“I was 15 or 16 years old at the time and can’t explain why but it felt powerful to do that, to pick up a phone and call any location on earth just to see who was there and to find out what they were doing. I also remember calling a certain phone booth on Kennedy Boulevard, near the University of Tampa. Often when I’d call that booth a drunk would answer. I don’t remember saying anything when the winos answered that phone, but my actions might sound strange: into the phone I played tapes of myself playing piano. Sometimes people listened. Other times they hung up. Today I am a concert classical pianist, but I no longer play the random phone booth concert circuit.”. (Mark A. Thomas) The Payphone Project, by Mark A. Thomas.

Above: Phone on yellow pillar, by Tanner Beck.
Picture released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 license.

“I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body.
Then I realized who was telling me this.”.
(Emo Phillips)

“A.Word.A.Day includes a vocabulary word, its definition, pronunciation information with audio clip, etymology, usage example, quotation, and other interesting tidbits about words to subscribers every day.

You can think of it as a word trek where we explore strange new words.
Words are usually selected around a theme every week.”.
(Anu Garg)

“Kawaii style dominated Japanese popular culture in the 1980’s. Kawaii or cute essentially means childlike.

…Cute style began as an underground literary trend amongst young people who developed the habit of writing stylised childish letters to each other and to themselves.”.
(Sharon Kinsella, Cuties in Japan)

“…Put these tones – Formalism and Cuteness – together and you get the somewhat unexpected style I call Cute Formalism.
It’s unexpected because in the west it would be an eccentric, if not forbidden, combination of signifiers.

Formalism for us is intellectual, masculine, dry, adult, hard, macho, unsentimental, avant garde.
Cute on the other hand is silly, feminine, wet, childish, soft, effete, sentimental and kitsch.
What kind of chimera is this?”.
(Nick Currie, Cute formalism)

Sharon Kinsella “has been involved in research looking at emergent social trends linking youth, the media, subculture, corporate culture and new modes of governance, based on Japanese case studies with global application.”.

Nick Currie “also known as Momus, is a songwriter, a blogger and a journalist for Wired.”.

“My name is Sam, I draw pictures from your titles.”.

“This site could be thought of as a long term semi-collaborative art project. Nobody pays for anything. And when I draw a picture using someone’s title it is added to the front page for anyone who is interested to look at.”. (Sam Brown, from answers to questions)

Explodingdog, by Sam Brown.

Top, left: I am not like the other girls;
Bottom, right: I am alone please leave me alone, detail.

“Juno Records is the world’s largest dance music store. Based in London, our web site was launched in March 1996, and since then we have built a reputation as the most comprehensive source for new and back catalogue dance music.”.
“Over 48.000 titles in stock. The site is updated daily to contain a complete listing of new UK dance releases and imports, along with sound clips and track listings.”.

Right: Analord 05, Aphex Twin. Breakbeat Electro. Listen: Cilonen.