May 2018

Hello, dear reader!

May is gone, but its links remain.

The only thing I published on my site this month was a brief, snarky review of a 69-year-old movie (nice), but if all goes well in June, I’ll have a couple of substantial posts about creative projects (new and old) coming your way.

The links below include some meaty reporting on politics and a triptych of opinion pieces on our culture wars’ state of discourse.… See more →

PSA: According to the t-shirt in front of me on the jetway, the band Tesla is still kickin’ ass.

Madonna’s “Vogue,” so I guess I’m a poser. twitter.com/Swank0cean/sta…

👋🏻 Hello again, Chicago!

ROB: Good night, brain. Gotta get up early tomorrow.

BRAIN: Okay, cool, good night. You know there are bugs crawling all over you, right?

who decided white fabric was a good idea

Got an email about my JetBlue reservation, started singing “this is not your boarding pass” in the style of Mission of Burma. youtube.com/watch?v=Dymnx8…

Make some time for this month’s @TheAtlantic cover story on how America’s growing inequality is akin to aristocracy. theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…

Anyway, it was pretty fun to unearth and share this stuff 25 years later. Thanks for watching!

I was so excited to see what was possible, and I was determined to master it (and apparently to broadcast my @MST3K fan bonafides).

The early 90s’ nascent digital creative tools were still pretty inaccessible, so Mario Paint felt like nearly legit means of production.

All joking aside, Mario Paint was an important stepping stone for me in the world of digital art and design.

When I keynote Mario Paint conferences, I use this seminal work to outline the fundamentals of the form. (Spot the @alyankovic reference?)

This was the beginning of a long and fruitful career making wildly successful video comic books with Mario Paint.

Good news, everyone: It’s Friday, and the VHS tape of the video comic book I made with Mario Paint in 1993 has been digitized.

Never realized how much dancing I do at my standing desk at home until I got a standing desk at work.

👨🏾‍💻👩🏼‍💻🕺🏻👨🏽‍💻👩🏻‍💻

JFC twitter.com/TheAtlantic/st…

“The internet is a utility world for me now. It is efficient and all-encompassing. It is not very much fun.” nymag.com/selectall/2018…

I don’t really believe in awards, but I’ll happily take this as evidence that justice still exists. @OfficialJLD is a national treasure. twitter.com/washingtonpost…

Well, I’m sure the banks learned their lesson. twitter.com/nytimes/status…

Early morning Bolt Bus selfie.

Just hangin’ with some microfilm on my day off.

When I can hear your earbuds from several feet away, I get so sad for your ears.

“A culture of fealty compounds itself; conformists thrive, and dissenters depart or refuse to join.” newyorker.com/magazine/2018/…

Good morning. There is no such thing as evil. There are only problems, which have causes and solutions.

First time in the @philauu basement in a decade (to see @KINGTUFFY) and it feels as familiar as ever, like no time has passed at all.

This delightfully inventive lettering is a pretty good way to start your day. thisiscolossal.com/2018/05/multi-…

Ah, there it is. twitter.com/qz/status/9967…

Have the really fun “this is basic science and you’re all stupid for being confused by it” people weighed in on the Yanny/Laurel thing yet?

I’ve read a number of Ayn Rand’s essays, but never bothered with her fiction until now. I expected overt advocacy for her self-centered Objectivist philosophy, but I also expected it to be packaged in something approximating a compelling story. After all, The Fountainhead has been devoured by legions of basement dwellers who couldn’t make it through two pages of Kant or Foucault. But apart from Gary Cooper’s and Patricia Neal’s radical egoists settling for fucking… See more →

I wasn’t gonna read The Fountainhead so I watched the movie and haha wooo it is bananas. letterboxd.com/robweychert/fi…

By happenstance, I just finished a rewatch of all nine seasons of Seinfeld, so I’m pleased to be perfectly primed for this. twitter.com/mattsinger/sta…

Behind the padlocked door of a dreary MTA utility closet on a C train platform, the squeals of severe rat anguish. Resident Evil flashbacks.

If you’re considering starting your week by making smoothies in a blender with an insecure seal, I am now qualified to recommend against it.

“It’s like watching a swiss clock maker explain his machine.” kottke.org/18/05/a-world-…

when youre sitting there like what should i listen to and then youre like duh bad brains

This interactive piece by @adamrpearce is easily the best explanation of how the NYC subway got so fucked up. nytimes.com/interactive/20…

Even absent the obvious dangers of inviting giant corporations to spy on you, the smart speaker’s appeal eludes me. nytimes.com/2018/05/10/tec…

One page. Assume my time is valuable. Summarize. Give me the salient stuff, get yourself in the door, then go into detail. twitter.com/robweychert/st…

Someone finally made the meditative arthouse thriller the Pizzagate crowd has been waiting for.

Got crowded out of the bike lane today on two separate occasions by two different police cars. So that’s cool.

I’ve decided to let you all know that Yanni is stuck in my head and I’m generally fine with it. youtube.com/watch?v=JfSSQ3…

“Glover forces us to relive public traumas and barely gives us a second to breathe before he forces us to dance.” newyorker.com/culture/cultur…

“This machine stands on the shoulders of giants: inventors of hammers, chisels, hydraulics. We honor them by breaking rocks at 7:20am.” 🌈

“It would be nice if those [using] their talents as entrée into another realm would do so with the same care […] they took in their craft.” twitter.com/TheAtlantic/st…

“It’s difficult to imagine a narrow research question about fonts whose results could be extrapolated to every possible context.” twitter.com/kupfers/status…

“[M]ore weapons tend to create more violence, and cyberweapons may be even harder to regulate than guns.” newyorker.com/magazine/2018/…

How Trump and his mentor, Roy Cohn, were enabled by NYC’s political, media, and celebrity elite. A must-read. nymag.com/daily/intellig…

If future generations judge us for one thing, it will be our failure to allow “shitgibbon” to adhere to the popular lexicon.

I only use Instagram for short videos of live music, but it’s stopped recording my audio, taking my already low opinion of IG to new depths.

Great long read by @praddenkeefe on H.R. McMaster’s doomed stint as National Security Adviser. newyorker.com/magazine/2018/…

Not counting the cover letter, what is the maximum number of pages you will tolerate in a resumé?

Here @janetreitman unpacks the double murder that exposed Atomwaffen Division’s frighteningly humble origins. rollingstone.com/politics/news/…

Atomwaffen Division is a far-right extremist group with five murder charges in the past year. Among its ranks are active-duty military. twitter.com/ProPublica/sta…

“Hazardous waste facilities were more likely to be located in minority communities.” Learn from @TaliaBuford about environmental justice. twitter.com/ProPublica/sta…

In my dream, I made some pasta salad for David Lynch, and he disliked it enough to kill off my Twin Peaks character.

Lessons from the Cuban Missile Crisis. I think I’ve seen the word “bellicose” more times in this presidency than in all the time before it. twitter.com/washingtonpost…

Also available as a monthly newsletter! tinyletter.com/robweychert

My collected links from April, including some gems for fans of Prince and stop-motion animation. v6.robweychert.com/blog/2018/04/l…