Every year, DJ Riko drops a longform "mixmas" of Christmas mashups; this year's mix is out (MP3 link), featuring everyone from Run DMC to Harry Belafonte to Eels (here's how to get all 16 installments in the series!). Read the rest

Seth Kaufman sends his video for "Godot the Musical," saying: "It is, I venture, the funkiest promotional book video ever made. The script appears in my new book Metaphysical Graffiti: Rock 'n' Roll & the Meaning of Life. So I decided to shoot it as a video. It recasts Vladimir and Estragon as hype-men waiting for 'The Master G' to come and rap." Read the rest

Oh boy, I think I have a new hobby. I've just learned that you can combine puzzles, that have the same die cut, to make really awesome pieces of art. It had never occurred to me that manufacturers of mass-produced puzzles cut different puzzles of theirs in the same way, making the pieces interchangeable. It makes complete sense, of course, but my mind is still blown!

I learned about the art of "puzzle montage" from one of the readers of my inbox zine, Marcia Wiley (she's the gal in Seattle who's fixing up that cool old Checker Cab). She was visiting the Bay Area and we met up for the first time this past Friday. That's when she told me about her friend Tim Klein, who makes incredible puzzle montages. I'm excited to share his work with you.

In an email exchange, Tim told me that he learned about puzzle montages from the man who first made them, art professor Mel Andringa of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, "As far as I know, he and I are the only artists ever to pursue it seriously. And I think he's moved on to other things nowadays, so I may be the sole surviving practitioner."

And this is what Tim shared with me about his process:

...By selecting pieces from two or more compatible puzzles, I assemble a single "puzzle mashup" with surreal imagery that the publisher never imagined.

Sometimes the results are merely chuckle-making, such as my combination of King Tut's burial mask with the front of a truck, which I call "King of the Road".

Felipe is a Portuguese game-developer who makes fun, crowdfunded minigames; he tweeted a tantalyzing video clip showing an idea for a Snake/Tetris mashup called "Snetris," and the response was so warm and excited that he's promised to develop a playable version! Read the rest

“Are you sure it’s not a witch hunt?” This is the best GIF adaptation of all time, as one commenter already said. Read the rest

Forget Little Green Army Men in Yoga Poses; they're totally 2016; the contemporary Little Green Army Man is a mashup with the terracotta warriors: they're $41 from Hobbylink Japan. (via Super Punch) Read the rest

This is very satisfying. Read the rest

Feed Rave.dj songs (i.e. YouTube videos or Spotify links) and it will mash them right up. It takes a while to generate the resulting remix, but the results are fascinating and often outrageously fun.

My first failed effort: here's my mix of New Order's Blue Monday and Depeche Mode's Everything Counts in Large Amounts. I get the feeling it understands the structure of the tracks perfectly, but this particular pairing doesn't work because the superficial elements just don't mix. Most songs, even similar ones, just become a cacophany.

This one that's going around [via Hacker News] is pretty amazing, though. Video is NSFW!

And then there's Rammstein vs Crazytown, embedded at the top of this post.

Then jump thirty seconds into this Biggie Smalls vs Thomas the Tank Engine pairing to get what you came for.

(The site's background video's CSS blur effect brought my late-model iMac to its knees; you can get rid of it by killing the classes added to the div id "backgroundPlayer" in the web inspector, or by not using Firefox.) Read the rest

Aaron Oppenheim writes, "I made a lil lazy mashup of Legs and Where The Streets Have No Name (just tempo and key matching) because someone on twitter pointed out that they are basically the same song. It works incredibly well." Read the rest

There are a so many points of apparent correspondence here I can't believe it's not edited! [By HappyOrange, via via]

P.S. You can buy the Doom soundtrack (by Mick Gordon) on vinyl at Amazon. Read the rest

Mexican artist Monica Robles Corzo created a cool mashup of modern monsters and Mayan iconography for her Mayanizations series, like this reimagining of the Alien Xenomorph. Read the rest

Wonderful EFF supporters keep on coming up with great new entries for EFF's Catalog of Missing Devices, which lists fictional devices that should exist, but don't, because to achieve their legal, legitimate goals, the manufacturer would have to break some Digital Rights Management and risk retaliation under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Now, EFF supporter Rico Robbins has sent us the "FanFlick Editor," a welcome addition to the Catalog, alongside of Dustin Rodriguez's excellent list of missing devices like the Software Scalpel and MovieMoxie; and Benjamin MacLean's Mashup Maker.

If you have your own great ideas for additions, send them to me and maybe you'll see them on EFF's Deeplinks!

Meet the FanFlick Editor. With this revolutionary video editor, you can directly rip your favorite movies from DVDs or Blu-rays or even digital copies from iTunes, Google Play, and any other service. Edit the film to your heart's content and then distribute the edit decision list (EDL) -- a file that contains instructions that other people can use to edit their own copies during playback while they watch, so they can experience your vision for the movies you both love (or even the ones you hate!).

Used your own footage, graphics, or audio? No problem! FanFlick Editor keeps track of what you made and what you ripped, and packages up your other content with your FanFlick EDL. That way, you only distribute material whose copyright you control, or that is in the public domain, or that fair use permits.

"My 14-year-old just made a MIDI mashup of the Gravity Falls theme song and Gangnam Style and it’s honestly amazing," tweets game designer Elizabeth Samat. This is not a delusional parental boast - it is amazing.

Also, I didn't know there was an Online Sequencer. It looks cool! Read the rest

Good to see Mumm-Ra still getting work from the Ancient Spirits of Evil, though I'd have preferred it if Gordon Ramsay were on the altar being seranaded with Shimmy Shimmy Ya. I know that it's a tough mashup, but Earl Hammond's voice is so amazing as to be incapable of failure, and Swedemason is a master of the medium. Here's Trump joining Talking Heads:

Read the rest

From 2009's Boston Bootie 21, DJ Faroff's astounding samba remix of the Darth Vader March: put your hands up in the air! Read the rest

Tis the season (1:12:27). Read the rest

Into the blue again after the money's gone. Read the rest