April 20, 2015
Why Zev Love X became MF Doom and put on that metal mask
In 1991, Daniel Dumile was part of KMD, a trio with his brother and another kid from their neighborhood, when they released their first album on Elektra, Mr. Hood (YT playlist). Dumile's next album wouldn't come out until 1999, and on an independent label. Operation: Doomsday was not released under the name he used with KMD, Zev Love X, but M(etal) F(ace) Doom, and he only appeared while wearing his metal mask. The transition from an upbeat youth to a cartoon villain was not clear at the time, unless you got your hands on the unreleased (except as a bootleg) second album of KMD, Black Bastards (full album on YT). Here is the story of that transition: KMD's Black Bastards and the Birth of MF Doom, a chapter from Brian Coleman's Check the Technique Volume 2, "more liner notes for hip-hop junkies." [more inside]
a beguiling stream of unsullied strangeness
Kill Screen Daily has an interview with FM Towns Marty (NSFW), who posts images and gifs from otherwise inaccessible retro Japanese computer games. His images were controversially used in Jon Rafman's video for Oneohtrix Point Never's song Still Life (Betamale) (NSFW).
Bitcoin done (or at least demo'd) Right
...MIT Media Lab announced the launch of the Digital Currency Initiative. The goal of this initiative is to bring together global experts in areas ranging from cryptography, to economics, to privacy, to distributed systems...
previously previously-er more-previously more-er-previously oh-heck-kittens-in-boxes
A nude female corpse is allowable, of course.
Two Countries, Separated By A Common Tongue
How to Pronounce UK Place Names (SLYT) "Anglophenia's Siobhan Thompson teaches Science Friction's Rusty Ward—and the rest of America—how to pronounce difficult British place names."
"I was doing fine until they started bunting."
Philadelphia — 1912. In a matter of hours, college student Allan Travers, 20, went from having never pitched a game in his life to starting pitcher for the Detroit Tigers. [more inside]
Day 1,825
1,825 days after the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Perrin Ireland (@experrinment) and the Natural Resources Defense Council ask: Where'd the oil go?
The Catastrophe
He had always wanted his suicide to be high drama , but in the end he said nothing to anyone; he simply disappeared from sight and silently returned to the sea.
Oliver Sacks looks at the last years of monologuist Spalding Gray's life, and the accident that precipitated a decline before his death. (Previously.)
Taco nights, competitive board games, group viewings of Game of Thrones
Moving to Mars. "The volunteers perched in the lava fields of Mauna Loa on the HI-SEAS (Hawai'i Space Exploration Analog and Simulation) mission are as close as Earthlings will get to Mars in the foreseeable future." [more inside]
Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned.
The Ghost of Cornel West. President Obama betrayed him. He's stopped publishing new work. He's alienated his closest friends and allies. What happened to America's most exciting black scholar?
"May you always know you are loved," I whispered.
"It's completely alone," I said. That baby, that poor baby. What had it done? "Nobody is coming for it."A meditation on adoption, heartbreak, and healing, by Sarah Church Baldwin for The Rumpus: Build-A-Bear.
Softly she asked, "Would it be OK if we called it 'her'?"
It was then as though my therapist's finger grew very long. It arced through the air, crossing the space between us, and touched my chest, the tip of it pressing into my heart, and my body collapsed around it, folded in on itself from pain, the worst pain I had ever felt because it had no source. I was the pain. I saw that baby on her back, alone, and I understood that she was me. In that moment I was flooded—intellectually, emotionally, physically—by the very knowledge I had so long barricaded myself against: that someone had given birth to me. And worse: that I had not been fit to keep.
Litigate, Don't Capitulate
Meet the lawyer taking on Uber and the rest of the on-demand economy. Shannon Liss-Riordan has filed lawsuits against five of the largest "sharing economy" start-ups (Uber, Lyft, Homejoy, Postmates, and Caviar), contending that they pay the people who supply the equipment and manpower that power their businesses like independent contractors, while burdening them with the work expectations of employees. Previously.
Payday at the Mill
A tax incentive in Maine is being used to funnel money from tax dollars directly into corporate pockets. [more inside]
Revisiting the Spandrels of San Marco: an interview
“The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme” was written by Harvard biologists Stephen Jay Gould and Richard C. Lewontin and published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London in 1979. Their critique of their own field of evolutionary biology spilled out of the Ivory Tower onto the pages of general intellectual forums such as the New York Review of Books. I talked by phone with Lewontin on March 2 2015. In his mid-eighties, he is still scientifically active and could recall his collaboration with Gould in detail. Our conversation is highly relevant to the “Just so story” critique that is frequently leveled against Evolutionary Psychology.
Would you like fries with that triple bypass?
It's like a dog meowing...
Once in awhile an unusual voice shows up on one of the many TV talents shows these day, a countertenor. Greg Pritchard first appeared on Britain’s got talent in 2007. Though he has disappeared from limelight, he brought the existence of Countertenors back onto the public radar. Since then every few years one pops up, causing confusion, disbelieve, then applause from the audience and judges.
Andrew De Leon Singing starts at 2:05.
Travis Pratt Singing starts at 1:05
Artur Vasiliev This version only shows the judges reactions.
Last but not least, the professionals.
Previously on the blue:
Machismo is basically a drag act
Deller on the Threshold
Andrew De Leon Singing starts at 2:05.
Travis Pratt Singing starts at 1:05
Artur Vasiliev This version only shows the judges reactions.
Last but not least, the professionals.
Previously on the blue:
Machismo is basically a drag act
Deller on the Threshold
Archie Andrews' 75th birthday
As Archie Andrews turns 75, Archie Comics releases a "new look" flagship series, Archie #1. Archie #1 will be released in 2015 from writer Mark Waid, known for his work for DC and Marvel comics, and artist Fiona Staples.
The series will "reenergize the story of Archie and his friends, presenting for the first time ever the origins of everyone’s favorite redheaded teen and his friends while showcasing the beginnings of the historic love triangle between Archie, Betty and Veronica". [more inside]
Bank of the Underworld
Liberty Reserve was like PayPal for the unbanked. Was it also a global money-laundering operation? By Jake Halpern at The Atlantic (previously).
Life Lines
20 Years After the Oklahoma City Bombing...
...authorities have lost sight of domestic extremists and failed to prevent acts of terrorism, while the violence is metastasizing and the threat is growing. - Kansas City Star [more inside]
Who is ruining comics this week?
And I find it amusing that this “they’re fans of MOMENTS but won’t buy anything” complaint was being made at fans who were at a comic convention. Look, cons ain’t cheap. If someone’s spending their time and money to go to a con or make their own Captain Marvel costume or whatever, they clearly have some kind of passion and fondness for what they’re seeing. No one goes to a con just because they reblogged Unbeatable Squirrel Girl a couple times.Is Tumblr fandom ruining comics because Tumblr fans "love the characters and love MOMENTS of stories, but don’t read the actual comics ever"? The answer may not surprise you.
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