October 14, 2013
The Julia Childs
If you become a cultural icon, those who come after in your field will almost certainly be compared to you and your achievements. And if you were the late Julia Child, ground-breaking television chef and champion of French cooking in the United States, you would find your name to be the first half of a lot of comparisons. The Julia Childs, as it were. [more inside]
Don't not make everything not private!
A Night At The Rock
"For 29 years, Alcatraz — the notorious prison off the coast of San Francisco — housed some of the nation's worst criminals: Al Capone, Machine Gun Kelly, Birdman Robert Stroud.
Today, 50 years after it closed, it's a museum. And earlier this year, the National Park Service gave Bill Baker, a former inmate, special permission to stay the night in his old cell. He was 24 when he was transferred to The Rock. Today, he's 80."
(I can't link to it directly, but the audio is worth listening to)
Eugene Fama: "I was getting kind of tired of French..."
"... and so I took an economics course and I loved it," during a phone interview in the early morning today. Likewise, conversations with Robert Shiller and Lars Peter Hansen, shortly after the 2013 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded jointly to them for their academic contributions to the field of asset pricing. UChicago News, Yale News, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Bloomberg report. [more inside]
"I don't know if I like Mike Tyson." - Mike Tyson.
Mike Tyson - Beyond the Glory SLYT Documentary. Beyond the Glory is a documentary series that takes a look at the lives of athletes. Mike Tyson on the Wiki.
"Editing a series like this, do you detach yourself?" "No."
Hannah Price’s series, City of Brotherly Love, features portraits of men in Philadelphia captured just moments after they’d harassed her on the street. [more inside]
Better than anything Michael Bay will do with them
Turtles Forever (full length movie YouTube) was a feature length, 3 episode story from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003 edition) released in 2009 as an end cap to that particular turtle continuity. Noteworthy for having the somewhat edgier, somewhat darker, definitely more angular circa 2003 turtles meet up with the recklessly wacky 1987 turtles via an interdimensional travel device. Inevitably they all end up traveling to Turtle Prime, the black and white world of the original comics and are scared out of their minds by the alpha turtles of that dimension.
The Disappearance of N
Last year, a friend of mine disappeared, and I found him in jail. I had a blizzard of thoughts about that experience; here are many of them. They didn't fit in a linear essay, so I wrote some code to present them in a tree.
[via mefi projects]
“Strike up the music, Dad.”
R.I.P. for the original ‘Jewish Hillbilly,’ Zeke Manners, died this date in 2000, who was buried – at his request – wearing “a baseball cap celebrating the Spice Girls, red suspenders and purple glasses from a 99-cent store. A cigar was in his pocket.” [NYT obituary] [more inside]
The smallest sound
In the 1950ties, before computers, before synthesisers, the Philips NatLab was experimenting with electronic music. Here are Dick Raaijmakers (aka Kid Baltan) and Tom Dissevelt to explain how they did it in a 1959 television feature and Raaijmakers again, in a 1988 documentary (part 2).
Potty narrative, by three-year-old
Jake Fried: Hand-Drawn Experimental Animations
Down Into Nothing | Jake Fried. 2013. Hand-drawn animation with ink, gouache, white-out and coffee (previously)
"Pedantic moralizing won’t mobilize Americans."
Outrage: "The world gives us no shortage of things to be outraged about, and in the right context outrage can be politically useful as well as morally appropriate. But outrage can also be reactive and unreasoned, and too often it leads us astray. It is understandable that the left, in its prolonged weakness, has come to rely on such defensive rhetoric. Over the past four decades, as unions were busted, wealth redistributed upwards, and Iraq invaded—all with electoral sanction—the American left has had little to enjoy besides the sense of righteous camaraderie which outrage can provide. But if the left has any ambitions for the twenty-first century—if it hopes to bring about good, not just decry evil—it must kick its outrage habit."
Katastichophobia
For your October delight: Top 10 horror movies, as picked by Guardian critics, Ten Exceptionally Well-Written Horror Films, Top Ten Horror-Sci-Fi Films: A Primer And Pseudo-History, The 12 Weirdest Vampire Movies Ever Made, The Top Grossing Scary Movies Of All-Time, and, perhaps most importantly of all: The 25 best horror films on netflix instant.
It's a bear. Playing tetherball.
Dad, this one's for you.
This mix was made using only my dad's records. Every one of them an original pressing, stuff he bought when he was about as old as I am now--give or take a decade. My dad never played an instrument really, and my mom always joked that he was actually tone-deaf. But man, what a taste in music--and in his own way, what an ear too. "Plays Pretty Just For You" is a new mix by Dave Harrington of the band Darkside, which has just released its debut album Psychic. Previously
How the NFL Fleeces Taxpayers
Taxpayers fund the stadiums, antitrust law doesn't apply to broadcast deals, the league enjoys nonprofit status, and Commissioner Roger Goodell makes $30 million a year. It's time to stop the public giveaways to America's richest sports league—and to the feudal lords who own its teams. (SL Atlantic)
Are you glad that's over?
In October 1974 BBC host Russell Harty had a teenage musician named Brett Smiley on his show to perform his song 'Space Ace' and then interview him and his manager Andrew Loog Oldham. It was a pretty intense 4 minutes. The public reaction to both him and his music was similarly negative, and his record, Breathlessly Brett, was never released. It was recently re-issued, and Smiley is being recognized as a lost icon of the glam movement. [more inside]
Frontline's "League of Denial:The NFL'S Concussion Crisis" Airs
The much-anticipated Frontline documentary "League of Denial: The NFL's Concussion Crisis" premiered on PBS last week. In August, ESPN pulled out of the project, reportedly due to pressure from the NFL (as previously discussed on MetaFilter here), while the NFL itself only days later announced a $765m settlement with over 4500 former players for claims of concussion-related disability. Reaction to the Frontline program was unsurprisingly mixed from factions involved with the issue, but generally well-received by journalists and TV critics. [more inside]
Tusk, Tusk
BBC World Service's Newshour is airing Guest Editors Week as part of the BBC’s Global 100 Women Season. Guest Editors include: broadcaster Yue Sai Kan, Google executive Susan Wojcicki, French journalist Anne Sinclair, Pakistani human rights lawyer Asma Jahangir and the former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark. Chelsea Clinton began the series earlier today:
"As the luxury goods industries are expanding rapidly in China, hopefully a Louis Vuitton handbag for example or an Hermès scarf can be a status symbol as a substitute for ivory. And so it's also working with those types of companies in the private sector to ensure that their products, not ivory, are what people think of as status in China."
It's because you only went for 6 minutes.
Myths, Presumptions, and Facts about Obesity, from the New England Journal of Medicine. Among the myths discussed: Small sustained changes in eating or exercise make a big difference in weight; losing big amounts of weight quickly is less effective long-term than slow and gradual loss; that PE classes help reduce weight; and, tragically, that "a bout of sexual activity burns 100 to 300 kcal for each participant." But take heart! The authors point out that presumptions around the badness of snacking and yo-yo dieting are not supported! (There is also a correction to the original article, because the issue of breakfast remains contentious.)
You turned down a date to go to a stupid slumber party!
She was only a video store clerk - until the store TV started speaking to her! Blockbuster training video from 1990, pts 1 and 2.
Don't antagonize the dog.
Carpark is a cute little animation which reveals the dangers of teasing a dog locked in a car. [slyt | via]
12", 12x12
Yep, another clever way to play with iconic album covers. Reducing them to 12x12 grid- one pixel per square inch of the original LP. [more inside]
This Is the Average Man's Body
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