a NYT article on Franklin, TN. Never thought I'd see the day...

Halloween mix from @mixtapesradio

Yup, makes sense. These are rad

Good read

Can I have a boilerplate for these Friday videos? Like "Another week, another dose of friendly distraction." Something catchy that really brands my Friday video contributions to your day being less productive but also more enjoyable. Just kidding, that's a terrible idea.

• Rob Cantor - "Shia LaBeouf" Live - Rob Cantor has made some amusing videos in the past but nothing that comes close to being this epic in scale and perfection.
• Shaboi - Curse Rock Pumpkin Dance - there is no limit to the number of times I can listen to Shaboi's Curse Walk album and, equally, no limit to the amount of time I can spend watching the Pumpkin Dance. Together, these things make for a truly wonderful combination. Thanks again to Paul for this.
• Wunder Wunder - Hail the Madmen - I've somehow never seen this video before and it is absolute perfect chaos. Love it.
• John Oliver: Supreme Court - if you haven't seen this greatness from Last Week Tonight featuring the best new way to display Supreme Court hearings, do yourself a favor right now.
• Ko Tama Cat - I don't know what's going on with this cat but all of these clips are mind boggling. Why does it behave this way? Was a training regime involved? Is it prone to be this awesome naturally? Both?
• Clingy pandas don’t want to take their medicine - I am sure being a Panda wrangler is not an easy job - particularly when administering medicine - but this is out of control cute. It's a Panda Pile and I approve.
• NASA Space Sounds - this isn't exactly compelling to watch but NASA recently released these sounds recorded from space - all within the human range of hearing - and they're perfect. It's exactly what you hope and imagine space sounds like. It's also amazingly soothing.

There's plenty more weirdness to see on the Internet but hopefully that will satisfy you for the moment. Have a great weekend.

Thanks to Jeremy I've really been diving into the Tony Zhou movie blog Every Frame a Painting. It's a wonderful repository of animated gifs showcasing different directors and different shooting techniques - i.e. lateral tracking shots or the Spielberg Oner.

Moreso, it's a portal to these wonderful video essays on film. Watch the above piece on What David Fincher Does Not Do for a proper taste of the kind of passion and thoughtfulness going into his explorations (or the previously mentioned Texting in film).

All and all, this is a channel to subscribe to on all fronts. I've yet to see something on it that didn't intrigue me at least a little bit.

The other week I wrote about the band Ambulance LTD and how I somewhat lament the fact that they only have one album (and some wonderful demo's of a second album that never was). But bands break up all the time, wonderful singular albums exist in many cases and people move on.

I'm pretty intrigued by this new Digits service from Twitter. Onboarding via mobile phone is not something that I feel super comfortable with from a desktop environment but when it comes to app or mobile experiences, it feels right at home. It looks like they implemented it in a way that is shockingly easy to adopt as well, so I expect to start seeing it a lot more. I wonder what level of concern there is that somewhere down the line Twitter will just decide to change the rules / freeness of it all?

The new framework is actually part of a much bigger plan that involves Twitter becoming more of a mobile platform that provides inroads to analytics, onboarding and, obviously, social chatter from their user base. How all this turns into monetization I'm still not sure but I love seeing them go from a service that was lambasted for the frivolity of content into something truly useful!

love it.

kinda wanna hear this

preview "Siblings" - excellent Icelandic shoegaze

There's a great article over on the Nashville Cream with the problem with Promo CDs. Basically, the music industry insists on sending physical compact discs as promotional material to press and radio. Not only is this hugely wasteful from an ecological standpoint but it's also incredibly bothersome if you're the kind of person that has a computer from the past 5 years without a CD drive. The article states all of these things and I couldn't agree with it more.

But here's the thing. There are a few comments on the article from "Veterans" of the industry and folks working in terrestrial radio that insist that having a physical presence is more powerful than a deletable email or more efficient than simply encoding the archive of CD's that already exist. All the arguments stem from laziness, antiquated habits or hands being tied because upper management isn't going to spring for new technology.

I don't want to go on a tear about something that seems somewhat trivial in the grand scheme of things but I also would love to understand why people are so quick to say "what can I do?" and give up immediately. This tactic creates massive waste and creates a barrier for worthwhile independent artists who don't want to pony up the money to make promotional copies of their album that will be thrown away. If you're a promoter or a record label, please stop doing this.

The new Inbox app for reading email has been making the rounds and I'm keen to try to work it in as my regular mail reading app. It's a blend of what was once Sparrow and the multi-tabbed inbox that Gmail has been pushing as of late. My first impression is that the interface is not as tight or legible as the regular gmail app but I do love the quicker access to information at a glance and the ability to "Snooze" emails if you so choose ( I realize other apps do this but that doesn't mean I can't like it here as well ).

The promotional page for the app is pretty great. Scrolljacking is always a questionable decision but when it works, as it does here, it's really nice.

approved

literal LOL's at this

It's safe to say that if I encountered the ghostly painted works of Angela Deane during any time of year that I'd be into them but it just so happens that during the month of October they feel just that much more appropriate. The somewhat cartoony ghost characters painted over photos is engaging enough at the start but then you realize that these photos are old enough that all these people actually are ghosts now.

via Becky

It's been a long time coming but the folks over at Mondo - makers of fine posters, VHS, soundtracks and more - have relaunched their site. The new design is simple, slick and continues to focus on the content but upgrades the whole experience to something much less 1998-y. There's plenty to check out but mostly you should just cruise around and keep your jaw off the floor when viewing the massive archive.

I've mentioned the ongoing Kirby Ferguson project This Is Not A Conspiracy Theory previously but he's just launched a brand new trailer that explains the content of the series and the concept of buying in while it's being made quite well. I love this kind of subscription based film making where the audience is aware of the process and, in some cases, even involved with helping out.

The subject matter of Conspiracy Theories and "dark forces" that influence our lives is right up my alley - I couldn't think of a better person to bring that out into the world and I absolutely love how he's doing it.

new single coupled with a solid Sparks cover

awesome new Mailchimp app and a beautiful little showcase page to go with it.