Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Nick Drake Rediscoverer

I'd always wondered exactly who pulled that one off:

Lance Jensen, president of the advertising agency Modernista, is the creative mind behind the Hummer campaign, and has seen firsthand what prime-time, 30-second spots can do for unheard artists — six years ago, he used cult-folk hero Nick Drake's "Pink Moon" in a Volkswagen commercial, which single-handedly triggered a Drake renaissance and probably led to what we now call "yup-rock" (polite indie rock for the upwardly mobile).


He's trying to do the same thing now for Hummer, but it's not working.

Holy Shit! Reid's Posting About Music

Maybe I am way behind the curve on this one, but a friend at school pointed me towards Pandora.com, which isn't gross. You tell it a band you like and it generates and plays a playlist of songs that it thinks you would like as well.

Monday, February 27, 2006

Winter Olympics: Final Word


NARM!



Nice to know, we're not the only ones who noticed it. . .Buy the shirt from Mule Design.

Sunday, February 26, 2006

An Oath

THE THINGS I WILL NOT DO WHEN I DIRECT A SHAKESPEARE PRODUCTION, ON STAGE OR FILM

311. I will not set Macbeth in a post-apocalyptic future wasteland. Furthermore, under no circumstance will Banquo be a robot, alien, mutant, or any combination of the above

308. If Shakespeare had intended for any character to say, "YEEEEEEEEHAW!", it would have appeared in the text.

256. The Montague clan are not aliens. No, really, they're not.

233. I shall not give Thisbe cleavage by blowing up multi-coloured latex balloons and taping them under her dress; furthermore, during Thisbe's death scene, I shall not tape a safety pin to the end of Pyramus' sword and allow Thisbe to pop said balloons for comic relief as she tragically stabs herself

90. In a production of Cymbeline, Jupiter should not be played as some kind of bizarre winged thing on a high metal contraption with a magnifying glass for a face.

55. I will not allow the King's ghost in Hamlet to look like a hairy popsicle.

34. I will not require any actor to brush his teeth onstage. Especially if the production is supposed to be set in period.

26. I will not cut important scenes simply because I do not like them.

24. I will not show the earth opening up unless I have a very good reason for it.

19. I will not end Hamlet after "Good night, sweet prince."

Common/Horrifying Animal Ingredients

Emu Oil.
From flightless ratite birds native to Australia and now factory farmed. Used in cosmetics and creams. Alternatives: vegetable and plant oils.

Civet.
Unctuous secretion painfully scraped from a gland very near the genital organs of civet cats. Used as a fixative in perfumes. Alternatives: (See alternatives to Musk.).

Placenta. Placenta Polypeptides Protein. Afterbirth.
Contains waste matter eliminated by the fetus. Derived from the uterus of slaughtered animals. Animal placenta is widely used in skin creams, shampoos, masks, etc.Alternatives: kelp. (See alternatives to Animal Fats and Oils.)

Shellac. Resinous Glaze.
Resinous excretion of certain insects. Used as a candy glaze, in hair lacquer, and on jewelry. Alternatives: plant waxes.

Carmine. Cochineal. Carminic Acid.
Red pigment from the crushed female cochineal insect. Reportedly, 70,000 beetles must be killed to produce one pound of this red dye. Used in cosmetics, shampoos, red apple sauce, and other foods (including red lollipops and food coloring). May cause allergic reaction. Alternatives: beet juice (used in powders, rouges, shampoos; no known toxicity); alkanet root (from the root of this herb-like tree; used as a red dye for inks, wines, lip balms, etc.; no known toxicity. Can also be combined to make a copper or blue coloring). (See Colors.)

Happy Cow Animal Ingredients list. Also available for your ipod.

Saturday, February 25, 2006

Scanner Darkly Film Woes

Wired article explaining why Linklater's Scanner Darkly has been delayed so long. If you haven't read the book and care about spoilers, you might want to scroll past the first couple of paragraphs without reading them.

Thursday, February 23, 2006

Quantum computer solves problem, without running

"Using an optical-based quantum computer, a research team led by physicist Paul Kwiat has presented the first demonstration of "counterfactual computation," inferring information about an answer, even though the computer did not run. The researchers report their work in the Feb. 23 issue of Nature." . . .

"'By placing our photon in a quantum superposition of running and not running the search algorithm, we obtained information about the answer even when the photon did not run the search algorithm,'" said graduate student Onur Hosten, lead author of the Nature paper. 'We also showed theoretically how to obtain the answer without ever running the algorithm, by using a 'chained Zeno' effect.'"

I think that one of the commenters on the digg post where I found this said it best: "*brain explodes*"

Cameron, you wanna take a crack at this one?

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Vanilla's Menagerie

From a Washington Post interview with Vanilla Ice:

Washington, D.C.: I understand that you have both a pet kangaroo and a lynx. Where did you get such exotic pets?

Vanilla Ice: Ya, it's funny how people found out -- my kangaroo got loose. It was on CNN and I was in London at the time. I have a goat, too. The goat pushed the gate open with his head and they both got out and ran around. And the goat and the kangaroo never parted. The whole entire time.

Long story short, I got all these people wondering what's going on. When I got home I couldn't find my kangaroo and I turn on the TV and it's on the news. I called animal control and let them know who it was -- and it became this big deal. I'm still laughing at it.

I have a class2 permit. I have monkees, the lynx, goat, kangaroo. The kangaroo is a sweetheart. We bottlefed him. He doesn't kick or box.

After this whole deal I got this call from Hollywood and I was on Entertainment Tonight about it. They thought it was kind of "different" that I had a kangaroo and some folks wanted to do a movie about it. So now it's going to be a cartoon on Adult Swim as "Bucky and Poncho's Great Adventure" and it should be on in April or May. I'm also going on another thing for Adult Swim -- on the Family Guy -- as Vanilla Christ and singing "Christ Christ Baby" -- but it's nothing against religion.

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Sophistimacated Dowhackey

God, I love Wikipedia. Made up words in The Simpsons.

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Yuk-O-Meter

In what turned out to a be a somewhat fruitless endeavor to spark non-band-related conversation with Cary and Greg tonight, I asked them over dinner if they could remember what had ever made them laugh the hardest of anything in their lives. They were able to punch up a few examples, but nothing definitive (it's a rather impossible question to answer). So I'm asking all of you guys the same impossible question. Can you think of anything that would definitely merit inclusion in a top five or top ten list? Bonus points for stuff we've all shared together. And some compelling sub-questions leap to mind; can you remember:

1. The hardest you've ever laughed at a movie?
2. At a passage in a book?
3. At a TV show?
4. At music, if possible?
5. The funniest thing any one of us in particular has ever said or done?

Just hoping to encourage the recollection and dissemination of fond memories. Enjoy!

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Whoah!

Wow! I was just saying I thought this would be a bad career choice, but that doesn't make me sorry to see it. Jeez!

Monday, February 06, 2006

H to the Dub to the wiki-wiki-wiki...

Harvard-Westlake's Wikipedia Page. If you didn't already know, you'll be astonished at how high tuition has climbed. And I admit there are a few surprises among the "notable alumni." (H.R. Haldeman?!)

Sunday, February 05, 2006

Crashing Down

Greg and Cary and I began to seriously consider the following late last night: could Crash possibly be the worst movie ever nominated for a Best Picture Oscar? Is it worse than:

1. Ray
2. The Hours
3. The Green Mile
4. On Golden Pond
5. Love Story

... to name a few? I think it probably is.

I'll understand if you don't want to join my piss party. And my apologies to those of you who liked Crash, but... yeah, seriously, what are you talking about? It's terrible.

Heddatron - My Friends' Parallel Successes

As I mentioned on the At Dusk blog a few days ago, my friend Alex has been having quite a year as the enfant terrible of the New York theater world, with coverage of his theater group, Les Freres Corbusier, in 2 New York Times slide shows, and a whole bunch of other couldn't-ask-for-better-press this year. His new project - put on and written by a bunch of my former theater brethren at Yale - is called Heddatron and is, through various framing devices, a play in which a woman is abducted and forced to act Ibsen's Hedda Gabler ad infinitum with a bunch of robots who are, literally, actors in the production. The run starts this coming week. If you are in New York, you should definitely give it a whirl. These guys are good at what they do.

This artistic triumph, along with classmate-of-our's Jake Gyllenhaal's Oscar nod, are giving me that much more drive to finish our record this week. You guys remember my "It's my time!" exclamation-snap from senior year? Yeah, that again. It's cool/scary to have enough time have elapsed since college to see friends' labors begin to bear publicly recognized fruit. 2006-The year of the dusk, yo. Either that, or total global annihilation.

Friday, February 03, 2006

Fruitcake

Did anyone know that, without suffering any immediate health consequences, you can eat fruitcake that has been sitting open on top of your fridge for two months? I didn't until last night.

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Universal Caption

One caption for every New Yorker cartoon.

(Via Pandagon)

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Does anyone remember, between maybe June and October of this last year, going to the movies and seeing a trailer for a Samuel L. Jackson/Juliette Binoche project about post-Apartheid South Africa (I think it was)? I wrote it off at the time, I currently have no interest in seeing it, but guess what... it doesn't exist. Check imdb under Samuel L. Jackson or Juliette Binoche—nothing. Total disappearance from record, even in the instance of a long shelving, is a rarity. What's up?

Also, the Oscar nominations kinda suck.