Entertainment

Peregrine vs starlings over Rome

January 24, 2012

Best version of this trope I’ve ever seen. Good old John Downer, still producing amazing footage, even if some of the edits are just a bit too obvious for my taste. The entire series of Earthflight might be worth watching out for.

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The True Origins of Pizza

November 3, 2011

The camera first shows him standing with a warm smile on his face, hand on chin. He then beckons his interviewers to a table, leaving visible behind him a portrait of himself in exactly the same pose—in sunglasses. Airplane, right? But no, this is part of one of the funniest deconstructions I’ve read in a long time. [...]

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So, farewell then, Cy Twombly

July 6, 2011

Cy Twombly, titan of modern art, dies at 83. So, farewell then Cy Twombly. Keith’s mum says you were a great artist. But I just wish You had married Twyla Tharp.

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Why are big numbers so scary?

April 16, 2011

Occasionally I try to impart some elements of good science storytelling to people, and one of the points I make (based entirely on Garrett Hardin) is the big difference between literacy and numeracy. Literacy understands full well that the difference between a million and a billion is one letter. And that a billion is bigger [...]

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Weekly Treat

February 1, 2010

Stormy weather Don’t know why, there’s no sun up in the sky … has been the lament for far too many weeks, and not only here in Rome. So here for your delectation is Ivie Anderson fronting the Duke Ellington Orchestra in a 1933? recording of Stormy Weather. There’s also a video on YouTube of [...]

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Weekly Treat

January 25, 2010

Corn Grinding, Haiti Hard to know where to break into this story. I had it all lined up for last week, and then came the earthquake in Haiti and “sensitivity” got the better of me, so I pulled it. Then I read up more about Harold Courlander, the man who recorded it. He seems to [...]

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Spartan

January 11, 2010

Luigi turned me on to David Mamet’s Spartan, in a discussion of what was worth watching on TV these days I loved it. Not just for the violence, which is considerable and effective. Not just for the secret service procedurals, which are everywhere these days and which for all I know are having the same [...]

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Weekly Treat

January 11, 2010

The Weight I had thought, when I started this series, that there would be at least one song in each of the Sounds to Grow On episodes that would be worth singling out; that hasn’t been the case. I’m not saying that there won’t be more Folkways tracks in future, only that nothing in the [...]

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Weekly Treat

December 21, 2009

Saint James Progress One song, 20 versions, and there are probably lots more. The Unfortunate Rake (programme 3) is to date the most informative programme I’ve heard in the CKUA Radio series Sounds to Grow On. Sure, I knew The Saint James Infirmary and Streets of Laredo, but I’d never thought of the connections between [...]

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Weekly Treat

December 14, 2009

The Blues Program 14 of CKUA’s radio series Sounds to Grow On was built around a radio programme broadcast on WFMT Chicago in 1957. The astonishing Studs Terkel broadcast on WFMT from 1952 to 1997, and Folkways Records turned one of the programmes he made into the album Blues with Big Bill Broonzy, Sonny Terry [...]

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Weekly Treat

December 7, 2009

Two Good Men Sacco and Vanzetti are two names that any vaguely left-leaning person will recognize. Come to that, maybe right-leaning ones will too. Their story is simple; known anarchists, they were framed for a murder that “they almost surely didn’t commit,” according to Entertainment Weekly, which skirts the issue nicely. After seven years on [...]

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Weekly Treat

November 30, 2009

Plains of old Nebrasky-o Program 8 Broadsides in the Sounds to Grow On series contained some wonderful songs, and some terrible ones (Song for Patty, anyone?). Some early Bob Dylan, some early Bob Dylan wannabees, some glorious others. But how could I resist a song that starts In school I learned of men who died [...]

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Weekly Treat

November 23, 2009

Stormy Monday “Everything is word of mouth,” said the Famous Writer, as I asked him for a recommendation. Which is a good reason to start something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time. Michael Asch has been presenting a series on CKUA Radio, in Canada (and everywhere else) built around the recordings his [...]

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It’s sappy, but it works

November 9, 2009

My hardback copy (16th printing) of Mastering the Art … was bought so that I wouldn’t have to contend with the stains on the paperback when I wanted to read rather than cook. So when Julie and Julia was released earlier in the summer, I was sniffy. Julia’s story was pretty darned interesting. Why gussy [...]

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Jane Austen sings the Blues

September 11, 2009

This I got to hear. Bruce Stovel championed Jane Austen studies and blues music with equal measures of expertise and passion. The outpouring of affection at the celebration of Bruce’s life and at a subsequent musical tribute inspired the plan for a book that would celebrate Bruce as teacher, Austen scholar, and blues aficionado. Jane [...]

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Beedee squared: what’s not to like?

April 29, 2009

Curse you, Magnum, for crashing my columns, but hey, worth it.

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Gor blimey, eh-oop and begorrah bejasus, go on, go on. Aaargh.

April 27, 2009

What with The Wire done and dusted and an occasional hole in our evening entertainment, I sought out Burn Notice and we gave it a little watch. It’s likable enough escapist nonsense (although I figured out who done it and why for the pilot pretty quickly) and could grow on one. But one thing is [...]

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Rock salt & nails

February 24, 2009

I was going to post a link to this video of John Martyn at Cropredy when I heard the sad news, but the truth is, it doesn’t do anyone justice. So listen to the version John Martyn did with Levon Helm instead. And as an aside, why does Bob Dylan’s similarly-paced version sound merely plodding, [...]

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I hate Duncan Hull

February 6, 2009

Because he pointed me to this video. And now I’m being sucked into a vortex of appalling “scientific” music videos. Alas, the “making” video to accompany that wonderful effort above doesn’t give any of the details I truly want. are those all employees of the company? How many have PhDs. Is it a loving parody, [...]

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Is it rolling Van?

May 29, 2008

Blue Girl found Crazy Love. Go. Watch. Listen. Tell me: is Bob singing along, or  what?

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I feel my black eyepatch calling me

May 6, 2008

Screw Grant McCracken and his hoity-toity, head-in-the-clouds, ivory-towered objections. I want to see Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver in a TV series. But I probably never will.

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Oh my dog. Juggling Steve Reich

March 28, 2008

Yesterday’s 50 x 100 x 50 post sent me spiraling down the rabbit’s hole of the intertubes, where far and away the most mesmerizing thing was this:

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Balls in the air

March 27, 2008

Enough with the melancholia accusations. This morning’s TedTalk put me in an entirely different frame of mind. Juggling! I love juggling. The Raspyni Brothers are so web 2.0! and funny with it. The best I’ve ever seen live were the Gandinis, ages ago at the Edinburgh Festival. The very notion of slo-mo juggling, the objects [...]

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It is if I say it is

March 26, 2008

The Squeeze found this, and she’s right; it is wonderful. The gorilla totally knocks me dead. But is it Art? Of course not.

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