Here, at the Ramsey County Yard Waste Removal Site, you will see the largest leaf pile you have ever laid eyes upon. Here, you will witness an ORDERLY procession of civic-minded Ramsey-county citizens pulling up their cars, trucks and trailers to an ENORMOUS pile of yard waste, wearily getting out of those vehicles, SLOWLY dumping their sticks, leaves, branches, clods of dirt and the occasional, accidental hunk of dog feces out and then nearly backing into someone as they hastily attempt to leave the facility.

Only the truest thing ever written in the history of the world, NBD.

Nicole Meyer got a great write-up in Fast Co. Design today about her amazing design project Branding 10,000 Lakes.

Every time I visit that site (pretty much daily at this point), I wish not only that I had her chops—especially with type and identity—but also that I had that kind of discipline, or even just such a simple, enduring, satisfying project with which to hone my craft. Even within Meyer’s few months’ work—on what could end up a 27 year project—you can already see changes in her skill and creativity and approach.

Certainly a project that’s had me thinking. And of I course I love its Minnesotanness.

Maria Bustillos gets to the bottom of some things I’ve been pondering a lot lately, regarding progressive elitism and this ridiculous assumption that theirs is the party of intellect.

“You’d think if Republicans were so dumb it would be child’s play for the brainy Democrats to bamboozle them into passing some useful legislation, but this turns out to be well-nigh impossible.”

It’s just one of a thousand excellent points in the article. I especially like that it leverages The Daily Show’s glibness against itself—and Bustillos really nails it when it comes to the caliber of Stewart’s recent commentary on Rick Perry (and the current slate of Republicans in general): It’s really, really weak.

Why pretend they’re stupid when they’re not? Low-hanging fruit aside, it just leads to exactly the kind of divisiveness Stewart (and his many supporters) have railed against in the past—and, I’d imagine, an overall distaste for progressive candidates by those independents who perceive Stewart’s point of view as elitist.

“There is a way to arrive at common ground, provided we can maintain just basic respect for the integrity of the other side. But we’re never going to get to that so long as opinion leaders like Stewart continue to take every cheap shot that comes their way. If progressives are the tolerant ones, by gum, then let them start toleratin’.”

It’s just a really great, thoughtful piece to consider—as both a Daily Show fan, and a Rick Perry detractor.

Phenomenal article from John Pavlus at Fast Co. Design; this guy Jason Brush has some pretty encouraging things to say about the future of cinema: 

Filmmakers who attempt to make ‘elastic cinema’ stories will have to take the ‘user experience’ of different viewing contexts into account right from the beginning, he says, and ‘think about the means of distribution as part of the creative process.’

In that regard the auteur of the near future will need to be a total ‘experience designer’ — not just a storyteller who hands the finished film off to a distributor.

I’ll forgive him his brief dalliances with the Christopher Nolan paradigm.

Great article on Fast Co. Design by Ethan Zuckerman in support of creative Xenophilia.

by Erik Martz, of MFR fame.

Though in my opinion, the Lyric of the Year was omitted:

“Bed Intruder” by Antoine Dodson
“He’s climbin’ in your windows, he’s snatchin’ yo’ people up, tryin’ to rape ‘em, so y’all need to hide your kids, hide your wife, and hide your husband, ‘cause they rapin’ errybody out here… You don’t have to come and confess; we lookin’ for you—we gon’ find you, we gon’ find you. So you can run and tell that, home boy.”

What began as a simple interview on an Alabama newscast—a man justifiably upset by his sister’s near-rape—quickly became a viral sensation, but for that brief moment it was also our rally cry.

Not only a call-to-arms against violence and sexual assault, but an apt and sobering metaphor for our nickel-and-dimed underclass, so fed up with veneer, with lies and fabrication; so fed up with the broken machinery of our “American Way;” so fed up with that ever-widening divide—Haves vs. Have-Nots—so seared into our conscience.

They rapin’ errybody out here.

“See? You see what happens when you young liberal voters get so disgruntled and disillusioned that you drop all your party’s newborn, hard-won ideas about Hope™ and Change™, without any patience, without really giving them sufficient time to mature, without understanding that hugely foreign, anti-American concept known as ‘the long view’?

This letter sums up everything I’m feeling right now about my own unthinking, childish, lazy, spiteful, reactionary, and—above all—self-centered demographic of 18- to 29-year olds.