MetaFilter

Bernard Waber died this past May. Mr Waber was the auther of many children's books, including the Lyle Lyle Crocodile books, the first of which was "The House on East 88th Street". David Haetty put together a little video, reading the book for us. Pretty much the most endearing collection of misspelled words, misread sentences, awkward text pacing, strange accents and mispronunciation you'll come across today.
posted by HuronBob at 7:17 PM PST - 9 comments

You're perhaps familiar with the Stevie Wonder classic, For Once in My Life. It's a great little tune, catchy, pleasing, just makes you feel good. What you may never have really thought about, though, is how much James Jamerson's bass line has to do with the tune's infectious brilliance. So, check out James Jamerson’s Bass Line Visualized. I mean, just... damn! Right?
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:08 PM PST - 73 comments

There’s a moment which comes every time Minh Ha enters the Hall of the Dead: a single, agonizing moment of hope when she sees the streets before the bombs extinguished the lanterns hanging in the trees—when she sees Mother and the aunts exactly as she remembers them, their faces creased like crumpled paper—when she hears them say, “Come to us, child,” in Rong, just as they once did, when handing her the red envelopes of the New Year celebration.

It never lasts.

posted by deathpanels at 6:29 PM PST - 7 comments

For £20 million you can buy your very own London tube station underground military headquarters. [more inside]
posted by Thing at 4:25 PM PST - 16 comments

What do you mean?
posted by roll truck roll at 3:57 PM PST - 29 comments

The 1976 BBC drama I, Claudius, an adaptation of Robert Graves's novels I, Claudius and Claudius the God, which came out in 1934 and 1935, respectively, is on YouTube in its entirety. [more inside]
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 3:34 PM PST - 71 comments

EN PUNTAS (extracts). "A ballerina, whose pointe shoes are extended by a set of sharp kitchen knives, dances and twirls insistently until reaching exhaustion, fighting to maintain balance on the lid of a grand piano set on a stage..." Video installation by artist Javier Pérez, featuring ballerina Amélie Ségarra.
posted by homunculus at 2:46 PM PST - 25 comments

Most people, including social scientists, think about poverty in one of two ways. Either they view the behaviors of the poor as rational, "calculated adaptations to prevailing circumstances", or as the result of deviant values and character flaws stemming from, and perpetuating, a "culture of poverty". A third view is emerging in which "the poor may exhibit the same basic weaknesses and biases as do people from other walks of life, except that in poverty, with its narrow margins for error, the same behaviors often manifest themselves in more pronounced ways and can lead to worse outcomes." "It's not that foolish choices make you poor; it's that poverty's effects on the mind lead to bad choices." (original research, pdf) [more inside]
posted by AceRock at 12:57 PM PST - 50 comments

Has there ever been a more ludicrous yet beloved video game device than Metal Gear Solid's infamous Cardboard Box. Fans have written detailed histories of the box. It has its own Facebook page. In the real world, it has even been known to actually work. But it's just so much more fun to laugh at it.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 12:51 PM PST - 25 comments

Collaborating with a 4-year Old -- Mother and daughter share a sketchbook, make magic.
posted by neroli at 11:59 AM PST - 24 comments

New Harmony, Indiana is a small town whose history is rooted in not one but two attempted utopian communities. [more inside]
posted by jbickers at 10:58 AM PST - 20 comments

At the turn of the last century, Mary MacLane wrote of her life in Butte, Montana, but she was no Laura Ingalls Wilder. Instead of comforting tales of a tough life, she instead imagined herself conversing with the Devil, and she could come across like "an off-kilter Walt Whitman with odes to her red blood, her sound, sensitive liver." Her first diary was originally titled I Await the Devil’s Coming, but her publisher re-titled it The Story of Mary MacLane, released to much (publisher-stirred) flurry and attention (Google books preview). Thanks to her book, she was able to move to Chicago. She wrote two more books, a variety of news paper columns and even a movie entitled Men Who Have Made Love to Me (Google books), which she wrote, directed, and starred in, directly addressing the camera at times. But for all the attention and publicity of the era (she was commemorated in a drink recipe, paid $500 for her likeness to be used on cigar boxes, and a Butte baseball team took her name as the team name), she has largely faded away, in part thanks to a public who turned from intrigued to mocking. Recently, Mary MacLane has found a renewed interest, thanks to the re-publishing of her original diary under its original name, as well as an anthology of her writing with additional notes (Google books preview). [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 10:51 AM PST - 22 comments

Teaching Cliteracy 101: "It is a curious dilemma to observe the paradox that on the one hand the female body is the primary metaphor for sexuality, its use saturates advertising, art and the mainstream erotic imaginary. Yet, the clitoris, the true female sexual organ, is virtually invisible." ~ Artist Sophia Wallace is using street art and an art exhibition that incorporates pithy slogans, 'scientific data, historical information as well as references to architecture, porn, pop culture and human rights' to make "the case for the clit". (Links throughout this post may be NSFW.) [more inside]
posted by zarq at 10:33 AM PST - 57 comments

One popular subreddit, Explain Like I'm Five, is where you can find answers to questions dumbed down enough for five-year-olds to understand them. (What is Obamacare? What does the One Ring actually do?) But Explain Like I Am A takes things a step further:

Explain color like I'm blind.
Explain the possible North Korea vs. USA conflict like I have spent the last 5 months playing Civilization V
Explain how the female orgasm feels like I'm a man (and Explain what an erection feels like like I'm a woman)
Explain how war really is like I'm a 12 year old boy who plays Call of Duty for the "realism".
Explain C++ like IamA programmer from 1979 who only knows BASIC and you are Mufasa
Explain quantum physics like you are a writer for Cracked / I am completely terrified by words featuring any more than 4 letters.
posted by Rory Marinich at 9:26 AM PST - 90 comments

Originally created as a special feature for the out-of-print 2003 Aliens DVD, Superior Firepower: The Making of 'Aliens' is a warts-and-all documentary about the making of the film.
posted by griphus at 9:18 AM PST - 44 comments

August has been a strange and confusing month for some of the Internet's most famous cats. Maru, Master of Boxes That Are Bigger On The Inside, was presented with a new kitten companion who will travel with him across that impossibly clean floor and anywhere else they can manage. He is adjusting. (Posts are in Japanese and excellent English. Cute Overload's commenters have attempted to smooth out the Google translations of the Japanese: 1. 2.) And back in the States, Grumpy Cat met Lil Bub at a film festival. There were some flattened ears and bodies (Jezebel post with two vines), but no Eve-Margo tributes. Bonus retro musical link for Canadians.
posted by maudlin at 9:17 AM PST - 21 comments

DANGER RADIOACTIVE - a playlist of High Youtube Weirdness, Odd Content, and Weaponized Strangeness DANGER RADIOACTIVE 2 [via mefi projects]
posted by The Whelk at 8:55 AM PST - 26 comments

While promoting The World's End, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost covered "Get Lucky" by Daft Punk.
posted by quin at 7:04 AM PST - 109 comments

Yesterday the House of Commons and the House of Lords debated a response to Syria's use of chemical weapons. The government lost the debate and the commons rejected military action. David Cameron said "the British Parliament, reflecting the views of the British people, does not want to see British military action. I get that, and the Government will act accordingly.." A government MP explains why she voted against and Charles Stross makes a suggestion for what could be done (distributing gas masks, field decontamination showers, NAAK kits, and medical resources to everyone in the conflict zones)
posted by Gilgongo at 5:43 AM PST - 397 comments

The poet Seamus Heaney has died aged 74. "There's a summons in those first words; they're like a tuning fork": a long interview from 1997. Metafilter's 70th birthday celebration. Some poems. [more inside]
posted by unless I'm very much mistaken at 5:29 AM PST - 103 comments

Hey kid! Are you a budding young talent anxious to present your work to the world, but not quite sure how the professionals draw comics? Well, the wise guys at Charlton are ready to help you with their 1973 comic book guide for the artist-writer-letterer.
posted by MartinWisse at 4:52 AM PST - 21 comments

70 years ago today in Philadelphia, PA, a weirdo was born. He grew up in a spectacularly dysfunctional family, angry, alienated and beset by bizarre sexual compulsions, mostly involving girls with giant butts. But following those early years of bitter struggle, he became a celebrated cartoonist, musician and misanthrope whose controversial, hilarious (and just as often despairing) art transformed funnybooks and American society. His name is R. Crumb. [more inside]
posted by Ursula Hitler at 1:35 AM PST - 45 comments