Moondog For Midnight
posted by vronsky on Oct 23, 2009 - 19 comments

Joseph Brodsky: In Praise of Boredom -- from his Dartmouth College commencement address in 1995. " Boredom is your window on the properties of time that one tends to ignore to the likely peril of one's mental equilibrium. It is your window on time's infinity. Once this window opens, don't try to shut it; on the contrary, throw it wide open. For boredom speaks the language of time, and it teaches you the most valuable lesson of your life: the lesson of your utter insignificance. It is valuable to you, as well as to those you are to rub shoulders with. "You are finite," time tells you in the voice of boredom, "and whatever you do is, from my point of view, futile."
posted by vronsky on Aug 20, 2009 - 38 comments

Telstar: A film about the genius Joe Meek, had a fittingly interesting route to the screen. [previously]
posted by sam and rufus on Jun 30, 2009 - 11 comments

How to (and how not to) write poetry -- "selections from columns originally published in the Polish newspaper Literary Life. In these columns, famed poet Wislawa Szymborska answered letters from ordinary people who wanted to write poetry. Translated by Clare Cavanagh." Here is her Nobel acceptance speech, where she charmingly imagines a dialogue between herself and Ecclesiastes.
posted by vronsky on May 6, 2009 - 25 comments

The Bothy Band - Ireland's finest traditional folk ensemble - rip it up in 1977. (SLYT) [more inside]
posted by carter on Apr 23, 2009 - 20 comments

Josh Freese shows all how to promote an album in 2009. [more inside]
posted by chuckdarwin on Feb 20, 2009 - 48 comments

How We Kill Geniuses. "[Elizabeth Gilbert recalls] a story that musician Tom Waits told her years ago. One day he was driving on a Los Angeles freeway when a fragment of a melody popped into his head. He looked around for something to capture the tune -- a pencil or pen -- but had nothing to record it. He started to panic that he'd lose the melody and be haunted by it forever and his talent would be gone. In the midst of this anxiety attack, he suddenly stopped, looked at the sky, and said to whatever force it was that was trying to create itself through the melody, 'Excuse me. Can you not see I'm driving? Do I look like I can write down a song right now? If you really want to exist, come back at a more opportune moment ... otherwise go bother somebody else today. Go bother Leonard Cohen.'" Gilbert explores the idea that we might stifle genius by demanding that creative people be somehow larger than life and something more than human.
posted by sarabeth on Feb 6, 2009 - 175 comments

Thelonius Monk's advice to Steve Lacy (as transcribed by Lacy)
posted by ericbop on Feb 5, 2009 - 24 comments

Here's to Ray Dennis Steckler, the independent filmmaker who wrote, starred (as Cash Flagg) and directed influential films including The Thrill Killers, Rat Pfink a Boo Boo, and his masterpice The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies. A visionary artist whose influnce is clearly seen in contemporary cinema, Steckler was prolific (producing movies from 1963 until last year), economical (his films were self-produced, shot on 16mm film and later Hi-8 video), and brilliant (as clearly evidenced in this dance sequence from Creatures, "The First Monster Musical"). It hasn't been widely reported yet, but fans are mourning his passing. He died in his sleep yesterday, January 7th, aged 70. [more inside]
posted by Chinese Jet Pilot on Jan 8, 2009 - 26 comments

"We do not think our way to right action. We act our way to right thinking." David Milch talks to students in USC class Religion, Media and Hollywood. Not for everyone but I find pretty much anything this guy says fascinating. Parts 1 2 3 4 5 6.
posted by Manhasset on Dec 27, 2008 - 19 comments

Malcolm Gladwell asks: is there such a thing as pure genius? [more inside]
posted by louigi on Nov 15, 2008 - 67 comments

The Lost Years & Last Days of David Foster Wallace, Rolling Stone (warning: long article; could make you cry)
posted by Baldons on Nov 1, 2008 - 70 comments

Andy Kaufman - I'm From Hollywood -- with Jerry Lawler, Tony Danza, Robin Williams, Marilu Henner and Jimmy "Mouth of the South" Hart.
posted by vronsky on Oct 17, 2008 - 32 comments

Will Allen, the founder of Growing Power, an urban farm in Milwaukee, has won a MacArthur Genius grant. Growing Power uses aquaculture, vermiculture, and sustainable agriculture to raise food in an urban environment. Chefs of the region have taken notice, but that's not Growing Power's main purpose. Congratulations to only the second farmer to win a Genius Grant. [more inside]
posted by Eekacat on Sep 25, 2008 - 14 comments

2008 MacArthur Foundation "Genius" grants announced. Probably the biggest name is the New Yorker's music critic Alex Ross. [more inside]
posted by mattbucher on Sep 23, 2008 - 76 comments

The legendary Ken Campbell has died. Interested in everything, apparantly. Just as excited to visit Damanhur as he was to go to CERN, just down the road. Fluent in Bislama, the creole of Vanuatu, into which he translated Macbeth. Founder of the Science Fiction Theatre of Liverpool, which performed epic productions of The Warp, Illuminatus! and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Not quite Doctor Who (he was beaten to the role by former protogé Sylvester McCoy). A fount of knowledge on the theatre, comedy, Fortean strangeness and science and anything else you care to mention, all of which he spun together with extensive flights of imagination into glorious, hilarious one-man shows. Totally irreplaceable, and devastating loss. [more inside]
posted by Grangousier on Sep 1, 2008 - 16 comments

Who is Alexander Grothendieck? [PDF] This lecture is concerned not with Grothendieck's mathematics but with his very unusual life on the fringes of human society. In particular, there is, on the one hand, the question of why at the age of forty-two Grothendieck first of all resigned his professorship at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques (IHES); then withdrew from mathematics completely; and finally broke off all connections to his colleagues, students, acquaintances, friends, as well as his own family, to live as a hermit in an unknown place. On the other hand, one would like to know what has occupied this restless and creative spirit since his withdrawal from mathematics.
posted by Wolfdog on Aug 17, 2008 - 31 comments

In the years after leaving MST, Joel Hodgson of Mystery Science Theater, and his "smarter brother" Jim Hodgson, worked on a new movie-repurposing concept for USA Networks. The introduction for the test clip read:
"The Jolly Filter segment is a proof of concept test for a new film process. You will first view 2 minutes of the original film 'Rollercoaster' and then the same 2 minutes utilizing the JollyFilter technique.
"Note: If you find yourself getting bored during the original 'Rollercoaster' footage, don't worry, this is normal."
(SLYT, but an awesome one.) [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Jul 27, 2008 - 50 comments

5 Year Old Adopted South Korean Blind Piano Prodigy Yoo Ye-eun can play songs after hearing them once. Watch her perform with Britain's Got Talent's Connie Talbot in a South Korean TV show called "Star King".
posted by MythMaker on Jul 13, 2008 - 29 comments

Madman or genius? Well... madman. But being confined to an asylum (with one of his symptoms described as "manic invention") didn't keep Karl Hans Janke from developing elaborate theories of atomic energy, flight, space travel and the history of humanity, creating over 4,000 complex drawings and even models over 40 years of incarceration for paranoid schizophrenia. [more inside]
posted by Shepherd on Jun 2, 2008 - 4 comments

10 minute documentary describing the cameras and directorial techniques Kubrick used to create his masterpiece.
posted by vronsky on Mar 1, 2008 - 29 comments

::Call me Ishmael::Don Quixote::A Lesson for all Actors::Father Mapple's Sermon::The Lost Films of Orson Welles:: [more inside]
posted by vronsky on Feb 14, 2008 - 23 comments

Some people like to text while driving(YT). Others think TWD is dangerous enough to be illegal.
At last there is a solution for literate(YT), bookish types (Googvid) to get in on the fun.
Sadly, as with everything good, reading-while-driving has its haters too.
posted by isopraxis on Feb 13, 2008 - 67 comments

Darin Morgan wrote some of the most highly aclaimed TV scripts of the '90's. So the question is, "Where is he now?" [more inside]
posted by oh pollo! on Nov 10, 2007 - 33 comments

Hailed as "The first comprehensive television history of the most influential art form of the present day", The Genius of Photography is a four-episode BBC series which is almost non-stop eye candy with opinions from various photo-historians woven between the iconic images. [more inside]
posted by chuckdarwin on Nov 2, 2007 - 4 comments

Dweller on the threshold.
posted by vronsky on Oct 19, 2007 - 29 comments

Richard P. Feynman { Information Junkie → PhD → Atomic Bomber → Professor/Lecturer on Physics + Mathematical Artist [DIY] + Nanotech Knowledgist → 33.3% Nobel laureate + QEDynamic Speaker + Tiny Machinist + Challenger of Conclusions + Best-Selling Writer –X– Busted [outside Tuva] → Star Trek TNG Shuttlecraft ↓ Pepsi Black/Blue ↑ U.S. Postage Stamp } ∞
posted by Poolio on Sep 16, 2007 - 51 comments

"Hello Youtubes, have you heard my SICK beats?" Ronald Jenkees started a youtube channel over a year ago where you can find him clucking about his roommate, giving tips for the unwashed masses, and producing some incredibly awesome beats. The internet agrees, his debut album is genius.
posted by vishnubob on Aug 28, 2007 - 50 comments

The wonderful, horrible films of Leni Riefenstahl
posted by vronsky on Aug 27, 2007 - 37 comments

Pablo Casals Bach Cello Suite No.1 - recorded in the Abbaye Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa in 1954.
posted by vronsky on Jul 8, 2007 - 23 comments

You folks out there in MeFi Town been keeping up with the water themed MeFi Music Challenge? There's been some mighty fine uploads for you to check out! But if there was ever a piece of music deserving the water tag, it's this drenching wet masterpiece by Brazil's brilliant, eccentric musical genius Hermeto Pascual, in which Hermeto and his band play bottles full of water, and flutes full of water, and, well, the lake. Música da Lagoa: water music at its very best. And its very wettest. [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite on Jul 6, 2007 - 8 comments

Three exceptionally beautiful videos featuring surreal genius architect Antoni Gaudi
posted by vronsky on May 15, 2007 - 31 comments

Lee Perry, Ornette, and Hilary, with love
posted by vronsky on May 5, 2007 - 34 comments

I like a good laugh, but this gave me stomach cramps. If you tend to pee when you laugh you might want to take care of that first. And in case that's not enough baby, just wait, there's more! hoooo. hah. warning: YouTube loving double whammy
posted by From Bklyn on Apr 26, 2007 - 75 comments

Yoshiro Nakamatsu aka Dr. NakaMats has invented everything, other than all the other stuff that the rest of us have invented. He has 3218 patents to his name. (Edison had 1093.) Among his many inventions? The compact disc, the compact disc player ('natch), the digital watch, a unique golf putter, the floppy disk (!), and a water-powered engine. Besides being the founder of the World Genius Convention (where the world first learned of ingenuity of ADR ceramic disks, for instance), Dr. NakaMats was voted by the US Science Academic Society as one of five greatest scientists in history - in the company of Archimedes, Michael Faraday, Marie Curie, and Nikola Tesla - and he plans to live until 144!
posted by humannaire on Feb 23, 2007 - 27 comments

This is NSFW. It's crass, crude, cheap, rude, nasty and vulgar. This is a one link 10 minute YouTube video that shows cannibalism, fire, nudity, nerds, fried sperm, rednecks, and perversion aplenty. It is certainly not to everyone's taste, but that's because it's the Butthole Surfers' BBQ.
posted by Elmore on Feb 16, 2007 - 49 comments

Resonance FM gives you an interview with writer Alan Moore in three parts. I,II & III [.mp3]
posted by oh pollo! on Feb 16, 2007 - 5 comments

Be your own video game hero! Troy Hurtubise, the undisputed master of the bear-proof suit (among other things) has failed to find a buyer for its latest incarnation, and is selling the prototype on eBay.
posted by flabdablet on Feb 6, 2007 - 27 comments

Christopher Michael Langan is a bouncer by trade, a genius in his spare time (.pdf). Errol Morris documents the essence of a working class hero.
posted by basicchannel on Feb 5, 2007 - 63 comments

Jorge Luis Borges "excerpts from two of the six Norton Lectures that Jorge Luis Borges delivered at Harvard University in the fall of 1967 and spring of 1968. The recordings of these six lectures, only lately discovered in the Harvard University Archives, uniquely capture the cadences, candor, wit, and remarkable erudition of one of the most extraordinary and enduring literary voices of our age. Through a twist of fate that the author of Labyrinths himself would have relished, these lost lectures return to us now--in Borges's own voice." In English - mp3
posted by vronsky on Jan 10, 2007 - 46 comments

Garbage of New York City - litter that is collected, packaged up in a neat plastic box, and then sold for $50 a pop.
posted by Orange Goblin on Sep 18, 2006 - 37 comments

Louis Savain is the most coherent, articulate and ambitious Internet crank I've found. He's going to fix software, he's out to clean up physics, he's cracked the Da Vinci code, and he's got a discussion forum. Enjoy!
posted by flabdablet on Sep 7, 2006 - 21 comments

The scientist whom history forgot: Emilie du Châtelet. Lover of Voltaire, genius without a beard, female scientist, mathematician and philosopher.
posted by MetaMonkey on Aug 3, 2006 - 10 comments

FRANK R. PAUL: At a time when most Americans didn't even have a telephone, he was painting space stations, robots and aliens from other planets... he was the guest of honor at the first world science fiction convention, and he was the first person to ever make a living drawing spaceships. What could be cooler than that? via the one and only BLDBLOG, with an interesting take on the subject.
posted by signal on May 17, 2006 - 19 comments

In the latest salvo of the marketing wars, London ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi has taken the unique step of creating a new pop band that combines all the manufactured charm of the Spice Girls with all the serious musical chops of a female version of N'Sync (or, for the Brits out there, a female version of "Take That"). The band has yet to have a name, but they will be available to directly promote whatever item corporate sponsors pay Saatchi to have them promote.
posted by jonson on Apr 16, 2006 - 45 comments

After a Noel Mewton-Wood performance of Hindemith's (.pdf) Ludus Tonalis, Dame Myra Hess exclaimed: ‘The boy is truly remarkable, and what shall he be like at 40-odd?’. Glowing testimonials to his ‘genius’ (Sir Malcolm Sargent) from Beecham, Schnabel, Bliss, Hindemith and Britten were countered by indifference from the major record labels and concert managements. In 1953, at the age of 31, the pianist, a shy young man susceptible to depression, committed suicide. Now, the Lesbian and Gay Newsmedia Archive of Middlesex University offers a scan of the The London Evening News page with the report of Mewton-Wood's death. And here is a mp3 page with some of his out-of-print work.
posted by matteo on Mar 24, 2006 - 11 comments

William Schaff makes really good art... Perhaps you recognize his artwork from Songs:Ohia's Magnolia Electric Company release or maybe the beautiful artwork from Godspeed You Black Emperor's Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven either way his site has a huge collection of his scratchboards, paintings, collages, and mail art.
posted by mrs.pants on Dec 7, 2005 - 15 comments

Collected works of Enrico Caruso. Approximately seven hours of vintage, public domain recordings of Il Maestro, courtesy of the Internet Archive's 78 rpm collections. Amongst my favourites: Del Tempio Al Limita, a duet with Mario Ancona from Bizet's The Pearl Fishers, and Cantique de Noel. Sublime.
posted by carter on Sep 14, 2005 - 17 comments

real genius (not to be confused with reel genius) — or something a little like it — can be found in dusty corners of the web :: not all are evil :: one has a lego portfolio :: this homebrew pipe organ is amazing (this guy also builds marble machines and built a digital camera from a flatbed scanner) :: some teach the rudiments of wisdom :: i like the micronomicon :: i'm sure there are thousands of other shards of genius out there waiting to be discovered :: have a baby genius in your home? try the alphabet for geniuses! (just be careful...)
posted by jdroth on Aug 17, 2005 - 12 comments

Young + Brilliant, Blessed + Cursed
posted by Gyan on Mar 9, 2005 - 36 comments