February 1, 2012
Won’t Be Silenced
Chaim Levin appeared in a video as part of the It Gets Better project (previously). A staff reporter for the Jewish Press criticised Chaim (referred to as "Dovid") in an op-ed; Chaim's response led to threats against the paper, which has now supported Chaim and declared that it "won't be silenced". [more inside]
All Monsters Have Yet to Be Destroyed
Mike Kelley, Artist and Writer, has died in Los Angeles. Mike Kelley, Los Angeles Artist and student of John Baldessari worked in most mediums available, including drawings, paintings, video, photography and installations, most notably featuring sock monkeys and other stuffed animals. His best known work may be for the cover of Sonic Youth's . Dirty. [more inside]
Saxophonics
Saxophonist Colin Stetson performs a stunning live version of his song "Judges", then shows us how it's done.
Wisława Szymborska is dead
Sergei Bondarchuk's "War and Peace"
An ever increasing accumulation of film stills from Sergei Bondarchuk's 8-hour long epic film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace [more inside]
Documentarian arrested for filming public hearing
At the instruction of House Republicans, US Capitol Police arrested Josh Fox for filming a public hearing—a meeting of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment. Josh directed Gasland (previously), a documentary on the potential dangers of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a process used by energy companies which has been linked to causing earthquakes in Arkansas and other side effects. [more inside]
Uh... those aren't chemtrails
Where Twitter goes, Blogger follows
Google has altered the architecture of Blogger to allow censoring blogs on a country by country basis.
Kim Jong Un Looking at Things
Steve Aoki
In The Studio: Steve Aoki on "Wonderland" his new album. Steve Aoki just kicked off ... Dim Macks 2012 North American DeadMeat Tour (video here) with Artist such as Datsik 1 2 3, Alvin Risk 1 2, Andy's Ill 1 2 3, Angger Dimas 1 2 3, AutoErotique 1 2 3, Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike 1 2 3, Dirty Phonics 1 2, Mustard Pimp 1 2 3, Terravita 1 2 3 [more inside]
Finally Facebook
Facebook has submitted its S-1 Form to the SEC, beginning its road to an IPO. LinkedIn, Groupon and Zynga made their first stock available 3-6 months after filing their S-1 forms. The time is spent by regulators evaluating the statements made in the form, and the banks underwriting the issue finding buyers for the stock - which is unlikely to be difficult. [more inside]
Eighty Eight for Eight, Mate!
"Round here, we say 'mate' a lot. Do yourself a favour, and learn to figure out when a bloke is about to buy you a drink, and when he's ready to put the boot in. He'll say mate either way, but how will he say it? Use our handy guide to MATE, know what your mates are on about!"
Not as bombastic as the Fus Ro Dah version
Here is a lovely acoustic version of "The Dragonborn Comes" courtesy of blogger Makulah.
I'm gonna sit write down and write twenty-four letters...
A Month of Letters is a challenge with two parts: mail something (anything!) every day the post runs in February and respond to every letter you get.
I was looking for a job, and I never found a job, and heaven knows, I'm still miserable.
Europe's lost generation: how it feels to be young and struggling in the EU. 'Maybe being young is never easy. But being a twentysomething young European has rarely been more stressful.' Here are some of their stories. [more inside]
Anatomical quilling: paper cross sections of the body
Anatomical quilling: paper cross sections of the body - a showcase of artist Lisa Nilsson's tissue series
Gamification is Bullshit
Last month Wired published a lengthy profile of game designer and digital media professor Ian Bogost, best known for his anti-game cum Zynga critique, Cow Clicker (previously: 1, 2). Slashdot recently did an insightful Q&A with Bogost covering, amongst other things, his polemic thoughts on gamification, the rhetorical advantage of referring to it as exploitationware and what it's like to play with shit crayons.
Former CIA agent John Kiriakou Indicted.
In 2007 former CIA Agent John Kiriakou went public with his involvement with waterbording Al-Quaeda Detainees. At the time he felt that it worked. And, he only belived it had happened once with Abu Zubaydah. By 2010 he'd learned that Zubaydah had been waterboared 83 times, and that information was not good. Now, he's being prosecuted under the espionage act, for allegedly helping to identify CIA operatives that Guantánamo defense lawyers who might be able to testify about abusive treatment. [more inside]
Operation Enduring Freedom, 2001-2013
More than ten years after it began, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has announced a "mid-2013" end to combat operations in the Afghan War, the longest in US history. [more inside]
Space Stallions!
Space Stallions! A 2012 bachelor film project from The Animation Workshop. More epic than epic. More 80s than the 80s ever were. (slyt)
What's Wrong With the Teenage Mind?
Children today reach puberty earlier and adulthood later. The result: A lot of teenage weirdness. Adolescence has always been troubled, but for reasons that are somewhat mysterious, puberty is now kicking in at an earlier and earlier age. At the same time, first with the industrial revolution and then even more dramatically with the information revolution, children have come to take on adult roles later and later.
In sickness and in health
Oh, my God. What have we done?
Game Change trailer. [SLYT, possible trigger warning for anyone who was alive in 2008]
How Basketball-Reference Got Every Box Score
More human than human
of six-pack abs and real girl bellies
Of six-pack abs and real girl bellies: thoughts after viewing xoJane's "Real Girl Belly Project" ("Show Us Your Bellies!", photo gallery part one, photo gallery part two).
“People react to ‘District 9’ and Die Antwoord on the same level...”
“I feel sorry for people who need to ask us: Is it real?” Ninja told me. Changing identities is the point — the more total, the better.The New York Times interviews Die Antwoord's Ninja about their new upcoming (and self-released) album TEN$ION. Watch and listen to the first two NSFW singles: Fok Julle Naaiers and I Fink U Freeky.
Soup's On (The Coffee Table)
A study in Public Health Nutrition which compiles data relating to Americans' food-related time use over the past 30 years reveals some interesting trends: Eating as a primary activity declined in the past 30 years. On the other hand, eating as a secondary activity rose dramatically in the past 30 years. We now do almost 50 percent of our eating while concentrating on something else.From the introduction to photographer Miho Aikawa's project Dinner In NY, a series of portraits of New Yorkers eating dinner -- and often doing something else besides.
Chapter 1. He adored tennis. He idolized it all out of proportion
The Awl sends correspondent Ben Worcester to the newest tennis hotspot in Manhattan: The Vanderbilt Tennis Club in Grand Central. [more inside]
"Will the last Mexican out of California please turn out the lights? That will be me."
foxes and fowl and so many footnotes
After a long personal hiatus, pithy history blog Got Medieval recently returned (previously: 1, 2). It comes back with a new project, an ongoing series of posts [Intro, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] on the author’s dissertation topic, the role of Uther in the story of King Arthur as told in the less-than-accurate 12th century Historia Regum Brittanae by Geoffrey of Monmouth. If you want more, the saints feasts calendar commentaries may be completed now, but don’t worry, the marginalia posts continue (e.g. sketches of naked men in a nun’s devotional book).
Professor: today's students vs his memories
The Beatles and the Bolsheviks. An excellent essay on the decline of the college student. How much of the professor's frustration can be linked to selective memory?
Happy 2112 Day!
Ghosts of Light
Wittner Fabrice uses light stencils to create photographs which look unreal and occasionally unsettling. [more inside]
Don Cornelius, Soul Train creator, RIP
Over its amazing 35 year run, Soul Train provided American television viewers with an incredible panorama, a veritable cornucopia of black popular music, and of course, entertained everyone with their legendary line dance segments. The man who created and hosted the show from its beginnings up until 1993, Mr. Don Cornelius, was on Wednesday found dead in his home, an apparent suicide.
There must be some kinda way out of here.
DC announced this morning that it would publish a series of prequels to Watchmen. Watchmen writer Alan Moore: “I tend to take this latest development as a kind of eager confirmation that they are still apparently dependent on ideas that I had 25 years ago.” The talent working on the new series has been quick to issue a defense and to outline their plans.
The would-be Watchmen sequel was recently on the blue. [more inside]
Waltzing on Graves filled by their Grandfathers
The European Far-Right took part in the Vienna Ball season with the Vienna Student Ball, which has had Right-wing ties since the 50s. There were bomb threats and some violence, but the Ball proceeded, even the the face of condemnation from UNESCO.
All of which took place on Holocaust Remembrance Day
"...because there's nothing more tiring than reading long screeds of text on a computer screen."
"The more people 'pirate' a book, the better." [Guardian.co.uk] Multimillion-selling author, Paulo Coelho links with Pirate Bay.
Fred the Pleb
The erstwhile Sir Fred "The Shred" Goodwin, former CEO of the Royal Bank of Scotland has been stripped of the knighthood awarded to him in 2004 for "services to banking". The move has been met with predictable glee by the popular press, but has been criticised by business and political figures as well as some newspaper comment. Goodwin joins the somewhat dubious club of those who have been stripped of UK honours, including notables such as Mugabe, Mussolini and Ceauesescu amongst other less famous but equally tawdry figures.
Happy Digital Learning Day!
Today the US celebrates Digital Learning Day. A free webcast on digital learning techniques (schedule) begins at 9:00 AM EST. There are also a variety of toolkits and resources for teachers and parents. [more inside]
Small but deadly?
On the contrary, it seems to me that [God], on the strength of His daily acts, He must be set down a most cruel, stupid and villainous fellow.
From lettersofnote.com : In July of 1931, author and philosopher Will Durant wrote to a number of notable figures and asked, essentially, "What is the meaning of life?" His letter concluded:
Spare me a moment to tell me what meaning life has for you, what keeps you going, what help—if any—religion gives you, what are the sources of your inspiration and your energy, what is the goal or motive-force of your toil, where you find your consolations and your happiness, where, in the last resort, your treasure lies. Write briefly if you must; write at length and at leisure if you possibly can; for every word from you will be precious to me.
Durant received many replies, a selection of which were compiled in the book, "On the Meaning of Life." By far the greatest response, in my opinion, came from the great H. L. Mencken. It can, and should, be read below.
(Description above taken straight from the linked post, as it summed it up pretty well)
"Please please put cheese on them, for me, tonight"
The creeper that can be exploded is not the eternal creeper
Joe Hills is a Minecraft player from Nashville, Tennessee, who's probably best known for his Let's Play videos of adventure map designer Vechs's Super Hostile maps such as Nightmare Realm and Spellbound Caves (he was also the inspiration for Vechs's "Super Docile" map, Hills of Moo, where nothing evil happens and everything is peaceful). But lately he's embarked on a new Minecraft adventure, Minecraft Morning Musings, where he sails perpetually eastward while talking about the Dao de Jing. In each episode, he reads and discusses several translations of a chapter of the Dao. Sometimes, though, things get radical.
"Commentariat". I love that!
When the commentariat attacks!: 14 entertaining cases of collective Internet satire. As evidenced in the recent Star Wars Uncut project (previously), crowdsourced satire can produce hilarity of mind-boggling magnitude, far beyond what any one mind could muster. The AV Club has collected a few remarkable and side-splitting examples.
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