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mefi
This is utterly delightful: Tara Busch sings the first line from "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"
backwards. Of course, you'll wanna check out how well she did it by watching it, um,
forwards. Yep, she nailed it. I think I'm in love.
posted to MetaFilter by flapjax at midnite
at 8:01 AM on July 3, 2008
(105 comments)
Did you happen to see those "
making-popcorn-pop-with-a-cellphone" clips that showed up at the end of last month on the toobs? Well,
WIRED wrote about it, and a kajillion copycat clips showed up in about the time it'd take to, you know, make some popcorn. Turns out it was a viral, natch, as a cursory search will reveal. But just today a clip appeared that
explains how the actual stunt was pulled off. Well, anyway, as you've probably guessed by now, this is all just an excuse to link to
Popcorn. Yep,
Popcorn.
posted to MetaFilter by flapjax at midnite
at 6:01 PM on June 20, 2008
(42 comments)
Oops! Swiss national broadcaster SRG turned back time on Monday when, while broadcasting an Austria/Germany soccer match, it offered subtitles accompanying Germany's national anthem that mistakenly included the "Deutschland, Deutschland ueber alles" lyrics, a verse popular under Nazi rule but ignored since the fall of the Third Reich. The melody,
Das Deutschlandlied, comes courtesy of Joseph Haydn, who penned the ditty in 1797.
posted to MetaFilter by flapjax at midnite
at 7:20 AM on June 18, 2008
(36 comments)
You'd be forgiven for thinking that the iconic American folk song
The Wabash Cannonball was written as a tribute to an actual train, but in fact, in an interesting case of life-imitates-art, the actual train name was inspired by the song. The Lake Erie, Wabash, and St. Louis Railroad Company was formed in 1852, but there was no train called the “Cannonball” when the song was first sung late in the 19th century. There
have been
many,
many,
many wonderful versions through the years, but I think
Roy Acuff pretty much
owns it, wouldn't you say?
[NOTE: See hoverovers for link descriptions]
posted to MetaFilter by flapjax at midnite
at 6:49 AM on June 7, 2008
(20 comments)
OK, I got yer muhfuggin Single Link You Tube post
right here. That's right. Now you tell me that's not
amazing.
posted to MetaFilter by flapjax at midnite
at 7:47 AM on June 4, 2008
(88 comments)
The year was 1957: the Soviet Union had launched the
cutest little sattelite ever. And it didn't just
look good, it
sounded good, too! As sweet a sound as any
avant garde composer of the 1950's might dream up! Of course, the US would have to get a little metal ball of its
own into space, but things
didn't go so well. They did manage to get one up there in
1958, but nobody knows if it sounded as good as ol' Sputnik. But anyway, most folks weren't listening to satellites 50 years ago, they were listening to, well, lessee, there was...
posted to MetaFilter by flapjax at midnite
at 7:35 AM on June 2, 2008
(16 comments)
Overlooked or ignored for far too long by the medical establishment,
twisty balloon dog anatomy and
gummi bear anatomy are just two of the crucial areas that
Moist Production's
Jason Freeny is working to bring wider attention to. He's also to be commended for his tireless efforts in raising awareness of Disney character suicide and death by unexplainable circumstance. And there's free downloadable desktops, kids!
[1 or 2 of the pages at Moist maybe NSFW]
posted to MetaFilter by flapjax at midnite
at 4:46 PM on May 29, 2008
(7 comments)
The opening shots of 1920s New York City are wonderful, then you get a zany high-speed Harold Lloyd blazing down the avenues, and that's fun to watch, but the real killer is the horse-drawn trolley absolutely
tearing-ass through lower Manhattan, full gallop. Ends badly. Then it's over to San Francisco for one last bit of homicidal vehicular activity with a bus. Well, they sure don't drive
like they used to!
posted to MetaFilter by flapjax at midnite
at 6:53 PM on May 25, 2008
(37 comments)
One fine old day in old LA, in the year of nineteen and sixty, one Frederick Usher met
Eddie "One String" Jones, heard him lay down some deep blues on his
diddley bow, and was so taken with Jones'
monochord masterpieces that he ran home, grabbed his tape recorder and recorded Jones in the alley. One other recording session ensued soon thereafter, which was
released as an LP in 1964. By that time, however, the mysterious Eddie Jones (if that was even his real name) was long gone, and was never heard from again.
[NOTE: see hoverovers for link descriptions]
posted to MetaFilter by flapjax at midnite
at 12:09 AM on May 24, 2008
(22 comments)
Well, young folk, there was a time, y'know, when bands would put their band name on the kick drum head, so the audience could see the name of the band, y'see? Why, best as I can recall, the
The Yardbirds did it, and
The Zombies, too. And
The Hollies. Oh, and did I mention
The Yardbirds? Well, my memory's not what it used to be... oh, and there was those boys from Liverpool, used to sing about
Kansas Cty so well, why, you'd think they'd actually
been there! Now, there was this one band called themselves the
Spencer Davis Group, but I never could figure out why, cause it was that little Winwood fella just outta knee pants who was the star of
that show!
posted to MetaFilter by flapjax at midnite
at 8:08 AM on May 17, 2008
(20 comments)
With a pickup mounted on the body of the instrument just below the strings,
Revathy Krishna,
KP Sarada and Sivanandam and
Jayanthi Kumaresh get an unexpectedly fat sound out of their
veena. Rocking! The instrument is more often amplified with a microphone, in which case it sounds more like this performance by
D. Balakrishna, who, as you'll hear, ain't no slouch, neither. And here
Pichumani gets his
groove on, no doubt about it. So, hey, two more raags for the road, courtesy of
Rajeswari Padmanabhan. The second tune on her clip, by the way, has got some
deep blues in it, so I'm thinking maybe Rajeswari might've been down to the crossroads at midnight...
[NOTE: see hoverovers for link descriptions]
posted to MetaFilter by flapjax at midnite
at 1:24 AM on May 16, 2008
(28 comments)
British artist
Lucian Freud's painting of a rather...
portly slumbering nude just set an art world record. Someone laid down a nice, fat
33.6 million dollars for it: the most money ever paid for any work by a living artist.
posted to MetaFilter by flapjax at midnite
at 6:35 AM on May 14, 2008
(48 comments)
If you can make it through the glacially paced intro and can put up with the typically clunky, often laughable and jingoistic fifties-style narration, this 1958 film from Chevrolet,
The American Look is worth viewing. Chock full of futuristic telephones, toasters, blenders, office machines, architecture and more, it's a mid-century design lover's dream. The film is visually striking and elegant, and presented in widescreen format. Here's part
2 and part
3. Or see it here in its
entirety.
posted to MetaFilter by flapjax at midnite
at 2:56 AM on May 12, 2008
(15 comments)
Here's a small representation of some of the culture that many Tibetan protesters hope to save from eradication in Tibet:
Heart Sutra, by Geshe Kunkhen.
posted to MetaFilter by flapjax at midnite
at 6:18 AM on May 8, 2008
(18 comments)
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) has announced that it will
shut down West Coast ports
today, to protest the war in Iraq.
posted to MetaFilter by flapjax at midnite
at 7:30 AM on May 1, 2008
(70 comments)
The other day I happened to come upon a music video that is just so grooving, so human and so
real, that, well, it
moved me, darling.
Just check it out. After watching the clip, I learned that these guys are mostly disabled by polio (that's why several of them are in those rather unusual wheelchairs) and that they were living on the grounds of the Kinshasa zoo, which is where the clip was filmed. Then I learned that last year they were seeking to bring
a lawsuit against the UN. Then I found
some other clips. And now I am a
major fan of
Staff Benda Bilili.
posted to MetaFilter by flapjax at midnite
at 3:30 AM on April 26, 2008
(47 comments)
Sometimes, when you've had your fill of people basking in the golden light of their self-righteous indignation, you just wanna hear a song about somebody telling those holier-than-thou-ers where to get off. Something like, say,
Harper Valley PTA.
posted to MetaFilter by flapjax at midnite
at 6:29 PM on April 24, 2008
(39 comments)
The stark, modal banjo and achingly poignant, weathered voice of the great
Dock Boggs [previous] are the perfect aural accompaniment to a slideshow of
William Gedney's
[previous] powerfully intimate photographs:
Kentucky, 1964.
posted to MetaFilter by flapjax at midnite
at 6:14 AM on April 15, 2008
(11 comments)
The best-known version of that joyful ode to getting smashed,
Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee, would surely be the
Jerry Lee Lewis rendition, and Memphis rockabilly singer
Johnny Burnette recorded a
hopping little version of the tune as well. But the song was written and
originally recorded by
Stick (aka "Sticks") McGhee, who adapted it from a chant he learned during his stint in the Army. And yes, "spo-dee-o-dee" was a substitute for
another word, which, though fine for the Army, wasn't exactly radio friendly. Stick wrote a few other tunes in celebration of the alcoholic beverage, including
"Six To Eight" and "Jungle Juice". And as has been pointed out
previously, the song title was likely the inspiration for the alcoholic concoction known as the "
spodi". Drink up!
posted to MetaFilter by flapjax at midnite
at 8:46 PM on April 13, 2008
(8 comments)
Just the other day I was thinking about World War 2-era propaganda songs, so of course I gave a listen to
Smoke On the Water. Say what? You didn't know it was about kickin' Hitler's ass? Or Hirohito's? Guess you weren't listening well enough when ol'
Red Foley sang:
"...there'll be nothing left but vultures to inhabit all that land, when our modern ships and bombers make a graveyard of Japan..." I tell you, they just don't write songs like that anymore, friends. Anyway, by 1951 Red was looking forward to
Peace in the Valley.
posted to MetaFilter by flapjax at midnite
at 8:15 PM on April 9, 2008
(20 comments)
The Olympic torch is being welcomed this weekend in the UK as a symbol of the sporting spirit, uniting people around the world in peaceful competition.
But the idea of lighting the torch at the ancient Olympian site in Greece and then running it through different countries has
much darker origins.
posted to MetaFilter by flapjax at midnite
at 2:24 AM on April 5, 2008
(37 comments)
Dreams and Songs of the Noble Old, a film by Alan Lomax, takes a loving look at the talents and wisdom of elderly musicians, singers, and story-tellers from southern American folk traditions. All the musicians featured in the film have soul and musical energy to spare: great, great performances and engaging reminiscences make this film a real treat. Please see the [more inside] for a collection of links to several of the outstanding performers featured in the film.
posted to MetaFilter by flapjax at midnite
at 2:02 PM on March 25, 2008
(15 comments)
