Charlton Heston on the Origin of Man Part 1

Charlton Heston on the Origin of Man Part 1

Charlton Heston was simultaneously a Civil Rights activist and the head of the NRA. Confused? Well this will either help or perplex you beyond caring. Not something to sit through the whole of, but it does give some insight as to how odd Charlton Heston was.

Some fundamentalists believe that the Earth is a few thousand years old and that rocks and dinosaurs are too. This piece suggests that Charlton (what a great first name) believed that modern humans were millions of years old instead.

1 comment ironic, religion

Le Ballon Rouge

Le Ballon Rouge (Albert Lamorisse 1965)

Albert Lamorisse’s simple and beautiful film from 1956 is the only short film to ever win an Oscar outside of the short film category. Its about a magical balloon that travels with a young boy through Paris, and creates a unique historical record of the city in the 50’s.

Update: Film Freaks Club points out that the director of this movie invented the board game ‘Risk’.
32 min 38 sec Oct 15, 2007

1 comment drama, Uncategorized

The two Scorsese concert films – Shine a Light and The Last Waltz

Rolling Stones – Shine a Light Trailer

One of Martin Scorsese’s earlier movies was not a gangster pic but a documentary about aging rockstars and the last performance by ‘The Band’. It was released exactly 20 years ago, in April 1978. Scorsese’s latest film, released today is about a performance by the Rolling Stones, who were aging rockstars when the first film was made. Here are the trailers of the two movies, for comparison.

1 comment music, Uncategorized

Robert Newman – The History Of The World Backwards Episode 1

Robert Newman – The History Of The World Backwards Season 1 Episode 1/6

Robert Newman combines comedy and history in fantastically entertaining monologues such as his ‘History of Oil’ theater production.

In this new 6 part series, Newman looks at history as if time flowed backwards. The opening scene, for example, comments on the ethnic cleansing by Cherokee and Apache in the 1800s that lead to the eradication of all white people from the North American continent by the mid 15th Century.

The most startling result of this process is that many things can be seen as progress when played backwards. Our destruction of the Earth’s environment becomes our understanding of how to fix it.
29 min 1 sec Oct 30, 2007

Comments Off on Robert Newman – The History Of The World Backwards Episode 1 comedy, history

Baby Bible Bashers

Baby Bible Bashers

When young children do very adult things like dress up in sexually suggestive clothing, for a beauty pageant, say, it brings on a particular sense of revulsion at the negation of childhood innocence because of the selfish desires of adults.

This film about child preachers has the same effect. It demonstrates by direct example what Richard Dawkins explains in prose. The fly on the wall style possibly has greater effect, since it appeals to our senses rather than just our intellect. Both methods show that to call your child an ‘Evangelical Christian’, or whatever, is no less ridiculous that calling a child a neo-Trotskyist, and therefore possibly abusive.

1 hr 2 min 41 sec Feb 25, 2008

Comments Off on Baby Bible Bashers religion

Glenn Gould Chair

Nobody played Bach like Glenn Gould – literally. He made uncontrollable noises while hunched up over the keyboard, perched on an ancient chair with a broken seat that he carried with him for performances. Now someone has made a replica of the completely knackered Gould chair, for over a $1000.
Glenn Gould Chair
Unlike many eccentric ‘artists’ Gould is the real deal, so obviously odd that his manner does not seem affected and his mastery is genuine.

Roll Up: Get Your Own Glenn Gould Fucked Up Chair Here

1 comment music, Uncategorized

The BBS Documentary – Part 1 – Baud

The BBS Documentary – Part 1 – Baud

Part 1 of what looks like a great documentary series about the Balkanized version of online existence before the Internet took hold. As one of the interviewees points out, people seem to think the Internet came out of nowhere rather than being evolutionary. In the same way, people think that the web created the explosive growth in the Internet, but actually things picked up a year or so before, opening up the evolutionary niche for something like the web to thrive. For that reason, understanding the history of Bulletin Board Systems, through a documentary like this, is the only way to understand the history of the Internet in its proper context.

As an aside, the Altair 8800, pictured, was the computer I used (or rather avoided using) at high school.

jason scott 38 min 19 sec Jan 13, 2007 www.bbsdocumentary.com

6 comments history, technology

Composer of the Classic Electronic Track, Popcorn, Playing it 40 years later, on a Grand Piano

Popcorn was the classic electronic piece from the 60’s used countless times as backing music to represent modernity. Here, its composer, Gershon Kingsley, plays it today, on a concert grand. I love this. Below is the original for comparison.

I have also made a Wist of various versions of Popcorn, here »

2 comments music, nostalgia

Les Horribles Cernettes – You Only Love Your Collider

An amateur pop promo made by people working at CERN in the 90s. The people in this video were the subject of the first ever photo on the web.

According to band member, Silvano de Gennaro:

“Back in 1992, after their show at the CERN Hardronic Festival, my colleague Tim Berners-Lee asked me for a few scanned photos of “the CERN girls” to publish them on some sort of information system he had just invented, called the “World Wide Web”. I had only a vague idea of what that was, but I scanned some photos on my Mac and FTPed them to Tim’s now famous “info.cern.ch”.”

Cray-zee

LHC – Collider

2 comments history, ironic

ABC3D

ABC3D

1 comment art