April E. Allford

I was an extra in Hoosiers.

[April E. Allford @NerdlePopApril]

I love this! 💦

[James Lucas @JamesLucasIT]

We grew up watching hand drawn Disney and now it's gone. We don't talk about this enough.

Every frame of this video was painted by hand, by a human being. Every single one...

To put that into perspective: to make Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Disney employed around 750 artists for three years, and they produced nearly two million individual paintings. More than 700 of the backgrounds were painted in watercolour. Over 150 people worked in a single department whose only job was to ink and paint the transparent sheets, called cels, that the characters were drawn on.

It all ended within our lifetime.

According to the Smithsonian, The Little Mermaid, released in 1989, was the last Disney feature made with the hand-painted cel method. The very next film, one year later, went digital.

And something was lost in that transition. In every frame of the old films, a human hand physically touched the surface. A person sat at a desk, held a brush, and made a decision. Two million small decisions, made by hundreds of people, most of whose names we will never know.

But the deepest difference is that the old animators knew they were making a cartoon. They did not try to copy the world. They stretched it, exaggerated it, bent it out of shape, because they understood something we seem to have forgotten: a drawing that imitates life exactly feels dead.

Walt Disney even had a name for this: he called it the plausible impossible.

Today, everything chases realism. And somehow, the more real it looks, the less alive it feels...

I started my newsletter because the past is full of beauty, and fewer and fewer people take the time to show it to us anymore. Every week I try to. If that is something you'd like to be part of, you can join through the link in my bio, and if you'd like to support my work, a paid subscription is what makes it possible.

Thanks for reading.

[art tavana @arttavana]

The museum montage from Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) turned an unserious "teen comedy" into a meditation on stillness, where the mood shifted from zipping MTV chaos to a slow dance between teen angst and modern art.

RIP, John Hughes, the sweet bard of youth 💔

[April E. Allford @NerdlePopApril]

🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

[The Associated Press @AP]

When something breaks, most of us replace it. At this Brooklyn repair cafe, volunteers are helping neighbors fix everything from lamps and jeans to vintage fans and old smartwatches for free. The events are part of a growing global movement to reduce waste, save money and bring back repair skills that many people say have been lost.

[National Park Service @NatlParkService]

You know it’s hot when you go outside and it’s hot.

[Albert Brooks @AlbertBrooks]

Mel Brooks is 100 years old today! Many people think that Mel is my father.  He isn’t.  But what he is is one of the great comic minds of the last 100 years.  Happy birthday Mel, from your fake son.

[Mike Young @micyoung75]

Eddie Vedder could have walked onto that stage tonight, played the catalog, taken his bow, and gotten on a plane. Nobody would have complained. The crowd would have gone home happy. That would have been enough.

Instead he spent real time with teenage kids from Chicago's South Side, helping them write something that didn't exist before they walked into a room together, rehearsing it until it was ready, and then stepping back while they sang it in front of three former presidents of the United States.

That's not a cameo. That's not a tax-deductible appearance. That's somebody deciding that the most important thing he could do with his access was hand it to someone who didn't already have any. The kids on that stage tonight will carry what happened there for the rest of their lives. That's the part that doesn't show up in the lineup announcement.

[The Tonight Show @FallonTonight]

.@WuTangClan performs a medley of “Bring Da Ruckus” and “C.R.E.A.M.”!

Watch the full performance ⬇️
https://t.co/RgBG2o2Ohs

Wu-Tang Forever: The Final Chamber tour resumes in August! For tickets go to https://t.co/O1apQM8lbm.

#FallonTonight

[The Tonight Show @FallonTonight]

The Danger Zone anniversary turns into a Footloose reunion in Classroom Instruments w/ @kennyloggins ft. @kevinbacon & @JohnLithgow 🥁 #FallonTonight

[Indianapolis Motor Speedway @IMS]

What does @jdouglas4 do the night before the #Indy500?

He takes @TonyKanaan to the Coke Lot to sing Back Home Again in Indiana at midnight! 😅

#INDYCAR | #IsItMayYet?

[Dr Karen Mitchell PhD @karenmitchell__]

In the case of a narcissist/psychopath:
1. Sharing with them something you are vulnerable about is like handing them a weapon.
2. Discussing something you are passionate about is a source for them of potential sadistic pleasure in terms of sabotaging your happiness around this passion.
3. Telling them about something you’ve done wrong is a source of leverage.
4. Discussing something in them that concerns you is a greenlight for them to start undermining you to others without your knowledge.

[Purdue University @LifeAtPurdue]

As we celebrate 250 years of American innovation, we are proud of the many heroes who began as #Boilermakers — including Neil Armstrong, honored in an @APLU_News timeline commemorating small steps that have turned into #GiantLeaps for the nation.
https://t.co/MogcMAyXfm

[Wu Tang is for the Children @WUTangKids]

Last night was Night 1 of the "Music America: The Songs that Shaped Us" two day concert

Here is Springsteen with @kennychesney doing a great rendition of Woody Guthrie’s "This Land Is Your Land"

This is how you celebrate 250 years of American music!

[Indianapolis Motor Speedway @IMS]

You've never experienced Back Home Again in Indiana like this. 🥹🎶✈️

#Indy500 | #IsItMayYet?

[Marco Foster @MarcoFoster_]

Jennifer Welch: “Boycott every fucking thing on CBS News. From the morning all the way through to the evening. These are the same people that fired Stephen Colbert because Trump got his feelings hurt by a comedian. These people are the biggest bunch of pussies that masquerade with these grandstanding letters like they’re such badasses. These people don’t care about the truth, they don’t care about journalism, they don’t care about the Constitution, they don’t care about a free press. It’s just absolutely devastating what these oligarchs have done to our country”

[Wu Tang is for the Children @WUTangKids]

Only thing left to say to CBS after reading that powerful Scott Pelley statement is…..with a little help from David Letterman:

"In the words of the great Edward Murrow, 'Good night and good luck, motherf*ckers!'"

[FactPost @factpostnews]

Dolly Parton on her Imagination Library program that Republicans defunded:

"[My daddy] was the smartest man I have ever known, but I knew [...] his inability to read probably kept him from seeing all of his dreams come true. Inspiring kids to love to read became my mission."

[Kate from Kharkiv @BohuslavskaKate]

Kimmel: I like your football jersey. Supporting Ukrainian team?

Chef José Andrés: My beloved Spanish team, of course. But Ukraine is my team today. They didn’t make it to World Cup, but today they're fighting the biggest match — for freedom and democracy.

Kimmel: Yes, they are.

Chef José Andrés: And can I tell you one more thing?

Kimmel: Yes, please.

Chef José Andrés: No civilian should ever be bombed. Not in Ukraine, not in Gaza, not in Lebanon, not in Israel. No war! That’s why they are my team today.