a bag. Maybe she didn’t poop *in* the bag, but pooped somewhere else and scooped it up doggie style. I could maybe do that…

Problem #2 – If you poop somewhere no one else is pooping so that your poop then has to be disposed of, it’s pretty bad form to ask someone else to clean up after you. I’m cool with changing my daughter’s crappy diapers now, because someday, she’ll change mine (or pay a health care worker to do it). Maybe the wife who pooped handed the bag to her husband and asked him to throw it away, and he just passed it off to his employee. If he really loved his wife, he would have done it himself.

Problem #3 – Don’t fire the employee you just asked to toss your wife’s poop in the garbage. Maybe just pretend you thought he was walking past the trash so maybe he could toss in there for you, but that you’ll do it instead. Maybe offer him a bonus if he does it. Maybe hand the bag back to your wife and tell her she should throw it away herself, and use the toilet next time.

There are reported to be over 40,000 Chinese nationals living and working in Namibia. They’re there doing construction, manufacturing, retail and food service. China has been tapping into Africa’s mineral wealth for over a decade now, and nearly every where they go there have been culture clashes, rumors of corruption, shady labor policy, and mutual distrust.

The pains of being new the new Evil Empire.

Busted: LA City Makes Yellow Face Video Using Tax Payer Dollars

It’s a fine saturday evening. Here’s the blunder of the week. This one uses LA City tax payer money to fund. It’s Yellow Face again. Somehow people think it’s ok to do Yellow Face and those same folks know it’s not ok to do Black Face. Dr. Greg Kimura from JANM and Guy Aoki from MANAA comment in the video. Sadly, they and many of you all paid for this.

GR2: May 19th Sunday, Matthew Specktor Reading and Signing – American Dream Machine

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – Author Signing – Matthew Specktor
American Dream Machine
Sunday May 19 2-3pm

GR2 – 2062 Sawtelle Blvd LA, CA 90025
www.gr2.net 310 445 9276

Matthew Specktor is the author of the novels American Dream Machine, which is currently being developed into a series for Showtime, and That Summertime Sound, as well as a nonfiction book of film criticism. His writing has appeared in The Paris Review, The Believer, Tin House, Salon, and numerous other anthologies and publications. He is a founding editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books.

For any information:

Eric Nakamura
Giant Robot Owner/Publisher
eric@giantrobot.com
(310) 445-9276

GR2: Strange Symbiosis Art

Judges and Juries

Judging actually matters. The results went to the top part of the Hollywood Reporter article which carries some weight. Great work winners at the LA Asian Pacific Film Festival. Glad to have been part of the Narrative Jury. (Hollywood Reporter – Judged)

Director Lee Isaac Chung took top honors at the 2013 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, which handed out its awards at the closing ceremonies on Thursday night, May 9. Chung’s Abigail Harm, starring Tetsuo Kuramochi and Amanda Plummer, won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Narrative Feature, and Chung also received the Outstanding Director Award.

Additional narrative film awards given out included: Outstanding Screenplay, which went to writer Jeff Mizushimafor the script for Sake Bomb, and Outstanding First Feature Award, which went to Keo Wolford for The Haumana, his feature directorial debut.  Acting awards were given for Breakout Performance by an Actress, Vera Miao in Best Friends Forever, and Breakout Performance by an Actor, Jason Tobin in Chink.

Giant Robot Time: 5.10.13 – Game Night 14 is next Sat. 5.18 at GR2

GAME NIGHT 14 FEATURING: RETRON 5 AND SUPABOY BY HYPERKIN MAY 18, 6:30-10PM Scheduled are two Retron 5 consoles which as of this date has not been released along with 10 Supaboy handheld consoles. We’ll also be giving away 2 Supaboys and customized buttons. We’ll also be an official LA Streetpass event so bring your DS! Since its inception Hyperkin® has rapidly established a reputation for developing innovative, reliable and cost-friendly video game peripherals. Hyperkin® designs, manufactures and distributes a wide variety of accessories for every major platform including; Nintendo® Wii™, Sony® PlayStation® 3, Microsoft® Xbox® 360, Nintendo® DSi®XL, Sony® PSP™ as well as an extensive catalog of peripherals for classic platforms like NES, SNES, GameBoy™, SEGA® Genesis™, Saturn™ and Dreamcast™. MORE INFO | FACEBOOK EVENT WAITING — SOLO EXHIBITION BY EISHI TAKAOKA MAY 25 – JUNE 12, 2013 OPENING RECEPTION: SATURDAY, MAY 25, 6:30-10PM We’re not changing a thing. “Although the sculptures of Eishi Takaoka all portray the same serene expression, their outwardly calm façade belies a world of bottled-up emotions. With nowhere to go, these intense feelings manifest themselves in outlandish formations that sprout out of the top of each figure’s head. The uniquely sculpted heads of Takaoka are rooted in a personal fantasy world that is fueled by the emotional ups and downs of daily life in lower-middle class Japan. He instills his frustration with life in Kagoshima and feelings of isolation into each of the pieces, which are comprised of carved wood painted with raw mineral pigments placed atop empty glass medicine bottles.” Takaoka’s pieces have been seen in group shows including the Giant Robot Biennale I and III, and on the cover of novelist Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore. For this exhibition, Takaoka will create new sculptures at Giant Robot 2 in Los Angeles. He is currently attending school in his hometown of Kagoshima, Japan and will not be in Los Angeles for the opening. MORE INFO | FACEBOOK EVENT AREAWARE MICRO CUBEBOT Wooden Cubebots! From a cube to a bot. KOZYNDAN A VISIT BY THE VISIONARIES TO VICTORIA PRINT Close-up view of the larger panoramic print. SOUTHER SALAZAR WE DON’T KNOW WHERE THIS RIVER GOES POSTCARD Let your loved ones know they are special with this new postcard by Souther Salazar. SOUTHER SALAZAR INTO A WORLD THAT NOBODY KNOWS TOTE BAG Cute new tote from artist Souther Salazar.   LOS ANGELES ASIAN PACIFIC FILM FESTIVAL MAY 2 – MAY 12, 2013 Visual Communications (VC), the nation’s premier Asian Pacific American media arts center, presents the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival (LAAPFF) on May 2- 12, 2013 at the Director’s Guild of America (DGA), CGV Cinemas located in Koreatown, the Tateuchi Democracy Forum at NCPD in Little Tokyo, and the historic Art Theatre of Long Beach.

REVIEWS: THE SOUND OF CRICKETS AT NIGHT AT LAAPFF, THE THREE O’CLOCK, KING TUFF, JT HABERSAAT & THE ALTERCATION PUNK COMEDY TOUR By MARTIN WONG Another year, another Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. >> GR2: STRANGE SYMBIOSIS RECEPTION AND REVIEW – PHOTOS I & II By GIANT ROBOT NEWS Strange Symbiosis exhibition featured J*Ryu’s first exhibition as an LA resident. His work is entirely sculpted, ushering in a new look and thought process of his own career. >> REVIEWS: THE ROLLING STONES AT STAPLES/THE LOS ANGELES ASIAN PACIFIC FILM FESTIVAL AT THE DGA By MARTIN WONG Still can’t believe my friend Cate invited me to watch The Rolling Stones kick off their current tour at Staples Center last Friday. Still can’t believe how great they are live. >> Q&A WITH AUTHOR MATTHEW SALESSES By ED LIN I’m Not Saying, I’m Just Saying is a new novel in flash fiction by Matthew Salesses. […] Salesses is a husband and a father. His writing has been published widely. Recently, he took the time to share some thoughts about I’m Not Saying, I’m Just Saying with GR. >> 2015 Sawtelle Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90025 2062 Sawtelle Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90025