Sir Wilfred Thesiger’s photographs of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula
Sir Wilfred Thesiger took nearly 40,000 photographs during his eight decades of travels throughout Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Now, to mark 100 years since his birth, Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum is displaying some of his most striking images.
The BBC has an audio slideshow of Thesiger’s work. The photo above is of a Masai warrior wearing the mane of a lion he had speared.
Brooke Fraser, Something in the Water
I can’t explain, this made me inexplicably happy tonight.
GyroSynth for iPhone 4
GyroSynth makes use of the gyroscope to measure true roll, pitch, and yaw and translates them to sound parameters like pitch, volume, modulation or filter cutoff. Thanks to phenomenal accuracy (2000 degrees), you can play melodies perfectly in tune.
I downloaded it last night and whilst testing it Jan called out from bed to ask me if the cat was being sick.
Lambchop – Nashville Parent
Take the b train or the shuttle
at the exit have a smoke
try to spit onto the sidewalk
instead you wipe it off your chest
Naomi Harris: America Swings
A friend’s paraphrasing of this episode of WFMU’s radio show Too Much Information from last night:
I was listening to the radio and Benjamen Walker (the host guy) was talking about some photo on the playlist page, and so I glanced over to look at the page I didn’t look at when I opened it two hours earlier. Just then he said to the photographer he was interviewing, “The people in your photos of American swingers don’t look like average Americans; they are, like, 300 pounds overweight, white, kinda crazy and distracted, and, well, really, they look more the Tea Party than any other group of Americans, even if they are crawling around their living rooms having group sex while they watch football on TV and drink beer.” As I was glancing at the photo, the photographer generally confirmed that, yes, the people in her photos were, as a rule, in the Tea Party.
I did not need that. Nooooooo…
The photographer being interviewed is Naomi Harris. If you are over 18, or under 18 with the ability to sense a trick question, you can page through her book, America Swings, at the Taschen site.
Please note that just because you can does not mean that you should. I’m just saying.
Plastic Jesus
It occurred to me, after making my Plastic Jesus reference in the comments, that most of you would have no idea what I was talking about.
Consider yourselves educated.
Marcel Broodthaers: Interview with a Cat (1970)
“I fight with the handle of my little brown broom”
So Renner and I were emailing just now, and it’s not so weird what happened, as we were talking about Robert Wyatt, together with other stuff . . . . Still. There is this passage at the end of Wyatt’s “Little Red Robin Hood Hit the Road.” The second half, actually. It begins more or less at the three-minute mark. It is sung by Ivor Cutler, and some people think Cutler wrote it, but no, the words are Wyatt’s. The voice is Cutler’s.
“I fight with the handle of my little brown broom,” it begins. And at almost the same instant of our email correspondence, Renner and I quoted that very line to one another by way of reference to our own travails.
That’s what friends are for.
Filmwasters Podcast: Terrorkitten Was Born
Carole asked, “BTW, has there been a discussion here about Phil’s love of the abandoned?”
I’m not sure, but Phil does speak of his attraction to the traces humans leave behind in the second part of the Filmwasters podcast featuring him and Matt Wells.
Note: Much more of Phil in this episode than in the one posted previously.
“Do we know any other fuckin’ Beatles songs?”
(Via SC)
“dude, it’s changing colors”
(there is a bit of NSFW language)
found on The Toilet Book, a Tumblr dedicated to… toilets
Bigmouth Strikes Again
A cappella, this time:
06 Bigmouth Strikes Again by blackpiano
Janice Whaley’s The Smiths Project: “Layered vocal arrangements of every Smiths song.”
Read more
979-997-3041
That’s the number for Carlos J. Gómez de Llarena’s The Urban Speaker:
The Urban Speaker is an art installation that transforms public space into an instant stage for mass communication. This portable urban furniture allows people to broadcast their voice in public by calling a telephone number from their mobile phones.
The Trashmen — Surfin’ Bird — Ponderosa Stomp Song of the Day
Click and learn and listen.
Documenting the Gulf Oil Spill
Karen Hopkins moved from the little Cajun town of Pecaniere to Grand Isle in 1998. Most of the island’s residents work in the fishing industry, and Karen is in the middle of it all, managing Dean Blanchard Seafood, Grand Isle’s largest seafood processor. Business at Blanchard’s has almost completely stopped since the oil spill forced the closing of Gulf fishing grounds.
Karen lives on the water in a house designed to withstand floods (her last home was destroyed during Hurricane Katrina). In the clip here, I asked her to describe what she sees when she looks out her window. [Interviewer Andy Horowitz.]
There’s only one way.
I just found this in my Google Voice inbox. It’s a call from my mother, which she didn’t seem to be aware she was making, while she was in Canada on vacation. I don’t know who the man is, but he sounds awesome.
I started to transcribe the actual conversation, but it’s a bit fuzzy in places, so I’ll just give you what Google translated.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Hello 8 okay, so your brother. Ohh, Bob. Yeah, I think you know I will. That horse pistol Henry, alright, thanks a lot of Karen glad you’re lucky with prices rich people because it before. Do. We’ll take a look at it and. After 2 hop all the traffic. It’s probably best way dot com well. Because, you see, or 6 o’clock in the morning so if you would have to do, all the traffic going this way to Royal, and I have to do people to call me back. This way because of all about working. Hello cursor this birthdays bridge. There’s only one way. This is being repaired. Which is the hospital What You Need usual. Little all the pieces A little while. All that so I will not pay freight. But we’re putting a couple of Yeah, so I was. Hello, my name. S. 4. Bud are you i’m from here okay this is not yet problem okay. This place is called the way so close to Ontario. Yeah. So those. There is some of that was. Perhaps I don’t know, just took off. Hi evening. Now, I never, never. Kevin Hi. Here, sorry it’s Pontiac coming back I can hear me. We may here. But now that you got that time. We have an okay wondering if there So if it’s Bruce. I have a chance to see if you’re gonna carry Parkview yes.
I’m off a boat
I found this on my phone.
Monday Music News: Arcade Fire (Quietly) Reinvents the Album
Arcade Fire have apparently re-engineered the concept of the album for the digital age. The digital version of their new release “The Suburbs” comes bundled with .m4a files that present a stream of visuals and synchronized lyrics (finally!), along with a deep nest of embedded contextual links that work like an easter-egg hunt, encouraging the user to keep clicking.
Here’s a video created by Topspin’s Ian Rogers, showing what the synchronized artwork looks like in action:
And here’s a brief explanation of the concept and the execution of the synchronized artwork by its creator, Vincent Morisset.
Personally I’m impressed not only by the degree of thought and creative direction that went into engineering this new immersive album experience, but by the (by today’s standards, mystifying) inverse degree of self-promotion they’ve applied to this approach.
Guess I’ll be buying it now!
Via Hypebot: Arcade Fire Rethinks Album Format, Tells No One
As Radio Host
I am currently sitting in for Leonard Lopate on WNYC.
Cicada Mania
For those who cannot get enough of cicadas, there is a website, Cicada Mania, devoted to them.
There is also a website “in celebration of our singing insects”, Songs of Insects.
My one-hit wonders
I’m not sure whether to blame my short attention span or the artists’ oeuvre: today I came across two new musicians by listening to, apparently, their only good song (rather, the song that I like).
Aloe Blacc – “I Need a Dollar”
[http://www.fortunyfamily.com/pillows/Aloe Blacc - 2010 - I Need A Dollar.mp3]
Francis and the Lights – “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” (a Kanye West cover!)
[http://library.francisandthelights.com/audio/canttellmenothing.mp3%20/canttellmenothing.mp3]
from the comments
I got a 3m30s voicemail along the same lines this afternoon. Have posted it here.
Oddly enough it came from Burma / Myanmar.
The Kickstarter Vuvuzelas for BP Project
BP is not feeling the pain they are causing in the Gulf. BP is spending millions on PR. In order to put a bit of public pressure on them, we plan to buy 100 vuvuzelas and hire 100 vuvuzela players off Craigslist to play in front of BP’s International Headquarters in London for an entire work day. Ideally, the players will keep coming back every day until they fix the gusher.
(thanks, Andrew)
This Earworm Has Been in My Head for Days…
Jimmy Dean Sausage Complaint Call
Jimmy Dean sausage is for Southern people to eat.
Also, I think he forgets to hang up at the end.
