The 2014 Summer Jam Has Arrived
I would have preferred to have this summer’s jam about a month ago, but I’m glad I waited to call it.
Also, I think I’ll go ahead and give runner-up status to "Old English" ft. Young Thug, Freddie Gibbs & A$AP Ferg.
‘My feelings don’t matter anymore.’ →
Kanye West, in a GQ interview with Zach Baron:
Kim is this girl who fucking turns me on. I love her. This is who I want to be next to and be around. And then people would try to say, "Well, you know, if you're a musician, you should be with a musician, and if you want to design, you need to be with a girl from the design world." I don't give a fuck about people's opinions. Because when a kid falls in love with an airplane or a bike or a dinosaur—especially if you're an only child and it's not because of the book that the sibling was reading—it's like, fuck, you mean to tell me that the dinosaurs walked the earth and stuff like that?! That's amazing! You mean to tell me that these giant multi-ton crafts can fly that fast and that loud, and they can flip, and there's danger, the possibility of them exploding? That's fucking cool! You mean to tell me that this girl with this fucking body and this face is also into style, and she's a nice person, and she has her own money and is family-oriented? That's just as cool as a fucking fighter jet or dinosaur! And just as rarely seen.
I don’t begrudge anyone for disliking Kanye West—he’s obnoxious. But for those of us who are endlessly fascinated by his endless supernovaing in public (as well as his music, of course), I think the next few years, as he has clearly become comfortable with his role in life, are going to be the most interesting yet.
/via The Atlantic
The Story Behind the Design of the Hartford Whalers →
In 1979, the WHA folded and the New England Whalers were one of only four teams absorbed into the NHL. The franchise was renamed and in need of a new logo. Peter Good was the designer hired to create a new identity for the Hartford Whalers.
On June 29, WFSB-TV in Hartford, Conn. aired an interview between Face the State host Dennis House and Good — from the Connecticut design firm Cummings & Good. During the 9-minute conversation, the two talked about the genesis of the logo and all things Whalers.
When I moved to Connecticut, I bought a Whalers snapback. I wear it all the time.
/via Brand New
The New ‘New Yorker’ Website and Some Article Recommendations →
This week, newyorker.com has a new look. On a desktop, on a tablet, on a phone, the site has become, we believe, much easier to navigate and read, much richer in its offerings, and a great deal more attractive. For months, our editorial and tech teams have been sardined into a boiler room, subsisting only on stale cheese sandwiches and a rationed supply of tap water, working without complaint on intricate questions of design, functionality, access, and what is so clinically called “the user experience.
Big improvement. Looks great. And you can still get the comfortingly annoying “Enjoy The New Yorker” ad by hovering over the red ‘subscribe’ menu item. Oh, but wait—there’s more:
Beginning this week, absolutely everything new that we publish—the work in the print magazine and the work published online only—will be unlocked. All of it, for everyone. Call it a summer-long free-for-all. Non-subscribers will get a chance to explore The New Yorker fully and freely, just as subscribers always have. Then, in the fall, we move to a second phase, implementing an easier-to-use, logical, metered paywall. Subscribers will continue to have access to everything; non-subscribers will be able to read a limited number of pieces—and then it’s up to them to subscribe. You’ve likely seen this system elsewhere—at the Times, for instance—and we will do all we can to make it work seamlessly.
Wow. I’d like to think of this of generosity, but I don’t know—doesn’t sound like the business model of a thriving, successful magazine. Anyway, take advantage. Because you weren’t far enough behind on your New Yorker pile anyway, here’s, via kottke.org, Longform’s 25 Favorite Unlocked New Yorker Articles.
What Writers Can Learn From ‘Good Night Moon’ →
“Goodnight Moon” does two things right away: It sets up a world and then it subverts its own rules even as it follows them. It works like a sonata of sorts, but, like a good version of the form, it does not follow a wholly predictable structure. Many children’s books do, particularly for this age, as kids love repetition and the books supply it. They often end as we expect, with a circling back to the start, and a fun twist. This is satisfying but it can be forgettable. Kids — people — also love depth and surprise, and “Goodnight Moon” offers both. Here’s what I think it does that is so radical and illuminating for writers of all kinds, poets and fiction writers and more.
Couldn’t agree more. In the past 15 months, “Goodnight Moon” is by far the classic children’s books that I’ve enjoyed reading the most.
The Eternal Greatness of ‘Illmatic’ →
After repeated listens, it’s clear how ingrained the theme of tribute is throughout: the talk of park jams, the samples of past emcees, the bit in “Represent” that begins, “Before the BDP conflict with MC Shan / around the time that Shanté dissed the Real Roxanne,” as though time unfolds according to a New York hip-hop calendar. But, wait—wasn’t this some gangster-reportage rap, all crack vials and artillery? It was, and it was partly that content that made the eighties love unobvious. The beats were of their moment, while Nas’s rhymes, even as they drew from un-shouting veterans like Kool G. Rap and Rakim, meant a whole new level of writtenness for the genre.
I still don’t know that I’ve ever heard another hip hop album that sounds like ‘Illmatic’. ‘Good Kid, M.A.D.D. City’ maybe comes the closest. And a totally undermentioned aspect of what makes ‘Illmatic’ great? The length—or lack of it. 10 tracks, 9 songs. No room for weak tracks or throwaway skits. And really, at the end of the day, how many hip hop albums have a 13,500 word Wikipedia article?
Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee—Season 4 →
I think we’ve hit the point where it’s safe to say that this is the best project Jerry Seinfeld has been involved with since Seinfeld, right?
‘Welcome to The NightLight, a guide to the very best stuff for your baby—and you.’ →
Brought to you by brother-and-sister team Joel Johnson—from Consumerist, Gizmodo, and The Sweethome—and Rachel Fracassa, mother of four and doula, with contributors from Parenting, Babytalk and more, The NightLight takes the hand-wringing out of buying baby gear, with in-depth reporting and research that determines the single best product that parents should buy.
As a parent of a young child, you’re plenty busy already. The NightLight‘s team of writers and researchers will help you pick the best strollers, carriers, bottles, diapers, car seats, monitors, breast pumps, and—yup—nightlights. We spend between 20 and 40 hours researching and testing on average for each guide, and in ongoing review to make sure our recommendations are always correct.
If you’re familiar with The Wirecutter or The Sweethome, you know the deal here—no star rankings, no advanced metrics; just real people testing real products and at the end, telling you which is “the best.” I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing that out of their first 15 product categories, I only own three of their recommended items.
Full disclosure: I put my name in the running several times to test products/write reviews for The Nightlight, but never actually did.
100 Famous Bass Lines
Too much Red Hot Chili Peppers for my taste, but I recognize that I’m in the minority on that one.
/via Devour
John Lennon, Paul McCartney and the Brilliance of Creative Pairs →
The diplomat and the agitator. The neatnik and the whirling dervish. Spending time with Paul and John, one couldn’t help but be struck by these sorts of differences. “John needed Paul’s attention to detail and persistence,” Cynthia Lennon, John’s first wife, said. “Paul needed John’s anarchic, lateral thinking.”
Paul and John seemed to be almost archetypal embodiments of order and disorder. The ancient Greeks gave form to these two sides of human nature in Apollo, who stood for the rational and the self-disciplined, and Dionysus, who represented the spontaneous and the emotional. Friedrich Nietzsche proposed that the interaction of the Apollonian and the Dionysian was the foundation of creative work, and modern creativity research has confirmed this insight, revealing the key relationship between breaking and making, challenging and refining, disrupting and organizing.
John was the iconoclast. In early live shows, he would fall into the background, let Paul charm the audience, and then twist up his face, adopt a hunchback pose, and play dissonant chords. Sometimes, he deliberately kept his guitar slightly out of tune, which contributed to what the composer Richard Danielpour calls “that raw, raunchy sound.” He was difficult with the press, at times even impossible. In the studio, he clamored constantly to do things differently. He wanted to be hung from the ceiling and swung around the mic. He wanted to be recorded from behind.
While John broke form, Paul looked to make it. He was the band’s de facto musical director in the studio and, outside, its relentless champion. “Anything you promote, there’s a game that you either play or you don’t play,” he said. “I decided very early on that I was very ambitious and I wanted to play.” Among the Beatles, he said, he was the one who would “sit the press down and say, ‘Hello, how are you? Do you want a drink?,’ and make them comfortable.”
Distinctions are a good way to introduce ourselves to a creative pair. But what matters is how the parts come together. So it’s not right to focus on how John insulted reporters while Paul charmed them. John was able to insult reporters because Paul charmed them. Their music emerged in a similar way, with single strands twisting into a mutually strengthening double helix.
I’m skeptical of any theory that is able to use something/someone as legendary as The Beatles as proof, because more went into creating the music of The Beatles than Lennon, McCartney, or their partnership. Time travel them into the current musical landscape and I don’t think they would have nearly the same impact. That being said—this is still a pretty interesting look into the writing process and as a Beatles fan, it feels reassuring in a way to just think of their music as an overall collaboration rather than have to choose to be on Team Paul or Team John.