May 13, 2012

See and saw, bounce me back to you

Between their inscrutable lyrics and lead singer Liz Fraser's quicksilver voice (here she is singing with Massive Attack live in 2006), the Cocteau Twins are not an easy band to cover. A male "bedroom musician" might seem like a particularly unlikely choice. Nevertheless, Youtube artist Matt Gurley (aka fooberdoobs) has posted some understated but worthy takes on Know Who You Are At Every Age, Heaven or Las Vegas, and Serpentskirt. [more inside]
posted by en forme de poire at 11:01 PM PST - 11 comments

The Cooler Me

I'd always been fascinated by the trope of the doppelgänger and its long literary life, from Dostoyevsky to Nabokov to Spider-Man. Often, in books, these physical doubles represent the worst a character is capable of. Lately, though, perhaps because at age 41 I'd begun feeling less like the captain of my life and more like its deckhand, I'd started wondering if there was someone out there who embodies not your worst self, but your freest one—a person who encapsulates everything you've ever dreamed of becoming. Let's call him your Cooler Self. All those dreams that got lost along the way, the ones that were casualties of chance or duty or cowardice: There's a "you" out there—a mountain climber or war photographer or race-car driver—who brought them to fruition.

So I vowed to hunt down my
Cooler Self.
posted by AceRock at 8:54 PM PST - 64 comments

Matt Andersen

"I Play the Fool for You", by Matt Andersen. [more inside]
posted by stebulus at 8:07 PM PST - 6 comments

Greetings, programs!

On June 7th, the Disney XD channel will premiere a new, 10-part miniseries: Tron Uprising. The series, which will feature the voices of Elijah Wood, Lance Henriksen, Bruce Boxleitner (reprising his role as 'Tron',) Mandy Moore and Paul Reubens, will combine 2D and CGI animation styles, and is set between the events of the first and second Tron movies. Trailers: 1, 2. 2011 ComicCon Preview. Disney released a full-length "prelude episode" yesterday evening (US Only): Beck's Beginning. (Via) [more inside]
posted by zarq at 7:08 PM PST - 38 comments

Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders

"Like his legendary Hogg, The Mad Man, and the million-seller Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany’s major new novel Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders—explicit, poetic, philosophical, and, yes, shocking—propels readers into a gay sexual culture unknown to most urban gay men and women, a network of rural gay relations—with the twist that this one is supported by the homophile Kyle Foundation, started in the early 1980s by a black multi-millionaire, Robert Kyle III, to improve the lives of black gay men." [more inside]
posted by kittensofthenight at 6:07 PM PST - 38 comments

An Existing, Ecologically-Successful Genus of Collectively Intelligent Artificial Creatures

Our planet is inhabited by two distinct kinds of intelligent beings — individual humans and corporate entities — whose natures and interests are intimately linked. To co-exist well, we need to find ways to define the rights and responsibilities of both individual humans and corporate entities, and to find ways to ensure that corporate entities behave as responsible members of society. (SLAX)(pdf warning)
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 3:33 PM PST - 88 comments

"There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person." G.K. Chesterton

Want a bestseller? Write about Henry or Hitler… [Guardian.co.uk] From Tudor England to the Third Reich, history's megalomaniacs continue to make great literary fodder.
posted by Fizz at 2:57 PM PST - 12 comments

The Dry Earth

The Earth has less water than you might think. [via]
posted by cashman at 2:11 PM PST - 68 comments

He's lacking business acumen

Lazy Harp Seal Has No Job
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 10:29 AM PST - 64 comments

"Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle yeah, yeah"

Musician Noah does an amazing acoustic cover of LMFAO's Sexy and I Know It.
posted by quin at 8:44 AM PST - 45 comments

Some spiders work and hunt in groups.

The deadly social web: Anelosimus eximius, also known as the South American Social Spider, are spiders that work together to repair webs and capture and kill prey much larger than any single spider.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:37 AM PST - 58 comments

Italians have a lot of hells...

The Nine Circles Of Hell, As Depicted In LEGO
posted by Artw at 7:10 AM PST - 43 comments

Publish or Perish

Are bias and fraud damaging the existing public trust in scientific and medical research? (previously) [more inside]
posted by jeffburdges at 6:39 AM PST - 35 comments

Tchaikovsky Timelapse

Tchaikovsky Timelapse manually snapped frames in-between the frames the animator intended to use, in order to capture the animation process in action. Not sure if the actual time-lapse has been released, but more on the elaborate production of it is available here.
posted by gman at 6:03 AM PST - 16 comments

RIP mister bassman, Donald "Duck" Dunn

Millions may know him best from one of the only lines he delivered in the Blues Brothers movie: "We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline". Others who notice these things will remember him as the guy who also played the bass in the Blues Brothers band. And those for whom Stax records and the Memphis sound are important will know him as the four-string foundation of the great Booker T and the MGs, and the man who lent his solid, no-frills bass lines to many a tune by soul luminaries Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett and lots of other greats. Memphis-born bassman Donald "Duck" Dunn has died while on tour (along with fellow legend and bandmate Steve Cropper) in Tokyo. RIP, Duck Dunn, and if there's any goat piss in heaven, I know you're gonna turn it into gasoline up there, too.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 3:15 AM PST - 112 comments

Nobody else had Denny Fitch, who beat those one-in-a-billion odds.

Denny Fitch, one of 4 pilots who guided United 232 to a controlled crash landing in Sioux City, Iowa after a complete hydraulic fluid loss following an engine failure, has died of cancer. He was interviewed about the landing for Errol Morris' First Person series (YouTube) (previously). Denny's family also documented his journey with his incurable brain tumor on his website and blog.
posted by bluefly at 3:09 AM PST - 22 comments

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