THIS ISSUE: Potato time for children, then three paintings of sunsets, one of which has a real big skeleton in it. The music is (new) pop from Palo Alto, (new) rock from New York, and (old) rap from San Jose, all top shelf stuff.
Please enjoy these images from a 1931 Russian children’s book about making toys from potatoes and matchsticks. Design blog Puppies and Flowers has the whole set.
Setting Sun by Laura Knight (1877-1970). That’s Dame Laura Knight to you or me, I suppose. (via #WOMENSART on Twitter)
Jocelin Carnes (Instagram, Artstation) is an illustrator from Paris.
New music: Liquor Store by Remi Wolf (Website or Spotify or YouTube). Pop banger about alcoholism and fear of abandonment. Remi Wolf’s new album is catchy as hell back to front— I also strongly considered sharing Quiet on Set (“Orgy at Five Guys with five guys / that’s ten guys and holy Christ / I've never seen more nuts in my life”) or Grumpy Old Man (“Got that long hair, long beard, turtleneck sweater”).
If you missed it last year (you were busy, probably), Remi Wolf is also the architect of the impeccable feel-good pop single Monte Carlo, which rolls around in my head near-constantly.
New music: Don’t Hurt Me by Des Rocs (Website or Merch or Spotify or YouTube). Big fat rock music, “indie rock” by musical style and, uh, aesthetic— check out the retro-styled web site.
I adore that larger-than-life vocal production on the repeating chorus, left to stand alone a few times (starting at 0:45, for the music fan in a hurry), then pulled back down into the rock mix as the drums return.
He (Des Rocs is one dude mostly, a New Yorker named Daniel Rocco) sounds a lot like The Killers, not that there’s anything wrong with copping the vibe of a classic band for a track or two (that one, “MMC”, sounds a lot like My Chemical Romance).
Old music: Lazy Daze in California by Language Arts Crew (2004). (Bandcamp or Spotify or YouTube). “Yo, this (This) is (Is) not just another weak sound / Put it down for the Cali Underground.”
A chill piano-and-drums beat that demands relaxation. An incredibly tight rap duet; that’s QS Zeus and Benny Medicina trading back and forth there, thanks be to genius.com, the world’s only lyrics site.
The song concludes at 3:50 or so; it’s followed by a brief comedy sketch in which a man coughs himself to death while smoking some high-quality marijuana. You could skip it.
Are not we all the potato man, forever foraging for the potato-mushrooms of life? Help others to find their potato-mushrooms; share this email.
-Thomas