Anatomy of a Mashup - an amazing visualization of "Definitive Daft Punk."
posted to MetaFilter by GuyZero at 3:32 PM on May 31, 2011 (21 comments)

Louis Marinelli, activist for the National Organization for Marriage and founder of their 2010 "Summer of Marriage" bus tour, has announced today that he now supports full marriage equality. Gay rights blog Good As You has a detailed rundown of the story, including a spotlight on NOM's immediate efforts to discredit Marinelli's involvement in their organization.
posted to MetaFilter by palomar at 4:08 PM on April 8, 2011 (79 comments)

Collapse Into Now Film Project is a set of 12 short videos to accompany the songs on R.E.M.s latest album. “I chose to do the film project as an attempt to redefine what an ‘album’ can be in the 21st century,” [Stipe] said. “And I matched all of the songs to artists I thought could best translate each into a film or visual piece.”
Half the films are available on Youtube:
It Happened Today
Oh My Heart
Mine Smell Like Honey (contains Stipe being manhandled)
Uberlin (contains Kick-Ass star dancing)
Alligator Aviator Autopilot Antimatter (features Peaches)
Walk It Back (contains horse penis)
posted to MetaFilter by WhackyparseThis at 8:51 PM on April 5, 2011 (18 comments)

Bob was sick He didn't take it the way you or I might. He got pissed off. And he took it personally.
posted to MetaFilter by Splunge at 9:00 PM on March 10, 2011 (9 comments)

Bayard Rustin was an important civil rights activist, the chief organizer of the 1963 March on Washington and an invaluable strategist to Martin Luther King, Jr. Despite opposition relating to his status as an openly gay man, he continued to contribute throughout his life to the struggle for racial equality and later, for gay and lesbian equality.
posted to MetaFilter by Morrigan at 5:02 PM on January 17, 2011 (24 comments)

In a five part series he wrote a few years ago, blogger J. Brad Hicks breaks down how, in the mid-1960s, the Republican party made a conscious decision to rebrand themselves as the party of Christians, and in doing so, how they had to shift the ideology of the churches to what he calls a "false gospel".
posted to MetaFilter by quin at 1:36 PM on September 15, 2010 (190 comments)

We've had excerpts before, but this is the full performance. Nixon in China, with music by John Adams, libretto by Alice Goodman and choreography by Mark Morris. Directed by Peter Sellars, conducted by John DeMain, and presented by Walter Chronkite. Houston Grand Opera, 1987. Parts 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
posted to MetaFilter by Navelgazer at 6:20 PM on June 7, 2010 (17 comments)

Five years before Toy Story proved to the world that pure CGI -- a field long relegated to the role of special effects -- could be an art form in its own right, Odyssey Productions attempted to do the same on a slightly smaller scale. Drawing on the demo reels, commercials, music videos, and feature films of over 300 digital animators, the studio collated dozens of cutting-edge clips into an ambitious 40-minute art film called The Mind's Eye. Backed by an eclectic mix of custom-written electronic, classical, oriental, and tribal music, the surreal, dreamlike imagery formed a rough narrative in eight short segments that illustrated the evolution of life, technology, and human society: Creation - Civilization Rising - Heart of the Machine - Technodance - Post Modern - Love Found - Leaving the Bonds of Earth - The Temple - End credits (including names and sources for all clips used). But that was just the beginning...
posted to MetaFilter by Rhaomi at 11:17 AM on April 25, 2010 (61 comments)

Eating healthy on a budget isn't just for hipsters on food stamps. While some have called Michael Pollan and Mark Bittman's ideas about cooking and eating "elitist," there are many cooks who are smart enough to know that cooking at home is the only way to eat healthy on a budget. While Jamie Oliver pledges to give all school children "10 recipes that will save their lives," almost anyone on any budget can change the way they shop for, prepare, and think about food.
posted to MetaFilter by sararah at 3:35 PM on March 17, 2010 (79 comments)

Documentary Heaven | Free Documentaries Online | Dokumentationen in Deutsch
posted to MetaFilter by crunchland at 11:51 PM on March 11, 2010 (12 comments)

Tattúínárdælasaga (The Saga of the People of the Tattooine River Valley) is the Icelandic saga Star Wars was based on. So far five chapters have been transcribed.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 12:10 PM on March 12, 2010 (44 comments)

Antique sock knitting machines are seeing a resurgence in popularity, and so is knitting socks by hand. You can knit them on needles that are double-pointed or circular, one sock at a time or both at once.
posted to MetaFilter by bewilderbeast at 6:57 PM on March 4, 2010 (32 comments)

Demand Media (not to be confused with Media-On-Demand) is a success story in the "on-line content" business creating 4000 text or video pieces a day with an assembly-line formula that includes an automated editorial algorithm and an army of lowly-paid freelancers (but, hey, they're starting to offer health benefits!). Their own sites include the mind-numbingly practical eHow (and eHowUK for the non-US-centric), the .com affiliate of Lance Armstrong's Livestrong and the infamous (at MeFi) Cracked.com (link goes to parody of parody). They're syndicating content through their own domain registrar eNom (better than 'parked pages', right?), and one other thing: Demand is the #1 content provider to YouTube (and YouTube is their #1 revenue provider). All this from a CEO/mastermind best known as 'the guy who sold MySpace to NewsCorp'.
posted to MetaFilter by oneswellfoop at 11:26 AM on November 12, 2009 (80 comments)

Stephen Sondheim's crossword puzzles for "New York Magazine." Incredibly rare.
posted to MetaFilter by grumblebee at 12:16 PM on October 29, 2009 (35 comments)

What cooking secrets take your food to the almost-pro level?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by chalbe at 8:34 AM on August 24, 2009 (131 comments)

Even if you don't know Joe Raposo's name, you probably have heard his music. Throughout the 1970's and 1980's, Joe was the main composer of songs and incidental music for the children's television shows Sesame Street and The Electric Company. In this role, he wrote some of today's standards while also imprinting his musical stylings on the consciousness of a generation of children worldwide. In the second half of this post, you will find a curation of youtube-links leading to a good chunk of Joe Raposo's oeuvre -- all gems, mostly under two minutes each. Sing along if you know the words!
posted to MetaFilter by not_on_display at 8:39 AM on September 30, 2009 (43 comments)

Sunshine Again is a lo-fi/DIY public Access re-imagination of oldschool 1970's children's television, produced by Heather Ferreira, an independent producer whose mission is to "ignore what network television is doing and start a New York-based cable net of my own, specializing in shows that look and feel a lot like shows on Nick@Nite and TV Land used to – except these will be all brand-new shows." [ more info | appreciation and funky video | Youtube Search for more Sunshine Again ]
posted to MetaFilter by not_on_display at 12:02 PM on September 16, 2009 (11 comments)

Mickey Mouse's early road to fame (yt playlist with ~160 videos) has some odd twists and turns. One of Walt Disney's early cartoon creations was Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, the star of Trolley Troubles (5:45, 1927) and other early shorts. Disney had big plans for the popular little rabbit, and wanted to increase his budget from Universal Pictures. Unfortunately, Charles B. Mintz wanted to scale back the budget, and in the end Universal kept control of Oswald Rabbit. Without Oswald, Disney needed something new. Jack Dunham, one of Disney's Nine Old Men recalled animating Oswald and "the one without the ears." Initially, this one was called Mortimer, but Lillian Disney, Walt Disney's wife, believed the name "Mortimer" sounded too pompous and suggested the name Mickey, though Mickey Rooney claims he was the inspiration. Either way, the mouse was renamed Mickey in short order, and he starred in Plane Crazy (video, 6:00, 1928, previously). By 1929, he was wearing his iconic gloves (and talking), in The Karnival Kid (video, 7:41). But Mortimer returned, as Mickey's Rival (8:16, 1936), eventually getting his own themesong (1:56, modern recording off of TV; better quality song with a still image, 1:35) and again in a modern short (1:30, 2000), amongst other appearances. Then there's Uncle Mortimer, who first traveled with Mickey Mouse in Death Valley, though it's not always clear whose uncle he is. And in the alternate universe that is Bloom County, Mickey's fraternal twin is Mortimer (technically, he resides in Outland).
posted to MetaFilter by filthy light thief at 1:51 PM on August 27, 2009 (10 comments)

Old-time radio (often abbreviated as "OTR," also known as the Golden Age of Radio) refers to a period of radio programming in the United States lasting from the proliferation of radio broadcasting in the early 1920s until television's replacement of radio as the dominant home entertainment medium in the 1950s, with some programs continuing into the early 1960s. The origin of radio dramas in the United States is hard to pin down, but there is evidence of a remote broadcast of a play in 1914 at Normal College (now California State University at San José), and the first serial radio drama was an adaptation of a play by Eugene Walter, entitled "The Wolf," which aired in September 1922. Given the age of the programs and the fact that home reel-to-reel recording started in the 1950s (followed by Philips "compact cassettes" in 1963), it might be surprising that quite a few of these old shows have survived. Thanks in part to original radio station-sourced recordings made on aluminum discs, acetates, and glass recordings and other unnamed sources, many radio dramas and newscasts from decades past are available online, and more are being digitized and restored to this day.
posted to MetaFilter by filthy light thief at 12:47 PM on August 25, 2009 (53 comments)

Ahmet Ertegun was profiled by George W. S. Trow in The New Yorker in a classic piece back in 1978. Ertegun was the son of the Turkish ambassador to the US and he remained behind in D.C. studying medieval philosophy at Georgetown. Instead of devoting himself to his studies he founded Atlantic Records with his friend Herb Abramson. Trow charted how Ertegun moved from tramping through muddy, Louisiana fields in search of hot new sounds to the whirl of Studio 54. Below the cut are links to the songs mentioned in the article, as best as I could find, in the order in which they appear.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 6:42 PM on August 17, 2009 (25 comments)

In 1999 and 2000, and again from 1995 to 1997, the BBC's Roy Mallard travelled across Britain documenting the everyday lives of ordinary citizens--people like us--for a documentary series with the odd title People Like Us, to show that these everyday peoples' ordinary lives are indeed just like ours, or us, and we, like theirs, or them.
Sample episodes in the series: Actors 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 / a Vicar 1 • 2 • 3 / Freelance Photographer 1 • 2 • 3 / The Pilot Episode, which turned out to be the final episode 1 • 2 • 3 / [Wikipedia]
posted to MetaFilter by not_on_display at 8:55 PM on August 9, 2009 (20 comments)

It's Not Easy Being Green.
posted to MetaFilter by Lord_Pall at 9:28 PM on August 6, 2009 (24 comments)

I think it was here that I came across a great webpage listing forum trolling techniques that read like an academic listing of informal logic fallacies. It had things like finding errors in small and irrelevant details, ad-hominem attacks, using provocative and loaded terms, shifting claims, concern trolling etc... I've looked for it several times recently and can't find it. Anybody remember the link?
posted to MetaTalk by srboisvert at 7:12 AM on August 2, 2009 (25 comments)

Today's featured article: Hvuoauuoao roaoa rruaauuvaaoo nuaunuuoau waaoaarrooayu haoaoa nauiouuruua rraaoaa voaouriau wooo vuaaoora.
posted to MetaFilter by BlackLeotardFront at 10:50 AM on July 15, 2009 (41 comments)

Sometimes, especially in winter, Kenneth Westhues can hear a flock of crows tormenting a great horned owl outside his study in Waterloo, Ontario. It is a fitting soundtrack for his work. Mr. Westhues has made a career out of the study of mobbing. Since the late 1990s, he has written or edited five volumes on the topic. However, the mobbers that most captivate him are not sparrows, fieldfares, or jackdaws. They are modern-day college professors.
posted to MetaFilter by parudox at 1:03 PM on November 11, 2008 (58 comments)

We had a great Obit post yesterday and a great post on the music video work of Michel Gondry. Why not join the two? After all, he was one of the great pioneers and innovators of the format and worked with some of the great film and art directors there were... Here's The complete videography of Michael Jackson to enjoy for your weekend. Actual videos inside:
posted to MetaFilter by Lacking Subtlety at 2:53 AM on June 27, 2009 (62 comments)

A relatively long list of music videos by Michel Gondry. From his humble beginnings with Oui Oui to his eventual mastery of both space and time.
posted to MetaFilter by Weebot at 1:59 PM on June 26, 2009 (32 comments)

The Great Johnny Quest Documentary (YT Playlist Link) A two hour and twenty minute documentary on Hanna-Barbera's first foray into action adventure primetime animation back in 1963. Though the original authors of this detailed and meticulous documentary remain unknown, it was reportedly created for a one-time screening at a private event.. Rapidshare links at the poster's blog.
(Via Drawn.ca)
posted to MetaFilter by CharlesV42 at 2:35 PM on June 22, 2009 (73 comments)

Alabaster. Experimental interactive fiction take on Snow White written collectively by Emily Short and ten others. Features 18 endings and procedural illustrations that dynamically reflect game state.
posted to MetaFilter by juv3nal at 10:31 PM on June 5, 2009 (8 comments)

The Cavafy Archive has translations of all of C. P. Cavafy's poems (go here for the Greek) except for the 30 unfinished poems, which have just recently been translated into English for the first time by Daniel Mendelsohn. His translations are reviewed in a lengthy essay by Peter Green in the most recent New Republic. Mendelsohn was interviewed on NPR's All Things Considered earlier this week. Late last year Mendelsohn wrote an essay about Cavafy in The New York Review of Books. The Cavafy Archive also has translations of a few prose pieces by Cavafy as well as manuscripts, pictures, translated letters & short texts and a catalog of Cavafy's library.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 9:37 AM on June 9, 2009 (9 comments)

How Music Works - UK Channel 4 documentary (~180 mins.)
Why do some rhythms get our toes tapping, while others make us feel mellow? How does a love song bring tears to our eyes? What links African drumming to J S Bach?
Part 1 - Melody (alt)
Part 2 - Rhythm (alt)
Part 3 - Harmony (alt)
Part 4 - Bass (alt)
Then: Music producer and neuroscientist Daniel Levitin, author of This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of Human Obsession and The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature, shares some of his thoughts at Google Talk.
posted to MetaFilter by Christ, what an asshole at 11:01 AM on June 4, 2009 (31 comments)

Bill Moyers Journal, April 17, 2009 From crime beat reporter for the BALTIMORE SUN to award-winning screenwriter of HBO's critically-acclaimed The Wire, David Simon talks with Bill Moyers about inner-city crime and politics, storytelling and the future of journalism today. Sorry for the one link post.
posted to MetaFilter by dougzilla at 1:01 PM on April 21, 2009 (23 comments)

Violin. Them Heavy People. Egypt. The Kate Bush 1979 Xmas Special (QLYT)
posted to MetaFilter by fire&wings at 5:26 PM on April 26, 2009 (21 comments)