OTM Staff Picks: October 17th, 2011

Monday, October 17, 2011 - 01:40 PM

Time for another round of On the Media staff picks. Feel free to make some of your own recommendations or give us feedback in the comments section!

Sarah Abdurrahman: I pick this video of a 2-year-old kid waking up to the music of rapper Waka Flocka playing in the car:

Doug Anderson: The DIRECTV series "Damages" is my most recent Netflix addiction. Glenn Close plays a ruthless New York lawyer, and Rose Byrne is her extremely competent but occasionally naive protégé. Even with its legal focus, the show bears more resemblance to "The X-Files" than to "Law & Order". Its emphasis is less on courtroom proceedings than on the conflicting allegiances, conspiracies, and mind games that dominate the characters' lives. In its four seasons so far, the show has featured some very excellent and very random actors in recurring roles: Marcia Gay Harden, Martin Short, and Lily Tomlin, to name a few. This is one of those shows that's won a million awards, but has somehow managed to stay under the radar.

Jody Avirgan: I'm usually part of the team for WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show, but for the next three weeks I’m on loan to On the Media. Fun! I’ll add this great collection of old websites from the 2012 GOP candidates. Why "The Hermanator Experience" was removed from Herman Cain’s rhetorical quiver is beyond me.

Ever notice on YouTube how people pick seemingly random photographs to pair with the songs they post? For one, I’m not sure who spends their time loading songs onto YouTube anyway (but God Bless Them). Beyond that, how do you pick the photograph? For instance, in this video of Bill Evans’s "Peace Piece" user caoamarelo chose to upload David Sygall’s photograph "Eating Standing," taken at Woodstock. Why? Evans released “Peace Piece” in 1958; Sygall’s photo is from 1969. Evans didn’t play at Woodstock; as far as I can tell Sygall and Evans don’t seem to have a formal connection. So, somewhere in caomarelo’s mind, these two works fit together. Or maybe that’s just the picture that was easy to find on his computer when he uploaded the song. I don’t know, but I could wonder about this forever.

Alex Goldman: I spent the weekend listening to New Boots and Panties!! by Ian Dury and the Blockheads. They were a pretty great British punk/new wave band from the late 70’s and early 80’s. 

Ian’s son, Baxter Dury, is also a fantastic musician. But don’t take my word for it, see for yourself!

Chris Neary: My staff pick this week is a collection of award winning scientific photographs taken through a microscope. They're from the The Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition. They're beautiful and strange. Here’s a sample caption: A mouse nerve fiber layer on a retinal flatmount at 40x magnification by Gabriel Luna of the UC Santa Barbara Neuroscience Research Institute in Santa Barbara, California using the laser confocal scanning method.

PJ Vogt: My staff pick is Put This On, which is a blog and a webseries about men’s style by Jesse Thorn, who also hosts The Sound of Young America.

Before this week, my plan was to grow old, die, and never, ever tell anybody that I read a men’s style blog once a day, every day. But the truth is that I do, and it’s this one. It’s well-written and funny, and you can like it even if you think that pocket squares are dumb and suits are for funerals. One of my favorite episodes is the one where they send comedian and avowed velvet partisan Dave Hill to a meeting of the Corduroy Appreciation Club.

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