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.
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.
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.
Sure, you spend an embarrassing amount of time staring at your computer. But little do you know, you’re getting stared at in return. The good folks over at Conditional Design have taken the liberty to show us what it’s like on the other side of the mirror. See the rest of the Laptop Reflections collection here.
The kids of New York’s P.S.22 are SO much more musically cultured than I was at their age. Led by their maestro Mr. B (probably one of the hippest faculty members the public school system has), these choral kids do Pheonix, Alicia Keys/Jay-Z, and Owl City (don’t judge). And they’ve even got ties with my neck of the woods, having teamed up with IC’s Ithacapella a little while back. See the rest of their (rather extensive) repertoire here.
A few weeks back, indie (?) band Ok Go teamed up with Notre Dame University and released a souped up marching band rendition of their new single “This Too Shall Pass”. Now they’re back with another version of the song and another snazzy music video to go with it. This time, they channelled the spirt of Rube Goldberg (I dunno, was that even an actually guy?) and Wiley Coyote to lay down some sweet-ass chain reactions. Enjoy.
Now that Jay Leno has slithered back into his former post (which, oddly enough, is still done on the old Jay Leno Show stage), NBC has finally finished one of the most immature breakups in recent memory (even though they’re still trying to censor the internet…). But whereas NBC and Leno still don’t realize that the internet is not their friend, Team Conan has fully embraced the ‘tubes.
With a little over a week on Twitter, seven Tweets, and half a million followers, it looks like @ConanOBrien might take an internet based route for his next gig. Either way, his new internet presence allows fans to get instant updates on not only his unemployment but the slow degradation of his mind. Here are some of the highlights:
“Today I interviewed a squirrel in my backyard and then threw to commercial. Somebody help me.”
“This morning I watched Remington Steele while eating Sugar Smacks out of a salad bowl. I was naked.”
“If anyone’s curious what I look like with a beard, it’s this ?:^(0) Coincidentally, that’s also my ATM pin number.”
For a little over a week in May 2009, US based artist Ripo nabbed ten consecutive newspapers and re-imagined the headline through a colorful and typographical lens. Typography nerds rejoice; while he’s not totally slinging established fonts, the bulk of his focus is placed on the letters themselves and how they relate to the subject. Check out more work from Ripo here and keep up with his latest headlines .
