February 4, 2011
Astor Piazzolla's "Libertango" transcribed for piano four hands
Sol K. Bright, Hawaiian musician
Let's head down to the sunny Hawaii of the 1930s and pay Sol K. Bright a visit, shall we? His charming vocal work and masterfully playful guitar wizardry are sure to please! Hawaiian Cowboy - Honolulu How Do You Do? - Tomi Tomi - La Rosita. Aloha!
The new school of fish
The Bay Area’s smartest diners, chefs, and purveyors now know (and care) where every cut of grass-fed beef and stalk of pesticide-free produce comes from. Yet nearly all look the other way when fish is on the plate. What will it take to stop the eco-fibbing?
What does J.G. Ballard look like? - by Rick Poynor
An examination of the cover design for the published works of J.G. Ballard, spanning five decades. [more inside]
Blocky Madness
FFF: Quadrus
Knights in the snow.
Knights in the snow. Western martial artists Theresa Wendland and Davis Vader, of the Chicago Swordplay Guild, duel with longswords in the bitter cold of February in Chicago's Pulaski Park. Here's another video of her trouncing larger and stronger opponents indoors.
For those who think the ads are the best part
To the Bat-themed Content, Robin!
It's been BAT-WEEK at tor.com (the people who brought you the 12 Doctors of Christmas - previously here), with essays on all aspects of the World's Greatest Detective, Caped Crusader and Dark (or not-so-dark) Knight, analysis of the Bat's entire big screen history, plus The Joker and other characters, bat-music, his wardrobe (what?) and Batman all over the Internet (the Web is not just for Spider-Man). Plus links to tor.com's previously published bat-content. So go batty!
Naked Men Pretending To Be Cars
Don't say I didn't warn you. Here is the game. It's about naked men pretending to be cars. [more inside]
On my return to Haiti …
"A profit-driven recovery plan, devised and carried out by outsiders, can not reconstruct my country" says democratically elected (and overthrown by the us) Haitian President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. A reminder of the situation.
"Nutella is more than just a 'chocolaty hazelnut spread,' it is a way of life."
Simply Incredible
Stephen Biesty is an award-winning British illustrator famous for his bestselling "Incredible" series of engineering art books: Incredible Cross-Sections, Incredible Explosions, Incredible Body, and many more. A master draftsman, Biesty does not use computers or even rulers in composing his intricate and imaginative drawings, relying on nothing more than pen and ink, watercolor, and a steady hand. Over the years, he's adapted his work to many other mediums, including pop-up books, educational games (video), interactive history sites, and animation. You can view much of his work in the zoomable galleries on his professional page, or click inside for a full listing of direct links to high-resolution, desktop-quality copies from his and other sites, including several with written commentary from collaborator Richard Platt [site, .mp3 chat]. [more inside]
Uncontacted tribes of the Amazon
Amazing footage of an uncontacted tribe in Brazil. These tribes are threatened by the encroachment of illegal logging activites. "I know this footage is the only way to convince the rest of the world they are here."
Why I call myself a socialist
Why I call myself a socialist, by Wallace Shawn.
Media, Color, Time, Youth
A letterpress made of Legos used to create 8-bit prints. (more on NPR)
Hexadecimal color codes for every Crayola crayon [more inside]
Hexadecimal color codes for every Crayola crayon [more inside]
The Man Who Broke Purple
How To Make Anything Signify Anything "By the time he retired from the National Security Agency in 1955, Friedman had served for more than thirty years as his government’s chief cryptographer, and—as leader of the team that broke the Japanese PURPLE code in World War II, co-inventor of the US Army’s best cipher machine, author of the papers that gave the field its mathematical foundations, and coiner of the very term cryptanalysis—he had arguably become the most important code-breaker in modern history."
How to make summery Spain look like frozen Russia, and other peaks back on a century of movie set design
Hot wax, cold water and marble dust, bags of authentic newsroom trash, and left-over sets burned to the ground, all parts of the old movie magic. Designs on Film is a book that highlights the design behind films, from the ice palace in Doctor Zhivago, to the highly detailed recreation of the offices of The Washington Post on a soundstage in Burbank, CA (related: docu. in parts on YT: 1, 2, 3) for All the President's Men, and burning Atlanta scene in Gone with the Wind. The book also covers the styles and fashion made in movies and used from real locations, such as Cameron Diaz's Wallace Neff house that was featured in The Holiday. [more inside]
More cats, but now with cute boys attached.
Cute Boys With Cats. It does pretty much what it says on the tin. Cute-porn sites like Cute Overload have been publishing images of obscenely cute animals for years. From early on, Cute Overload had a human-animal series called Cats 'n' Racks [NSFWarning: kitty-stuffed cleavage] which, despite one exception, was restricted to women (and their racks). Cute Boys With Cats is here to rectify this gender-imbalance with cute and furry specimens of both species.
Concordia ("harmony"): goddess of agreement, understanding, and marital harmony.
Physiological Impacts of Homophobia. 'New research from Concordia University suggests that the stress of being rejected or victimized because of sexual orientation may disrupt hormonal responses in lesbians, gays and bisexuals. ''Compared to their heterosexual peers, suicide rates are up to 14 times higher among lesbian, gay and bisexual high school and college students''Michael Benibgui, who led this investigation says abnormal cortisol activity in LGB youth, combined with the vicious cycle of stress, could be further influenced by a complex set of biological, psychological and social factors. “This study shows a clear relation between abnormal cortisol levels and environmental stressors related to homophobia,” he says.' [more inside]
Twitshift
Twitshift is a service that lets you follow yourself on Twitter...a year ago. "We’ll store your old posts on our server and repost them to a second account of your choosing on the same day you posted them last year."
Craig Ferguson and Cornel West
For Black History Month, Craig Ferguson (previously) devotes almost an entire show to discussing black history and the meaning of humanity with Dr. Cornel West: (Intro) Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 (George Clinton performance, Outro with George Clinton and Cornel West). [more inside]
Sporthocker
...it's a thousand times larger than earth, yet its entrance is extremely tiny
A "Bosman" for TV Broadcast Rights?
In 1995, the European Court of Justice famously intervened in the world of sports when it ruled on the Bosman Case, rendering transfer fees for out-of-contract football players illegal, changing the economics of the sport completely. 2011 will see the ECJ make a landmark decision on the future of sports broadcasting that "could ruin the economic model that has made Premier League clubs among the richest in world football."
[more inside]
Modernist Cuisine in 6 Volumes
Modernist Cuisine, a 2400-page, 6-volume lavishly-illustrated and highly-anticipated $625 list price set (available for pre-order) by authors Nathan Myhrvold, Chris Young, and Maxime Bilet, expounds a deeply scientific and avant-garde take on cooking techniques and been praised as the most important cookbook of the last 10 years. Its burger recipe. Its kitchen.
Religion, freedom and democracy in Egypt
Deacon Dodge has a couple of posts (here and here) about religion, freedom and democracy amid the turmoil of Egypt. [more inside]
Wrangler
Stanford's Visualization Group has produced a data cleanup web app called Wrangler that works like straight up magic.
At least not everybody is totally disappointed
Perhaps doing a live to camera from Andy Murray's local pub on the day he loses the Australian Open was not such a great idea. Especially since said pub had been open since 8am. (SLYT)
Livingstone's lost letters revealed
For 140 years rare manuscripts that record the private thoughts and opinions of David Livingstone, the Victorian explorer and missionary, were hidden from the public eye due to their fragile condition and frequently indecipherable text. Today a trans-Atlantic academic and scientific team, launches a major project with the publication of Livingstone's Letter from Bambarre – a spectrally-imaged 'lost' letter from Livingstone's final African expedition, written to his friend and future biographer Horace Waller.
"What looks playful could be desperation."
What if filmmakers directed the Super Bowl? As the big game approaches, Slate V imagines what it might look like if Quentin Tarantino, David Lynch, Wes Anderson, Jean-Luc Godard and Werner Herzog were allowed to direct the telecast.
"and tapping my laptop with dots."
Poet Publishes 10,000-Page Poem. David Morice wrote one 100-page poem every day for 100 days–producing a 10,000-page poem. How the book was bound and printed. Opening lines of the epic poem: "Today the sky above Iowa City / is cloudy with tiny droplets / gently blowing in the wind / and tapping my laptop with dots. / In front of the University/ Main Library, Gordon sits / on a marble wall, camera / posed to video the beginning / of this poetry marathon." Image of the massive book.
Only one look, only one look is enough
Someone once rejected Gertrude Stein. In a fabulously absurd way.
I am gaily celebrating my decisions
Bad Men
'The writing is extremely weak, the plotting haphazard and often preposterous, the characterizations shallow and sometimes incoherent; its attitude toward the past is glib and its self-positioning in the present is unattractively smug; the acting is, almost without exception, bland and sometimes amateurish.' Daniel Mendelsohn dislikes Mad Men.
Snow (1963) — A stunning mix of spectacle, social commentary, and snowbound trains.
Snow is a short film directed by Geoffrey Jones (1931-2005) and shot by Wolfgang Suschitzky [imdb], simultaneously spectacle and social-commentary it can be viewed online (YouTube). Snow was made under the aegis of British Transport Films (wiki) and nominated for an Oscar in 1965; unable to afford to licence his choice of soundtrack—“Teen Beat” by Sandy Nelson—Jones enlisted Johnny Hawksworth to rerecord “Teen Beat” with an altered tempo and effects by Daphne Oram [wiki, BBC]. The result is a masterpiece of sound and image.
The Soul Niche
Swimming around in a mixture of language and matter, humans occupy a particular evolutionary niche mediated by something we call 'consciousness'. To Professor Nicholas Humphrey we're made up of "soul dust": "a kind of theatre... an entertainment which we put on for ourselves inside our own heads." But just as that theatre is directed by the relationship between language and matter, it is also undermined by it. It all depends how you think it.
Balls Out
"Casey Plett is a twenty-something dude who has dressed in women's clothes with gently increasing frequency over the last six years. He is taking estrogen and testosterone-suppressers, and will probably transition to being a woman in the next year or so. Barring unforeseen circumstances, we're going to put about a 90% probability on this one. Casey's genitalia is not the focus of Balls Out, but it does perennially show up uninvited and eat all the Nutella."
it started in a vestibule, it ended in having to start a wiki to keep track of everything Craig Finn says
The Hold Steady is a band that tends to write songs that are stories about drugs and sex and Jesus. There is a wiki that keeps track of all of their reused characters, locations, and self references, among other things.. Because of their songwriting style, the NPR annotated versions of "The Swish" and "The Cattle and the Creeping Things" as well as their TVTropes entry are also worth a look. You can listen to their latest album on the Guardian website.
Is "immortal glory" still possible?
Don’t make me steal
Don't Make Me Steal - a Digital Media Consumption Manifesto.
« Previous day | Next day »