Good Good, Good Bad, Bad Bad: Buffy
Good good, Good bad, Bad bad: Buffy
I watched the 1992 Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie last night, and while I remembered it being good, I had not remembered how good. This is a fantastically funny, stylish vamp/90s high movie. Self-aware camp and super likeable vampire make-up makes this Good good. One of the finest scenes involves Paul Reubens getting stabbed with a ruler.
More Posts from Austineustice and Others
New art for a new mix, filled with 70s and 80s pop from The Other Side. Many of these artists have become fast favorites of mine (especially Akiko Yano, Miharu Koshi and Dip in the Pool). No 80s Japanese pop mix would be complete without YMO, as described in the album art. Anyway, enjoy! Visit my site! Visit my new, pretty blog!
The Other Side - Side A by Austineustice on Mixcloud
The Other Side - Side B by Austineustice on Mixcloud
X-Villainy
I've undertaken a project to catalogue all the bad guys in each X Files episode. I've started on season 3 since that's where I was when getting the idea. I've about 200 or so left to do... Poster series to come. You can check out detailed info for each here.
My Year In Bicycles
I’d say my cycling enthusiasm level is now “avid.” It’s been about a year of serious riding for me (or since I was convinced to take my roommate’s 80s Schwinn road bike after he left for another coast of America). The bike was impossibly small for me and he’d kept anything related to comfort free of what he called the bi-cycle (top right). I believe the frame was 51cm, with a plastic seat (I have to call them saddles now that I’m avid), and awful, bare drop handlebars. These words may mean little to you - simply put, the bike was a pain in the ass. And hands. And back. But, I speak of the bike in an ungrateful tone, which is completely the opposite tone I’d like to be speaking of it in. The bicycle was my entry into the mania that now permeates my everyday life. I returned the borrowed mountain bike (top left) I’d had for several years (having ridden it a handful of times [which was also far too small for me]) and set out every late-spring day on that little red beast to try to get my confidence up riding in the city. I’m getting ahead of myself however, I had to ride every day just to learn how to deal with something so foreign. The first time on a road bike is extremely unnerving and seems wrong - the way a lot of things you’ve never done and go against your basic human understanding of ‘how the world should work’ feel wrong. Two skinny inline wheels should not stay upright, especially when adding a skittery, lanky 140 pounder on top. Once you’ve given into the magical psuedo-science keeping a paper thin bike upright, you have to deal next with the posture a classic road bike thrusts you into. Riding on the top of drop bars is not comfortable, especially for a person with wide shoulders and lanky arms (me, I’ve already mentioned my lank) - but what’s worse is the leap of faith you must take to enter the lower part of the curved drop handlebar. If flashes of your face grating against the sidewalk don’t instantly pop into your mind, you’re a brave person with a brain problem.
Suffice it to say, I learned to ride the bicycle without too many issues - and through daily riding and an ever increasing interest in how the parts worked, I was well on the way to my present compulsion, need, and desire for all things bi-cycle. After taking the Schwinn to a bike shop and complaining of outrageous back pain, I was told the bicycle was about 4 sizes too small for me. They set me up on a monstrously large bike and it fit and was a revelation to my atrophying back. So I got a new bike (not pictured) and donated the Schwinn to a friend who still rides it lovingly to this day. My new bike was a low-end fixed gear that was promptly stolen after 3 months of use outside a bagel shop. I hope someone is enjoying it (or its various stripped-off parts) - I did, for the short time I rode it as it gave me a brief but thorough look into the world of fixies - a dangerously associative world I may not have escaped if my ride hadn’t gotten jacked. Despite thinking not all that highly of the New York fixed-gear order, I got another fixed-gear bicycle (bottom left) - but a nice, proper one. It was not long before I threw a freewheel on there though, and indulged myself a little coasting. The rest of My Year In Bicycles involves a lot of conversing with my old roommate who bequeathed the Schwinn to me about bicycle parts, trips we’ll take, and bicycles we need to buy. We’ve both begun a small collection at 2 a piece with a 5 bike plan in the works. My latest acquisition is an old French road bike (bottom right) from the mid 70s that I rescued from a Salvation Army and cleaned, painted and rebuilt as a fairly faithful restoration. I’ve begun training on this monster for a long trip myself and the Scwhinn’s original master are planning. I will always think very fondly of that little bicycle and the awfully wonderful time I had riding it.
Been reading a bunch of books from the Parker series. They are excellent, no-nonsense crime books about one hard hombre. I had a little difficulty coming up with a design that worked, because he is described in one way, but reads in another. Described in the first book as:
Big and shaggy, with flat square shoulders. His hands, swinging curve-fingered at his sides, looked like they were molded of brown clay by a sculptor who thought big and liked veins. His hair was brown and dry and dead, blowing around his head like a poor toupee about to fly loose. His face was a chipped chunk of concrete, with eyes of flawed onyx. His mouth was a quick stroke, bloodless.
Throughout the books, he seems to get a bit more charming and attractive to women (maybe a bit of the Bond progression, from blank mold to a model man's man). I went with a more grizzled look, huge hands and an overall brutish appearance. Characters often call him the meanest man they've ever met, but he's just brutally principled and a fun character to read because of it.
FEBRUARY - Lord Akira.
Continuing the 2015 calendar I'm making of comic book characters my girlfriend admires. All building designs taken from the insanely talented Katsuhiro Otomo. It was nearly impossible to follow his level of detail and organization of thousands of lines. To counteract the pain I felt rendering those buildings, I went a bit looser on Akira. Tried some screentone, ended up not applying it heavily enough, but was pretty pleased with the final result. You can track the months here.
