May 16, 2020
"Would you play a couple of slow numbers so I can dance?"
Actor Fred Willard has died of natural causes at the age of 86. His lengthy career included an extensive mockumentary run through roles such as the base colonel in This Is Spinal Tap, Buck Laughlin in Best in Show, Mike LaFontaine in A Mighty Wind, Chuck Porter in For Your Consideration, Ron Albertson in Waiting for Guffman. But he also occupied a whole host of other film and TV roles over the years. Willard on "Real People" from his three-and-a-half hour Television Academy Foundation archive interview.
How about some Afro-Cuban dance mixed with 1970s funk-and-soul?
Cimafunk has no wikipedia entry yet! (But not for long).
They played NPR's Tiny Desk concert last week.
Their YouTube channel has only 21 tracks at the moment.
Jazz in 1960
It has become common knowledge that 1959 (previously) was an outstanding year for jazz: but it was no freakish outlier, as a quick perusal of the music produced in any of the neighbouring twelvemonths will show. For no better reason than it’s 60 years since 1960, why not sit back, relax, & take time to enjoy some slices of the jazz released in that year, starting with five ‘essential’ albums picked by Matt Micucci for Jazziz Magazine: Giant Steps by John Coltrane (the title track); Blues & Roots by Charles Mingus (“E's Flat Ah's Flat Too”); Sketches of Spain by Miles Davis (“Concierto de Aranjuez (Adagio)”); The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery (“West Coast Blues”) and Soul Station by Hank Mobley (“This I Dig Of You”). [more inside]
Gesundheit
Why do dogs sneeze? There are many reasons, but the important thing is that it's funny as hell. Another example. The aquatic variant. Many more.
Virtual coffee stains, in LaTeX and stock photos
This package provides an essential feature to LaTeX that has been missing for too long. It adds a coffee stain to your documents. A lot of time can be saved by printing stains directly on the page rather than adding it manually. LaTeX Coffee Stains is over a decade old, but perhaps of increased use as more people learn to work from home. Probably easier than making your own, but if you'd like variety, here are some free stock images (and some that aren't free).
That Time NPR Turned 'Star Wars' Into A Radio Drama
NPR bought the rights for $1, and created an expanded story using original music, original sound effects, original actors, and truly brought the Star Wars universe into everyone's headphones in a glorious manner. Star Wars: The Original Radio Drama (podcast link, 13 half-hour episodes). [more inside]
Freedom of choice is what you got / Freedom from choice is what you want
Forty years ago, DEVO released their third album, Freedom of Choice. The album would be their commercial breakthrough, thanks to the hit single "Whip It" and its accompanying music video. The album peaked at 22 on the Billboard charts, with "Whip It" reaching 14 on the Hot 100. [more inside]
Is this why the Chieftain got Stillbrew?
Armour? Mobility? Firepower? No, the most important thing in a tank is how easy it is to make tea, as the good people at The Tank Museum's Youtube channel explain.
Luminography, Rhythmogramm and Nudes
Heinrich Heidersberger was a German photographer noted for his work on architectural subjects.
In 1949 Stern magazine published Kleid aus licht involving projected light and shadows and naked women.
In the mid 1950's he was experimenting with luminography building a series of room-sized kinetic machines to trace complex spaces, surfaces, and patterns onto photographic plates with a single concentrated ray of light.
These went on to be called "Rhythmogramm".
Some more of his work.
In 1949 Stern magazine published Kleid aus licht involving projected light and shadows and naked women.
In the mid 1950's he was experimenting with luminography building a series of room-sized kinetic machines to trace complex spaces, surfaces, and patterns onto photographic plates with a single concentrated ray of light.
These went on to be called "Rhythmogramm".
Some more of his work.
'Cause the world keeps spinnin' round and round
Cast members (including Kristin Chenoweth, Martin Short, Ricki Lake, Harvey Fierstein, Sean Hayes, Andrea Martin, Matthew Morrison, Michael Ball, Nikki Blonsky, Billy Eichner, Andrew Rannells, Alex Newell, Jenifer Lewis, Derek Hough, Marissa Jaret Winokur, Laura Bell Bundy, Kerry Butler, and Linda Hart) from various stage and screen versions of the musical adaptation of the John Waters movie-that-became-a-musical-that-became-a-movie-and-was-also performed-live-on-TV Hairspray were edited together from their homes to act, sing, and dance the show's finale number "You Can't Stop the Beat" as a fundraising celebration to support the Actors Fund, and frankly, the beat cannot be stopped, and the video is an editing triumph.
We are ...
Lost Together. CBC Music's Canadian national sing along, featuring Blue Rodeo, is a big wistful hug . If you need a bit of quarantine solidarity, this is for you, world. xo.
the chromatophores in its skin rippling with color to match her own
Way back in 2019, in honor of World Oceans Day, XPrize supported 18 writers and 18 artists from all 7 continents (well, if you count writing a story while on an Antarctic expedition as being "from" there -- I suppose it's the closest most of us will ever get) to create Current Futures: A Sci-Fi Ocean Anthology. The stories wander -- there's a surface-world of artificial storm-resistant islands; communicative cetaceans of the abyss; growing your island home back from the ravages of storm surge and rising seas; mental hitchhiking with pinnipeds; self-replicating cleanup technology that 3D prints copies of itself from the oil it harvests; and perfect deep-sea view to entertain your dead holographic relatives. Each one's its own truly weird dive to a new and strange sea-changed submersible realm.
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