Timing

It builds:

Truckers Delight

I don't recommend watching this thoroughly hilarious and raunchy animated music video by Jérémie Périn at work. But do watch it, as long as 8-bit scat humor and graphic sexual acts in caricature don't bother you:

Iron Maiden on the Harp

You can't see his fingers dancing over the harp strings quite as clearly as I'd like, it's one of the best parts of seeing a harp played, but this is such a great performance I wanted to post it anyway:



And because you only get one harp related post per year, a shout out to my man Harpo:

Crying

Before the days of auto-tune you lived and died by the way you were able to bring it live, unfiltered. Roy brought it:

Courage

I stay on top of current events and international affairs, and I have a pretty good handle on Russia. To put things in perspective for the following video, the only place more dangerous for journalists than Mexico is Russia.

And this guy, Alexey Dymovskiy, is a cop who is speaking out against corruption.

"I am tired of putting people in prison who are not guilty," he says at one point, and watching the weariness traverse his face it's easy to believe he's done just that more than once.

This is what courage looks like:

Misirlou (Μισιρλού)

Here's a classic song with clever execution:



And of course:



Watching the suits playing backup in this video is half the fun. Dick Dale is made of style and skill.

Marriage (брак)

Here's the latest animated film by Garry Bardin that I've remastered and reformatted for hi-def viewing on the YouTube channel that I'm managing for him:

Garry Bardin's Films

The way he uses common objects, in this one rope, to capture raw human emotion continually amazes me. In some of his other films he uses matches (clay matches that are so convincingly created in the image of real matches you have to look hard to pick it out) and steel wire.

There's one where the characters are invisible, but that's a surprise for later.

So, here it is. Marriage (брак). Enjoy:

Sailing Stones

If you click on the picture it'll take you to a hi-def version that'll take your breath away. Incase you've never heard of them, pictured in the lower right quadrant is a sailing stone at the Racetrack Playa in Death Valley:

"The sailing stones (sliding rocks, moving rocks) are a geological phenomenon where rocks move in long tracks along a smooth valley floor without human or animal intervention. They have been recorded and studied in a number of places around Racetrack Playa, Death Valley, where the number and length of travel grooves are notable. The force behind their movement is not understood and is subject to research."

-Wikipedia, sailing stones

Inspiration

I watched this video for the first time three years ago. It blew my mind. I watched it again, and again, and again. I still sit through the whole thing at least once a month.

After having my skull rocked by Lasseg Gjertsen's masterpiece I was struck with the realization that making videos had become accessible to guys like me, that you didn't need million dollar equipment to do good work, that you didn't even need a hi-def camera. Just a good idea, an editing program or two, and practice.

This is what inspired me to begin making my own videos:

End of the Road, literally

Here's the latest literal video on my YouTube channel, Digital Tonic. Vocals, lyrics and audio mixing by the perpetually hilarious and talented Alex Heitlinger. Video editing by yours truly:

Dolphins Are Geniuses

I've always figured Dolphins to be the sea's equivalent of humans, but not quite as intelligent. After all, these opposable thumbs of ours. They're a big ego boost.

I pictured them as sort of high-order Lassies of the sea, like Flipper. Which I always loved to watch when I had a chance to zone out on cable television at my grandparents.

Anyway, they might be smarter than us:

"One day, when a gull flew into her pool, she grabbed it, waited for the trainers and then gave it to them. It was a large bird and so the trainers gave her lots of fish. This seemed to give Kelly a new idea. The next time she was fed, instead of eating the last fish, she took it to the bottom of the pool and hid it under the rock where she had been hiding the paper. When no trainers were present, she brought the fish to the surface and used it to lure the gulls, which she would catch to get even more fish. After mastering this lucrative strategy, she taught her calf, who taught other calves, and so gull-baiting has become a hot game among the dolphins."

-Why dolphins are deep thinkers (The Guardian)