Author: jzb

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Loving “The Last of Us”

Image of an old TV set

I have a healthy amount of skepticism about movies and shows adapted from games. Clue was a rare exception, but it’s hard to go wrong with a cast that includes Tim Curry, Christopher Lloyd, Michael McKean, and the amazing Madeline Kahn. The list of bad or aggressively mediocre media spun off from games is too long to list. The Last of Us isn’t on it.

The first two episodes of The Last of Us were good. Good enough that I wanted to watch more. A little predictable, but Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey improve the material enormously.

But, without any spoilers, episode three was incredible. I knew Nick Offerman was going to be in the episode, but I expected a comic turn with his role. Not… not so much.

There were a few moments in the episode where I thought I had everything figured out. Bad habit, but I like to try to guess where the plot is going to go before it gets there. Whether the writers are leaning too hard into predictable plots and tropes, or if they can set up a story that surprises and entertains me without being predictable.

“Long, Long Time” displayed some really confident writing. Only three episodes in and they step (mostly) away from the primary characters to Offerman’s story. It does weave in, when the time is right, and it serves the plot well.

I’m happy as hell that Bella Ramsey has a good role after her turn in Game of Thrones. She was quite possibly my favorite character in the entire series, excepting Arya. (And Tyrion but it’s not really fair to judge others against the standards set by Peter Dinklage. Dude could read an IKEA catalog at the camera for 30 minutes and make it fun.)

Usually I’ll plow through episodes as soon as they’re available for a show I enjoy this much, but I’m savoring it. No more than one episode a day, when I have time to really enjoy it.

Here’s hoping that all the shenanigans over at HBO Max don’t muck it up. They’ve got a pretty good thing going with this show, hope it continues.

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Reconnecting with art

Sketchbook with watercolors and a cup of tea.

Art museums are a holy place for me, like good book stores and record stores. Little bubbles where we curate our attempts to communicate, to make others feel something. Or, simply, to create.

Art museums are where yesterday and today meet, and the dead tongues and hands of our past selves live again for a moment. Stand here, look. Gaze into someone else’s heart and mind for a time. If humans have a purpose, surely art is a crucial part of it.

I’m thinking about this today because we spent some our afternoon at the North Carolina Museum of Art. Can’t remember the last time I set foot in an art museum, but it must be more than three years. That must be the longest stretch between museum visits since the 80s. It was something I desperately needed, even though I didn’t know it until I was standing in front of the exhibits.

Coincidentally, I spotted this post by Allen Pike on the orange site when I got home, “Humans Need Play.” It’s a good reminder that we’re not merely here to fill our bank accounts (or others’). We need art and play to really exist in a meaningful way. At least, I do, even if I’d forgotten that for a while.

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Friday Fancycat

Lilah, a tuxedo cat, looks curiously at the camera and has her paws tucked neatly to the side.

Today was vet visit day. As is custom, I gave Lilah a few doses of Gabapentin ahead of the vet visit so she’d be manageable and not try to use her chainsaw paws on them.

She was feeling very, very chill this morning. No vets were harmed during the exam. We’ll see if I pay a price later when the drugs have worn off…

Lilah, a tuxedo cat, looks curiously at the camera and has her paws tucked neatly to the side.

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Quick links: Middle Ages cat names, Turkish Funk, Java price increases…

AI-generated picture of a cat staring at a computer, in a woodcut / watercolor style.

A couple of quick links today for your enjoyment:

That’s it for today, we now return you to your regularly scheduled Internet.

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“Con Todo El Mundo” – Khruangbin

Album cover, "Con Todo El Mundo" by Khruangbin. Features a beige cover with a small photo of cows standing in a field with the title of the album underneath.

Took a little detour on revisiting my top 100 albums but we’re back with Con Todo El Mundo by Khruangbin. It’s easy to see why this album didn’t make the cut in 2016: It wasn’t released until 2018.

I think I stumbled on Khruangbin via an NPR Tiny Desk concert. It was an instant click, love at first sound.

The band’s sound is a fusion of influences from around the world. Largely instrumental, you’ll be able to pick out a lot of pop, funk, surf guitar, psychedelic and other influences that all come together to form something really special.

Con Todo El Mundo is still my favorite Khruangbin album, though they’ve been quite prolific since its release with Mordechai, Mordechai Remixes, Texas Moon, and last year’s Ali. (Plus a few singles thrown in and contributing to Paul McCartney’s McCartney III Imagined with a remix of his “Pretty Boys.”

But this album just has that extra something that puts it over the top. Listen to “Lady and Man” for example. It’s got a monster funk groove, some vintage 70s guitar work, with a background chorus that you’ll be singing to yourself long after the album ends.

“Maria Tambien,” is a slinky number that always has me dancing or tapping my feet. Such solid percussion and bass work, it’s deceptively simple and draws you right in.

My favorite track, though, has to be “Evan Finds the Third Room.” Yes, this is the Third Room. Yes. Mark Speer’s guitar is nimble and perfect, Laura Lee’s bass and DJ’s drumming plus a little spoken word chorus make for an instant classic.

They’ve had quite a bit of attention since 2018, but if you haven’t caught up with Khruangbin yet, start with this album. I had the good fortune to snag tickets to see them at The Lincoln in Raleigh at the tail end of 2018 before they really took off and started doing much bigger shows. They’re just as good live as they are on record, which is to say amazing.

[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=906393946 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small]

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Deep-dive into the “Dune” font, Davison Art Nouveau

Whether the Dune series is your cup of tea or not, anybody who’s spent more than a little time in the sci-fi section of a book store is likely familiar with the series’ book covers and the unusual typeface. I caught a link off the Orange site to a story on Fonts In Use about the history of the typeface that graces Frank Herbert’s series, and it’s right up my alley.

My dad had a few lettering books lying around the house at all times. The Speedball Textbook for Pen and Brush Lettering being the book I remember best. (And have a copy of, though it’s getting infrequent use.) He’d refer to them sometimes when laying out signs or patterns for lettering on vehicles. He’d have to improvise when adding characters that weren’t in the books or weren’t quite right.

All that to say, interesting lettering always catches my eye. What I know about Dune, as a series, hasn’t compelled me to pick up any of the books. But the covers? I have to say, the lettering does call out to me.

The font was drawn by Meyer M. “Dave” Davidson for a typesetting company in New York (PLINC) and first showed up in the PLINK 1967 Alphabet Yearbook. From there it made its way onto some of Herbert’s paperbacks and then became part of the “visual identity” of his books.

The post goes into great detail and has lots of cover images and the history of Davidson Art Noveau. No spoilers here, I encourage folks to go read the post and check out all the wonderful book covers.

Today we all have thousands of fonts at our fingertips to choose from, of varying quality and ranging from open source to proprietary licensing. I’m not entirely convinced things are better though.

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Coming soon: Instrumental album from Robyn Hitchcock

Cover of "Life After Infinity" by Robyn Hitchcock. It features the title in cursive, with a fish on a blue background with a rose superimposed on top of the fish.

The past few years I’ve been seeking out more and more instrumental music. Khruangbin, The Comet is Coming, Material, Pharoah Sanders… but I wasn’t expecting to add Robyn Hitchcock to that list!

Robyn has released a few instrumental tracks in the past. I Often Dream of Trains is bookended by two short instrumental tracks, “Nocturne (Prelude)” and “Nocturne (Demise)” that are hauntingly beautiful. But the vast majority of his catalog includes his unique vocal stylings. (If you’ve never listened to Robyn, you should correct that immediately. But if you want a description, just take equal parts John Lennon and Syd Barrett with a dollop of Bob Dylan and there ya go.)

Anyway, I was excited to see the announcement this week that he’s releasing an all-instrumental album Life After Infinity in April. Two tracks are already live on Bandcamp, and you can pre-order the album there in the format of your choice. Unless your choice is 8-track, in which case you cannot, but why would you?

“Celestial Transgression” reminds me a lot of the aforementioned Trains. “Come Here, Little Ghost” has a twangier, folkier feel than I’m used to with his music. Maybe a touch of bluegrass? That’s the genre that comes to mind, but admittedly I’m not a big bluegrass listener so I could be way off target there.

At any rate, I love both tracks and can’t wait for the full album to drop in April.