Some of you may be deeply familiar with Flight of the Conchords. Perhaps you are a die-hard fan, and watch their show on HBO with religious zeal. Or perhaps you never really liked them, are sick of all the fuss about them, and wish they’d just push off. In either of these cases, you are not my target audience with this post. Sorry! You can’t win ‘em all, I guess?
However, if you have no idea what I’m talking about, or if the phrase “Flight of the Conchords” merely tickles the back of your mind like the delicate shadow of a long-forgotten dream1, then you’re in luck! See, they’re this comedy folk-rock band New Zealand, and their songs are pretty funny. Here’s one of my favorites, entitled “The Humans Are Dead”:
1 Or if you saw a preview for it once on television but didn’t give it much thought.2 2 Jeez, I really need to cool it with all the footnotes in my posts.
Gah! There’s something I’ve been meaning to post about for a while now, but all sorts o’ crazy stuff seems to have conspired to keep me away from my blogging station.1 Well, no longer! I’m finally back in the seat, and ready to—
What I’ve been aching to post about for these past few days is the wonderful line of shirts available at Tokyo Art Beat. These guys are a non-profit organization in Tokyo with the goal of promoting “inter-cultural dialogue around art and design by presenting Tokyo’s events to an audiences in Japan and abroad.” To help fund their group, every year they release a series of five t-shirts with designs donated by international artists. And although the twoprevious years’ series are no longer available, you can still get your mitts on any of the shirts in this years’ collection of limited-edition shirts.
Each shirt has two colorways, one of which is a anaglyph-style scheme (as seen in the composite preview image above), while the other varies from shirt to shirt. For example, you can get Tokyo Wolfing Project in magenta/cyan on white:
Or you can get it in white/silver on navy blue:
Well, I’ve shown you one of the shirts—I’ll let you take a look at theotherfourshirts at your own leisure.
Link: [Tokyo Art Beat]
Expensiveness: ¥3800 (which translates to $32.21)
1 Some of this “stuff” pertains directly to Fantastic Bonanza, and specifically, to a hopefully-upcoming announcment. Stay tuned for more information.
Keeley Carrigan’s kingdom of artistry has marched steadily onward since we last paid a visit. Back at the end of June, King Keeley conscripted two new shirts into his regal ranks, one of which should particularly pique the interest of our cryptozoologist readers:
Nessie at Bloo Empire: $20.00
That is the most damn gleeful Loch Ness Monster I’ve ever seen. It’s unclear whether the cryptid derives its delight from the orgy of happiness that surrounds it or whether unicorns, rainbows, butterflies, and diamonds simply burst forth whenever Nessie’s endorphin levels peak. While I can’t read Japanese*, this East/West juxtaposition prompts me to ask if anyone in Japan has ever produced a Loch Ness kaiju film. Wikipedia says, “Almost.”
Dethbot at Bloo Empire: $20.00
Also new in town is the decidedly more demonic Dethbot**, easily the most macabre item in Mr. Carrigan’s shop of wares. Don’t allow the artificial menace to lower your defenses with its charming ignorance of proper spelling: it would be your final mistake.
By no means should you forget Keeley Carrigan’s older shirt designs, all of which currently sport the fetching sale price of $15.00! Act quickly, as these limted prints inch ever closer towards complete elimination with every purchase! Don’t forget to check out the man’s paintings, either — many painting prices have dropped to follow suit with the tees on the front lines.
Unfortunately, they missed the deadline for the Robot Attack in the future. Nevermind; they made it in, but only barely! So far, the feedback is overwhelmingly positive. It’ll probably end up being pretty expensive, though, because this collaboration of over 20 artists is an 8-color print, including two metallic inks. It’s only $19!
Okay, we already know that Si Scott’s work is beautiful, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that his new t-shirts (both short and long-sleeve) and hoodies at Designgive are just as marvelous as we’ve come to expect.
It’s hard to tell how gorgeously intricate Si Scott’s designs are from pictures online, but I can assure you that they are printed well because I have his Leash Called Love t-shirt from Designgive, and it is fantastic. I’ll have to post an in-hand t-shirt review about that sometime soon.
These two new offerings designed by Si Scott are sure to be conversation starters purely because they’re so enchanting. Be sure to check out his website to see more of his work.
Howdy, all. We’ve recently heard word that the charming chaps at Beautiful Decay have unleashed an onslaught of summer styles upon the unsuspecting populace. That’s right: Beautiful/Decay’s summer lineup has arrived in the nick of time, bringing five new shirts to the electronic doorsteps of t-shirt-dom’s voracious consumers.
B/D Or Die by Sentimental Soy Cheese: $29.95
First on the list is a boisterous offering from the dynamic duo collectively known as Sentimental Soy Cheese. Reportedly inspired by EA’s legendary Skate or Die! — a bodacious game with which I am sadly unfamiliar — this tee handily captures the manic eccentricities of popular design in the late 80s.
Having taken an anthropology class focusing on Antonio Gramsci, who conceptualized culture as a malleable and shifting site of contestation in a war between the hegemony of a dominant class (give him a break, he was a Marxist) and the counterhegemony of a dominated, subaltern class, I was immediately intrigued by this t-shirt, Culture Warrior.
Antonio Gramsci
Interestingly, Progresswear’s tagline is ‘Progressive thought. Well defined, well designed.’ One of the most important aspects of Gramsci’s counterhegemony is the explicit formulation of the conception of the world implicit in the actions of the dominated class. From this perspective, Progresswear could make a claim to be organic intellectuals for the progressive left in the current U.S. (Gramsci’s theories are useful for other groups of people besides ‘classes’, e.g. political parties).
Judging by their t-shirt designs, what they believe in should be pretty familiar, as each point has been argued for (individually) by the left. Unfortunately (for progressives), what is needed are not single issues to rally behind but, as George Lakoff argues in his Moral Politics, a single well-articulated, unifying system under which to rally. If a t-shirt company were able to do that, I’d be mighty impressed. Will Progresswear be that one? We’ll see.
P.S. All of Progresswear’s new designs are on sale for either $16.99 (for men) or $18.99 (for women) through August 15th.
P.P.S. Sorry for being political, I hope you don’t mind terribly.
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