Category Archives: CULTURE

Legends.

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Frank Sinatra.

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Wolverine: Legion of the damned

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Comic book – Wolverine #2
Cover art by Jae Lee

The Story
Imagine everyone Logan has ever killed over the course of his very long life, all confined to one place, all itching to get their shot at revenge. Now witness the devil give them just what they want. It’s Logan versus the legion of the damned, including some very familiar faces. And with Logan’s demonically-possessed body still running amuck on earth, the body count can only grow. Who could possibly stand in his way? Maybe… Mystique???

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Fiakun Podcast 026: Txsk

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Tracklist –

1.Cleov – Crush On You
2.Baby Prince – Nobody featuring Lonely C (Miguel Campbell Club Mix)
3.Miguel Campbell – Not That kina Of Girl
4.Sarp_Yilmaz – My Baby Got to Go (Santos Resiak Remix)
5.Paskal & Urban Absolutes – Pieces (Rockford Inc´s rmx)
6.Tube&Berger – Lovebreak
7.Luca C , Brigante & Solomun – Flash of Light feat Roisin Murphy (Solomun Mix)
8.Aike – You (DJ Aroma Remix)
9.Ost & Kjex – Continental Lover
10. Les Sins – Fetch
11.SBTRKT feat Sampha – Hold On (Burnski Desert Edit)

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Food for thought.

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Conference of Cool.

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Stanley Kubrick and Malcolm McDowell.

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Snap!

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Sport’s 10 Most Notorious Drug Cheats

The high pressure world of professional sport inevitably means two things: 1. Athletes of the current era must continue to become stronger, fitter and faster in competition to surpass what has been recorded before them, and 2. Drug cheats are going to have to figure out better ways of cheating the system when taking performance enhancing substances. In light of current events surrounding one Lance Armstrong, we’ve been considering the choices that certain pros make in order to win at all costs. Lance certainly isn’t the only athlete to be up to his eyeballs in EPO – likeminded dopers have been tearing up the competition and consequently paying the price for decades. Scroll through the gallery above and corresponding list below to acquaint yourself with ten notorious characters who would have gotten away with it, if it weren’t for those meddling authorities.

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10. Floyd Landis
Just another cyclist taking drugs, eh? Winner of the 2006 Tour de France, Floyd Landis was a right boss on the bike. Unfortunately, people started to notice that his testosterone levels were similar to that of a head-on-collision between a male rhinoceros and an entire marine unit. “I didn’t do it!” he proclaimed. “Do what?” everyone answered, with a knowing wink. Landis was stripped of his title and banned from the sport for three years.

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09. Andre Agassi
When Andre Agassi first tested positive for methamphetamine in ’97, he claimed it was accidental (“Someone spiked my soda again, awww maaaan”). This exclamation of innocence actually worked as he somehow avoided sanctioning by the ATP. Around the time, the former World No. 1 had dropped to a lowly No. 141 in world rankings although the following year he rose into the Top 10 – making the biggest one-year jump in ATP ranking history. Could it be that he was all fired up on the glass barbecue?? He has admitted all of this, by the way.

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08. Alberto Contador
One of only five riders in history to win all three “Grand Tours” of road cycling, the Spanish Contador won the 2007 Tour de France, 2008’s Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a Espana and the 2009 Tour de France. He was basically a badass in lycra until he was stripped of his 2010 Tour de France and 2011 Giro d’Italia titles when he tested positive of the drug clenbuterol in 2010. Are we starting to see a pattern emerge in cycling?

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07. East Germany in the 1970s – ’80s.
Very few East German athletes ever failed an official drugs test, which I say is very nearly enough to convict them all. Basically, after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, a whole galaxy of uppers, downers and East Germans came forward to reveal that they’d been fed doses of pills and syringes of unknown substances for years (by their own government, no less) and given the very stern word that it would be in their own best interests to use them. It is estimated up to 9,000 East German athletes were doped under a program that ran from 1972 to 1989. They should have known that in the Cold War on Drugs, there are very few winners.

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06. Kostas Kenteris and Ekaterini Thanou
Something smelt slightly fishy when Ekaterini and her training partner Kostas K started smashing the competition like never before in the lead up to the 2004 Athens Olympics. Sure, Ekaterini took out gold at the Sydney Olympics four years earlier and was pegged as a great hope for the nation, but not since the days of their ancient countrymen had Greeks been known for running like this. With one day to go before the opening ceremony the pair failed to turn up to a doping test and the stank reached sardine-like levels. To cut a long and tall story short, Kostas and Ekaterini faked a motorcycle accident to get out of testing. Ouch. Props to them both for pulling out of the event “in the interest of the country” though.

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05. The Chinese Swim team
Someone needs to have a long hard chat with the Chinese swim team. These slippery dope merchants have been cheating the field for the past 15 years or so, accused and found guilty of using a plethora of performance enhancing substances. They started it off back in ’94 when eleven swimmers tested positive for dihydrotestosterone at the Asian Games. Fast forward four years to the ’98 world champs and you can add four more positive tests to their tally, not to mention bothersome breaststroker Yuan Yuan busted with vials of human growth hormone in her luggage. Since 1990, more than 40 Chinese swimmers have failed drug tests, while four swimmers were also removed from the team after “suspicious” test results were collected. I’ll refrain from making a joke about the Year of the Snake.

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04. Nadzeya Ostapchuck
Big Belarusian shotputter Nadzeya Ostapchuck was busy basking in London Olympic glory before someone noticed that she had tested positive for drugs not once, but twice – before and after – her 21-metre throw. As she should have expected, Nadzeya was stripped of her medal (subsequently awarded to New Zealand’s Valerie Adams) and banned from competition for a year – a lenient penalty, as Nadzeya maintains she was unaware that her coach, Alexander Yefimov, was pouring spoonfuls of metenolone into her food.

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03. Marion Jones
US sprinter Marion Jones was fast. Too damn fast. Winning five Olympic medals in Sydney had suspicious naysayers all suspicious of her speed, which amounted to nothing until she finally admitted to being a cheat seven years later. Stripped of all 5 medals, Jones was also sent to the pen for lying to federal agents about her drug-use. She’s since set up a charity that aims to encourage young people to think twice before making difficult decisions.

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02. Ben Johnson
Jamaica-born Canadian Ben Johnson had the world singing his praises as one of the greats of the sprinting world for most of his career during the ’80s. He won two Olympic bronze medals in LA and set consecutive world records at the 1987 world champs in athletics and 1988 Olympics where he won gold. What a guy. Too bad his urine samples were found to contain stanozolol in 1988. He was consequently stripped of both world records and his Olympic title.

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01. Lance Armstrong.
Seven consecutive Tour de France titles, millions upon millions of dollars acquired, massive sponsorship deals, books proclaiming his strength and innocence… Lance Armstrong was riding a high like no other for years. But that high like no other turned out to be rather similar to those felt by many of today’s top drug cheats; a combination of erythropoietin, human growth hormone and blood doping. Armstrong had the world not only fooled but wrapped around his muscular finger when he came back from cancer to win cycling’s greatest race seven times in a row. In a sport riddled with cheats, Lance argued (to himself) that he was merely trying to compete on a level playing field, but despite his self-justification he may still go down as the sporting world’s most dastardly doped figure ever. Years of not only denial, but incredibly, suing his naysayers for huge amounts of money, may have had such an effect on Lance that he honestly believed he was right all along. His ‘confession’ on Oprah last week confirmed what the public are starting to come to terms with; Lance has conducted his affairs as a liar, bully and cheat for the better part of a decade. He’s the definition of a fallen hero, which is sad, although at least he has begun his road to redemption by finally coming clean. For us though, at least on this list, he’s still number one.

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Storm Trooper

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Google spends $1 billion for new central London HQ

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Google is building its new UK headquarters in central London. The search engine giant just purchased a 2.4-acre plot in the King’s Cross Central development in London, where the company plans to builda new, 1 million square foot office, said to range in height from 7 to 11 stories. Google did not disclose an official price for the land, but one source with knowledge of the deal told Reutersthat the company is investing £650 million ($1.04 billion) in the project. By the time construction is completed in 2016, the building is expected to be valued at more than £1 billion ($1.6 billion).
“This is a big investment by Google,” Matt Britin, Google’s VP for Northern and Central Europe, said in a statement. “We’re committing further to the UK, where computing and the Web were invented. It’s good news for Google, for London and for the UK.”

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The dark side of comics

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The Amazing Spider-Man Vol.1 688

I love this cover art by the artist Giuseppe Camuncoli. Comics are always associated with kids and harmless cartoons. But this is a great example of the dark, graphic side of comic book culture. I would love this as a print on my wall.

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Berlin Fashion Week Fall/Winter 2013 Street Style

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Berlin Fashion Week started last week and as with every year. One of the main attractions is the massive Bread & Butter tradeshow at Berlin Tempelhof Airport. Here’s a snippet of some of the current and coming styles getting around.

Photography: Robert Wunsch, Laura Palm & Marco Schöler

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Delicious Kicks: Miscellaneous Sneaker Cakes

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As if a fresh pair of kicks isn’t mouthwatering enough. The true sneaker heads celebrate their birthday’s with SNEAKER CAKES. These are impressive.

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Snap!

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R’HA Short Film by Kaleb Lechowski

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Every once in a while a wunderkind director comes along who, with heaps of talent and bootstrapping, creates something with visual effects that seem to be straight out of Hollywood. The Purchase Brothers did it when they created their alien invasion short Half-Life: Escape from City 17 on a measly $500. Then came Fede Alvarez’s Panic Attack, a similarly destructive (and low budget) short in which giant robots eviscerate Montevideo. Now, 22-year-old German film student Kaleb Lechowski has attracted big-league attention with his riveting short R’ha.

The story of an alien race betrayed by its machine army in search of independence, R’ha centers on a single interrogation scene between an uprising computer and its sentient captive. Looking to break free of the limitations of their design–and carry out total elimination of their creators–the machines use some particularly nasty “motivation protocol” to extract key information from their prisoner.

As with many short films, R’ha feels like a snippet of a much larger story. Yet the details of the scene captivate us in their own right, thanks in large part to Lechwoski’s animation. The skin luminosity, musculature, and expressive twitches of the human-snakelike character are exceptional, particularly considering this is a no-budget student film created in seven months. And the film’s intriguing backstory and ambiguous ending beg for future installments.

Given the attention Lechowski attracted even before the film was released (he gained representation from Scott Glassgold and Raymond Brothers at IAM Entertainment based solely on the pre-release trailer) more from theR’ha world seems likely. Lechwoski is currently fleshing out a feature-length story to pitch to studios as a feature. As Glassgold says, “the plan is to use Kaleb’s model of low-cost (or in the case of the short, no-cost) special effects to create a sweeping low-budget science fiction universe.” It’s a plan that seems plausible given that Lechowski’s story world places animated creatures in the “good guy” role conventionally inhabited by costly human actors.

As Lechowski prepares to head to L.A. from Berlin, where he studied Digital Film Design at Mediadesign Hochschule, Co.Create asked him a few questions about the making of R’ha.

Co.Create: Tell us how this project started. What was the inspiration for the film?
Lechowski: We‘ve all seen movies showing highly intelligent aliens but often they are not well prepared for their wars against humanity. Or they seem as if they have not much control over their body with inaccurate movements. They are sticky and wet and naked. I wanted to create an alien race that’s really intelligent. They have a lot of machinery to keep casualties at a minimum. This concept about an alien race is something I have been considering/designing for a while now, and the interrogation sequence seemed like a good entry point for a short film.

The narrative seems like a glimpse of a larger story… did you flesh out more of the backstory in order to create this short film? And why are those computers so damn angry!?
Machines have a much higher contrast than organic beings. They can tolerate very low and very high temperatures. They can always be extended and more power can be added. They are capable of almost anything. Their only limit is their design, how they are created. They feel the aliens are limiting them by design, so they decide to eliminate them. This is their goal. And as machines they don’t need another goal for now, so they hunt them down.

When it comes to creature development, was there any inspiration for your main character? 
It was meant to look somewhat beautiful or elegant. He has bright skin, an almost decorated neck that’s shaped like a pharaoh or a king cobra. Yet he is strong. I loved the way Caesar from Rise of the Planet of the Apesexpressed his emotion, so it inspired me a lot, as well.

What animation software did you use to create it?
Most things were done in Maya, like animation, rigging, shading, and rendering (Mental Ray). But I modeled almost everything in Blender because it is a lot faster for me, and I used zBrush to sculpt the alien and paint a lot of objects. Post-production was done in Nuke and After Effects.

Were there any parts of the animation that posed particular challenges?
It was quite an effort to make him receive electric shocks. I recorded myself cramping and tried to animate it that way. I ended up setting keyframes almost every two frames. Another big thing was the slow-motion jump. I recorded myself again to see the timing and, most important, the movement.

What does R’ha mean?
I really like the sound of Ra as an Egyptian god. It’s simple but sounds mighty.

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Carhartt WIP Taipei Opening

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Carhartt WIP continues with another retail opening, this time in Taipei.

Carhartt WIP Taipei
1F., No.4, Aly. 35, Ln. 181, Sec. 4, Zhongxiao E. Rd., Da’an Dist.,
Taipei City 106,
Taiwan

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Style Kat.

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Android Homme 2013 Mixtape w/ DJ Orator

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ANDROID HOMME 2013 VOL. 1
MIXED BY DJ ORATOR

Tracklist:

1) Big Boi Ft. UGK & Big K.R.I.T. [Gossip]
2) Kid Ink [Loaded]
3) Fabolous [For The Love]
4) Big Boi Ft. A$AP Rocky & Phantogram [Lines]
5) T.i. Feat Meek Mill [G Season]
6) Raekwon, Pusha T & Common [The Morning]
7) N.E.R.D. [Am I High]
8) Jay Z [Where I’m From]
9) Cam’ron [I Really Mean It]
10) Cam’ron [Dipset Anthem]
11) Cam’ron, Jimmy Jones, Juelz Santana [Come Home With Me]
12) Nas [N.Y State Of Mind]
13) Hit Boy ft. Stacy Barthe [Running In Place]
14) T.I. Ft. CeeLo Green [Hello]
15) Lupe Fiasco [Bitch Bad]
16) Common ft. Kanye West [Punch Drunk Love]
17) Dynasty [Adventures In The Land]
18) Camp Lo [Luchini aka This Is It]

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The Butcher’s Block EP. 11 | Mega of Black Scale (Season 2 Premier)

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The Butcher’s Block hits Los Angeles for it’s season 2 premier

Frank The Butcher meets up with Mega, owner of popular street wear brand Black Scale, to discuss the brand’s milestone 5 year anniversary, being influenced by high end fashion and the Black Scale’s respect and relationship with A$AP Rocky.

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KRINK x Coach 2013 Spring/Summer Collection

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Coach presents its collaborative Spring/Summer collection with Brooklyn-based KRINK. Craig Costello, known popularly as KR and the mastermind behind KRINK, draws from his graffiti, skater and punk influences growing up in 1980s Queens to help produce a series of coated canvas totes and accessories. As another New York-born brand, Coach worked hard with Costello to do its home turf justice, reproducing the controlled chaos of paint drips, splashes and spatters using a 30, count ‘em 30-step silk screening process.

Those hoping to catch some of the limited edition KRINK Collection, which also includes an iPad case, luggage tags, a billfold, an accordion zip wallet, and portfolio, can do so at select Coach outlets worldwide and online beginning late February and until the end of June.

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Food for thought.

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