MetaFilter posts tagged with john

Danke schön

crossoverman — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 14:43:27 -0800

Writer, director, producer John Hughes has passed away. Responsible for hilarious Vacations, quirky boyfriends, Ferris' Day Off, a young boy being left Home Alone and the Shermer IL multiverse. If you liked films in the 80s, you liked John Hughes.

Smells Like Sloop John B

rageagainsttherobots — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 08:35:10 -0800

"Smells Like Sloop John B", a mashup of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and the Beach Boys' "Sloop John B".

Waiting for the CTA

wcfields — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 13:15:40 -0800

It's harder to be more obscure and unheralded than John Henry Timmis IV. He barely even tried to sell his own music, almost always giving copies away of his impossibly rare loner-punk 45's. Dieing in 2002, almost 15 years after his last single, from complications resulting from alcoholism, after suffering from the degenerative ear/skull disease mastoiditis-- his potential hardly tapped... until now. Film buffs may know him as the director/producer of the longest movie ever made, The Cure for Insomnia staring Lee Groban reading his same titled 4,080 page poem spliced with porn and heavy metal, clocking in at 87 hours. Virtually unknown until the song "Death Trip" appeared on an obscure bootleg punk compilation Staring Down the Barrel. Interest peaked enough for Plastic Crimewave's Secret History of Chicago Music article to have a write up on him and Drag City/Galactic Zoo to reissue his forgotten masterpiece, Cosmic Lighting. Medallion-wearing, twin-neck-guitar-sporting JT IV served himself up as a lightning rod of glam-punk eccentricity, seesawing in these archived recordings between ugly basement rock and lost-mind cosmic acoustic wanderings. Timmis liked to act as though he were already a star: he’d videotape himself singing along to his own songs and hire musicians to play live shows with him and film them for concert movies. But he never seems to have made a sustained attempt to win an audience larger than a few friends, and even when he recorded in a proper studio his music had a rough-around-the-edges DIY feel.

He's a nice, quiet, peace-loving man, come home to Ireland to forget his troubles.

Cool Papa Bell — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 10:15:22 -0800

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Now watch the greatest fight in movie history (SLYT).

Kind of Blue turns 50

Seekerofsplendor — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 01:22:27 -0800

As jazz fans know, fifty years ago on March 2, 1959, Miles Davis, Bill Evans, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb met at the Columbia 30th Street Studios in NYC for the first session of Miles new album, Kind of Blue. (Link goes to the 50th anniversary collector's box set edition page at amazon.) It was the touchstone for many other future recordings bearing its mighty influence and it fostered several high profile careers, and a new modal sound for jazz. Kind of Blue went on to be certified platinum, selling 4 million records, the most ever for a jazz album. Bill Evans had left the band in late 1958, but was called back by Miles for the sessions, which included his new pianist Wynton Kelly on one track only, Freddie Freeloader. The tunes they did that day, "So What", "Blue in Green" (written by Evans, though credited to Miles) and "Freeloader" all became standards as did "All Blues" from the April session. Documentaries and entire books have been written on this one album alone. The phenomenon lives on. (previously on AskMeFi, but just on Trane and Miles.)

Reform School Boys and Girls

wittgenstein — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 11:35:55 -0800

John Pfaff. Five Myths about Prison Growth.

May you never lay your head down without a hand to hold.

Kiwi — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 08:22:24 -0800

John Martyn: 11th September 1948 - 29th January 2009

What else is there besides matters of taste?

ersatz — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 07:59:28 -0800

It's almost as good as being at John Ashbery's home (bio) and there's more, including a preliminary inventory of his library* (search for "inventories" or scroll down). Ashbery's poetry is still very much invested in the reader's pleasure—more so than many supposedly "approachable" poets. You can hear him read his poems (more), watch him (here's -transcript- a brief taste and a half-hour video) or read a few of his poems. The Ashbery Resource Center has plenty of material including a list of Ashbery's cited influences. You can find more poems, reviews and pages on his work and be sure to click through to the Jacket feature. Skip to the conversation with Kenneth Koch about art and if you aren't satiated yet try this article, a TLS review of his latest or an older effort by the Boston review. Finally, you can see his collages and read an essay on John Ashbery's surrealism. For completeness' sake, here's an animated poem. *Yes!

Black Gold

hoppytoad — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 06:48:29 -0800

When the modern oil industry began 150 years ago, many speculators moved into Northwestern Pennsylvania. Among them was John Wilkes Booth, who walked off the stage and onto the oil fields in an attempt to increase his fortunes with the Dramatic Oil Company. Their well, the Wilhelmina, began producing oil at a rate of about 25 barrels a day (pdf, pg 11) during the summer of 1864. Looking for more return, Booth invested in the Boston Oil Well Company, but in a few months, he left his oil ventures with a dry well and a wallet emptied of over $6000. Had Booth's business lasted into 1865, his well might have been saved by Roberts Torpedo, a more reliable method of shooting wells to resume oil flow after a build-up of debris and parrafin, and his investment would have yielded return on the 500 barrels a day produced by the Homestead well.

The Ox

punkfloyd — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 07:41:29 -0800

Ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very, very much for waiting! And now, won't you welcome please the isolated bass of John Entwistle. (Good stuff at 01:22 on second link).

John Gill: Father of modern bouldering

0xFCAF — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 14:35:55 -0800

John Gill is the father of modern bouldering. In the early 1960s, he took his gymnastics training in to the field and pioneered the use of chalk and dynamic moves in climbing. In 1961, he climbed the 30 foot height of The Thimble, widely considered to be the first 5.12 ascent in the world, and did so without a rope.

A devotee of body weight exercises, he could perform a one-arm front lever and several one-finger pull-ups. During his time as a gymnast he engaged in competitive rope climbing (formerly an Olympic sport), which is making a bit of a comeback in the Czech Republic (if you think it looks too easy, try it with one arm). On his personal website you can also read about the mathematical work he's done in continued fractions, discover the joys of no-hands climbing, or explore the connections between gymnastics and modern climbing

John Ziegler vs. Nate Silver

billysumday — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 09:54:17 -0800

You may have heard of John Ziegler. A former right-wing talk radio host turned right-wing documentarian, he was once the subject of a well-known David Foster Wallace essay about conservative talk radio. Ziegler later gained some notoriety by slamming Wallace heartlessly after the author committed suicide, calling him an overrated writer and criticizing the press for its coverage of his death. Now, Ziegler has once again made waves by going nuclear in an interview with pollster-watcher Nate Silver over the legitimacy of a commissioned Zogby poll. Silver questions the value of the poll, which contains leading questions, and which Ziegler plans on using in his upcoming documentary to "numerically prove" that Obama supporters are grossly misinformed idiots. An excerpt from the end of the Nate Silver interview: NS: Well, since you’re running a website calling people misinformed, I’d like to see if -- there are certain things you’ve said that I would consider misinformed. JZ: Misinformed? You're a piece of work! You are never going to have the guts to post a representative transcript on your website! I thought you actually ran a legitimate website! NS: Thank you, have a good day. JZ: Go fuck yourself. And here is an excerpt from the David Foster Wallace essay (Wallace sort of hammers Ziegler in the essay over Ziegler's obsession with OJ Simpson and his determined and frequent use of the n-word on the many radio shows he's been fired from): The trouble starts when Tiger Woods wins the 1997 Masters. As part of his commentary on the tournament, Mr. Z. posits on-air that Tiger constitutes living proof of the fact that "not all white people are racists." His supporting argument is that "no white person would ever think of Tiger as a nigger," because whites draw a mental distinction "between people who just happen to be black and people who act like niggers." His reason for broadcasting the actual word "nigger"? "This all goes back to O.J. I hated the fact that the media treated viewers and listeners like children by saying 'Mark Fuhrman used the N-word.' I despised that, and I think it gives the word too much power. Plus there's the whole hypocrisy of how black people can use it and white people can't. I was young and naive and thought I could stand on principle." As part of that principled stand, Mr. Z. soon redeploys the argument and the word in a discussion of boxer Mike Tyson, whereupon he is fired, "even though there was very little listener reaction." As Mr. Z. understands it, the reason for his dismissal is that "a single black employee complained," and WWTN's parent, "a lily-white company," feared that it was "very vulnerable" to a discrimination lawsuit.

RIP John Leonard

ed — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 13:43:18 -0800

John Leonard is dead. A literary prodigy at thirty-two when asked to edit the New York Times Book Review, Leonard oversaw the NYTBR's glory days between 1971 and 1975. Television critic for New York, monthly books critic for Harper's, regular contributor to The Nation and The New York Review of Books, he also went out of his way to help young writers.

The most moving Super Mario-inspired song.

PM — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 14:54:16 -0800

Thank You Mario But Our Princess Is in Another Castle. John Darnielle (of the Mountain Goats) and Kaki King perform a song, sung from the point of view of Toad from the Super Mario Brothers video game franchise.

Spy Music

flapjax at midnite — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 07:18:04 -0800

Spy music! Whether it's Lalo Schifrin's theme for Mission Impossible, or Jerry Goldsmith's theme for Man from U.N.C.L.E., or the greatest of them all, John Barry's iconic James Bond theme, you know it when you hear it. Now, for my money, the best spy music in recent years wasn't from a spy movie at all, but an animated superhero film: the action-packed theme and soundtrack for The Incredibles, in which the very talented Michael Giacchino was clearly (and brilliantly) channeling John Barry. And of course, you'll all want to head over here and see what your fellow MeFiers have lately been doing with the genre. [note: see hoverovers for link descriptions] And why did so many of your fellow MeFiers suddenly start posting "spy music" to MetaFilter Music? Ah, well, I knew you were wondering! You see, it was one of last month's MeFi Music Challenges, suggested by stavrosthewonderchicken! Yay!. And we need more of you MeFiers to supply us with good Challenge ideas. OK? OK!

Goodbye yellow brick road

wheelieman — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 20:44:53 -0800

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road with Dr. Teeth and friends SLYT, but it's worth it!

A meme is born

i_am_a_Jedi — Fri, 02 May 2008 16:13:03 -0800

OH JOHN RINGO NO. Great review of John Ringo's Paladin of Shadows books. Ringo's response.

Go Fox Yourself

chuckdarwin — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 15:27:04 -0800

John Oliver's "The Meter Is Running" is a loving* look back at the history of FOX News. *not really

Scientific Progress Goes "Wonk"

SportsFan — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 17:00:20 -0800

I was watching Back to the Future Part II today, and realized that their idea of the world in 2015 doesn't really seem all that feasible now. While I was watching, I happened to come across this interesting piece in the now-free Sports Illustrated archives: a feature, written in 1979, on how the NFL would look in the year 2000. The full article is pretty long, but if you want the highlights, they're right here.

The contrysides were nice and the plants were singing and the birds and the sun was almost down from the top of the sky.

oxford blue — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 03:02:15 -0800

Half life: Full Life Consequences! Cartoon version! Based on the first piece of fan fiction to ever be critically acclaimed. Now, to recover some lost brain cells, how about Yellow Ducky String Theory? Danger, weird accents abound! Thanks ants. Thants.

John (not Jon) Stewart dead at 68

dawson — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 12:05:21 -0800

'Daydream Believer' writer Stewart, who came to prominence in the 1960s as a member of folk music's Kingston Trio, died Saturday at a San Diego hospital after suffering a brain aneurism. He was 68. The Monkees version of his biggest hit. But Stewart, one of our greatest singer/songwriters never achieved the level of fame many of us felt he deserved. No matter, he seemed to prefer the intimacy of small clubs and released dozens of albums, like the timelessCalifornia Bloodlines and scores of other beautiful songs, such as July, You Are A Woman, Walk On the Moon and his own aged like a fine bourbon rendition of Daydream Believer.

Adam's NIXON IN CHINA

wittgenstein — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 20:01:06 -0800

John Adams. NIXON IN CHINA. Excerpts: News has a kind of mystery. Act 1 Scene 3. Act 2 Scene 2a. I am the wife of Mao Tse Tung. Chairman Dances.

The Lesser Of Two Weevils

Neale — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 00:45:22 -0800

Australia Votes. Polls have been predicting a Labor win for the past few weeks, and it's beginning to look like it just might happen. But that's not the real sport. The real sport is watching the seat of Bennelong, where our current Prime Minister, John Winston Howard stands the chance of losing his seat. This would make him only the second Australian Prime Minister to suffer such ignominy.

There ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue. There is just stuff people do.

miss lynnster — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 20:08:19 -0800

John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath Steinbeck won the Pulitzer Prize for The Grapes of Wrath on May 6, 1940. The "Wrath" link is the Henry Fonda film in its entirety.

John C. Lilly, physician, pioneer, inventor, tripper

janetplanet — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 14:02:38 -0800

Dr. John C. Lilly introduced the world to dolphin intelligence (previous post), floatation tanks, early concepts of bioinformatics, and alas, during his later experiments with Ketamine ("Special K"), introduced us to an alleged group of extraterrestrials. To his dismay, Dr. Lilly's early discoveries in communications between humans and dolphins was co-opted by the military. His invention of the floatation tank moved him into studies of altered consciousness, and when combined with psychotropic drugs, led him to faraway places indeed.

As for his experiments with Ketamine, well perhaps this excerpt gives a good idea of where things went - "After three weeks of hourly K injections, Lilly decided that he would travel to the east coast to warn political leaders and members of the media of the threat posed by SSI . In New York, he phoned the White House to warn then President Gerald Ford about "a danger to the human race involving atomic energy and computers."

Along the way he inspired two movies. Here are a few more interesting John Lilly links:
Transcribed interview.
Audio lecture (with some trippy background music added).
Official website alphabetical index.

Finally, if all this is just too serious, perhaps you'll enjoy the Simpson's spin on the floatation tank experience....