Captain Beefheart’s Ten Commandments of Guitar Playing
4. Walk with the devil
Old Delta blues players referred to guitar amplifiers as the “devil box.” And they were right. You have to be an equal opportunity employer in terms of who you’re bringing over from the other side. Electricity attracts devils and demons. Other instruments attract other spirits. An acoustic guitar attracts Casper. A mandolin attracts Wendy. But an electric guitar attracts Beelzebub.
(From WFMU’s Beware of the Blog. Via Brian Beatty.)
from the comments
Listen, who the fuck are you to say whether or not that can do that. I’ve worked with things you cannot comprehend for over 85 years and four lives (one was exceedingly short) and I tell you today as certain as I stand here today that that can most certainly do that.
tweet of the day
This year, Bill Cunningham and Lisa Simpson will be my spirit animals.
— Frank Chimero (@fchimero) January 2, 2012
12 Indicted On Hate Crimes Charges For Hair Cutting Assaults Led By Break-Off Amish Group
I think this is my favorite story of 2011.
from the comments
Sarah, I tell people to just tell me the end of the movie. I never want to be in a dark theater again waiting for supernatural occurrence and be treated to the ending of “Don’t Look Now.” Yes, it was full of signs and portents, a sightless woman seeing, red hoods and skin cut on glass, flowing blood. A portent reader straight from the woods not accustomed to screens and artifice never saw it coming. The real portents and conclusions are seamless, as natural as twilight moving into night and easing back into dusk. The ones we construct and splash in the outsize are the nightmares.
dueling banjos
dueling banjos
from the spam
You could definitely see your enthusiasm in the paintings you write.
from the spam
Well known holding period is forever.
from the comments
One of my favorite books, Kiln People, is about a society where you can create clay copies of yourself to do various tasks (menial, dangerous) while you do something else, then at the end of the day you download their memories back into you. This got me into a really creepy conversation with a friend about the difference between experiencing something first hand and remembering something. If the memory is yours (these clay copies have your personality, tactile sensations, everything) what are you losing by not experiencing it? Each moment is fleeting, at what point does something become memory instead of experience? Your senses take a measurable amount of time to transmit information and your body to physically react to things. Something 1/100 of a second ago, something 1/10 of a second ago, something 1/2 a second ago, something 5 seconds ago?
I think a harder question might be: would you rather travel the entire world asynchronously by surrogate and inload the memories, or travel 1/100th or 1/1000th as much but experience it all first hand in real synchronous time? I’m not sure which I’d pick.
spam name
Winston Winston.
From 102 to 67…
In 36 hours. Out on the patio, I’m shivering.
from the comments
I can’t fathom the be-all and end-all of farts.
from the comments
I done tole y’all, this is a question beyond our scope. We’ll drive ourselves crazy trying to solve the whole strap-on, pump-up, pee-out situation.
Also, I pooped a starfish this morning, but it was missing one of its arms.
Wading birds
Pa’ Cindita, who grieves and delights in the sad and beautiful aspects of dead birds.
Danny Macaskill, Industrial Revolutions
The latest industrial light and magic from bike riding wizard Danny Macaskill.
(thanks, Amy)
Holy Crap!
Using facial recognition in realtime via a webcam, this system lets you control the face of another person…like, say, John Malkovich.
Make sure you click through. The future is here, dude.
from the comments
Also, this puts me in mind of Harry Houdini, who was almost as renowned for exposing purported mediums and spiritualists as he was for escaping iron chests and chains.
The bittersweet irony is that, from what I have read, he desperately wanted to contact the spirit, if such existed, of his dead mother. But he was too honest to fall for cheap tricks.
from the comments
Dang. Where was I when I needed me?
tweet of the day
from the comments
There’s more character in my freezer than in my fridge.
from the comments
I wrote a poem once called “The Church Camp Kids Dry Hump the Summer to Bits.” Doesn’t really matter what the poem said.
headline of the day
Dog on the menu in Korea to beat the heat
tweet of the day
from the comments
One thing the seemingly bloodied yarrow umbrel you picked brought to mind was this: evolution: the plants are looking for wounds to staunch, so the valued medicinal property will rescue them from the oblivion of tall grasses.
