Sunday, December 23, 2007

Tedious Spandex House Party Crashed by Unidentified Dance Machines

A small, delightfully boring gathering of twenty-something white people in northeast Minneapolis received a jump start late Friday evening, when a band of equally caucasian but decidedly less boring dance enthuisiasts appeared at the door. The dancers were polite if empty-handed, humorous if homo erotic, and they made apologies for neither demeanor nor body odor as they commenced with the guzzling of innumerable bottles of lukewarm Huber Bock beer. Soon after, the enigmatic troupe, along with some committed party guests, began a 7 person dance circle and performed an inspired interpretation of Shut Up by the Blackeyed Peas. As the dancing intensified, the door to the dance room was barricaded by the performers. The walls shook with the reverberations of their vigorous and beautiful movements, and it wasn't long before an angry lesbian broke through the barricade, demanding that the dancers decrease the volume and fervor of their performance. The dancers smiled politely back at the creature, but continued to dance with undiminished vitality and verve. The girl retreated back behind the futon barricade and out the living room door. The dancers turned up the music. This might well be considered the climax of the evening. It was, after all, 5am, and the dancers had alienated all of the borish white people save a single long john-clad follower who had continued romping with the professionals, approaching if not matching the dancers' energy to a surprising degree. It may however have been just the beginning. We will never know, because the next person to breach the furniture blockade was the angriest white man any of the dancers had ever seen. His fury was matched only by his idiocy, and the exchange that ensued will not be reproduced here to protect the dear readers from becoming dumber just for having read of this man's words. Suffice it to say that the night ended in near-violence, but both the dancers and the troglodyte escaped unscathed. Within mere moments of the scuffle, the dancers were gone-vanishing into the night as mysteriously as they had arrived, leaving the cutest girl who ever went to Central High School standing alone in the doorway, waving a teal spandex kerchief and brushing a single tear from her eye.

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Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Ralph Nader -- "An Unreasonable Man"

I caught most of this excellent PBS documentary on Ralph Nader last night, his early years in the '60s up to his 2000 and 2004 presidential runs. It asks the question whether Nader is hurting democracy or helping it. It will be replayed in the next few days. Check listings here.

Preview:


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religion by satellite


i can't get over how awesome this is:

Australian artists The Glue Society have put together a series of altered satellite views showing what certain Biblical events would have looked like if seen via Google Earth. Above, we see Moses parting the Red Sea...

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Talk by Naomi Wolf - The End of America

this talk is about 48 minutes long, but is well worth it. ms. wolf provides an excellent historical context to restrictions on democracy, and her comment about not feeling safe presenting public speeches the day that she sees somebody who she considers a peer deemed an enemy combatant is chilling. some of what ms. wolf says is covered in excellent detail in "the power of nightmares", and there is a related article here.

this "warning" of sorts is worthwhile and important to be aware of, but i sometimes feel that much of this sort of "we're going down the road to a autocracy or a fascist state, etc." is blown out of proportion, mainly because i probably have too much confidence in the american public to catch itself before it falls too far. that being said, i doubt the level of general apathy has ever been higher, and a public that is uninformed, and worse, doesn't care about being legitimately informed or is ignorant of their ignorance, is brutally subject to the whim of those who are in power.

this gets at something we've talked about a lot on this blog, and i'm glad we've done it because it is a complicated issue to address, which is the question of how to create actual change on the ground? how to enact change in people's minds? can it change today with a presidential election? is the cultural inertia so great in modern america that we can trust it to self-adjust and stay on the general democratic path? i don't think so -- most of the presidential candidates, with the notable exception of rep. kucinich seem to be beat the war drum, maybe at a different rhythm but just as loudly as past presidents -- but i don't know what we can do when there is so much knee-jerk, petty, but reactionism at all scales of public life.

i get worked up about this stuff. i could be a street-fighting man if the state continues to degrade in the fashion ms. wolf predicts. who is with me?

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tpm, thrusts per minute

from Live Science:

Female monkeys may shout during sex to help their male partners climax, research now reveals.

Without these yells, male Barbary macaques almost never ejaculated, scientists found.

...

The researchers found that females yelled during 86 percent of all sexual encounters. When females shouted, males ejaculated 59 percent of the time. However, when females did not holler, males ejaculated less than 2 percent of the time.

To see if yelling resulted from how vigorous the sex was, the scientists counted the number of pelvic thrusts males gave and timed when they happened. They found when shouting occurred, thrusting increased. In other words, hollering led to more vigorous sex.

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Tuesday, December 18, 2007

neil young's rock opera

in news that is sure to make young fans in the greater dallas area happy, neil young's "greendale" will make its stage debut. from CMJ:

Neil Young's rock opera, Greendale (Reprise/Wea), will make its world premiere musical debut next year at the Dallas Undermain Theatre March 29 through May 3. The opera derives from Young's 2003 album of the same name, where three generations of a family incorporate themes of media consolidation and environmentalism. The spring run follows a series of Greendale releases—first the album, then the Young-directed film that same year, with these performances and a planned graphic novel still yet to come. Previews will run March 26-28 with more information available on the theater's website.

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Monday, December 17, 2007

Only in dreams



interesting article about an exhibition dedicated entirely to sleep and dreams. originally found on boingboing.net

exerpt:
"But proving that the brain is active is a long way from proving what it’s actually doing. Dreams, particularly – which are distinct from our rational lives yet somehow entwined with them – are a seemingly eternal source of puzzlement and fascination: where do they come from, what are they for, and what do they mean? Goya’s etching “The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters” illustrates the evil which appears at night in dreams; various pictures after Fuseli’s “The Nightmare” (see FT207:32–40) show the mingled fear and wonder such fevered imaginings inspire, though perhaps the most entertaining version to the modern visitor is a German public education poster from the 1930s, which inventively transforms Fuseli’s sexually suggestive vision of horror into an exhortation to hard work; it translates as “Unfinished tasks pursue you in your sleep. Don’t put things off until tomorrow, do them straight away”. Claiming to be a more scientific portrayal of dreams were the pictures taken by Louis Darget, a key figure in spiritualist circles, who sought to make thoughts and mental energy visible on photographic plates."

link to article here

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xMASx present

I would love this little guy to death.

Researchers in a remote jungle in Indonesia have discovered a giant rat and a tiny possum that are apparently new to science, underscoring the stunning biodiversity of the Southeast Asian nation, scientists announced Monday.

...

"The giant rat is about five times the size of a typical city rat," said Kristofer Helgen, a scientist with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, according to CI's press release. "With no fear of humans, it apparently came into the camp several times during the trip."
story

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Sunday, December 16, 2007

tim & eric awesome show, great job!

tim & eric awesome show, great job! w/ john c. riley & zach galifianakis. video

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Thursday, December 13, 2007

why does time seem to slow down in emergencies?

there is an interesting article that describes a well thought out experimental design on LiveScience.com. researchers set out to understand why people who undergo extreme events tend to feel that the event lasted longer than it actually did. part of their experiment had subjects trying to read a watch-like device on their wrist that flickered numbers as they plummeted 150 ft to see if their brain was actually processing signals faster than normal. they found some interesting implications for how memories are formed and why we recall things differently during emergencies.

story and video

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Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Gates threatens Iran

"Nazi Germany, imperial Japan, Fascist Italy and the former Soviet Union all made that miscalculation, Gates said. 'All paid the price. All are on the ash heap of history.'"

"Gates Says Iran Seeks to Cause Chaos," Associated Press, December 8, 2007
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3262&id=11788-3990908-m9JG7A&t=5

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Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Kristof Kintera's watermelon fucking automated electric knife



this electric knife is getting more action than me, i think i could learn a few things from it...clearly it has a promising and effective technique. there is so much to learn from robots.

more of kristof kintera's work can be seen here

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Monday, December 10, 2007

In love with Machine Girl



I'm very excited for the sushi...and a little less excited for the tempura.

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Saturday, December 01, 2007

miss world 2007 recap

i was (shamelessly) looking at the miss world contestants on the official website recently, and i thrilled at the description of miss montenegro's, marija cirovic, home town:

Marija grew up in Niusic, a town famous for its bears, steel and rocks.
too bad she didn't win. i've read that when the residents of niusic bring out the bears, chain them up, and force them to dance in the streets, everybody is happy. except the bears.

i didn't watch the miss world presentation, but i have surveyed the contestants online. miss china was declared miss world 2007, and though she is quite beautiful (and tied for the tallest contestant), i like other contestants much more. i'm quite fond of ada aimee de la cruz from the dominican republic, as well as miss mexico. also, miss trinidad & tobago, slovakia, and miss lebanon.

what i'm saying is that i'd do most nationalities.

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Rove says Congress hastily pushed for Iraq invasion

He says a lot of bullshit, but the statement about Congress comes around min 40.

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