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Magyar Madness?
As Hungary takes over the Presidency of the European Union, a new media law also comes into effect that centralizes control of the media in ways many consider is anti-democratic. The central media authority can issue decrees and apply financial penalties to those media, including internet portals and blogs who for "politically unbalanced reporting". The first test for the new Authority is Ice T following the broadcast of his songs, "Warning" and "It's On". Local media responded with blank pages by way of protest.
Many see this as the latest example in the increasing authoritarian and anti-democratic nature of the Orban-led FIDESZ government. They point to the privatization of pensions, the diminution of the powers of the Constitutional Court and the imposition of wind-fall taxes on multi-national companies, as examples of this trend. The Washington Post calls it the "Putinizantion of Hungary", while The Guardian laments "One-party rule" in Hungary. The German newspaper, Spiegel describes it as a "A Slow Poison Attacking Democracy" while quoting those who refer to Hungary as a "Führer state". Local critics include the prominent economist János Kornai.
English readers can keep up to-date with developments at the Hungarian Spectrum blog and politics.hu.
On the hand, some see Hungary as a World of Potentials (SLYT).
Five Cent Seurats
Four Color Process
is a blog which reposts magnified details from old comic book panels. The images become semi-abstract and very striking (and surprisingly non-Lichtensteinian). Some favorites: Ruined City, Steranko's Strange Tales, Ghouls, Swirl Lamp, Kirby's Silver Surfer, Romance, Novelty Magic, Ditko's Dr. Strange, Man at Conference Table, Homo Comicus, Easy to Do and finally a comparison of contemporary printing with the old four color process. [via The Front Section]
Sixties Seventies
The miniskirts, hotpants, bellbottoms, boots, sunglasses, and hairdos of the Sixties Seventies as worn by the famous and anonymous beauties of the time. (some images NSFW)
The rules for long ſ
Hot s&ſ action: Google Books’ optical character recognition is louſy enough to be unable to differentiate f from the ancient long s or medial s, ſ (previouſly). But what exactly were the rules for uſing this now-obſolete glyph? It turns out you almost need a flowchart. (Via)
Theme Time Radio Hour
Bob Dylan had a radio show, the Theme Time Radio Hour, from May 2006 to April 2009. The archive contains shows on themes such as Thanksgiving Leftovers, The Bible, and Women's Names (click on the arrows to download the full radio show).
Smiling Victorians
Smiling Victorians
is a collection of photos of smiling Victorian (and Edwardian!) people. And one photo of the Victorianest smile of all!
"If cinema is sometimes dreamlike, then every edit is an awakening." -Roger Ebert
The long take, an uncut, uninterrupted shot in film, is seen by some as the counter to CGI, the last great field for cinematic art. The linked page features six clips from 1990 on, plus the opening shot from Orson Welles' 1958 film, Touch of Evil. Alfred Hitchcock's film from a decade earlier, Rope, took the long cut further, with the whole film shot in eight takes of up to 10 minutes each, a decision shaped by the limit of the physical recording media. With digital media, the long take could be pushed further, as with Russian Ark, from 2002. The movie was shot in one long take, with the narrative working through the history of Russia, set within The State Hermitage Museum, and captured in one day on the 4th take. If the long takes are a tad long for you, try the "short" long takes that are one-shot music videos [videos inside]
Brierized.
For your listening pleasure, I present to you the Zelda Rag, performed (with no prior practice) by Tom Brier. When that gets old, there's also a ragtime adaptation of the horse race theme from the Ocarina of Time that is not to be missed. And if Zelda's too easy, you can try the theme from Ghosts and Goblins. And, finally, an actual rag from Final Fantasy VI: the Spinach Rag.
Vanishing Act
Vanishing Act.
Paul Collins tells the story of Barbara Newhall Follett. The daughter of authors Wilson Follett and Helen Follett, Barbara began writing at the age of 4. As she grew older, she developed a private language of her own, evolved from her view of the world of nature. Her first book, The House Without Windows, was published when she was twelve. In December 1939 Barbara walked out of her apartment and was never seen again. "Some prodigies flourish, some disappear. But Barbara did leave one last comment to the world about writing—a brief piece in a 1933 issue of Horn Book that earnestly recommends that parents give their own children typewriters. 'Perhaps there would simply be a terrific wholesale destruction of typewriters,' she admits. 'An effort would have to be made to impress upon children that a typewriter is magic.'" The entirety of her known writings now resides in six boxes at the Columbia University Rare Book & Manuscript Library. (via longreads)
4 Gallons Per Minute At Full Chat
Some 10 minutes after driving Chris Williams's Packard-engined Behemoth my hands were still shaking, my voice was croaking and the cool autumn wind was chilling my sweaty overalls.
My face was cherry red from the infernal heat of the engine and my eyebrows singed from its 24 flaming exhaust stubs. In my entire career I have never driven anything as visceral, as physical or as sheer bloody terrifying as Mavis, the 42-litre Packard-engined Bentley.
Domestic spying
... the United States is assembling a vast domestic intelligence apparatus to collect information about Americans, using the FBI, local police, state homeland security offices and military criminal investigators. The system, by far the largest and most technologically sophisticated in the nation's history, collects, stores and analyzes information about thousands of U.S. citizens and residents, many of whom have not been accused of any wrongdoing. (previously)
This Is What a Sunspot Looks Like
The most detailed photo of the surface of the sun looks like this.
It was taken by the team at CA's Big Bear Solar Observatory. They have some other neat images of our nearest star at their website.
A chit for a bang-bang
In the 1920's, there was a series of race cars developed by Count Louis Zborowski, Chitty Bang Bang I through IV. Though in the film version of Ian Fleming's book the name came from the sound the cars made, there is some conjecture that the name is based on a bawdy WWI song. Zborowski died before finishing Chitty Bang Bang 4, (also known as the Higham Special). The car killed its next owner in a particularly grisly fashion and was buried on the spot by his horrified friends.
"The key learning from this was that *Santa* IS brand. PARTLY literally and TOTALLY metaphorically."
*Santa* is a Concept, not an idea.
It's an Emotion, not a feeling. It's both Yesterday and Today. And it's Tomorrow as well. Santa winds infinite Possibilities around finite Limitations to evoke the essence of invention and the Odour of Nostalgia. It has the complexity of Simpleness and the Simplicity of complexitiveness. It begins with the Hiss of Power and ends with the Ah of Surprise. *Santa* is.
Tango with Tabby
Dancing with Cats
is one of the strangest sites I've seen in some time. I have no idea how these people got their cats to dance with them, or why.
you can double your storage space instantly
One of the biggest challenges you're going to face in your life is how to fold a fitted sheet.
Beyond Religion
Rabbi Rami Shapiro is a self-described holy rascal, with an often sarcastic twitter feed. His blog, Beyond Religion, has covered a wide variety of issues, both spiritual and political, from descriptions of God, the relationship between religion and science, the reality of Christian law, and the role of women in Israel.
In today's post, he defines and defends the role of myth in religion: “Myth” is not the same as “falsehood.” Myth is a narrative structure used to convey some of the deepest truths we humans can glean. Myths are not believed in but unpacked and lived."
"Toity poiple boids / Sittin on da koib / A-choipin an’ a-boipin / An’ eatin doity woims."
"Toity poiple boids / Sittin on da koib / A-choipin an’ a-boipin / An’ eatin doity woims." From Atlantic Avenue to Zerega Avenue (map), the kinds of New York City accents made famous by the likes of Archie Bunker, Jimmy Breslin and Travis Bickle are disappearing. But though you may not often hear “foath floah” for "fourth floor" in Manhattan anymore, documentary filmmaker Heather Quinlan knows you can still hear strains of the old mellifluous tones in Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and the Bronx, and that's exactly what she's setting out to document in her film If These Knishes Could Talk.
"Adopt a [Wax] Cylinder" for you and yours!
A great gift for the archivist and/or audiophile in your life!
Just in time for the holidays, donate NOW only $60 to preserve for posterity the controversial, the scandalous, the quixotic, the Springsteen-ian, the timeless classics, plus many, many more wax cylinder recordings from UCSB's Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project.
Distributism Review
Distributist Review promotes distributism (wiki), a "third way" of economics between capitalism and socialism, inspired by Catholic social teaching. Popularized by G. K. Chesterton (more, more), Fr. Vincent McNabb (more, more), Hilaire Belloc (more, more), and E. F. Schumacher (more, more, more), as well as through the pages of the Catholic Worker (more, also), distributism seeks to put "productive" property into the hands of the many, with implications for urban homesteading and agricultural reform, as well as the rebirth of the guild as an idea. Distributism is not merely an economic system - it is wholly fused with Catholic teachings, fusing the left and right, standing against modern, liberal political and sociological thought.
Mailbag Art Museum
Artist Sarah Musi sent little pieces of art to forty-five artists, along with a tiny blank canvas for them to create something and return it. So far she has received six back.
Some a these girls lately aren't into the movies.
Chloe retells the story of a Brooklyn man asking her out. "The way that he asked me out was amazing, and I'll never forget it for the rest of my life. I'm going to share it with you now." [slyt]
Nikos Kazantzakis
They think of me as a scholar, an intellectual, a pen-pusher. And I am none of them. When I write, my fingers get covered not in ink but in blood. I think I am nothing more than this: an undaunted soul.
Luis Buñuel
Regarding Luis Buñuel (Criterion, 1:37, subtitled) "All my life I've been harassed by questions: Why is something this way and not another? How do you account for that? This rage to understand, to fill in the blanks, only makes life more banal. If we could only find the courage to leave our destiny to chance, to accept the fundamental mystery of our lives, then we might be closer to the sort of happiness that comes with innocence." -- Luis Bunuel, "In Curiosity"
Bunuel wanted to rebel against the dogmatic structures of the Church that said, There is no salvation or grace outside the Church. He wanted a kind of Protestant surrealism in which grace was directly attainable like in Nazarin or Viridiana -- Carlos Fuentes
"He is a deeply Christian man who hates God as only a Christian can and, of course, he's very Spanish. I see him as the most supremely religious director in the history of the movies." -- Orson Welles
"I'd like to be able to rise from the dead every ten years, walk to a newsstand, and buy a few newspapers. I wouldn't ask for anything more. With my papers under my arm, pale, brushing against the walls, I'd return to the cemetery and read about the world's disasters before going back to sleep satisfied, in the calming refuge of the grave." -- Luis Bunuel
"When celebrities inflict their hobby"
2002:
Conan O'Brien disses former talk show host Alan Thicke for playing guitar with the house band on the first "Thicke of the Night" show:
The Realist Archive Project completed
The Realist Archive Project (previously) is now complete. The Realist, edited and published by Paul Krassner, was a pioneering magazine of "social-political-religious criticism and satire" in the American countercultural press of the mid-20th century. Although The Realist is often regarded as a major milestone in the underground press, it was a nationally-distributed newsstand publication as early as 1959. Publication was discontinued in 2001.
Linda Perhacs
"Parallelograms is an album by American psychedelic folk singer Linda Perhacs. Her first and to date only album, it was all but completely ignored when originally released on Kapp Records in 1970. Discouraged by the lack of commercial attention and the label's reluctance to promote the album, Perhacs returned to her career as a dental technician. In the 30 or so years that followed, the album gradually developed a cult following, particularly on the Internet. Young listeners found appeal in her subtle instrumentation and delicate harmonies..." Parallelograms::Chimacum Rain::Hey, Who Really Cares?
Sacred secrets; new finds from Orkney
Mr Mowatt said he had always wondered what lay under an 8ft stone in the garden and eventually curiosity got the better of him, "On the screen... I could clearly see what I thought was a white skull, with two eye sockets, looking back at me."
Twenty-First Century Stoic
William B. Irvine has written a three-part essay (1, 2, 3) for BoingBoing summarizing his book A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy. The Philosophers' Magazine has also commented on the revival of Stoicism.
Swiss Family Robinson tree found
Original Swiss Family Robinson Tree Found! Kevin, I stumbled upon your post of March this year "Some Really Big Roots" which mentioned the original Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse from the movie of 1960. I live on the island of Tobago in the Caribbean and did research on the tree and actually found it still very much alive in Goldsborough!
The Battle of Stalingrad
In the scale of its intensity, its destructiveness and its horror, Stalingrad has no parallel. It engaged the full strength of the two biggest armies in Europe and could fit into no lesser framework than that of a life-and-death conflict which encompasses the earth. - The New York Times, February 4, 1943
Organ Grindin' (and Accordion Smashin')
"Most people think that Pipe Organs are only capable of producing the classical evil growl from horror movies, but in truth, they are capable of making quite a wide variety of noises that you wouldn't normally expect to come from a Pipe Organ." YouTube user FromTheGang plays covers on the pipe organ at his church and a couple accordions.
I have made a decision.
"I have made a decision. I will no longer debate the issue of homosexuality in the church with anyone."
So begins Bishop John Spong's scathing assault on anti-gay Christians: 'I will no longer discuss with them or listen to them tell me how homosexuality is "an abomination to God," about how homosexuality is a "chosen lifestyle," or about how through prayer and "spiritual counseling" homosexual persons can be "cured." Those arguments are no longer worthy of my time or energy.'
Shanson, Russian criminal underworld music
The Russian mafia and criminals have their own type of music. It's called shanson [chanson]. A couple of contemporary examples by Michael Krug- Kolschik and Lesovopal- Sit Boy l Arcadiy Severnyj (1939-1980) was considered the king of street (prison-folk) songs. Shanson MyRadio channel.
I mean, it's gotta end sometime, right?
"Eschatology" is, generally speaking, the study of the end of the world, but when most people in the US hear the term, they generally think of Christian eschatology.
Specifically, they tend to think of the barrels of ink and that one movie (previously) which have been devoted to the subject over the past couple of decades. Neither seems to have contributed to a wider understanding of the actual theology involved.
Specifically, they tend to think of the barrels of ink and that one movie (previously) which have been devoted to the subject over the past couple of decades. Neither seems to have contributed to a wider understanding of the actual theology involved.
Now We Dance
Now is the time on MetaFilter when we dance: with GROSSE FREIHEIT, Mera naam Chin Chin Chu (Hindi: मेरा नाम चिन चिन चू, Urdu: میرا نام چِن چِن چو) , and Occult Chemistry - Fire.