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It is written in the Book of Stimpy

Joi Massat has collected every cartoon show bible they could find on archive.org and collected them here. Some of these were used to pitch their shows, some were used during production, but all offer an insight into the making of their shows. A handful of highlights (many more links at the site and inside this post): Adventure Time, Dungeons & Dragons, He-Man internal and selling to networks, Batman TAS, Gravity Falls early and later, The Real Ghostbusters Season 2 and Ren & Stimpy (very thorough).
posted by JHarris to MetaFilter on Jan 10 at 12:39 PM
55 users marked this as a favorite

Woven In Respect

Sakiori is a hobby of making new cloth out of strips of old fabric salvaged from worn clothes. It comes from a time and place when cotton was a scarce commodity, but it lives on today because the result is a fabric with a unique aesthetic.
posted by ambulocetus to MetaFilter on Jan 9 at 9:19 AM
48 users marked this as a favorite

Essential tools to make the modern web more bearable

Essential tools to make the modern web more bearableBecause a lot of the internet is controlled by a very small number of companies, people have created tons of tools to make using services that lack viable competitors more bearable ... [Here] are a few tools that I think are pretty accessible and could make your internet experience a lot more enjoyable.
posted by Wolfdog to MetaFilter on Jan 6 at 7:04 AM
46 users marked this as a favorite

Miles Davis at the Isle of Wight Music Festival

While some artists were, not unnaturally, overawed by the vast size of the audience, Miles and the band appeared unfazed and slammed into their set with such ferocity that it jerked the audience around me from its stoned afternoon ennui into a bustle of excited head-turners. ... This was jazz Jim, but not as we knew it.
posted by Lemkin to MetaFilter on Jan 7 at 4:51 PM
39 users marked this as a favorite

Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise

The prevalence of documentaries about musicians is a curse, because most of these films do a terrible job of showcasing music. One rare and moving exception is the work of the director Robert Mugge, whose film Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise -- about the musician and bandleader whose multimedia and pan-cultural activities made him one of the prime artists of Afrofuturism -- is one of the most satisfying musical portraits I’ve ever seen. - Richard Brody, The New Yorker
posted by Lemkin to MetaFilter on Jan 8 at 4:53 PM
37 users marked this as a favorite

Bamboo scaffolding in Hong Kong

"In Hong Kong, skilled armies of scaffolders can erect enough bamboo to engulf a building in a day — even hours — using techniques that are thousands of years old, and have been passed down through generations."
posted by moonmilk to MetaFilter on Jan 12 at 7:55 AM
35 users marked this as a favorite

what the fuck are we doing anymore (yes this is about social media)

Kate Wagner (many prevs), of McMansionHell and many other projects, is not feeling optimistic about the future of journalism. "Really, what other word is there to describe what is coming our way than atavism? I don’t feel like waxing poetic about the good old days of getting work because there is enough of that and those days are over. The only way out of this bind is the hope that such competition does not foreclose us from building together something new, something stable, something that is large-scale rather than a gaggle of one’s old friends; perhaps most importantly, something formally organized. The time is running out for what is left of social media to be utilized to this end."
posted by showbiz_liz to MetaFilter on Jan 10 at 2:17 PM
35 users marked this as a favorite

FanFare, So Fine, Throws the Bums a Dime

THIS WEEK IN FANFARE... New release movies under discussion this week: HBO's Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary, chronicling the history of that smooooooth West Coast sound; the 2024 remake of Nosferatu from filmmaker Robert Eggers (The VVitch); Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan in the new biopic A Complete Unknown; Clint Eastwood's Juror #2; Saturday Night, a behind the scenes comedy/drama about the launch of SNL; the New Zealand oddball family comedy Bookworm; the queer rodeo drama National Anthem; and Amy Adams turning into a dog in Nightbitch . TV shows under discussion include: Star Wars spinoff Skeleton Crew on Disney Plus; Apple TV's post-apocalyptic Silo; the new season of Netflix's Squid Game, and Soulsville USA just got a series post.
posted by DirtyOldTown to MetaFilter on Jan 6 at 1:46 PM
35 users marked this as a favorite

📚 Under the fold: A Lot of Books 📚

In addition to Small Press Distribution's shutdown (previously), in November of 2024 independent distributor National Book Network announced that it will also shut down in 2025, offering clients a chance to move to Simon & Schuster Distribution Services and a lot more notice than SPD. Independent Publishers Group still exists, and small distributors Asterism and Itasca have bridged some of the gap. Many presses have incurred higher costs than usual—but the amazing and challenging work of small presses soldier on, producing books that are too loud, too transgressive, or too weird for the Big 5 (previously).
posted by joannemerriam to MetaFilter on Jan 8 at 2:38 PM
34 users marked this as a favorite

Container Ships

Nearly everything you own, including the clothes you're wearing and the device your're reading this on, was delivered by a container ship.
posted by Lemkin to MetaFilter on Jan 10 at 5:34 AM
31 users marked this as a favorite

One bag to rule them all

Indefinite Backpack Travel. "In 2015 I got rid of everything I owned that didn’t fit in a laptop backpack, and I’ve been living at this level of minimalism since. The idea is to only own what I need, which allows me to focus more, spend less, travel spontaneously and simplify my life." Jeremy Maluf posts yearly summaries of his backpacking adventures. In this overview, he lists the contents of his one travel bag.
posted by storybored to MetaFilter on Jan 9 at 9:19 PM
29 users marked this as a favorite

all that glisters should probably be denominated waaaaay smaller

In Coinage and the Tyranny of Fantasy ‘Gold’, historical blogger Bret Devereaux takes a dive into historical coinage and accounting to explain why, when you get down to it, Dungeons & Dragons and most other historical/fantasy RPG settings are out of their goddam minds if they think people were lugging gold coins around on a daily basis.
posted by cortex to MetaFilter on Jan 12 at 8:41 AM
28 users marked this as a favorite

Alice Coltrane


Physics for Cats

... is Tom Gauld's upcoming collection of his New Scientist cartoons. You can see ten pages from it on the Drawn & Quarterly site I've linked.
posted by Paul Slade to MetaFilter on Jan 9 at 6:19 AM
27 users marked this as a favorite

A Beacon of Certainty when Certainty is Impossible

John Sheppard's Media Vita is a monumental work of choral music written in the 1500s. It has been recognized as such only relatively recently with the 1989 recording by the Tallis Scholars led by Peter Phillips. The music and its composer are shrouded in mystery. Only five of the six vocal parts survive and the original manuscript has been lost. Sheppard died in 1557, likely in a flu pandemic. A history, background and musical analysis. Says Phillips: "“It’s seductive, it draws you in, and you just can’t leave it alone; you have to go with it.”"
posted by storybored to MetaFilter on Jan 11 at 2:58 PM
26 users marked this as a favorite

Ancient Music


"I can live without inventing, but I can't live without me best pal!"

Beloved duo Wallace & Gromit returned to our screens at Christmas, 34 years after their first appearance, in their second feature-length film, Vengeance Most Fowl (Fanfare thread). Group blog (-slash-arts-magazine) It's Nice That recently interviewed creator and director Nick Park, co-director Merlin Crossingham and supervising animator Will Becher about the plasticine pair's legacy and creating their new adventure.
posted by rory to MetaFilter on Jan 10 at 2:02 AM
23 users marked this as a favorite

Society to Advocate for the Return of Intermissions in Movies

FANFARE THIS WEEK... New movies: everyone's Criterion Closet buddy Pamela Anderson stuns in The Last Showgirl; "Holocaust tours, with lunch" in A Real Pain; a Hungarian-born architect immigrates to the US in bladder-busting 215 minute epic The Brutalist; running, quips in hit sequel Sonic the Hedgehog 3; a biopic of UK pop star Robbie Williams with a CGI chimp in the title role in Better Man; Sean Wang's critically acclaimed coming-of-age dramedy Dìdi; and dead-eyed Philomena Cunk asks the worst possible questions in Cunk on Life. And, in TV: Star Wars spinoff Skeleton Crew; post-apocalypse drama/mystery Silo; the serial-killer-in-his-youth prequel series Dexter: Original Sin; Netflix's buzzy new western American Primeval; post-COVID ER dramaThe Pitt; and the highly anticipated Abbott Elementary/It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia crossover.
posted by DirtyOldTown to MetaFilter on Jan 13 at 8:25 AM
23 users marked this as a favorite

H. Allen Smith, Father of the Chili Cookoff

The chili cookoff is so profound an American culinary tradition that one would assume its origins to be lost in the mists of history. Instead they trace clearly not just to a single man but to a single piece of writing: “Nobody Knows More About Chili Than I Do", by H. Allen Smith
posted by Lemkin to MetaFilter on Jan 11 at 6:27 AM
23 users marked this as a favorite

Fire season is year-round now


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Actually If there’s a single word that can sum up the vibe of social media, that must be a strong contender. [view]
posted by Inkslinger to MetaFilter on Jan 10 at 3:06 PM
95 users marked this as a favorite

Yeah, if the thing you find objectionable about AI is "wokeness," I'm going to go ahead and assume you're an asshole. [view]
posted by Sing Or Swim to MetaFilter on Jan 8 at 9:16 AM
77 users marked this as a favorite

America, have you tried some form of mental health care other than giving ill people guns and then shooting them? [view]
posted by happyinmotion to MetaFilter on Jan 9 at 2:21 PM
76 users marked this as a favorite

One of the things that was pointed out to me, and honestly made me look at things in a very, very different way, was the trend towards minimalism, towards getting rid of clutter, is, in a really insidious way, incredibly aspirational. Most of the people whose homes are breathlessly profiled as having nothing unnecessary are just doing without a... [more]
posted by Ghidorah to MetaFilter on Jan 10 at 3:37 AM
74 users marked this as a favorite

This story is much worse than what was in the Tortoise podcast. If you're thinking that the previous stories pretty much covered what happened, I can tell you they did not. Like, when I initially read about this, my response was, "so it turns out that this cheesy guy creeps on and coerces vulnerable younger women like other cheesy... [more]
posted by Frowner to MetaFilter on Jan 13 at 9:56 AM
73 users marked this as a favorite

1) fuck this guy 2) any cop who uses is allowed to use any kind of force under the color of law - but particularly deadly force - should have a body cam running, whose unaltered contents are immediately available to a 3rd party with prosecutorial powers independent of the state that police department is run by. no body cam?... [more]
posted by lalochezia to MetaFilter on Jan 9 at 2:39 PM
61 users marked this as a favorite

For me using the word "woke" at all now in any political context is pretty much an indication that the author is on the ass to dark triad spectrum. [view]
posted by bonehead to MetaFilter on Jan 8 at 9:41 AM
54 users marked this as a favorite

I've met plenty of men (and a few women) like Gaiman in kink/queer/polyam circles. Usually I met them during consent workshops and at parties where everyone had to agree to a long list of rules about boundaries before being allowed inside. They would do all of the work. They would say all of the right things. They would call themselves... [more]
posted by fight or flight to MetaFilter on Jan 13 at 10:08 AM
53 users marked this as a favorite

I’m not sure if it’s a relief, or if it’s even more disturbing that all of the so called leading lights of the right, all the guys with all the money and connections, those who always seem to have an open invitation to sit down for a puff piece interview, or easy access to any half assed op-ed they manage to squeeze out, they’re all, deep down,... [more]
posted by Ghidorah to MetaFilter on Jan 12 at 4:58 PM
53 users marked this as a favorite

I want to offer this part from Dan Radcliffe's open letter on The Trevor Project re: Rowling, if Gaiman's writing was important to you in the past, or saved your life, or offered you a hand when you needed it (emphasis mine): To all the people who now feel that their experience of the books has been tarnished or diminished, I am deeply sorry for... [more]
posted by Lyn Never to MetaFilter on Jan 13 at 11:21 AM
51 users marked this as a favorite

I read it this morning. I mean, I've believed it since it broke back in March 2024 and I have/had been a fan of Gaiman since I was a teenager. It's not coincidence that the victims are female, and it's also not a coincidence at the level of misogyny leveled at them by Gaiman's detractors and supporters. I am hoping this gets a lot of... [more]
posted by Kitteh to MetaFilter on Jan 13 at 9:35 AM
50 users marked this as a favorite

I'm incredibly impressed with Vulture for publishing this. It is very graphic, but I think it needs to be, in order to really convey how horrific his acts were and are. The details about the tremendous amount of emotional and physical abuse he endured as a child (by his parents, in the name of Scientology) of course in no way excuse his actions.... [more]
posted by anastasiav to MetaFilter on Jan 13 at 10:16 AM
47 users marked this as a favorite

I can't believe they wrote an entire article about chronic pain and completely missed the boat on the emerging types of evidence-based psychotherapy that have been shown, for some people at least, to actually reverse pain instead of just helping people cope with it. Instead, we get some blase references to CBT (often not very helpful for... [more]
posted by greatgefilte to MetaFilter on Jan 12 at 11:46 AM
45 users marked this as a favorite

Is Peter Thiel OK? I sure hope not. [view]
posted by 1adam12 to MetaFilter on Jan 12 at 2:25 PM
43 users marked this as a favorite

Smear half the can of soup on the breasts but we just met [view]
posted by Kitteh to MetaFilter on Jan 10 at 9:26 AM
42 users marked this as a favorite

No seriously - what is wrong with these dudes? Musk, Thiel, even Joe Rogan, are all the same brand of (incredibly) strange. And they always look sweaty and grey, despite being the wealthiest people on the planet. Are they chugging mercury? Some weird supplement made of monkey stem cells? [view]
posted by Stoof to MetaFilter on Jan 12 at 2:41 PM
42 users marked this as a favorite

If you didn't know about the chili thing, I will (sadly) enlighten you. There was a long-time twitter poster, Chinchillazilla IIRC, who posted a tweet about how she had made chili for her neighbors. I'm not looking any of this up, it's too depressing, but the deal was that they seemed like students or otherwise poorly organized young guys and... [more]
posted by Frowner to MetaFilter on Jan 13 at 8:50 AM
41 users marked this as a favorite

you know, maybe it's just me, but I aim to live a life where when I die, I don't have entire communities finding joy in that death [view]
posted by i used to be someone else to MetaFilter on Jan 9 at 11:46 PM
41 users marked this as a favorite

I have not read the article and probably will not. I've reached certain point in my life where reading or seeing reminders of just how awful people can be is something that is avoided. Make of that what you will. But another reason I'm not getting into the details on this, at least for now, is that I remain dumbstruck about some of the earlier... [more]
posted by Brandon Blatcher to MetaFilter on Jan 13 at 10:25 AM
40 users marked this as a favorite

I grew up in St. Augustine, Florida, and moved back here about ten years ago after my first daughter was born. St. Augustine, for those who aren't familiar, is a cute little former Spanish colony on the Atlantic Coast of Florida. It has an old stone fort and a seawall and palm trees and a little harbor and narrow cobblestone streets with houses... [more]
posted by saladin to MetaFilter on Jan 7 at 11:26 AM
39 users marked this as a favorite