[vimeo http://vimeo.com/24635786 w=700&h=450] Here's the music video for Florence + The Machine's take on the classic Buddy Holly track "Not Fade Away." This version of "Not Fade Away" appears on the new Buddy Holly tribute album, RAVE ON BUDDY HOLLY, due in stores June 28th, 2011. Film by Tabitha Denholm.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=09BmlFlVotk&w=700] Daniel Day Lewis sounds a bit different as Donald Duck...
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTYGmjgSMv8&w=700] Big old motorbike display by Italian police in the Fifties. Either that or it's one bike and the mushrooms are starting to really kick in.
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Iz9qOhAzdc&w=700] "Mojo So Dope" lives on the M.O.T.M II Deluxe CD-DVD addition of the album. Directed, shot and edited by Jason Goldwatch.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GVrO1VYAOI&w=700] Ronseal. Pretty forking cool.
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[vimeo http://vimeo.com/24572222 w=700&h=450] "By summer 2010, the expansion of bike lanes in NYC exposed a clash of long-standing bad habits — such as pedestrians jaywalking, cyclists running red lights, and motorists plowing through crosswalks.
"By focusing on one intersection as a case study, my video aims to show our interconnection and shared role in improving the safety and usability of our streets.
"The video is part of a larger campaign I created called '3-Way Street'. Please see blog.ronconcocacola.com for more details."
Martin Sheen had this as his Desert Island disc the other day. Like most other works by Pachelbel and other pre-1700 composers, the Canon remained forgotten for centuries and was rediscovered only in the 20th century. Several decades after it was first published in 1919, the piece became extremely popular, and today it is frequently played at weddings and included on classical music compilations, along with other famous Baroque pieces such as Air on the G String by Johann Sebastian Bach. It was originally scored for three violins and basso continuo and paired with a gigue in the same key. The circumstances of the piece's composition are wholly unknown. One writer hypothesized that the Canon may have been composed for Johann Christoph Bach's wedding, on 23 October 1694, which Pachelbel was at (Bach's mates and family all did the music for his wedding).
Pachelbel's Canon combines the techniques of canon and ground bass. Canon is a polyphonic device in which several voices play the same music, entering in sequence. In Pachelbel's piece, there are three voices engaged in canon (see Example 1), but there is also a fourth voice, the basso continuo, which plays an independent part. The bass voice keeps repeating the same two-bar line throughout the piece. The common musical term for this is ostinato, or ground bass. Beautiful piece of music, but perhaps a trifle dull if you play bass.
There is a huge number of variations and recordings.
Here it is on the original instruments [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvNQLJ1_HQ0&w=700]
And another version... [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stCKjZniMsQ&w=700]
Actually some of them aren't so bad. Google can jog on though. And Merrill Lynch is just a bit weird. That said, it's not so much getting the right answer as showing the right approach. Hence me feeling most confident about getting a job at Gryphon Scientific. Procter & Gamble: Sell me an invisible pen.
Facebook: Twenty five racehorses, no stopwatch, five tracks. Figure out the top three fastest horses in the fewest number of races.
Citigroup: What is your strategy at table tennis?
Google: You are climbing a staircase. Each time you can either take one step or two. The staircase has n steps. In how many distinct ways can you climb the staircase?
Capital One: How do you evaluate Subway’s five-foot long sub policy?
Gryphon Scientific: How many cocktail umbrellas are there in a given time in the United States?
Enterprise Rent-A-Car: Would you be okay hearing “no” from seven out of 10 customers.
Goldman Sachs: Suppose you had eight identical balls. One of them is slightly heavier and you are given a balance scale. What’s the fewest number of times you have to use the scale to find the heavier ball?
Towers Watson: Estimate how many planes are there in the sky.
Lubin Lawrence: If you could describe Hershey, Godiva and Dove chocolate as people, how would you describe them?
Pottery Barn: If I was a genie and could give you your dream job, what and where would it be?
Kiewit Corp.: What did you play with as a child?
VWR International: How would you market a telescope in 1750 when no one knows about orbits, moons etc.
Diageo North America: If you walk into a liquor store to count the unsold bottles, but the clerk is screaming at you to leave, what do you do?
Brown & Brown Insurance: How would you rate your life on a scale of 1 to 10?
Jane Street Capital: What is the smallest number divisible by 225 that consists of all 1’s and 0’s?
UBS: If we were playing Russian roulette and had one bullet, I randomly spun the chamber and fired but nothing was fired. Would you rather fire the gun again or respin the chamber and then fire on your turn?
Merrill Lynch: Tell me about your life from kindergarten onwards.
Susquehanna International Group: Five guys, all of different ages, enter a bar and take a seat at a round table. What is the probability that they are seated in ascending order of age?
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...and no, your beard won't help you here, Germaine. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBxqptNa6-8&w=500]
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/24538121 w=700&h=450] "I love when this happens when I'm riding in the subway." Line: Uptown A/C/E, NYC Music: A Bastard Waltz by People Like Us and Ergo Phizmiz
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/24134885 w=700&h=450] This time-lapse assembly is part of the Hector Thunderstorm Project being produced in northern Australia. The first exhibition of stills from the project are on exhibition in Melbourne at Arc 1 Gallery from the 24th of May until the 18th of June.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzmnPs64K74&w=700]
By the excellent McSweeney:
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE GENTLEMAN BLOW-DRYING HIS BALLS IN THE GYM LOCKER ROOM.
May 27, 2011
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Dear gentleman blow-drying his balls in the gym locker room,
You're actually doing it. I mean, we've all dreamt of blow-drying our balls out in the open, but you're actually doing it in front of me and at least sixteen other people that just finished exercising at this pricey sports club. Some of us will do it in private in our homes, or in a hotel room using a hairdryer a stranger might have just used to style their hair for that big business meeting in Denver. But not you. You are not confined to such social norms, norms that usually keep flapping, flag-like balls out of my eyes.
Does the courage to do this in public come with age? Perhaps it's something a young man like me can't understand. But you, you are on in years; gray and spotted like a ham in a paintball fight. Your scrotum reminds me of boardwalk taffy. Maybe you've been building up to this day your whole life and I'm witnessing the birth of a phoenix. You are no longer a man that blow-dries his balls in secret. You have transcended that station and now fall into an elite group of Spartans that blow-dry their balls wherever they God damn please. If caterpillars emerged from their cocoons as butterflies with heavy, sagging testicles I'd imagine they'd feel the same as you might right now.
Maybe you're making up for the fact that you no longer have any hair on your head that requires blow-drying. Is grabbing a hairdryer a rote, preening response from your earlier years when you and your majestic mane would say things like, "bees knees" to fresh-faced nurses at the pool hall while discussing the Teapot Dome scandal? Did they have hairdryers back then? I think my ability to correctly recall history is being affected by the sight of your twin sperm fountains.
I especially appreciate the way you've got one leg up on the counter. Not only does this allow the hot jet stream of air a more direct passage to your gene-carrying duffle bag, it also gives me an intrusive view to the white fields of pubis covering your taint and beyond. It almost makes me think of Santa Claus, but I was not sexually abused by Kris Kringle as a child. Speaking of Christmas, were the Adidas soccer sandals you use as shower shoes a gift from a grandchild?
Your actions disturb and inspire, and I can't look away. I'm either swelling with physical repulsion or the joy a parent feels watching their child take their first steps. Only in this case the child is an 84-year-old man with a hairdryer aimed at his balls. Whatever the case, you're an exemplar of bravery. So, please, shine on you withering diamond.
Thanks! Ross Beeley
This horse cannot believe who is riding it. "OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODGUYSLOOOOOK!" (via)
Actress Mary Sean Young took a series of Polaroids on the set of Blade Runner, and they are awesome (see the rest here). Nice to know Harrison Ford does the same goofy face as everyone else.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qCbiCxBd2M&w=700] This film was created by Ya-ting Yu with classmates Yeh Ya-hsuan and Chung Ling from the National Taiwan University of Arts. Obviously inspired by Hayao Miyazaki, this short film is really a must watch. It is gorgeous and immediately endearing. (via)
Handful of Cesium in your BATH! [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uixxJtJPVXk]
I think I remember watching this at school, shortly before pinching a strip of magnesium and very nearly burning my retinas out.