October 28, 2007
A pleasing land of drowsy-head it was, Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye
The Yamanote Halloween Train vs. Japanese Netizen Rage The Yamanote Halloween Train party was planned to be held on Saturday night in Tokyo. However, sometime on Saturday morning, the Japanese megaforum 2ch.net discovered an English-language post about the event on JapanProbe, and translated the information about it into Japanese, igniting a raging storm of anti-foreign hatred and sending over 10,000 visitors to the popular English-language blog about Japan. Scroll down for an interview with a JR employee about the event. [more inside]
FCC Moves to Change Ownership Rules Again
The FCC, again, moves to loosen ownership rules for television and newspapers. A similar proposal in 2003 drew huge public opposition. This time, there is a narrow window for public comment, ending in mid-November. You can contact the FCC or go to the Common Cause page. [more inside]
Keep on Truckin'
Go Truckin' with Ina Ray Hutton & her Melodears. The dance craze's name was used as double entendre in the song "Trucking My Blues Away" by Blind Boy Fuller. That song's refrain of "Keep On Trucking" has echoed in comics and music. [more inside]
Winemaking
Jack Keller's winemaking site has not only the basics of home winemaking in 5 parts [12345], but also information on more advanced topics, including acidity, blending, and using a hydrometer. Equally interesting is his extensive collection of recipes for making wines out of things other than grapes, including dandelions and other edible flowers, wild plants (including nettles!), cabbages and beets, tea and coffee, mint, pomegranates, and pumpkins. A complete list of recipes is here, if you'd like to click through alphabetically, and a list of specially-requested recipes is here (scroll down a bit).
Gap Unveils New 'For Kids By Kids' Clothing Line
I don't believe you, you're a liar. Play it fucking loud!
While its classical cousin may have been around a little longer, the second edition of the BBC's Electric Proms provided a true smorgasbord of special performances by the likes of Ray Davies, Sigur Rós, Paul McCartney and Mark Ronson - and many more. All performances can be streamed until the end of this week. [more inside]
Things I Have Failed To Masturbate To
The kid can sing.
Five year old boy sings the Koran. So beautiful.
The Honey, The Power, The Light
"To never stop fighting means not knowing victory / So give me blank books to fill up with history" sing Adam Kline and Joanna Newsom in The Honey, The Power, The Light [youtube] [more inside]
Friggin aye
State of the Party-state The ever-excellent Jonathan Ansfield gives his take on the recently concluded Seventeenth Congress of the Communist Party of China.
Ridiculous game winning play from Div. III football
Trinity University won their football game this Saturday on a crazy play, (somewhat reminiscent of "The Play" minus the mayhem of the fans and band rushing the field.) This one looks more like a grade school game of keep away. What happened to the defense??
condom earworm PSA from India
The Condom Song is a charmingly bizarre safe-sex message from India. Music and humor are often used to promote safe sex and pregnancy prevention, alternatives to shock tactics. Bangkok's safe sex theme restaurants represent a slightly more novel approach, a chain called Cabbages and Condoms. Whatever the style, condom promotion is much more mainstream than when the Golden Girls' had their first awkward encounter and British comedians tackled uncomfortable condom language. NSFW
Go Go Mania!
The year 1964 was a watershed period in British music. Before that year, British popular music was barely heard outside of the U.K. But when the Beatles achieved American success, a seemingly endless number of British bands and singers were suddenly able to crack the American market.The features opens with footage from a November, 1963 Beatles concert in Manchester - She Loves You [more inside]
By the end of 1964, some enterprising filmmakers decided to create a cinematic year-in-review to highlight this new wave of British music talent. The result was “Pop Gear,” a strange but jolly little production that serves as a celluloid time capsule for that remarkable musical year.
Language, biodiversity, and a story of salvation
Don Berto’s Garden. "The plants of the ancient Maya whisper their secrets to those who speak a shared language."
Never run after a bus. There'll always be another one.
A 400 year old clam has been slaughtered by ruthless 'scientists'. How much could this clam have told us about history, about longevity, about life? Probably not much--it's a clam.
What's in a Name?
Our notions of names and gender may be showing some 'fluidity.' A long-time trend of male names losing their popularity or even their acceptibility once the same names become popular for girls may be shifting to a new 'gender fluidity.' While it's still true that fewer and fewer boys are named Leslie, Shirley, Kim, Ashley, Shannon, Whitney, or Carol, other names have emerged as unisex monikers: Jordan, Angel, or Peyton. Logan has re-emerged as a more clearly male name. See this article in today's N.Y. Times Magazine. The essay was penned by Sam Kean: is that Samuel or Samantha? Does it matter?
teh cute being fed and feeding others
California Burning
Pictures of California Wildfires. Some fire resources: Fire maps, Official Information and an up to the moment news blog. In related news, Twitter proves to be useful, while anger rages as evidence of arson mounts.
More Photos here and here.
Big wheels keep on turnin'
Suddenly, a man in a vintage hat rides up, hip-hop blaring from a glowing Plexiglas container shaped like a tropical fish set above the back wheel of his bicycle, control lights flashing. Fossil Fool, a rolling rapper from San Francisco who rides the college circuit preaching the benefits of peddling, grabs his microphone, cranks up the volume and starts to rap. Paul Freedman, aka Fossil Fool, is one of the founders of Rock the Bike, which makes Soul Cycles -- bicycle-based, often human-powered hi-fi and PA systems -- for "playing clean, powerful, uplifting music at street festivals and off-grid parties." RTB recently made a mobile DJ booth for Austin's DJ Manny; here's how. Attention, party-throwers: In 2008, you may well be able to rent or borrow a Soul Cycle for your own shindig.
Photos by Swiatoslaw Wojtkowiak.
Protecting Whistleblowers, You Bet!
Congress at Work The U.S. House Judiciary Committee sends an email to all persons who had sent messages to its "tip line." The email described the measures the committee was taking to safeguard the tipsters' identities. All the the email recipients' addresses were in the To: field. Oops. [more inside]
Your child was sold into slavery in Japan
NO CUSSING.
Join the No Cussing Club™. Look at some people who don't cuss. Become one of them. Then buy a CD, a T-shirt, and a mood ring type color changer thing about hugs. But not before you learn the story behind it all.
A fly in the ointment
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