Essentials/Blog

We are happy to announce that the following organizations have won this month’s charitable give-away:
The Common School in Amherst, MA & Jackson Street School in Northampton, MA.
And Jackson Street gets a Dwell Studios crib set.
Congratulations to two worthwhile nonprofits doing good work for our community.

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Yusaku Hanakuma is one of the most well received cult “hero” illustrator and cartoonist in Japan. He is the recipient of The Choice 13th Grand Prix Award and one of his most popular works, “Tokyo Zombie” was adapted for the big screen which became a huge success. You can see in his chararacters, Hanakuma is [...]

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Just got this email. Thought I would share….
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Marissa Minna Lee sent a message to the members of People Against Racebending: Protest of the Cast of The Last Airbender Movie.
Subject: MANAA Meeting This Thursday Night in Los Angeles!
There’s a Media Action Network for Asian Americans (MANAA) meeting tomorrow, April 16th in Chinatown, Los Angeles– where they [...]

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The Chiba City Museum of Art near Tokyo has one of the larges ukiyo-e (art of the floating world) woodblock print collections in the world. Appliya collaborated with the museums’ curators to create Ukiyo-e Beauties, an app that puts high-res, digitally restored versions of geisha-like women on your iPhone screen. Great for those who have [...]

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By: Japan Times
Toyama-based artist Susumu Nishinaga has published a book of photos taken with a scanning electron microscope, offering images of nature unseen by the naked eye.
The 95 close-ups in the book “Micro Cosmos” include insects, flowers and shellfish.
The images show smooth graduation sequences and fine images of texture. The original images are in black [...]

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DJ, digital and video artist, Daito Manabe put together this experimental video of his friends’ physical reactions to music. Be patient through the first minute or so as it gets much more interesting. Oh, and be sure to get to the end. The reactions of the “musical instruments” are cute. Learn more about the man [...]

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I was just emailed this picture. I don’t know where it came from or why these babies are stuck in giant sample cups. I do know that it is simultaneously cute and creepy. Enjoy!

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It’s About Freaking Time!

MONTPELIER, Vt. — The Vermont Legislature on Tuesday overrode Gov. Jim Douglas’s veto of a bill allowing gay couples to marry, mustering one more vote than needed to preserve the measure. The step makes Vermont the first state to allow same-sex marriage through legislative action instead of a court ruling. The law goes into effect Sept. [...]

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Just downloaded the latest from LA band, The Bird and The Bee. I am a little behind as this album was release in January, but better late than never. This track is called “Love Letter to Japan.” Enjoy!

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Taking the ancient craft of origami to a new extreme, Giant Robot invited artists and the art-minded to cut, tear, sew, and fold a downloadable paper robot pattern to create original versions. The winning works are being shown in PAPERSHAPERS. Shin Tanaka, the progressively interactive Japanese artist who enabled people around the world to create their own entries [...]

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