January 14, 2017

The Great American Novel (Pick Only One)

LitHub suggests some top picks for "the" Great American Novel and offers rationales for each with links to articles arguing for them. [more inside]
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:04 PM PST - 174 comments

Found Sound + Producer = Music

Sponsored by The Netherlands’ Institute for Sound and Vision, the RE:VIVE Initiative brings together archives and artists to create new music out of and inspired by curated sets of archival material. While their workshops are only in The Netherlands, for everyone outside they provide free packs of audio samples collated from different libraries: Pack 1; Pack 2; Schipol Airport; Madagascar, Switzerland, Tahiti, China, and an accordion; Around The House; and The Music of Samoa.
RE:VIVE has collaborated with Fog Mountain Records to release two albums: Damrak, built on samples from Amsterdam; and 010, built on samples from Rotterdam. They have also collaborated with Lakker to provide samples for their Struggle & Emerge album. (A short documentary on the process.)
posted by Going To Maine at 10:19 PM PST - 2 comments

Gatherer and Fiddler: Alan Jabbour (1942–2017)

Alan Jabbour, who died today, was best known (to those who know of him at all) as a fiddler and a gatherer of fiddle tunes. His name and influence permeate American traditional music. If you like Old Crow Medicine Show, the Avett Brothers, Chris Thile, Carolina Chocolate Drops, SteelDrivers, etc., you are enjoying the results of Jabbour's life work. [more inside]
posted by underthehat at 9:59 PM PST - 9 comments

Chinese Whiskers

When Marcel Heijnen took a picture of cat hanging out in a shop in Hong Kong, he didn't know he had just uncovered his next project. He calls it "pure serendipity."

"[I moved to] an area that is rapidly gentrifying, with new cafés and galleries coming up left right and center, but it’s still rooted in tradition, as well — there’s loads of dried-seafood shops and traditional Chinese medicine halls," he said. "I noticed a cat sitting on the counter of one of those stores and photographed it on my iPhone. Then, another and another."
[more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:52 PM PST - 31 comments

Kidnapped Newborn Found Alive...After 18 Years

In a story strikingly similar to the MTV show, Finding Carter, 18-year-old Kamiyah Mobley was allegedly taken by Gloria Williams, posing as a nurse, from a Jacksonville, FL hospital in 1998. Williams, who raised Kamiyah as Alexis Manigo, brought her up alongside her other two children. Williams had suffered a miscarriage a few weeks before the alleged kidnapping, so her family did not question the appearance of a newborn. It seems that the situation was discovered by Kamiyah, who suspected she had been kidnapped. Kamiyah's grandmother, Velma Aiken, "prayed she would see her granddaughter before the day she died. 'Everyone broke down in tears' during the conversation. 'We lost her for 18 years,' Velma said. 'We don't want to lose her again.'"
posted by guster4lovers at 3:34 PM PST - 86 comments

six seasons and a movie

Will 2017 be the year of the cape? Men, women, children, lawyers, masked men...
Perhaps we should all wear cloaks instead. [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:09 PM PST - 69 comments

I'd knit so hard, bro

Further on the topic of ways that toxic masculinity harms men, an Independent article on feminine activities men would do if society didn't judge them so hard, from a Reddit thread on the same topic.
posted by bile and syntax at 10:26 AM PST - 248 comments

"So long, Old Bill."

William Peter Blatty, dead at 89. Author and moviemaker, best known for writing The Exorcist (1971).

Tweeted by William Friedkin and Stephen King.

The Exorcist, read by Blatty. [more inside]
posted by doctornemo at 10:11 AM PST - 29 comments

Unicycle Polo Match

It's a thing, people.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 9:24 AM PST - 15 comments

The Penultimate Week

In seven days, Donald J. Trump is due to be inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States of America. What happens next? [more inside]
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:22 AM PST - 3332 comments

« Previous day | Next day »