Optic Kiss

JWise Photo of the Day

Klaus Singer, Caroline Engelhardt, Jo Lincke, and John Wise in Frankfurt, Germany

Here is an old photo from the time Caroline and I had a little graphic design business in Frankfurt, Germany called Optic Kiss, among other names. Our office was situated over the old “Music Hall” concert and dance venue. Over the years we saw David Lee Roth downstairs and backstage, Nine Inch Nails, Chris Isaak, and a bunch of other bands and parties that skip my mind right now. The place was a windowless dark, smoke-filled room where many a musician would stop by to see what was going on in Cyberspace. For most of this time, Caroline had a day job working on a film called Taxandria and doing animation and special effects for one of the Never Ending Stories movies. Needing some help and having some people interested in what we were trying to do, a couple of guys joined with us to learn some new skills. They were Klaus Singer and Jo Lincke – sadly we have fallen out of contact with these guys, probably because they hate me or something like that. Funny how this has happened more than once. Finally, yes, we are still fasting – Day 5.

Techno

JWise Photo of the Day

Advertisement for old German clothing line and record store for techno music

One of our early careers was as graphic designers and wannabe artists. We did ok, creating the first commercially 3D rendered record cover in Europe (before that, 3D tools were primarily in the hands of large companies and universities). Our first record cover was for Casper Pound and his project The Hypnotist – the record entered the German charts! Initially, we worked on the Commodore Amiga with 32MB Ram and a 40GB harddrive – huge for the day. Our first 3D rendering and animation software was a product called Imagine. An acquaintance gave us an early beta of Windows 3.0 and we dumped the Amiga and grabbed Photostyler, which was eventually bought and disappeared by Adobe. Did a lot of work in Corel Draw. The ultimate was when we scored a free copy of 3D Studio from Autodesk while attending Cebit in Hannover, Germany – we’ll never forget your kindness, Bob Bennet.

Not Being a Pig

JWise Photo of the Day

3D Pig

Third day on the fast, so far so good. The saltwater flush is no more fun today than the first day – yuck. I’m still not back in the mood for photography. I have actually been working intensively on menu planning and organizing my recipes. If I can’t eat food, I might as well think about it all the time. The image of the pig was created by Caroline in 3D Studio back in the early ’90s.

Dreamfish

JWise Photo of the Day

Dreamfish

Happy New Year. Today’s image is from a record / CD cover Caroline and I created 15 years ago for a record called Dreamfish. Pete Namlook and Mixmaster Morris collaborated on this recording that was originally released on FAX Records and briefly features Terence McKenna. And for any of my visitors who probably never figured out why my site’s title says, Dreams, Moments, Travel – the clue is Terence McKenna. So put that in your pipe and smoke it.

New Years Eve

JWise Photo of the Day

Two bottles of salt water to be used as the salt water flush for the Master Cleanse

How did you start New Year’s Eve? Well let me tell you from a party expert, we started it with a Salt Water Flush. Caroline and I began the Master Cleanse Fast on this last day of the year. Turns out the fast is fairly easy to get through, drinking 32 ounces of warm salt water and having it plow through you, taking your tonsils to the nether regions of your anatomy, and evacuating them via a spout you never knew worked like that is an experience that will define your New Year. But the truly fun part is that we might do this for 10 days. Oh wait, I forgot to tell you, before bed, we drink a laxative tea for extra explosive discharge action – weeee.