March 4, 2014
Children of Music
Victor Wooten discusses being born into a musical family in a TED talk entitled Music as a Language. In contrast, Alex Lifeson as a teenager clashes with his parents about choosing music over school in an excerpt from the documentary Come On Children.
Perfect Lives
"And let it be set down, Bob was one of the most amazing composers of the 20th century, and the greatest genius of 20th-century opera. I don’t know how long it’s going to take the world to recognize that. And it hardly matters. He knew it. That the world was too stupid to keep up was not his problem." Robert Ashley dies at 83. [more inside]
Unknown Ownership
Fans of both Joy Division and Star Trek TNG may be amused by the imposition of the pulsar graph as Worf's ridges (as well as Peter Hook's Extraordinary Stories), but they may also be interested in reading one's man attempt to find out if the image itself is copyrighted or in the public domain.
"I am Worf, Son of Mogh."
Doctors: Buy Visine but buy other things with it
New Marijuana Study Says Everyone Knows You're High And You'll Likely Be Stoned Forever (SLOnion...or is it?) [more inside]
pffffppfpffft
A Questline About Thieves Who Never Steal Anything
Shamus Young examines the idea of "story collapse" (the moment where a story reaches a critical point of ridiculousness and causes you to question every other aspect of it) by deconstructing the Thieves Guild quest-line in Skyrim: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5. Entertaining reading for writers, designers and gamers alike.
A tiny cog in the great wheel of imaginative literature
The drama issues from the assailability of vital, tenacious men with their share of peculiarities who are neither mired in weakness nor made of stone and who, almost inevitably, are bowed by blurred moral vision, real and imaginary culpability, conflicting allegiances, urgent desires, uncontrollable longings, unworkable love, the culprit passion, the erotic trance, rage, self-division, betrayal, drastic loss, vestiges of innocence, fits of bitterness, lunatic entanglements, consequential misjudgment, understanding overwhelmed, protracted pain, false accusation, unremitting strife, illness, exhaustion, estrangement, derangement, aging, dying and, repeatedly, inescapable harm, the rude touch of the terrible surprise — unshrinking men stunned by the life one is defenseless against, including especially history: the unforeseen that is constantly recurring as the current moment.Philip Roth on his life as a writer.
May The Source Be With You
Aitken's recent work "The Source" (2012) explores the root of creativity. Six projections in a pavilion designed by David Adjaye, cycle through many more interviews with artists, architects, and musicians such as Adjaye, Liz Diller, William Eggleston, Philippe Parreno, Paolo Soleri, Tilda Swinton, and Beck among others. Wikipedia [more inside]
Zombies are savages, the ultimate "other".
Zombies occupy a variety of liminal spaces wherein contemporary social tensions are reflected and refracted. These tensions, however, have historical and ongoing parallels with images of "Indians." Zombies reveal societal ambivalence about race, class, gender, ethnicity, political power, agency, and other aspects of social reproduction. In other words, zombies touch upon all the anxieties commonly associated with colonialism.If you only watch one hour-long lecture on the Anthropology of Zombies today, then make it this one by Native American scholar Chad Uran.
Slates for Sarah
At the conclusion of the 'In Memoriam' segment during the Oscars Sunday, viewers may have noticed a small graphic and photo identifying Sarah Jones on screen. Not a movie star, famous director or other Hollywood luminary, Sarah was an assistant cameraperson killed in a horrific on-set train accident two weeks prior. The push to have her recognized at the Oscars was driven in part by the Facebook group 'Slates for Sarah', where hundreds of production crews across the globe have posted tribute photos mourning her loss. Her death is being investigated as negligent homicide, and has spurred 'below-the-line' crew worldwide to demand greater set safety protocols.
Lip Flip Clip
Lip Flip with Jiimmy Fallon & Tina Fey: After Tina expresses interest in interviewing herself, she and Jimmy swap mouths for an in-depth chat that ends with a duet of Endless Love. [SLYT]
Pelican Cam
The Bushel Basket
W.H. Auden had a secret life that his closest friends knew little or nothing about. Everything about it was generous and honorable. He kept it secret because he would have been ashamed to have been praised for it.
[more inside]
"I wasn't born in the 40s so I have no idea what you're talking about."
Waiting on you
Last night, the synthpop band Future Islands (previously on MF) previewed their new LP performing “Seasons (Waiting On You)” on Late Show with David Letterman. Singer Samuel T. Herring’s performance is always something to behold, but his gravely shouts and epic dance moves had a particular effect on Letterman, who seemed even more jazzed than usual.
"Fuck the prose, no one's going to read your book for the writing..."
Creative writing professor Hanif Kureishi says such courses are 'a waste of time' [The Guardian]
Buddha of Suburbia author, who teaches subject at Kingston University, added that many of his students could 'write sentences' but not tell stories.
Baltimore-Smalltimore
Earlier this year Tracy Halvorsen wrote an article called Baltimore City, You're Breaking my Heart.
It was received with...uh, mixed results.
Now Andy, from the blog B'more Connected has looked at the article from the point of view of statistics.
"I think nearly everybody can agree with the basic premise suggested by Halvorsen’s article. I will paraphrase that premise as:
It is tragic and frustrating when our neighbors, friends, or coworkers are the victims of violent crimes. Violent crime is too frequent in Baltimore. Something needs to be done to decrease that crime.
Beyond that, I think we see Baltimore differently."
Netflix vs Hulu Plus vs Amazon Prime vs ...
Lifehacker: "One of the more annoying things about Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Amazon's television streaming libraries is the vast difference between the selection available. It would be almost impossible to get a thorough idea of who has the better library without searching for hundreds of TV shows on each service and comparing them manually. So we did just that." [more inside]
The Year of the Beard
Molly Lewis' (Previously: 1, 2, 3): The Year of the Beard. Starring a few familiar faces. [more inside]
"This is like the opposite of Vivian Maier"
(Warning: most links contain artistic nudes) In February, Chicago curator Paul-David Young announced a gallery show featuring found, sometimes nude self portraits from an unknown artist. Claiming to not know the identity of the artist, Young romanticized the unknown origins of the photos, implied the artist was impossible to find, and drew parallels with the Vivian Maier story. After some light digging, however, Animal New York was quickly able to identify the subject as digital artist Molly Soda, who has a popular presence on YouTube and Tumblr. [more inside]
Female portrayal in video games
The Indian Sanitary Pad Revolutionary
"I will be honest," says Muruganantham. "I would not even use it to clean my scooter." The incredible and funny story of a man who set out to change the way sanitary pads are viewed and made in India.
boom-Shack-a-lacka-lacka boom (and bust)
American electronics chain Radio Shack's dismal sales are resulting in a plan to shutter as many as 1100 of its stores. But let's look back to a happier time for the company, starting with their first catalog in 1939 and continuing through the decades: a fascinating stroll down memory lane at the Archive of Radio Shack Catalogs.
Basically, the more anglosaxon, the more Republican
"There are 274,165 registered voters named Martin, making it the 181st most common name. Compared to other voters, 30.3 % have a more Democratic name than Martin. Probability that voters named Martin:
have a gun in their house: 48.1%
Attend religious services weekly: 49.6%
Have a college degree: 54.0%."
How Democratic or Republican is your first name?
have a gun in their house: 48.1%
Attend religious services weekly: 49.6%
Have a college degree: 54.0%."
How Democratic or Republican is your first name?
The Audience is Listening (when you're done with the code)
There are many, many random numbers involved in the score for the piece. Every time I ran the C-program, it produced a new "performance".... The one we chose had that conspicuous descending tone that everybody liked. It just happened to end up real loud in that version.James Moorer relates the rather unexpected manner in which he composed one of the one of the world's best known pieces of computer generated music: "Deep Note" from the THX trailer. [more inside]
That’s why it doesn’t matter if God plays dice with the Universe
Discovering Free Will (Part II, Part III) - a nice discussion of the Conway-Kochen "Free Will Theorem". [more inside]
The Collected Wisdom of Bill Murray
Calculus in Kindergarten?
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