* Behold: The Secret Origin of Destructor.
* New York Noise is a terrific music show that airs on New York City’s public television station NYC TV, focusing on local bands, local labels, local video directors, and formerly local members of all three categories. The list of artists I love that I first discovered through this show is really just outrageously long, but the best example I can think of is when, in the course of back-to-back videos, I heard the music of Klaus Nomi and Antony & the Johnsons for the very first time. My wife and I sat there like someone had just detonated an atom bomb in our heads. Seriously, New York Noise has been a vital lifeline to the city’s musical bounty for me for years. Unfortunately, the channel has suspended production of the show. Please sign this petition, join this Facebook group, and email Mayor Bloomberg about it. I’ve done all three and hope you will too. (Via Pitchfork.)
* Lost links: Some intriguing catches in Whitney Matheson’s weekly “best of the Lost comments” post, and here’s a working link for Todd VanDerWerff’s weekly follow-up post (thanks, Jesse M.).
* Stuart Immonen draws a mean Ben Grimm.
* Don’t know how I missed this when it first appeared, but I enjoyed Ted Naifeh’s Gary Numan and David Bowie-influenced Batman sketchbook.
* One of my favorite bloggers, Jon Hastings lists his top 20 films of 2009.
* Real-Life Horror #1: The Obama Administration is reportedly considering trying 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a military tribunal rather than a civilian court after all. Land of the free, home of the brave.
* Real-Life Horror #2: Matthew Yglesias ponders the differing reactions to those who murder while Muslim versus those who don’t.
* Your quote of the day comes from Mike Barthel:
If our indie bands are going to be pretentious and juvenile, why must they be either tweely earnest or blue-collarly retro? Why can’t they instead evoke that particular feeling of driving mournfully around the suburbs at night in between rewatching The Crow?
Amen!