The reviews seem mixed, but that probably won’t dissuade me from catching up with Spike Jonze’s Where The Wild Thngs Are. Most of the criticism revolves, predictably, about what happens when you translate into another medium something commonly perceived as “perfect.” By keeping intact the words and imagery, the following Wild Things short from ‘73 sidesteps all the “rumpus.”
From Kelnginem’s official website:
Growing up on the Klingon starbase Morska, it was no problem for Klenginem - whose real name is Quvar muHwI’ valer - to receive the most different kinds of communication waves, among which also the terran rap-music.
As a communications officer, it was no problem for him to adapt the songs to the klingon music, and then he presented his first try to the warriors of the Dark Vengeance Fleet. To make his pseudonym, he used the name of a famous terran rap-singer, from the “Klingon Eminem” he got the name “Klenginem”.
Klenginem on why he doesn’t want you going to the police:
Next, the “Klenginem-Show” is only run as a hobby, just for fun and produces no financial advantages. The so called performances have only been on private events and parties among friends, and Klenginem did not get any money for what he did.
If anyone still disagrees with anything he or she finds on this website, please contact its administrator before going to police or lawyer. I think there is no problem that we cannot solve ourselves, because - like I said before - this is all just for fun, so there is no money available for legal fights.
A marine survey team off the north Wales coast discovered dolphins, playing ‘football’ with jellyfish lying on the water’s surface.
The bottlenose dolphins were spotted tossing the jellyfish off Tremadog Bay. Jonathan Easter, one of the team said the “incredible images…present more questions than answers!”
Which one of these things doesn’t belong with the others? (Hint: Coldplay! Yuck!)
The classic album covers stamps come out on January 7, 2010
Laurie Sullivan, reporting at Online Media Daily posts this amusing item about Google’s unintentional creation of what sounds to me like an Internet graffiti tool:
The Internet has a secret society. Anyone can join. It supports hidden messages. Those who want to belong need only download and install a special toolbar from Google that works in either Firefox or Microsoft Explorer (IE).
The toolbar, called Sidewiki, which launched in September, provides a venue for venting and posting derogatory comments on virtually any Web site that only those who install the toolbar can read. And although many realize that Google never intended that the toolbar be used for evil, some believe the Mountain View, Calif. company’s innovation could create a nightmare for marketers and Web site owners if they choose not to download and install the tool.
iCyte CEO Stephen Foley says it’s like painting on someone’s front door. The homeowner cannot do anything to prevent the damage, but uses their marketing dollars and time to clean up the mess. “Some might ask, well, can’t we just have transparency?” he says. “In this case, transparency has a deeper meaning. It means you have to declare your position. There are so many ways people can misuse this tool.”
Ya think? It seems preposterous that Google’s normally crack team of developers would not realize that they were unleashing a new gadget with the potential to turn the entire Internet into a widespread version of anonymous posting site 4chan, often referred to as the Internet’s collective id.
Examples abound of Sidewiki misuse. On the Go Israel website, someone using Google Sidewiki posted, “Yes, you too can join a country that has the highest abduction rate of female sex slaves in the world. Mossad doesn’t care so why should you! Regular Jews lived in peace with their Muslim friends until the Ashkenazi Zionist arrived.”
Just wait until the trolls at Free Republic get wind of this! Yikes!
Google gives participating sites the option to place their own “official” post on top of the public remarks, and offers a ranking system (i.e. voting) that pushes the cream to the top and theoretically allows the community to flag pornographic, disrespectful or potentially libelous posts. That’s the theory, at least…
Foley doesn’t believe that’s enough. He wrote a post in Google Sidewiki on Microsoft’s Web site titled “Has Google Started a War?” that discusses the ramifications of competitors taking swipes at each other’s Web sites, fundamentalists damning each other, and jilted lovers making their notes on the senior partners profile. “Oh, and do you think voting this down will help?” he writes. “We will just all head to the last Sidewiki to see where the dirt is. I am sorry Google but you are on a course of self destruct on this one.”
Today, Foley’s post ranks No. 24 with the highest positive score, but yesterday it ranked No. 1.
Foley’s post on Microsoft was just the beginning. Now he wants Google to change its policy and provide opt-in/opt-out features. It would allow owners to block anyone from posting comments on their Web site. So, he’s building a Web site set to launch at the end of the month. It will contain a petition asking the search engine to reorganize Sidewiki and make it an opt-in process.
Sounds like a plan, Google. A good one.
Cross posting this from Brand X
Nothing is scarier than a serious Pee-Wee moment. :3 :3 :3
Word of mouth “buzz” should prove strong for reunited comedy icons The Firesign Theatre’s four evening run at the Barnsdall Gallery Theater after Wednesday’s well-received opening night. Performing some of their “greatest hits” including the complete librettos for fan favorites “Don’t Crush That Dwarf Hand Me the Pliers” and their debut record 1968’s “Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him,” the troupe were in fine form, winning two standing ovations from the wildly enthusiastic audience. The second act consisted of scenes from “Anythynge You Want To: Shakespeare’s Lost Comedie” which the group has been working on and retooling for several decades and an appearance by their most popular character, Nick Danger, “America’s Only Detective.”
More from The Calendar: The Firesign Theatre returns to its Los Angeles roots
Here’s an extraordinary performance of the Nick Danger adventure Frame Me Pretty from an 1981 episode of Evening at the Improv:
The Firesign Theatre’s “Forward Into the Past”
Where: Barnsdall Gallery Theatre, 4800 Hollywood Blvd., L.A.
When: 8 p.m. Oct 14 to 17
www.firesigntheatre.com
Cross posting this item from Brand X
Nat Finkelstein, “court photographer” from ‘64 to ‘67 for Andy Warhol‘s Factory has died at his home in Shandaken, New York:
Mr. Finkelstein created spontaneous portraits not only of Factory regulars like Edie Sedgwick and Gerard Malanga but also of the artists and celebrities who drifted in and out of the Warhol orbit. He was on hand when Warhol presented Bob Dylan with one of his Elvis ?
Dismissed at the time as a lightweight Coen Brothers effort, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, for me, grows in significance with each passing year. In its ‘00 depiction of ‘30s America at a literal and metaphoric crossroads, there’s something moving and elegiac about it—even subversive. Where else in American cinema has anything, everything felt so wonderfully possible?
Recording a hit song, taking down the Klan and crooked politicians, having your sins washed away in a nearby river, it’s all a matter of course in O Brother’s vision of America. And while I know that’s probably not an authentic vision for how things were back then, it still feels like an excellent vision for how things should be.
Whether through flooding or baptism, O Brother equates water with the possibility of transformation. So, too, does Kevin Coultas in his notes on Dust-To-Digital‘s new, carefully authentic release, Take Me To The Water: Immersion Baptism In Vintage Music And Photography:
The Christian sacrament of baptism has its ritualistic origins in the Jewish mikvah (or collection) in which one is purified, typically in a ‘collection’ of living water (river, lake, ocean, etc.). New Testament prophet John the Baptist adopted this tradition and used the River Jordan to cleanse sinners so that they might enter a new life of repentance.
Based on the clip below, Take Me To The Water looks like quite a package. Assembled by collector Jim Linderman, it puts together 75 American baptism photos from 1890 - 1950 with a 25-track disc of early 20th-Century music from the likes of The Carter Family, Washington Philips, and The Jubilee Singers.
As Luc Sante writes of the photos in an accompanying essay, “One is reminded of the commonality of the human experience when viewing a collection of this ilk and there is nothing wrong with that.”
Take Me To The Water @ Dust-To-Digital
Kevin Coultas on Take Me To The Water @ Other Music
Your move, Damien Hirst:
No, that’s not a real gorilla hanging from a cross. It’s a large waxwork sculpture that British shock artist Paul Fryer has crucified in an attempt to ‘highlight [the] plight of the Western Lowland Gorillas, and to challenge the Christian notion that animals do not have souls,’ according to one report.
Fryer, who caused a stir earlier this year when he exhibited a statue depicting Christ in an electric chair just in time for Easter, has told reporters that his latest work, titled ‘The Privilege of Dominion,’ isn’t meant to cause offense.
The work is currently on display at an exhibition at the former Holy Trinity Church in Marylebone, London. The show, which features works by 16 artists, is being held to coincide with the Frieze Art Fair.
In an article in the London Evening Standard, the artist said: ‘I do go to church and regard myself as a Christian, though I’m probably a heretic…. I just hope people understand the spirit of it is intended to create discourse and make people think rather than offend anybody.’
In the LA Times: Jesus As An Ape? Artist Crucifies Simian Specimen In London