Ran across the work of Chris Cunningham while scooting around New Orleans and had to share this Protect Ya Neck piece. There are more in the series but this specific Tom & Jerry swirl just hit the spot.

Century Club from Ryan Ervin was once a band but now it's a "lo-fi" collage endeavor, many of which are available as prints.

Been a minute since I've gotten a nice collage fix and Ervin does a damn good job of it. Go give it a browse.

Near my office there is a historical marker dedicated to the 1910 Kentucky Derby winner - a horse named Donau. I'm not sure how many historical markers exist dedicated to specific horses but this one certainly struck me as strange.

Reading up more on the situation, it seems the horse was owned by William Gerst, a brewer who ran the Nashville Brewing Company, later known as the Gerst Brewing Company. The plaque is located near where the brewery once stood and where Donau spent his final days.

The horse was overworked, even by early 1900's standards. The Wikipedia says "Donau's unruly behavior worsened to a point where he would lie down on the track if prompted too harshly by racetrack employees or trainers." I don't blame him.

I love this plaque and admire the horse for embracing such a fiery attitude in the face of abuse. In the spirit of this admiration, I put him on a shirt. My Yawning Kat store has no real rhyme or reason to the wares I offer, so Donau seems like a wonderful addition.

When I saw the new METZ album artwork was by "Sara Cwynar" I felt a twinge of familiarity. How do I know that name? Turns out, I know the name because I've been admiring their work since 2010!

Catching up on more recent offerings from the Brooklyn artist is a real treat. The collage work from over a decade ago is still present but has, clearly, evolved and changed dramatically. Click on over and be sure to watch the "Glass Life" short film excerpt and view the Tracy exhibition. Then click on everything else.

train an AI on your voice, get paid when people use it. Honestly nuts to think about.

hard to tell from just two songs but seems like the band has figured out how to flesh out their songs beyond just unrelenting power energy. excited to hear it all.

A batch of images you’re going to want to save locally. Absurd, brilliant and legit useful.

A good read with great quotes like “It fails to ponder the consequences of what happens when you roll out products like this.”

Fantastic piece. Absolutely nailed it. Only thing I would add is that we just let everyone get dumber and dumber.

Fairly certain YouTube has got my number when it comes to "weird things you might like to watch." Case in point, this Pixel POV Effect video just 3 minutes long (perfect), displays a baffling visual effect (intriguing) and manages to describe it sufficiently (approved). There's even a follow up that builds on the concepts but still keeps it just to 2 minutes.

The comments are event pleasant and lead to some even more interesting videos.

Maybe you'll enjoy as well.

Back in December of 2021, Uncle Skeleton released the album Golden Hour. At the time, I had the idea and intention of putting together an album visualizer that featured one long sunset set to the album as soundtrack; a nod to the literal intention of the record - taking time to just reflect. For no good reason, it never happened. Mostly, I just ran out of time with work and couldn't ever get it over the finish line.

I finally put the rubber to the road and put together the video. It's not one long sunset as originally envisioned but many sunsets through the duration. It's not a music video, so I don't expect you to give it your full attention but I do recommend that you toss this up on a TV somewhere and let it roll. It's pleasant and the album is a banger; likely overlooked because it was released in December of 2021; a notoriously terrible month for releasing records.

I don't see near as many music videos these days as I did in my youth but I still know a good one when I see one. This video for "Take Me To A Lake" from Cloudmouth is phenomenal. I suggest you hit play on it right away as it requires no context to appreciate but here's some extra info on the making of from vocalist Kyle Numann:

It was the summer solstice, and I asked my wife Emily "will you bury me in the backyard tonight?". Despite us having a healthy relationship, she said yes.

We'd just finished making a new flower bed in the front yard and had about 40 square feet of topsoil and dirt heaped in a pile in the backyard. For years I'd had a loose vision of a scene of human faces emerges from the earth, and I figured this was as good a chance as I'd get to capture something that would satisfy the creative itch.

We filmed it using a smartphone, with natural light and only an on-the-fly idea of framing and pacing. This ended up setting the tone for the rest of the video: filmed with handheld smartphones, pulling scenes together as we could, using only practical effects, and considering the editing stage as a 'canvas' to bring all these disparate scenes together to form a full visual flow.

The face emerging from the dirt is striking but they continue the trend with plenty of variations with other members of the band. And on top of all that striking imagery, the song is quite compelling as well!

Cloudmouth has a history of interesting videos worth watching (I suggest this one and this one specifically) but something about "Take Me To a Lake" really levels them up. Ya love to see it.

just recently stumbled on this and am intrigued. I have no problem building websites but one that actively updates itself is a pretty neat trick for musicians.

an excellent rundown on a UI component you probably take for granted

had never heard of this before but it was a challenge to read the contents of ancient papyrus scrolls that had been carbonized in volcanic ash. they somehow managed to actually do it.

My pal Jed is Executive Director over at Radiant Earth now - it's an incubator looking to expand shared data across the planet. I love the Open Data Initiative and this seems to work well right alongside that idea. The more data we share, the better decisions we can make and better tools we can build. Something like that.

In a recent blog post, there's a breakdown of Unicorns, Show Ponies and Gazelles. The basic gist is that Unicorns in the startup world are great - they serve a purpose. Show Ponies are entities that look good on paper but may not provide much function - also great. The Gazelle is a small organization willing to work with others, be nimble, be financially self-sustaining and governed by a nonprofit or trust. Those last two points are especially interesting, imo. Imagine a nonprofit that actually paid employees a reasonable market wage and built a product that they owned. Sounds real good.

All told, it's a metaphor! A creative way to think about an ongoing problem. Others have tred this territory before but that doesn't make it any less valid. Unicorns seem to be what everyone strives for but, frankly, I'm way more interested in being a Gazelle.

The quick description says it all - "The Uncomfortable is a collection of deliberately inconvenient everyday objects by Athens-based architect Katerina Kamprani. Some are obviously absurd, others are potentially legit and others are just stupid fun. It's what you miss from the Internet.

Daniel Arnold is a top notch photographer, maybe even some accolade well beyond that. I love his work. This Walkie Talkie episode with him is a solid hour of him walking around NY talking about his process, his relationship with failure and how his addiction to photography keeps him going. An hour is an unbelievably long time for a YouTube video but it's time well spent.

I recently finished watching The Curse and found myself cruising YouTube for further dissection and insight on what I'd witnessed. This Lincoln Center chat with Benny Safdie was a rather enjoyable chat about the production, the end of the show and many audience questions - without ever being too revealing. Safdie does a great job of actively not telling you what anything means, which I highly appreciate.

Additional viewings I've got in the queue:

• Emma Stone, Nathan Fielder & Benny Safdie discussion on prior episodes
• Christopher Nolan hosts Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie
• Nathan Fielder & Emma Stone on Kimmel - absurdly amusing
• Benny Safdie on The Tonight Show - watch 2 seonds of Safdie's outfit and you'll stay for more
• Why is The Curse Like That? - I normally do not care for YouTuber's giving their opinions on shows but Thomas Flight is thoughtful and insightful, this will likely be good!

If you haven't been keeping up with the latest announcements from The Browser Company and what they're doing with their browser, Arc, I suggest you start tuning in. They are doing their damndest to rethink the paradigm of browsers, search engines, webpages and how you interact with them. It's hard to watch these announcement / explainer videos and not be excited for what they're angling at.

While I am certainly excited by the direction they're headed in, it does make me think about the future of the web in general. I'm not sure I'm able to articulate it yet but we're starting to see a whole lot new experiences that summarize the web, pulling from disparate sources and telling you the highlights of a certain topic or site. If every tool we use simply summarizes information, why would anyone publish anything? Visitors aren't even being taken to the source of the information, they're just being shown summaries.

This is not an indictment of The Browser Company or Arc; everyone is doing this. Google is summarizing, Apple is summarizing, et al. And the web has become littered with ads, popovers and modals that make it very unfriendly. It's a mess and users would benefit from summaries as an experience but it devalues publishing. Not sure what the answer is but some very interesting questions to pose at this time.