New Ink

Micah Jay Allen "ZippaSlaya McFelon" Hunter Small has a new tattoo, and what a beautiful tattoo it is! Pictured left is Willard Malebear, an artist at Scarlet Harlot tattoo on Minneapolis' North side.

According to Matthew, this is the face Micah makes when he's on the phone with his parents. I say this is his "holy shit my left boob is black" face. You decide.

Re-cork

Here's a victory lap for cork-on-a-fork. I'm crazy about this photo. Now that it's all tuned up, I lovez it even more. If it ain't your cup o'tea, I'm sorry. At least you have some heavy Nietzsche to contemplate:

"Salvation of the soul—in plain words, the world revolves around me"

Jerry's Girls

Meet Sailor Jerry's pin up princesses. After bidding a bottle farewell, Rum Enthusiasts Everywhere (REE) can appreciate the old-school style and seduction of these vixens. We peeled these babes off of Matthew's collection of bottles by heating them up over the stove, one of those easier-said-than-done sort of things.

I spy:

-A lady that's wearing a white top...kind of.

-A clarinet

-(NSFW) a neat and tidy muff.

The Teachez of Peachez

Como Neighborhood, Minneapolis.

Fast Times in Walker, MN

Things are heating up in small town, Minnesota. This week the Pilot Independent, Walker's newspaper, printed some real knee-slappers in my very favorite section: the DNR Weekly Report, essientally a compendium of all the hick shit that's gone on during the last two weeks. SOLID GOLD, and annotated for my own pleasure.

I also attached the "crime" report for neighboring Hubbard county. Chicken-hound gang violence has reached an all time high, and I shudder to think what might happen if the Mad Cowz get involved.

You might have better luck reading the print if you click on the image and view it in large on my flickr account.



What a world, what a world.

I got the Blues

Oh boy! It's a macaroni and cheesecake! Mmmmm....when tupperware and cheese meet, crazy things happen. Did I eat it hot or cold? Did it get schtuck-to-ta-top-of-ma-mouf? Only one thing is certain: I got the blues, baby.



P.S. there's some sick dolly zoomin' action goin' on all up in that mac n' cheese mongerin' girl's face.

P.P.S. if the postscript didn't make much sense to you, please click on "I got the blues" in the above baby paragraph.

(P.)^3S. if the postscript still didn't make sense to you, check this out.

Sunshine Cleaners FT(1/2)W

I took a stroll the other day on the soccer fields where I grew up. It's funny to think that A(c)kel(b)e(rr)y High School used to exist and have a football team. I think I've only seen this scoreboard lit up once, way back when the WHA Wolves (holla) upset the Bemidji Lumbercocks (boo hiss) 2-1 in the most intense game of soccer I've ever played.



I'm going to watch a horror flick tonight, and it better be good. "Paranormal Activity", according to Entertainment Weekly, "scrapes away 30 years of encrusted bunion from the the stale foot that is nightmare cliché."

Thank God for that.

County Road 50

I've decided to turn December into "go take pictures because it's fun and you have mono and you have nothing else better to do" month. Yesterday, I took a c-o-o-o-o-old jaunt down county rd 50 to take a few pictures.

This, right here, is the part of the BEST set of hills to drive on in the Northern Stix. Cass County is currently pumping a ton of money into leveling them out, on account of new city folk deciding they need cabins and lakeshore (lame), but I aint havin' none o' that.



"Making one hill smaller just means making another hill larger, amiright?"

-The Dolly Llama <---Click Me :)

December

It's crisp. It's cool. It's here. I might as well get used to it. I've got a month of not-Carleton ahead of me, and I'm okay with that.

Adventures in Black and White Pt. II

Theses photos were taken as part of a group project centering on the Carleton football team. I found myself some HUGE models to help me out, Aaron Maurer and Brad Eckelmann, and they really came through.

Unrelated hatred needing to be expressed: Fuck mononucleosis. Big time.

Adventures in Black and White Pt. I

These photos are from a recent photo shoot I hosted (not) in Hill House. This is really my first effort at producing quality black and white, and I hope you like it. I certainly do. Photoshop is a kinky, wonderful thing.

High thoughts are people, too.

My first ever work in photoshop, dated 2006.
Sums up high school pretty well, I reckon.

Wa na na! Jack Bandit!

Single-shot, camera self-timer.
Many many trips to and fro.
The Sex Pistols.
Booyakasha.

SuperStar

Matthew is a pass out superstar. Bless his heart.
Check out the slide-show here. Pdf download here.
It's intended for full screen, so kindly zoom in your browser.

This goes down in history as my first assignment completed entirely whilst crunk*

*Alternatively, see Krunk. This is an incredible website.

Chapelin, eh?

Yah, eh. Everyone--that is, the two people that might read this blog--gets twofers today!


This is my first assignment for digital photo. John Schott, possibly the sexiest professor at Carleton, sent us to the chapel to take a few quick pics for Thursday's class. I love the geometry of this building, and I hope that comes out in these pictures. I had to wait for the evening to take this, as construction folk were busy a-sandin' and scrubbin' her clean. I'm happy to say that she looked her brightest gray for me.


Highlights:
-I love the blue that comes out in the chapel windows. Pretty.

-The flat, canvas-like composition of the closeups

-Viva la tensión diagonal

Blue Moon Martini

A few notes on the "artsy-fartsiness" monochromatic photographs:

-MP's are not thoughtful

-An MP fb profile pic is not hip. On the contrary, it's fucking facebook

-MP's are bad luck. Shortly after taking this photo, I spilled gin all over my macbook.

Chau


Chau


Chau


Po

Cause and Effect

If you can't tell by the photos, it's RA training time, once again. I'll be in Hill 203 this year, and I'm mighty excited to be a junior.

Some goals this year:
-Dust off the piano hands
-Become a bona fide math nerd
-Pwn noobz (w00t)

Some sarcasnotes on the photos:
-Training DOESN'T suck
-My staff ISN'T fucking bananas
-Matthew is NOT passed out in this picture
-We DIDN'T draw tribal-phallous fusion tattoos all over his face shortly after

Thank you. That is all for now.

Adversity '09

On July 9th, five friends ventured out into the B-dub Wilderness to learn and grow together. Adversity '09 began at entry point #27, Snowbank Lake, and continued on with a series of lake paddles through Parent, Disappointment, Ahsub, Jitterbug, Cattyman, Adventure, Jordan, Ima and Thomas lakes. The weather was bea-yutiful, and camping was prime, though we were almost carried away by mosquitoes from our gorgeous, plateaued campsite on Ahsub. Good times.

This year, I found my home away from home on Ima; although, my first impression of the lake was far from pleasant. On our way through to Thomas, lady-I gave us quite a battle, as the waves picked up to heights near four feet. Had we paid attention to the terrified troop of Boy Scouts we met on the way out to the main lake, we might have expected this and waited for the weather to calm, but we didn't. Instead, we trudged on and nearly shat ourselves as the Itasca II bounced over some pretty fierce white caps.

On our return trip from Thomas, Ima proved to be much more peaceful. Remembering full well what the lake had done to us on our first run, we made the best and worst decision of the trip by taking a night paddle in hopes of nesting into a campsite on Jordan lake. Ima was smooth as glass as we cruised across its waters at sunset, all the while belting out atrocious renditions of Moses Hogan spirituals. Unfortunately, Jordan was all full, and we didn't end up settling down until near 1 am, several pitch-black river portages later. Was it worth it? You bet your bottom dollar, Annie.

We woke up the next morning a pristine site on the northern shore of Ima, with bass and northerns waiting to be caught just off our front porch of smooth shoreline rock.


























I could write more, but as can be said of any trip to the BWCAW among fine, strapping young lads--and in this case, one fine young lass....

You Don't Even Know.

New York, New York

So, I may not have told you, but I'm on Long Island. Crazy, right?

Actually, it is kind of crazy. Since way back in the day, the family Strong, turned Munson-Strong some time ago, has had a cozy, cedar-sided home in East Hampton. For about as long as I can remember this house, which is so graciously lending me its porch as I write this, has been a great place for me. Whether traveling here by plane, my first experience with aviation, by train, my first experience with a gameboy, or by automobile, certainly not my first or last experience with sibling rivalry, I have always enjoyed making the trip out East. Some of my most vivid childhood memories have been formed in a place I've been to only a handful of times.

Though this particular trip was planned primarily around my grandmother Eleonore's passing, it's turned into somewhat of a big-tent revival for James M. Munson. Away from Walker, buzzing tourists, waiting tables on buzzing tourists, the lake and the woods, I've started to work on making sense of the inner shit-storm that's been brewing inside me for longer than I rightly know (if this sentence here seems a bit heavy, you either don't know me very well, or should call me in the near future). I feel good tonight; I feel even better knowing that it's on account of my own hard work, and not some other stuff.

Tomorrow, for the third day in a row, I'm getting up at 7:30 to buy fresh bagels and coffee, and I'm happy about it, damnit.

I cursed twice in this post. Sorry. Here's another picture I took of a fence at the beach to make up for it.

J. CREW - The Ellipsis Collection...

Well, I've hit an all-time low. This evening (now morning), I leeched a font book torrent. I don't even know what to say for myself. Thank goodness j.crew came out with a super-secret summer collection, clothing (and accompanying priceline) so outrageous even GQ can't publish their new ad campaign. I give you, The Ellipsis Collection*

*check out (...) in its entirety here. Also, for those of you without a google id, my blog is now facebook connect friendly thanks to JS-Kit. Ya dig?
Tell me about it.

Gray Day

You can't have a funeral without fun*. In fact, you can't have a funeral without real fun**. This is precisely why I decided to mess about the Dennis Funeral Home with my SLR. There were no deceased members of the community around, as business--namely, death--has been slow. Fortunately, my bud Marcus was washing a beautiful cadillac hearse, so I got right up in some chrome. A friend of mine by the name of Micah Jay Allen Hunter Small (McFelon for short) accompanied me on my trip, and provided the artistic direction for the shoot including, but not limited to, suggestions to find and photograph "dead peeps." The skies were gray, perfect shooting conditions for cliché, artsy reflection shots.


More important than the cadillac wreath, the composition, or the way that my (not quite) blue t-shirt fooled my xti, is the fact that Marcus missed a spot. Poppa Dennis will not be pleased about those waterspots on the death wagon.

A blue bicycle

Shot with a wide-angle lens

A decent picture

*funeral
**funeral <=> fun-eral <=> real fun

My First Product

It's official: I am a producer. I'm wasn't paid for this work, but I wasn't paid under contract, which is one step closer to being famous. Moving on...

This short video was produced for the Cannon River Sportsmen Club of Northfield, MN and should be up and running on their website within the next week, or so. The CRSC is a nonprofit group that "organized to encourage safe, educated, sportsman-like participation in individual outdoor sporting activities, and to promote the wise use of natural resources." Members of the club volunteer their time to serve the Northfield community and surrounding area; unfortunately, most of their efforts don't receive proper recognition. Hopefully, projects like this one will gain some good publicity for this wonderful group of folks.

Right on.

Writing To Riemann

Since I haven't posted here for an AGE, I thought I'd get back in the swing of things with a little vid action. Nothing too fancy here, just a project for class. All footage was shot on a Sony PD-170, edited in FCP and composited in Adobe AE. Be sure to be on the lookout for this one when it comes to your local theater (or theatre if your British and/or pretentious) .