#Sell Original Artworks in Los Angeles City
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Affordable Unique Art for Your Home in MIssion Viejo
Abstract art is known for its bold colors and gestural brushstrokes. It focuses on emotional expression. These elements add a dynamic and contemporary feel to any space. Picture a modern living room featuring a large-scale abstract canvas with vibrant hues, adding a focal point and sparking conversation. Explore our curated collection of abstract art. Discover pieces from both emerging and…
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill Monday aimed at advancing the restitution of Nazi-looted art, as well as personal property stolen during the Holocaust and other eras of political persecution.
The legislation is a response to a court ruling that allowed a work by Camille Pissarro to remain in a Spanish museum instead of returning to the heirs of its original owners. The 1897 painting, called “Rue Saint-Honoré in the Afternoon, Effect of Rain,” belonged to Fritz and Lilly Cassirer, a Jewish couple who sold it under duress to escape the Nazis.
The painting by Pissarro, a French Jewish impressionist, now hangs in the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid. The museum has claimed ownership of the work under a “finders keepers” law of property ownership that is unique to Spain.
In January, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals was instructed to decide the case according to California state law. But it ruled that, even according to California, Spain’s legal system took precedence. “Rue Saint-Honoré,” according to that decision, belonged to the museum.
The new California law, signed at Los Angeles’ Holocaust Museum, clarifies that California law should take precedence in local Holocaust art restitution cases. It allows Californians “to bring an action for damages or to recover artwork or personal property, as defined, that was stolen or otherwise lost as the result of political persecution.”
According to the law, “California substantive law shall apply in actions to recover fine art,” and that “the true owner cannot be divested of ownership without actual discovery of their rights in, and the location and possessor of, the artwork.”
The legislation could send the decades-long ownership dispute over the Pisarro painting back to the courts — and award the painting to the Cassirers’ descendants.
“As a Holocaust survivor, the proudest day of my father’s life was in 1947, when he became a U.S. citizen,” David Cassirer, grandson of Fritz and Lilly Cassirer, told the LA Times. “He would be so happy, and grateful, that the people of the state of California have taken action to ensure the return of looted art to its rightful owners.”
Spain is one of the original 44 international signatories of the Washington Principles, a 1998 framework for restituting artwork stolen during the Holocaust. In 2018, Stuart Eizenstadt, the Secretary of State’s special advisor on Holocaust issues, named Spain as one of five countries that fell short on its commitment to the Washington Principles.
Authorities in New York City and around the world have made renewed efforts in recent years to restitute art that was sold under duress due to Nazi persecution. Earlier this year, 21 countries agreed to new standards in art restitution at a conference marking the 25th anniversary of the Washington Principles.
“Restitution is important, not just to get people their property back, but because it is a way to examine the true realities of the Holocaust and keep those facts in the public consciousness,” Sam Dubbin, an attorney representing the Cassirer family, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “It’s stolen property. It’s the Holocaust, which makes it 1,000 times worse, but it’s still fundamentally stolen property. And no one should be able to keep stolen property.”
The oil painting was bought directly from Camille Pissarro by German Jewish industrialist and art collector Julius Cassirer, who passed it down to his son Fritz and his wife Lilly. Lilly was forced to sell the painting under duress in 1939 for about $360 at the time in order to obtain an exit visa for England. The money was then deposited into a bank account that she was not permitted to access.
The painting made its way around the world over the next several decades, eventually landing in the collection of Baron Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, a Swiss art collector and the heir to a German steel fortune. Thyssen-Bornemisza sold his collection to the Kingdom of Spain in 1993, which established a foundation and museum in Spain in his name.
The Museo Thyssen did not respond to a request for comment.
After he learned of the location of the Pissarro painting, the couple’s sole heir, Claude Cassirer, sued for its return in 2005. He died five years later, and now his son David, his daughter Ava’s estate and the Jewish Federation of San Diego County are handling the case.
“For survivors of the Holocaust and their families, the fight to take back ownership of art and other personal items stolen by the Nazis continues to traumatize those who have already gone through the unimaginable,” Newsom said Monday. “It is both a moral and legal imperative that these valuable and sentimental pieces be returned to their rightful owners, and I am proud to strengthen California’s laws to help secure justice for families.”
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Tuesday, January 24, 2023 Canadian TV Listings (Times Eastern)
WHERE CAN I FIND THOSE PREMIERES? AMERICAN AUTO (City TV) 7:30pm 9-1-1: LONE STAR (CTV) 8:00pm THE WINCHESTERS (CTV Sci-Fi) I AM JAZZ (TLC Canada) 10:00pm
WHAT IS NOT PREMIERING IN CANADA TONIGHT HOW I MET YOUR FATHER (TBD - Disney + Star)
NEW TO AMAZON PRIME CANADA/CBC GEM/CRAVE TV/DISNEY + STAR/NETFLIX CANADA:
CRAVE TV AT FIRST LIGHT
NETFLIX CANADA LITTLE ANGEL: VOLUME 2
NHL HOCKEY (SN1) 7:00pm: Islanders vs. Sens (SN) 7:00pm: Rangers vs. Leafs (TSN2) 7:00pm: Bruins vs. Habs (TSN3) 8:00pm: Jets vs. Predators (SN360/SNWest) 9:00pm: Blue Jackets vs. Oilers (SNPacific) 10:00pm: Canucks vs. Kraken
AUSTRALIAN OPEN TENNIS (TSN/TSN4) 7:00pm: Quarterfinals (TSN) 9:00pm: Quarterfinals
NBA BASKETBALL (TSN5) 7:30pm: Celtics vs. Heat (SN Now) 8:00pm: Nuggets vs. Bucks (SN1) 10:00pm: Raptors vs. Kings (TSN5) 10:00pm: Clippers vs. Lakers
CHUCK AND THE FIRST PEOPLES' KITCHEN (APTN) 7:30pm: Nipissing, ON.: Wild White Rabbit Snaring: Chuck travels to Nipissing, where he learns how to build snares and hunt wild rabbit; during his visit, he meets Lana Chevrier, an Anishinaabe woman with a passion for cooking; Lana runs a local catering business that specializes in small game meats.
22 MINUTES (CBC) 8:00pm: The cost of living continues to rise, and the number of recommended drinks is down.
HUDSON & REX (City TV) 8:00pm: After a popular physiotherapist is murdered, the team must investigate the victims of his alleged sexual assaults in order to track down the killer before they strike again.
MARY MAKES IT EASY (CTV Life) 8:00pm: Mary's veg versions of meaty classics can satisfy even the biggest meathead, with burgers, nugs and even bacon.
SON OF A CRITCH (CBC) 8:30pm: Desperate to seem more mature, Mark heads off school grounds for lunch but things take a turn when the Fox boys offer Mark his first beer. Meanwhile, Mary takes a job selling Avon products.
WORKIN' MOMS (CBC) 9:00pm: In an act of desperation, Jenny brings Zoe to visit a daunting figure from her past. Meanwhile, Kate tries to revive her sex life and makes a pact with an amped-up Anne.
WONG & WINCHESTER (City TV) 9:00pm: A case involving a stolen painting leads Marissa and Sarah to discover some dark and very dangerous secrets about the artwork's origins.
THE HILLSIDE STRANGLER: DEVIL IN DISGUISE (Lifetime Canada) 9:00pm (SERIES PREMIERE): In 1977, the neighborhoods of Los Angeles were turned upside down by a series of gruesome strangulation murders, leaving the police to face mounting public pressure to identify the faceless killer and protect the city's women.
CATASTROPHE (CBC) 9:30pm: Old tensions resurface at Fergal’s 40th, but Sharon has other things on her mind - like her Mum’s new male-model boyfriend.
MEAN MUMS (APTN) 9:30pm: The moms are planning a bake sale to raise money for school camp; after an accidental oversight by Jess, there's not a lot of baked goods to sell and the volunteers get creative; Ryan reads a story to his class about the moms' disorganized bake sale.
THE GREAT BRITISH SEWING BEE (Makeful) 10:00pm: Lingerie & Night Wear Week
THE TALENTED MR. ROSENBERG (documentary) 11:00pm: The story of Canadian entrepreneur and convicted con man Albert Rosenberg, also known as the Yorkville Swindler.
#cdntv#cancon#canadian tv#canadian tv listings#chuck and the first people's kitchen#this hour has 22 minutes#hudson & rex#mary makes it easy#son of a critch#workin moms#wong & winchester#catastrophe#mean mums#the great british sewing bee#nhl hockey#tennis#nba basketball
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The $295 Million Los Angeles Megamansion 'The One'
105,000-square-foot mansion in Bel Air, dubbed "The One," could become the most expensive property to sell in the United States when it hits the auction block next month.
The hillside property, which spans over a sprawling 3.8 acres, will be listed on January 7 at an eye-watering $295 million, with an online sale held February 7 to 10 via Concierge Auctions. From its elevated perch, the home boasts 360-degree ocean and alpine views as well as ones of downtown Los Angeles.
Few properties in the world have ever sold above that list price, including the Chateau Louis XIV in France, La Belle Epoque penthouse in Monaco and the Pollock's Path Estate in Hong Kong, according to Christie's Real Estate.
Taking around a decade to complete, The One is being marketed as the first and only residence of its size in Los Angeles, thanks to new regulations passed in the city during its development that now limit the size of single-family homes, to reduce the number of so-called megamansions being developed.
LA's Westside is no stranger to nine-figure price tags, with another Bel Air property listing for $250 million in 2017, as well as the sprawling Beverly Hills home "Villa Firenze" up for auction for $160-million last year. (It sold for an undisclosed amount.)
But, dubbed a "gigamansion," The One is the most showy of them all. Real estate agent Aaron Kirman, whose eponymous group is jointly selling the property with Williams & Williams, called it "the Mona Lisa of the residential world" in a phone call.
The One has never been on the market, but if it's sold, its owners will have amenities that include a nightclub, salon, spa, 10,000-square-foot sky deck, private running track, movie theater, bowling alley and 10,000-bottle wine cellar. There's even a moat: an infinity pool that stretches around three sides of the residence. At 5,500 square feet, the master bedroom alone is more than double the size of the average American house.
Conceived by architect Paul McClean, who has designed homes belonging to Beyoncé and Jay Z, Avicii, and Calvin Klein, the Modernist aesthetic is both streamlined and extravagant. Neutral colors and clean lines provide a base for luxe details such as a number of original artworks including a butterfly installation by conceptual artist Stephen Wilson and a sculpture by Venetian glassworker Simone Cenedese, which are included in the sale.
The property's developer, Nile Niami, aimed "to build one of the finest properties across the globe," Kirman said. But bringing the property to market has not been without its issues. News reports said this past September that the property's value was once estimated at $500 million, and that the owner defaulted on more than $100 million in loans and debt, according to court documents. Over the summer, the home was placed in court-ordered receivership for complicated real estate deals, an alternative to foreclosure, to pay its debts.
According to Rayni Williams of Williams & Williams, the $500 million estimate was speculation, and $295 million is more reflective of the current market. It is a more "marketable" and "tangible number," she said over the phone.
As for why it's going straight to auction, Kirman explained: "Any given house that's 100-plus-million dollars can take anywhere between one year and five years to sell." An auction "was the best way to have a condensed timeline," he added.
With fewer than 2,800 billionaires in the world, The One's future homeowner will come from a small pool of potential buyers -- unless perhaps a group of multi-millionaire friends decide to share the cost.
"It's a limited market that can afford it," Kirman said. "But we absolutely know who our target is."
By Jacqui Palumbo
#mansion#gigamansion#nile niami#los angeles#bel air#real estate#high end real estate#luxury#luxury home#luxury homes/estates#luxury homes for sale#luxury real estate#luxury living#luxury lifestyle#billionaire#billionaire lifestyle#rich#the good life#the one#The $295 Million Los Angeles Megamansion 'The One'
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Candy Gets a Brand Extension When Robyn Blair Davidson, 34, was envisioning an aesthetic for her New York City apartment two years ago, her eyes wandered over to a bowl of candy on her table. “I realized then and there that I should be filling my walls with pieces that make me as happy as the bowls filled with candy do,” said Ms. Davidson, an artist. Today, Ms. Davidson’s home contains a custom-made desk with yellow, blue and pink candy dots; her walls are covered with candy-themed art; she has a massive tub of Dubble Bubble; and her display shelves contain rare vintage candy in its original packaging. She has incorporated her candy obsession into her art and also sells candy dishes, puzzles, phone cases and a series of prints featuring candy that say: “Warning Sugar High.” “At the end of the day, a sugar high lasts a moment while my artwork lasts a lifetime,” Ms. Davidson said. Slowly but surely, candy — prize of children, scourge of dentists, and already being marked down from Valentine’s and up for Easter — has been getting a brand extension. The candy retailer It’s Sugar, which was founded in 2004 and now has more than 100 locations in the United States, opened a store in mid-December at Oakbrook Center in Illinois, stuffed with Swedish Fish-shaped stuffed animals, Reese’s socks, Oreo backpacks and Sour Patch Kids candles. “Our core Gen Z consumers have really evolved from loyal shoppers to true fanatics,” said Danielle Freid, the brand manager of Sour Patch Kids. “The fandom is real: They’re dyeing their hair and painting their nails inspired by the South Patch Kids candy colors.” The merchandise is just one more way for these fans to engage with their favorite candy brand, Ms. Freid said. M&M’s World and Hershey’s have long personified their brands, with animated M&Ms and the giant squishy Kisses Chocolate Plush Toy. But the sweetness has also reached the upper ranks of luxury. Prada has cloned the scent of caramel (with a hint of musk and iris) in its Candy Eau de Parfum; Jimmy Choo created an $895 “Candy Embellished Crossbody” bag with crystals that resemble candy dots; and Irene Neuwirth’s One of a Kind Faceted Beaded Candy Necklace, made out of 18K yellow gold, is priced at $16,520 “For many people, there is an intangible magic and social currency associated with these products that rests on nostalgic experiences,” said Christopher Gindlesperger, the senior vice president of public affairs for the National Confectioners Association in Washington. “Chocolate and candy companies have built on this by meeting consumers of all ages where they want to be met: with merchandise that captures the fun and unique nature of the brands being sold in all types of retail outlets.” At the Sour Patch Kids store — the first of its kind — which opened this summer on lower Broadway, merchandise sales make up roughly 40 percent of total sales, Ms. Freid said. The most popular items are a themed pillow, plush “Stuffed Kids” that can fit inside the pillow and a Kids Funko Pop. At Dylan’s Candy Bar, which has about a dozen locations worldwide after 20 years in business, the lifestyle merchandise makes up about 9 percent of the inventory, the company said. It has worked on products with Williams Sonoma, Maclaren Baby and Hanky Panky, the underwear brand. “When we were designing the stores, we knew we wanted it to feel like you’re stepping inside a world of candy, so having those different departments of accessories, PJ’s, pillows and more within the store created another fun element to shopping,” said Dylan Lauren, the founder and C.E.O. Shoppers at Dylan’s most frequently reach for the Donut and Candy Button pillows, the Sprinkles Notebook and the Candy Spill Robe, Ms. Lauren said. Lu Ann Williams, the global insights director at Innova Market Insights, which analyzes data in the food and beverage industry, believes candy merchandise is succeeding suddenly in part because of how it pops on social media. Consider the influencer Jojo Siwa, who debuted her new Los Angeles-suburb bedroom on TikTok in February, showing off a sprinkles-decorated vanity and desk, scented candy-shaped pillows, a candy dispenser headboard and more than 4,000 pounds of candy. Nostalgia is also a factor, Ms. Williams said. Perhaps being told to effectively “stay in our room” for quarantine makes Americans feel like children? If so, It’s Sugar was prescient, beginning to create exclusive merchandise with the candy brands in early 2020. Justin Clinger, the director of design and licensing for the company, said inedibles now make up about 20 percent of the stores’ total inventory and sales are up significantly. It’s customers like the aptly named Candy Marlo who are driving these sales. Ms. Marlo, who is in her 40s, already owns three candy-shaped pillows, and her entire wardrobe is construed from candy-inspired apparel. All of her jewelry looks like candy. Ms. Marlo used to work as a corporate trainer and instructional designer, but taffy’s pull proved too strong to resist. She started a candy vlog, Ms. Candy Media, and began creating her own candy fashion in 2014 with bonbon headpieces and candy couture outfits. In 2020, Ms. Marlo began selling sprinkles-coated headbands and crowns. “Everyone loves candy, but not everyone can or wants to eat it,” Ms. Marlo said. “But everyone can consume the product by consuming the merchandise.” Source link Orbem News #Brand #Candy #Extension
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The Van Gogh Museum (Amsterdam, Pt. 2)
The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam is one of the largest, sleekest, and highly developed museums devoted to the work of single artist. Museums often reflect multiple points of view, and evolve from the work of multiple curators. Occasionally, you encounter a museum collection that was established by a single collector (the Leopold Museum in Vienna, for example, or the Broad in Los Angeles), and these are often interesting is showing how one person’s “eye” is drawn to certain kinds of work. Museums devoted to a single artist are much rarer, and in Europe often feel kind of creepy and necrophilic, especially when the museum exists in the artist’s former home. Amsterdam, after all, has the Rembrandthuis, in the artist’s former residence. But it’s hard to think of another instance where a city has devoted so much money and real estate into an institution devoted to a single artist.
The current building saw enlargement from its original footprint years ago (the glass gridded extension you see above was grafted onto an existing concrete box). In recent years, the museum has completed a further extension, a round building, that from above kind of suggests that a spaceship had landed outside the previous structure. The new round building now provides the ticketing and entrance area, as well as a large bookshop, giftstore, and “boutique.” More on that anon. If you plan to go there, buy your ticket in advance, online. The tickets are “timed,” in half-hour intervals, to prevent the museum from getting over-crowded.
You will feel sympathetic to that concept once you are inside. If you go here hoping for an intimate moment with the work of one of the most introspective artists who ever lived, you will be disappointed. At 9:30 on a Sunday morning, the place was jammed with people: adults, families, teenagers running up and down the stairs, elderly people in wheelchairs, etc. A huge cross-section of humanity seemed to prefer communing with art to going to church. And the community was very much international: there were easily as many visitors from China and Japan as there were from Europe. Moreover, the majority are locked into headsets, explaining in a variety of languages the history and significance of the artwork. Simply looking at the works, or feeling a sense of bonding with the artist’s vision, isn’t either easy or exactly encouraged. Photography is prohibited, so at least you aren’tfighting a sea of cameras going off, or people posing for selfies in front of their favorite works.
The collection is well-organized, in more or less chronological order, so that you start with the artist’s earlier works, and as you go up in the building, you get later in his career. This used to require climbing the stairs: there are elevators now to ease your ascent. And it is worth the climb: the works on the top floor are genuinely astonishing. Having seen them in slide form in art history classes, going back almost 50 years now, the real works have so much of what Walter Benjamin characterized as “aura” that they practically shimmer. Compositionally, in terms of color and technique, the works Van Gogh produced in the last couple of years of his life are really remarkable, worth all the hassle and hype of getting to them. And interestingly, the top floor is usually the least crowded, though there’s often a tour group or a clot of people with headphones, in front of the “Wheatfield with Crows” painting. My favorite is a painting of a flowering almond tree, painted against a brilliant spring blue sky, a painting that fills me with a kind of spontaneous joy and sadness that is hard to describe, but intensely vivid to feel.
Alas, the museum knows the specialness of that flowering tree image. They’ve reproduced it like crazy, on notebooks, t-shirt, umbrellas, coffee mugs, etc. Often, they get the blue all wrong, turning it into a kind of murky watery gray, instead of the vivid pale blue of the original. Or sometimes it gets darkened into a blue that’s just wrong. But it’s clear that the multiple shops in the museum (I counted 4) are all about selling you just the bit of Van Gogh memorabilia to take home with you, and seal the experience in your mind. So many books and objects, all plastered with images of Vincent’s work. It’s alarming. Considering that neither Vincent nor his gallery dealer brother Theo had much luck selling his work in his lifetime, it’s shocking that his paintings now sell for millions of dollars, when they rarely come on the open market. Am I wrong to feel there’s something twisted in this museum making so much money from images of his work now?
I can get over the notebooks and pencils and umbrellas and t-shirt, emblazoned with badly color-corrected images of his paintings. It’s the selling of the artist himself that bothered me the most. Vincent puppets, Vincent dolls, and most egregious, a Vincent coffee mug that is designed to look like him (the iconic red goatee) with a butterfly bandage over the left ear. We spotted this, and at first I started laughing, and then that turned into a kind of giddy rage, and I began to wonder how many of these mugs I could throw against the wall and break before security reached me and stopped me.
You can find online information about the Doctor who treated Van Gogh after the infamous “ear” incident. You can find a copy of a drawing the doctor did, to show how much of the ear was left, and the answer is, almost none of it.
That the museum dedicated to Vincent’s work, that is currently showing family photos documenting how Theo’s widow took care of Vincent legacy after Theo’s death, and eventually brought him to broader attention and acceptance, and then in the gift shop be making money from an object that completely trivializes a self-inflicted injury that the artist committed in a state of mental illness, well, it just makes me kind of sick. We fled the museum shortly after this discovery of the coffee mug, and they better not have it in the shop next time I’m there, or I’m liable to test my skill at destruction, security of no security.
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Dear Cedric Phillips and GerryT,
Having listened with great interest to the “Change Worth Fighting For” episode of the Cedric Phillips Podcast, I felt compelled to reply. On that episode, you wondered why professional Magic players have seen their fortunes decline so precipitously over the past ten years, and what they can now do to improve their situation. I believe I can help explain this reversal of fortune, and offer some relevant advice. What follows is a little on the long side, and perhaps a little depressing, but I hope you will nonetheless find it edifying. If you like, it would be my pleasure to discuss these matters further.
About me, briefly: I’ve played Magic on and off since the release of Fallen Empires, and am a regular consumer of Magic content. Among other things, I’ve watched every Pro Tour since PT Los Angeles (October 2005); I’ve watched countless LSV draft videos and Twitch streams; I’ve listened to hundreds of episodes of Limited Resources, Mark Rosewater’s Drive to Work podcast, and various other Magic podcasts; and I’ve read just about every column that Mark Rosewater has ever written. At the same time, I’m also an English Ph.D. and author whose research interests include the economics of fantasy artworks—for instance, my most recent book, I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing: Star Wars and the Triumph of Geek Culture, tells the story of how geek culture went from being an underground phenomenon to a mainstream demographic. Given that, I tend to view Magic from a financial perspective—by which I don’t mean living the dream of playing on the Pro Tour, or making a fortune by speculating on Magic cards, but rather trying to understand why Wizards of the Coast makes the economic decisions that it does.
I am hardly a Wizards insider. But I believe that my research into Magic’s financial history, coupled with my broader knowledge of fantasy franchises, enables me to understand why Wizards has chosen over the past decade to disinvest in its Pros, even if that decision appears baffling and counterintuitive to those players. For years now I’ve watched Pros complain about their situation, wondering why, if Magic is doing so great, then why are the Pros suffering? Shouldn’t their fortunes rise and fall with Wizards’? As you yourselves put it on your podcast, “the stars sell the cards,” by which logic if Wizards wants to succeed, then it needs to build stars. Just like how the NBA promotes LeBron James, and not simply “hoops,” Wizards should promote, say, Reid Duke, and not simply “Siege Rhino.” By that same logic, if Wizards doesn’t build stars, then it won’t sell cards, and everyone’s fortune will decline.
I sympathize with your argument. I love watching professional Magic, and once attended a Pro Tour as press just so I could blog about it. But at the same time, I think that your logic is mistaken, and I suspect that your arguments will fail to impress Wizards. Because while it appears to you that Wizards is behaving irrationally, or foolishly, the fact remains that the company long ago settled on a business plan that involves investing less in its Pro players, not more. This is because Wizards has already tried the strategy that you cite—promoting Magic by championing in its Pros—only to find that it didn’t work out that all that well. Indeed, it proved nearly catastrophic. And because of that, as well as for other reasons, Wizards has spent the past ten years rebranding Magic as something other than a competitive tournament game.
Let’s review the relevant history. In 1996, Skaff Elias, Magic’s first Brand Manager, created the Pro Tour in order to promote Magic, and for the next twelve years, Wizards invested heavily in competitive Magic. Wizards ditched Magic’s original whimsical fantasy flavor (not to mention nearly all of the game’s female artists)…
…refocusing the game around dueling mage-punk badasses.
In September 2005, Magic’s creative lead, Matt Cavotta, described the game’s flavor as follows:
Magic is a head-to-head battle of wits in which two spellcasting warriors fight to the death with magic and armies of bad-ass creatures. Every card illustration should work in that context: active, aggressive, cool, wicked, “edgy.” The word “magepunk” works for us. Remember, your audience is BOYS 14 and up.
There were even two blocks centered around pit fighting.
In the Pro Player Era, Magic became a game about winning and dominating, as Wizards targeted competitive young men, selling them dreams of fame and glory, as well as the chance to “play the game, see the world.” The greatest dream was winning the Pro Tour, which Wizards presented not only as the pinnacle of Magic, but as a recruitment pipeline, using it to hire players like Randy Buehler and Aaron Forsythe. Small wonder then that, during this time, Wizards catered heavily to the Pros by creating Magic Online, the Magic Invitational, the Pro Players Club, and the Pro Tour Hall of Fame, and by making the Pro Tour Player Cards, which went inside actual packs.
Wizards also made Magic the way Pros tend to like it: grindy and combo-heavy, chock full of abstract mechanics and cards that skilled players could abuse to gain incremental advantage. For a dozen years, the Pros were Magic’s foremost ambassadors, and the stars did in fact sell the cards.
The problem is that they didn’t sell that many. By catering so heavily to Pros and Pro-wannabes, Wizards steadily alienated its casual players and much of its female fan base. (Scroll, for instance, through these photos, taken at Worlds 2008.) At first, Wizards didn’t know it was losing these customers. On an early episode of his Drive to Work podcast, Mark Rosewater explains that Wizards began calling those disappearing players “the Invisibles,” a shorthand for “people who play who don’t participate in organized play.” Take a moment to let that terminology sink in: during the Pro Player Era, Wizards was so invested in Magic as a competitive game that it didn’t even know that non-competitive players existed, and as such apparently had no good means of tracking their preferences or spending habits. But by 2008, Wizards could no longer deny that its business strategy wasn’t working. Magic was in financial crisis, with sales declining despite the fact that tournament attendance was good and the Pros loved perplexingly complex blocks like Ravnica, Time Spiral, Lorwyn, Shadowmoor, and Alara.
The Pro Player Era came to a rather abrupt end in 2008. That year, Hasbro got a new CEO, Brian Goldner, who appointed a new CEO to Wizards, a man named Greg Leeds. Leeds’ first order of business upon arrival was to clean house, and get Magic back on stable financial footing. Leeds fired several employees (including Randy Buehler), and stripped Wizards back to its core products: Magic and D&D. All other Wizards products—boondoggles like Hecatomb, DreamBlade, and Gleemax—went by the wayside.
Leeds could see that Wizards was spending too much on enfranchised, competitive gamers even as it failed to attract and acquire new players. Part of the problem was that Magic had grown too abstract, too daunting, too mind-meltingly complex for newcomers to grasp. Under Leeds’ direction, Wizards took steps to reverse course. The company partnered with Stainless Games to create the new-player-friendly video game Duels of the Planeswalkers, which launched in June 2009 and proved an immediate success. Wizards also fundamentally changed how Magic was played. Prior to 2008, Magic was primarily a game about mana, in which strategy revolved around players concealing what they were capable of doing on any given turn, which is why control and combo strategies dominated. After 2008, Magic became a game about creature combat, as Wizards nerfed the control and combo strategies that Pros adored, but that infuriated casual players. Wizards also simplified the game’s rules and implemented “New World Order” in an effort to curtail “complexity creep.” Ever since then, Mark Rosewater has cited “complexity” as the greatest threat to Magic’s survival, and Wizards has continued making changes to simplify the game, most recently scaling back the number of new mechanics in each set, and eliminating the block structure. (See Mark Rosewater’s “State of Design” columns for 2016 and 2017.)
The Pros at the time grumbled about the way that Magic was changing, but by and large they accepted what Wizards was doing, reasoning that if and when the game’s fortunes improved, their fortunes would as well—what you, GerryT, called the “trickle-down” theory of Magic. The Pros also accepted that, for the time being at least, sacrifices were needed, so they sucked it up when Wizards reduced its spending on them. The Magic Invitational and the Pro Tour Player Cards disappeared, even as payouts and player perks decreased, as did the number of Pro Tours. The remaining PTs were closed and scaled back, and synced to the latest set releases, no longer taking their names from the cities hosting them. It may not have been obvious at the time, but Wizards was abandoning the concept of “play the game, see the world,” and so it was that in February 2012, Pros attended Pro Tour Dark Ascension, and not the third Pro Tour Honolulu (!). It would seem that, in order to justify its continued existence, the Pro Tour needed to come across less like a vacation for a select few, and more like an ad for the latest set.
But the changes to Magic didn’t stop there. Here it will help to understand how Brian Goldner became CEO of Hasbro, and how he thinks about Magic—how he thinks about all of the company’s top brands. Goldner joined Hasbro in 2000 after working for Haim Saban, the man behind the Power Rangers franchise, and he rose to power by applying Saban’s brand strategy to the Transformers line of toys, transforming it, so to speak, into a massive movie-centric franchise that’s still going strong. (Bumblebee is due out in theaters soon.) Since becoming CEO, Goldner has taken the same approach to a number of Hasbro brands, making movies out of G.I. Joe, Ouija, Battleship, and My Little Pony, and attempting to make films out of Monopoly and Magic. In this way, Goldner has spent the past ten years moving Hasbro away from being a company that acquires licenses to make toys for other brands (such as Star Wars), and more toward becoming an entertainment company that promotes its own brands through movies, TV shows, and other media. (The company recently tried to purchase DreamWorks Animation.)
The way Goldner sees it, consumers aren’t looking to buy toys or Magic cards or physical products per se, but rather emotionally resonant experiences. By this logic, Transformers fans (for example) are looking for all kinds of opportunities to express their love of Transformers, from buying toys and watching movies to putting Autobot emblems on their cars and getting Decepticon tattoos. Or even doing random things like buying bags of shortbread cookies adorned with illustrations of Optimus Prime and Bumblebee.
The trick is to give fans limitless opportunities to express their identity as fans, and thereby experience the joy their fandom brings them. In that way, they bond emotionally with the brand, coming to regard it as an essential part of their life.
Goldner transmitted this philosophy to Wizards via Greg Leeds, which is why, post-2008, Wizards became obsessed with creating emotionally resonant experiences for its players. Aaron Forsythe designed Magic 2010 in order to recapture the resonant flavor of Alpha, and Mark Rosewater designed Innistrad in order to make players feel (pleasurably) afraid. Rosewater even reconceived of his job as designing not Magic cards, but emotional experiences for players. As he put it on a 2013 episode of Drive to Work:
The last couple years […] I’ve been making sure that when I make a design, that I have an emotion that I am getting out of you. That I, the game player, am going, ‘What experience am I trying to create?’ And I want to make sure that I’m making gameplay that has that emotional response.
Goldner also encouraged Wizards to create intellectual property for Magic—characters and plot lines that could be exploited across other media. Wizards responded by rebranding Magic around the Planeswalkers, a growing cast of recurring characters that can be represented not only in card form …
… but as Funko Pop figures …
… and as pieces in a board game …
… as well as characters in movies and TV shows and theme parks and Broadway musicals and—well, anything Wizards wants, really, including media and products yet to be invented. (Here, other franchises, like Harry Potter, the MCU, Star Wars, and Avatar, have been leading the way for a while, and Wizards is scrambling to catch up.) This ambition is what led Brian Goldner to claim during Hasbro’s Fourth Quarter 2014 Earnings Conference Call that Magic is “a storytelling brand first and foremost,” specifying that “engagement with characters is critical,” and it’s why Wizards announced soon thereafter that it would be doubling down on promoting the game’s story, using the Magic website and “story spotlight” cards to ensure that players can easily follow what’s happening with Jace, Liliana, Nicol Bolas, and all the rest.
As you and I know, these changes proved wildly successful: between 2009 and 2015, Magic acquired new players at a rapid clip, topping out at a reported 20 million. But as you and I also know, even though Magic financially recovered, the Magic Pros did not. Instead, in 2018, the Pro players’ condition is more precarious than ever, despite the fact that Magic is at or near the height of its popularity. Which is to say that Magic’s recent success has not, in fact, benefited the Pros. Rather, it has come at their expense.
The reason for this is relatively simple, although it might be difficult to see if one is too close to the game, and especially if one is too close to professional play. While Magic has grown tremendously over the past decade, the vast majority of the people playing today aren’t Pros, or even wannabe Pros. Instead, the past ten years have seen the “Invisibles”—casual, non-competitive players—take over. And while it’s true, as you said in your podcast, that people connect with other people, I fear you’re kidding yourselves if you think that most current Magic players are looking to connect with Magic Pros. Casual players and competitive gamers want fundamentally different things from Magic. Competitive Magic players want to test themselves, to participate in the highest levels of competition, where they strategically outplay the best opponents in the world. Like Kamahl, Pit Fighter, they came not to play, but to win, wanting the same thing Bob Maher wanted: “Greatness, at any cost.”
Casual players don’t want that, not at all. So while the Pro Tour remains, for professional players, the pinnacle of Magic, it’s a total bore for casual players (assuming they even know it exists). For one thing, as everyone knows, it makes a decidedly poor spectator sport: there’s tons of down time, and when players finally do sit down to battle, viewers can barely make out what’s happening, let alone read which cards are in play.
Beyond that, the game play itself is frequently anticlimactic, with a large percentage of games being won or lost due to mana issues. (Witness LSV losing the very last game of PT Guilds of Ravnica after mulling to four.)
It’s easy to forget, after learning something, what it was like not to know it, and competitive Magic players often forget how much knowledge is required in order to watch and enjoy the Pro Tour. Not only does one need to know all of the relevant cards and decks in a given format, but one has to understand top-level strategies, as well as issues like priority, triggers, and so on. Casual players don’t understand these things, and they don’t want to understand them. In March 2017, the Limited Resources podcast spent ninety minutes providing a detailed overview of Magic Online and “all of the phases and steps of Magic.” Casual players don’t want to listen to podcasts like that; nor do they want to learn how to set stops on Magic Online, or how to even start playing Magic Online.
Nor do they want to memorize draft pick orders, or feel like they have to know every combat trick in the format in order to play. They don’t want to have to do tons of homework just to play Magic. As such, these players (happily) lack the knowledge and proclivity required to appreciate the things that Pros obsess over, like in-depth analyses of strategy, or three-hour-long video series discussing the Top 100 Magic Cards of All Time, or even longer set reviews that scrutinize every card in a new set with an eye toward limited play. They don’t want to be Pros.
You can see this in the fact that casual players prefer playing different formats than the Pros do, to the point where the two groups are practically playing different games. Whereas Pros want to do Rochester drafts (with Beta packs!) and brew Standard decks and play Legacy and Vintage and Vintage cube, casual players gravitate toward formats like Commander. Pros famously dislike that multiplayer format due to the outsize role that politics play in determining who wins and who loses. But casual players are less invested in whether they win or lose, being more concerned with playing a fun, social game with people like themselves—people who express themselves not through crushing their opponents, but through the Guild identities, Commanders, Planeswalkers, and tribes. These players couldn’t care less about solving the metagame; since they lack the luxury of being sponsored by card shops, they can’t easily swap between decks, or afford to do dozens of drafts. Instead of playing with the best cards in the format, they play with the cards they happen to own, and if they do invest in a deck, it’s usually one that suits their personality, and that they can go on to play year in and year out, tinkering with over time.
Because these players are numerous, Wizards has spent the past decade shifting resources away from the Pro players and toward the larger, more casual demographic, rebranding Magic not as a cut-throat competitive game, but more as a fun play experience—hence the onslaught of casual-friendly products such as Archenemy, Conspiracy, Commander decks, Unstable, the full-art promos for Ultimate Masters, and Magic Arena. The Magic brand no longer revolves around winning games of Magic; indeed, it no longer necessarily involves playing games of Magic. Since 2010, Magic Prereleases have routinely featured events like unlocking the Helvault (Scars of Mirrodin), picking a side in the Mirran-Phyrexian war (Mirrodin Besieged), choosing a clan (Khans of Tarkir), and puzzling one’s way out of the “Stitcher’s Lab” escape room (Shadows over Innistrad)—i.e., ways of getting players to engage with the Magic brand beyond building decks and playing matches. Rather than being cute side events, these types of activities are increasingly the central attraction. Two months ago, Wizards announced its intention to rebrand Grands Prix as “MagicFest,” or “weekends about so much more than just the main event,” including “side events, artist booths, cosplay, panels, [and] spellslinging.” (Pro Tours will be held at MagicFests.) Today’s Magic players are looking for more than just tournaments, which means that tournaments alone aren’t enough to sell and promote the Magic brand. (Wizards can no longer justify paying for standalone GPs and PTs.)
The shoe is now clearly on the other foot. Gradually, steadily, over the past ten years, the Pro players have traded places with the Invisibles, receding from view. At the Magic Subreddit, the top posts concern topics like Magic story, Magic art, card alters, and cosplay; rarely do they involve Magic tournaments. One week after your podcast came out, the “Grand Prix Montreal, Grand Prix Mexico City, and SCG Open Columbus Discussion Megathread!” pinned to the top of the Magic Subreddit received a whopping fifty-three up-votes, and forty-four comments. As it happened, more people were interested in the fact that the artwork for Expropriate features True-Name Nemesis. Small wonder then that the Mothership’s front page routinely ignores GPs and other organized play events, preferring to use that real estate to promote Guilds of Ravnica, Commander 2018, and Magic Arena.
Speaking of which: surely it won’t be long before Wizards moves the Pro Tour to Magic Arena, or replaces the Pro Tour outright with Arena-based tournaments. Already the company is paying celebrity gamers like Day9 and Trump to stream Arena—entertaining personalities who may not be the most skilled Magic players, but who are capable of drawing thousands of eyeballs.
Of course, it’s true that casual players admire certain Magic Pros, such as LSV. But casual players don’t like Luis Scott-Vargas just because he’s one of the greatest players of all time; they like him, and subscribe to the Divination, because LSV is funny and charismatic and loves to durdle and tease Paul Cheon. That’s why they tune in to his Twitch channel even when he does things like sign tokens for GP Las Vegas, choosing to vicariously hang out with him. LSV doesn’t make his casual fans feel stupid; he makes them feel smarter, and as though they’re winning and losing alongside him. In this regard, he’s unlike most Magic Pros, who typically come across to casual players as cold, unfeeling jerks who make Magic unfun by quickly defeating them, then berating them for making bad plays with bad cards and bad decks (or for picking foil Tarmogoyfs in draft).
That is why, in 2018, Pro players are no longer the public face of Magic, having been supplanted by the Planeswalkers. If 1996–2008 was the Pro Player Era, then 2008–present has been the Planeswalker Era. More Magic players today fantasize about being Kiora or Chandra than they do being Magic Pros, which is why Wizards has taken pains to diversify that lineup of characters. The casual player base has always been more diverse than the overwhelmingly male Pro scene, and it’s presumably growing more diverse by the day. (Note how many women and female characters Wizards has chosen to depict on the current Magic homepage.)
And the Planeswalkers offer benefits beyond that. Wizards doesn’t have to pay those characters anything, or fly them anywhere, or put up with them complaining about Magic, or doing things like sitting out Worlds in protest. (Sorry, GerryT.)
Mind you, none of this is to say that Wizards no longer cares about the Pros. I imagine the company is delighted to have such a dedicated group of players that spends all of its time promoting Magic for free by making Magic videos and podcasts—not to mention purchasing Magic cards. And no doubt Pros and Pro-wannabes are still responsible for a significant portion of the game’s revenue. But those players no longer appear to be Magic’s primary audience. As such, Wizards has spent the past decade adjusting its spending on those players to a more appropriate level, valuing them for what they’re really worth, as opposed to what Wizards thought they were worth c. 2006.
Since I don’t want to end this letter on too pessimistic a note, I’ll offer a few hopeful words of advice. Please keep in mind that I am not a Magic Pro. But if I were, I would try to take more of my well-being into my own hands. Fifteen years ago, when Wizards was ignoring the “Invisibles,” some of those players created Elder Dragon Highlander, which went on to become Commander, now the most popular Magic format (and which is still maintained by its own independent rules committee). Today, if the Pros feel slighted by Wizards, then they should make the version of Magic they want to exist—their own tournament scene, their own formats, their own banned and restricted lists, their own Hall of Fame—rather than relying on Wizards to maintain institutions it created in a totally different era, when the company’s priorities were different from what they are now. The Pros should also unionize, or enter into some other collective partnership, and make their stand together, collectively working to attract sponsors and streaming deals. More than anything else, the Pros should recognize that their fortunes won’t necessarily rise or fall with Wizards’, or with Magic’s. But the Pros will certainly rise and fall with each other.
Best wishes, Adam
An open letter to Cedric Phillips, Gerry Thompson, and the Pro Magic community at large Dear Cedric Phillips and GerryT, Having listened with great interest to the “Change Worth Fighting For…
#Brian Goldner#Cedric Phillips#cosplay#geek culture#Gerry Thompson#Greg Leeds#Hasbro#Luis Scott-Vargas#Magic the Gathering#Mark Rosewater#Matt Cavotta#MTG#Planeswalkers#Randy Buehler#Skaff Elias#Transformers#Wizards of the Coast
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Hunter Biden art exhibition led to Rep. Michael Waltz's transparency bill
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A Florida Republican congressman is set to introduce a bill requiring presidents and vice presidents provide financial disclosures for their non-dependent children ahead of Hunter Biden’s much-criticized art exhibition.
Rep. Michael Waltz told Fox News Tuesday his legislation, the Preventing Anonymous Income by Necessitating Transparency of Executive Relatives (PAINTER) Act, is a bid to stop “the obvious and shameless grift that’s going on with Hunter Biden’s art sales, for which he is obviously not qualified to do and is only doing to continue to profit off of his family name.”
The first son will present a solo exhibition of 15 paintings at galleries in New York and Los Angeles this fall. Prices for the art will range from $75,000 for works on paper to $500,000 for the larger canvases.
Critics have warned that would-be purchasers of Hunter’s art could spend big money not to purchase a masterpiece, but to curry favor with the West Wing.
“The whole thing is a really bad idea,” former George W. Bush chief ethics lawyer Richard Painter told The Washington Post earlier this month. “The initial reaction a lot of people are going to have is that he’s capitalizing on being the son of a president and wants people to give him a lot of money. I mean, those are awfully high prices.”
The rumblings grew after The Washington Post reported last month that White House officials had helped hammer out an agreement to keep the identity of buyers confidential. They grew louder still when a spokeswoman for the gallery hosting the exhibit said Hunter Biden would appear at events with potential buyers in both cities.
That appeared to contradict a claim by White House press secretary Jen Psaki, who said earlier this month that “the gallerist will not share information about buyers or prospective buyers, including their identities, with Hunter Biden or the administration”.
The 51-year-old moved into the pad with his wife, South...
“That’s really what this is all about, is just getting some transparency and shining a light on this,” “We should know who is backchanneling, backdooring and buying influence — which Hunter Biden has a long history of selling — to the President of the United States.”
Spouses and dependent children of presidents are required to provide financial disclosures under the Ethics in Government Act, which was enacted in 1978 in response to the Watergate scandal. Waltz’s legislation, which he expects to introduce Wednesday, would amend the act to require financial disclosures of all children or step-children of the president and vice president over the age of 17.
Earlier this month, a dozen House Republicans wrote to the office of White House Counsel Dana Remus to request information related to the business interests of President Biden’s relatives in order to “understand the extent of the Biden family’s use of its connection to the President to enrich itself.”
The letter sought information on trips Hunter Biden took with his father, then-Vice President Biden, to China in 2013 and Mexico in 2016. It also asked for a list of “all past and ongoing foreign business interests and past and ongoing foreign relations for members of the Biden family,” as well as all “documents and communications regarding Hunter Biden’s artwork.”
“The public has a right to know how President Biden and his son intend to keep separate the interests of the American people from the earnings of President Biden’s family members,” read the letter, which described the Biden family’s various interests as a “pattern … which appears to be nothing short of a cash-grab.”
This content was originally published here.
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Grand Theft Auto V Environment Studies
Grand Theft Auto 5, Ray Liam Shum (2016) ArtStation. Available at: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/agOdX (Accessed: 26 June 2021).
Although this is a bit older and the game was developed in 2013 I think this is very photorealistic for its time period the sky I found to be very realistic and the lighting is the biggest selling point of the project. I do think the buildings aren’t as realistic as games today but overall still are done really well for their time period as the technology of this moves along so quickly. I think Shum has done a really good job of the foliage too if he is responsible for this. This is clearly based on Los Angeles and modelled to be exactly like the city I have currently been there and still recognise some of the areas involved in the scene. I think the floor has a good sense of tiling but feel there needs to be a bit more variation to the floor and have some cracks and more scrapes in the road perhaps to add a sense of being more real. I think the vehicles as demonstrated in the first image are quite realistic but have enough variation to them to be original designs.
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This Week In XR: Oculus Under The Microscope With Other Facebook Properties
New Post has been published on https://perfectirishgifts.com/this-week-in-xr-oculus-under-the-microscope-with-other-facebook-properties/
This Week In XR: Oculus Under The Microscope With Other Facebook Properties
Facebook might be forced to sell Instagram and WhatsApp. The Federal Trade Commission, with bipartisan support, will seek to break up the company due to antitrust charges.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, … [] Commercial and Administrative Law hearing on “Online Platforms and Market Power” in the Rayburn House office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on July 29, 2020. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN / POOL / AFP) (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
There’s some grumbling about the closed Oculus VR ecosystem as well, entirely undeserved at the moment since FB is doing more to develop the VR medium, in a safe responsible way, than anyone. The use of Facebook’s algorithm to control behavior is a much more pressing problem. The company holds democracy in its hands. Is everyone ok with that? Because that is not ok. Just because we all like their free services and cheap headsets does not give Mark Zuckerberg the right to control democracy. This isn’t about Zuck’s trustworthiness. Anyone who wants to wield this kind of power should automatically be disqualified.
Unintended consequences are running rampant at Facebook. The monopoly suit is a sidehow, distracting us from the main attraction. You Tube has similar problems. They give us what we like, even if it’s lies and propaganda, and limit what we don’t like. Good for selling tshirts, bad for society.
Nreal Light consumer smartglasses, fresh out of the box.
Vodafone to launch Nreal Light glasses across Europe. The augmented reality glasses will be able to run on Vodafone’s 5G network. The Nreal Light will launch first in Germany and Spain in Spring 2021. No word yet on the US launch, originally projected for fall 2020. 5G is rolling out more slowly in the states.
Mojo Vision and Menicon announce a joint development agreement on Smart Contact Lens products. The partnership hopes to focus on each company’s expertises, dealing with contact lens materials, fitting, cleaning, and other topics. Mojo Vision is currently developing the first AR contact lens, called Mojo Lens.
Snap hosts Lens Fest this week, a public global AR festival to support AR creators and developers. Some of the announcements include Snap investing $3.5m to support AR creators and developers in 2021, a Lens studio update, and new Lens training courses for students. Lastly, Snap is working on a new project with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to create AR monuments and murals around the city.
Sandbox VR retail location in San Francisco bay area is now shuttered.
Sandbox VR comes out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy after reorganization. The location-based VR company, which had a Star Trek: Experience and in-house developed games, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in August. The financial move freed the company to renegotiate or exit existing leases. It also took down many celebrity investors. Oooops.
Collaborating in Arthur.
Arthur Technologies announced it raised $2.5m in seed funding to expand the growth of the company’s VR collaboration software. The round was led by Silicon Valley venture capitalist firm Draper Associates. Arthur plans to launch a beta of its software for enterprises and eventually expand to iOS and Android mobile devices.
‘In Titan’s Light’ NFT by Sutu and deadmau5
Digital artist Sutu partnered with electronic music artist deadmau5 to release a new audio-reactive digital art non-fungible token (NFT). NFTs allow digital creations including art and music to be verified as scarce, authentic assets on the Ethereum blockchain. The animated artwork, paired with the track SATRN, inspired Sutu to create this a golden space station “bathing in the twilight on the moon of Titan.” This original artwork can be purchased on Super Rare.
This Week in XR is now a podcast hosted by Paramount’s Futurist Ted Schilowitz and Charlie Fink, the author of this weekly column. You can find it on podcasting platforms Spotify, iTunes, and YouTube.
From Media in Perfectirishgifts
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Detail of “I Hope the Exit is Joyful. And I Hope Never to Return”-Frida Kahlo by C.C. Wallace @fineartbitch for the Women’s Month pop up @theblackstonehotel March 19th, 6-8pm! . . . Christie Chew-Wallace was born in St. Louis, Missouri, she met her husband in high school and they married in 1981. That same year they moved to Los Angeles, Christie began her formal art instruction at a private art school Mission: Renaissance. Christie has always been interested in creating and has done so since she was old enough to pick up a crayon. Her parents were proud of her talent but did not have the resources for an art education, so they bought her an art course from an ad on T.V. Christie passed with flying colors. Once she started her education at Mission: Renaissance in Los Angeles, she received excellent instruction under the guidance of Mr. Larry Gluck. Along with private instruction, Christie has completed many college courses in the arts from Fulton College, Glendale College in Los Angeles, and College of DuPage in Illinois. She has complimented her formal training with a variety of seminars, workshops and panel discussions on every subject from “How to take slides of your artwork” to “How to sell your art out of a tent.” During her education, her work continued to change and grow from reality-based to abstract painting and sculpture. Basically Christie considers herself to be an outsider artist, painting what she wants, subjects differ from hyper realism to abstraction. She has completed countless commissions and continues to take on commissions ranging from abstracts and city scenes to pet portraits. Christie resides in the South Loop of Chicago, her studio is in Bridgeport, Chicago, just a few minutes away from her home. C.C.’s Art Garage, is a renovated body shop and a continuing work in progress. She works with oils and acrylics on canvas and is quite prolific as well as inquisitive, and moves forward with her art by striving to become more creative and original with each new series. Her paintings fully occupy her time and she endeavors to produce art that speaks about her own acknowledgements on life. . . . #christiechewwallace #womanartist #portrait https://www.instagram.com/p/B9hdKWQBBRu/?igshid=h2fxi8zh3h1c
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Kansas City’s Noir Arts and Oddities is a treasure trove of all things bizarre
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — An octopus in a jar, a brain in a snow globe and a real human skeleton are all things you can find at Noir Arts and Oddities in Kansas City’s West Bottoms.
The shop’s owner, Pamela Smith, grew the business from a small stand, where she was selling her collection part-time, into a full fledged, 3,000 square foot store. She said business is booming.
“There’s a lot more weird people out there than I ever imagined,” she said.
When you walk in, one of the first things you notice is an actual human skeleton standing in a coffin, adorned with beautiful dead flowers.
“This is Vincent, and he is our resident Odd Fellows skeleton,” Pamela said.
The Independent Order of the Odd Fellows dates back to 17th Century England. It was a charity that helped families in need bury their dead, according to the Los Angeles Times.
“Vincent is a piece that I picked up for a customer, who then got vetoed by his wife. She said ‘No, we’re not bringing that in the house,’ so he has just kind of stuck with us. He has become our mascot,” Smith said.
Vincent is not for sale, but most things in the store can be purchased. They range from T-shirts and specialty Gothic-style dresses to more macabre items, like medical specimens and embalming fluids.
Vincent, a skeleton originating in the 1860’s, stands at the front of the shop. Vincent is not for sale.
Diary of a young German girl
Baby doll in a coffin
Embalming fluid and utensils
No parking sign
French hair art
Hair art from someone’s wedding. Guests all gave a lock of hair.
T-shirts and coffin-shaped jewelry boxes
Octopuses in jars
Skeleton and coffin
Plant and animal wet specimens
Some customer favorites include framed butterflies and artwork made out of hair.
“We have framed butterflies, and we work with an entomologist who does this work. He’s out of San Francisco, and we get all of our specimens for him because he’s an ethically sourcing artist,” she said.
Smith’s curiosity for unique antiques began at a young age.
“I had been collecting weird, strange and unusual antiques off and on throughout my entire life. It really started as a child with my grandfather,” she said. “He would take me to like every garage sale and flea market auction down at the Lake of the Ozarks. We did that a lot and loved that and I collected a lot of old pictures.”
But being the black sheep of the family wasn’t always easy.
“When you are the odd duck in your family, you feel like you’re the only odd duck, because everybody else likes ‘Sex in the City’ and purses and handbag shopping. My idea of shopping was not the same as everybody else’s.”
Through the store, Smith says she’s found a sense of community.
“Over the five years as we’ve expanded, we’ve really grown into a community,” she said. “This is a safe space for people like me, who maybe at their Thanksgiving dinner, they can’t talk about the newest cool thing that they got which is a human skull or a funeral wreath made of hair.”
Because of an intense amount of interest, Noir has become a gathering place for people with similar interests.
Tickets are on sale for an Edgar Allen Poe themed coloring night as well as a beginner’s mouse taxidermy workshop (all of the specimens in the store are ethically sourced).
Smith said, overall, the store just piques the curiosity of most people.
“When I opened the spot and I just was selling all of this stuff, I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe people would actually be interested in it.”
You can learn more about Noir Arts and Oddities by visiting their website here.
from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports https://fox4kc.com/news/kansas-citys-noir-arts-and-oddities-is-a-treasure-trove-of-all-things-bizarre/
from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2020/02/18/kansas-citys-noir-arts-and-oddities-is-a-treasure-trove-of-all-things-bizarre/
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Jeremy Renner Looks to Flip Out Again, This Time in … Modesto?!
Emma McIntyre/Getty Images
Actor Jeremy Renner has a penchant for flipping houses in Los Angeles, and he’s made millions remodeling homes in the Hollywood area.
However, his real estate reach extends farther afield, as far north as Lake Tahoe. Over the past 15 years, the 45-year-old actor has purchased and remodeled more than 20 homes. Recently, he put a renovated house in Modesto, CA, on the market for $569,000. He does know the area—Renner was born and raised in the Central Valley city, before he headed south in the ’90s to find fame.
This house, originally built in 1927, isn’t a typical Renner flip. Sales records indicate he bought it for $565,000 in 2007, when property values were at their peak. But it does have a number of classic Renner touches, including masculine brick accents and dark wood flooring.
Signature Renner touches include brick accents and dark wood flooring
realtor.com
The four-bedroom, 3.5-bath Tudor also showcases Renner’s signature palette of white and earth tones, with pops of color coming from the furniture, artwork, and accessories. And no Renner-renovated house would be complete without a gazebo or pergola in the backyard.
Backyard
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The home, which measures 2,711 square feet, has a dining room that could double as a solarium, with skylights and floor-to-ceiling sliding doors. The brand-new galley kitchen has a double-wide Sub-Zero refrigerator and a pro-grade double oven and stove. The master suite has an attached office that could also be used as a nursery.
Dining room
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Galley kitchen
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Renner doesn’t stand to make a killing off this property, or even much of a profit, if he gets his asking price. But he’s not really into remodeling for the money alone—he’s said home renovations are his idea of recreation.
Tudor in Modesto, CA
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And the busy actor certainly needs something satisfying to do with his downtime, which is extremely limited. He received an Academy Award nomination for 2009’s “The Hurt Locker” and starred in 2016’s “Arrival,” which was nominated for best picture. But he’s most widely known for playing Hawkeye in the Marvel Comics movies, with four under his belt and two more scheduled. He’s also co-starred in two “Mission Impossible” films, and had a star turn of his own in “The Bourne Legacy.”
The post Jeremy Renner Looks to Flip Out Again, This Time in … Modesto?! appeared first on Real Estate News & Advice | realtor.com®.
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Chafismo: An Introduction to New forms of Art Post-Rasquachismo
Curatorial Statement by Angelica Muro & Dionicio Mendoza
This exhibition re-examines social based-phantom culture by sampling and appropriating sources linked to both high and low culture through the use of materials that convey socio-economic and political factors including class, race, gender, and sexuality. Chafismo highlights work that expands the current dialogue surrounding the complexity within Chicanx art practices. This often means artists giving a critical voice to theoretical paradigms that frame arte y cultura as issues that should be expanding our understanding of positionality, value, and worth. Chafismo, a new approach and visual language, questions established tenets by probing the conventionality of what is considered broken, irreverent, or complacent.
Chafismo is an open-ended term that comes from the word chafa, which literally means cheap or worth more than it costs. Chafismo is an extension of Rasquachismo—an artform associated with the Chicano Art Movement, which made the most from the least, and was both defiant and inventive—its aesthetic expression comes from discards, fragments, and even recycled everyday materials. In Chafismo, the same applies, but new conceptual frameworks have moved us towards a new art term that emphasizes Chicano artist practices as disregarded. Chafismo embaces the cultural iconography that is fundamentally rooted in an oppressed and marginalized identity by questioning the validity of the movement of Latin-American art and culture that needs to apply a more fluid and globalized cultural identity. This exhibition features works by Sita Bhaumik, Felix D’eon, Karla Diaz, Monique Islam, Prole Arts Collective (Nosfe and Rarotonga), Isaías D. Rodríguez, and Arnoldo Vargas.
As a gay, Mexican-American man, Felix D’eon has a particular affinity for Latino subjects that represent his own queer community and other marginalized groups. The Mexican game of "Lotería" is familiar to all Mexican and Chicano households. The original Lotería images have an iconic power, like cards in a tarot deck. However, like all such works of vintage popular art, they are heteronormative, and have a racist ideology at their core. In D’eon’s Loteria series, he has taken the aesthetic, visual, and emotional power of the original deck, and harnessed it into a contemporary, queer sensibility, thereby expanding the meaning of the Lotería, and giving it to an audience previously excluded from it.
Muxe Ne Nadxii, portrays a young man and his Muxe lover. Among the Zapotecs, an indigenous tribe from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Southern Mexico there exists three genders; men, women, and Muxes. A Muxe is usually biologically male, but because he does not identify as male, he is assigned the third gender– usually at a very young age. Muxes usually wear female garb, and take on female-gendered tasks, such as embroidery or selling in the market.
In Mi Cholito Hasta la Muerte, we see a contemporary couple in a loving embrace. Through various signifiers, such as tattoos, red and blue headgear, and wife beater undershirt, D’eon speaks to hip hop culture, rival sensibilities, and hyper masculinity.
Karla Diaz’s Prison Gourmet is a multi-media installation that includes performance, video, and a book that features prison commissary food recipes. The piece was originally conceived as a two-hour performance for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), and inspired by Diaz’s brother who was in prison. Thru Prison Gourmet, Diaz is interested in exploring food politics, and issues that relate to prison food such as memory, freedom, race, culture, and survival.
Monique Islam explores various themes including identity, family, home, and memory. In her series, Mujeres (Women), the artist reflects on her self-worth as a mujer de color (woman of color) by photographing women in her life in a pointed manner that suggest confidence and independence through an honest and intimate approach. Momentos Divinos are about the physical preservation of memory through daily explorations and interactions with people and everyday objects. Islam’s eye gravitates toward small moments in time, which would otherwise go unnoticed and eventually forgotten.
Nosfe X is a “Sociologo Cultural” (Cultural Sociologist) who uses his artistic practice as a conduit to agitate and encourage dialog on topics of race, politics and identity. Nosfe is a member of PAZ (Prole Arts Zindicate), a recently founded artist collective. PAZ’s main goals are to encourage and promote social justice as well as create and foster creative outlets in the form of group exhibition and professional-practice workshops aimed to mentor under-represented artists. Nosfe X’s text-based artworks utilize a quotidian lexicon. For example, 2P2AC2 is only effective if read in Spanish, and references our short-hand, texting-based language as a coded dialect that is meant to be vulgar, and specific to a proletariat class that is subjected to systematic oppression, inequality, and an imposed social identity.
RAROTONGA, also from Tijuana, Mexico, appropriated her name from a mighty, powerful, strong comic book character from the 1980’s. She originates from Guadalajara Mexico, and is the daughter of a Mexican father and a Filipino mother. Rarotonga’s work explores the fluidity and intersectionality of identity, race, social class, and gender. Her art practicum includes mixed-media sculpture and video. Her installation titled Couple references an inter-racial relationship. The text in this work reads Blackxican (Black and Mexican) and Mexipino (Mexican and Filipino). The letters are made of wood with a tortilla coating that references domesticity and cross-cultural food staples. In Witness, RAROTONGA planted a cacti boarder between Tijuana and San Isidro, Ca. This action included the carving of faces on the cacti as an act of reclamation about land, territory, witness, and allegory.
The work of Isaías Rodriguez and Sita Bhaumik includes the traditional materials used to fabricate piñatas (ephemeral sculptures that are intended for ritual celebration, special occasions, and that end in a ceremony of destruction). Rodriguez’s Piñata Cart contains scaled-down versions of luchador mascaras (wrestling masks), unicorns, and burros (donkeys). This commonly used iconography conjures childhood memory. The little piñatas displayed here are fetishized, and become keepsakes that take on permanence and value of one’s cultural identity. Similarly, Trump Wall is small scale maquette that uses piñata materials to reference obliteration in relation to Donald Trump’s proposed building of an “impenetrable” border wall between the U.S. and Mexico. The proposed height of this wall is up to 65 feet tall. This scale model represents a 55-foot wall in relation to the U.S. president’s 6’2” height.
The work of Arnoldo Vargas features nine years of examination surrounding subversive applications of freedom evident through the creation of street side memorials. In Memoriam II is an ongoing site specific project that predates the black lives matter movement. Vargas purposely considered two memorial sites that were created in response to fatalities resulting from officer involved shootings in his community of Wilmington, California. This relational installation is comprised of site-specific photography, video, and performance in honor of two male community members that were fatally shot within a three-week span and five blocks from each other. This installation considers perception, persecution, and a city sanctioned gang injunction through the use of cartography--allowing ideas to be expressed and visualized through a rhizomatic mapping process. The underground sprout of a rhizome does not have a traditional root. There is a stem there, the oldest part of which dies off while simultaneously rejuvenating itself at the tip. The new relations generated via rhizomatic connections are not copies, but each and every time a new map. In Memoriam II and Officer involved Shooting are figuratively and literally rooted in our impulse to archive, collect and accumulate information that absorbs a time, a place, and a memorial.
Vargas’ With Flare series poetically depicts the contrast between community and industry as it co-exists in Wilmington, Ca. Wilmington is the only city in the world that is surrounded by 5 major oil refineries. Each photograph depicts the flare of the oil refineries as an ecosystem of the neighboring community. Flares are a byproduct of oil production, and occur when the plant malfunctions. Although illegal and punishable through minimal fines, the flaring and its toxic effects are hazards that the community endures through a strange symbiotic existence.
Acknowledgements
A special thanks to Araceli Mejia, members of GazOstrich Lodge 656 (Tamara Alvarado and Fred Salas), and the Visual and Public Art department for their support of this exhibition.
Angelica Muro is Assistant Professor of Integrated Media and Photography in the Visual and and Public Art Department at California State University, Monterey Bay. Muro teaches replicative media, which includes photography, digital art, and media analysis courses. Recent curatorial projects include Chafismo: an introduction to new artforms Post-Rasquachismo and Caprichos Anatomicos at Works/San Jose and Club Lido: Wild Eyes and Occasional Dreams at Empire Seven Studios. Recent exhibitions of her artwork include Photo ID, Santa Cruz Museum of Art, Chico & Chang: A Look at the Impact of Latino and Asian Cultures on California's Visual Landscape, Intersection for the Arts, San Francisco, CA, Chica\Chic: La Nueva Onda/The New Wave of Chicana Art, California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, CA, You’re Breathing in It: Exploring the Studio and Alternative Art Strategies, Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, CA, Domestic Disobedience, San Diego Mesa College, San Diego, CA, and Better to Die on My Feet, Self-Help Graphics, Los Angeles, CA. She is the recipient of the Herringer Family Foundation Award for Excellence in Art and the Trefethen Merit Award. Muro’s curatorial projects have been awarded grants from the Center for Cultural Innovation through the Creative Capacity Fund, the James Irvine Foundation for Intersections, and Adobe Youth Voices.
Hector Dionicio Mendoza was born in Uruapan, Michoacan Mexico. He and his family relocated to the agricultural community of King City California in the mid-eighties. His professional development includes a BFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland CA where he was awarded the Presidents fellowship which constitutes a full tuition scholarship. After he completed his Bachelor’s degree, Dio was invited to several artist in residence programs and exhibitions in Europe, including Kust Futur in Switzerland 2000, The Bossard Project in Berlin 2001, Casa Santos in Barcelona 2002, and The Putney Arts Center in London 2003. Dionicio’s awards include the Eureka Fellowship 2004 in California, Kunst Now 2005 in Berlin, and Eco-Conciente 2007 in Mexico City. In 2009 he received his MFA in Art from Yale University. Most recently he was awarded an artist’s residency at the prestigious Djerassi Resident Artists Program in Woodside, California. He currently lives in Oakland and is an Assistant Professor in the Visual and Public Art Department. Mendoza teaches studio courses in sculpture, painting, and screen printing.
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Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen’s Fashion Brand, The Row, Sees Troubles – WWD
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The Row, the luxe minimalist brand founded by Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen, is weathering financial difficulties, layoffs and the scaling back or closure of its short-lived men’s wear line, according to sources.
Despite numerous accolades, the Olsens’ reputation as arbiters of taste and CFDA Award wins and nominations — including those released this week, for Womenswear Designer of the Year and Accessories Designer of the Year —sources say the brand’s finances have long been choppy and that the current global economic crisis resulting from the coronavirus has been a further blow to the label.
When reached for comment regarding its business, The Row issued a statement to WWD saying it is, “actively producing the pre-fall 2020 and fall 2020 collections, developing the spring 2021 collection and working on its expansion plans for 2021 and beyond.”
“Like all retail brands, the company responsibly reduced overhead to address what we all hope will be a temporary disruption of the supply chain due to the global pandemic,” the statement said. “The Row is steadfastly committed to and maintains a diverse and inclusive workplace. We are not going to comment on the other inaccurate gossip about our business, other than to say we are excited about The Row’s future, including our men’s wear line, accessories, our e-commerce business and our future profitability.”
Following global COVID-19 lockdowns, The Row made extensive cuts to its staff, according to sources, by one account slashing 50 percent of all jobs. Among those said to have exited were head of women’s design Anna Sophia Hövener, and founding head men’s wear designer Paul Helbers, while a fleet of other design, sales and development positions were eliminated. Those cuts followed the October ouster of president David Schulte, who has since filed a sealed lawsuit against the sisters, their label and its parent company Dualstar Entertainment.
The job reductions came on the heels of Barneys New York’s bankruptcy last year — the court filings from which revealed that The Row was owed $3.7 million in outstanding debts. Barneys was among The Row’s biggest wholesale accounts, and the brand was the store’s second-biggest debtor — even outpacing two of the retailer’s landlords.
But even as third-party retail continues to decline globally, The Row has not made a major push to develop its own e-commerce channels, which some sources pointed to as one of the reasons for its current woes.
Some say the departure of Helbers, formerly head men’s designer for Louis Vuitton and Maison Martin Margiela, represents the end of The Row’s experiment with men’s wear — a launch charted in August 2018 at Schulte’s insistence, according to a source. The concept never quite got off the ground and was underperforming at retail, they said. Helbers did not respond to requests for comment.
When New York City entered phase one of reopening, between 10 and 12 members of The Row’s design and development team — a group that originally stood at around 30 people — were called back to the office to begin working on new collections. Among those called back were the label’s in-house patternmakers, according to a source.
It is understood that with the teams called back, Ashley is now serving as the company’s ceo, while Mary-Kate is creative director.
A source said at one point it appeared that The Row would shift its operations to Milan to be closer to its handbag and shoe development sites — two of the label’s biggest categories — but it appears the brand’s headquarters are staying put in New York for now. One source said The Row’s longtime leather supplier had some trouble getting paid and recently received notice from the brand terminating their working relationship.
Financial hardships aside, The Row has also seen internal turmoil regarding racial inequity, according to a source, who noted that the brand does not employ any Black professionals in its corporate headquarters and has very few employees of Asian decent. The source said that Asian employees were often excluded from promotions and raises even after years of working for the company. After the company’s recent round of layoffs, the source is unsure if any people of color remain on staff.
When asked to confirm or deny specifics relating to this story and their accuracy, The Row declined further comment.
The Row has long been regarded for its carefully crafted, guarded image — the kind of label that avoided discounting in order to maintain an aura of exclusivity. The brand’s fashion shows are attended by a curated list of fashion figures and are organized as refined, meditative experiences. The company’s Instagram is often cryptic, posting photos of minimalist artworks and archival photos.
All things considered, one would not expect to encounter The Row’s designs at discount retailers. However, one well-placed source said that in recent months The Row liquidated a considerable amount of merchandise to off-price channels in order to drum up a much-needed spurt of cash. The brand is still operating two flagship stores, one in New York and the other in Los Angeles, which are well-respected for their environmental approach to retailing and tasteful assortment. Both locations are currently open for shopping.
Throughout the label’s history, The Row has done well at producing some high-margin accessories, like its signature Ascot bag — a piece of silk knotted into a hammock shape that retails for around $1,000. The label also sells velvet Furlane gondolier shoes, versions of which cost around $20 at stores across Italy, for the retail price of $550. Recently, more of that product had ended up on sale racks at luxury stores.
But as The Row faced financial trouble, sources say that Ashley and Mary-Kate continued to spend lavishly — even installing a fur bed in the middle of their studio office that no one sat on. This summer, Mary-Kate became enmeshed in a high-profile divorce from Olivier Sarkozy, and was reported to spend $325,000 on a summer Hamptons rental to hide out in during COVID-19 lockdowns this summer. The designer has since been photographed back at work outside The Row’s corporate headquarters.
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California Road Trip: A 21-Day Suggested Itinerary
Posted: 7/2/2020 | July 2nd, 2020
California. It’s the third-largest state in the country and home to over 40 million people and a range of environments and landscapes: dense forests in the north, rugged mountains in the east, majestic deserts in the south, world-class beaches on the coast, and the fabulous wine regions on the coast and central valley.
And it’s perfect for road trips.
I’ve already outlined an awesome seven-day itinerary for Southern California, but today I wanted to share a longer, more comprehensive route for anyone who has a few weeks to explore more of the state’s cities and landscapes.
Even with three weeks, you’ll still miss a lot of great spots in this state (I mean you could spend months traveling California) but this suggested itinerary hits some of my favorite major — and not so major — places.
Days 1–3: San Francisco
San Francisco is one of the most recognizable cities in the US. Home to hippies, yuppies, techies, students, and a sizeable immigrant community, it’s a vibrant and diverse city. It is an eclectic destination to visit. Here’s a list of a few of my favorite things to see and do:
Walk the Golden Gate Bridge – When it opened, it was the world’s longest and tallest suspension bridge, stretching some 4,200 feet. It offers incredible views of the bay and the ships coming and going. You can walk across it too.
Tour Alcatraz – Alcatraz is one of the most infamous former prisons in the country. It housed some of the nation’s worst criminals, such as Al Capone. Today, it’s a national landmark where you can take tours of the prison, step foot in the cells, and learn about its history.
Visit the Beat Museum – Dedicated to the 1950s Beat Generation, this unique museum houses original manuscripts, rare books, letters, and more from authors like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. It also holds regular events, so check the website to see if anything is happening during your visit.
Take a food tour – San Francisco is known for its foodie culture. If you want to cast a wide culinary net and try a lot of different cuisines and dishes, consider taking a food tour. Some companies to check out are Wild SF Tours, Secret Food Tours, and TasteBud Tours.
Explore Chinatown – When immigrants from China first came to America, many set up shop in San Francisco. Today, in the biggest Chinatown in the U.S., you’ll find some of the best Chinese food in the country, as well as wonderful teahouses, bars, souvenir stalls, and fortune cookie makers.
Relax at Golden Gate Park – This gigantic park a great place to walk or relax. It features a Japanese garden, museums, an arboretum, a carousel, and many hiking and walking trails. It’s 20% bigger than New York’s Central Park so you easily could spend an entire day here!
For more suggestions, here’s a detailed list of things to see and do in San Francisco.
Where to Stay
HI San Francisco – Downtown – HI Downtown has some standard perks, like free breakfast and free towels, but the staff also organize a lot of events, including pub crawls, trips to Muir Woods and Yosemite, and bike tours across the Golden Gate Bridge.
Green Tortoise Hostel – This lively hostel is my favorite in the city. It offers free breakfast, free dinners multiple times per week, and even a free sauna! It’s a party hostel, so be sure to stay here only if you’re looking to meet people and get rowdy.
For more suggestions, here’s a full list of my favorite hostels in San Francisco!
Day 4: Big Sur
On the coast just over two hours south of San Francisco is a 90-mile expanse of stunning views and massive redwoods known as Big Sur. There are plenty of beautiful beaches, hiking trails, viewpoints, and campgrounds in case you want to stay overnight (which I recommend). It’s one of the most beautiful stretches of craggy, unspoiled coastline in the state, so take your time exploring as you head south.
Where to Stay I suggest staying at least one night around Big Sur (or just south of the region) to split up the drive to LA. If you don’t have camping gear, Airbnb has a lot of places around the area. You can also just pop into any of numerous cheap motels in the area too.
Days 5–7: Los Angeles
Though I hated it when I first visited, I’ve come to love Los Angeles. It’s not a “tourist” city: everything is spread out and there are not many attractions as you’d expect. But, if you come to LA and go with the flow like a local, you’ll see why people love it so much. This is a city where you eat, drink, hike the many trails in the area, and linger in a coffeeshop.
Here are some suggestions on how to fill your days:
Hit the beach – Venice Beach is an iconic LA hotspot where you’ll encounter all kinds of street performers, surfers, rollerskaters, and both locals and tourists alike soaking up the sun. Other beaches worth checking out are Carbon Beach, Santa Monica State Beach, Huntington City Beach, and El Matador.
See the Le Brea Tar Pits – Located in Hancock Park, these natural asphalt pits have existed for over 50,000 years. Tons of fossils preserved for centuries have been found in the pits, and there’s a museum nearby that has lots of interesting information about them and how they came to be.
See the Hollywood Sign – You can snap pictures of the sign from pretty much anywhere in Hollywood. However, it’s also possible to hike up to the sign itself to take in the view. The three trails that you can take (from easiest to hardest) are the Mt. Hollywood Trail, the Brush Canyon Trail, and the Cahuenga Peak Trail. Bring water, because the hike will take a few hours.
Visit LACMA – Home to some 150,000 works, the LA County Museum of Art is the largest art museum in the western USA. They have collections from pretty much every era throughout history and every region of the world. Admission is $25 USD.
Visit The Last Bookstore – This is one of my favorite bookstores in the world. It also sells records, has art displays, and features a cool upstairs area with cheap used books. Browse the shelves, grab a coffee, and buy a book for your journey.
Stroll down Hollywood Boulevard – Don’t miss the Walk of Fame (where celebrities have their names engraved in the sidewalk) and Grauman’s Chinese Theatre (featuring celebrities’ handprints and footprints).
Visit the Getty Museum – This art museum opened in 1997 and boasts a diverse collection paintings, manuscripts, drawings, and other artwork. The collection runs from the eighth century to the present day, so there is something for everyone. Admission is free.
Go hiking – Get out and stretch your legs on the city’s hiking trails. Some worth checking out are the Charlie Turner Trail (90 minutes), Baldwin Hills (30 minutes), Runyon Canyon (45 minutes), Portuguese Bend Reserve (3 hours), and Echo Mountain (3-3.5 hours).
Visit The Broad – This contemporary art museum is one of the city’s newest. Opened in 2015, it has over 2,000 pieces of art. It also has a rotating series of temporary exhibitions too (check the website to see what’s on during your visit). Admission is free.
For a much longer list on what to see and do in LA, check out my Los Angeles travel guide.
Moreover, the city also has innumerable world-class food options. Some places I really like are Musso & Frank Grill, Dan Tana’s, Meals by Genet, The Butcher’s Daughter, Sugarfish, and Thai Pepper.
Where to Stay
Banana Bungalow Hollywood – A laid-back but social hostel that organizes lots of activities and makes it easy to meet people. If you want to party and have fun, this is the place for you!
Freehand Los Angeles – This hostel/hotel features designer rooms with comfortable beds, a rooftop pool and bar with amazing views of the city, a lobby bar, a restaurant, and even a fitness center.
For more suggestions, here’s a list of my favorite hostels in Los Angeles.
Days 8–9: San Diego
San Diego, just two hours down the coast, has just as much to offer. It’s easier to navigate (it’s smaller), the weather is always perfect, the beaches are better, and it’s cheaper too. After LA, it’s my favorite city in the state. Spend a day or two soaking up the city.
Here are some suggestions for things to see and do during your visit:
Visit the USS Midway Museum – This aircraft carrier, commissioned right after World War II, was the largest ship in the world until 1955 and saw action in numerous conflicts, including Vietnam. It was decommissioned in 1992 and became a museum. You can explore the flight deck as well as many of the rooms below.
Hike Point Loma – This is the peninsula where Europeans first arrived in California. Walk out to the tip and enjoy the serene views, visit the lighthouse (built in 1855), and watch locals climb the rocks and cliffs of Osprey Point.
Visit the San Diego Zoo – This is one of the best zoos in the country. Located in Balboa Park (see below), it has over 3,500 animals and 700,000 plant species. It’s a massive, 1,800-acre park where you could easily spend an entire day. If you’re traveling with kids, don’t miss it.
Explore Balboa Park – In addition to the zoo, Balboa Park also offers dozens of museums as well as walking paths, sports fields, gardens, greenhouses, stadiums, theatres, and much more. It’s one of the oldest recreational parks in the country.
Enjoy Pacific Beach – If you want to soak up the sun, swim, or surf, head to Pacific Beach. If you’re a night owl, the area also has lots of bars, clubs, and restaurants too.
Go whale watching – California gray whales, which can grow up to 49 feet and live for over 70 years, migrate from Alaska to Mexico each year between December and April. They are incredible to see up close, and tours are quite affordable (usually around $35 USD).
Relax in Belmont Park – This is a kitschy amusement park right next to the ocean. It has a few classic rides, as well as games and lots of greasy (and delicious) snacks. It’s cheesy but fun!
Go surfing – Whether you’re a veteran or a newbie, grab a board and hit the waves. There’s some awesome surfing here. You can usually rent a board for around $30 USD a day. Lessons cost around $70 USD and last 90-minutes.
Where to Stay
HI San Diego – HI San Diego organizes lots of events and tours that make it easy to meet other travelers. They include free breakfast and also have a big kitchen so you can cook your own food to save money.
ITH Adventure Hostel – This is an eco-friendly hostel with a vegetable garden (guests get free veggies), a recycling and compost program, and even backyard chickens. There is lots of outdoor common space to relax in too.
If you’re on a budget, here’s a list of the best hostels in San Diego for you.
Days 10–12: Joshua Tree National Park
Located just under three hours from San Diego and sandwiched between the Mojave and Colorado Deserts, this is where you’ll find the iconic Joshua trees (Yucca brevifolia), twisted multibranched trees. Towering boulders dot the arid landscape and swaths of cacti poke up from the hard dirt. It’s an otherworldly place perfect for hiking, camping, and escaping the busy cities along California’s coast.
The park was declared a national monument in 1936 and designated a national park in 1994. There are a lot of trails here, so consult the trail map when you visit. Some of my favorites are:
Barker Dam Trail – A quick 1.1-mile loop on which you can see wildlife such as rabbits, bighorn sheep, and all kinds of birds.
Wall Street Mill – An easy 2.8-mile hike that leads to an old mill used to refine ore from nearby gold mines.
Ryan Mountain – A steep 3-mile hike offering some incredible views.
Split Rock Loop – A quiet 2-mile hike with lots of neat rock formations.
A seven-day vehicle pass for the park is $30 USD (it allows multiple entries in case you stay in one of the nearby towns).
Where to Stay Airbnb is the best option if you don’t have your own camping gear, although there are also glamping and more rustic options.
Days 13–15: Sequoia National Park & Kings Canyon National Park
Sequoia National Park, established in 1890, is where you’ll find the largest single-stem tree in the entire world. Named “General Sherman,” this giant sequoia tree stands a whopping 275 feet tall and has a diameter of 25 feet (that’s a 103-foot circumference). It’s so big that one of its branches is bigger than almost every single tree east of the Mississippi.
Start your visit at the Giant Forest Museum to learn about the history, geography, and importance of the park and its flora and fauna. Afterward, walk the Big Trees Trail, a short loop that will get you in and amongst the trees so you can see them up close.
For a sweeping view of the forest and surrounding landscape, hike up Moro Rock, a massive 250-foot granite dome that juts out of the surrounding hills and forest. Stairs and a concrete viewpoint were built into the rock itself, so you can safely climb to the top and enjoy the magnificent vista.
And for more hiking options and beautiful scenery, visit nearby Kings Canyon National Park. Here you’ll find “General Grant” (the third largest tree in the world). For a scenic drive, cruise along the Kings Canyon Scenic Byway.
Both parks are around 4-6 hours from Joshua Tree.
Where to Stay There are tons of places to camp here (both inside and outside of the parks). However, there are also lots of lodges and hotels if camping is not for you. Booking.com has the best list of them all.
Days 16–18: Yosemite National Park
Located in the Sierra Nevada mountain range two hours from Sequoia National Park and encompassing nearly 750,000 acres, Yosemite is one of the most iconic national parks in the country. It’s where you’ll find El Capitán, the towering granite cliff you’ve likely seen on social media (it was also featured in the movie, Free Solo). It is one of the most popular parks in the US, seeing over four million visitors each year who enjoy hiking, biking, climbing, camping, rafting, canoeing, and kayaking here.
Here are a few hiking suggestions to help you get started:
Mirror Lake – An easy 2-mile hike to Mirror Lake. Takes 1-2 hours.
Nevada Fall Trail – A challenging 5.8-mile hike to the top of the Nevada Falls waterfall. Takes 5–6 hours.
Tuolumne Grove Nature Trail – An easy 2.5-mile hike around a grove filled with massive giant sequoia trees. Takes 1–2 hours.
Elizabeth Lake Trail – A moderate 4.8-mile hike that leads to Elizabeth Lake, a glacier-carved lake at the base of Unicorn Peak. Takes 4–5 hours.
Eagle Peak Trail – A difficult 6.9-mile hike to the top of Eagle Peak and back. Takes 8 hours.
Be sure to visit the visitor’s center on arrival to get information on activities, prices, and information on the latest weather.
Where to Stay If you aren’t planning to camp, there are actually many other options here. Lodges, resorts, and hotels can be found both inside the park and all around it. Use Airbnb or Booking.com to find a place to stay.
Days 19–20: Napa Valley
Finally, head northwest to Napa Valley, one of the world’s premier wine regions, and end your trip relaxing at a vineyard. Napa is just over three hours from Yosemite and offers a plethora of world-class wine and food to indulge in.
While it’s a particularly expensive region of the state, it is possible to visit Napa Valley on a budget if you plan ahead and share costs with other people.
If you’re on a budget, stick to the markets and sandwich shops. Gott’s Roadside has locations in both Napa and St. Helena and serves delicious burgers for under $10 USD, while Ad Hoc runs a delicious food truck offering fried chicken made by a Michelin-star chef for $15 USD with sides.
Whereto Stay While some vineyards offer accommodation, they are usually super expensive. Unless you’re looking to splurge, use Airbnb. I find the best value accommodation in the area on that site.
Day 21: Back to San Francisco
It’s time to head back to San Francisco. The drive is around 90 minutes, so you’ll have plenty of time to make stops along the way if you see anything that piques your interest.
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This three-week itinerary will help you cover a lot of ground without being too rushed. Adjust the route as you go (or based on the amount of time you have). But, no matter the route you pick, the diversity and beauty of California will ensure you’ll have a wonderful road trip.
Book Your Trip to the USA: Logistical Tips and Tricks
Book Your Flight Find a cheap flight by using Skyscanner or Momondo. They are my two favorite search engines because they search websites and airlines around the globe so you always know no stone is left unturned.
Book Your Accommodation You can book your hostel with Hostelworld. If you want to stay elsewhere, use Booking.com as they consistently return the cheapest rates for guesthouses and cheap hotels.
Don’t Forget Travel Insurance Travel insurance will protect you against illness, injury, theft, and cancellations. It’s comprehensive protection in case anything goes wrong. I never go on a trip without it as I’ve had to use it many times in the past. I’ve been using World Nomads for ten years. My favorite companies that offer the best service and value are:
World Nomads (for everyone below 70)
Insure My Trip (for those over 70)
Looking for the best companies to save money with? Check out my resource page for the best companies to use when you travel! I list all the ones I use to save money when I travel – and I think will help you too!
Want More Information on traveling the United States? Be sure to visit our robust destination guide to the US for even more tips on how to plan your visit!
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