I’ve long been a fan of Arcade Fire’s refusal to simply settle for a traditional music video. They’ve never been great about creating your typical, made-for-MTV fare. If you’ve never seen their videos for “Neon Bible” or “Black Mirror” go check those out – they’re flipping incredible. Then be fully prepared to have your mind blown into smithereens and scattered about as your watch their music video/browser experiment for their new song “We Used to Wait” called The Wilderness Downtown. I guarantee you’ve never seen anything like it before. It combines multiple browser windows that move around your screen, Google Maps of the street you group on, an organic writing pad, a flock of birds that travels around from browser to browser, not to mention a few different good-old-fashioned videos. I know, right? Amazing. Go. Watch it. Now.
When I was growing up, my dad made me pancakes nearly every Saturday morning. After a while, he even got fancy and started writing our initials with pancake batter. Who doesn’t want to eat an ‘R’ pancake? It was one of my favorite parts of my childhood. And I imagine that had I stayed a kid long enough, he would have started doing what Jim Belosic does for his 3-year old daughter Allie every Saturday morning. I’m not sure what Jim does during the week, but based on some of his creations, he should be some sort of structural engineer or a sales rep for Bisquick. Personally, I’m still on page 2 of the pancake workbook – I believe this week’s recipe is “Just don’t burn the freakin’ thing. Please.” See more of Jim’s creations here.
The ol’ softball team has come a long way. This past Fall, we lost every game. Every. Game. In the first 7 games we were outscored 127-30. And we lost epically. In our last game, we blew a 5 run lead with only 1 out to go. Then came the Spring, where we made a respectable showing, won a few games and ended up playing in the winner-take-all tournament at the end of the season, coming in 3rd. Not too shabby. But yesterday, we finished our worst-to-first, feel-good story of the year by winning the Cactus League Bricktown Championship in a thrilling come-from-behind victory – and by ‘thrilling’ I mean, probably more exciting than anything else going on in sports in the middle of August. Not a whole lot of competition there. Nonetheless, you can read the game summary here if you’ve got some time to kill. Fun fact: this is the first baseball/softball related championship I’ve won since my first year of organized baseball in 3rd grade. How about it.
Well, not exactly the same poster, but pretty similar. Here’s two new movies coming out this fall that I’m pretty flippin’ excited about.
1. The Social Network. If you were one of the few Americans who didn’t see Inception, then you might have missed this dark, based-on-a-true-story trailer, complete with the haunting Scala & Kolacny Brothers cover of “Creep.” And then add the fact that David Fincher (Fight Club, Zodiac) is directing and my favorite screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (Charlie Wilson’s War, West Wing, Sports Night). Plus, while Jesse Eisenberg may be the poor man’s Michael Cera, he does have an uncanny likeness to Facebook bajillionaire founder Mark Zuckerberg.
2. I’m Still Here. Whether or not you think Joaquin Phoenix’s social meltdown (see: his trainwreck appearance on David Letterman) was real or some sort of elaborate hoax, this looks like an incredibly intriguing movie documenting this time in Phoenix’s life. And if it is a hoax, it’s the greatest all-time hoax since the Loch Ness Monster.
Earlier this summer I did a Guinea pig trial run of creating a free mix to download off the ol’ bloggity blog – Good Medicine Vol. 1, and it was received surprisingly well – so here’s the second installment. If like what you hear, support these bands, buy their music, see them live, you get the idea. These are supposed to be like those samples you get at Costco. Now go buy that whole box of corn dogs.
1. Shake It Out – Manchester Orchestra
2. I’ll Tell You What – J Roddy Walston & The Business
3. Sun Hands – Local Natives
4. Nobody Gets Me But You – Spoon
5. The Cave – Mumford & Sons
6. Your Easy Lovin’ Ain’t Pleasin’ Nothin’ – Mayer Hawthorne
7. Age of Consent – New Order
8. So Insane – Discovery
9. Heartbeats – The Knife
10. Back In Your Head – Tegan & Sara
11. Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) – Arcade Fire
12. Ageless Beauty - Stars
13. Dog Days Are Over – Florence + The Machine
14. Be Healed – Paper Route
15. Holy Ghost – Flagship 16. Marathon – Tennis
17. I’m On Fire – Bruce Springsteen
18. Blackest Hair, Bluest Eyes – Chris Staples 19. When the Lights Go Out – Dan Auerbach
* Cover photo via riftdweller *And if any of the bands on here don’t want their music on the mix, just let me know and I’ll remove it promptly. Thanks.
*Another week of heavy-ended heavy rotation. I can’t help it though. Mumford & Sons is the UK’s answer to the Avett Brothers, and while it’s not quite the same, it’s still a pretty solid answer. With a few repeat listens.
It’s the weekend. Go watch a movie. But don’t go into it blindly. Here’s a helpful trilogy meter from Dan Meth to keep you away from those weak sequels. Unless of course your my wife, who doesn’t care where a movie falls in a trilogy as long as aliens, guns and/or explosions are involved. I’m a lucky man.
