September 9, 2015
Note: focus between the ears.
The Gospel According to Some Guy with Adobe Reader
"For nearly three years, there has been considerable controversy and confusion about whether a business-card sized papyrus fragment dubbed the Gospel of Jesus' Wife is an authentic ancient artifact or not. The current scholarly consensus already holds that the fragment is forgery. In addition, a recent development has confirmed that the Gospel of Jesus' Wife is a forgery created using a specific internet edition of the Gospel of Thomas [pdf]. It seems that the Gospel of Jesus' Wife forgery debate has finally come to an end. " [Previously]
Other, Stranger Timelines
Germany’s famous unit of immortal soldiers pose with their heads in their hands, 1921. The Immortals, ordinary men resurrected from death by a process as yet unknown, served with honour in the First World War until they were liquidated (by being burned to death, the only way they could be killed) by the Weimar Republic in 1924. [more inside]
"You don’t like it, play better."
Prince gets "experimental" with Joshua Welton, releases album on Tidal
Time indeed does not exist on Prince albums. Perhaps that’s why he’s kept releasing one or two every few years even long after his hit-making days ended. At age 24, on “1999,” he established a dichotomy—“I don't wanna die / I’d rather dance”—and at age 57, he seems to be taking that idea of dance-or-die more literally than ever. Who cares if fewer and fewer people are listening? Who cares if releasing exclusively to Tidal will limit his audience further? What matters is that Prince is working, and that the holy devoted will follow him.Spencer Kornhaber reviews HITNRUN Phase One on The Atlantic, warning that both Prince and "the gnarly funk-rock and R&B that made Prince famous" are in short supply on the album, which is produced by Joshua Welton, who said the album is "an experimental Prince record for fans who just don’t care about him sounding like a certain thing." [more inside]
Behind the Scenes of "The Warriors"
"To be a Warrior would mean running all night, every night, through the sweltering summer streets of Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and the Bronx. It would mean showing up for work at six in the evening and not wrapping until the crew could see the sun rise over the East River. It would mean hopping subway turnstiles and enduring the taunts of the local street gangs. The line separating art and life would become blurred, the making of the film an adventure in and of itself." Jackson O'Connor of the Village Voice on the 1979 cult classic "The Warriors."
New meaning to the phrase "Occupy Wall Street"
Russian five-year-olds dig their way out of nursery...
to buy sports car. they had come from their kindergarten to buy a Jaguar but did not have any money. [more inside]
Seattle Teachers on Strike
Following a unanimous vote, Seattle teachers are on strike. Among their demands are guaranteed recess time for schoolchildren, caseload caps for counselors, taskforces devoted to ending racial bias in disciplinary measures, increased access to special education, and a pay raise for the first time in six years. [more inside]
"And that's why you always hit your dot!"
During halftime on Saturday, the Kansas State Marching Band was supposed to make a formation showing the Enterprise spaceship ramming the University of Kansas Jayhawk. Things did not go as planned. [more inside]
Why drivers in China intentionally kill the pedestrians they hit.
Driven to Kill. The "hit-to-kill" phenomenon in China where a driver who has accidentally struck a pedestrian will stop to run over them again, or multiple times, to ensure they are dead. Trigger warning for text descriptions of gruesome vehicular murder. Lots of links to photos and videos in the article that you should click at your own discretion.
Women with a Movie Camera
How does it blinker our perception of cinema’s history when picture after gorgeous monochrome picture of elaborate movie sets have as their focus a white male director? As part of Sight & Sound magazine's Female Gaze issue, Isabel Stevens has compiled a collection of images of women directors at work.
This woman is my destiny
As the video on YouTube reaches 100 million views, Shut Up and Dance by the Cincinnati band Walk the Moon continues to sell and receive frequent radio airplay. [more inside]
"I feel like I grew up around wood - it's in my blood."
"North America's only premium, handcrafted firewood manufacturer": The CBC's faux-news show This is That lays into the world of artisinal nonsense with fine craftsmanship and loving attention to detail.
Does Your Language Shape How You Think?
Proving that "One Day More" from Les Miserables is absolutely bombproof.
Highlights from Key & Peele's incredible run
In its all-too-brief 3½ year run, Comedy Central's sketch comedy powerhouse Key & Peele burned brightly, leavening Peabody-award-winning social commentary with sublime silliness and Hollywood-quality production values, all centered on the impeccable character acting of co-stars Jordan (Peele) and Keegan-Michael (Key). By the time its end was announced, characters like the Substitute Teacher, the East/West College Bowl players, and Obama's Anger Translator had captured the popular consciousness, while skits like TeachingCenter and Negrotown deftly spotlighted our most pressing problems.
With the finale airing tonight, and the dynamic duo free to tackle other projects, why not revisit the program's concentrated brilliance in the form of ~100 of their very best short bits available on the web, sorted loosely by topic. [more inside]
#Space
slow and steady
Earth has been restored to 1-day simultaneous rotation.
First created in 1997, Gene Ray's Time Cube disappeared on August 24, 2015. Timecube.org now points to nothing. Twitter mourns. Snapshots of Time Cube continue to exist on the Internet Archive. The status of Gene Ray, creator of Time Cube, who would be 87 this year, is unknown.
This is why more people don't follow their dreams:
Chess Pieces and Copyright
Marcel Duchamp designed an Art Deco chess set which was available on the web as a 3D printable design. Now the makers have removed it from the internet because French copyright law protects it though it's in the public domain in the US, with implications for the future of shareable things. (The chess set design previously on Metafilter.)
The High Burden of Low Wages
For those workers that currently earn the state’s minimum of $8.75 per hour, there are no neighborhoods in which median asking rent could be paid affordably. The extent to which rent growth has outpaced income growth in New York City means low-wage workers face three options: find several roommates to lower their personal rent burden, take on more than one job, or move out of New York City.The High Burden of Low Wages: How Renting Affordably in NYC is Impossible on Minimum Wage
"Adult Supervision"
Mozilla Firefox cofounder Blake Ross couldn't wait for the season 3 premiere of HBO's Silicon Valley, so he did the next best thing and wrote his own script which is pretty much indistinguishable from an actual episode.
Drink your single malt and put your helmet on...
In 2011, Ardbeg, a prominent Scotch whisky distiller, sent vials of its whisky to the International Space Station to mature. Those vials have been returned to Earth and subjected to taste tests alongside samples of the same whisky matured at Ardbeg's distillery. [more inside]
“I defer to no one in my love for America and for Christianity.”
Fear by Marilynne Robinson [New York Review of Books]
“There is something I have felt the need to say, that I have spoken about in various settings, extemporaneously, because my thoughts on the subject have not been entirely formed, and because it is painful to me to have to express them. However, my thesis is always the same, and it is very simply stated, though it has two parts: first, contemporary America is full of fear. And second, fear is not a Christian habit of mind. As children we learn to say, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me.” We learn that, after his resurrection, Jesus told his disciples, “Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.” Christ is a gracious, abiding presence in all reality, and in him history will finally be resolved.”
Fiction is formative. Our reality is shaped by the stories we are told.
LSU, Tenure, and Profanity in the Classroom
Teresa Buchanan, associate professor of education at LSU, was fired for using profanity in the classroom and allegedly comparing women unfavorably to men. THe administration defends their actions by equating Dr. Buchanan's conduct to sexual harassment. Faculty at LSU and the AAUP have both objected to alarming administrative overreach in what they both see as grounds for censure rather than dismissal. Several media reports are linked off of this Language Log post.
Myles Jackman
One lawyer’s crusade to defend extreme pornography. Myles Jackman is Britain’s leading obscenity lawyer. But he does not merely defend the accused: his life’s great plan and purpose is to rid this country once and for all of its laws criminalising extreme pornography – laws that he regards as morally and socially iniquitous. (contains descriptions of sex and pornography)
Better Living Through Television
Here's The Adventures of Milkman, How To Be Swell, The Lost Brady, Phoebe, Classic TV Rewinds, and the "Guy Series" (which has a couple of unexpected cameos), as well as three collections of commercials, all callbacks from 80s-90s Nick At Nite, and that age when MTV's success inspired channels to put more personality into their promotion. [more inside]
Shack Up: A Loop History
Banbarra’s entire discography can be summed up in exactly one 7-inch, 1975’s two-parter “Shack Up,” released on United Artists under the auspices of one “Coyote Productions Inc.” But no matter what trail you follow, any further info on this group gets cold pretty fast.Nate Patrin explains why despite its inauspicious beginnings, "shack Up" became one of the most influential breaks in sampling history.
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