Posts Tagged: Chris Chafin
5

Inside Maximum Fun's Podcasting Shindig In The Poconos

| November 6th, 2012

At around midnight on a recent Friday night in the Poconos, television personality and geek humorist John Hodgman was shouting trivia questions about the character actor Vincent Schiavelli (you know him). "What actress, married to Vincent Schiavelli for many years, played Agnes DiPesto on 'Moonlighting'?" he asked. The question was met with groans of confusion (the answer, which I only learned just now by Googling it, is Allyce Beasley).

There were 200 or so of us in the audience, seated around the giant, slightly antiseptic ballroom of the Inn at Pocono Manor. It was the first night of complicated cultural happening MaxFun Con East, a weekend convention celebrating the [...]

Q&As
4

A Conversation With John Flansburgh And Jonathan Coulton

| August 1st, 2011

John Flansburgh is never at a loss for words. Well informed and quick with a funny line, he's able to talk intelligently about pretty much any subject under the sun. He’s also, of course, spent more than 25 years writing witty and esoteric songs as one half of the band They Might Be Giants, along with John Linnell. This wry sensibility also made him a good fit to produce Artificial Heart, the new record from Internet favorite Jonathan Coulton. During his Thing A Week project a few years ago, Coulton wrote a song every week, covering everything from life in the suburbs to memos from zombies. He’s also [...]

Hot Beverages
97

The Scourge Of Pour-Over Coffee

| January 26th, 2012

On a recent Sunday, the crowd at the Brooklyn Flea was dangerously under-caffeinated. Blue Bottle Coffee, the only coffee vendor at the popular flea market, had just that weekend decamped, with little fanfare, until spring. The marble counter where their coffee wares were usually arrayed sat empty. The crowd—the weekend shoppers for costume jewelry and vintage iron-on decals—became indignant when told that they would have to go across the street—to a Starbucks—to get their caffeine fix. “Are you serious?!” a woman demanded of the hapless cupcake vendor who had the misfortune to have a spot next door. “Yes, I’m serious,” he replied, affecting the blankness of an airline representative [...]

The Problem Is People
11

Which Failed Utopia Was Best?

| July 5th, 2011

Based more or less out of Portland, YACHT is an esoteric dance rock band whose new album, Shangri-La, is concerned with ideas of utopia and human consciousness, as well as dance beats. Here the band's two members, Claire L. Evans and Jona Bechtolt, rank some of the great utopian experiments of the past. While all of the below are essentially failures of utopia, the band has ranked them in order of desirability.

7. The Garden of Eden The Biblical home of the first man and woman, all of their needs were met, and there was nothing but happiness. Eventually man is cast out for attempting to gain knowledge. [...]

Q&As
8

A Conversation With Musician Ben Lear

| October 26th, 2011

Last night at Le Poisson Rouge, Ben Lear was wearing a wetsuit that made him look like a Starfleet Medical Officer and shaking hands. The 23-year-old son of 89-year-old television mogul and activist Norman Lear (you might know him for producing "All in the Family" or founding progressive advocacy group People For The American Way) had just finished performing Lillian, a show that's like an epic blend of Arcade Fire, Feist, a Muppet adventure and rock opera (although Lear prefers the term "folk opera," for its lower pretentiousness quotient). The story, which is by turns touching and bizarre, follows a young man’s search for his lost love, [...]