Favorites from Faze
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amazing dancers from Georgia, the country
Wow l more. That incredible and joyous exuberance was created by the Georgian National Ballet, Sukhishvili in training l On stage in costume.
Drawing with pencils of fire
Alexis Madrigal is exploring the history of technology as seen through the archives of The Atlantic Monthly. (previously)
Some highlights:
Oliver Wendell Homes on photography, 1859.
Mark Twain on the telephone, 1880.
Gilbert Seldes on the first sales of TV sets, 1937.
Robert Jastrow and Homer Newell on the Apollo Program, 1963.
James Fallows on the PC, 1982.
Some highlights:
Oliver Wendell Homes on photography, 1859.
Mark Twain on the telephone, 1880.
Gilbert Seldes on the first sales of TV sets, 1937.
Robert Jastrow and Homer Newell on the Apollo Program, 1963.
James Fallows on the PC, 1982.
Evolution of the Lindy Hop
This year at the International Lindy Hop Championship, Andrew Thigpen and Karen Turman’s routine showcased the Evolution of Lindy Hop (a takeoff on the Evolution of Dance) – from its origins as a variation on the Charleston to the Gap Khaki commercial to its current incarnation.
Intelligent YouTube Channels
Intelligent YouTube Channels. A large collection from many sources, such as the Richard Dawkins channel l The 92nd Street Y l Big Think l Philip Scott Johnson's collection of art videos l MoMA l Vanity Fair l Yad Vashem a leader in Holocaust education l KQED Public Media l The Research Channel l YouTube EDU, which centralizes all of its educational/academic content. This is the best place to start if you’re looking for lectures and courses l The Spoken Verse l universities like Stanford and Cambridge. Previously.
“The purple glow in the sky — that was so eerie”
Lookout Mountain Laboratories (Hollywood, CA) was originally built in 1941 as an air defense station. But after WWII, the US Air Force repurposed it into a secret film studio which operated for 22 years during the Cold War. The studio produced classified movies for all branches of the US Armed Forces, as well as the Atomic Energy Commission, until it was deactivated in 1969. During this time, cameramen, who referred to themselves as "atomic" cinematographers, were hired to shoot footage of atomic bomb tests in Nevada, Utah, New Mexico and the South Pacific. Some of their films have been declassified and can be seen here.
Carla Bley's "Escalator Over The Hill"
It is simultaneously unlike, and above, every other record. ... Because perhaps it tells us what a trivial pursuit music really is, and at the same time how indispensable to a meaningful existence it in fact is. ... No one, least of all Carla Bley, has subsequently come even within an orbit’s distance of its achievements. ... It is, in the most literal of senses, untouchable. - Marcello Carlin
Turn Me On
A fascinating look at some interesting, and at times mind-boggling, arrays of dials and switches.
Sunday Surreality
Surreal Web Art: Duncan Alexander's hypnotic Freakin' Cats and Cursor Vortex, Nicholas O'Brien's tranquil GrassWalk, Thorne Brandt's Animated Gif of the Day July 2010, Pixelfucks' Untitled #4, A. Bill Miller's grid-portraits, Michael Manning's epilepsy-inducing information technology is the gateway to the infinite and much more at the 2010 Virtual Art Fair
Britney Spears: 1-6 How we filled the sad, lonely years between the release of "Ray of Light" and the invention of Lady Gaga.
Twitter Discographies summarizes musicians' entire careers in 140 characters, album by album. (SLT)
Säkkijärven polkka
Säkkijärven polkka.
YouTube.
Enticing beyond measure the eyes of the beholders
On the 18th June 1912 workmen burst through the floorboards of a disused London tenement at 30-32 Cheapside and discovered "Probably the most remarkable find ever recovered from British soil." The stock of an early Stuart goldsmith - the most astonishing array of precious and semi-precious stones from around the world - hidden c.1630, The Cheapside Hoard is the finest collection of Elizabethan jewellery in the world.
Now will you say something about my new hat?
"A Collection of the Best Marriage Cartoons by the Foremost Comic Artists"
from 1955. Part Two. The good old days, when you could beat your husband and bash your wife. Selected for the web by a 2010 cartoonist who's better than that.
Emo Philips is on both lists.
One-liner artist Tim Vine has won the award for the funniest joke told at the 2010 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, but you'll have to click the link to find out what it was. The BBC's article lists the top ten best jokes and a selection of the worst.
Apocalypse and Amnesia
How "The Last Washington Painting" Became "The Lost Washington Painting": Losing- and finding again- Alan Sonneman's "apocalyptic image of nuclear doom".
CATFIGHT!
Introducing CATFIGHT!
Battle for the Internet's Favourite Feline. The Bracket. Round 1: Old School Cats. Round 2: Eight Down, Eight Return to Duke It Out. Round 3: The Final Four. Last Round: The FINALS! And the Winner is...
I wish I could tell you about the South Pacific...
Tomorrow after 37 previews and 1000 performances, Broadway will bid farewell to the critically-lauded, award-winning, first-ever revival of the classic Rodgers & Hammerstein musical South Pacific.
Global Cities
Beyond City Limits: The age of nations is over. The new urban age has begun.
"The 21st century will not be dominated by America or China, Brazil or India, but by the city. In an age that appears increasingly unmanageable, cities rather than states are becoming the islands of governance on which the future world order will be built. This new world is not -- and will not be -- one global village, so much as a network of different ones."
Sanctuary! Sanctuary!
Real-life Quasimodo uncovered in Tate archives.
A new discovery appears to reveal the real-life inspiration behind the character from Hugo's seminal novel, which tells the story of the deaf bell-ringer of Notre Dame and his unrequited love for the gipsy girl Esmeralda.
Music, Art and Literature at Harpers.org
Scott Horton writes at harpers.org on most weekends posts about music and literature. Typically he'll post poems or philosophy (and often translate same from one of the many languages he's, apparently, fluent in) and link to youtube clips of music to complement the passages he writes about, along with images of classical paintings. Pretty neat. This weekend the clips are Glenn Gould playing Beethoven's Sonata No. 17, op. 31, no. 2 (1802)(the “Tempest”) tied to a passage by Hegel. And Beethoven's Choral Fantasy and its lyrics which were written by someone named Kuffner. Check it out.
The stuff that dreams are made of ...
"... some guests turn off all the room lights, turn on the train set lights and play with the diorama until dawn." Room 1304 of the Akihabara Washington Hotel in Tokyo (Japanese link) used to be a twin, but the second bed was removed to make room for a train set featuring 30 meters of track and a model Tokyo Tower. The room is available for 'only' 23,000 yen (weeknight rate), but be warned, you are expected to bring your own trains to run on the track (rental trains apparently also available). See some video of the room in this TV news report, read about it in this (English) news story, or follow along with the room's own Twitter feed (also in Japanese).
A Home Movie Featuring Adolf Hitler (SLYT)
A family traveled to France and Germany in 1938 and shot this footage which features two appearances by Adolf Hitler. It's creepy seeing this Nazi spectacle shot by an amateur. It's a perspective I don't know if I've ever seen. The video opens in France and the Nazi footage starts around 1:45.
The collector writes: "The Basement Collection presents: An 8mm film bought at an estate sale back in the 90's. This reel is part of a series of a family vacation movies to Europe in 1938. On this reel the family visits France and then Germany. The footage of Hitler is from a celebration in the Berlin Stadium on what I think is a May Day celebration (May 2, 1938) then another celebration at Berlin's Lustgarten. (on May 1st). (I think the reel was edited together out of order)."
The collector writes: "The Basement Collection presents: An 8mm film bought at an estate sale back in the 90's. This reel is part of a series of a family vacation movies to Europe in 1938. On this reel the family visits France and then Germany. The footage of Hitler is from a celebration in the Berlin Stadium on what I think is a May Day celebration (May 2, 1938) then another celebration at Berlin's Lustgarten. (on May 1st). (I think the reel was edited together out of order)."
What the pangeaists don't want you to know
Don't continue fooling yourself. The earth is growing and expanding rapidly. Despite plate tectonics' popular acceptance in the 60s, Samuel Warren Carey, the father of modern expansion tectonics, was publicly promoting his theories of an expanded earth as late as 1981. One of the theory's most prominent modern spokesmen is comics artist Neal Adams, who has created a number of informative videos about a new model of the universe that even manages to explain why the dinosaurs died out.
Heat Waves in a Swamp
Heat Waves in a Swamp: The Paintings of Charles Burchfield. "Burchfield’s primary subject was landscape, often focusing on his immediate surroundings: his garden, the views from his windows, snow turning to slush, the sounds of insects and bells and vibrating telephone lines, deep ravines, sudden atmospheric changes, the experience of entering a forest at dusk, to name but a few. He often imbued these subjects with highly expressionistic light, creating at times a clear-eyed depiction of the world and, at other times, a unique mystical and visionary experience of nature." I recommend the slide show in the first link as the best introduction. More audio slide shows from Peter Schjeldahl here.
take this content and shove it, I ain't workin' here no more
"The mark of a real writer is that she cares deeply about literary joinery, about keeping the lines of her prose plumb. That’s what makes writers writers: to them, prose isn’t just some Platonic vessel for serving up content; they care about words. Any chief product officer who says “quality online does not equal craftsmanship” is channeling the utilitarian gospel of the managerial class, an instrumentalist vision of journalism that presumes writing, online, is just a turkey baster for injecting content into the user’s brain." Mark Dery, on writing for the web.
Comme D'Habitude
The original
version of "My Way" ("Comme d'Habitude", Frank Sinatra's version was a cover) was written by Claude Francois, AKA "CloClo". Somewhere between a French Wayne Newton and Elvis, he died when he was taking a bath, saw a lightbulb had gone out, and tried to replace it while standing in water, completing the circuit. Some of his hit songs include: Belinda,
Belles Belles Belles (cover of
"Girls Girls Girls"), Si J'avais un
Marteau (if I had a Hammer), Sale
Bonhomme (French country, cover of Johnny Cash's "Dirty Dan"), Le Disco est Francais
His scantily clad female backup dancers, called the
"Claudettes" or Clodettes, were the inspiration for the Solid Gold dancers and had
their own short-lived solo spinoff career where they tried to cash in on the
kung-fu + disco
craze.
Track Record
The Wall Street Journal investigates web snoops.
The 50 sites installed a total of 3,180 tracking files on a test computer used to conduct the study. Only one site, the encyclopedia Wikipedia.org, installed none. Twelve sites, including IAC/InterActive Corp.'s Dictionary.com, Comcast Corp.'s Comcast.net and Microsoft Corp.'s MSN.com, installed more than 100 tracking tools apiece in the course of the Journal's test.
Steampunk Internet
Before the Internet, TV, or radio, there was the Telephone Newspaper
An intimate evening ... with 6000 friends
The BBC Proms season is underway, and this year also they are running some 'late night Proms', second concerts held after the first concert of the evening is over. A couple of days ago, the Portuguese pianist Maria João Pires (Wikipedia) took over the cavernous Royal Albert Hall at ten in the evening for an all-Chopin, all-Nocturnes late night recital, attended by nearly 6,000 people. That may sound like a recipe for disaster, but she pulled it off wonderfully; it was an unforgettable experience, and you have until next Wednesday to hear it, on the BBC iPlayer.
Fruit MRIs
Fruit MRIs. Do not click this link if you are intoxicated.
ornithopters over Pearl Harbor
La Guerre Infernale was a serialized novel for children, written by Pierre Giffard and lavishly illustrated by Albert Robida. It told the tale of the second world war, with battles between Britain and Germany, and between the United States and Japan. Sadly, it's been out of print for over 100 years, because it was written in 1908.
Dylanology
How to listen to Bob Dylan, a guide.
Extreme caving. Amazing tales of the supercave.
An interview with caving researcher James M. Tabor.
I haven't recently come across a finer link for pure imagination fuel than this brief interview with caver and caving researcher and writer James M. Tabor, author of Blind Descent.
Let's dance forró!
Forró is popular dance music from northeastern Brazil. Forró em Vinil is a blog with out of catalog forró gems for download. But wait, is this legal?
Jazz on a Summer's Day
"Young Bert Stern was already one of the leading fashion photographers of the 1950's when he resolved to shoot his first film before he was thirty. He made it, with two years to spare. The result, Jazz on a Summer's Day, is a luminously breezy film that brings the rich color palette of Vogue or Harper's Bazaar of those years into the world of the documentary cinema."
Things That Need To Be On The Side Of A Van #328
Paleontologists discover the skull of a massive predatory whale (Leviathan melvillei) in Peru. Discovery News presents this finding with the best of all possible illustrations. (via)
The Little Lantern of the World
Nabokov in Berlin.
'Vladimir Nabokov was starting his career as a writer when he found himself in Berlin. "It is clear, for one thing, that while a man is writing, he is situated in some definite place; he is not simply a kind of spirit, hovering over the page...Something or other is going on around him." The short 1934 novel Despair from which this quote comes is already heavily self-ironising compared with the stories of the previous decade. But like them it is studded with incidental Berlin experiences, from the shape of the city's S-Bahn train line on the map to the comedy of a German misspeaking English. "I suppose only the pest. The chief thing by me is optimismus." If Nabokov's Berlin was in his head, it was nevertheless not invented.'