Author: Patrick

  • Art Space Tokyo, a Kickstarter postmortem

    After a project, it’s a good thing to capture your thoughts on how you did.  This includes everything from the initial idea, the the steps you took to get everything together and complete it, for better or worse.  Craig Mod did a writeup about the whole process of creating Art Space Tokyo using Kickstarter as a means to raise funds for his project.

    Kickstarter.com is a fund raising website. You create an account, describe your project and set a money goal to be obtained within a specific time period. Anyone in the world with an Amazon account can pledge money to help fund your project. Pledges are tiered, with each tier offering different incentives. If your project doesn’t reach your pre-set (unchangeable) monetary goal in the (unchangeable) time limit, nobody pays. If you reach your goal before the time limit, you continue to raise money until the time limit is up. This system has several interesting implications.

    Backers simply can’t lose — if you can’t complete the project, they don’t pay. And if you can, they get both their tier award and the satisfaction of knowing they were instrumental in seeing your project through to completion.

    I really wish I had heard about this as money was being raised. The book looks amazing.

  • Inception deconstructed

    The Awl deconstructs Inception as a movie about making movies, or the act of creation.

    Like 8½, Inception is a movie about making movies; it’s not that the whole movie “is a dream,” though, but rather that the whole movie is an allegory of creation.

    Upon second viewing, the metaphor for creation makes sense across the entire 2.5 hours–seeking a muse, finding inspiration beyond that muse and persevering to bring your vision to reality.

  • Sleigh Bells – Treats

    Sleigh Bells, creators of my summer album pick, consists of rip roaring guitars and bass heavy beats intertwined with cooing vocals. Treats spans for a few minutes over a half hour, and on first listen, can be overwhelming. It’s loud. Bone rattling loud. Indie kids in their Prius can go head to head with the dude blasting Eminem in their Impala. After the third listen, you can begin to tell the songs about and discover that they’re catchy. I suppose they could be best described as indie-electronic-noise-pop.

    Tell ‘Em sets the tone for what to expect, and Rachel, Rill Rill and Crown on the Ground provide the most accessible and pleasing stretch to play for your friends.