After following a link provided by Hot Buttered Death we found ourselves at one of the best web sites we’ve ever visited The 365 Day Project was a year-long musical adventure that ran during 2003. Each day the site owners would add a new MP3 to their collection of what they call “outsider music”. Part thrift store archaeologists, part musicologists, the 365 Day Project brought together the most incredible collection of weird music ever found on the web. Although the project is now over, the entire site, complete with downloadable MP3s, is now archived. Want to hear Frank Sinatra and Mohammed Ali join forces to fight tooth decay? Like to learn how to teach Bible lessons to the “retarded”? Want to hear the classic Orson Welles pea commercial outtakes? How about some high school band music, cartoon tributes or hear a love song written for a park ranger by Howard Hughes illegitimate daughter (who also happens to own the ring of Jesus Christ)? It’s all available here.
The MCA have just re-launched their web site after months of out of date pages and annoying pop up windows we couldn’t link to. With the work of creative design agency Deepend, the new pages are clean, easy to read and feature a crazy, crazy feature – along the top of each page is a row of little people in black sitting or standing. Behind them are people walking back and forth just like you were inside the MCA. Even more life-like is when, if you point at one of the little black figures, they raise a hand and tell you useful information. Pity they don’t come forward suddenly if you try to touch an art work or attempt to go out on the grass with a bottle of beer – then things turn ugly. And could someone please tell curator Vivienne Webb about The Art Lifefor her links box? The Bureau of Metrology? Conversion tables? Maybe it’s some sort of conceptual art thing? Still, a very nice job.
On a completely unrelated angle, there is Melange Magazine, an online journal of thoughts and feelings and diaries of Emily Ding and Krystin Low, two young women whose first issue is themed around Adolescence and Adulthood. At first we thought it was some sort of Malaysian or Singaporean government sponsored guide for responsible young adults, but it turns out to be the work of a couple of women both under 20 who are doing it all off their own bat. You can read articles of what it is like to be young, Asian and girlish and you might even contribute an article for issue 2, theme Of Memories and Men… Our favourite article is The Lamentations of A Teenage Homeowner by 17 year old Melissa Yow, who complains that now she owns her own apartment in Melbourne, she has to clean it as well. Life is just so unfair.
