July 1, 2009
Step 1: Squat! Step 2: Shred!
So I Twitter, and Everyone Knows my Deets!
Web Site Story West Side Story without the race issues and more about internet dating.
Celebrities and MS
One recent celebrity death that most likely fell under the U.S. radar was that of Terry Black, who in the early 1960s was Canada's answer to Fabian. Growing up listening to CKLW, I remember Terry Black for "Goin' Down (The Road to L.A.)", recorded with his wife, Laurel Ward. Black had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis just a year ago, and apparently died from complications of the disease. [more inside]
Neologisms + Aves = wordbirds
wordbirds: word coinages illustrated by photos of birds.
Glutenglutton
Aplorable
Mealbreaker
Apoca-lips
Hope He Took his Traveler's Checks
Karl Malden has died. The Oscar and Emmy winner who had many brilliant appearances as secondary characters and starred in his own hugely popular TV show was 97.
It's full of stars
One of the hardest things for people to understand about the universe is just how big it is. There are three approaches typically used in describing its size. The first, the song, was pioneered by Monty Python (NSFWish, wireframe of naked woman) and then done just as masterfully by the Animaniacs. The second, the zoom method has been featured twice before here on the blue. The third method is the comparison method (skip to 1:30, unless you like looking at a image of the solar system with terrible distorted orbits), yielding some truly beautiful videos (this one found via the fantastic Bad Astronomy blog). These videos go, at most, as far as looking at the local cluster or the Virgo Supercluster. There are two videos that attempt to show the size of the entire universe, one unsuccessfully (although with great music) and one successfully. (Warning, all links except the first one, are to YT videos). [more inside]
Mollie Sugden dies at 86
Mrs. Slocombe is no longer free. Actress Mollie Sugden has died at 86, after a long illness.
Best known as the irascible Mrs. Slocombe in the long running British sitcom "Are You Being Served?" who famous cared a great deal about her pussy.
The Humphrey Winterton Collection of East African Photographs: 1860-1960
"This week -- for the first time ever -- a searchable collection of thousands of rare photographs chronicling Europe’s colonization of East Africa becomes available to anyone with an Internet connection anywhere in the world, thanks to the efforts of staff at Northwestern University Library." (press release)
Polin' on the River
Since 1870, the Hatton Ferry in Hatton, VA, has been helping people and vehicles cross the James River - under pole power [ferry is cable-assisted, and poling starts at 3:42]. Before the nation was connected by a network of bridges, pole barges like this were a common means of transportation across smaller waterways. Hatton Ferry is thought to be the very last working survivor of those thousands of the pole-driven ferries; but today, due to DOT budget constraints, it may go out of existence. [more inside]
How Beckham Blew It
"I'm not going to spend the next three years of my life doing it this way. This is f------ miserable. I don't want to have soccer be this way." Landon Donovan , center midfielder for the USA soccer team which recently lost to Brasil 3-2 in the USA's first FIFA final, talks about playing with David Beckham in an excerpt from Grant Wahl's forthcoming book 'The Beckham Experiment'.
...ink by the barrel...
Negative reviews prompt author meltdowns: Alice Hoffman. Lee Oi-soo. Alain de Botton. Ayelet Waldman. Previously on MeFi. [more inside]
Charlie's Angels: It's Not About the Half-Wit Retarded Children
Ayn Rand discusses in a 1979 Donahue appearance her love of "Charlie's Angels." Amy Wallace reveals the "unlikely friendship" between Rand and actress Farrah Fawcett. Chris Matthew Sciabarra explains the "The Dialectical Meaning of 'Charlie's Angels.'"
The complex feelings of many women who've had abortions
"Every day I talk to people who have always been against abortion, . . . who are having an abortion. Or I talk to people who are pro-choice, [yet are] freaked out by [having an abortion]." Many women you know [have had an abortion]. Odds are, they never said a word about it to you. "We need to discuss the complex feelings of women who've had abortions." While many women experience only relief after an abortion, others may grieve for the lost pregnancy."Why flatten the decisions around abortion to just abortion?" [more inside]
Freedom Flight
15 year old Kimberly Anyadike is flying across the country (YouTube) to honor the Tuskegee Airmen. [more inside]
Hitting bottom
On 200 mg a day of baclofen, in an important meeting with several associate deans of my college and three new department chairs (I was made chair of my philosophy department just a few weeks before I tried to commit suicide), I fell asleep with my head on the conference room table and, for 40 minutes, everyone was too embarrassed to wake me. Somnolence is the most obvious and inconvenient side effect of baclofen. I reduced my dosage to 100 mg a day, and started taking it only at bedtime. A few days later, a colleague asked if I had changed my medicine. ‘Yes,’ I told her. ‘Why do you ask?’ She is German, an analytic philosopher, and therefore very direct: ‘You are drooling less than you were.’My Life as a Drunk is a searingly honest essay by novelist and philosophy professor Clancy Martin about his experiences with alcoholism, AA, valium and baclofen.
Behind the Mask - Michael Jackson's rarest recording?
Michael Jackson penned and recorded lots of songs, many of which remain unreleased. Perhaps the most infamous, and rarest recording, is his version of Behind the Mask. Legend has it that upon hearing Yellow Magic Orchestra's original track, somewhen around 1979, Quincy Jones fell in love with the track, and he and Michael worked together on their own version. Jackson wrote new lyrics for it - adding to those of Ryuichi Sakamoto and Chris Mosdell - and eventually recorded it during his Off The Wall sessions. For unknown reasons the track never made the final cut of, arguably, Jones' and Jackson's greatest work. Not long afterwards Greg Phillinganes, Jackson's keyboard player, released his own version of the song, which was later taken up and re-recorded by Eric Clapton for his 1986, Phil Collins produced album, August. The track has since been recorded/remixed by Human League, Senor Coconut, Orbital and others. Does an original Jones/Jackson recording of the song even exist? Perhaps, as the world continues to mourn the star's sad death, someone will finally allow us a listen.
Tears Are Not Enough
Watch Bruce McDonald's Twitch City, read Ty Templeton's Stig's Inferno, listen to Al Purdy's On Being Human, play Ian and Linda Currie's Jagged Alliance, be vaguely unsettled by Michael Snow's Wavelength and have a happy Canada Day [more inside]
DJ Spooky's Movie Remix
When The Birth of a Nation was released in 1915, it sought to recast the Civil War and the pains of Reconstruction as being fundamentally caused by African-Americans. It also served as a landmark in American cinema, and is hailed as a masterpiece today.
In response, DJ Spooky has "remixed" the movie and released it on DVD under the title "Rebirth of a Nation."
Or have we eaten on the insane root that takes the reason prisoner?
“Josephine had practically every desirable personal characteristic, except wisdom and mercy.” Gee, that sounds like she actually isn’t a nice person at all! Gary Brecher (previously) reviews Banquo’s Ghosts, a political-minded spy thriller from National Review editor Richard Lowry and novelist Keith Korman. Lowry describes it as an "episode of “24″ written by Proust. " [more inside]
Pina Bausch, 1940-2009
Pina Bausch, one of the foremost choreographers of the last thirty years, died June 30th.
Over the three decades she lead the Tanz-theater Wuppertal her choreography attracted an international following with its complex mix of theatricality, humor, and often pointed depictions of the relationships between men and women. [more inside]
plimptonproject.org
We just like George Plimpton. Not personally, we never actually knew him. But we like everything we know about him. His intelligence. His good humor. His spirit.
We enjoy the way he attacked life with gusto and grace.
We appreciate how he proved that a funny upper crust accent and a rather fancy vocabulary doesn't make you any less of a real man. (If nothing else, Plimpton's life proves that once upon a time a man walked the earth who could both read poetry and throw a football.)
We admire the way he embodied everything a man of letters is supposed to be; curious and articulate, brave and wise.
We are thankful to the way he ceaselessly promoted other writers and artists and how, through his own writings and publications, became a teacher, guide and inspiration to countless others (even those he never met, life, for instance, us).
And, finally, we believe a life such as his is worth continued celebration. Because here was a man who threw himself tirelessly into the gaping maw of life, fighting onward, ever smiling, like the truest of gentleman.
ALSO, George Plimpton digs Intellivision and thinks its far superior to Atari.
Blogging the Philosophers
The Guardian's How to Believe series summarizes some great philosophical works in the reversed-date format we all know and love. Giles Frasier evaluates the lasting value of Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals, Julian Baggini tells us what to believe about Hume's critique of religion, Mary Midgeley begrudgingly accepts the majestic contributions of Hobbes' Leviathan, and Simon Critchley throws himself into the hermeneutic circle of Heidegger's Being and Time. [more inside]
Raising the question of whether flaturia runs in families.
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