We Recommend: Your Friday Freebies

Each Friday, our contributors send in a bunch of (legally) free stuff they’ve come across this week to help you waste your weekend. You’re welcome.

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New York’s DJ/rupture had a brief stint in the Pitchfork spotlight in 2008 with his album Uproot — one of his few mixes to be fully licensed and commercially released — but that’s just a small taste of his whole output. His samples run the gamut from Joanna Newsom to Kelis to Caribbean cumbia to grime and dancehall and African chants. These 12 mixes, ranging from 2001 to today, are all great, from his early breakthrough Gold Teeth Thief to his latter, social justice-promoting Sunset Park Rent Strike Mix. Uproot is there too, now for freesies.

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YouTube: Wuthering Heights, by Toehider

Recommended by: Alexander Tulett

Mike Mills is a Melbourne musician who has worked under the name Toehider for a few years now. He’s juggled dozens of different genres with wit and deft hands, but the most consistently amazing thing about all the music he makes is that voice. The range and power this man has is, at least in this country, unmatched. And we finally have the video to prove it.

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Literary magazine: Five Dials

Recommended by: Nathan Wood

Five Dials is an online magazine published by Hamish Hamilton out of the UK that pulls together fabulous essays, short stories and features and distributes them via a PDF that you can download and print off at home (or more likely work). Usually revolving around a central theme for each issue, it features work from some of the best up-and-coming masters of letters across the globe, pairs them with beautiful illustrations, and then presents them in such an elegant way that you honestly feel guilty you’re receiving it for free.

I highly recommend Issue 21 and its three short stories by Jonas Hassen Khemiri — they fucking kill me. You can sign up for new issues and also download previous issues from their website here.

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Short film: I’m Here, by Spike Jonze

Recommended by: Andy Huang (‘Markus Zusak On The Book Thief, The Necessity Of Storytelling, And Some Hopefully Helpful Advice For Aspiring Writers‘)

Until the release of Spike Jonze’s glorious woollen pants-inspiring Her next Thursday, you’ll no doubt have to endure the endless gushing reviews of glamorous friends with special advance screening privileges. To tide you over, here’s a cute short film that the director made a few years ago. It’s beautiful, perfectly melancholic, and somewhat of a precursor to Her‘s tech-y preoccupations.

Sheldon (Andrew Garfield) is a sad robot who falls in love with cool girl-bot Francesca (Sienna Guillory), who teaches him to enjoy life (by hanging out in a forest, going to indie concerts, etc). Only hitch is, Francesca is very clumsy and keeps losing body parts… 

Watch the 30-minute short here.

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Basketball: That time last night when Blake Griffin nearly killed an ex-Kardashian

Recommended by: Jaymz Clements (‘11 Movies That Prove Blockbuster Sequels Aren’t Always Bad‘)

LA Clippers forward Blake Griffin is good at basketball. Just how good is one of the better debates circulating the NBA: is he a one-trick dunking-and-pouting show pony who’s in way too many commercials? A mindless 20 points/10 rebounds stat-machine who doesn’t make his team that much better? Or a legit heir to Utah Jazz legend Karl ‘The Mailman’ Malone? Well… He’s kinda all of them. What’s never been debated, though, is his athleticism; everyone can see it. And last night, while playing against the Boston Celtics, he tried to kill Kris ‘I Was Married To Kim Kardashian Once, Too’ Humphries.

Well, maybe not “kill”. But with his quasi-dunk throwdown, he did utterly devastate his self-esteem (or what was left of it after being married to Kim Kardashian). The second best part in that clip is Clippers centre DeAndre Jordan putting his hands on his head and running away like he just saw a magician do a trick (thanks, Aziz Ansari).

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Web series: Season Three of ‘Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee’

Recommended by: Rob Moran

The third season of Jerry Seinfeld’s fairly odd auto show debuted last week, and while he still hasn’t figured out the virtues of making your shit embeddable (boo, clicking!), he has already brought on a couple of interesting guests (not those rich, no-name producer-types that were a feature early on).

In last week’s premiere, JERRY! (I always shout it in an Angry Costanza voice) was joined by Louis CK for a Manhattan boat ride where they mocked cyclists, discussed Larry David’s weird friendship with Obama, and made plans to get stoned and watch an IMAX movie together. This week, his guest was Patton Oswalt, and true to form, the topics got way nerdy: they rode in a DeLorean, talked about Superman comics, and paused endlessly to consider their favourite superheroes. For a weird series that’s basically a long car ad, it’s pretty enjoyable.

Watch both episodes here.

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Tumblr: Buzzfeed Articles Without The GIFs

Recommended by: Steph Harmon (‘The Five Best Amazon Reviews Of Cory Bernardi’s ‘The Conservative Revolution‘)

As is the general rule with Tumblr, this does exactly what it says on the tin: it removes the media from Buzzfeed articles to remind us of their inanity.

Here’s one of my favourites. The article itself was viewed 133,000 times:

Why Candy Corn Is Actually Awesome

Some people would have you believe that candy corn is disgusting. But they are so, SO wrong. Candy corn has always been there for you. Its flavor is unmatched. It’s ombré candy. OMBRÉ. <3 U, CANDY CORN.

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Here’s another, with 540k views:

The 19 Worst Things Ever

This. This. This. This. This. This. This. This. This. This. This. This. This. This. This. This. This. This. This.

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And here’s Buzzfeed’s perfect review of Gravity.

George Clooney Is The Best Part Of ‘Gravity’ Because He Is Literally Real-Life Buzz Lightyear

Fact: Buzz Lightyear is kind of actually really sexy. The problem is, he’s a cartoon and has purple hair and a swirl goatee. But OMG. You may have no realized it until now, but George Clooney is basically Buzz Lightyear. ANNND, in the movieGravity, he plays a really hot astronaut. Hot. But hotter. What makes George Clooney in Gravity hotter is: A. He’s real. B. He’s a legit astronaut with an actual brain. C. He doesn’t have a swirl for a goatee. He also has a jetpack which is cool. And brown eyes. Big, beautiful brown eyes. Now here are some random pictures from Gravity because it’s hot. Right here, we have astro George making close contact with Sandy. Also astro George’s name in the movie is Matt Kowalsky. That is a hot name. Space sucks… except it wouldn’t if you were with George Clooney who was an astronaut. Floating in space, on the verge of instant death, tethered to Sandra Bullock never looked so good. And in all honesty, the best part of Gravity was when George takes his helmet off. Jesus Christ. Save me. Now a word from Tina and Amy because they’re always right. Thank you for your time.