PAUL SALAMONE / GRAPHIC DESIGNER, ETC.

About This Blog

Paul S. — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 16:52:00 +0000

The Boulder Anti-Apathy Cluster was my personal blog during the period between Spring 2004 and Summer 2007. I have since moved on to other blogs and projects, but please feel free to peruse the archives. This marks an interesting point in my life, when I worked as a designer for a non-profit organization in Boulder, Colorado, sang karaoke, and started a band. Please enjoy...

Green-Eyed Girl Sitting in a Field

Paul S. — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 21:08:00 +0000

Mash-up of two of my design styles: chibi icons and RGB psychedelia.

Buddhist Geeks, me win awards

Paul S. — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 21:47:00 +0000

Congrats to Gwen, Vince, and Ryan for winning "Best New Blog of the Year" at Blogmandu's Blogisattva Awards. I myself took home the prize for "Best Achievement in Clean, Straightforward, Unaffected Design" for my 5-minute hack of a standard blogger template. I'm honored, but still, five minutes!?! Oh, and Wilber's implosive "Wyatt Earpy" post won "Best Conversation-Sparking Blog Post"... no surprises there. Congrats to all the winners! Hooray for geeks!

Zaadz Down, But Not I

Paul S. — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 18:03:00 +0000

Well, my primary blog account at Zaadz has been down for the last 24 hrs, need I give up on them and switch back to blogger? Here's hoping they can get things back up and running in a timely fashion.

In other news, I've been sick with the flu for the last four days, which I'd liken to an enforced meditation if only I wasn't spending the entirety of recovery time reading Neal Stephenson's The System of the World, book three of his ginormous Baroque Cycle. What does it mean to be in a book's grip so forcefully? I'd say it's akin to experiencing something of a flow state, where time/space are suspended a bit to have one's head kicked around and challenged by an entirely new worldspace. Or something.

Finally, watch this space soon, as I'm taking my graphic design practice to a new level, and will be using blogging as a key part of it all. Until then...

Cross-Country Travel -- September 1st-11th

Paul S. — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 20:57:00 +0000

As should be obvious, this blog is more or less on hiatus. In the meantime, check out my weird-ass Zaadz blog. Also note, starting this weekend I'll be traveling cross-country. I am flying from Denver to New York City today (Friday the 1st), spending the weekend in Brooklyn and Manhattan, then venturing upstate to grab a car and drive it all the way back to Denver. If you're reasonably located near routes 70 or 80, shoot me an email and we could perhaps hang out. Boo yaa.

POLYSEMY #1 is done!

Paul S. — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 23:02:00 +0000

So the finishing touches have been made and the printing is being completed: POLYSEMY Magazine Issue #1 is ready to rock! Please order yours today. Designed by me, with some excellent writing and artwork from some folks who walk the talk....

Porn for Integral Nerds

Paul S. — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 22:06:00 +0000

FYI: some interesting discussion going at my Zaadz blog regarding Andrew P. Smith's recent essay for Integral World about evolution, non-dualism, and the emerging planteray super-holon. Keeps things interesting at least...

Picture of the Week

Paul S. — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 22:00:00 +0000

I don't know why, but I love this...

My brother blogs!

Paul S. — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 00:35:00 +0000

Here's Chris, erstwhile drummer of Los Hermanos Salamones, blogging up his true tales of the Northeast Boulder karaoke glory days (read: August 2004-October 2005) on his MySpace blog. Jeez, and you think I'm a good writer....

Postmortem

Paul S. — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 14:37:00 +0000

And so, the building has ceased. The cathedral now lies empty, the windows have been boarded up, the statuary stripped, the alter flattened, and the candles blown out. The grand building is now but a shell, a cave into which the glory of Her light will no longer pour. And the Architect, head held low, exits from a side entrance, head already buzzing with plans for a cathedral even more magnificent, for a new She who would actually deserve it.

The simple fact is, the cathedral was built in the wrong spot. It was the best spot the Architect had found thus far, but it had a fatal, secret flaw that was not revealed until the last day. It was only when the the ribbon ceremony had commenced and the crowds had gathered and the mayor had cleared out his schedule that Her light shined suddenly upon the Fissure Most Foul. It was a deep structural Lie she'd kept hidden from the Architect, for she could not bring herself to disturb him upon seeing the alacrity and excitement with which he took to this building project.

But as the cathedral grew taller, and as more workers were put to use on its myriad scaffolds, and as more artisans were kept busy gilding and carving and painting and frescoing, as the Architect took to pacing back and forth, staring at the sky and telling every passerby about the glory that was Her, She knew what she must do.

The Flaw, of course, was a fissure entirely of her own making, having to do with her young age, her heady disposition, and the fact that she'd seen other cathedrals created in Her honour with none of the difficulty of this current one. Those were light, airy affairs into which She leapt with ease and grace, so in love was she with their porticos and pinnacles and buttresses and transepts and the men who made them.

Yet each one crumbled, owing to the fact that those architects had not built them for Her, and when Her light did shine through it was abused and twisted, mangled and distorted, such that the lowest reaches of those cathedrals required other, more crude forms of light to keep the workers from stumbling in the darkness.

But this Architect was different: his blueprints had been drafted with Her in mind even before meeting Her. It was a stroke of luck that he knew precisely which time of day she would shine, he'd know the angle of her rise and the angle of her setting, the strength of her shine, its hue and its wattage.

But alas, his plan was made for a Light which arose with some Regularity, which obeyed the Heavenly rules and moved the way a Heavenly body should move. She, of course, pretended to be one of the same, but there was a wobble in her orbit the Architect could never detect, for he could never look directly at her blinding rise and fall.

This wobble came from the fact that she herself was imbalanced and un-whole, with an oblong hollow inside of Her self which affected her transit across the sky in ways barely detectable to the naked eye. What looked from the outside like blistering, blinding Confidence was inside ready to combust at any second, and woe be unto he who should stand beneath this unholy conflagration.

Though She wanted with all of her force to be the one to shine with regularity on this magnifent cathedral, to dance and dash through its sunny halls the way she did so freely through the previous, smaller cathedrals, alas she could not. The Architect had staked his life on Her participation in the project, and indeed she was flattered by his worshipful labour, but deep inside, she wobbled.

And so now, here it was, the day of the ribbon-cutting, the day the whole town dressed in their Sunday Best, the day when the mayor held a pair of golden shears, and the Architect and his Foremen, the workers and the artisans, the swamp-drainers and the bread-cookers and the locksmiths, blacksmiths, goldsmiths, and jewelers lined up for this Grand Unveiling.

But as the shears came to snip downward upon this ribbon so red, there was a rumble in the sky. A shock of grey cloud had suddenly occluded Her, and flames licked forth, and thunder did clap, and all at once Her grand heavenly magnifecence had disappeared, and all that was left was a wimpering basket of spark and ash hurtling towards the horizon.

"Oh no!" cried the Architect.

"Oh no!" wailed the Mayor.

"Oh no!" screamed the Foremen.

"Oh no!" bellowed the workers, the artisans, the swamp-drainers, bread-cookers, locksmiths, blacksmiths, goldsmiths, and the jewelers.

But the Light had gone out, and the cathedral had gone gloomy, and the day was thus ruined.

"Doomed" revisited

Paul S. — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 03:03:00 +0000

I wrote this last July upon meeting the girl who would become my girlfriend for the next year. It was mutually understood that the long distance which separated us (she was on the East Coast, I live on Planet Boulder) would be our inevitable downfall, but ironically it's what kept us together (in that we could dismiss certain relational hiccups as "tricks of distance"). Alas, said relationship is no more, and I am once again in the position of seeking a new bio dance to play....

Crazed Men on the Bus

Paul S. — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 16:50:00 +0000

As a long-time bus rider, I've come to know the species of bus-bound flora and fauna quite well, thank you. One of the more peculiar specimens of the public transit ecosystem, or omniculture as it's known in the field, is the Crazed Man Who Stinks (CMWS) (not to be confused with the Crazed Man Who Shrinks, another creature found horrifying for completely different reasons).

The CMWS is typically found between the hours of 10am and 4pm, and is often located in a seat somewhere in the front third of the bus, where he may sit and issue forth withering, creepy stares at every fifth passenger who enters the vehicle. His eyes are held abnormally wide, his clothing often consists of mismatched sporting gear from the early 90s, and his demeanor is best described as "surly, with a hint of schizophrenia."

But the primary telltale feature of a CMWS is, of course, the stench, which issues forth like an invisible mushroom cloud of body odor, hospital food, Jiffy Lube grease, half-digested morsels of food lodged in his beard, and more, older body odor.

What's plagued omniculturalists for decades if, of course, discerning the actual source of this stench. Three hypotheses proposed thus far:

1) CMWSs are raised in small towns beyond the bounds of the typical soap delivery truck route. These towns are home to notably undersized grocery and drug stores, indicative of the lack of aisles and shelf space devoted to hygenic commodities like soap, shampoo, deodarant, and Lysol. The CMWS, then, grew up in complete ignorance of modernity's olfactory innovations, and is thus completely unaware of the common norms of big city omniculture.

2) CWMSs have all suffered some sort of tragic(omic) incident in grammar school involving being spit upon by the schoolyard bully. This spitting, it is believed, is too close in structure to the activity of the common shower head, rendering the CMWS completely and neurotically afraid of all hygiene-bestowing nozzles and spigots.

3) At some point between the ages of 3 and 13, the CWMS -- then residing in the Black Forest region of Germany -- was skipping stones across a small creek with his sister, when along came on old woman in a pointy hat, who grabbed the siblings by their ankles and hauled them to a small cabin deeper in the woods. There they were played in a large, kettle-like appliance, which was filled with water, root vegetables, and duck meat, at which point a small fire was applied and the CWMS and sister were partially braised before being rescued by a plant biologist with a pickaxe.

Thus far, little ground has been made to prove or disprove any of these hypothese, and the CMWS continues to remain one of mass transit's deepest mysteries....

Polysemy blog launches!

Paul S. — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 01:11:00 +0000

Check out the new gig.

Hot Chicago! (back porch recording)

Paul S. — Sun, 18 Jun 2006 22:40:00 +0000

Here's a little ditty I multi-tracked on the back porch (pictured) of one MD in Chicago, IL one hour ago. I took the piano chords from Salamone Brothers live screamo classic "Silent City" and layered on the alley guitar, echoing hand drums, Sala-mumbles, and repeated slams of the screen door downstairs (new tenants are moving in this week).

"Silent City (screen door version)" - mp3 (1:30)

We've had a blast so far: I saw the new Frank Gehry bandshell, drank beers at the Green Mill (first jazz club in the nation), played kickball with lesbians, and bought a Lightning Bolt DVD at Reckless Records (the High Fidelity record shop) after lunch at a restaurant inexplicably named Earwax.

Kick arse....

Blog on Hiatus

Paul S. — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 17:04:00 +0000

Due to a variety of new exciting/challenging/fun projects I'm working on, this blog will be on hiatus for the time being. Thank you for everyone who's read along thus far, and if you'd like to support me and my friends, please buy an ILP Kit, subscribe to Polysemy Art Magazine, or do everyone a favor by supporting Net Neutrality. Seacrest, out (for now).

Like My Avatar? Get Your Own!

Paul S. — Wed, 24 May 2006 20:49:00 +0000

As many of you know, I don't make a whole lot of money as an I-I semi-volunteer graphic designer. To cover my living expenses, I've had to chase various freelance leads, along with a one-month stint as a karaoke DJ (long story). Given how much time I spend talking to people online, however, I figure why fight it? Why not make an aesthetic contribution to the social aspect of the Internet?

With that in mind, I am offering a new service -- custom-designed avatars! All you have to do is email a photo of yourself to artisticavatars@gmail.com, and for a nominal fee, I'll recreate your image as a way-cool vector image. Best of all, because it's vector art, it is scalable, meaning you can use it for anything from a buddy icon to a Zaadz profile to a 2'x3' poster and beyond.

I've already done them for Casey and Dan, with more on the way. Let me know!

The Obligatory Gafni Post

Paul S. — Wed, 17 May 2006 06:02:00 +0000

I am apparently incapable of the normal sincerity which comes so easy to other bloggers. Instead, I have to go and write something like this. You my not think Houellebecq has anything to do with Gafni, but I do.

My Last Review for Urban Pollution (for now)

Paul S. — Tue, 16 May 2006 19:30:00 +0000

Not that anyone's tracking this, but here is my final contribution to Austin's UP (at least for now), this one for BritPop wannabes The Situation. There wasn't a falling out or anything, I just don't have time right now.

Analog Ambient Dreamscape Thingie

Paul S. — Mon, 15 May 2006 19:39:00 +0000

Sorry for the lack of posts, lots on the ol' plate. Anyways, check out one of our more recent experiments, this one consisting solely of four tracks: three for the cheap keyboard (each with its own filter in Garage Band), one for Chris's drums (with added influence by me twisting the reverb speed knob). Come to think of it, everything on here is basically Chris, with me on post-production. Nice work bro. Check it:

"Untitled #4 (dream)" - mp3 1:44

And while we're on the subject of post-Wiki psychedelia, also check out Ghost Box Records, who are just absolutely brilliant at the graphic design / atonal juxtaposition / weird nostalgia thing. Example here.

Garage Band as Photoshop for Audiofiles (experimental noise)

Paul S. — Mon, 08 May 2006 01:41:00 +0000

The Salamone Bros. experimental noise ouvre just gets weirder and weirder. This time we basically played a "hit" of some sound or another on every fourth beat, did it 6 times over using different instruments (including our new favorite: the reverb speed dial), then jumbled the track alignment so the hits wouldn't fall at the same spot, and applied a few filters in Garage Band to create the final result. Is it music? That's not for us to decide. Think of it as an exercise in contemplative timbre: the only way to find it entertaining, after all, is to appreciate each moment in its uniqueness, rather than searching for a pop hook or melody to metastisize it's way into your life.

"One, Two, Three, Four" (mp3 - 1:43)

Special thanks to my Zaadz pal Jason for his helpful observations re: Detroit noise et al. Note: comments are now enabled for all users, not just Blogspotters. We'll try this for now. Clear Void, what's up?

My First Video on YouTube

Paul S. — Sat, 06 May 2006 23:37:00 +0000

Here it is, a live reading (if by "live" you mean "recorded in the dining room with the neighbor's dog barking") of an old blog post entitled "Destroy Everything So That All That Remains is Naked Intuition". I used an iSight camera to capture it with QuickTime pro, then uploaded to YouTube. Now it's your turn.

New Music Review: Gram Rabbit's Cultivation

Paul S. — Sat, 06 May 2006 18:54:00 +0000

Another shorter one for Urban Pollution, click here. Gram Rabbit is a pretty solid keyboard-soaking pop act, fronted by a woman, with occult/desert overtones. Not a bad listen, and it was free!

Audio: Calliope Djembe Reverb

Paul S. — Wed, 03 May 2006 17:34:00 +0000

Fluttering, fluttering...

"Holding the Holy Breathe" 2:32

Basically, we recorded drums and guitars with the "speed" knob on the reverb twisted up and down manually, which is where the weird distortions come from, and then threw on the cheap keyboard run through Garage Band's "Helium" filter. I don't know what any of this means, or how obnoxiously elitist it might be, but damn it is fun to make. LL Cool Jase, if you're reading, drop me a line. I need the noise expert's feedback.

Today This Blog is One Year Old

Paul S. — Mon, 01 May 2006 23:34:00 +0000

A year ago today, The Boulder Anti-Apathy whatsit was born. Here's the very first post. The idea was to build enough of an audience that I would feel like I was letting them down if I didn't write something every day. At that time I was not writing every day, and really needed a venue to expose my ideas, and the blog was intended to force me to do it. Over the last five months or so, as other priorities came to the fore, I slipped up on the daily posts, and with that probably lost half my audience (or more). All the reader action now, in fact, is over at my ILP blog. While I like the idea of posting music or art every day as I've done so lately, I'm not sold that there is an audience to appreciate it. That, or I need to work better to find one. So in the future, expect some sort of overhaul of this blog or the creation of a completely new one. I'm tooling around with WordPress as we speak, we'll see what happens.... Special thanks for everyone who's kept up with it thus far. If you have an idea for the future it could take, drop me a line. Seacrest, out.

Free Noise Insanity!!!

Paul S. — Mon, 01 May 2006 21:38:00 +0000

Here we are, The Salamone Brothers, making a first attempt at multi-tracked noise insanity:

Noise Improv #1 (4:24)

This ain't quite No Neck Blues Band or Black Dice, but we had fun. It consists of five separate tracks, four for instruments and one for vocals (that's Chris on the water-drop noises). Mostly drums and guitar, with a broken acoustic being slammed against my chest, a screwdriver running up and down the neck of a Fender Squire, the bass pedal hooked up to hit a snare, random effects on the $20 keyboard, and plenty of reverb. Listen with an open mind.