Amazon.com Widgets
BY CULTURE CANDY
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Your Name On Toast is a lovely piece of toasty altruism to warm you to your toes. It's a little like the Million Dollar Homepage, but with toast; in return for shunting some cash towards Oxfam, these kind gents and gentesses will mark out a message on toast, just for you, and pin it to their website for all the world to see.

Toast: saving the world one slice at a time. And a double hurrah, with melted butter on top, to that!

(link)

Thanks Glenn!
 
BY CULTURE CANDY
.... you move too fast - you gotta make the (short film) last...

 
BY CULTURE CANDY


You know what you need? You need some operatic silverfish. And Shaenon Garrity is here to support you in your hour of need.

Enter Skin Horse, the fantabulous new comic by the Garrity lady and Jeffery Channing Wells. It has renegade centipedes! And zombie heads! And the zen of a giant rat!

It has also made me giggle, almost every day, for months now. Skin Horse is wry, stupidly well written, and funny as hell. The present storyline has gone on for, oh, forever, and is a good place to start. It reminds me of something Steve Martin once said: 'What if I created tension and never released it? What if I headed for a climax, but all I delivered was an anticlimax? What would the audience do with all that tension?'. As the conceit is stretched beyond all reasonable expectations, it gets better. It's brilliant in a forehead-slapping, sharply written, never-ending kind of way.

Plus, they have operatic silverfish! You can't go wrong with operatic silverfish, no siree.

(link) : start here (navigation arrows under the comments)
 
BY LAND OF MUSIC


Yeehaw cowboys! I heartily approve of the expert lassoing that's been a-going on in these here parts - everything roped together in a few handy parcels. Round 'em up, Olga!

That said, I couldn't let slide one wee nugget that got buried in the bunch. Did you spot it? Did you see? Go, quick, have a look. There was something special hiding in the undergrowth. Our very own Olga-lady sings, and the awfully lovely people at TeamGenius put moving pictures to it. It's something special, so if you haven't already, go check it out in the handy YouTube magic box above.

Writing about Olga's music is brilliant and wonderful and quite impossible, because I like it far too much. We were walking down the street in London one day, and a friend asked me to describe it. I was bereft of words. 'It's got music in,' I said, desperately. I looked at Olga. She was grinning at me. 'And - and melodies?' I was hopeless.

Olga's music renders me wordless, because I walk through her words instead. There was a week when I wore 'Feeling Fine' like a cloak, holding it close to my skin, a covering I couldn't give to myself and so borrowed in her song instead. I sang it like a mantra, over and over and over. It belonged to me, in a way my heart understood but my head was blind to. I sang to wear it through, to wear it thin enough to see through again. I sang it to release it.

A Dream of Gardens was the very first song Olga ever sent me, and its video deserves its own post. It's a three-way collaboration, really - Olga's vocals, lyrics by Neil Gaiman, and another layer of visual narrative by TeamGenius. The three intertwine, and a creature of aching, desolate beauty comes forth. Watch it, and if it lodges in your chest like it did mine, just remember it can be summoned forth again. You just might need to sing it to release it.

Olga Nunes - A Dream of Gardens
Olga Nunes - Feeling Fine


url : myspace
 
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BY LAND OF MUSIC
In what we hope will become a regular feature, we offer up to you Link Love Roundup, a place to put all those little bits of magic and fluff we really want you to see, in yummy bite size form. Here's all the art, music, fashionista and culture candy goodness you can shake a pretty stick at. (And if you're lucky, there might be some toast links thrown in for good measure!)

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Low video for Point of Disgust(From Elaine. Sometimes you can do so much with so little.)

Amy Winehouse when she was sane (And confident. That girl deserves her Grammy)

Billie Holiday singing Strange Fruit

Zooey Deschanel & M. Ward (I've finally gone and listened to the whirlwind of She & Him, and that stuff is dead catchy)

Amy Sol art opening sneak peek (Lovely stuff from Thinkspace)

Ghost Patrol paintings done on pencils (from Tiny Showcase)

This American Life's Ira Glass on storytelling (And why you should keep making art)
 
BY LAND OF MUSIC


Our friends at Team Genius, makers of so much amazing, fantastic stuff too numerable to list here (well, we'll list one: a secret video) have put up another installment in their long legacy of awesomeness. This is an episode of online comedy series Boyfriends, featuring one of the members of Another Robot Sunset singing an ode to the extreme difficulty of Donkey Kong. And it is unbelievably cool. (Plus, they got linked on Waxy! Go them! )

(link)
 
BY LAND OF MUSIC
No need to cry anymore, the brilliant Spiritualized has a new album out. Hooray!

Full Album Stream

Buy "Songs in A&E"

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BY ART + COMICS
In what we hope will become a regular feature, we offer up to you Link Love Roundup, a place to put all those little bits of magic and fluff we really want you to see, in yummy bite size form. Here's all the art, music, fashionista and culture candy goodness you can shake a pretty stick at. (And if you're lucky, there might be some toast links thrown in for good measure!)

*    *    *

Craig Thompson has a blog (The writer of Blankets has just posted some panels from his upcoming graphic novel, Habibi)

Beautiful new pieces from Jeremy Ketner

Matt Sewell's exhibition at Magma in London

Wonderful paintings from Art & Ghosts

Great toast comic from DES Comics (Thanks, Mewkittens!)

Famous Failures over history

Awesome textile jewelry from Kjoo (My favorite is this sold out Berber-inspired choker.)

Journey gets a new lead singer from YouTube (Here are more videos of the singer performing with Journey.)

Inside a Boy: New song from My Brightest Diamond (New album and site, too!)
 
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BY LAND OF MUSIC
We stay up too late at night trading music like tiny jewels. "Have you seen this one?" I say. "How about this-- wait until two minutes in, isn't that astounding? Where does that come from?" Elaine asks.

We discuss how the song Hallelujah now hangs from the window of every film, in the rafters of every television show. "Did you know it's because of John Cale?" "I had no idea!"

We keep excavating this strange and interesting beauty, culled from various corners of internet repositories. We do it at such a rapid-fire pace, we forget to share it with the world, as we've already gone to the next miraculous thing of wonder. So here's my offering of a recap, a list of the gems we find along the way.

Anais Mitchell's Fonder Heart Video (I saw her last week and was floored by her voice, and lyrics)

Anais Mitchell's The Brightness (Entire album stream)

Michael Chorney (Anais' album producer: his songs AND production are sparse, and warm, and open)

Kurt Nilsen sings Hallelujah (2:00 minutes in.. that voice)

John Cale doing a lovely strings version of Hallelujah, circa 1992

Jeff Buckley does Hallelujah live

How John Cale & Jeff Buckley revived Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah
 
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BY LAND OF MUSIC
Around the time corporate America got a hold of Rock n' Roll music it was decreed that all pop songs were to be between 3 and 4 minutes-- because honestly, who has time for a 12 minute overture. Not me. I've recently found that I don't even have time for 3 minute songs anymore. The following are 5 songs by 5 very different artist that get their point across in under 2 minutes.

First we have Wayne (not lil') whose song has become my personal mantra. Followed by El-P who sends a letter to the government to let them know just how he feels about the war in Iraq. While El-P crams as much as he can into a minute and a half, Brand New does just the opposite but is no less passionate. Next is a song by the French producer (and personal friend) Onra. It's from his album Chinoiseries which was birthed on his trip to Vietnam where he went digging for rare vinyl and came home with some real treasures. Finally there's Sleeping In The Aviary with the longest song of them all. Although it must be said that almost all their songs are under 2 minutes and rock equally as hard. Enjoy!

Wayne - Take Me Home

el-p - dear sirs

Brand New - Tautou

Onra - The Anthem

Sleeping In The Aviary - Another Girl
 
BY LAND OF MUSIC
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I have such the crush on Rachael Yamagata-- and I'm obviously not alone. This darling chanteuse has released an EP in anticipation of her latest album, and the EP dropped today. Her voice is husky and sweet and full and gentle, and though I haven't gotten a chance to hit the play button yet to hear her latest efforts, I figured I would share, and then we could sit and listen to it together. Because Rachael's music is really the sort you ought to listen to while holding someone's hand.

BUY
 
BY ART + COMICS
Chris Ware + Ira Glass = happiness.
The fabulous Mr. Ware animates a great story from This American Life.
 
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BY CULTURE CANDY
Another great concept from Jason Bitner, one of the fine folks behind Found Magazine. Cassette From My Ex gathers stories behind those mix tapes that were given to you by old flames and lets you stream the tapes themselves. The site is funny and touching and full of great music. Submit your own story today!

(link)
 





washthis on Origami City said:

holy shit the girl who played Alice even looks like you!
(well, she has your cheeks)

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1698860800/nm1985859

senorMysterioso on Uproot the Trees, Make the Grasses Shine said:

Welcome back xoxo

on Origami City said:

I've been a tad slow on the uptake, but welcome back, you've been missed.

The paper city is awesome. What will the creator do with his time now it's done, and soon to be gone?