Favorites from meh
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A is for Aryan, B is for Brainwash
Nazi Pop Twins
is an eerie documentary that debuted this year on BBC's Channel Four about the neo-Nazi teen folk musicians, Prussian Blue. The girls are managed by a neo-Nazi stage mom from hell, and the girls already seem to be more interested in shopping at the mall than singing white power lyrics. One of the creepiest scenes includes the twin girls on a phone call with their prison "pen pal," David Lane, the Neo-Nazi convicted of the murder of radio talk show host, Alan Berg. Lane refers to the twin girls as his "fantasy sweethearts," raising issues about whether an obsession with genetic "purity" leads to pedophilia on the Racist Right. Watch the documentary on YouTube (Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5) (Warning: may be exposed to YouTube comments from racist asshats.)
Make Music, Not War
Anti-War Songs of the Vietnam Era
Alice's Restaurant [1] Ball of Confusion [2] Billy Don't Be a Hero [3] Blowin' in the Wind [4] Eve of Destruction [5] For What It's Worth [6] Fortunate Son [7] Give Peace a Chance [8] I Ain't Marching Anymore [9] I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixing-To-Die Rag [10] Imagine [11] Machine Gun [12] Masters of War [13] Ohio [14] One Tin Soldier [15] Stoned Love [16] The Unknown Soldier [17] War [18] War Pigs [19] What's Going On [20] Us and Them [21] Volunteers [22] With God On Our Side [23]
Alice's Restaurant [1] Ball of Confusion [2] Billy Don't Be a Hero [3] Blowin' in the Wind [4] Eve of Destruction [5] For What It's Worth [6] Fortunate Son [7] Give Peace a Chance [8] I Ain't Marching Anymore [9] I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixing-To-Die Rag [10] Imagine [11] Machine Gun [12] Masters of War [13] Ohio [14] One Tin Soldier [15] Stoned Love [16] The Unknown Soldier [17] War [18] War Pigs [19] What's Going On [20] Us and Them [21] Volunteers [22] With God On Our Side [23]
A Brief History of Disbelief
A Brief History of Disbelief
-- 2, 3, 4. An excellent documentary on the history of Atheism from the ancient Greeks to today. Wonderful food for thought whether you are a believer or not.
On living with a mental illness.
Borderline personality disorder described firsthand.
A very personal look at BPD - including the implications of sharing the news in a public setting - his blog.
As long as the mind is enslaved, the body can never be free.
“‘Keepin’ it real’ is one of the most dangerous phrases in our language.”
"This is the misguided notion that the only way to appeal to the young demographic (.pdf) of the sneaker-buying public is to adopt the negative attitudes of the thug life popularized by black gangster rappers. It is all part of the systematic hijacking of the Black American culture."
"I had a Raquel Welch in the pocket and decided to play it."
She's a mighty pretty woman. She's a funky dancer. She has hijinks with famous people and Orkans. She sings. She uses soap. She can bond with Janis Joplin and outswim a speargun (but not a boat). She fights. She has problems with buttons (and accents). She likes wigs. She's even a poker hand. And she looks dang good for 66.
More Alike Than We Thought?
Similar Diversity is a data visualization of a textual analysis of various religious books spanning several religions, showing the overlap in words, ideas, and meaning. Other infovis religion goodness includes a 90 second geographic history of the world's major religions (previously), a a map gallery of USAian religious adherance (also previously), and a timeline mashup of Jewish and Christian histories.
Masters of Science Fiction: Buried at Birth on ABC?
I watch virtually no television but this NPR review for the debut episode of Masters of Science Fiction (ABC) had me intrigued. (A similar review in the NY Times). ABC is being accused of burying this show with the timing of its introduction (and time slot). As for me, I'm still thinking about the debut episode, three hours later.
Where it says snow read teeth-marks of a virgin
Green Buddhas
On the fruit stand.
We eat the smile
And spit out the teeth.
Surrealist poet Charles Simic was named the Poet Laureate of the US this week. He also won the Wallace Stevens Award for "outstanding and proven mastery" of the art of poetry. [more inside]
On the fruit stand.
We eat the smile
And spit out the teeth.
Surrealist poet Charles Simic was named the Poet Laureate of the US this week. He also won the Wallace Stevens Award for "outstanding and proven mastery" of the art of poetry. [more inside]
Bizarre geopolitical posturing filter
Russians plant flag on North Pole Sea bed.
Russia has attempted to assert it's sovereignty over the North Pole by planting a Russian flag 4,200 metres under the ice. Norwegians, Danes react with amusement.
Rubber ducky you're the one...
This giant rubber duck is just one of many interesting installations by Florentijn Hofman, including a bunny, a reclining muskrat, some fish out of water and a pig in a bit of a poke
I Yam What I Yam
He's Popeye the Sailor Man,
he's Popeye the Sailor Man, he's strong to the finish, 'cause he eats his spinach, he's Popeye the Sailor Man. Bitch. [Second link via BB, fifth NSFW.]
I-35W collapse
The I-35W bridge by the University of Minnesota campus has collapsed.
The bridge, one of the most heavily traveled freeway bridges in the Twin Cities metro area, collapsed around 6:05 this evening. Sections of the freeway are said to be floating in the Mississippi as cars are stranded on standing portions of the bridge. Slideshow of images. Real-time updates at MPR.
“What you got back home, little sister, to play your fuzzy warbles on?"
The 2007 Mercury Music Prize Shortlist: Amy Winehouse - Back to Black; Arctic Monkeys - Favourite Worst Nightmare; Basquiat Strings with Seb Rochford - Basquiat Strings; Bat For Lashes - Fur And Gold; Dizzee Rascal - Maths And English; Fionn Regan - The End of History; Jamie T - Panic Prevention; Klaxons - Myths Of The Near Future; The View - Hats Off To The Buskers; Maps - We Can Create; New Young Pony Club - Fantastic Playroom; The Young Knives - Voices Of Animals And Men [warning: several links auto-play]. Although The View claim that the prize is irrelevant, most British musicians view the award as the highest honour a musican can receive.
The Arctic Monkeys were victorious in 2006, winning with their album Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not. Dizzee Rascal took home the prize in 2003 for his album Boy in Da Corner. While both will be hoping to repeat their success, but no band/artist has ever won the Mercury Prize more than once.
The odd, the unusual, the unbelievable
Fighter jets, overturned tractor trailers, WW II bombers, cars parked on walls, and more of The Strangest Sights in Google Earth
Internet as Confessional
Something heavy weighing on your heart? Confess. Mom Confessions.
Dad Confessions.
Office Confessions. Bride Confessions.
The finest perveyors of cut & paste entertainment
Cassetteboy "record famous people and make it sound like they're talking about sex or drugs. It's a winning formula" but they also bring anarchic political awareness to an already piratical realm.
Harry Potter (not for sensitive Potterphiles), Big Brother, Bill Gates, Jeremy Clarkson, Jamie Oliver and The Streets face the wrath of some adolescent humourists with far too much time on their hands while David Attenborough surveys British wildlife and Frank Sinatra sings about 9/11. And for dessert Martin Luther King Jr plays Deal or No Deal.
Most links YT, NSFW, YMMV.
Highway 61 Relived
Highway 61 Revisited: Like a Rolling Stone (1966);
Tombstone Blues (2000);
It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry (1971); (Rolling Thunder version);
From a Buick 6 (NOT DYLAN);
Ballad of a Thin Man (1966);
Queen Jane Approximately (1998);
Highway 61 Revisited (1969);
Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues (1995);
Desolation Row (1998).
1960's anti-pron propaganda movie
This short film
begins on a somber note...railing against the dangers of pornographic magazines in the 1960's, but as it progresses, the images it shares with the viewer are more and more tantalizing...from nudity, to promotion on sodomy, to bestiality (really, just a farmgirl pic with a goat in the far background), to hardcore S&M and B&D...all displayed for the soon-not-innocent eyes of the film's target market.
Harlem-13-Gigapixels
On a summer afternoon in 2006, New York photographer Gerard Maynard captured his neighborhood from a rooftop at 7th Avenue and 110th Street. The resulting 2,045 photographs, stitched together, comprise a 13-gigapixel panorama of Harlem's skyline. Best viewed with HDView option (MS Internet Explorer only).
It ends when you're dead
Tim Kreider's
editorial cartoons have that sort of vulgarity, puerility, absurdity, topicality, pith, bile, and self-awareness that help me get through the unending despair of reading the news every day.
(He also draws great faces.)
Love on Campus: Why We Should Encourage an Eroticism (of the Mind) Between Professor and Student
Love on Campus: Why We Should Encourage an Eroticism (of the Mind) Between Professor and Student.
Yale English professor William Deresiewicz argues that the newly-emerged stereotype of professors as "pompous, lecherous, alcoholic failures" is in the main due to our culture's fear of and inability to understand the true intimacy between professor and student: that of the mind. Cf. controversial Hindu teacher-student relationships, the same in Christianity, or merely observe Oscar Wilde: "I knew that I had come face to face with someone whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself."
Simpson Family Values
Vanity Fair has an interesting write up on the history of the Simpsons.
There are quotes from all sorts of people, including: Art Spiegelman, Jay Kogen, Rupert Murdoch, Conan O'Brien, etc.
Guys and Dolls - uncanny love
Real Dolls and the men who love them
- this 46 minute documentary explores the lives of four men and the relationships they have established with alternative partners in life. NSFW - doll nudity alert.
Kill The Wabbit!
What's Opera, Doc? (YouTube, approx. 7 mins.) The opera-parodying Merrie Melodies cartoon, which some consider to be Chuck Jones' career masterpiece, turned 50 years old this week. The short is also known as "Kill The Wabbit" in reference to the line sung by Elmer Fudd to the tune of "Ride Of The Valkyries," which is just one of many Wagner references in the piece.
My Crazy Roommate
My Crazy Roommate
At the beginning of this year, the new guy at work needed a place to live. I ended up letting him sublet one of the rooms in my house. After only a couple of days it became obvious that he is totally insane. The crazy constantly flows from his mouth and is just way too good to not share with the world. Names have been changed to protect the innocent, but other than that - all of the conversations are damn near verbatim.
Begin reading at Month One.
Begin reading at Month One.
Single link Youtube Post - Not
Double the flavor and double the fun with YouTube Doubler
ZAPPA! Do you speak it?
Frank Zappa - The Gigantic Spoken Word Project. Numerous volumes of a very large collection of Frank Zappa spoken word releases. They consist of radio interviews and journalist reporter type personal interviews. During the radio interviews sometimes music was played as background or added before the broadcast in between questions and answers. Sometimes FZ acts as D.J., plays records from his collection and talks to the radio audience. But the main focus of this series is FZ interviews which to me is as interesting as his music. (Just a quick warning; the download mechanism is a tad annoying)
Ziggy Stardust & the Legendary Stardust Cowboy
Ziggy Stardust is one of David Bowie's most famous and enduring creations. Bowie's inspiration for the name came from "Ziggy's," a London tailor shop, and from one of the most unusual performers of the period, the Legendary Stardust Cowboy.
Bowie explains his fascination with "The Ledge" In this interview, (topic starts at 2:00).
So what ever happened to The Ledge? Well, he's somehow morphed into a bad frat party act!! (anyone else reminded of Otis Day and the Knights?)
Too Weird for Words
The Holy Mountain
is an extremely odd 1973 film by Alejandro Jodorowsky, and the trailer for it is probably the most bizarre single video on Youtube (not an easy feat by any measure). It just doesn't get much weirder than this guy. Well, then again... (none of this is SFW).
Desktop pictures - Computer wallpaper
Hi-Res Photos for the Masses!
How about that bandwidth?
Errol Morris Clip Festival
A Brief History of Errol Morris.
His landmark televison interview/documentary series called "First Person" (ex. Rick Rosner : One in a Million Trillion [2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7], an interview with a man who went back to high school three times just to try to get it right; Denny Fitch : Leaving the Earth [2, 3, 4, 5, 6], where a pilot tells a harrowing tale of his passenger plane crash; and Andrew Cappocia : Mr. Debt [2 , 3], an interview with a passionate man about credit card reform.) ... see also: Fog of War [excerpt], an award winning full-length feature about Robert McNamara, US Director of Defense during the Viet Nam War; as well as some very compelling commercials [2,3, 4, 5] that you may remember, and an interview with the man himself. (Previously)
Watching Watchtower
Aside from the usual crap, YouTube has a great selection of
one the most
covered
song of all time: All Along the Watchtower. Classics like Hendrix (live and studio), Neil Young (at DailyMotion
with better sound) and U2--and some great contemporary versions like Keziah
Jones' blazingly-fast version,
Bradley Fish's 12-instrument (including Chinese Zither) version, Michael Hedges’
reason-to-be-excited cover, and
even a quite good version of DMB's much-maligned cover. What doesn't really rank: Dylan's original.
The mother-load of BBC documentaries.
Have a lazy sunday ahead of you? Feed your head with a few hundred downloadable and streamable BBC Documentaries, uploaded by a single usenet user. I've only watched the majestic and sometimes depressing The Planets and can't wait to go watch more.
New age of ignorance
The new age of ignorance.
A panel of well known (UK) scientists and artists are asked some basic questions about science.
Except the questions weren't that basic (since when is the Second Law of Thermodynamics considered basic knowledge?) so the results weren't surprising... although some of the answers were amusing ("The sky is blue because the sea reflects on it.").
The worrying thing is that the questions could have been much simpler ("How many planets are there in the Solar System?") and I suspect the results would have been much the same. Meanwhile, ignorance marches on.
Metafilter: essentially English after having been wiped off with a dirty sponge.
Essentalist explanations.
Maintained by John Cowan, this list boils down dozens of languages, real, invented, and imaginary, to their pithy essences. "Japanese is essentially 16th-century Chinese, 17th-century Portuguese, 18th-century Dutch, 19th-century French and 20th-century English with an abhorrence of consonant clusters."
"Esperanto is essentially Spanish with extra 'x's and 'k's." "Klingon is essentially Arabic spoken through a set of bulky false teeth." "English is essentially a half dozen other languages locked in a small room. They fight."
feline family
The Private Life of a Cat, 1944, (GoogleVideo, 22 minutes), is a gem of a silent film by Alexander Hammid, about a mother cat giving birth, her relationship with her kittens and mate.
Earthlings
Earthlings
(1 hr 35 min Google video) is "a feature length documentary about humanity's absolute dependence on animals (for pets, food, clothing, entertainment, and scientific research) but also illustrates our complete disrespect for these so-called 'non-human providers.'" Also in three parts on YouTube.