Posts in Uncategorized
Brassed off - three to give you shivers

The William Tell one gets extra points for having one of the best subliminal Elvis tributes in cinema.Unexpectedly good drums coming in for the second. Last one just gets me.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gz_9FrhCBnI&w=700]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXIdaHt9Ow8&w=700]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6F5vBsY9VZ8&w=700]

UncategorizedJack DysonComment
Moustache dance - with perfect game face

[youtube=http://youtu.be/A25M-Shvu4s&w=700] Ladles and jellyspoons,

Apologies in advance for the mass email but please read on, I'll keep this short (or just skip the next few paragraphs if you already know what this is about).

As you may already know, November has been rebranded as Movember to raise awareness – and money – for men's health, specifically prostate and testicular cancer.

How does it work? Members start with a baby smooth face on the first of the month, and then grow the best moustaches possible, enduring all the weird looks on the way to work, the teasing at the pub, the comparisons to Burt Reynolds (that last one just happens anyway) and so on, and scramble for sponsorship along the way.

It's supported by all sorts of businesses and charities, from HP Sauce to my local barber shop, as well as a team of Mo Bros from Wired magazine (which includes me).

Now, this is a subject that is (unsurprisingly) close to my heart. About seven years ago, I lost one of my goolies to testicular cancer, a chance to see first hand just how helpful the groups backed by Movember can be. It was a pretty shady time, but I was – and still am – incredibly lucky to enjoy a wonderful family and fab friends who helped me through with a sense of humour and a lot of love, and I learnt a lot.

Of course, not everyone is so fortunate. And an entirely healthy obsession with my crown jewels meant that I spotted it in good time and went for a check-up. Some people are afraid, embarrassed or just plain busy to go to the doctor about these things, others simply don't realise in time so it advances beyond stage one without treatment – let's face it, men aren't generally known for being proactive about their health.

So, rather than harp on with stats (such as the fact 1 in 9 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime, or the fact that the rate of cancer diagnoses in men is considerably higher than then rate of women), I'd like you to do one of two things.

First is the haymaker you will have seen coming a long way off – please sponsor me. It hardly takes any time. All you have to do is go to http://mobro.co/dysonology and follow the instructions. If you've already done so, then THANK YOU.

Second, if you can't do that (and please don't feel obliged), then please just be aware of the message behind all this: Men should be more proactive about their health and, if they're worried, go to the doctor and get it sorted. It's better to know that not know, and there's nothing to be embarrassed about. So encourage your friends and family to take control, get a check-up and get it over and done with.

That's it.

Oh, and if I raise over £500 I'll have a special (self-funded) present for each of my sponsors, involving the recreation of a certain Burt Reynolds on a bear skin rug photo. If I raise more than £5000 it'll be a poster.

Think about it, don't be a stubborn stubbler, and please pass this one to your chums and get them to help out too.

Yours hair-raisingly, and bristling with motivation,

Jack x

UncategorizedJack DysonComment
Why don't I like Coldplay? An investigation

Excellent piece by Sasha Frere-Jones in The New Yorker: It’s hard to deal with vexingly adequate music. In 2008, I ended up somewhere beyond vexed after witnessing an evening of Chris Martin foofing about and dispensing false modesty like it was a donation to the Red Cross. In 2005, Jon Pareles spanked Martin in an article called “The Case Against Coldplay,” in which he called them “the most insufferable band of the decade.”

But it’s unhealthy to hang on to vexations. According to Nielsen SoundScan, Coldplay have sold 15,124,000 albums in America since their début in 2000. For the sake of comparison, here is the number of albums sold by other acts in roughly the same time frame:

Train—6,565,000 Rihanna—7,312,000 Maroon 5—8,847,000 Radiohead—10,884,000 Beyonce—12,452,000

In the age of the dying musical commodity (which is not the age of music dying), fifteen million is a big number. So after Coldplay’s new album, “Mylo Xyloto,” leaked on Monday, I spent a few days with it. I wanted to pin down why I usually love “Clocks” but generally can’t stand more than a few minutes of the band, even though millions of listeners can. Here is my unscientific effort to measure the band’s pros and cons:

1. Chris Martin, Writer. +14

He can write a catchy melody. See “Paradise,” an immensely stupid song with an elegant and confident verse and chorus line, slightly reminiscent of a prime Noel Gallagher moment.

2. Chris Martin, Singer. +2

Despite the huggable-park-ranger schtick, Martin sings clearly and without much coloring or dynamic bother. When he writes a good line, he delivers it straight, which aids the listener who will be subjected to the song at least once a day for the next six months (unless the listener chooses to work from home).

3. Chris Martin, Human Being Who Moves. -678

Nobody in popular music is more annoying to watch. What is he doing with his body? Ever? Is he in The Zone? (It’s even annoying when he shaves). Martin rarely walks when he has the option to skip.

4. The “Mom’s On Facebook!” Effect. -12

It’s nice that the band figured out how to make a decent video. (If you’re pressed for time, “Paradise” depicts a man in an elephant suit who escapes from a zoo, rides a unicycle, stows away on a plane, and joins a band in South Africa.) The problem is that this video is a pastiche of videos Michel Gondry and Spike Jonze made fifteen years ago. Coldplay’s inability to inhabit their time in any convincing way just makes me think that they spend months at a time on rowing machines and Stratego.

5. U2. -346

Seven out of ten times, Coldplay sound almost exactly like U2—the U2 that exists now, not the wiry, feral U2 of 1980 (which would be a decent idea). U2 have not broken up. This is inefficient. Coldplay should consider copying Big Star or The Monkees.

6. “Oh who would ever want to be king?” -10

Vagueness in song lyrics—blame whoever you want: Bob Dylan, indie rock, the one bad Beatles song, Steve Jobs—is now no big deal, even for a Top Ten act. So even though Martin told Billboard that “Mylo Xyloto” contains “a story…loosely a kind of romance in an oppressive environment,” the lyrics never rise above the level of foggy, hopeful clichés that have been placed in an order. “Paradise” is about a girl who is having a very bad day, and the lyrics include both imagery cribbed from embroidered throw pillows and a burp of internal branding (the words of the album’s second single contain the title of the first single): “Life goes on, it gets so heavy / the wheel breaks the butterfly / every tear a waterfall / in the night the stormy night she’ll close her eyes / in the night the stormy night away she’d fly.” It is never made clear if our hero, Mylo, can use his musical toes to make the rain go away. (This list of imagined “Mylo Xyloto” song meanings by Amanda Dobbins is better than the actual album by a factor of eight.) Martin likely knows this about himself—he is epically self-deprecating—which is perhaps why so many songs end using “whoa” and “ah” as a substitute for language.

The tunes are there, usually three to an album, but that is something you could say of even their weakest contemporaries, like Maroon 5. What puts them up into some higher level of accessibility must be an averaging of Martin’s guarantee to never shock or offend anyone—which parents value—and the toy soldier brand of pageantry and celebration that underpins so many songs. Coldplay keep throwing massive parades for themselves, without explanation or merit. Some folks just love confetti.

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/sashafrerejones/2011/10/why-dont-i-like-coldplay-an-investigation.html#ixzz1eLfpbRqP

UncategorizedJack DysonComment
Vonnegut: It is the woman who pays...

Says Marianne:

"In 1989 my husband passed on; I was 36-years-old and left with 3 small children. For some reason I wrote to Kurt Vonnegut and thanked him for his books and his compassion. I did not expect a reply. He must have been a kind man, as he sent this to me within a month of writing to him. I have always wanted to share his kind words. It meant, and still means, so much to me."

So, so lovely.

Transcript follows. Enormous thanks to Marianne for sharing this wonderful letter.

Image: Marianne Brown

Transcript

Nov. 30 '90

Dearest Marianne Brown --

It can't be said often enough, "It is the woman who pays." The miracle is that so many can and do somehow. I was in love (still am) with a widow with four kids (two not her own). She somehow raised them all on a teeny weeny salary. I told her one time, "I worry about women." She said, "Don't."

Cheers --

(Signed)

Kurt Vonnegut

(From the excellent Letters of Note)

UncategorizedJack DysonComment
Do animals commit suicide?

By Brian Palmer in Slate.

A pod of 61 whales beached themselves at Farewell Spit in New Zealand on Monday. Officials decided to euthanize the 18 that were still alive Wednesday. It’s not clear why whales beach themselves, but one theory holds that when a sick individual heads to shore to die, the others follow. Is suicide a thing in the animal kingdom?

Sort of. There is plenty of evidence that animals engage in self-destructive behavior. In addition to the beached whales, ducks and dogs have been observed drowning themselves, cows have walked off cliffs, and naked mole rats (like some insects) leave the colony to die when infected with a communicable disease. It’s not clear that any of these behaviors are comparable to human suicide, though, because suicide involves a set of higher-order cognitive abilities. It requires an awareness of one’s own existence, an ability to speculate about the future, and the knowledge that an act will result in death. There are indications that certain animals have some of these capacities. Dolphins, many primates, magpies, and elephants can recognize themselves in a mirror, suggesting self-awareness. Some animals know how to pretend during play activities (PDF), which indicates an ability to imagine counterfactual worlds. Still, no one really knows which animals, if any, can combine these capacities to perform an act similar to human suicide.

Victorian scientists were particularly interested in this question, according to historian Edmund Ramsden in a 2010 article. Humane societies were eager to prove that animals experienced humanlike emotions, and animal suicides offered proof. A series of such stories began to appear in periodicals in 1845. One involved a depressed Newfoundland dog that repeatedly leapt into the water, kept its limbs still, and held his “head determinedly under water for a few minutes.” Other dogs drowned or starved themselves after losing their owners. A deer jumped from a precipice to avoid capture by hunting dogs. A duck drowned itself after the death of its mate. Scorpions were thought to sting themselves when surrounded by fire. Researchers engaged in a fierce and ultimately inconclusive debate over whether any of these behaviors should be considered suicide. (Except for the scorpions, which clearly were not attempting suicide—they’re immune to their own venom.)

Even when scientists can explain the neurobiological basis of an animal’s self-destructive behavior, it’s still not always clear whether it’s fair to call the act suicide. The parasite Toxoplasma gondii affects the brains of rodents and causes them to be attracted to their mortal enemy—the cat. It would be easy to dismiss this kind of rat suicide as irrelevant to our own behavior if not for some hints that infection can play a role in human suicides as well. In a 2009 study of patients with recurrent mood disorders, University of Maryland researchers found that those with high levels of Toxoplasma gondii antibodies were more likely to have attempted suicide. This study is preliminary, though, and there’s no sign of a causal connection.

No matter the motivation, self-destruction appears to be something that exists in even the simplest life forms. Single-celled marine algae engage in programmed cell death when exposed to stresses that they’re fully capable of overcoming. Researchers recently discovered that the “suicide” of some cells promoted growth in the survivors. Like infected mole rats or bees that abandon the colony to prevent an epidemic, algae die for the good of the community.

UncategorizedJack Dyson Comment
The Guy Quote - Pablo Picasso

It’s a fair to assume you will already have heard of Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso. You might not know all of his middle names, but you can be forgiven that.

A Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, he was undoubtedly one of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century. Widely known for co-founding the Cubist movement and for the variety of styles that he helped develop and explore. Among his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) and Guernica (1937), a portrayal of the German bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War.

The enormous body of Picasso's work remains, and the legend lives on—a tribute to the vitality of the "disquieting" Spaniard with the "sombre…piercing" eyes who superstitiously believed that work would keep him alive. For nearly 80 of his 91 years Picasso devoted himself to an artistic production that contributed significantly to and paralleled the whole development of modern art in the 20th century. Picasso's art from the time of the Demoiselles was radical in nature, virtually no 20th-century artist could escape his influence.

Moreover, while other masters such as Matisse or Braque tended to stay within the bounds of a style they had developed in their youth, Picasso continued to be an innovator into the last decade of his life. This led to misunderstanding and criticism both in his lifetime and since, and it was only in the 1980s that his last paintings began to be appreciated both in themselves and for their profound influence on the rising generation of young painters. Since Picasso was able from the 1920s to sell works at very high prices, he could keep most of his oeuvre in his own collection.

At the time of his death (1973) he owned some 50,000 works in various media from every period of his career, which passed into possession of the French state and his heirs. Their exhibition and publication has served to reinforce the highest estimates of Picasso's astonishing powers of invention and execution over a span of more than 80 years.

There’s loads of stuff on his actual art here - http://www.picasso.com/ - and a nice little biog here - http://www.biography.com/people/pablo-picasso-9440021 - but before you disappear I hope you’ll enjoy some of his quotes:

+ + +

What is a face, really? Its own photo? Its make-up? Or is it a face as painted by such or such painter? That which is in front? Inside? Behind? And the rest? Doesn't everyone look at himself in his own particular way? Deformations simply do not exist.

Action is the foundational key to all success. I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.

An idea is a point of departure and no more. As soon as you elaborate it, it becomes transformed by thought.

Are we to paint what's on the face, what's inside the face, or what's behind it?

Art is not the application of a canon of beauty but what the instinct and the brain can conceive beyond any canon. When we love a woman we don't start measuring her limbs. The older you get the stronger the wind gets - and it's always in your face.

The people who make art their business are mostly imposters.

The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.

Art is a lie that makes us realise truth. Art is the elimination of the unnecessary.

Colours, like features, follow the changes of the emotions. Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up. Disciples be damned. It's not interesting. It's only the masters that matter. Those who create.

Everything you can imagine is real. I begin with an idea and then it becomes something else.

Art is the lie that enables us to realize the truth. Every act of creation is first an act of destruction.

Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. Bad artists copy. Good artists steal.

God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style, He just goes on trying other things.

One must act in painting as in life, directly.

Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone. He can who thinks he can, and he can't who thinks he can't. This is an inexorable, indisputable law.

I do not seek. I find. The hidden harmony is better than the obvious.

I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them. The genius of Einstein leads to Hiroshima.

I'd like to live as a poor man with lots of money. The more technique you have, the less you have to worry about it. The more technique there is, the less there is.

When you start with a portrait and search for a pure form, a clear volume, through successive eliminations, you arrive inevitably at the egg. Likewise, starting with the egg and following the same process in reverse, one finishes with the portrait. Why do two colours, put one next to the other, sing? Can one really explain this? no. Just as one can never learn how to paint.

Work is a necessity for man. Man invented the alarm clock. You have to have an idea of what you are going to do, but it should be a vague idea.

You mustn't always believe what I say. Questions tempt you to tell lies, particularly when there is no answer.

If there were only one truth, you couldn't paint a hundred canvases on the same theme.

Inspiration exists, but it has to find us working.

Is there anything more dangerous than sympathetic understanding?

Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not.

Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.

The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web.

The chief enemy of creativity is "good" sense.

Every positive value has its price in negative terms... the genius of Einstein leads to Hiroshima.

Everything is a miracle. It is a miracle that one does not dissolve in one's bath like a lump of sugar.

The world today doesn't make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do?

There are only two types of women - goddesses and doormats.

There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality.

They ought to put out the eyes of painters as they do goldfinches in order that they can sing better.

To copy others is necessary, but to copy oneself is pathetic.

To draw you must close your eyes and sing.

To finish a work? To finish a picture? What nonsense! To finish it means to be through with it, to kill it, to rid it of its soul, to give it its final blow the coup de grace for the painter as well as for the picture.

To make oneself hated is more difficult than to make oneself loved.

We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth, at least the truth that is given to us to understand.

We don't grow older, we grow riper.

We must not discriminate between things. Where things are concerned there are no class distinctions. We must pick out what is good for us where we can find it.

Painting is a blind man's profession. He paints not what he sees, but what he feels, what he tells himself about what he has seen.

Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun.

Success is dangerous. One begins to copy oneself, and to copy oneself is more dangerous than to copy others. It leads to sterility.

It takes a long time to become young.

It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.

Love is the greatest refreshment in life.

My mother said to me, 'If you are a soldier, you will become a general. If you are a monk, you will become the Pope.' Instead, I was a painter, and became Picasso.

Never permit a dichotomy to rule your life, a dichotomy in which you hate what you do so you can have pleasure in your spare time. Look for a situation in which your work will give you as much happiness as your spare time.

One does a whole painting for one peach and people think just the opposite - that particular peach is but a detail.

If only we could pull out our brain and use only our eyes.

+

[[ps - please check out some of my other quote collections here - The Guy Quote]]

UncategorizedJack Dysondysonology, picasso, the guy quote, writing Comments
Pulp Fiction covers, 1930s to 1950s

American pulp magazines had the BEST cover lines, the MOST misleading covers and the SEXIEST chicks. Talk about selling aspiration. There's a wonderful collection HERE on the amazing website, These Americans. If you haven't already added it to your bookmarks, do so now. Well done. You won't regret it. Now click on one of the below pics to see the full gallery, and when you've done that, tell your friends about it and look at the rest of the site (or click 'random' on mine).

UncategorizedJack DysonComment
Earth by night, taken from International Space Station. Bonkers beautiful brilliant.

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/32001208 w=700&h=400] Turn the lights down, click full screen and maybe tickle a little volume up to watch this stunning piece of film. Lightning storms and northern lights are just one of the highlights - look at how SMALL WE ARE. Crazy.

Time lapse sequences of photographs taken with a special low-light 4K-camera by the crew of expedition 28 & 29 onboard the International Space Station from August to October, 2011. All credit goes to them.

HD, refurbished, smoothed, retimed, de-noised, de-flickered, cut, etc.

Music: Jan Jelinek | Do Dekor, faitiche back2001 w+p by Jan Jelinek, published by Betke Edition janjelinek.com | faitiche.de

Editing: Michael König | koenigm.com

Image Courtesy of the Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center, The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth eol.jsc.nasa.gov

Shooting locations in order of appearance:

1. Aurora Borealis Pass over the United States at Night 2. Aurora Borealis and eastern United States at Night 3. Aurora Australis from Madagascar to southwest of Australia 4. Aurora Australis south of Australia 5. Northwest coast of United States to Central South America at Night 6. Aurora Australis from the Southern to the Northern Pacific Ocean 7. Halfway around the World 8. Night Pass over Central Africa and the Middle East 9. Evening Pass over the Sahara Desert and the Middle East 10. Pass over Canada and Central United States at Night 11. Pass over Southern California to Hudson Bay 12. Islands in the Philippine Sea at Night 13. Pass over Eastern Asia to Philippine Sea and Guam 14. Views of the Mideast at Night 15. Night Pass over Mediterranean Sea 16. Aurora Borealis and the United States at Night 17. Aurora Australis over Indian Ocean 18. Eastern Europe to Southeastern Asia at Night

UncategorizedJack DysonspaceComment