In the land of Brooklyn, just a few blocks from The Music Hall of Williamsburg lies The Mast Brothers Chocolate Factory. Of course, to call it a factory is a bit of a stretch. What’s closer to the truth is calling it a brick enclosed love nest for cacao nibs and beard aficionados. They’re the 21st century version of Willy Wonka, with the cane swapped out for a fixed gear bike and the Loompa diddy upgraded to an iPhone stocked with Phoenix and The XX.
I first heard about the Brothers Mast a few months back after perusing a photo essay over at The Selby, but to be honest I thought they’re were full of it. Sure, they had the swag down to a T. And sure, maybe I was more than a little jealous that they could pull off the Iron & Wine Beard/Vest combo so well. But at $9.99-$11.99 a bar, was their chocolate actually that good?
Well, yesterday I stopped in Murray’s Cheese Shop in The Village and finally bought a bar. It was their Dark Chocolate/Coffee bar, a tag team done with Portland based roasters Stumptown Coffee. And. It. Was. Amazing. For real. It’s the real deal. Fuck that Hershey’s nonsense. Or anything else, for that matter. I finally get how chocolate could be an aphrodisiac. It was sexy. A sexy bar of chocolate. Unctuous and unreal.
So, without working myself up into another froth, let me just leave it at this: BUY MAST BROTHERS CHOCOLATE. Support them in any way, shape, or form. Grow a solidarity beard, if need be. But better tasting (and less itchy) is to just buy the bars. They use Fleur de Sel and Sea Salt. We need them.
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I know we’ve been critical of Yale’s music scene in the past, but Sam Lee (’12) and childhood friend Alex Caplow are doing their best to change our minds. “Real Life Color”, released under the band name Magic Man, was written in various locations in France and recorded/mixed in the good ol’ US of A via email and internet.
I’ve seriously been listening to this on repeat for several days. Download the album for free here. Really. Now. Do it.
Maybe Lee can do a remix with everyone’s favorite admissions officer? I sure hope so.
I’ve always wanted to do something like this, but I never really had the wall space…or painting ability for that matter. A guy with an empty wall in his apartment made a stop motion of his artistry turning the black space into a mural of ‘The Great Wave off Kanagawa, a classic Japanese woodblock by Katsushika Hokusai. The vid has a solid backing track by the Foo Fighters, and plays with some cool paint characters too: definitely a fun watch. As the story goes, the artist needed to move to a larger apartment due to a ‘monkey invasion’, and created a 2nd stop motion of the take down. Catch it after the jump. (More…)
Pomp. La. MOOSE. I have no idea if it means anything. What I do know is that they do amazing covers. They’re right up there in the cover pantheon that includes Jamie Cullum, Marco Benevento, Halloween, Alaska, and The Bad Plus.
And apparently I’m not the only one who’s noticed: the majority of the videos on their YouTube Channel have over a million views. Damn.
Perhaps the more important detail is how they got to be famous. They don’t play that many live shows. They don’t really promote themselves, at least not in the traditional corporate sense. They just sit in their San Fran apartment with their ambiguous relationship status, tons of instruments, a video camera, and some recording equipment and make great music. I love the internet. It finds real talent. And, for some reason, an inordinate amount of silly cat videos. As the world should be.
Get more Pomplamoose over at YouTube. Or support them on iTunes.
So, now that The Flight of the Conchords have just kind of…disappeared…it seems like the market has once again opened up for a comedy troupe from Pacific waters. And in a series of events that would make the Conchords themselves cringe, it looks like a comedy trio from none other than Australia is poised to take their spots. Now, we already knew that Australia had some comedic chops, but now it’s clear that they’re playing for keeps. The Axis of Awesome played their Four Chord Song at this year’s Melbourne International Comedy Festival, and while I’ll admit I was skeptical at first, it was really quite clever.
Brooklyn based artist Kevin Cyr (I just pronounce it c-y-r, like nyc. Sorry Kevin.) finds beauty not in status enhancing symbols, but rather the “derelict…and unkempt…vehicles inundated with rust and graffiti…”, objects that contain a thousand fold more character than a Porshe or Skyscraper. The socially “ugly” can still inspire curiosity in the viewer.
With this in mind, Cyr created a functioning (sculpture) hybrid of two staples of back road travelers: the RV and the bicycle. It’s (drumroll please): The Camper Bike. The aim isn’t to revolutionize the lifestyle of the wayward traveler; it’s just an experiment in combinations. But, if Kevin ever wanted to go commercial with the idea, I’d kinda want one.
Also check out the Camper Kart, for the traveler who prefers to amble through the countryside.
Willard Wigan can’t read nor write. In fact as a young learning disabled student, Wigan’s teachers would belittle him, confident that he would amount to nothing. Little did they know, he would be amounting nothing into micro-sculptures and reaping fame and fortune from rare art collectors and even honors from the Prince of Wales! (More…)
Hans Hemmert’s project Level from 1997 consisted of a party thrown by the artist where each guest wore shoe extenders to make everyone two meters tall. At my towering height of five feet, one and a half inches (on a good day), I feel like I could really use a pair.
Hemmert used Level to eliminate awkward body language and bring all guests to the same level. It’s interesting to see how a simple height change can cause new dynamics in a group.
I guess maybe these shoes aren’t always the best idea, doing the twist might be a little tricky with a foot and a half of blue foam strapped to your legs. It’s a good thing they don’t really look like the dancing type.
Check out Hemmert’s other work and the work of his collaborators in the art collective Inges Idee here.
In a companion piece to the love flick 500 Days of Summer, director Marc Webb tapped into his creative juices and concoted a little romantic vignette for the starring duo Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, set to She and Him’s minor hit “Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?” Naturally, I eat up anything Ms. Deschanel touches, and this was no exception. Enjoy.
They say that watch it is “an animated GIF paranoia about non-stop design workers.” I say that watching it is time well spent. Side note: GIFs are SO Geocities circa 1996. Right? Nah.
