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Join the No Cussing Club™. Look at some people who don't cuss. Become one of them. Then buy a CD, a T-shirt, and a mood ring type color changer thing about hugs. But not before you learn the story behind it all.
comment posted at 6:11 AM on Oct-28-07

Many masterpieces of Persian Art were produced during the period of the Safavid dynasty 1502 - 1736. Minature paintings developed into a high artform. A brief history of Muslim Minature Painting.
comment posted at 6:17 AM on Oct-28-07

The Buffalo State Hospital is a vast complex of moldering Victorian buildings, sitting right in the middle of a residential neighborhood of Buffalo. It is also an architectural gem, not only by Buffalo standards, but for the nation as a whole. It is one of the largest and most complex commissions of New England architect H. H. Richardson, who is known for promulgating his unique, heavy looking stone Romanesque variant of the then dominant Queen Anne style. The Buffalo asylum’s grounds were planned by landscape architect (and designer of Central Park) Fredrick Law Olmsted.
comment posted at 6:19 AM on Oct-27-07

The Two Doctors: "David Tennant's Tenth Doctor is set to meet Peter Davison's Fifth Doctor in a special scene commissioned for BBC One's Children in Need."
comment posted at 6:18 PM on Oct-23-07
comment posted at 6:20 PM on Oct-23-07

A Profound Sense of Time. "PZ Myers on the process that prompts the growth of all vertebrates from embryos to unspecialized segments to multicellular animals."
comment posted at 5:28 AM on Oct-20-07
comment posted at 6:13 AM on Oct-20-07

John Fahey - Fare Forward Voyagers
John Fahey - Dance Of The Inhabitants Of The Palace Of King Phillip XIV
Clips from a 2 hour performance at the Euphoria Tavern in Portland, Oregon from 1976. Among the cognoscenti at FaheyGuitarPlayers, the consensus is that these clips display Fahey in rare form on a very good night.
Apart from Fahey, Bohemia Visual Music aka Mike Nastra, the contributor of these clips, provides an interesting assortment of way too hip YouTubery offerings including, among others, Spike Jones, Dimandas Galas, Gene Krupa, Tuxedo Moon, Sun Ra, Pere Ubu and the Holy Modal Rounders.
comment posted at 5:18 PM on Oct-16-07

American Lawbreaking. "This series explores the black spots in American law: areas in which our laws are routinely and regularly broken and where the law enforcement response is … nothing. These are the areas where, for one reason or another, we've decided to tolerate lawbreaking and let a law—duly enacted and still on the books—lay fallow or near dead." The first two entries are prescription drug abuse and internet pornography.
comment posted at 6:50 PM on Oct-15-07

Hannu's Boatyard is a site by a Finnish guy who offers free plans for two dozen simple plywood boats you can build, along with photos illustrating the build process of each. He also describes basic woodbending technique and some of the design process, in a pleasing writing style that makes me want to get off the internet and make things. My favorites: Portuguese style dinghy; tiny stubby halfpea; round, Welsh-style coracle -- if you click on no other link today, click on the coracle link and scroll down at least to the black and white photo.
comment posted at 6:21 AM on Oct-13-07

In the grand tradition of Kaycee Nicole, Anthony Godby Johnson, and Kodee Kennings, Jesse James was a studly volunteer firefighter and 9/11 hero who A History of Violence screenwriter Josh Olson's friend Audrey fell in love with over the internet. He turned out to be not what he seemed. None other than Harlan Ellison himself took part in the intervention, and the ensuing confrontation of the perpetrator was recorded for posterity. Via.
comment posted at 6:47 AM on Oct-13-07

Sigur Rós have been doing publicity for a documentary about the band called Heima (trailer). They went on NPR's The Bryant Park Project and did an interview which went achingly wrong. On the show's website, interviewer Luke Burbank describes it as "possibly the worst interview in the history of electronic media."
comment posted at 7:55 PM on Oct-11-07

Counting down the worst rock lyricists: #21: Alanis Morisette? Check. #4: Noel Gallagher (Oasis)? Check. #14: Will.i.am (Black Eyed Peas)? Double--no, Triple Check. #23: Robert Plant? Maybe. But of all the rock lyricists, this is the Worst Lyricist in Rock, ever? One begs to differ.


comment posted at 4:26 AM on Oct-11-07

Last week’s quiet; Better News?; The U.S. military; The complexity of the effort; Mythologies "A common slur is that Halliburton is looting the treasury and contractors in Iraq are greedy profiteers."
comment posted at 5:16 PM on Oct-6-07

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo.
comment posted at 8:23 PM on Oct-2-07

Left of Boom - The struggle to defeat roadside bombs. [washpo - flash & flash video]
comment posted at 3:54 PM on Sep-30-07

... After take seventeen, Dylan heeds the producer Johnston’s advice to start with a harmonica swoop. Crescendos off of an extended fifth chord, led by Paul Griffin’s astonishingpiano swells (“half Gershwin, half gospel, all heart” an astute critic later wrote), climax in choruses dominated by piano, organ, and Bobby Gregg’s drum rolls; Robbie Robertson’s guitar hits its full strength at the finale. Intimations of the thin, wild mercury sound underpin rock & roll symphonics. Johnston delivers a pep talk before one last take—“keep that soul feel”—and Gregg snaps a quick click opener, and fewer than five minutes later, the keeper is in the can.

Mystic Nights - The Making of Blonde On Blonde In Nashville
An account of how the many strands of that thin, that wild mercury sound were woven. And the annotation goes on. Via email via St Urbain's Horseman
comment posted at 7:42 AM on Sep-29-07

Somewhere along your musical journeys you might've heard something by Mr. Josh White (1914-1969). He was a bluesman, but one with the kind of smooth and polished delivery (and some charming novelty tunes) that made him a favorite on the wider, national pop/folk scene. He was pretty sexy, too. He didn't shy away from political/racial themes, either. Unsurprisingly, he ran afoul of the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee during the Red Scare years, and his name was placed on their Commie blacklist. Some few decades later his image graced a US postage stamp. Thanks for the music, Josh White.
comment posted at 5:49 AM on Sep-15-07
comment posted at 5:56 AM on Sep-15-07

A heroic sculpture of explorer Christopher Newport recently unveiled at the university of the same name is drawing criticism because of the decision of the university and the sculptor to depict Newport with his right hand manfully resting on his unsheathed sword--even though he lost that arm two decades before the founding of Virginia. Sculptor Jon Hair ("AMERICA'S MOST HIGHLY COMMISSIONED MONUMENTAL SCULPTOR" according his website) isn't winning any friends with his explanation of the blunder. "I wouldn't show an important historical figure like this with his arm cut off . . . We don't show our heroes maimed."
comment posted at 12:48 PM on Sep-9-07

Arguments have ended in the murder trial of Phil Spector, renowned record producer and mastermind of the Wall of Sound.
comment posted at 7:08 AM on Sep-9-07
comment posted at 8:43 AM on Sep-9-07

Scott Ritter on Book TV: "Opposing this war is the easiest thing in the world to do, because it's the right thing to do. And yet, the anti-war movement can't get it's act together. That's why I wrote this book. The anti-war movement thinks that a strategy is holding a demonstration on a street corner, holding hands, lighting candles and singing Kumbia... No, that's not a strategy. That may qualify as a tactic. But a tactic divorced from strategy is just the 'noise before defeat.' ...That's why when I say, 'Waging Peace: The Art of War for the anti-war movement,' I use that terminology. I know there are some people in the anti-war movement that are against it. They say, 'There's no way we can support something like that.' Well then you will continue to get your butts kicked." [Previously]
comment posted at 5:51 AM on Sep-8-07
comment posted at 1:02 PM on Sep-8-07

It's been 40 years since the 1967 Detroit riot. The Detroit News remembers. Where we stand, four decades after that fateful summer. Extensive coverage including galleries, video, audio, and articles.
comment posted at 6:13 AM on Sep-1-07
comment posted at 7:24 AM on Sep-1-07
comment posted at 7:56 AM on Sep-1-07
comment posted at 12:24 PM on Sep-1-07

Christs, Communists, & Rock 'n' Roll is an excellent introduction to a tradition of anti-rock writings and recordings by the Religious Right. In the 1960s, there was David Noebel who wrote Communism, Hypnotism, & the Beatles and The Marxist Minstrels. In the early 1970s, Reverend Riblett constructs a seven-foot cross out of rock music records and sets it aflame with gasoline. Michael Mills finds hidden Satanic messages in Bow Wow Wow and the Grateful Dead, while Bob Larson valiantly debates Mandy, a 13-year-old fan of the Cure. The motherlode is probably the cassettes of John Todd, who traveled the fundamentalist circuit in the 1970s claiming to be a former witch and a member of the Illuminati, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. (more inside)
comment posted at 5:27 AM on Aug-21-07
comment posted at 7:10 AM on Aug-21-07

The YouTubes have the African balafon you need. Alya Dioubate. Coulibaly Samadou. Kanazoé. Epizo Bangoura. Koeta Hakiri. Bala. Man and child. Danse Moderne Balafon!
comment posted at 6:24 AM on Aug-18-07

"Mem, mem, mem." A fascinating memoir of global aphasia -- total language loss -- following a stroke, by British poet and novelist Paul West.
comment posted at 7:11 PM on Aug-17-07
comment posted at 6:29 AM on Aug-18-07

Frank Zappa' was so many different things { Mother of Invention, orchestra conductor, garage freak, SNL musical guest, anti-censorship advocate, home movie maker, Congressional witness, Monkee, documentary film subject, whipping boy, drug trafficker, late-night TV talk show interviewee, death wisher, composer, Dance Fever judge, master of his domain, dental floss tycoon, cosmic force, breast man, Crossfire combatant and The Walrus, among others } that the one day he was recently given by Baltimore's Mayor hardly seems enoughs.
comment posted at 6:09 AM on Aug-12-07

The author of this site takes screen-shots from long-pan scenes of classic animation and puts them together to re-create the original larger background images. Much cooler than it sounds, honest. [via MeFi's own kokogiak, sort of]
comment posted at 6:51 AM on Aug-11-07
comment posted at 6:52 AM on Aug-11-07

Portraits of rural Russians by the photojournalist Pavel Bezrukov. He is born in 1962, and started with photography as a hobby. Currently freelancing as a photo correspondent for the Moscow-based Orthodox magazine Foma. Some more samples of his work can be found at Orthodoxy Photo.
comment posted at 4:46 PM on Aug-7-07

The Rubinoos recently filed a lawsuit against Avril Lavigne, claiming that her song Girlfriend (Youtube) plagiarized from their song, I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend (mp3). An authorized cover version of the Rubinoos song performed by Lush and retitled "I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend" has even more similarities to the Lavigne song. Now that the teeming millions on the Internets have gotten into the act, YouTubers are now arguing whether Lavigne is a plagiarist, whether the Rubinoos plagiarized from the Rolling Stones, and whether Ms. Lavigne plagiarized a second time. Now that Web 2.0 has made it easier to uncover musical copycats, I'm hot on the case of Bob Marley vs. The Banana Splits.
comment posted at 7:25 PM on Jul-10-07

Birth of the Beatles On July 6, 1957, John Lennon and Paul McCartney met for the first time at The Woolton Church Parish Fete where The Quarry Men were appearing. John Lennon was impressed that Paul McCartney could tune a guitar and his knowledge of rock & roll lyrics.
comment posted at 6:48 AM on Jul-6-07

Dr Who - a guide to the totality of the Dr. Who universe online. Like the TARDIS itself, this post contains much [more inside]. via
comment posted at 10:02 AM on Jul-5-07

Why not celebrate our Independence Day with the violent overthrow of the government? Some say they want a revolution, others would rather secede. Should we stay or should we go?
comment posted at 1:28 PM on Jul-4-07

The "Octapult" is a kinetic sculpture with 8 synchronized catapults, 160 plastic balls per minute are launched, caught, and recirculated. Made mostly of wood, the work is ~36 inches in diameter. It was designed and built on commission by Bradley N. Litwin, a vocalist and guitar player whose repertoire includes 1920's and 1930's vintage blues, stride and ragtime
comment posted at 6:50 AM on Jul-4-07

Hardly anything has been heard from Sly Stone since he disappeared in the early 80's. The August issue of Vanity Fair is to be the first published interview with Slyvester Stewart in about 25 years. Taking 7 pages and 12 years in the making, it covers his history and possible future. Very little has been written about this monumental band, but an authorized book is slated for 2009. (more inside)
comment posted at 7:10 AM on Jul-4-07

This weekend marks the 10th anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong to the mainland Chinese after 155 years of colonial British rule. Memories of the day are still online, showing the fear that the promised "One Country, Two Systems" policy was a trojan horse. Ten years later, the promise seems intact. Though universal suffrage seems a distant dream, religious and political freedoms are almost on par with Western standards and the economy has survived shipping its industry north. People are marking the day in different ways, while some just want to offer advice.
comment posted at 2:04 PM on Jun-29-07

Crawdaddy, one of the first rock criticism magazines, has made a comeback online, including some selected articles by the magazine's founder, Paul Williams. The SF Weekly has mixed feelings about the magazine's return. (via largehearted boy)
comment posted at 6:21 PM on May-30-07

Felix Pappalardi was a famous arranger and producer for the likes of Cream, the Youngbloods and the Vagrants, where he met Leslie West with whom he formed the legendary hard rock band Mountain who had hits with "Mississippi Queen" "For Yasgur's Farm" and a masterful reworking of Jack Bruce's "Theme From An Imaginary Western". In 1983, Pappalardi's wife shot him, in what she claimed was an accident. She was convicted of criminially negligent homicide and sentenced to four years.
comment posted at 11:40 AM on May-30-07

An informative, gossipy and surprisingly engaging 6-page exploration of the life of Charles Dickens, including his up-and-down relationship with the U.S. press, his inexcusable behavior during his messy and very public separation from his wife, the "histrionic flair" of his performance career, and, of course, his works, including the one George Bernard Shaw called "a more seditious book than Das Kapital." Lots of interesting images, too.
comment posted at 4:25 AM on May-25-07

“Why the hell the train?” and other questions answered “The real terror is the Three+ Sheltered Old Men, because they don’t sleep and they don’t have normal conversations. They’re completely sporadic: An observation is made, perhaps it is agreed on, then anywhere from two to 45 minutes pass before the next one. That’s the random non-rhythm your brain will feed on... and you’re never going to relax or get any sleep.” As for “train love”? “Ask yourself, do you really want this? Your potential train buddy is travelling by train. What the hell is wrong with this person? After two days on the train... [y]ou’re not at your Personal Best™”
comment posted at 6:09 PM on May-13-07

Karen Dalton - It Hurts Me, Too
Tim Buckley - Sally Go 'Round The Roses
Tim Hardin - If I Were A Carpenter
See also
The Other Side Of Greenwich Village 60's Folk Scene - Part 1
and Part 2  
more within
comment posted at 4:22 AM on May-4-07
comment posted at 5:35 PM on May-4-07