July 17, 2012
The Daughter of Dawn arises again
A film made in 1920 with an all Native American Indian cast has been restored and will soon be released on DVD and blu-ray by the Oklahoma Historical Society, which now owns the original. [more inside]
Oh my god! There's an axe in my head!
Back in the far distant past of the internet (round about 1993, it seems), back when Usenet was actually a bunch of popular discussion groups, the newsgroup alt.gothic had a simple post made by one Yohaun, a short list of translations of the phrase "Oh my god! There's an axe in my head!". Responses contributed translations in more languages. Now, nearly 20 years later, this list continues to exist and grow. [more inside]
"If I swapped all my trips to the Taco Bell for a couple fistfuls of Fromm, I could probably leap over a ravine while catching a frisbee in my mouth."
Legendary web-strippers Andrew Hussie and Ryan North have traded credit cards. Hussie blogs about North's purchases here. North blogs about Hussie's purchases here. Hilarity ensues.
Kind of Review
Just a handshake.
"Confessions of an Ex-Mormon: A personal history of America’s most misunderstood religion." by Walter Kirn, author of Up in the Air and Lost in the Meritocracy. (Via)
Dette er en pisse dårlig måde at forstå et sprog, men det er alt hvad jeg har fået
Momo and Andrew realized that no one else could pronounce Danish either and finally did something about it. [more inside]
A black Harvard student, running at night to catch a bus, hears, ‘What did you steal this time?’
Smart pug. (SLYT, natch.)
Too Tall, Too Short, Too Confusing, Too Revealing, Too Controversial and Too Realistic Mickey
Michael J. Ruocco is more than the self-described 'curator' of the Animation Smears and Multiples tumblr* (previously here), he's also a talented young animator - here's his short toon about a bird who picked the wrong place to nest - and a serious student of Animation History whose other site is 365 Days of Ward Kimball**, about the Disney animator who was considered one of the best and certainly the most adventurous of Walt's 'Nine Old Men'. Kimball's free-wheeling style showed up in everything from Snow White to Fantasia to The Three Caballeros to his Oscar-winning short 'It's Tough to Be a Bird'. His semi-NSFW irreverence is on display in off-model drawings of Mickey Mouse and caricatures of himself. And on the side, he made elaborate comics for an antique car magazine, formed the jazz band The Firehouse 5 Plus 2 (that's him on trombone)*** and put a full-sized railroad with working trains in his back yard. [more inside]
who was Edmund Burke the man?
The Right Honourable Mr. Burke: "The right wing trumpets Burke, who excoriated the murderous rebellion in France; the left wing salutes Burke, who excoriated his imperial colleagues for their overweening and rapacious greed in India and America; Christians celebrate Burke, who considered religion a crucial and indispensable pillar of civic life; the Irish savor a native son who became, as Hazlitt noted, “the chief boast and ornament of the English House of Commons”; the English honor the writer and orator of “transcendant greatness,” as Coleridge wrote, with his usual casual attention to spelling. … Everyone claims Edmund Burke, except me. I merely savor and celebrate him…"
This is, after all, a celebrity profile.
"I was a sort of serious little dude—snobby. I thought girls my age were very frustrating. They were, like, looking in their compact mirrors and shit, and I thought that was evil." MeFi darling Joseph Gordon-Levitt gets a GQ profile.
The Pentagon's New Generation of Secret Military Bases
The Pantone Merkel Chart
"To help other people at all times."
Boy Scouts reaffirm policy denying membership to gays. [Reuters] "The Boy Scouts of America on Tuesday said the organization would continue to deny gay people membership, saying that the policy "is in the best interest of Scouting."
The Amazing Contents of Steve Wozniak's Backpack
The Amazing Contents of Steve Wozniak's Backpack: I usually say that my backpack weighs 50 pounds. I'm not sure but I have to carry it every step through airports. I'm sure that I'm shorter now than before and I don't walk as fast. Everything has its place in my backpack.
Every possible joke about balls has been made before, but be my guest
There are lots of different approaches to making a juggling video. A purist might explore the limits of 3 ball juggling, or try interesting movements with 3 clubs. Others might like to bounce their balls, although it can get a little noisy. Personally, I have a weakness for club passing, whether it's compilations of jugglers' favourite patterns, or jaw-droppingly impressive technical competitions. Fatboy slim's competition to make a juggling-themed music video to one of his songs yeilded some good stuff, and for people into juggling as a hobby, there are some great in-jokes to be found. [more inside]
All my teeth love me.
Teach Me How To Brushy (SLYT PSA)
Thus began my descent into the world of acronyms...bewildered doctors, frustrated psychologists, and a three-ring circus of pharmaceutical adventures.
The dining room was jammed to the fleur-de-lis wallpaper with red-faced white guys in blue suits and harried looking waiters in penguin costumes. Not my crowd. I remember hearing a muffled “linguine Alfredo” and the clinking of glasses at another table, and then the film snaps. This, as I’ve come to think of it, was the moment my first life stopped, where the film broke and the reel spun around and around, flogging itself.Jokers Wild: Author Paul Vandevelder's contribution to the NYT(online)'s Anxiety series, featuring an illustration by Finnish artist Tommi Musturi.
Ignorable.
How an apology from someone I had never heard of left me in tears. Bill Corbett (MST3K's Crow T. Robot) apologizes to the transgender community, in a damn classy fashion.
Turn all book covers into wallpapers
Turn all book covers into wallpapers [via mefi projects]
Lovely book cover images from classic novels, remixed with "the most defining quote" from each book.
GALACTUS IS NIGH
No John Travolta, though.
#DIRTYLAUNDRY is a short (and extremely violent) fan film about the Punisher, which is notable because it was directed by and stars Thomas Jane, who starred in the 2004 Punisher film. (Also featuring a appearance by Ron Perlman.)
Including: Clandestine Best-Sellers of the Pre-Revolutionary Era
"The French Book Trade in Enlightenment Europe project uses database technology to map the trade of the Société Typographique de Neuchâtel (STN), a celebrated Swiss publishing house that operated between 1769 and 1794. As the STN sold the works of other publishers alongside its own editions, their archives can be considered a representative source for studying the history of the book trade and dissemination of ideas in the late Enlightenment." [more inside]
Brautigan Salad
"In 1968 Richard Brautigan published 'Please Plant This Book' - poems printed on seed packets. I'm growing a living copy...."
'It’s a great way to get over the preciousness of my work'
QWOP Cosplay
Zombies don't get into this party ...
It's that time again. Time for the Juggalos to gather, this year in Cave In Rock, Illinois. The theme? Zombies, of course. And our very own dabitch has the 23-minute infomercial. (Previously and previously and previously.)
If you want to live forever, then don't stop breathing, like I did.
To Disneyland - you can now throw away that "Banned for Life" file you have on me, I'm not a problem anymore - and SeaWorld San Diego, too, if you read this. Val Patterson, 1953 - 2012, wrote his own obituary as he was dying of throat cancer. He made a few confessions.
Why we can't have nice research reporting
Just because you don't like a study doesn't mean it's wrong. Gawker takes the rest of the blog world to task for misinterpreting this new paper on women who watch televised sports. [more inside]
Monster Brains
Monster Brains is a blog about paintings and drawings of monsters. My favourite post on the site showcased Masters Of The Universe Paintings By Earl Norem, William George and Esteban Maroto.
Steam’d penguins
Dictatorship in Belarus
"Mr. Lukashenko has steadily turned Belarus into something akin to a prison colony. The possibility of ending up in prison is a constant risk for millions, and a check on even their most mundane daily routines." - Europe’s Last Dictatorship (SLNYTIMES)
"With the amount this is played, it should be our national anthem"
The popularity of "Somebody That I Used to Know" has made it a fairly ubiquitous earworm; so two guys in a car brilliantly deal with That Gotye Song.
I choose you today—forever and a day.
“I never thought I’d be able dance with a man like this on a military installation.” Erwynn and Will: The unlikely story of the first gay military union.
What did she just say? AND WHY IS SHE NAKED?
There's a new advertisement on Australian television that is causing quite a stir. Lots of women are grateful for the frank and honest language. Some not so much.
Here it's discussed on a leading Australian social commentator's blog.
Removing Paywalls
U.K. Government to open up publicly funded research. In response to the report of the Working Group chaired by Dame Janet Finch (the Finch Report, Accessibility, sustainability, excellence: how to expand access to research publications - pdf), the U.K. government has accepted all the report’s recommendations and looks to the Funding Councils and Research Councils to implement them in consultation with universities, research institutions, researchers and publishers. [more inside]
Not quite Mad Max
Back in the first half of the eighties, when the Soviet leadership was old, dementing and increasingly paranoid and president Reagan spoke of a winnable nuclear war and set in motion the Star Wars project to make it so, the nuclear holocaust was on many people's minds. It not only featured frequently in popular culture, but several films were made as explicit warnings of what a nuclear war would really be like. Of these movies, Threads (1984) was the most realistic and scary. The full movie is now available on Youtube for your "enjoyment". Warning: not very nice, sort of depressing. [more inside]
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