George Carlin’s “Modern Man” Rap

in Comedy | May 21st, 2011

Forty years after George Car­lin first stopped by The Tonight Show (1966), he made one of his last appear­ances, deliv­er­ing a rap/poem that’s clas­sic Car­lin, a hyp­not­ic riff on mod­ern life and soci­ety. The lyrics appear right below.

I’m a mod­ern man,
A man for the mil­len­ni­um,
Dig­i­tal and smoke free.
A diver­si­fied mul­ti­cul­tur­al post­mod­ern decon­struc­tion­ist,
Polit­i­cal­ly anatom­i­cal­ly and eco­log­i­cal­ly incor­rect.
I’ve been uplinked and down­loaded.
I’ve been inputted and out­sourced.
I know the upside of down­siz­ing.
I know the down­side of upgrad­ing.
I’m a high tech lowlife.
A cut­ting edge state-of-the-art bicoastal mul­ti­tasker,
And I can give you a giga­byte in a nanosec­ond. (The rest after the jump…)
(more…)

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3 Dreams of Black: A Mind-blowing Interactive Music Video

in Music, Video - Arts & Culture | May 20th, 2011

So this is def­i­nite­ly not your grand­ma’s MTV. The clip we’ve post­ed above explains the mak­ing of “3 Degrees of Black,” an inter­ac­tive video made for your brows­er, which was the prod­uct of a col­lab­o­ra­tion between the mul­ti-hyphen­at­ed artist/filmmaker Chris Milk and a group of 20-some­thing genius­es at Plan­et Google. But before you delve into the (admit­ted­ly fas­ci­nat­ing) back­sto­ry, be sure to expe­ri­ence the video for your­self and move your mouse around a bit.

“Three Dreams of Black” is a song from the new album “Rome,” itself a col­lab­o­ra­tion between Amer­i­can pro­duc­er Dan­ger Mouse and Ital­ian com­pos­er Daniel Lup­pi, fea­tur­ing Jack White and Norah Jones. The song is a per­fect choice for a trip­py, mul­ti-faceted project like this, which com­bines video, 2D and 3D graph­ics, and the user her­self. And yes, we know the whole “exper­i­ment” is basi­cal­ly just an adver­tise­ment for Google Chrome, but after spend­ing some time in their dream­scape, we’re cool with that.

via Metafil­ter

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly

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A Brief History of Light

in Art, Business, History | May 20th, 2011

No light, no civ­i­liza­tion. It’s pret­ty much that sim­ple. And it’s this sim­ple idea that m ss ng p eces, a Brook­lyn-based cre­ative com­pa­ny, explores ever so art­ful­ly in The Sto­ry of Light. Here’s how they intro­duce the video:

We have used light for sur­vival, to learn by, to enter­tain and express our­selves, mold expe­ri­ences, and illu­mi­nate our imag­i­na­tions. Inspired by such a sin­gu­lar sto­ry we set out to cre­ate a hand­made sto­ry­book fan­ta­sy illus­trat­ing mile­stones in the his­to­ry of light. Each chap­ter invites us through the annals of his­to­ry, lead­ing to present day where a new set of pos­si­bil­i­ties are yet to be real­ized in the light of tomor­row.

When you reach the end of the video, you’ll real­ize that the clip also dou­bles as a com­mer­cial for GE’s new led light bulb. Lend­ing an air of cool­ness to a dowdy con­glom­er­ate (GE)  is no easy feat. But it’s prob­a­bly not so tough when you’ve already made GE Cap­i­tal, a huge recip­i­ent of 2008 bailout mon­ey, look ever so hip. GE Cap­i­tal + Tay­lor Gui­tars = I think I will buy a Mar­tin, thank you very much.

You can learn more about the mak­ing of The Sto­ry of Light with this video …

via PSFK

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Lars von Trier Expelled from Cannes

in Film | May 19th, 2011

Lars von Tri­er stepped on the third rail Wednes­day when he called him­self a Nazi and Hitler sym­pa­thiz­er in jest. The joke did­n’t go over so well, and, his apolo­gies (some­times sound­ing sin­cere, some­times not so much) did­n’t win peo­ple over. Today, Cannes offi­cials took an unprece­dent­ed step, declar­ing him per­sona non gra­ta at the fes­ti­val. This marks the first time Cannes has exiled a direc­tor in its 64 year his­to­ry. What will Lars do next? The prova­ca­teur sug­gests that he will return to his native Den­mark and shoot porn films:

I want to be sur­round­ed by porn peo­ple who love me for what I am, who say, ‘Where do you want the erec­tion, where do you want the pen­e­tra­tion.’ Where it’s not com­pli­cat­ed. There would­n’t be a porn star run­ning out there say­ing ‘Lars said this or Lars said that.’

He also might want to add hir­ing a few good han­dlers to the to-do list. Mean­while, if you’re look­ing for a few clas­sic Dan­ish films, we have Vampyr and La Pas­sion de Jeanne d’Arc, both by Carl Theodor Drey­er, in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

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The Climate Scientist Rap (Warning: Offensive Language)

in Science, Video - Science | May 19th, 2011

In this high­ly NSFW video pro­duced by the Aus­tralian tele­vi­sion show Hun­gry Beast, a posse of bona fide, degree-hold­ing cli­mate sci­en­tists put the ulti­mate smack­down on cli­mate change deniers. By NSFW, we mean that the rap is “more exple­tive-rid­den than the lat­est Lil’ Wayne sin­gle.” Still, after a few lis­tens we did find a cou­plet clean enough to quote:

We’re scientists/What we speak is true
Unlike Andrew Bolt/Our work is PEER REVIEWED!

If you feel like drop­ping $1.69, you can also buy the extend­ed sin­gle on iTunes.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hayek vs. Keynes Rap

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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The National Jukebox: Play 10,000 Songs Released Between 1901 and 1925

in History, Music | May 19th, 2011

The Nation­al Juke­box, the new dig­i­tal musi­cal play­er of the Library of Con­gress, fea­tures more than 10,000 songs released by the Vic­tor Talk­ing Machine Com­pa­ny between 1901 and 1925 (with the promise of more to come). You can build your own playlist from the many gen­res of music avail­able, which include some extreme­ly rare record­ings from dif­fer­ent gen­res includ­ing 0pera, blues, yodel­ing, jazz, and much, much more.

We also love the dis­claimer on the web­site’s front page: WARNING: His­tor­i­cal record­ings may con­tain offen­sive lan­guage. It’s quite easy to see why the warn­ing is nec­es­sary, espe­cial­ly after some time spent lis­ten­ing to the com­e­dy sec­tion.

If you want to see a Vic­tor Talk­ing Machine in action, you can watch one get­ting demoed here.

via @kirstinbutler

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly

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3D Street Art

in Art | May 19th, 2011

The title says it all. The art­work is pret­ty mind-blow­ing. The sound­track? Not so much. But you can’t have it all. Thanks to anony­mous user for send­ing…

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Kepler, Galileo & Nostradamus in Color, on Google

in Books, e-books, Google | May 19th, 2011


To date, Google Books has scanned 50,000 books from the 16th and 17th cen­turies. And by work­ing with great Euro­pean libraries (Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty Library and the Nation­al Libraries of Flo­rence and Rome, to name a few), the Moun­tain View-based com­pa­ny expects to index hun­dreds of thou­sands of pre-1800 titles in the com­ing years.

Tra­di­tion­al­ly, most his­tor­i­cal texts have been scanned in black & white. But these new­fan­gled scans are being made in col­or, giv­ing read­ers any­where the chance to read old­er books “as they actu­al­ly appear” and to appre­ci­ate the “great flow­er­ing of exper­i­men­ta­tion in typog­ra­phy that took place in the 16th and 17th cen­turies.”

Some of the foun­da­tion­al texts now avail­able in col­or include Nos­tradamus’ Prog­nos­ti­ca­tion nou­velle et pre­dic­tion por­ten­teuse (1554), Johannes Kepler’s Epit­o­me Astrono­mi­ae Coper­ni­canae from 1635, and Galileo’s Sys­tema cos­micum from 1641. All texts can be viewed online, or down­loaded as a PDF (although the PDF’s lack col­or)…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Google “Art Project” Brings Great Paint­ings & Muse­ums to You

Google Lit Trips

Google to Pro­vide Vir­tu­al Tours of 19 World Her­itage Sites

via Inside Google Books

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Collision: Award-Winning Film Explores Politics Through Shapes

in Art, Film, Politics | May 18th, 2011

The Ger­man mul­ti-media artist Max Hat­tler describes his award-win­ning short film “Col­li­sion” (2005) as “Islam­ic pat­terns and Amer­i­can quilts and the col­ors and geom­e­try of flags as an abstract field of reflec­tion,” which will make no sense what­so­ev­er until you watch the video. It’s bare­ly over two min­utes long, so just give it a shot and let the images do their own explain­ing. Be sure to wear head­phones, or at least keep the vol­ume low … but not off. The expe­ri­ence is def­i­nite­ly equal parts sound and sight.

via @matthiasrascher

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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The Wild Kingdom: Brought to You by Mutual of Omaha (and It’s Now on YouTube)

in Television, Video - Science | May 18th, 2011

If you’re a Gen-X’er or old­er, this will like­ly dust off some old mem­o­ries, unleash­ing one of those “Yes, I remem­ber that” moments.

From 1963 through 1988, Mar­lin Perkins and Jim Fowler host­ed Mutu­al of Oma­ha’s Wild King­dom, a 30 minute pro­gram that aired Sun­day nights on NBC. An ear­ly pre­cur­sor to Ani­mal Plan­et and The Dis­cov­ery Chan­nel, Wild King­dom let Amer­i­can audi­ences trav­el (at least vir­tu­al­ly) to exot­ic des­ti­na­tions and observe wild ani­mals in their nat­ur­al habi­tats. It all hap­pened dur­ing prime time with mil­lions watch­ing. And the show, oth­er­wise cred­it­ed with rais­ing eco­log­i­cal and envi­ron­men­tal aware­ness, won 41 major awards, includ­ing four Emmys.

There are two ways to revis­it Wild King­dom. One is to pur­chase The Defin­i­tive 50 Episode Col­lec­tion on DVD. The cheap­er option (actu­al­ly, it’s free) is to vis­it Wild King­dom’s Chan­nel on YouTube, which hosts hours and hours of free pro­gram­ming. The episode above takes you into the mys­ter­ies of the Ama­zon. Enjoy…

via metafil­ter

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How TV Ruined Your Life

in Television | May 18th, 2011

The world is in sham­bles. Civ­i­liza­tion is in free fall. And it’s all because of that ubiq­ui­tous elec­tron­ic box spew­ing Snoo­ki and Ozzy and The Don­ald into the homes of inno­cent peo­ple, pol­lut­ing their minds and cor­rupt­ing their souls. Or any­way, that’s what British come­di­an Char­lie Brook­er thinks.

Brook­er is in a posi­tion to know. He makes his liv­ing off the offend­ing medi­um, writ­ing and appear­ing on such caus­tic pro­grams as Char­lie Brooker’s Screen­wipe, his hilar­i­ous and mer­ci­less bit­ing of the hand that feeds. Ear­li­er this year BBC Two pre­sent­ed its fol­low-up to Screen­wipe, a six-part series titled How TV Ruined Your Life. The result is one part social satire, two parts rav­ing luna­cy, as the mis­an­throp­ic Brooker—remote con­trol clenched furi­ous­ly in hand—takes us on a man­ic chan­nel-surf­ing tour of the deprav­i­ty.

In the win­dow above we fea­ture Episode 3: “Aspi­ra­tion.” The oth­er five install­ments can be accessed through the links below. Warn­ing: How TV Ruined Your Life con­tains harsh lan­guage that would not be safe for work. (But then, if you’re watch­ing half-hour com­e­dy shows at the office you’re prob­a­bly skat­ing on thin ice any­way.)

Episode 1: “Fear”
Episode 2: “The Life­cy­cle”
Episode 4: “Love”
Episode 5: “Progress”
Episode 6: “Knowl­edge”

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