Yesterday would have been Kurt Vonnegut's 100th birthday. To celebrate, designer Alicia Raitt has re-imagined all 14 of Vonnegut’s book covers.
View the full gallery here.
Check out designer Alicia Raitt's site — she's the Founder and Creative Director of Milk & Bone Design.
Tom Scott takes a flight on the Aeroplume, a one-person blimp. Extraordinary.
I'm someone who generally feels like Goldberg Machines jumped the shark long ago, but Joseph's Machines are more clever than most. This one is no exception:
NTS Live has an archive of Black Classical's extraordinary Spiritual Jazz playlists. In addition to the 12 hour streams, there's focuses on Strata / Strata-East, Three Blind Mice, and more.
NTS Radio
Back of Your Hand is a simple game to test your knowledge of your neighborhood. Taxi Driver mode is near impossible but Resident is definitely do-able.
I'm at a loss for words at how extraordinary I find Jørgen Dahl Moe's cover of Bruce Springsteen's cover of Dancing In the Dark. One of the most disarming voices I've heard. The judges look like they're watching a magic trick they can't fathom.
I'd love a copy of the track without the judges' interruptions, but I don't subscribe to Spotify or Apple Music, so I'll have to do without. There's another version on Youtube that is the full song but it lacks a bit of the charm:
Speaking of Springsteen and covers, his interpretation of Suicide's Dream Baby Dream is the best thing he's ever recorded, imo. Here's the vinyl-released version that someone's paired up with footage from FW Murnau's tremendous silent film, Sunrise: A Tale of Two Humans:
Springsteen recorded the track to celebrate songwriter Alan Vega's 70th birthday. It was released on vinyl as a 10" and limited to 4000 numbered copies by Blast First Petite.
Suicide's original (below) was recently used during the closing credits of the film Civil War.
Murnau's film was released in 1927, which puts it in the public domain. You can view it here:
Sunrise has a considerable number of in-camera effects, which were discussed by film scholar Janet Bergstrom in 2013.
Alan Vega died in 2016. I love his 1994 collaboration with Mercury Rev:
But my favorite Mercury Rev piece is probably their accompaniment to Robert Creeley's reading of So There, a much-loved (by me) poem:
Creeley taught at SUNY, where Mercury Rev's founders were students.
Moving on. Mr. Ocean,
Mr. Sky's
got the biggest blue eyes
in creation –
here comes the sun!
While we can,
let's do it, let's
have fun.
Indeed.
This is an excellent track and a wonderful video. The song is by Blake Mills and the animation is by Lachlan Turczan, who says, "I made hi-resolution scans of banknotes from 23 countries ranging from the 1800s to the modern-day."
Watch at full screen.
Turczan continues, "Machine learning was used to further enhance these scans so that I could zoom in on the intricacies of the engravings. Using replacement animation techniques, the guilloché patterns wash over the viewer in a barrage of linework and geometry. Iconic scenes throughout history are also shown: the age of exploration leads to industrialization, wonders of the world are replaced by office buildings and icons of freedom stand in stark contrast to images of slavery. The project culminates with the collective eyes of all world leaders staring back at the audience."
More like this, please.
Randy is a puppet who tells a story about buying a bookshelf. Off gumtree.
Fascinating 22 minute video of the Transformation of a Japanese Larch Bonsai Tree by its keeper, Bonsai Releaf.
F Major (below) was the first I'd heard of Hania Rani, but I've loved everything I've heard her play. I missed her in Toronto a few years ago and was angry for weeks.
Probably my favorite video of hers is this set from Studio S2 in Warsaw:
And while I have your attention fixed on a woman killing it on piano, allow me to share this video of Kadri-Ann Sumera playing Piano Piece 1981, composed by her father, Lepo Sumera.
I first heard this track in 2000 in the film Der Krieger und die Kaiserin. Frustrated that the track was not identified in the credits, I sent a letter to director Tom Tykwer, who wrote back with its identity. I had an mp3 of it for a while, which then went astray — and the title and composer with it. Fifteen years later I was thrilled to find the above video after playing one of my favorite piano pieces, The Homeless Wanderer, composed and performed by Tsegue Maryam Guebrou, who died last year at the age of 99.
