January 18, 2010
Will It Waffle?
Wooden Bones
Puppies!
Anthemic
Karachi pharmaceutical chemist zzahier's youtube channel "Our World" collects over 2,000 anthems, speeches, and patriotic songs. [more inside]
Dictatorship in Newfoundland
In 1933 Newfoundland was a responsible, that is self governing, dominion on a par with Canada and Australia. To avoid a debt default the government suspended its constitution in favor of rule from the colonial office in London. After the second world war and a close referendum the the governments of the United Kingdom and Canada negotiated Newfoundland's ascension to Canada. The story boils down to a people losing their sovereignty due to a debt crisis. The Newfoundland Royal Commission report of 1933, the basis for the article and the actions it recounts is here. (The report is seeded with great-if-too-small pictures of Newfoundland from the 1930s and cool maps). [more inside]
It's a great day for America, everybody
After David Letterman signs off and the Worldwide Pants production logo fades, viewing audiences are oftentimes treated to a cold open of an empty talk show set... one that quickly becomes the impromptu dance floor for a shameless Scot making an absolute giddy fool of himself while lip-syncing pop songs alongside a menagerie of puppets (and a couple of scantily-costumed stagehands). Now on YouTube for your viewing pleasure, the complete collection of Craig Ferguson's Late Late Show musical numbers: "Say Hey (I Love You)" by Michael Franti and Spearhead - "White Lines" by Duran Duran - "Wonderful Night" by Fatboy Slim - "Istanbul" by They Might Be Giants - "Oops!...I Did It Again" by Britney Spears - "MMMBop" by Hanson - "In the Navy" by Village People - "Fireball" by Don Spencer - "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz - "The Lonely Goatherd" from The Sound of Music - "She Taught Me How To Yodel" by Frank Ifield - "Fire" by The Prodigy - "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head" [more inside]
ASCII Art, flashing.
You can "Derelicte" my balls.
Vivienne Westwood unveils homeless chic at Milan Fashion Week in a Zoolander joke brought to life. Fashion blog Project Rungay says, "Darlings, you just can't make this shit up." From The Times Online: "Some carried bedrolls. Another emerged from his cardboard box with a sleeping bag, slung it around his neck and quickly walked away." And there were shopping carts...
If You Could: Collaborate
If You Could: Collaborate is the fourth annual If You Could exhibition. Aiming to provide a platform for creatives from all over the world to question their conventional working methods and outcomes. The contributors have been challenged to produce something a little unexpected, by working with a partner of their choosing from any discipline, profession or background. These are the 33 collaborations. Previously, the Print Series 2008. [on display at the A Foundation Gallery until January 23rd]
Panique au Village
A Town Called Panic. (MLYT)
Words still fail me
Hanamushi has been mentioned previously, but the artist's site has been redone as part portfolio - part surreal point-n-click adventure.
Dr. King: "...if I had sneezed, I would have died."
MLK Jr: The First Attempt : Nearly 10 years before he was assassinated, as Dr. King signed copies of his book Stride Toward Freedom, Izola Ware Curry, a part-time maid from Georgia, stabbed him in the chest with a letter opener, nearly puncturing his aorta. Though she was eventually indicted for attempted murder, Ms. Curry was found incompetent to stand trial and committed to Matteawan State Hospital for the criminally insane. Characteristically, Dr. King forgave her and requested that she be rehabilitated as a productive member of society. [more inside]
Make Your Own Star Trek Phaser, just In Case the Romulans Attack.
The giant bear flies a fighter plane and destroys the earth.
A giant polar bear is awakened by an icebreaker and jumps into a fighter jet and destroys the earth.
The Big Dipper explodes and turns into a bear which then destroys the moon and Anchorage and then goes to Fairbanks. A Grizzly bear is awakened by a cheering crowd and smashes the town and throws a rocket football.
A space bear is awakened by the Nanook signal, destroys a Red Hawk, turns into a giant bear and destroys the roof. [more inside]
EVIL little cameras
Should you ditch your dSLR? Wired thinks so. The recent introduction of EVIL cameras (Electronic Viewfinder, Interchangeable Lenses) is a revolution in camera design that has eliminated the original bane of photography, parallax error, without the use of a mirror (greatly reducing camera size). Canon, Nikon, and Sony are expected to introduce EVIL-type cameras within the year. [more inside]
Perceptual Segregation
Perceptual Segregation [pdf]. A Columbia Law Review article by Russell K. Robinson: . . . While many whites view race-consciousness as an evil that must be strenuously
avoided, blacks tend to see race-consciousness as critical to their survival
in white-dominated realms. . . . [more inside]
Civil Rights Superheroes
Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story: "People were told to read it, memorize it, and destroy it because if they were caught with it, they could be killed." The story of this influential comic book, which helped inspire the 1960 Woolworth's sit-in, is the subject of a new exhibition at Pittsburgh's Toonseum.
Lexicon BD-30
The Lexicon BD-30 is a THX-certified Blu-ray player with "Anchor Bay's award-winning Video Reference Series technology" that retails for $3,500. However, reviewers at Audioholics recently discovered that the BD-30 is nothing more than a non-THX-certified $500 Oppo BDP-83, placed in a new exterior, chassis and all, and marked up by $3000. At least one review forum stands by its assessment claiming that the Lexicon is superior to the Oppo. [via]
Editorial Cartoons by Winsor McCay
A Single House
George Falconer is a creation of Christopher Isherwood. George's house, as selected by Dan Bishop, is a creation of John Lautner. The house is for sale.
Portraits from the hollers
Shelby Lee Adams has spent decades photographing the holler families of rural Kentucky and the mountain folk of Appalachia. More B&W images from the Edelman gallery. Interview With An Artist: Shelby Lee Adams (alternate B&W PDF version); Essays by Adams: All of Us and The Napier's Living Room, 1989; Interview with 92-year old Scotty Stidham.
Writing Good English
Writing English as a Second Language: A talk by William Zinsser to foreign students at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism | The American Scholar [more inside]
Deep Space Nein
Hitler Vs Khan Noonien Singh - Single Link Downfall Video, that is strangely awesome.
Follow the money. I'll keep you in the right direction if I can, but that's all. Just... follow the money.
It's time to find out who owns your democracy, and how they bought it. Do you feel like US campaign finance is hopelessly shrouded in mystery? Fear not citizen, there's a website for that: The Center for Responsive Politics has made available a well-organized, highly detailed database of their analysis of US campaign finance to shine a bright nonpartisan light on the green underbelly of US democracy. [more inside]
This music is for the birds.
The Finches: some of the best angular, atonal, postpunk, improvisational guitar I've heard in a while. [more inside]
A series of tubes? Jumpsuits and shoes?
"Back when I was a boy, I bought a children's book at my town's library book sale called "2010: Living in the Future" by Geoffrey Hoyle. Written in 1972, it had been withdrawn from the library's collection by the mid-80s, when I picked it up. I've somehow managed to hang onto it for 25 years and now, suddenly, here we are: 2010. I'm reproducing this long out-of-print book here to see how we're doing. Are we really living in the future?"
It's a livin' thing... It's a terrible thing to lose...
Back before refrigeration, humanity turned to fermentation for much of our food preservation. With the help of some friendly bacteria and/or yeasts, home cooks can transmute tea into kombucha, and milk into yogurt, creme fraiche and buttermilk. [more inside]
Welcome to Camp America
The Guantánamo “Suicides”: A Camp Delta sergeant blows the whistle. Harper's have made the full text of Scott Horton's investigation, which appears in this week's issue, available online. It alleges that the three 'suicides' were killed during interrogation at a secret facility, and the suicides faked to cover it up. Some comment here, but the article speaks for itself.
Compra Original
The Book Pirates of Peru. A slideshow in which Peruvian author Daniel Alarcón describes the vibrant literary scene in his home country, where the informal publishing industry is the same size as its legitimate counterpart. There's no library system to speak of, the National Library's acquisitions budget is nil, but a culture of reading and writing is booming, with book sales and attendance at literary festivals up, up, up.
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