Interesting Things 491

Season Twos of things, weird, potty mouth music, and the Megalopolis countdown

Well it’s over, and Kyle has secured the victory (a rout!) in the Sports Movie Battle Royale, which only suggests to me that y’all don’t appreciate Icebox and Little Giants nearly as much as you should.

But that’s ok. One day you will see the light.

Onward and… sideward? I cannot in good conscience suggest we’re going up with anything here…

What to Watch

I think I watched the first episode of Amazon’s Lord of the Rings series and, while I found it perfectly fine, for whatever reason didn’t go back to it. I would love to dive deeper into the psychology of television watching, and what causes a decision like that. I didn’t think it was bad, but I also obviously didn’t think it was worth my time. Regardless, maybe I was in the minority since there’s a season two coming around the bend.

Wash, rinse, repeat my engagement with House of the Dragons…

Maybe it’s fantasy exhaustion? I enjoyed the source materials these stories vein from, but I just can’t get into these when there are so many other more interesting options that keep popping up. I know there has been a lot of recent talk of the “death” of peak television, but I still push back against that notion. There’s plenty of television out there that is at least trying different things and while it doesn’t all work we should at least champion the risk and unique voices, or we’re just going to get carbon copies of the shows we liked from the past… like Rings of Power and House of the Dragon. Of course, it may just be impossible as we are scheduled to get another Game of Thrones prequel.

Wes Anderson and Montblanc…

Color me whatever the opposite color of shocked is that Wes Anderson is a Montblanc pen guy. I guess a mild shock would be that he features himself in the “ode” (a fancy word for commercial here) to the pen.

What to Read

If you’re like me, you’re curious about Megalopolis, Francis Ford Coppola’s white whale that he (maybe? Sorta? Definitely?) slayed recently and put on a screen for all (hopefully!) to see. I shared the trailer Monday but here it is again. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, here’s a batshit article on how it went dragging this thing from imagination to finished project. It seems as though Mr. Coppola has thought about the Roman Empire even more than the average person.

And we’re about to get some more reactions about the movie, as it is scheduled to premiere at Cannes, which started yesterday. But while Megalopolis will get a lot of press, there are a bunch of other movies that look interesting!

AI “hallucinates” things apparently, though it’s not the same as how humans hallucinate… if AI gets stuck on an answer or can’t figure something out, it creates its own reality in order to still try and help. This is something that feels both inevitable (it’s entire concept is built on the combination of the science of math and the imperfection of human consciousness), and puzzling (computers aren’t supposed to be wrong). Anyway - great news… we’re not even sure this can ever be fixed.

What to Listen To

Sometimes, I stumble across something that reinforces why I scour the internet and whatnot for stuff. Enjoy a song by a modern prog rock band joining Huey Lewis and the News to sing a David Bowie cover.

Familiar with Obscurest Vinyl? Started as a joke, it’s, well… how I about I just share the Spotify description with you…

Releasing a record is like a game of darts, with a bit of practice, patience, and luck, a record executive might score the next bullseye hit. But what happens when precision is replaces by coke-fueled desperation, wild irrational trend chasing, and complete fiscal irresponsibility? This is the beginning of an amateur, deep and dirty, dive into those annals to explore the releases that missed the mark and left forgotten scars on the drywall of our society.

This is obscurest vinyl.

Here’s an example… This Baptism Fuckin’ Blows (Dunk the Kid Already)

But really… check out the whole thing on Spotify if you can, because there’s a visual element that really hammers the whole things home with the album covers.

And here’s an older (last year) interview with the creator. I’m not 100% sure he was actually creating music at that point, and there’s not a lot out there about the artist. But I believe he writes the lyrics, creates the art, and uses AI to help with creating the actual music.