November 2017

Hello, dear reader!

November is gone, but its links remain.

Most of my writing energy this month went toward a post about the typography and spatial relationships underpinning my site’s recent redesign. I also wrote a handful of film reviews, the most substantial of which outlines my disappointment with the ambitious Loving Vincent, an animated film made from thousands of oil paintings.

Unsurprisingly, a fair amount of this month’s links are devoted to thinking through… See more →

Um. Roger Stone, who has Nixon’s face tattooed on his back, is vexed about the “hypocrisy of our current drug laws”? nytimes.com/2017/11/29/us/…

Two years at @propublica! twitter.com/robweychert/st…

Whatever terrible things await in the next few months, the new @AndrewWk album cover will get me through. pitchfork.com/news/andrew-wk…

Product designers, here’s your chance to work with the great team at @oakstudios. oak.is/hiring/product…

“It makes me wonder if [HBO’s] aspect ratio department is actually run by my mom’s boyfriend.” screencrush.com/hbo-airplane-e…

In case you haven’t taken your design nerd vitamins yet today. twitter.com/robweychert/st…

Here’s @the_completist living up to its name with a thorough dissection of Hammer Films’ Frankenstein franchise. thecompleti.st/no4

I wrote a bit about the typography and spatial relationships underpinning my site’s recent redesign. v6.robweychert.com/blog/2017/11/v…

Once I solidified my V6 redesign’s reason for being and wrestled its content into some semblance of order, it was time to create a system to govern its appearance. The site consists almost entirely of things to read, so typography would be the core of that system. Tasked with satisfying the site’s various functional requirements as well as establishing visual character, it would be a necessarily multifaceted typographic core. So where to begin?

The typographic… See more →

1. Take photo of self seated on 2×4
2. Add logo, caption: “I sit on [organization name]’s board.”
3. Rival value of actual advisory board

“Are all ambitious artists monsters? Tiny voice: [Am I a monster?]” theparisreview.org/blog/2017/11/2…

Kicking off Thanksgiving by discovering that the car I reserved weeks ago for today’s festivities was actually reserved for yesterday. 😑

If I were a congressman running for governor, and my son and my nephew committed an appalling crime together, the first thing I would do is arrange a dinner date to discuss the matter in a public place with my unstable brother.

The shuffle just followed Dead Kennedys with The Outfield. Somewhere, Jello Biafra is suddenly overcome with disgust and doesn’t know why.

Charlie Rose: “I always felt that I was pursuing shared feelings, even though I now realize I was mistaken.” There’s a pattern here. twitter.com/millicentsomer…

Good @LeahFessler piece about how the problems with differing socialization of men and women perpetuate on @SlackHQ. work.qz.com/1128150/your-c…

Nothing like “solving” a problem by moving it to blockchain and ignoring what actually makes it a problem. Living wage? What’s that? twitter.com/robweychert/st…

Hey @KudosProject, what exactly is the difference between tips and “performance-driven rewards”? businessinsider.com/uber-for-busse…

Ugh, Trans-Siberian Orchestra season is upon us once again.

Revisiting this comedy gem in light of Charles Manson’s death. youtu.be/Z5IrRe2F7qY

Like the magic trade itself, this movie is a silly thing that takes itself way too seriously.

Working on a @jekyllrb site. Archive pages are rendering with category lists that aren’t in the markup and it’s freaking me the fuck out.

RIP Malcolm Young. Here’s to the folks in the background. youtu.be/-sUXMzkh-jI

So many cars peeling out in Stranger Things 2. For such a sleepy little town, everyone sure is in a hurry. “Have a good day at—” SCREEEEEEEE

Boxers, briefs, or boxer briefs?

When I see a new film of almost universal acclaim, sometimes I go out of my way to read the negative reviews to get a little distance from the zeitgeist. In the case of The Florida Project’s negative reviews, I saw a few patterns:

• the expected backlash against the critical consensus
• the frustration of viewers who prefer more traditional narratives
• locals objecting to the portrayal of Florida
• accusations of poverty porn

One flavor of… See more →

A reminder from The Smiths. Lots of anger these days, but when we encounter bad behavior, let’s find paths to prevention and rehabilitation. twitter.com/mary_stratton/…

Maybe I’ll spend the night in combing through years of ticket receipts in my email to quantify the experiences my inertia has cost me.

It’s one of those nights where I have tickets to a show but I can’t drag my ass out of the house and I hate myself for it.

“I’m tired of comedians martyring themselves. I’m tired of them being overly defensive, misanthropic assholes.” twitter.com/GQMagazine/sta…

does louise linton work on the death star

@tweetbot The straw that broke the camel’s back. (I also added regex to mute tweets with 5+ @ mentions. gist.github.com/imathis/3006330 h/t @jasonsantamaria)

Apparently @tweetbot mute filters can take regular expressions! Just zapped the 280 scourge from my timeline. ⚡️ blog.chrishannah.me/use-mute-filte…

“I couldn’t help but feel that he was a method actor so committed and demented […] that he’d permanently lost himself in his role.” twitter.com/lukeobrien/sta…

Loving Vincent animates 65,000 oil paintings to tell the story of Van Gogh. Sounds great, right? It’s not great. v6.robweychert.com/blog/2017/11/l…

I generally appreciate starry-eyed visionaries following through on ill-advised, shoot-for-the-moon ideas, even when the results are underwhelming. There are lessons to be learned and inspiration to be taken, and some demonstrable good is likely to come of it eventually. That said, I wish Loving Vincent, the first animated feature film to be constructed from tens of thousands of oil paintings, were more of an achievement than a stunt.

Narratively, it’s a fairly stale exercise in… See more →

12 Nov 2017. New York City. 35°F. Most of the leaves on the ground are still green.

I accidentally fell down an Amir Shervan mullets-’n’-bullets rabbit hole today, so forgive me if I’m kinda monosyllabic for a few days.

Ugh, two typos in there. I’m usually more careful. @Twitter, I want (limited) post-publish editing capabilities, not 280 characters. twitter.com/robweychert/st…

Smashmouth once ate at a restaurant where I worked. Holiday season, single mom sever, pregnant with her second child. $100 tip on $80 check. twitter.com/BAKKOOONN/stat…

RIP Chuck Mosley. Peace to all the addicts. youtu.be/w7dD-JJJytM

“Email bombing is a perfect parable for 2017, a time in which we appear to be collectively losing faith in the promise of the internet.” twitter.com/JuliaAngwin/st…

“The posture of the political journalist has devolved from skepticism into outright cynicism at almost every turn.” vanityfair.com/news/2017/11/h…

Trump supporters haven’t “moved the goalposts for him. It’s that they have eliminated the goalposts altogether.” politi.co/2zs8Vna

For now, no interest in taking advantage of 280. The giant tweets in my feed are messing up my Twitter rhythm. I wonder if/how I’ll adapt. 😕

For the small, pedantic portion of the audience I represent, the title character’s old-soul Luddite appeal is undermined by the poetry overlays’ use of a handwriting font rather than actual handwriting. Just sayin’.

Revisiting the Steele dossier: “Did any of the activities reported happen as predicted? To a large extent, yes.” justsecurity.org/44697/steele-d…

Movies Are Great, the Movie Industry Is Not Great, Exhibit 12,918b: theatlantic.com/entertainment/…

Hot Doug’s: The Movie does a good job of capturing the special vibe of the iconic restaurant, but offers virtually no backstory. Who is Doug? What is his background? How did this place come to be? To the extent that these fundamental questions are explored at all, answers are cursory at best. Fans of the now-closed Hot Doug’s will enjoy the opportunity to bathe in its warm glow again (as I did), but anyone looking… See more →

A nice overview of the engineering magic behind @Spotify’s Discover Weekly. hackernoon.com/spotifys-disco…

“Not only does music ingrain itself in our bodies in ways beyond simply the auditory, it also becomes more remarkable once it does.” twitter.com/nytopinion/sta…

“I don’t know how to […] make men see women as peers. But maybe acknowledging that we live in a culture that doesn’t do that, is a start.” twitter.com/lizzieohreally…

😢 twitter.com/wttw/status/92…

Trying to take a last-minute trip somewhere quiet next week. Cheap flights will decide where. Anyone have advice on finding them?

Music Is Great, the Music Industry Is Not Great, Exhibit 14,385c: washingtonpost.com/news/morning-m…

I also like the album art by @NicolasMenard, who made one of my favorite films at this year’s @OIAF_Animation. vimeo.com/208812809

Halloween’s over, but stay spooky with @daviddpeacock’s piano arrangement of @Disasterpeace’s It Follows theme. music.disasterpeace.com/track/title-2

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