March 27, 2012
R.I.P. Christine Brooke-Rose
Experimental novelist and critic Christine Brooke-Rose has died. The Guardian has an obituary and an appreciation. [more inside]
What a brilliant man!
"Hilton Kramer, whose clear, incisive style and combative temperament made him one of the most influential critics of his era, both at The New York Times, where he was the chief art critic for almost a decade, and at The New Criterion, which he edited from its founding in 1982, died early Tuesday in Harpswell, Me. He was 84." [more inside]
On November 1, 2005, nine men ceased shaving
The Winter Of The Beard [1h47m] is a documentary which chronicles the lives of nine men across six months. Each was provided a video camera and weekly interview questions to document his own experience. The resulting 600 hours of intimate footage revealed a group of men traversing the same rite of passage from disparate vantage points. Throughout the process, the men told stories from their pasts, shared likes and dislikes, and confessed personal fears and aspirations. They laughed and cried, hid and came alive behind their beards. The tireless taping captured bad days and good ones, and it is in this framework that the individual stories stand out and the beards fade into the background. From a son dealing with his father's descent into Alzheimer's, to financial and marital struggles, to the birth of a child, THE WINTER OF THE BEARD [trailer, 2m58s] reveals the trials and tribulations of what it means to drastically alter one's appearance and otherwise go on living life. [more inside]
Top Hat Good
Guide to buying a top hat - Charles Henry Wolfenbloode gives advice on buying a topper.
Two bits of wood bolted together
Fender Factory Tour 1959 - Leo Fender in the second shot. Freddie Tavares at 7:26. A day when "everything was done by hand... It is amazing to realize that every guitar made that year is now worth a small fortune." The 1959-63 era Stratocaster is called one of the 50 guitars to play before you die. (via the q-ster)
The Only Winning Move is to Watch This
Most of us reading on the blue lived through at least a portion of it. Forty-plus years of tension between the world's two superpowers and their allies. That's right: The Cold War.
Then, they made a documentary. Aired on CNN in 1998, and never released on DVD,
the 24 episode, 20 hour series features tons of archival footage, along with many interviews with individuals directly involved at some of the highest levels.
You might not be able to see it on DVD, but you can watch the full series on Youtube, starting with Part 1: Comrades (1917-1945).
A Database of Metaphor
The Mind is a Metaphor. A database of thousands of metaphors organized by category, like 18th century, Liquid, or Jacobite. It's maintained by University of Virginia English Professor Brad Pasanek.
New image formats for artistic purpose.
I am sure more than a few of you are involved in gli.tc/h, and thus prepared to discuss extrafile, brainchild of one Kim Asendorf (previously), in greater detail. New image formats for artistic purpose, anyone?
It's a weird, sad way for an adult to behave.
So Tara Tiger Brown of Forbes.com wrote an article begging fake geek girls to go away. Leigh Alexander of Sexy Videogameland responds with "This is the worst kind of thing to me, because not only is it sad for her, but it sucks for all of us. Women in our space, having once been something of a scarcity, face particular challenges. We lack for companions and mentors. " Followed by The Mary Sue's Susana Polo "So yes, I understand the desire to weed the “posers” out of your personal life and interactions. But I have never, actually, in the flesh, met a “fake” geek girl. Or guy. "
juiced goose
How is democracy doing?
Bulletproofing Your House
"Not only did the .30-30 go through, but this is you."
Ballistics expert Paul Harrell demonstrates the stopping power of various objects. [more inside]
The Song Machine
"At Roc the Mic, Stargate carries on a glorious and disappearing New York tradition that stretches back to the Brill Building days of the late fifties and early sixties, when songwriting teams such as Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, and Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry cranked out hits for the top pop acts of the day; and further back still, to the nineteen-tens and twenties, when the Broadway-to-Sixth Avenue reach of West Twenty-eighth Street, known as Tin Pan Alley, for the sound of pianos coming from the upper floors, was the center of the music-publishing industry. With their managers, Blacksmith and Danny D., orchestrating demand, Stargate has become one of the very few writer-producers whom labels approach when they absolutely must have a hit single, or a “bullet,” as Hermansen calls it, to market an album with." The New Yorker - The hitmakers behind Rihanna
United States v. Health Care Reform
This morning marked day two of marathon proceedings in what's likely the most momentous and politically-charged Supreme Court case since Bush v. Gore: the effort to strike down President Obama's landmark health care reform law. While yesterday was a sleepy affair of obscure technical debate, today's hearings targeted the heart of the law -- the individual mandate that requires most Americans to purchase insurance by 2014. With lower courts delivering a split decision before today, administration lawyers held some hope that at least one conservative justice could be persuaded to uphold the provision, which amortizes the risk that makes universal coverage possible. But after a day of deeply skeptical questioning by swing justice Anthony Kennedy and his fellow conservatives [transcript - audio], the mandate looks to be in grave trouble, with CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin going as far as calling the day "a train wreck" for the administration. But it's far from a done deal, with a third day of hearings tomorrow and a final decision not expected until June.
“I have an existential map; it has 'you are here' written all over it”
The Media Map: Who's Reading What And Where: [Forbes] We worked with Bitly and its data on millions of Web clicks to find the most influential media outlets in the country. This map shows which news sources are read and shared at above-average levels by state. Roll over and click on the media outlets below to see where they influence readers and which stories were big hits. Updated monthly to reflect the latest trends. More about the map.
Mark Kirk & the Candy Desk
What do John McCain, Rick Santorum, and George Voinovich have in common? They have all been seated at the Senate's candy desk throughout their careers. [more inside]
As seen on podcast #69.
I Don't Know
So You Think You Can't Do That On Television? Interview with Geoffrey Darby, inventor of green slime and co-creator of a show that many 80's kids will remember.
The making of Bad Girls.
NOM Strategy Documents Publicly Released
Docket Item 132-2 a.k.a NOM Desposition Exhibit 12 a.k.a "National Strategy for Winning the Marriage Battle" was unsealed yesterday along with many others and the Human Rights Campaign have been busy scouring the documents. [more inside]
Slow-Motion Dance
Ballet dancers of the Staatsballett Berlin at 1000 FPS, to the sound of Radiohead. Also: TimeTwist [more inside]
Stag Party
The GOP’s woman problem is that it has a serious problem with women. Frank Rich on George Stephanopoulos's unanswered question, how the Republicans have shifted to being the party of misogyny since the 70s, and why Mitt Romney would be just as bad as Rick Santorum.
Just because.
A Shory Biography of Emmy Noether
Complaints Department, medieval monk style
Oh, My Hand: Complaints Medieval Monks Scribbled in the Margins of Illuminated Manuscripts. [more inside]
The man with the golden flute
Bonus level unlocked: A deathmatch game of Goldeneye being played inside of the map for Kakariko village from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. [more inside]
The Ethnic Aisle
The Ethnic Aisle discusses race and multiculturalism in Toronto. Their current "issue" is about Hair. [more inside]
Color est e pluribus unus
RGB is an exhibition by artist Carnovsky which layers primary colored images on top on one another with unexpected, disorienting, and often fascinating results. [more inside]
Notes from dreamworlds
Microworlds is the blog of biology student Daniel Stoupin, and he also has a photography website as well. His chosen subject is microphotography, especially of living things. Perhaps the best place to start is his latest post, where he uses fluorescent dyes to take pictures of a rotting flea embryo. Other favorites are shells of microscopic crustaceans, colorful plant seed fluorescence and mosquito larva in polarized light. He has also made a video, and explains the process here.
"Before we let you take over our city we will burn it down first,"
Emotions ran high (video) as city and state leaders met to work out a deal to address Detroit's looming budget crisis. The threat of state imposition of an emergency financial manager has some residents
fearful of the ulterior motives of state officials: [more inside]
Brothels Gonna Work It Out
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