When I travel, I try to focus on something ubiquitous and mundane that recalls the location. In Autumn, 2017, I spent three months wandering the orange groves of Oliva, Spain, and was particularly taken with the tool sheds and utility boxes. I decided to document them. Here, I've gathered my favorites.
"Polanoid was invented because the magic of Polaroid pictures, the thrilling Edwin Land story and because the charm and touch of Polaroid cameras hit us like a sledge hammer." So says the founders of the Polaroid archiving website that is not only still running, but has new posts as of just a few days ago.
"Hungry for real analog, good smelling pictures in a digital world, we decided to swim against the stream and to reset our focus and start the biggest, best and most instant online photo community ever. Stuffed with millions of Polaroids, collected and uploaded by Polaroid addicts all over the planet."
All of the above pieces are by member, alodia, but Polonoid has many members.
Things Magazine has compiled an archive of Pelican Book covers from the 1930s through the 1980s. I first found this archive back in 2008 and am delighted that it's still online.
The entire archive can be viewed on the Things Magazine website.
A playlist of every glorious episode of the beautifully bizarre, Don't Hug Me I'm Scared.
If you don't know the program, it's a British web series done with puppets in the vein of a children's television show. But it is absolutely not for children. Do not watch it with your children.
If there's a better movie poster designer working today than Midnight Marauder, please let me know. His consistency reminds me of 50s/60s Reid Miles or Hipgnosis in their heyday.
His illustrations, image choices, cropping, and typography are second-to-none. He never seems to make a wrong move.
I first discovered him in 2011 when he had a Tumblr displaying what I considered to be "DVD cover art for films Criterion hasn't released," which I posted about on Metafilter. I'm delighted that he's still at it and designing for Criterion and many others. Extraordinary and consistent work.
You can find more on his websites: Midnight Marauder, Alphaville, and Tony Stella. And here's that Tumblr I mentioned that I first shared on MeFi back in 2011.
Reid Miles?! Hipnosis?!
Hi-Fi is a music video promoting the Bella Vista Social Club, a bar in Siena, Italy.
Paul Trillo made a video for Washed Out's "The Hardest Part" using Open AI's Sora. This is truly incredible, world-changing technology.
When you watch this, consider the amount of time, people, tech, special effects, logistics, sets, locations, and planning that something like this would take in the real world. Absolutely outside the scope and budget of an indie band, but done with AI for about $700. Regardless of what you think about the very idea of AI, that this can even be done is almost unfathomable.
Here's a small portion of the prompts Trillo used to create this:
...continuous shot moving forward zooming through time, with a view of 1980s highschool hall corridor with checkered tiled floor, buzzing with students walking around. the scene is captured from a low angle front perspective, showing a door at the end of the corridor getting bigger and closer. the scene is blurred, indicating a high speed movement. the shot is moody and cinematic, with a slight vignette and a warm, vintage tone. the shot is captured on 35mm film, fuji film stock from the 90s with an anamorphic 24mm lens...
A more fleshed out analysis of what's involved is available on FXGuide. Info on Open AI's Sora is here.
Radio Lab really hit it out of the park with this episode on memory and forgetting.
Due to a Transient Ischemic Attack (a TIA) I had in 2016, I have a particular interest in memory and recall.
Not only will this podcast episode challenge your understanding of what memories are, but you'll be surprised at how they're created, and how they're recalled.
The final segment of the episode is about Clive Wearing, who suffers from the most extreme case of amnesia ever recorded. His memories vanished after just seven seconds. "Every moment is his first waking moment." Heartbreaking.
Truly top-notch reporting.
The website for the Wim Wenders film, Perfect Days, is wonderful. I enjoyed the movie very much, though it could have been the company I was keeping.
Artists Tyree Callahan has created a chromatic typewriter by modding a 1930s Underwood to paint rather than write. Not much to see on the site, but Callahan has other projects as well.
January 6, 2024 at 2:19 am
