Flash Forward

Warning: if you allow Irina Werning into your home, she might find an extremely embarrassing photo of you at 3, naked in a kiddie pool and convince you to recreate it— at least that is what she has done her many other subjects. In her ongoing photo series, "Back to the Future" Werning finds awesome childhood photos and recreates them almost to a tee, right down to the bad 80's purple tights. Check out the rest of her photos here.

Trend Report: Cut it Out

Street Art Off the Streets

Banksy’s Oscar nominated street art documentary, Exit Through the Gift Shop is not really about Banksy at all. As a longtime fan of his clever and socially relevant “graffiti” I was expecting to get an inside look into the invisible genius’ mind. Instead, I got a few interviews with him in a hooded jacket; hiding his face with his voice lowered one to many octaves to be understandable.
The film opens with an interview with Banksy where he explains “the film is the story of what happened when this guy tried to make a documentary about me but he was actually a lot more interesting, so now the film is kind of about him. I mean it’s not Gone With the Wind but there’s probably a moral in there somewhere.”
The “guy” Banksy is referring to Frenchmen, Thierry Guetta, who has been living in Los Angeles since the early 1980’s. Guetta is described as a family man, who owns a vintage shop and spends most of his time obsessively videotaping his surroundings.
Guetta’s cousin is Parisian street artist “Space Invader”. Thierry ends up following Space Invader on his illegal adventures around the Paris, videotaping everything. Suddenly, he had found his focus. Guetta would follow: Space Invader, L.A based artist, Shepard Fairy and later even Banksy on their late night escapades, always serving as a lookout and a documenter.
Eventually after Guetta realized he had thousands of tapes and no real purpose for them he decided to make a documentary about street art. The result was spastic, confusing and an obviously amateur attempt at filmmaking. After Banksy watched Guetta’s film, which was titled, “Life Remote Control” he says, “it was at that point I realized maybe Thierry wasn’t a filmmaker and he was just some guy with mental problems who happened to have a camera.”

Banksy then decided to take over. While Banksy worked with Thierry’s never-ending collection of tapes, he encouraged Thierry to go back to L.A and create some artwork of his own.
Long story short, Guetta heads back to L.A, spends all his money on a studio, printing equipment and a team of young artists and busts out some politically outspoken, brightly colored pieces and names himself “Brainwash”. After a few months he decides to organize an exhibition and promotes the hell out of it. His efforts were not in vain as 4,000 people showed up to the show and praised him for his interesting work. However it is made increasingly obvious that Guetta’s staff may have had more to do with the show’s success than Guetta himself.
As the movie concludes I am left wondering, what was the point of this? Was it to tell the story of a man who made a rebellious art movement sellable? To show that you don’t need to be original to be successful? And most importantly, is Guetta a genius or and idiot? I was able to find a hint of clarification as Banksy’s dark silhouette returns to close the film by stating “I used to encourage everyone I met to make art… I don’t do that so much anymore.”

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In Retrospect: 1965

Introducing... a new segment which I have cleverly titled, "In Retrospect", where I pick a year and tell you all the awesome and not so awesome things that happened. Go ahead and drop your history class. This is really all the information you will ever need. Well probably....

In 1965:
The Sound of Music wins an Oscar for 'Best Picture'.

My Fair Lady and Juliet of the Spirits were also released.


Mary Quant gave birth to the mini skirt.

Malcolm X was assassinated.

Folk-rock is ushered in by The Byrds doing a cover of "Mr. Tambourine Man" which helped introduce its author Bob Dylan to a wider audience.

Hurricane Betsy caused about $9.9 billion dollars in damage.

Andy Warhol met Edie Sedgwick.

Commercial Craze

I'm starting to think ad agencies are just bored and enjoy messing with everyone.


This was a surprising change from the commercials they usually show during Blue Clues.


Now you don't have to bend over to wash you feet. I bet these are very popular in prison.


Please no. These can never be okay.

Flexible Love

Flexible Love's convertible furniture make Murphy beds look like child's play. Serving as an example of innovation at its finest, the company uses an ‘accordion-like, honeycomb’ structure to create durable furniture pieces produced from recycled materials such as paper and wood waste. Basically, this sofa/love seat/chair is a life size slinky for your house. Yes please.