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The Digital Antiquarian discusses ludic narrative and has been filling in by bits and pieces an amazing history of recreational computing and adventure gaming. The Rise of Experiential Games traces the development of Wargames from H.G. Wells' (!) wargame for toy soldiers, Little Wars, to Avalon Hill's Squad Leader; he discusses the development of Dungeons and Dragons (part 2, 3) led to the first CRPGs on PLATO. He'll tell you things you didn't know about Oregon Trail (part 2, 3, 4, 5, postscript, the 1975 source code!), Hunt the Wumpus (part 2), Colossal Cave Adventure (part 2, 3, 4, 5), Eliza (part 2, 3), Scott Adams' games (part 2, 3, 4, 5), the TRS-80 (part 2, 3), the 2 adventuring cultures of university minicomputers and home PCs, and their unlikely bridging. [more inside]
posted by Zed at 11:14 PM PST - 18 comments

"[H]ow interesting... to bring to life the clothes in children’s artwork, designs by children too young to be influenced by commercial fashion... I asked three girls to draw the outfits they imagined, and then I turned them into clothes."
posted by ocherdraco at 9:16 PM PST - 59 comments

Monopoly City Streets was a fun global game of Monopoly played with real streets that only lasted a few months, under heavy demand. Two years later a possible successor has appeared on the horizon. Foursquaropoly. [more inside]
posted by cashman at 7:11 PM PST - 13 comments

John Cunningham Climbing Ben Nevis, 1976 (slyt, 8:09)
posted by villanelles at dawn at 7:04 PM PST - 16 comments

"That shy mysterious poet Arthur Stace
Whose work was just one single mighty word
Walked in the utmost depths of time and space
And there his word was spoken and he heard
ETERNITY, ETERNITY, it banged him like a bell
Dulcet from heaven sounding, sombre from hell."
- Douglas Stewart
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 6:43 PM PST - 4 comments

Egg City Radio is what became of the great Post-Punk Junk blog [previously]. And it's still a treasure trove if you're looking for shared out-of-print albums and live sets--not only from Post-Punk but also many other genres as well. [ECR previously ^(via), -er, -est]
posted by not_on_display at 5:36 PM PST - 11 comments

Lightning dances in my head.
I am not beautiful and I am not magic yet.
I'm a victim, yeah.
I've got news for you honey; I got pregnant with birds who sing prettier than you.
I could be the sunlight in your eyes.
My country bleeding me; I will not stay in your arms.
You have a pool in your chest. Tap it.
Everything is better when you're driving on the median.
There is a natural sound that wild things make when they're bound. [more inside]
posted by kaibutsu at 5:00 PM PST - 16 comments

Code Hero is a game designed to teach programming. It uses the first-person shooter idiom, where you are armed with a Code Gun that shoots JavaScript. It reminded me a little of hacking the Gibson.
posted by sigma7 at 4:39 PM PST - 118 comments

The maqam al-'iraqi is considered the most noble and perfect form of the maqam. As the name implies, it is native to Iraq; it has been known for approximately four hundred years in Baghdad, Mosul, and Kirkuk. The maqam al-'iraqi has been passed on orally through the Iraqi masters of the maqam, who cultivate the form especially in Baghdad. The maqam is performed by a singer (qari') and three instrumentalists playing santur (box zither), juzah (spike fiddle), and tablah or dunbak (goblet drum).
posted by Trurl at 4:08 PM PST - 6 comments

Tania Blanco is a modern artist who shares her time in France and Spain. She says of her collection Sleepdrunk Vademecum, "The body is made up of a large set of rounded painting formats. Medical instruments, high precision technology, scientific devices, anatomical models, clandestine laboratories and human representation become the object of study and thought. The bizarre represented objects reflect a mixture of past and future, and an ambiguous clinical atmosphere flows in them. On many of these painted surfaces, a soft cool-cold gradient isolates the represented elements and gives a non-gravitational character to the compositions." [via]
posted by netbros at 3:00 PM PST - 3 comments

Original Pronunciation (OP) "...performance brings us as close as possible to how old texts would have sounded. It enables us to hear effects lost when old texts are read in a modern way. It avoids the modern social connotations that arise when we hear old texts read in a present-day accent." The site includes transcripts of Shakespeare plays and other writings with IPA notations, indicating how to pronounce them in OP. It also includes some audio recordings. [more inside]
posted by grumblebee at 2:28 PM PST - 38 comments

HappeningRightNow-Filter: New York's Wordless Music Orchestra is premiering an orchestral arrangement of William Basinki's Disintegration Loops live from The Temple Of Dendur. Stream here.
posted by 2or3whiskeysodas at 1:22 PM PST - 16 comments

Systems, networks, and strategies is a math course being developed and taught this semester at the San Francisco Art Institute, by Lee Worden. The course-outline-in-progress is online at the linked wiki, including links to course materials like "the two-in-one-out game," "Places to intervene in a system," on-line flocking simulations, and "street math in graffiti art."
posted by escabeche at 1:20 PM PST - 47 comments

Bizarrely unsettling tape art. [SLVimeo]
posted by phunniemee at 11:19 AM PST - 47 comments

'The stories about epidemics that are told in the American press—their plots and tropes—date to the 1920's, when modern research science, science journalism, and science fiction were born.' This is the story of how the media back then (January, 1930) helped fuel fears about a parrot-fever pandemic, and the subsequent public backlash. (Via) [more inside]
posted by zarq at 8:52 AM PST - 24 comments

Kids today won't know the shrill cry of a 9600 baud, or the magical "doodleeedoo" of a 28.8 modem. Help preserve our digital history. Join us in recording your best impression of a "modem handshake" sound.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:24 AM PST - 67 comments

The Akai MPC family of instruments combine drum machine, sampler, and sequencer. They've dominated hip hop production for the past couple decades, inspired newer bigger grid based controllers (previously), and have also allowed the finger drummers of the world to take their craft to the next level. [more inside]
posted by p3t3 at 7:19 AM PST - 26 comments

Patti Smith: "I always enjoyed doing transgender songs. That's something I learnt from Joan Baez..." From a little bio-girl's plea "I'm A Boy", through "Lola" and a "Walk On The Wild Side", to Smith's transstraight take on "Gloria", songwriters dig trans people. Much earlier still, The Charmer took his shot at Christine Jorgensen, who "went abroad, and came back a broad", with "Is She Is Or Is She Ain't". The Charmer, no "Sweet Transvestite" himself, also plays a mean fiddle (Mendelssohn actually). ♫ "And if you want some fun, take Oh Bloody Blotter." ♫ [more inside]
posted by Ardiril at 4:07 AM PST - 53 comments

Ten years later, one of the greatest mysteries arising from 9/11 has been solved: the guy who faked the 'tourist guy atop the WTC while the plane approaches' picture has come forward.
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:56 AM PST - 72 comments

The expressive web What it says on the tin. HTML5 CSS3 and the modern browser.
posted by the noob at 3:53 AM PST - 42 comments

Snapperfest in Rising Sun, Indiana, is a yearly event revolving around catching wild Snapping Turtles. It is a contest where men grab a wild Indiana snapping turtle by the tail, run the length of a field and then force the terrified turtle's head out of the shell Then they try to get their hand wrapped around the the turtle's neck and hoist it over their head. The Indiana Department of Natural Resources' position is that cruelty laws do not apply to wild animals. [more inside]
posted by katinka-katinka at 3:48 AM PST - 72 comments