Now get and there and really suck balls.
Counterpoint: Autoplaying Is Awesome
”Masturbation boosts your immune system and raises your white blood cell count, helping you fight off infection and illness.”
Way to go, science. More here.
How To Disable Autoplaying Trailers In Netflix
Thank Christ and you’re welcome.
Dammit Jim, I’m Not An Artist —
I’m A Mathematician!
I never really had the classic “I’m in college so I like M.C. Escher” phase, so I’m kind of enjoying this stuff now. The above video is not available in your region, bastard, but hopefully will be soon. I included the trailer mostly for Graham Nash’s cleavage.
The podcast is good.
Stuck in My Head
These guys came up on this here blog recently, which I guess is what put this song in my head. Back in the late 70’s, I occasionally took some flak for liking these guys from people trying a little too hard to be cool. Whatever. For me the only valid criteria are: can they write, and can they play & sing? I think their hits proved they could write, and this polished and disciplined live video shows that they could fucking play. These are guys at the top of their craft, making it look easy. Note how they nail the Abbey Road-like vocal harmonies near the end, all while playing instruments and enduring the various discomforts of a live show. Anyway, Alex Chilton once told me he liked them too, so there.
That said, although I love the verses and chorus of this song, I’ve always had a problem with the instrumental break. To my ears it’s too busy, and the good-timey dixieland clarinet clashes with the pensive mood of the song. I guess if you have a dedicated woodwind player, you’ve gotta let him do his bit. But overall, it’s still a great song. And of course everyone who plays an MM Stingray is a badass.
When Robots Ruled The World
A Polish painter by the name of Jakub Rozalski has created a cool world ruled by robots. It kinda has a Star Wars/Steampunk vibe to it, against an Eastern European backdrop. Lots more of this can be found here…
Another Cheap Trick Song Stuck In My Head For Some Goddamned Reason
And so I pass it on to you. Happy Monday, bastards.
P.S. – The cover art is a parody of Bruce Springsteen’s Born To Run.
Music Geek Documentary Recs
I watched them on Hulu, but they’re available everywhere, I’m sure. The first recommendation is The Quiet One, a film about retired Stone Bill Wyman. I think it was released last summer.
Throughout his three-decade career as a founding member of and bassist for The Rolling Stones, Bill Wyman was known to the world as the “quiet one” in the band. Now, the famously private music legend speaks out about his extraordinary life and experiences as part of “the greatest rock and roll band in the world.” Opening up his vast personal archive—a lifetime’s worth of previously unseen home movies, photographs, and memorabilia—Wyman reflects on his early years with The Stones, the band’s meteoric rise to fame, and his search for a sense of “normalcy” amidst the whirlwind of sex, drugs, and rebellion. Endearingly humble and down-to-earth, Wyman pulls back the curtain to offer a one-of-a-kind perspective on life as a reluctant rock star.
The second is 2007’s Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten, which you bastards have probably already seen. I missed it, somehow.
… paints an uncommonly colorful picture of the onetime leader of The Clash. Director Julien Temple reveals Strummer as more than a punk legend, but a stunning cultural communicator whose influence knew no bounds.
Anybody Remember Myst?
Holy shit, this takes me back. For the uninitiated, Wiki-wiki-wikipedia says …
Myst is a graphic adventure puzzle video game designed by the Miller brothers, Robyn and Rand. It was developed by Cyan, Inc., published by Brøderbund, and released as a PC game for the Macintosh platform in 1993. In the game, players are told that a special book has caused them to travel to Myst Island. There, players solve puzzles and, by doing so, travel to four other worlds, known as Ages, which reveal the backstory of the game’s characters.
And then Ars Technica goes …
A few months back, Ars caught up with Myst developer Rand Miller … at the Cyan offices in Washington state to ask about the process of bringing the haunting island world to life. Myst’s visuals lived at the cutting edge of what interactive CD-ROM technology could deliver at the beginning of the multimedia age, and, perhaps unsurprisingly, fitting the breadth of the Millers’ vision onto CD-ROM didn’t happen without some challenges.
In a way, I’m kind of shocked to hear that Cyan is still around. But then again, they made a fortune on Myst and Riven (the followup), so I really shouldn’t be.
Education At Its Finest
