Happy Monday. How much coffee have you had? Enough to track the tricks of this impressive local yo-yo-thrower? Set to the equally dexterous and energetic Hoop + Wire by Portland’s own Boy Eats Drum Machine, Clifton B. proves he’s "just swift enough."

I know what you’re saying. Those were some radical yo-yo moves, man, but where is the actual wire that the song title implies? Oddly enough, it’s wound its way around Little Beirut’s "Last Light," which features intricately detailed stop-motion-animated sequences, conceived by band-members who daylight as LAIKA talent.

Culturephile can’t help but wish they’d stuck with the stop-mo motif for the whole piece, despite the art form’s notorious time-consumption. (See Culturephile coverage of Fred, by Misha Klein and Billygoat’s Dioscuri.) But, with an upcoming album release for the band, we suppose the show must go on.

Finally, the following piece, recently released by Portland Cello Project, features marionette puppetry in a scale set, and then not-to-scale live locations. Telling the tragic tale of a displaced shrimp in a big cruel world, this short points up the gulf-pollution crisis in a poignant, accessible way.