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First, tribes: tough life.

Part of the 60 Second Lecture Series
comment posted at 6:01 AM on Dec-26-07

Enjoy a heaping helping of old time radio with classic Christmas specials from The Jack Benny Show.
comment posted at 7:55 AM on Dec-24-07

After I posted this article, many people asked me who listens to that berserk music. Well, it's most popular with Japanese girls lumped under the general term "gyaru". It is not really a fashion movement per se, as it has fractured into scores of rapidly-evolving subgroups--usually hostile to each other, even though many appear the same to the uninitiated. In fact, the book Japanese Schoolgirl Inferno, published in 2007, is already said to be out of date. This website is a bit more current. What do "gyaru" look like? There are now quite a few slideshows of gyaru on the streets of Tokyo on YouTube. Examples: here, here, and here. And for those who need to buy these "fashions", the primary bibles are FRUiTS and Egg. There is something wrong with that country.......
comment posted at 7:05 AM on Dec-23-07

The bookforum site deserves to be brought to the attention of right thinking MeFis everywhere. It like a collection of really good front page posts: annotated collections of 10 or so links from disparate sources on a common theme.
comment posted at 12:35 PM on Dec-22-07

Armed guards in church? Colorado's New Life Church: "The church's undercover security force is made up of an undisclosed number of volunteers with military or law-enforcement backgrounds, who carry radios and concealed weapons when they attend services." One of these guards recently shot a deranged gunman.
comment posted at 2:43 PM on Dec-21-07

I Wanna Hold Your Stairway The Beatnix perform Stairway to Heaven... as the Beatles might have done it. Probably not much different than the Rutles might have done it.
comment posted at 2:28 PM on Dec-19-07

The White Noise Supremacists: Lester Bangs on race, words, post-punk, and society.
comment posted at 6:55 PM on Dec-17-07
comment posted at 7:45 PM on Dec-17-07

Two talking cats l cat talking translation l assorted cats.
comment posted at 1:16 PM on Dec-15-07

"'It's been a magical evening,' Joel says as the Great Khali hits the Undertaker with a dustbin lid." Jon Ronson (and son) journey into the world of WWE to investigate the death of Chris Benoit.
comment posted at 1:15 PM on Dec-9-07

Capsule hotels (or modular hotels , if you prefer) are all the rage these days. They started in Japan in the 1980s, but have only recently spread elsewhere to places like England. They aren't the cushiest digs you'll find, but they're a cheap no-frills alternative, and they're getting better all the time.
comment posted at 6:54 PM on Dec-6-07

"In terms of language, it is also the most offensive official Major League baseball document that we have ever seen." An auction house obtains a one page letter sent to baseball players in 1898, outlining the league's new anti-cursing policy. Includes lots of examples of the kind of language that is not allowed. Nervous auctioneers not sure how to exhibit it. Purely of historical interest, naturally.
comment posted at 5:10 PM on Dec-2-07
comment posted at 6:08 PM on Dec-2-07
comment posted at 5:42 PM on Dec-3-07

You'd think news of a Creem Magazine retrospective book would be greeted with cries of glee. You'd be wrong. Occasional staff shutterbug Bob Matheu licensed rights to use the name of the beloved, iconoclastic Detroit rock zine years after it ceased to be relevant, but despite occasional "Creem is back" announcements, only produced a website.
comment posted at 5:21 PM on Dec-2-07

For sale: One useless cat.
comment posted at 6:00 AM on Dec-2-07

Can we have a little talk about World War III?
comment posted at 4:32 PM on Dec-1-07

John Updike writes about bizarre dinosaurs for National Geographic. "How weird might a human body look to them? That thin and featherless skin, that dish-flat face, that flaccid erectitude, those feeble, clawless five digits at the end of each limb, that ghastly utter lack of a tail—ugh. Whatever did this creature do to earn its place in the sun, a well-armored, nicely specialized dino might ask. " Besides the Updike essay there's a image gallery, an interview with John Updike [audio starts automatically], a dino IQ test, an audio critique of the way dinosaurs have been depicted in the latter half of the 20th Century [audio starts automatically], a closer look at the odder features of some of the stranger dinosaurs, an examination of the nigersaurus (images) as well as dinosaur wallpapers and jigsaw puzzles. [via MeFi's Own ed]
comment posted at 6:24 AM on Dec-1-07

Unlocking America [pdf]: Why and How to Reduce America's Prison Population. From the JFA Institute: a criminal justice think tank.
comment posted at 12:57 PM on Nov-22-07
comment posted at 2:57 PM on Nov-22-07
comment posted at 6:58 PM on Nov-22-07
comment posted at 7:11 AM on Nov-24-07

A Thanksgiving Prayer.
comment posted at 9:03 AM on Nov-22-07
comment posted at 7:09 PM on Nov-22-07

Chew On This. Take a deep breath, swallow hard, and follow the food you eat on its day-long journey through the digestive system.
comment posted at 8:26 AM on Nov-22-07

Well, someone's gone and made a feature-length biopic on Bob Dylan. It was bound to happen, right? Didn't necessarily expect Cate Blanchett (along with 5 others) to be cast in the role of Bob, but, hey, she looks great with the flyaway hair and the cigarette. Here's a clip, wherein Cate as Bob meets Ginsberg in a golfcart. Here's a trailer and an IMDB page. Here director Todd Haynes talks about the film. He discusses his casting of Blanchett, and offers observations on other aspects of the movie here and here. And if you want to read reviews, there's plenty of 'em.
comment posted at 5:57 AM on Nov-22-07

Terminus. "After inadvertently offending a strange entity that accosts him on his way to work, a 1970s businessman quickly finds himself in the midst of a bizarre predicament." 205.2 MB Quicktime available here. [Via Neatorama.]
comment posted at 6:17 AM on Nov-22-07
comment posted at 6:20 AM on Nov-22-07

BBC/HBO to film all 37 of Shakespeare's plays Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes will produce the entire canon over 12 years.
comment posted at 7:01 PM on Nov-19-07

Even if Lou Reed had dropped out of music after the break-up of the Velvet Underground, his name would still be forever etched in the history of rock music. Yet his solo career, filled with eccentric detours and radio-ready rockers in equal measure, remains one of the most fascinating canons in all of rock music. Metal Machine Music, however, is a unique entity in itself, proudly pushing at the very boundaries of what pop music is capable of. Zeitkratzer’s performance not only makes the original album ripe for critical re-evaluation, but it’s a performance that stands on its own ground...

Why Does the Music Have to End?: An Interview with Lou Reed regarding how he came to play Metal Machine Music live in 2002.
comment posted at 3:21 PM on Nov-17-07
comment posted at 3:26 PM on Nov-17-07

The rapid escalation of the U.S. anti-immigration hysteria -- fueled by ratings-hungry cable-television hotheads and leading Republican presidential hopefuls -- is a dangerous trend: It may lead to a Hispanic intifada that may rock this nation in the not-so-distant future. Remember the Palestinian intifada of the early 1990s, when thousands of frustrated young Palestinians took to the streets and threw stones at Israeli troops? Remember the French intifada of the summer of 2005, in which disenfranchised Muslim youths burned cars and stores in the suburbs of Paris?
comment posted at 7:21 AM on Nov-11-07

201 Stories by Anton Chekhov translated by Constance Garnett presented in order of Russian publication.
comment posted at 7:33 AM on Nov-11-07

The Brooklyn Museum's Feminist Art Base presents online the work of over 150 artists "whose work reintroduced the articulation of socially relevant issues after an era of aesthetic formalism", including Janine Antoni, Tracy Emin, Ghada Amer, Ida Applebroog, Sue De Beer, Guerrilla Girls, Yasumasa Morimura, Carrie Moyer, Eva Hesse, Pipilotti Rist, Sheila Pepe, Faith Ringgold ... and of course, an online tour of The Dinner Party, and a Feminist Timeline.
comment posted at 7:14 PM on Nov-5-07

High speed camera.
comment posted at 6:48 AM on Nov-4-07

As Armistice Day approaches an exhibition reveals a hidden side to the horror of World War I. It contains previously unseen images of British servicemen who suffered terrible facial injuries in the conflict. The exhibition also tells the story of one surgeon - Harold Gillies – who through his efforts to help them became known as the father of modern plastic surgery. WARNING: Some of the following images are of a very graphic nature.
comment posted at 1:56 PM on Nov-3-07

Harriet Klausner, 55, is Amazon's #1 book reviewer, with almost 15,000 book reviews in the past 8 years or slightly over 5 per day. Her coveted position in the highly competitive world of Amazon review rankings has earned her accolades from Time Magazine, a write-up in Wired Magazine, and more than a little snarky skepticism from other reviewers. If you like her taste in books, she keeps an archive of reviews.
comment posted at 2:06 PM on Nov-3-07

A Hollywood writer's strike now looks all but certain. With late night TV due to go dark immediately and your favorite network series drying up around Christmas, maybe you'd like to get your popcorn out and follow the fireworks between the writers and the producers. Meanwhile, the trade dailies provide coverage which reflects their dependence on the studio advertising dollar. Me? I'll be writing my novel.
comment posted at 6:38 AM on Nov-2-07

Marx Brothers Filter:
Animal Crackers (1930), Monkey Business (1931), Horse Feathers (1932) and Duck Soup (1933).
comment posted at 6:47 AM on Nov-2-07
comment posted at 7:36 AM on Nov-2-07

The Louie Report. From LLAMAS. The LOUIE LOUIE Advocacy and Music Appreciation Society (LLAMAS) was formed in early 2007 by a group of musicians, fans and collectors with a particular (and in some cases obsessive) interest in the song LOUIE LOUIE. Spawned from a film, the site's been going strong since 1996, with the blog sporting archives back to May 2005.
comment posted at 7:11 AM on Nov-2-07

"The Great God Pan," by Arthur Machen. "The Beckoning Fair One," by Oliver Onions. "Green Tea," by J. Sheridan LeFanu. "The Boarded Window," by Ambrose Bierce. "The Horla," by Guy de Maupassant.
comment posted at 8:37 PM on Oct-31-07

199 Peter Cook videos (in case you don't know who Peter Cook is, he's often considered the funniest English comedian of the 20th Century, this myspace page has a concise biography).
comment posted at 5:57 PM on Oct-29-07

So You Want to Create a Font (Part 1, Part 2). For something with a less presumptive title, there’s this, this, this, this, this, or even this, Eric Gill’s An Essay on Typography.
comment posted at 6:00 PM on Oct-29-07
comment posted at 6:02 PM on Oct-29-07

The Johnny Cash Show 1969-1971: Ray Charles - Ring of Fire (this, my brothers and sisters, is how you cover a song and make it your own)/ Bob Dylan - I Threw It All Away/ Derek and the Dominoes (w/Carl Perkins)/ Roy Orbison - Crying/ The Cowsills/ Joni Mitchell - The Long Black Veil (sublime)
comment posted at 7:40 PM on Oct-29-07

Owen Smith, is a painter in the social realist milieu and has been commissioned among others by The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, and Atlantic Monthly. His paintings recall the covers of Pulp magazines and paperback novels of the 1940's and 50's.
comment posted at 4:59 PM on Oct-29-07
comment posted at 5:52 PM on Oct-29-07

The year 1964 was a watershed period in British music. Before that year, British popular music was barely heard outside of the U.K. But when the Beatles achieved American success, a seemingly endless number of British bands and singers were suddenly able to crack the American market.

By the end of 1964, some enterprising filmmakers decided to create a cinematic year-in-review to highlight this new wave of British music talent. The result was “Pop Gear,” a strange but jolly little production that serves as a celluloid time capsule for that remarkable musical year.

The features opens with footage from a November, 1963 Beatles concert in Manchester - She Loves You
comment posted at 1:36 PM on Oct-28-07
comment posted at 4:29 PM on Oct-28-07