Vic Chestnutt died. He was in a coma after having taken on overdose of muscle relaxants. The NY Times obituary didn’t say if the overdose was purposeful or accidental. I’m thinking that it was probably more the former than the latter.
Mr. Chesnutt had a cracked, small voice but sang with disarming candor about a struggle [...]
I didn’t really understand what contempt was until it was explained to me in this piece on Slate. Now that I understand it, I have contempt only for Ron Rosenbaum.
Which brings me to Billy Joel—the Andrew Wyeth of contemporary pop music—and the continuing irritation I feel whenever I hear his tunes, whether in the [...]
This is one of the most remarkable collections of pictures I have ever seen. The Big Picture – Boston.com
Of all of the pictures, this the one I like the most.
The drip of blood, wet, expectant, on the old man’s hand captures me. What is the story? I don’t know. It is a confrontation between protesters [...]
60% of the world’s art comes from China. Most of it is reproductions of major works.
Dafen is a village surrounded by the thriving metropolis of Shenzhen, and the origin of most of the world’s reproduction oil paintings. In the popular imagination Dafen’s artists produce anonymous works for unknown customers, operating no differently than a faceless [...]
Lottolab.org is a pretty fun site. R. Beau Lotto is a researcher at the University College London and has created some interesting illusions, among other things. The illusions can be found via a link on the front page.
See the website for the version that works.
SIFF has the Werner Herzog film, “Rescue Dawn“. It stars Christian Bale as Dieter Dengler, a pilot shot down on his first mission in Vietnam. It was a rather conventional movie; I didn’t know that Werner Herzog knew how to make those.
I have seen many Werner Herzog films over the years, and he [...]
For those who don’t know, ‘419′ is the term used to describe the phony email games run by Nigerians to con people out of money. A guy in England, reverses the scam with hilarious results. Check them out:
419 Eater
Before creating the television show, The West Wing, Aaron Sorkin wrote the movie, The American President. It is one of my favorite movies. The penultimate scene is at the end of the movie were President Shepherd faces down his critics. From link:
INT. THE PRESS BRIEFING ROOM – EARLY MORNING
ROBIN is on her last drops of [...]
A good example of why net neutrality is imporant is covered, indirectly, by this article from the Washington Post.
For years, old recordings have piled up in the archives at Verve Records, including beloved jazz tracks that had no market big enough to justify pressing new discs. But thanks to the Internet, music lovers are rediscovering [...]
James Wolcott makes a discovery.
I believe I have discovered the sacred text that inspires and animates ferocious, fur-bearing authors such as David Brooks, John Tierney, NRO’s Stanley Kurtz, and Harvey Mansfield–author of Manliness (which gets a rough going-over in next weeks NY Times Book Review by Walter Kirn)–to assert male prerogative and keep women [...]