Who doesn't want to watch Black Rhinos goring and eating pumpkins?
Hearing Things is a new worker-owned music site with a roster of founders that have worked at Pitchfork, The Fader, Vibe, Spin, Gawker, and Jezebel.
I stopped reading music journalism altogether in 2003 when Pitchfork gave my favorite album that year, Bobby Birdman's Born Free Forever, a terrible review. Obviously I know "different strokes for different folks," but I still remember the eye-roll I did while reading it and it was sorta just the final straw for me on seeking the opinions of "experts". However, I know a lot of people do like reading music sites, and I've been happy with some of the other sites that are the creations of "supergroups" of ex-employees of other sites, most notably 404 Media, which hits it out of the park daily.
I wish Hearing Things luck! And here's that Bobby Birdman album:
Cabel Sasser, one of the co-founders of Panic, makers of Playdate (and many other things), gave this delightful talk at the most recent (and final) XOXO. If you watch it here on the embed, jump to 3:55 on the timeline to get to the talk, proper, and then watch to the end.
Delightful, yes? It gets better, because Sasser has created a website for Wes Cook's art. You can see it here.
Folly offers off-grid sanctuaries for the discerning traveler. They've locations in the Mojave Desert (where these pics are from), as well as Joshua Tree and a farm in New York state.
See all their properties on the Folly Collection website.
On a recent episode of the NYTimes Modern Love podcast, actor Andrew Garfield reads Chris Huntington's wonderful essay Learning to Measure Time In Love and Loss (both gift links).
Not only is the essay terrific and Garfield's performance excellent, but during it, he breaks down and the moment is rather extraordinary for how uncommon it is in today's culture and media. Some actors would have asked for the piece to be edited to be seamless — some podcasts would have done it without being asked — but offering it up whole was the correct decision and I urge you to listen to it.
In the opening, before he reads the essay, Garfield unknowingly quotes Stanley Kunitz's The Testing-Tree when he says, "The heart lives by breaking." The full quote is, "In a murderous time, the heart breaks and breaks and lives by breaking." It's a wonderful line that's grown in meaning for me as I've aged. (Kunitz's book, Passing Through, is one of the many books in my bathroom. I've always kept books in my bathrooms. In more recent times, they're an excellent encouragement to not take my phone with me. You're just sitting there. Read a poem!)
You can read Kunitz's The Testing-Tree here.
Garfield mentions that Huntington's essay brings Rilke to mind. Specifically, Robert Bly's translation of The Man Watching:
I can tell by the way the trees beat, after
so many dull days, on my worried windowpanes
that a storm is coming,
and I hear the far-off fields say things
I can't bear without a friend,
I can't love without a sister
The storm, the shifter of shapes, drives on
across the woods and across time,
and the world looks as if it had no age:
the landscape like a line in the psalm book,
is seriousness and weight and eternity.
What we choose to fight is so tiny!
What fights us is so great!
If only we would let ourselves be dominated
as things do by some immense storm,
we would become strong too, and not need names.
When we win it's with small things,
and the triumph itself makes us small.
What is extraordinary and eternal
does not want to be bent by us.
I mean the Angel who appeared
to the wrestlers of the Old Testament:
when the wrestler's sinews
grew long like metal strings,
he felt them under his fingers
like chords of deep music.
Whoever was beaten by this Angel
(who often simply declined the fight)
went away proud and strengthened
and great from that harsh hand,
that kneaded him as if to change his shape.
Winning does not tempt that man.
This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,
by constantly greater beings.
I know little of Garfield, but that he was in The Social Network and was one of the Spidermans, but the few interviews I've heard with him have shown him to be thoughtful and intelligent. His thoughts on grief are particularly admirable. If you enjoyed the above, you might appreciate his interview with Marc Maron from a few years ago.
Bel & Bel studios refashion vintage Vespas as office chairs.
They also make bars out from VWs. Much more on their site.
I've been working on an essay about David Lynch's Mulholland Drive forever, it seems. Since it's still not done, I give you this instead.
David Lynch Presents Interview Project is a 20,000 mile road trip where 121 people were found at random and interviewed. Those interviews were edited into short films and showcased on David Lynch's website. When david took his site down the Interview Project material was also taken down. To commemorate the 15 year anniversary of the original launch of the series in 2009, the Interview Project Team has decided to re-release all 121 of the original episodes in hi definition here on YouTube.
Blake Watson's HTML for the People will teach you how websites are built and how to build your own. Terrific resource.
via MetaFilter
Who is this medley for? Such a strange mixture of songs.
100 45s for your enjoyment.
The collection is comprised of country and rock 'n' roll 45s from the '50s and '60s, along with a set of guitar-driven instrumentals from the same period.
