Our weekly roundup of what the internet has to offer, The Weekender

Date
8 August 2014

As well as rounding up some of the best creative content on the site for you all week, we also like to send emails to each other with cool stuff we’ve found on ye olde internet. The Weekender is our hamper for you, a hamper of weird videos, funny pictures and cool articles. Basically anything that doesn’t quite fit under the umbrella of art and design. Enjoy.

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Lucy Hilmer: Birthday Suit

– Photographer Lucy Hilmer took self portraits in the same pair of pants over the course of 40 years, to beautiful and sweet results.

– Music journalist, DJ and editor of BEAT magazine Hanna Hanra told us why Siouxsie and the Banshees’ Swimming Horses is her favourite music video ever.

– We were tricked! By an artist with a fake project! Rob and James debated the morals of Fabrice Le Nezet’s fake art installation in this week’s Opinion piece.

– We covered First World War-based artwork and Damien Hirst’s plans to develop a town in this week’s Studio Audience podcast.

– Soul queen Lianne La Havas made us a Friday mixtape to soothe our Friday woes.

– Check out this week’s Things feature to admire some snazzy boxers and a publication made from gold toilet roll.

– We made a list of our favourite art and design-based Desert Island Discs (and we want to hear your suggestions in the comments section too!)

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BuzzFeed

Rob Alderson

The Buzzfeed long-form email is one of the highlights of my week (don’t judge me) and the most recent missive had a humdinger of a story about the National Clown Convention. It’s a brilliant piece giving an unparalleled insight into an outwardly silly world that many take very seriously.

Liv Siddall

As much as I love stupid, silly stuff, I’m also a big fan of clawing at my skin and crying my eyes out to super depressing shit. When depressing meets creative, stuff really starts to get interesting, like this piece of genius by a certain “Karl. G” who likes to write review on Yelp. Amateur cafe reviews these certainly are not – in this stream of letter-like reviews to companies and restaurants he narrates a lonely story of lost love, tracing the places he and his wife Cynthia would frequent when they were together. If this is real, it’s horrible, and if it’s fiction it’s perfect. Whatever this is, and wherever it came from, I think it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve read in ages and it 100% deserves 15 minutes of your time.

Maisie Skidmore

Kevin J. McGroarty died last week at the age of 53, and while he might not be a name you’re familiar with just yet, he leaves behind him a brilliantly articulate legacy. How so? Kevin wrote his own obituary before he died. We’re not talking two lines of disinterested praise of a life well-lived either, no sir. This is a hilarious 500 word dedication to mediocracy, beginning with the line “McGroarty Achieves Room Temperature!” His final words? "McGroarty leaves behind a thought for all to ponder, given years of gathering wisdom from different religions and deep study of the Greek philosophers: ‘It costs nothing to be nice’ and ‘Never stick a steak knife in an electrical outlet.’”

On the one hand writing your own obituary is an excellent way for my fellow control freaks to ensure no typos sneak into their obituaries at the careless hand of a newspaper intern, but on the other, why not make a mark with the last thing you ever write? Kevin, we salute you. Rest peacefully.

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Thotfinder

Amy Lewin

Rappers like to talk about themselves, drugs and women. They also swear a lot. Surprised? Pop your favourite rapper’s name into this search engine to see which are their most-used words. Snoop Dogg’s is “dogg”, followed by – you guessed it – “snoop.” Eminem’s is “feel.” Deep.

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