ICARUS PROUDBOTTOM'S TYPING PARTY releases at midnight, and we're announcing the Inferno Challenge! Can you beat the AI at "Typing Tennis" on Inferno difficulty? If so, take a video and send it to us to win an "amazing" prize! (Please note that this may literally be impossible) https://t.co/9qXhd6WTTh
I talk with Jacob Jones [@ElectricWestern], a realtor, a musician and the DJ behind Motown Monday. The later phenomenon—a dance night at the 5 Spot on Monday nights—has garnered international acclaim for just being a really fucking fun time. https://t.co/RodVsQQz43 https://t.co/gRgqxMan9m
Twenty years ago today was a Saturday. As such, a new episode of Saturday Night Live was airing with Garth Brooks as the host. His musical guest? Chris Gaines; a musical persona that Brooks had adopted to release an album of pop songs called In The Life of Chris Gaines.
If you follow this blog at all, this is well tred territory for me. Along with writer Ashley Spurgeon I created Garth Brooks Chris Gaines Countdown, a website that commemorates the 20-year anniversary of this event in GIF form. I made hundreds of images from the famed SNL episode and shared them for everyone. If I ever get a DMCA takedown, they're also all on Giphy.
We even went as far as to make a podcast documenting the history of Chris Gaines, appropriately titled Chris Gaines: The Podcast. Over the course of seven episodes we did our best to exhaustively cover all the details of Brooks, Gaines and the world's reaction to it all. It was a blast to make.
And here we are on the 20-year anniversary. The next episode of SNL is this Saturday, November 16th and Garth will be playing a big show in Knoxville. The likelihood of him appearing on SNL is slim to none. We're still holding out a little hope that host Harry Styles will give it a nod or maybe when Will Ferrell hosts on the 23rd. It would be appropriate. Regardless of any official recognition of the event, I feel the whole thing has left its mark on pop culture; which I think is what Garth wanted all along.
As I mentioned, I love a VFX breakdown. This Daniel Magyar reel showcases a handful of the shots that he worked on for Midsommar. Reportedly, there were 90 shots for him to adjust and that's not anywhere close to exhaustive for the whole film. For a movie that feels largely devoid of FX, this is particularly impressive. I love the extremely subtle additions of flowers blooming and face distortions throughout this piece... makes me want to re-watch the film again for even more of these hidden treats.
I am a total sucker for a VFX breakdown video. You put together 5-20 minutes of footage showing how a scene was shaped by visual effects and I am in. This is especially true with Mindhunter VFX as the changes to a scene are somehow both substantial and subtle at the same time.
If the above doesn't satiate you, there's also a Season 1 breakdown worth a watch.
In most of the local publications and people I speak to, there's a lot of chatter about "New Nashville" - a catch-all term used to describe the terrible new construction, the influx of people and overall gentrification of the area. It's not a wholly inappropriate term but it does tend to wax overly nostalgic.
I'm not sure if Bair has a particular perspective on if Not New Nashville is superior to New Nashville or just that it was simply more unique. Regardless, it's clear from the photos that it really was a different time.
