These Guns Don't Quit

Where I Am

elijah — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 18:14:10 +0000

lowshoulders.wordpress.com

Making a film, no time to keep up with the personal brand-building.

Ephemera

elijah — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 23:19:23 +0000

A Piece of Ephemera

According to the OED, it is anything that “In more extended application: that is in existence, power, favour, popularity, etc. for a short time only; short-lived; transitory.”

Usually refers to transitory printed matter.

Wikipedia has a very strange 55-item list of categories of ephemera that includes, among others:

most wanted Iraqi trading cards
beverage coasters
student newspapers
Hall passes
airsickness bags
visiting cards
pictures of famous rabbis (“Gedolim pictures”)
easter postcards
2005 Upper Deck trading card products
2008 Upper Deck trading card products
2009 Upper Deck trading card products
(but not 2006, 2007, or any other year of Upper Deck trading card product
Not Ephemera

Vision – Sex and Violence

elijah — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 22:23:47 +0000

When I was 12, I saw the movie Kids for the first time. It was one of the most important early film-watching experiences in my life – that was a movie that evoked a strong initial emotional response, but has also stuck with me in a deep way, so different from other movies I was into when I was 12 (read: Mallrats, Dazed and Confused, Robin Hood Men in Tights).

Why was it so huge? First of all, it was a movie about kids – really, 12- and 13-year olds – who acted like kids. They were stupid fucking kids doing stupid things like drinking and having sex too soon and purposefully trying to get in trouble. It was real. In fact, it was too real – it was incredibly disturbing. It was violent and erotic (this is the second point) in ways that a no one expects from a film, and it ended up with an NC-17 rating. And at age 12, of course this was part of the appeal – I was seeing a film that even high school kids – high school kids! – couldn’t see without an adult. I watched it with some friends while at a sleep over party at one of our friend’s houses – you know, the one friend you had who had older brothers and whose parents let him get away with almost everything.

The third point was that this was a moral story, a philosophical inquiry into human action, and a real exploration of what it means to live in a highly violent, highly sexualized context – and I don’t think people got that originally. They were so wrapped up in the surface elements of the sex and violence that they didn’t get the deeply disturbing questions the film asked – why are we attracted to sex and violence? why do people hurt strangers? more importantly, why do people knowingly destroy themselves and their loved ones? These are the questions that embedded themselves in my consciousness when I was 12 (of course I didn’t get it then) and rose up later in life. A retrospective introspection.

The Making of a No-Budget, Independent Film: Low Shoulders

elijah — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 23:54:53 +0000

I am in the midst of the pre-production process of a film project I am really excited about. It’s called Low Shoulders. For the next few months, find me here, where I’ll be writing about the process of creating a no-budget indy film in the Bay Area.

lowshoulders.wordpress.com

Hi My Name is Elijah, I’m 24, and I Just Learned How to Ride a Bike

elijah — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 23:35:02 +0000

My First Bike

This is the DMV parking lot where I learned how to ride it. Yup, just me and my bike. My bike and me. At the DMV.

Regal Degal Gets the Damon Dash/ADIDAS Treatment

elijah — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 04:30:12 +0000

Jigga’s guestin on the next single, woot!

Convert your iPad into a typewriter

elijah — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 22:52:44 +0000

This guy Jake Zylkin designed a way to make typewriters into USB keyboards for computers. For only $300 you can have your personal typewriter converted into one! That’s only like eight times the iPad keyboard dock thing, and um, only a little less practical?

It’s for sale on Etsy.

SF Crime Mapped as Topography, or Cartography of Crime

elijah — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 00:09:58 +0000

In keeping with the map theme…

(thanks Doug McCune)

The big mountain for narcotics is the Tenderloin, and that peak pretty much repeats on all of the maps. Prostitution is a weird one – the biggest peak for prostitution is Shotwell Ave between 17th and 19th. And I guess your car (vehicle) or home (larceny) aren’t safe anywhere in the city.

For a detailed analysis by the creator of this model, click here.

Transit Maps Are the 20th/21st Century Version of Cathedral Art

elijah — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 17:46:33 +0000

Ubiquitous, memorable, a combination of utilitarian and transcendent, challenging but only to the extent that they won’t make you too uncomfortable. I guess the comparison doesn’t go that far, but I have always been somewhat skeptical of the artwork hung in catholic churches and cathedrals across Europe being considered “art” when it was, really, a tool for instruction. Or rather, I think that it is worthwhile considering the artistic merit of other instructive signage.

Which brings me to the new NYC subway map design. The new NYC subway map design!

NYC Subway Map 2010

Replacing an iconic piece of public art & design with, well, pretty much the same thing. It’s easier to read, with smaller text, a wider Manhattan that gives the lines more horizontal breathing room, and softer colors that makes it easier on the eyes. Less squinting in the basement of the Bowery stop, I guess? But it’s really not that interesting, and from a pure design perspective, it’s kind of just bad. It doesn’t hold a candle to the amazingly abstract, schematized, iconic London Underground map. I’ve only been to London once – is the Tube map useful? Confusing? Did you end up somewhere you didn’t mean to go? The NYC map is meant to give you much more info than the Underground or the Paris subway map, for example. But I’ve seen tourists attempt to use the NYC subway map, and they usually quickly move from confusion to exasperation to desperately jumping on the next train that rolls into the station. So is having a street grid and a (sort of) geographically accurate map helpful? Is having the parks and water ways delineated on the map going to help visitors from France or Iowa find Grimaldi’s Pizza? This isn’t necessarily a facetious line of questioning; I’m really not sure.

At the risk of being charged with privileging form over function (which hopefully I’ve hedged against with my brief argument above), I’d like to submit for re-consideration Massimo Vignelli’s super awesome 1972 NYC subway map design:

NYC Subway Map, 1972

Oh man. That thing is gorgeous. It looks like a weird electrical schematic – NYC as a mass of machinery. It was designed in 1972, but looks simultaneously 1920 and 2020 – art deco and outer space. It’s also functional (i think). It’s simple and direct – the lines are clearly differentiated, and your eye easily can find and then travel along them. It may not represent where, geographically, they go, but is that really useful information? Isn’t being able to locate your stop and transfer points the essential ingredient to the map?

NY Times has a tool to compare the details of the 4 NYC subway map designs of the last 40 years or so.

The Meat-Man: Based on a True Story

elijah — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 21:10:46 +0000

Peter Kassel and I wrote and shot (with the help of Samuel Partal) this short film in the (hot) summer of 2006. We shot it on a Canon super 8 camera on B&W super8mm filmstock, mostly in the Rocket Building in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I can’t believe it’s been that long. I plan on re-editing this at some point, but check it out in it’s current (too long) version. Starring Peter Kassel, Elijah Wolfson, and the Meat-Man as himself.