December 10, 2010
Twelve Tales of PodChristmast
Twelve Tales of Christmas is a podcast just launched by The Guardian featuring notable modern authors, such as Jeanette Winterson, Ali Smith, Colm Toíbin and Julian Barnes, reading one of their favorite short stories, by authors including JG Ballard, Katherine Mansfield, Italo Calvino, Ernest Hemingway and Raymond Carver. A story will be posted daily for the next 12 days. The first author and story is Philip Pullman reading The Beauties by Anton Chekhov (mp3). [rss, iTunes]
"There you are! Wow, did you have a little adventure?"
What does your cat do when you're not around? RePURRters: The Movie. (Camera Operators: Charlene Butterbean, Fudge, Gizmo, Jett, Milo, Moca, Mousse, Nutkins, and Penelope)
Can a subway map really be "mongrelish?"
back in the day...
Blues Houseparty is a fun, entertaining and highly recommended 57 minute documentary that takes us into a Virginia houseparty of 1989, where the assembled Piedmont blues and gospel musicians and their friends pick guitars, sing, dance and engagingly reminisce on the houseparties of old. Amidst hearty laughs, barbecue and general good times, the guests recount personal memories of fun and rowdiness, corn liquor, 500-pound hogs, the devil's music and the Lord's music. There's a whole lot of cultural history on display here, a slice of black American life that is all but gone now. The mood is infectious, to say the least, and the music just keeps getting better and better throughout the film. The next best thing to being there!
Endeavor
Endeavor is a game about a dwarf trying to recover an ancient secret. Or maybe it’s about exploring and collecting treasure. Or maybe it’s about collecting powerups. Or maybe it’s just about killing things. It's a metroidvania style flash game based on an idea originally created for Ludum Dare by Zillix. Playable on Newgrounds, Kongregate, & JayIsGames [more inside]
Not Your Mall Metroplex
“And you can't help thinking, Jesus! The ghosts that walk here at night. Because movies are filled with the stuff of everyone's dreams, and you know what a studio is? A dream factory.”*
There is something grand about old movie palaces: their slow decline, the rococo detail, their interpretation all over the world and their inevitable decay and fall.
Above them all, in my nostalgic memory, is the atmospheric majesty of The Mighty Civic, still in use, and the Wintergarden underneath. [QTVR] [more inside]
"You're in good hands and Gibbs will call last question."
Science is hollow, and he's got a pin
Has something gone wrong with the scientific method? That's the big question Jonah Lehrer (pr-e-vi-ous-ly) raises in his new New Yorker piece on the Decline Effect. (Sub required; check the summary here, or pdf here.)
Dave Bry at The Awl uses Lehrer's revelations to start and extended riff on how much science one really needs; Lehrer himself goes into more detail about why he wrote the article in a lengthy blog post at Wired, and as for me --- well, I think I'm just going to spend a few days being a little less certain that we can prove very much about how a few extra X chromosomes affect corporate bottom lines, whether you can tell dick about the nature of liberalism or conservatism by where and how people glance at things, or even what the hell is going on with that damn burger.
Not a Band Name
Teen stowaway gets through airport security, stows away in wheel well, ends tragically.
Authorities believe a 16 year old boy found dead last month on a Milton, MA street fell out of the wheel well of an aircraft. Last month, the suburb of Milton, MA, was horrified when the mutilated body of a teenager was found in the road. The body lacked identification, but was eventually found to be that of Delvonte Tisdale, age 16, from Charlotte, NC. The mystery of how he got there when he had been seen the night before in his bedroom seems to have been solved: authorities now believe he stowed away in the wheel well of an aircraft from Charlotte to Boston, and fell out as the airplane approached Logan airport. [more inside]
The Economics Of Art
How much money do you make with that webcomic internet thing? Dorthy Gambrell of Cat And Girl Answers.
Imagine The Oatmeal with better illustration, less SEO and actual humor. Can you?
Charitable Thoughts About Bedbugs from the new standard for random web infographic funnies, Lunchbreath. Since his last appearance here, LB has also offered useful lifestyle advice about Craigslisting, Home Security, Maslow's Hierarchy, Inadequacies, Designer Portfolios and Greenwashing, as well as less practical content about Business Lumberjacks, Underachieving AT-ATs, Cow Stomachs and Moose Lips.
But if you prefer a daily format that resembles a conventional comic strip but contains 3-to-5 times the punchlines, may I recommend Bug, which has recently covered Snappy Comebacks, Thrill-seeking, Fezes, Optimism, Home Security (yes, related to Lunchbreath's piece), Looting (also semi-related) and Graverobbing.
OR if you just want some single-panel pop-culture in a distinctive style, say Hello With Cheese. Now you can't tell me webcomics are totally boring for at least two weeks.
But if you prefer a daily format that resembles a conventional comic strip but contains 3-to-5 times the punchlines, may I recommend Bug, which has recently covered Snappy Comebacks, Thrill-seeking, Fezes, Optimism, Home Security (yes, related to Lunchbreath's piece), Looting (also semi-related) and Graverobbing.
OR if you just want some single-panel pop-culture in a distinctive style, say Hello With Cheese. Now you can't tell me webcomics are totally boring for at least two weeks.
Yesterday's Faces Today
How They Look Now is a LJ community with one focus: finding more current pictures of past stars, from that kid in those 1980s Moody Blues videos (who went on to star on stage and screen), to the diverse cast of Legend (1985 trailer).
My memories have just been sold
Sad as Hell, a book review
"Sometimes I can almost visualize parts of myself, the ones I’m most proud of, atrophying. I wish I had an app to monitor it! I notice that my thoughts are homeopathic, that they mirror content I wish I weren’t reading." Sad as Hell: n+1 on the internet's effect on the self and the book Super Sad True Love Story (which has an damn good book trailer). The novel is set in a dystopian future where constant access to the internet results in a world “dense with panic and media.” [more inside]
The Urban Ballerina
Ballerina Project — Nine years ago, young photographer Dane Shitagi walked up New York City’s Broadway towards the highly patronized and well known STEPS dance studios in search of a ballet dancer who could help him begin his project: to capture images of ballerinas in urban environments. Those images first started appearing on Blogspot, but have since migrated to Facebook. [via]
AZO Showreel 2010
AZO strikes again. Showreel 2010 features more jumping, juggling and WTF DID THAT GUY JUST DO??? Previously and previously.
At the party, the mix worked like a charm.
This year, as the holiday season approached, we were in a celebratory mood, and I decided to create a playlist* for our holiday party composed of one song from every year of the magazine’s existence. [more inside]
Working on the Ending
Working on the Ending. Writer Gail Godwin reflects on the way she works now: "Inevitable for the old writer is the slowdown of word retrieval... All it once took was the slightest tug at the bell for the vigorous servant, accompanied by backup synonyms, to report for duty... You can rail at your 'senior moment' like those tiresome people who bring a conversation to a halt because they can’t remember the name of a place or person... Or you can leave a blank, to be filled in later... For me, a consolation prize of word delay has been an increased intolerance for the threadbare phrase. I don’t want anyone on my pages to 'burst into tears' or 'just perceptibly' do anything, ever again."
I thought this was a fantasy sequence?
Ten years after it was canceled, cult teen drama TV show The Opposite Sex is on youtube in its entirety. [more inside]
We Got More
Board diversity by the basics: the bottom line about getting women into CXO roles
We know companies with a larger percentage of women directors show a higher incidence of "positive events"[ .pdf ], while "Women Matter" [ .pdf ], a 2007 McKinsey study found that adding Women to a company's board of directors improved ROE, EBIT and share price growth. A business case for including women on the board. [more inside]
A little digital body made up of all my friends.
An interactive music video by Japanese band Sour that is easily the coolest thing I have seen all week. I recommend connecting to at least your Facebook account; it's worth it.
You may not understand the profound importance of this advice.
"Motherfucker, I just gave you the most important advice that anyone in
the whole world has ever given you. You may not understand the
profound importance of this advice. If you learn nothing else from
reading this, you need to learn these two things. SHOWER EVERY FUCKING
DAY, AND WEAR DEODORANT EVERY FUCKING DAY." The Digipen Survival Guide full of sage guidance. [more inside]
Ba-whoosh
I have no idea how this pug fell in the toilet, or why. (SLYT) (Hideous laughter in audio track)
"What I do is try to give readers something that is interesting, something they might not have explored before. That's what floats my boat."
For Adam Parfrey, Publishing the Unabomber's Book Is All In a Day's Work. The owner and operator of notorious publishing house Feral House and a partner (along with his wife Jodi Wille) behind Process Media discusses his life, work, and what he will not publish. [more inside]
I am simply here today to take as long as I can
Since 10:24 AM ET, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont has held "a filibuster [or] a very long speech" on the tax cut deal brokered between the president and congressional Republicans. Watch it live on C-SPAN 2. Vermont's Peter Welch leads the charge against the deal in the House. The President has called his opponents "sanctimonious" and "unrealistic."
All that is solid melts into air...
"Are the American People Obsolete?" an essay by Michael Lind of the New America Foundation. [more inside]
Rrrraaaaaaarrw!
Aaron's World - a kids podcast about dinosaurs, by a kid.
From Shinosaka to Tokyo
From Shinosaka to Tokyo (ver. 2)
Semper Aurum
Though she publicly denied it, the records show that Bea Arthur was a truck driver in the Marine Corps.
Tartine
Cool little video profile of Chad Robertson, co-owner, with his wife, Elisabeth Prueitt, of San Francisco's Tartine bakery. Chad is obsessed with bread. [more inside]
The Decline and Fall of an Ultra Rich Online Gaming Empire
After starring in First Kid with the immortal Sinbad, Brock Pierce was left wondering what to do with the rest of his life. He decided to set out and make his fortune accumulating and selling items in EverQuest and World of Warcraft.
what the Church should really be focusing its attention on
ReturnTheDVD.org "Dear Archbishop Nienstedt,
We write to you as a small group of faithful Catholics. This letter, however, represents the voices of thousands of families who were as disheartened as we were by the DVD Preserving Marriage in Minnesota..." [more inside]
An Irishman Abroad
"Today we're talking to a real Irishman about the financial crisis in Ireland - so what exactly is going on over there?"
"Do you really want to know? Well I'll tell you"
A remarkable and succint description of where we are post global recession. Warning - quite sweary.
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