ahmuh reeznuhbull man, get off mah cayze

we don't want to wake the monster
tip-toe around, tie him down
we don't want the loonies taking over
tip-toe around, tie them down

may pretty horses
come to you as you sleep
i'm going to go to sleep
and let this wash all over me

/thom yorke, "go to sleep"
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the times, according to new york:

walmart employee trampled to death

“When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling, ‘I’ve been on line since yesterday morning,’ ” Ms. Cribbs told The Associated Press. “They kept shopping.”

mexico's unsuccessful drug war, painfully preserved and hidden

A model of a woman who was apprehended in Tijuana shows her with a protruding stomach, which was caused not by pregnancy but by a package containing several pounds of tightly wrapped cocaine. A photograph features another female trafficker, this one with cocaine surgically implanted in her buttocks. She died after one of the packages burst upon her arrival at Mexico City’s airport.

all fall down

That’s how we got here — a near total breakdown of responsibility at every link in our financial chain, and now we either bail out the people who brought us here or risk a total systemic crash. These are the wages of our sins. I used to say our kids will pay dearly for this. But actually, it’s our problem. For the next few years we’re all going to be working harder for less money and fewer government services — if we’re lucky.

a plan to hire the best teachers

New York City and its teachers’ union took an important step when they agreed to abandon a rule that allowed senior teachers to transfer into any school they wished, often bumping younger teachers from their jobs. The new policy, which allows principals to reject unwanted applicants, has put an end to disruptive transfers and made it easier for schools to build coherent teams.

nibbling through the cheese country of northern spain

And they make the cheese to prove it. Mr. Etxberria’s version, Itxas Egi, is a hard sheep’s variety with a sharp bite and the fragrant taste of clovers — strong, milky and grassy. This, he claims, is his secret ingredient: Keep the sheep happy eating nothing but sweet green grass and they will return the favor with delicious cheese “that goes perfectly with a glass of red wine and a beautiful girl.”

Dave Eggers's four-act play unfolds in four rooms, where the extended family and their son's new girlfriend are gathered for Thanksgiving.
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nathan sawaya makes art from legos.

Sawaya’s art is currently touring North American museums in a show titled, The Art of the Brick. It’s the only exhibition focusing exclusively on LEGO as an art medium. The creations, constructed from nearly one million pieces, were built from standard bricks beginning as early as 2002.











related: portfolio.com features this guy in their "job of the week" section.
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come check the noise

"On hearing the striped contralto of guinea fowl,
its mock opera quivers the parsley atop its head--

The song makes its imprint
in the air, making itself felt,
a felt world. Here, there,
the stunned silence
of knowing I will not remember
what I heard;

futures
that will never happen,
a fluidity we cannot achieve
except as a child
creating possibility.

This is the untranslatable song
hidden in the earth.

/claudia reder, "untranslatable song"
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"what lies lurk in kisses." /heinrich heine

via associated press:


Afghan boys look on outside the factory where they work in Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday. The factory recycles plastic and employs mainly young boys who are exposed to high levels of toxins on a daily basis.



Palestinian women run away from tear gas fired by Israeli troops operating in the Old City of the West Bank town of Nablus, Thursday. According to the army the troops were carrying out a routine arrest raid.


A young girl cries as she is carried by a man fleeing an area of wooden kiosks which was set on fire by supporters of Raila Odinga's party, the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), in the Kibera slum area of Nairobi, Kenya Thursday.


Supporters of a Pakistani radical Islamic group 'Lashkar Islam or Army of Islam' listen to a speech by the party's chief Mangil Bagh near the Afghan border on Thursday.
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real americans in paris is one of many blogs run by expatriates living in paris.
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horse feathers - curs and the weeds

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death cab for cutie - no sunlight

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josh homme - yelling at people


kids dominate freebird


i want to be that little girl when i grow up.

related: ted videos.

evelyn glennie - how to listen to music with your whole body


tod machover & dan ellsey - releasing the music in your head


jennifer lin improvises piano magic


pamelia kurstin - theremin, the untouchable music

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you ain't no picasso reviews will oldham et al in lexington:



As he belted out the first songs, Oldham put his body into it as well. He leaned over the crowd like a politician; his hands entranced you like a turn-of-last-century snake oil salesman; and his eyes had enough fire for him to have been an old time preacher. I don’t know what he’s like in person, but on Friday night Will Oldham was every passionate madman from the depression generation rolled up into one of the finest folk singers of mine.


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amadou and mariam - welcome to mali (2008)



there is a buttload of really amazing african music out there. all over the place i'm finding african remixes, african techno, afro/euro pop, franco-afro new wave, new orleans afrofunk, etc. the list goes on and on. virtually every africomp i've listened to features multiple languages and a dude or a collection of dudes chanting the glories of africa. they shout their continent's name loud and proud over and over again. i'm not sure what the american equivalent to this would be...perhaps "america, fuck yeah" or anything by toby keith. africa is infiltrating the world with its amazing music and i am embracing it with open arms. this album in particular features the marriage literally and figuratively of this awesome couple pictured above who mix styles of african rhythm-centric pop with delicately manicured synthy french pop. it is full of life and, dare i say, vast swaths of the shepherd's dog. he must've hung out with these folk while they were recording, because his influence is everywhere in the thick multi-instrumentation vividly featured in this album. (read a review by bbc musichere.)

jayme stone and mansa sissoko - africa to appalachia (2008)



this album is self-explanatory.
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african music (and a beatboxing dude with a glorious afro):

kaZAM

"there are more things in heaven and earth, horatio,
than are dreamt of in your philosophies." /bill shakespeare, hamlet
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(the photo is undoctored)
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happy people dancing around the world:



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more rare bill watterson art












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foodstuffs:

sushi grade salmon, local organic eggs, avocado and sweet gorgonzola


with some salt n peppa.

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jenny owen youngs - batten the hatches (2005)



"When I'm meeting someone for the first time and my gut instinct tells me that we're going to be important to each other for years to come, I like to take 'making a connection' to a slightly more literal plane, and connect myself' to a lap. It's unconventional and maybe a little invasive, but people tend to remember you upon a second meeting once you've shared that kind of intimacy."

This mentality, which holds little regard for personal boundaries and getting-to-know-you etiquette, is the mortar of her debut full-length. Batten the Hatches is a collection of eleven un-love songs that want nothing more than to crawl inside your head and set up camp. Under the clever guise of sweet, unadorned arrangements and dangerously addictive melodies, they waltz in and do just that. /imeem

mum - finally we are no one (2002)



Predictably, the songs I gravitate towards most are the songs that feature the childlike vocals of one or both of the Valtysdottir twins (whom you might know as the cover models for Belle & Sebastian's Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant), such as the luminous "Green Grass of Tunnel". However, some of the purely instrumental tunes have extremely engaging, hooky melodies as well, such as "Don't Be Afraid, You Have Just Got Your Eyes Closed".

Mainly the quartet makes the kind of music that you might expect fairies to make. The chirpy, dreamlike "We Have a Map of the Plane" and the swooning, almost Cocteau Twins-ish "Now There's That Fear Again" highlight this tendency quite nicely. This tendency can make the record slightly disorienting, but only in the best sense -- think of it as the aural equivalent to laughing gas. /popmatters
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What we want is for our hearts to be like magnets, like the kid with the golden arm throwing a new white baseball. What we want is for our love to be like the tide, and to hear kisses in the surf. [via]

avey tare & kria brekkan - i've got mine

too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.

"When power leads men towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses. For art establishes the basic human truth which must serve as the touchstone of our judgment. The artist, however faithful to his personal vision of reality, becomes the last champion of the individual mind and sensibility against an intrusive society and an officious state. The great artist is thus a solitary figure. He has, as Frost said, 'a lover's quarrel with the world.' In pursuing his perceptions of reality, he must often sail against the currents of his time. This is not a popular role. If Robert Frost was much honored in his lifetime, it was because a good many preferred to ignore his darker truths." /john f. kennedy









viewer discretion advised



Jackie was seated next to her husband in the limousine when he was shot and mortally wounded in Dealey Plaza. Vice President Johnson and his wife followed in another car in the motorcade. After the President was hit, Jacqueline climbed out of the back seat and crawled toward the the rear to retrieve part of the President's skull that had landed there. After his death she refused to remove her blood-stained clothing, and regretted having washed the blood off her face and hands. She continued to wear the infamous blood stained pink Chanel suit as she stood next to Johnson on board the plane when he took the oath of office as President. She told Lady Bird Johnson, "I want them to see what they have done to Jack."



"For a moment, Mrs. Kennedy refused to release the President, whom she held in her lap, but then Kellerman, Greer, and Lawson [Secret Service agents] lifted the President onto a stretcher and pushed it into trauma room 1.” This chillingly objective text is from the Warren Commission Report [page 53]. This private moment on the world’s public stage becomes the focus of the painting.

Mark Balma’s "Pieta” begins to reconnect us with our memories of November 22, 1963. You might ask the rhetorical question: "why not just allow all of this to remain buried and fade gracefully into our memory?” President Kennedy once stated: "History is the memory of a nation.” Through art and history we honor and transmit our cultural values.

i romp with joy in the bookish dark.

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.

The librarian does not believe what she sees.
Her eyes are sad
and she walks with her hands in her dress.

The poems are gone.
The light is dim.
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.

Their eyeballs roll,
their blond legs burn like brush.
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.

She does not understand.
When I get on my knees and lick her hand,
she screams.

I am a new man.
I snarl at her and bark.
I romp with joy in the bookish dark.

/mark strand, "eating poetry," 1979
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prospect lauds sarah palin as the next potential american poet laureate:

Not since Walt Whitman published Leaves of Grass has there been such an electrifying debut. And she is yet to publish a collection. This is an astonishing poetic insurgency. The building momentum will soon be unstoppable.

The current American poet laureate is Kay Ryan, a recent and controversial choice. Six weeks ago, Michael Kelleher, the artistic director at Just Buffalo Literary Center, said of Ryan, “She kind of came out of nowhere. She’s the Sarah Palin of poetry right now.”
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james oakes asks, what's so special about a team of rivals?

There is little doubt that Abraham Lincoln was a great president. But not much of what made him great can be discerned in his appointment of a contentious, envious and often dysfunctional collection of prima donnas to his cabinet.

Jennifer Schuessler answers, not much:

“Consider this incovenient truth,” Pinsker writes. “Out of the four leading vote-getters for the 1860 Republican presidential nomination whom Lincoln placed on his original team, three left during his first term — one in disgrace, one in defiance and one in disgust.”
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The rough surface of the moon no longer looks starkly black and white. It has been rendered instead in a broad palette of grays, which give the moonscape a dimensional presence it never had in the photograph that first appeared. The cloud patterns that hide the surface of Earth, a crescent earth, are much more subtle.

What is most evocative is the awareness that this is our planet in 1966, which feels like a very long time ago. A train of thought immediately presents itself. If scientists can recover extensive new information from old electronic data, shouldn’t there be some way to peer beneath those clouds, back in time, and see how this planet looked when it had only half its current population?




(25%; click to zoom)

via: astronomy picture of the day; ny times
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the new york times talks about thanksgiving gravy:

“I think you have to make the real thing,” she said. “Gravy’s really critical, it has to be flavorful and rich to enhance everything. Gravy is like the salt of the Thanksgiving table.”

another top chef turns in his michelin stars

Mr. Roellinger was not clear about what he will do next. But he said he wants to share those flavors in a less formal setting.

“After having fed the well-off,” he said, “I want to share my cooking differently: less mise-en-scène, with a more fluid, accessible and natural experience. In a word: more modern.”

obese women choose weight loss surgery and and unhealthy pregnancies in lieu of self-directed mental and physical wellbeing:

Dr. Laura Riley, medical director of labor and delivery at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, said it’s important for patients to know about these risks. “I often see women who come in who are morbidly obese, and they say they’ll try to lose 10 or 15 pounds. That’s nice, but the majority don’t lose the weight and just come back pregnant,” she said. “With this kind of data, it’s easier to say, ‘You are better off having bariatric surgery and losing 100 pounds and then getting pregnant.’”

i doubt there are a lot of fat rape victims in south dakota who choose to have abortions. the state's two biggest tourist attractions are god and country.
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chuck klosterman's killing yourself to live is going to be made into a movie:

The book's tales center on locales ranging from the site where members of Lynyrd Skynyrd died in a plane crash to the place where Kurt Cobain committed suicide and Rhode Island's Station nightclub, where more than 100 fans died at a Great White concert when pyrotechnics caused a deadly fire.

The death sites serve as backdrop for the author to explore everything from the narcissism of pop culture to his own relationships with women in his life.

"The idea is to do a comedic road movie heavily based in rock 'n' roll," said Klosterman.

related: chuck reviews gnr's "chinese democracy:"

The weirdest (yet more predictable) aspect of Chinese Democracy is the way 60 percent of the lyrics seem to actively comment on the process of making the album itself. The rest of the vocal material tends to suggest some kind of abstract regret over an undefined romantic relationship punctuated by betrayal, but that might just be the way all hard-rock songs seem when the singer plays a lot of piano and only uses pronouns.
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creative loafing interviews brendan canning:

The Boston Herald recently described Broken Social Scene as "the Canadian indie-rock version of American Idol." Are you comfortable with that portrayal?

We do hire horn sections every night in different cities and have different vocalists on stage who we have never met before. That's sorta what American Idol is, but not totally. It's a lil' cute way of putting it. Cute enough.
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the ny times profiles the making of bjork's "wanderlust" music video.


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the tallest man on earth - stepstone [via]