July 4, 2012
Marat/Sade
The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade "To me, the only reality is imagination; the world inside myself."
Where the hell is Bill?
Telephone Free Landslide Victory (side A):
Border Ska,
The day Lassie went to the Moom,
Wasted with quality shut us down,
Yanqui go Home,
9 of disks,
Payed vacation greece,
1985 footage of Camper Van Beehtoven singing WTHiB and Cowboys from Hollywood. [more inside]
(Para|O)lympian
South Africa has named Oscar Pistorius and his running blades (Previously Previouslier Previousliest) to their 2012 Olympic track and field team in the 400 and 4x400 relay. He needed to run a 45.30 or better twice this year to qualify on his own merits, but he has done this only once this year (and at least once last year). The New York Times Magazine profiled him earlier this year. However, he will not be the first competitor to be named to both the olympics and paralympics in the same year: [more inside]
The Largest paper airplane in history
On March 21, the Pima Air & Space
Museum built and flew the largest paper airplane in history. The "Arturo
Desert Eagle" was 45 feet long and weighed 800 pounds. Carried up to 2700 feet
by a helicopter before being released, it flew almost a mile and then crashed rather spectacularly (YT).
Aha! That Was My Plan All Along!
The Gallery of Lost Art
The Gallery of Lost Art, from the Tate. Flash-intensive, autoloading, with background noise.
Paths to Graceland
We Can Rebuild Him... Pervis' Got Tools
Mike Judge (King of the Hill, Beavis and Butthead) directs and Titmouse (Metalocalyse, Superjail!) produces an animated music video for the Zac Brown Band (categorized as "country, Southern rock, bluegrass, reggae and folk" in Wikipedia) that has nothing to do with the song. Ladies and Gentlefolk, somebody with an excellent sense of humor presents: Robo-Redneck.
"I just want people to see it, and tell me what a good boy I am."
“Might just as well say I’m dead.”
Quartavious Davis of Florida, now twenty, has been sentenced to 162 years without parole for his role in several armed robberies during which he discharged a firearm but no one was hurt. He was a teenager at the time of the crimes and had no previous record. The Supreme Court has recently ruled that mandatory life sentences without parole for juveniles constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment." Davis was 18 and 19 at the time of the crimes, and the sentence was discretionary, so this ruling does not apply.
Muse - Survival (London 2012 Olympics Official Music Video) (SLYT)
Stars and Stripes Forever
Listen to Sousa introduce his band playing The Stars and Stripes Forever. Or listen to his band play without him, as he was wary of recordings. Or listen to a take by a more recent symphonic band. Or renditions on the guitar (one, two), the organ (one, two), or the piano (one, two). Or performed by the muppets.
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice”
A quarter-century of responses to the Pew Research Center's American Values survey statements show some surprising trends when graphed over time. A sampling:
- I think it's all right for blacks and whites to date each other
- Books that contain dangerous ideas should be banned from public school libraries
- School boards ought to have the right to fire teachers who are known homosexuals
- I don't believe that there are any real limits to growth in this country
Choose Your Own Adventure By Committee!
Toiling away in the obscure backwaters of Google+, mefi's own Shakespeherian has been engaged in a compelling serial storytelling experiment: three THRILLING TALES of MYSTERY and ADVENTURE in a Choose Your Own Adventure By Committee format:
- I: In which YOU determine the FATE of a man named BJORN! (begins here and continues here)
- II: In which YOU run away to JOIN THE CIRCUS...OR DO YOU?
- III: In which YOU are WRONGLY ACCUSED of MURDER and must detectivate to prove your innocence!
Show yourself!.. Never should have come here... Show yourself!
Skyrim: The Real Dragonborn reveals some of the downsides of living in the Elder Scrolls universe. [slyt]
Happy ID4 day!
SECRET CINEMA. Tell everyone.
London underground film group Future Cinema exploded into public consciousness this week with the news that their Secret Cinema run of Prometheus outsold the BFI, the usual box-office champion. [more inside]
'Oh hey, you dropped your handkerchief'
The curious case of the eroding eikaiwa salary. Now fraught with job insecurity and low pay, there was a time when the work was steady and salaries were high for those who taught English in Japan. Around the turn of the millennium, salaries and work conditions for English teachers in Japan began a downward trend — one that has now spilled into the '10s and shows no signs of slowing, let alone reversing.
"Don't wipe out the masterpiece!"
During his lunch break, teacher Gregory Euclide creates beautiful drawings on his classroom's whiteboard - and then wipes them away. [more inside]
"During the proceedings, the prosecutor took the time to mention that no other printer in the world could do what Kuhl had done."
Hans-Jurgen Kuhl was able to create "shockingly perfect" copies of the American $100 bill by using his artistic talents to conquer the various security features present in the bill.
July 4th, 1862
“If ever men should celebrate the day with the rapt ardor of devotees, it is the soldiers of the Union,” bent on “saving the Union of the revolutionary fathers from destruction.”
The residents of Fredericksburg VA didn't celebrate Independence Day in 1862. It was no longer their Independence Day. However, just across the river, within both sight and sound of the residents of Fredericksburg, the Union Army threw a raucous celebration, complete with fireworks, artillery salutes, mule races, a greased pole, and a greased pig.
The all-taking, all-singing, all-dancing, all-action-packed extravaganza
All This and World War II is a 1976 musical documentary that juxtaposes Beatles songs, performed by a number of musicians, with World War II newsreel footage and 20th Century Fox films from the 1940s. It lasted two weeks in cinemas and was quickly sent into storage. "In this installment of Rock 'N Roll Case Study we talk about All This and World War II, which is perhaps one of the most bizarre movies in rock 'n roll." [via]
Dubstep Dispute
A robotic disagreement turns serious when they drop the bass.
A Rendezvous with Destiny for a Generation of Physicists
What began with one man in a patent office and the insight that mass and energy are the same has culminated at the largest particle collider ever built, employing 2400 full-time employees and 10,000 visiting scientists: CERN has announced the discovery of the Higgs boson, a major vindication for the Standard Model of particle physics. [more inside]
Breaking Out
Breaking Out. This afternoon, in a lift in Manchester ... a BBC Research and Development experiment into new editorial formats.
"Leviathan is not a flotation device"
"An English project I did that people at my school really thought was funny." Max Sánchez-Kollegger (Waluiginumberone) hams it up, reviewing Scott Westerfield's Leviathan and it's sequel Behemoth on youtube.
Brick, snare, brick, snare
LA Noir.
Since 2009, a thread on the Skyscraper Page forums has been dedicated to trawling for old photos and stories of Los Angeles, mostly from the LA Public Library and USC Archives. Thousands of posts have accumulated into a fascinating portrait of the city. [more inside]
"I feel like a free man."
"By the time I realized I was in love, it was malignant. It was hopeless. There was no escaping, no negotiating with the feeling. No choice. It was my first love, it changed my life. Back then, my mind would wander to the women I had been with, the ones I cared for and thought I was in love with. I reminisced about the sentimental songs I enjoyed when I was a teenager.. the ones I played when I experienced a girlfriend for the first time. I realized they were written in a language I did not yet speak." --Frank Ocean comes out. [more inside]
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