December 24, 2015
Oh, spiffing. Absolutely spiffing. Well done.
Three attempts were made to create a Fawlty Towers for American Television. Chateau Snavely was supposed to be a tour de force starring Betty White and Harvey Korman, but the pilot never made it to air. Watching the second adaptation, Bea Arthur's Amanda's by the Sea (1983), was like being eaten alive by Filigree Siberian Hamsters. It lasted all of six weeks on ABC -- and hopefully someone gave everyone involved in that production a damned good thrashing. And then there was John Larroquette's Payne.... [more inside]
Christmas Will Break Your Heart
Christmas will crush your soul, like that laid back rock n roll ... LCD Soundsystem has given the world one small perfect song this Christmas eve (via James Murphy). You can get it on vinyl (limited run) or iTunes and probably through other sources. But not radio. Never radio. Damn it. [more inside]
Richard Wright: "The soul of Pink Floyd"
A loving retrospective of the life of Pink Floyd keyboardist, songwriter and vocalist Richard Wright [PDF], scanned from the December 2008 issue of MOJO magazine. This is followed by Wright's final - and candid (given his reputation as 'the quiet one') - interview with the magazine, given the year before his death, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Pink Floyd's 1967 debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.
Strip Magic: The Gathering
Mark Rosewater, the head designer of card game Magic: The Gathering posted to tumblr about a rejected card.
Magic: The Gathering is a complex card game where each card has rules that affect the outcome of the game. The card in question:
Disrobing Scepter. Artifact. Activate: Target player either discards a card or removes a piece of clothing.
Again, this is not a card that will be seen in play.
Rosewater's tumblr post was submitted to reddit. Magic enthusiasts started an earnest discussion on the rules and protocols of Strip Magic.
The discussion is focused on Magic rules, useful cards and is surprisingly mature.
Gross and offensive replies to the reddit thread are appropriately downvoted.
The discussion is ongoing. Enjoy.
Bonus points for a towel on exercise equipment
Sleeping under an original My Little Pony single bed set tonight? Or sharing with your uncle and the Christmas tree? Or bedding down in the garage, next to the punch bag? For the last few years Rhodri Marsden has been sharing the people of Twitter's Christmas eve sleeping arrangements, in all their awkward, makeshift, regressive glory. You can view this year's on his timeline @rhodri.
Night Of Visions, the ominous sounds of a life altering experience
Since he started Akkord (s/t album playlist) with Synkro, Liam Blackburn has been in search of a sound. His last few solo releases skirted past drum & bass through to techno, ambient, IDM and, with 2013's excellent Storm, some sort of ultra-hi-tech jungle.... [H]e's re-emerging as Ancestral Voices on the increasingly out-there label Samurai Horo....The debut album for Blackburn's new alias is "yawning chords, complex drum patterns and existential dread," directly inspired by his mind-expanding, life-altering experiences on Machu Picchu and in the Amazon, and you can hear all of Night Of Visions on Bandcamp.
Making the history of 1989
The night that the Berlin Wall collapsed was certainly one of the most dramatic moments in the cascading events of 1989, events that brought the era of Communist rule in Eastern Europe to a close. What follows is an examination of the intersecting developments that led to the collapse of the Communist regimes in 1989. [more inside]
A family of nudists like this can scare a whole parish out of its wits.
An ABZ of Love [NSFW], or, Inge and Sten Hegeler's bewitchingly illustrated 1963 book that Kurt Vonnegut told his wife to read, "[if] you are as interested in sex as you say you are." [more inside]
Squeee!
Anywhere I go, I just haves a zeal.
Was it surprising that your music became popular again?Sam Chatmon - Make Me A Pallet On the Floor [more inside]
Well, no. Because everywhere I went, even when I was five and six years old, when I’d go to these clubs to play, the first thing they would say when I walked in the door, folks started to pattin’ and hollerin’, ''Let Sam have it! Let Sam have it!'' And I’d get that, man, and people - whoo! I’d put life all in there! And it’s the same thing right now. Anywhere I go, I just haves a zeal. I have a good zeal to play.
I don't wanna live forever
Friends, as we go through the hustle and bustle of the holidays, let us not forget the reason for the season ... happy 70th birthday Lemmy! [more inside]
Capturing Northern Rail, one station at a time
Scott Willison has been diligently visiting and "collecting" train stations in Northern England on his blog Round The North We Go for the past 8 years; he first started with Merseyrail, but later expanded to include every station on the Northern Rail map. The end is finally in sight, just as Arriva takes over the Northern Rail franchise next year. (Important note: Scott is not a trainspotter.)
Playing up the Santa angle is effortless
When we get closer to nature, we do our overstressed brains a favor.
“Imagine a therapy that had no known side effects, was readily available, and could improve your cognitive functioning at zero cost,” the researchers wrote in their paper. It exists, they continued, and it’s called “interacting with nature.”
Some places are like people: some shine and some don't.
Who Won 2015?
"Beyond that, only one more real rule: Not everyone or everything can make it. Sorry I’m not sorry that I’m not sorry." Rembert Browne, ex-Grantland, now at New York (previously, previously, previously, etc.), unveils the bracket for his epic annual tournament to determine who won the year. Spoiler: the answer in 2015 is (predictably) depressing. [more inside]
Jose Mourinho (Boxing day is almost upon us)
"Jose Mourinho - the manager, his methods and why it always goes wrong in the third season."
The Blizzard with a 12,000 word essay on The Special One.
Part One. Part Two.
Also a long read from a few years ago about Jose, Real Madrid, and the Spanish National team: The Assassination Of Iker Casillas By The Coward José Mourinho
"We need to take one last look back at the hideous reality of 2015."
Isa ibn-Maryam (Jesus, son of Mary)
Why more American Muslims are celebrating Christmas this year: For many Muslims, Christmas activates all kinds of anxieties. A religious holiday that challenges the Muslim interpretation of Jesus, it’s also a secular celebration—almost impossible to avoid—which is far more influential than any Muslim celebration in the West. See also: 6 things you didn’t know about Jesus in Islam.
"I’m getting to be a rather old Santa Claus. A little lonely as well"
In 1963 Tove Jansson wrote and illustrated a letter from Santa Claus for the Finnish post office, which was inundated with letters to Santa. It has now been scanned and posted by the Moomin company on its blog as part of its regular series of letters from Tove Jansson.
Right Click to Hack
Right Click to Hack, a game created by Mechabit for the Nordeus Hackathon 15, is an adorable first person puzzle adventure in which you control an entire team of robots by (as the title suggests) right clicking to hack your way to victory. Free to download on Alpha Beta Gamer, but (tragically, for this Mac user) only for Windows. Video review here.
“Our Christmases together were simple. ”
“My Christmas in New York” by Harper Lee, Illustrations by Bill Bragg [The Guardian]
“Several years ago, I was living in New York and working for an airline, so I never got home to Alabama for Christmas – if, indeed, I got the day off. To a displaced southerner, Christmas in New York can be rather a melancholy occasion, not because the scene is strange to one far from home, but because it is familiar: New York shoppers evince the same singleness of purpose as slow-moving southerners; Salvation Army bands and Christmas carols are alike the world over; at that time of year, New York streets shine wet with the same gentle farmer’s rain that soaks Alabama’s winter fields. I missed Christmas away from home, I thought. What I really missed was a memory, an old memory of people long since gone, of my grandparents’ house bursting with cousins, smilax and holly. I missed the sound of hunting boots, the sudden open-door gusts of chilly air that cut through the aroma of pine needles and oyster dressing. I missed my brother’s night-before-Christmas mask of rectitude and my father’s bumblebee bass humming Joy To The World.”
Violence against women in real life is a punishable offence.
A campaign called "Frame Her Right" have put out a short video compilation of violence against women in Bollywood films. What they want is for the Indian Censor Board to include a warning in films that contain violence against women and to reflect such violence in the film's age rating. The argument links to the broader debate about the extent to which Bollywood movies reinforce misogyny in India. (The BBC quotes Aamir Khan criticising how Bollywood movies sometimes glorify stalking and harassment, which shows how times have changed). However, the 80s and 90s seem to be something of a low point for sexualised violence in Bollywood, and there are better portrayals of women in more recent films.
We settled in Astoria and it was here that I met Christopher Walken
Lidia Celebrates America: Home for the Holidays "This special features Lidia and six celebrity guests—Christopher Walken, Ann Curry, Padma Lakshmi, Rita Moreno, Marcus Samuelson and Carlo Ponti, Jr. as they share their immigrant experiences and holiday traditions."
SHOCK!
Snowball in Hell
The forecast low in Central Park today is expected to match its previous record high from Christmas Eve of 1996 of 63°F / 17°C. By the afternoon, temperatures should reach the low 70s (22°C), shattering the record by 10 degrees F. [more inside]
You're breathing a potentially dangerous substance
Writer Michael Rosenwald called on Steven Welty to identify a strange smell in his home. Welty knows a lot about how air moves, and he knows about the stuff in moving air that can make us sick and die. From Popular Science: [more inside]
King William's College General Knowledge Quiz 2015-16
It's Christmas Eve, so what better to do than partake in the Metafilter holiday tradition (previously; previouslier) of attempting probably the hardest quiz in the world: The King William's College General Knowledge Paper (Guardian). [more inside]
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