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
Tree.fm is a site where you stream the sounds of rain forests.
Whenever I'm in a forest, I pull out my phone and launch the Merlin app to identify the birds providing my soundtrack. Fantastic app.
The Pudding does a deep-dive into Rolling Stone's "Greatest Albums of All Time" rankings.
I'm not much of a fan of Rolling Stone, or the ranking of music in general, but thought this Pudding page was very well done.
My number one non-Jazz album of all-time is Veedon Fleece by Van Morrison. It's one of my most revisited pieces of art. I also love his album, Astral Weeks. And though I like some other here-and-there tracks by Morrison, most of his other stuff bores me.
Interestingly, Rolling Stone originally gave Veedon Fleece one star and called it "self-indulgent... pompous tripe." In 2008, they re-evaluated the album, giving it four stars and said he "never again hit the majestic heights of this one."
It's a favorite record of artists as diverse as Elvis Costello, Josh Klinghoffer (Red Hot Chili Peppers), and Sinead O'Connor, who said it was what she listened to right before going on stage.
You can check out the Pudding deep dive before or after you listen to Veedon Fleece on YouTube. They're both below.
Exactly what it says on the tin.
