Helen's Art and Design Consumption

• Hype Machine -- This has become my absolute favorite website/obsession over the past few years. It is a music blog aggregator. It's been around a couple of years, but it's gotten better and better over time. (8/1/2008)
• Pandora -- This is Pandora the music radio station that plays a mix based on your preferences. I know that I was supposed to fall in love with last.fm, but somehow I really love pandora a lot more. I've been addicted to it for the last few weeks. I'm not sure why. Maybe it is its ridiculously easy flash (yes! flash!) interface. It's not as social I suppose as last.fm, but for me...just give me the music! (4/6/06)
  send pandora info to last.fm" -- the best of both worlds, gotta love software integration (4/11/06)
• Music for Robots -- mp3 blog that I can't get enough of (8/28/05)
• Photomuse -- free online photography database as featured in a NYTimes article (7/20/05)
• The Singapore/Hong Kong Success Stories And Their Implications For Developing Cities -- I just came back from my Taiwan/Hong Kong trip about three weeks ago and my brother has found this great paper on how Singapore and Hong Kong have amazingly effective public transportation systems. This paper really emphasizes a lot of the points that the book, Suburban Nation: The Decline of the American Dream, is trying to make. Americans have such an over-dependence and obsession with their cars. I think that it would be sobering if we realized just how much road maintenance costs taxpayers every year, and how if we were to curb that in up and coming cities that that money could go towards other things like education, since everyone loves to talk about how important children are, and yet knowing so many teachers and their low salaries, I don't see the money going where their mouths are. (3/6/05)
• video on Anu Yadav's "'Capers" as featured in the Washington Post -- one-woman stage reading about a washington DC neighborhood that is being torn down to be recreated as mixed income housing in an attempt to revitalize the area through the Hope VI project. I saw this amazing show at DCAC in Adams Morgan. The performance was riveting, as was the town hall style discussion after the show. There were representatives there from the DC Housing department, other government workers, and residents currently living in 'Capers. (12/22/04)
• daily dose of imagery -- my friend sent me this link of a collection of links of photoblogs and other visual sites (11/27/04)
• Artomatic -- highly disorganized DC art extravaganza held once every few years
• Modern Painters -- glossy magazine from the UK covering contemporary visual arts, architecture, and aesthetics. A little pricy for a magazine, but it is quarterly and worth the cost for the interviews (11/3/04)
• *surface -- another rag I found while I hunted for magazines that caught my eye at Borders, looks like this one focuses on photography, fashion, architecture, and design. it was its tenth anniversary issue. Apparently they have the Avant Guardian Project every year where they showcase new photographers. Too bad the show was only going to NY, Boston, SF, and LA. (11/3/04)
• BOMB -- an art magazine -- I saw this in Normals Books and Records in Baltimore earlier this year and had been searching for it ever since. I remember seeing a great art/architecture/literature magazine and that it was a simple single word title, but beyond that I couldn't seem to find it until I went back to the original place that had it. (9/6/04)
• Dollhouse -- fashion for the young female -- saw some cute knit sweaters at Cloud 9 in Hampden in Baltimore. The website is a little bit lightweight, but I like the music on the site. (9/6/04)
• Urban Haute Couture -- street art from around the world (5/16/04)
• GapMinder -- non profit group that visually presents statistics on global health and income issues using flash software in a pleasing and easy to use way (5/16/04)
• Cartographic/drift -- project that a friend is working on that I participated in. My path/pics are in the lower right corner. (5/16/04)

• American Visionary Art Museum -- folk art museum alongside the Inner Harbor of Baltimore. the Joy America Cafe serves some excellent guacamole that is prepared for you on the spot with a mortar and pestle. The building itself is interesting with its curving staircase and glass and mirror mosaic exterior. Looks like I just caught the end of the current exhibit on aging.
• National Building Museum -- beautiful building with great exhibits on architectural drawings, affordable housing solutions, and B&W photos of ironworkers putting together the Gehry Symphony Hall in L.A.

• buying a chalkboard for my bedroom to put up in the office area of it
• editing and uploading pictures taken in asia in Jan/Feb 2008