October 30, 2014
Library Hack
When you have a problem, you must...
Fastening Days is a 11-minute long Anime short commissioned by YKK, the mysterious company responsible for the Clasp Locker that helps hold your jeans together. [more inside]
I will be very proud if I have changed our city in some ways that last.
Tom Menino, Boston's 53rd and longest-serving mayor, dies at 71. He had recently published his memoirs, but announced last week that he was suspending both his book tour and his cancer treatments. "Because of his leadership," current Mayor Marty Walsh said in a released statement, "Boston is a better place today." That is an understatement -- some polls showed that more than fifty percent of Bostonians had met him at one time or another; Tom Menino was the People's Mayor. [more inside]
Patience
Skyharbor has recently released their new song, Patience. The animation is by Jess Cope and she has been developing a reputation for doing fantastically creative work with other brilliant musicians.
Happy Jack: The Grave Dancer
"I can't remember where I was the first time I saw the KXVO Pumpkin Dance several years ago, or who sent it to me, but I remember the feeling: that I would one day show this video to my children, and their children after them. It effortlessly combined so many facets of contemporary pop culture: the Ghostbusters theme song, an inane costume, dancing so bad that it's good, and — perhaps most important of all — it ran on a local TV station in Omaha, Nebraska."-The Story Behind the Greatest Halloween Video Ever in the History of the Internet
A little creepy audio fiction for your Halloween-eve enjoyment
Pseudopod 401: The Lighthouse Keeper’s Wife Be careful what you wish for, and be careful of things with labels you can't read. [more inside]
Very 70s Halloween tv specials. How very? Paul Lynde and KISS very.
Some 70s television programming for your Halloween viewing pleasure:
AeroMobil Flying Car
On October 29, the Slovakian company AeroMobil began flight-testing their Aeromobil 3.0 flying car.
New York State Of Mind
MOLDOL!
A few pages from Dr. Evil's playbook
When lobbyist Richard Berman gave a speech to the Western Energy Alliance, he was seeking to raise millions from energy companies for his Big Green Radicals campaign attacking groups like the Sierra Club and NRDC. What he didn't know was that one of the executives in the room would be so offended that he would secretly record the talk and hand it to the New York Times. The transcript (pdf) reveals Berman's strategies for creating non-profit groups to influence public debate and policy. [more inside]
If you are holding a snake right now, press 4.
Here And There Along The Echo is "a guide to the Echo River for drifters and pilgrims" by the Bureau of Secret Tourism and Cardboard Computer, the creators of magical realist adventure game Kentucky Route Zero. Call (270) 301-5797 or download the "dialing software" and hear about historic sites along the Echo River, learn about the river's flora and fauna, or just get help identifying unfamiliar sounds.
Hey, remember that time it rained meat in Kentucky?
The other day Mrs. Crouch, of Olympian Springs, Ky., was employed in the open air and under a particularly clear sky, in the celebration of those mysterious rites by which the housewife transmutes scraps of meat, bones and effete overshoes into soap. Suddenly there descended upon her a gentle shower of meat. (PDF) That's right, in Bath County, Kentucky, flesh fell from an otherwise clear sky on March 3, 1876. Mentalfoss gathered a collection of old news articles about what people said the sky meat was based on taste and more scientific investigations. Theories for the localized "meat rain" ranged from meat descending from space like meteorites, star jelly, and the most likely, overly full vultures who vomited (Google books preview), but while in flight. One Hundred and Thirty Nine years later--on Sunday, March 3, 2015--Kurt Gohde will re-seed the clouds over Olympia Springs with meat. [more inside]
bad and dumb and needless and not matt taibbi’s fault
Matt Taibbi has left Pierre Omidyar's First Look Media before Taibbi's digital magazine, Racket, ever debuted. First Look is still publishing The Intercept, and that magazine's Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, Jeremy Scahill, and John Cook have chosen to tell the inside story on Taibbi's leaving. [more inside]
"It's Jim Crow all over again."
There are 6,951,484 names on the target list of the 28 states in the Crosscheck group; each of them represents a suspected double voter whose registration has now become subject to challenge and removal. According to a 2013 presentation by Kobach to the National Association of State Election Directors, the program is a highly sophisticated voter-fraud-detection system. The sample matches he showed his audience included the following criteria: first, last and middle name or initial; date of birth; suffixes; and Social Security number, or at least its last four digits.[more inside]
That was the sales pitch. But the actual lists show that not only are middle names commonly mismatched and suffix discrepancies ignored, even birthdates don’t seem to have been taken into account. Moreover, Crosscheck deliberately ignores Social Security mismatches, in the few instances when the numbers are even collected. The Crosscheck instructions for county election officers state, “Social Security numbers are included for verification; the numbers might or might not match.”
In practice, all it takes to become a suspect is sharing a first and last name with a voter in another state.
Gangster Life – And Death – in London's East End
"Mid-afternoon on a weekday is a good time for a discreet liaison at The Carpenters Arms – the pub that used to belong to the Krays in Cheshire St – especially if you are meeting a jewel thief." From Spitalfields Life: So Long Lenny Hamilton, Jewel Thief, "a tribute to one of the East End [of London]’s most celebrated rogues." Hamilton co-authored an account of "the Firm," "a criminal organization based on racketeering, fraud and vicious bloodshed" and ruled over by the Kray twins. [more inside]
Success is the thing that kills bands. We haven't had any success.
So there's this UK punk band. First wavers, '77. Cohorts of Gang of Four (whose pictures were inadvertently printed on the back of their first album). Rivals of The Clash, to whom their first single was an answer record. Their energy is so gregarious, their working-class politics so pointed but relatable, they make a mark for themselves despite the limitation of barely being able to play. They get to the part where they're supposed to break up or fade away. Instead, they learn to play, to play very well, even. They become an ever-shifting collective, picking up new members, people from The Rolling Stones, or people who'd played with The Buzzcocks, Elvis Costello, The Cure. They made roaring post-punk records, shimmering power pop, pint-raising Irish/British folk, and booze-saturated country records. They found a fascination with folk music, American country music in particular. Actually, they may have accidentally invented alt-country. Lester Bangs says they're "The most revolutionary group in the history of rock n' roll." Hyperbole? Nah. Hyperbole was when he called them "better than the Beatles." 37 years in, they're still making records that odds are, you either love dearly, or have never heard of at all. They're The Mekons, friend, and Joe Angio's new documentary looks at them in all of their shambling, lovable, raucous glory. [more inside]
Goblins: how do they work?
The Pumpkin Menace
Trick or Treat? Anchor Brewing's Bob Brewer on pumpkin beers and why Anchor hasn't produced one.
Pumpkins, by themselves have very little – if any – real flavor that will survive brewing and fermentation. It’s sort of the “tofu” of the squash world in that it tastes like what you put on or into it. The flavor that everyone associates with pumpkins is pumpkin pie. What we are tasting in a pumpkin pie is actually the huge load of sugar dumped into it along with the allspice, cinnamon, clove, vanilla, ginger and other spices.[more inside]
IN ANY CONVERSATION YOU ARE ALSO DEALING WITH AN EMOTIONAL TRUTH
Film Crit Hulk is back with a long essay about more-than-gamergate. Building off his previous ethical criticism (especially his multipart James Bond series) Film Crit Hulk gives us his opinions on "THE VOID OF THIS PARTICULAR HOUR". [more inside]
Because you need more in life than love.
Love is not Enough is a fantastic breakdown why Love, as many people imagine it, is not all that is needed for a healthy relationship. It then provides realistic suggestions as to what you do need when choosing a partner. [more inside]
Tim Cook - I'm Proud to be Gay
Throughout my professional life, I’ve tried to maintain a basic level of privacy. I come from humble roots, and I don’t seek to draw attention to myself. . . . At the same time, I believe deeply in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, who said: “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’ ” . . . While I have never denied my sexuality, I haven’t publicly acknowledged it either, until now. So let me be clear: I’m proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me.
Safe at any speed -- until the ignition cuts out
Countless articles have been written about General Motors and its massive recalls earlier this year. What hasn’t been fully told is how GM might have gotten away with multiple counts of consumercide were it not for the efforts of three men: a Georgia lawyer, a Mississippi mechanic, and a Florida engineer.How an unsafe ignition lock helped kill tens of people and the people who found out the truth about it.
You say H-O-R-S-E, I say S-K-A-T-E
The Secret Lives of the Mentally Ill
In a Slate Article by David Rosenberg, side-by-side images and descriptions illustrate the "dual lives" of those coping with mental illness.
I cried and cried in my Mad Men dress.
If one has no vanity in this life of ours, there is no sufficient reason
Sofiya Tolstoy’s Defense [The New Yorker] In her own writings, Leo Tolstoy’s wife offered a rebuttal of the views that he set out in “The Kreutzer Sonata.” [more inside]
"I was just using it to sound different"
T-Pain performs without auto-tune for NPR's Tiny Desk Concert.
Rock and Rule.
"It just might be the most classically animated teeth-gnashing and hair-flipping metal you’ve seen in your lifetime." Master animator Juanjo Guarnido had a successful Kickstarter to assemble a killer crew to make a music video for the "face-meltingly awesome" Swedish metal band Freak Kitchen. The finished video Freak of the Week is a tour de force of Old Skool hand-drawn animation, and I believe it rocks pretty hard. [more inside]
Guide to the Races of Star Wars
georgelucasfan1 here. I was a little boy in 1979 when Episode 3 The New Home came out. These films and shows have been a big part of my life. And I would like to share with you my Star Warms knowledge. So step into my Millionaire Falcon, as we take a...... 'warp tour'... of these alien races that lived in this galaxy far, far ago.Neil Cicierega's Guide to the Races of Star Wars
"I agreed to a scouted-out project!"
The Dissolve's "Movie of the Week" on this week leading to Halloween has been The Blair Witch Project, which it describes as "the most widely despised great horror movie". They discuss the legacy of the film fifteen years after its release and the future of the genre that it helped to create: found-footage horror. And where are the people who made it these days? Heather Donahue is growing pot. Josh Leonard is still acting (Michael C. Williams less so). And the directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez seem to want to catch that same lightning in a bottle, but with very underwhelming results.
Age ain't nothing but a number
One day in the fall of 1981, eight men in their 70s stepped out of a van in front of a converted monastery in New Hampshire. They shuffled forward, a few of them arthritically stooped, a couple with canes. Then they passed through the door and entered a time warp. Perry Como crooned on a vintage radio. Ed Sullivan welcomed guests on a black-and-white TV. Everything inside — including the books on the shelves and the magazines lying around — were designed to conjure 1959. This was to be the men’s home for five days as they participated in a radical experiment, cooked up by a young psychologist named Ellen Langer.
Butch Cannon, Bear Detective
In 2010, BEAR Magazine introduced an occasional single-page comic by Logan Kowalsky, Butch Cannon: The Bear Private Eye, full of pretty typical gay magazine comics tropes. [Entirely NSFW] [more inside]
If everyone sees your dickpic hanging in a gallery except you is it art?
In light of Dries Verhoeven's public art of his Grindr interactions (since cancelled), Arne Svenson's show, "The Neighbors" (previously) and Future Femme's piece, Show Me More: A collection of DickPix, and amid questions of legality and ethics, the Guardian examines art, consent and privacy.
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