R.I.P. Don Cornelius (1936-2012)
Don Cornelius checked himself out, it would appear.
See him here — doin’ it to death — with Mary Wilson in the Soul Train line dance.
The face behind the honey badger
Embedding the video requires a mess of code I don’t want to propagate, so just go watch it here and, on the off chance you haven’t seen the video in question, you should probably go do that now.
The Mother Courage of Rock
She was skinny, quick-witted, disarmingly unprofessional, alternating between stand-up patter, bardic intonations, and the hypnotic emotional sway of a chanteuse, and she was sexy in an androgynous way I hadn’t encountered before. The elements cohered convincingly; she seemed both entirely new and somehow long-anticipated. For me at nineteen, the show was an epiphany.
Springtime 1976, I was living in the cinderblock building on the glorified median strip there where they split Highway 13, and one day I went over to this one girl’s apartment, she lived right by the guy who dealt me speed, and she said, “Hey, you know who you remind me of? You remind me of Patti Smith!”
Gave her a possum grin I’m still grinning.
Not my super-heroine persona,
but I am thinking that somebody should assume the mantle of The Sanitizer.
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.)
Charles Coleman, the celluloid adventurist
Coleman, 47, is film programmer for Facets Multimedia.
One thing being lost is the art of conversation, of people seeing a movie and then actually having a good talk afterwards. — As told to J.R. Jones.
Man, does this put me in mind of my friend Charlie’s thoughts re: the “hidden cinema” he frequents in Buenos Aires.
quote out of context
But my exchange with the Tooth Fairy was delightful. Her tone was either flirtatious or something like a Disney character sounds moments before singing the movie’s second big number; it was difficult to discern.
Venetian Vampires
A Manuscript called “De Masticatione Mortuorum, Latin for “The Chewing Dead,” offered helpful tips for those facing the walking (or chewing) dead, and prescribed practical treatments such as the aforementioned brick-in-mouth.
More on the art & gothic psychogeography of Venice.
Cherchez La Femme — Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band [circa 1976]
on the “Tony Orlando & Dawn” show.
DISCLAIMER:
The intent of this post is anthropological and not to make profit. It is strictly to share with fans and the periodic visitors to this planet from other galaxies a part of the musical history of the aforementioned musical group.
Also:
During these times all the TV shows wanted us to mime the entire performance which we were reluctant to do. A compromise was reached with the shows we finally performed on.
spam name
Eartha Ninfa.
from the moderated comments
Well, Fuck me… your still as stupid as before.
tweet of the day
“But, Andrew, you’re an affable guy”
is what people say to me when I tell them just how much I honestly hate most people. For those who have stood before me confused by such statements, I present to you a wonderful illustration of why.
“They are tearing out part of the heart of Buenos Aires”
The interior of the historic Cafe Richmond was gutted a couple of weeks ago; a spot once frequented by Jorge Luis Borges and Graham Greene may be replaced by a Nike Store.
The plight of the Richmond has dominated local media since the cafe’s insides were gutted last Monday morning. Apparently to ensure it could not be returned to its former splendour even if the local government rules against the Nike shop, the Richmond was emptied of its historical interior, right down to its grandiosely comfortable Chesterfield wingback leather armchairs, in a 3am raid. The movers took the precaution of pulling down the security camera on the front of the building first.
“It’s against the law,” said Monica Capano of the city’s Heritage Preservation Commission. “The Richmond is one of the city’s emblematic landmarks.”
For a personal view: Oh, no: La Richmond by my friend Charlie.
not a spam name
Emmitt Smith Plays With a Dislocated Shoulder
Since we’re talking momentous occasions from 90s-era sports history.
pregnancy tourism for a master race
In the film, the lady tells us how she isn’t the first, and “definitely not the last” to travel this far to have an Aryan child, one who, she imagined, would grow up grateful for the gift of racially superior intelligence. She speaks of an organised system behind such pregnancy tourism, but refuses to elaborate. “It’s not wrong, what I’m doing,” she says, “I’m paying for what I want.”
The movie is called Achtung Baby: In Search of Purity, and is about German women travelling to Indian villages to get knocked up by men they believe are the last of the pure Aryans.
(via the browser)
the science of crop circles
Physicist Richard Taylor speculates that crop circle artists may be incorporating technology to aid in the ever increasing complexity of their circles.
According to Taylor, physics could potentially hold the answer, with crop-circle artists possibly using the Global Positioning System (GPS) as well as lasers and microwaves to create their patterns, dispensing with the rope, planks of wood and bar stools that have traditionally been used.
Microwaves, Taylor suggests, could be used to make crop stalks fall over and cool in a horizontal position — a technique that could explain the speed and efficiency of the artists and the incredible detail that some crop circles exhibit.
Indeed, one research team claims to be able to reproduce the intricate damage inflicted on crops using a handheld magnetron, readily available from microwave ovens, and a 12 V battery.
A Talk with Blaine Dunlap
In March [Unfair Park] screened one of the greatest films made in or about Dallas, director Blaine Dunlap’s 1973 Sometimes I Run, about Stanley Maupin, who worked for the city’s Public Works Department flushing downtown’s streets in the wee small hours of the morning. Some Friends of Unfair Park said they’d seen it before, in high school long ago or in a sociology class at SMU. For most, though, the blue-tinted black-and-white short was brand new, a riveting revelation — 21 minutes’ worth of downbeat cinéma vérité, Pennebaker rolling with the Public Works Department as his leading man played country Kerouac.
And a couple of weeks ago, Unfair Park’s Robert Wilonsky published this feature on my dear long-time friend Blaine: Sometimes I Direct: A Talk With Blaine Dunlap, Who Once Captured Dallas Better Than Anyone.
more on the D.B. Cooper hijacking case
Since I posted the latest speculation in the D.B. Cooper hijacking case, a mother and daughter have come forward with what they say, and the FBI believes, is credible information about who Cooper really was.
Marla Cooper recently came forward to the FBI with evidence that she believes proves that her uncle Lynn Doyle Cooper is the famed D.B. Cooper, the man hijacked and threatened to blow up a commercial plane flying to Seattle in 1971, then parachuted to the ground with $200,000 in hand.
Her mother, Grace Hailey, told ABC News that she doesn’t remember much about that Thanksgiving in 1971 where her brother-in-law returned to the house in Sisters, Oregon, but she believes he could be the hijacker. Hailey’s statements are one reason why the FBI thinks the tip from Marla Cooper is credible.
“I’ve always had a gut feeling it was L.D.,” Hailey told ABC News. “I think it was more what I didn’t know is what made me suspicious than what I did know, because whenever the topic came up it immediately got cut off again.”
Update: Amanda posted on the case a year ago.
Oscar Mayer. It doesn’t get better than this.
Oscar Mayer Sandwich Combos are one of the five unique varieties of Adult Lunch Combos.
Cindy tipped me to this, and I have been snorting ever since.
headline of the day
Icelandic town hopes angry elves have been soothed by songs
Tat Musing
“O, lady on bus, I think one day you will regret your cupcake tattoo.”
My friend Alison. Musing en route home.
I told Alison I’d thought long and hard before I got my own tat back in the wayback days.
Read more
Joyce McKinney calls Pete Ashton
In honor of the impending release of Errol Morris’s Tabloid, I give you Joyce McKinney’s call to Pete Ashton.
Update: clusterflock’s visit from Joyce.
Even Ancient Men Seemed to Like Their Man Caves
I didn’t know whether to go with a headline of the day or a quote out of context with this one, so you get both. Which means, I guess, you get neither.
“This is strong and beautiful science,” Laitman said. “It at least is giving us a glimpse that some of the behaviors we see today have roots going into the past. It may well be in our lineage that [males] liked their man caves.”
