Free Old Time Radio Shows (thru incoming signals)
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Feedback on Ebay isn’t exactly what you’d imagine it is. It’s more like American Idol where everybody is Paula and everything is just great. Not for andy46477, though. Sample: “Praise: You’re 15 genes short of HUMAN. But I mean that in a good eBay way. Yes I do!” More of this on page 1 and page 2. (found thru Cheese Dip)
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An American expert in Islamic art tries to measure the cultural devastation caused by the Baghdad museum looting. By Karen Croft April 17, 2003 - Linda Komaroff is curator of Islamic art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where she put together the current show, “The Legacy of Genghis Khan,” in collaboration with Stefano Carboni of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. That show, which opened April 13 and runs through July 27, focuses on the cultural effects of the Mongol invasion and the fall of Baghdad in 1258. Salon spoke with Komaroff by phone about the cultural, historical and aesthetic significance of the recent looting of the Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad. What was your first thought when you heard of the museum looting in Baghdad this past week? I thought it was devastating. The Baghdad museum collection included Islamic art, but it’s known for its antiquities.
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Amazing how they can protect oil fields but not cultural treasures of one of the cradles of civilization
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The headlines are way funnier and more absurd than the stories themselves, so if you click on the links to read the stories you’ll see a lot of the fun will be gone. But I’ll give you the links anyway - oh sweet temptation! Conductor hits wrong note on girls’ organs Gorgeous guys in miniskirts prowl in search of kinky johns Sexy lady pro wrestlers gently grapple guys’ gonads Know your rights when sex goes horribly wrong (which could be almost American) And, concluding, so you don’t want to move to Japan only to find out that, in these cases, truth is less strange than fiction: Sex-mad Japan all talk, no action Oh, that’s too bad.
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There’s really nothing I could possibly say about this.
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Of course, they’re different. (^_^) And you don’t even have to turn your head! \(^o^)/
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The laws governing ‘intellectual property’ have grown so expansive in recent years that artists need legal experts to sort them all out. Borrowing from another artwork— as jazz musicians did in the 1930s and Looney Tunes illustrators did in 1940s—will now land you in court. If the current copyright laws had been in effect back in the day, whole genres such as collage, hiphop, and Pop Art might have never have existed. The irony here couldn’t be more stark. Rooted in the U.S. Constitution, copyright was originally intended to facilitate the exchange of ideas but is now being used to stifle it. The Illegal Art Exhibit will celebrate what is rapidly becoming the ‘degenerate art’ of a corporate age: art and ideas on the legal fringes of intellectual property. Some of the pieces in the show have eluded lawyers; others have had to appear in court. Click here for the web site. It has a nice list of articles plus mp3’s of songs which never got published for various reasons.
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How many bits do you need to make some good music? If you believe the audiophiles you need zillions. The more the better. Nonsense, of course. Try 8bit first. If you want to listen check out the fabulous Kohina site - “old school” video game music!
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“Few have the guts to admit it publicly, but we’re all monsters.” (Michael Middleton) Salon.com prints a large list of “forbidden thoughts” about 9/11. I’m sure plenty of us had thoughts like some of those people who are being quoted on that page. We probably only differ in our magnitude of denial. Of course, salon.com got plenty of angry responses from some of their readers (find a reply to one of those here) - which, at least if you believe in modern human psychology, does nothing but confirm that many people had those non-pc thoughts. The introductory article - which includes more quotes - can be found here.
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Pittsburgh has plenty of old buildings many of which are just decaying. Yesterday, we went to an old mall called the “Eastland Mall” - unfortunately, these photos (from deadmalls.com) aren’t nearly as nice as they could be given the state of the mall. Yesterday, there was quite a “lot” of stuff going on there because of a flee market. I was told that the mall and its parking lot are usually nearly completely deserted. I want have to go back and take some photos when there’s no flea market. I shot a bunch of pics yesterday but I’ll only be able to post those once I get my computer delivered by the movers.
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I am totally fascinated by most of Japan’s modern “culture”. Somehow, it’s as if you had put a lot of stuff into a blender and had let the result sit a little bit too long. Check out these Pocky commercials. Junk food combined with young girls. It’s interesting how it’s much easier to see behind the sexism in advertizing when it’s from a different culture. In the West, I hardly notice that any longer. Bikinis and breasts are everywhere. But if it’s school girls in some insane setting who dance like freaks to advertize junk food I notice it.
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One of the most fascinating aspects of evil is that most evil people are also amazingly normal. Allow me to use the word “evil” here. I know it’s a word which is too simple for almost all cases - especially when being used by a president. But I’ll have to use a word here and I chose “evil”. Anyway, there is a series of documentaries made by a German historian about all those first- and second-rank people who helped Hitler. It turns out that almost all of them are pretty normal people. Well, maybe ordinary would be a better word. It doesn’t matter. The thing is that what I called evil more often than not lurks underneath the surfaces of normal people. Today, I found a conversation between Studs Terkel and Paul Tibbets who flew the Enola Gay over Hiroshima. It is delusional to call dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima anything else but genocide and a serious war crime and it is fascinating and sad to see what Mr Tibbets has to say about it.
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The Moog Archive has all about Moog synthesizers. Who doesn’t like the sound (and sight) of a good old Moog?
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There are thousands of movies and animations online but, I think, only a few of them are really good. Weebl and Bob are my personal favourites. The most recent one is probably my favourite Weebl and Bob so far. They’re getting more and more sophisticated and it’s amazing to see how you can create interesting and funny animation with just the most basic set-ups.
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Under the provocing title “Are Smart People Overrated?” Malcom Gladwell in New Yorker magazine discusses whether smart people are good or bad for companies: “The talent myth assumes that people make organizations smart. More often than not, it’s the other way around.” Given my personal experience, I have to agree with this. It’s an interesting read for everybody - even for people who think they’re smart!
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