hard poems in space

pop up pianos pop up plus music

tonight may be the invite only Pop-Up Pianos Event, one of the few authentically local initiatives that even benefits local schools, but the invite tonight with piano by Lebo and music by Jacob Jeffries isn't for all. However, the rest of them are, including the closing event and a show by Suenalo tonight.

ready to yelle?

yelle, the French pop, bop your head along, super fun jamskis. Check it out live tomorrow night at The Fillmore for $43. tickets here. 

marina ambramovic on speed dating

performance artist Marina Abramovic on not believing in dating:

 I don’t believe in dating—it’s so American. This is my advice to Americans: dating doesn’t work. I just heard that you can Google what you want and you go this special restaurant and then you can fast date 30/40 people so you don’t lose time. Again, I think this shows how we are polluted by the internet and technology. No, I go to Machu Picchu, meet an Inca god, and then we see.

for full audio of conversation between Marina and and 

the MoMA's chief curator at Large Klaus Biesenbach 

on the Nowness.com click here

billy the marlin's makeover (and how much he weighs naked)

the Marlins continue to make us giggle. Billy the Marlin, the childhood buddy of 90's Miami kids, has a new look to match the Miami Marlins. It must be such a relief for Billy to not have to play with those lame Central Florida kids anymore, and get to solely focus his love and pantomime on well-dressed Miami kids.

Someone on the Marlins staff with actually paid to come up with a bio for Billy the Marlin, so if you have a few minutes to spare (and I really mean spare, because it's not like they hired a local comedian to write-it, it's pretty lame) then click here to read Billy's Bio.

once you pop, pringle of scotland pop up shop

Here's what Vanity Fair has to say about the Pringle of Scotland pop-up shop and exclusive collection:

December 2, 8:30 p.m. drinks, 9:30 p.m. dinner at the Pringle of Scotland Pop Up store, Mosaic Building, 161 NE 40th Street, Design District.
IN A NUTSHELL: South Beach concept store the Webster is co-helming a monthlong pop-up shop for formerly fusty Scottish knitwear brand; Miami is the first of several city stops for the pop-up, which will be shilling special sweaters for the next six months. The excuse for the Art Basel bash: a capsule collection, exclusive to this pop-up until Summer 2012, designed by wacky wunderkind artist Liam Gillick, with the Twitterific name “liamgillickforpringleofscotland.”
NAMES TO DROP: Newly minted designer Liam Gillick and old hand Charlotte Ronson, Pringle muse Tilda Swinton.
HOTNESS FACTOR: Nobody messes with Gillick, the man who turned the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale into an art installation with little more than wooden crates and one stray stuffed cat.

161 NE 40th St. Design District.

jacobs jeffries is nice, really.

Jacob Jeffries admits to having read his own YouTube comments, wants to find some fans in the Netherlands, was part of a self-proclaimed musical theater cult and is pretty into Wilco right now. All in all, he seems like a pretty normal twenty three year old doing the singer-songwriter-piano player thing; and if you compare him to Billy Joel or Elton John because of that, he’s learned to be cool with it.

Jacob, who changed his last name to his father’s first name after his death four years ago, is driving a car in downtown Fort Lauderdale looking for parking and trying to figure out why there are so many darn people there. A day before a big show at Revolution, also in Ft. Lauderdale, he has a slight cough that will hopefully fade before both that and the following night at Louis, the club, for an Art Basel Pop Up Pianos event. If it doesn’t go away, he’ll sing till he can’t any more. The kid’s got energy.

At one point in our conversation he rolls down the window and asks a stranger on the street why there are so many people in the downtown area. I think the answer is Christmas. A charismatic brunette, with wild brown hair, Jacob Jeffries is like watching Red Bull perform. He croons, the girls swoon, and he takes great pleasure from a girl fan telling him they she had her first kiss to one of his songs.

He’s got some lovesick puppy in him, as most songwriters do, and a song about an actual puppy. All in all, it’s the makings of someone a little more John Mayer, a little less Elton John, piano thing aside.

 Jacob Jeffries is a little green, as they would say in the industry, or maybe he's just really nice. Talking to him is an uncalculated conversation without the pretense of “cool.” He pontificates such existential crises such as the meaning of fame and fortune and tries to look at his like “glass half full.” He talks about refusing to change his art for the labels, like any good aspiring artist. He admits without a hint of a blush that the band met at a musical theater camp. He uses words and phrases like “hoopla,” “get out of town,” and “dufus.” He and the band watch Wet Hot American Summer five times every tour.

I asked Jacob to respond to some comments posted on a popular YouTube video for his song “Astronomy” and he kindly obliged and indulged my silly readings of the postings including animating the emoticons. The following is an abbreviated transcription of his answers:

He's amazing :)) French fan!

I am from liverpool UK and also checked out your beatles cover mother should know.

my friend is Jacobs cousin...yeah... need to tell her most of his fans are from Europe

I know that a lot of peers of mine, singer songwriters, they go to Europe often. I’ve never been there, at all, but I know that they were very accepting. I guess they embrace the art of songwriting, I think more openly than in America. You know, Europeans are taking in a lot of the influences of American music right now, like a lot of the dub step and the pop music these days that’s American pop culture.

 A lot of the singer-songwriter-piano-player friends of mine are tapping into a demographic there, especially in the Netherlands and in England. My management team has been kind of skimming the surface of getting into Europe. It’s kind of ironic, or I guess coincidental, that you ask this and it’s been on our minds.

I want to get over there soon and I guess this is indicative of our demand in Europe.

OMG! they are my music camp counsilers!

 (He laughs) Well, Jimmy, the guitar player, and myself and also another drummer that we use sometimes, Eric, oh and for one year the bass player Brian, we were all at some point camp counselors at this Broward arts camp where we all met. A lot of our close friends now, whether they taught musical theater, or arts and crafts or rock band, they were at all that camp.

It’s kind of like one of my favorite movies, Wet Hot American Summer. I love that movie so much, we watch it at least five times every tour we go on.

My uncle found an ad in the newspaper when I was twelve or thirteen for a program called Lovewell. Lovewell, sounds very corny, well it sounds cultish. I showed up with my dad and he was so bizarrely disturbed by the cult atmosphere. That was my introduction to musical theater, but it really it was an introduction to songwriting.

At this point Jacob and I stop to talk a little about scars. He tells me he’s broken his nose three times and his elbow three times as well.

ur music reminds me alot of queen and elton john are those like ur inspirations.

 They’re not my sole inspirations, but I guess I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t take a little bit from each of them. A lot of people will say, “You remind me of Elton John or Billy Joel” and I’m like “it’s just because I’m on a piano you dufus.”

I’ve learned to accept Billy Joel and Elton John as high comparisons, but I don’t just listen to them all the time, or as much as people might think I do, just because I’m a piano player.

This is my cousins band. The drummer is my cousin. Im into deathmetal but this is ok.

 That’s great, cool. Its funny actually, I was playing a gig and I went to get ice cream across the street and I saw this girl who had been to our show. I thought she was pretty cute, so I start, you know, flirting with her a little bit, like any dude would. So, I was talking to her and I was like “so what do you think?” you know? And she was like “Oh, that was you guys playing huh? Yeah, that was ok.”

And it’s really not like me, I don’t usually ask people what they think of my music, but I guess I was feeling flirty. So I asked her what kind of music she likes and she said “Spanish music.” So, to each his own.

Probably not your target demographic, but this 59 year old WJM thinks JJ is outasight!

 WJM?! What is that? This 59 year old WJM? I have no idea. But, I guess the thing about demographics is I can’t figure out if it works in our favor or not, but our music has no sole demographic. We have ten year old fans who have written us asking for t-shirts and we have 59 year old WJM fans.

What a fucking stud. I heard Jacob stopped a bus of orphans from falling off a cliff and then bought them all a scoop of birthday cake ice cream. With ANY TOPPINGS THEY WANTED.

 I’m assuming that’s someone I know, but nope, never did that.

why the hell aren't you famous??

 I guess fame and fortune, I’ve realized recently, are used as a pair of words, but I’ve realized they’re two completely different things. If I was looking at this glass half empty then I’d be like why the hell aren’t I famous either. But recently, I don’t know if it’s because I have some shit going on in my life personally, or just watching other people squander their righteousness in the quest to become famous. I’ve realized that fame is what you make it, without sounding corny or cliché.

Fun Fact: There’s a Jacob Jeffries on twitter @ob1jakearoni from Fairborn ohio who is a “rich powerful attorney who is slightly above average in bed.” Sounds like a real dirtbag. 


Check out one of the Jacob Jeffries Band shows in the next few days- it'll be real nice. 

                                 

oh, wow. locals make basel.

OHWOW presents their annual "it aint fair" a reflection on materialism featuring art world darlings like Aurel Schmidt, who you may recognize from magazines as that chick with the wild glasses that paints lots of penises and cigarettes, and three Miami born artists featured below:

bert rodriguez's video from the 2008 whitney biennial 

jose parla's covert transcriptions beneath layers of paint 

81 NE 40th St. 

Opening Reception open to the public. 

Thursday December, 1. 6-9 PM. 

 Friday and Saturday 11-7 PM. 

Sunday 11-5 PM.

images via highsnobiety, video the the whitney, ohwow.

skin and bones (if you like dominoes and skulls)

Jeremy Fish - Skin & Bones Dominoes for TOTT Global from Sean Desmond on Vimeo.

then artist Jeremy Fish's latest might be making its way onto your Christmas wish-wish-wish list.

about that light-up marlins art piece...

miami Magazine talks a little bit about how Jeffery Loria is getting away with turning the Miami Marlins (such a nice ring to it) Stadium into an Art In Public Places and who's getting to put their stamp on the stadium. One is local turned Brooklyn self-trianed architect/artist Daniel Arsham who's had shows in Paris, designed sets for Merce Cunningham's dancers and acknowledges that we have a problem here where we tear down what's barely been used. 

almodovar encore

pedro Almodovar, the genius behind (English translations of names) All About My Mother, Talk to Her and Volver, is the master of creepy crawly Spanish cinema- sometimes with ghosts. But his latest isn't about ghosts or bullfighters, it's about plastic surgery, so it's no surprise that the Miami audience has eaten it up at the Coral Gables Art Cinema and they have continued to encore their encore of The Skin I Live In.

little river market garden

if Art BlahBlahBlahsel isn't really your style, and you're looking to get your hands a little dirty this weekend (It's only Monday and a little early for a weekend post, but it's something to look forward to right?) then mark your calendar the Little River Market Garden's fall seedling sale. 

Little River Market Garden is a local CSA. They provide the United States Department of Agriculture's definition on their website: 

In basic terms, CSA consists of a community of individuals who pledge support to a farm or garden operation so that the land becomes, either legally or spiritually, the community’s farm, with the growers and consumers providing mutual support and sharing the risks and benefits of food production. Members or shareholders of the farm or garden pledge to cover the anticipated costs of the operation and the farmer’s salary in advance. In return, they receive shares in the farm’s bounty throughout the growing season, as well as satisfaction gained from reconnecting to the land.

United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) 

Basically, you become a member and you pick up a box of vegetables every week with whatever's in season. The Little River Market Garden grows everything from cilantro, scallions and peppermint to tomatillos, eggplants, and arugula. Unfortunately, this particular CSA is at it's membership capacity for the year, but there are plenty of others to choose from if you're interested. 

maria cornejo's saving grace

"Cornejo is about solutions as much as style. 

One of her greatest is the silk dress, which she sells like D batteries the day before a hurricane."

-Style.com

Mad props to you Chilean designer Maria Cornejo, for this geometric optical illusion of a dress. 

Oh, and to you Style.com for a hurricane themed simile that made me LOL. 

Burger Bob's. 

As close to a real diner as you can get in Coral Gables. 

And while the Canes may have lost this weekend, 

the adult woman in the pigtails and fan gear will always be a winner. 

2001 Granada Blvd.

natalia molina shoots miami

natalia Molina was born and raised in Miami. The following are a few of her photos from around the 305 including an alligator and the man with the doll at Versailles:

visit her site here.