Monday Morning Smile: "1000 Cones"

I'm featuring this video this morning because the idea that a bunch of people on the internet would pool their money together just to buy a thousand strangers in Denver ice cream cones amused me.  (Amused me enough that I threw in a few ducats for the Kickstarter campaign for the project.) 

So, yeah, it's pretty much Jordan Morris and Jesse Thorn from the Jordan, Jesse, Go! show just being silly as they help distribute a thousand ice cream cones.  But it's still fun.

Plus: ice cream.  No feature about ice cream can ever be bad. 

Note: I'm not a comedy podcast person, so I can't say that I'm a Jordan, Jesse, Go! listener (yet), but I am a big fan of Thorn's Bullseye show, which I recommend tracking down via podcast if it's not on your local public radio station.

Monday Morning Smile: "Chairman Meow" - Sarah Lee and Johnny

I have a history with Sarah Lee Guthrie and Johnny Irion -- AKA Sarah Lee and Johnny --  I wrote some liner notes to Sarah Lee Guthrie & Family's Go Waggaloo  album for Smithsonian Folkways.  So: soft spot, heart.

In any case, they have a new album out, Wassaic Way , produced by Jeff Tweedy, and the video for the first single "Chairman Meow" is so goofy and all over the map (puppets! animation! garishly bright colors!) that your kids will probably dig it (and the groovy safe-for-kids melody).  Not quite a LOLcat, but some sort of funny feline.  (Via DidiPop.)

Sarah Lee and Johnny - "Chairman Meow" [YouTube] 

Monday Morning Smile: "Delaware" - Perry Como

It's not often that someone in my "day job" suggests something that makes it onto this site.  OK, I'm not sure it's ever happened, but there's always a first time.

I'm not sure that Perry Como is the first person to come to mind in terms of whose voice is best-suited for a novelty song -- it's Perry freakin' Como, after all,  But this song, introduced to me by a co-worker and more than a half-century old, made me smile, and it might make your local 9-year-old geography-obsessed kid smile, too.   (Why the changing languages and the martial step?  Who. Knows.)

Perry Como - "Delaware" [YouTube] 

Monday Morning Smile: Thoughts for Oddballs

Usually these Monday Morning Smiles involve some sort of visual or aural treat as an introduction to the week.  (I say that as if the MMS is a thing which, recently, it hasn't been.)  This week, I wanted to draw your attention to a piece written by Linda Holmes at NPR's Monkey See website.   I've always enjoyed Holmes' writing, which makes me smile, laugh, and (when it's called for) think.  And I don't say that just because she's a distant (very distant) NPR cousin of mine.

A few weeks back, Holmes wrote a piece titled "Hey, Kid: Thoughts For the Young Oddballs We Need So Badly," which was an open letter to "young creative weirdos" (her phrase, not mine, though I endorse the term) encouraging to take heart and providing some advice for navigating their tween and teen years in making art.

Unsurprisingly, a lot of commenters -- like me -- noticed the relevance of the advice to creative weirdos of any age (and Holmes herself in a subsequent comment admitted that it was the type of advice she thought of in her '30s).  Advice like learning to distinguish between feedback and criticism and finding your "pod" is relevant to any creative group (like, say, kindie musicians). 

So, go up to that link and read it to your kid and send it on to your favorite kindie musician. 

Monday Morning Smile: Oliver Jeffers Author Film

Oliver Jeffers' illustrations are both idiosyncratic and familiar, and his books are quirky but fun.  So is this brief promo piece for him, which I'm not sure intends to be inspirational about the creative process generally, but sorta is.   His new book, The Day the Crayons Quit, was just released.

Monday Morning Smile: Pig Box

Oh, here's a heart-warming tale of a friendship between a bird and a porcupine animated by David Chao.  Then why is it called "Pig Box"?  (I had to Google the answer to that one.)  I don't even know why the pig/porcupine didn't break into a rendition of "Hakuna Matata" like I kept expecting him to. -- that question I don't think can be answered properly.

But you should watch the video -- perhaps you will come up with a better answer than I've been able to provide.​

"Pig Box" [Vimeo]​