April 28, 2010

Santa Muerte

A Saint for Lost Souls. "The barrio of Tepito, where it's said that everything is for sale except dignity, has been one of Mexico City's roughest neighborhoods since Aztec times. Famous for its black market and its boxing champions, Tepito is a place where residents learn to fight early and fight hard. These days it has also become the epicenter of Mexico's fastest-growing faith: Santa Muerte, or Holy Death, a hybrid religion that merges Catholic symbolism with pre-Hispanic worship of the skeletal Mictlantecuhtli and Mictlancihuatl, Lord and Lady of the Dead."
posted by homunculus at 11:20 PM PST - 36 comments

Sharing is Caring

Do you like free music, and a whole lot of it? You might want to check out netlabels.
23seconds is a netlabel from Sweden, with music ranging from introspective but fun indietronica to brash electroclash to feel-good Gothenburg disco, all for free (as in beer.)
But what's a real goldmine is their massive netlabel catalogue, with a listing of over 150 labels. Happy downloading! [more inside]
posted by dunkadunc at 10:09 PM PST - 18 comments

Plasma Rain

Solar eruption with chance of rain: The movie.
posted by edgeways at 9:47 PM PST - 25 comments

Ze Frank's Chillout Song.

Im a fan of Songs You Already Know. If you make another, could you please make a song for "Song for when you're overwhelmed"? A nice sweet calmdown song. An audio-hug. A song that huddles around you and whispers "shhhhhhh, calm the fuck down. s'okay".
posted by Sticherbeast at 8:12 PM PST - 35 comments

Wodaabe - Herdsmen Of The Sun

Short segments from Wodaabe - Die Hirten der Sonne. Nomaden am Südrand der Sahara (Herdsmen of the Sun), a 1989 documentary by Werner Herzog.
posted by puny human at 7:52 PM PST - 6 comments

The Art of Living

Doing Time, Doing Vipassana is a powerful 52-minute documentary (1 2 3 4 5) in which Goenka's form of meditation is once again introduced in India's largest prison. [more inside]
posted by gman at 6:57 PM PST - 21 comments

Sir Peter Jackson

Arise, Sir Peter. Renowned film director Peter Jackson was invested by the Queen's representative in New Zealand yesterday, as a Knight Bachelor Companion of the Order of Merit. Modern Knighthoods are principally a British and European convention, exported to the Commonwealth colonies, and seen by some as a continuation of social class. Labour discontinued them in 2000 in favour of more egalitarian titles (and with associated republican ideals), however they were restored in 2009 by the right-wing National party government, to a mixed reception.
posted by wilful at 6:48 PM PST - 38 comments

Zoology, the final frontier

So this new critter, the Symbion pandora, has such a bizarre life cycle and is just so bloody weird -unlike anything we had come across before- that its discovery in 1995 lead to the creation of a whole new phylum in the Animal Kingdom. Meet the little monsters.

If your weird-o-meter is humming, keep reading Zoologger, a new column in NewScientist magazine that writes about about weird animals from around the globe. Selective abortion in pipefish, single-cell giants that enslave bacteria, amphibious cats, you name it.
posted by Cobalt at 6:43 PM PST - 38 comments

A Wild Nobility

Something very strange has been happening across London clubland this Spring. The Antsignal has gone up over the city, and the Antpeople have crawled out from their mounds to hail the unexpected return of their insect overlord. An Adam Ant Exclusive by Simon Price [more inside]
posted by a.steele at 5:57 PM PST - 27 comments

Fretless Fader

The Fretless Fader is an incredible new XY turntable control interface being developed by John Beez
posted by mhjb at 5:45 PM PST - 29 comments

The Korean Zombie

Chan Sung Jung is a MMA fighter. He has an unorthodox style. And he keeps coming at you regardless of the pace. They call him the Korean Zombie.
posted by ishmael at 5:06 PM PST - 36 comments

The Recession Hits Big Art

Jeff Koons, Charles Ray, Claes Oldenburg, and Robert Therrien are just a few of the artists who, over the past thirty years, have used Carlson & Co. to engineer and fabricate large scale, technically complex sculptures. Last week Carlson & Co. laid off its 95 employees, and will close.
posted by R. Mutt at 4:02 PM PST - 25 comments

I'm absolutely, 100 percent, not guilty.

Orange juice, consumed in 70 percent of American homes, isn't quite as all natural as the "Not From Concentrate" on its label implies. According to Alyssa Hamilton's book Squeezed, raw juice is often heated, stripped of its volatile compounds and flavor-rich oils, and stored for as long as a year before it reaches the consumer. Something called "the flavor pack" is used to return most of the "natural" aroma and taste to the product. Why? Without these infusions, Hamilton writes, processed orange juice would be "undrinkable".
posted by exhilaration at 2:44 PM PST - 130 comments

5th grade love video

I CANT LIVE WITHOUT YOY. Armed with air guitar, U2's With Or Without You, and a video camera that he can type overlays into, a kid professes his everlasting love to KELY KELLY.
posted by The Devil Tesla at 2:25 PM PST - 80 comments

Beloved Herring Maven, RIP

Actor, Playwright, Artist, Comedian, Magician, "Man of A Thousand Voices" (including Mighty Mouse,) "Beloved Herring Maven"
Mr. Ira Stadlen (Stage name: "Captain" Allen Swift) has passed away at the age of 87. Throughout his career, Mr. Stadler voiced characters in more than 30,000 television and radio commercials, as well as cartoons such as Underdog, Tom and Jerry and Diver Dan, but some might remember him most as the man who saved Howdy Doody. His nephew has posted a remembrance on his blog, which includes a link to a "novelty 45" mp3 recording of Swift's "Are You Lonesome Tonight." [more inside]
posted by zarq at 2:03 PM PST - 13 comments

Looking Up.

Surviving at the Base of the Pyramid A look at the ways and means those at the Base of the Pyramid across the developing world earn a living by the repair, reuse, repurposing, resale and recycling of goods. Like Dharavi; home to more than a million people.and a thriving business centre propelled by thousands of micro-entrepreneurs who have created as many as 4500 to 5000 small scale industries most of which recycle the discarded waste of Mumbai’s 19 million citizens. Ideas like The Safe Bottle Lamp project. winner of 2009 BBC WorldChallenge. Indian social entrepreneurs are going global cooking gas from pine needles- solar powered hearing aids. and in San Diego CA Carbon Manna Unlimited have announced the establishment of the "Micro" Revolutions Institute(SM), the world's first think tank to focus exclusively on developing novel, sustainable, open-source, low-cost and immediately implementable micro-economic, micro-financial and micro-ecological paradigms or mechanisms to benefit the Developing World.
posted by adamvasco at 12:27 PM PST - 6 comments

Think globally, act globally

Eating local, organic foods may not be the best option. The vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions stem from food production, not transportation, and production inputs for organic food are typically higher. Third world countries that have a food system that is organic and local by default are suffering from lack of infrastructure and investment in basic production technologies that could improve nutrition for millions of people. [more inside]
posted by stinker at 12:17 PM PST - 154 comments

Monkey see, monkey dead

Chimpanzees mourn, freak out, and even lose sleep over a relative's death. Includes footage. Also, lol.
posted by DZack at 12:05 PM PST - 65 comments

Avatar tree not so alien

The ID system lies in the roots and the chemical cues they secrete. Scientists have found that plants will determine if their neighbors are siblings/family and if so, will not complete for resources as aggressively . [more inside]
posted by Eicats at 11:51 AM PST - 18 comments

Sorry Samus but your Princess is in another castle!

Super Mario Crossover - Play Super Mario Bros. as Bill S, Samus, Link, Simon, Mega Man or, of course, as Mario. [more inside]
posted by carsonb at 11:40 AM PST - 68 comments

The more, the merrier?

The Expansionist Party of the United States ("XP") is a "small, international organization founded over the telephone February 19, 1977 by two gay men in two different boros of New York City." (One of the founders is L. Craig Schoonmaker, known to some as the guiding spirit of Homosexuals Intransigent!.) XP's mission: "to enlarge the United States geographically." First step: Welcoming Canada Home. [more inside]
posted by GrammarMoses at 11:21 AM PST - 60 comments

Silver Age is the Best Age

February 1966 was the best month in comics ever
posted by Artw at 11:20 AM PST - 42 comments

Dexter's Laboratory

Dexter High School's student newspaper causes parental squall. An anonymous parents group called Clean Up DHS wants to quash student free speech because of an article in a recent issue of the student-run The Squall. The article in question (p. 4, February 2010) is about a local teens-only club. Where's the rub? [more inside]
posted by beelzbubba at 11:17 AM PST - 25 comments

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Emerging from a debate on "epistemic closure" (of the conservative mind) John Quiggin looked beyond the dead horses and gazed upon the need "to offer hope, in the form of goals that can excite enthusiastic commitment to a progressive alternative." Matthew Yglesias pondered and penned a response providing a glimpse of the very big picture... [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 11:11 AM PST - 17 comments

I've come undooooone!

Rivers Cuomo Messes You Up Forever: The six stages of breaking up with an ideal.
posted by oinopaponton at 11:09 AM PST - 101 comments

Unwitting bystanders.

Dutch PSA uses augmented reality to make a point about aggression against public service employees. (SLYT)
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 10:17 AM PST - 40 comments

Good God gentlemen, you’re a mess! Get to work man! F.

Couch Cushion Architecture; A Critical Analysis in two parts. Complete with grades.
posted by cashman at 9:52 AM PST - 12 comments

Little Green Men

The five worst Army men of all time.
posted by william_boot at 9:50 AM PST - 84 comments

Every day, I draw on a 3x5 index card.

Every day, I draw on a 3x5 index card. [via mefi projects] [more inside]
posted by chunking express at 9:37 AM PST - 21 comments

Gendered use of social media

"The social world is led by women," states Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. Jenna Goudreau for Forbes reports on recent studies and data which suggest that men and women are motivated to use social media for different purposes. According to experts, women use social media to connect and share, while men are interested in gathering information and "increasing their status." via Jezebel
posted by la_scribbler at 8:58 AM PST - 85 comments

Homebrew, but not for the Wii

May 1st is National Homebrew Day. Hundreds of thousands of people in America brew their own beer, wine, mead and other alcoholic beverages. Want to try out the hobby? Here's a great community, and here's a great guide. [more inside]
posted by mccarty.tim at 7:19 AM PST - 64 comments

The dream of a reading machine.

"The written word hasn't kept up with the age. The movies have outmanoeuvered it. We have the talkies, but as yet no Readies." So wrote Rob Brown in 1930 in his book The Readies. Putting his money where his mouth was, he made a prototype readie, which has since been lost. Brown's story is recounted by Jennifer Schuessler in The New York Times. Brown expert Craig Saper has created a replica Readie online, which includes amongst others texts by Gertrude Stein, William Carlos Williams, F. T. Marinetti as well as translations from Horace by Ezra Pound. [Some of the texts shock modern sensibilities]
posted by Kattullus at 6:15 AM PST - 17 comments

UK PM calls a voter a bigot whilst wearing a radio mike.

Gordon Brown didn't realise his radio mike was on and accidentally called the woman he'd just spoken with a "bigot". The Guardian's take; The Daily Mail. Is this Brown's Prescott moment?
posted by handee at 6:10 AM PST - 158 comments

Sam The Wheels's films of Brixton

Pentecostal minister Clovis Salmon, known in Brixton as "Sam The Wheels" due to his wheel-making skills, came to Britain from Jamaica in the 1950s. From the 1960s to the 1980s he used his Super-8 camera to film Brixton daily life and church scenes, including the aftermath of the 1981 riots.
posted by criticalbill at 6:09 AM PST - 7 comments

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