Ford Model T owners "transformed the cars into tractors, pickup trucks, paddy wagons, mobile lumber mills and power plants for milling grain."
posted to MetaFilter by Knappster at 7:50 PM on July 31, 2008 (8 comments)

I Met the Walrus In 1969, 14-year-old Jerry Levitan snuck into John Lennon's hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview about peace. This is the whimsically animated film that Jerry has produced about the interview.
posted to MetaFilter by milestogo at 2:31 PM on July 6, 2008 (26 comments)

Those familiar with the plaintive falsetto of Delta blues great Skip James will surely hear Skip's influence in the much lesser-known Johnny Temple's Evil Devil Blues, recorded in 1935, which features some delightfully unexpected melodic twists. And though Johnny Temple "never achieved stardom", he does have a Wikipedia page.
posted to MetaFilter by flapjax at midnite at 10:29 PM on July 5, 2008 (9 comments)

People have made some awesome animated videos for Ramones songs, and have uploaded them to Youtube for our viewing pleasure. I Don't Wanna Go To The Basement is probably my favorite. Commando comes in close second. Ramones as legos playing Spiderman wins on sheer novelty. The papercut animation in this video for Blitzkreig Bop is definitely worth a look. Finally, this snippet of the claymation Ramones playing Judy is a Punk is awesome, if painfully short.
posted to MetaFilter by Afroblanco at 9:36 PM on July 2, 2008 (14 comments)

2 July 1863, second day of Gettysburg. Sickles has pulled his III Corps -- without orders -- off of Cemetery Ridge and positioned it a half mile in front of the rest of the Union lines. Longstreet smashes the hapless III Corps and its men are in full flight. Hancock rides back and forth inside the gaping hole left by Sickles. Below him, almost 2000 men of Wilcox's brigade are charging up the slope. They will gain a foothold on the ridge and be reinforced by Lee. As Longstreet pins down the Union left, Lee will roll up the center and right of the Northern army and chase them from the field. He will then march on and take Washington before turning north along the eastern seaboard. Lee will capture and burn Philadelphia and Boston in his March Along the Sea, chasing the Northern government from city to city until Lincoln finally sues for peace and the union is no more. Suddenly, a line of blue-coated soldiers comes into Hancock's view. "My God, is this all the men here? Who are you?" "1st Minnesota, sir." "See those colors?", says Hancock, pointing at the flags of the oncoming Confederates, "Take them."
posted to MetaFilter by forrest at 5:45 AM on July 2, 2008 (82 comments)

How do I use and control both oldstyle and lining figures in a word-processed document?
posted to Ask Metafilter by monkey closet at 11:28 AM on July 1, 2008 (4 comments)

Low Plains Drifter is an award-winning short film featuring artistically photographed 8" custom and kitbashed action figures in painstakingly crafted scale sets. It's the first of a series of Wee Westerns, the latest project from Jason DeWitt, a man who believes very strongly that toys are for playing.
posted to MetaFilter by MegoSteve at 4:18 PM on June 29, 2008 (3 comments)

The Skins They Carried. Military tattoos in the age of Iraq.
posted to MetaFilter by thatwhichfalls at 7:52 PM on June 22, 2008 (32 comments)

Fascinating account (w/ pix) of a motorcycle journey through Angola. Stumbled onto this from the Black Flag forums and have not been able to stop reading it.
posted to MetaFilter by jcruelty at 9:29 PM on May 26, 2008 (40 comments)

Speed, Style and Beauty: The Ralph Lauren Car Collection photo gallery. More photos here (although some are duplicates). Details of the automobiles at Motor Trend. The cars were the subject of a Boston Museum of Fine Arts exhibition in 2005, and an excellent Discovery Channel documentary last October. If you missed the broadcast, you can buy the book. (There's no DVD that I can find, but watch for a repeat broadcast. Or maybe you can catch it some other way.)
posted to MetaFilter by Fuzzy Skinner at 5:26 PM on March 29, 2008 (13 comments)

Hound Dog Taylor and the Houserockers live at the Ann Arbor Blues Festival, 1973. Watch out!
posted to MetaFilter by pyramid termite at 8:45 PM on March 25, 2008 (14 comments)

So, you hollow out piece of wood into an oblong bowl shape, and you attach a dowel to it. Stretch a dried animal skin over that, and put some strings on it. Instruments of this general construction and in a range of sizes can be found from Morrocco to Nigeria and everywhere in between. It goes by any number of local names: Malian masters like Bassekou Kouyaté and Cheick Hamala Diabaté call it ngoni. Senegalese Wolof griots like Samba Aliou Guissé call it xalam. And Morroccan gnawa musicians like Hassan Hakmoun and Hamid El Kasri get way funky on the larger version that they call the gimbri or sentir. [not: see hoverovers for link descriptions]
posted to MetaFilter by flapjax at midnite at 7:01 AM on March 9, 2008 (13 comments)

Canadian artist Kate Beaton draws wonderfully expressive comics which she publishes variously on her website and her LiveJournal, Hark! A Vagrant. In December 2007 she asked her readers to suggest historical figures and promised to draw comics based on the first twenty submissions. Highlights of the resulting series include Mary Shelley, Genghis Khan, and yes, even Søren Kierkegaard.
posted to MetaFilter by Songdog at 9:12 AM on February 13, 2008 (16 comments)

THE church elder’s reaction was one of utter disbelief. Shaking his head emphatically, he couldn’t take in what the distinguished professor from Yale University was telling him. "No," insisted Jim McRae, an elder of the small congregation of Clearwater in Florida. "This way of worshipping comes from our slave past. It grew out of the slave experience, when we came from Africa." But Willie Ruff, an Afro-American professor of music at Yale, was adamant - he had traced the origins of gospel music to Scotland.
posted to MetaFilter by brautigan at 6:08 AM on January 11, 2008 (96 comments)

"You Don't Understand Our Audience" --what John Hockenberry (formerly of NBC, now at MIT Media Lab) learned about network news--good guys and bad guys, the "emotional center", synergy, facts, and why fewer and fewer watch nowadays.
posted to MetaFilter by amberglow at 1:31 PM on December 31, 2007 (65 comments)

The White Noise Supremacists: Lester Bangs on race, words, post-punk, and society.
posted to MetaFilter by koeselitz at 4:32 PM on December 17, 2007 (57 comments)

The evolution of one American song. First was Arkie Shibley's Hot Rod Race. Covers followed by Jimmie Dolan and Red Foley, with other artists coming up with their own answers. Charlie Ryan's Hot Rod Lincoln was the most well known, later covered by Johnny Bond, and of course Commander Cody.
posted to MetaFilter by pyramid termite at 4:39 PM on December 16, 2007 (12 comments)

Cigarette? Cigarette? No disrespect to the seriousness of throat cancer, or to heavy smokers, but these devices may help the unlucky ones, and maybe you'll be more fun at parties. There's a few models to pick from. It was the precursor to the talkbox. Frampton and Stevie Wonder rocked it, But not before Pete Drake and his talking guitar rocked it first. Low on cash Make your own.
posted to MetaFilter by greenskpr at 1:59 PM on November 11, 2007 (17 comments)

The Delmore Brothers, hailing from north Alabama and active from 1926 to 1952, were an early country and western duo that married effortlessly relaxed (but very polished) harmonies with soulful country-boogie blues. Bob Dylan said of them: "The Delmore Brothers, God, I really loved them! I think they've influenced every harmony I've ever tried to sing." They're sure worth some listens, y'all.
posted to MetaFilter by flapjax at midnite at 3:10 AM on November 7, 2007 (13 comments)

An old school rockin country song for the serious drinker. I'm goin' down.
posted to MeFi Music by markulus at 1:21 PM on October 31, 2007 (3 comments)

WYLD CANADA! 120 red-hot slabs of '60's teen garage nastiness from The Great White North (and a fifth volume here.) All the Canuck garage rawk you could ever want, from 49th Parallel to The Witness Inc.
posted to MetaFilter by The Card Cheat at 8:34 PM on October 23, 2007 (16 comments)

Viola Lee Blues by Cannon's Jug Stompers
The House Carpenter - Clarence Ashley
Old Dan Tucker - Judge Sturdy's Orchestra
Minglewood Blues - Cannon's Jug Stompers
Coo Coo Bird - Clarence Ashley
Sally Gooden - Eck Robertson on fiddle
The Worried Blues - Samantha Bumgarner
Dark Holler - Clarence Ashley
Cocaine Habit Blues - The Memphis Jug Band
All are from Folktunes.org, a list of annotated links to mp3s at the Internet Archive with lyrics and history on each page. It's like a functional annotated academic SomeOfTheCoolest78sAttheInternetArchiveFilter .
posted to MetaFilter by y2karl at 11:49 PM on October 22, 2007 (14 comments)

CountryBluesGuitarFilter: Keys to the Highway: Some Country Blues Resources --although Weenie Juke Radio is now dead and gone, Weenie Campbell lives on, with forums, guitar lessons and linkage galore. Keys To The Highway lists lyrics and guitar keys and tunings for some notable artists. And the one for the Mississippi Sheiks is a link to the fine country blues music blog Done Gone, which has on its front page list of links just about every prewar, country blues and related site worth linking. As does Weenie Campbell. And at WeenieCampbell there are also some audio lessons in mp3 from the great guitarist and guitar teacher John Miller, these days a resident of my fair city.
posted to MetaFilter by y2karl at 2:14 PM on October 20, 2007 (5 comments)

Somehow I got it in my head that the challenge theme was "too many notes" instead of "lots of notes". So I wrote and recorded this song and felt like an idiot when I came here to upload it. Enjoy.
posted to MeFi Music by erikgrande at 6:22 PM on October 6, 2007 (7 comments)

I got a gal in Kalamazoo, and a lucky number. Jumpin Jive! Is that the Chatanooga Choo-choo? No, even better! It's the Nicholas Brothers!
posted to MetaFilter by louche mustachio at 5:00 PM on October 1, 2007 (10 comments)

Danny Sanderson. Alon Olearchik. Gidi Gov. Yoni Rechter. Ephraim Shamir. Meir Fenigstein. Yitzhak Klapter. Together, they are probably Israel's most famous band Kaveret. What to hear their most famous song? Yo Ya. Want to know what it means? Here ya go. Want more Kaveret? Kol Hakavod.
posted to MetaFilter by wittgenstein at 7:58 PM on September 10, 2007 (9 comments)

The 'Neutral Hills' is the name given to a range of hills in east central Alberta (Canada) that were shared hunting grounds for the Blackfoot and Cree Indian tribes. Because of its importance to the tribes, the area was designated as 'neutral' for hunting only, not fighting. The area ranges from the village of Veteran as far east as Major, Saskatchewan, and from just south of the town of Provost to the community of Esther. Every image posted on this site was captured within the Neutral Hills region.
posted to MetaFilter by bwg at 11:17 PM on August 22, 2007 (16 comments)

"She was the first and only girl I kissed in the car. It's priceless because of that, as far as I'm concerned." Clarence Cleveland Curtis, 84 years young, is still driving his first car, a 1929 Ford Model A he bought used (for $10!) as a teenager in 1938. It's the car in which he kissed his future wife 67 years ago, when he was 17 and she was 14... Related: "My First Car" at HotRodder, "My First Car" at Motortrend, and "My First Car" at "AutoWeek.
posted to MetaFilter by amyms at 12:24 AM on August 22, 2007 (40 comments)

Classic Car Restorations - I was particularly taken by the Model A and the parade ground car of Stalin.
posted to MetaFilter by Wolfdog at 8:38 AM on June 26, 2007 (24 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 to MetaFilter by sluglicker at 8:48 AM on August 14, 2007 (9 comments)

Poor Boy Long Way From Home. Momma Don't Allow. Aberdeen, Mississippi (look at him beat that National). Special Streamline (one of my favorite songs set to a compilation of old films). Plus some John Fahey, who decided to write Booker "Bukka" White a letter once, bringing him to prominence in the 60s blues/folk world. It's a YT Bukka White fest! There's some previous going on here as well.
posted to MetaFilter by sleepy pete at 12:53 AM on August 10, 2007 (8 comments)

Rough arrangement of Imogen Heap's "Hide and Seek" for the steel-string guitar. I put this together about a month ago, after the SNL "Dear Sister" sketch introduced me to the song.
posted to MeFi Music by The White Hat at 12:47 AM on May 15, 2007 (27 comments)

Some more noodling with Live and Reason. Brooding percussion and bright leads. I'm happy with the results but it needs a better title. Feedback appreciated.
posted to MeFi Music by C.Batt at 4:48 PM on July 8, 2007 (2 comments)

Flamenco guitarists on YouTube: Paco de Lucia, Vicente Amigo, Sabicas, Niño Ricardo, Manolo Sanlucar, Serranito, Tomatito, Paco Peña, Carlos Montoya, Gerardo Nuñez, Diego Del Gastor, and of course, the legendary Segovia.
posted to MetaFilter by malocchio at 8:56 AM on July 4, 2007 (13 comments)

How to make a film like Hitchcock would have. Also, a sociological perspective on guilt and innocence in Hitchcock's work - rituals of liminality (pdf). (via)
posted to MetaFilter by chlorus at 4:51 PM on June 20, 2007 (16 comments)

rendur 2.1 (ren'dûrrr) Write out html and CSS and see it render as you type. Useful when you want to test out some markup or css that's been floating around in your head. The big news is that it now supports internet explorer and is ready to go. (internet explorer is a bad browser and you're a horrible person for using it)
posted to Projects by Tryptophan-5ht at 2:10 PM on March 16, 2007

Are you about to do some time in a California jail, but feel that people of your quality shouldn't have to mix with the other inmates? For just $82 a day, you don't have to! I suspect it's an extension of that classic Clinton-era program.
posted to MetaFilter by Pope Guilty at 2:58 PM on April 28, 2007 (99 comments)

Yahoo! Australia introduces a new search engine that uses OpenSearch and pretty little AJAX tricks to integrate results from Flickr, Wikpedia, YouTube (and so on). You can customize the layout, and even add your own search sources. It’s called Alpha, it’s currently in Beta, and aims to get through the rest of the Greek alphabet by June. (Via podlob.)
posted to MetaFilter by Milkman Dan at 8:39 AM on April 10, 2007 (13 comments)

A Good Morning Coffee Read (or Tea or Grass Juice or Gammel Dansk ; ). The warden of Fallouja.
posted to MetaFilter by MapGuy at 2:15 AM on March 6, 2007 (27 comments)

"Molecular scientists . . . have developed a new procedure for the differentiation of human embryonic stem cells, with which they have created the first transplantable source of lung epithelial cells."
posted to MetaFilter by jason's_planet at 12:25 PM on March 1, 2007 (30 comments)

I'm singing and playing the Reggie Lucas-written hit off Madonna's first album, but I just threw in George Harrison's wistfully lilting lick on the Beatles' "Revolver" classic for fun.
posted to MeFi Music by allaboutgeorge at 12:11 AM on August 14, 2006 (4 comments)