The Entertainment /
This is the first trailer for James Ponsoldt's David Foster Wallace biopic The End of The Tour. Jason Segel (!) plays DFW and Jesse Eisenberg plays David Lipsky, the Rolling Stone journalist sent to interview Wallace in the final stages of the Infinite Jest book tour (the film is an adaptation of Lipsky's book Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself).
So far it's looking like a fine bit of Linklaterian chatty melancholy, if you can gloss over the unease that Wallace would probably have felt about being portrayed on film; his family and estate have gone on the record to distance themselves from the whole thing. There's every chance I'll get around to watching this a long time before I manage to crack the spine of The Pale King.
The End of The Tour is released in the US on the 31st July and who-knows-when in Europe.
The White Man's Burden /
The New Mexico Law Review has put together a once-off Breaking Bad-themed issue, including essays on intellectual property, plea bargaining, attorney-client privilege and Skyler White as a totem for an entire class of women caught up in America's war on drugs. All of which is a cute pretext for attracting a larger audience to a niche journal.
Recommended: Elizabeth N. Jones' paper [PDF] on the tension between the Alberquerque represented in the TV series and the Alberquerque whose over-armed police department has visited a relentless slew of brutality against its most vulnerable citizens.
“The city strove to become even more like the broadcast version of itself, complete with a tidy financial profit. Small businesses made money by selling goods inspired by the show, such as ‘Blue Sky Donuts’, and spa products advertised to ‘relax away the Bad’. Candy stores designed blue rock crystal candy to look like methamphetamine ... Albuquerque promoted actors’ appearances at local businesses, sold them homes, and even sought their political endorsements at times.”
You can read the entire issue here.
The best app bundles for kids /
Apple introduced app bundles with the launch of iOS 8 in September last year. Developers haven't been shy about putting together their best-of compilations since then, and that's particularly true for the Kids section of the App Store.
Read MoreThe Flight of The URLs /
Have a poke around Lisa Cassidy's (sadly dormant) Built Dublin blog for the low-down on Dublin's more underappreciated architectural oddities.
TIL: there is a 20th anniversary Friends-themed slot machine. This is a great Verge piece on casinos, skinner boxes, slot machines and the designing of addiction.
Tape Findings, an archive of one-of-a-kind found sounds.
“At this period, after his long fast, the toad has a very spiritual look, like a strict Anglo-Catholic towards the end of Lent. His movements are languid but purposeful, his body is shrunken, and by contrast his eyes look abnormally large. This allows one to notice what one might not at another time: that a toad has about the most beautiful eye of any living creature. It is like gold, or more exactly it is like the golden-colored semi-precious stone which one sometimes sees in signet-rings, and which I think is called a chrysoberyl.”
- George Orwell's ode to springtime, Some Thoughts on the Common Toad.
Watch the first teaser trailer for Aaron Sorkin's Steve Jobs biopic with Michael Fassbender playing the world's most famous jerkhole:
M90: Fail Slowly /
The M90 series is back, like some kind of phoenix rising, triumphant, from a disgusting bin fire on Henry Street.
Listen now to 90 minutes of bits of music and words stuck together with sellotape – stream right here, or download it for your Rio PMP300 portable consumer digital audio player. The full track listing is below.
Listen to Hot Chip's new album Why Make Sense? /
My torrid public love affair with Hot Chip continues with the news that Why Make Sense? – their sixth album – is now streaming in full on iTunes. The official release date is set for 18th May.
They've got something special planned for the physical release too:
“Due to a unique and bespoke printing technique, new album “Why Make Sense?” will come in one of 501 different colours. Combined with subtle variations of the design, this means every copy of the album, on both CD and LP, will feature completely unique artwork.”
Great lads altogether.
Here are the two Why Make Sense? promo videos they've released so far, for Need You Now and Huarache Lights. If anybody has a definitive answer for what huarache lights actually are, now is the time to use that comment box below.
The Flight of The URLs /
Amezaiku is the Japanese art of candy sculpture, dating from the late 700s. See more like the goldfish lollypop above at Ameshin.
Paul Morton interviews Daniel Clowes over at The Millions.
Seymour Hersh claims that the official narrative around the killing of Osama Bin Laden is 90% horseshit.
Every outfit that Alicia Florrick wears in every episode of The Good Wife.
The illusion of control and the buttons that do nothing.
Wes Anderson designs Bar Luce for Fondazione Prada /
Photo: Attilio Maranzano. Courtesy Fondazione Prada
Wes Anderson has created a Wes Anderson-themed bar, paying tribute to 1950s Italian café culture and also to himself, Wes Anderson.
Commissioned as part of Prada's new Rem Koolhaas-designed art complex Fondazione Prada, and decked out in a typically Andersonian pastel green and pink palette, Bar Luce has a few nods to other Anderson projects. See that pinball table on the left, beside the pillar? That is a Steve Zissou pinball table. I can't begin to tell you how much I covet this. The internet isn't giving up any details on the jukebox, but this being Wes, I'm going to assume he hired in Mark Mothersbaugh as Jukebox Supervisor to make sure everything was just-so.
Castello Cavalcanti, an earlier Prada/Anderson short with Jason Schwartzman as a race car driver, seems to be the main inspiration for the bar – watch it below ↓ and check out some more detail shots from Instagram after that. Really, though: that wallpaper has got to go.
"You can sit with WES #FondazionePrada #wesanderson #barluce #inspiring #milan"
"Sweet situation in 50s bar Luce #fondazioneprada #wesanderson #barluce"
"bar luce #wesanderson #barluce #fondazioneprada #milano"
Ireland's Pwn /
Thanks to Edward Melvin for commissioning many of these stories.