I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: LULLATONE-“The Best Paper Airplane Ever” (2011).

Lullatone is a duo from Kentucky and Japan (!). Their personal story may be more interesting than the music.  Shawn James Seymour met Yoshimi Tomida when she was an exchange student.  They became romantically involved and he moved back to Japan with her.  They started making music in their shared apartment.  They make music for both kids and adults.

And most of their songs have lyrics, although this one with such a wonderful title, does not.  It has a simple orchestration (which is more Casio than orchestra) and a melody that would not be out of place in a Wes Anderson film.  It’s kind of a slight piece–pretty but not overwhelming.   But it’s very nice nonetheless.  It gives me very little indication of what the rest of their music might sound like.  You can hear this in the OWTK March podcast.

[READ: Summer 2012] The Night Riders

This McSweeney’s McMullens book is actually wordless.  Matt Furie designed and painted this rather bizarre story of bizarre and somewhat frightening characters. There is something unearthly and strange about everything in this book–and that’s entirely intentional.

As the book opens, a frog grabs his bicycle out of the garage and goes for a  midnight bike ride–with a mouse in his basket.  They meet some scary creatures, like a bright red dragon-like creature who is scary but sweet.  Indeed, most of the creatures turn out to be very nice.  And together, they all go on some underworld adventures.  They go underground  and they go underwater  where they met otherworldly animals who take them on further adventures until the sun comes up.

This is a strange book, certainly not for bedtime.  But the pictures are fascinating and fun to look at especially the poster which is a nice closeup of the creatures.  Indeed, this book is nice for poring over to see all of the interesting details within.  And the pencil drawings are really cool.

Find out more about it here.