Maggie and Terre Roche started performing professionally in the late '60s, just a little late for the folkie boom but also a bit too distinctive to blend easily with the singer-songwriters of the early '70s, even when they became acolytes of Paul Simon and recorded backup vocals on There Goes Rhymin' Simon
. By 1975, they had their own album on CBS, with tracks produced by Simon (and backed by the Oak Ridge Boys and the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section) and ex-Yardbird Paul Samwell-Smith... Seductive Reasoning is not completely a folk nor a country album, which no doubt hurt its commercial potential... Songs such as "West Virginia", "Down the Dream", and "The Mountain People" touch on early joy and disillusionment/disappointment, while "Jill of All Trades" and "The Burden of Proof" reflect a few more years of life under one's belt and the smoothing out that can come with them. "Underneath the Moon" and "Wigglin' Man"... are more straightforward getting-laid songs, funny as hell... while several of their albums have been as good as Seductive Reasoning
, none were better. Nor did they have to be. -
Todd Mason (previously) [more inside]
posted by Trurl
on Dec 16, 2011 -
29 comments
Hidden away in vaults and out of distribution for over forty years, Herostratus was in its own time largely misunderstood. After only a handful of initial screenings it virtually disappeared from public view altogether, remaining all but forgotten to this day. Yet while admittedly flawed, the film does offer a compelling critique of the failure of 1960s postwar idealism in Britain, an ideal portrayed as having degenerated into neurotic self-gratification. It is also of note as
Dame Commander Helen Mirren's first credited screen role.
(not safe for those sexually aroused by Helen Mirren) [more inside]
posted by Trurl
on Aug 30, 2011 -
18 comments
The Aeronautical Pentathlon Has Six Events—and Flying Doesn't Count. Aeronautical pentathlon—which inexplicably has six events—is a riff on the modern pentathlon at the Olympics. Created 63 years ago, the military pilots' version has pretty much flown under the radar.
And though the sport is based on flying, the nonflying parts of the competition determine the winner. While it is exclusively practiced by air forces, it was always excluded from the military Olympics—called the World Military Games—until last month's event in Rio de Janeiro. ... and the
home team wins.
[more inside]
posted by caddis
on Aug 18, 2011 -
8 comments
The Guardian has compiled a list of their
top fifty arts videos, the majority being from either rare or obscure sources and uploaded onto YouTube.
posted by djgh
on Aug 30, 2008 -
13 comments
Widely Ranging Interests is a weekly podcast where two guys discuss their favorite obscure and arcane topics, from sea kayak marlin fishing to the history of the balaclava. Addicting.
posted by fungible
on Mar 13, 2008 -
14 comments
File under surreal tapes. Despite being essentially a links/tips page about music/film/art,
Panache is most known for its downloadable mixtapes in realaudio. There are over seven eclectic hours worth of new, old, wellknown and obscure music ranging from brazilian sambafunk, dreamy japanese 70s exotica, modern electronic wizardry to dialogue from films and novelty records etc. Some of the tapes have a rather dreamlike quality - which I believe - is the siteowner's intention.
posted by iwanttobuild
on Nov 28, 2004 -
3 comments
Heraclitus of
Ephesus, sometimes called
Heraclitus the Obscure: We only know him through 100 gnomic quotes and aphorisms
--I loves me some gnomic aphorisms!--all direct from or inferred in the comments of various authors of Classical literature, of which
no one steps into the same river twice is the best known.
Mark Cohen,
J. H. Lesher and
Cynthia Freeman provide excellent introductions.
John Burnett's 1920 translation is another academic standard. Jonathan Barnes. whose Penguin Classic
The Early Greek Philosophers has the best contemporary translation, wrote
Heraclitus attracts exegetes as an empty jampot wasps; and each new wasp discerns traces of his own favourite flavour. Here are the jampots of
Friedrich Nietzsche,
Bertrand Russell and
Martin Heidegger. And here, in passing, is a taste of the jampot of
Jorge Luis Borges. Heraclitus coined the word
enantiodromia.
John William Corrington's
Logos, Lex, And Law is also of interest. Heraclitus figures strongly in the
Archetypal Psychology of Carl Jung and
James Hillman, the latter especially in his discussion of the
Soul.
posted by y2karl
on Sep 11, 2003 -
22 comments
