Morgan Freeman Takes A Bath

I would be lying if I said I had fond memories of Morgan Freeman on The Electric Company. This is not because I did not enjoy his contributions to the program but more because I cannot make the connection between the Morgan Freeman of today with the Morgan Freeman who played Easy Reader. They seem, to my mind, two entirely different people and, subsequently, I find myself having to be reminded of this fact when it is presented to me. More importantly, however, may be the fact that most of my memories of The Electric Company are dominated by the silent specter of Spiderman.

Regardless of mute superheroes or faulty memories Mr. Freeman was a regular cast member playing a number of different characters including Vincent the Vegetable Vampire, which is about all the backstory you’ll need for this clip of Morgan Freeman taking a bath in a coffin.

The Power of the Pentatonic Scale

Here’s Bobby McFerrin at the World Science Festival last June, demonstrating how deeply internalized and anticipatory (if not truly universal), the language of music can be during a panel called “Notes & Neurons: In Search of the Common Chorus“:


Via Whitney Moses, thanks!

Such a straightforward, playful, simple demonstration! Something about this reminds me of Leonard Bernstein’s approach to lectures on music for children, a series that can’t be recommended highly enough to music lovers of all ages.

Watch the full “Notes & Neurons” presentation –of several different performances interspersed with scientific lecture– after the jump.

Anne Ramsey: Brave Ol’ Battle Axe

Anne Ramsey, perhaps best known for her role as Ma Fratelli in Goonies, was born today in 1929.


The night was sultry.

The daughter of East Coast bluebloods, Ramsey attended elite preparatory schools in Connecticut, making her social debut the same season as Jackie-O. Later in life, she would be seen in all manner of television shows playing bag ladies, gypsies, cab drivers and housekeepers.

She married TV actor Logan Ramsey in the 50s, and together they made 5 films. In 1987, only three months before her death from throat cancer (removal of part of her lower jaw and tongue gave her the slurred speech she became known for in her later films), she received a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her role in Throw Momma From The Train. No offense to Olympia Dukakis, but I wish she’d won.

She’s just head-explodingly awesome –the ultimate lady curmudgeon– and I’d happily endure Alf for her any day.

Melting Your Face With Electric Bass

Are you ready to have your mind blown? If the answer is yes, prepare for the bass stylings of one Hyunmo Kim, a South Korean man who “hopes to be the world’s greatest stupid idiot bass player”. He does this in a dress. With pigtails. He is a pigtailed man in a dress with mad bass skillz who does not drink milk until he gags or examine his delicate faux-cleavage with the aid of his camera. You must be imagining things. It’s probably the awesomeness of his bass, frying your brain.

Tony Millionaire in “Fun With God”

Whether it’s jet-lag delirium, an abiding love for handcranked slapstick comedy, an abiding love for my homeland’s Rayban-wearing forefathers, or an abiding love for Tony Millionaire that has sent me over the edge, this is making me die:

By the way, The Art of Tony Millionaire is coming out on Sept 2nd. A most beautiful and long overdue collection of gorgeous, fanciful and hilarious art. Geddit.

GOING TO MIDDLE EARTH BRB

Weeeee! Let’s dance!

My flight arrives in Wellington (one day into THE FUTURE FUTURE FUTURE…) on Tuesday, the 11th. If all goes well *knock on wood* I should be there for quite some time.

New Zealanders, any tips for me? I’ve got one of those little culture/customs/slang dictionaries, but real live advice from savvy weirdo Kiwis would be preferable. Can you think of any great places to visit, particularly in and around Wellington? (I’m definitely hitting the Ian Curtis wall first thing.) Local coffee shops and clothing boutiques, a good comic book store, night clubs, a place to buy a sturdy kite, etc? Inquiring n0obz want to know.

See you on the other side!

Friday Afternoon Movie: The Other Loch Ness Monster

Perhaps, like me, you find yourself in the midst of a tedious post-lunch session of completing TPS reports or contemplating non-work related questions like if science will be able to conquer the problem of cooking pancakes in space or, perhaps, you are simply staring blankly into space, a thin thread of drool dangling from your chin. If so, cheer up. No one reads those TPS reports anyway and spacecakes will be more wondrous than you could ever imagine. Now, wipe the drool off your chin and prepare for the wonder of internet archived filmic majesty.

Today’s offering is the short television documentary Aleister Crowley: The Other Loch Ness Monster, detailing the history of Boleskine House, where once Wickedest Man in the World and occult obsessed trust fund baby Aleister Crowley intended to perform the ritual found in The Book of the Sacred Magick of Abra-Melin the Mage, in order to call forth his guardian angel. The six month operation required Crowley to summon a number of demons and attempt to turn them towards good. However, he was called away from Boleskine House in order to help his mentor — and then-head of The Hermetic Order of the Golden DawnSamuel Liddell, leaving the ritual unfinished and, more importantly, the evil spirits he called forth unbanished. He did not banish them! They are still there! Nessie might be one of them! Jimmy Page’s friend totally heard one outside his door one time!

It’s crazy, crazy shit, yet completely entertaining. Besides it will eat up some time between now and five o’clock.

R.I.P. John Hughes (1950 – 2009)

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Hughes with the cast of The Breakfast Club, 1985.

“I always preferred to hang out with the outcasts, ’cause they were cooler; they had better taste in music, for one thing, I guess because they had more time to develop one with the lack of social interaction they had!” ~John Hughes

Hughes died suddenly today of a heart attack, age 59. At his best, he made movies that celebrated freaks, weirdos, underdogs, misfits, wallflowers, basket cases... and the humanity of teenagers in general.

A moment of Otis Redding and Duckie (cherished anti-dreamboat) for a deeply intelligent, funny and empathetic storyteller; the man who gave us The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Pretty In Pink, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Weird Science, among others.

Mary Poppins Is My Co-Pilot

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Inspiration is where you find it, and everyone’s gotta start somewhere. Before Enki Bilal’s blue-haired future-hotties and Peter Chung’s Aeon Flux, I had Gennady Kalinovsky and his black-bobbed, fishnet-stockinged, high-heeled no-nonsense powerhouse, Mary Poppins. From the moment I opened the book in 1988 I perceived Miss Poppins as a polished badass, with a collection of dubious acquaintances and a seedy past. Her lipstick was always perfect, she wore well-fitting suits and kept many secrets. Sure, she was sardonic and vain, but she was the best.

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The original Mary Poppins stories are kid brain-candy, with magic, adventures, talking animals and going behind parents’ backs, but what really made me love the now-tattered book I’ve kept my whole life is the artwork. One might call Gennady Kalinovsky a Russian Edward Gorey, but I’d rather not. His line-art universe is looser and more psychedelic, with warped perspective and spindly figures you’d sooner expect in an eerie Jean-Pierre Jeunet flick than on the pages of kids’ classic. The twins drawing below the cut gave me nightmares and I’m forever grateful – I only wish more illustrators exercised this kind of freedom in children’s books.

After a bit of research I found that Gennady actually had quite a penchant for the surreal – check out the art he created for Alice in Wonderland , Behind the Looking Glass, and Master and Margarita – my top all-time favorites.

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I remember the first and only time I watched the 1964 film about the character I grew up loving, and how disturbed I was by my Mary parading about in ugly pseudo-Edwardian garb, dancing, and, perhaps worst of all, singing. It’s not the first terrible thing Disney has done to a childhood favorite, but for me it was certainly the most jarring.

Looking over the Mary Poppins books’ Wikipedia page it becomes even more apparent just how much my view of the stories and the character has been colored by a Russian translation and the accompanying illustrations. I almost want to give Disney credit for matching their Poppins costumes to the original Mary Sheppard illustrations! Instead, I wish I could shake late Kalinovskiy’s hand and thank him for the introduction to my very first female ideal. Short dark hair, perfect makeup, stockinged legs and an arsenal of experience is how I pictured every modern fictional heroine for years after reading Mary Poppins. I remember when Margarita looked just like her.

A few more of Kalinovsky’s Mary Poppins illustrations after the jump, and the rest of them here on Flickr just for you!

“Scintillation” by Xavier Chassaing


Via DJ Dead Billy.

This exquisite short –watch it full screen in high def at the Vimeo site– is described by director Xavier Chassaing as “an experimental film made up of over 35,000 photographs. It combines an innovative mix of stop motion and live projection mapping techniques.” The score, a haunting, slightly ominous sample-based piece by Fedaden called “Contrecour”, has been on repeat in my headphones for an hour. (Can anyone identify the ubiquitous classical piece from which that looping, opening strain is taken? Gah, it’s on the tip of my brain!!)

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