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What if Star Trek never existed?
Star Trek first aired on NBC on September 8, 1966. But what if Star Trek never existed?
"What if NBC hadn’t wanted another pilot? Or if Roddenberry had been too busy producing the first season of Police Story to make one? In that mirror universe, the next 50 years of sci-fi TV and movies look much different. So does the cultural breadth of television casts. So does your yearly pilgrimage to Comic-Con International. Our lives would be very different without Trek—and we almost didn’t get it."
And now that it does exist, over six (almost seven) different TV shows and thirteen movies, here's The Hollywood Reporter's list of 100 Best Star Trek episodes.
"What if NBC hadn’t wanted another pilot? Or if Roddenberry had been too busy producing the first season of Police Story to make one? In that mirror universe, the next 50 years of sci-fi TV and movies look much different. So does the cultural breadth of television casts. So does your yearly pilgrimage to Comic-Con International. Our lives would be very different without Trek—and we almost didn’t get it."
And now that it does exist, over six (almost seven) different TV shows and thirteen movies, here's The Hollywood Reporter's list of 100 Best Star Trek episodes.
All Black Everything
Daveed Diggs, recent Tony Award Winner of “Hamilton” fame, just released an Afrofuturistic space opera-themed noise-rap concept album, Splendor & Misery, as part of his experimental rap collective, Clipping.
RNC Part III: Return Of The Nominee (probably)
Donald Trump is officially the Republican nominee for president, but there are still two days left for the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, OH.
Why so Sirius and What's Up With The Moon?
While doing an image search I discovered "Horselover Phat's Subliminal Synchro Sphere", landing on a giant page wherein the writer presents ... um, something about Osirus and "... Incorporating Sirius,the Moon, The Truman Show, 9/11, Jim Carrey, Gary Oldman, Keanu Reeves, Danny Boyle, The Matrix, Harrsion Ford, Ghostbusters, Kevin Spacey, Sigourney Weaver, David Bowie, Bruce Willis, Tom Hanks, Jeff Bridges, Mike Nichols, Chris Carter X-Files etc etc ..."
His very first post from 2009, "...Incorporating Kubrick, Nichols, Carter, Henson, OZ, Baum, Jason, Speilberg, Landis, King Kong ,The Muppets & Revelations " into 9-11 and beyond was also noteworthy. Quite an archive of work to plow through.
When the world of the grotesque is known and appreciated
William Mortensen
was The Photographer Who Ansel Adams Called the Anti-Christ
He was a trained artist who had initially wanted to be a painter, but who ultimately fell under photography’s spell.
He arrived in Hollywood in 1921 accompanied by 14-year-old Fay Wray, and there started by painting and designing backdrops before moving on to Photography.
His subject matter – which veered towards the savage, indecorous, gothic and grotesque made him a pariah among the puritanical new guard in photography.
A biography in two parts.
He was a trained artist who had initially wanted to be a painter, but who ultimately fell under photography’s spell.
He arrived in Hollywood in 1921 accompanied by 14-year-old Fay Wray, and there started by painting and designing backdrops before moving on to Photography.
His subject matter – which veered towards the savage, indecorous, gothic and grotesque made him a pariah among the puritanical new guard in photography.
A biography in two parts.
The NBA on TNT: NBA Finals: CLE vs GSW
The NBA Finals begin tonight, 6/2/2016, featuring a rematch of last year's match-up. But many things have changed. The Warriors are somehow way better than they were last year with the same personnel (including ye olde Del Curry Jr), and the Cavs are healthy and rested. Who will the narrative favor? The Never-beloved Old Guard, or the New Math?
A/C: the problem began with paper, but the solution changed the world
The problem began with paper. Humidity wreaked havoc with the color register of fine, multicolor printing. Ink, applied one color at a time, would misalign with the expansion and contraction of the paper stock. A solution was designed in 1902 and patented in 1906 (as an Apparatus for Treating Air), starting the "air conditioning" industry, though it would be decades before air conditioning changed the American landscape and beyond, making hot, muggy climates more livable around the world.
Saturday Morning Acid Flashback
“In December of 2015, a group of sleep-deprived Boston-based animators, artists and musicians met at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design to collaborate on an animated film. With the intention of re-imagining an episode of the classic cartoon Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, they assembled the project in four days. This was the result.” SCROOBJAM is the third and most elaborate in a series of "Golem Jams" organized (if that's the correct word) by John F. Quirk. (via Cartoon Brew which lists the credits here)
And they would have gotten away with it, too...
And they would have gotten away with it, too...
White Folks Who Teach in the Hood
Dr. Christopher Emdin talks to PBS Newshour about what he calls a pervasive narrative in urban education: a savior complex that gives mostly white teachers in minority and urban communities a false sense of saving kids. Also linked in the article is this one on the same topic from another perspective.
Election time in Iran
Iran goes to the polls on Friday
to elect members to two bodies: Parliament and the Assembly of Experts. Moderate President Hassan Rouhani is not facing a ballot test directly, but his agenda - in particular, last summer's landmark nuclear deal, and the economic benefits that were supposed to follow - will be. Moderates face an uphill battle, however, since the Guardian Council disqualified almost half of the more than 12,000 candidates who signed up to participate in these elections, many — if not most — of them reformists. The Assembly of Experts chooses the next Supreme Leader, and considering the age of the current supreme leader, this contest may determine the fate of the country for the foreseeable future.
A Win for Immoral and Scandalous (TMs), or Death to Section 2(a)
Last month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decided In re Tam, overturning a longstanding ban on the registration of "disparaging" trademarks. (On Simon Shiao Tam's and The Slants' fight with the law, previously.) The court left in place the prohibition on registering "immoral and scandalous" trademarks. However, "[i]n a letter brief issued Thursday, the Department of Justice conceded that § 2(a) [the immoral and scandalous clause] was no longer enforceable in light of In re Tam."
Newly Discovered 1964 MLK Speech
Newly Discovered 1964 MLK Speech on Civil Rights, Segregation & Apartheid South Africa
This recording was made by Pacifica Radio's European correspondent Saul Bernstein while Dr. King was in London, days before recieving the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo. Then it was left uncatalogued in Pacifica Radio's archives for some 50 years before being found by the archive's director, Brian DeShazor.
“Fiction is Truth's elder sister.”
An unexpected revival for the ‘bard of empire’. [The Guardian]
‘Vulgar rabble-rouser’, ‘rootless cosmopolitan’, ‘mouthpiece of the empire’ Rudyard Kipling has had his share of detractors. But, 150 years after his birth, interest in India’s greatest English-language writer is growing.
They are not alone. Kipling, the “bard of empire”, has always been difficult to place in the cultural pantheon. Britain, too, has done remarkably little to officially mark the sesquicentenary of its first winner (in 1907) of the Nobel prize for literature (and still the youngest ever from anywhere). Indian-born, yet British? We are already entering the muddy field of contradictions that sometimes bog down the reputation of this mild-mannered man. Yet it is these that make him uniquely appealing and that, belying top-level institutional indifference, are sparking an unexpected revival of interest in him, and in particular in his role as a commentator on the origins of an integrated global culture.
Movie: Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens
A continuation of the saga created by George Lucas and set thirty years after Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983).
The Best Rap Songs of 2015
Passion of the Weiss: The Best Rap Songs of 2015. It's the best year-end list I've come across -- thoughtful, articulate stuff from people who get it, and the majority of it is criminally overlooked/obscure and well worth your time. No matter how in-the-know you are, there's lots of new, crucial stuff here for you. (And no Drake in sight.)
Re: Joyce
Delaney on Joyce
Frank Delaney reads James Joyce's Ulysses a little bit at a time, explaining as he goes. The podcast began in 2010 and is still going strong.
Must love flow charts.
Were you thinking of buying a board game for someone this holiday season?
Snakes and Lattes would like to help you pick just the right one.
"A more civilized age" indeed.
The knighthood of Star Wars is neither Galactic nor an Order.
"In the Star Wars films, the Jedi Order and their Galactic Republic are an undemocratic, ineffective government maintained by a combination of religious awe and martial force. Nobody elected their Council - they noisily resent any outside input at all - yet each member of their entire order is a roving diplomat plenipotentiary, general, judge, and executioner. Their members are spirited away as toddlers, promised that they are chosen by a higher, ineffable power, and trained to act without emotion while training them in personal combat and the ability to telepathically manipulate "the weak-minded". They are trusted despite the fact that this power can corrupt - not only in the traditional way, but in a metaphysical one, transforming these unemotional, unaccountable warlord-judges into monstrous super-powered spree killers. "
Transgender Day of Remembrance
November 20, 2015 is the seventeenth annual International Transgender Day of Rememberance and ends Transgender Awareness Week.
"I wanted to go to Heaven.”
[Megan] Phelps-Roper spent the summer and the fall in an existential spiral. She would conclude that everything about Westboro’s doctrine was wrong, only to be seized with terror that these thoughts were a test from God, and she was failing. “You literally feel insane,” she said. Eventually, her doubts won out. “I just couldn’t keep up the charade,” she said. “I couldn’t bring myself to do the things we were doing and say the things we were saying.” - How a prized daughter of the Westboro Baptist Church came to question its beliefs. (content warning : extreme homophobic & anti-Semitic language)
"It’s worth sacrificing... because I’m already not wanted here."
After several high-profile incidents of overt racism at the University of Missouri, the student organization Concerned Student 1950 (named after the first year that African-American students were allowed to enroll at UM) held protests and demanded the resignation of Tim Wolfe, president of the University of Missouri System. Graduate student Jonathan Butler started a hunger strike, and student members of the football team have boycotted all team activities until Wolfe resigns.
To go where a variety of people have gone before
CBS has picked up a new live action Star Trek tv series, to be produced by Alex Kurtzman. It will premiere on CBS before moving to CBS's digital platform, CBS All Access.
#EndMommyWars
In a new video, sponsored by Similac as part of its #endmommywars campaign, seven mothers discuss the judgments they receive and the judgments they make about other mothers.
Problem: "the American public has become more consistent and polarized"
American Democracy is Doomed
is a Vox long(ish)read by Matthew Yglesias summarizing the work of Juan Linz on constitutional crises in presidential democracies (previously), which combined with constitutional hardball and ideological polarization threaten to destroy American democracy (#nottheonion). As Yglesias describes the problem, it's primarily structural, an inevitable result of rules that have failed in every other country that has tried them. (We're 30 for 30 so far.) (All but the first link are pdf.)
Crazy like a (Fire)Fox
While it used to be the leading alternative to Internet Explorer (and others), Firefox has seen its market share erode steadily since the 2008 debut of Google Chrome. The Mozilla Foundation has made several oft-controversial bids at relevancy, including native video chat, Pocket integration, a mobile browser (and OS), a UI overhaul, and a rapid release schedule that's reached version 40 (and counting). But the latest proposal -- part of a reboot of the stalled Electrolysis multiprocessing project -- will prove the most daunting. Although it will modernize the browser's architecture, it also deprecates the longtime XUL framework in favor of more limited and Chrome-like "web extensions" -- requiring Firefox's vast catalog of powerful add-ons to be rewritten from scratch or cease functioning. While developers will have until 2017 to fully adapt, opinion is divided -- NoScript's Giorgio Maone reassures doubters, while the DownThemAll! team says "it feels like I just learned my dear old friend Firefox is going to die."
Sour Power
An Introduction to Sour Beers + 5 to Get You Started - Billy Broas, Primer Magazine: "Sour beers are hot right now, but they’re anything but a new concept. They’ve been brewed in Belgium for hundreds of years."
Was the American Revolution a mistake?
Was the American Revolution a mistake? A counterfactual examination.
"Restaurants look, taste, sound, and smell more and more the same."
A tourist in Buenos Aires ponders how to have an immersive experience in an age when the city's restaurant culture is adopting international standards. The answer: listen to what old people recommend.
It’s been a longstanding fear of travelers (or travelers like myself, at least) that global conglomerates like McDonald’s or TGI Friday’s might use the bludgeon of the Big Mac or the bluster of Flair to wipe out everything unique, provincial and good. But what struck me on this trip, not having seen BA for a decade and thus being more sensitive to what had changed, was how a different kind of sameness was permeating Porteño restaurant and bar culture—much more indie and elevated, but just as insidious.
CBS could not give a fart
Want to hear Martellus Bennett's thoughts about fonts, including bold? Curious to see an impression of Regis Philbin doing an impression of Nicholas Cage eating too hot soup in Bangkok Dangerous? Ever wanted to find out what would happen when Adam "Not A Great Fit For Guest Host of the Late Late Show" Pally acted as guest host of the Late Late Show? During a snow storm? In front of no studio audience? With no laugh track but the muffled responses of the crew, who apparently hate him? With his trusted companion, Ben Schwartz, at his side, Adam Pally made a nearly unimaginable, nearly incomprehensible, at least partially unintentionally brilliant and absurd hour-long mockery of the late show format. Watch it all.
The Noise and How to Bring It
The Quietus interviews Hank Shocklee on hip-hop production team The Bomb Squad and Public Enemy's legendary sound
I've got a big jazz background and listening to a lot of jazz records I got an understanding of how you can be eclectic, in terms of your musical scales. You could create melodies and rhythms that were atonal. It didn't necessarily have any real tone but the tone would be determined by what you layered on top of it. So, for example, because Chuck has this kind of baritone voice, Chuck becomes the melody, and the track becomes the accompaniment. If you take a Billie Holiday record, and a Public Enemy record, in a way they are very similar. This is where it gets crazy. And Flav, well basically Flav is a tenor. I read a Clive Davis interview. And to me, Clive is one of the greatest producers of all time. And he said something that was cool, he said the artist always has to be the star, and sound like a star. And the beautiful thing about the Public Enemy records is, Chuck and Flavor provide the melody, on all the records.
"Let them sip their pumpkin peach ale."
Budweiser's Superbowl commercial Brewed The Hard Way proclaimed itself "PROUD TO BE A MACRO BEER". Carla Jean Lauter, writing at The Beer Babe: Why the pro-macro beer Budweiser ad is so dangerous.
Instead of changing the conversation with horses and puppies, it’s stared directly into the camera and declared itself. These are their terms. This is Budweisers’ manifesto – and despite the details that make it hypocritical, it’s a very powerful ad, and craft brewers are going to be feeling the repercussions for a while.
WWE stepped in it
WWE, the Royal Rumble, Corporate Entertainment Culture, And When It All Goes Wrong.
A perspective from a distance.
A mother estranged from her adult sons searches for answers in American culture.
She has started a social network (now a nonprofit organization) for others in similar circumstances. A documentary may be in the works.
Banning club drugs hasn't made users safer
In her quest for answers, Goldsmith came to a startling realization: Molly didn't kill her daughter. Federal policies that promote drug abolition and discourage education about safe drug use killed her daughter.
"The way we deal with it has got to change because people are dying," said Goldsmith. "My heart says: if you're gonna try Molly, you better make sure you know what you're taking." - Vox: Banning club drugs hasn't made users safer, A grieving mom hopes her plan will
Marvel
Fanvids have come a long way since Kandy Fong's first proto-vids/slideshows in the 1970s-1980s. Vidder lim provides a great example of how far the form has come. Her recent Marvel Cinematic Universe vids Expo (Iron Man), Marvel (MCU), and Time (Captain America 2) are gorgeous examples of vids at their best.
California Drought Update
All of California remains in drought
with over 80% in worst categories of 'extreme' or 'exceptional' drought. Reservoir levels are 50% below average. (previously)
"A Subtlety" & We Are Here
Why I Yelled at the Kara Walker Exhibit: "Anger shot up my body like a hot thermometer. Face flushed, I walked to the Mammy sphinx. Couples posed in front of it, smiling as others took their photos. So here it was, an artwork about how Black people’s pain was transformed into money was a tourist attraction for them... Something snapped... I yelled that this was our history and that many of us were angry and sad that it was a site of pornographic jokes."
"Rooms We Die In," by Migueltzinta C. Solís
"Now that aunt #6 was dead, we could be a hand. If we are a hand, my grandmother is the cupped palm at the center of her five remaining children. If we are a hand, my mother is the thumb, and the other fingers are her brothers and sisters.... Mamá is the thumb, and I am her fingernail."
Free, streaming Detroit (style) hip-hop from DJ House Shoes and friends
While the name Michael “House Shoes” Buchanan remains unknown to most, he's been involved with the Detroit hip-hop community since '94, producing some beats for an (unreleased) EP by Elzhi in 1998, plus a few other projects in the 1990s, but he really started making noise in the 2000s, finally releasing his own album, Let It Go, in 2012, which he then offered as a free download in 2013. All the while, he's continued to act as "Detroit's Hip-Hop Ambassador to the World," promoting other up-and-coming acts through various channels, including his on-going series, "The Gift," in which he promotes new artists. [NOTE: NSFW lyrics throughout the music]
Brontosaurus sprinkles are 382.
For everyone out there who is calmed by organization and minimalist things, I present to you: Tiny PMS Match.
Why crawl when you can bounce?
Rock bouncers can climb incredibly steep terrain, but on this day, none of the 30 entrants made it to the top (with 20 of them rolling over). Here's a documentary style video showing some runs and interviews at Cable hill.
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