Archive for April, 2008
1. “Passara” by Jaime Alem and Nair De Candi: Listen.
From the Brazil 70 compilation on Soul Jazz records. A review in the Guardian describes the extraordinary circumstances this music was made in:
The psychedelic adventurers of other countries had to cope with acid casualties and police busts and grim shadow of prog rock, but Brazil’s Tropicálistas had [...]
This is a ten minute clip of Rev. Wright’s controversial post 9/11 speech, putting the “America’s chickens are coming home to roost!” sound-bite in context: Link.
There’s an incredible article about Scientology in Radar. I think I have to revise my previous assessment of them as harmless – if slightly creepy – kooks. Link. Excerpt:
A pillar of the Church’s theology is the existence of “suppressive persons,” who must be avoided, or “handled,” in the Church’s euphemistic jargon. In 1967, Hubbard promulgated [...]
In 1956, the Barstow family of Connecticut entered a competition run by 3M Scotch Tape, and won a free trip to the newly opened Disneyland. Forty years later, the father, Robbin, edited their home movies of the trip and added a narration. The result is a special piece of personal film-making, the wonderful Disneyland Dream. The [...]
Michael J Lewis writes in the Wall Street Journal about how art is taught. Link. Lewis is writing the article in response to the latest outrage about a willfully offensive, until now obscure artist. This time, it’s a student artist at Yale. From Buzzfeed:
Aliza Shvarts’ senior art project documents a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminates [...]
Radar has a feature about Bill Geerhart, who wrote a series of letters to serial killers and public officials under the guise of ten-year-old Little Billy. Fun, occasionally creepy reading. Link.
Nicholas Kristof at the New York Times has an article about tests aimed at measuring people’s underlying racial and gender biases.
In the University of Chicago test that’s doing the rounds of the internet at the moment, you are shown a succession of white and black people who are brandishing either a mobile phone, a gun, [...]
The Chicago Tribune has an interview with Sly Stone about getting the band together, what he’s been doing for thirty years, and the prospect of recording again. Excerpt:
On the phone, Stone is feisty if a bit scattered, and chuckles frequently in a baritone rumble. He also digresses into some weirdness that no number of follow-up questions [...]
Here’s a passage from Primo Levi’s memoir about his time in Auschwitz, If This is a Man. It’s a beautifully written document of the human condition – about what happens to people’s behaviour, thoughts, and souls in the extreme situation of a concentration camp.
In this world shaken every day more deeply by the omens of [...]
TPMtv – the video wing of the Talking Points Memo – has this video condensing the recent Obama-Clinton debate into a few minutes. Depressing, but well worth watching. From a story about the debate:
Asked to defend the fact that policy didn’t come up for the first 40 or so minutes of the debate, [...]
Bill Sizemore has a feature article in the Virginia Quarterly Review about the life and times of the powerful televangelist businessman, Pat Robertson. Incredible reading. Link.
Paul Bach-y-Rita was a neuroscientist who did some amazing research into the adaptability of the human brain, particularly relating to sensory information. Discover has a good article about him here, and PBS has a video.
In late 1960’s, Bach-y-Rita wired up blind people with a grid of needles on their back and a low-resolution camera [...]
