Music Delivery
I love it when Rich sends me music, because it’s always good and it’s always full album delivery…no messing with random shared single tracks. That’s what I post here, ha. The best songs of recent batches:
New Jarvis!
Pilchard from Further Complications
New Bill Callahan!
Eid Ma Clack Shaw from Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle
Old Jorge Ben!
Zumi from A Tábua De Esmeralda
Mary Poppins Tribute Post
This makes me really happy.
To compliment this, here a picture I took at Mary Poppins the Musical on Broadway back in December. Yes, the cast is thanking me for coming.
The Agent
My roommate Jessica recently crushed both of her arms in a bike riding accident, but amazingly it hasn’t slowed down her sewing skills. Indestructible! Check out her Etsy shop for the handmade wares she’s hocking online and around Williamsburgh. Help a girl pay off her hospital bills!
Here she is modeling some goods:
I like this.
Ripped off from an It’s Nice That post about Dutch artists Lernert Englebert & Sander Plug – check it here. Their site We Love Our Work has more enjoyable video projects up. Chocolate Bunny has been floating around the interweb for a bit…Dik Dik is messy and weird.
“I Wanted to Control It…”
Saw this play out on last night’s episode of New York Noise and cannot get it out of my head. For some reason it’s added a glimmer of brightness to this gloomy Monday, even though the point of the song is that love gets away sometimes, no matter how hard you try to hold on…which is a bum out.
Fleeting love. Broken hearts. Quick! Travel the world with your other, before it’s too late.
Pic of the Week
I’m calling him Little Senior.
Had this colorful guy on my desktop for a while but figured he was in need of a proper tribute. Thanks to Amanda and Cleary for going to Spain and finding this tiny wonder.
Fun With Frank
Ze Frank is an innovative, interactive wizard. He created viral videos before the notion was ever commonplace, has won Webbys, spoken at TED and runs a constant dialog with a community of devoted online followers. Today his personal site gets millions of visitors and is filled with hundreds of games, flash toys, applications and multimedia projects.
One of my favorite recent finds is an app that allows you to draw a picture using your voice. You can hum, yell or whistle your way to an amazing masterpiece, or in my case, really pathetic doodle. Frank’s portrait creations are rather ambitious, as in…kind of impossible:
Here’s my first attempt, that’s totally a nose, right?
Instructions explain that lower volume curves the line counterclockwise, medium moves it straight and loud sounds turn it clockwise. While mentally for me that was hard to process while whistling like a spazz into my laptop microphone, perhaps it will help some. I still think my best creation came from accidentally leaving the app running while I watched tv:
“So abstract…so brilliant. I love it.”
And check out Frank’s site for more entertaining items.
Covered
I think everyone has a love/hate relationship with cover songs. There’s nothing worse than hearing your favorite track get butchered or remixed beyond recognition and in my opinion there are far more cringe-worthy attempts out there than success stories. Here are a few that beat the odds and got some repeat listens over the last few months.
Her Space Holiday – Wolf Parade’s I’ll Believe in Anything – The song Phoebe and I collectively listened to about a million times in 2007 gets some banjos and deep-thought intro/outros from child actors with husky voices…so weird but so good.
Lissy Trullie & Adam Green – Biz Markie’s Just a Friend – No tinkling piano or screaming rap giant here, and that’s clearly not a bad thing. Plus I think Lissy Trullie could sing the phonebook and make it sound poignant.
The Kooks – MGMT’s Kids – Simple, heartfelt acoustic guitars replace complex layers of synth and drums. Like apples and oranges, both are tasty for different reasons.
Awesome Jacket Backs
First in a new series. Spotted on my way to lunch near the corner of Spring and Broadway.
Has TLC Gone Too Far?
It recently dawned upon me that The Learning Channel is no longer the bastion of quality educational programming I once thought it was. Ok, I write that with more than a hint of sarcasm. But the Discovery/TLC partnership is definitely taking it to the next level in ‘reality’ terms, and I think I miss the more innocent days…
Days when my roommates and I would get lost in an early-morning Trading Spaces marathon, or chuckle at the hapless brides and grooms invariably throwing themselves into some ‘crazy’ Wedding Story scenario. Don’t even get me started on Baby Story. So I was both intrigued and a little disheartened the other day when, mid-way through a ‘Little People Big World’ family vacation episode was a promo for a new program called “Paralyzed and Pregnant.”
Really TLC?
Jesus, who will they spy on next? “The Girl Who Stopped Growing,” and “Born Without a Face” are also actual programs in a line-up clearly walking the fine line between entertainment and exploitation. Do viewers really come away ‘educated,’ or are they more likely to IM with friends the next day about the freakshow with no eyes or nose who is really 45 but has the voice of a 12-year old girl? I’m going to go with the freakshow commentary.
Ok, I’ll get off my high horse now and go back to watching a little person operate a backhoe.
