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Little Boxes is a song written by Malvina Reynolds in 1962 that lampoons the development of suburbia and what many consider its bourgeois conformist values. [1]

During the first season of the Showtime series Weeds, Malvina's original recording was used during the opening credits. In the second season, the song was performed by a different artist each episode — Elvis Costello, Death Cab for Cutie, Engelbert Humperdinck, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Maestro Charles Barnett, Aiden Hawkin, Ozomatli , The Submarines, Tim DeLaughter, Regina Spektor, and Jenny Lewis. [Malvina's recording was used again for the season finale.] Randy Newman just kicked off the third season, which the network promoted with a Little Boxes music video contest. Kevin Nealon and Romany Malco were notable among the participating cast members.
posted by Poolio at 11:18 PM PST - 132 comments

The most cruel viral ad campaign yet. Give your friend the experience of being stalked by a serial killer. Make sure to preview the very slick customized video generated first, before you decide whether you really want to do this to someone you like. [Yes, yes, viral advertising for some FX show, also Flash]
posted by blahblahblah at 10:28 PM PST - 38 comments

BIG BIG BIG BIG BIG is a musical composition by the inimitable Dan Deacon, dubbed by his local paper as part vaudeville ham, part electronica genius. Take a tour of Dan's thrift-store electronic keyboard and read his answers to stupid questions in Ignore Magazine. via Miss Cellania
posted by madamjujujive at 9:57 PM PST - 34 comments

Is there no humor in public relations? The public relations blog PRBlogNews included a post last week on PR and LSD (a long strange happy tradition). It appears to have been a joke, mixing a selection of early youth-on-acid videos with a vintage discourse about LSD by Dr. Richard Alpert (later Ram Dass) re-imagined as a history of successful "tripvertising." It must have stirred some sort of trouble; there's been a follow-up, "LSD and PR don’t mix" post (Don’t eat the brown acid) which warns against mixing PR and LSD (and hot dogs).
posted by mmahaffie at 8:16 PM PST - 11 comments

St. Louis Cardinals' manager Tony La Russa loves re-treads more than a long distance trucker. And even though the Cards are often willing to take a chance on former big league players with problems, their latest retrieval from the scrap heap is unusual, even for them. At the ripe old age of 28, former pitching phenom Rick Ankiel is back. As a hitter.
posted by paulsc at 7:46 PM PST - 25 comments

The Continental was a short-lived TV show that debuted in 1951 on KNBH Los Angeles and aired nationally on ABC and CBS during the 1952-1953 TV season. Sponsored by Cameo Stockings, the show featured Italian actor Renzo Cesana (who got discovered when Robert Rossellini produced a play Cesana wrote when he was 16!) purring seductively into the camera, while offering "sham-pan-ya" to an offscreen lady friend. Best known for inspiring a series of Saturday Night Live sketches starring Christopher Walken, the show inspired parodies in its own era, such as this Popeye cartoon (where Bluto tries to seduce Olive Oyl by posing as "The International"), a Jerry Lewis skit on the Colgate Comedy Hour that imagines the Continental as played by Marlon Brando, and a Pepe Le Pew cartoon where our amorous skunk attempts to seduce the feline object of his affection in The Cat's Bah. Unfortunately, Internet footage of the real show appears to be nonexistent, although you can buy some love songs recorded by the Continental off EBay.
posted by jonp72 at 6:33 PM PST - 25 comments

Last summer, Uwe Boll took on four of his many critics. The "Teutonic Terror" (an amateur boxer who spent months in training for the event) so throughly savaged his opponents that three of them became gushing fans. Sure, he exploits an enormous German tax loophole to make dreadful films, but maybe he's just an industry-savvy Ed Wood. His most recent bit of empassioned lunacy suggests so. Hell, he has one more doctorate in literature than I do, and even the Wired guys though one part of Postal was funny.
posted by absalom at 5:56 PM PST - 35 comments

Just watched a tv show, looking for the music you just heard? Playing the radio, and didn't catch the DJ saying the title? On the go? In the woods? (Also)
posted by desjardins at 5:28 PM PST - 14 comments

"The ile is full of wild fowls, and when the fowls has their birds ripe, men out of the parish of Ness in Lewis sail and tarry there seven or eight days and to fetch with them home their boatfull of dry wild fowls with wild fowl feathers" - Donald Monro, Archdeacon of the Isles, 1549. The men sail again, as they have done since the 15th Century, this month.
posted by brautigan at 5:13 PM PST - 6 comments

Barbie Recalled. Mattel recalled one of their Barbie products today, a sweet little toy to teach kids responsibility called Barbie and Tanner. But watching that commercial closely one must wonder, if those magnets are coming out of Tanner so easily, surely they won't stay in your kid. Perhaps the design flaw had nothing to do with magnets but rather such an ill-conceived product. So, after Tanner poops out the magnet, you do what with it?
posted by Toekneesan at 5:10 PM PST - 75 comments

David Juritz a leading violinist left his house with a backpack, fiddle and completely empty wallet at the start of a 60,000-mile, twenty-five-country, round-the-world busk. He is raising money for Musequality (read about some of their support efforts, like the M-Lisada Brass Band). His comment about Berlin being a terrible city for busking put me in mind of this post about Joshua Bell. You can donate here if you feel so inclined.
posted by tellurian at 5:04 PM PST - 5 comments

A shortstop extraordinaire, loan pitchman, vocal accompanist, announcing icon. and friend to yogi's ...has left the building. RIP, Scooter.
posted by jonmc at 4:57 PM PST - 38 comments

WriteCloud is a collaborative writing game where the wisdom of crowds guides the cursor. Kind of like a web 2.0 version of exquisite corpse with letters instead of drawings. [via mefi projects]
posted by eoligarry at 3:55 PM PST - 11 comments

Oh, Inverted World. As we’ve all learned in school, 70% of the Earth’s surface is covered by water, only 30% is solid ground. What if everything was reversed? What if every land mass was a body of water, and vice versa?
posted by Ufez Jones at 3:47 PM PST - 25 comments

Extreme aerial bowfishing!
posted by Terminal Verbosity at 3:24 PM PST - 27 comments

nic. will never grow up
posted by nthdegx at 2:13 PM PST - 43 comments

Debtor Nation. The rising risks of the American Dream, on a borrowed dime.
posted by four panels at 12:33 PM PST - 96 comments

On human odour, malaria mosquitoes, and historic Limburger Cheese.
posted by Floydd at 12:03 PM PST - 14 comments

Take some assorted body armour. Attach an assortment of castor wheels to just about every part of your body and you become Rollerman _Flash. His real name is Jean Yves Blondeau, a former design student and proud owner of the world's only rollerblading supersuit. It may be handy for zipping in and out of traffic, but the fun really starts when you roll down an alp _QT, reaching speeds of up to 60mph with oncoming traffic. Is this insane, or an extreme combination of inline skating and street luge.
posted by bap98189 at 11:08 AM PST - 54 comments

The Arab Republic and Socialist Democratic Commonwealth Kingdom of United Islamic Principalities and Federated Islands. Brendon O'Connor analyzes the names of countries in relation to their Freedom House political rights score.
posted by Falconetti at 10:50 AM PST - 15 comments

Frankie Valli is very old but he is not dead, (MySpace, music plays on load) so you can keep those periods packed away. That first link showcases Pilooski's shockingly subtle and effective remix of Beggin', which should have been the radio hit of summer 2007, except for the small problem of not getting airplay in the States. You can compare different video treatments of the full song here (cyriak's trippy animation), here (pretty dancing people), and here (Northern Soul slideshow). The original 1967 version of the song should still be available here.
posted by maudlin at 10:06 AM PST - 22 comments

Tasty
6/4 blues: Carlos Santana/Buddy Guy duo. Jeff Beck "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat/Brush With the Blues" at the Udo Music Festival '06. Roy Buchanan "Sweet Dreams" at the Rockpalast and here trying out a Fritz Bros. custom guitar.
posted by sluglicker at 8:48 AM PST - 9 comments

Flying in the Alaska Bush. A photoessay of some bush flying in Alaska with a Piper Super Cub.
posted by exogenous at 8:02 AM PST - 28 comments

Foreclosure Radar. This is the fastest growth market in real estate, and we can help you capitalize on it. We go far beyond simple foreclosure listings: we track every single foreclosure auction in the state, every day.
posted by chunking express at 7:37 AM PST - 32 comments

Re-thinking the "cradle of civilization". New discoveries at dig sites in Middle Asia are challenging the archaeological worlds idea that civilization began in Mesopotamia. Sites in modern-day Iran and Russia suggest that a vast network of societies together constituted the first cities, along with the potential discovery of a new writing system.
posted by stbalbach at 7:32 AM PST - 20 comments

The Idea Generator.
posted by jbickers at 5:56 AM PST - 52 comments

What, no Bill & Ted? NY Magazine's interesting and diverse (or at least conversation-engendering) list of the top 15 pop-culture "duos" of all time. They cleverly narrowed down the list by eliminating non-equals (e.g. Batman & Robin), duos within groups (e.g. Spock & Kirk), & romantic couples (e.g. Mork & Mindy). Fans of classic comedy duos might be disappointed (they're also missing the most dynamic duo in the history of mankind).
posted by ericbop at 5:55 AM PST - 84 comments

See who's editing Wikipedia. The most shameful Wikipedia spin jobs and another one from Fox News. Meet Virgil Griffith and find a few interesting Wikipedia battles of your own with his new creation.
posted by spock at 5:36 AM PST - 92 comments

You might recognise him from just about every American TV series ever made (as well as a few films). However, you're missing out unless you watch his podcasts. He's also a very funny writer. Thank God for Taylor Negron. He's not too proud of this
posted by Geezum Crowe at 4:51 AM PST - 21 comments

Sami Al-Haj and Bilal Hussein The detention of AP photographer Bilal Hussein was not without controversy. AP president and CEO Tom Curley stated : "We are the target. Freedom of the press is the target." Meanwhile Prisoner 345 otherwise known as Sami al Hajj continues by reporting on life behind the wire. related
posted by adamvasco at 2:37 AM PST - 8 comments

How to build a fast offline Wikipedia reader using open-source tools in two days
posted by forwebsites at 2:29 AM PST - 27 comments

We've discussed David L. Cunningham before, especially the controversial 9/11 docudrama he made. But there's more to the man who's the son of Christian reconstructionist and University of the Nations founder Loren Cunningham. There are a lot of movies he claims to have directed on his IMDB page that don't have any external verification outside of self-published websites, which seems to contradict IMDB policy. Then there's the fear from both pagans and various political bloggers and fans of the books that his upcoming adaptation of the The Dark is Rising fantasy books is going to completely butcher the source material. The movie is produced by Walden Media, the production company owned by conservative christian billionaire Philip Anschutz, who's trying to "clean up Hollywood", in association with 20th Century Fox.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 1:34 AM PST - 9 comments

Women In Film, similar to the previously posted Women In Art
posted by aerotive at 12:58 AM PST - 23 comments