Send Sam Brown a title, and if he likes it and has some spare time, he just might come up with a drawing to match it. Most of his drawings involve lonely stick-figures just trying to get by in a chaotic world. Sam Brown's tiny masterpieces read like the doodlings of Buster Keaton and Frida Kahlo's imaginary love child. Recent works include "What The Hell Is Floating In My Coffee," "Lets Use Bad Logic and Drink Motor Oil," and "Jessica Thwarts My Attempts At Self Sufficiency."
Iowa Farmer Today, an in-depth agricultural news source, wants you to sit back and watch the corn grow, whether you're in Silicon Valley, Silicon Alley, or somewhere in between. Jim and Sharon Greif's East Central Iowa cornfield is breaking new ground on the Web. The corn cam will document the growth cycle of corn over the length of a season. Will it be "knee high by the Fourth of July?" The images might remind you of 19th-century Impressionist landscapes, but the crop reports, weather statistics, and agronomy links provide real information for Iowa farmers.
This site deals with the homeless problem in America by asking viewers to rate actual homeless people on their panhandling techniques. Viewers can compare their ratings with the general web-browsing public. This may strike many people as appallingly cruel. We tend to think that it's a disturbing but enlightening way of examining the psychology of panhandling. Do you give money to panhandlers? Are there some panhandlers you won't give money to? Why is that? Some of the questions raised by this effort.
This extraordinary photo essay by career diplomat and amateur photographer Dean Brown is apparently required viewing in certain college art history classes. The images consist of diorama-like tableaus that recreate great masterpieces of Western art using Barbie dolls. See Barbie as Botticelli's Venus, Whistler's Mother, Manet's Olympia, or a Degas circus rider. Barbie and Ken pair up as, you guessed it, "American Gothic." These classic pages are now accompanied by new photo galleries with similar motifs, and a set of QuickTime animations that made us coo with delight. We can hardly wait for the coffee-table book.
After seven years in the producer's seat, the doctor is back with a new album and a whole mess of online eye candy. His new official site is chronically good: bass tracks off his latest album float through your ears, as visions of bouncing lowriders delight your eyes. Indulge in a sample of his latest track, "Forgot About Dre" (featuring that rascally Eminem), or check out the "artists at work" studio snapshots. Dr. Dre has obviously added several savvy web designers to his entourage. Bravo, André.
James and Mathew's Library Underground
This elegant, red and black "guide to alternative library culture on the world wide web" is a personal project created by two Las Vegas law librarians. Think of it as an indie directory for librarians, with annotated links to diverse topics of interest: activism, library weirdness, even sexuality. A collection of personal home pages includes sites by laughing, belly-dancing, and barbarian librarians. Really. If this is your cup of tea, don't miss the link to Jessamyn's librarian.net, mother of library web logs.
The newly published Tale of Murasaki is a novel about a novelist. Written by author-anthropologist Liza Dalby, it's a memoir by Lady Murasaki Shikibu, 11th-century author of The Tale of Genji, a classic of love and intrigue in Heian-era Japan. There are illustrated biography pages for all the major characters, and the menu of subject pages offers background articles on all aspects of Heian culture and court life including beauty, fashion, food, music, poetry, and architecture. Enjoy thousand-year-old cosmetic tips (plucked brows and blackened teeth) or learn how to write a waka.
Wild Wild West: "No matter how huge / a robot spider cannot / save an entire film." Summer of Sam: "Self-indulgence makes / even serial murders / tedious affairs." Instinct: "Show me the monkey! / Shouts Cuba to Anthony./ Primates made this film." Eyes Wide Shut: "Please speak more quickly. / I'm sick of waiting for the / Full frontal action." Crash: "People getting off / on car crash fatalities; / Bent, but somehow real." The Phantom Menace: "No actor was harmed / in making this CGI / extravaganza."