The Laptop Steering Wheel Desk (Awesome of the Day)
So the Laptop Steering Wheel Desk may have been one of the most idiotic inventions ever, but we can all still rejoice in its creation if only for the comments section on its Amazon page.... read more
urlesque's Three Wolf Moon T-Shirt Parodies (Awesome of the Day)
The “Three Wolves Howling At the Moon” t-shirt officially took over the world earlier this year. It became the hit of the Amazon clothing store. Dwight Schrute wore it to Pam’s wedding. And it even gets a cameo in the latest issue of Paste in our “Evolution of the Hipster” feature.... read more
"100 Greatest Quotes From the Wire" Video (Awesome of the Day)
Oh, the glories of the YouTube. Thank you, user hh1edits for lovingly compiling 100 clips from the second best TV show of the decade into one 10-minute-long video. Thanks to Pajiba.com for originally publishing it. And thanks to indie rock blog ElectricMustache.com for alerting us to it.... read more
Paste's Pop Goes the Culture Streaming Online (Awesome of the Day)
From the shameless self-promotion file, new network Halogen TV is now streaming Paste magazine’s TV pilot Pop Goes the Culture, which you can watch in its 42-minute glory below. Watch me tower like some third-string NBA player over Janelle Monaé as we walk through the streets of Austin talking about her burgeoning career. See the equally lanky Bradford Cox from Deerhunter answer probing questions on our psychiatrist’s couch. And listen to Passion Pit get the crowd dancing. And let Halogen TV know what you think on the Pop Goes The Culture webpage at HalogenTV.com.... read more
San Fransisco Panorama: McSweeney's New Newspaper (Awesome of the Day)
Part of the beauty of subscribing to McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern is never knowing what to expect. This December, Issue 33 of Dave Eggers’ literary journal will be in the form of an ancient delivery system for news, analysis and the funny papers—a newspaper. The one-off broadsheet, called the San Francisco Panorama will feature 32 pages of news, 24 pages of sports, 16 pages of comics and 16 pages of food, all on high-quality newsprint in an apparent effort to rub the noses of newspaper men and women across the nation in what they’ve lost.... read more
Mixtape T-Shirts (Awesome of the Day)
Continuing the cassette-related fashion theme from yesterday, Insound has created the Mixtape T-Shirt, a brilliant idea for customizable shirts from designer Andy Dixon (Chemistry Designs). Three different themes are available—Best Love Songs, Best Break-Up Songs and a completely blank design for your own topic. On the back are lines for your song choices—just like on those old Memorex tapes. And Insound provides the sharpie marker to fill in the blanks.... read more
Recycled Cassette Tape Necktie (Awesome of the Day)
Alyce Santoro and Julio Cesar have found a use for all those old cassettes taking up space in our attics—turn the magnetic into fabric and make lovely neckties. This half-thread/half-tape combination is “actually audible if you run a tape head over it,” according to Santoro, the founder of the Center for the Improbable & (Im)permacultural Research, and the recording on the tie is off her album of found street sounds called Between Stations she recorded in New York before moving to West Texas.... read more
TV Soundtrack Award: Stargate Universe Episode 107 ("Earth")
The latest show in the Stargate franchise is starting to really find its footing, as tensions rise between the castaways aboard the Destiny, and their bosses back on Earth. But the real highlight in the show’s latest episode was an appearance from Paste favorite and Atlanta rising star Janelle Monáe. Two of the ships’ younger passengers, Chloe and Eli, made a virtual trip back to earth that included one of Monáe’s stunning concerts. It’s fitting since her debut EP Metropolis featured a futuristic cyborg on the run.... read more
The Low Anthem: "Charlie Darwin" Video (Awesome of the Day)
I’ve talked about my love for The Low Anthem here on a few occasions, but I had to share their brand new video for the lovely song, “Charlie Darwin.” It’s done with stop-motion animation from Simon Taffe And Glenn Taunton, part of the design team behind The End of the Road Festival. With the help of a small team of painters, carpenters and handymen, the duo filmed the video at a studio in Sussex. Enjoy.... read more
Feist+Arcade Fire+Beck+David Cross Halloween Video (Awesome of the Day)
Back in October 2005, Vice Records released a song called “Do They Know It’s Hallowe’en?” to benefit UNICEF (and to poke fun at the patronizing attitude of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”). The band that recorded it was called the “North American Hallowe’en Prevention Initiative,” and its list of members from the U.S. and Canada included:... read more
The Mumlers "Coffin Factory" Video (Awesome of the Day)
We may have lost Michael Jackson earlier this year, but fortunately the zombie music video lives on. Its most recent incarnation (reincarnation?) accompanies “Coffin Factory,” a song off Don’t Throw Me Away, the debut album from San Jose, Calif., six-piece The Mumlers.... read more
The Mumlers "Coffin Factory" Video (Awesome of the Day)
We may have lost Michael Jackson earlier this year, but fortunately the zombie music video lives on. Its most recent incarnation (reincarnation?) accompanies “Coffin Factory,” a song off Don’t Throw Me Away, the debut album from San Jose, Calif., six-piece The Mumlers.... read more
The Wild Things On My Pumpkin
I’m not a particularly good visual artist—my paintings are fairly primitive, and Paste certainly doesn’t miss my design skills. But when October rolls around, it’s pumpkin-carving time, and the endless supply of stencils online make the job a lot easier. Last year it was the Obama pumpkin:... read more
Brandi Carlile "Dreams" Video (Awesome of the Day)
If you haven’t figured out by now, I’m a fan of Brandi Carlile, and I love her new album. I love that my daughters are fans. I also love her new video for “Dreams.”... read more
Let Them Sing It For You (Awesome of the Day)
From the “How Did I Miss This Before Now?” files: The mission of Sweden’s Sveriges Radio is “to provide high-quality programmes for the Swedish population.” And, apparently, to turn the words of everyone in the world into song. In 2003, the sr.se site launched a little app that will translate whatever text you input into spliced-together bits of popular songs. Whenever it encounters an “I,” you hear Chris Isaak, and “one” is sung by Michael Jackson. You can email the resulting song to a friend.... read more
Leonard Cohen Live (Awesome of the Day)
Who’s the Boss? Seventy-five-year-old Leonard Cohen did everything he could to steal Bruce Springsteen’s moniker last night at Atlanta’s Fox Theatre, playing for over three hours, skipping on and off the stage and dropping to his knees whenever a song reached an emotional climax. It’s a good thing, too, with ticket prices topping $200 for a rare performance from the Sixth Best Living Songwriter. More than I can remember at a concert, I hung on every lyric, and the spoken-word pieces were as good as the songs. When a guy writes lines like, “There is a crack in everything /... read more
"A Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing" Video (Awesome of the Day)
Chicago cellist Alison Chesley has recorded with artists like Bob Mould, Disturbed, Anthrax and Broken Social Scene, so it’s no surprise that she’s tackled a Minutemen classic like “A Political Song For Michael Jackson to Sing” under her moniker Helen Money.... read more
A Few More Thoughts about Where The Wild Things Are
After work on Friday, I took my kids to Where the Wild Things Are. I’d read effusive reviews, like the one from New York Times critic Manohla Dargis, who wrote, “Jonze has made a work of art that stands up to its source and, in some instances, surpasses it.” I’d read pans like the one from Paste‘s Andy Beta, who wrote, “we find ourselves burdened with mopey, emotionally needy, and temper tantrum-prone creatures, both human and monstrous.” It’s interesting that of the 36 reviews on Metacritic today, a dozen are 50 or below and a dozen are 88 and above.... read more
Unibroue's La Fin du Monde (Awesome of the Day)
A few of my beer-geek friends were sitting around drinking beer (of course), and talking about some of our favorites. The question came up about which beer we choose if we could only have one beer for the rest of our lives. Being a malt-fiend, I chose some huge dark beer like St. Bernardus Abt. 12, but three folks—without hearing each other—independently came up with La Fin du Monde from Canadian brewer Unibroue. I thought that was an odd response, but I had one for the first time since that conversation—in Montreal with a giant plate of poutine, no less—and... read more
EOS Wireless Speakers (Awesome of the Day)
Part of the fall ritual when I was in college was running 100-foot wires to three-foot-tall speakers in various rooms of the apartment so you could play music throughout the house. That’s starting to feel as antiquated as the dorm-room CD player, VCR and answering machine. Wireless audio systems like one from EOS are just going to spoil today’s kids.... read more
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