Kids, I would advise you that if you are an orthodox re-REC-er like myself, try to avoid taking Saturday-Saturday vacations, like I did, because then you miss three weeks of re-RECs. And catching up is a real bitch.

So since I have so many stored up, no video this week. It might be a while to my next re-REC video in general, though, since my computer bit it while I was on vacation, and my dad's (which I am borrowing) does not have video editing software. Please, try to contain your sadness.

Audio

Love's Elusive Flame (Remix) by stonefolks - Hey, who wants to take advantage of the fact that I'm currently without video editing software? Because this is a fantastic bit of audio begging for some video to go along with and could easily be made into something really super fantastic, and alas, I cannot do it myself right now. So please, do it for me. I don't need anything else on my to-do list.

Quirky by Krrr - I am about 99% sure that Krrr didn't actually write this himself, but lifted it directly from Jon Brion's brain. Which is not a criticism! Jon Brion and Yann Tiersen are two of my favorite contemporary film score-ers (and also my ringtones). This is a really fabulous piece of instrumental background and could (and should) go behind anything - animations, talking head videos, remixed with spoken word pieces (a Metaphorest poem might be really good with this - maybe her new Most Eyes Open poem? the tone is a little lighthearted, but I think it fits).

Images

Silver Coloured Roadmap by Unusual Suspect - This is a fascinating image detailing the stories behind Unusual's (that feels weird to say, but I don't know her real name) scars. I could really see this turning into a great collab, because scars are usually inherently interesting things that people have great stories behind, and I'd love to hear all of them. I say "usually" though, because all my scars can either be explained as "chicken pox" or "picked at a once-insignificant injury for way too long". The most interesting mark on my body is a birthmark on my stomach, which I almost told the kids I was babysitting for happened because my mom spilled coffee on me when I was a baby, before I decided that fucking with four and a half year olds was probably a terrible idea, no matter how adorable and hilarious their reaction would have been.

The point is, if I had more interesting stories or scars, I would totally participate in making this into something. So this is me, guilting you, a more interesting person. Do it. 

Coloured Tiny Stories Volume 1(& a half) by Eskapurla - Of all the colored versions I've seen of this image, this is by far my favorite. It's extremely soft and subtly done and gorgeous - the kind of thing I'd hang up in my kid's bedroom, if I had a kid.

Also, if we got them on stamps as suggested, I would mail people totally frivolous things just to use those stamps.

the truth about kissing by cacheth - hitRECord artists, you know I love you guys, but I do have one complaint about the art on our site: it is disproportionately full of pretty, white, heterosexual people. Which I should make clear, there is nothing wrong with that being your chosen subject matter, but diversity's a good thing, don't you think? I mean, it's a diverse world we live in, and while we're not all the most diverse bunch of people, we've still got some of that going on here. I just think it'd be nice to see a greater variety in subject matter, you know? It's something I know I think about a lot when I do art, and I try very consciously to take what I like from different cultures and aesthetics, but I mostly tend to draw single subjects (who are women, or attempts at men who end up looking like women), which means that I can tackle the whole racial/body type diversity thing, but the heterosexual couple thing I tend to be of no use with. Which is why I was really, really, really super-glad to see this illustration by cacheth.

I mean, I don't need to go into the fact that cacheth is a totally amazing artist with a great style, blah blah blah et cetera, because we all know that. But I'm so grateful that finally on the site we're seeing, out of our thousands upon thousands of RECords about love and romance, some non-heterosexual romance going on, and I really hope this is a precursor to more people being willing to break that barrier or maybe go out of their comfort zone to add to that number. It's totally scary to do, I won't lie to you, but it's also really rewarding. I'd always shied away from drawing African-American women just because I couldn't get them right, until I did my Rare Flower piece. I had such a strong image of that woman when I drew her, and it's turned out to be one of my favorite pieces of art I've done in a very, very long time.

So that is my uber-PC rant, this is still a really good picture regardless of it, and yeah. That's all I've got to say.

Snail Parade by letsclimbtrees - There is a constant law of the universe that states that if letsclimbtrees posts doodles, Julia will fall in love and then re-rec it. In fact, I feel kind of redundant re-recing this, but I don't care. I am utterly in love with everything Lindsey does. I want her to do more. All the time. I will chain her to her computer if I have to.

Like us... by chopsticksroad - I can't even deal with how stupidly adorable this picture is. I love it. I love it so much. I want to write a poem about this monster, or a children's book, or a whole series of children's books, or see an animation of him, or hang him on my wall and just coo at him forever. I love him, and this picture, and everything about it.

Bad Dreams by LAckas - This is terrifying, but also really, really great concept art I'd love to see more of, or even turned into a full-on animation. Well, I think I'd like to see more of it. But I'm also kind of scared to.

Resource

Cosmic Rainbow Heaven by fractaldust - Aside from this being a totally amazing resource and complete gold for image remixers (which it is), it is utterly mindboggling. I have tried to figure out how Dusty created this by herself in photoshop, and I give up. I have no idea. Consider my mind blown. 

Text

Planetarium - a poem by blbest - blbest is a phenomenal poet who I'm consistently impressed by, which is impressive. It's hard enough for someone to impress me with poetry once, let alone poetry that makes me go "aw, crap, I wish I'd written that!", but blbest does it almost every single time he puts something up. And this poem is no exception. Anyone with a great voice/audio remixing skills want to create a kickass audio track of this? Because it would make a really fantastic video. 

Schizophrenia and Mr. Potato Head by may mcdonough - This is, without any doubt or even remote competition, my favorite tragicomedy contribution so far. It's not funny - actually, I don't think most of the contributions are particularly funny, though many of them are great stories - but it's just so damn good. It's heartbreaking and sweet and awful and makes me want to cry. I almost don't want to see anything done with it because I love the way it's written so, so much. Also, I am unsure how we'd get around the whole licensing and Mr. Potato Head issue. But even on its own, it's just a phenomenal piece.

User: ceelum

If you haven't listened to ceelum's music yet, I very very very very strongly suggest you go do it now. It's very lovely, acoustic, sweet  girl-on-guitar/piano stuff, along the lines of Maria Taylor or Ingrid Michaelson or Laura Marling or whoever your favorite of that particular genre happens to be. It's all bare and simple, and I'm inclined to suggest keeping it that way instead of remixing it, because ceelum's voice is so pure and gorgeous and the current remixing really showcases that and lets the voice be the star, and adding instruments might muddy that up. My three favorites of hers that I suggest everyone listen to are:

Time & Space
Last Night
The Reason & The War

...phew. I'm not doing that ever again. And by "ever again" I mean "until next year".