May 21, 2018
A plethora of Sun Ra's four decades of baffling, dazzling, mystical jazz
A small, moonfaced man who spoke in enigmatic riddles, he fully inhabited the persona of a science fiction jazz Buddha. Sun Ra ... claimed he had been born on Saturn, and had come to Earth to offer a message of peace and salvation through music, as well as hope for a better life elsewhere in the universe. "I've been to a zone where there is no air, no light, no sound, no life, no death, nothing. There's five billion people on this planet, all out of tune. I've got to raise their consciousness, tell them about the wonderful potential to bypass death." With this introduction from The Believer Magazine, quoting Sun Ra himself, here is his music, on Bandcamp, from Sun Ra Music and Sun Ra via Strut. That's a lot of music, so here's a guide to Sun Ra's albums on Bandcamp. [more inside]
Mostly Wood
A comprehensive study of biomass on Earth reveals some surprising, and disturbing findings. The new study in PNAS suggests that most biomass is wood, followed by bacteria and fungi. Among mammals, 60% are livestock, 36% are human, and only 4% are wild.
Patent Depending
Patent Depending This weekend I got to meet the charming Steven M. Johnson, an illustrator wiith a gift for a whimsical dystopian inventiveness. He's been doing this since 1977 so has a rather broad body, but some of my favorites: Fear Funiture where you can buy a hide-inside-a-bed, the dual-purpose Swimming Moat, and Classic RVs of the 1970s which should inspire some tiny-home fans. Here is a TEDx (Indianapolis franchise, nicely produced) talk he gave where he discusses finding his talent for "invention without a purpose" at the age of 36 and the lessons learned. Eight years previously.
Troubleshooting a spacecraft nine hours away, as the photon flies.
"We’ve lost contact with the spacecraft." Unintentional loss of contact with Earth should never happen to any spacecraft. It had never before happened to New Horizons over the entire nine-year flight from Earth to Pluto. How could this be happening now, just 10 days out from Pluto?
"A tree can't make or break Christmas, only people can do that"
Joe Pera Helps You Find the Perfect Christmas Tree is a good-natured twenty minute comedy about a middle school choir teacher in Michigan who's looking for a perfect Christmas tree. This special led to an Adult Swim series called Joe Pera Talks With You which is unfortunately geolocked outside North America. The eponymous Joe Pera's website has a lot more of his material available online.
“Now, y’all without sin can cast the first stone.”
There’s what’s right and there’s what’s right and never the twain shall meet. Whistling man plays "Raising Arizona" theme on a banjo, is summarily criticized by a neighboring horse. (SLYT). [more inside]
run through the meat chopper two pounds of cold boiled ham
From 1909, it's The Up-To-Date Sandwich Book: 400 Ways to Make a Sandwich
Abusing public office for private enrichment
👋 The second car is the “Kawaii! Room”. 🐱
A Look Inside The Hello Kitty Bullet Train [Kotaku] “Previously, Kotaku reported that Japan is getting a Hello Kitty bullet train. All we saw was the outside. Now, we get concept art showing what inside the train looks like. The train will begin service between Osaka and Hakata on June 30. The train’s first car is called “Hello! Plaza!” and features a Hello Kitty shop, selling cute merchandise.”
"The key to our future as a species is already inside of us."
We Are Made of Meat: Imagining An Embodied Future. Kameron Hurley presented the keynote speech at the 2018 McMaster University Embodiment in SFF Interdisciplinary Conference. [more inside]
Sign on the window says 'Lonely'
Girl From the North Country isn't a musical; it's a Conor McPherson depression-era boarding house play where the cast steps forward from time to time to sing from the Bob Dylan songbook. Take away the story of companionship amid bitter loneliness—the hit London production recently closed—, and you've got a unique cast album that serves as a sort of theatrical tone poem and a new look deep into the Dylan catalog, performed with 1930s instruments. Highlights include Shirley Henderson's driving "Like a Rolling Stone" and Sheila Atim's "Tight Connection to My Heart."
Jordan Peterson, Custodian of the Patriarchy
He says there’s a crisis in masculinity. Why won’t women — all these wives and witches — just behave? [more inside]
Polymorphic cannibal toad tadpoles
Spadefoot toad tadpoles are usually gregarious omnivores who spend time together chewing organic detritus on the pond bottom. But if they get the right kind of food, and maybe some help from their mothers, they turn into big, sharp-beaked, solitary carnivores. The carnivorous morphs love shrimp, but they're also happy to eat other tadpoles. If they're not too hungry, they'll take a nibble of the other tadpole first to make sure they're not eating a sibling. [more inside]
This Lesbian Power Couple Lit Up Paris
Solita Solano and Janet Flanner, bored with American patriarchy, created their own path And here's a link to some of Flanner's posts from Paris under her pseudonym Genêt
don't call it a comeback - I've been here for millions of years
Three months earlier, on the last night of a Thanksgiving vacation in Egypt, Patterson had suddenly fallen ill, so severely that he had to be medevaced to Germany and then to UCSD. There were several things wrong—a gallstone, an abscess in his pancreas—but the core of the problem was an infection with a superbug, a bacterium named Acinetobacter baumannii that was resistant to every antibiotic his medical team tried to treat it with. Patterson had been a burly man, 6-foot-5 and more than 300 pounds, but now he was wasted, his cheekbones jutting through his skin. Intravenous lines snaked into his arms and neck, and tubes to carry away seepage pierced his abdomen. He was delirious and his blood pressure was falling, and the medical staff had sedated him and intubated him to make sure he got the oxygen he needed. He was dying. ... “We are running out of options to save Tom,” she wrote. “What do you think about phage therapy?”[more inside]
Grammy warned you!
Famed somniohistorian Neil Cicierega would like you to get you up to speed on the official state nightmares of the states of the United States. [more inside]
So, what does your offsite backup strategy look like?
An HVAC technician has to break into a locked server room after the AC goes out, discovers Russian anti-tank missile. (Reddit thread.)
Bird is the word
Dark Side of the China Moon
I recommend the use of good headphones to best experience this five minute promotional video for the Queqiao Lunar Relay Satellite - - it performs way above its pay grade with heroic soundtrack and snazzy video effects... it's a must see!!! ...especially for any of you fans of the space engineering sub-genre of promotional videos out there. [more inside]
posters as memorable as the films themselves
RIP Bill Gold, designer of film posters including Casablanca, A Clockwork Orange, The Exorcist, and hundreds more.
« Previous day | Next day »