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Issue One Hundred and Fifty-Two

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Back in September of 2021 I wrote about Kirby Ferguson's Everything is a Remix, a video essay about how culture, from the beginning of time, is built upon the works of others being reshaped and reinvented. It's a fantastic piece of journalism that makes some fascinating points and insightful observations about creativity told through the medium of remixing. It practices what it preaches! Well, not only is the full project finally complete, BUT ALSO, its creator has edited it all together into one super convenient 90 minute video, BUT ALSO it goes way beyond previous iterations and updates the world of remixing to also delve into the complicated and thorny issue of artificial intelligence and how it interacts (and infringes?) on the art of human beings. It's a fascinating discussion and I don't want to give you any spoilers, but I believe Kirby argues a position that you may not have come across yet. Everything Is a Remix walks a very difficult line of being educational and super interesting and I can't recommend it enough. I'm disappointed that it is over but excited that you will get to watch the complete work (right now! For free) if you click the button below. Everything is a Remix (COMPLETE EDITION)

I love a good story about an unlikely creator of something that goes on to change the world. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster are two such fascinating characters, not only because they created Superman, but because that creation was so important and they were then treated so poorly by the company that bought their idea. This article, by Helene Stapinski and Bonnie Siegler is an excellent look at their story from a ground-level view. Whether you know Siegel and Shuster's story or are encountering it for the first time, this is a good read.

Look, up in the sky...

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Issue One Hundred and Fifty-One

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Hello! It’s been a little bit. I do have a reason, and I’ll let you decide if it’s a good one or not: I’ve been making things. And I’m not plugging those things here. However, I wanted to talk to you about the simple act of making things. Recently, my podcast cohost Heather and I had to figure out some merch to send to a group of our listeners. I came up with the idea of a baseball-style pennant and got to work trying to figure out how much it would cost to have a company print custom ones. The answer: not insanely expensive, but not incredibly cheap either. Had it just been me, I probably would’ve moved on to a different idea, but Heather had a plan: we bought some blank pennants, we found a person on Etsy who made vinyl transfers, and we fired up Photoshop. (Luckily, Heather already owned an iron.)

It took some practice, but we soon became experts at ironing on incredibly intricate designs onto incredibly thin pieces of fabric. I won’t lie: it was occasionally stressful that we were going to mess up our limited supply of pennant crafts, but by the end of it we were having a ton of fun making pennants for a podcast. So, in summary: we saved some money, we learned a new skill together, and we had a grand old time putting it all together. The Internet is super cool and gives you access to a number of different small businesses, large businesses, and individuals who will put together whatever crazy thing you want to put together. It takes more work to research and determine how to replicate that work on your own. And let’s be honest, the homemade canoe you make in the garage it’s going to be far crappier, and take far more time to make than the one you buy online. But, nothing is going to beat that feeling of having done it yourself. The one from Amazon might look nicer and might not immediately sink, but no matter what that’s never going to be the canoe that you built yourself.  Unless you’re a liar. Then you can say whatever you want.  

Hey. Did'ja see Everything, Everywhere All At Once? Don't worry. That's not the recommendation. It already won Best Picture. In fact, it swept the Oscars so you probably already saw it and loved it, or you already saw it and thought it was overhyped. Those are the two options. But, in the Best Supporting Actress category, Jaime Lee Curtis won, so that means Stephanie Hsu did not. She's going to have many more cracks at winning, so it's fine, but if you haven't already seen her audition for the role of Joy, you really should. (I do not recommend watching it if you took the rare third option of "I haven't gotten around to it, but I've heard good things. I'll check it out, I will. Maybe this weekend!")

Sucked Into a Bagel

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One Hundred and Fifty

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Last month on the other Internet thing I do, a music-centric podcast called If You're Listening, my co-host Heather proposed an episode of songs with a December theme. Because I am a delightful scamp, I selected the song "July, July" by The Decemberists. But I have been hoisted on my own petard because I've fallen into a Decemberists hole, listening (and re-listening) to a band I loved in high school and then, for whatever reason, fell away from. If you've never listened, here's how I would explain them: you know pop music? Okay, now pretend it was written by a group of hyper-literate 18th century whalers. They can write a solid hook and a catchy four minute jam, but they'll also allow themselves some flights of fancy and venture out into 8 minute epics, often adapting ancient myths or epic poems into catchy song suites. The always barbed Pitchfork kind of hits the nail on the head when Amanda Petrusich wrote in one album review: "The quirks that make them such a target for snickering, disaffected aesthetes (namely, stuffing their songs with arcane historical allusions and library language) are also what make them a boon for drama kids in three-button vests." Whether you've never heard of them or you've loved them for years, I've made you a playlist to help you test the waters.

More music! If Alan Rickman got you a Joni Mitchell CD for Christmas this year and you want to hear more of her back catalogue (or, for the rest of us, if you just want to listen to Joni Mitchell), she's done you a solid. Now you can find her entire catalogue on her YouTube page for free. Now there's no reason not to listen to a side of one of her records, or, both sides, now!

The Mitchell Versus the Machine

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Issue One Hundred and Forty-Nine

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The Thing: Marvel's She-Hulk & Werewolf By Night Submitted by: Jonolobster Why It's Great: "2022 was the year it finally happened. I got MCU fatigue. It's not the dire medical condition it sounds like, I simply got a bit bored with the output of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But then, just when I thought of tapping out, in true cinematic fashion, they pulled me back in. Not through movies, but through a sitcom and a "special presentation." I can't explain why, but Jennifer Walters and Ted Sallis, along with their green alter-egos, are two of my favorite characters from the comics. Finally seeing them in live-action form, and very faithfully at that, was enough to respark the joy in making mine Marvel. Bonus: the new "Gargoyles" comic from Dynamite.

The Thing: Paramore "This is Why" Submitted by: TartTooth Why It's Great: "I can't stop listening to it."  

The Thing: The 1975 Being Funny In A Foreign Language Submitted by: Heather Hynes Why It's Great: "This album came out in the fall and I still have not stopped listening to it obsessively. It’s the perfect combo of poppy, sad and produced by Jack Antonoff for my tastes. ."  

    The Thing: Tolkien Deep Dives Submitted by: Angela Workoff Why It's Great: "I've loved Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films dearly since they came out, but was a dilettante for the written work, only having spottily read LOTR and The Hobbit in grade school. Last year, I finally read LOTR straight through, The Silmarillion (with a certain editor of certain Sincere Positive publications), and the Hobbit, listening to a lecture series by Corey Olsen, a medievalist known to y'all as the Tolkien Professor, throughout these three reads. I can talk your ear off about Tolkien after all this (and stop me, because Rings of Power was also great, not to mention the usual PJ LOTR extended version rewatches), but better than that was the joy of doing an obsessive deep dive, the kind you might as a nerdy kid, to scratch at trying to know everything about a thing you love. Also Andor. Just, full stop, Andor. "

Welcome to 2023, everybody. Let's make it a good one.

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Issue One Hundred and Forty-Eight

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Two things happened this week that have led to this somewhat unexpected choice for a SPT: yesterday was Dick Van Dyke's 97th birthday. From his role as Rob Petrie on the (still charming and funny) Dick Van Dyke Show to this album of covers that is great for parties, Van Dyke is a treasure. The second thing was that my wife and I finally got COVID which meant we were stuck on the couch for much of the last few days, streaming an awful lot of television. For reasons I can't articulate, my illness-raddled body wanted to watch Mary Poppins. A delight. Just a movie of fun. Every single one of the Sherman Brothers' songs are fantastic (except for the one about banking that you probably forgot existed. It's funny, but not a toe-tapper.) Julie Andrews is fantastic, a beautiful singer, and very, very dry. Dick Van Dyke's accent is derided, but it's perfectly cartoony and his physical performance is unparalleled. Glynis Johns and David Tomlinson as Mr. and Mrs. Banks are ever so British. There are some special effects in here where you'll say, "Oh, that looks good for 1964!" and some where you'll say, "I have no idea how they did that one." I know you've probably seen this movie. But whether it's the Mary/Bert subtext or the detail of the fox being hunted being Irish, I bet there are some details you've missed. Poppins is not a Christmas movie (if anything its about the end of winter into spring) but whether it's the message of family or love over money, there's something that makes this movie feel right for this time of year. Plus, the bridge of "Feed the Birds" has this part that will never fail to give me chills.  -- I would like to know what your favorite piece of media to come out of 2022 was. Movie? TV Show? Book? Song? Food? Whatever! I plan on sharing a list of our readers' favorite things at the start of 2023, and this is your chance to be a part of it! Just fill out this super short form and you're a part of the official SPT 2022 Going Away Celebration! --

We love a word game here at SPT HQ. Tumbleword is a new fun one that gives a few different tools to try and create the largest number of words using the fewest number of moves. It's deceptively simple, but surprisingly tough. Sorry/enjoy!

Tumbleword!

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Issue One Hundred and Forty Seven

What's a song that you're always glad to hear but you've never owned or dug deeper into? For me, that's probably Stevie Wonder's "Superstition." It's perfect: that opening riff on the synth-y thing, the steady drum beat with perfect snare fills, and the horns. The HORNS. The brass section three separate iconic riffs in this song. (Don't believe me? To prove my point, I recorded this very low-effort clip of me impersonating three different horn riffs.) Okay. So then why haven't I listened to more Stevie Wonder? Instead I've just relied on the radio to occasionally play "I Just Called To Say I Love You" at me. Even better question, I subscribe to a streaming service: why haven't I ever played Talking Book, the 1972 album that spawned this perfect song? I guess I've just never had Spotify open and thought about "Superstition" at the same time. And the loss is all mine. The New York Times just published a look back at this album on its 50 year anniversary which details why it's not just a great album, but also why it is such an important one. You'll learn about how this album was on the forefront of synthesizers, utilizing an insane machine named TONTO (retronymed to mean The Original New Timbral Orchestra) and you'll also learn that synth-y thing I was talking about earlier is called a clavinet (It's from the 1940s and it's both electronic and uses strings. It's crazy.). So here's where I'm at: if you know "Talking Book," you've gotta read this article. If you don't know this album, you're wasting precious moments of your life. It's really, really good and it sounds like it was recorded yesterday. Get on this. Talking Book

The blankets in our house have slowly been thrown away for various reasons over the years until only one has remained. Then that one was adopted by the cat and you can't use a cat blanket. So after years of not having a blanket to throw over my legs on the couch, I once again have a warm flannel blanket from The Vermont Country Store and I forgot how good life could be. Just call me Linus Van Pelt because I'm a blanket guy now and I'm not going back. The link below will take you to my particular blanket, but let's not overthink this: The thesis is a simple one. Get a blanket this winter.

Happiness is a Warm Blanket

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Issue One Hundred Forty-Six

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Longtime readers of Sincere, Positive Things know that in addition to ingesting all things modern media, we are often looking backwards as well. Well allow me at this late date to be the first person of 2022 to inform you that the best thing to listen to while doing the dishes are celebrity interviews from Dick Cavett's vast archives. Should you never have encountered the interview stylings of Mr. Cavett, the experience could be rather jarring if you're only familiar with the modern talk show. The host isn't constantly interjecting with a segue to a pre-planned anecdote, there aren't games, and the audience isn't reacting constantly. Instead, there is space to discuss, argue, and debate. There are laughs, but they aren't a constant requirement. Instead, there's room for thought and depth. That's not to say "aw shucks, they just don't make them like this anymore." I mean, they don't, but this is, at times, slow television. This would absolutely not get made today, but it's not a show for today. Rather than extol the virtues of a show you'll never click on and explore, I'm going to link to a number of worthwhile interviews to tickle your fancy. There's something here for everyone (over 30).

Mel Brooks

Janis Joplin

Gore Vidal / Norman Mailer (FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT)

Ray Charles

Groucho (and another for good measure)

Bette Davis

And so many more at his official YouTube channel!

Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher and Werner Herzog a German film director. They both have very distinctive voices and have recorded many hours of themselves speaking. Obviously, the next step was to feed many examples of their voice and their words into an AI to have them speak to one another on philosophy forever.  

The Infinite Conversation

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Issue One Hundred and Forty-Five

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Across the previous 144 issues of Sincere, Positive Things, I have never recommended anything to you that I had not personally read, watched, heard, eaten or played. These are things that I am recommending full-throatedly, from personal experience. I will not lie to you, today's Big Thing is sitting on a table in my house, ready to be read by my wife who purchased it and then again by me, but I am so confident that it's going to be good that I'm just going to tell you about it now. Katie Beaton is the cartoonist behind Hark! A Vagrant, a comic strip that I love so much that I recommended it here, years after she was done with it. It mixes history, fiction, and humor to create something truly original. She has been talking about her new book Ducks for quite some time. In this graphic novel, Beaton blends stories from growing up on Cape Breton Island, which is part of Nova Scotia (which is part of Canada, but I know you know that). As I said, I haven't read this book, but I did read the original, sketchier webcomic that it grew out of (still available here), and it is wonderful. It still has her sense of humor and storytelling, but with a more serious edge. If the book is half as good, I might just have to recommend it again in two weeks. Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands

Perrenial Little Thing honeree, ThePudding is back with a cool little game called "Words with Strangers." Each day you are pitted against one random person who also signed up for the game. You are both given a clue like "5 letter noun" or "word that starts with z" and you have to list as many as you can, with extra points for more obscure words. That's really it! Three rounds, one match-up per day. It's a good time!

Words Words Words

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Issue One Hundred Forty-Four

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I have never in my many years of going to the movie theater said about a documentary, "okay, but you have to see it in the theaters." I'm also not sure if I've ever said about any movie, let alone a doc, "okay, but you have to see it in IMAX." Today I blaze a trail through both of these firsts. The new David Bowie documentary Moonage Daydream is not like other documentaries. It doesn't follow any traditional "birth-to-death" narrative, instead focusing primarily on Bowie's journey as an artist. We begin with him at the peak of his powers, we see him stumble, and then we see him find himself again. There's a dash of family history, a dollop of his sex life, but otherwise: it's about the art. Unlike most music documentaries, this is a movie about music. Full songs are performed. Live takes you probably haven't seen, familiar hits, and even songs from after Bowie's peak that have been less in the zeitgeist are given center stage. Sometimes remixed slightly to fit the events on screen, sometimes not. And (again, I don't work for IMAX) they sound incredible through the fancy movie theater speakers. When the drums on "Sound and Vision" kick in, you feel them kick. And then the visuals. Bowie, according to the film's director/writer/editor, Brett Morgen, was a hoarder. He saved every scrap of film he appeared on, every journal, everything. Morgen had a mountain of material to work with, and when you learn that he began working on this film in 2017, a year after Bowie's death, it's clear why: there are no newly recorded talking heads explaining Bowie. It's just the man himself talking to you through archive footage. All of this is woven together through an intense montage of concert footage, filmed outtakes, movie appearances, but also art that Bowie didn't create but help to illustrate. It is at times trippy and at other times intimate, but it is at all times relentless. After a brief intro, this movie grabs you and it refuses to let you go. (It is also 2 hours and 15 minutes, so try to time that bathroom break for right before the film). I enjoy Bowie's work, but I'm no expert superfan. That said, Moonage Daydream is a piece of art befitting this man who put everything he had into has work. If you can, see it on the screen and enjoy. I'm an alligator!

The premise of this game is simple: you start on a Wikipedia page and you have to get to a different Wikipedia page using only links to other articles. How many clicks will it take you? How long will it take you? This, of course, is a hard game. But it's fun! Challenge your friends to a Wikipedia Speed Run!

Wikipedia Speed Runs

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Issue One Hundred and Forty-Three

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Hello! I went on summer vacation from newsletter writing without telling anybody. It's like I've always said: I am the Don Draper of positive newsletter writing. Well, I'm back, I'm recharged, and I said hello to the widow of the man whose identity I stole in the Korean War. One of my favorite kinds of Internet videos has the following qualities: someone has a crazy idea (like Nick Lutsko), builds an elaborate contraption (like Mark Rober), and devotes an awful lot of time to making it perfect (like Samara Ginsberg). I am happy to inform you that I have one of those for you today. Swedish inventor, robotics enthusiast and video maker Simone Giertz had a dream: to turn bubble wrap into a musical instrument by somehow harnessing the small bubble explosion through a panflute. What emerged was a massive, crank-powered musical instrument that has never existed before and a glamorous music video to display it. Whether you want to see the whole process that went into this creative act, or just get to the music video (which starts at 11:26), giddy-up to enjoy a whole new kind of sound. Pop Pop Poppop Pop Pop Pop

If you've been on the Internet even a little bit in the last few months, you've probably encountered images created by Dall-E. If not, it's basically an Artificial Intelligence program that takes a prompt submitted by a user and turns it into images. So, "an armchair in the shape of an avocado" would get you:

Blogger Max Woolf has used Dall-E to create professional looking photographs of insane foods and they are a pleasure (and a little scary) to look at. Enjoy the brave new world of fake food!

Faux gras

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Issue One Hundred and Forty-One

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The latest Jurassic Park movie does an awful lot of looking backwards, bringing in Sam Neil, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum from the original film. That first movie came out exactly the right time for me and I absolutely loved it. I bought the action figures, I started digging up the backyard looking for dinosaur bones, and I'm pretty sure I started asking for an Alan Grant fedora. So obviously as a young lad I checked out the original Michael Crichton novel from the local library. I cracked it open, ready to return to Jurassic Park. The first chapter did not start the way the movie started. That's fine. That happens. Chapter 2 was also very different. Chapter 3. I flipped ahead in the book to make sure that there was an actual dinosaur park in this book and read a few pages from the middle, got frustrated and returned it to the library. Now, as an adult, I've returned to finish what I started and I can say: this book is a lot of fun. My younger self's attention span was... not the best, so it was his loss as I was really surprised at how close the movie was to the source material. However, the changes that do pop up all make the world and science more grounded. There's a lot more about the effect that cloning dinosaurs has on the ecology around the park. And the character of John Hammond, the founder of Jurassic Park, played by Richard Attenborough in the film, has a much darker tinge in the novel that doesn't negate, rather, it enhances, the grandfatherly characteristics he also demonstrates. In short, this very successful 30 year old book? It's good! Great summer read. Welcome...

I don't know the full story as to why many of our nation's teenagers went to see The Minions: Rise of Gru in full suits and I don't care why. I think it is very funny and I will continue to enjoy that it happened.

It's... bananas.

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Issue One Hundred and Forty

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My knowledge of Indian cinema is the opposite of extensive. In fact, it is limited to a movie my roommate in college had me watch that was named The Matrix and had absolutely nothing to do with the other more popular film of the same name. But then your friend and mine, Adam Maid, introduced me to director S. S. Rajamouli's new movie RRR. In a perfect world, you could go in as blind to this movie as I did, so I'm going to give you basically the same pitch Adam gave me and then we'll see where we're at. RRR tells the story of two real-life Indian revolutionaries, Alluri Sitarama Raju and Komaram Bheem from the early 1900s. In this alternate history, the two meet, become friends and fight everybody: the British, each other, their own people, a tiger... everybody. Imagine elaborate, John Wick style choreographed fighting with the most elaborate set pieces and a pair of just-as-intricate dance numbers. Still not sold? What if I told you it was on Netflix as we speak? You're seconds away from watching this epic piece of cinema. But if you still need a little more, the trailer is linked below. Watch. Enjoy. See a man throw a motorcycle and a dance involving synchronized suspender pulling. I can assure you, Top Gun: Maverick has neither of those things. RRR!!!

I will always have a soft spot in my heart for good old Weezer. They made a couple of classic albums right when I most needed them and I am thankful for those. And remaining relevant and releasing new music some 25 years later is not an easy task. So, I enjoy an innovative way of delivering a new song to the world, in this case, the only way one can hear Weezer's brand new single is by going to the song's website on your phone, and turning your body into a record player by holding your thumb on the screen and rotating your body. The song is fun, and the website is pretty cool. (Sorry about this) Why not give it a spin? (I'm really sorry)

Round and Round and Round

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One Hundred and Thirty-Nine

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Live music seems to have returned and stabilized itself and my summer is now packed with concerts (I literally knocked on wood after typing those words). Here's a trait that is very specific to myself: after I watch a movie, I immediately go over to IMDB and read the trivia facts about that film, and immediately after I attend a concert I go to setlist.fm to log the show. Setlist.fm is an incredible resource for anybody who vaguely enjoys concerts. It is a crowd-sourced repository of concert setlists. One can revisit old shows that they've attended and see how many encores the band played, or you can go check out shows that happened decades before you were born. Among the cooler things you can do is also aggregate the data of the concerts you've seen in interesting ways. Of course you can see which band you've seen perform the most times? But you can also see which song you've seen live the most! It's probably your favorite band's biggest radio hit but maybe it's a cover of "Freebird" performed by multiple bands you've seen! Who knows? Our personal connections with music are one of the things that make us different from every other human, but the shared experience of listening to it also connects us immediately. Celebrate those personal, communal moments with a walk through setlist.fm! Setlist.fm!

Two of my favorite musicals were honored at the Tonys this weekend. Admittedly, they couldn't be more different. One is about a thirty-something person living in New York City struggling with the concept of marriage as they steps in and out of observing the relationships of their married friends and the other is about a con-man who sells musical instruments to a small town in Indiana. The Music Man is a silly, silly show, but it is also a lot of fun. I saw the new production with Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster with my friend Jesse and was so taken with the world of the show that I then read Meredith Willson's memoir about the original production of the show and the long process it took to take it to the stage. He (and his wife Rini) performed the show over and over again on a piano for potential backers. Eventually this two-man version of the show became so refined and so legendary that they put it down on wax. Today, for your listening pleasure, prepare to be charmed by the 1959 long-playing record: And Then I Wrote the Music Man...

But he doesn't know the territory!

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One Hundred and Thirty-Eight

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Eurovision. If you're over here with me in America, you might know it best as a fun enough Will Ferrell movie with a fantastic, stupid, earworm of a song. But it's a real, enormous yearly event across the pond in which each country in Europe (and also Israel and Australia) submits their best song to compete against the rest of the continent. Some songs are incredibly memorable (ABBA got their big break there back in 1974) and sometimes they... are not. This year's Eurovision was (1) this previous weekend and (2) a grand time. If that's all you need to hear, it's streaming on Peacock right now, Americans. But if you want more, here are some highlights: Some acts at Eurovision are trying to get your vote. Some acts are trying to get your attention. Norway's entry this year was from a band known only as Subwoolfer. They are dressed as wolves and no one knows who they really are (though there is some suspicion that they are the same folks behind "What Does the Fox Say?" Subwoolfer's song "Give That Wolf A Banana" is dumb and is a nice example of the enormous pagentry that Eurovision brings to every song, no matter how odd.

Serbia's song is the exact opposite tone, but equally interesting. "In corpore sano" by Konstrakta is a song about health care, safety, obsessive behavior, and the relationship between art and health insurance. It's wild but the chorus has been stuck in my head all week.

And let's hear from the winners of the whole thing: Ukraine's "Stefania", performed by Kalush Orchestra took home the big prize. Fun facts: "Stefania" is the first song sung entirely in Ukrainian to win Eurovision and the first ever rap song to win! Take it away, Kalush!

And if you want to watch just the finalists, there are 22 other sings waiting for you to tide you over until Eurovision 2023 next year! See you there!

I like when the Internet is nice, and this game, Different Strokes, is a fine example. You find yourself in a digital art gallery, filled with collaborative paintings. You'll take a look at work that has been worked on by anonymous Internet users from across the globe. But the creator of this game is no dummy: that's how stuff gets vandalized. So, you have three jobs: like the good work, report the bad stuff, and draw your own artwork for someone else to improve upon. You can spend as much time or as little as you'd like with each of these three tasks, but I found all three enjoyable. Check it out!

Paint to Your Art's Content

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Issue One Hundred and Thirty-Seven

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There are some songs that are hard to imagine being written. Some songs have just always been in the air. Somebody didn't sit at a desk and try to figure out how to rhyme "stand beside her" with "guide her," did they? Turns out somebody did. And that same guy also put pen to paper on "White Christmas," "Puttin' on the Ritz", "There's No Business Like Show Business", “Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better)", "Happy Holiday", "Cheek to Cheek" and somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,500 more. Irving Berlin: New York Genius is a fantastic biography of the author of those songs that's actually been out for a few years now but just made it on to my nightstand. The book chronicles the 101 years that Berlin lived which saw him writing music through two World Wars, the birth of recorded music, radio, movies, and television. And through it all, he was constantly pushing, still trying to prove that he had it in him to top himself and create that next big hit. So driven to continually produce, Berlin refused to listen to anyone else's music, shutting car radios off immediately after hoping into them. Long after he had given up chasing that next hit song, he still maintained an office that he reported to at least three times a week. Berlin was devoted to music and the public were devoted to Berlin.  If the story of this songwriter sounds at all interesting, I have even better news for you: the author who tells his story in New York Genius is James Kaplan, a biographer who has a truly unique way of delivering facts and data without making it sound like an infodump. His two-volume biography of Sinatra moves around at a clip, and does an incredible job of putting you right next to Frank at every turn. It can be a little tougher with Berlin, with records from the 19th century being a little spottier, but you’ll never notice as Kaplan fills in the gaps of those early years with superb analysis of his earliest published songs. Irving Berlin: New York Genius is an inspiring, lively journey through one of America's most important songwriters and a reminder that there's always somebody there behind those tunes we take for granted. New York Genius

I guess I'm not... sad that the iPod has been discontinued, but I am feeling something. There were many, many items that I asked for while growing up, some were cool (Boba Fett's Slave I), some were incredible (Tiger Deluxe Talkboy being a real standout) but of all the things that were put on Christmas lists and saved allowances for, I've got to say, my first iPod is probably the thing that most lived up to the hype. It truly changed everything about the way I listened to music, and broadened my knowledge of music, more than any other thing. I also played hours of that stupid Breakout game. I recently found my last iPod, a 5th generation one, in my sock drawer of all places. I dug up a cord and plugged it in, and lo and behold, it still worked. It now sits in my car as an external music hard drive, where it will live out the remainder of its days until it stops working some day. What a nice little gadget. Apple's official goodbye is linked below.

GOODBi

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Issue One Hundred and Thirty-Six

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Hello. I've "discovered" a very good TV show. ("Discovered" is in quotes because it's been going for seven years in the UK, is a smash hit over there and was adapted into an American version a few years back for one season.) The show is called Taskmaster and the premise is one of those deceptively simple concepts where the comedic potentially is instantly unlocked. Each season of Taskmaster (or "series" if you speak British) features five comedians who are given a set of open-ended tasks to complete. The Taskmaster, Greg Davies, then awards them points based on their performance, with assistance from (the secret mastermind behind the show) Little Alex Horne. The tasks presented to contestants are often meant to encourage creativity, and thinking outside the box is often rewarded. For an example, one task asked contestants to jump on one leg carrying a tray of sandwiches through a maze of plastic bunting. Most contestants did their best to hop through it as quickly as possible, but one hopped inside a nearby house, grabbed a pair of scissors, and cut their way through the bunting, allowing them to deliver the sandwiches with ease. Their time was still the quickest and they were awarded full points. Other times, there are unforeseen twists to the challenges. The "make an exotic sandwich challenge" is a fine example of this:

Sadly, Taskmaster is a little difficult to find if you're trying to watch in the US. Like a contestant on the show, you might find yourself having to jump through any number of hoops to find it. But if you search for an answer, read it. For the truth is, no group, person, or panel can show you Taskmaster; only your drive can do that.

On my podcast, my cohost Heather and I talk a lot about "Sunday albums." Nice, pleasant playlists to start the morning with a chill vibe. We didn't invent this concept: Lionel Ritchie sang a whole song about it. But I think I have a patron saint of Sunday albums: Blossom Dearie. She was a jazz singer who started in the 1950s. Her albums of standards are light, fun, bouncy and a great way to start your day. Here's a taste!

I Wish You Love

[sincerepositivethings]

Issue One Hundred and Thirty-Five

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Sometimes I'm fashionably late to a pop culture party. I hopped on to The Righteous Gemstones (despite Adam passionately recommending it in this very newsletter) in the midst of season 2. Other times I'm egregiously late to a pop culture party. There are a litany of bands that I just missed the mark on being able to see because a member has passed away. Today I bring you a book that you've had thirty-three years to read. On top of that, this is no obscure work; it was lauded at the time and it was turned into a Major Motion Picture starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. But you know what? I missed out on this one until recently, so maybe you have too. Allow me to give you a chance to right this potential wrong. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read. It tells the story of Stevens, a butler who has blindly devoted his life to service, and now looks back on his life as he considers the choices that he has made. The story is simply told, jumping between the present and flashback, but in spite of the simplicity, one slowly realizes that there is a bit more to the story than our narrator is letting on. The reader is allowed to piece elements of Steven's past together and determine what he is or is not allowing us to know. But even if you don't figure it out, reality appears in the third act to clear it all up for Stevens (and the reader) by the end. I feel as though much of what there is to say about this book has already been said in the previous thirty-three years, but I found it incredibly moving, beautifully constructed, and inspired more introspection than any book I've read in quite some time. In summary: read this book. (Oh, also, the movie is well-acted, but it deletes what is probably the most pivotal scene in the book, inexplicably.) And then, talk to me about this book. Buy it Here from a Small Bookstore!

Superhero movies! Love 'em or hate 'em, you've gotta admit: they have a lot of special effects shots in them. Explosions, monsters, spaceships and on and on. But sometimes even the most mundane things in the movie- a character jumping or pointing- might not have ever existed in real life. This very colorfully dressed commentator from Vox tells us more.

Why there's no one inside this Spider-Man suit