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I've been a fan of JSG Boggs since first hearing about him in the 90s. He passed in 2017, but I've been thinking about him lately as I'm about to launch A Tiny Bell.

Boggs did one thing and he did it very well: he drew money.

Here's a scenario: Boggs goes out for lunch, and while sitting there having his sandwich and drinking his coffee, he finishes drawing a $20 bill he'd started days earlier — just one side of it — and signs his name as "Secretary Treasurer." He then offers it to the waiter as payment for his lunch. If the person declines, he pays with "real money" and goes on his way. But, if the person accepts his art as money, Boggs expects his proper change from the twenty along with a receipt.

Boggs then sells the receipt and the change to an art dealer and the art dealer goes to the address on the receipt and attempts to purchase the Boggs bill from the waiter. If successful, the change, receipt, and bill are then framed as a complete piece of art which is then again sold by the dealer to a collector.

If Boggs used the bill to purchase a non-consumable, that item is also part of the finished piece. For instance, he once drew five one thousand dollar bills and used them to purchase a $4999.00 Virago motorcycle:

Fascinating, yes?

Lawrence Weschler wrote a great book about Boggs, Boggs: A Comedy of Values, and there's a good, low-quality 15 minute short about him on Youtube with the same name:

Anecdote Alert!

I once tried to convince Boggs to let me design him a website and he could pay me with Boggs Bills. He didn't have a site at the time, but he didn't hesitate — the proposition broke his rules and he declined. Very disappointing, but completely understandable.

All this talk about money reminds me of my first trip to Los Angeles. May, 2010.

I was in a West Hollywood Target. In the checkout line, I got stuck behind behind a man who was taking an inordinate amount of time to pay for a 2L bottle of orange soda. The holdup was because he insisted on drawing on his bills before surrendering them to the cashier.

Wanting to leave the shop, I offered to pay for his drink to speed things along. The cashier checked his progress and turned to me and said, "He's almost done." Indeed, he was, and when he handed over the second bill and left with his purchase, I asked her what was up. She shrugged and said, "Dunno. He always does that. They're the same every time."

I asked if I could have his bills in my own change and she obliged. To to this day I carry them with me for luck when I travel. Here they are:

For more info on this Boggs, visit the official site: The Estate of JSG Boggs — which I did not design.

Childish Gambino's new video may be his best yet, which is saying something. Give it a watch or two and then check out the lyrics.

The less this video and song make sense to you, the more I would encourage you to check the analysis of the lyrics on Genius. And yeah, I could have done without the Nudy part, too.

If you're one of those folks who has a mom worth celebrating, remember to give her a call. It's Mothers' Day, Fool!:

What. The. Hell?! Of course, it's from Mr. T's Be Somebody or Be Somebody's Fool:

"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.

Memory and Forgetting

Remembering is a tricky, unstable business. This hour: a look behind the curtain of how memories are made...and forgotten.