If you can spare 5 minutes and 21 seconds of your life, go watch this quick film profile on Ken Burns.
The whole piece is quotable, but this is the key (my emphasis):

Jean-Luc Godard said, “The truth is cinema, 24 times a second.” Maybe. It’s lying 24 times a second too. All the time. All story is manipulation.

Is there acceptable manipulation? You bet.

People say, “Oh boy, I was so moved to tears in your film.” That’s a good thing? I manipulated that. That’s part of storytelling. I didn’t do disingeniunely [sic]. I did it sincerely. I am moved by that too.

That’s manipulation.

If you don’t know who Ken Burns is, first off shame on you. Second, you know already know him if you’ve ever seen the Ken Burns Effect in a movie or documentary.
I also think it could be where Seth Godin was inspired for his latest post on story.

Based on my site stats, there looks to be a good chunk of people who read Daily Exhaust via RSS.
While I am also an avid RSS Reader reader (huh?) and have no intention of changing your reading habits, I encourage you to take a peek at the design changes I’ve made to the site.
In short? Cleaner layout. Less clutter. Bigger type for easier reading – particularly on tablets and phones.
My sketches for this redesign have been in the works for a while, and coincide with Jeffrey Zeldman’s great Web Design Manifesto 2012 he posted the other day.

This is what Bryan told me when I called him today to bitch about the discovery (that he revealed over an IM on Words With Friends) that one of my favorite bars in Manhattan, The Lakeside Lounge, has closed.
I lived in Manhattan for 12 years, so I understand the turnaround a city undergoes day-to-day, month-to-month, year-to-year, but some places you expect to always survive. Like cockroaches. Lakeside was one of them. I started going there back in college, around 1998, underage.
If you never went to Lakeside, all you need to know is it had gritty, concrete floors, a photo booth (the real kind that uses emulsion and film) and one of the last (CD) jukeboxes in the city with an amazing inventory of rock ‘n roll and blues. It was raw and real, never trying to prove how cool it was, it was just cool.
We’ve had some great times over the years and I’m going to miss her.

The CP Lounge Chair by Bernhart Design, designed by Charles Pollock
via Co.Design

My wife and I (and our Chihuahua and my turtle) moved to Los Angeles on 1 April and I’ve been time-shifting to accommodate east coast-based projects I’ve been working on for my company.
Working from home has many benefits but getting up between 5 AM and 6 AM can still be painful, even if all I have to do is throw on jeans and walk downstairs to my office. But I’ve noticed the more I condition myself for this new schedule, the more I like it.
How much I like my time-shifted schedule came into sharp focus yesterday when I flew out to Boston to be with my project team to prepare new designs for our client presentation today. When I’m in Los Angeles, I’m used to having my work done by around 3 PM. It’s obvious too – my email and instant message programs go silent. It’s a great feeling.
Under these ‘normal’ hours today in Boston, I still had work to finish at 6 PM last night.
I’m looking forward to going back to my ‘normal’ schedule.

via sippey

My Aunt Judy is whipping my ass at Words With Friends time after time and it’s fucking pissing me off.

The problem is, I’m not playing her on the inside as much as I should. When I say ‘inside’ I mean playing tight combos in between existing words, not extending new words out vertically or horizontally into the void. Every time I even come one block short of a double or triple word block, she takes it.

I’m an educated man. College degree. I’ve read John Updike. I can parse XML.

My lexicon can’t be that much smaller than hers, can it? “It’s not the words, Mike, it’s how you use them. I mean, look at Hemingway.” Yeah, yeah. Spare me.

I feel like Fredo in The Godfather II, ‚ÄúIt ain’t the way I wanted it! I can handle things! I’m smart! Not like everybody says… like dumb… I’m smart and I want respect!‚Äù

A few years ago I watched a 60 Minutes episode where they interviewed Tiger Woods. He said no matter the activity, he hates losing.

I know how he feels.

Let’s do this. Enough already.

Last year Andreas Markdalen wrote a post on frog design’s blog on what visual designers can learn from Biggie Smalls. It’s well worth a real.
Andreas breaks down the key take-aways from Biggie:

• A Central Theme
• A World of Context
• Rehearsal and Repetition
• The Non-linear and Organic Process
• The House of Cards

Process is one of the most important things you can learn from any artist, although my favorite bit of advice from Biggie is in the opening of Jay-Z’s track, My First Song (I wrote about this back in 2009):

Well, I’m just trying to stay above water, you know? Stay busy, stay working. I was telling you like, the key to this joint, the key to staying on top of things is to treat everything like it’s your first project. Know what I’m saying? Like it’s your first day, like I wasn’t even an intern or nothing. That’s how you try to treat things, like just stay humble.

Treat everything like it’s your first project.
Have you been staffed on a little dinky internal project? Or maybe a one for a really boring, life-sucking corporate client. It might be hard, but rock the shit out of it. Find something about the project you can latch onto to keep your motivation up.
I can’t say I’m always successful at treating every project like my first, but I try to.
When I fail, I at least make sure I have a side project to keep me energized (What do you think this site is?).

via The Universal Traveler

via Seth Godin

For the 60th Anniversary of the SL, Mercedes Benz restored the oldest SL:



via Colt + Rane and GizMag

Influencer: Apple.com, site design since before 2008

Influenced: Nokia.com, site design since 2012