Matthew Bower

The 12 Most Unnecessary Pumpkin-Flavored Products

By Matthew Bower on Oct 24, 2012 12:30pm

Fall is in the air, and that means, once again, it’s that time of year when nothing’s safe from being pumpkinized. This year, the endless flurry of pumpkin- and pumpkin-spice-flavored goods and services seems to have gotten a bit out of hand. The popularity of Starbucks’ autumnally emblematic Pumpkin Spice Latte has ushered in an anything-goes mentality among marketing strategists, leading some to compare the newfound ubiquity of pumpkin to bacon, others to remind us of the oft-forgotten history of the pumpkin-spice trade, and yet other rabid partisans to come to its defense.

But whether we actually like pumpkin or we’re simply addicted to corn syrup and pumpkin pie spice seems beside the point; there are certain things that are just better off free from pumpkin tyranny. We’ve put together a list of some of the stranger manifestations of the pumpkin craze we’ve seen this season. Stock up while these last, because it’s only a matter of time before all the candy canes and “holiday spice” products take over. … Read More

Music

10 Rock Albums That Were Impossible to Follow Up

By Matthew Bower on Oct 18, 2012 2:30pm

It’s a familiar experience. There’s that one mind-blowingly great album you just can’t get enough of, an album of epic proportion. Then one day you learn that this beloved artist will be releasing a new album. A sense of dread-tinged anticipation overcomes you. Any potential trace of hopefulness that it just might live up to your expectations is overshadowed by the bleak probability of impending disappointment. It’s not that all follow ups to great albums are necessarily bad, it’s just that there’s a certain discomfort in knowing that we’re going to have to move on and adapt. That’s the way music works; sometimes for the better, and sometimes not. We’ve put together a list of ten earthshaking rock albums that were impossible to follow up, often resulting in a derailment, a reinvention, or a fade-away. … Read More

Celebrity

7 Unexpected Celebrity Cameos in Real Life

By Matthew Bower on Oct 17, 2012 12:02pm

Bill Murray has attained something of a mythic status over the past few years for his habit of making unexpected cameos in real life. A number of stories about the late-blooming hipster party crasher have made the rounds, with varying degrees of believability. This week, Murray bolstered his reputation for showing up in random places by joining in on a Brooklyn kickball game. But the former Ghostbuster is not the only celebrity with a legendary ability to make unusual appearances. We’ve rounded up some of our favorite real-life cameos by celebrities that keep us wondering where they’ll turn up next. … Read More

Photography

10 of the Most Breathtaking Panoramic Photos We've Ever Seen

By Matthew Bower on Oct 16, 2012 2:00pm

Photographs rarely live up to the fullness of actually being there. But more and more digital technology provides new ways to counteract the flatness of photos, elevating panoramic and high-resolution photography to new realms both in terms of technique and in the way images are presented. 360-degree rotation, massive composites, and interactive controls allow us to explore photography in some very enticing ways. For the voyeuristically inclined, the advent of huge multi-giga-pixel images means zooming and panning indefinitely across an endless sea of visual detail. We’ve gathered ten such breathtaking panoramas for you to feast your eyes upon. Click through and explore some truly spacious visual… Read More

Film

The 10 Most Mysterious Vanishing Acts on Film

By Matthew Bower on Oct 12, 2012 1:00pm

Missing person tropes were a familiar staple of the mystery genre long before cinema, but movies have without a doubt become the ultimate medium for the thrill of a character suddenly going MIA. We love vanishing acts in all their different forms: they appeal to the amateur sleuth in us, intrigue our most childlike sense of wonder, and sometimes just freak us out — especially when they seem to defy reason. Cinema, much like sleight of hand, is all about spectacle, and creating the spectacle of disappearance requires certain elements of suspense, surprise, and above all else, a feeling of uneasiness. We’ve made a list of ten of the most classic, unsettling vanishing acts on film that are sure to keep you guessing. … Read More

Music

10 of Music’s Most Literature-Obsessed Songwriters

By Matthew Bower on Oct 10, 2012 2:00pm

Good songwriting requires a lot of technical skill, artistic intuition, and, sometimes, literary genius. There’s something tremendously impressive about being able to create a song that’s not only poignant and moving, but also rich with historical or literary context. Leaving aside obvious one-off references to literature, such as The Police’s famous nod to Nabokov or Jefferson Airplane’s psychedelic foray down the rabbit hole, musicians with a more encompassing, perhaps even obsessive, appreciation for literature are harder to come by. We’ve put together a list of ten of the most seemingly literature-obsessed musicians who have shown a certain bookish tendency throughout their careers. See if you can think of others. … Read More

Art

Shadowy Paintings of Espionage and Intrigue at Britain’s MI6

By Matthew Bower on Oct 9, 2012 3:00pm

In honor of all the James Bond goings-on lately — including the 50th anniversary of the first Bond film as well as the forthcoming Skyfall, the newest addition to the franchise — The Fox Is Black has featured some stunning paintings of real-life MI6 espionage by James Hart Dyke. Marking the 100th year of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service back in 2009, artist Hart Dyke was invited to observe the confidential world of international spies, clandestine meetings, and classified surveillance for a series of paintings titled A Year with MI6. The result is reminiscent of the thrilling and dangerous world of 007. Hart Dyke’s work is a shadowy behind-the-scenes portrayal of Her Majesty’s most top secret governmental agency. Take a look at some of our favorite pieces below, in all of their exciting and stylistically veiled brilliance. … Read More

Design

Famous Designers Interpet the Idea of “Public” in Beautiful Poster Series

By Matthew Bower on Oct 3, 2012 3:34pm

The design-forward and civic-minded cycle company PUBLIC recently invited 27 renowned international designers to “interpret the concept of ‘public’ with a vision to reclaim urban streets, sidewalks and spaces for walking, biking and other social purposes.” The company hopes to shed light on what it views as a central issue to city infrastructure, namely, the meaning and accessibility of public space. Poster design, itself a traditionally public medium, suggests that designers have much to contribute in trying to re-conceive popular views of urbanism, transportation, or pedestrianism. Take a look at some of our favorite responses below. All 27 of the “PUBLIC WORKS” series posters are available for purchase here. … Read More

Art

10 Contemporary Artists Who Use Furniture as a Medium

By Matthew Bower on Oct 2, 2012 3:30pm

With the rise of such colossal icons of 20th century modernist style as Frank Lloyd Wright, Charles and Ray Eames, Isamu Noguchi, and Frank Gehry, the boundary between design and art became blurred, especially for everyday objects like furniture. The form and function of furniture design garnered recognition as an important aesthetic factor of built space. Wright was sometimes so meticulous in his architectural designs that they not only included accompanying site-specific furniture, but custom-designed clothing to match the look and feel of the building as well.

Consequently, this modernist obsession with elevating industrial design to an art form has also led to an explosion of movements and styles that find artistic meaning and expression through design’s functionality. Below is a list of 10 interesting contemporary artists creating sculptures that either make use of or play on the idea of furniture, provoking us to think about the relationship between habitable space, industrial design, and art. … Read More

Music

10 Notoriously Disastrous Musical Performances

By Matthew Bower on Oct 2, 2012 10:30am

Musicians make mistakes, too. They’re only human, after all. But that doesn’t stop us from delighting in a bit of good-natured Schadenfreude when a performance devolves into a total train wreck. This week has seen its share of disappointment when it comes to live music, including an abrupt end to Jack White’s concert at Radio City Music Hall and the Biebs losing his lunch in the middle of a 105-minute-long set. In light of such mishaps, we’ve put together a list of some of the most notoriously awful, embarrassing, or otherwise disastrous live performances in recent history. … Read More