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February 10, 2008
One of the songs on the Golden Record included on the two Voyager spacecraft was
Flowing Water performed by Guan Pinghu on the guqin. The guqin, Confucius' favorite instrument, has been played in China for at least 3000 years. There's a lot of
guqin videos out there but the two players I listen to the most are
jts1702a and
Charlie Huang (who is the main contributer to Wikipedia's excellent
guqin article).
posted by Kattullus at 8:14 PM PST - 16 comments
This week I've been perseverating on Chuck Berry's great 1964 song "You Never Can Tell", so now you get to too! Unless you're over 50, you probably know it from the
Thurman/Travolta dance in
Pulp Fiction, but here are some other versions worthy of your attention:
[more inside]
posted by ubiquity at 1:47 PM PST - 14 comments
"Everyone laughs a little too hard for a little too long, not because we find these sentiments funny, but because we’re awkwardly acknowledging how unfunny they are. At their core, they pose one of the most complicated, painful, and pervasive dilemmas many single women are forced to grapple with nowadays: Is it better to be alone, or to settle?
My advice is this: Settle!" [more inside]
posted by Horace Rumpole at 9:29 AM PST - 146 comments
Invasion of the Jellyfish The
box jellyfish [AKA
Sea Wasp] is so packed with venom that the briefest of touches can bring agonising death within 180 seconds. And if comes under sustained attack it responds by sending its compatriots into a super-breeding frenzy in which millions of replacements are created. The really bad news is that the box jellyfish and another equally poisonous species, Irukandji, are on the move. Scientists are warning that their populations are exploding and will pose a monumental problem unless they are stopped.
First aid for stings.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 6:49 AM PST - 75 comments
