Fish and Chips + Sawtelle times.

Fried and fried. Fish and Chips gr/eats. Beer battered cod, so it's actually light and crisp. The malt vinegar is a nice touch, and I ate this entirely with my hands. We've been running this special lately and it's been quite fun to have. I can't eat this one too often, but it's good and filling.

Anne Matsushima and Alex Chiu doing the gr/eats. They do a bunch of indie projects, zines, art, and are making a collective of artist on the westside of LA. Motivated! They also dig doughnuts.

It's that season. Cherry Blossoms on Sawtelle. It's awesome how pink they are. I'd get out to the street this weekend to check on them.

A ton of images of Patchwork show at gr2. Tons of great art by great folks.

The Hundreds

When times are tough, it's great when a package of love shows up. Bobby Hundreds asked me for my sizes, and just a week later comes a box of goodies. First an apology. These are the worst shots possible. I didn't do it on purpose, but my camera battery was dying and I rushed through it. Three shots and it died. The Michael Lau figure above is awesome. I never thought I'd get one of these. I thought they were gone by now! The plastic on the hands are still on there. I guess you can call it Chinese Opera version.

I got three T shirts. I'm trippin on the middle one. The detail of their spoofs are insane. What fun it would be to design that shirt. I'll wear that one. The logo one is a no brainer. I think I have 3 or 4 of these now.

To sort of quote a song by the Untouchables. I Spy for the FBI.

one for when you go out, and another for everywhere you go.

Again apologies for the bad photo. These shoes are a lot nicer than these shots. I need some new shoes for when my Vans keel over. These are perfect.

Game Over! SF.

The Game Over 3 show features some great art. Check out this Team Macho cartridge! It's carved from wood, and painted in the coolest way. There's three versions and if you're a true game fan or game executive, this is a must have. There's plenty of great art on the wall at GRSF and the fans and friends from GDC were there in force.

I dig the pencil sketch mature Mario by the guy pictured: Jake Gillespie!

Ferris Plock and Kelly Tunstall

Petri, a game maker from Europe!

LA in the house. Souris Hustler of Culture, Lulu, and Silvio Porretta, game maker and artist, and their friend Wayne.

Aww blurrrr. Can't recognize them? Han Wang, Melissa Hung, and Vincent Pham.

filmmakers Jessica Sanders and Suzi Yoonessi

Goh Nakamura and Joe To

More game art

More Team Macho art!

Yoshitomo Nara videos - Too Cute! Princeton

Here's some video I shot at the event. Nara's talk was fun and inspiring. I enjoyed how he intro'd himself by telling the tale of his youth. From being a latch key kid and having no neighbors and enjoying the company of animals, to then growing a bit older, getting a bike, and having friends. It's a fun talk, and his work is always cool to see. The talk went well over an hour, and this is just some excerpts I took in with Flipcam. Luckily the translator enunciates well. My talk will eventually show on Princeton TV... I was told. Hope someone points that out to me when it's up. This talk wasn't streamed and I'm not sure if it's going online at all.

Travelin' With Yoshitomo Nara

I was trying to help Yoshitomo Nara set up his computer with the system in the lecture room, McCormick 101. I had spoken the evening before without a hitch, and the system and his computer weren't talking to each other the next day. It took a while, but we got it going. I was hoping Nara would do the presentation in English, but he opted to go with a highly over qualified translator - the Head Chair of East Asian Studies. David Howell.

His katsu sweatshirt was too cool. Yabaton. They make their katsu with a miso sauce. It's in Nagoya.

This is more adjusting of the projection. I like how the light hits his face from the projection screen along with one of his paintings. It's a cool shot.

Nara points to the sleeping Tomio Koyama. After getting so excited by the Norman Rockwell painting in the Nassau Inn bar, he crashed out.

Which one did Nara draw?

The snow slowly melted away, and it actually wasn't that cold out.

This is dinner at a campus related place. Good food actually. The Too Cute! conference was coming to a close. The woman, Anne, who did a lot of the work to get the conference going is slightly pictured. I regretably didn't get a photo of myself with her. She's cool.

The group of photos is done until there's a food image. It was quite good.

I'm speaking at Too Cute!

I'm speaking at a conference called Too Cute! at Princeton University. It's going to explore Asian popular culture and more. I speak on Wednesday at 4:30pm and Yoshitomo Nara speaks on Thursday at 4:30pm. It's supposedly all free and quite an honor. I've spoken so far at Harvard and Brown, so this will be Ivy school #3. This topic seems to come up annually in some form, and here it is for this year, but in a more academic setting. I hope I don't disappoint, especially since myself and probably Yoshitomo Nara will be the lowest SAT scorers in the house. I'll be working on my presentation over and over to get it decent. I've heard I get to do a Q and A as well, which is always fun.

Here's the schedule pdf link and here's a link to a news release.



Here's a link to a previous blog post about a Nara art opening.

I wish I had a larger flyer to show you, but this is all I got.

Additional for you Maywa Denki fans.

Exhibition "Gadget OK! Artworks and Gadgets from Japan" includes the whole series of gadgets by Maywa Denki, including YUREX that visitors can try. A wide variety of latest Japanese gadgets are also shown.

The exhibition is until Feb. 24 on the ground floor of Broad Art Center, UCLA.

This link has plenty of other photos of near objects. But get there, it's ending soon!

Exhibition "D|MA2 – Device | Machine Arts X Design | Media Arts" features works by young UCLA artists in "Device Art" style. The exhibition is a part of Gadget OK! and is open until March 4, at CNSI (California Nano Science Institute), UCLA.

The Car - Watch for it Soon

It's a small secret that I'm working on a secret project. It's a car! A few months ago, I was asked to design a car for Toyota Scion. I'm glad to do this project amidst the bad news of the venerable car company major recall which is throwing the car world into a whirlpool. That's a seat design pictured above. I won't tell you much about the car just yet, but the design is coming around. That's Len, a dude who can pimp your ride.

There's a view of the shop. I visited them on Friday in Orange County. The car is still two months off, and not anywhere near what it'll end up looking like just yet. It's neat that an idea from a napkin can actually turn into a serious automobile.

That's Len near his tool area and explaining something with his hands.

That's a 1961 Honda. It's not stock at all. See the gas tank and the seat? It's all custom by Len. He can do cycles too. I don't ride, but if I did, I'd want one of these.

Biennale Take Down -Souther Salazar and Albert Reyes

That's Souther sitting in the cubby hole next to his pieces. While it's slightly sad that the show is over, and it's on to the next, it's also great to see people stop in to take down their work, or in Souther's situation, to photograph it all. It's sort of like the party that wanted to keep on going. We need to figure out how to get that done for next time.

It's amazing what you can do with scraps of wood, Sculpey, and nails.

Souther Salazar Interview

Perhaps the most gracious person in the show was Albert Reyes. He took down his work in a matter of minutes and off he went into the smog. He's holding up Winona Rider. She's quite great in my opinion. But what is the Matt Furie text in the background mean?

Rafu Shimpo Newspaper

JANM Biennale - Closed! But the last hurrah happened this weekend. This Rafu Shimpo clip may have helped some too. It was quite an honor.