Editor and Copywriter
Sir Patrick Stewart, who continues to not give a flying f*** about his reputation as a distinguished old man of the theater. Case in point: appearing on an obscure podcast and spending a good ten minutes imitating the different accents of British cows. Either he is Buddhistically enlightened or smoking more weed than Seth Rogan. Regardless, we send him a solid “Ave Caesar!”
We could talk about how these aerial shots of NYC, courtesy of Gothamist, feel like stills from a new Star Wars movie, or like what Neo saw when he tried “the jump” in the first Matrix film. Or, we could be slightly less nerdy, and say they represent a stunning new angle from which to contemplate our urban spaces. But that sounds academic and pretentious. So let’s just say that these shots are epic, and leave it at that.
Another piece of NYC nostalgia, this time via the Facebook page of Dirty Old 1970s New York. While the straight men in the office are sure-‘nuff diggin’ the fox in the yellow dress, all of us are loving the old school touches—including the vintage traffic light, garbage can and bake-shop store front.
We’re afraid to click on the link to more of these pictures—because once we do, important work will not get done. Unimportant work will not get done. We will forget to eat, and will only tear our eyes away from the screen with the most extreme reluctance.
Photos by Saul Leiter
via
When we die, we hope our obituary contains a line as awesome as: "No one did more to promote yurts than Bill Coperthwaite."
(via Cabinporn.com. Photograph by A. William Frederick.)
The fellows (and ladies, presumably) of Laughing Squid recently posted a link to a book of dogs licking their noses.
We particularly like this because our office is run by a queen pitbull bitch named Gouda: she pretty much calls the shots around here, and she licks her nose a lot. The dog above is not Gouda, who you can see below.
Miley Cyrus has finally done something that legitimately shocks us. She collaborated with the Roots on an a cappella version of We Can’t Stop and she totally crushed it.
When we saw this picture (reblogged from ffffound), our immediate thought was “We want some of that, yes please.” But there was no brand name or model number included in the post, so we were dubious. Was it just another of those “design concepts” that people are always posting, super-desirable products that tantalize us but are not actually available for purchase?
A little research reveals that the answer is both no and yes. What you see above is the Legno turntable, produced by the Italian company Montegiro. You can actually buy it. For $13,240. In other words, you can’t actually buy it.
We have heard of aficionados who spend $30,000 on just the right kind of speaker wire, so who knows? Maybe $13,240 is a bargain price in the rarified world of high-end audio. But until Walter White breaks into our house and leaves a huge pile of cash on our ottoman, we’ll have to add the Legno to the long list of life’s unattainables—right up there with Beyonce’s phone number and the power of flight.
The sass-talking senior citizen is a comedic staple that goes all the way back to W.C. Fields, and we’re cheered to see that it is alive and well in this great new ad from Oscar Meyer. Strictly speaking, the message here is that Grandpa should should be more polite in his comments. But it’s pretty clear what the people who created this spot actually think: Grandpa is a total badass.
(Extra credit to the child actor for his look of confused disgust after Gramps gives him the-birds-and-the-bees lecture.)
We like the concept of this combo iPad / toilet paper stand, selling at CTA Digital and pointed out to us by the good people at Gizmodo. But we are against it 100%.
Have you ever spent 40 minutes on the toilet playing Minecraft on your iPad? Of course you have. And you have probably followed it up with 10 minutes of painful running in place, just to get the feeling back in your legs and buttocks. That shit is unhealthy. Suppose you develop a blood clot, and it travels from your leg, up through your ass and into your brain, giving you a stroke? Imagine trying to live that down in the rehab facility. No, no, no. Anything that makes this dangerous behavior more convenient must be rejected out of hand.
http://gizmodo.com/5982101/secretly-we-all-want-this-toilet+paper+holding-ipad-stand
tscp:
Though a quick search of the internets tells us that “fanboi” is a derogatory term, we still have to admit that we are fanbois (is that the plural? Fanboix? Fanboii) of Apple products, and get all weak in the knees when Cupertino releases something new.
So we were tickled, in our fanboi-ish way, to see this collection of early Apple designs—computers that were never actually built, but which would have been awwwsum.
One day, someone will figure out a way to express complex literary and philosophical ideas through the use of icons. In the meantime, we will have to content ourselves with the many shades of first-world misery encapsulated in this chart.
You can check out the original (in Spanish) here:
Photo: Ugly Models Agency
It’s great when stereotypical notions of beauty are stood on their head, when the haughty world of whisper-thin models, metrosexual stylists and cold-hearted Vogue editors is chucked out in favor of real people looking as flawed, but beautiful, as real people do. When a size 8 is considered as sexy as a size 2, when…
Oh wait. No, that’s not what’s going on here at all.
The UGLY modeling agency is a London-based “character” modeling agency. Which is to say it takes unusual, funny-looking people and hires them out to magazines, agencies and stock-photo houses to add either comic relief or contrast.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with that, as far as we’re concerned. Even “characters” have to make a living, after all.
But why call your agency UGLY? I mean, we know why: it’s a good gimmick and it gets you attention. But isn’t it sort of reinforcing the idea that models are beautiful and everyone else is hideous?
What’s that you say? You didn’t start your company to upend the ridiculous beauty standards of the fashion industry? You started it to make money?
Well, if that’s your attitude, we only have one thing to say to you: can we get in on the action? We’re a pretty odd looking lot. Our VP for Sales is missing two front teeth, half the copywriters have uni-brows and don’t get us started on our bearded receptionist Lurlene. Can we FTP you some head shots?
http://www.odditycentral.com/news/ugly-model-agency-redefines-fashion-business-standards.html
Gene Herrick / AP
So often, when we celebrate Martin Luther King, we do so with somberly inspirational images, as if to underscore the gravity of his life and achievements. So to buck that trend, we decided to post this snapshot, in which the refreshingly youthful civil rights leader looks like a swing-era crooner getting mobbed by adoring bobby soxers. (Actually, he’s leaving a Montgomery, Alabama courtroom after a legal victory, and the bobby soxer is his wife Coretta Scott King.)
You have a dream? Baby, what you’ve got is style.
Whenever we see an old pictures like this, we wish we could have been there, in that magic era when b-boys ruled the streets, New York City had real grit, and tube socks were the bomb.
Never mind that if we actually had ventured into the South Bronx in the early ‘80s, we would have been bat-shit terrified by all the urban blight we now find so charming. The point is: it’s in the past, so we can fully embrace it’s awesome cool-osity. (I mean, c’mon: when was the last time you saw a kid from the ghetto rocking a pith helmet for Christ’s sake?)
Click on this link to see more amazing images:
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/15/raw-and-real-inside-the-south-bronx/
Photo by Ricky Flores (http://rickyflores.com)
In one respect we’re like everyone else who works in social media: we love looking at old advertisements—ostensibly to congratulate ourselves on how much more sophisticated we are these days, but really to look for ideals to steal.
From the current perspective, there are so many things wrong with the above ad—too much copy, indecisive call-to-action, unattractive product image—but we admire it nevertheless.
First up, there’s the way the coffee cup pops, despite the fact that the coffee itself looks pretty watery.
Then there’s “Coffee Hunger” instead of “Coffee Thirst”—an unconventional choice on the part of the copywriter that shows some chutzpah.
But above all is the look on the guy’s face: a craven, narrow-eyed leer at something off camera, presumably the rest of the woman who’s pouring the coffee. What is she wearing? And why does it excite his secret shame so much? A french maid’s outfit? Scuba diving gear? Just an everyday house dress? We could spend hours coming up with kinky scenarios for what’s going on beyond the frame, but it doesn’t really matter: all that matters is that on some level something thrilling and forbidden is happening, all because of Nescafe Instant Coffee.
Genius.
Nescafe 1955
We were going to post something snarky about the current scandal in the world of comic books—Marvel Comics’ decision to kill off Peter Parker, the seemingly ageless young man who has been Spider Man’s alter-ego since the early ’60s—when we came across the above photoset, which we think deserves more attention than the other thing.
We love this, not because it renders ridiculous the icons of the current comic-industrial complex (after all, we’re big fans of said icons, particularly the mighty Thor, perhaps the most insufferable superhero ever created), but because it takes two utterly unrelated things and puts them together with marvelous effect. (Click through to see Superman, Wonder Woman and a particularly hilarious Batman.)
We love this collection of bad client feedback re-imagined as whimsical graphics, not so much because we’re bitter over the treatment our own clients give us (which is generally pretty reasonable, truth be told) but because it shows creatives actually creating, instead of complaining.
Horrible client feedback turned into hilarious and cathartic works of art. Happy Friday!
Of all the wonderful apps and hardware made possible by the Internet, perhaps the least convincing are those that seek to replicate actual human contact. Take, for example, the Like-A-Hug—a jacket which allows any one of your Facebook friends to “hug” you from a distance.
This idea would be annoying even if the people behind Like-A-Hug had figured out an elegant way to execute it. But they didn’t. The Like-A-Hug simulates an embrace by filling an incredibly fashion-backward jacket with air. Imagine walking through the park and every five minutes the shapeless blue vest you’re wearing spontaneously puffs up like an emergency lifejacket. It will not make you feel loved.
This idea is emblematic of the one aspect of social media that we—true believers all—don’t agree with: the neurotic drive to inject social media into every area of human experience. Whatever value it has to your self-esteem, a Facebook “like” is not the same thing as a real-life like, and most of your “friends” on FB are not your friends at all. We prefer real hugs, from real people we care about, the people we actually enjoy being clasped by.
(Read more about it: http://bit.ly/TGq8JE)
