Category: These Are Those Things

That inspire, that I like, and that I hope you feel the same about

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These Are Those Things

How We Work

MetaFilter lead me to Rodcorp’s How We Work site, and although it is not the kind of thing we usually point out here at TATT, but although it’s not about specific work, it’s about the process to get us there, and it’s kind of glorious itself.  

From J.G. Ballard, to the Coen Brothers, to Malcolm Gladwell, to Walter Benjamin, the site has catalogued the methods of what people do to create.  Although it is definitely a white male centered list, it is fun place to browse through, and may very well lead to some new habits.  They have posted a list here.

We’re interested in the habits, rituals and small (and occasionally big) methods people and teams use to get their work done. And in the specific anecdotes and the way people describe their own relationship to their own work.

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Complicated Is Better: Rube Goldberg


Over at BOWL OF NOSES, I am posting a series of Rube Goldberg “inventions” and the various things he has inspired.  I think Rube’s collection “INVENTIONS!” needs to be Required Reading at every grade level.

With our economy in collapse, and the U.S. becoming a country of debtors and indentured servants, Rube points out why we should all start visiting the tailor.
His contraption for avoiding bill collectors is pure genius:  

As Tailor (A) fits customer (B) and calls out measurements, college boy (C) mistakes them for football signals and makes a flying tackle at clothing dummy (D). Dummy bumps head against paddle (E) causing it to pull hook (F) and throw bottle (G) on end of folding hat rack (H) which spreads and pushes head of cabbage (I) into net (J). Weight of cabbage pulls cord (K) causing shears (L) to cut string (M). Bag of sand (N) drops on scale (O) and pushes broom (P) against pail of whitewash (Q) which upsets all over you causing you to look like a marble statue and making it impossible for you to be recognized by bill collectors. Don’t worry about posing as any particular historical statue because bill collectors don’t know much about art.

Whenever I am in a “story” or edit meeting on a movie and the executive is demanding we remove “layers” or subtly, I know we need more Rube in the world.  And whenever anyone breaks the world down to good vs. evil or some other simple black and white equation, I think of all the invisible Goldberg layers that I know are the truth.
The official Rube Goldberg site has many other great solutions in their art gallery.
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These Are Those Things

Favorite Jeffrey Lewis Videos

The desire for authenticity is an interesting thing.  I often have had creative executives say to me that they are looking for something that “feels authentic”, which I take it is something entirely different from something that is authentic.  The DFA is closely related to “keeping it real” which is a style I’ve seen worn quite well by those who are anything but (see Adbusters’ great article on Hipsters).

Anyway I think Jeffrey caught all that and more with this Will Oldham (see prior post) Williamsburg Subway Horror.  When I first saw it I felt it was very much “right here right now”, but that was earlier this year, but now when I watch it get then same kind of eye-well that the best nostalgia trigger gives.
I have a song list on my iTunes called “Songs About Songs and Singers”.  It is one of my favorite groupings.  Jeffrey’s made it far more than once.  Leonard Cohen should be proud of all that he inspires.

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These Are Those Things

Rock & Roll & Film & Fishing & Tripping

I think it all started with John Lurie and his classic cable talk show FISHING WITH JOHN: Just him on a boat with his pals (Jarmusch, Tom Waits, Matt Dillon, etc.). Part one (of three) of Episode Two (Mr. Waits) below (the rest can be found on YouTube):

It’s taken over fifteen years for the promise of crystal clear videos over the internet to arrive — and that’s more of a letter that still hasn’t really been delivered yet — so it’s not so surprising that it’s taken seventeen year for round two of this genre to begin.  I love how influences just drip down slowly but surely.
Now you have your choice on which direction to go on.  Straight ahead TRIPPING WITH CAVEH with Caveh Zahedi (and indie rock superstar turned indie film star Will Oldham):
Or FISHING WITH DEAN WEEN on Brownie Troop Fishing Show (with the current episode featuring The Butthole Surfers) — sorry no embeded video on this one.
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These Are Those Things

Jeffrey Lewis Is The Truth Of Now

Early this year, we stumbled into a show at Joe’s Pub.  We were there to see some folkie that there was some buzz about.  Luckily there was some guy all alone at his table with great sight lines and we invited ourselves to join him.  Then Jeffrey Lewis took the stage.

Somehow we knew nothing about Jeffrey.  He wasn’t whom we came to see.  On top of it all, he was even performing his own songs but those of the Anarcho Punk band CRASS who I also knew absolutely nothing about.  The night remains one of my favorite rock events ever!  Okay, not quite X’s Wild Gift tour at Boston’s The Channel, with Mission of Burma opening, but still, right up there, and that other one was sooo long ago.
Jeffrey has an incredible body of work.  I have now bought or otherwise acquired virtually all of it and it thrills me repeatedly.  The songs are consistently a blast, funny & wise, and occasionally work their way deep into my subconscious.  I love his comic books, but his histories (The History Of Lower East Side Punk, Of Communism, Of The Fall) really get me.  Now he’s written something on the NYTimes’ consistently great Measure For Measure blog that is the music equivalent of Jonathan Lethem’s piece on influences earlier this year.
I look forward to this world where Jeffrey Lewis continues to consistently makes all kinds of stuff to delight and wake us up.  There’s so much of it out there, I am going to have to make it a couple of posts, so stay tuned.
The Complete History of Punk Rock:

The History Of Communism (Parts 1 & 2):
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Taking Coney Island Up A Notch

Oh, how love can grow deeper by the day!  

I love Coney Island and I love it’s Sideshows By The Seashore.  One of the many things that make NYC one of the greatest places on earth.  But how great is it that they bring the Right-Here-Right-Now-Real-World to us.  Horrors With A Sense Of Humor.  Read the NY Times article here (Thanks Abbey!).


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Hot Dogs By The Sea Shore


Sure, it’s seedy, but some things are meant to stay that way.  I have had many fond memories first found out at Coney Island.  I wish some things could never change.  This is a nice series to get those memory synapses firing, courtesy of the NY Times.