About Andrew Hearst

I'm Andrew Hearst, a New York-based writer, editor, designer, musician, and gadabout. You can learn a bit more about me here.

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Best of Panopticist
Magazines
The Magazine Covers
TV and Video
Film
Music and Audio
Books
Art and Design
News and Politics
Science and Technology
Miscellany

September 2005

The Pound of Flesh
Lingua Franca

Such Exquisite Dumbness
The New York Sun

Blue Laws and Black Markets
The New York Sun

The Unimaginative Imaginatist
The New York Sun

One Man's Machines
The Village Voice

David Granger Has Something Stuck Between His Teeth
Mediabistro.com

Tucker's World
Mediabistro.com

Can the Paperless Magazine Make It?
Columbia Journalism Review

Jim Romenesko
James Wolcott
Gawker
Eat the Press (Huffington Post)
Media Matters
Dan Kennedy
Veiled Conceit
Bob Somerby
Roger Ailes
FishbowlNY
Digby

Clive Thompson
Rob Harrell
Maura Johnston
Peter Dizikes
Terri Senft
Tom Igoe
Carrie McLaren
Randall Rothenberg
Chris Allbritton
David Callahan
Rebecca Skloot
Julian Rubinstein
Rob Warner
Daniel Radosh
Mike Daisey
Caleb Crain
Heath Row
Jami Attenberg
Emily Votruba
Chris Millward
David Feige
Emily Gordon
Maud Newton
J. Edward Keyes
Jod Kaftan
Lindsay Robertson
Jen Bekman
Elizabeth Spiers
Lockhart Steele

Talking Points Memo
Jason Kottke
Gothamist
Curbed
Triple Mint
whatevs.org
Low Culture
pullquote
Old Hag
Kung Fu Monkey
Cool Hunting
Cult of Mac
design*sponge
Apartment Therapy
Rake's Progress
Beatrice
The Elegant Variation
Maccers
MemeFirst
Andrew Krucoff
Catherine's Pita
Cityrag
The Fold Drop
escapegrace
Filmoculous
Death May Be Your Santa Claus
Can't Stop the Bleeding
Encyclopedia Hanasiana
Rick's Cafe Americain
Men's Vogue Daily
Heaneyland!
The PreCogs
Jim Affinito
All the Little Live Things
Language Log
Design Observer
Drawn!
music (for robots)
Donkey Rising
Daily Kos
Atrios
Tapped

The Manhattan Project
Watergate-era
conspiracy thrillers

Joe Frank
Don DeLillo
détournement
analog filters
looping devices
Doonesbury
Swiffer
The Beatles
William Orbit
Roth-era Van Halen

Rolf Harris
Steve Garvey
Land of the Lost
my right thumb
Enid Blyton
Roald Dahl
Asterix
Tintin

Erlend Øye, DJ-Kicks

Grandaddy, Sumday

Röyksopp, Melody A.M.

Phoenix, Alphabetical

Van Halen, Van Halen

Fountains of Wayne, Utopia Parkway

Freaks and Geeks
Arrested Development
The Office
The Daily Show
Curb Your Enthusiasm


September 29, 2005
All Work and No Play Makes Jack Torrance a Sweet, Sensitive Father Who Deeply Loves His Son

This is simply the best thing ever: a fake trailer for The Shining that’s edited to make the movie seem like a heartwarming family tearjerker. The soundtrack song is absolutely perfect.

posted by Andrew Hearst  •  permalink

categories: Film, TV and Video

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September 21, 2005
An Underground Video Classic: Metallica Drummer!

Metallica Drummer! is a hilarious bit of home-video footage that became a phenomenon on the underground video-trading circuit in the late ’90s. A couple of years ago I summarized the video’s backstory in the lead paragraph of a book review I wrote for The New York Sun:

he's talented! he's obsessed! he's canadian! he's ... Metallica Drummer!One day in the early 1990s, a young Canadian heavy metal fan put a chair in the center of his living room, turned on a video camera, cued up a Metallica album, and launched into the most hilariously earnest display of fantasy musicianship ever captured on tape. Glaring straight at the camera, and wearing a pair of Bart Simpson shorts, the scowling young man re-created every snare hit, every kick-drum thud, every cymbal crash on the recordings—but he did it on an imaginary drum kit. The young air drummer quickly forgot about the tape he had made, but someone later found it and released it into the underground trading circuit without his knowledge. Metallica Drummer!, as the video came to be known, developed a cult following in the late 1990s, probably because it’s so revealing of the fantasy world that lurks in the imagination of every music freak. To paraphrase Walt Kelly, we have seen Metallica Drummer, and he is us.

The video—a clip is below—is funny without any context, but knowledge of the backstory makes it richer and funnier. The historical record consists primarily of two articles published in the San Francisco alternative press in January 1999. The first article appeared in The San Francisco Bay Guardian when Metallica Drummer’s identity was still a secret. The second came out a couple of weeks later in SF Weekly and related the reporter’s experience of tracking down the mysterious Metallica Drummer in Vancouver and informing him that he and his video were famous. Sort of. The guy was shocked but oddly proud.

Here’s a clip of the first song on the tape, “Sad But True.” I think that link may work best if you have Quicktime 7. It’s a smaller file, so try it first. If you have any trouble, try this version instead, which is slightly bigger and may have fewer compatibility issues.

posted by Andrew Hearst  •  permalink

categories: Music and Audio, TV and Video

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A Complete Archive of Mad Covers

Here’s a fantastic trove of every Mad cover from the magazine’s October/November 1952 debut all the way up to the current issue, October 2005. This is the 1952 premiere issue:

posted by Andrew Hearst  •  permalink

categories: Art and Design, Magazines

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An iTunes for Fonts?

Linotype has just released FontExplorer X, an iTunes-inspired font management program for “font sorting, font shopping and font discovery.” I haven’t had a chance to install it yet, but the concept looks great.

[via one of my favorite sites, Design Observer.]

posted by Andrew Hearst  •  permalink

categories: Art and Design

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September 8, 2005
Neil Strauss, Dorky Music Writer Turned World-Class Pussy Hound, Charms the Ladies of The View

Erstwhile New York Times rock critic Neil Strauss appeared on The View last week to promote his new book, The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists. The book, published by Judith Regan, no less, chronicles the two years he spent picking the brains of dudes like these so he could learn how to get into the pants of chicks like these. He became very, very good at it. He originally wrote about these experiences in a January 2004 article in the Styles section of The New York Times.

Here’s the footage of Strauss’s seven-minute kaffeeklatsch with the ladies of The View. Alas, Barbara Walters was not on the panel that day.

posted by Andrew Hearst  •  permalink

categories: Books, TV and Video

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September 6, 2005
What Would You Build If You Could Build Anything?

My pal Clive Thompson, a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine, Details, and other mags, has an excellent piece in the latest Wired about “the ‘fab revolution’—the advent of cheap, easy-to-use tools for crafting physical objects, such as laser cutters and 3D milling machines,” as Clive puts it on his first-rate science-and-technology blog, Collision Detection. “Essentially, I argue that the physical world is about to become as flexible as information. Just as computers and the Internet made bits infinitely malleable, precision-guided fab tools will make atoms easy to tweak.”

To immerse himself in these new technologies, Clive used them to create the body of a one-of-a-kind electric guitar. He enlisted the services of eMachineshop, a New Jersey-based company whose website and proprietary software allow customers to design a wide range of physical objects—everything from furniture and toys to sporting equipment and medical devices—that are then manufactured by eMachineshop and sent to the customer.

The first graphic below is Clive’s design as it existed it in the software; the second is Clive rocking out at home with his new guitar.

posted by Andrew Hearst  •  permalink

categories: Art and Design, Music and Audio, Science and Technology

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September 5, 2005
Dorky Dancing

It seems that I’m one of the last people to have seen this excellent thing. Heck, even NPR’s All Things Considered did a story about it last week. But I’m posting it anyway, because it’s awesome: In the video for their new song “A Million Ways,” the band OK Go does some of the best dorky dancing ever.

OK Go

[via AudioMastermind, a great music blog I learned of through another great music blog, Music Thing.]

posted by Andrew Hearst  •  permalink

categories: Music and Audio, TV and Video

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A Worthy New Orleans Charity

There are so many people on the Gulf Coast who need help right now. I’m sure most of you have already given money to one or more relief organizations. Here’s another organization you might consider donating to. The website of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, one of the city’s great music institutions, is raising money to help New Orleans musicians. Go here to give.

Preservation Hall Jazz Band

posted by Andrew Hearst  •  permalink

categories: Music and Audio, News and Politics

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Join Rolf Harris Singing The Court of King Caractacus and Other Fun Songs
Boards of Canada, The Campfire Headphase
Fountains of Wayne, Utopia Parkway
The Postal Service, Give Up
Royksopp, The Understanding
Van Halen I
Don DeLillo, White Noise
Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb
Robert Caro, The Power Broker
The Portable Nietzsche, edited by Walter Kaufmann
Sidney Cohen, The Beyond Within
Tibor Kalman, Perverse Optimist
Vanity Fair
Book Magazine
Lingua Franca
Civilization magazine
Columbia Journalism Review
American Gentrifier