Although the feeling of summer bliss is timeless, there are some old-fashioned under-the-sun activities that have been abandoned by us tech-tyrranized millennials. Lest the season pass you by as you write an epic in the form of a text message, check out Mental Floss’s “15 Summertime Activities We Need To Bring Back” to, well, virtually revel in the beauty of the tangible world.
And, in the seductive realm of your computer, Spotify is monitoring your hometown’s most streamed tracks in order to bring to you:
“Musical Map: Cities of The World,” which The Verge calls the “antithesis” of Apple Music’s Beats 1 Radio, compiles playlists of the most popular, “distinctive” songs played on the streaming service by geographic region. (It turns out, for example, that people in the UK avidly listen to UK local musicians). Analyzing around 20 billion listeners, the database updates each city’s playlist twice a month, making every stream count. So, make sure you’re listening to superb tunes, because now the entire world can actually judge you — or at least your town — for it.
Youtube’s OneDudeWithACamera has toyed with time by mashing up the era of Mad Men (which, on a side note, both Variety and Indiewire predict is sure to get an Emmy nomination tomorrow for Best Drama for its final season) with that of today’s men in a comical seven-minute video montage aptly titled, “Modern Men.” The video opens with a time-warped clip of the 1960s ad-man Don Draper sitting back on his leather armchair, watching The Maury Show, which first aired in 1991. Other gems include Peggy answering what sounds like a vibrating cell-phone and assorted characters dancing the Charleston to the 1992 butt-zeitgeist-catalyzing hit, “Baby Got Back.” Nothing here is actually that over the top, which only furthers the disorientation you’ll feel.
If that isn’t impressive enough, then maybe a detailed look at our lovely dwarf planet, Pluto, will evoke some disbelief. The New York Times‘s interactive gallery of the Nasa’s newest flyby reveals crystal-clear photographs of ice mountains on Pluto.
Paper Mag reveals that the Wes Anderson-inspired exhibit, “Bad Dads” — which has been held in San Francisco for five years — is now coming New York City’s Joseph Gross Gallery from August 7-9. 43 thousand people claim to be going on Facebook — looks like a good (and hopefully not as terrifyingly hectic as the guest-list indicates) way to spend an afternoon nearing the end of summer.