“music is obviously a thing that keeps coming around in my world, and as an actor, you don’t always have control over the conversations you’re a part of, or the message, or the medium, or any of that stuff. you sort of go, “i hope i can be helpful here,” but it’s not often your creation. so i’m trying to write more music, and record more music, and put it out. just seeing what happens.”
A gay man who happens to look eerily similar to anti-LGBT extremist and Vice President-elect Mike Pence is putting his looks to good use ― by wandering the streets of NYC in short shorts and collecting money to benefit important organizations.
So according to computer scientists, the election results might have been hacked in 3 important swing states. xx
“The scientists, among them J. Alex Halderman, the director of the University of Michigan Center for Computer Security and Society, told the Clinton campaign they believe there is a questionable trend of Clinton performing worse in counties that relied on electronic voting machines compared to paper ballots and optical scanners”
Most of these men are well-known and have received plenty of media attention at this point, but it surprises me how few of the people I’ve talked to have heard of Frank Gaffney.
Having a nut like him anywhere near a president’s ear is terrifying.
He’s the conspiracy theory loving monster who spreads nonsense about Obama, Huma Abedin, Keith Ellison, and others secretly being moles for the Muslim Brotherhood, and writes books and articles that convince 70-year-old white grandmas that Sharia law being imposed upon Americans is only a matter of time.
Fuck all these guys.
(Also, if you’re not reading thenib.com, you’re missing some seriously important work by their cartoonists)
Illustrator Chelsea Beck worked with art director Ariel Zambelich, both on NPR’s visuals team, to conceptualize personal stories by their colleagues for Hispanic Heritage Month. The stories were compiled in this piece for Code Switch. We asked Chelsea how she and Ariel approached the look and tone of the illustrations.
How did you come up with the concept of these portraits?
My ideation process for stuff like this is a total mystery. I knew Ariel wanted the pieces to be stylistically similar to this illustration I did, but there weren’t many specifics beyond that. They didn’t even have to be portraits! Usually when I start any illustration, I do a read-through of the story and something will pop out. Luckily, each of these people had a super interesting story chock-full of visuals for me to draw from.
I’ve actually been playing a lot with using bodies/animals/shapes as frames for other illustrations. It’s not a new concept but it’s something I find really satisfying when done correctly. These stories laid the groundwork for who the authors are today- I thought it was fitting.
How much of a collaboration was there between you and the people in the portraits?
Surprisingly little! Their stories about family members or themselves were so powerful and well-done that I didn’t have many questions. Plus we’re in pre-election season so I didn’t want to go running around the office bugging everyone. All of the authors were nice enough to send me a few pictures of themselves that I could draw off of and I was good to go!
What was the biggest challenge?
The act of drawing the scenes in the portraits, and depicting such big events in these teeny tiny little icons. There was some back and forth with Ariel because maybe something would be totally illegible or a color wasn’t working or there was a perspective issue. She was super patient with me, though. From what I hear they were received well by my colleagues who shared the stories and their families which is what’s most important to me.
Since I don’t have a lot of time to actually listen over and over to the songs and come up with more original content that I’m certain I haven’t used before, how about an idea for an ask
We’ve been doing the my sexuality ones for a while but let’s change it up
The new ask topic is: Who would you date in Hamilton
