September 1, 2013
Remarkable 19th century photographs by Timothy O'Sullivan
How the Wild West really looked: Gorgeous pictures show the landscape as it was charted for the very first time 150 years ago. Previously. [more inside]
The Beach Boys, "Sunflower"
In February 2008, Josh Hoisington started a blog on the Beach Boys' 1970 album Sunflower, analyzing the recording session notes and the recordings. Unfortunately he stopped at the end of side one, so the blog is incomplete; but what's there is quite interesting - if you're interested in that particular album. [more inside]
Cast the first Yellowstone
Massive earthquakes in Chile and Japan have been found to cause the dramatic increase in violent quakes around fracking's largely unregulated wastewater injection wells observed in the Midwest in the past two years, where injected water acts as a lubricant for geological faults that were previously thought to be "dead" or stable for millions of years.
All I do is photoshop / I don't need a reason
Nate's Adventures
Nate's Adventures. "These are photographs of my son, pictured in a world of fantasy and imagination. A world that children occupy a good deal of the time. They are my interpretation of his world." Photography by David Niles. [Via]
The Rivalry of Ravelry
Ravelry is an animated short, written, directed and animated by Kathryn Parker (AKA the Evil Crochet Genius), about two crocheted and knitted neighbouring gardens and the rivalry that proves their undoing.
Hoax or Confession
The first postcard on today's Postsecret is disturbing. (TW: murder, abuse) The text reads "I told everyone that she dumped me, but I dumped her (body)", along with a picture taken from Google Maps. It was determined that the location was likely Wooded Island in Chicago, IL. A search was made, though nothing was found. However, as a commenter on Dianna E. Anderson's blog posting about this points out, the postmark reads 2008.
Frank Warren, founder of PostSecret has said he didn't go to the police, and instead sees this as a free-speech issue. [more inside]
Gormenghast
The BBC mini-series of Mervyn Peake's epic Gormenghast covers the first two novels in the series, and includes amongst its cast Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Christopher Lee, Richard Griffiths, Fiona Shaw, Zoë Wanamaker, Stephen Fry, and many others. The four-hour, four episode series can be found in its entirety on YouTube in ~10 minute segments. The first episode segment is here, the rest can be found on this page. (Sorry no playlist.) [more inside]
The Good Old Fashioned Way
I'll take "What is Syria" for $100, Alex
Ampex Signature V, the first home video recorder, produced in 1963
Ampex is a brand name that isn't mentioned much in terms of current video technology, but their history is full of notable innovations, though most are aimed at commercial-grade video production and editing. But 50 years ago, Ampex opened a consumer and educational division (Google books preview), with the pinnacle of their home entertainment offering that year was the Ampex Signature V, a 9-foot-long system that weighed 900 pounds, allowing the home user to record a television program for the first time (while being able to simultaneously watch another, no less). This complete audio/video system was marketed through Neiman-Marcus for $30,000. That price also included professional installation and a plaque bearing the owners name (Google books preview). The system was affectionately called "Grant's Tomb" after Gus Grant, the marketing manager who came up with the idea. According to a user on the Videokarma forum, only 4 were ever made, and only one was sold. [more inside]
A Los Angeles Review of Books essay on Melville by William Giraldi
The Writer As Reader: Melville and his Marginalia In the General Rare Books Collection at Princeton University Library sits a stunning two-volume edition of John Milton that once belonged to Herman Melville. Melville's tremendous debt to Milton — and to Homer, Virgil, the Bible, and Shakespeare — might be evident to anyone who has wrestled with the moral and intellectual complexity that lends Moby Dick its immortal heft, but to see Melville's marginalia in his 1836 Poetical Works of John Milton is to understand just how intimately the author of the great American novel engaged with the author of the greatest poem in English. Checkmarks, underscores, annotations, and Xs reveal the passages in Paradise Lost and other poems that would have such a determining effect on Melville's own work.
Be sure to zoom out....
Buildings in the Netherlands by year of construction is a map worth getting lost in.
They’d fed Aunt Susan to a horse in Central Park when she was only fifty
The Tribal Rite of the Strombergs (SLNewYorker)
Hitotsu no Namida
yu-ra (Google translation) are (were?) a Japanese duo who've produced an eclectic mix of beautiful, layered, often ethereal music. [more inside]
Weilue: The Peoples Of The West
This country (the Roman Empire) has more than four hundred smaller cities and towns. It extends several thousand li in all directions. The king has his capital (that is, the city of Rome) close to the mouth of a river (the Tiber). The outer walls of the city are made of stone. - A Third Century Chinese Account Composed between 239 and 265 CE, Quoted in zhuan 30 of the Sanguozhi. Published in 429 CE. Draft English translation
"It makes nooooo sense! NO SENSE!!"
Supercut of Jason Mantzoukas' bits from the "Battlefield Earth" episode of "How Did This Get Made?". NSFW-L [more inside]
Time travel, green faces, comedy Hitler, and a suitcase full of lingerie
Were you one of a handful of geeky teens watching BBC2 at 9.35pm on Saturday January 16th 1982? Or perhaps you were one of the sports fans who tuned in by accident when the football was cancelled. If so, you caught the first and last British television screening of a surreal, pitch black time travel farce from the pen of Czech sci fi maestro Josef Nesvabda, and you have probably never forgotten it. Now thanks to the Internet, you can watch Zítra vstanu a oparím se cajem, or Tomorrow I’ll Wake Up and Scald Myself With Tea again at last, after more than thirty years.
Fun, laughs, good time
The men of "King Kong: The Musical" perform "Big Spender" The song was performed at a performance of Twisted Broadway: Melbourne. Twisted Broadway is a charity fundraising organization based on New York’s ‘Broadway Backwards’, an annual charity every raising money for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS; Twisted Broadway will continue to raise money for research and developmental programs for people living with HIV/AIDS through Oz Showbiz Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. [more inside]
London Calling
The Weirdest Things About America (YMMV).
NSA stands for No Sense of Humor
The NSA: The only part of the government that actually listens. The NSA seal is protected by Public Law 86-36, which states that it is not permitted for “…any person to use the initials ‘NSA,’ the words ‘National Security Agency’ and the NSA seal without first acquiring written permission from the Director of NSA."
Horowitz at the White House (1978)
In 1978 President Jimmy Carter invited Vladimir Horowitz to play at the White House for his guests and the Public Television viewing audience, here it is in its entirety. (1:07:55) [more inside]
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