The past few weeks I've been talking a great deal about the new Makeup and Vanity Set record Wilderness and that it is tied to the film Eidolon but, until now, there hasn't been much information about the film beyond the intriguing synopsis:

Running out of time, a young man works obsessively to keep his dying sister alive.

But, fortunately, that's not all we have to go off anymore. Joey Ciccoline has released the first teaser for the short film and you can get a great idea of the foreboding vibe it contains. The film was based on on the music of Wilderness and contains portions of it but stands on its own. The two pieces are independent entities that feed off of each other - a symbiotic relationship if you will.

Long story short, go watch the teaser.

Fascinating article over on The Verge that is The Definitive History of Max Headroom, the 1980's Digital Icon. It's really astonishing to read that most of the people involved had no idea what the fully fleshed out idea even was but yet they were able to pitch it to Channel 4 in the UK and HBO in the US successfully. Moreso, the techniques they used to fake the computer generated feel and animations seems to be one of the first instances of what we refer to as glitch now - as such a stutter isn't really as obtainable from non-digital media (even if it is just a fake out).

Anyway, I wasn't old enough to fully comprehend the satire of Max Headroom when it aired but I've always been taken by the visuals of it and knew there was something subversive at play, so it's nice to get the full inside scoop on the project.

Loving this Chrome plugin Tabbie that lets you customize a landing page for New Tabs that's quite similar to the Chrome default but utilizes the Material design guidelines and tends to be a bit more exciting than a handful of thumbnail images. Install it here.. I mean, why not try it out for a week?

via Chad

"Why should the future resemble the past? For one, it always has. But that is itself an observation from the past." http://t.co/zwF1ISn72I

Don't Hug Me .I'm Scared

tldr: flexibility (hopefully)

Lots going on this week! Namely, more goodness from Makeup and Vanity Set. Really excited for Wilderness to be released next week. I know everyone is gonna love it.

• mirror. - big thanks to Chris for reminding me how weird the Internet can be (delightfully).
• Y'all got a cigarette? - Is this real? Probably not. Do I care? Absolutely not.
• Christopher G. Brown's Teletubbies Joy Division Edit - I ran across this late last week so it's probably old news to everyone but high-contrast, black-and-white Teletubbies set to Joy Division is awesomely scary.
• AAA Teen Driving Distractions - do you have a child? Watch this and really bathe in the fear that one day this could be your kid. I've never seen a more effective campaign against texting and driving - this is it.
• Viner baby dance loubia bled - this little dude is the BEST. via Becky.
• Amazing Dancing Guy during Music Festival - pretty generic title but stick with it.. this dude has some serious moves. My favorite is what I call "Tiny Feet".
• Drunk guy sings 'Bohemian Rhapsody' inside police car - you'd think this would be a sloppy clip of a drunk guy singing a part of the Queen classic but, nope, it's the entire song and it's actually pretty accurate. The man is a fan.
• Raiders of the Lost Archives - apparently lots of the Lucas classic pairs up extremely well with several old adventure films and an old Scrooge McDuck comic. I had no idea. via Austin.
• Cocktails & Dreams - Mike Upchurch took the Tom Cruise movie Cocktail, re-edited it as a sitcom and inserted new actors all over the place. It's actually brilliant (albeit a bit long) and I'd actually love to see this sort of thing become more of a reality. It's awkward but it works.
• The Musical Chair - this is Art, right? Why am I drawn to this? I can't explain it but I watched the whole thing.

That's it! Have a great weekend and if you need some further distraction please queue up the Talking Heads Stop Making Sense and enjoy it from start to finish. It's a wonderful thing.

Apple's latest ad campaign, The World Gallery, showcases some pretty amazing photography shot on the iPhone 6. It's a nice balance of advertising and people using their devices to make something easy on the eyes.

However, iPhone 6 is not the only good camera out there. The World Photo Organization has announced a bunch of winners in their Mobile Phone Photography competition. The actual devices aren't listed along with the photos and browsing them is kind of a pain in the ass (go here for easy browsing) but the images speak for themselves. Some truly great captures in there - especially considering that many of these images would never exist because most folks weren't constantly carrying a camera around with themselves. Technology! Art!

via Keith

daaniel99

a quality chortle on this one

nice layout and an interesting read

So, in 2012 I listened to every album by XTC, followed that up in 2013 by listening to every album by REM and just recently polished off the 2014 artist - listening to every album by Talking Heads.

I openly admit that in all these undertakings I probably should have known more about the bands to begin with but that's the whole point. Musical Education. I knew "Psycho Killer", I knew "Burning Down the House", "This Must Be The Place" and others but hadn't really immersed myself in the catalog of works. It's a fascinatingly short discography - starting in 1977 with Talking Heads: 77 and ending in 1988 with Naked. For me, they seemed to be able to maintain a fairly consistent approach to the music they made. It's less about the pop song structure and more about a building groove - usually peppered with something just a little off kilter or surprising.

My affections tend to skew towards the middle of their career - Speaking in Tongues and Remain in Light hit on all the right spots for me (and, despite it being a compiled concert, Stop Making Sense is entirely badass). Maybe these tracks are the more accessible of their catalog but I think the idea that the band was able to continuously inject their personal style into everything and still have the music be reachable all is really quite an accomplishment. I mean, "Making Flippy Floppy" and "Crosseyed and Painless" should be on everyone's Favorites List.

I will admit that getting through this one took me quite a bit longer than I expected. Part of this is just the sheer amount of options available to listen to at any time these days, part of it is because I wanted to really soak in the albums and part of it is just laziness. However, that being said, it was a rather rewarding listen and I feel like I have a better honed respect for what they were doing and why David Byrne is, rightfully, on the artistic pedestal that he is on today (humbly I might add).

Many many years ago I purchased Sand in the Vaseline, a Talking Heads Best Of. While I appreciate the compilation now, I really must recommend not indulging in such a thing. These songs are best heard in their album context and, I promise, you'll discover some new gems along the way.

if you missed this yesterday, be amazed by the sheer volume of people they got to participate

Okay, so that headline is a bit ostentatious but this Nautilus piece on artist Adam Magyar is pretty interesting. His undertaking is alarmingly simple - film a subway train platform and slow the approach down exponentially. The actual footage is incredibly sharp and captures a load of lost expressions and interactions that are, typically, beyond fleeting.

His site has photos from the same project - entitled Stainless - which are incredibly gorgeous but you really need to see the videos.

#ReadLater

I'll take it

oh, nice, someone illustrated me by accident

The song premieres just keep coming for the new Makeup and Vanity Set record, Wilderness. The latest, "Senses + Dynamics", features Big Black Delta* on vocals. I can't think of a more appropriate match of artists and it certainly shines on this track. There's an unnerving sense of darkness, sexiness and forelorn love mixed together here (at least to me, I can't speak to the original intent of the song).

The album is available to preorder here and you can read a ton more about the process of making the album in this interview. More previews and information about the coupled short film, Eidolon, coming soon.

*If you don't know Big Black Delta, fix that.

Nashville photographer Elise Tyler has many admirable skills - i.e. music video production, running a great bar - but her photography has really been speaking to me lately. Her work consists largely of Buildings, Signs, People, Strange Phenomena and did I mention Signs? There's a pleasantness to the ramshackle nature of much of it that I associate with more rural living. A lot of it feels Southern to me but I believe the images stem from across the nation. Really can't endorse it enough - please dive in.

possible the best April Fools Day right out of the gate