The Clock is a film that is also a clock. It runs for 24 consecutive hours, and is made of thousands of samples, some lasting only seconds, others minutes, from hundreds of films and videos. All of it edited into a seamless whole by video artist Christian Marclay. When it is shown, it is synchronized to the real time, so if it's 2:15 on a clock shown on-screen, it's 2:15 in real time. Harrison Ford is in it. So is John Cusack, Humphrey Bogart, Michelle Pfeiffer, Lon Chaney, Roger Moore(and all the other James Bonds), John Cleese, Peter Sellers, Orson Welles, the Beatles, Jody Foster, Gregory Peck, Nicole Kidman, Nick Cage and a few hundred others. You'll see The Simpsons and The Office. You'll see The Avengers. You'll see stuff you have no clue about.
Here's what it feels like to watch all twenty four hours of it in one sitting. [more inside]
posted by storybored
on Feb 8, 2012 -
54 comments
Pop Pilgrims : "When the AV Club Travels, we always make time to visit pop culture landmarks. If something memorable happened in the world of film, tv, books, or music, we want to go there. We're not just tourists, we're
POP PILGRIMS."
[more inside]
posted by crunchland
on Jul 20, 2011 -
13 comments
Two articles from The Economist's Intelligent Life magazine about changes in knowledge production and acquisition,
The Last Days of the Polymath by Edward Carr and
Is Google Killing General Knowledge? by Brian Cathcart. The first deals with the implications of increasing specialization in all field of human activity and the second with whether people are not committing facts to memory because they are so easy to look up on the internet.
posted by Kattullus
on Sep 28, 2009 -
62 comments
Wikitrivia.net makes trivia questions out of Wikipedia pages. It's a bit rough around the edges, but it does pretty well for not having a magic AI that understands English. Hit reload if you get a question you don't like, or grab the
source code if you think you can make it better.
posted by tss
on Feb 12, 2009 -
14 comments
The mesmerizing
live question feed from text118118.com shows questions from curious UK residents. The answers are always polite and reasonable complete and accurate. Sometimes you can see one person submitting the same question or a string of related questions.
posted by closetphilosopher
on Nov 24, 2008 -
70 comments
...He expressed regret that he had said that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus and enclosed a gift for the Oral Roberts University. After quoting the line "money can't buy me love" from "Can't Buy Me Love" he said, "It's true. The point is this, I want happiness. I don't want to keep on with drugs. Paul told me once, 'You made fun of me for taking drugs, but you will regret it in the end.' Explain to me what Christianity can do for me. Is it phoney? Can He love me? I want out of hell."
John Lennon's Born-Again Phase
posted by y2karl
on Jan 4, 2007 -
79 comments
TriviaFilter: 100 things we didn't know last year --a roundup of the best? of the year from BBC News' 10 things weekly column. ...
20. Sex workers in Roman times charged the equivalent price of eight glasses of red wine....
57. The word "time" is the most common noun in the English language, according to the latest Oxford dictionary. ...
posted by amberglow
on Dec 28, 2006 -
50 comments
12 Days of Quizzes. You're having to work the day after Christmas. You hate it. You hate your boss for making you work. None of your friends are having to work.
So do what I did - kill some time and sap the last bit of profitability out of 2006 by taking
these 12 quizzes. It'll be lunchtime before you know it. Five short hours later, you can go back home and procrastinate on taking down all those decorations.
posted by Oriole Adams
on Dec 26, 2006 -
4 comments
A new iteration of the Fun Movie Quiz has been posted. For those unfamiliar, single frames from films are shown, and the users must guess what movie the image comes from.
Previously.
posted by lilbrudder
on Jul 27, 2006 -
52 comments
"So, like many of you, I’m sure, I have this huge styrofoam version of my head sitting in the garage." -- Ken Jennings, former unstoppable
Jeopardy! killing machine,
blogs.
[Who?]
posted by Gator
on Jun 27, 2006 -
32 comments
The most interesting pieces of pop music trivia (that you know are 100% false.) For example,
With the exception of 1990's Fourth of July, every Galaxie 500 song released has the exact same opening five seconds.
"American Pie" songster Don McLean is ironically both Canadian, and allergic to pastry.Rapper 50 Cent Blasts Colonel Oliver North for role in Iran Contra Affair
posted by The Jesse Helms
on Oct 10, 2005 -
68 comments
Did you know? Each year, more people are killed by teddy bears than by grizzly bears; an average of 100 people choke to death on ball point pens each year; and, there is an ATM at McMurdo Station in Antarctica, which has a winter population of 200.
posted by shepd
on Oct 14, 2004 -
38 comments
How long can he go? Jeopardy streak hits $697760 for 21 consecutive days.
This guys is simply amazing to
watch. He's had more airtime than some tv stars. Any bets to how long he can go?
posted by blahblah
on Jul 1, 2004 -
56 comments
King William's College Christmas Quiz - Pupils at King William's college on the Isle of Man have suffered its annual general knowledge quiz since 1905. Until 1999, it was compulsory and the average score was two (out of 180). Nowadays the questions, set by an unidentified islander, are posted to parents with the end-of-term report. See how you fare. Answers will be posted in the new year. (
last year,
last years answers).
posted by BigCalm
on Dec 24, 2002 -
38 comments
Want to know more about your favorite song? Try SongFacts: sample entry:
Song: "The Things That I Used To Do" by Guitar Slim
Date: 1953
Songfacts:
Slim claimed he was offered a song from God and a song from The Devil. He chose this one, the song from The Devil.
Covered by many guitar greats, including Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and Chuck Berry. Slim's innovative playing, including the use of distortion, became widely copied.
A rare R&B song that was popular in the North and South. Most hits at the time were specific to a certain region.
Proceeds from this allowed Slim to feed his liquor habit. He died of pneumonia at 32.
Slim often played guitar with his teeth or behind his back when he performed this, theatrics that would be copied often in the years to come.
posted by lilboo
on Jun 21, 2002 -
15 comments
American Flag Display Quiz and the
answers for all the ignorant folks out there.
When the American Flag is displayed on a wall, the canton (the blue field and stars) should be on the left as you face the wall. Am I the only one in America who knows this?
posted by canoeguide
on Sep 19, 2001 -
9 comments
