01. DIY Dining Table

“After completing my first DIY desk using hairpin legs, I instantly dreamed about making a round dining table. I had to wait months until we moved, but I never stopped daydreaming about how perfect it would be, and even started buying supplies before we moved into the new place.” (For Me, For You)

02. Glodeane and Barry

“I miss Glodeane. As Barry White’s muse and inspiration for a number of years, the Long Beach, California, native, along with her sister, Linda, developed their skills as vocalists in the church choir before meeting up with their third–Linda Taylor. Together, the girls worked as the Croonettes, making their way as best they could in a world where there was no shortage of black, girl singers, until providence arrived in the form of blue-suited, big-chested, and marcelled Barry White (1944-2003). The ultimate impresario signed them to a deal, and produced two of the most unforgettable soul records of the nineteen-seventies: “Walking In The Rain (With The One I Love),” And “I Belong To You.” (Et Als)

03. Ghostface Killah Sues Universal

“Last month, we reported that TV composer Jack Urbont was suing Ghostface Killah because Ghost’s 2000 album Supreme Clientele allegedly unlawfully sampled “The Iron Man Theme”, which Urbont wrote for the 1960s TV show “The Marvel Super-Heroes”. At the same time as Ghost fends off that lawsuit, he’s filing one of his own. Billboard reports that Ghost is suing the Universal Music Group for unpaid royalties.” (Pitchfork)

04. Dennis Rodman to Enter Hall of Fame Via Helicopter

“Earlier this week, there was a bit of a letdown when we learned that Dennis Rodman would be on his best behavior during his Hall of Fame ceremony. But fear not, the event will not be a bore.

It will be featuring Dennis Rodman after all, as the headliner no less.” (Slam Online)

01. Sony/PIAS Warehouse Burnt Down in UK Riots

“A Sony distribution warehouse in North London was burned to the ground around 4:00 a.m. GMT this morning during the third straight night of riots in the UK. The 200,000 square-foot center housed the entire inventory of PIAS UK, the primary distribution hub for more than 150 independent labels.

No injuries were reported in the blaze, but all inventory is feared lost. XL/Beggars, Warp, Rough Trade, Domino, 4AD, Sub Pop, Secretly Canadian, Jagjaguwar, Drag City, Thrill Jockey, FatCat, Kompakt, Mute, Ninja Tune, Vice, and Soul Jazz are among those affected.” (Pitchfork)

02. Round and Round (Pictured Above)

“When you think about light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins, the first phrase that comes to mind is, no doubt, “fashion model.” He’s such a pretty boy, that one. So naturally he — along with junior welterweight Amir Khan and amateur standout Roberto Cammarelle — is now modeling Prada sunglasses. Usually, as Don Steinberg pointed out, a boxer wearing shades is trying to cover up a big old bruised eye, so it’s an interesting choice by Prada, to say the least.” (Queensbury Rules)

03. Precious Things Aren’t Always Perfect: Why The Queen Is Dead Is No Classic

“One month on from the 25th anniversary of The Queen Is Dead, and the rhapsodising has finally started to subside. For even without the added boon of that quarter-of-a-century milestone, we’re told that the LP is The Smiths’ magnum-opus; their most divine creation; their definitive album; nay, the definitive indie album of the last two-and-a-half decades, bar none. With snaps of Morrissey, Marr et al outside the Salfords Lads’ Club adorning nearly every music mag and enraptured editorial gushing forth from blogs and broadsheets alike, trying to ignore The Queen Is Dead last month was akin to pretending that there wasn’t some shindig or other taking place at Worthy Farm.” (The Quietus)

04. Eugene McDaniels: Dance For Freedom

“Eugene McDaniels passed away this past Saturday, at the age of 72. I can’t do his long and illustrious career proper justice – most of what I know of his catalog constitutes a small fraction of the total number of songs he wrote and recorded. However, the few McDaniels songs I’m most familiar with rank among some of the most interesting and socially relevant I know of.” (Soul Sides)

01. Design History Of The Budweiser Can

“In its role as the great American beer–or self-described ‘King Of Beers’–Budweiser has come a long way from being a steel-canned, eagle claw-adorned beverage for Americans in the mid-1930′s. It has become an iconic, global brand that continues to grow. This week, Anheuser Busch-partnered with London-based agency JKR to redesign the Bud can in order to embrace its growing global success and resonate with consumers around the world.” (psfk)

02. Metropolis II by Chris Burden (the movie) (above)

This is amazing. “A short doc about a kinetic sculpture that took four years to build. We had the honor of spending three days in Chris Burden’s studio filming this sculpture before it was moved to the Los Angeles Country Museum of Art (LACMA) where it is being reinstalled.
The installation opens fall 2011.” (youtube)

03. Sex Doll Swimming Race

“A sex doll as a means of transportation!’ That was a slogan of the annual race on inflatable sex dolls that took place next to Saint-Petersburg on August 6. Over 800 people were willing to see how the dolls can swim.” (englishrussia)

04. An Appreciation of Menus: Art of the Menu

“The folks over at Under Consideration (the astute parent co. examining all things graphic design through Speak Up, the Design Encyclopedia and Brand New) noticed, and have begun to catalog menus from around the world in a new blog, Art of the Menu.” (core77)

01. A 4-Track Mind

“In this short, a neurologist issues a dare to a ragtime piano player and a famous conductor. When the two men face off in an fMRI machine, the challenge is so unimaginably difficult that one man instantly gives up. But the other achieves a musical feat that ought to be impossible.” (radiolab)

02. Hedi Slimane Photographs Frances Bean Cobain (above)

Photographer, Hedi Slimane, shoots Frances Bean Cobain, now 18 years of age.(hedislimane)

03. Google to Build Headquarters in Mountain View

“The award winning sustainable German architecture firm, Ingenhoven Architects, has been hired by Google Inc to design their new headquarters in Mountain View, California. Expected to begin construction in 2012, Ingenhoven approached the design with the idea that ‘the architecture should be an expression of the „corporate culture” and at the same time a model for sustainable architecture in the broadest sense surpassing the LEED-Platinum-Standards with its holistic concept’. Jordan Newman, a Google spokesman shared about Ingenhoven, “we’ve asked them to build the most green, sustainable building possible.”” (archdaily)

04. Welcome back, GmbH

“Last night in Glasgow the GmbH magazine store re-opened at a new address. Looks like a really well-designed presentation of a broad range of titles. The downside if you’re not in south west Scotland is they’ve suspended their online service for now.” (magculture)

01. Stream a new Flying Lotus mix

“To mark the occasion, FlyLo has posted a mix of Thundercat material on the Brainfeeder site, under the name ‘Shenanigans Pt. 2′. In Lotus’s words, ‘I thought it would be good to get you familiar with the man who’s contributed his unique sound to so many records I love. Here’s some things, a prelude to the LP. Some new, some you might know, some we may never release.’” (factmagazine)

02. How Islamic punk went from fiction to reality

“Islamic punk was just an idea in a novel by a disaffected Muslim convert – but for the bands he inspired around the world the scene became real. Now, as The Taqwacores is about to be released, has the scene already betrayed its ideals?” (guardian uk)

03. Björk – Crystalline(Omar Souleyman Remix) (above)

An absolute banger of a remix from Syria’s Omar Souleyman of Bjork’s “Crystalline.” There may not be a better remix this year. You also get to hear a Souleyman track in hifi (his CDs are a collection of tape and 4-track recordings). (youtube)

04. Morbid Angel Vinyl Reissued
“Not much to say about Morbid Angel. This band is an undisputed genre heavyweight, and their new material has been, well, not as good as the four albums being reissued here. Altars of Madness, Blessed Are the Sick, Covenant, and Domination are all being served up on colored vinyl in gatefold jackets thanks to Earache Records. Lots of limited colors have already disappeared, so apologies to the collectors. But if you just want to actually listen to these classic albums on vinyl” (omgvinyl)

06. Around The Classical Internet: August 5, 2011

“Conductor and Mostly Mozart Festival music director Louis Langree is a good sport for answering the same query over and over again: What are his five favorite pieces by Mozart? (During the August news slump, everyone loves the listicles!)” (nprmusic)

01. shingo masuda+katsuhisa otsubo + yuta shimada: little hilltop with wind view (Pictured)

“Tokyo-based practice shingo masuda+katsuhisa otsubo architects has shared with us images of ‘little hilltop with wind view’, an 8 meter-tall viewing tower on the hill of a wind farm in shimonoseki city, japan. a collaborative effort with japanese architect yuta shimada, the design offers a panoramic view of the surrounding landscape that highlights other elements of the site such as the wind, flowers and clouds.” (designboom)

02. The Life & Times Of M. Serge Gainsbourg

“It’s 20 years since Serge Gainsbourg died, an event that went practically unnoticed in Britain both on the day it happened and on the anniversary, though across La Manche, March 2nd 1991 was a day of mourning unparalleled. The language used then by François Mitterrand – “He was our Baudelaire, our Apollinaire… he elevated the song to the level of art” – was not dissimilar to the gushing “people’s Princess” rhetoric deployed by Tony Blair when Diana Wales also died unexpectedly in Paris one night in the 1990s. Though politicians are adept at wringing the auspices of a good tragedy to help boost their own popularity, the high praise afforded Gainsbourg by the president was seemingly genuine towards a man who was often boorish, drunk, a philanderer, agent provocateur and general pain in the arse who got a hard-on pushing the buttons of the establishment whenever he could. The people of France loved him in spite of his bad boy behaviour, and somehow always found a way to forgive.” (The Quietus)

03. How Islamic punk went from fiction to reality

“There was a time when the words “Muslim radical” painted a clear enough picture – a young man strapped with explosives, perhaps, or a bearded cleric calling for Sharia law from Land’s End to John O’Groats. But things have changed. The protestors of the Arab Spring are both Muslim and radical, as are the bungling jihadis of Chris Morris’s movie Four Lions. And now a new film, The Taqwacores, attempts to further stretch the definition.” (Guardian)

04. Bouba/Kiki Thought Experiment

“Went to Bar Pitti last night with Malu and Will, and at some point one of them asked, regarding the many waiters running in and out, “Do you have to speak Italian (or be Italian?) to work here?”

I replied, “Imagine if they weren’t. Imagine if the menu and the specials scrawled on the little backboard were all in English—and there’s no reason they couldn’t be—would it be the same experience?” (David Byrne’s Journal)

01. Who Made Those NASA Logos?

“Up until that point, NASA had been primarily using an insignia adapted by James Modarelli, the head of NASA’s Lewis Research Center Reports Division. This logo, created in 1959 and affectionately dubbed ;The Meatball,’ relied heavily on multiple visual metaphors. According to NASA’s Web site, “the sphere represents a planet, the stars represent space, the red chevron is a wing representing aeronautics” (nyt/the6thfloor)

02. Gulp. The world’s largest stop-motion animation (above)

“‘Gulp’ is a short film created by Sumo Science at Aardman, depicting a fisherman going about his daily catch. Shot on location at Pendine Beach in South Wales, every frame of this stop-motion animation was shot using a Nokia N8, with its 12 megapixel camera and Carl Zeiss optics. The film has broken a world record for the ‘largest stop-motion animation set’, with the largest scene stretching over 11,000 square feet.
‘ (vimeo)

03. Crowdtap’s Quest To Measure Brand Influence In The Age Of Social Media

“Crowdtap, a company that helps brands engage audiences, thinks it has found a better way to measure the success of ad campaigns. Today, the company is issuing a report announcing a new metric, “Brand Influence,” that it claims offers a more accurate measure of a campaign’s success than traditional metrics born before the advent of social media…” (fastcompany)

04. Song based on the woman who scratched an itch until she reached her brain

“If you haven’t read this 2008 New Yorker article about a woman who had a chronic itch on her head and over time through her skull in till she reached her brain, here it is. And when you’re finished, give this song a listen. Singer-songwriter Teddy Blanks was inspired by the article to compose and record The Itch.” (boing)

01. Action Bronson visits Meatopia (Above)

Yeah, it’s not really ‘around the web’ as opposed to ‘around the corner’ but this video was too good not to post up.

02. Booker Corrigan: The Lacrosse Announcer Who Recites Biggie Lyrics

“It was a high school lacrosse playoff game in Baltimore, Maryland, this past May as The Boys’ Latin School played against McDonogh, tying up the game at 7-7 with only five minutes left to play. That’s when Boys’ 6’8,” 280-pound junior Greg Pyke made his move and scored a huge goal.” (XXL)

03. Can Strikeforce capitalize on controversy?

“Perhaps the best indicator that there was some lingering controversy surrounding the ending of Saturday’s Strikeforce main event was that Fedor Emelianenko actually voiced an opinion about it.” (ESPN)

04. European vs American luxury: is there a difference?

“Is there a difference between European and American luxury? And if so, does it have to do with aesthetics, or markets?

I’ve been pondering this ever since the news broke that, after a year of rumours, Andrew Rosen, the great NY garmento who founded Theory and re-invented Helmut Lang, and John Howard of Irving Place Capitol (a fashion-focused private equity fund) plus a few other investors, finally bought Permira’s stake in US brand Proenza Schouler.” (FT)

01. Radiohead: Remixes by Lone, Pearson Sound and Four Tet

“Issue number three of our remix series, in the shops on Monday 1st August (Tuesday 9th August in the USA & Canada)” (deadairspace)

02. Stream and Download sets from Newport Folk Festival 2011 (above)

NPR Music kindly provides an almost complete archive of Saturday and Sunday’s Newport Fok Festival 2011 online. Download and stream sets from Gillian Welch, Emmy Lou Harris, Middle Brother, Delta Spirit, Amos Lee, Tegan & Sarah, and many many more. #recommended

03. Tube City: A Sustainable Water-Purifying City for Delhi

“Tube City is a design for a 21 km long tube running over the Yamuna River in the city of Delhi. Conceived by Abinhay Sharma, the tube itself would be a living sustainable city with in-house farms and residential, commercial and office zones. A central metro spine and road network would keep the tube well connected, and the structure could also draw in water from the river for purification and consumption.” (inhabitant)

03. Waste Landscape by Elise Morin and Clémence Eliard

“Waste Landscape” is a 600 square meters artificial undulating landscape covered by an armor of 60 000 unsold or collected CDs, which have been sorted and hand-sewn. It is well known that CDs are condemned to gradually disappear from our daily life, and to later participate in the construction of immense open-air, floating or buried toxic waste reception centers. Made of petroleum, this reflecting slick of CDs forms a still sea of metallic dunes: the monumental scale of the art work reveals the precious aspect of a small daily object.” (contemporist)

01. Ostankino TV Tower: Moscow Views (above)

“Last time we told you about Ostankino TV tower. Today we’ll climb the Tower, a free-standing television and radio tower in Moscow, to enjoy bird’s-eye view of the city of Moscow. Standing 540 meters (1,770 ft) tall, Ostankino is a member of the World Federation of Great Towers, currently the tallest in Europe and 3rd tallest in the world.” (englishrussia)

02. eBay watch: 1950s midcentury Grundig radiogram

“Yes, there are a number of old audio systems on eBay right now, but I’ll wager there’s nothing else like this Grundig radiogram…In terms of design alone, it’s a stunning piece of furniture. Out of the 1950s and offering up some cool midcentury style, it looks immaculate, despite pushing 60 years old. Check out the plethora of images on the site to see it close up – we can hardly see a mark.” (retrotogo)

03. The Infinity Burial Project

“The Infinity Burial Project founded by Jae Rhim Lee, proposes alternatives for the postmortem body that promote and facilitate an individual engagement with the process of decomposition.  The Project features the development of a unique strain of mushroom that decomposes and remediates toxins in human tissue, the development of a decomposition ‘kit’, burial suits embedded with decomposition activators, and a membership society devoted to the promotion of death awareness and acceptance and the practice of decompiculture (the cultivation of decomposing organisms).” (Beautiful Decay).

04. Dinner Tonight: BLT, Animal-Style

“I’ve made Kenji’s astonishing replica of In-N-Out’s Double-Double, Animal-Style so many times now that I can almost make it in my sleep. Part of the allure is how the toppings enhance every bite. The tangy sauce perfectly plays off the fresh vegetables, crisp pickles, and deeply caramelized onions. The combination of ingredients is so good that I’ve even created patty-less versions of the dish when I’ve run out ground beef.” (Serious Eats).