January 24, 2010

Novos Baianos F.C., a samba-rock commune documentary

Os Novos Baianos (The New Bahians) played psychedelic rock blended with regional Brazilian folk styles, heavily influenced by bossa nova maestro João Gilberto. In 1972, after recording Acabou Chorare (which went on to top Rolling Stone Brazil's list of best Brazilian albums ), the band moved to a far suburb of Rio de Janiero to live communally, play soccer, and work on the album Novos Baianos F.C. (New Bahians Football Club). In 1973, German television sent music producer Solano Ribeiro to capture their daily life on film. It's around 45 minutes, broken up in six youtube videos: 1 2 3 4 5 6. No subtitles, but you won't need them too much. The audio is spotty, but it gets better. [more inside]
posted by hydrophonic at 10:16 PM PST - 11 comments

A trip down memory lane?

Welcome (back) to Windows 3.1. "Michaelv.org is coded in JavaScript and strict XHTML 1.0, with AJAX functionality provided through PHP. It has been tested for compatibility in Firefox and IE. Firefox 2 or 3 is highly recommended, but the site is almost entirely functional in IE 6, 7, or 8. Media Player does not work in IE as IE lacks the ability to dynamically instantiate ."
posted by Phire at 10:12 PM PST - 49 comments

with an Apple Macintosh you can’t run Radio Shack programs

16-bit Intel 8088 chip by Charles Bukowski. [more inside]
posted by ennui.bz at 9:43 PM PST - 35 comments

Frances Gabe and the Self-Cleaning House

Everyone has fantasized about it, usually while scrubbing a floor or cleaning a toilet. Well, Frances Gabe did something about it: she invented the self-cleaning house, the one the future has been promising us for years. (This 2007 Weird America Interview/Tour mocks her, but it's the only video of the house I could find.) Just imagine: You put your dirty dishes back in the cabinets which double as dishwashers; the closets are laundry machines. Every room has wash, rinse, and dry buttons. [more inside]
posted by julen at 8:42 PM PST - 28 comments

The Scout

Scouting occupies a strange niche in book publishing, itself a rather inscrutable business from the outside, and after a time most scouts resign themselves to working—very hard—at an occupation not even their closest family members will ever fully understand. [more inside]
posted by smoke at 7:38 PM PST - 16 comments

Erotic fan-fiction found a way!

The International Jurassic Park Erotic Fan-Fiction Writer's Association [more inside]
posted by (bb|[^b]{2}) at 6:32 PM PST - 54 comments

Illinoize

Illinoize - "a free remix tape put together by Montreal-based producer Tor, sampling songs from multi-instrumentalist and indie hero, Sufjan Stevens. Tracks are sampled from his 2005 LP Illinoise, as well as 3 of his other albums, 'A Sun Came', 'Seven Swans' and 'Songs for Christmas', blending Sufjan Steven's acoustic guitar, piano and horns with MC's Aesop Rock, Big Daddy Kane, Gift of Gab (Blackalicious), C.L. Smooth, Outkast, Brother Ali, and Grand Puba."
posted by Paragon at 5:42 PM PST - 26 comments

There Is

Sean Freeman is a UK-based illustrator and designer specializing in typography. For example, this piece, collaborated with fellow illustrator Pomme Chan. Don't miss the archive, including a little fish.
posted by netbros at 4:33 PM PST - 4 comments

[spoiler] it'd be 238857 miles, actually.

The Shining: it's an autobiography. [more inside]
posted by _dario at 3:53 PM PST - 105 comments

Nontransitive dice

Nontransitive dice are sets of dice (A, B, C, etc.) with counterintuitive properties: die A beats die B and die B beats die C, but die C beats die A. [more inside]
posted by Upton O'Good at 2:04 PM PST - 59 comments

The Heretical Two

heretical.com and its discontents. The US and the UK have incompatible perspectives concerning the ownership and distribution of web pages and comic books. The "Heretical Two" are a case in point. [more inside]
posted by eccnineten at 1:01 PM PST - 73 comments

I love you too Coco.

A rap song that mentions Chomsky! Coco Love Alcorn steals the hearts of nerds, geeks, and Mensa members everywhere by ditching all those muscle-bound playas in favor of brainiacs. Thought this would play well on Metafilter.
posted by crazylegs at 11:44 AM PST - 74 comments

The Disease Commonly Called The Sweate

In the mood for a good epidemic? Try the English Sweating Sickness. To get a full picture of the horror and uproar a fast spreading disease with frighteningly sudden onset caused in Tudor England, here is an amazingly complete account by a contemporary physician. The exact etiology of the disease is still a mystery - perhaps a viral pulmonary disease (PDF in link).
posted by grapefruitmoon at 10:02 AM PST - 30 comments

Demons and Devotion

Visitors to the Morgan Library in New York will have a rare opportunity to view one of the great masterworks of medieval illumination, the Hours of Catherine of Cleves. But if you don't have a chance to visit, all 157 miniatures have been digitized.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 8:51 AM PST - 24 comments

The Death of David Kelly

Lord Hutton made a request for the records provided to the inquiry, not produced in evidence, to be closed for 30 years, and that medical (including post-mortem) reports and photographs be closed for 70 years: evidence relating to the death of Government weapons inspector David Kelly is to be kept secret for 70 years, it has been reported (more here and here). Kelly was the UK weapons inspector whose suspiciously timed death in 2003, ruled a suicide, has remained a point of controversy ever since.
posted by HP LaserJet P10006 at 8:24 AM PST - 63 comments

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