March 9, 2009
Mahanthappa picks Indian music
Destination: Out, an astounding mp3 blog devoted to mostly out-of-print free jazz and improv records, has been linked a few times on Ask, but never gotten the main-page exposure it deserves. Until now. The editors' selections are always interesting and written about well, and they're ready to go to the mat for the music. (The interview with Marsalis by the Bad Plus to which that's a response is also well worth reading.) But the real impetus for this post is only tangentially related to jazz: recently they got saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa to do a guest post on Indian (mostly Carnatic) music, and it won't be long before the links expire. Fall to! [more inside]
Mmmm... Free Goo.
World of Goo was released last year on PC and Wii and, despite an 82% piracy rate (previously), still went on to become one of the best selling games of 2008 and win a swag of awards. In a recent blog post (the first of seven) the developer, 2D Boy, has been detailing the early days of development for World of Goo. But just don't read about this proto-Goo... play it! They have made this early version of the game available to download for free. And don't forget that the soundtrack to the completed game is also still free and available for download.
Guitar crack
Wasting Away in Hooverville
Quit Lying About Roosevelt! "Amity Shlaes, the GOP's Great Depression philosopher-queen, couldn't be more dangerously wrong." [Via]
One Can Make a Difference
Canstruction is a design/build competition currently held in cities throughout North America. Teams of architects, engineers, and students compete to design and build giant structures made entirely from full cans of food. [more inside]
"Most every Friday, now, the FDIC seizes several banks"
The Ottoman Armenians, a Still-Unfolding History
A devastating document is met with silence in Turkey. "According to a long-hidden document that belonged to the interior minister of the Ottoman Empire, 972,000 Ottoman Armenians disappeared from official population records from 1915 through 1916." [more inside]
H is for Helvetica
The Periodic Table of Typefaces (fully-readable close-up) Two great nerd-memes (Periodic Tables and Font Collecting) that look great together. After looking it over, I'm happy to say it has no room for Comic Sans or Arial or Hobo, but sad to say it's also missing my personal guilty pleasure, Bookman. What's in it (or not in it) to your liking?
Jolifanto Bambla O Falli Bambla!
In 1916, Hugo Ball would fulfill his own dadaist manifesto by reciting his own nonsense poetry at the Cabaret Voltaire (not that Cabaret Voltaire), while wearing a Cubist costume or a cylinder with the number 13 covering his face. Ball's poem, Gadji Beri Bimba, inspired the Talking Heads song, I Zimbra, but his most famous poem is Karawane, a pioneering example of sound poetry. Karawane has more conventional avant-garde versions on YouTube, but none is more surreal than the recitation from memory by Marie Osmond (yes, that Marie Osmond) from a 1980s broadcast of Ripley's Believe It Or Not!
Pareidolia 2008
FlickTubeFaceSpace.com
Web Tech Guy and Angry [Museum] Staff Person. A very funny animation for the museums workers and librarians subset of Mefites. From Michael Edson at Smithsonian 2.0.
Shake shake shake! Shake shake shake! Shake your creamer! Shake your creamer!
Whale Meet Again
A Beached Fin Whale Closes a Popular Beach. . . .It had been foundering in the surf, and just beyond the surf, for several days.
They may bury it or they may tow it out to sea to become a whale fall. [more inside]
Of course, it's correlation and not causation.
Oh Orpheus, you slay me with your eyes
Don't Look Back: the latest game from Terry Cavanagh. For the platformer/greek mythology enthusiast in all of us.
It's Hard Out Here For a Seiyu
The global economic crisis claims another industry - anime voice actors, or seiyu. In a country that produces 60% of the world's animation, competition has always been fierce, but the rewards can be great, as seiyu sometimes achieve national fame, and are lauded with awards. The fame does come with a price, though: Female seiyu have fallen prey to stalkers, and male seiyu face the wrath of their fans should they dare marry. And for most seiyu, life isn't at all glamorous. It's estimated that 80% need to take on part-time jobs (at McDonald's, for example), or do voice acting for hentai; pornographic anime, in order to make ends meet. The fact is, the industry is glutted, and being a seiyu is no easy life.
Top Three Thousand Songs and Albums
Basso Profundo
How low can you go? J.D. Sumner and the Stamps vs. Isaac Freeman and The Fairfield Four. [more inside]
Fishing With A Line of Poesy
Every year the fisher poets gather in Astoria, OR to share their verses (some with musical accompaniment). [Previously on mefi]
Pleasant Family Shopping and General Cinemas
Vintage photos and a history of General Cinemas. Before the 1960s, concessions were rare at movie theaters, but GCC introduced them widely and even launched their own exclusive drink: Sunkist soda. Also part of the GCC experience was their feature presentation bumper. [more inside]
Chimp throws stones, gets castrated.
Chimp stores weapons. After throwing cached stones at zoo visitors, the unfortunate animal had his own stones removed. Other examples of foresight and planning in animals are described here and here.
Unemployment is of vital importance, particularly to the unemployed
The world's economic crisis has cost more men their jobs than women in Western countries. But in Asia and most of the developing world, the economic meltdown has a woman's face.
The Toronto Star: Today, International Women's Day, women celebrate the gains made in achieving equal rights and highlight the widespread wrongs that damage the lives of the 3.3 billion females around the world.
But the issue foremost in women's minds is the global recession, which has hit the most vulnerable half of humanity with exceptional force.
The Bangkok Post: The latest International Labour Organization (ILO) report revealed that the global unemployment rate could rise as high as 7.1% in 2009, compared to 6% in 2008. What is worrying is that the consequences of the global crisis could come knocking on your door. What was the global economic crisis last year could easily become a global social crisis this year.
[more inside]
Public(YOUR AD HERE)Transportation
Clever ads on the sides of city busses. That is all.
And it is TOTALLY AMAZING
Downloads in All Major
Classical Music at the European Archive. Free and legal lossless downloads of out-of-copyright recordings. Formats include WAV, FLAC, MP3 & Ogg.
light it on fire?
How will the Kindle change the publishing business?
Shakespeare, is that you?
Is this a portrait of William Shakespeare? The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust has just announced the identification of the sitter in a portait as William Shakespeare, painted from life. Is it really him? Or just some other dude in a ruff? More about Shakespeare portraits here.
The linguistics of color-blind racism
As the Jim Crow overt style of maintaining white supremacy was replaced with “now you see it, now you don’t” practices that were subtle, apparently non-racial, and institutionalized, an ideology fitting to this era emerged... -The Linguistics of Color-Blind Racism.
The final hours of Circuit City
festival-quality short films collection
The Oscar-nominated "Mysterious Explorations of Jasper Morello" is an "adventurous tale of a navigator’s journey to save his ailing wife set in a beautiful world of Victorian science-fiction" and one the many fine film shorts and videos available to watch at shortof theweek.com - a site dedicated to "finding those few [video] gems amongst the enormous heap of garbage they're buried in..." [more inside]
Should creation of money stay in private hands?
Professor and economist Richard Werner proposes a solution for the current banking crisis, under which "... national debt and interest liabilities will not increase, but credit creation will." [more inside]
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